110: Making The Right Decisions Each Step of the Way. "Reveries of The Art of War"

0:00:00 - Opening 0:14:23 - "Reveries on The Art of War", by Maurice De Saxe http://amzn.to/2DvbLac. 2:25:02 - Final thoughts and take-aways. 2:27:12 - Support: JockoStore http://www.jockostore.com stuff, Super Krill Oil and Joint Warfare and Discipline Pre-Mission http://originmaine.com/origin-labs/jocko/, THE MUSTER 005 in DC http://www.extremeownership.com/washington-dc-005. Origin Brand Apparel and Jocko Gi http://www.originmaine.com, withJocko White Tea http://www.jockotea.com, Onnit Fitness stuff, http://www.onnit.com/jocko and Psychological Warfare (on iTunes) https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/psychological-warfare/id1183222322. Extreme Ownership (book) http://amzn.to/2jonHTx, The Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual, http://amzn.to/2szgaEj and Jocko Soap. https://irishoaksranch.com/storefront/jocko-soap 3:00:39 - Closing Gratitude. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Jocko Willink?

  This is Jocko Podcast number 110 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo.

• 0:08Speaker 01

  Good evening.

• 0:11Jocko Willink?

  All sciences have principles and rules. War has none. The great captains who have written of it give us none. Extreme cleverness is required to even understand them. And it is impossible to base any judgment on the relations of the historians, historians, for they only speak of war as their imaginations paint it. As for the great captains who have written of it, they have attempted rather to be interesting than instructive, since the mechanics of war is dry and tedious. Books dealing with it have small success and their merit will not be recognized except after the passage of time.

• 0:56Jocko Willink?

  Those writing historically of war have better luck. They are sought by all the curious and kept in the all libraries. That is why we only have a confused idea of the discipline of the Greeks and Romans. War is a science covered with shadows in whose obscurity one cannot move with an assured step. Routine and prejudice, the natural result of ignorance, are its foundation and support. Nothing is so disgraceful as slavishness to custom.

• 1:36Jocko Willink?

  This is both a result of ignorance and a proof of it. Chevalier Falard supposes all men to be brave at all times and does not realize that the courage of the troops must be reborn daily. That nothing is so variable and that the true skill of a general consists of knowing how to guarantee it by his dispositions, his positions, and those traits of genius that characterize great captains. Perhaps he reserved of this immense, perhaps he reserved discussion of this immense subject, and perhaps also it escaped him.

• 2:16Jocko Willink?

  Nevertheless, it is of all the elements of war, the one that is most necessary to study. The same troops who, if attacking, would have been victorious, may be inevitably defeated in entrenchments. Few men have accounted for it in a reasonable manner, for it lies in human hearts, and one should search for it there. No one has written of this matter, which is of the most importance, the most learned, and the most profound of the profession of war. And without a knowledge of the human heart, one is dependent upon the favor of fortune,

• 3:00Jocko Willink?

  which sometimes is very inconstant. So, those are some opening words from a book called Reveries on War by Maurice de Saxe. This guy's a character, Maurice de Saxe. You did a little research on him. Did you find out how much of a character he was?

• 3:22Speaker 01

  No.

• 3:23Jocko Willink?

  He was a serious character. There's a couple of things, there's a couple of things even in that opening right there that I wasn't sure if I was gonna cover this, and I was kinda like going back to it to see if it was something we should cover. But I just, when you get right here, "All sciences have principles and rules, war has none." That's a true statement. And it's true that there's, you know, there's principles of warfare, but there's no actual rules. Like, you can do whatever you want. I mean, you can say the Geneva Convention, but then you can just defy it, and just, you know, you can do things that are completely opposed to it. So, there's no rules. You should do whatever you want to win.

• 3:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:58Jocko Willink?

  Now, you could lose your respect, and you could act inhumane, and that might cost you in the long run, but if, war is war. There's no other thing like that. Right? There's no other thing like that. Do whatever you want. I guess if you had a if you had like a street fight with no weapons and someone's gonna do whatever they could to win, right?

• 4:21Speaker 01

  It's the same, it's, that's war.

• 4:23Jocko Willink?

  It's the same thing.

• 4:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's true. Yeah, when you deal with like, death is kind of the goal and the consequence at the same time, like death, that's the end of the line. So yeah, anything goes essentially.

• 4:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 4:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, nothing else is like that.

• 4:35Jocko Willink?

  Then he says this, "Nothing is so disgraceful as slavishness to custom." That's a bold statement, too.

• 4:41Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. I agree.

• 4:44Jocko Willink?

  Disgraceful, he calls it. He talks about these prejudices that people have. I think you call them, what do you call them?

• 4:50Speaker 01

  Biases.

• 4:51Jocko Willink?

  Biases, right? Cognitive biases. He talks about, he doesn't talk about that, but he talks about them. But this guy was a character. He lived from sixteen ninety-six to seventeen fifty. He started off as a German soldier in the Army of the Holy Roman Empire, which was like this bunch of territories in Europe that were banded together under that name, and they were there around for a long time, from like the Middle Ages until the time of the Napoleonic Wars, so you know, the early eighteen hundreds. And he served, also served in the Imperial Army, which was another kind of army that often fought alongside the Army of the Holy Roman Empire. And he, but he, but the weird thing is, is he finished his career

• 5:36Jocko Willink?

  as the Marshal General of France. And so he had kind of, I guess you could say he kind of switched sides, but he rose rose up through the ranks, because his military career started at the age of thirteen

• 5:53Jocko Willink?

  when he fought at the Battle of Malpake. I think that's how you say it. Which, and that war, that battle right there was, that was between the Army of the Holy Roman Empire and France. So he was on both sides at certain points of his life. And I think the whole time he was, it seems like from what I read about him, he was always kind of looking to go up the social structure, you know, right, rise up in the social structure and become more a powerful person. In the hierarchy.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 6:24Jocko Willink?

  Of those time, the dominance hierarchy. So, yeah, he started fighting at age 13, which by the way, that's just so cool. I don't, I'm sorry if you think I'm a bad person. But as far as I'm concerned, if I could have joined the military at 13, I would have been so stoked. Uh, sorry, everyone that's, that doesn't agree with that. That's just how I roll. I'm just telling the truth on that one. And actually, as I look back on my life, if I could have done that, would have been even better. I think they should allow people to join the military. They should have some like youth core. Where you can go in and just get after it at a young age.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  Prep, just learn.

• 7:01Jocko Willink?

  But they think, uh, they think a 13 year old can't make that decision and they're right. The 13 year old can't make that decision. So you'd have to have really benevolent people that were in charge of them. In charge of these troops. And you also think that an 18 year old person can make a good decision, but that's not true either. Cause you've got 18 people that are dumber than dirt and make bad decisions.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:21Jocko Willink?

  And people are worried that you're going to get thoughts put into your head. Yeah.

• 7:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, you will.

• 7:25Jocko Willink?

  You are. You are. And guess what? If they're good thoughts, right on. That's not a bad thing, right?

• 7:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, but.

• 7:33Jocko Willink?

  I mean, do you have to learn everything yourself? Is that the way the world works? You can't have good ideas put in your head? You can't get a little bit programmed? If you could get programmed to be a better human being, would you accept that programming?

• 7:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course, but.

• 7:44Jocko Willink?

  Okay, I'm just checking. Cause you're over there looking like I'm a bad person, cause I'm trying to brainwash you.

• 7:49Speaker 01

  No, cause you're just saying the word good and better. Like there's this universal good and better, you know?

• 7:54Jocko Willink?

  There is.

• 7:54Speaker 01

  No, there is. I mean, there is, but it's so narrow like this.

• 7:57Jocko Willink?

  We have Jordan B Peterson on here. You can converse that, you can, you can have a conversation with him about that. How do you say, how do you say that you don't know that there's universal good and there's universal bad?

• 8:05Speaker 01

  No, no, no. I'm saying.

• 8:06Jocko Willink?

  I mean, we could come up with dozens of things right now that we know are good and bad, right? Hurt a child, is that good or bad?

• 8:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, okay, yeah, for sure.

• 8:13Jocko Willink?

  See where I'm going with this? Take, take something that doesn't belong to you, good or bad?

• 8:16Speaker 01

  But those, they're still basic and fundamental that you don't, you don't need a youth core to.

• 8:20Jocko Willink?

  Well, there's a lot of people out there that don't get taught that stuff.

• 8:23Speaker 01

  And that's true too, but that's a whole different issue.

• 8:25Jocko Willink?

  Okay, well, I'm just making sure.

• 8:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, but if you're, I know what you're saying, how you're saying good, like, good ideas and good idea. You're talking about your way specifically, which I dig.

• 8:34Jocko Willink?

  No, no, no, I would not, I would not, and I still, I even, you know, I get in trouble for this because, for instance, people say, oh, you shouldn't wake up at four thirty in the morning. And, and I always say like, yeah, I know. I'm not saying you have to wake up before four thirty in the morning, I'm saying to wake up earlier, don't be lazy, right? I'm not saying you have to, I say, you know, don't eat donuts, right? I'm not saying you can never taste anything that tastes good, I'm just saying, be smart, man, come on, you don't need a donut. And donuts are actually on the evil, they might just be pure evil too, by the way.

• 9:05Jocko Willink?

  Come on, man. Donuts don't eat, they don't even make you feel, I mean, is there any, do you get any satisfaction from a donut?

• 9:11Speaker 01

  Satisfaction, well, depends on what you mean by satisfaction.

• 9:14Jocko Willink?

  You always wanna try and parse these things.

• 9:15Speaker 01

  Well, you can't, not an absolute.

• 9:17Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so I guess you get a, a ten second good taste in your mouth, sugar rush, get some.

• 9:22Speaker 01

  So, and technically.

• 9:23Jocko Willink?

  And you pay for that, your health and fitness, you don't seem to care.

• 9:27Speaker 01

  No, who, me? Oh, yeah, no, man, I care, I care a lot.

• 9:30Jocko Willink?

  Okay, I'm just making sure.

• 9:31Speaker 01

  I'm trying to, I'm trying to look at it from all angles, satisfaction, yeah, technically and biologically.

• 9:36Jocko Willink?

  But you could come up with some fundamental good things, and I'll tell you this, the military does teach some fundamental good things. So if I could have joined at the age of thirteen, it would have been good for me, I would have been stoked. Actually, I would have missed out on some cool stuff too, cause I had some fun back in the jury and I did some cool stuff. That actually led to me being who I am today, you know, I learned some stuff.

• 9:53Speaker 01

  I dig it, but not, what I'm saying, the point is, is that your way, not everyone will agree. I agree with you, and I'm sure a bunch of people do, but I'm just saying there's like different.

• 10:05Jocko Willink?

  No, I guess I'm not pro universal brainwashing to my methods of living. I'm not, I'm not, which makes.

• 10:11Speaker 01

  Thirteen year old, by the way.

• 10:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, which is thirteen year old. Now, I'll tell you, I just said that, that going in the military, I would have missed out on some things, you know, maybe some growing up experiences. Uh, Marista Sacks didn't miss out on a, on a damn thing, cause he was getting after it in many different ways. Not only on the battlefield, but also as a, a little bit of a maniac, he was, first of all, he was like, apparently physically. He was kind of a beast of a man and like physically. And he fought, he, he kind of proved himself, he distinguished himself in, in some big battles as he was thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years old. Apparently he could bend a horseshoe with his hand and, and I, I was looking at that. I was thinking to myself. He, they mean hands, right? They must mean hands.

• 10:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course.

• 10:57Jocko Willink?

  It didn't say that. It said hand. And I didn't want to take anything away from him. So apparently he could grab, uh, he was big and could grab a horseshoe and just bend it in one hand. So he had some, some serious strength and through his life. He commanded companies, which he actually refers to as centuries, which. If you can imagine century, we know that means a hundred. So a century. It like the ancient Roman army had centuries instead of companies and they weren't even a hundred people. They were like eighty people, but. He led those, he led regiments and he led whole armies and he fought with a lot of success throughout his career. Now with that. That being said, he was.

• 11:43Jocko Willink?

  Far from what anyone would actually consider a role model because he, the way he lived his personal life was not exactly exemplary, exemplary. I didn't say that word right.

• 11:53Speaker 01

  Exemplar.

• 11:55Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 11:55Speaker 01

  Exemplar.

• 11:56Jocko Willink?

  In fact, the way he lived his life was probably the opposite of role model. So. He was forced into marriage at the age of eighteen. He didn't want to get married. Because he was, I think he was a, a too much of a womanizer and said, I don't want to get married, but. He married this heiress, fourteen year old heiress. With a ton of money. He blew all her money.

• 12:19Speaker 01

  And he was eighteen, she was fourteen.

• 12:20Jocko Willink?

  She was fourteen. She, she was an heiress with a bunch of money. He took all her money and blew it on horses. For his regiment and on women. Mistresses. And then he had a bunch of public affairs and everyone kind of knew about it and the marriage got annulled. And he continued this kind of wanton behavior, I think throughout his life. And a couple of times he's hypocritical because in the book he talks about certain types of people and I don't know if I cover it, but he, he does come across a little bit. Hypocritical, hypocritical sometimes. Now, I think one of, this is this one quote I grabbed from this mistress, this kind of famous mistress. Actually, she's recognized as the chief mistress

• 13:02Jocko Willink?

  of King Louis XV. So, did you know that the king had, like, not just mistresses, we know that, but there's a chief mistress who's known, right?

• 13:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 13:09Jocko Willink?

  Uh, her name was Madame de Pompadour, and this is what she said about Sax. Maurice de Sax does not understand anything about the delicacy of love. The only pleasure he takes in the society of women can be summed up in one word: debauchery. So, he's a little bit out of control. He might have, in fact, inherited his lifestyle choices from his dad, whose name was Frederick Augustus, who was well-known for his personal unbridled lust.

• 13:46Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 13:48Jocko Willink?

  How do you know that he had unbridled lust? Well, case in point, Maurice was the eldest, so Maurice de Sax was the eldest of 354 acknowledged illegitimate children that Frederick fathered. So, while we might not want to emulate Maurice de Sax's personal life, he was an experienced and successful leader of men on the battlefield. And we can learn from him. And with that, let's go back to the book. And here's Maurice de Sax. "A man who has a talent for architecture and can design

• 14:32Jocko Willink?

  will draw the plan and perspective of a palace with great skill. But if he is to execute it, if he does not know how to shape his stones, to lay his foundation, the whole edifice will crash soon. It's the same with a general who does not know the principles of his art, nor how to organize his troops, for these are indispensable qualifications in all the operations of war."

• 14:57Jocko Willink?

  The prodigious success with which the Romans always gained with small armies against multitudes of barbarians can be attributed to nothing but the excellent composition of their troops. Not that I would infer from this that a man of genius will not be able to succeed even at the head of an army of tartars. It is much, this is the, this is the interesting part, it is much easier to take men as they are than to make them as they should be. It is difficult to reconcile opinions, prejudice, prejudices and passions. So, there's a couple of interesting things.

• 15:37Jocko Willink?

  I also forgot to point out that he wrote this kind of on a whim and he actually starts off this, this whole book, he says, "This work was not born from a desire to establish a new method of the art of war. It was composed to amuse and instruct myself." And then, one of the last things he says in the book is, "To the readers, I wrote this book in thirteen nights. I was sick. Thus it very probably shows the fever I had. This should supply my excuses for the irregularity of the arrangement as well as the inelegance of the style. I wrote militarily and to dissipate my boredom." Now, on top of those, that excuse, right?

• 16:21Jocko Willink?

  On top of that, he was a big opium user. So, we're figuring he was probably writing this in an impaired state. Sure. We're dealing with it. We're not, we're not mad about it, but we're realistic. And the reason I say this is because some of the writing is a little bit tricky and some run-on sentences and, yeah, so, we have to, we have to pull a little bit harder to get some nuggets. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But there's plenty of nuggets and I think that's one of them. It's much easier to take men as they are than to make them as they should be. And where I look at that, as a leader, you get people that are good at something and you get someone that's not good at something, but they're good at something else. You put people where you can use them. You put people where their skills are most available and where they can, where they can...

• 17:08Jocko Willink?

  Perform their duties to the highest level because they're naturally good at it. That's all it's saying. I'm not having you proofread my writing at night, right?

• 17:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, no.

• 17:18Jocko Willink?

  No. No, I'm not. And I'm not over here trying to make videos.

• 17:23Speaker 01

  No, you're not.

• 17:24Jocko Willink?

  No, I'm not.

• 17:25Speaker 01

  No.

• 17:26Jocko Willink?

  You see where I'm going with this?

• 17:27Speaker 01

  Yes, you're right.

• 17:28Jocko Willink?

  It would it be easier if you said, you know what, Jocko? When it comes to the podcast, why don't you come up with a talking, a bunch of talking? And I'll make cool videos, right?

• 17:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:38Jocko Willink?

  We kinda did that.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 17:39Jocko Willink?

  Otherwise, people would be listening to you. Talking about movies from 1988. And comparing them to stuff.

• 17:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, very, very clunky.

• 17:48Jocko Willink?

  Which is, you know, it's fine.

• 17:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:50Jocko Willink?

  But.

• 17:50Speaker 01

  And then wouldn't you have to expend more resources on your part to, to coach me up?

• 17:56Jocko Willink?

  Yes, and imagine, yeah, and, and I'd be trying to make videos, which I can.

• 18:00Speaker 01

  And I'd be have to coach you up.

• 18:01Jocko Willink?

  Which would make me mad.

• 18:03Speaker 01

  We don't want that.

• 18:03Jocko Willink?

  No, it would make me mad because it's dealing with computers and stuff.

• 18:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:07Jocko Willink?

  I don't mind computers, but I don't like them.

• 18:10Speaker 01

  Sure, no.

• 18:11Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 18:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, but that's a, that's a big part of like why he's saying it though, right? Because it's like, it's like you're gonna save yourself a lot of time and headaches.

• 18:19Jocko Willink?

  Exactly.

• 18:19Speaker 01

  When you're trying to coach these guys up and this stuff.

• 18:22Jocko Willink?

  When you get to the SEAL teams, it's like, oh, you're small? A small guy? Cool, you're gonna be a point man.

• 18:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 18:28Jocko Willink?

  You're a big guy? Cool, you're gonna carry an, an M60. Or now it's a Mark 48. That's how it's happening. We're not gonna take the small guy and try and get him, bulk him up. And make him taller and bigger and stronger. And we're not gonna take the big guy and starve him. And send him to Ranger School so he loses 38 pounds? And he comes back and like, okay, you're a point man now? No.

• 18:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 18:49Jocko Willink?

  Let, let's, let's use nature. He's, he talks about that in other places. All right. He's talking about in this section, how to, uh... How to raise an army, basically. How do you make an army? And I thought this one was a little bit interesting because people ask me this question all the time. He's talking about mandatory service, and this is his opinion on it. Would it not be better to prescribe by law that every man, whatever his condition in life, should be obliged to serve his prince and his country for five years? That's no joke. Sometimes people say two years, and that seems reasonable, and a lot of countries do that. He says five years, and it's kind of funny, his attitude towards five years, back to the book.

• 19:30Jocko Willink?

  This law could not be objected to because it is natural and just that all citizens should occupy themselves with the defense of the nation. Concur. No inconvenience could result if they were chosen between the ages of 20 and 30 years. These are all the years of libertine age. When youth seeks its fortune, travels the country, and is of little comfort to parents. This would not be a public calamity because one could be sure that when five years had passed, discharge would be granted. So he's saying like, people couldn't be mad about it because it's only five years. And he's also saying, look, this is when your kids are out of control anyways, you might as well have them in the military.

• 20:09Jocko Willink?

  There's that, that whole idea of the libertine that took place back in the day, and these guys were, you know, basically wild.

• 20:18Jocko Willink?

  Morally getting after it, or I should, they were, they were, they were, they were partying wicked hard. I'm trying to think of a good way to say it. They were partying wicked hard with drugs, booze, and women. The libertines. And they, it was, they called them a rake, like if a guy, a guy that was out there with a bunch of different women all the time, they'd be called a rake. There's a bunch of period novels that I had to read when I was in college, that's why I know about it. About these libertine rakes. So he continues on, this method of raising troops would provide an inexhaustible reservoir of fine recruits who would not be subject to desertion. In course of time, as a consequence, it would be regarded as an honor to have fulfilled one's service.

• 21:03Jocko Willink?

  I'd say that's probably accurate. But to produce this effect is essential to make no distinctions, to be immovable on this point, and to enforce the law particularly on the nobles and the rich.

• 21:16Jocko Willink?

  Then no one will complain. Hey, you gotta, if you're gonna do it to one person, you gotta do it to everyone equally. Consequently, those who had not served their time will scorn those who are reluctant to obey the law. And insensibly, it will become an honor to serve. The poor bourgeois, who will be consoled by the example of the rich and the wench will not dare complain upon seeing the noble serve. Arms is an honorable profession. How many princes have born arms? Now, what's interesting about this idea is that there's some people in the world that aren't really meant for warfare. And so should we let nature, I, I, I more, I more heavily agree with the previous point. You should let people do what they're good at naturally.

• 22:00Jocko Willink?

  So you're gonna end up recruiting people that might not be good at this naturally.

• 22:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:04Jocko Willink?

  And that's not a good thing.

• 22:05Speaker 01

  But not everyone goes to war, right?

• 22:06Jocko Willink?

  No, you're right. You could put them in different jobs. Yeah, that's, that's absolutely true. They could put the, the guy that's more, uh, more apt to be like, good at writing, he could become a military journalist or something like that. Yeah, you're right. You know, people always ask me that question. And the bottom line is, it's a tough one. I'm sure I don't have like some hardcore stance on it one way or the other. Well, do I think it would benefit everyone? Every eighteen year old, if they join the military, it would benefit them. I'm telling you, it would benefit them. Do I think it should be mandatory? I don't really think so, because I don't want to have a bunch of draftees in the military. And if you don't want to join and you want to miss out on having that part in your life, that's your call and that's fine. This is America. You can do what you want.

• 22:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, that makes sense, huh? Cause on one, on one hand, you kinda can look at it as like taxes, right? Where how, just like how the Sax was saying, um, you know, you, you have to have the, I'm paraphrasing, the, the, the pleasure or the honor to serve in one's, your country's defense, you know, like that, that should be obvious, it's obvious. And so it's kind of like compare it with paying taxes, right? Taxes go to public service, like for all this stuff and we live in this country. We have public service. We all have to pay for it. It's not just one person, whatever. We all pay taxes.

• 23:22Jocko Willink?

  A lot of people pay a lot more than other people in taxes.

• 23:24Speaker 01

  Exactly, right.

• 23:24Jocko Willink?

  A lot more.

• 23:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:26Jocko Willink?

  And some people don't really pay taxes.

• 23:28Speaker 01

  And that's how the military would have been too.

• 23:29Jocko Willink?

  You just said everyone pays their taxes. Not everyone pays.

• 23:31Speaker 01

  I know that. And if you, what if, what if, okay. So good. Yeah. Perfect. Exactly. The part of my point is, so let's say I'm like, hey, you just paid your, let's say it's tax time. April 15th, whatever.

• 23:43Jocko Willink?

  Some people pay taxes of your own, just FYI.

• 23:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, no, I'm just saying, but at the time where it's.

• 23:47Jocko Willink?

  Called a quarterly estimate. You don't want none.

• 23:50Speaker 01

  I actually know about that now. Thankfully, or not so thankful. But you know, let's just say for this example, April 15th, that's when everyone knows it's universal, right? And you're like, yeah, I just paid my taxes, you know, whatever, like I didn't like giving my money away, but that's it. You know, just like people in the, in a draft situation or mandatory military. I didn't want to. I would have rather go be a, a rake or whatever and, but I'm doing it and boom, I did it. And then you got me, or maybe not me, someone else saying, oh yeah, I didn't pay my taxes.

• 24:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 24:19Speaker 01

  And then you're like, whoa, wait, wait.

• 24:20Jocko Willink?

  So you're saying it becomes an honor to pay your taxes?

• 24:22Speaker 01

  In a way.

• 24:23Jocko Willink?

  I could agree with you.

• 24:24Speaker 01

  No, no, no. Cause there's, I think there's a part of your brain, no matter how much you pay for taxes. It is like, you do have that feeling like, yeah, I did my part, even though it sucked, even though it hurt. Even though, you know, I would way rather have spent it on a Disney vacation or something like that.

• 24:37Jocko Willink?

  No, I would have rather invested it myself into something that was productive or built more business or something like that. You know, just little things like that, but whatever.

• 24:44Speaker 01

  You see what I'm saying though? You know what I mean?

• 24:47Jocko Willink?

  I hear you.

• 24:47Speaker 01

  It's kind of the same thing. That's one way to look at it though. Where you can, but the other, the other.

• 24:52Jocko Willink?

  One way, yes.

• 24:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. But the other way is just like how, how you said, if you get some people who are in there in the military with certain like jobs or whatever, and they don't want to be there, it's kind of like. It's kind of too important to have people like that, you know?

• 25:05Jocko Willink?

  But you could have, yeah, what you said is actually correct, that you could have, you know, elements that just did other things in the military that that would be more aligned with the person's natural desires of what they want to do.

• 25:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, and then-

• 25:19Jocko Willink?

  Now, there's something in the Navy called Needs of the Navy, right? So, you would get a, the Navy, you, "Oh, I want to go get stationed in Hawaii." Like, okay, what are the needs of the Navy? Because the needs of the Navy come first, not you, not your family, nothing.

• 25:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:31Jocko Willink?

  And, and so, the needs of the Navy come first.

• 25:34Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, and of course, same thing with like a tax situation, where it's like you're, if you don't want to do it, it's kind of hard to be like, "I know you don't want to do it, but hey, now that you're here, do what you want." You know, you kind of can't say that, otherwise, I'll be like, "I don't want to be here, so I can choose what I can do." "Okay, I'm going to do the, the most smallest, most light, least time-consuming, like, basically, I'm going to do the least I possibly can, because I don't want to be here to begin with."

• 25:59Jocko Willink?

  In the military, is this the, this is the mandatory military?

• 26:02Speaker 01

  This will go for it, yes, and that'll go for it. So, you're going to get these, it's kind of like-

• 26:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so you'd get people that would be not doing very much.

• 26:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's essentially like a draft dodger kind of situation, but within the, you know, who didn't actually dodge it. If, I'm just saying, if it were a scenario like, "We'll just put them where their interests lie." Even though they have to be here, see what I'm saying? So, I'm just saying, that's the other side of the coin, where it's like, it's hard to make, make it work in an absolute kind of way.

• 26:30Jocko Willink?

  Check. All right. He talked a little bit about clothing troops, what they should wear, and this is just, I thought this was interesting. "Our uniform is not only expensive, but very, very uncomfortable. The soldier is neither shod nor clothed nor covered. The love of appearance prevails over attention to health, and this is one of the most important points demanding our attention. Hair is a dirty ornament for a soldier. And once the rainy season has arrived, his head is never dry." So, it sounds to me like he's basically saying he doesn't care how he looks. He's here to win. So, hair is a dirty ornament for a soldier. "In place of hats, I should prefer helmets as for shoes."

• 27:13Jocko Willink?

  This was interesting, you know, people wear minimalistic shoes without-

• 27:19Jocko Willink?

  With zero heel to toe drop. Have you heard that expression?

• 27:23Speaker 01

  No.

• 27:23Jocko Willink?

  Meaning it's the same level across. So it's any of the barefoot type shoes.

• 27:28Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 27:28Jocko Willink?

  They all say, oh, zero heel to toe drop.

• 27:31Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 27:32Jocko Willink?

  Meaning there's not an eight millimeter difference between the height of the heel. And then it goes down to the height of the toe. This is what he says, as for shoes, I would prefer the soldiers to have shoes of thin leather with low heels instead of heavy boots. They would be perfectly shod and would march with better grace since low heels would force them to turn out their toes, stretch their joints and consequently, consequently draw in their shoulders. It's pretty interesting because everyone's all in the rage of minimalistic shoes, which I actually wear shoes that don't have any heel toe drop.

• 28:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:11Jocko Willink?

  Maybe I'm caught up in that fad, but.

• 28:13Speaker 01

  It's cool.

• 28:14Jocko Willink?

  But you know what? When we were kids, right? Chuck Taylors?

• 28:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, Chuck Taylors.

• 28:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, they have no heel toe drop. People still wear them because they're good to go.

• 28:22Speaker 01

  That's kind of all I will. Mostly all I wear, yeah.

• 28:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, there you go.

• 28:26Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 28:27Jocko Willink?

  You're in, you're the big time trend. You're, you're a early adopter.

• 28:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, I didn't know.

• 28:34Jocko Willink?

  My problem with Chuck Taylors is too narrow for me.

• 28:36Speaker 01

  Too narrow?

• 28:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and they don't sell wide ones. I've looked.

• 28:41Jocko Willink?

  All right, pay, what you gotta pay people back to the book without going into detail about the different rates of pay, I shall only say that it should be ample. It is better to have a small number of well-kept and well-disciplined troops than to have a great number who are neglected in these matters. It is not the big armies that win battles. It is the good ones. Economy can be pushed only to a certain point. It has limits beyond which it degenerates into parsimony. I had to look that word up, by the way. Parsimony. Yeah, occasionally you get one of those. It means just super cheap. Super cheap.

• 29:24Speaker 01

  It's interesting because that doesn't sound like.

• 29:26Jocko Willink?

  I think my dad would fall in that category.

• 29:29Speaker 01

  What is so he if your dad would be considered parsimonious?

• 29:34Jocko Willink?

  I guess so. I know that my my dad, like many dads, will drive an extra eighteen miles to save three cents a gallon on gas. Does that all dads do that?

• 29:45Speaker 01

  No.

• 29:46Jocko Willink?

  In Hawaii, they don't do that.

• 29:48Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, you drive eight eighteen miles, you're you're in the water in the ocean most of the time, but yeah, I've heard of that before. Isn't that like a false thing, though? Like, because you drive eighteen miles?

• 30:00Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 30:01Speaker 01

  Kind of part of the joke.

• 30:02Jocko Willink?

  You know, you get the app that has the cheapest gas prices in your area.

• 30:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 30:07Jocko Willink?

  How much time are you spending looking at an app that you paid three dollars for to find out whether you can save two cents a gallon on gas?

• 30:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:13Jocko Willink?

  Now, get I get it, man. I'm cheap. I inherited that, right? I I don't like to spend money. It's hard for me to part with the with the money, right? Including the taxman, by the way. It's hard for so I get it, but I also have to have some like like sometimes my dad could be irrational about it, you know, irrational, just just straight up crazy. Hey, well, you could save two cents.

• 30:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:37Jocko Willink?

  Hey, if you know, he he he gets fired up about that, too.

• 30:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:40Jocko Willink?

  That's another thing, you know? He always asked me how much the how much the gas out there in California. I'm like, I don't know. I'm gonna pay for it anyways. Let's stick the nozzle in there, pull the trigger and rock and roll. I got stuff I gotta do. I'm not driving. How much cheaper is gas on base? When I didn't know how much cheaper gas was on base, he he was beside himself.

• 30:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:59Jocko Willink?

  And then when he found out it was eight cents a gallon cheaper, he's like, can you get me on base? You want to go drive over there, wait in line, show your ID, and then we get on base? You gotta wait? Because it no. Come on.

• 31:10Speaker 01

  Wait, isn't that because?

• 31:11Jocko Willink?

  Parsimonious.

• 31:12Speaker 01

  Parsimonious, yeah. Huh. I'm trying to use that one. But that's because the because it's like a little it's like a win, right? You get a win when you got the deal.

• 31:21Jocko Willink?

  You think you got the psychological win?

• 31:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 31:23Jocko Willink?

  No, that's that's definitely that could be it. A little victory.

• 31:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that is it, because yeah, I know people like that, too.

• 31:30Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, "Hope encourages men to endure and attempt everything. In depriving them of it, or in making it too distant, you deprive them of their very soul." Now, that immediately made me think of Stalingrad, when we were reading about Stalingrad. And the fact that the soldiers, when something would give them a glimmer of hope, it would totally change their attitude. Like, when they thought that the German troops were coming to rescue, the guys that were in Stalingrad, in the pocket in Stalingrad, they were all excited and they were, you know, happy and like, he literally said, like, everyone's morale went up, and then they find out they're not coming, it's just crushed.

• 32:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 32:12Jocko Willink?

  Crushed morale.

• 32:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:14Jocko Willink?

  That's based on hope.

• 32:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, fully. And you kind of see that in like, in like, like a workout, for example, like, if you have, in football, we'd have like conditioning, right? And sometimes, they'd just be like, "Hey, we're just running sprints, wind sprints." They wouldn't say, "Hey, we've got ten wind sprints," it's not like that. And after a while, like, guys are dying and, you know, not dying, but, you know, we're getting tired. So the sprints are a lot slower towards it. But they say, "Two more, finish hard," for all of a sudden, everybody can run fast again. You know what I'm saying? Even though you're tired. Because you see that little light at the end of the tunnel.

• 32:46Jocko Willink?

  And then you get done with that second sprint, you go, "I was kidding. Eight more. Gonna do it."

• 32:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then you watch the hope just go, "Brrr," like, yeah, back to being slow.

• 32:57Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. This is, this is pretty heavy. "Truly, the only good officers are the poor gentlemen who have nothing but their sword and their cape. But it is essential that they should be able to live on their pay. The man who devotes himself to war should regard it as a religious order into which he enters. He should have nothing, no other home than his troop."

• 33:25Jocko Willink?

  And should hold himself honored in his profession. So, there you go.

• 33:32Speaker 01

  All in.

• 33:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, all in. And when people always ask me, especially when I was in about work-life balance, and I'm like, eh, I'm not the guy to talk about that. I'm not the good person, especially when I was in the military.

• 33:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:45Jocko Willink?

  Because this was me. You know, my number one priority, hundred percent, was the dames. And everything else was just kind of, hey, you're, everyone else is along for the ride, but I know where I'm going. So, the, being that devoted to war, and it has a power, it has a certain... It made, you know, if you got a guy that's thinking about it all the time. I think it was Jade, Jade and I were talking about something. And he said, "The person who cares more wins."

• 34:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:15Jocko Willink?

  And that's, that's accurate.

• 34:17Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 34:17Jocko Willink?

  And I want a lot of stuff in my day, just because I cared more. I mean, I'm not going to sleep. I'm not, I'm just gonna be thinking about this. You're gonna go home, and this weekend, you're gonna go and do a family barbecue, and you're gonna go play baseball with the kids and blah blah blah. And I was just like, no, I'm just gonna be doing this all weekend. I'm gonna be working on this. We're gonna, I'm, I got, I care about this.

• 34:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:41Jocko Willink?

  Nothing else matters. So, that's a, again, is it healthy for work-life balance? No, it's not work, healthy. Except for to say, if you're that committed to your work, you're a committed person, then that means you're trying to take care of your family. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Am I reaching? Maybe.

• 34:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think.

• 34:58Jocko Willink?

  Okay, I'm reaching. That's fine.

• 35:02Jocko Willink?

  You know, marry a, a good, independent woman that doesn't need emotional support from you all the time. So that she understands that. That was the big thing for me. I think my wife understood that it wasn't meant as an offensive thing.

• 35:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:17Jocko Willink?

  Like, I have a job, and... I really care about my job. Doesn't mean I don't care about you, but my job is right now and I need to do that.

• 35:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, and even the work-life balance.

• 35:27Jocko Willink?

  Am I just a bad husband?

• 35:28Speaker 01

  No, no, because the work-life, no, because there is no templated, time allotted, you know, that you need to spend with these people or those people or work versus that. There's no like thing, you know? Sometimes if you're like, hey, I need to spend more time with my wife, your wife's like, bro, go do, leave me alone, you know, like we, we spent the weekend together. Calm down, you know, go to work or whatever. Some people like that and it's a spectrum. So work-life balance is like it depends on your wife and, you know, in a, in a husband-wife situation.

• 35:56Jocko Willink?

  You know, I suppose instead of, instead of trying to take a life, work-life balance lesson out of this, I think the most important thing to take out of this is, is the level of commitment, right? If you really want to be successful.

• 36:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:07Jocko Willink?

  And not just talking about war, I'm talking about business, I'm talking about life. If you really want to be successful, you gotta, you gotta get after it.

• 36:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you see that.

• 36:14Jocko Willink?

  Set the other things aside for now.

• 36:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:16Jocko Willink?

  Right? Just the way it is.

• 36:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 36:18Jocko Willink?

  Sorry. All right. Back to the book. Training. Drill is necessary to make the soldier steady and skillful, although it does not warrant exclusive attention. Among all the elements of war. It, it even is the one that deserves the least if one accepts those which are dangerous. I tried to figure out what that meant. I just thought opium. That was an opium.

• 36:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:44Jocko Willink?

  Hit right there. The last part.

• 36:47Jocko Willink?

  The foundation of training depends, oh, this is good. But, but okay, so drill, if you know anything about the military, drill, especially back in those days, it was, it really was a necessary thing. Because you had to function together as a team and the way you do that, and we still do what's called close order drill in the military now, you've seen it. Go watch the US Marine Corps Close Order Silent Drill Team. They do all these really specific maneuvers and they have competitions in high schools between the ROTC classes. Where you know you're carrying the rifle, you spin, you do all that stuff. That's called drill.

• 37:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:18Jocko Willink?

  The reason it originated is because you needed, for two reasons. Number one, you actually had to do those motions on the battlefield, raise your rifle, you know, load, make ready, aim, fire. And then the next rank will be doing the same thing. You had to do it in a coordinated method. And the other, the reason that they kept doing it, according to my drill instructor in Officer Candidate School.

• 37:38Jocko Willink?

  Gunnery Sergeant, United States Marine Corps. Oddly enough, last name was Seals. That was his last name. Great guy.

• 37:44Speaker 01

  Layers.

• 37:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, Layers. Gunnery Sergeant Seals. My drill instructor.

• 37:51Jocko Willink?

  From the United States Marine Corps. At Officer Candidate School. He said, "The reason that you're learning this drill is because..." The reason that we do drill is because people need to act instantly upon orders. So it drills into you a level of obedience. When you get told, "By the left flank, march," everyone goes. "By the right flank, march," everyone goes. You know, so it teaches you that, "Hey, I'm gonna go." And that's what they used to use it for, but they still use it now to so that people get used to the immediate obedience of orders. Now, does that get contradicted by things that I talk about all the time on here? But questioning orders and making sure you understand why you're doing? Yeah, it does, absolutely. But there is a... That's why... That's what it exists for.

• 38:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, and at least the capability still exists.

• 38:31Jocko Willink?

  And the capability is there. Yes, the capability is there.

• 38:35Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. "The foundation of training depends on the legs and not the arms."

• 38:43Jocko Willink?

  "All the mystery of maneuvers and combat is in the legs. And it is to the legs that we should apply ourselves. Whoever claims otherwise is but a fool." And not only in the elements of what is called the profession of arms. So interestingly, your personal problem with people that talk about skipping leg day? It goes back. It goes back to here.

• 39:10Speaker 01

  Yep. Dang.

• 39:11Jocko Willink?

  The big guns? The big arms?

• 39:13Speaker 01

  Useless.

• 39:14Jocko Willink?

  They didn't wanna help us in the art of war. According to Sacks.

• 39:17Speaker 01

  You know why they call that "big for nothing"? Actually, "big for nothing" in Hawaii means like... I guess here they say, "All go no show," right? So that's kinda what having big arms and small legs kinda is as well, right?

• 39:30Jocko Willink?

  So now you're on board with that.

• 39:31Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, no. I never was skipping leg day. You were the one teasing me, and I was wondering, "Why is that so funny?" But I guess, yeah. That's been funny since day one. A fool. Cause you look like a fool. Cause you're a fool. That's it. That's the answer. Dang.

• 39:46Jocko Willink?

  Yep, it goes back. It goes back a long times. Even back then, people were skipping leg day.

• 39:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:51Jocko Willink?

  And they were fools.

• 39:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, fools. They're kinda focusing on the wrong thing. And it makes sense. Even like in those terms, it makes sense today.

• 39:58Jocko Willink?

  Let me tell you something. The the amount when I was in the team, so I was running training and I still talk to guys, obviously. But if you think about what's going on. The train like people to people, you know, I say all the time, like all the seal training is not that hard, right? I say all the time, like, but I'm talking about buds. I'm telling you the advanced training that you go to. The training that I used to run, it's it's freaking really hard. It's really hard. You're in the desert. The desert, don't think of sand, think of rocks, think of jagged, uneven terrain, up and down hills.

• 40:33Jocko Willink?

  Then think about you're on night vision, so it's at night. Think about you have. Let's call it about eighty pounds of gear on just on average. That's like the average guy's got eighty pounds of gear on. You're going to. Get dropped off in the middle of the desert, again, not the desert, but the rocky. Yeah, what's it called sub? I I forget it's it's the rocky, crazy terrain. It's hard to walk on in the daytime, it's hard to walk on now you're you're at night now. You have night vision on, which is great, but night vision is looking far away. And you can adjust one of your night vision sides, so you have two. And you can adjust one to far and one to close, so you can see a little bit, but still your peripheral vision isn't there. Your peripheral vision is gone because there's a tube in front of your head.

• 41:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:19Jocko Willink?

  So you can't really see what's actually underneath your feet. You can look down and then you can see it for a second, but you can't walk around looking down the whole time. You gotta look at the guy in front of you, you gotta look at the you you got your field of fire. So as you're walking, you're making these micro adjustments all the time to adapt to your foot hitting the ground in some weird spot. And so you get that. And then you have that weight on your back. And so you get dropped off, then you patrol ten kilometers. Ten kilometers, maybe what what's that? That's six miles. So you so you're going six miles, then you get six miles, you get to a target area. You get to the target area, you gotta get eyes on the target area, you know, you get eyes on, you climb the biggest hill around. At night, being as quiet as you can, you get to the top of that hill, you look at it, then you go and assault the target.

• 42:03Jocko Willink?

  Once you assault the target, guess what you're get for when you're assaulting the target, you're now like almost running, you're running through the thing. At night, you're shooting machine guns, guess what, guys get hit, guys go down. This is even in training, guys are going down. Now you're gonna carry them. Well, who are you gonna carry them? Who's gonna carry them? You are. What are you gonna do? How are you gonna carry them? You're gonna, there's only one way. Sure, okay, there's stretchers, there's, you can, you can bring litters, and we certainly bring litters in the field, but they take some time to set up, and you gotta get organized to make that happen. What's gonna happen initially is somebody is gonna sling that dude on his back. And by the way, that person that weighs 200 pounds has 80 pounds of gear with him. So now we're talking 280 pounds. You're gonna put that person on your back and you're gonna walk at a high rate of speed through this rocky terrain, and you're gonna do that for another two to three miles to get out.

• 42:48Jocko Willink?

  It's hard, that kinda training. And by the way, this whole time, there's no like, hoo ya, there's no, hey, come on, there's no, there's no, there's no, you don't even speak. It's just in silence. You're just going, and everyone knows what you have to do. And so that's why you gotta do leg day.

• 43:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:10Jocko Willink?

  Not skip leg day, cuz your legs, your legs gotta carry that weight.

• 43:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:17Jocko Willink?

  Going back to the book, "To return to the march about which everyone bothers themselves to the death, but will never reach a conclusion unless I reveal a secret." So he's got a secret about maneuvering troops. This, this, I found this interesting. "Some wish to march slowly, others would march fast, but what about the troops whom no one knows how to make march fast or slowly as they desire or is necessary, and who require an officer at every corner to make them turn like some snails, and others are running, and this is to advance this column which is always trailing. It is a comedy to see even a battalion to commence movement." So, what he's talking about is if you're moving with a unit, and this happens with a, even happens with a platoon,

• 44:02Jocko Willink?

  but it definitely happens when you get bigger elements, you know, a company-sized element, where you've got 100 people that are moving. It's, it's uh, the caterpillar effect, right? Like the front moves and then it takes a little while for people to catch up. And then when they stop, everyone bumps into them and you end up with this, this thing that's really, really hard to move. Yeah, and this is, so this is how he says, this is his big secret. Shall I say it? This great word which comprises all the mystery of the art and which, which will no doubt be seen as ridiculous. Have them march in cadence.

• 44:43Jocko Willink?

  That is why these musical marches were instituted and that is why one beats the drum. It is this which no one knows and no one has perceived. With this, you can march fast or slow as you wish. The tail will not lose the distance. All your soldiers will start on the same foot. The changes of direction will be made together with speed and grace. And the legs of your soldiers will not get tangled up. You will not be forced to halt after each turn in order to start off on the same foot. Your soldiers will not exhaust themselves a quarter as much as at presence.

• 45:17Jocko Willink?

  Now, what I thought was interesting about that is it's an obvious answer, right? And now clearly you're not going to do that in the modern day military in the field. You're not going to play music so guys could march to it. So you can stay in cadence, but I think it's more important to that sometimes we lose things. We lose me- methods. They're in front of our face, but we don't understand why they were there. And I'll tell you, I'll tell you, I was thinking of a story. I was running training. And one of my guys who was uh, one of the assistant platoon commanders in TU Bruiser. Great guy, hard to choke, real long neck.

• 45:59Jocko Willink?

  You know, you can make it happen, but you're going to work for it. Real, is it, well, some people you might think long neck, easy to choke, right? Yeah. No, this was, his neck was so long and he was strong too. Well, he is strong. Long and strong neck, so his neck would like bend in a guillotine. And he could keep breathing, yeah, it was that long, it was a long neck. So anyways, we were out at this training site and we were doing, he was, his, it was his platoon. Now he was a platoon commander and they were coming over the beach. And, meaning swimming over the beach and then you go do live fire. And this really, so, so they're doing it, they're doing iterations and.

• 46:37Jocko Willink?

  He's coming up on the beach and his weapons, you know, you, you, when you get to the beach, your weapon's wet, sandy, cause you go through the surf and it's all jacked up and then you try and shoot your gun, it doesn't work, you gotta clean it and it's just a pain. And he says, hey, man, do you have any like suggestions on how to get my weapon firing once I get over the beach? And I go, yeah, man, don't let it get wet. And he, and he was kind of, you know, like, really? And I said, yeah, don't let it get wet. Because when you're swimming in, you've got a rucksack, but the rucksack isn't, it's, it's waterproofed, so it kind of floats. And so you can put your weapon on top of your rucksack and you can kind of keep it dry there. And when you're just swimming, you just keep, now you're not going to keep your weapon completely dry, it's not going to happen. It's going to get wet.

• 47:23Jocko Willink?

  But the attitude, if you have the attitude that you're trying to keep it dry, you'll keep it 90% more dry than you would otherwise. And most important, when you come through the beach, when you come through the waves, you won't let it get the sand in it. And he kind of looked at me with, you know, a funny face of like, are you serious? How can you keep it dry? And I said, keep it dry. Next time, I'm watching him, when I'm night vision, I'm watching him and sure enough, like his, his weapon barely went in the water, he got up on the beach and boom, it works. Guess what? It's an obvious answer, but sometimes people, we know, we just need to have somebody share the obvious answer with us so that we can execute.

• 48:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense.

• 48:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 48:06Speaker 01

  Marching thing is, damn, that's crazy, I didn't know that, that marching thing. Like, that's why you march to cadence or whatever, it's like, so that caterpillar effect, especially with like a lot of people. Actually, that's why there's traffic, by the way.

• 48:18Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 48:19Speaker 01

  That's why the, it, traffic exists because of that little effect.

• 48:22Jocko Willink?

  That's exactly true.

• 48:23Speaker 01

  You know, one, one guy going, the reaction time and all.

• 48:26Jocko Willink?

  You know, the other funny thing he said in here is, he says, go watch people dance, you see a soldier dance all night, but he can't march for more than an hour without being tired, why is that? Give him some music. Kind of funny. I didn't want to say that part, but, because then people start asking me about dancing.

• 48:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. They want to see you dance.

• 48:44Jocko Willink?

  No, no talk of dance on the podcast. Back to the book. If the previous war had lasted a little longer, indubitably, everyone would have fought hand to hand. This was because the abusive firing began to be appreciated. It causes more noise than harm and those who depend on it are always beaten. So, what you need, I encapsulated a lot of stuff. What he was talking about was how everyone was so excited to shoot their rifles. And at this time period, the rifles weren't all that accurate. Hence, it was a bunch of noise, but they weren't always that effective. And it would be better, and by the way, when you, when you had to shoot your rifle, you had to stop. So now, instead of charging, we're stopping, we're loading, we're firing, the other rank is firing.

• 49:28Jocko Willink?

  And if the other people are moving on you, well, they're going to get close enough and they're going to have now momentum. And they're going to overtake you or they're going to overpower you with what? With bayonets and hand to hand combat. So what I thought was interesting about this is he's saying, hey, all this noise is basically noise makers. For, for all practical purposes, they're noise makers. And he's saying, and what I was thinking was it's, this goes to be, this to me is very similar to people that yell a lot. Right? You yell a lot, you were someone that's loud, someone that's always talking to them. And he says that people who depend on that are always beaten. And I thought to myself, that's a very accurate statement. Very accurate statement.

• 50:11Jocko Willink?

  So don't just talk for the purpose of talking, right? Don't, if you don't have anything to say, that's fine. Be quiet, don't say anything. It's actually good.

• 50:22Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 50:23Jocko Willink?

  Here he talks about the Roman legions. The Romans vanquished all nations by their discipline. No big deal.

• 50:31Speaker 01

  No.

• 50:34Jocko Willink?

  They meditated on war constantly continually. And they always renounced old customs whenever they found better. In this respect, they differed from the Gauls whom they defeated during several centuries without the latter thinking of correcting their errors. So this is clearly the Romans, okay, we know discipline's important, talk about it all the time. But more important lesson here is they always renounced old customs whenever they found better. Boom.

• 51:06Jocko Willink?

  Renounce the old customs when you find better ones. This is something you need to do in your life, something you need to do in your business. It's something you need to do on the mat.

• 51:17Jocko Willink?

  And I'll tell you, going back to the other part, sometimes there's things in jujitsu that you find a better way and they work for a while and then you go back to the old way and it works because people are expecting the new way. Dean talks, Dean will say, "This is a new old move."

• 51:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, he just said that the other day.

• 51:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, this is a new old move. It worked 10 years ago, it wouldn't work 5 years ago because everyone knew it, now it'll work again because everyone forgot it.

• 51:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:46Jocko Willink?

  Like everyone forgot why we use cadence, why we use music. We forgot why, we don't know how to march now.

• 51:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's essentially the same reason why the new move will work because people are unfamiliar, you know, because you have a certain attack or whatever and then the more people know about that attack, the harder it is to be successful with it and then you find some new variation that not everyone knows. The Footloch game kind of was like that too for a little bit. And then after a while, all those fundamentals which were essentially the early version of the move, whatever, that's still there, but we got this new unrevealed move that's getting everyone because they're unfamiliar, it's like a surprise kind of, but they're just unfamiliar. And then now everyone gets familiar with it and it's like, "Cool, it's an okay move."

• 52:35Speaker 01

  But the real good one was that original, the OG one. But everyone just got used to it.

• 52:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and then once everyone gets used to the new one, they'll forget about the old one.

• 52:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:45Jocko Willink?

  For sure. Correct and improve. Renounce your old customs whenever you find better. Now he's talking a little bit about peacetime and how you maintain your army during peacetime. He says, "As for the cavalry, it should never be touched," meaning you shouldn't get rid of any cavalry people. "The old troopers and the old horses are the good and the recruits of either are absolutely useless. It is a burden and it is an expense, but is indispensable. In regard to the infantry, as long as there are few old heads, you can do what you want with the tails."

• 53:26Jocko Willink?

  So a horseman is you got the skilled horse and you've got the skilled horse rider. And he says in this, I don't know if I'll read it, but he says also in here, it takes 10 years to make a good, a good cavalryman, a good guy that's really good on the horse, with a really good horse, takes 10 years to make them. So you can't just get rid of that person. But an infantryman, if you've got some good, this is what I liked about it. If you've got good leadership, good leadership with infantrymen, hey, man, there's some fundamental skills you're gonna need to learn and we'll be ready to rock and roll, which is, which is awesome. Good leadership goes a long way. I mean, and again, you have to have, it takes a lot, it takes the same amount of time to make a good infantry leader, because

• 54:08Jocko Willink?

  those are skills that take a long time to develop to become a leader of infantry troops. But your basic combat rifleman, you can make them pretty quick. Not like it's a hell of a lot easier than making someone that can ride a horse. So, and then your leadership's gonna go a long way. Back to the book, in attacking infantry, the two rear ranks are to lower their pikes. In this position, the pikes will extend from six to seven feet ahead of the front rank. The front ranks being sheltered in such a manner will, I am sure, aim with more confidence than if they had nothing in front of them. Besides this, the third rank can

• 54:53Jocko Willink?

  ward off blows and defend the first rank, which will do, which it will do much better since it is covered by the first two ranks. The second rank, which is armed with muskets, can fire and defend the man in front of him in the first rank without the latter being obliged to stoop. This avoids a serious disadvantage which is incurred in kneeling, a dangerous movement, because men who are afraid prefer this position. They cannot be made to get up when wanted and is always necessary to halt, to kneel. According to my formation, all the men are covered each by each other with reciprocal confidence.

• 55:36Jocko Willink?

  The front presents a forest of spears. Their appearance is formidable and gives confidence to your own troops because they feel its power. So, a couple of interesting things there. Obviously, it's a cover move situation and, and, and we're gonna work that out, but I thought beyond that, it was interesting that if you got a, if you're gonna take a knee, well, there's two things that are happening. Number one, you have to stop to take a knee. We're not advancing on our knees. And number two, people that are afraid, they wanna be down there. And it's gonna be hard to get them back up, so don't even let them get down there. Keep that momentum going.

• 56:12Jocko Willink?

  We're looking to keep that momentum going.

• 56:16Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. Those who imagine that, and I think I state this every time, usually around this point in the podcast, I'm skipping a lot of the book. It's just the way it is. We're not gonna read the whole book on here. You have to order it yourself if you wanna hear every secret of Sacks.

• 56:33Jocko Willink?

  Those who imagine that the Roman legions were composed of Romans from Rome are very much deceived. They came from all the nations in the world, but their composition, their discipline, and their methods of fighting were better than all those other nations. This is why they conquered them all. Neither were they conquered in their turn until this discipline had degenerated among the Romans.

• 57:03Jocko Willink?

  Discipline will get you a long way, and lack of discipline will get you killed. Disintegrated. It disintegrated. Talking more about cavalry here. The cavalry should be active and mounted on horses inured to fatigue. It should be encumbered with as little baggage as possible, and above all, should not make the common error of having fat horses.

• 57:29Jocko Willink?

  If they could see an enemy every day, it would only be better, for this would soon put them in a condition to attempt anything.

• 57:38Jocko Willink?

  It is certain that the power of cavalry has not understood why? Because of we have love for fat horses.

• 57:46Jocko Willink?

  I had a regiment of German cavalry in Poland with which I marched more than fifteen hundred leagues in eighteen months. I maintain that this regiment was more fit for service at the end of this time than another supplied with fat horses. But to reach this condition, they must be gradually accustomed to hardship and hardened by hunts and violent exercise. This will maintain their health and increase their endurance. Likewise, it will make cavalrymen of the troopers and give them a marshal bearing. So, you gotta train hard. I just read all that to basically say, you gotta train hard. You wanna be ready to fight, you gotta train how you fight.

• 58:32Jocko Willink?

  And don't get on a fat horse, apparently. I'll have to ask my wife about that one. She knows more about horses than me, or Leif.

• 58:39Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 58:40Jocko Willink?

  Leif knows about horses. He's from Texas. Everyone from Texas rides a horse.

• 58:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:45Jocko Willink?

  Is that the image?

• 58:46Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 58:46Jocko Willink?

  When I go, when I would go overseas, people thought everyone in America is basically carrying a pistol on them at all times. That's, that's the, that's the image that people have of America. I like that image for people to have of America too. I mean, I'm sure some people don't like that image, but yeah, you know? Be nice when you come here. You wanna come and visit? That's cool. We, we welcome visitors. Just be nice. Everyone's, everyone's carrying a forty-five in their back pocket.

• 59:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 59:16Speaker 01

  Can you carry a forty-five in your back pocket?

• 59:18Jocko Willink?

  You could, I mean.

• 59:19Speaker 01

  Would it recommend it?

• 59:20Jocko Willink?

  No, wouldn't recommend it. You get a holster.

• 59:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 59:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 59:24Speaker 01

  So back, that's more of an expression.

• 59:25Jocko Willink?

  No, no, it's not even an expression, but if you go to another country, they think that we've just got them in our back pocket.

• 59:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 59:32Jocko Willink?

  Like you carry a wallet and a forty-five.

• 59:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:34Jocko Willink?

  What? Next question. You see where I'm coming from here?

• 59:38Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 59:39Jocko Willink?

  That's how we roll. That's America.

• 59:43Jocko Willink?

  I do not, back to the book, I do not know why armor has been laid aside for the, for nothing is either so useful or ornamental. If it be considered how many troopers perish by the sword and how many are, how many many are dangerously wounded by random and weak shots, accident, accidents against which armor guarantees protection, one cannot avoid acknowledging the benefits of it.

• 1:00:10Jocko Willink?

  It is nothing but indolence and relaxation of discipline that caused it to be laid aside. It is wearisome to carry a queer ass and a trail pike and trail a pike half a century to use it a single day. But as soon as discipline is neglected in a nation, as soon as comfort becomes an aim, it needs no inspiration to foretell that ruin is near.

• 1:00:42Jocko Willink?

  The Romans conquered all peoples by their discipline. In the measure that it became corrupted, their success decreased. When the Emperor Gration permitted the legions to quit their curasses and helmets because the soldiers complained they were too heavy, all was lost. The barbarians whom they had defeated during so many centuries vanquished them.

• 1:01:09Jocko Willink?

  So that's all.

• 1:01:11Jocko Willink?

  That's all. People stop wearing their armor. Cause it's heavy. Body armor's heavy.

• 1:01:17Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:01:18Jocko Willink?

  Helmet, your helmet's heavy.

• 1:01:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:20Jocko Willink?

  You want that little tiny helmet. You want the, oh, let's take out the backplate of our body armor. It probably won't get shot there. No.

• 1:01:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. Was it, who was, was that Jody talking about that? Like?

• 1:01:31Jocko Willink?

  Oh, I think Jody. Yeah. Those guys going into that, they were, they were going into an operation. They didn't wear their body armor.

• 1:01:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. Cause they were like, dang.

• 1:01:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Not gonna happen. Oh, plus we, plus we, we lighten maneuverable. That's the thing you say.

• 1:01:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:46Speaker 01

  It's like skipping your workout and saying, well, I need to rest and like recover today. Kind of the same thing.

• 1:01:51Jocko Willink?

  Very similar. Yes. I'll give you that one.

• 1:01:53Speaker 01

  Skipping workouts every day.

• 1:01:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. He obviously, um, as soon as discipline is neglected in a nation, guess what? It's the same thing with your personal life. Obviously.

• 1:02:03Speaker 01

  Obviously.

• 1:02:06Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, the troopers should have a goat skin bottle like those used in hot countries instead of a canteen or a barrel to hold liquors in.

• 1:02:15Jocko Willink?

  This with his linen stockings, cap, cord, and a few other necessities is to be put in the bottom of a sack which will roll up with his coat and can be fastened with two straps behind him. This will reduce the monstrous load which is now carried by the cavalry. It is necessary from time to time to inspect the baggage and force the men to throw away useless items. I have frequently done it. One can hardly imagine all the trash they carry with them year after year. The poor horse has to carry everything. It is no exaggeration to say that I have filled twenty wagons with useless rubbish which I have found in the review of a single regiment.

• 1:02:53Jocko Willink?

  So, people will tend to carry a lot. A lot that they don't need. And that weighs down on you. I think I've talked about this before, but the back in the day we had these winter platoons, which I never did one. Out on the east coast, they had these winter platoons. And you're going long distance on cross-country skis, right? You know what those are? Yeah. Long, long distances and that is a very, you're basically like running a marathon. And so the guys were super anal about the weight that they carried. So like they would, you know how the backpack, a backpack has, you know, a strap that you pull, you pull to tighten it? They get it to the port where it was supposed to be, give it a little bit of slack and then cut

• 1:03:38Jocko Willink?

  the rest off and sew it. So they don't want to carry that little extra four inches of nylon. Not gonna do it. They had every piece of gear that they had would be like that. Yeah.

• 1:03:48Jocko Willink?

  The winter warriors, a team too.

• 1:03:52Jocko Willink?

  Here's an interesting thing. In passing through water, the horses must never be allowed to drink. A man who halts to water his horse will stop a whole army. When this happens, the officer should hasten to the spot and instead of fruitless reprimands and ill-timed mercy, they should instantly chastise the offender.

• 1:04:12Jocko Willink?

  Nothing is of such importance for the preservation of the cavalry. Otherwise, the affection the men they have for their horses will have them halting little or much, and then it is impossible for them to recover their ranks without galloping.

• 1:04:30Jocko Willink?

  Discipline. People get that little affection for their, for not just, you know, I wasn't thinking horses here. I was thinking about like being on a long patrol or in the workplace. You, you want your team to go and every time you, you grant that little bit of mercy. Right? Am I saying be merciless, save driver? No, but when you do it, you start to develop that trend. And now it throws other things off and sometimes you just gotta be, hey, no, be quiet and execute.

• 1:04:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:58Jocko Willink?

  We gotta go.

• 1:05:00Jocko Willink?

  Gotta go.

• 1:05:04Jocko Willink?

  In time of peace and in winter quarters in time of war, their horses should be kept in condition by violent exercise or runs at least three times a week. I like this idea of violent exercise. I'm gonna start doing more violent exercising. Yeah, that's good. I like violent exercising. The same severe usage is also proper for the heavy cavalry charge at those times. It is in the field, it is only in the field that they must be managed carefully to keep them in flesh and the squadrons complete and strong. And this is interesting. The best chance of teaching them to stand fire is when the infantry is practicing. They should advance on the fire and walk.

• 1:05:49Jocko Willink?

  And be kept calm, accosting, accosting them to go closer and closer. They should never be beaten, but stroked and encouraged, encouraged in the space of a month. They will be so accustomed to it that they will even put their nose on the muzzle of the muskets without any fright or surprise, then they are all right. Nevertheless, they should not be allowed to approach too close for once they get burned, you will not be able to bring them near again. This ordeal must be reserved for the day of battle. That was good. That to me reminded me of what Jordan Peterson was talking about and where the warrior kid, how you slowly inoculate people. You don't throw them into the, you don't bring them right up to the firing line and start shooting the guns and let them get freaked out horribly.

• 1:06:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:34Jocko Willink?

  You bring them a little distance, you let them listen from afar and then you bring them a little bit closer. And then next thing you know, they're good to go, they're standing in line. What do you call that? What did Jordan Peterson call that?

• 1:06:45Speaker 01

  Exposure. Yeah, gradual exposure therapy.

• 1:06:47Jocko Willink?

  Exposure.

• 1:06:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. Graduated. Exposure therapy, something.

• 1:06:52Jocko Willink?

  It's something, yeah, it was something like that.

• 1:06:57Jocko Willink?

  Cover move, little bit of that. I am convinced every unit that is not supported is a defeated organization. Infantry should always be supported by cavalry and cavalry by infantry. Cover move. Work together. Support. Here's a little note back to the book. The general or commander in chief of an army should have a standard to be carried ahead of him as a mark of his rank. So he's talking about flags. This is, this also has a purpose. Anyone searching for him will know instantly where to find him, especially in battle, and the troops seeing the standard will know that

• 1:07:36Jocko Willink?

  the general is observing them. So, one thing we did, and they do in the military is they, when you're giving your brief on how the mission's gonna go, your brief location of leadership. They say, okay, guys, we're gonna take down these eight buildings. I'll be here in this building on the top floor. Boom. So if you need me, know where to come find me. Something happens, hey, where's this platoon leader gonna be? Yep, once we get our targets clear, I'm gonna come over here, I'm gonna stand on the backside where the breach took place if you need me. That's where I'll be. So everyone, so you know where everyone is.

• 1:08:04Speaker 01

  And is he talking about like having a standard that's like a symbol?

• 1:08:08Jocko Willink?

  It's a flag, yeah, yeah.

• 1:08:09Speaker 01

  So an actual flag?

• 1:08:10Jocko Willink?

  Yep, an actual flag.

• 1:08:11Speaker 01

  So you guys wouldn't really?

• 1:08:13Jocko Willink?

  No, we didn't do that.

• 1:08:14Speaker 01

  Because, isn't there like a thing?

• 1:08:16Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 1:08:17Speaker 01

  That's saying like, hey, you don't want, like, what was it? I wanna say saving private, right? It's like, don't salute.

• 1:08:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:08:23Speaker 01

  Me or whatever, cuz I don't want the enemy to see where.

• 1:08:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you definitely don't want to mark your position.

• 1:08:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:08:30Jocko Willink?

  Like, like these guys are doing. And as a matter of fact, and I'm trying to think of what book we recently did where he was talking about, like, yeah, if you're seen running around, if you're a radioman, or you're seen running around giving direction, you're gonna get shot.

• 1:08:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, the officer, that was like a Vietnam.

• 1:08:47Jocko Willink?

  I think it was, I think it was the Battle of Li Dang. But yeah, they're talking about that. Oh yeah, it definitely was the Battle of Yedreng. It was because when they were leaving, they said like within, within minutes, the leaders had been killed.

• 1:08:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:00Jocko Willink?

  The radioman had been killed. The ones that were still with their elements. So yeah, that's not something you want to do, but what we would do is brief where we're gonna be so that everyone on the team knew. Based on a terrain feature.

• 1:09:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:13Jocko Willink?

  You know, hey, here's this, here's this building, or here's this knoll of this mountain, or here's this intersection, this road. That's where I'll be. That's where I'm, that's where I'm planning to be. So now people know where you are.

• 1:09:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, makes sense. And I mean, he had an additional thing there when, when he said, um.

• 1:09:29Speaker 01

  So that you know the general's watching.

• 1:09:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:31Speaker 01

  Kind of thing. I guess that wouldn't really apply to your situation, right?

• 1:09:35Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 1:09:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:36Jocko Willink?

  It wouldn't apply. Although, like in the military, when the general is visiting and is a two-star general, they raise a two-star flag.

• 1:09:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:45Jocko Willink?

  So everyone knows he's there.

• 1:09:45Speaker 01

  There it is, yeah.

• 1:09:46Jocko Willink?

  Very similar, yeah.

• 1:09:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, okay, so I guess, yeah, you're right. So it'll be real circumstantial, like during a war.

• 1:09:52Jocko Willink?

  You're not gonna do it in a combat situation.

• 1:09:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, gotcha.

• 1:09:56Jocko Willink?

  Now, he talks about the companies, and again, he calls them sentries. Which is basically a company-sized element of around a hundred guys. And he's saying that they should have their own little symbols as well, and their own standards. Back to the book, if the standards are distinguished by their different colors, the actions of every sentry will be conspicuous. This will create the greatest emulation because both officers and soldiers will know that they are seen. And that their countenance, conduct, and behavior are not ignored by the rest of the army. The men as well as the officers will tell of it. In the field and in garrison, their exploits will be constant, the constant subject of conversation.

• 1:10:37Jocko Willink?

  I, I, I thought that was kind of a cool idea, you know, if you're, if you're flying the flag. Then people are watching you, and so you better act, you better come correct.

• 1:10:48Speaker 01

  You better represent.

• 1:10:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you better represent.

• 1:10:49Speaker 01

  Actually, I like come correct.

• 1:10:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:51Speaker 01

  Come correct.

• 1:10:56Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, after the organization of military troops, military discipline is the first matter that presents itself. It is the soul of armies.

• 1:11:08Jocko Willink?

  That has such a nice ring to it.

• 1:11:11Jocko Willink?

  It's the soul of the individual as well, but I suppose we'll talk about that later. Back to the book, if it is not established with wisdom and maintained with unshakable resolution, you will have no soldiers. Regiments and armies will be only contemptible armed mobs, more dangerous to their own country than the enemy. It is a false idea that discipline, subordination, and slavish obedience debase courage. It has always been noted that it is with those armies in which the severest discipline is enforced that the greatest deeds are performed. Many generals believe that they have done everything as soon as they have issued orders

• 1:11:54Jocko Willink?

  and that they are, and they order a great deal because they find many abuses. So he's saying they're like, when a general feels like, he's talking about a bad general, when a general feels like they've done everything as soon as they've given their order and since that's what they do, they give all kinds of orders. I'm gonna order you to do this, I'm gonna order you to do that, I'm gonna order you to do something else. Here's what he says, "This is a false principle. Proceeding in this fashion, they will never reestablish discipline in an army in which it has been lost or weakened. Few orders are best, but they should be followed up with care.

• 1:12:33Jocko Willink?

  Negligence should be punished without partiality and without distinction of rank or birth. Otherwise, you will make yourself hated. One can be exact and just, and be loved at the same time as feared. Severity must be accompanied with kindness, but this should not have the appearance of pretense but of goodness." And this is just a little note I thought everyone should know, whippings need not be severe. The more moderate they are, the more quickly will abuses be remedied, since all the world will join in ending them. So even when you're whipping your people, you know, be a little bit more judicious.

• 1:13:21Jocko Willink?

  We have a, this is, this is good too. We have a pernicious custom in France of always punishing with death. A soldier caught pillaging is hung. The result, now what do you think the result of that would be that he's gonna say? I'm quizzing you.

• 1:13:36Speaker 01

  Uh, if you hang somebody?

• 1:13:38Jocko Willink?

  If you, if you um, are pillaging, caught pillaging, you're gonna get hung. What, what do you think the, what do you think that happens because of that?

• 1:13:46Speaker 01

  Happens to who?

• 1:13:47Jocko Willink?

  What do you think?

• 1:13:48Speaker 01

  Why should we not hang people for pillaging?

• 1:13:51Jocko Willink?

  Do you think there's a lot of pillaging going on? If you get caught pillaging, they hang you. Or your fellow soldiers. Do you think they pillage?

• 1:13:58Speaker 01

  I say no.

• 1:13:59Jocko Willink?

  Okay, you're wrong. The result is that no one arrests him because they do not want to cause the death of a poor devil who is only trying to live.

• 1:14:09Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 1:14:09Jocko Willink?

  If instead, we were only turned him over to the guard to be put in chains and condemned to bread and water for one, two, or three months, or put to work in, in, at any of the labors that always have to be done in any army, and then they were sent to his regiment before a battle, or when the general wished, everyone would agree with this punishment and the officers of the patrols would arrest them by the hundreds. Soon there would be no pillaging because everyone would join in putting it under control. So.

• 1:14:34Speaker 01

  Dang, that makes sense.

• 1:14:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that is, yeah. The reason I asked you that, which I don't normally do, is because I thought the same thing. I was like, oh, what's, where's he going with this? Oh yeah, it's obvious once you think about it. You're not gonna report one of your guys for stealing something if the punishment was death.

• 1:14:49Speaker 01

  Brad, you know what that is? That's like, that's like small picture versus big picture. Small pic, the small picture is like, yeah, cuz, cuz you just look at it as yourself, right? You get your bubble in your head, you're like, I wouldn't pillage if the, if the, if it was death. I wouldn't pillage. And that's how you're looking at it. But no, big picture is like, eh, eh, apply that to everyone. Apply it to the whole community. Exactly right. If you tell on this guy pillaging, you just sentenced him to death. If you tell on him, maybe you turn him in or whatever, that's what you did.

• 1:15:15Jocko Willink?

  Good point, and it's, I just remembered, somebody pointed out to me, you remember Rifleman Harris, and it starts off when Rifleman Harris has to execute a guy? And I said, I, I said on the podcast, hey, this guy's getting executed basically for desertion and being drunk. What I didn't realize is, if somebody sent me an email or a social media message, they said, hey, the reason that guy was getting executed was because he had taken the money for like sixteen enlistments? And kept disappearing. So, when you, you get a signing bonus, hey, here's, here's. It's probably nothing, but you know, here's, here's ten quid or pound sterling or whatever. Here's ten pound sterling. Oh, you're joining the army? Cool. Here's ten.

• 1:15:58Jocko Willink?

  And then you take that money, go get drunk and get crazy. And then you do it again, and then you do it again in a different area because they have no internet. They have no way of knowing that this is the guy. When they finally catch him, he's getting sentenced to death. Now, do I think he should get sentenced to death either for that? Not really, but he was doing something more severe than what I had mentioned on the podcast. So I just wanted to, while I'm thinking about that, set the record straight. But the, the main point here for me is the secondary effects, right? You think you're gonna have, the primary effect is, oh, if we do this, no one's gonna, if we're gonna kill you if you get caught pillaging, no one's gonna, no one's gonna pillage anymore.

• 1:16:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:32Jocko Willink?

  No, actually, no one's gonna report it anymore because your punishment is too

• 1:16:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:36Jocko Willink?

  strong. This is also how, this is also how and why, when people think that, oh, if someone's in the military, the soldiers just do what they're told. Wrong! The soldiers actually, there, there's secondary effects. Oh, you're gonna kill the guys? No, we're not gonna report it then.

• 1:16:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:52Jocko Willink?

  So there's, there's secondary effects, even though they've been ordered to do that and they're soldiers and they have discipline, they've been trained. He's bragging about discipline all the time. Guess what? They don't follow that order because the order sucks. And that's what we gotta remember, not just about the military, but about business too. You give people dumb orders or you give people things that don't make sense, they're not really gonna execute it the way you'd want them to. And I'll tell you something else, you don't want them to execute that way. Because if they got hundreds of people pillaging and you now end up murdering hundreds of your own people, you're affecting your own army. You're gonna get deserters.

• 1:17:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:18Jocko Willink?

  I don't wanna work in an army like that. The same thing with the business. You start laying out severe punishment, punishment that doesn't make sense, isn't reciprocal to the crime that was committed. I mean, you pillage, think about what pillaging is. I took some bread from the store.

• 1:17:31Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:17:32Jocko Willink?

  Cool. We're gonna shoot you in the head.

• 1:17:35Speaker 01

  Dang.

• 1:17:36Jocko Willink?

  The punishment did not fit the crime.

• 1:17:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:38Jocko Willink?

  In that case.

• 1:17:41Jocko Willink?

  All right. He, he, he's talking about where to build, where to build tactical positions. And he says, and this is just the same thing he said earlier about people, but he's talking about,

• 1:17:53Jocko Willink?

  basically talking about terrain now. Nature is infinitely stronger than the works of man. Why not profit from it? Meaning, use a river, use a hill, use, use terrain to build your defensive positions. Don't just use a shovel.

• 1:18:09Jocko Willink?

  Same thing that he talked about earlier with, with human beings.

• 1:18:15Jocko Willink?

  Now, another piece. Many persons believe that is advantageous to take the field early. And this is coming right back, Sun Tzu art of war, be there first.

• 1:18:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:28Jocko Willink?

  Sax maybe doesn't agree with that a little bit here. They are right when it's a question of seizing an important post. Otherwise, it seems to me that there is no need to hasten and that one should remain in winter quarters longer than usual. So he goes on to talk, winter quarters means you're, you're gonna go out in the field. Well, we're gonna go out in the field now. And we're gonna be cold, wet and miserable for the next three days while we wait for the enemy to show up. And now they show up fresh, who's gonna do better in the battle?

• 1:18:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:56Jocko Willink?

  So just to think about, I used to say,

• 1:19:00Jocko Willink?

  the, the military used to say all the time, you know, you gotta be forward leaning. Have you ever heard that expression?

• 1:19:04Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:19:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you gotta be forward leaning. And I would say, let's not be so forward leaning that we're in the leaning rest. The leaning rest is the push-up position.

• 1:19:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:12Jocko Willink?

  Which they would leave you in for a long periods of time.

• 1:19:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:15Jocko Willink?

  A lot of different training situations. So sometimes you get so proactive, you get so leaning forward, a forward leaning, that you're in the leaning rest and you're wasting energy just trying to be all prepared. Like, no. Like, y- y- you'd see some guys warm up. You do such a good warm-up that you're tired.

• 1:19:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:31Jocko Willink?

  You went so far forward leaning that you're in the leaning rest. And then the other thing is to not warm up at all. Now you're not ready. So you gotta find, well, you got, that's the dichotomy of leadership. You gotta find a balance between those two.

• 1:19:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:43Jocko Willink?

  Another good point here, back to the book. It is absolutely necessary to accustom soldiers to labor. If we examine Roman history, we find, we shall find that republic looked on ease and indolence as the most formidable enemies.

• 1:20:03Jocko Willink?

  The consuls prepared their legions for battle by rendering them indefatigable.

• 1:20:09Jocko Willink?

  Rather than have them idle, they employed them on unnecessary works. Continual exercise makes good soldiers because it qualifies them for military duties. By being habituated to pain, they insensibly learn to despise danger.

• 1:20:29Jocko Willink?

  The transition from fatigue to rest enervates them, meaning weakens them. They compare one state with another, and idleness, that predominant passion of mankind gains ascendancy over them. They then murmur at every trifling inconvenience and their souls soften in their emasculated bodies.

• 1:20:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so what he's saying is, people get used to the soft ways, people get used to the easy life. And if you let him get used to it, like, you, you, when you want to do something hard, when it's time to do something hard, you're not ready for it. Yep. Every minute that Charlie's out in the bush getting stronger, every time I'm, every night I'm spending in this hotel, apocalypse now. Every night I'm sitting in this hotel getting softer, every night Charlie's out in the bush getting stronger. That's what he's talking about here. Yep. That's what he's talking about. But now, do I agree with having people do unnecessary works? No, I don't, because people see right through that and it just, you're just being stupid and taking... They're gonna see that. They're gonna say, "Why are we doing this? Dig the hole, fill it back up, dig the hole, fill it back up."

• 1:21:38Jocko Willink?

  No, don't do that. But you know what? We're gonna do a training exercise. We're gonna do a training exercise, we're gonna get stronger, we're gonna get, we're gonna dig a hole, we're gonna put, you know, set it up for a perimeter. Then we're gonna move to another situation as if we have to back away or, or collapse our perimeter. Because when you collapse a perimeter, you gotta fill that hole back in, otherwise when the enemy comes to attack you, they use it. Yeah. So you gotta fill that hole back in, so let's run a real drill. Yeah. And by the way, let's make it into a little contest and see how fast we can dig in. And then once we get it dug in, we're gonna set up, we're gonna see how fast we can collapse it, get it filled back in. We're doing it, at the end of it, we're gonna give out some, you know, some prizes and have a beer. Yeah, that's a good tactic, by the way, like to make a, um...

• 1:22:18Speaker 01

  Whether it be a game or

• 1:22:19Jocko Willink?

  Oh yeah.

• 1:22:19Speaker 01

  Basically make it, yeah, you totally

• 1:22:21Jocko Willink?

  Where's Jay Charles? Gamify.

• 1:22:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:23Jocko Willink?

  Jay Charles wants to gamify.

• 1:22:24Speaker 01

  Gamification.

• 1:22:25Jocko Willink?

  Gamification.

• 1:22:26Speaker 01

  The, like if you're moving, you know, you know, when you're moving.

• 1:22:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:30Speaker 01

  Your house or whatever. And um.

• 1:22:31Jocko Willink?

  How fast can I get the stuff packed up?

• 1:22:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, let me use it as a little workout, little metcon. We gotta move all these boxes upstairs, two floors, whatever.

• 1:22:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:39Speaker 01

  You know, let me use it as a workout. It kinda makes it more enjoyable as well.

• 1:22:43Jocko Willink?

  Definitely does.

• 1:22:44Speaker 01

  But at the same time, you get the results of a, of a little workout right there. Here, let me ask you this about that, when you said you didn't agree with the unnecessary, unnecessary work. So what about um, like pushups as punishment? For example, or cat or exercise?

• 1:22:57Jocko Willink?

  That's an interesting one, cuz, cuz I think, I think like with kids, if you make burpees a punishment, they don't like burpees.

• 1:23:04Speaker 01

  They don't like them, yeah.

• 1:23:05Jocko Willink?

  If you make it a reward, they like them, then you're better off.

• 1:23:07Speaker 01

  Exactly right, yeah, I agree. I do that, by the way.

• 1:23:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's good. You make it a reward.

• 1:23:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, like

• 1:23:11Jocko Willink?

  Wow.

• 1:23:12Speaker 01

  Only the cool people do burpees. That's what they see dad doing burpees, dad doing, you know, these whatever exercises, whatever. Only cool people do it. I kinda push hard on that too, but it's unfair. But no, the, the question is though, in the military, in the military.

• 1:23:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:27Speaker 01

  Not kids.

• 1:23:28Jocko Willink?

  No, calisthenics are definitely punishment in the military.

• 1:23:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, straight up.

• 1:23:31Jocko Willink?

  And it's not until you transition out of the bootcamp scenario that you get away from that. Now, in the SEAL teams, like, they don't, you don't do calisthenics as punishment. I will say that if you mess up, like for instance, when I was running training, if the guys performed poorly, they were gonna have more downed men. Again, this is training, I'm talking about fake down men, but they're gonna have more men that couldn't walk. That's more men that have to be carried. That's punishment in its own right.

• 1:24:05Speaker 01

  That's a punishment.

• 1:24:06Jocko Willink?

  That's a punishment. If you

• 1:24:09Jocko Willink?

  When I was running a communications course when I was a younger enlisted SEAL. If you missed a communications window, you had to walk a longer distance.

• 1:24:18Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:24:19Jocko Willink?

  If you missed multiple, you're gonna have to walk tragic distances.

• 1:24:23Speaker 01

  But that wasn't just a natural result of you missing, missing. It was, did you impose that punishment?

• 1:24:29Jocko Willink?

  It was imposed.

• 1:24:29Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:24:29Jocko Willink?

  Yes, it was imposed and they knew it was imposed.

• 1:24:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, okay.

• 1:24:32Jocko Willink?

  And, and so, yeah, you, if you miss, in the SEAL teams, if you miss the extraction point with a boat's coming to pick you up after a dive. Well, now you gotta swim to the new, new pickup point. Guess what? The new pickup point isn't close.

• 1:24:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:48Jocko Willink?

  Because you've compromised now. You're above the surface. You need to get away.

• 1:24:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:52Jocko Willink?

  And so that means you gotta swim an extra, you know, maybe it's an extra hour of surface swimming with a rig on, which is not fun, by the way.

• 1:24:59Speaker 01

  It doesn't sound fun.

• 1:25:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, cuz you can't, you're, you're not just, you're not just having fun, right? It's called turtlebacking. You're laying on your back cuz it's really awkward. It's, it's, it's comfortable to dive with our dive rig. We have a dive rig. That's, it's called a rebreather and it goes on your chest and it's small. It's not, it's not tiny.

• 1:25:19Speaker 01

  It's closed circuit?

• 1:25:20Jocko Willink?

  It's closed circuit. Yeah, look at you. Look at you, big time. So it's a closed circuit dive rig, but when it runs out, you can't, doesn't work anymore. So you have to swim and we do something called turtleback generally, which is basically you're laying on your back and you're just finning. And it takes a long time to move very far and it's not comfortable. So the punishment is, in training, if you miss your extraction point, that's fine. You just gotta swim to the alternate extraction point. The alternate extraction point is not gonna be close by.

• 1:25:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:51Jocko Willink?

  Because you screwed up.

• 1:25:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:53Jocko Willink?

  Same thing with if you miss your helicopter extraction.

• 1:25:56Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:25:56Jocko Willink?

  Because you took too long on target and you got bogged down and it took you a long time to move all these downed people. That's, I mean, it happens. We understand that.

• 1:26:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:04Jocko Willink?

  But now you have to walk to the secondary extraction point, which happens to be six kilometers up a hill.

• 1:26:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. See, but that's to, to me, and this is me thinking, whatever, 10 seconds about it. That seems like. That makes perfect sense. In fact, that seems like a cool little strategy because in real life, that's how it works. You miss the bus, you ride the bus to school. You miss the bus, you're walking to school or riding your bike, whatever. It's kind of that thing. That's, that's how life deals it to you a lot of the time, like these types of things, what you're saying.

• 1:26:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:36Speaker 01

  But let's say, hey, you, you know, your shoes aren't shined or whatever. I don't know. Aren't shined, give me 50 pushups.

• 1:26:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, they don't do that. Well, they don't do it in the SEAL teams. They definitely do it in the army. They definitely do it in the Rangers. The Rangers, they're dropping down all the time.

• 1:26:51Speaker 01

  Right, right, right.

• 1:26:52Jocko Willink?

  And, but no, we don't do that.

• 1:26:54Speaker 01

  So that's the question though. Do you, do you agree with that? Or do you even think about that kind of stuff?

• 1:26:59Jocko Willink?

  I don't think about that kind of stuff. I think being, I would say that I, that I would not do it. When I was in a military leadership position, just because I would rather, I don't know.

• 1:27:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's weird. It feels like it, like just like you're.

• 1:27:15Jocko Willink?

  Like it makes sense when I know that the army runs it that way. It makes sense. And by the way, when the army does it, and I, I shouldn't even say anything else about the way the army does it because I'm not, I don't know exactly how they implement that strategy. So next time we have Tim Kennedy on, we'll get him to give us a full debrief on that. We'll get another, another Ranger on here to give us a full debrief on that.

• 1:27:35Speaker 01

  Here's something. So I was watching the show, it was random, this random show, me and my wife, before we were married, when we were just dating, whatever. We'd watch these random shows and it was a, kind of like a reality show, kind of like a competition show, but it was, I think, Army. Like, you know, you grab regular people, put them in an Army scenario, you give them like missions and it's like.

• 1:27:55Jocko Willink?

  Cause they have a Ranger, they have a best Ranger. Every year they have a best Ranger competition, which is a really hardcore competition.

• 1:28:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, it was, it's, you know, it's a lot like the FTX, a lot like that, but it's a whole, like, you know, you're there for like a month or whatever. And same, but a lot of drill sergeant type situations, dropping, give me 20, 50, whatever, right? So it was towards the end of the season or whatever, and this girl was like. She was like dang, look how strong and like muscular my arms are now. Just from all the pushups we had to do and stuff like that, just by happenstance. Sure, she was getting punished. Sure, she was learning to, you know, follow directions more meticulously and all the stuff that you learn from, you know, the whole, you know, orders versus punishment situation. But as kind of a byproduct, if you will, she has some physical strength now, you know? I wonder if that has something to do with it?

• 1:28:45Jocko Willink?

  Definitely, you're definitely, you're definitely making people stronger. There's no doubt about it. And that's all, that's all positive, for sure.

• 1:28:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there's, there's no doubt. The, the great byproduct of, of calisthenics as punishment is you get stronger.

• 1:28:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:59Jocko Willink?

  In, but like in the seals, it's weird. It's weird. It's not a thing.

• 1:29:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:06Jocko Willink?

  It's not a thing. Like, hey, you're gonna drop down and give me 50. Like that literally, I never saw that happen a single. It might have happened with new guys sometimes. Like occasionally like a new guy that you're not getting through to him. Okay, guess what? But even with new guys, if you really want to get through to a new guy, what you want them to be good at is tactics, not pushups. People in teams, you're supposed to do pushups on your own, man.

• 1:29:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's kind of what it seems like.

• 1:29:29Jocko Willink?

  We're not in here to teach you how to do pushups. Like you need to, you need to be in shape, but we want to make you better tactically.

• 1:29:35Speaker 01

  Better things to do, is what I was gonna say. But here, but at the same time, you can't help but wonder, maybe that's just like, that's a certain way of looking at it, which is good. It seems obvious, seems effective to me, but what if there's something like that? You know, like something from back in the day, some old school fundamental principle that that's kind of why you do it. That's super effective.

• 1:29:56Jocko Willink?

  Maybe that's why in the teams, they don't do it because they want you to be self-disciplined.

• 1:30:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, like specifically.

• 1:30:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, not, not self, not disciplined by the group, but, but yeah, you don't want to impose discipline.

• 1:30:10Jocko Willink?

  So, well, regardless, I think that you should train hard because you don't want to have your soul get softened inside of your emasculated body. That just sounds like something I don't want to be a part of. So I'll keep training. Back to the book, there is more skill in, one might think, in, than my, than one might think, in making poor dispositions intentionally, but one must be able to change them into good ones in an instant. So he's talking about how you set yourself up in a bad position only to. Let the enemy try and maneuver on that, but you're waiting for them to be ready and do something. You change your position and do something good.

• 1:30:53Jocko Willink?

  Like in jujitsu, when you let someone set up a triangle, but you're just trying to pass their guard. Gotcha, yeah. Nothing is more disconcerting to the enemy. He has counted on a certain thing, has disposed himself accordingly, and at the instant of attacking, it has changed. So this is, this is pretty cool, right? This is a good thing to remember. I like what he talked about is psychological effect that it has on the enemy. So the enemy sees something, they expect something, they want something to go a certain way. So they arrange themselves for it and then right when they're getting ready to execute it, they realize it wasn't what they thought. And he says, there's nothing more disconcerting. And I'd say that's true with a person too.

• 1:31:38Jocko Willink?

  You know, the unexpected is what disturbs people, especially, you see this all the time in MMA, where a guy gets close to a submission and then the other guy gets out. Yeah. And he expended so much energy, you can see the, you can see the, the moral draining from their face. Yeah, it's bad. I get that sometimes. Do you? Sometimes.

• 1:32:01Jocko Willink?

  He goes on, I repeat, nothing confuses him so greatly and leads him into more serious faults. If he does not change his disposition, he will be defeated. And if he changes them in the presence of the enemy, he will still be defeated. Human spirit cannot meet it.

• 1:32:27Jocko Willink?

  I'm trying to think of how that affects someone's psyche. Oh yeah, it affects, it definitely affects you psychologically. Like you throw the, you think you're gonna get this person the triangle, you put it on there and then all of a sudden, boom, you realize it's not just that you missed the triangle, it's you realize that you got played. You got played, yeah, you got set right up. And that doesn't feel good and that can definitely hurt your morale. Yeah, yeah, big time. That's a little different than just missing the move. When you realize you got set up for that.

• 1:32:53Speaker 01

  It messes up your whole game, so, okay, so you roll with stilts, right?

• 1:32:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:57Speaker 01

  Okay, so that's, that's, I don't wanna say that's his whole game, but that's his game right there. So, like, if you go, you know, side control or mount or whatever, he has dangerous moves.

• 1:33:07Jocko Willink?

  He wants you there.

• 1:33:08Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly right. So, it's like, and every once in a while, you get rolling with him like kinda hard. It'll seem like he's trying to defend the mount, but he's really letting you think that you got them out. Right? You know, cuz you know, if you're like, if someone's letting you mount, you know they're letting you mount. And if they're gonna spring some sort of a trap, it's gonna be more obvious if they're letting you do it. But you get him where he kinda lets you do it to the point where you don't realize he's letting you. Yeah, you just got, and then again, and then after a while, he keeps doing stuff like that too. You're like, bro, I don't even really wanna do anything to him. Cuz he's just gonna, this is just a bunch of traps right now. So it messes up your whole game. You can't do anything.

• 1:33:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:43Speaker 01

  Like, on your own accord, though. It's not like he's preventing you from doing anything.

• 1:33:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:47Speaker 01

  It's like you're preventing yourself now.

• 1:33:49Jocko Willink?

  That's a, that's a situation you have to deal with.

• 1:33:54Speaker 01

  But actually, I figured it out. I figured out in, um, I didn't figure it out. I figured out a method to deal with just that whole scenario, with him, by the way. And he even, like, asked me afterwards. So I was like, oh, let's, I was going hard and I was, you know how you get real, like, weary, like, okay, I know he's gonna send me a, so it was real uneventful roll. So I was like, hey, let's go roll again. And then I just loosened up and basically allowed him to spring whatever trap he wants. And he, then he did all this stuff and he was like, hey, you were rolling a lot lighter in that time. I was like, no, bro, I'm just trying to, I'm trying to turn on the lights to all your traps that you set, you know? So it's kinda like that thing. Just comes with like the type of training, like you can't regard the training as a competition.

• 1:34:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:36Speaker 01

  You know, you gotta go in and be like.

• 1:34:38Jocko Willink?

  Otherwise, you are not learning anything.

• 1:34:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. But man, in a, in a war, battle, or in a competition scenario, it's like, it'll mess you up big time.

• 1:34:46Jocko Willink?

  I'm trying to think if I ever got played like that on the battlefield. You know, sometimes we'd hit a target and it was real obvious that.

• 1:34:56Jocko Willink?

  You know, we had been, I wouldn't say set up, but like, there's no one there. Like, clearly, the information that we got was wrong. And you'd be kinda like, dang, you know? Be like, nah, that wasn't good.

• 1:35:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, and really, on a real rudimentary level, that's what an IED is. You know, it's like, they wanna make it look like a trash can or a regular, something you have to address, or something like that, you know, some, a place where you have to go anyway. The road, I don't know, on a real simple level, that's kinda what that is. So now you're like, shoot, now we gotta be weary of everyday things? Normal protocol, we gotta be weary of that?

• 1:35:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's a, that's a, that's a digger on the psychology, for sure. Back to the book, I do not care for either one.

• 1:35:38Jocko Willink?

  Oh, sorry, it says lines and entrenchments, so he's talking about lines and entrenchments, meaning defensive positions. I do not care for either the one or the other of these works. When I hear talk of lines, I always think I am hearing of talk of the walls of China. The good ones are those that nature has made. And the good entrenchments are good dispositions and brave soldiers.

• 1:36:07Jocko Willink?

  Again, just capitalizing on nature and saying that brave soldiers are more important than your position.

• 1:36:15Jocko Willink?

  Man always fears the consequences of danger more than danger itself.

• 1:36:22Jocko Willink?

  Totally true.

• 1:36:25Jocko Willink?

  When, and I'll tell you what's equally, or you could throw in there is the anticipation of danger is probably the worst thing. You know, I see this, I see a lot of kids on the wrestling mat right now, cause it's wrestling season. And you can see that kids are getting nervous before they get on the mat, but then once they get on the mat, they're in the game.

• 1:36:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:43Jocko Willink?

  And now you're, now you're doing your job. But the anticipation of what could happen.

• 1:36:49Jocko Willink?

  Drives people crazy.

• 1:36:50Speaker 01

  When is that like, you know, cause you got it. You felt that before, or you know, back the day when we were competing.

• 1:36:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:56Speaker 01

  That like in jujitsu tournaments, the worst, especially back, actually your, one of your last competitions was my first competition. By the way, yeah.

• 1:37:06Jocko Willink?

  Where was that?

• 1:37:07Speaker 01

  In LA, it was called like the Pan Am's of submission grappling. It wasn't the Pan Am's Pan Am's. It was like, I think like submission grappling. It was no.

• 1:37:16Jocko Willink?

  How did I do?

• 1:37:17Speaker 01

  Uh, I don't know. I don't remember. Yeah. I remember seeing all the pictures because one of the, it's funny, one of like, it's not an iconic. It was a tournament. Yeah. So remember Alicia photos, remember that?

• 1:37:28Jocko Willink?

  Who ran it? Who ran it? Who ran the tournament?

• 1:37:30Speaker 01

  I have no idea. I didn't even know there was tournaments and I saw one or, or Brandon at the time was like, yeah, the term I was like, oh, we can have tournaments. I was like, boom. So I just jumped on it real quick.

• 1:37:39Jocko Willink?

  What was the iconic photo?

• 1:37:41Speaker 01

  I say it's iconic because it's a kind of a long story.

• 1:37:44Jocko Willink?

  Strong word?

• 1:37:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, very strong. It's not iconic at all actually, but it's, okay, I'm so I'm, we, I have this guy. His name is, um, Jim. You probably know him, Jim. He, uh, I have him in a, it's not an American, it's a straight arm lock. And I, I wound up tapping him out and Alicia photos. So that was the photographer at the time, the main one had a really good picture of it. It was such a good picture. It was in the front of her website, the picture, right? That's why I call it iconic photo.

• 1:38:15Speaker 01

  Full on novice.

• 1:38:16Jocko Willink?

  Everyone knows that photo. Everyone.

• 1:38:18Speaker 01

  They probably do if they're competing back in the day, if they know Alicia photos. Anyway, um, the full on like novice division. I was like, I'd been trained for two months, twice a week, by the way, for two months, boom, no.

• 1:38:31Jocko Willink?

  Still just dominating out there. Look at you.

• 1:38:33Speaker 01

  Winning, but no, I actually lost. I lost my first match, took third, nonetheless, doesn't matter. Um, so I know that you did it because when I was looking through the pictures, it was you compete. I think you were competing against like So Could You or somebody, I think. But I remember it was you.

• 1:38:50Jocko Willink?

  Competed against, so could you.

• 1:38:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, it was maybe, I don't know, some other black guy. But I don't know. I remember it was you because I remember like you.

• 1:38:58Jocko Willink?

  I'll have to check that out.

• 1:38:59Speaker 01

  Nonetheless, um.

• 1:39:00Jocko Willink?

  Have to explore that.

• 1:39:01Speaker 01

  But, uh, what was the point? Oh, yeah. Uh, waiting for the match is like, that's the nerve wracking part. Like rolling, even when you step on the match and you see the guy in front of you getting right, but that's not nerve wracking at all. That's like every day you see that.

• 1:39:13Jocko Willink?

  There was a iconic picture of Sarge. This is pretty iconic and he was going against one of the Gracies kids. So it was Henner or

• 1:39:27Speaker 01

  I think it was Holic.

• 1:39:27Jocko Willink?

  Was it Holic?

• 1:39:28Speaker 01

  I think so, yeah.

• 1:39:28Jocko Willink?

  And he's, but he's double legging. You know what I'm saying?

• 1:39:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:31Jocko Willink?

  Sarge has got like the savage double leg, which Sarge has a savage double leg. Uh, it's another thing when I see these, uh, by the way, talking about Brian Sargent, uh, one of my buddies who has a jujitsu school in Connecticut. It's called Jujitsu Life. But he is, he's a good wrestler, but when I see these kids and he, he wrestled at Poway High School, which is a one of the best wrestling high schools. Maybe in the country. I mean, it's definitely incredible program and he went there and wrestled there. And I see occasionally I'll see a kid that's just has Sarge's attitude.

• 1:40:11Jocko Willink?

  And I saw one at this last tournament. This kid was just all over hitting. I mean, it, it looked, it didn't look fair, right? I mean, he was just murdering. This kid from Poway was getting after it. It was pretty awesome to watch. And you could see just boom, boom, boom is hitting the doubles, but it reminded me of the iconic picture of Sarge.

• 1:40:33Speaker 01

  Oh, there's a picture of it.

• 1:40:34Jocko Willink?

  So, yeah, there's a picture of Sarge and they put him on, they, it was, it was, it was one of those pictures that was so good that they put it like on the cover. I think, I don't know if it was that one or if it happened later in the match. He was double legging him out of bounds like he was into the table.

• 1:40:52Jocko Willink?

  So, yeah, you gotta, you gotta watch out for Sarge's double legs. He'll, he'll put you on your ass quick.

• 1:40:59Jocko Willink?

  And he won too, Sarge won. Hard to submit. So like you just got taken down, that's two points.

• 1:41:05Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:41:06Jocko Willink?

  And now, what are you gonna do? Cause you can't sweep Sarge. Right? Hard. I mean, of course you can, but it's hard.

• 1:41:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:13Jocko Willink?

  You only have a few minutes. And it's hard to submit. Oh, but you got back to your feet. Cool, you just got taken out again.

• 1:41:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, that's the rub with the, with the real good Judo guys or wrestler guys. That's the rub.

• 1:41:26Jocko Willink?

  What's the rub? Oh, how do you solve that problem?

• 1:41:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, become a better wrestler.

• 1:41:31Speaker 01

  Typically, that's not it.

• 1:41:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. When Tyron Woodley, Tyron Woodley fought Damian Maia. And Damian, Damian is an incredible Jiu Jitsu player. And he couldn't get Tyron down to the mat. And every time he shot, I would hit my son. And, cause every time, every time Damian shot. He would, uh, Tyron would just stuff the shot. And I'd hit my son and go, that's why you wrestle. That's why you wrestle, boy. Cause you're gonna be able to take people down.

• 1:41:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:58Jocko Willink?

  And then once you get to the ground, if you have the Jiu Jitsu, well, now you got problems.

• 1:42:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:02Jocko Willink?

  Cause Tyron didn't wanna go to the ground with Damian.

• 1:42:04Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:42:05Jocko Willink?

  Because that would have been very problematic for him.

• 1:42:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, but Tyron Woodley is a wrestler.

• 1:42:10Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:42:11Speaker 01

  Was that you who said there's a difference between someone who can wrestle versus a wrestler?

• 1:42:16Jocko Willink?

  Yes, that was me, yes.

• 1:42:17Speaker 01

  Yes. Tyron Woodley is, and that's why I say that's not the problem. That, or that's why I say that's not the solution. If you have a wrestler always taking you down and the solution is to get better at wrestling, that's not the solution. Because you wanna get better at something that this guy's probably getting better. And this is just chances are, I'm not saying it's an absolute, but he's probably A, getting better. B, already super good at it. So it's like the solution isn't to chase something that's-

• 1:42:41Jocko Willink?

  He's 12 years ahead of you.

• 1:42:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:43Jocko Willink?

  He's eight years ahead of you in wrestling.

• 1:42:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, so it's not the solution? I don't know what this is.

• 1:42:48Jocko Willink?

  I'm not saying don't wrestle. Well, I think, I'll tell you what this, what I think the solution is off the top of my head. You learn enough wrestling and then you figure out how to incorporate your Jiu Jitsu into the wrestling. So that, and, and I, I say this all the time and, and Dean will tell you the same thing. Dean will, Dean will hesitate to shoot on me. Because he knows there's significant threats there. He'll shoot all day on a good wrestler. Cause he doesn't care what happens. They're not gonna, they're not gonna catch him, most likely. I mean, obviously a Jiu Jitsu wrestler, it's gonna happen, but-

• 1:43:19Jocko Willink?

  And I feel the same way. I'll shoot, I'll shoot all day on a, on a good wrestler, cause I don't care. They're not gonna catch me anything, and if they do, I'll be able to do the proper defense and escape it. But Dean, no, like, no, that's a real problem.

• 1:43:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:31Jocko Willink?

  Same with Andy, you shoot on Andy, you're, you know, it's like, okay, that could be problematic.

• 1:43:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:35Jocko Willink?

  And not even just pay for it, you can lose, right there.

• 1:43:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Andy and I have a problem, whoever shoots, whoever shoots loses. Yeah, cause we're both have good anti wrestling, so.

• 1:43:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's it. That's the pro, that's the solution right there. You gotta figure out the, the counter, the kryptonite to the wrestling.

• 1:43:54Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 1:43:54Speaker 01

  In whatever, in whatever way, cause that's not just, oh yeah, just do that. That's not how it is. It's, but that's the direction, that's the solution.

• 1:44:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and there's, there's problems with that. Well, there's not problems with that. One of the easiest ways is to be very, I guess this is a problem, is to be very non-aggressive. Because if all you're trying to do is avoid getting taken down, you already are, are a lot harder to take down than if you, like, if I go in and start trying to take down a wrestler, they're gonna put me on my ass.

• 1:44:28Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:44:29Jocko Willink?

  Because I'm trying to take them, and they know their counter's that much better, their timing's that much better, they hit the switch, boom, all of a sudden I'm down. You know? But if I'm just trying to avoid you, it's the same thing with somebody that's a really good striker. If you're just, if your goal is to, if you start striking with a striker that's better than you, you are more likely to get knocked out, you're more likely to get hit. Because you're playing their, that's the point, you're playing their game.

• 1:44:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:51Jocko Willink?

  And you don't wanna play their game. Now, what sucks about that, and it even happened in the Tyron Woodley fight, it was a boring fight. Because it was shots getting stuffed, stand up, some striking, shots getting stuffed, stand up, striking, shots getting stuffed, that's what the fight was. It was a very boring fight, because his goal is to not get taken down. Andy's a wrestler, so he had the capability of doing it, and that was that.

• 1:45:15Speaker 01

  I'll tell you what you do for a wrestling situation. It's one of those simple, it's not easy at all, but it's simple. You find a way to get to the back from the bottom.

• 1:45:28Jocko Willink?

  Whoa, yeah, that's great. I mean, yeah, you find a way to submit them. That's great, too.

• 1:45:32Speaker 01

  No, no, but get to the back because

• 1:45:34Jocko Willink?

  And under Gavau told me Them to their back?

• 1:45:36Speaker 01

  No, get on their back, sorry. Get on their back. He was, he told me this when he was gonna fight Chilson in

• 1:45:44Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:45:45Speaker 01

  For Metamoros. And he was like, he was like, "Yeah, it's interesting fighting wrestlers or whatever." It's like, they can provide like, I'm totally paraphrasing. They can provide these really hard situations for you in jiu-jitsu. For many reasons. They're super hard, hard people to fight. But if you can figure it out, you gotta figure out ways where wrestling provides weaknesses in a jiu-jitsu scenario.

• 1:46:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:08Speaker 01

  And then if you watch the match, sure enough, like, he was, Chilson was really good at stuffing, stuffing, stuffing, stuffing. And then you could see Gavau was like just slowing, and then he got to the back.

• 1:46:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And I used to coach Dean with the same idea of, you know, if he was going against a good wrestler, I'd say, "Use your jiu-jitsu." If he's going against a good jiu-jitsu guy, I'd say, "Use your wrestling." Dean would have a tendency, because of his personality, to wanna go against them in their strength. So he'd try and out-wrestle wrestlers. He'd try and out-jiu-jitsu, out-jiu-jitsu guys. He would, that's his natural tendency, would be to go at people's strengths. And I'd have to like, say, "No, do jiu-jitsu against this guy." And then he'd do it and get what he needed to get.

• 1:46:52Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:46:57Jocko Willink?

  All right. Back to the book. "When one is obliged to defend intrenchments, one should post all the battalions directly behind the parapet because if once the enemy sets foot upon that, those in the rear will think of nothing but to save themselves. This is because of the consternation in men when something happens that they have not expected."

• 1:47:23Jocko Willink?

  Again, consternation is like shock. So he's again emphasizing the fact that when people aren't expecting something, it is a, it's a major downer for him. It's a major downer for him. It interrupts what's happening.

• 1:47:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:39Jocko Willink?

  And that's why you gotta think of contingencies. That's one of the biggest things, well, one of the best things about thinking about contingencies is just that you're aware of it's gonna hap- just that you've thought about it for a half a second.

• 1:47:49Speaker 01

  Big time.

• 1:47:50Jocko Willink?

  That makes you so much better off getting caught completely, getting caught completely off guard. I mean, this happens in jujitsu. The thing that you get caught with is the thing that you didn't see coming.

• 1:47:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:59Jocko Willink?

  That's, that's the thing that catches you, the thing that surprises you. And you're like, how did that happen?

• 1:48:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:04Jocko Willink?

  It surprises you. That's what you get caught with.

• 1:48:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, even like in your house, like that's the one I think of a lot. Where, you know, when you're in your house and, and if you think of like, what if there's someone in here?

• 1:48:14Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:48:14Speaker 01

  Right now.

• 1:48:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:15Speaker 01

  You're not even necessarily of how scary that would be necessarily, but it's like, okay, what if there's someone in here? At least I'm ready for the fact that someone's in here.

• 1:48:23Jocko Willink?

  My daughter, my eight-year-old daughter will try and scare me.

• 1:48:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:48:28Jocko Willink?

  And she'll hide somewhere. And if I don't expect it, I get startled.

• 1:48:34Speaker 01

  You'll get, yeah, she'll get you.

• 1:48:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And then, and then what I do is I just, you know, you're talking about punishments.

• 1:48:40Jocko Willink?

  No, what I, no, I punish myself.

• 1:48:41Speaker 01

  Oh, you're talking about, okay, good, that's good.

• 1:48:43Jocko Willink?

  So she, so she scared me twice last year. Like that actually made me a little bit startled. She tried 98 times. 96 of them were ineffective.

• 1:48:54Speaker 01

  What was your punishment?

• 1:48:56Jocko Willink?

  I, I punish myself.

• 1:48:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, what was it?

• 1:48:58Jocko Willink?

  Burpees.

• 1:48:58Speaker 01

  Burpees, got it.

• 1:48:59Jocko Willink?

  Burpees.

• 1:49:00Speaker 01

  Cool.

• 1:49:00Jocko Willink?

  And then, but I really enjoy scaring people.

• 1:49:03Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:49:03Jocko Willink?

  A lot. I don't know why. I find it very entertaining and funny and satisfying. So I do, when I scare people, it like makes them cry.

• 1:49:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I can see that. Wait, wait. So how do you scare them? Do you do the, like, the loud noise one?

• 1:49:18Jocko Willink?

  Oh, I do everything.

• 1:49:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:19Jocko Willink?

  You know, cause a lot of times the loud noise isn't the scary thing.

• 1:49:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:49:23Jocko Willink?

  And sometimes the scratching at the window is a lot more scary.

• 1:49:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, sometimes you think you're home alone and you think your dad's gone. And then all of a sudden there's like scratching at the window and there's a noise of the door opening and you start calling out for your dad, but he doesn't answer. And then there's more scratching at the window. And then all of a sudden there's someone with a mask on that comes into the room by the flashlight, yeah.

• 1:49:41Speaker 01

  You can't do that, man. That's, that's like, that's a violation. You can't do that with a mask.

• 1:49:44Jocko Willink?

  No, but I do do that, yeah.

• 1:49:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I can see that.

• 1:49:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So anyways, that's that.

• 1:49:51Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, he's, well, let me catch us up to where we were talking about the shock that happens when people don't expect something. Back to the book, "This is a general rule in war and decides all battles and all actions. It comes from the human heart and is what induced me to compose this work. I do not believe that anyone yet has attempted to find their, find there the reasons for the poor success of armies. Thus, when you have stationed your troops behind a parapet, they hope by their fire to prevent the enemy from passing the ditch and mounting it. If this happens in spite of the fire, they give themselves up for lost, lose their heads and fly. It would be much better to post a single rank there armed with pikes, whose business

• 1:50:36Jocko Willink?

  will be to push the assailant back as fast as they attempt to mount. And certainly, they will execute this duty because it is what they expect and what they prepared for.

• 1:50:48Jocko Willink?

  If with this, you post infantry formed according to my method into centuries at a distance of thirty paces from the entrenchment, these troops will see that they are placed there to charge the enemy as fast as he enters and attempts to form. They will not be astonished to see the enemy enter because they expect it and will charge vigorously. Instead, if instead, they had been placed on the parapet, they would have fled.

• 1:51:15Jocko Willink?

  That is how a trifle changes everything in war and how human weaknesses cannot be managed except by allowing for them."

• 1:51:26Jocko Willink?

  That's, that's heavy right there. Yeah. Human weaknesses cannot be managed, you have to allow for them, think about that. Yeah. You know, you have to do that all the time as a leader. You have to, well, you have to try and do it as a leader. Because if you don't try and manage these weaknesses... And you you you don't allow for them, then they're gonna they're gonna jam you up as you would say.

• 1:51:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:49Jocko Willink?

  So you got somebody with a big ego, you you gotta put you gotta put them in a situation where that ego is gonna flourish and not be offended and and when it does get offended, you got to allow for that and how you're gonna adapt to it.

• 1:52:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like expecting perfection, you know, you know, like if you expect perfection.

• 1:52:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, you're gonna be let down a bunch.

• 1:52:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, is what I'm saying. So if you allow for imperfection, it's kind of you can you can just manage better.

• 1:52:12Jocko Willink?

  So there's two major points, you know, number one, if you set people up so that what they what they expect to happen, happens, they're gonna have a better chance of achieving what it is you want them to achieve. Because if these guys are in the parapet and all of a sudden they get run upon and they're surprised by it and their mission was defend the parapet, well, now they're they're getting overrun. Whereas if you say, no, once the parapet gets taken, you attack. Now they're they know the parapet's gonna it's not gonna be surprised them. They expect it to happen. And then when they they get the opportunity, they're gonna get in there and get after it. But man, allowing the the manage managing human weakness. Only the only way you can do it is by allowing for it. At least some measure of it.

• 1:52:57Jocko Willink?

  Good. Good lesson learned. That's something you can think about as you lead people. You can think about, hey, man, this is a little weakness here. And if I don't allow for that, I don't give that some room and I count on, you know, Flynn Flynn from Echelon Front, newest member of Echelon Front, but he just wrote an article about a guy. He was stationed on a ship before he got to the teams. And he was saying, this guy had been late for work and but he was trying to bring the guy along, had a lot of potential, blah, blah, blah. Anyways, they go to actually do a uh important training with their weapons on the ship that they were on and the guy missed the ship leaving port.

• 1:53:40Jocko Willink?

  And he says, you know, I should have fired the guy before this. And now I'm out here. I don't have this primary guy and he let down me and let down the ship and everything like that. But he didn't account for human weakness. He, you know, he thought that he could bring this guy along, but he just, you know, it's one of those things. If you don't allow for that human weakness in there, you might be, you might be getting left high and dry. Which is not good. That's in the, made that thing on the Echelon front webpage. Which is called. The Platoon Hut.

• 1:54:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:54:12Jocko Willink?

  And we're just like writing little, I guess it could be referred to as a blog.

• 1:54:18Jocko Willink?

  It's not really a blog because a blog to me seems a very, you know, just hey, we're just gonna write whatever.

• 1:54:22Speaker 01

  Bloggy.

• 1:54:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So this is, this is some little, I guess you might want to call them articles?

• 1:54:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. And there's like, like little lessons.

• 1:54:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, of course. Little lessons.

• 1:54:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. I liked, I enjoy a platoon hut.

• 1:54:34Jocko Willink?

  The platoon hut. And the reason we called it platoon hut is because that's where you'd sit around and talk shop. I guess you talk about other things, but when you get back from a training op. Cause when you're overseas, you used to have a platoon hut, but it's not the platoon. I guess it is the platoon hut. But anyways, yeah, even there. So when you get back from an operation, you come in, you debrief and you, you get done with the official debrief, but then you go into the platoon hut.

• 1:54:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:54:56Jocko Willink?

  Hey, man, you should have done this. And so, so that's one of those. He, as a young surface warfare officer in the Navy didn't allow for the human weakness of this young sailor in a costume.

• 1:55:13Jocko Willink?

  Going back to the book, the Greeks were very skillful in the art of war and well disciplined. But their large phalanx was never able to contend with the small bodies of Romans dis- disposed in this formation. Now he goes on to, there's a guy named Polypius. And he goes on to quote a huge chunk of text from Polypius. Polypius was a Greek historian. And Polypius actually talked about why the Roman armies could defeat the phalanx. And pretty interesting.

• 1:55:54Jocko Willink?

  So here's what he said, "It is easy to demonstrate by many reasons that while the phalanx retains its proper form and full power of action, no force is able to stand against it in front or in support of the violent attack." So while the phalanx is in order, you're not going to be able to defeat it. So the phalanx is a military formation and he talks a little bit about what it's made up of here. "When the ranks are closed in order to engage, each soldier, as he stands with his arms occupies a space of three feet. The spears in their ancient form were seventeen cubits long, a cubit is about eighteen inches.

• 1:56:34Jocko Willink?

  But for the sake of rendering them more commodious in actions, they have since been reduced to fourteen. Of these four cubits are contained between the part which the soldier grasps in his hands and the lower end of the spear behind which serves as a counterpoise to the part that is extended before him. And when, and the length of this last part from the body of the soldier when the spear is pushed forwards with both hands against the enemy is in consequence ten cubits." "From hence it follows that when the phalanx is closed in its proper form, every soldier pressed within the necessary distance with respect to the man that is before him and on his side,

• 1:57:16Jocko Willink?

  the spears of the fifth rank are extended to the length of two cubits and those of the second, third and fourth to a still greater length beyond the foremost rank. It is manifest then that several spears differing each other in the length of two cubits are extended before every man in the foremost rank. And when it is considered likewise that the phalanx is formed by sixteen in depth, it will be easy to conceive what must be the weight and violence of the entire body and how great the force of its attack." So you got guys sixteen people deep, sixteen people deep.

• 1:57:59Jocko Willink?

  And they've got these spears and they adjust the spears depending on where you are in the rank. So the guy that's five ranks back still has a little bit of his spear sticking out. And by the way, if one of those guys goes down, there's another fourteen people there ready to take his place. So the phalanx was locked together, the shields protecting the person to your left and... It's like a porcupine of death locked together.

• 1:58:25Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:58:25Jocko Willink?

  And obviously, the, the Greeks were hardcore warriors. And this is what they used and they used to crush people with this phalanx, crush them. Spears and shields, that's all you see.

• 1:58:39Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:58:41Jocko Willink?

  Now, Polypius talks about what the Romans did and what their setup was.

• 1:58:48Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, to each of the Roman soldiers, as he stands in arms is a lot of the same space of three feet. But as every soldier in time of action is constantly in motion, being forced to shift his shield continuously. So that he may cover any part of his body against which a stroke is aimed and to vary the position of his sword. So as to either push or to make a falling stroke, there must be also a distance of three feet. The least that can be allowed for performing these motions with advantage between each soldier. And the man that stands next to him, both on his side and behind him. So the Romans are in the same similar position. But they're moving individually inside these little positions. So they're not working together, they're, they're more mobile.

• 1:59:34Jocko Willink?

  It will be easy therefore to conceive that while the phalanx retains its proper position and strengths. No troops, as I have before observed, can support the attack of it in front. So if you're going against the phalanx, you're gonna lose if you're going front.

• 1:59:50Jocko Willink?

  To what cause then is it described that the Roman armies are victorious and those defeated that employed the phalanx? So how is it that the, the Romans were able to beat the phalanx? This is the cause. In war, the times and places of action are various and indefinite. But there is only one time and place, one fixed and determined manner of action that is suited to the phalanx. In the case of a general action, if an enemy be forced to encounter with the phalanx in the very time and place which the latter requires. It is probable in the highest degree that the phalanx must obtain victory.

• 2:00:34Jocko Willink?

  So if you fight the phalanx where the phalanx wants you to fight it, meaning on a big, open area, you're gonna lose.

• 2:00:44Jocko Willink?

  But if it is possible to avoid an engagement in such circumstances, and it is indeed easy to do it, there is nothing to be dreaded from this order of battle. And here's where it gets to the nitty gritty. It is well-known and it acknowledges truth that the phalanx requires a ground that is plain and naked and free from obstacles of every kind such as trenches, breaks, and brows of hills or the channels of rivers, and that any of these are sufficient to impede it and to dissolve it, and to dissolve the order in which it was formed. If the enemy coming down on it should lead their army through the country, plundering the cities and ravaging the lands, of what use then will be the phalanx?

• 2:01:28Jocko Willink?

  So all you have to do is get them on some rough terrain. You get them on some rough terrain and that phalanx, I mean, it's hard to march already, we know that, but now we're marching against weird terrain, and the guy in front of you trips and falls, well, what does he hit? He hits a rock and now that makes this guy fall and all of a sudden we got a big disaster on our hands. Back to the book. When the Romans attack the phalanx in the front, they never employ all their forces so as to make their line equal to that of the enemy, but lead on only a part of their troops and the rest, they keep in reserve. Now whether the troops of the phalanx break the line that is opposed to them, or whether they are broken themselves, the formation peculiar to the phalanx is alike dissolved. So even if they win that initial onslaught,

• 2:02:13Jocko Willink?

  even if the phalanx wins that, the phalanx is out of order.

• 2:02:19Jocko Willink?

  If they pursue the fugitive or if on the other hand they retreat and are pursued, in either case, they are separated from the rest of their own body. And thus, there is left some space, which the reserve of the Roman army takes care to seize and then charges the remaining part of the phalanx. But the charge is not made against the front but in the flank or the rear.

• 2:02:42Jocko Willink?

  Since it is easy then to avoid the conditions that are favorable to the phalanx, and since those on the contrary that are disadvantageous to it can never be avoided, it is certain that this difference alone must carry with it a decisive weight in time of action. So let them get a little bit disrupted. Once they're disrupted, flank them.

• 2:03:04Jocko Willink?

  The troops of the Phalanx lose all their strength when they engage in separate companies or man on man. The Roman order, on the contrary, is never attended even on such occasions with any disadvantage. Among the Romans, every single soldier, when he is once armed and ready for service, is alike fitted and engaged, fitted to engage in any time or place, or on any appearance of the enemy, and preserves that always the same power and the same capacity in action, whether in separate companies or man to man. So, big destructive element in front of you, don't go head on head with it, we've learned

• 2:03:47Jocko Willink?

  this over and over again, you might want to distract it, sure, but then you hit him from the flank. And, don't face people on their best category, right? Don't wrestle against the wrestler, don't do jujitsu against the jujitsu guy, don't box against the boxer. Don't go at them, and don't do it where they want to do it. That's real important, disrupting the Phalanx.

• 2:04:09Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:04:10Jocko Willink?

  Now, he talks about attacking entrenchments, which again, these are defensive positions. When an entrenchment is to be attacked, an attempt should be made to extend the lines as much as possible. Makes sense, right? I just don't want to, I want to let, make the person think that we're going to attack him on the whole, the whole line that he's got. This will make the enemy fearful everywhere, so that he will not withdraw troops from any point to reinforce that which you intend to attack even after he discovers it. This makes many of his troops useless, and this was D-Day. So, what we did on D-Day. You know, they did those massive deception operations, the Brits, the Americans, they built those fake tanks and fake planes and put them all, they were inflatable, you've seen that stuff, right? Have you seen that?

• 2:04:55Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah. The Americans and the Brits, when we were trying to, to confuse Hitler about where we were going to attack D-Day, they made these, they made like fake airplanes and fake tanks, and they put them in different locations that indicated that we'd probably be attacking this spot instead of that spot, and it all works. And, and so he had to defend the whole line, he actually defended those areas where they thought the attack was coming, more than they defended the area where D-Day was. Little deception operation.

• 2:05:31Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, too much attention cannot be paid to spies and guides. They are like eyes and are equally necessary to a gen- general. He is, uh, too much money cannot be spent to get good ones. These men should be chosen in the country where the war is being fought. They should be intelligent, cunning and discreet.

• 2:05:54Jocko Willink?

  Spies.

• 2:05:59Jocko Willink?

  The commanding general. I have formed a picture of a commanding general, which is not chimical. I have seen such men. The first qualities, the first of all qualities is courage. Without this, the others are of little value since they cannot be used. The second is intelligence, which must be strong and fertile in expedience. The third is health. He should possess a talent for sudden and appropriate improvisation. That's a good, that's, you don't expect that. A talent for sudden and appropriate improv- improvisation. If I didn't make this clear enough, he's kind of going through the characteristics

• 2:06:41Jocko Willink?

  that he believes a good commanding general should have. He should be able to penetrate the minds of other men while remaining impenetrable himself. He should be endowed with the capacity of being prepared for everything. With the activ- with activity accompanied by judgment. With the skill to make proper decision on all occasions and with exactness of discernment.

• 2:07:11Jocko Willink?

  Good list. He should have a good disposition, free from, from Caprice and be a stranger to hatred. And Caprice is like, you're just gonna change your mind all the time. He should punish without mercy. Especially those who are dearest to him, but never from anger.

• 2:07:33Speaker 01

  Hmm, okay. Cause remember earlier he was talking about be Yeah. Kind of chill with it, with the lashings.

• 2:07:40Jocko Willink?

  But he says you should punish without mercy, especially those who are dearest to you. And I think that goes to what he was saying about troops. Hey, you're gonna draft people, you gotta make sure you draft the, the rich people too. And I think he's saying you gotta treat people fairly, right?

• 2:07:54Speaker 01

  Even when you're

• 2:07:55Jocko Willink?

  Even when it's one of your boys.

• 2:07:58Jocko Willink?

  He should always be grieved when he is forced to execute the military rules. And should have the example of Manilius.

• 2:08:11Jocko Willink?

  Constantly before his eyes. And Manlius, actually, actually, Manlius. He was like a Roman hero during during the Gallic siege. And he, but beyond that, he was sort of like a, I want to call him a human rights advocate, but maybe that's too strong of a word. But anyways, he ended up getting a crucified, uh, not crucified, thrown from a.

• 2:08:37Jocko Willink?

  Thrown from a great height and killed as execution. But he's sort of seen as a guy that stood up. He, he almost was in like an Alamo scenario. Like in Texas, when, when they, when they stood and were killed. He was in one of those situations, but he wasn't killed during that Gallic siege of Rome. Anyways, back to the book, he should discard the idea that is he who punishes and should persuade himself and others. That he only administers the military laws. With these qualities, he will be loved. He will be feared and without doubt obeyed.

• 2:09:14Jocko Willink?

  The functions of a general are infinite. He must know how to subsist his army and how to husband it. How to place it so that it will not be forced upon to fight, except when he chooses. How to form his troops in an infinity of different, infinity of different dispositions. How to profit from that favorable moment which occurs in all battles and which decides their success. All these things are of immense importance. And are as varied as the situations and dispositions which produce them.

• 2:09:51Jocko Willink?

  In order to see all these things, the general should be occupied with nothing else the day of the battle. The inspection of the terrain and the disposition of his troops should be prompt, like the flight of an eagle. This done, his orders should be short and simple. As for instance, the first line of attack, the first line will attack and the second will be in support. Boom, that's it. Keep it simple. The generals under his command must be incompetent indeed. If they do not know how to execute this order and to perform the proper maneuvers with their respective divisions.

• 2:10:29Jocko Willink?

  Thus, the commander in chief will not be forced to occupy himself with it, nor be embarrassed with the details. For if he attempts to be a battle sergeant and be everywhere himself, he will resemble the fly in the fable that thought he was driving the coach.

• 2:10:50Jocko Willink?

  Thus, on the day of the battle, I should want the general to do nothing. His observations will be better for it. His judgment will be more sane. And he will be in a better state to profit from the situations in which the enemy finds himself during the engagement. And when he sees an occasion, he should unleash his energies, hasten to the critical point at top speed, seize the first troops available, advance them rapidly, and lead them in person. These are the strokes that decide battles and gain victories. The important thing is to see the opportunity and know how to use it. So what he's saying there is you gotta be detached. He's saying you gotta be detached, and then you gotta stay back, you gotta look around.

• 2:11:33Jocko Willink?

  Now, he also says, once you see the critical moment, you gotta get up in there and make it happen.

• 2:11:40Jocko Willink?

  But he's saying you definitely can't get laid down in the weeds. You can't be the sergeant that's trying to do everything.

• 2:11:47Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, many commanding generals only spend their time on the day of the battle and making their troops march in a straight line, in seeing that they keep their proper distances, in answering questions which their aides de camp come to ask, in sending them hither and thither, and in running about incessantly themselves. In short, they try to do everything, and as a result, do nothing. So this is a great, this is just, you're in a leadership position, you try and do everything yourself, you're not gonna do anything at all. And it's the same, that's the same thing as prioritize and execute. If you try and solve all the problems that are happening at the same time, you're not gonna solve any of those problems.

• 2:12:28Jocko Willink?

  They appear to me like men with their heads turned, who no longer see anything, and who are only able to do what they have done all their lives, which is to conduct troops methodically, under their orders, under the orders of a commander. How does this happen? It is because very few men occupy themselves with the higher problems of war. They pass their lives drilling troops, and believe that this is the only branch of the military act. When they arrive at the command of armies, they are totally ignorant, and in default of knowing what should be done, they do what they know. That is so classic.

• 2:13:13Jocko Willink?

  It's so classic, when people don't know, they don't understand something, they do what they know how to do. They, they always default into what they know how to do. Their minds are closed. One of the branches of the art of war, that is to say, drill and the method of fighting is methodical. The other is intellectual. For the conduct of the latter, it is essential that ordinary, ordinary men should not be chosen.

• 2:13:42Jocko Willink?

  Unless a man is born with a talent for war, he will never be other than a mediocre general. It is the same with all talents in painting, or in music, or in poetry, the talent must be inherent for excellence. All sublime arts are alike in this respect. That is why we see so few outstanding men in science. Centuries passed without producing one. Application rectifies ideas, but does not furnish a soul. For that is the work of nature. You know,

• 2:14:17Jocko Willink?

  I just answered a question on Twitter, I think it was. Um, and I basically said, well, you know, you can't do whatever you want. Just because you believe in it, you have hard work and discipline, like that that doesn't mean you can do whatever you want.

• 2:14:35Speaker 01

  Like as a career or something?

• 2:14:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, like, and I always use the example, like, I couldn't be an Olympic. Let's say an Olympic weightlifter, or in fact, I don't know that there's any Olympic sport that I would be, that I have the um, genetic makeup to be able to, to be able to compete at the Olympic level. Of course, we could go back and maybe that's possible from a child. But I don't feel like it. But even right now, you know, if you take that to the extreme, that means, hey, you know, what if I have the focus and if I have the discipline, I can become an Olympic wrestler now.

• 2:15:12Speaker 01

  High jumper.

• 2:15:13Jocko Willink?

  Olympic high jumper, right? How's that vert looking?

• 2:15:18Jocko Willink?

  So you see what I'm saying? Now, my opinion is,

• 2:15:23Jocko Willink?

  that is not true. And some people are not going to achieve certain things that they may want to achieve, no matter how hard they want to do it. And I, you know, most people are like, yeah, that's realistic. Some people are like, no, you can, if you believe it, you can achieve it. It's like, if I could believe it,

• 2:15:41Jocko Willink?

  if I could achieve it because I believed it, dude, I'd be like, I'd be, I'd be just all winning everything. It's not that easy.

• 2:15:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:15:52Jocko Willink?

  You gotta believe it. You gotta work hard at it. You gotta have some natural capabilities. It's the way it is. I'm sorry to let everyone down.

• 2:16:00Speaker 01

  What was your line? It was one of those lines that you can kind of take with you. You said belief.

• 2:16:09Speaker 01

  Something of, what is it? Yeah, the muscle you said it. If belief is not gonna make anything happen, but at the same time, without belief, nothing's gonna happen.

• 2:16:18Jocko Willink?

  Totally true, yeah.

• 2:16:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:16:19Jocko Willink?

  So, yeah, you've got, absolutely. So, yes. Belief by itself won't make anything happen.

• 2:16:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:16:25Jocko Willink?

  That, you know, some people sit around, "Oh, yeah, I believe I can do this, so I'm gonna achieve." No, no, no. If you wanna achieve, you gotta do something.

• 2:16:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:16:33Jocko Willink?

  And, and the same token that is also correct, is that if you don't believe in what you're doing, then yeah, there's no way you're gonna achieve it. You won't be able to gut through it when it gets problematic, which it's certainly going to. So, Sacks agrees with me that, hey, the work of nature has to be in play.

• 2:16:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:16:50Jocko Willink?

  Otherwise, it's not happening. You might get to some level, but

• 2:16:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:16:56Jocko Willink?

  Reality is.

• 2:16:57Speaker 01

  That's hard, I think that's a hard one to admit.

• 2:16:59Jocko Willink?

  You, you don't seem like you wanna admit this. I think you're over there like you, if you wanted to go the distance.

• 2:17:04Speaker 01

  Put it this way, I, it seems really like that's not true. It seems like, you know, you maybe just didn't work hard enough, even though you thought that you worked as hard as you possibly can, maybe the fact, this is what it seems like. But at the end of the day, I do agree with that. I, I mean, it's, it's way clearer with physical stuff, because physical limitations are way more, you know, obvious.

• 2:17:27Jocko Willink?

  And there's, there's, I don't know.

• 2:17:32Jocko Willink?

  Well, let's face it, let's say playing guitar, cuz I play guitar.

• 2:17:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:17:35Jocko Willink?

  And I also now kinda play ukulele.

• 2:17:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:17:40Jocko Willink?

  But let's say playing guitar. Even if you practice and you can mechanically play guitar, that doesn't give you the natural spark of creativity that is demanded. If it did, then every person that worked hard and played guitar would become a rock and roll star with great creative songs, but it just doesn't happen.

• 2:17:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:17:59Jocko Willink?

  There's hundreds of thousands, just in America, there's hundreds of thousands of people that play guitar at an incredibly capable proficiency, right? They can play every song that you hear on the radio, but you know what they do for a living?

• 2:18:14Speaker 01

  Cover, cover songs.

• 2:18:16Jocko Willink?

  Well, they play cover songs, they're also working as a banker somewhere. Cuz they didn't have whatever creative thing that would give them. To be able to create something that was new and that people wanted to listen to.

• 2:18:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:18:27Jocko Willink?

  That that needs to come from somewhere else.

• 2:18:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:18:30Jocko Willink?

  Your practice isn't going to get you there. Some people learn it in the schools. Some people learn it on the streets. But I think you kind of got to be born with it, man. And that's a little tenacious D for everyone.

• 2:18:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, yeah, and again, can like, can you teach creativity? And even then, it's like, yeah, but no.

• 2:18:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 2:18:51Speaker 01

  I mean, compare the guy who's, and then where do you get it really, you know, it's, yeah, it's weird. It's just, I think that's really the reason that it is true, is because you can't put your finger on it. You can't be like, yeah, just work as hard as you possibly can. Sure, that's gonna improve your.

• 2:19:06Jocko Willink?

  Another classic example is, look at the people, you know, if I go to an academic, a high level academic environment, where everyone is, you know, incredibly intelligent, but not all of them are able to do something that, not all of them are able to succeed at the level that their, that their heritage would point towards. So just because you got a sixteen hundred on your SATs and you did this and you went to this great college, there's a lot of people that did all those things and they're, they're not what they themselves would consider successful.

• 2:19:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:19:48Jocko Willink?

  Right? And so the reality is, there's something not there. And like you said, I don't know that you can actually put your finger on it.

• 2:19:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:19:56Jocko Willink?

  Because there's some other kid that didn't do any of that and made stuff happen.

• 2:20:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:20:03Jocko Willink?

  And was extremely successful. There's thousands and thousands of examples like that, too.

• 2:20:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so it's kind of like when you compare it, like the proverbial person with all the potential versus someone with not that much potential and maybe the guy with the, with less potential, there'll be exceptions where that guy made it. And then there'll be, obviously, like all these other scenarios where the guy with the potential.

• 2:20:26Jocko Willink?

  Doesn't.

• 2:20:27Speaker 01

  Doesn't make it. So it's like, alright, you know, this guy's born with it, what up with him kind of thing.

• 2:20:31Jocko Willink?

  Let's take it to a new level, not just making it, but actually being a, like the highest level.

• 2:20:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:20:37Jocko Willink?

  For that person, you gotta have the talent and you gotta have the work.

• 2:20:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:20:41Jocko Willink?

  You gotta do both.

• 2:20:42Speaker 01

  Tends to be the case.

• 2:20:44Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 2:20:49Jocko Willink?

  And he says the same thing here. I've seen very good colonels become very bad generals. I have known others who were great takers of villages, excellent for maneuvers within an army, but who, outside of that, were not even able to lead a thousand men in war, who lost their heads completely and were unable to make a decision. Any decision. So, he sees the same thing. And you, you know, I see that with business leaders.

• 2:21:20Jocko Willink?

  The business leader that you need to be at the beginning of your business is not the same business leader that you need to be once your business is more successful. You gotta have this. Some guys are good at street fighting, right? They're good at street fighting. They're not good at planning a war, planning a campaign. And so you might win as a company, if you're a leader at the street fighting level, and you do good, you scrap it out, then as you grow, if you don't transition mentally and become a different kind of leader, not a different person, but a different kind of leader, you may not be able to win at the higher levels. So, that needs to get paid attention to. Back to the book. One should, once and for all, establish standard combat procedures,

• 2:22:05Jocko Willink?

  which the troops, as well as the general who leads them, know.

• 2:22:11Jocko Willink?

  I'm not the first person to talk about standard operating procedures at all. These are general rules, such as preserving proper distances on the march, when charging to charge vigorously, to fill up intervals in the first line from the second. No written instructions are required for this. It is the A, B, C of the troops, and nothing is simpler. Standard operating procedures.

• 2:22:35Jocko Willink?

  He also says that the general should preserve an unfettered mind and not occupy himself with trifles.

• 2:22:46Jocko Willink?

  I am convinced that a skillful general could make war all his life without being forced into one. Hmm, that's the old, the real martial artist doesn't have to fight.

• 2:23:00Speaker 01

  Right, the art of fighting without fighting.

• 2:23:02Jocko Willink?

  Yes, yes. War can be made without leaving anything to chance. And this has, and this is the highest point of perfection and skill as a general.

• 2:23:18Jocko Willink?

  So he, now, are there things that are left to chance in war? Yeah, there's a lot of things that are left to chance in war, but can you mitigate a lot of those? Yeah, absolutely.

• 2:23:32Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, the words of the proverb, "A bridge of gold should be made for the enemy," is followed religiously. Meaning, I'm gonna give, if the enemy wants to run, I'm gonna build him a bridge of gold to run on. I'm not, you wanna run away, that's great, war is over.

• 2:23:49Jocko Willink?

  This is false. On the contrary, the pursuit should be pushed to the limit. And the retreat which had appeared such a satisfactory solution will be turned into a rout. A detachment of 10,000 men can destroy an army of 100,000 in flight. Nothing inspires so much terror or occasions, so much damage for everything is lost. So you're saying, no, you don't let the enemy get away. When they're running, that's when you destroy them completely.

• 2:24:24Jocko Willink?

  This is not to say that it is necessary to give yourself up totally to the pursuit and follow the enemy with all your forces. But if the officer you have ordered in pursuit prides himself upon the regularity of his formation and the precautions of his march, there is no use in having sent him. He must attack, push, and pursue without cease. All maneuvers are good then, it is only precautions that are worthless.

• 2:25:01Jocko Willink?

  Uh, yeah. And that right there kind of wraps up the highlights of this book. Attack, push, pursue without ceasing. And I believe that is also known as getting after it.

• 2:25:23Jocko Willink?

  And what's interesting is I think it's clear that as we continue to see these leaders throughout history that were able to lead through the harshest of conditions, there's obviously a lot of common principles that they share. And so the question is, okay, why do we keep reading them then? Why do I keep trying to confirm the same things? Why am I always looking actually for counterpoints as well that offer some kind of different solution like the one about Sun Tzu today? You don't need to be early on the battlefield. If it's cold out there and it's going to wear down your troops, don't be early. But from my perspective, the more different angles that you

• 2:26:04Jocko Willink?

  see these things, the same, the more different ways that you learn the same lesson, the more clearly you understand it. If you learn an arm lock from three different people, they're all going to give you something different. And it's the same thing. We get something slightly different from all these strategic thinkers. And we get better understanding of it. And there are differences in what people say. And I think it's good to look at the way those differences manifest themselves on the battlefield and throughout history, because maybe there's one solution that's a little bit

• 2:26:44Jocko Willink?

  better than the one that I know right now. So for me, I'm going to continually try to reinforce, try and fortify, try and stay humble as Sacks talked about, continue to learn and relearn and discard what doesn't work and always try and get better. And I think that's all I've got for tonight.

• 2:27:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I guess it better be. I thought this was gonna be a quick episode.

• 2:27:23Speaker 01

  All good.

• 2:27:23Jocko Willink?

  No, alright. I guess we should move quickly now. What do you think? Do you agree with me or no? Doesn't sound like it.

• 2:27:30Speaker 01

  We'll see what up. So, getting better.

• 2:27:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:35Speaker 01

  Speaking of getting better, Jocko has some supplements. They're Jocko supplements. So you know, you're gonna get better. And I, there's, okay, so, Super Krill is the krill oil supplement. Good one. Super. And joint warfare. And discipline. Okay, so we'll say those three supplements.

• 2:27:54Jocko Willink?

  If anyone's wondering, if you're watching on YouTube and you're seeing me drink two things. I'm drinking two things. One of them is in a Smart Water bottle. And it is, I'm drinking discipline. The other is in a Poland Spring bottle that I brought back from Maine to remind me of Maine. And I'm drinking in that one, Jocko White Tea.

• 2:28:14Speaker 01

  Those bottles are in New York too, by the way.

• 2:28:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, they're up in the northeast, we'll say. Yeah.

• 2:28:19Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:28:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, but you won't get, you won't find Poland Spring out here.

• 2:28:22Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:28:22Jocko Willink?

  No, that's from Maine.

• 2:28:23Speaker 01

  You brought it back. Just don't. Nonetheless, so.

• 2:28:28Speaker 01

  Super Krill, krill oil, better than fish oil, factually, factually. And then there's Jocko Super Krill, which is better than regular krill oil, factually. Nonetheless, there's, there's, there's people out there not taking krill oil. And I'm not saying they should take krill oil.

• 2:28:45Jocko Willink?

  I-

• 2:28:46Speaker 01

  They should take krill oil. It's just not what I'm saying right now. I am saying, if, I will argue, I'll actually pretty much guarantee, pretty much. I know that defeats the purpose of the guarantee, but I'll pretty much guarantee that if someone's not taking krill oil, whether it be Jocko Krill or not, and they take krill oil, they'll be like, dang, I should have started taking this krill oil before.

• 2:29:10Jocko Willink?

  Is it like learning jiu-jitsu? When you start jiu-jitsu, you go, man, I should have, I wish I started this when I was 13?

• 2:29:15Speaker 01

  It's just like that, on a smaller level. On a, on a joint. Maintenance level.

• 2:29:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and joint warfare is what I'm feeling is for me. That's kind of it's new, right?

• 2:29:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:29:29Jocko Willink?

  And I'm like, man, I wish I could have this for a long.

• 2:29:31Speaker 01

  Wait, the joint warfare?

• 2:29:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:29:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:29:34Jocko Willink?

  Cause you can feel it's like you're getting ma- maintenance.

• 2:29:37Speaker 01

  Well, you should have came up with it earlier.

• 2:29:38Jocko Willink?

  I know, I know.

• 2:29:40Speaker 01

  Next time, that's what you're gonna do. You come up with it earlier. That's what I think you should do. Nonetheless, they're for you joints. It's a good one. We're all working out.

• 2:29:46Jocko Willink?

  Hey, we're making something. We're making a new product, we'll say.

• 2:29:51Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:29:51Jocko Willink?

  And it is.

• 2:29:55Jocko Willink?

  It's gonna be good. You're gonna like it. It's it's a it's a protein drink. And it's gonna be all it's I've had. We've done two samplings given the ingredient, you know, so we give the ingredients to the supplement factory. They mix them and we've gone through two, the we've gone through two iterations. Right? The first iteration. I was like, oh, my God, this tastes good.

• 2:30:24Speaker 01

  Wait, wait, what?

• 2:30:25Jocko Willink?

  I'm talking pure taste.

• 2:30:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:30:28Jocko Willink?

  The first one, I was like, oh, this is this tastes good, really good. Like the kind where you think this is a whole new thing. You know what I mean?

• 2:30:37Speaker 01

  Wait, a whole new thing like this is like a treat.

• 2:30:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, cause protein ta- tastes like protein powders.

• 2:30:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:30:42Jocko Willink?

  Tastes like crap.

• 2:30:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:30:44Jocko Willink?

  And that was one of the things we researched to figure out how we could make it taste legit good where you want, not you're holding your nose and forcing down.

• 2:30:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:30:55Jocko Willink?

  The first sample that we got, which I was in Maine when we tasted it. We stood there. It was me, Brian and Pete. And we were standing there and we we all mixed it up together and imported into three separate cups.

• 2:31:08Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:31:08Jocko Willink?

  And and everyone, when we drank it, everyone's like, quiet for a second.

• 2:31:13Speaker 01

  What what kind is it?

• 2:31:14Jocko Willink?

  Well, this one was mint chocolate.

• 2:31:17Speaker 01

  Mint chocolate, okay.

• 2:31:18Jocko Willink?

  And and it's just really good. And obviously, the protein in it is awesome. And we've got some other things in it that are gonna make it more complete. But yeah, and then I just got the sec. But you know, there was a couple of adjustments that I wanted to make to the taste, just the pure taste. So we just made those adjustments. I got the second iteration in. It tastes even better than the first one, but I still I've sent him back for one more, but hopefully it'll only be one more. Iteration before we can start producing. It's gonna not gonna come out for a while. It takes a long time to get everything rolling. But yeah, anyways, we have that in the future.

• 2:31:52Speaker 01

  That's interesting, cuz I don't I'm not into protein.

• 2:31:54Jocko Willink?

  I know you aren't.

• 2:31:55Speaker 01

  I was back.

• 2:31:56Jocko Willink?

  You will be.

• 2:31:57Speaker 01

  There is this one, I forget what it's called.

• 2:31:59Jocko Willink?

  I'm telling you, you will be.

• 2:32:01Speaker 01

  It won't even be for protein. It'll be for like a dessert or something.

• 2:32:04Jocko Willink?

  It'll be like someone saying they're not into this is gonna be like someone saying I'm not into ice cream.

• 2:32:10Jocko Willink?

  That's how tasty it is.

• 2:32:11Speaker 01

  Alright, well, good. I guess we'll see. I guess that's kind of the test, right? In a way, in a way, in a way, it's a test. Well, good. Nonetheless, croil, joint warfare, and discipline, those are already out.

• 2:32:22Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 2:32:23Speaker 01

  Doing work.

• 2:32:23Jocko Willink?

  Discipline tastes good, too.

• 2:32:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:32:25Jocko Willink?

  That's another thing. You don't have to drink something that tastes like crap just cuz it's awesome for you. You can drink something that tastes good. And I'll tell you one thing I've noticed, and I don't know if this is, I don't know what this means, but when I drink discipline. Cuz I work out in the morning, as I say all the time. I don't do a pre-workout thing. It's not my thing, right? I work I work out in the morning on an empty stomach.

• 2:32:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:32:47Jocko Willink?

  And there was this old rock climber, and I can't think of his name right now, one of the famous old rock climbers. And he would, I read an article one time about him where he was, he would climb while starving himself and wearing a weight belt cuz it was harder. And I was like, yeah, I'm gonna do that. I've done that all the time. Done that ever since.

• 2:33:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:33:06Jocko Willink?

  Anyways, the if you have some discipline.

• 2:33:09Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 2:33:10Jocko Willink?

  The drink. Then you will feel like so when I get done working out, maybe like, let's say, you know, I always say, I usually have some nuts around. Some mixed nuts, just to kind of get in my gut, little food. I've been, I've been having some, some, you know, a couple handfuls of mixed nuts and then having some discipline and I feel so like super uh good, that then I'm just firing through the day. And so basically what I'm getting at is this is I've been eating even cleaner because I'm eating like, I'm eating basically right now, I think I'm eating once a day. I'm eating discipline, I'm drinking discipline and then I'm going

• 2:33:51Jocko Willink?

  once a day with like, with like a good, solid meal. And then, yeah, it's, man, it's good. It's good stuff.

• 2:33:57Speaker 01

  And that's good. And that works for you.

• 2:33:59Jocko Willink?

  It's working good for you because I'll tell you why. When I eat less, I feel better.

• 2:34:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:34:04Jocko Willink?

  And when I eat less, I feel better. And so this is making me eat less. Now, I'm not saying, now, believe me, when I eat, dude, I get it on. That's, that's how I roll. When I eat, I get it on. And, but this is just, yeah, it's nice to be able to get to feel energized. And sharp mentally without getting crazy.

• 2:34:24Speaker 01

  Think that, because you know, that idea that what you eat less and you feel better. And I found that to be the case. And this is what I realized. I found that to be the case only sometimes. And I was thinking, why is it like that sometimes? If I'm doing something like, you know, when we go to the muster or something like that, or we're at FTX, I, we're doing something all day.

• 2:34:42Jocko Willink?

  You don't eat.

• 2:34:43Speaker 01

  And I wasn't eating. Yeah. It's kind of like, yes. But if you eat, it's kind of like, your body goes into this like kind of rest mode.

• 2:34:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 2:34:51Speaker 01

  But if you eat a little bit or like, just, you know, just like.

• 2:34:53Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna stand, oh, it's time to eat. Okay, we're cruising now.

• 2:34:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, let's rest.

• 2:34:58Jocko Willink?

  When you put some food in your body, you're basically telling yourself, you're going into a level seven echo cruising mode.

• 2:35:04Speaker 01

  Technically recover mode. It's really kind of what it does. And that's really what it felt like. So yeah, I found that that, yeah, if you, so you probably have a bunch of stuff to do all, all the time.

• 2:35:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, but when I'm for sure, when you're like, when I'm doing a fast, I want to be doing something. Because if you sit around and think about food, bro, that's horrible. You feel like, like when Charlie Plum was talking about being in the Hanoi Hilton and he's just thinking of, they were just literally sitting around thinking about food all the time. Because there wasn't even anything to do.

• 2:35:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. And eating food is actually a little bit of a cure or relief from boredom. You know how you used to back in the day when you're a kid, you're just bored, you look in the fridge for, I don't know.

• 2:35:44Jocko Willink?

  You're not hungry, you're bored.

• 2:35:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

• 2:35:48Jocko Willink?

  It's funny because right now I got my, you know, my, it's wrestling season, so the, the weight cuts are on. And they're not, neither one of my kids that are wrestling are, are cutting a bunch of weight. But it means that you don't, it means that there's times when you don't eat for a day, right?

• 2:36:01Speaker 01

  Dang.

• 2:36:02Jocko Willink?

  So you get to see the effects of that. And my daughter's like, I feel, she's like, yeah, I feel fine. She's.

• 2:36:08Speaker 01

  Does it get hangry or nothing?

• 2:36:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, she doesn't get hangry. I warned my wife. I said, hey, you need to watch out because when people, because you know, we're cutting weight with fighters. They're cutting much more severe weight and they start getting in bad moods.

• 2:36:20Speaker 01

  Oh, fighters, you mean?

• 2:36:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. They start getting in bad moods because they can't eat. They get hangry, yeah. But neither one of my kids are cutting that much weight. They're just kind of maintaining through the season.

• 2:36:29Speaker 01

  Did, I don't know if we talked about hangry, like that's a for real thing. Because this is what it is. When you, when you, I mean, biologically, so that your frontal cortex or prefrontal? Frontal, I don't know, whatever, the front of your brain, the part that's like.

• 2:36:42Jocko Willink?

  I don't know, you're the scientist.

• 2:36:43Speaker 01

  That makes decisions and empathy and like all these things get compromised. When you're.

• 2:36:50Jocko Willink?

  Wait, when you're what?

• 2:36:51Speaker 01

  Hungry.

• 2:36:52Jocko Willink?

  Oh, come on, man.

• 2:36:53Speaker 01

  Listen to me.

• 2:36:54Jocko Willink?

  I'm calling.

• 2:36:55Speaker 01

  No, no, listen.

• 2:36:55Jocko Willink?

  I'll tell you why, because, because I believe that if you, if, if you made all those things less effective, then we wouldn't be here as a species. Because every time we got hungry in the past, we would have gotten all confused and frustrated and we wouldn't have been able to hunt. But the bottom line is the opposite, I think is true. Back in the day, if you needed to hunt something down, you had to be sharp. So when you didn't eat, it made you sharper and more attuned. That's how I feel.

• 2:37:21Speaker 01

  Okay, uh, that's not what, you know, what I read and heard, but hey, I'm not saying you're wrong.

• 2:37:25Jocko Willink?

  That you can go on the internet and find an, two scientific articles that say the exact opposites?

• 2:37:30Speaker 01

  Just follow me. So hangry from what I read.

• 2:37:35Jocko Willink?

  Scientific term.

• 2:37:36Speaker 01

  Correct. Because, well, they need some word hangry, but empathy. And this is with like, if you get hungry or um, sleep deprived.

• 2:37:45Jocko Willink?

  Uh huh, whatever.

• 2:37:46Speaker 01

  This, yeah, just a part of your brain kinda, it doesn't shut down completely. It just becomes less and less.

• 2:37:53Jocko Willink?

  Yesterday, I went to sleep, I went to bed.

• 2:37:56Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:37:56Jocko Willink?

  At eight thirty at night.

• 2:37:58Speaker 01

  Dang.

• 2:38:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I woke up at like three fifty and I was kinda, I was like dang, that felt good.

• 2:38:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:38:05Jocko Willink?

  I was, but I didn't sleep almost at all the night before. So I was recovering, I needed to put some more back in the bank. And everyone says you can't do that.

• 2:38:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:38:12Jocko Willink?

  Everyone says you can't catch up on sleep. I just did.

• 2:38:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know.

• 2:38:15Jocko Willink?

  I just did.

• 2:38:15Speaker 01

  I feel like you can.

• 2:38:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I caught up on sleep. I never let you finish your, your scientific explanation. So what was the deal?

• 2:38:23Speaker 01

  Uh, it's just, you're just less, less empathy. Um, so you know, you'll treat people worse.

• 2:38:28Jocko Willink?

  Oh.

• 2:38:29Speaker 01

  Technically, um, so yeah, hangry, that's apparently from what I read is, is an actual thing.

• 2:38:35Jocko Willink?

  Maybe, so maybe it ups your aggression. Maybe it ups your aggression, maybe it does make you sharper. When you're sharper, you're not taking any crap from anybody. So you're more aggressive towards them because you want to go out and hunt and kill something. So maybe I do agree with your weird science.

• 2:38:46Speaker 01

  You say tomato, I say tomato, you know, you be aggressive. But nonetheless, um, yeah, it's a real thing, apparently.

• 2:38:54Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:38:54Speaker 01

  Who knows? I don't know, not to say that everyone's gonna behave in a certain way. I'm just saying that's what happens internally. Maybe, maybe not. Nonetheless, get disciplined. It'll cognitively enhance. So if you're prefrontal or frontal cortex, I forget which one.

• 2:39:07Jocko Willink?

  Both of them.

• 2:39:08Speaker 01

  Both of, if your frontal thing in your brain is shutting down, boom, take that discipline. The cognitive enhancer is gonna help it out a lot. Don't be hangry, even if you're hungry. Guess where you can get these things? At originmaine.com. There's a lot of cool stuff on there. Origin Maine also has geese.

• 2:39:26Speaker 01

  Rash guards, various clothing items, all made in America. That's a good spot. Just check it out. Look on there. There's a lot of cool stuff on there. If you want something, get something. Also, if you're into workout equipment to populate your home gym. It's good having a home gym, by the way. One of my friends is coming into town.

• 2:39:49Speaker 01

  And he's like, "Yeah, let's catch a workout." "We don't have to go to a gym and catch a workout. Work out at home to do something else." Nonetheless, it made me think of how good it is to have a home gym. Nonetheless, if you have your home gym, you want to populate it even a little bit. Get your workout stuff from Onnit. That's what I think. It's the cool one. You can do various interesting workout routines with the equipment, unlike Jocko. Jocko's workouts are super boring, even though you do have kettlebells, which I respect.

• 2:40:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and anything you want to add on that?

• 2:40:22Speaker 01

  No, man, that's it.

• 2:40:23Jocko Willink?

  Are you sure about that?

• 2:40:24Speaker 01

  As far as the workout thing.

• 2:40:25Jocko Willink?

  What about the kettlebell?

• 2:40:25Speaker 01

  No, no, no, the kettlebell, you're good, bro. You're good. You're solid. And I'm sure you're getting very strong. And I'm sure, you know.

• 2:40:31Jocko Willink?

  In case everyone doesn't know, Echol was running his mouth. And I use that term like with, I'm not just throwing it out there.

• 2:40:39Speaker 01

  I really was running my mouth, and you're really pissed off at it, too.

• 2:40:42Jocko Willink?

  That you have a what? How much is your heaviest kettlebell?

• 2:40:44Speaker 01

  Ninety.

• 2:40:45Jocko Willink?

  Ninety? Ninety pounds?

• 2:40:46Speaker 01

  Bigfoot. Boom.

• 2:40:47Jocko Willink?

  And my heaviest kettlebell was eighty-eight pounds. This is no longer a problem. Now my heaviest kettlebells, plural, because I have two, is forty-eight kilograms or a hundred and six pounds, commonly referred to as the beast.

• 2:41:08Speaker 01

  Nonetheless, mine are from Onnit. They're the cool ones. And you can get other cool exercise stuff there. So go onnit.com/jaco. Check out the stuff there if you want to get something. Also, when you get your copy of...

• 2:41:24Speaker 01

  Reveries on the Art of War by Maurice Desax. It's a good one. I like those manual kind ones, you know, the one that goes by like.

• 2:41:35Jocko Willink?

  I know. If you think about it, there's really three types of podcasts that are happening. One is Cuny. Two is manual strategies about war. Three is human nature inside war. So those are kind of, when I'm reading a book, I'm like, oh yeah, this is kind of like one of those.

• 2:41:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:41:58Jocko Willink?

  So this would be with Napoleon's maxims, you know, something like that. The Art of War by Sun Tzu. So we've done quite a number of books like that.

• 2:42:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:42:06Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, I get a little something different from each of them because if you think about it, he says that you have to pay attention to the human heart. Well, where are you going to learn about the human heart? He didn't say much about it. As much as he said, you need to know about it. He didn't say much about it. Where are you going to find it? You're going to find it by reading people that were actually in war and start to understand where their heart was in this whole gig.

• 2:42:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting too, because they're laid out in these specific contexts, you know, like, um, like Sun Tzu, he's, he's talking about, you know, a certain time period, a certain place. And then you see a Vietnam one and then a World War. And so they're talking about, okay, these principles at this time, and this is why they work.

• 2:42:46Jocko Willink?

  Well, it was interesting to do I Drang and How More because it was his battle, two podcasts on his battle, and then his book that he wrote about leadership. So you kind of got to see, maybe, I don't know, I don't know if there's anything. Now, we've seen some of that when, for instance, you got Napoleon's maxims, right? And then we got to hear from a Napoleonic foot soldier. So you get to kind of see, see the war, what the war was like, what the human heart was, was going on with the human heart, and then what was going on with the minds of the strategician.

• 2:43:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:43:18Jocko Willink?

  I don't even know if that's a word.

• 2:43:19Speaker 01

  Strateg- sure. I think so.

• 2:43:22Jocko Willink?

  Just because, you know, what's cool is the English language, you can, words, they, they, they, they come about. They just get formed.

• 2:43:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a catch.

• 2:43:31Jocko Willink?

  There's a time where there was no word. And then that word is there.

• 2:43:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, boom.

• 2:43:35Jocko Willink?

  And if you look at the O E D, which is the Oxford English Dictionary, it tells you where the word came from. And then it has like first usages. So there's some words, this word is this first, this word was first in print in sixteen twenty-two in this work of art or this work of literature.

• 2:43:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, it's crazy too is like words will go in these cycles where they'll be used. Like, like ain't, right? If you say ain't, that's like, yeah, that's an improper thing. It's not really a word, blah, blah, blah. Ain't was actually used by like high, upper class people back in the day, like a long time ago. And like ain't and shant and all these like words, like I shan't, you know, all this and ain't was one of them. It was one of them and I forget the deal, but someone in the lower class started using it. And they were like, oh, they're using it now or something like that. So it went out. And now it's like, oh, that's not a word, but it is a word.

• 2:44:33Jocko Willink?

  The in the language in general, but definitely the English language. I studied English in college and but the, the classes that I took, some of the classes that I took were, would focus on that. Which was pretty, which is always very interesting to me, very interesting to me. And I think the reasons it's interesting to me is because language is how we communicate. Communication is how we lead.

• 2:44:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:44:57Jocko Willink?

  So if you don't know what words you're using or you can't find the right word to articulate what it is you're trying to say, you're gonna have a harder time getting your message across. When you have a harder time getting your message across, it's harder for you to lead.

• 2:45:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. So and then if you kind of look at the big picture of that, it's kind of like you have been, then you kind of in a way should know slang and stuff like that.

• 2:45:20Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 2:45:21Speaker 01

  Because if you're over here talking quote unquote, all proper to people who aren't used to hearing all property, they can be like, what's this guy talking about or whatever?

• 2:45:28Jocko Willink?

  That is definitely true. And it's not just about language there, it's about culture as well.

• 2:45:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:45:32Jocko Willink?

  And, and you know, one of the cool things that when I grew up and I was kind of, you know, it getting into the hard and I was in the hardcore scene, right? It exposed me to people and things that I wouldn't have seen if I would have stayed in my small New England town. So when I got to the world. Meaning got out of that small town and now I was in the military. I was able to understand better than I would have if I didn't.

• 2:46:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:46:01Jocko Willink?

  And I think that's important.

• 2:46:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, it helps for sure. You have, okay, how's this word irregardless, right? Irregardless.

• 2:46:10Jocko Willink?

  It's not even a word.

• 2:46:11Speaker 01

  Right, that's what they said. So I had this bet, this is a long time, this is like over 10 years ago. I just bet this coworker of mine. And for whatever, I think my dad taught me like irregardless, that's not a word, you know?

• 2:46:25Speaker 01

  And he'd always like correct you. So you know how it imprints in your mind, like? Someone uses the word irregardless, they should be corrected. That was kind of imprinted in my subconscious. So it happened at work.

• 2:46:36Jocko Willink?

  Echo Charles grammar Nazi.

• 2:46:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, for a little bit I was, for a little bit. It was more just out of fun, but nonetheless, he, um, no, she was a girl. I said, irregardless is not a word. And she was like, yeah, it is. I was like, no, irregardless is like a misuse, misuse of a word. It's not irregardless, irregardless is a misuse of a word, it's not a word. He's like, well, if it's a, if it's a word, if it's a misuse of a word, it's the word for the misuse of this specific word. And I'm like, it's not a word.

• 2:47:04Jocko Willink?

  What the hell did that just mean?

• 2:47:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, but she's saying, she's saying basically if you can say it and you can spell it and it's like, if it's a, a little name for something.

• 2:47:14Jocko Willink?

  It's not the name of anything.

• 2:47:15Speaker 01

  It's a name for a misuse of a word is what, that was her argument. That's what I, that's what I was saying.

• 2:47:20Jocko Willink?

  Did you win money?

• 2:47:21Speaker 01

  No, I did not win the money.

• 2:47:22Jocko Willink?

  Did you bet money?

• 2:47:23Speaker 01

  No, so we're, we, it never got resolved between me and her. In fact, we hated it, I think we kind of hated each other.

• 2:47:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:47:29Speaker 01

  Cause it got heated.

• 2:47:31Speaker 01

  We actually didn't hate each other, it was cool. But nonetheless, that was her stance. My stance is you can't just invent a word. You can't just use a word wrong, invent another word because you're wrong. And then be like, oh, now it's a word, now I'm right. All of a sudden, you can't do this, not how it works. And then, so I look it up in the dictionary. Yeah, it was haunting me. So when I went over, I looked it up in the dictionary, sure enough, the thing was there. And it said, the misuse of the, or the common misuse of regardless. So, but I'm still confused, like, is that a word? And here's the thing. I talked to Jade about it. Yeah, it bothered me a lot.

• 2:48:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:48:06Speaker 01

  So I talked to Jade about it and he was like, bro, that's kinda how the language is.

• 2:48:09Jocko Willink?

  No, he's right.

• 2:48:09Speaker 01

  You get enough people misusing regardless, saying irregardless, boom, all of a sudden it gets shuffled right into the rotation as a legitimate word.

• 2:48:16Jocko Willink?

  That's what.

• 2:48:17Speaker 01

  Is that a good thing or is that a bad thing?

• 2:48:18Jocko Willink?

  I'll tell you what, it's a beautiful thing.

• 2:48:21Jocko Willink?

  It's a beautiful thing, it is.

• 2:48:22Speaker 01

  Oh, right.

• 2:48:22Jocko Willink?

  The language is always evolving and that's what allows the language, just like, just like jujitsu, just like mixed martial arts. You want it to evolve. You want it to, new words to come out that can articulate something a little bit better. Like, for instance, irregardless articulates that you don't know the English language very well.

• 2:48:40Speaker 01

  Right, yeah, that's.

• 2:48:41Jocko Willink?

  But, but yeah, at some point, a hundred years in the future, irregardless will become a word that has a little bit of a different meaning than regardless. Like, it's, maybe it's more regardless.

• 2:48:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:48:54Jocko Willink?

  Like, irregardless of what you're saying. And it will say, first used in, you know, somebody's gonna write an article in online or, and it's gonna, the guy's gonna misuse it, but everyone's gonna understand it and he's gonna say, first used here.

• 2:49:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:49:09Jocko Willink?

  There's all kinds of arguments you can have about language, but you have to remember that it's evolving all the time. Our language is evolving all the time and it should. In France, they try not to let their language evolve.

• 2:49:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:49:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, they try and keep that language.

• 2:49:20Speaker 01

  It's interesting, or I wonder what the ultimate result is, something like that would be, uh, brother, the word.

• 2:49:25Jocko Willink?

  I think it's the same result if you try and not, not evolve your martial arts.

• 2:49:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:49:32Jocko Willink?

  Eventually, if you don't evolve your martial arts, you're gonna lose. That's what I think. And it's the same thing with language.

• 2:49:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, you become less effective, um, communication wise.

• 2:49:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:49:40Speaker 01

  In language, as far as that goes. The word literally, now, okay, literally, we know what, like, here, here's the hard part about accepting this. Because literally means something very specific. There's no ambiguousness. If it started to be ambiguous, you wouldn't say literally. You'd say figuratively, or you just won't say anything. That's what you, that's, that's the defining characteristic of the word, literally. But here's the thing, now, literally doesn't mean literally. Literally means just almost.

• 2:50:08Jocko Willink?

  A lot.

• 2:50:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, just really strong, not even almost literally, it's just really strong. So if, if I was like, man, it, this guy's joke was so funny, I, I was literally dying.

• 2:50:17Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 2:50:18Speaker 01

  I wasn't almost dying. It's not what it means. It just means it was super duper duper funny, you know?

• 2:50:23Jocko Willink?

  That's, that one's changing.

• 2:50:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, man, but that's a hard one to accept.

• 2:50:27Jocko Willink?

  Like? And all, I think there's another word, but in America and California, this is a recent one. So maybe the eighties, everyone's in order to say said, said like, or all. Echo was like, you gotta stop doing this. And I was all, no way am I gonna do that. And that's just the way language evolves.

• 2:50:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. Dang, that's cool. Hey man, I dig it. So nonetheless, if you want to buy this book, regardless, irregardless of the language in it.

• 2:50:59Jocko Willink?

  Don't do that.

• 2:51:02Speaker 01

  What I did was I made it easy. You go to jockpodcast.com on the top menu, whatever. Put a page there, has all the books by episode. This one is on there along with everything else. Just click through there. It's a good way to support and you get, it takes you to Amazon. You get your book in eight hours, however long it takes to ship to your house. Good way to support. Also, if you're doing other shopping, if you're gonna buy that lawnmower and leaf blower that you've been meaning to buy.

• 2:51:30Speaker 01

  And the rake as well. Um, I'm just saying.

• 2:51:33Jocko Willink?

  You're in the wrong time zone, ever wrong time of year for that.

• 2:51:36Speaker 01

  Oh yeah. Wait, the rake. No, it's about to be spring. So what?

• 2:51:39Jocko Willink?

  You got another six months before you need to get the rake out and the lawn blower.

• 2:51:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. I just, that's one of the last things I bought was a leaf blower.

• 2:51:47Jocko Willink?

  Really?

• 2:51:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:51:49Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:51:50Speaker 01

  Long story. Nonetheless, duct tape, that's year round thing. So if you're gonna get duct tape, just carry on shopping, whatever you wanna do. That's, that's what you do. Good way to support. Also subscribe to the podcast, iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Spotify.

• 2:52:05Speaker 01

  Or wherever else they have podcasts and wherever else you wanna listen to the podcast. They have like new podcast apps out too.

• 2:52:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, they all have them though.

• 2:52:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I dig it. So hey, whatever you're using to listen, subscribe. Seems obvious, I guess, on the listening part, but YouTube, not so much. We have a YouTube channel. Subscribe to that too. That's a good way to support if you want. Cause some people not into YouTube.

• 2:52:29Jocko Willink?

  Who's not into YouTube?

• 2:52:30Speaker 01

  I don't know, but I heard-

• 2:52:32Jocko Willink?

  YouTube has some good information on it. You can also waste a bunch of time on it.

• 2:52:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, it's like just, it's, yeah, it's like the internet in general, you know? A lot of good stuff. Your whole, like, pursuit can be on the internet and it can be very beneficial. At the same time, your whole pursuit can be on the internet, or YouTube, and it can be detrimental.

• 2:52:51Jocko Willink?

  What do you mean, your pursuit?

• 2:52:52Speaker 01

  Like, well, whatever you're trying to do, going on the internet will, will basically make it out. So like, if you're trying, if you're trying to learn 3D modeling, go on the internet. You can learn 3D modeling 100%, well, not 100%, but you can learn to be a professional 3D modeler on the internet. At the same time, you can get caught up watching some nonsense and not even take one step towards 3D modeling. That's what I'm saying. It's the dichotomy of the internet. YouTube has the same dichotomy, but if you subscribe to the Jocko Podcast YouTube channel, there's no dichotomy there.

• 2:53:24Jocko Willink?

  All good.

• 2:53:25Speaker 01

  All good, 100% upside because it has a video version of the podcast, it has excerpts, and it has various other little videos we'll just sort of add.

• 2:53:32Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:53:33Speaker 01

  I always say I'm gonna add, but this time I think I'm really gonna add a different type of video. You'll see. It'll be good. Anyway, good way to support. Also, Jocko has a store, if you didn't already know. It's called Jocko Store, jockostore.com. That's where you can get the shirt that Jocko's wearing right now. Victory MMA and Fitness. You don't even have to be a member of Victory MMA and Fitness.

• 2:53:54Jocko Willink?

  You, if you have the shirt, you're kind of a member.

• 2:53:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:53:57Jocko Willink?

  At least in spirit.

• 2:53:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. You're a member in, in a, yeah, in that sort of way. Nonetheless, it's on jockostore.com. It's where you can get any of the shirts that we make and sell. We also have hoodies on there, and rash cards, and hats, and patches. A lot of good stuff. Kids, women's, good stuff. I'm not saying to go buy something. I'm not saying that. I'm saying go there, jockostore.com. Check out the stuff. If you want something, get something. And that's a good way to support. Also, psychological warfare.

• 2:54:32Speaker 01

  If you don't know what that is, which I know you do, but in the unlikely event of you not knowing what that is, this is what it is. It's an album, not a music album. It's a spoken word album with tracks. Jocko helping us through weak points of our day, weak points of our campaign against weakness, weak points of our struggle, struggle, good struggles.

• 2:54:58Jocko Willink?

  Struggle for good, sure.

• 2:54:59Speaker 01

  Struggle for good, that's what it is. You know, the day you want to, you know, you want to sleep in, or you want to cheat on the diet, you want to procrastinate, you want to skip the workout. That's the main one. That's iconic one. Skipping the workout.

• 2:55:10Jocko Willink?

  Cause you skip workouts. All the rest of us are over here getting leg day.

• 2:55:13Speaker 01

  Bruh, I'm sure I did legs the other day. A good one. Didn't skip it.

• 2:55:19Jocko Willink?

  Psychological warfare, that's on iTunes.

• 2:55:21Speaker 01

  It helps you through it.

• 2:55:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:55:23Speaker 01

  Some people, they don't know. So it's Jocko on each track. Bruh, I'm telling you, sometimes they're like, wait, what did I didn't hear of this? Psychological warfare.

• 2:55:31Jocko Willink?

  Now they're not going to listen to the rest of this podcast.

• 2:55:33Speaker 01

  Bruh, they will. It only has like two minute, three, four, like 25 minutes left. I'm just saying. Psychological warfare is good.

• 2:55:40Jocko Willink?

  Almost done.

• 2:55:40Speaker 01

  If you want Jocko to help you, just put it in. That's how it originated. It helped me not skip workouts.

• 2:55:47Jocko Willink?

  You can get it on iTunes, you can get it on Amazon Music, you can get it on Google Play and other podcasting, or there's no other MP3 platforms.

• 2:55:57Speaker 01

  Providing platforms.

• 2:56:00Jocko Willink?

  Also, if you're on Amazon, you can get something called Jocko White Tea. If you don't want to have your deadlift increase to a minimum of 8,000 pounds, then don't get Jocko White Tea. You can get the books, yeah, the books that we cover on the podcast, which are all listed on the website. You can also get a couple of books that you might want to check out. One of them's called Way of the Warrior Kid. I actually wrote that book. It teaches kids.

• 2:56:29Jocko Willink?

  To make their lives better, to get on the path.

• 2:56:34Jocko Willink?

  And work hard. There's another book coming out. It's actually available on Amazon right now. Well, you can't get it yet, but you can preorder it. If you want to spread the word, you preorder it. That makes more people see it. So that's cool. It's called Way of the Warrior Kid: Mark's Mission.

• 2:56:51Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 2:56:52Jocko Willink?

  Little follow up to Way of the Warrior Kid. Different lessons to be learned. So you can check that out. If you want to check out an actual warrior kid, you can go and get some Jocko's soap from Young Aiden. 12 years old, no big deal. You know what he's doing? Making soap. He has his own business. You can get that at IrishOaksRanch.com. Like I said, a 12 year old kid making goat milk soap. You know why? You know why I did that? You can't sell goat milk in California.

• 2:57:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:57:26Jocko Willink?

  But you can sell goat soap.

• 2:57:28Speaker 01

  Goat milk soap, yeah, for sure.

• 2:57:29Jocko Willink?

  So he wanted to make some good ones. So you can check that out as well. The Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual.

• 2:57:36Jocko Willink?

  It's about getting after it. There's really nothing more to say.

• 2:57:40Jocko Willink?

  If you, I've gotten a lot of great feedback from that book, so I appreciate it. And once you feel that you've gotten what you can out of it,

• 2:57:53Jocko Willink?

  loan it to somebody so they can get on the path too. Maybe they'll get their own or get it for them, whatever. It's your choice.

• 2:58:02Jocko Willink?

  Important part of that, everyone wants the audio version of that book. The Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual is not on Audible. It's on iTunes, Amazon Music, Google Play, other MP3 platforms. And it also is an album that has tracks. Some people say with tracks. Extreme Ownership, the new edition is out. Thank you for helping us put the new to get new edition together because we've got questions from this podcast. A new for it, but we've also got pictures or questions from the podcast in there. Extreme Ownership, Combat Leadership, How to Get Out There and Lead You to Win. For onsite leadership instruction and consulting, you can bring our company, Echelon Front, to your organization.

• 2:58:48Jocko Willink?

  We solve problems through leadership. Simple as that. You got a problem? The way you get the problem solved is through leadership. It's me, it's Leif Babin, it's JP Dino, it's Dave Burke. Email [email protected] or you can go through the website echelonfront.com. There's also the muster leadership seminar with the Echelon Front team.

• 2:59:11Jocko Willink?

  We're only doing two this year. I'm going to try and get a bunch of questions that I get asked all the time. I'm going to try and get rid of those questions right now. We're only doing two musters this year. We aren't going to New York City. We aren't going to Texas. We aren't going to Florida. We aren't going to your hometown. I'm sorry, we just can't. We can't go to every town in America to do a muster. We're only doing two of them this year. We're doing one

• 2:59:34Jocko Willink?

  in Washington DC. So there's the east coast and the west coast. One is in Washington DC. It's May 17th and 18th. We're doing another one in San Francisco, October 17th and 18th. So if you want to come to a muster, you gotta come to one of those two. We're not going to Omaha. We're not going to Milwaukee. I want to go there, but unfortunately we can't just get to all those different places. So apologize. Thus far, there has been four musters that we've done over the past year and a half. They all sold out. These two musters are going to sell out as well. So if you want to come and you want to learn pragmatic leadership skills and strategies,

• 3:00:19Jocko Willink?

  then you can go to extremeownership.com and you can register. We will see you there. Echo Charles will also be there. And until you get to the muster, if you have questions for us or you have answers for us, we're looking for both. We're here and we are cruising hard actually on the interwebs, on Twitter, Instagram and on the fish.

• 3:00:46Jocko Willink?

  Echo is at Echo Charles and I am at Jocko Willink. And finally, thanks to those people out there that make this podcast possible. And by that, I mean first and foremost, our military men and women who go into harm's way to protect our freedom and our way of life.

• 3:01:06Jocko Willink?

  Thanks to you and also to the police out there holding the thin blue line. Thanks for protecting us here on the home front. To the firefighters, paramedics and other first responders. Thanks for being ready to come out and rescue us anytime, day or night. And to everyone else that is listening, thank you for listening. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for supporting the podcast.

• 3:01:39Jocko Willink?

  Cause we appreciate, we appreciate all that, but more important, we appreciate going down this path with all of you.

• 3:01:50Jocko Willink?

  So keep putting one foot in front of the other.

• 3:01:56Jocko Willink?

  As you move down this path, keep making the decisions, the right decisions, even on the little things.

• 3:02:05Jocko Willink?

  Keep attacking, pushing, pursuing without cease.

• 3:02:12Jocko Willink?

  And most of all, keep getting after it.

• 3:02:18Jocko Willink?

  So until next time, this is Echo and Jocko. Out.