410: Rules Can Aid The Wise, But They Are Snares For The Fool. Navy Principles of War.

>Join Jocko Underground< https://www.jockounderground.com/subscribe An examination of Navy Principles of War lecture by Vice Admiral David F. Emerson, 1963. 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 410 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo. Good evening. Vice Admiral David F Emerson was born in September of 1926. He enlisted in the Navy in 1944, where he served in the Pacific Theater. Then after the war in 1946, he was appointed as a midshipman at the US Naval Academy. Graduated in 1950 and became a naval aviator.

• 0:30Jocko Willink?

  He once again went to war, this time as a pilot in the Korean conflict. And after the Korean War, stayed in the Navy, kept flying, went into combat a third time during the Vietnam War. So that's three wars. During his career, he was awarded the Navy Distinguished Service Medal, two Legions of Merit with the Combat Distinguishing Device, Meritorious Service Medal and the Combat Action Ribbon. In between wars, he held a bunch of different jobs in the Navy as commanding officer. Educated along the way, awarded a Master of Arts in Government and graduated from the Naval War College. Had a wife and three daughters.

• 1:14Jocko Willink?

  I did some research about this guy. Couldn't find a ton. I wanted to find out what he did as an enlisted guy in World War II, find out what his job was, couldn't find it. But I did find, and this is what got me on the trail of him, I'd read a document a long time ago from a lecture that he gave in 1963 about the principles of war. And he gave it at the Naval War College to the Command and Staff Department. And the notes of this lecture, I think back in the day when they'd give a lecture, they would have the notes and like it was part of their plan to publish them. Maybe it's like, you know how you can, some podcasts, they have, you can order the notes or you can pay for the notes or something like that?

• 1:57Jocko Willink?

  I think that they used to kind of do that with lectures. So I got the notes, they're out there from this lecture. And I think it's a good examination, of course, not only of the principles of war, but The principles of life and the principles of human nature. So let's check out this right here. The principles of war, a lecture delivered at the Naval War College to the Command and Staff Department on October 1st, 1963 by Lieutenant Commander David F. Emerson, US Navy. He starts off, "My subject this morning is the principles of war, and I'd like to begin by categorizing

• 2:38Jocko Willink?

  war as a science and as an art. Let us define science as a body of systemized knowledge and art as skill in the application of knowledge to the accomplishment of a concrete purpose." And he goes on to say, "However, I should caution you that any systemized body of knowledge of war must progress some way before it can be characterized as a science." So he's saying, "Look, they're calling it a science, it's not a science." He's like, "It's gotta get a long way before they can really call it a science." Indeed, "It has been said that the science of war is so obscure and imperfect that its sole foundations and support are prejudice confirmed

• 3:23Jocko Willink?

  by ignorance." I thought that was a great way of explaining the science of war. It's like your own personal prejudice is about what you think confirmed by your own ignorance. Like, that's a great way to describe what the science of war is. You know, when I pick up a document to read, you know, I'm kind of looking for something that draws me in. You know what I mean? Something that says, "Oh, this person has a thought, a way of thinking that I'm interested in." I just don't want to hear somebody spiel a bunch of facts. I gotta hear some angle. So when I heard, and when I read that, and you know, a lot of times, if I can't find something in two pages, we're not getting through it. It's getting deleted from the scenario. So,

• 4:06Jocko Willink?

  he has this prejudice confirmed by ignorance. So, he goes on to talk about how do you acquire this knowledge? You can do it through the study of history, or you can do it through case studies. And he says about studying history, "In studying history, we have to be careful of a few things. Obviously, we must be sure that the facts we study are correct, and this is not always so easy. Second, we must be wary of the prejudice of writers. No man ever made himself look bad in his memoirs, for instance." Third, we must be careful in passing judgment. It's one thing to study a battle or campaign in the quiet of the war college, free from pressures.

• 4:48Jocko Willink?

  With all, at least most of the facts of the situation in our possession. And it's quite another thing to make a decision in combat. So this is another thing I said, oh, this guy's got some, this guy's got some, some deeper understanding. Cause like, look dude, you can sit there in a war college and say that was a bad decision. You weren't in the field getting your ass shot up. You're sitting in an air conditioned office space, flipping through your, through your textbook, come on.

• 5:17Speaker 01

  With a lunch break.

• 5:18Jocko Willink?

  With a lunch break. And he actually has in parentheses, particularly the pressure of time. He says, free from pressure, and it says particularly the pressure of time. So like, what's the biggest pressure? Time. What's the number one thing that I think about in the leadership loop that I wrote about leadership strategy and tactics field manual? Number one thing? Time. The number one I'm thinking about, the first thing I think about.

• 5:40Jocko Willink?

  And then he says, finally, we should all remember that any man in a position to become a great failure has gotten to that position only through many successes. Good point. I had a buddy of mine. He was a basketball player. And he lost the state championship. He had the, the free throw. Like he had whatever, a one on one free throw. And they were down by one. And he was about to just win this game and he missed it. And it was his senior year and so they didn't win the state championship. And I kind of said, dude, did you like, I mean, how bad did that crush you? And he goes, well, you know,

• 6:23Jocko Willink?

  I scored a lot of points. You know, he basically is saying what this guy's saying, like, hey, man. You know, I was in that position for a reason.

• 6:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:30Jocko Willink?

  So, I get it. Um, fast forward a little bit, and you can find this thing online. You can just look up for the PDF or something you can find if you want to read the whole thing. I'm not reading the whole thing.

• 6:38Speaker 01

  Wait, so what's the, what's the message there behind it?

• 6:41Jocko Willink?

  The message there is like, oh, you look at this person that made a bad decision. You gotta remember that they made a bunch of good decisions to get to a point where they made one bad decision.

• 6:49Speaker 01

  Right.

• 6:50Jocko Willink?

  Right?

• 6:50Speaker 01

  And like it mattered, do you mean, kind of a thing?

• 6:52Jocko Willink?

  Well, it's just saying like the guy's ninety-nine to one. Right? Some combat leader, they got, they made good decisions ninety-nine times in a row.

• 7:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:02Jocko Willink?

  As a, as a second lieutenant, as a first lieutenant, as a captain, going up to major, lieutenant, colonel.

• 7:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:08Jocko Willink?

  Colonel.

• 7:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:09Jocko Willink?

  Now he's a, he's made a whole bunch of, you know, he's made some small, but to make a great massive mistake, you had to get in that position and it took a lot of good decisions to get there. So you can't just throw a guy out because he made a bad call.

• 7:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. So it's almost like the, the opposite of that is like, hey, if you make mistake, if it's, if it ends up being a big one, you can't be in a position to make any kind of big mistake if you haven't achieved that position.

• 7:36Jocko Willink?

  You've made a bunch of good, good, and look, can we find people that are just idiots? Of course, generally speaking, if a guy's in a senior leadership position, especially like World War Two, World War Two, they fired, they fired generals, like if they screwed or fired colonels, like, oh, you're not doing a good job, they just fire them. They don't do that anymore. It's hard to get fired in the military now. They take care of you. They don't take care of the troops. They take care of the freaking guy that should be getting fired. So, I'm gonna fast forward a little bit. Uh, now down to the principles of war. First of all, what are principles? In the natural sciences, a principle is a statement of cause and effect, or of the relationship between cause and effect,

• 8:19Jocko Willink?

  and is true under all conditions. A principle of war, on the other hand, is something different. It is an abstract noun or phrase which epitomizes an idea. So there's a big difference between a principle of science and a principle of war. Principles of war epitomize ideas, but do not give precise statements of cause and effect.

• 8:43Jocko Willink?

  Second, they are catchwords. Here we have to watch ourselves because the human tendency to use catchwords or rules may lull us away from thinking.

• 8:57Jocko Willink?

  Some good advice we're getting right there, right? Oh, here's the rule, follow the rule. And that's your rote move is just to do what the rule says. Maybe you need to question that. Need to teach my wife. My wife's a habitual rule follower.

• 9:14Jocko Willink?

  I mean, you know, if there's a sign on a beach or something that says, don't go past this mark or what? Yeah, I mean, just random. There's no one on the beach. It's a sign from 1972. You know, there's footprints everywhere. She's, we can't go past her. I'm like, what are you talking about? It says we can't go past. What are you talking about? There's people over there, by the way. There's other people that we just watched them walk by. So she's a habitual rule follower.

• 9:38Speaker 01

  Why is that?

• 9:39Jocko Willink?

  I don't know. I don't know. Some people have a more rebellious streak. I'm on the other end of the spectrum.

• 9:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, that makes sense to me.

• 9:45Jocko Willink?

  I'm not quite, you know, some people that just do stuff just because it's just because it's against the rules. I'm not there. I'm not, because that's just seems, that can get ignorant.

• 9:52Speaker 01

  Right.

• 9:53Jocko Willink?

  But my wife's a habitual rule follower. I gotta like pressure her. You know, when a light turns yellow? Like when you're driving, right? Punch it.

• 10:05Jocko Willink?

  That's like, it says accelerate.

• 10:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:07Jocko Willink?

  Now, my wife is like, yellow light means all stop.

• 10:10Speaker 01

  What about like unwritten rules like here? And I'm asking for a reason, but the, let's say there's a right turn traffic time, right? And there's a right turn coming up maybe half a mile. The lane for the right turn is backed up, backed up. Is she falling in right in the back of the line or everyone's?

• 10:28Jocko Willink?

  Right to the front. Kick it on my blinker with aggression.

• 10:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And then be like, you know, whatever, handle that, you know?

• 10:34Jocko Willink?

  Now, listen, there's a move where that's like, you're not just breaking the rules, but now you're like being an asshole, right? There's a, there's a thing that you can do driving where

• 10:46Jocko Willink?

  that's probably not the best example.

• 10:48Speaker 01

  Well, the reason I asked for that example is because, because you're absolutely right about that. If you're just an asshole, you're like, who cares about like, the road is here for me and you guys are just in my way. That's an asshole approach to driving.

• 10:58Jocko Willink?

  Hold on. Yep. It's, yes. Let me say this. Sometimes the reason there's a long line is because people don't know. That there's two lanes open or they're like they're causing problems.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 11:10Jocko Willink?

  You know, this is where I drive every day or something like this, like going on the five north from Sea World Drive.

• 11:16Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 11:16Jocko Willink?

  That's a situation, bruh. It's a situation and I go to the, to the, to the right lane of the light. And then when that light turns green, I punch it and I get over to the left so I can make the left onto the five north. This is a guarantee. People just don't know that. So this, the left going back, it's backed up past the two lights prior.

• 11:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:36Jocko Willink?

  People just don't know.

• 11:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:37Jocko Willink?

  And by the way, the to get on the highway is two lanes. There's two lanes to get on the highway.

• 11:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:42Jocko Willink?

  And they're not filled up.

• 11:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:44Jocko Willink?

  Because people don't know.

• 11:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, cuz it just seems like that's the one.

• 11:47Jocko Willink?

  But my wife is like, no.

• 11:48Speaker 01

  Wait, but is that really breaking the rules?

• 11:50Jocko Willink?

  No, cuz I kinda broke her on that one. Like she, she's all about it now. She's, she's getting.

• 11:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're just in the know cuz a big part of driving, even lines in general, like standing in line. When you're standing there, a lot of that is just, hey, I'm just following the crowd. A lot of it.

• 12:03Jocko Willink?

  Yes, yes.

• 12:04Speaker 01

  But unless you're like how you are in the know, if you're in the know, like, no, no, there's a, like at the airport, whatever. That's another one where it's like, bro, if you know, brother, there's another line right there. So three people in there. Meanwhile, you're standing here with 50, you know, kind of a thing. That's different.

• 12:16Jocko Willink?

  That's different. That's different.

• 12:20Jocko Willink?

  I won't like cut, flagrantly cut in the line with someone. If there's like one line at the cash register. And that's it. I'm not gonna cut mine. But if the line goes around the corner. And then it splits into two lines and like people aren't seeing that, I might go up there and be like, oh, there's two lines and I'll get in one of them. And we're gonna make some stuff happen.

• 12:39Speaker 01

  Okay, so this is why I ask cuz I'm wondering about your wife now. What level is she at? Cuz I think there's some function to, to all of this, but so what level is she at? Okay, so here's the, here's the example real quick. So I'm going to the pumpkin patch with my kids. So if anyone knows.

• 12:54Jocko Willink?

  Is this recent?

• 12:54Speaker 01

  Yep, not last night, night before.

• 12:58Speaker 01

  So if anyone knows about this part and is part of this, I'm sorry, but this is, this is the way it's going down. Yeah, it's not the first time. It's a system. I'm not an aggressive driver and I'm not an asshole driver at all, at all, at all, at all. In fact, the opposite. But at this particular time, I know, because we go to this pumpkin patch more than, more, more or less every year. They have a cool tour. It's fun for the kids, whatever. So we're going there and this turn off the 52, maybe the 67, I think, maybe. Turn off to where the pumpkin patch is during this time, because it's a night, like late, early evening, traffic time. And this right turn is like backed up to like on the freeway backed up, like backed up, backed up.

• 13:40Speaker 01

  So it's either you suck it up, jump in line, but it's the kind of where the right turn lane is the one that's backed up. There's only one lane, straight up. So you gotta go in line. Otherwise, if you skip it, even if you miss the back of the line and you kind of drive past it, you, you missed it because there's a whole line there. So you either gotta cut in front of somebody or miss the turn, right? So that's the, and I know this from years of going there and I know it's backed up. So I make the conscious decision to be like, hey, we don't want to stand, go, uh, drive in this lane, in line, in the traffic line. I'm just gonna go right up to the front and just handle the repercussions at that time.

• 14:18Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so we can edit this out of the podcast because if my wife hears you saying that right there, you're gonna have issues.

• 14:24Speaker 01

  She's not gonna like me anymore. Well, okay, so that's why I'm asking, like, okay, what if, because look.

• 14:30Jocko Willink?

  Now, if there was two lanes, which is entirely, entirely possible that there's, it's actually a two lane exit. But people know they're supposed to get off and they're, so they're half a mile prior, they're just in the right lane.

• 14:40Speaker 01

  Right, right. That's different.

• 14:41Jocko Willink?

  That's different. I'm down with that. Cutting in like what you're talking about, really, it's, I'm not, I'm not super down with that.

• 14:48Speaker 01

  Right. So this is why I asked because I'm not down for that pretty much ever. Like, I'm like, hey, man, just follow rules like everybody else. That's why this whole system works because we all follow rules or whatever.

• 15:00Speaker 01

  But every once in a while, can any exception be made? That's the question that I'm, that I'm asking.

• 15:05Jocko Willink?

  Apparently around pumpkin time for the Charles crew. Hey, you know what overseas, you know, in America, when there's like, uh, you're going from two lanes into one lane? Yeah, yeah. The merge, just automatic alternate in America. In other countries, they just honk and cut.

• 15:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:20Jocko Willink?

  They just honk and cut like they're not letting you in. You gotta be willing to sacrifice your bumper and your fender.

• 15:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. Other country driving flows, the flow of driving is different.

• 15:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 15:31Speaker 01

  It's different. We used to go to TJ all the time, Tijuana, and bro, sometimes there's like no lines.

• 15:36Jocko Willink?

  Oh, they don't care.

• 15:37Speaker 01

  And bro, they're just flying through. I'm like, bro, and the taxi driver, he's just calm. He's just rolling right through freaking traffic, cutting through this car, that car. Yeah, it's different. That's what I'm saying, though. That kind of backs up what kind of what I'm saying where it's like, hey, this is a system. You know, we, you know, the, the less people follow rules, the more jammed up the whole system gets. So that system running smoothly kind of depends on everyone following these rules, even if they're kind of unwritten. And we allow for some fudge factor, you know, like a guy missed, let's say I honestly missed, like the first time I encountered that line, I missed it on accident. Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. I'm waving to the guy, the guy's waving, who cares?

• 16:09Jocko Willink?

  My wife wouldn't be mad at you for the rest of your life if you did that.

• 16:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what I did the first time.

• 16:13Jocko Willink?

  Flagrantly just cut people?

• 16:15Speaker 01

  Cause I know that's a system, so I kind of pre-planned for it. I'm gonna act cool. I'm gonna be like, hey, sorry, you know, whatever, and just deal with the fallout, which is nothing, by the way. You know, the person gets mad for 10 seconds and that's it. We're off to the pumpkin patches.

• 16:27Jocko Willink?

  God, everyone doesn't think like you, bro.

• 16:29Speaker 01

  I know.

• 16:29Jocko Willink?

  Otherwise there'd be problems.

• 16:30Speaker 01

  I know. You're right. I agree with that.

• 16:32Jocko Willink?

  Society starts with Echo Charles's.

• 16:35Speaker 01

  But.

• 16:35Jocko Willink?

  You know what you are? You're doing like little conniving driving. It's not even road rage, just like little, little sneaking around.

• 16:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, I don't, it doesn't feel like conniving because generally, just like these leaders that you're talking about, to get into that position where I can kind of justify it to myself, I have this long history of uninterrupted, just etiquette driving. See what I'm saying?

• 17:00Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so you feel like you get a pass every once in a while?

• 17:02Speaker 01

  Little bit, once a year on the pumpkin patch. That's what it feels like.

• 17:05Jocko Willink?

  Have you noticed for real, if you're late for whatever reason, you probably don't care if you're late for anything.

• 17:10Speaker 01

  That is much.

• 17:11Jocko Willink?

  But if I happen to be late or running late, there, every car is slow, every stoplight turns red, like everything sucks.

• 17:19Speaker 01

  So what do you do?

• 17:20Jocko Willink?

  I don't.

• 17:21Speaker 01

  Your behavior stays the same.

• 17:23Jocko Willink?

  No, I leave early.

• 17:24Speaker 01

  But let's say you're, look, one in the trillion times that you're heading somewhere, you're kind of late and obviously the cars are slow and all this stuff. What do you do? Nothing? Suck it up?

• 17:31Jocko Willink?

  I literally, I literally think to myself, this is my fault and you have to deal with the consequences.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  You're a good man.

• 17:39Jocko Willink?

  That's all there is to it. All right, moving on.

• 17:44Jocko Willink?

  You remember such saying as red sky at night sailors delight. This means a lot to some of us, but do you think any meteorologist makes his predictions by stepping out the door and looking at the color of the sky? Again, it's just like a catchphrase thing. He's trying to remind you that. A third characteristic of the principles of war is that they are assumptions and they are rather abstract assumptions at that. Fourth, the principles of war are neither sacred nor immutable. Anyone who ever wrote a list of principles of war says that his list is it.

• 18:17Jocko Willink?

  Just from the fact that the lists have changed so much brings this viewpoint into question as you will see when I show you some of the lists of principles of war and how much they can vary.

• 18:28Jocko Willink?

  There's a whole idea like this is a Navy dude. There's a whole theme in this talk, basically that the Navy is like, look, you can't just put rules out there. Like you can have some ideas, some, some, some principles, maybe guidelines, but that's about it. That's kind of the Navy attitude and we'll get to that. Going on further, there are some dangers of using the principles of war. The first danger is that they rest on assumptions, on the assumption that all wars are alike, both as to cause, objects and methods. Well, there you go. That's kind of crazy, right?

• 19:07Jocko Willink?

  A second great danger, and this is probably the greatest danger, is that they lead to an a priori reasoning. A priori reasoning deduces consequences from principles assumed as self-evident and is derived independently of factual observation. Obviously, however, your first principle must be correct. Basically, they say like, oh, you're going to do this thing based on this principle. But the principle that you're basing it on, which you, you assume it's self-evident. You assume it's obvious, but it's actually just someone else's idea. You know what I mean? That's kind of messed up. So be careful of that. And then he says, another danger of using these principles of war is that they tend to

• 19:52Jocko Willink?

  lead to oversimplification. This is because they are catchwords. It's easy to oversimplify. It's easy to say, I've got mass, I've got security, I shall therefore win without seriously considering the situation. Without really knowing what the situation is, you may think you have these things, but you haven't thought it out. So beware of oversimplification. You ever heard the MMA math, like A beats, A beats B, B beats C, C beats A? You see a lot of this in MMA because there's a whole slew of variables that you just don't know what's gonna happen. You just don't know.

• 20:35Jocko Willink?

  And if I bet on the UFC over the years, I don't bet on the UFC. Very rarely, I should say very rarely, because occasionally I'll still be like, yo. But I, there's a couple of times where I have bet, not specifically on the UFC, but on MMA in general, where I thought I was just like putting money in the bank. Putting money in the bank, dude, and then just lost. And been, you know, totally, I'm talking like guys that I had trained with, guys that I had insider info. Can you get arrested for that? No, that's like Wall Street. Insider info, because you know, back in the day in MMA, we all knew each other. Like we were, we were probably, probably two degrees of separation from any UFC fighter.

• 21:18Jocko Willink?

  Seriously, back in the nineties, probably two, maybe three degrees of separation. We had Brazilian connections, we had American connections, we had wrestling connections, we had Sombo, we had all kinds of connections. So we were like two, three people away from just about every fighter that there was, and I'm sure we could go down the list and I could be proven wrong, but it certainly seemed like a lot of fighters we were connected to. I mean, whole camps that we knew people from. And so you got a whole camp that you know everybody in that camp and you get second word and this guy's injured, he's got a bad this, he's good at this, that guy can't, like you'd find that stuff out. And a couple of times I found that stuff out, I thought I was like, oh man, I got the insider.

• 22:01Jocko Willink?

  In fact, I don't have any good insider stories where I thought, oh, I got the insider information, I'm gonna bet and I won.

• 22:10Jocko Willink?

  Never ever that that has not happened to me. I've had insider information and lost total upsets.

• 22:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:17Jocko Willink?

  Totally like didn't see it coming.

• 22:19Speaker 01

  It's kind of like SEAL training, kind of, right?

• 22:21Jocko Willink?

  Very, very similar, very similar.

• 22:23Speaker 01

  You just know one never know.

• 22:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so that's the way it is. You have these principles, but you can't put a hundred percent faith in them because there's other things out there like the dude's just got a iron chin.

• 22:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:33Jocko Willink?

  Or the dude's got crazy strength or he's got wicked flexibility or he's got a torn, you know, uh, uh, groin muscle. You know what I mean? Like that kind of thing.

• 22:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:43Jocko Willink?

  Kind of have an impact.

• 22:44Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 22:45Jocko Willink?

  Oh, then you find out he's got a, you can find out he's got a torn groin muscle, but then you also find out he's like a physical mutant that doesn't care about pain.

• 22:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:53Jocko Willink?

  You didn't know that part. So you bet against him. He doesn't care.

• 22:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:57Jocko Willink?

  All right, next up. Another danger is that war cannot be fought mechanically by a book of rules. Here is a quote about the enemies of a great general. Napoleon's opponents moved their men on the chessboard according to the rules which they took for immutable principles. And the game went on so long as their antagonists were also guided by them. But when the adversary appeared, who only awaited the development of their methodical movements to play his own secret, profound and decisive game, all equality of chances disappeared and the only variety in the result was the mode of defeat.

• 23:41Jocko Willink?

  So here's the rules. This is like what happened with MMA, you know, like, oh, you're, you know, boxer versus boxer. That's the fight. Then it was boxer versus Hoist Gracie.

• 23:53Jocko Willink?

  What was that guy's name? Jimmers, Art Jimmerson, right?

• 23:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:57Jocko Willink?

  One boxing glove on and he's, I think in the interviews, he's like, well, how is this guy even gonna touch me?

• 24:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:02Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna jab him. Like I'm fast. And that guy, I think that guy was a ranked boxer, by the way.

• 24:06Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 24:07Jocko Willink?

  And no one just ever changed levels, grabbed your legs and took you to the ground.

• 24:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:13Jocko Willink?

  That's what we're talking about. So thinking that you're just gonna follow the rules, no.

• 24:21Jocko Willink?

  Goes on to say, "The key word here, and we have all noticed it, immutable. I don't believe that a principle of war can be said to be immutable. Immutability leads to inflexibility." Here's a quote from Admiral C.R. Brown. "Adherence to one principle frequently demands violation of another. Any leader who adheres inflexibly to one set of commandments is inviting disastrous defeat from a resourceful opponent." Notice that's an admiral, it's a Navy guy that's saying that.

• 24:58Jocko Willink?

  Now, there's yet another danger. This is that the principles of war can lead to a blindness to the real situation. They tend to lead people into preconceived ideas about what the situation is by blindly following the principles of war, rather than into considering what the situation actually is. And this has happened frequently. Oh, yeah. This is when you, you know, look, pattern recognition is great. It really helps you. But if you start overlaying the pattern onto the situation and kind of making the marks of what you see, not what's actually happening, that's an issue.

• 25:43Jocko Willink?

  That's a big issue. Going on, "However, there are some values to the principles of war. I don't want you to think that they're all wrong. The first value is that they help to get us thinking about war. If we think about the principles of war, not merely repeat them or memorize them, but think about them, this is good. We are thinking about war. If we are continually testing them, seeing if they do apply, testing to see whether or not a principle applies in a historical situation, then we are thinking about war. And we are thinking about the situation."

• 26:19Jocko Willink?

  So, there are some benefits. And it's nice to have a framework to look and say like, "Oh, yeah, they should be doing this," but you can see they're a little bit outside of it. Instead of saying, "Oh, they're doing that, that's what they're doing."

• 26:32Jocko Willink?

  The principles of war have one other value. They may help to keep us on the right track, perhaps. They at least help to keep us from getting off track. Okay. So that's good. Good information. And then he's, I'm gonna fast forward a bit. Uh, he starts getting into some of the examples of, of the principles of war around the world. The first one that he starts with is Sun Tzu. We've covered Sun Tzu on this podcast. He, he talks about Sun Tzu having 13 principles of war. He's like, I couldn't find him. And he goes through the 13, there's 13 chapters. But he says, laying plans, laying plans is not a principle of war. Classification of terrain is not a principle of war. The army on the march is not a principle of war.

• 27:16Jocko Willink?

  The use of spies is not a principle of war. What he does come up with is the five essentials for victory. And these are some of the popular ones that you always hear quoted from Sun Tzu.

• 27:30Jocko Willink?

  He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.

• 27:37Jocko Willink?

  That's accurate.

• 27:40Jocko Willink?

  He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces.

• 27:47Jocko Willink?

  Very accurate. He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all ranks.

• 27:55Jocko Willink?

  Watch out, America. He will win who prepared himself waits to take the enemy unprepared.

• 28:05Jocko Willink?

  And then the last one, he will win who has military capacity and is not interfered with by the sovereign.

• 28:14Jocko Willink?

  Meaning, don't micromanage me, civilian dudes. You want me to win, I'll win.

• 28:20Jocko Willink?

  I'll tell you when we're done. Don't, I don't need your, I don't need you, uh, President Johnson, calling over to Vietnam, telling us what targets to strike. We don't need you to do that. You want us to win, we'll win. Otherwise, back off.

• 28:35Jocko Willink?

  So there's Sun Tzu. The next one he talks about is Clausewitz. And you know, we haven't covered Clausewitz on, on the podcast and I,

• 28:45Jocko Willink?

  I guess I'm biased against Clausewitz, to be honest with you.

• 28:48Speaker 01

  Why?

• 28:49Jocko Willink?

  Uh, B H Liddell Hart. You know, I'm more about that. I'm more about that indirect approach. I'm more about that B H Liddell Hart. And, and the other reason, I think in the beginning it was because it was so, so common, so popular. I was like, yeah, everybody kind of knows this. We should probably do it at some point. I'm not that biased against him. There's always lessons to learn, right?

• 29:09Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 29:10Jocko Willink?

  So here's Clausewitz's four rules. You know, no major disagreements here. Use our entire forces with the utmost energy. Okay. Concentrate our power as much as possible against the section where the chief blows are to be delivered and incur disadvantages elsewhere. It's concentration of power. Which by the way is prioritize and execute.

• 29:35Jocko Willink?

  Never waste time. Surprise through swiftness. And follow up our successes with utmost energy.

• 29:46Jocko Willink?

  And he goes on to say, now, at this point, I would like to digress a little bit. In Colonel Langston's lecture, lecture, you were told that Clausewitz said that war was an extension of politics by other means. This may well be true, but I would like to point out that Sir Walter Raleigh said that war is the failure of politics.

• 30:10Jocko Willink?

  I, I must say, a little bit more accurate, right? Now you get these freaking idiots in the government and they're ready to press the war button like in, you know, 30 seconds.

• 30:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:22Jocko Willink?

  They're like, oh, we have a disagreement with somebody else. Let's attack them.

• 30:25Speaker 01

  Right.

• 30:26Jocko Willink?

  This is, these are what the idiots do.

• 30:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. It's kind of defeats the purpose, right? Kind of a thing?

• 30:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, I'm sure there's a lot of reasons why they make that move. Number one, they make that move because they're not having any kids that are going to war.

• 30:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, but like how you say like, politics is.

• 30:42Jocko Willink?

  Also, they own a bunch of freaking military, you know, defense companies.

• 30:47Speaker 01

  Well, defeats of purpose, like I said. Like, if you're here, if your job is, if you just said political, um, the reasons politics exists is so you don't have to go to work. War, right? So, so, hey, look, and even on a person-to-person level, like, hey, let's, let's diplomatically resolve this, you know, so we don't have to fight. Now, if me, if my diplomatic approach is to fight, but it kind of defeats the purpose of having a diplomatic purpose.

• 31:16Jocko Willink?

  Hundred percent.

• 31:17Speaker 01

  See what I'm saying? So, yeah, man, so essentially, we gotta expect more out of these politic-type people. Politicians.

• 31:25Jocko Willink?

  You think?

• 31:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, they're terrible, terrible. All right. So there's, there you had Clausewitz. Now we get into British Arm, and look, I'm just, I'm not reading this guy's whole speech. I'm just reading some sections of it. British Army Principles, JFC follower, nineteen twelve, put these principles, or put the British Army Field Service Regulations Book in nineteen twenty, they put these principles in there. These are also the basis for the US Army's list of principles. But here's the British Army, Army Principles of War. Selection and Maintenance of Aims, which, by the way, that's a long way of saying objective. So the selection and maintenance of aims, so know what you're gonna do.

• 32:05Jocko Willink?

  So pick out your aim, what your, what your objective is, and then keep going towards the same thing. Uh, next one is Offensive Action. Cool, be on offense. Next one is Administration, which in America, we call that Logistics. Cooperation, concent, uh, Cooperation, that's covered move, by the way. Uh, Concentration of Forces, prioritize next to you. Economy of Effort, prioritize next to you. Flexibility, yes, great thing to have. Surprise, yes, great thing to have. Security, yes, great thing to have. Maintenance of Morale. So there's the British. Next come the US Army Principles. There are nine of them.

• 32:48Jocko Willink?

  And he says, if you rearrange this list, you can form an acronym for remembering the Army Principles of War. This acronym is MOSCUMS. If you want to remember principles of war, it's a good way, perhaps, but I'm not so sure you should memorize lists of principles. This guy's got more of an open mind. You know what I'm saying? It's strange that some people have an open mind naturally, and some people have a closed mind naturally. I mean, you can hear Jordan Peterson talk about this, right? It's one of the components, the big five components of psychology.

• 33:22Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 33:24Jocko Willink?

  And you know, you meet people like this all the time. You meet people on all over the spectrum, right?

• 33:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:31Jocko Willink?

  So here's the US Army Principles of War, and we've covered these before. Objective, and that's again, the same as aim, like make sure you know what your objective is. Offensive, mass, economy of force, maneuver, unity of command, security, surprise, simplicity.

• 33:51Jocko Willink?

  And we're going to get into some details. If you're wondering like, what do these things all mean? We'll get into it. Next, we have the US Air Force Principles of War. The Air Force takes a little bit of a different stand. General Muir S. Fairchild, who is the first commanding general of the Air University, refused to allow blind acceptance of any principles of war.

• 34:11Jocko Willink?

  He later became Vice Chief of the Air Staff. And this position still maintained that we can't have principles as official doctrines, which would be followed blindly. He desired no blind acceptance. He insisted that each principle has to be restudied constantly in terms of the situation. So he has a more open mind. Here's the US Air Force Principles of War. Objective, offensive, cooperation, concentration, economy, surprise, security, mobility, simplicity.

• 34:41Jocko Willink?

  And now we get into the US Navy. And remember, the guy that's writing this is at the time a lieutenant commander. He eventually becomes an admiral. He says, "The US Navy didn't have a list of principles of war until fairly recently." And this is written in 1963. "In fact, as recently as 1953, there was no official doctrine nor official publication which propagated a list of US Navy principles of war." In 1953, apparently, under the pressure of unification, Admiral R. L. Connolly, who is president of the Naval War College, wrote a list of principles which he published in the Naval Institute Proceedings. That's a magazine. In his article, he said that, "Under unification, it seemed as if we were going to have a list

• 35:24Jocko Willink?

  of principles of war," and submitted a suggested list. Now, there are quite a few reasons why navies have never accepted lists of principles of war. For instance, here's a quote from a British general, written a few months after Gallipoli, in which the British tried to get around the stalemate of the Western Front by applying sea power and going to the flanks. He said, "Sea power and command of the sea are colossal assets. Yet sea power is also a great seducer from the principles of war." Meaning, you think you don't need to use them if you've got like some big sea power. The Army and the Navy approach of the principles of war, or sorry, the Army and Navy approach the principles of war differently.

• 36:07Jocko Willink?

  This is what the Army says about the principles of war. Quote, "The principles of war are fundamental truths governing the prosecution of war. Their proper application is essential to the exercise of command and to successful conduct of military operations. These principles are interrelated and dependent on the circumstances, may tend to reinforce one another or to be in conflict. Consequently, the degree of application of any specific principle will vary with the situation." So, they do recognize that there's a dichotomy with some of these things. There's, there's decisions that you have to make, but they do call them fundamental truths that govern the prosecution of war. Those are, those are strong words.

• 36:52Jocko Willink?

  Here's what the Navy says. Principles of war, war were first formulated in an era when the movements of forces and logistics support were operations much more simple than they are in the 20th century. They were intended originally as a guide to conduct land warfare. The principles described briefly in this appendix do not agree with any standard lists either in number or titles. Rather, they represent observations relating to principles of war which appear to be applicable in some degree to naval warfare. So he's like, yeah, in some times, there might be a possibility that this could have an impact. They are not listed in any particular order since relative importance will vary according

• 37:36Jocko Willink?

  to the nature of a given situation. These principles, which are somewhat interdependent, are suggested as general guides useful for study rather than as immutable doctrine or as infallible laws guaranteed to produce definite results. Since war is not a precise science, there is no standard formula for translating any set of principles into action. Interpretation and adaptation must necessarily be made against the background of past successes or failures in war and in the light of the evolutionary nature of technology, naval doctrine, and national policy. And this is what I find pretty shocking to this day is people think they know what's gonna happen in a war.

• 38:19Jocko Willink?

  They think they know what's gonna happen. And you don't know what's gonna happen. There's factors, just like an MMA fight, there's factors you cannot comprehend. There's things that you don't understand. And because of that, you're gonna have to make some decisions. And when you make those decisions, those are gonna further impact the variables that you're facing. So on paper, you know, who wins? You know, on paper, who wins? This guy or this guy? Oh, well, it's gonna be this guy. He's got, well, you can't say that.

• 38:50Jocko Willink?

  And by the way, that's an MMA. And while MMA has less rules than boxing, MMA has infinitely more rules than war. War has no rules. Virtually no rules. I mean, the number of rules in war is tiny. So there's so many things that can happen. And by the way, guess what you can do? Break rules. But what are you gonna do? Like, if you're in a MMA fight, and you pull out a knife and stab somebody in the neck, you're gonna get arrested, you're going to jail, the fight's over.

• 39:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's different.

• 39:25Jocko Willink?

  If you're in war, and you're fighting another country, and you decide you're gonna use a chemical weapon, and you kill, what are they gonna do? You're already at war.

• 39:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, that... And I thought about that too, where you know how like, certain countries have certain rules for the way they do war and like all this stuff, right? But, at the end of the day, it doesn't... Just like I said, the rules don't matter, and they really, for real, in real life, do not matter, and this is why. Because if we, you know, we're trying to win this war, and then, you know, I have this rogue element that does some, some, you know, inhumane stuff, and some, some stuff that, that breaks the law, the laws of war. All the damage that they do to the enemy, no matter how illegal, still counts. And it counts towards your war effort.

• 40:15Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 40:15Speaker 01

  In MMA, don't. Like, if you bring, bust out a knife, stab him, put it back, no one saw it, tell them, "Oh, they played the replay, oh, oh", your win does not count, doesn't count. You're disqualified, in fact, you lose automatic.

• 40:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 40:26Speaker 01

  In real war, it doesn't work like that. The damage you do counts.

• 40:29Jocko Willink?

  And the retaliation's gonna count too.

• 40:30Speaker 01

  Oh, it's all part of the gig.

• 40:32Jocko Willink?

  That was the rogue element over there. Like, yeah, that rogue element's part of your gig. So watch this.

• 40:37Speaker 01

  Yep. It all counts.

• 40:39Jocko Willink?

  So, we...

• 40:43Jocko Willink?

  And when I say we, I mean, America looks at these situations on paper all the time. They're like, yo, here's what's gonna happen. And it's, oh, well, what about, you know, that will never happen again. That'll never happen again. And I was explaining when you go to see the Vietnam War Memorial. Have you been there?

• 41:02Jocko Willink?

  So it's a big giant

• 41:06Jocko Willink?

  V shaped wall. But when the beginning of the wall, when you start, so you walk, you walk along the wall and it's got all the names, the black man, all the names are carved in it. Well, when you walk, as you get to it, you start like it's a little sidewalk and there's a little wall and it's probably like, I don't know, six inches tall. And it's got like, whatever, four names. And you keep walking and you, so it doesn't seem like that big of a deal. And then you keep walking towards the, towards the angle, like the vortex of the V. And as you get, as you walk, it gets taller and taller and taller. So finally, when you get to the main, you know, to where the two legs of the V meet,

• 41:48Jocko Willink?

  it's over your head and it's covered with names. And this is what happens with America and wars. It's like, starts off with like, oh, there's, you know, we, we sent some, we deployed some forces and we got, they're not going to be engaged in combat. They're just advisors and we're just doing some logistical support. That's what's always saying. I heard this on the news the other day, like, this is not a combat deployment. It's just 2,000 soldiers are going over into the vicinity. They're not going to be actually in combat. You're like, oh, okay. I've heard this before. And then you look up and all of a sudden you're embroiled in another giant war. That's what happened in Vietnam. So that's, and we get lulled into it. And by the way, the whole thing of like, well, they, well, they actually attacked our guys. Well, our guys were there. That's why they got attacked.

• 42:32Jocko Willink?

  If they weren't there, they wouldn't have got attacked. But who, you know, what politician is like, well, if they get attacked, we'll send more. And by the way, I own, you know, I own a decent amount of stock in these various military industrial companies. And they make bullets. And when we shoot bullets, those guys gotta make more bullets. It's the way it works.

• 42:59Jocko Willink?

  Is it all like that? No, it's not all like that, but does that way? I mean, think if you own a company, right? Think if you own a company, you're a nice guy, Echo Charles, Echo Charles is a pretty nice guy. And think if you made hamburgers. And you were at the, you were at the, uh, fair. You're at the fair and you're selling hamburgers. And all of a sudden, there was like the, the other burger place. They had like a little fire. Now it was getting into your line. And you had a fire extinguisher, you know? You may or may not. Decide I'm gonna help them put their fire out.

• 43:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, fully.

• 43:41Jocko Willink?

  Now, listen, you're a nice guy, you'd probably be like, oh, hey, here's a fire extinguisher. But let's say, let's say that, let's say that, that other hamburger stand was like where you couldn't really see him. And you didn't know them. And instead of just selling burgers for like, you know, you're gonna make an extra 700 bucks that day? What if you were gonna make 700 billion? Or sorry, let's say 700 million.

• 44:06Speaker 01

  It's a lot, yeah.

• 44:07Jocko Willink?

  You know?

• 44:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, fully.

• 44:08Jocko Willink?

  Dude, you might even be like, hey, let's put some matches over in that area. You see what I'm saying? It's a lot of money people are starting to deal with.

• 44:20Speaker 01

  Bruh, I, I know, knew this lady and she was part owner of a satellite cellphone provider service. They sold the cell phones and they sold plans with the cell, these satellite phones, they work anywhere, right? Under all circumstances, kind of a thing. And I heard this freaking chick say for, you know, in regards to like sales, like we need to boost our sales, all this stuff. She's like, shoot, you know what? We need another natural disaster. That's what we need. She literally said that out loud.

• 44:50Jocko Willink?

  I'm telling you, man.

• 44:51Speaker 01

  It's that mindset.

• 44:51Jocko Willink?

  Was she an evil person?

• 44:53Speaker 01

  Oh, well, you know.

• 44:55Jocko Willink?

  You see what I'm saying? I mean, but she's a woman. She had like a wife. She had a husband and she had kids. Like she's a normal person.

• 45:00Speaker 01

  I'm sure she has.

• 45:00Jocko Willink?

  But she wants a new Mercedes.

• 45:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:02Jocko Willink?

  And she's like, yo, we can make the neck quarters. If we just have a nice little hurricane, we need those sat phones. Those those cell towers get knocked out.

• 45:10Speaker 01

  Bruh.

• 45:11Jocko Willink?

  So, so imagine if you could kind of like steer things.

• 45:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's spooky because that's a lot of things.

• 45:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's because that's what the thing is. You got to remember there's like a this isn't like, uh, someone goes, look, I want to start a war. They don't do that, but, but their reaction to like, oh, there's turmoil. The reaction instead of being like, hey, maybe we should just like, and in fact, it's like there's tur- turmoil. They could say, hey, that's not really our business. That's not, you know, we should kind of stay out of their, what they've got going on. Instead they go, you know, we should help them. It's actually what they say, right?

• 45:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:46Jocko Willink?

  We should help them.

• 45:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:47Jocko Willink?

  Well, how should we help them? Well, I mean, let's at least give them the supplies that they need. Well, what supplies do they need? They need bullets. Don't you make bullets?

• 45:54Speaker 01

  Well, yeah.

• 45:54Jocko Willink?

  I know. I mean, I do, but that's not what I'm saying. We should help them just on the spirit. Okay. So you can't argue with that. Now, again, when you look at the world and you go, hey, there's places that need help, right? But a classic example was Rwanda when the Rwanda massacre took place and I was off the coast on a ship with a SEAL platoon. That, that massacre was happening. And we definitely could have gone in there and stopped it. We could have saved, I mean, 800,000 people got killed. We could have saved, let's say we saved a thousand people. Right? We didn't go in. Why didn't we go in? Cause Somalia had just happened. Black Hawk Down had just happened and they're like, hey, we're not sending you guys in there.

• 46:35Jocko Willink?

  A couple of elements, Marine Corps went in there with a couple of elements to like, do a little bit of relief and they came right back out. So

• 46:42Jocko Willink?

  we had like a bad memory. America had a bad memory and you know, they're like, eh, I don't really need to, you know, don't really need none of that right now. So we'll just kind of hold what we got. But then you fast forward 10 years, have the same situation. Someone's like, hey, man, we could help those people out. I bet you, you know, if that would have happened, I think that was like 1994, 19, I think it was 1994, the Rwanda.

• 47:10Jocko Willink?

  And Black Hawk Down had happened in 93. So I bet you if it was like 97, a few more years, I bet we would have gone in and done something to help them, but we didn't. So there's all these little factors when people are making decisions and one of those factors a little bit in the back of their head. Maybe look, some of them I'm sure are evil. They're just like, let's go to war and I'll make more money. Some of them are just like, well, you know, is the right thing to do. It's defend their, you know, whatever cause and we, we can help and there's turmoil and we should at least make sure, you know, like that's what we do. It's a little something in the back of their head. Making that decision.

• 47:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, that money piece is like hard to ignore as being a factor, you know, in an individual's decision making.

• 47:52Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 47:52Speaker 01

  Like if some conflict, they said, I'm like, remember blood, did you ever watch the movie Blood Diamond? Where he was like, he was, he was explaining it or whatever. He's like, so they're not, they're not starting wars for money, but they find themselves in a situation where it pays to keep it going, you know? So it's like one of those things. So it's like, I don't have to actively do anything, but at the same time, I don't have to, or I don't want to actively do anything to stop it because it kind of pays to keep it going, kind of a thing. Like, man, how hard is it to ignore that? As a factor, it's, it's the same thing with like, you know, like pharmaceuticals and stuff. Like if you have like, uh, type two diabetes, uh, medication or something, you know? And they say this all the time where it's like, hey, they don't want you to be healthy.

• 48:37Speaker 01

  They'd want you to come back for the, you know?

• 48:40Jocko Willink?

  That's a great example. Do you really want that person to go on a keto? Like start working out? Cause you can reverse that. I, I'm not a medical doctor, but I know people reverse type two diabetes by going on a strict like ketogenic diet and starting to work out and exercise and they go, they become no longer type two diabetic. That happens. Does, does the, does the insulin dealer want that to happen? No, hell no. So they're like, when you're leaving the doctor, they're like, hey, here's a cookie.

• 49:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:13Jocko Willink?

  Here's a cookie and another, another prescription for, for insulin.

• 49:16Speaker 01

  Isn't it weird that how when you leave the doctor as a kid even, they give you a lollipop? Crazy, right? Like something that'll literally make you less healthy as you leave the doctor, they give it to you when you leave. Dang, that goes deep, man.

• 49:34Jocko Willink?

  All right. So that's what we're here.

• 49:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the first principle of war should be avoided.

• 49:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, Bruce Lee, right? The art of fighting without fighting?

• 49:46Jocko Willink?

  Art of fighting without fighting, but these guys are idiots. So their first principle of war is also one that gets left out all the time. Objective. So these are US Navy principles of war. Objective, morale, simplicity, control, offensive, exploitation, mobility, concentration, economy, surprise, security, and readiness.

• 50:14Jocko Willink?

  And we're gonna jump into those a little bit deeper, but for comparison, he says, "Let's take a look at the Russian principles of war." And here they are, and I wasn't gonna cover these, but you'll see why I had to. Russian principles of war. Advance and consolidation, offensive, combined arms, concentration, economy of force, maneuver and initiative, surprise and deception, adequate reserves, morale,

• 50:47Jocko Willink?

  and annihilation. So there you go. They have a principle of war that's called annihilation. That should make everybody, you know, say, oh, I don't know, like,

• 51:02Jocko Willink?

  Paul Harris, remember the MMA fighter Paul Harris?

• 51:04Speaker 01

  Paul Harris, yeah.

• 51:05Jocko Willink?

  Cause he would annihilate people's knees with a heel hook.

• 51:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:09Jocko Willink?

  Am I wrong?

• 51:10Speaker 01

  No, you're not.

• 51:10Jocko Willink?

  Dude, he got kicked out of the UFC forever.

• 51:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:13Jocko Willink?

  Because he didn't let go of heel hooks. He had a principle of annihilation, like, "I'm gonna get you, I'm gonna hurt you."

• 51:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:20Jocko Willink?

  So, a lot of guys are like, "Dude, I wanna fight this guy."

• 51:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:24Jocko Willink?

  So, I bet that you see the principles of war as annihilation. People look at Russia like, "Dude, I don't know if we need to get into this. I don't know if I want that beef."

• 51:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's true.

• 51:33Jocko Willink?

  Alright, so now they go into the little bit deeper dive.

• 51:37Jocko Willink?

  The first one is objective. Here's what Admiral Brown says about the objective. "The objective is unquestionably the most important of all principles of war. It is the connecting link which alone can impart coherence to war. Without the objective, all other principles are pointless. It gives the commander the what? The other principles are guides in the how." So, this is a really good thing to think about in your life. You need to know where you're going. You need to know what your unified strategic goal is. You gotta figure out where you're going. And in your team, you gotta figure out what is, I was just, I had a board meeting yesterday with one of the companies I'm on the board of. And we were having a great conversation.

• 52:23Jocko Willink?

  And all of a sudden, I realized that we're like this, the whole conversation was splintering in a couple of different directions.

• 52:31Jocko Willink?

  And I, I said, hold on a second. What, what is the objective? And you're like, what, I said, what, like, what, why would you make that decision? Why would you make this decision? Why would you make that decision? What is the ultimate goal? What is our overall objective? And I like was with to know the whiteboard and put like a thing at the top of the, like, what is it we're trying to get done? What do you guys want to do? And then they put it out there. It's like, okay, now we can start to see how these different decisions will lead to this objective. If we don't know what the objective is, we really can't make any decisions. So, great thing to think about in everything that you're trying to do in your life. And I like what the Brits say, right? It's the aim and the maintenance. Because people get sidetracked, right?

• 53:14Jocko Willink?

  They're like, oh, I want to achieve this goal, but then they get distracted. They try and achieve something else. They try to achieve something else. They just, you need to figure out what your objective is and then try and maintain it. Now, I will say this, sometimes you gotta adjust your goal. This is what, be at the heart, you know, like sometimes your objective needs to change. You look around and be like, oh, this, this ain't working. I'm gonna try something else. That's okay too. But you need to be conscious of it. That's the main thing. People go into a zombie-like slumber maneuvering through the world without knowing where they're actually going. If you need to change where you're going, that's fine, but you need to be aware of that.

• 53:51Jocko Willink?

  The next principle we will take up is the principle of morale. We all have our own idea of what morale is. I'll give you the definition.

• 54:00Jocko Willink?

  Morale is the general spirit or state of mind of an individual or a group of individuals as reflected in behavior under various conditions.

• 54:12Jocko Willink?

  Important to keep morale up. Doesn't really talk about in this speech, how to do it.

• 54:19Jocko Willink?

  That's on the commanders, I guess, but you might want to get some wins. You might want to give ownership. There's a bunch of ways you can help out with morale. Little wins, little wins go a long way.

• 54:29Jocko Willink?

  Little wins go a long way. That that hurts when you're in a wrestling tournament. Well, it's good depending on who you are, but if you're the number one seed, guess who your first match is against? The number 64 seed. He's gonna go murk somebody. Like the number one seed in a wrestling tournament against the number 64, like in a high school tournament. The number 64 seed doesn't know what he's doing.

• 54:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:53Jocko Willink?

  He's gonna get murked.

• 54:54Speaker 01

  I wonder why they do that like that?

• 54:58Jocko Willink?

  They basically carve out easier paths for the people that are highly seeded.

• 55:03Speaker 01

  Cause in track, if you're like in the finals, they base it on kind of like that, that system's slightly different, but it's more or less the same where if you're seeded like number one, you get your first choice of lane.

• 55:16Jocko Willink?

  Oh, there you go.

• 55:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. So it's, I mean, less of a factor because track, the lane is less of a factor than who your first match is. It's a big deal.

• 55:24Jocko Willink?

  But what about those like college track tournaments when there's a bunch of, you have to do multiple races to get through? And they do that in the Olympics too, right? You gotta win multiple races to get to the final finals.

• 55:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, but it's not.

• 55:35Jocko Willink?

  So I wonder if they rack and stack that thing too.

• 55:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. So if you, and it depends on the, I don't know how they do it in the Olympics, but if they do it like how we did it, they go whoever had the best time. So let's say it's 100 meter dash, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's how they see. So yeah, if you get the best time, you get in the next, your next heat, you get number one pick of your lane. Same deal on the, on the semifinals, same deal on the finals. So if you had the best time, you check, check number one.

• 56:04Jocko Willink?

  Check. So what I was gonna say about that is those little wins, you have good morale going into the finals.

• 56:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 56:09Jocko Willink?

  Other, other people got smashed, their morale's going down. So people quit wrestling. They're like, I'm done with this.

• 56:14Speaker 01

  Pays to be a winner, I guess.

• 56:15Jocko Willink?

  Pays to be a winner. You ever heard that thing about if you put like, uh, they put two rats in a tube and they have to fight each other? And like the one that wins has like a 70% chance, or I don't know what the number is, but a massive percent more chance of winning. You see that with little kids.

• 56:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:33Jocko Willink?

  Like in jujitsu tournaments, that kid wins, they get all amped. Uh, next principle is simplicity. Simplicity is clarity. We need simplicity in plans, strategy, weapons, and command. One man should serve one master. The nature of simplicity is relative, however. What is simple for a well-trained force may be very complex for a poorly trained force. We should avoid oversimplification at the expense of accuracy, completeness, completeness, and flexibility. There is such a thing as being too simple. So this is why we wrote the book, The Dichotomy of Leadership. This is one of those ones where when I first wrote down the four laws of combat leadership that you can read about in any of my books,

• 57:20Jocko Willink?

  I made those up from what I experienced. I didn't dive into history and look through to see, otherwise I would have maybe been driven by some of these things that we're reading right now. Simple was my own, now I had heard keep it simple stupid in the SEAL teams like there's a cover move, I'd heard it and so I'm not saying I made these things up. But when I wrote them down, what was going to be important, I, after like a few months, I was like, damn, I'm teaching this stuff to everyone. Like I need to make sure that these are good principles. I know they work for what we're doing. And sure enough, simplicity is on every one of these lists. It's always, almost always on a principles of war is keep things simple. So that's a fact. Next up,

• 58:04Jocko Willink?

  the fourth principle is that of control. In the US Navy, control which replaces cooperation, coordination, and command, found in other lists of the principles of war, is composed of four elements: command and organization in which the chain of command responsible is thoroughly defined, efficient communications to serve command, training and indoctrination, and professionally competent leadership. So that's what they mean by control. They're talking about communication. They're talking about having a good clear chain of command. They're making sure that everyone understands. They're making sure that these go well-trained. That's a lot of things to be covered by command. Next principle is the principle of the offensive. The offensive

• 58:48Jocko Willink?

  is the act of seeking to obtain control not previously held. Navy doctrine states that victory can never be won by passive defense. Only sustained offense, offensive action brings success.

• 59:03Jocko Willink?

  Check. I'll tell you, it's a lot easier to defend than it is to attack in a lot of cases, but none of these things are immutable.

• 59:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, we want to be on the offense. Are there times where being on defense works better? Yup. No doubt about it. I mean, look at Muhammad Ali doing that rope-a-dope on defense for seven rounds and this will crack. You know, you know what I'm saying? Where he's wearing you out. So there are times when this is the opposite. Most of the time, I want to keep my opponent guessing. Most of the time. Some of the time, I want to see what they're got. We're going to make adjustments. Again, it's important to be aware of these things. If you're not thinking about these things, then you might be doing something like a zombie, right? You're going through and you're doing what you're doing without thinking and being

• 59:57Jocko Willink?

  aware of what's happening. That's a problem. Going through the motions is a problem when it comes to leading a team. Like, oh, this is just where we're going. No. Where are we going? And is this the best way to get there?

• 1:00:13Jocko Willink?

  The sixth principle is exploitation. Exploitation is following up success. It is closely allied to the principle of offensive and to the principle of surprise, and it's closely associated with momentum. Also, plans and operation must be flexible enough to take advantage of local successes or situations or to follow up. And actually, just FYI, the, the part of this speech that I'm not reading, he's giving, he gives historical cases. In this particular case, he says, "An example of failure to follow this principle is the failure of Union General Meade after Gettysburg. He defeated Lee at Gettysburg, but he didn't follow up." Some, some modern historians say that he never had a chance to follow up. The point

• 1:00:54Jocko Willink?

  is that he never seriously tried to. He left Gettysburg much too late to chase Lee. So there you go. And I just came back from Gettysburg and... Bro, asking General Meade and the Union forces to go and chase after they just had this complete and utter bloodbath is asking a lot there, bro.

• 1:01:16Jocko Willink?

  Mobility is the next principle. Mobility implies rapidity plus flexibility plus endurance. Don't confuse mobility with speed because mobility has also the element of endurance. Endurance is achieved through logistical support. For the Navy, mobility replaces maneuver, which is essentially a tactical term, and movement, which is essentially a strategic term and includes endurance. Got to be able to move. I agree with this one. Got to be able to move. Your mind, your brain. Got to be able to, you got to be able to see things from a different perspective. You have to be able to maneuver your way of thinking.

• 1:02:01Jocko Willink?

  The eighth principle is concentration. Concentration implies superior force at the defensive point. Or sorry, concentration implies superior force at the decisive point at the proper time. Incidentally, you'll notice the word implies. We can't say equals because these aren't principles of natural science. And we can't say that there is any mathematical proportion to be found in these principles. Concentration is used in the Navy instead of mass or superiority because of its connotation of decisiveness in time and space. This is also, concentration is... This is prioritize and execute.

• 1:02:46Jocko Willink?

  Because you have a lot of things going on in the battlefield and you got to like, okay, this is the thing we need to focus on. This is where we need to put our forces. That's what concentration is. And it also includes economy because I can't spread a bunch of plus. I need to use what I can now for the right thing, right reasons. Economy is the next principle. Economy implies an economical use of forces and a judicious expenditure of resources in order to achieve maximum efforts. What that means is that we can't be strong everywhere. We must be strong in some places, but we can't be strong in all places. Again, prioritize and execute.

• 1:03:27Jocko Willink?

  The 10th principle is surprise. Surprise is confrontation of the enemy with force he is not prepared to meet. Fair enough. Klaus Witz was enamored of surprise and of course, many battles have been won through its use. But surprise can be intoxicating. One may get so wrapped up in the contemplation of what his surprise will do to the enemy, that he will be surprised himself in the meantime.

• 1:03:59Jocko Willink?

  Isn't it interesting you can think of every one of these things works in jujitsu? You know what I mean? Like economy, like saving your energy. Surprise, obvious. Surprise can be achieved through originality, audacity, speed, secrecy, concealment, or deception. All those work in jujitsu, by the way. And don't forget that the principle of exploitation is closely allied to the principle of surprise. Be prepared to follow up.

• 1:04:25Jocko Willink?

  Sure enough. The next principle is security.

• 1:04:31Jocko Willink?

  Security implies anticipating and minimizing unproductive loss resulting from enemy action. This is one of the weirdest, this is the one that I was kind of like.

• 1:04:43Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so I'm gonna read that again. Security implies anticipating and minimizing unproductive loss resulting from any action. So you don't want the enemy to do things that jacks you up. Cool. Security gives us freedom of action, but we can't be secure everywhere. We have to use forces economically and it is well to remember that sometimes security can be achieved better by offensive measures than by defensive measures.

• 1:05:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I don't know. I think there's, that one's a lot of stuff to think about on that one. Or, or, or, let me, let me rephrase that. A lot of stuff covers security. Maybe it's just too obvious.

• 1:05:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I guess the idea of keeping things and yourself safe. Like that's security, you know? So it's like, hey, don't do some, you know what? And it said this basically, like sometimes a good offense or a good defense is a good offense. Right? Is, so, keeping yourself safe isn't, this is like a big political argument too, right? Where it's like, hey, keeping yourself safe isn't. Um, you know, locking up all the doors and hopefully no one will get you. It's to be have the capability to actively keep yourself safe.

• 1:05:54Jocko Willink?

  Proactively patrol your neighborhood.

• 1:05:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. So safety is the idea of safety.

• 1:06:01Speaker 01

  But safety is just the idea of being safe. You don't always to keep yourself overall safe doesn't necessarily mean defense. So I'm saying, I guess that's what.

• 1:06:12Jocko Willink?

  Give me a jujitsu example of security. I guess it would be like, keep your elbows in.

• 1:06:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, and you do this to like, you know, if, if someone gets mount on you, if I get mount on you, you're the, the different, keeping yourself safe while you're in mount is like, there's a lot of different approaches to that, depending on what they're doing, you know? So if you, if I'm there, have established position, all the stuff trying to go for your arms, you're going to keep your elbows in, you're going to have that defensive safety. But if you want to stay in mount, if you don't want to stay in mount for 10 minutes, you better start doing something else, kind of a thing. So there's different approaches to quote unquote, safety, or in this case, security is what he's saying. That's what I got from it.

• 1:06:50Jocko Willink?

  There you go. We'll take it. Napoleon had this to say about security. A great captain ought to say to himself several times a day, if the enemy appears in front, on my right or on my left, how shall I act? If he finds himself in want of answers, he's ill-prepared. I used to literally tell guys this, like you're out on patrol. Every step you take, you should be like, oh, if we get attacked over there, I see a ravine over there we can get into. Oh, we can get the high ground right over there. If we get hit right here, if we get hit from the left, I can do this. You should be thinking about that stuff all the time, just contingency planning in your head.

• 1:07:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:22Jocko Willink?

  As a leader out on patrol and as everybody out on patrol.

• 1:07:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. So even if you talk about the, the idea of safety or security, AKA safety, it's like body armor, for example. And I'm going off of what you guys have been saying for years. Body armor, it's like heavy, actually this might have been Jody Minnick, I'm not sure. Anyway, body armor, it's like, okay, it's way heavier, or a bunch of bullets, actually this one's better. Right, where you, where you have too many bullets. That kind of limits your mobility, limits your endurance, all this stuff. So you're more, more mobile with less bullets, but at the same time, the more bullets you have, the more you can shoot people. So it's like that balance, like depending on what you're doing, you know, but either way, the idea of security or safety has to factor into your decision making, kind of a thing. It's not something that you're just not gonna think about, is what I'm saying, so that's why I'm, that's what it seems like,

• 1:08:10Speaker 01

  why it seems like he included it.

• 1:08:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and, and those are great examples, because, you know, when they talk about the dichotomy, that's a great dichotomy. Do we wanna have firepower and longevity, endurance? Or do we wanna be able to move? Cause you can get so heavy, dude, it's hard to move. But you can also run out of bullets. Don't wanna be running out of bullets, but you don't wanna not be able to move. So what are we gonna do? Gotta find that balance, gotta analyze what that mission consists of. That's how we, that's how we're making decisions here. All right. The last principle is readiness. There are five types of readiness.

• 1:08:50Jocko Willink?

  Command readiness, intelligence readiness, personnel readiness, plans readiness, and logistics readiness. Command readiness requires an adequate organization and trained staff and leaders. Fair enough. Intelligence readiness implies an intelligent structure in being organized and functioning before hostilities commence and maintained afterward. Yeah, you need to be able to gather intel. Personnel readiness comprises in part, training programs and personnel replacement plans. Plans readiness implies the availability of plans for anticipated operations. Finally, logistics readiness means that we have logistics support ready, we know how we're going to employ it,

• 1:09:31Jocko Willink?

  and we have tested our plans for logistic feasibility. Well, I mean, you know what? Again, that's kind of like, you better be thinking about that stuff. I guess, I guess that's why it's in here. It's a principle because you, you better be thinking about these things, cause if you're not, you're gonna get jacked.

• 1:09:51Jocko Willink?

  Now, he goes, we're getting towards the end of this now. Now, what have I told you in this lecture? I hope I got these points across. First, that the principles of war are not a substitute for logical analysis, common sense, broad professional judgment, and good leadership.

• 1:10:11Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so everyone listen to that. Second, that you can't fight wars by a book of rules. And that reliance on the principles or on just one of them can get you into trouble. Both Napoleon and Hitler observed every one of the principles of war in their invasions of Russia.

• 1:10:35Jocko Willink?

  Obviously, they both did not achieve their goals. A British general said, referring to the principles of war,

• 1:10:44Jocko Willink?

  "By themselves, they will not help a soldier to solve a problem of war any more than a knowledge of the principles of painting will. Without steady practice and natural aptitude, enable an artist to paint a picture."

• 1:11:01Jocko Willink?

  That's a great, a great way of laying this out. You know, you can watch a YouTube video on how to paint something. You can watch it on how to do a free throw. You can watch on how to play a guitar chord, G chord, C chord. You can get on that ukulele. You can look at a YouTube video, you can watch it. You can watch it 50 times, 50 times on how to do this chord. You still got, you won't be able to do it at first. You're gonna have to try it, and you're gonna have to drill it. And that's the way life is. You gotta try things. You gotta work at them.

• 1:11:41Speaker 01

  It's the way gymnastics is too, by the way. So if you, if you watch a YouTube video of a girl doing a double pump, triple flip kick, twist, stick the landing, and she walks you through it. Hey, this is all they did, right? You run, you dump, you twist here, and do all that stuff. Can't just jump on the mat and do that stuff.

• 1:12:00Jocko Willink?

  Masterclass has some of that kind of stuff.

• 1:12:02Speaker 01

  What stuff?

• 1:12:03Jocko Willink?

  Like, they're teaching you sports on Masterclass.

• 1:12:07Speaker 01

  Oh, for real?

• 1:12:07Jocko Willink?

  And you're gonna get tips, but hey, if you watch Serena Williams.

• 1:12:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:12Jocko Willink?

  Teaching you how to serve.

• 1:12:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:14Jocko Willink?

  In tennis on Masterclass.

• 1:12:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, it's different.

• 1:12:16Jocko Willink?

  You're not ready for Wimbledon.

• 1:12:18Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no.

• 1:12:19Jocko Willink?

  You know what I'm saying? Now, listen, if you play and you watch her and you get your points, you're like, okay, I could do that. Same thing with my Masterclass, like you watch that thing, you can get points, but if you think you're gonna roll out of that and be like, okay, I'm good to go now, no, no, you, same thing.

• 1:12:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:32Jocko Willink?

  You gotta actually go and interact with people and you gotta keep them in mind and you, I've been telling people a lot, like, if I'm, if I'm learning to be a leader, if I'm a new leader, and I'm going to meet with Echo Charles and you're my subordinate. And I, I haven't done a lot of these one-on-one meetings, I'm gonna actually make some preparatory notes for myself. Like, uh, don't get, you know, Echo's a real emotional guy, he's kind of a hothead. Don't get drawn into that, make sure my ego stays in check, but still make sure I cover some of the shortfalls he has. Boom. Now I'm gonna go in there and I'm gonna try and get through this, and when I get done, I'm like, dude, I've,

• 1:13:12Jocko Willink?

  I totally got emotional, I got defensive, I didn't finish my, like, you gotta write stuff down and you gotta make efforts when you actually do it. Leadership, you practice that. You, it's so obvious, it's so obvious, like, in the SEAL Teams, when a guy's a new leader, they, they, they can't see what's happening. When you're experienced leader, you're just looking around like, oh yeah, that's what's happening.

• 1:13:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:33Jocko Willink?

  It's so.

• 1:13:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like the.

• 1:13:35Jocko Willink?

  It's just the way it is.

• 1:13:37Speaker 01

  Those role plays are so valuable in that way, where, you ever did, you ever took in a, like a course or a class or watched a YouTube instructional of something that you've already done a bunch of times? And so, it's essentially, you have, you have knowledge through experience only on something and then you see a YouTube video explaining it on, quote-unquote, on paper, you know? And you learn it way quicker because you know, yeah, you get better at it way quicker, is what I'm saying? Because you know the experience part of it already and then they just basically align on. Your pieces to be like, okay, this is kind of correct form or whatever. And you already have the experience that you can, you know, like anything like this whole manual, really, it's like this framework that you can just start with. And be like, hey, if you just follow this framework, you'd be pretty solid.

• 1:14:21Jocko Willink?

  Good place to start.

• 1:14:22Speaker 01

  Exactly right. And you can, the more experience you have, the more knowledge you have, the better quote unquote, you get at this, the more you can start to deviate from that framework when you see fit. Right. That's essentially how it goes.

• 1:14:32Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:14:32Speaker 01

  And how effective you can be, no matter how much you deviate or don't deviate is determines how good you are.

• 1:14:39Jocko Willink?

  I think that's been huge in jujitsu.

• 1:14:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:43Jocko Willink?

  Because back in the day, look, you could watch a video, but you had no basis. You had no framework. Now, and we've talked about this on the underground podcast when people's like, hey, I live such and such a place, the closest school is an hour away. What should I do? I can, I can only go there once a week. What should I do? Yep. Go there once a week and then get a buddy and do YouTube videos or go to BJJ Fanatics or go to one of these online training things. Because you have the foundation, just like a little framework, you can actually build on it. I mean, when Dean Lister teaches, well, be like, if Dean Lister is going to teach how to break open someone's grip in an arm lock. If you are, if it's your day three of jujitsu, you're not going to understand anything that just happened.

• 1:15:28Jocko Willink?

  And in the exact same class, a blue belt will be like, oh, this is awesome. I'll be able to use this. And a purple belt will use that in his next roll for real live.

• 1:15:36Speaker 01

  Yep. Roll it right in.

• 1:15:37Jocko Willink?

  Roll it right in there.

• 1:15:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, fully. And that's, and that's, that's one of the many reasons why she just is such a good example of this life learning process and a lot of other stuff. Yes, because you know how it feels to be in that position. So now you can more accurately assess how this new knowledge is going to roll in, in practice, you know, and that's really what it's all about. At the end of the day, no matter how much you learned or didn't learn, or no matter how much you learned on paper, through video, and by experience, it's how are you going to perform in?

• 1:16:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:08Speaker 01

  In the, in the experience and the performance.

• 1:16:10Jocko Willink?

  And look, you will. Be better like watching like I said Serena Williams if you're a tennis player. Now if you've never played tennis before it's probably not going to be hugely beneficial. But if you're a tennis player. And she starts saying, hey, make sure on your forehand you do this, you're like, oh, okay, I could probably do that. Or on this approach shot. Yeah. Do this or your back like she can give you legitimate. Pointers if you have some sort of framework. Now, look, she could probably give you some strategy that you could understand pretty easily whether you played or not, right? She could be like, oh, in this situation, you should do something like this. And same thing with these videos nowadays, like back in the day was kind of a, it was actually kind of, it was a joke. Back in the day to be like, oh, that guy learned jujitsu on video.

• 1:16:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. It was a joke. And now people are like, oh yeah, I learned this from whatever Gordon Ryan's instruction. Online courses. He's in there with the shin to shin. Yeah. So. To I'm I met Gordon Ryan a few weeks ago. He's he's a big dude. Large dude. Yeah. He's big, super nice, super cool, but I was like, yeah, he's a big dude. Uh, Joe Moss. Sure. Was like, hey, you gotta do a, you gotta do a, uh. He's been, Joe Moss is trying to get, uh, he's like, you could, you do, you should do a match against Gordon Ryan. I'm like, Joe, dude. I'm like, hey, bro. How about me and Gordon Ryan go bowling?

• 1:17:39Jocko Willink?

  That'd be a solid match. Yeah. Uh. But people learn directly from. Video now because they have a fundamental framework back in the day in the nineties, no one had framework. The framework wasn't even there. Other than maybe watch the UFC, but even though you didn't really understand it. Yeah. And there's some people that have a knack for it. Some people have a knack to just learn and create like Dean Lisch. Yeah. He can create things. That's the next level. Create things from what exists already.

• 1:18:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, that that framework and in the in the being in the experience kind of scenario like Jiu Jitsu and this goes and I say this about like pretty much even plumbing is like this where it's like okay you have the diagram and you get okay this is the move you gotta make in this quote unquote diagram. If you don't have any experience in it like you don't even know how it feels to be in that position. Like all these external things that are not part of this demonstration or part of this lesson, all the external things that exist when you're in the situation like aren't there. So your mind can't like attach it. It's almost like you can't attach the lesson to anything.

• 1:18:44Jocko Willink?

  There's no scaffolding. There's no framework to attach it to.

• 1:18:47Speaker 01

  It's just an arbitrary lesson.

• 1:18:49Jocko Willink?

  There's no context. That's like also like with history, like Daryl Cooper, he's he can take little things because they're in this context that he has in his mind from reading all these books over all this time. So when he learns a new fact, it like fits right into a spot.

• 1:19:00Speaker 01

  Exactly. And you can tell too every once in a while because he'll be like, you know, it's not like you're comparing them to the Mayans, you know, and their whole thing. And you're like, what do you mean their whole thing? I don't know anything about that right there. Like you're over here saying it like it's like common knowledge, but he has that framework already established so obviously in his mind.

• 1:19:15Jocko Willink?

  Context.

• 1:19:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So those are things to think about. Whatever you're trying to do, you have to try and do it. You can't, whether it's leadership, whether it's playing guitar or ukulele or Jiu Jitsu. You can take away some knowledge from observing and from reading and from listening, but you gotta go do it. Otherwise, you're not going to get anywhere.

• 1:19:41Jocko Willink?

  And then he goes on to say, and this is actually how he closes this out. He goes on to say, "Every critic knows the principles of painting, but very few of them can paint. There's no substitute for facing each situation and dealing with it as it actually is, rather than as you would like to see it in terms of the principles of war." So important. It's so important to have the framework and then like erase it and look at the real problem. Right? It's so important to have the framework. You know, this happens in fights. Somebody will have a game plan and something will happen that will disrupt the game plan. And and you're they lose because they had their framework already in mind and they don't adapt.

• 1:20:27Jocko Willink?

  I remember Dean was in a fight and I was cornering him and Do you know Dean's half guard, like half guard come up on a single, right?

• 1:20:38Jocko Willink?

  And this was late in his career. And that was one of his moves and he's, he's like really hard to stop when he does that. But you can stop him, especially if you know what he's doing, especially if you anticipate it, especially if you'd sat down with your coaches and figured out a good way to stop it and then tested it a bunch. So Dean is in this fight. And he's in, he's in his most, one of his most dominant positions, bottom half guard. He's gonna come up on a single, he's gonna get, and the dude has a, he's stopping it. I forget what he's doing. I'll go back and watch the videos. He's like doing something with his hip or he's putting his hand on something. He was stopping him.

• 1:21:11Jocko Willink?

  And I was like, Dean, the guy has it. He, he has your half guard. What is it like? He has it pegged. I was telling him to go full guard and he didn't win the fight unfortunately, but the guy had pegged his half guard and Dean, which was surprising. I think Dean had been so effective with this for so many years that when it got stopped, it was like, he just couldn't, he didn't like making it. And look, it's a fight. He's getting punched in the head. There's about time limit. If he would have gone one more round, maybe like, okay, cool. But those are the things you gotta watch out for. You gotta watch out for preconceived notions of what you think things are gonna be and how you think they're gonna go down. So really, this is why I've been talking so much lately about having an open mind, because

• 1:21:54Jocko Willink?

  my idea that my half guard is great and I can come up on a single with just about anybody, that's a preconceived notion. And it closes my mind to believe that. I have to open my mind. And once somebody stops it twice, the mind should be fully open. Like, okay, this guy has a, he has me pegged. I'm gonna adapt. I'm gonna change. So, so having an open mind to see things, as the book says, deal with it as it actually is rather than as you would like it to be.

• 1:22:26Jocko Willink?

  That is a life mode of operating that will help you infinitely. As opposed to, I think things are a certain way, therefore in my mind, they are that way. They're not. And then it says, finally, if there is a real principle of war, it is the principle of the objective. The objective means more than all the rest. And this is again, already talked about it, but this is like going through life without actually knowing what your objective is.

• 1:23:02Jocko Willink?

  Without actually knowing where you're going, you're not going to get there. So you have to, above all else, know what it is that you are trying to accomplish. And he closes out this speech with this line. He says, if there's anything I can leave you with, it is this. Rules can aid the wise, but they are snares for the fool.

• 1:23:28Jocko Willink?

  Got to know when to break the rules. You got to know, this is something Dean says a lot. You got to know the rules. You got to know the rules and you got to be competent and proficient with the rules. And then you can break them and you got to know when to break them. So lots of good stuff in here.

• 1:23:46Jocko Willink?

  These fundamental rules, sure, they're principles for war, but if you think about them and you put them front of mind, they can guide your journey. The rules can guide your journey, but don't let them snare you. Got to keep an open mind. You know, I've been saying open mind lately. You know what I used to say, and I used to say it a lot on this podcast, free your mind. Remember those days?

• 1:24:04Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:24:05Jocko Willink?

  I don't know why, I think because keeping, free your mind. I don't think was translating to people the way I wanted it to. Open your mind seems to, people seem to understand what I mean more than when I say free your mind. Like free your mind, think, people think, oh, just,

• 1:24:22Jocko Willink?

  just be wild, basically. Free your mind. I sound like a hippie, right?

• 1:24:28Speaker 01

  A little bit, yeah.

• 1:24:29Jocko Willink?

  Even open your mind sounds like a little hippie-ish.

• 1:24:31Speaker 01

  No, I, I don't think so, but yeah, yeah, I can see that.

• 1:24:35Jocko Willink?

  Well, it's slightly hippie-ish. It's real, it's related.

• 1:24:39Jocko Willink?

  You know.

• 1:24:39Speaker 01

  Cool.

• 1:24:40Jocko Willink?

  Open mind.

• 1:24:41Speaker 01

  Have an open mind.

• 1:24:41Jocko Willink?

  You've never met a hippie that was like, oh yeah, you know, I'm a very closed minded person.

• 1:24:44Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, the idea is hippies embrace that idea for sure.

• 1:24:47Jocko Willink?

  So hippie-ish. So Free Your Mind is even more hippie-ish.

• 1:24:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, Free Your Mind is hippie-ish. Yes, that's hippie flavor for sure.

• 1:24:55Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so I've, I like the way Free Your Mind sounds better and to me it means exactly, in my mind, it means exactly what I think. But as I would tell that to people, you know, I'd be like talking to someone that's in a leadership position, I'd go, dude, you gotta free your mind. And they kind of like, I go, eventually I started saying, oh, you gotta open your mind. And it seemed to, it seemed to translate and be more understandable to people.

• 1:25:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:18Jocko Willink?

  To, to open your mind up because they understand the opposite of mo, open is, is closed.

• 1:25:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:24Jocko Willink?

  The opposite of free is what? Trapped? So that doesn't quite convey what, what the, what the idea is.

• 1:25:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:33Jocko Willink?

  I want you to, I don't want you to untrap your mind because that means your mind is stuck, which open your mind. So you can see different possibilities.

• 1:25:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, so closed mind seems like closed off, kind of a thing. Free or an open means like you're open to new, more info, now you're more capable, kind of a feel, but free and like whatever trapped or Free Your Mind is like, hey, think about everything, like just for the sake of thinking almost, you know, kind of a thing. It's not about letting things into your mind. It's more about like letting things out maybe, I don't know, like your thoughts out, kind of a thing. That's so it's like opposite almost in a way, the feel.

• 1:26:14Jocko Willink?

  So that's what it is. You, you, you've gotta open your mind. You gotta free your mind. Otherwise you, you don't make adjustments and you don't make adaptations. Like, like this book, like you won't, you won't get there. And in fact, I'll say this. You can't even get married to your objective. And I, I, I mentioned that, like you have to have an open mind that your objective might change.

• 1:26:38Jocko Willink?

  Your objective in your business, in your team, in your family, your objective might change. It might, it might go up, it might go down, it might go left, it might go right. Like there's businesses, people have a business, they're like, we want to be able to do this. And then all of a sudden they realize that's unrealistic. Or that's going to take too long, or that's going to cost too much and they adjust their objective.

• 1:26:59Jocko Willink?

  So you've got to realize that your objective might change, but you've got to make sure that you understand that you are going somewhere. What is the objective that if your objective moves, fine, move it and then know what it is and move towards it.

• 1:27:13Jocko Willink?

  So that's what we got. This is gonna, these laws can certainly help you. These principles can certainly help you think through your issues, help you to see more hopefully. And hopefully help you to win whatever war you might be fighting right now.

• 1:27:28Jocko Willink?

  And echo, if we are going to war, we're going to need some fuel.

• 1:27:34Speaker 01

  It's true.

• 1:27:34Jocko Willink?

  What do you think? We're needing some fuel. Now you've been, I noticed from the, I've heard, I've heard stories, I've heard things that

• 1:27:42Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:27:43Jocko Willink?

  You're upping your hydrate situation.

• 1:27:46Speaker 01

  Word on the streets.

• 1:27:47Jocko Willink?

  And that's a word on the streets that I'm, so are you doing hydrate after every workout, during workouts?

• 1:27:53Speaker 01

  Nope, before, actually.

• 1:27:54Jocko Willink?

  Before workouts.

• 1:27:55Speaker 01

  And sometimes after, but more, mostly before. So, okay, after Jiu Jitsu, yes. But I've been out of Jiu Jitsu for like two weeks almost already.

• 1:28:03Jocko Willink?

  Well, you got the

• 1:28:04Speaker 01

  My injury.

• 1:28:05Jocko Willink?

  You got the tendonitis or something?

• 1:28:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, on the inside of my elbow. It's kind of bad. It was kind of bad. It's getting better though. Nonetheless, that aside, hydrate, and I told you this, morning mix, every morning, no compromise, every single morning. Hydrate, obviously mixed in water with creatine. That's the morning mix.

• 1:28:23Jocko Willink?

  That's the morning one.

• 1:28:24Speaker 01

  Oh yeah. It doesn't matter what flavor, the blue one, the green one, whatever.

• 1:28:26Jocko Willink?

  You like both those ones?

• 1:28:28Speaker 01

  I like them both equally, yes. So that's the morning mix, but if I'm doing the workout right when I get up, which is part, you know, sometimes part of the gig, not always, but sometimes if I'm doing the workout, first thing in the morning, like you kind.

• 1:28:40Speaker 01

  I'll add the pre-workout in there. That's the

• 1:28:42Jocko Willink?

  Are you going full scoop pre-workout?

• 1:28:44Speaker 01

  Not yet.

• 1:28:44Jocko Willink?

  Half scoop?

• 1:28:45Speaker 01

  Like a little, like half-ish, a little bit more than half, but yeah.

• 1:28:49Jocko Willink?

  Getting a pump.

• 1:28:51Speaker 01

  Big time.

• 1:28:52Jocko Willink?

  All right. So you want to get this stuff, go to jockofuel.com, get yourself some hydrate, get yourself some greens. Greens do not have to taste like dirt. They can actually taste good. Uh, we got energy drink that's actually good for you. Which is, which is totally unique. There's no one else can be like, oh, our, our energy drink is literally good for you.

• 1:29:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, you know, I, I think the whole idea of energy drink has always been, and I think we've all just kind of grown to accept it. Or just reject energy drinks altogether. But the thing that too, that we've all kind of accepted is like, hey, this is just a short term fix.

• 1:29:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. And that's just part of the gig. That's what we're doing, you know? And that's why people are like addicted to energy drinks. They're like, oh, I'm addicted. I know it's bad, whatever, you know? Cause it's not a thing that's good for everyone knows that, you know, kind of thing. Cause all the poison, the preservatives, the freaking other chemicals in there. We don't, now we don't have that problem. We don't have that problem.

• 1:29:46Jocko Willink?

  No downside. No downside. So jockofuel.com, get yourself some milk. What now, you are apparently convinced that banana ready to drink milk is the best one ever made.

• 1:30:00Speaker 01

  It's currently in the front running of my favorite. Yes, the chocolate is good, but chocolate.

• 1:30:03Jocko Willink?

  No, no, what you said to me earlier today, when you were literally drinking one, you said, this is the best. Ready to drink protein of all time, number one on your list.

• 1:30:12Speaker 01

  Yes. And it happened to be a banana. Yes.

• 1:30:14Jocko Willink?

  Oh, so it could be anything.

• 1:30:16Speaker 01

  Uh, banana and chocolate. The vanilla, I don't go that, that hard with.

• 1:30:19Jocko Willink?

  Dang.

• 1:30:20Speaker 01

  Only it's not part of my delivery. That's why.

• 1:30:22Jocko Willink?

  Vanilla for me is melted ice cream.

• 1:30:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:24Jocko Willink?

  Which everybody likes.

• 1:30:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. But you know, I would rather melted chocolate ice cream, to be honest with you.

• 1:30:29Jocko Willink?

  And you're a little bit of a connoisseur of ready to drink protein.

• 1:30:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, that, okay. So the, how the conversation went, if I remember correctly. I just mentioned, it was, it was basically me just expressing myself, expressing my feelings out loud, which sometimes I'm not very. I'm against that.

• 1:30:46Speaker 01

  From time to time it happens. Nonetheless, it did happen. This is what I said. It's what I expressed. I know about ready to drink protein. I'm no strap. Since I've been lifted, since ready to drink protein has been a thing. Even available, even before it was a thing, available, but I've been down with it. Like, you know, cause you just buy it. It's not like a soda or something. You buy the, the milkshake. Protein, whatever. You know, you trade off for some taste, whatever. So I know I'm familiar, but it's like one of those things where it's like, I know it's not gonna taste all that good, but hey, protein, right? All good, but this one, I don't really go to the store and just buy them all the time before this one. Every once in a while, I will, just if I need the macro.

• 1:31:25Jocko Willink?

  Oh, so before it was like a substitute scenario or an in extremis situation, we're going catabolic.

• 1:31:31Speaker 01

  I need the macros. Yeah, exactly right.

• 1:31:33Jocko Willink?

  But now you're proactively.

• 1:31:35Speaker 01

  Yes, and the, and the point of my, what I said was even if I didn't know you at all, that's what I said. If I didn't know you at all, I would still buy this one all the time, just for the sake of like the whole, what, the, everything that it offers.

• 1:31:49Jocko Willink?

  You can get this stuff at jockofuel.com, boy. Get it, Wawa. By the way, the, the, the Molk is going into Wawa. We've been, you know, we've been fighting a war in Wawa. There's a lot of people that, a lot of other companies, they don't want you to have that healthy option. But, so we're, Wawa, Vit- Vitamin Shoppe, Vitamin Shoppe's got the whole, everything you need, GNC, Military Commissaries, APHYS. I was just out at an Air Force Base the other day, checking it out. We got it, we're live.

• 1:32:15Speaker 01

  Wait, so Molk wasn't in Wawa?

• 1:32:18Jocko Willink?

  Molk was not in Wawa.

• 1:32:20Speaker 01

  Well, we don't have Wawa, so this is going in.

• 1:32:22Jocko Willink?

  Yep, going in now. Uh, Hanafur, Dash Stores in Maryland, Wake Forest, Shop Right, HEB down in Tejas. Tejas, what's up, Tejas? They're just getting after that HEB. You better, you better give respect to HEB, too, in Texas. Like, you, you will, you, if you downplay or diss HEB in Texas, first of all, there's no reason to, but if you did, if you were just wild, you're gonna get, you're gonna get punched up, fool.

• 1:32:52Speaker 01

  So when you diss HEB, you diss yourself?

• 1:32:56Jocko Willink?

  In Texas? When you diss HEB in Texas, you're gonna probably get talked to, like, sternly. Uh, then Meyer, up in the Midwest, Harris Teeter, Lifetime Fitness, Shields, and look, small gyms, people, people are getting it in there. We're getting all kinds of requests, because people in the gym, if you own a gym, if you own a jiu-jitsu gym, if you own a CrossFit gym, you own a powerlifting gym, you own a fitness gym of any kind, you wanna help your clients be better, so email [email protected], you can hook that up. Don't forget about Origin USA. We got American-made clothing, boots, jeans, t-shirts, the whole nine yards.

• 1:33:33Jocko Willink?

  Jiu Jitsu gear, by the way, we talked about Jiu Jitsu a lot today. Why? Cause the Jiu Jitsu reflects life in many different ways. And if you can get good at Jiu Jitsu, you will be better at life. We got workout gear there too as well and hunt gear. And then of course, we got Jocko store.com, which Echo made up the name, Mr. Original.

• 1:33:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, not hundred percent original, but yes.

• 1:33:54Jocko Willink?

  They're creative.

• 1:33:55Speaker 01

  Oh yeah. Well, discipline equals freedom. As far as that goes, represent. Where do you get it? Jocko store. So it all kind of fits together.

• 1:34:02Jocko Willink?

  Dude, I just checked the mail and somebody gave me a discipline equals freedom, def core freaking guitar pedal. Like, so when you play electric guitar, you can put effects on the guitar and it's done through pedals. And there's a whole cult around different pedals.

• 1:34:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:17Jocko Willink?

  Well, a guy just sent me a sick one that he handmade. I'll show it to you.

• 1:34:20Speaker 01

  Oh, that's pretty dope.

• 1:34:20Jocko Willink?

  Sick.

• 1:34:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, huh? Yeah, that's crazy.

• 1:34:23Jocko Willink?

  So when the album comes out, I'll probably use that pedal.

• 1:34:28Speaker 01

  Right on. Well, this way, we don't have pedals, but we do have other things.

• 1:34:33Jocko Willink?

  I kinda do. I got a pedal.

• 1:34:35Speaker 01

  Not on the stores, what I'm saying. But nonetheless, you know, if it, maybe it could be a thing. I'm kinda eager to see what it looks like. But yes, as far as hats and hoodies, shirts, that's a big one. Shirts. We wear shirts pretty much every day. So let's say you are into t-shirts. We have a subscription scenario. You can get a new design every month called the shirt locker. That's on Jocko store. So yeah, subscribe to that. Um, some soap on there. That's the thing I haven't really been talking about. So you got Warrior Kid Soap, Jocko Soap, Deaf, so Discipline Equals Freedom Soap. This is all natural stuff.

• 1:35:10Jocko Willink?

  What about the Killer Soap?

• 1:35:11Speaker 01

  Killer Soap, that's the, that's the strong antibacterial one. I think it has the, um, the.

• 1:35:16Jocko Willink?

  It's got the charcoal on it and I think it's got the tea tree.

• 1:35:19Speaker 01

  Yes, I think they all have tea tree or they all have tea tree oil in it.

• 1:35:22Jocko Willink?

  Killer Soap is GTG.

• 1:35:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, cause it has the, what do you call the scrubber stuff in it?

• 1:35:28Jocko Willink?

  I don't know what that's called.

• 1:35:29Speaker 01

  It's like, it has like an exfoliant, like property to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's a good one. Anyway, there's a lot of cool stuff on there. The new thing too, Chris.

• 1:35:41Speaker 01

  Don't act like you don't know. You know, but here's the thing. Christmas is coming up.

• 1:35:45Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, that's right.

• 1:35:47Speaker 01

  I added a Christmas inspired item socks. Discipline equals freedom socks. Look.

• 1:35:53Jocko Willink?

  Bro, represent.

• 1:35:54Speaker 01

  So here's the thing with socks. As a kid, nobody cares about socks. You know, when you get socks for Christmas, you're like, oh, socks. It's like one of those joke things like, well, I got socks that sucks, right?

• 1:36:03Jocko Willink?

  I got a lot of socks for Christmas over the years.

• 1:36:05Speaker 01

  As a grown adult, I'm kind of fired up to get socks, especially if they're cool ones. And these are cool ones. So, yeah, and I'm not, you know, you can buy them for someone else if you want. Or you get your wife on the horn and be like, hey, they got some socks. Just saying, Christmas is coming up. Just saying. See what I'm saying? Also, there's gift cards on there too. If you can't decide, boom, get the gift card. You know, you're good to go later.

• 1:36:27Jocko Willink?

  Check you out. That was.

• 1:36:29Speaker 01

  True, bro. I'm here to tell you.

• 1:36:31Jocko Willink?

  I like it. Uh, also, you get, you probably need some steak. Look, you can, you can have that RTD mulk. Good. That's a good dessert. What's the main course? Main course, coloradocraftbeef.com or primalbeef.com. Look, it's just next level. That's what we're doing. So, check those out. You need some steak for your fridge, for your dinner. You want to do the, the Sean Glass methodology. I think he's doing two, like stain, or what is it? The, the cast iron pan. He said, I think he said two, two, two, two, two, two. No, two, two, two, two. So like four minutes per side. Yeah. My wife, habitual rule follower, by the way.

• 1:37:16Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:37:17Jocko Willink?

  She's not doing his protocol. She's doing three, three, two, two.

• 1:37:22Speaker 01

  No cover.

• 1:37:24Jocko Willink?

  I'll have to confirm.

• 1:37:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I recently, because you said the two, two, two, two, four collective minutes on each side. But it was without the cover. I usually do the cover two and two done with the cover on it. Perfect steak every single time. But I did your protocol because maybe there's something I'm missing. Maybe there's another element.

• 1:37:43Speaker 01

  So I did that.

• 1:37:43Jocko Willink?

  Open mind. I like it.

• 1:37:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, same though. Same result, like just as good.

• 1:37:47Jocko Willink?

  Didn't matter?

• 1:37:48Speaker 01

  I could not taste the difference and I do eat a lot of steaks for sure.

• 1:37:53Jocko Willink?

  Alright, so there you go. Primalbeef.com or ColoradoCraftBeef.com. Subscribe to the podcast. Don't forget about jockounderground.com. We're about to record one of those right now. Little alternative podcasts where answer your questions. We give you some guidance on life that might not be, you know, a little adjacent. It's a little bit, it's more adjacent to this podcast. But it's also a platform that we control so that the tech overlords can't control us. We can do our own thing. If you want to support that, it's $8.18 a month. If you can't afford it, it's no big deal. Just email [email protected]. We want you there. YouTube, subscribe to that. Psychological Warfare, get some of that. Flipside Canvas, Dakota Meyer, making cool stuff to hang on your wall.

• 1:38:38Jocko Willink?

  And then you got a bunch of books. I've written a bunch of books. Get the books. If you want a little bit of doctrine and guidance around these leadership principles, get those books. Also, if you've got kids, get them the Warrior Kid books. Come on. Just get your kids and the neighbors' kids. You'll have better neighbors. Your kids, the neighbors will be better. They'll be better human beings. They'll be thankful. So there you go. Bunch of books. Echelon Front, we solve problems through leadership. We just got back from the muster, sold out down in Dallas, Texas. Then we went to Battlefield up in Gettysburg. Just awesome events, learning leadership. Everything we do sells out. So if you want to come to one of these events, go to echelonfront.com for details.

• 1:39:20Jocko Willink?

  And we also have an entire leadership consultancy. We've got incredible instructors from a bunch of different backgrounds. And we teach these principles that can solve the problems inside your company or your business or organization.

• 1:39:33Jocko Willink?

  So go to echelonfront.com if you need help in those categories. We also have an online training academy called Extreme Ownership Academy, extremeownership.com. Again, look, are you going to learn to play tennis by watching masterclass from Venus Williams? You might not learn to play, but you can definitely pick up some hints that are going to improve your game. And that's a physical sport. So can you do that? Will you learn if you, if you go check out my masterclass, you're going to learn some stuff? Yes, you will. But you're going to need to go back to the gym. You go back to the gym, go to extremeownership.com and you can really get granular on learning about leadership and the leadership is going to apply, not just if you're a businessperson,

• 1:40:17Jocko Willink?

  not just if you're a CEO, if you're a dad, if you're a mom, if you're a friend, if you're running a, a little league team. It's going to help you run everything in your life and make it better. So there you go, extremeownership.com. If you want to also, if you want to help service members, active and retired, you want to help 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, go to Americas Mighty Warriors.org. Don't forget about HeroesAndHorses.org. Micah Fink, currently out there in probably just a light dusting of snow in the Montana mountains.

• 1:40:56Jocko Willink?

  He's out there barefoot in a loincloth and he's dragging a bear that he's going to eat for dinner, feed his family. HeroesAndHorses.org. He takes veterans and first responders up into the wilderness so they can get lost and get found. And also Jimmy May has got an organization called BeyondTheBrotherhood.org checked out as well. And if you want to connect with us, we're on the interwebs, Echo's at Echo Charles. I'm at Jocko Willink and we're both anti-algorithm. Don't let that monster freaking grab you. That's what's, that's what it's trying to do. Little brainwashing tool you got in your pocket to suck your brain away. Just be careful of it.

• 1:41:38Jocko Willink?

  Thanks to all service members who are in harm's way right now. The world is a volatile place. It's a hostile place. We know that our military members are out there on the front lines, standing by. So thanks for what you do. Stay alert and stay alive. And also thanks to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, secret service, all first responders. I know there is a lot going on in the world right now. There is heightened risk. So the same goes to you all. Thanks for what you do. Stay alert and stay alive. And to everyone else out there.

• 1:42:21Jocko Willink?

  The principle that you could find on most of these lists, once again, was the objective. You have to know your objective. You have to know what it is. You have to know where you're going.

• 1:42:33Jocko Willink?

  Cause if you don't know your aim, how are you gonna get there? What are you gonna do to get there?

• 1:42:40Jocko Willink?

  So, know your objective. Write it down. Know your aim. Know your unified strategic goal of your organization, and know what you're trying to do as an objective for yourself. Keep it front of mind. Keep it front of mind.

• 1:42:58Jocko Willink?

  And then fight to get closer to it every day by going out there and getting after it. And until next time, this is Echo and Jocko, out.