238: Shake the World with AWESOMENESS. Ancient Chinese Battle Philosophy. The Wuzi by Wu Chee.

0:00:00 - Opening 0:05:35 - Wuzi, by Wu Chee 1:41:21 - Final thoughts and take-aways. 1:42:24 - How to stay on THE PATH. 2:05:31 - 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 238 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. So you may have heard me tell a story in the past about a training tool that we used for young SEAL officers. This special training tool was a stick. Okay. Not to hit them with, but to give them to hold in place of their weapon, in place of their gun if they couldn't detach from their instinct to shoot

• 0:43Jocko Willink?

  and replace that instinct with an instinct to lead. Because the leader's job is not to engage the enemy. The leader's job is to make tactical decisions, to direct the troops, find the next move that we're going to take. The leader's job is to actually lead. There is a story, another story of an ancient Chinese military leader who on the eve of battle was offered a sword from his subordinate leaders, which he did not accept. No, I don't want your sword. I don't want that sword.

• 1:27Jocko Willink?

  Because to him banners, banners and drums, which is how you would signal back in the day. This is how you would direct troops during this time period. Those were the tools of a leader for him. And he said to them to command the troops and direct their blades is the role of a commander. To wield a single sword is not his role.

• 2:01Jocko Willink?

  Correct.

• 2:04Jocko Willink?

  This leader was named Wu Chi.

• 2:10Jocko Willink?

  He lived from 440 to 381 B.C. A philosopher. Military philosopher. Politician. And military leader. He led troops in combat. Many battles. I want to say the number was like, like 60 battles. 63 battles or something like that.

• 2:34Jocko Willink?

  During the period in history. Called the Warring States period. He ended up becoming the prime minister of the state of Chu.

• 2:46Jocko Willink?

  And there. He was. He, he, he led a lot of reforms.

• 2:54Jocko Willink?

  He was kind of a.

• 2:57Jocko Willink?

  He was like a default aggressive leader, a little bit radical. He would make things happen. He would fire incompetent leaders. Spent a bunch of money on the military, tried to build it up.

• 3:08Jocko Willink?

  He eliminated these old hereditary privileges that they had back in the day. So you can imagine that's going to make some people angry.

• 3:19Jocko Willink?

  And he did other things that were good for the state, but were, let's just say against the norm.

• 3:26Jocko Willink?

  Made things happen. On the battlefield and in the bureaucracy. And luckily, he wrote down.

• 3:34Jocko Willink?

  Some of these military philosophies. In something called. The Wu Zi.

• 3:42Jocko Willink?

  W U Z I. I couldn't really figure out what that word meant. Other than, uh, what was it? Room. Like in Chinese, the word Wu Zi. Means room. I, I know that's not that what we're talking about here. So, and I couldn't find any other information about it. So it was just called the Wu Zi.

• 4:04Jocko Willink?

  I'm sure some people will give us some information about that. But there's a lot of, there's a lot of good information in this book, once again, written in, I don't know, sometime before 381 B.C. Which is crazy to think about. That's crazy to think about.

• 4:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. Like, a lot of the time, even though if you look at old pictures, like, you know, the old school, black and white pictures you're looking at, and it's like, dang, that's like, you know, you understand what a photograph is, it's a capture of real, it's basically capture of light coming through this thing and a record of it, right? But what it says is this right here in this little frame right here, this actually happened. This was an actual point in time, right here. There's the person, there's the people, whatever. And yeah, you trip out when you find out like how long ago that was. It's weird, man.

• 5:00Jocko Willink?

  And now think of that, somebody, this guy, Wu Chi, wrote the Wu Z

• 5:07Jocko Willink?

  in 381

• 5:11Jocko Willink?

  B.C. That's crazy.

• 5:13Speaker 01

  The idea of your very existence was nonexistent.

• 5:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 5:20Speaker 01

  Not even close to being existent.

• 5:22Jocko Willink?

  I mean, can you imagine trying to pull the string on your genealogy to find out where your ancestors were back then?

• 5:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:28Jocko Willink?

  It's crazy.

• 5:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, and compared to who kind of you are, whatever, yeah. Yeah, you can go deep in that little rabbit hole.

• 5:36Jocko Willink?

  Let's go deep in the Wu Z. First section, we're jumping right in.

• 5:42Jocko Willink?

  "The need for strengthening domestic and external issues." And this is sort of set up like a story. Which is kind of weird, because I don't know if he wrote it this way, or if people captured his words, but it's written not like too much of a story, but it says this, "Wu Chi, dressed in Confucian attire, had an audience of the Lord Wen of Wei to discuss about military issues." This is, this is one of those situations where I was like, oh, you know, I wonder if this will be good. I hadn't read it in a while, I'd like looked at it. There's- There's, I think, seven ancient Chinese war texts. This is one of them. Sun Tzu is one of them, right?

• 6:25Jocko Willink?

  I glanced through this one, but I couldn't remember enough about it to think, oh yeah, I gotta do this one. Here's the opening. So Lord Wen of Wei said, "I'm not interested in military affairs." Wu Chi replied, "This is like him saying, hey, wait a second. That might not be a good call, my brother." He says, "From the visible facts, I can deduce the hidden. From the past, I can discern the future. How can your lordship say this topic does not accord with your thoughts?"

• 7:03Jocko Willink?

  He's coming out of, off the top rope, rope in the opening, just in the opening. "From the visible facts, I can deduce the hidden. From the past, I can discern the future."

• 7:15Jocko Willink?

  "How can you not want to know what I'm, what I've got?"

• 7:19Jocko Willink?

  Interestingly, you know, Echelon Front, sometimes we'll get a client that says, "Well, you know, you're talking a lot about the military stuff." This is what I'm going to tell them from now on. I'm going to say, "Wait a second. From visible facts, I can deduce the hidden." So then he continues, "This is, some of these lines are really..." So then he says this, "Throughout the four seasons, you have gathered the skins of wild animals, covered them with, with lacquer, painted them with colors, and embellished them with glistening images of rhinoceroses and elephants." Wearing them in, so he's talking about making these garments, these really fancy garments.

• 8:01Jocko Willink?

  Then he says this, "Wearing them in winter does not keep one warm. Wearing them in summer does not make one cool."

• 8:10Jocko Willink?

  So you've done all this, you make all these fancy things, they have no real purpose. And he's kind of setting this up to say, moreover, the Lord has ordered the making of 24 feet and 12 feet long halberds, which is like a, you ever seen those spears that have, instead of having a, just a point, they have like an axe looking thing on it?

• 8:28Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 8:29Jocko Willink?

  So that's, that's what that is. So he's made, he's, he's ordered to make 24 foot ones and 12 foot ones and had leathers to cover the chariots. These chariots are not grand and beautiful at all. These chariots are not mobile enough for hunting, meaning they're not beautiful, so they're not made for show. They're not mobile enough for hunting. So they're, they're, they're made for one thing. He says, I have no idea what you have, what use you have for them. If they are to be used for war, but your Lord does not seek capable people who are adept in using them, such a situation is similar to a nesting hen fighting against a fox or a bitch fighting a tiger.

• 9:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 9:12Jocko Willink?

  This guy's built up some cool looking things, but he's got, he's a paper tiger, right? Got nobody that knows how to operate these things. Although they have great fighting spirit, they will still die. In the past, the Lord of Chang Sang Clan focused on improving the culture and domestic issues, but neglected military affairs, thereby leading to the extinction of the state. The Lord of Yu Hu Clan was belligerent, thus he focused on military affairs and neglected domestic affairs. He too led the state to extinction. So he gives two examples. One guy focused on domestic and didn't care about the military. They fell apart. One was just

• 9:55Jocko Willink?

  belligerent and making war all the time, but not taking care of the domestic. That fell apart. The enlightened ruler would have used such examples to remind him that he should tend to both domestic affairs and military affairs together. When the enemy comes and you do not fight them, such does not count as righteousness. When the enemy comes and you do not fight them, such does not count as righteousness. So the enemy's coming at you, you gotta fight them. When you, oh, this is a good one. When you only start grieving the death of your soldiers after they have died, such does not count as benevolence.

• 10:37Jocko Willink?

  Man, you gotta take care of your soldiers before they die.

• 10:44Jocko Willink?

  And then it says thereupon, Lord Wen personally laid a map for Wu Chi and his wife and presented Wu with the goblet of wine. The Lord later invited Wu Chi to the ancestral temple and appointed him as a commander in chief for the defense of the Western River. So this is, you know, he's like, all right, this guy's got some, he's got some goods. Puts him in charge. From then on, Wu Chi altogether fought 76 battles. Oh, I was wrong. He knocked out a couple more. Winning 64 of them decisively. The other battles resulted in a draw. He expanded Wei's territory in all directions.

• 11:24Jocko Willink?

  Broadening Wei's border by a thousand, by, by a thousand li, which is about a third of a mile.

• 11:33Jocko Willink?

  All of these were Wu Chi's accomplishments. So isn't it cool that he's just got a record like an MMA fighter? He's like, hey, 76 battles, 64, 64 wins and whatever the number is draws. That's his, that's his record. This dude's got a, a combat battle record. It's freaking legit. All right. Now it goes into unity and the people's support. So that's the opener and, and this thing is pretty straightforward, pretty, pretty straightforward. It jumps, goes through pretty succinct sections. This part's called unity and people's support.

• 12:16Jocko Willink?

  Wu Chi said, in antiquity, the ruler who planned to run his state well would teach the enlight, teach and enlighten the people, be close to the people and understand their sufferings. Do I not talk about this all the time? Like you got to understand where your people are coming from. You gotta, you gotta understand their perspective. And you know, I use, I don't know if I, do you think it's, it's okay? Or do you think that I have some kind of a subliminal, uh, uh, problem with the word empathy?

• 12:47Speaker 01

  It wouldn't surprise me.

• 12:49Jocko Willink?

  I don't know. I I guess maybe I did because I always say you got to understand other people's perspective. That whole word can be replaced with just that whole sentence can be just be say empathy.

• 12:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what empathy means.

• 13:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I know. I know. So I guess I have some sort of a natural prejudice against that word.

• 13:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:07Jocko Willink?

  You know, maybe it's something where in my mind it sounds too soft.

• 13:11Speaker 01

  Too soft.

• 13:11Jocko Willink?

  We're not doing it.

• 13:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, like the word.

• 13:15Speaker 01

  Like the word moist. I don't know why, but that that I don't like that word.

• 13:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 13:19Speaker 01

  Even when you know how some words I don't like it when I say it, but other people can say it be like, okay, that makes sense. And I don't care, but moist is one that anyone says.

• 13:27Jocko Willink?

  What the way it sounds or just the thoughts it gives you?

• 13:29Speaker 01

  But all all of the the whole deal. When someone else says it like, oh, even like, you know, I, you know, I stepped here in the ground and it was moist. I'm like, bro, don't say something else, man. Say damp. I don't know. Actually damp damp sounds drier than moist.

• 13:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 13:45Speaker 01

  Right?

• 13:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 13:47Speaker 01

  You see, it was kind of wet. I don't know, man. Just don't say moist.

• 13:50Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 13:50Speaker 01

  See what I'm saying?

• 13:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 13:51Speaker 01

  And I'll refrain from saying it too. It's kind of that feeling.

• 13:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So that's what we're dealing with here.

• 13:56Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 13:56Jocko Willink?

  What he's talking about is empathy. What I say is perspective. But we're all saying the same thing. You got to understand your people. There are four disharmonies the ruler should take note of. If there is disharmony in the state, you cannot start a military campaign.

• 14:11Jocko Willink?

  If there is disharmony disharmony within the army, they cannot be allowed to battle. If there is disharmony within the formation, they cannot be used to lead an attack. If there is a lack of cohesion during the conduct of battle, you cannot score a victory. What does that mean? You got to be unified as a group. For this reason, the eminent ruler, before he employs his people, he would unite them first before achieving great matters together. The ruler, this is why when you're in a team and you're doing anything that is

• 14:45Jocko Willink?

  pulling the team apart, you're not doing a good job as a leader.

• 14:51Jocko Willink?

  The ruler will not dare rely solely on his own plans. But will announce formally at the ancestral temple. When I was reading this, I was like, oh, this is gonna be decentralized command, but it's not really. You actually have to announce it at your ancestral temple and then, and then sort of

• 15:11Jocko Willink?

  get the divine sort of approval from the heavens. That's what it's talking about. Which is still cool. Like, I'm down with that, but I was hoping it would be a little bit more focused on decentralized command rather than the higher power.

• 15:24Jocko Willink?

  But then he says, people will then know that the ruler value their lives.

• 15:30Jocko Willink?

  Will be sorrowed by their deaths and willing to share weal and woe with them. New word, W E A L, weal. And what it means is wealth. Just take the T H off.

• 15:45Speaker 01

  Gotcha.

• 15:46Jocko Willink?

  He uses it a couple of times. But it's a great expression.

• 15:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:50Jocko Willink?

  You got a little alliteration. Hey, I'm willing to share weal and woe. So, good or bad?

• 15:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, sickness and health.

• 15:57Jocko Willink?

  There you go. Wheel and woe. I think wheel and woe might be better.

• 16:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so, yeah.

• 16:03Jocko Willink?

  Officers will then consider death while advancing

• 16:08Jocko Willink?

  is glorious. And life gained through retreating is disgraceful. So, all these things, what does it mean? You gotta build a tight team. You gotta have good relationships up and down the chain of command. You gotta suffer with your troops. You gotta reward them when there's rewards to be given.

• 16:25Jocko Willink?

  Oh, good stuff. That's it. That's on unity and people's support. Next section, four virtues of a ruler. Wu Chi said, the way is actually knowing, is actually how things should be done.

• 16:43Jocko Willink?

  It means, it is the means by which one can turn back to foundation and return to beginning. Righteousness is ethical behavior. It is the means by which to achieve great accomplishments. Strategizing is the means by which to harm distant, keep harm distant and gain benefits. So you strategize, you keep harm distant and you gain benefits. Principles are which to preserve duty and keep achievements. If one's behavior does not accord with the way and righteousness, but dwells in magnificence and enjoys power, disaster will inevitably befall him.

• 17:28Speaker 01

  You gotta keep that ego in check.

• 17:32Jocko Willink?

  If you dwell in magnificence

• 17:36Jocko Willink?

  and you enjoy power, you got disaster coming your way. Thus, the wise ruler will run the state according to the way. Manage the state with righteousness. Orders that order the people with propriety and rule the people with benevolence. Cultivating these four virtues and the state will flourish. Neglecting them would lead to decline.

• 18:01Jocko Willink?

  Take care of your people and your people will take care of you. I wrote that in Leadership Strategy and Tactics. That's the expression in the SEAL teams was take care of your gear and your gear will take care of you. It doesn't seem like a huge leap to say, take care of your people and your people will take care of you. But man, that's a good thing to remember. And that's what my boy Wu Chi is saying right here. Take care of your people and your people are going to take care of you. Righteousness and doing the right things is another thing I say. Do the right things for the right reasons. That's righteousness.

• 18:37Jocko Willink?

  Next section, running the state and victory. Wu Chi said,

• 18:46Jocko Willink?

  in general, to govern the state and the army, you must instruct them with propriety, motivate them with righteousness and instill a sense of shame in them. When men have a sense of shame, one can, to a large degree, wage a war or to a lesser degree, preserve the state. What does that mean? It means...

• 19:09Jocko Willink?

  It reminds me of World War I in England.

• 19:14Jocko Willink?

  Have you ever, I don't know what we've talked about on this podcast, they used to give the white flower to, if you were a military aged male and you weren't in uniform, meaning you weren't serving and everyone else was going overseas and fighting, they would give you a white flower.

• 19:29Speaker 01

  Like a real white?

• 19:30Jocko Willink?

  Like a real white flower. And it was shame.

• 19:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:33Jocko Willink?

  It was shame. And you know, that, that's one of the things that just drove those men to go and fight in that awful war.

• 19:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:42Jocko Willink?

  You know, everyone is dying. Everyone is being wounded. Everyone is being killed. It's a total nightmare. You know what was worse than that?

• 19:50Speaker 01

  White flower.

• 19:51Jocko Willink?

  Shame. And that's what he's saying.

• 19:54Speaker 01

  Scarlet Letter, remember that book?

• 19:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  Old school.

• 19:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 19:57Speaker 01

  A.

• 19:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 19:58Speaker 01

  Same deal.

• 19:59Jocko Willink?

  Thus it is said that for all strong states, those that garner five victories will meet with disaster. So if you win five times, you're going to meet with disaster. Four victories, you're going to decline. Three victories, you're going to achieve hegemony, which means you're like kind of in control. Those with two victories can claim to be kings and those with only one victory will become emperors. For this reason, those who have conquered through numerous victories are rare, while those that perished because of it are many. This reminds me of the disease of victory. It's like the more you win, the better chance you have of falling.

• 20:34Jocko Willink?

  Next, reasons for war and its counter strategies. Wu Chi said, there are five reasons why wars are started and they are.

• 20:43Jocko Willink?

  To contend for fame. To contend for benefits and advantages, to seek revenge, internal strife and famine. The names of wars raised based on these reasons are righteous, bully, anger, plundering, contrary.

• 21:04Jocko Willink?

  The righteous army is raised to save people from chaos. Relying on strength or power to bully people such as a bully army. Mobilizing an army out of anger is an anger army. An army raised to greedily seek profit without consideration for moral and ethics is called a plundering army. While the country is in turmoil and the people are exhausted, embarking on military campaigns and mobilizing masses is termed contrary. Interesting viewpoints. The bully army. Next section. Managing troops, selecting talents, strengthening. Now we go to a little Q and A from the Lord Wu.

• 21:46Jocko Willink?

  Lord Wu said, "I would like to hear your thoughts on managing troops, selecting talents and strengthening nation." Wu Chi said, "From antiquity, enlightened rulers always make every effort to maintain propriety between themselves and their ministers, manifest the distinction of rank, allow the officials and people to settle into their respective positions that accord with their customs, select and recruit talents in order to prepare for the unexpected." Pretty straightforward. He says, "The ruler of a strong state must evaluate his people first." And then he breaks this down a little bit. "Those who have courage and strength should be assembled into a unit.

• 22:30Jocko Willink?

  Those who take pleasure in advancing into battle and exerting their strength so as to manifest their loyalty and courage should be assembled into another unit. Those who are nimble and fleet should be assembled into another unit. Officials who have lost their position and are eager to make amends should be assembled into a unit. Those who have lost in war and want to eradicate their disgrace should be assembled into a unit." These five will serve to be the elite troops. "With 3,000 of such men, one can break any encirclement or break into any city." Those are kind of some cool people to think about, right? You know, we got the people that just love to fight. We got people that want to prove their loyalty. Got people that are quick. We got people that have lost their position.

• 23:16Jocko Willink?

  I think those are the people you gotta watch out for.

• 23:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:18Jocko Willink?

  Right?

• 23:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I guess, I mean, on the surface anyway, it seems like... You'd have to watch out for some, some sort of an infighting scenario, maybe in some of those. But otherwise it's like, yeah, you send out your little elite, uh, what do you call specialized forces? You know, these guys, they, they like to do this, so let's send them in under these circumstances, you know? It's interesting. It's like weapons, like tools, you know?

• 23:40Jocko Willink?

  You know, it's, it's interesting to think about from like, oh, what you should actually do is understand human nature and know what you're dealing with, right? Like you've got somebody that gets defeated, somebody that, you know, loses a client. How do they react to it? They might be, I'm ready to go, boss. Put me in, coach. Right? You might have somebody that gets defeated and gets broken down.

• 24:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, gunshot.

• 24:02Jocko Willink?

  You gotta pay attention to that stuff. Next section, strength in offense and defense. Lord Wu further inquired, I would like to hear your views on making battle formations stable, defense impregnable and victory in battle certain. That's kind of a massive question. How do you make my defense impregnable and victory in battle certain?

• 24:24Jocko Willink?

  What's Wu Chi say to that? He replied, Wu Chi replied, what I am saying is not only for hearing. Carrying them out would allow you to see immediate effect. So he's saying, if you did what I said and could put those men together, you're going to get immediate effect. He's actually stepping up. He's like, oh, that's your question? If you have worthy men hold high positions and relatively less worthy men occupy low position, then your battle formations are stable.

• 24:50Jocko Willink?

  If people settle down into their respective positions, respect their local authorities, then defense is solid. When the people support the policies of their government and not concerned about those of other states, then in battle, you will already be victorious. This is a very interesting concept that picture you have a team. This, this, this would happen in the SEAL team. Sometimes they put together these like kind of super platoons where they would take a bunch of really good guys and put them in there. And all of a sudden what you have is a bunch of alphas in the same platoon. And do you think that works out well? What's your guess?

• 25:26Speaker 01

  Well, the fact that you brought it up makes me think no, but.

• 25:30Jocko Willink?

  Why?

• 25:32Speaker 01

  Because everyone has a, I mean, the simple answer is like, everyone's trying to be the alpha, right?

• 25:37Jocko Willink?

  Exactly.

• 25:37Speaker 01

  Kind of thing, but yeah, it's like in a, in a team, like just like all, all those guys, right? There's like different types of guys for different jobs and a team, there's different jobs typically.

• 25:46Jocko Willink?

  So it's interesting that he would say, what he's saying is, you know, you put your alphas in there, you put an alpha in there and then you put some betas in there and everyone kind of goes into their natural position is gonna be the most positive thing. Now here's what I'll tell you. In life, you're not always gonna be put in that situation and you might be the alpha.

• 26:07Jocko Willink?

  And you get put in with another alpha. So now what are you gonna do? If you're smart, what you'll do is subordinate your ego, support that other person. Or you know, maybe you're just enough, maybe they do that. But what you don't wanna do is fight with that person, you're ruining the team.

• 26:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's a, there's things called logical fallacies, there's like a bunch of them or whatever. And that's one of them. And there, there are actually two of them that are kind of, one is one and then the other is just like flipped around. And it's, it's essentially that where it's like individuals, like if an individual is a level five and you get, you put three of them in there, that makes it a level 15. It's not the case. It's logically, it seems the case, but it's like a fallacy for that reason.

• 26:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 26:49Speaker 01

  And then the inverse is right too, where it's like, if you have a team worth 15, if you just break them up, you got three fives rolling around, performing at five. That's not true either because they can function better together for that exact same reason. But it's like the inverse fallacy.

• 27:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 27:04Speaker 01

  I forget what it's called though.

• 27:05Jocko Willink?

  You can have a, a, a leadership team that just completely complements each other and they can be unstoppable. And then you pull one person out or you pull two people out of that team, they fall apart.

• 27:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, or at the very least, uh, level down, you know?

• 27:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 27:19Speaker 01

  So yeah, I mean, it makes sense when you think about it, but there's so many, it's weird. I was like reading all these, I was like, yeah, that's true, that's, oh dang. And it's, cause you automatically think these things, you know, there's, yeah, there's a bunch of them. But yeah, that makes sense.

• 27:33Jocko Willink?

  Importance of seeking talent.

• 27:36Jocko Willink?

  There once was, there was once when Lord Wu was planning state affairs. None of his ministers could be equal to him. After dismissing the court, he wore a happy and satisfied look. So he, there he is, he's running a show, he's like, man, I'm smarter than everybody, this is awesome. Wu Chi saw that and said,

• 27:58Jocko Willink?

  There was once Lord Shang of Chu was planning state affairs with his ministers. He discovered that none of his ministers could equal his intelligence. After he had dismissed the court, he looked very troubled. Official Shen asked him, why does your lordship wore such troubled countenance? In other words, why do you look so bummed out? And he said, I am not talented, yet none of my ministers are equal to me. Our state is in deep trouble.

• 28:27Jocko Willink?

  And then when Wu Chi tells the story, the guy he's talking to gets embarrassed because what does that statement say? That statement says surround your people with people, surround yourself with people that are better than you, smarter than you. That's what that says.

• 28:42Jocko Willink?

  If you're smarter, if you're the smartest person in the room, you're on a losing team. You should feel horrible.

• 28:51Jocko Willink?

  National, next section, national alertness. Lord Wu addressed Wu Chi. At present, Qin coerces us on the west, Chu encircles us in the south, Chao collides with me in the north, and Qi encroaches us from the east. Yan cuts off our rear and Han occupies the front. These six states surround us and we have to defend against them. Our situation is precarious and it worries me. What can be done about this? Wu Chi said, in general, being alert of danger is true measure of good governance, ensuring security of the state. As you have now recognized the importance of being cautious, disaster can be kept away. So the guy's surrounded and he's like, what can I do? Pay attention to it.

• 29:36Jocko Willink?

  Nothing too miraculous there.

• 29:40Jocko Willink?

  Next, next section, providing opportunity for talent. Within the army, there will be soldiers whose courage is that of a tiger. Has strengths that he can lift tripods easily and has the fleetness of a barbarian horse. I tried to figure out if there's some root word to tripods. It's like a stool, a three-legged desk. I couldn't find that there was some ancient thing that was really heavy. So we're just going with that. We have to use our imaginations on that one. To seize enemies' flag or kill enemies' generals, you need such men. You should select them and put them into one unit, honor them and favor them. This is because in their hands holds the fate of the whole army. Those who are experts in weapons, strong and quick

• 30:24Jocko Willink?

  and capable and motivated to kill enemies, they should be given rank and prominence. We should also treat the family well, encourage them with rewards, and warn them with punishment. This is because such people can solidly hold their position for a long time and exterminate enemies. If the ruler can discern and evaluate men described, you can attack double-force your strength.

• 30:46Jocko Willink?

  Lord Wu exclaimed, "Great."

• 30:52Jocko Willink?

  People, you know, you get asked that question a lot. You know, what do you do when you've get the, the high performers on a team, right? Do you focus on them? And clearly, the answer here is yes. And that's usually the answer that I give as well. You do have to keep a bench, right? You have to have some other people and you have to continue to work to get your bench to become high performers. So you don't ignore the bench. When you get the opportunity, give them some playing time, give them some playing time. But definitely focus on those ones that are definitely going to get up there and make things happen.

• 31:26Jocko Willink?

  Enemies you can attack, next section. Wu Chi said, "In general, when evaluating the enemy, there are eight conditions under which one engages battle without doing an assessment." You don't even have to think about these. These are no brainers. These are go criteria. In violent winds and extreme clothes, they arise. Early and are on the march while barely awake and breaking ice to cross streams. So these guys are cold, they're miserable, and they're tired. You can just attack them. Next one, in the burning heat of summer, they arise late and press forward with haste through hunger and thirst, concentrating on reaching far off objectives. You see them? Attack them. The army has been out in the field for an extended period. Their food supplies are exhausted. The people are resentful and angry.

• 32:09Jocko Willink?

  Numerous bale for portents arise with the officers unable to squash them. You see them? Attack them. The army's resources have already been exhausted. Firewood and hay are scarce. Weather frequently cloudy and rainy, and if they even want to plunder for supplies, there's nowhere to do it. Cleared hot, attack them.

• 32:31Jocko Willink?

  The troops that are mobilized are not large. The terrain and water are not advantageous. The men and horses are sick and worn out with no assistance from their allies. Attack them. The road is far off and the sun is setting. The officers and men have labored long and are fearful. They are tired and have not eaten, having just cast aside their armor. Attack them.

• 32:50Jocko Willink?

  The generals are weak, the official irresponsible, the officers and troops are not solid. The whole army is frequently in fear and the troops lack assistance. Attack them.

• 33:00Jocko Willink?

  Their formations are not yet formed, their encampment not yet finished, or they are passing through dangerous territory. Only half their troops are out of it. In these eight conditions, you can attack without any doubts.

• 33:14Jocko Willink?

  Enemies you cannot attack, other end of the spectrum. There are six circumstances without performing too much assessment, you should avoid conflict. The land is broad and vast, the people are wealthy and numerous. Avoid conflict. The government loves the people, the ruler, the ruler's goodness extends and flows to all.

• 33:41Jocko Willink?

  Isn't that an interesting one? When you have a ruler that takes care of his people, don't even attack them. Think about that. Think about that as a leader, how you treat your team. When you treat your team well, when you take care of your team, the enemy shouldn't even attack you because they know what's gonna happen.

• 34:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. Uh, not to interrupt, so this, you're reading from a paper right now? Where'd you get that? Like, obviously it's a book.

• 34:09Jocko Willink?

  I got it from, uh, the depths of the internet.

• 34:14Speaker 01

  What is it, like a PDF situation?

• 34:16Jocko Willink?

  No, uh...

• 34:20Jocko Willink?

  You know, I don't, I see, I, a lot of times in my life, when I'm browsing the internet,

• 34:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:28Jocko Willink?

  when I find a good document, I just download that document, or I copy paste it, and I put it into this file, which is called, "Books and PDFs." So in this thing, "Books and PDFs", well, sometimes I'll, I'll go, "Oh yeah, I'll see something, or remind me of it, or I'll think of it", and I'll just go and, and go in there. And that's where, so I forget where this actually came from, because it was just in my personal file that says, "Books and PDFs", which is filled with ancient military documents, and F field manuals, and that's, so that's where it came from. So it's, I'm sure you could go Google it, and you'd find it on the internet somewhere.

• 35:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. Interesting.

• 35:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 35:14Jocko Willink?

  Number three, "Rewards and punishment system is fair and transparent, and is implemented in a timely fashion." You shouldn't even attack somebody that treats their people fairly, and transparently. Think about that.

• 35:30Jocko Willink?

  Number four, "People are rewarded according to their accomplishment, and the talented are, and able are employed." "Got a talented team, we're not gonna play." "Forces are massive and well-equipped", I think that is pretty self-evident. "They have assistance of all their neighbors and the support of a powerful state." Okay, cool. So those, those were maybe both those sections a little obvious.

• 35:54Speaker 01

  Well.

• 35:54Jocko Willink?

  Which makes you wonder why you have to say it. And I know the answer to the question that I just asked. The reason that you have to say it is because people still don't even execute on things that seem really obvious. Like, hey, we're, the forces are massive and well-equipped. We, we should not attack them. But go look at history. As obvious as it is, people do it all the time.

• 36:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, one of those things where it's like, okay, are you gonna work hard or are you gonna work smart? Ideally, both. I get it, but you know, when people are faced, you know, in, in the mix and it's like, work hard, work smart. It's kind of like, okay, not a lot of people say, I mean, I don't want to say not a lot, but I'm just saying there are people, let's say on a normal level, quantity-wise, who are gonna be like, hey, hard all day. And turn their back on the smart part, you know? I guess it seems understandable, yeah, if you're not, I mean detached, it's kind of like, sure, I'm gonna, I'm gonna play this the smartest I possibly can. I have force for sure, but I'm gonna play this the smartest, given how much force I have. Big, small, whatever. Yeah, to follow that makes sense, but I don't know, I guess it's maybe not the, the most obvious.

• 37:00Jocko Willink?

  Here's the deal. It's so obvious from the outside.

• 37:04Speaker 01

  Right.

• 37:04Jocko Willink?

  It's watching a movie. It's watching a lame horror movie where you're watching the girl, you know, hear a noise downstairs in the basement.

• 37:16Jocko Willink?

  Everybody knows.

• 37:17Speaker 01

  She goes down there barefoot, like, super obvious.

• 37:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, but this stuff happens all the time, not just in movies. People do dumb stuff.

• 37:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:25Jocko Willink?

  A lot. People do dumb stuff. A lot.

• 37:32Jocko Willink?

  Uh, check. If, in general, if you are no match for the enemy in these areas, without a doubt, avoid them. This is what I meant by see possibility and advance knowing difficulty and withdraw. So if you see possibility, advance. If you see difficulty, withdraw. Pretty straightforward. Next section, detecting the enemy's situation. Lord Wu inquired, from the external appearance, I would love to be able to know their internal situations. From their advance, I would know their objective. From these, I am able to predict victory or defeat. What is your opinion of this?

• 38:12Jocko Willink?

  Wu Chi replied, "If the enemy approaches in large numbers, but in disarray, their flags and formations are a mess and the troops frequently look about, but using, by using one tenth of their strength, we can invariably cause them to be helpless. So if they're just looking ragtag, no factor.

• 38:32Jocko Willink?

  If reinforcements, if reinforcement has not arrived, there is disunity within the troops, preparations for defense has not been completed, orders and rules have not been announced, the morale of the army is shaken, they cannot advance or retreat. You can defeat the enemy with half of its strength and never lose at all." What's interesting about this perception is when my first deployment to Iraq, we were running around in thin-skinned Humvees, meaning there was no armor, it was just super sketch. And one of the things we did, we would actually brief that everyone was responsible for scanning targets, looking, and making our convoy look like a convoy that you don't want to, you

• 39:16Jocko Willink?

  don't want to upset. So we called it the porcupine of death, because we had, we had guys in the back of our Humvees, we had these, we had articulating weapons, so we had weapons mounted, crew-served weapons mounted on articulating arms. You've got one of those on each side, you probably had another couple of machine gunners in the back anyways, they've got their weapons pointed out, you've got, everyone has got a weapon pointed out of that vehicle. You've also got the turret gunner, except for the driver, the driver's the only one that's not pointing a weapon. So those were some, if you were looking at that, and you see five Humvees, and you see, I don't know, there's six guns on each Humvee, and some of them are, you know, heavy caliber weapons, belt-fed machine guns.

• 40:01Jocko Willink?

  As I'm thinking about it even right now, I'm thinking if I was an insurgent, I would probably wait till the next convoy where it's all buttoned up, that you know, people are sitting inside, they're looking straight ahead. We turned their seats on the Humvees because we didn't have doors. We turned the seats to face outwards. For two reasons, one, so that we could see and have a better angle to shoot, but also because our chestplates of our body armor would be then facing the enemy. As opposed to sitting where they could shoot you in the side. But just, just imagine, you know, so we would ride like our, we're facing sideways. And our feet are, are out of the vehicle and we're just scanning for targets. And so when you see these Humvees, you think, you know what? Let's not mess with these guys.

• 40:44Speaker 01

  Gun barrels pointing at you, no matter where you are.

• 40:46Jocko Willink?

  No matter where you are. We call that, that was our posture. And we wanted to have an aggressive posture and we most certainly did. We also, you know, and those were the, were the Mad Max days. So we welded these big crazy, you know, bumpers on them and we'd put tires on the front. So we could just get aggressive. Get aggressive while driving.

• 41:09Jocko Willink?

  And my point is we, we didn't, we got ambushed a few times, but when you consider the amount of time we were on the road, I think there was probably quite a few insurgents or enemy that decided maybe they'd wait until the next convoy.

• 41:26Jocko Willink?

  Next up, weaknesses you can attack. Are there circumstances where the enemy can invariably be attacked? Lord Wu inquired. Wu Chi replied, in employing the army, you must ascertain the enemy's strengths and weaknesses. If you spot an opportunity to attack, attack his weaknesses. Below are the situations you can attack an enemy. When the enemy has just arrived from afar and their battle formations are not yet properly formed and deployed. Again, this is running through a list of things that seem really kind of obvious. If they have just eaten and not less yet established their encampment, they can be attacked. If they are on the move and the troops' formation is disarray, they can be attacked. If they have labored hard, they can be attacked. If they had not seized advantages of the terrain, they can be attacked.

• 42:10Jocko Willink?

  When they have not seized any critical, the critical timing, they can be attacked. When their flags and banners move about chaotically, they can be attacked. When they have traversed a great distance, their supplies and reinforcements just arrived and the whole troops have not rested, they can be attacked. It goes on, "When crossing the river and only half of them across, they can be attacked. On treacherous terrain, on narrow roads, they can be attacked. When formations change frequently, they can be attacked. When a general is separated from his soldiers, they can be attacked. When they are afraid, they can be attacked. In general, in such circumstances, select crack troops and make a swift attack on them. Divide remaining troops and continue the assault repeatedly."

• 42:55Jocko Willink?

  Factors in using troops. Lord Wu asked, "In using troops, what is primary?" Wu Chi replied, "First, you need to be clear about the four principles of lightness, the two principles of heaviness, and the one principle on integrity." Lord Wu asked, "What are they?" Wu Chi said, "These are kind of cool. The four principles of lightness means the terrain that the horses... The terrain feels that the horses are light. The horses will feel that the chariot is light. The chariots will feel that the soldiers on it are light, and the soldiers feel that the burden of war is light." And he breaks this down a little bit more. "The terrain feels that the horses

• 43:39Jocko Willink?

  means that one should choose suitable terrain that would not hamper the movement of the horses. Thus, the terrain would feel that the horses are light. If the horses are properly fed, they will be strong, and thus, when they are pulling chariots, they would feel that the chariots are light. If the axles of the chariots are well-oiled, sturdy, and properly maintained, they can move soldiers easily. Thus, the chariots will feel that the soldiers are light. If the soldiers have sharp weapons and their armor are sturdy, they will feel confident about winning. Thus, the burden of war will be light."

• 44:15Jocko Willink?

  So there's the four lights. For the courageous that advance, they should be rewarded heavily. For those that retreat, they should be punished heavily. So there's the two heavies. There are four lights, two heavies, and the last one is integrity. There are two principles, these are the two principles of heaviness. As for integrity, it refers to the integrity of rewards and punishment system. If the ruler is to take note and implement these principles, the troops can achieve victory.

• 44:48Jocko Willink?

  It all kind of starts with picking good terrain.

• 44:53Jocko Willink?

  Man, it was a

• 44:56Jocko Willink?

  that so much focus, if you're, if you're in combat arms, so much focus should be on understanding terrain. And then as you map that into the civilian sector and jobs and, and businesses, you need to understand what the terrain is. The, what's the market like? What, where are people located? Where are your competitors? What is their encampment like? You can translate this stuff and you can utilize terrain. That's the thing. Terrain on the battlefield is, is the best weapon, right? It's like positioning in jujitsu that when you get the right terrain, it's like you have good position in jujitsu. When you get good terrain in business, you have that kind of massive advantage.

• 45:44Jocko Willink?

  Gaining control of the army. Lord Wu asked, what measures will ensure the soldiers will be victorious? This guy's asking these questions. This is kind of like those questions that are, hey, how do, how do you pass the, how do you pass the guard, right? It's like, how do you get around their legs? And you, huh? Come on, man.

• 46:05Jocko Willink?

  But Wu Chi has an answer. Cause Wu Chi's not playing.

• 46:10Jocko Willink?

  Control is foremost. Lord Wu asked again, is it not a matter of numbers? Wu Chi says, if the laws and orders are not clear, rewards and punishments not met meted out. When the sounding of the gongs will not cause them to halt or the beating of the drums will not make them advance, even if you have a million men, what use are they? Control is achieved by training and management. At any time, discipline is strict and during war, they move and attack with awe.

• 46:40Jocko Willink?

  Their advance and withdraw, stride is measured, the left and right, look out for each other, even if recovered move, even if broken off from the main order, they preserve their formations, decentralized command. Even if they scatter, they will reform lines. The whole army is very united and share wheel and woe together.

• 47:00Jocko Willink?

  When they are employed, they do not feel tired. No matter where you dispatch them, no one can withstand them. Such armies are called the father and son army. He doesn't go into any more detail about the father and son army. But that whole thing, you know, decentralized command, discipline.

• 47:20Jocko Willink?

  When they are employed, they do not feel tired. Think about that. Right? Think about that. Think about that in your personal life. Like you can be tired. It going into a workout and I mean mentally tired. Oh, man, I'm tired. I want to go to sleep. When you start working out and you're actively engaged, you're not tired anymore. I never feel tired when I'm actually doing something. Seriously. That's crazy, right?

• 47:44Speaker 01

  Yes, it is crazy.

• 47:46Jocko Willink?

  I mean, I have to stop doing something and then I can get tired. Takes about forty minutes.

• 47:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, actually, that makes sense, but it does depend on what kind of tired you're talking about. So you know how there's like the three tireds?

• 47:58Jocko Willink?

  I don't know about the three tireds, but I know that one is obviously physically tired. So when you're working out and you're doing your third set of burpees as fast as you can. Yeah, you that's a different kind of tired.

• 48:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you can.

• 48:09Jocko Willink?

  That's one, is that one, is that type one tired?

• 48:11Speaker 01

  That's type two and three tired, yes. And keep in mind, I said the three tires like it's this known thing that the type three, the three types of tired is the three types of tired that I recognize in myself.

• 48:23Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so this is the echo Charles, the principles, the ancient principles of echo Charles.

• 48:28Speaker 01

  There's sleepy tired. No, yeah, well, fatigue is a general.

• 48:31Jocko Willink?

  Sleepy tired.

• 48:32Speaker 01

  Sleepy tired.

• 48:33Jocko Willink?

  Is that what is that the doctrinal name for it?

• 48:34Speaker 01

  That the sleepy tired. Yeah, so far, yes. Uh, that's the one you're talking about where you're a little sleepy tired, but you're not the other two kinds of tired. You can just warm up a little bit, get the blood flowing. You know, maybe boost some adrenaline in some capacity and you're you're rolling, you're good to go. You stop, you're gonna go back to sleepy tired a little bit. Then there's like, then there's then there's lungs tired, meaning like my muscles are working, but I'm breathing so hard that I that like relief is like you just need, you need really from that. So you gotta rest whatever.

• 49:04Jocko Willink?

  Long, sleepy tired, lungs tired, and then we have muscular tired.

• 49:07Speaker 01

  Muscular tired, like yeah, straight up muscular fatigue.

• 49:10Jocko Willink?

  This bar anymore.

• 49:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. So in jujitsu, like. All of those kind of come into play where

• 49:15Jocko Willink?

  Sleepy tired?

• 49:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, so you can be sleepy tired before you get on the mat, but once you start rolling, it goes away. That's how you recover from sleepy tired in jujitsu. Jujitsu sleepy tired comes before the roll, you see what I'm saying? So now in jujitsu, you can have a guy, a real ha- fast paced guy and you'll be lungs tired. Like you'll be like, like this guy's but muscular, you can still push him, but you're just breathing so hard and he gets you in some kind of claustrophobic situation. You're in big trouble. Depends on who you are, of course, but if you're muscular fatigue tired, you're not like breathing hard, you know, like, I mean, that I guess typically happens if you're like really not in shape and you go like a few rounds, you know? Or if you, or if you've just been rolling all day.

• 49:55Jocko Willink?

  Well, the, well, I'll tell you where I get muscular tired is like you, you either are giving or receiving a singular move for an extended period of time. I E. You get my arm and I'm defending for four and a half minutes.

• 50:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:12Jocko Willink?

  Muscular tired.

• 50:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, you can't, yeah, and it applies.

• 50:14Jocko Willink?

  You'll be muscular tired too, by the way.

• 50:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:16Jocko Willink?

  Right? Because it happens to both of us.

• 50:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, fully and it'll, you know, obviously depend on how good a shape, certain muscles are, muscle groups, whatever. And it can apply to individual muscles or parts of your body or your whole body. Like you ever felt like, bro, my body is just all getting up is like, it's like your whole body is muscular tired, but you're not breathing hard or nothing. You're just like, oh, I'm dead, you know, kind of thing. It's like, you know, if you roll for like a long time, that tends to happen in my experience anyway. But yeah, that's three times, three times.

• 50:43Jocko Willink?

  Three types of tired ancient echo Charles doctrine.

• 50:48Speaker 01

  Fully.

• 50:48Jocko Willink?

  Sleepy tired. That's my favorite one, bro. Sleepy tired, because you know, that's the same word, right?

• 50:55Speaker 01

  Uh, well, you know, I guess depends on what you mean, not necessarily tired.

• 51:00Jocko Willink?

  You know what? The Eskimos have what? Where they always say the Eskimos have a hundred words for snow or something like that.

• 51:05Speaker 01

  Well, the wines have two words for water. So it's like, okay.

• 51:07Jocko Willink?

  What are the two words?

• 51:08Speaker 01

  Well, actually there might be more, but there's water like on a river and there's, there's the ocean water. Cause they're like different things, you know, in their mind, even though they're made of the same liquid, whatever H two O, I guess sometimes there's salt in one of them, but nonetheless. You see how they can be differentiated from a certain approach? You see what I'm saying?

• 51:27Jocko Willink?

  Do you know the two Hawaiian words for water?

• 51:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, vi and Kai.

• 51:31Jocko Willink?

  Which one's which?

• 51:31Speaker 01

  Vi is river water, or like lakes, or you know, like.

• 51:35Jocko Willink?

  What if you were gonna ask for a drink of water, what would you ask for?

• 51:39Speaker 01

  I don't know. That's that's another one. That could be a whole different thing.

• 51:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, we're gonna check back with our people.

• 51:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:45Jocko Willink?

  Figure out what the deal is there.

• 51:47Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. And that's why, like, there's a lot of, like, towns and even names or whatever, they'll have Kai in them, or Vi. It's actually Vi, but it's spelled W W A I. So Kai, K A I, is the ocean water. That's they're referring to the ocean water.

• 52:00Jocko Willink?

  Lots of people named Kai, too.

• 52:01Speaker 01

  Exactly right. Kai something, you know, or it could be part of it, you know, like you can you can have names like, you know, Kainoa, or, you know, Kailani, or this and that. And Kailani roughly translates to beautiful ocean. Lani is like beautiful, or, you know, loving, or some, you know, there's a bunch of translations for sure.

• 52:22Jocko Willink?

  We're not putting you on the spot.

• 52:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm digging deep in my, you know, Hawaiian, Hawaiian right now. But nonetheless, yes, Kai. If you say Makai, that's like a that's like a position slash location. Makai means towards the ocean.

• 52:37Jocko Willink?

  Towards the ocean.

• 52:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. And if you say Malka, that means towards the mountain.

• 52:40Jocko Willink?

  The mountainside.

• 52:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, mountainside, exactly. But anyway, yes. Three words for tired, two words for water in Hawaiian, and, you know. There you go. All right, we're gonna go with that. I like it.

• 52:58Jocko Willink?

  Next one, notes on marching armies. Wu Chi said, in general, the way to command a marching army is not to contra intervene, not to contravene the proper timing, advancement, and stopping. Not miss the appropriate times for eating and drinking, and not completely exhaust the strength of men and horses. These three are the means by which troops can undertake their orders from their superiors. When the orders of the superiors are followed, control is achieved. If advancing and resting are not a proper timing, the drinking and eating are not timely, when the horses are tired and the men are weary, and not allowed to relax in encampment, then they will be unable to carry out the commander's order. If they're unable to carry the order, they're gonna be defeated. Dave Burke got asked.

• 53:43Speaker 01

  Good deal, Dave.

• 53:44Jocko Willink?

  Yes, got asked a question today on EF Online. And, and this, this one guy named Evan was asking, you know, hey, my team right now needs to get after it big time. And

• 54:00Jocko Willink?

  we can't take a break, but people are burned out. And if we don't keep going right now, we're not gonna make it. And Dave Burke.

• 54:10Speaker 01

  Good deal, Dave.

• 54:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. He, he said, well, do you really? You know what I mean? Like, really? And then, and then he, the guy said, you know, it's like a marathon. You know, we're in a marathon and we, you know, if we stop, we won't finish. And, and Dave's works like, actually, you can be in a marathon and you can stop. And you can still finish factually, right? You can take a break. And then, what did he say? Max Q. Oh yeah. So there's three modes of speed in a jet fighter. Max Q is we're going as fast as we possibly can.

• 54:54Jocko Willink?

  Max R is, hey, our range is, we're gonna go as far as we can. We're trying to, because obviously if you're going as fast as you can, you might not be able to go as far because you're burning more fuel. And then the last one was Max E, which was, I think it's max efficiency, meaning we're just gonna stay flying as long as we can.

• 55:14Speaker 01

  Gotcha.

• 55:15Jocko Willink?

  And so he said, well, you gotta, you know, no one to push and then you gotta back off. Then you push for a second, then you back off. And Dave was saying almost never. Well, he would, he said all the time, they would be constantly going between max Q, max R, max E, and just going back and forth between these things.

• 55:33Speaker 01

  Real quick, one more time, max Q.

• 55:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 55:35Speaker 01

  Is

• 55:37Jocko Willink?

  How far can we go?

• 55:38Speaker 01

  How far?

• 55:38Jocko Willink?

  And then. No, sorry. Max Q is as fast as we can possibly go.

• 55:41Speaker 01

  And then.

• 55:42Jocko Willink?

  I don't even know if the word was max.

• 55:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it was max Q, max R, cause now it's as, yup, and then the last one was max E.

• 55:50Speaker 01

  So R is as far as you can go, straight up, whatever speed, we're just trying to get there.

• 55:54Jocko Willink?

  Trying to, we're trying to get as far as we can.

• 55:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, and then max E is like, basically as far as fast.

• 56:00Jocko Willink?

  No, max E is staying in the air, like, we wanna be able to stay in the air.

• 56:05Speaker 01

  Gotcha.

• 56:06Jocko Willink?

  Because there's an optimum time where we might be going slower, but we're saving a lot of fuel.

• 56:10Speaker 01

  Okay, yeah, yeah.

• 56:11Jocko Willink?

  And if we went faster, we could go further, but not as long, we just wanna stay in the air.

• 56:15Speaker 01

  Okay, understand, yeah, okay, that makes sense.

• 56:18Jocko Willink?

  It's kinda like jujitsu, right?

• 56:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, yeah, in your body you have similar energy systems, too.

• 56:23Jocko Willink?

  What is it?

• 56:24Speaker 01

  An aerobic.

• 56:25Jocko Willink?

  An aerobic, aerobic.

• 56:27Speaker 01

  And then aerobic, yeah.

• 56:29Jocko Willink?

  An aerobic, lactic acid, and

• 56:33Speaker 01

  Aerobic.

• 56:33Jocko Willink?

  Aerobic.

• 56:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:35Jocko Willink?

  Three systems.

• 56:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, and they're a blend, it's not like, you know, they blend into each other kinda thing, so it's not like, oh, you know.

• 56:45Jocko Willink?

  Next one, decisiveness.

• 56:48Jocko Willink?

  Wu Chi said, in general, I'm gonna change my voice a little bit for this one.

• 56:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, I do.

• 56:54Jocko Willink?

  We gotta go a little heavy on this one. In general, on the battlefield, soon to become a land of corpses, if the soldiers are committed to fighting to death, they will live, whereas if they seek to stay alive, they will die.

• 57:12Speaker 01

  Makes sense.

• 57:14Jocko Willink?

  Gotta be aggressive. If you're scared of dying, your chances of dying increase.

• 57:24Jocko Willink?

  A general, a good general act as if they are on a sinking boat, or trapped in a burning building. There is not enough time for the wa- to, for the wise to make plans, or the courageous to get angry. Only thought that one can have is to fight. Thus, it is said that the greatest harm can befall an army is the result of hesitation, while the disasters that befall the whole army is a result of too much doubts, leading to slowness.

• 57:55Jocko Willink?

  What did Patton say? A good plan executed now is better than an imperfect plan executed in two weeks.

• 58:06Jocko Willink?

  Those are good ones. Education and training of armies. Wu Chi said in war, "Men constantly perished from their inabilities and are defeated by unfamiliar. Thus, when deploying troops, training should be given the priority." "One man who has been trained in warfare can instruct ten men. Ten men can train a hundred men. A hundred men can train a thousand men. A thousand men can train ten thousand men. Ten thousand men can train a whole army."

• 58:33Jocko Willink?

  Use the advantage of being near to counter enemy that comes from afar. Use the advantage of being well-rested to counter an enemy that's been labored. Use the advantage of being satiated to counter the enemy that is hungry. Having them from deploying in circular formations and change to square ones. Have them sit, then get up and move and halt. Have them halt, move left to right, right to left. He's talking about how to train these people. How have them divide and combine, unite them, disperse them. When all these changes are familiar, provide them with weapons. All these mentioned are great. I used to do this with, I did this all the time. I would take my SEAL platoon, take my SEAL task unit. Go out on the beach.

• 59:15Jocko Willink?

  We wouldn't even have, we'd just be wearing PT shorts and pairs, whatever, sneakers. And get in our patrol formation and then go contact front, contact right, contact left, center peel, peel right, peel left, and call these random calls. And people just have to figure it out. And you start going, hey, you come with me. Here's a new call. And people start taking ownership and people start making things happen. You start to see initiative and you start to see decentralized command. And by the time we would get to, let's say, land warfare and we'd thrown all this chaos at all these guys and they got used to making things happen, it just seemed easy.

• 59:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:49Jocko Willink?

  It almost seemed like we were cheating.

• 59:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. Do you run into like in the beginning of say that kind of exercise or whatever like kind of a chaotic kind of scenario?

• 59:58Jocko Willink?

  Oh, for sure.

• 59:59Speaker 01

  And then what? You just sort of what? Give them guidelines or?

• 1:00:02Jocko Willink?

  Work through it.

• 1:00:03Speaker 01

  Like, but you coach them up like after?

• 1:00:05Jocko Willink?

  I might, but work through it. Yeah. Cause as you work through it, you're getting better. We now we would have a debrief, you know, maybe go through eight or 10 little mini maneuvers. And this is, you know, the classic one is you, you call your first call and everyone knows what to do. And then the you let that start to get executed, then right as it's getting executed, you call a different call.

• 1:00:24Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:00:26Jocko Willink?

  Then as that one's getting, so now you've got confusion times one. Then you call a different thing, you get confusion times two. Now we're all split up. You're, you know, you're used to be your fire team being Bill, Fred and Joe. And all of a sudden you're not with Bill, Fred and Joe. And a matter of fact, you're a junior guy and everyone in your fire team that you randomly end up as all junior guys as well. No one knows that they need to step up in charge. Finally, you look around and say, I gotta make a call right now. Hey, fire team, it's on me. We're gonna bound forward. Ready? Move. And you, the guys listen to you. Why? Because they're starting to adapt to the situation.

• 1:00:56Speaker 01

  So they, so we all start off with like pretty clear guidelines, super general, but pretty clear.

• 1:01:01Jocko Willink?

  Every SEAL knows what to do when you say contact front.

• 1:01:06Speaker 01

  Gotcha.

• 1:01:06Jocko Willink?

  Everybody knows what to do.

• 1:01:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:08Jocko Willink?

  And then you say center peel. Everybody knows what to do. Everyone's done that drill thousands of times. But then while they're doing the center peel, you say contact rear. And then you, so now they're jumbled up, but then you call another call and you say contact rear. And then you say the tactical call for we're going to flank them. And now people start to work the flank, but they're with a different group. And now as that flank is happening, you call contact front or contact rear again, or contact left or contact right. And now we've got to start to orient to this new situation. And so you just keep doing all these different calls and it makes people think.

• 1:01:48Jocko Willink?

  And like I said, it felt like I was cheating because by the time we would get to land warfare. They would throw the, the, the, the problems at you. And the problems would not be problems because we already scrambled our brains over and over again. And everyone knows how to look around and figure out who to grab. And hey, if I'm alone or I'm, no one's in charge, cool. I'm going to grab three guys, we're, we're a fire team, we're going to move.

• 1:02:11Speaker 01

  Bro, that's so interesting that like, cause okay, I used to play football and Brett, it's the exact same thing. So what, you know, you know, you heard of, oh, line of scrimmage, you're going to call an audible, right? Basically all that means is I'm changing the play because of the defense I, I see or whatever. And then there's little maneuvers you can do, you can be like, I know, we know this team plays this certain defense or whatever. So we're going to line up a certain way. That means they're going to line up a certain way. Then we're going to call the audible on the line and we're going to scramble because we already know where we're going to shift to. And then right when we shift, we're going, when we shift, they have to shift too, but they're reactive. So they gotta make all these decisions right there, right before the play starts. So you should catch them off guard like that.

• 1:02:51Jocko Willink?

  So now imagine if you did that three times in a row, four times.

• 1:02:54Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:02:55Jocko Willink?

  Five times in a row.

• 1:02:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:57Jocko Willink?

  And then they're going to have real problems.

• 1:02:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, for sure. But that's crazy how like SEAL Team practice and training or whatever, like the parallels with like basically team sport. Cause basketball do the same thing, same exact thing. They'll, you know, it, it looks different on the field, obviously it's a different sport, but they do the same thing.

• 1:03:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and I think for, for the takeaway is like to just being a leader in general. What you're putting your, putting your troops in a situations that they're not familiar with. They learn how, they learn the protocol, they learn how to deal with those situations, which I wrote about in, in,

• 1:03:32Jocko Willink?

  in the code. I wrote about how do you handle a situation when you don't know what to do? What do you do? Well, I'll just break it out right now because we're here.

• 1:03:45Jocko Willink?

  Cause it's a good protocol. It's, it's, it's a very, and it's the, it's the protocol that you have to fall upon the most because it's the unknown, right? The other protocols are straightforward. You know, here's the problem. Here's the solution. This is the unknown. What do I do when I don't know what to do? Something bad happened. I don't even know where to start. This is this, this is the strategy protocol. Every scenario cannot be addressed. So this is the protocol for what to do when you don't know what to do. One, start by taking a step back, detach, take a breath, look around. Make sure you assess everything that's happening. So that's what we do. So this is what's happening when you're in a SEAL platoon and there's three calls just got made. And now you're in the unknown. You don't know what to do. Take a step back, detach, take a breath, look around. Make sure you assess everything that's happening. That's, that's exactly what you should do.

• 1:04:31Jocko Willink?

  Next, think about where your possibilities are and decisions you could make right now and what could happen. So now you look around and say, okay, what can we do? Could we go to that berm over there? Could we go to that little ravine over there? And then here I say, write it down because we're in an administrative situation, but then you look at, okay, what, what does the success look like? Does that get us where we want to be? Can I get there? Can I make that happen? And then you work the plan, make a call. And you want to make small, make a small step towards what you think is the right decision. And that's what I read about in, in leadership strategy and tactics, which is the iterative decision-making process, which is making small steps in the direction that you think is correct.

• 1:05:09Jocko Willink?

  And yeah, and then you assess if that was a good call or not. And you saw the ravine, you started moving towards the ravine. There's, doesn't seem like you're taking any further contact from that area. So you can keep moving there. So you make another call that continues to be pushing in that direction. But what happens is everybody on the team starts to realize how to, how to do all those little steps. So that new guy that when you walked out on the beach for the first time, this guy has no idea. And what's cool is this isn't a drill that you had to run every single day. You could run this drill like three or four times and then people would just be good enough where, you know, you're like, okay, we got this. And they're, they're

• 1:05:50Jocko Willink?

  They are, I was gonna say 10 times better and then I was gonna say a thousand times better, but then that sounds unrealistic, but the, but the actual number is when you walk out on the beach for the first time as a new guy and you've never done this before, you're zero. You're zero. You, when that first call, when the, no, when the first call gets made, you go, cool, I know what to do. When the second call gets made, you're at a zero. You have no idea what's happening. So when, when you've done this now for three hours, one morning, when you're done with those three hours, you're a whole new man. You're a whole new man. Your ability to process what's happening, your ability to figure things out, your ability to grab two or three other people, put them in your fire team and start making, making, taking action to support whatever call is being made. You're a totally different human

• 1:06:34Jocko Willink?

  being in three hours, which is amazing. Yeah, that is. And by the way, the only training that, the only equipment that you need is a pair of shorts and a stick and you can say bang, bang.

• 1:06:53Jocko Willink?

  Next, placing individuals in appropriate positions. Wu Chi said the basic rule of warfare that should be taught is that men of short stature should carry spears and, and spear tip halberd. The tall should carry bows and crossbows. The strong should carry flags and banners. The courageous should carry bells and drums. The weak should serve in logistics. The, well, the wise should be involved in planning. People from the same village or district should be grouped together so they can look out for each other.

• 1:07:22Jocko Willink?

  I got a kind of a kick out of that one.

• 1:07:26Jocko Willink?

  It's, if you think about, you know, once you're carrying, once you're carrying guns, a lot of the physical differences between humans go away.

• 1:07:37Jocko Willink?

  You know, not, not that they go away completely. I was thinking about this the other day. I had a text from one of my SEAL friends that, one of my, you know, a guy that I grew up with in the teams and he's just an incredible beast of a.

• 1:07:50Jocko Willink?

  Specimen of a human being, right? And I remember I was watching, we were doing a training operation. We were down in the jungles of Louisiana. And we were doing a raid, a live fire raid. So we're using really real bullets. And I was in the base element, which is the cover element. So we, I was not gonna move. I was laying there and this is generally the place for the radio man. Generally the first place for the platoon commander that you're gonna sit next to the platoon commander. And, and you usually would be looking at rear security. And then, so you put down cover fire and then the assault element moves into position.

• 1:08:33Jocko Willink?

  And then assaults through the target and you shift fires they move through. Anyways, the point of all this is that they had this kind of semi cheesy target set up for us. There was, you know, some, some couple plywood buildings, some barrels. And there was a picnic table, a random like picnic tables in there. And I'm watching the silhouette of this assault happen. And I see my buddy and you know, he's like six, four. And just sort of just overall general beast of a dude and a great athlete. And I see him, he's carrying an M60 machine gun. This was before the, the modern machine guns that we have now. So this is a big, normally it's a crew served, it used to be a crew served weapon.

• 1:09:18Jocko Willink?

  Meaning you have a person to carry the weapon and a person to carry the ammunition. And sometimes a person to carry the tripod. We had them with bipods, we had modifications to them. But in the SEAL teams, you carry those weapons by yourself. So he's got this big giant weapon. And I'm watching him and he's, he gets to this picnic table and he's shooting. Cause they're shooting, it's live fire and we have now shifted fire. We've actually now ceased fire. So we're no longer shooting, we're just watching them move for the target. And I see him, he's, and he's carrying this giant M60. And it looks like he's carrying a BB gun. Cause he's just big and he's just laying down fire.

• 1:09:58Jocko Willink?

  And he steps up on this, on this picnic table as if it was, as if he was stepping over an anthill. I'm like, I'm like, dang, I'm like, yeah, if this dude, this dude was born to be doing what he's doing right there with that pig. That pig gun. So that's what I was thinking about when I thought of this section right here that, you know, you and you know, look, your point man, a lot of times the point men are these small guys. Hey, the Vietnam point men, they were legendary. Those would be the small seals, right? Hey, that guy's gonna be point man. The big dumb new guys, you're gonna be a 60 gunner, right? They, they still kind of carry the stuff out. And of course, it's not

• 1:10:40Jocko Willink?

  written in stone and you can definitely be, there's plenty of guys that have been very small and carried, carried a heavy machine gun. There's plenty of big guys that have been point men, but we do, you know, there's a little bit of it. Cause it makes sense.

• 1:10:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:54Jocko Willink?

  It makes sense.

• 1:10:55Speaker 01

  When you say pig, what is, what does that, does that mean the M60? Or does that mean just a big gun?

• 1:10:59Jocko Willink?

  That means it used to mean the M60, but now it also means the Mark 48, which is the new modern version. It's a big belt fed machine gun. To put it in clear terms for you, the iconic Rambo weapon.

• 1:11:13Speaker 01

  And commando.

• 1:11:14Jocko Willink?

  Belt fed machine gun. I don't know about Commander or what kind of weapon he was carrying in there.

• 1:11:19Speaker 01

  60, when he was like shooting everybody from the hip, carrying the, the bullets, right? The belt, whatever. And the other hand. Yeah, Rambo, I think kind of did it before command, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah. When he came back, he's shooting up the office. Oh yeah.

• 1:11:32Jocko Willink?

  So, so picture that weapon. I mean, cause well, now you can picture it with, with Sly Stallone, right?

• 1:11:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:38Jocko Willink?

  Do you know, do you know how tall Sylvester Stallone is?

• 1:11:41Speaker 01

  Well, not exactly, but I know that he's not as tall as like a, you know, your guy.

• 1:11:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:11:47Speaker 01

  And Arnold.

• 1:11:47Jocko Willink?

  So you can, you can picture my buddy just laying it down. And by the way, having that thing shouldered.

• 1:11:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:54Jocko Willink?

  Like shouldered like a rifle and just laying it down.

• 1:11:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:58Jocko Willink?

  As he's moving, as he's walking over an obstacle like it's no factor.

• 1:12:02Speaker 01

  I know, and I'm totally picturing it. And yes, that's a, that's a glorious vision for sure, right there. When I was young, we were watching Rambo and commando.

• 1:12:10Jocko Willink?

  See, when I was young, we were doing assaults with live fire in the swamps of Louisiana. You were watching Rambo.

• 1:12:17Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. Completely different for sure.

• 1:12:19Jocko Willink?

  No, I think it's pretty much the same.

• 1:12:22Speaker 01

  More or less, more or less, yes. Uh, and my dad commented on that. He said, cause he saw, uh, if I'm not mistaken, um, Arnold Schwarzenegger in Commando. Cause that's the one we used to watch together. And he had it, yeah, but shooting from the hip, one hand, holding the, the

• 1:12:38Jocko Willink?

  The belt.

• 1:12:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, the belt in the other hand. And he's just laying down, he's just mowing down everybody, right? In the little plantation, wherever he was. And my dad said, he's like, man, like, that's impressive. You see that gun that he's carrying right there? I was like, yeah, he's like, that gun, it would take me, you, and then he named like our neighbor, who's, I mean, a normal guy. He's like, it would take all three of us to pick that gun up. It was like, that, you know, that's a heavy gun. Meanwhile, Arnold's holding it with one hand. So it's interesting you say that, cause damn, that's what my dad said back in the day.

• 1:13:07Jocko Willink?

  I mean, you can, you can definitely do what Arnold's doing, and guys would do that too. But the pig, so yes, that heavy machine gun, the heavy belt fed machine gun is generally referred to as the pig.

• 1:13:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:19Jocko Willink?

  And therefore, the guy that's carrying the pig can be known, can call it the pig gunner. And then if, if you remember, Ryan Jobe was a pig gunner. And usually guys have a nickname for their pig. And, and as a matter of fact, the guy that was stepping over the, the picnic table, he, his pig,

• 1:13:44Jocko Willink?

  he had two of them, I'm not sure which, one of them was called Frankenstein. But the other one was called Roadblock.

• 1:13:54Jocko Willink?

  And this is, this is in the, you know, this is in the nineties, man, there's no war going on. But let's face it, Roadblock is a legit name.

• 1:14:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:02Jocko Willink?

  What is that? So Ryan Jobe's, Ryan Jobe's nickname was Biggles, and his, his gun was called Piggles. So it was Piggles and Biggles.

• 1:14:12Speaker 01

  Roadblock is from G.I. Joe.

• 1:14:14Jocko Willink?

  What, that's the name of a weapon?

• 1:14:16Speaker 01

  No, of a guy, Roadblock, or, no, no, no, cops, might be cops, that cartoon.

• 1:14:21Jocko Willink?

  I don't know. I just know that my buddy had a had an M sixty that was called roadblock.

• 1:14:25Speaker 01

  That's yeah, that's one of the most legit names I've ever heard in my life straight up.

• 1:14:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. I'll tell you what.

• 1:14:33Jocko Willink?

  So so every different military has their different schools, right? Your different skill sets sniper, radioman, you know, medic, all they'll have their own little schools. And we used to share schools, you know, sometimes our radioman would go to the go to the special forces communication school. We for a long time, we went to the special forces medic school. So we share some of those schools, sniper school, there's a Marine Corps sniper, there's all different schools.

• 1:14:57Jocko Willink?

  We are, the SEALs run really, really good schools because you get guys that are way, way, way into it. Way into it. Way into whatever their little thing is. But we would run. The the machine gunners would go through a course. While we would go through land warfare and it was like this, this, the sixty gunners course. Or the pig gunners course. But man. They would get some of the instructors and they were everyone was just so into it. That. And I know I would, the other guys, like when I was a radioman or when I was an officer, we would get, we we'd do so a couple runs. Because you got to be, but these guys would be out there for, you know.

• 1:15:42Jocko Willink?

  Three days. Just burning through ammunition and learning to do everything and slap feed and push feed and combat feed and, you know, it just the guys would get so good. And you'd see there's another friend, another friend of mine I had. I was this, it was almost the exact same situation. I think I was behind him, we were, I was walking on an assault, we were assaulting through a target. And he was out ahead of me, so I wasn't. I was like, um, as the radioman, this was when I was in this guy, as a radioman, you're you're doing time on target. You get like the nerd roles, you know, the stereotypical, so the stereotypical sixty gunner, he's like a big jacked guy, right? Even in every movie, right? It's it's the way it is. The stereotypical radioman, what does he look like?

• 1:16:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, a little nerdy.

• 1:16:27Jocko Willink?

  He's a nerdy guy, he's got glasses on, he has to keep cleaning them in the fields. And and so like I was, I was not, I I mean, I wasn't small. But. That's the job that I had was that nerdy job. So when you're assaulting a target, your job would be to keep time on target. So you'd call out, you know, one minute and. So you're while the assault's going down, sometimes I would be tracking, I would kind of be, I would be a little bit more heads up. I'd be a little bit more detached, right? I got three machine guns out in front of me, plus all the other guys with the pea shooters. They're all laying it down and I might take a step back to be, okay, I'm making comms. I'm making sure we're doing good, whatever. But I was watching one of my other buddies and I just like he was, so there's a, there's a feed tray.

• 1:17:12Jocko Willink?

  There's a bunch of different ways that you can reload your M60. And I just remember him, he in the most smooth fashion that you could imagine. The particular, he was, he was slap feeding it. So he opens up the feed tray and he opens up the feed tray and he whips his hand, he whips his hand and what he does when he whips his hand is he hits the links. So you know those bullets in the belt? They're held together by links and that when you fire that last round, sometimes that link will sit there. It won't make it out of the gun because it just fired. And so that link will sit there right in that spot.

• 1:17:56Jocko Willink?

  So he opens up the feed tray, he whips his hand and, and he hits that. And then that link comes up, he opens it up, link, and while he's whipping it, he, he's like prepping. He whips it, he switches hand, he grabs out his, um, or no, he whips it, he grabs the belt, puts the next belt in there, boom, slaps the feed cover home, lip, and he starts, and I was like, man.

• 1:18:22Jocko Willink?

  So what I'm saying is when you've got people that are into what they're doing, they're going to be good. They're going to be good. You want to, that's why if you, we should have videoed those two guys. In those two moments, if I could capture those two moments.

• 1:18:42Jocko Willink?

  And just propagate those two moments to the world. People will be a lot less apt to want to mess with America.

• 1:18:51Jocko Willink?

  Cause you think about what kind of humans are doing this? What kind of human has figured out how to open the feed tray cover, slap that link out, reach down? What kind of human is doing that? And has made that into a, a, a, a beautiful thing?

• 1:19:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:09Jocko Willink?

  That's, that's what you're dealing with. You're not dealing with normal people.

• 1:19:14Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:19:14Jocko Willink?

  We're going distance.

• 1:19:16Speaker 01

  It's like, you know, those guys who, you know, they, they're into smoking, you know? So they, and I don't mean like they're just smoke. I'm saying they're into smoking, you know? So when they light their cigarette, they got the old school classic gold plated lighter. And they do the little mini micro performance before they light their cigarette, they'll, you know, flip it like it's a butterfly knife or something like that, kind of like that. But.

• 1:19:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:40Speaker 01

  As far as a warfighter goes.

• 1:19:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah. And then you just break down. And when I start thinking about all the little details that guys would do, every little piece of gear, they're honing it, they're, they're prepping it. Everything is taped, everything is quiet, everything is just, and you'd get to see these. I, I, I'll tell you what, I was out on patrol, like towards the end of the Battle of Ramadi. So, you know, we're like, I don't know, maybe a few weeks or whatever from going home. And I run to some corner and I'm holding the corner as, you know, whatever, we're just on patrol. And I'm watching as the guys are moving and I'm like, good lord. Same thing, I'm thinking, if I was an insurgent, I would, this, there's no way I would take a shot at these guys right now. It looks like a, looks like just a machine.

• 1:20:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:27Jocko Willink?

  A machine, a machine that's alive, like a cyborg, a cybernetic organism. That's, that's conducting operations with one thought process.

• 1:20:40Speaker 01

  Yep. That cannot be bargained with and cannot be reasoned with.

• 1:20:45Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, doesn't feel pity or remorse or fear.

• 1:20:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:49Speaker 01

  Absolutely will not stop.

• 1:20:50Jocko Willink?

  Ever.

• 1:20:51Speaker 01

  And, and that's what's interesting.

• 1:20:52Jocko Willink?

  Until you are dead. Like, that's from a movie, but that's real.

• 1:20:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:56Jocko Willink?

  Think about that. That's, that's a movie. Somebody wrote that for a movie to make that as cool as possible, but that's a real thing. There's really, really people like that. I know them. And there's groups like that. And look, the only thing is you can say, oh, they can't be killed or whatever. Did you say that? Where they can't be stopped?

• 1:21:15Speaker 01

  Can't be bargained with.

• 1:21:16Jocko Willink?

  Can't be bargained with. Or reason with. Cool. Yep, we're there.

• 1:21:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:19Jocko Willink?

  So it's just a good comforting feeling to know that there's guys out there like that. They're like that.

• 1:21:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. I know J. P. Danelle. Um, I've known him for a while.

• 1:21:31Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 1:21:32Speaker 01

  He's always come off as like that.

• 1:21:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:21:38Jocko Willink?

  Good times.

• 1:21:40Speaker 01

  Good times. Well, a little fun fact, Michael Bean is the guy who played Kyle Reese, who is the character who said that whole thing to Sarah Connor in Terminator one. And

• 1:21:52Speaker 01

  we might call this layers, we might call it coincidence, we might call it parallels. But his most played role is a Navy SEAL.

• 1:22:03Jocko Willink?

  Interesting.

• 1:22:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. The Abyss, The Rock. There are others too.

• 1:22:13Jocko Willink?

  Next section, Maintenance of Horses. This is an interesting one. I, I'm trying to remember why I highlighted that I should read that. There must be some reason. Lord Wu asked, how do we take care of our horses? Wu Chi replied, the stable should be clean and comfortable. Oh, that's why. Because it applies to everything. The stable should be clean and comfortable. The horse should be fed with appropriate grass and water. Feeding should be until neither too hungry or too full. Oh yeah. So this is like a dichotomy here. Not too hungry, disciplined, clean, right? Not too hungry. And then it, the, the dichotomies continue. In winter, they should have warm stables. In the summer, cool stables. Little dichotomy there. Their mane and hairs should be kept trimmed. Their hooves properly cared for. Yes. See, these are guys. These are like pig gunners, but with horses, right?

• 1:22:56Jocko Willink?

  They should be trained to be familiar with all sights and sounds so that they aren't easily startled. Practicing their gallop and pursuit, exercise constraint and halting. The bond between the horse and men should be so strong. Before the horses can be employed, imagine the bond between a pig gunner and his weapon, right? It's like a real thing. The equipment such as saddles, bridles, bits and reins must be strong and durable. Normally, these horses are injured either towards the end of war or at the start.

• 1:23:31Jocko Willink?

  Similarly, they are either injured by hunger or overfeeding. That's the same that thing that Dave Burke said about crashes. Plane crashes, they usually happen in the first 20% of a pilot's career or the last 20%.

• 1:23:47Jocko Willink?

  Management of troops, Wu Chi said, only people who have military capabilities and civility can be commander of an army.

• 1:23:58Jocko Willink?

  He must be one who is strict and flexible as well. You thought I made up the dichotomy of leadership? I didn't. It's been around for apparently thousands of years. Strict but flexible as well. In general, when people appraise generalship, they usually focus on courage. However, courage is but one of many required characteristics of a general. Being only courageous, one would rashly rush into battle without any considerations for gain and loss. What do you need to be balanced? Such action is not acceptable. Now, the affairs to which the general must manage are five. First is control. Second is preparation. Third is commitment. Fourth is caution. Fifth is regulation.

• 1:24:40Jocko Willink?

  Control is governing the masses just as one controls a few. Preparation is during the journey to the battleground, always be prepared for enemy ambush. Commitment means entering combat without any concerns for one's life.

• 1:24:57Jocko Willink?

  Caution means that even after conquering, one remains the same control and attitude as if just entering a battle.

• 1:25:09Jocko Willink?

  Even after you win, you maintain control and you maintain the same attitude as if you just entered the battle. Regulation means laws and orders are to be kept to a minimum and not abrasive. You know what I've been saying lately?

• 1:25:26Jocko Willink?

  Lead with the minimum force required. Which is exactly what this says right here. Orders kept to a minimum, not abrasive. To accept command without declining. To accept command without declining. So when you get put in charge, you do it. Destroy the enemy only afterward. Destroy the enemy and only afterwards speak about returning. Is the proper form of behavior for a general. You don't, look, you don't talk about going home. You didn't even mention going home until you win. When the army goes forth, his only thought is to die with glory rather than live with shame.

• 1:26:11Jocko Willink?

  Wu Chi said, oh, sorry, this is four areas to note and characteristics of good generals.

• 1:26:19Jocko Willink?

  Over 2,000 years old. Wu Chi said, in general, there are four vital points to note for warfare, and they are morale, terrain, affairs, and strength. The control and management of armies movement lies in the hand of one general. That is the vital point for morale. When the road is narrow and perilous at the vital point of the mountain route, deploying 10 men, a general can stop an army of thousands. That is a vital point of terrain.

• 1:26:51Jocko Willink?

  Making full use of spies, using light cavalry to harass the enemy, sowing discord between the ruler and officials and higher ranks and lower ranks reproaching each other is the vital point of affairs. When chariots and strong, have strong axles and secure pins, the boats have been suited with rudders and oars, their officers are thoroughly familiar with the formations and the horses have trained in pursuits and maneuvers, such is the vital point of strength. One who knows these four is qualified to be a general. Moreover, his reputation, virtues, benevolence, and courage must be respected by his subordinates and calm the masses. It's interesting that you think of these guys back in the day of these rulers being,

• 1:27:35Jocko Willink?

  you know, ruling with an iron fist and it's the caste system and you're just dominating. And he talks about benevolence all the time and righteousness. And how that's, he's saying, if you know, if you've got a, if you've got a, a group that loves their leader, don't even attack them.

• 1:27:53Jocko Willink?

  Furthermore, he must be able to scare his enemy with his reputation and decisiveness. When he issues orders, no one dared to disobey him whenever he may be. Wherever he may be, rebels will not dare to oppose him. Gaining such a person, the state will grow strong. Losing him, the state will perish. This is what we call a good general.

• 1:28:15Jocko Willink?

  Characteristics and importance of good communications. Wu Chi said. Now, the different drums, gongs, and bells are means to awe the ear. Flags, banners, and pennants are meant to awe the eye. Prohibitions, orders, punishments, and fines are meant to awe the mind. Since the ear is awestruck by sounds, they must be loud and clear. Since the eye is awestruck by colors, the colors must be discriminating and bright. Since the mind is awestruck by penalties, it has to be strict and impartial. If these three are not established, even though you may have the support of the state, you will invariably be defeated by the enemy. Thus, it is said that wherever the general's banners are, the whole troops will go.

• 1:29:00Jocko Willink?

  And wherever the general points to, everyone will charge forward without concern for their own lives. As much as we talk about communication, and it's under the law of combat, simple, simple, clear, concise communication. If you're not doing that, if you're not giving clear, concise orders, things are going to fall apart.

• 1:29:21Jocko Willink?

  Wu Chi, knowing the enemy general, knowing the enemy general, Wu Chi said. In general, one essential of wars to know who the enemy general is and evaluate his talent. In accord with the situation, use schemes and achieves, use schemes to achieve results without much labor. A commanding general who is stupid and trusting can be deceived and entrapped. One who's greedy and insensitive to honor can be given gifts and bribed. One who changes his mind easily and lacks real plans, plot to labor and tire him out. That's a good one. You got someone that tries all these different things? Cool, let him keep trying all those different things.

• 1:30:03Jocko Willink?

  That's a nice little breakdown he just gives about what kind of personality you're dealing with, and then how you attack that personality. It's so good.

• 1:30:12Jocko Willink?

  If the upper ranks are wealthy and arrogant while the lower ranks are poor and resentful, so discord amongst them. If their advancing and withdrawing are often marked by doubt and the troops have no one to rely on, they can be frightened off, they can be frightened into running off. If the officers despise their commanding general and have strong intent to return home, block off the easy roads, leaving the treacherous ones open and they can be attacked and captured. If the terrain over which they advance is easy, but the retreat route is difficult, wait for them to come forward.

• 1:30:46Jocko Willink?

  Testing the enemy general. Lord Wu asked, "If two armies are confronting each other and I do not know their general, if I would like to know more about him, what methods can I employ?" Wu Chi replied, "Gather some lower ranks, men who are courageous and have them lead some light shock troops to test him. When the enemy responds to attack, they, the shock troops, should run off." And he basically goes through how to do a little probe to find out what kind of reaction if they give an organized defense or not, and you can judge from there. Next one, chaos in communications.

• 1:31:26Jocko Willink?

  Lord Wu asked, "If the chariots are sturdy, the horses are well bred, the generals are courageous, and the soldiers are strong, but when you suddenly encounter the enemy and the troops are thrown into chaos and formations are broken, what can be done?" So this is exactly what I talked about doing these sand rattle battle drills on the beach.

• 1:31:47Jocko Willink?

  Wu Chi replied, "In general, it is a rule of battle that during daylight, flags, banners, and pennants to relay orders while at night, gongs, drums, horns, and whistles can be used instead. When the flag signal left, they move left. When the flag signal right, they move right. When the drum is beaten, they advance. When the gong sound, they retreat. At the first sound of the horn, they should advance. At the second sound of the horn, they should gather. If anyone disobeyed the order, they should be executed."

• 1:32:11Jocko Willink?

  This is what I start to say, "Okay, you know, we talked about benevolence and I was on board. We talked about taking care of your people and I was on board. If people disobey your order, execution might not be the best thing to do." Only in this way, the army would submit to your awesomeness. And the officers and soldiers will not dare disobey orders in combat. No enemy will be stronger than you, nor will any defenses remain impregnable to your attack. When the, when outnumbered by the enemy, Lord Wu asked, what if our troops are outnumbered? Wu Chi replied, avoid engaging them on flat terrain, instead attack in narrow quarters.

• 1:32:48Jocko Willink?

  Thus it is said, for one to attack ten, nothing is better than narrow passage. Pretend to attack a hundred, nothing is better than deep ravine. These are pretty straightforward. How to attack a strong enemy? Lord Wu asked, if their forces are numerous, well-trained and courageous. Behind them are dangerous high grounds, on the right are mountains, on the left are rivers. They are well fortified and have crossbows in defending position. When they withdraw, they are steady as mountains. When they attack, they are like torrential rain, as their food stocks are plentiful. It will difficult to defend against them for very long. What should be done? This is funny. He's just asking these totally insane situations, right? But don't worry, have no fear, because Wu Chi replied, a very good question.

• 1:33:34Jocko Willink?

  Such enemy cannot be overcome by force alone, but by the wisdom of sage. If can prepare 1,000 chariots and 10,000 cavalry and support them with foot soldiers. Divide them into five groups, each one traversing a different route. Now the five groups will move out in different directions simultaneously. The enemy will certainly be confused and will not know what we are up to. So he basically goes through how to attack from five different directions at the same time. And then what he says is, you basically want to isolate some of the groups, which is a smart move. And then he goes on to a whole section of when surrounded by the enemy, when caught in unfavorable terrain, caught in a valley, fighting marine battles, wet and dry weather, also known as moist as dry weather,

• 1:34:18Jocko Willink?

  fighting plunders after, this is a good one. After conquering cities. Wu Chi said, in general, there is a principle to follow when attacking the enemy's city. That is, after conquering the city, enter their public building, control and use the former bureaucrats to take over their supplies. Relay orders that troops are not supposed to cut down trees, destroy houses, take the grain, slaughter animals, or burn people's supplies. This will show the populace that you do not have any vicious intentions, excepting those that, except those that surrender and settle them. This is very good advice.

• 1:35:03Jocko Willink?

  Especially that bureaucratic idea. You know, we're gonna take over, we're gonna try and maintain their society. We're not gonna rip it apart. It's gonna be easier to control. It's gonna be more beneficial to you and them. It's a positive thing. This is the, going back to the Iraq war and the disbanding of Saddam's military, which is pretty much now considered that that was a bad, bad move. We talk about it on,

• 1:35:33Jocko Willink?

  we talk about it on the other podcast.

• 1:35:39Jocko Willink?

  The new, the newly named podcast, the podcast formerly known as The Thread, which is now known as the Jaco Unraveling Podcast, which will be up soon.

• 1:35:52Jocko Willink?

  Next section, and just to go back, look, we don't have to take this from a war scenario.

• 1:36:00Jocko Willink?

  When you acquire a business, your business buys their business. What do you do?

• 1:36:06Jocko Willink?

  Say, we're here, get on board, fire all their leadership. No, actually utilize their leadership. Take some of their culture, incorporate them into the game.

• 1:36:16Jocko Willink?

  You know what makes people not do what I just said? It's because their ego, they're like, you know what, Echo? We just bought your company. You're fired. Or even like, like, you know, you can, you can be work as my, you know, whatever. Yep. You, I'm gonna take your authority away from you. Now, everybody's looking at you that should be working hard and they're going, oh, man, they're treating our boss bad.

• 1:36:38Speaker 01

  Yep. It's true. You know, good examples of that is the movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers. So, this is an old school movie, by the way, my dad used to be super into it. But I noticed the aliens, they come down and they take over your body, right? Now they're,

• 1:36:52Jocko Willink?

  What's this movie called?

• 1:36:53Speaker 01

  Invasion of the Body Snatchers. So they come down and they take over your body, but you still look like you, you can't even act like you. But you have an alien agenda, see? See what I'm saying? It's the exact same thing. So as opposed to like, because the alien came, invaded your body, took over your body, your whole thing. But they didn't like ruin it, they kept your whole integrity of your body. Yeah, as far as that that philosophy goes. As opposed to like Men in Black, you ever watch Men in Black, that one?

• 1:37:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, but I can't really remember too much about it.

• 1:37:26Speaker 01

  There's this cockroach alien that came and like took over this farmer guy's body and just jammed it up. So when this guy, the farmer, the alien, the cockroach alien, was walking down the street as the farmer, like his body was so jammed up, his skin's all falling down or whatever. Everyone was like, ooh, like he couldn't function in society, see what I'm saying? So his agenda was, it was way harder to execute, see what I'm saying? He ended up losing in the end too, by the way. So yeah, coincidence? Nope.

• 1:37:53Jocko Willink?

  No, they kind of stole that plotline from Wu Chi.

• 1:37:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, obviously.

• 1:38:02Jocko Willink?

  All right, Lord Wu asked, is making punishment severe and rewards clear adequate for victory? Wu Chi replied, as to these matters of severity and clarity, I do not have all the answers. Even so, they cannot be totally relied on. When you issue orders and the people willingly follow them, when you raised the army and mobilized the masses, the people take pleasure in going to battle. When engaging the enemy, the people take on pleasure in fighting to the death. Then these three are what the ruler of men can rely on.

• 1:38:42Jocko Willink?

  Those are big asks.

• 1:38:45Jocko Willink?

  Lord Wu inquired further, how does one attain such results? Right? So this is a big ask that you're asking for, how do you get there? Wu Chi replied, you should identify men of accomplishment and honor them with a grand feast. Also invite those that have not accomplished anything, this would stimulate them. Thereupon, Lord Wu had sitting on, had sitting mats set out in the ancestral temple hall, arranged in three tiers and held a feast for officers and chief officials. Those distinguished by great achievement sat in the first tier and were feasting in the finest food and cutlery. Those who ranked in the next accomplishment sat in the middle tier and dined with fine food in less lavish vessels. Those who had not accomplished anything.

• 1:39:26Jocko Willink?

  Noteworthy, sat in the last tier, feasting fine food in ordinary utensils. When the feast was over and they came out, Lord Wu also honored the parents and families of the meritorious outside the temple gate, again according to their accomplishments. He annually sent emissaries to call on the families of those who had died in service for the country, bestowing aid on their parents. So doing, he showed that they would not be forgotten.

• 1:39:55Jocko Willink?

  Once again, take care of your people. And I also like how he set up that little tiered structure of, you want to move into the next tier, you gotta go make some stuff happen.

• 1:40:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, and also interesting too, that third tier is actually sounds still pretty solid, you know, where it's like dining on the finest food, just in some ordinary cut, you know, kind of thing, but then you compare to like the lavish top tier. We all want to get there.

• 1:40:22Jocko Willink?

  Check, this is the last section from Wu Chi. I read a bunch, but didn't read the whole thing. You can go download it yourself for the, for the details. This is the last section. And this tells a little story and now we get to this point. The day before the battle, Wu Chi spoke to the troops.

• 1:40:40Jocko Willink?

  All aides and officers must confront and capture enemies' chariots, cavalry and infantry. If the chariots do not make prisoners of the enemy's chariots, the cavalry do not make prisoners of the enemy's cavalry, the infantry do not make prisoners of the enemy's infantry, then even if we forge an overwhelming victory, no one will be accredited with achievements.

• 1:41:07Jocko Willink?

  That was, that was his message to the troops. On the day of battle, although his orders were not onerous, meaning he didn't give these massive orders, he just said that right there, basically. On that day,

• 1:41:22Jocko Willink?

  his awesomeness shook the world.

• 1:41:27Jocko Willink?

  That is the last line of, of the Wu Xi, written by Wu Chi. On that day of battle, his awesomeness shook the world. And I'm going to say that that's probably a pretty positive outcome.

• 1:41:43Jocko Willink?

  And you know, look, these principles, we read them. We have some level of understanding of them. We see the same advice coming from different people over a spread of thousands of years.

• 1:41:59Jocko Willink?

  We keep hearing the same type of advice over and over again. What we need to do is put that advice to work, right? Put these principles to work, not just for yourself, but for your family, but for your people, but for your team, but for your employees, your bosses, your community and the world. And then what you do is you go out and you shake the world with awesomeness.

• 1:42:29Jocko Willink?

  Echo Charles.

• 1:42:30Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 1:42:31Jocko Willink?

  Speaking of shaking the world with awesomeness.

• 1:42:36Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:42:36Jocko Willink?

  How can you help us do that? How can you help us shake the world with awesomeness?

• 1:42:42Speaker 01

  Well, you cannot shake the world with awesomeness if you are not yourself providing awesomeness. See what I'm saying?

• 1:42:52Jocko Willink?

  Understood.

• 1:42:52Speaker 01

  If you're incapable of providing awesomeness, how can you shake anything with that awesomeness? You see what I'm saying?

• 1:42:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you're not shaking anything with a pure lack of awesomeness yourself. You're gonna have a hard time.

• 1:43:02Speaker 01

  What's interesting is like even back then, they say the word awesome. So, you know, okay.

• 1:43:07Jocko Willink?

  Remember, this is the translation.

• 1:43:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, okay. All right. That's, that's fair enough, actually. So, awesome is, so my friend Anthony, right? He, uh, he was actually at my house our first episode of the podcast when you came over.

• 1:43:21Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:43:22Speaker 01

  He was at my house. So, anyway, uh, he used to always say the word awesome, like just, just inappropriate times in my opinion, right? So, that kind of turned me off to the word awesomeness. He'd say, yeah, I met this girl. She was just, she was just so awesome. And it's like, all right, you know? I don't know how like a girl, she, this girl must be really something if you're in awe of this girl. See what I'm saying? Cause that's really what awesome is, right? It's awe, so whatever. Anyway, so he'd always use it. So it really turned me off. So I'd tease him about it. So anytime he's around, I'd be over using the word awesome. Then after a while, I just started using it normally. You know, you know how that happens, right?

• 1:44:03Speaker 01

  I think we talked about this before, where you you start using a word just as a joke, you know, and then it slowly creeps into your normal vocabulary. That's what awesome is. So I'm rolling with it.

• 1:44:14Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:44:15Speaker 01

  So.

• 1:44:15Jocko Willink?

  Apparently Wu Chi's rolling with it as well.

• 1:44:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, very. Now, now I'm really gonna roll with it. So, all right, well, we gotta keep ourselves in the game, you know? This game, you cannot be awesome and shake any worlds or anything with awesomeness if you're not in the game to begin with. If you're not on the path. That's my opinion.

• 1:44:34Jocko Willink?

  What's the level of arrogance when you close out your book by saying you shook the world with awesomeness? Kind of interacts with the message a little bit, right? The humility meter is not getting very high.

• 1:44:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:46Jocko Willink?

  When you're saying, hey, you know what I'm gonna do? No factor, just no big deal. I'm almost over here shaking the world with awesomeness.

• 1:44:53Speaker 01

  Yes, I, uh, yeah, I agree, but.

• 1:44:56Jocko Willink?

  I've never even heard a person make a statement that is, that might be the strongest possible. I mean, what's, what, what, what's stronger than that? Like, what's a stronger way of saying this person made a mark on the world, right?

• 1:45:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:11Jocko Willink?

  Shake the world with awesomeness?

• 1:45:13Speaker 01

  Straight up shook it, yeah. Yeah.

• 1:45:16Jocko Willink?

  Oh, it's legit.

• 1:45:17Speaker 01

  It does sound like, like a Kanye West, maybe statement or, you know, something like this.

• 1:45:23Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:45:24Speaker 01

  That's something he would say, I'm saying.

• 1:45:26Jocko Willink?

  Okay, well, I will take your word for it.

• 1:45:28Speaker 01

  Anyway, be on the path. See, I'm saying, now, what are you gonna do? Okay, the path is like, it's full of, and I'm kind of quote you on this one, it's full, it's full of obstacles and traps. The path, it's true. So those obstacles, challenges or whatever, we got something for you, got some supplements. This is for your physical and mental ability to stay on the. Yeah, to stay on the path, in the game, etc. So Jocko Fuel got a whole line for you for any, pretty much any ailment, pretty much. Generally speaking, it covers at least a little bit of any ailment that may be bestowed.

• 1:46:06Jocko Willink?

  Basically, you're just going up, but you're just carrying the theme forward.

• 1:46:09Speaker 01

  Bro, we just.

• 1:46:10Jocko Willink?

  Cause we were shaking the world with awesomeness. Now we're just any ailment.

• 1:46:12Speaker 01

  Well, I'm just.

• 1:46:13Jocko Willink?

  We're good. You got the Jaco fuel. Whatever's wrong with you, we got you.

• 1:46:18Speaker 01

  Uh, this will.

• 1:46:18Jocko Willink?

  Any ailment.

• 1:46:19Speaker 01

  This will help. This will help. So it's just gonna depend on what you mean by help. Hey, look, we just, you know, we, we just.

• 1:46:25Jocko Willink?

  Bro, you don't need to say anything else. You just said it. You say, hey, look, any ailment that you have, any problem you got, Jaco fuel, you're good. That's it.

• 1:46:31Speaker 01

  It'll help.

• 1:46:32Jocko Willink?

  End of advertisement. Ever end of talking. We're good. Any ailment, we're good.

• 1:46:36Speaker 01

  Well, let me specify, cause some of these ailments we simply don't have. You see what I'm saying? Um, like if you don't need extra protein, this is just an example. If you don't need extra protein in the form of a dessert, some people, they don't need that.

• 1:46:50Jocko Willink?

  Who doesn't need that?

• 1:46:51Speaker 01

  Well, a lot of people don't need it, but of course we don't want that. Of course we don't want that. I mean, as far as protein goes, how can it get in it? Well, then again, steak, see what I'm saying? Steak is not in the form of a dessert, but sort of the same desire.

• 1:47:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:08Speaker 01

  Anyway, all right. Well, let me start at the beginning. Okay. Joint warfare, that's for your joints.

• 1:47:12Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 1:47:12Speaker 01

  If and when, or let's just say if they start to falter.

• 1:47:16Jocko Willink?

  Are you gonna narrow down the, you started, you're gonna now narrow down, you're attracting your statement that any ailment is, is gonna be cured by Jaco fuel.

• 1:47:23Speaker 01

  No, I, well, technically I didn't make that statement. Secondly, I said, this will help. I'm saying clear, you see what I'm saying?

• 1:47:29Jocko Willink?

  Okay, but I, I misread you.

• 1:47:30Speaker 01

  Here's the thing, I totally cheated on that statement because look, if you break your arm and I give you a leg massage, that'll help. It won't help your arm specifically, but you know, legs all loose and.

• 1:47:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:47:42Speaker 01

  Good to go.

• 1:47:43Jocko Willink?

  So there will be benefits, even for truly any ailment. So you're actually speaking factually.

• 1:47:48Speaker 01

  In one way or another, yeah, exactly. You're right. So anyway, joint warfare, super cruel oil, there's antioxidants in there. By the way. It's called xanthium.

• 1:47:57Jocko Willink?

  It's called, it's called ailment crusher.

• 1:48:01Speaker 01

  Also the supplement discipline. If you want some supplemental discipline, boom, got you. Discipline, supplement in cans, powder form, boom, whatever you like.

• 1:48:10Jocko Willink?

  Did you say krill oil?

• 1:48:11Speaker 01

  I did.

• 1:48:12Jocko Willink?

  Super krill?

• 1:48:13Speaker 01

  Super.

• 1:48:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, cuz really when it boils down to it, not being on super krill and not being on joint warfare is not a good idea.

• 1:48:19Speaker 01

  No, you talk about uh the the four something of light, right?

• 1:48:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, those are the lightness.

• 1:48:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, man.

• 1:48:27Jocko Willink?

  Principles of light.

• 1:48:27Speaker 01

  You gotta keep it light, boom. You have to. In my past, especially after listening to this, I think so. And that's what the that's what the super krill, that's what the joint warfare, that's the discipline too, by the way. So it's all part of the the whole circle of.

• 1:48:39Jocko Willink?

  I I must say, I drink the powdered form of discipline go like basically all day long. Basically, we're talking about all day long. Uh, you wanna, you got some, you wanna prevent some ailments.

• 1:48:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:51Jocko Willink?

  Even ailment prevention.

• 1:48:53Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:48:53Jocko Willink?

  Is what we're talking about. Vitamin D three, get some of that, get some Cold War. And you can deny these threatening enemy beasts, ailments.

• 1:49:06Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:49:07Jocko Willink?

  That are out there. Just get rid of them before they even show up.

• 1:49:10Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Immune system all day.

• 1:49:12Jocko Willink?

  Like, somebody walks up to your immune, some some enemy walks up to your immune system, they see the D three and they see the Cold War. They're sort of like, hey, that's not, we're not attacking.

• 1:49:20Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:49:20Jocko Willink?

  They write in that category of don't attack.

• 1:49:22Speaker 01

  You're correct, yeah.

• 1:49:23Jocko Willink?

  The ancient Wu Chi said, if you see a body filled with D three and and Cold War, do not attack.

• 1:49:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:31Jocko Willink?

  Is a losing battle.

• 1:49:32Speaker 01

  Yes, that.

• 1:49:33Jocko Willink?

  Got the R T D cans. You wanna get some, you wanna get some Jaco Palmer. You do wanna get some Jaco Palmer. This stuff is ridiculously good. It the the the stuff is good. It's good for you, which is crazy.

• 1:49:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:47Jocko Willink?

  It's crazy.

• 1:49:47Speaker 01

  Did you see Brian Littlefield, AKA B Little's video on that, on the whole deal? They're like, what what makes it different? And I thought it was gonna be like, oh, the difference is in the spirit or something, you know, something kind of esoteric. And you can't really like put your finger, but he ran it, he went down the line, like all this stuff, you know, like, okay, proprietary. But I was like, bro, this guy is.

• 1:50:08Jocko Willink?

  Well, yeah, he's talking about the the term proprietary blend, which is a way of masking what you actually have in there and the quantities that you have in there.

• 1:50:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:17Jocko Willink?

  Which means that you can sell people things that. For a lot more, but even though you didn't put very much of them in there.

• 1:50:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:50:26Jocko Willink?

  Which is sketch.

• 1:50:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's interesting. And then when he goes down the line, you know, of all the stuff that's in there, it's all transparent, like, you know, all the ingredients are like on there and stuff. And you're kind of like, man, this is like this, that does, that is different than like an energy drink, you know? Which, man, I'm, I like the energy drinks, whatever, but man, when you, when you read this, you're like, bro, how can I even drink an energy drink now?

• 1:50:49Jocko Willink?

  You won't. But here's the thing, we're making something else. We're making a ginger ale. Do you like ginger ale?

• 1:50:57Speaker 01

  Yes, I do.

• 1:50:57Jocko Willink?

  Okay. Well, there's going to be caffeine free ginger ale coming. We, I don't think we have a name for it yet. We're kind of tracking on that.

• 1:51:07Speaker 01

  I was unaware that ginger ale had caffeine.

• 1:51:10Jocko Willink?

  Well, no, this one won't. It can or cannot. I mean, you can have caffeine free coffee. You can have caffeine free tea. So we're making ginger ale without caffeine. The reason is, this is what I was going to say this, the reason I said that is because I told, I told Be Little, I was like, listen, this stuff tastes freaking delicious and I want to drink it all day.

• 1:51:28Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:51:29Jocko Willink?

  And I don't want to OD on caffeine. There's 95 milligrams of caffeine in every can of Go. So, you know, you have a can of Go, maybe you have two a day. The maximum you're supposed to do, recommend it is like 400 milligrams of caffeine a day. That's going to turn me into a psychopath.

• 1:51:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, you, you.

• 1:51:48Jocko Willink?

  I don't need that, but here's the problem. Love the taste. So, well, it's a little discipline test because you got to draw the line. But also the cool thing is, when you, when you're, when it's your company, you go, hey, you know what? I want something without caffeine.

• 1:52:05Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:52:06Jocko Willink?

  And so we're going to make that, I already, I already had, I told, I just probably about the sixth or seventh iteration of, and he's still keeping in all the positive stuff, all the good nootropics, all the healthy things that are in there. It's all still going to be in there. It's just not going to have caffeine.

• 1:52:20Speaker 01

  Gotcha. Okay. Yeah. I misinterpreted it like as if to say, um, like normal ginger ale has caffeine. But no, yeah, you're right. Like there's caffeine in the Jocko Palmer or whatever. There's a little element of caffeine in there. Uh, or a legitimate element. Um, but this one's not going to have.

• 1:52:36Jocko Willink?

  It's not going to have. See, that way I can drink this stuff all day long, get the other benefits from the product. One of those benefits being. Taste.

• 1:52:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, fully.

• 1:52:47Jocko Willink?

  Cause I know someone that when they go out for dinner.

• 1:52:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:50Jocko Willink?

  They get Coca Colas.

• 1:52:51Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 1:52:52Jocko Willink?

  Which are not healthy.

• 1:52:53Speaker 01

  No, sir, they're not, you know, hey, it's the freedom part though. The last. Speaking of taste, uh, like I mentioned before, milk and Warrior Kid milk, by the way. So protein in the form of a dessert tastes good. No, tastes great.

• 1:53:09Speaker 01

  And I don't use the word great that often, but I'm gonna do it.

• 1:53:12Jocko Willink?

  And you can get some Jocka White Tea. In the cans, uh, eight thousand pound deadlift, which is no big deal. I know that doesn't sound like a big deal, but it's a guaranteed one hundred percent thing. And you can get all these things at originmaine.com. You can get them at the vitamin shop as well in your local neighborhood.

• 1:53:28Speaker 01

  It's true.

• 1:53:28Jocko Willink?

  There you go.

• 1:53:29Speaker 01

  Also at origin main is jujitsu stuff. When we start jujitsu, when we're in jujitsu, we want to get a new gi, we want to get a gi. Or rash cards or whatever. Origin main dot com. They got that too. All made in America.

• 1:53:41Jocko Willink?

  Also, since you can't unfortunately just wear a gi wherever you go.

• 1:53:45Speaker 01

  Unfortunately.

• 1:53:46Jocko Willink?

  I mean, you can technically, but it's not recommended.

• 1:53:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:53:52Jocko Willink?

  You can also get other things there like jeans, t-shirts, boots. Yes, boots. You can get boots and all, everything that we just talked about, everything. Without compromise, made in America, American hands up there getting after it.

• 1:54:07Speaker 01

  So I'm kind of thinking of the boots, right? And some other stuff. I get it, but the boots, we'll just say the boots. So you know how, uh, Wu Zi, no Uchi.

• 1:54:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, Uchi.

• 1:54:17Speaker 01

  Is talking about, um, like, hey, you spent a lot of time making that thing beautiful.

• 1:54:23Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:54:24Speaker 01

  But.

• 1:54:24Jocko Willink?

  Not functional.

• 1:54:24Speaker 01

  I'm still trying to figure out the use for it, right? But these boots are kind of like whoever made them, Pete. And then was kind of doing both. See what I'm saying? Like when they had the goal for boots.

• 1:54:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:36Speaker 01

  They were like going functional with beauty, like hand in hand almost kind of thing. As far as works of art goes, that one's like, mm.

• 1:54:46Speaker 01

  I'm not that much into fashion like you were, but it seems like that'd be like some top tier artistic.

• 1:54:56Jocko Willink?

  There's, there's a good balance between fashion and function between myself and a guy by the name of Pete Roberts. Let's face it, pre, well, let's face it, on, in a, in a vacuum environment with just Pete Roberts in there. All you have to do is look at rash guards from origin, right? You can look at those and you can see where it's gonna end up.

• 1:55:26Jocko Willink?

  When you inject a little Jaco in there, all of a sudden things start, you know, we start going a little bit more towards the form. You know, a little bit more towards the form thing. Pete can get wild.

• 1:55:36Speaker 01

  Amen.

• 1:55:36Jocko Willink?

  Bruh, that guy likes, you know, likes the way things look more than me.

• 1:55:40Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 1:55:41Jocko Willink?

  More than me, quite a bit more than me.

• 1:55:44Speaker 01

  Yes, sir, quite a bit more than me.

• 1:55:45Jocko Willink?

  But what's cool is you get that balance like the jeans, man. Let's face it, there's some things about the jeans that are a little bit, they're functional, like the pockets are slanted in the back, right? It's easier to, it's like these little things.

• 1:55:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:55:59Jocko Willink?

  They're legit.

• 1:56:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:56:01Jocko Willink?

  And it just so happens, let's face it, they look super dope too.

• 1:56:05Speaker 01

  Bruh, I went to Oregon, just got back, as you know, and on the plane, this ain't a lot now. I'm not trying to like look dope because the paparazzi is gonna be at the airport waiting for me when I arrive. That's not my situation, you know, so I wear what's gonna work in the airport scenario, environment, origin jeans all day. To and from, by the way.

• 1:56:26Jocko Willink?

  So you, if the paparazzi was waiting for you, you'd wear something different?

• 1:56:30Speaker 01

  No. My concern would just lie elsewhere, you see what I'm saying? I might even wear, I might even wear like, you know, those gold or diamond rimmed sunglasses? I'm gonna wear some, no, no, no, no, man, I'm just saying, it's a different pursuit is what I'm saying. Nonetheless, those are the facts. Also, Jaco's store is called Jaco's Store. This is where you can get other stuff. If you want to represent on this path, this is a path that we're all on. The path, the game, whatever you want to call it.

• 1:57:01Jocko Willink?

  The way.

• 1:57:02Speaker 01

  The way, the woo, the woo, wait, right? Woo, right is way?

• 1:57:09Jocko Willink?

  Again, I tried to find out if woozy me meant anything and I couldn't find that it meant anything that I could comprehend other than room. And I know that this book is not called room.

• 1:57:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I think woo, if I'm not mistaken, is the way woo.

• 1:57:24Jocko Willink?

  Cool.

• 1:57:25Speaker 01

  I think I could be wrong, but.

• 1:57:27Jocko Willink?

  I think woo by itself is martial, as in martial arts, as in Wu-Tang Clan.

• 1:57:35Speaker 01

  Oh, okay. It's clear to me now. Nonetheless, Jocko's store is called Jocko's Store, like I said, and if you want shirts that say discipline equals freedom.

• 1:57:43Jocko Willink?

  Have you ever seen a YouTube comment that says Echo in quotes, like your middle name, nonetheless, Charles?

• 1:57:51Speaker 01

  Yes, I have seen that. Hey, man, can I deny it? You know, I guess I could technically, but you know, it would it'd be less accurate than maybe if I didn't deny it. We'll say that. Nonetheless, like I said, back to discipline equals freedom shirts and hoodies and rash guards and hats. Some women's stuff on there. Anyway, if you want to represent with merch, as it were, I don't like to say the word word merch that much, but if you'd like apparel, you want to represent Jocko's Store dot com.

• 1:58:23Jocko Willink?

  Subscribe to this podcast if you want to. Echo seems to think that's a big concern in the world.

• 1:58:32Speaker 01

  As far as big concerns go.

• 1:58:34Jocko Willink?

  So, hey, not only is there this podcast, we also have the the name, the podcast formerly known as The Thread, which is now known as the Jocko Unraveling Podcast. That's we actually recorded a couple more with Daryl yesterday. It'll be back, it'll be live. We'll put him, we're gonna put him on this feed and then eventually we'll move him off to another feed so we don't confuse people. Grounded Podcast, we haven't done one of those in a while. That's probably negligent. Same with Warrior Kid Podcast, but they are there. We will work on more. Also, speaking of Warrior Kids, we got that, we got that Warrior Kid, so Irish Oak French dot com, or you can get it on the Jocko Store. And this is made by a Warrior

• 1:59:18Jocko Willink?

  Kid, who's putting his effort in life to create something so that people in the world.

• 1:59:26Jocko Willink?

  can stay clean. We have a YouTube channel where Echo Charles makes videos. He puts this, this will be on there. This whole scenario will be on there.

• 1:59:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:42Jocko Willink?

  You can, you can see what I look like. You can see what Echo looks like. I think Echo then also makes these videos where he'll in a three minute video, by the way, he'll put 900 explosions, but in a three hour video, he'll put none.

• 1:59:58Speaker 01

  Dichotomy, man.

• 1:59:59Jocko Willink?

  People are starting to wonder.

• 2:00:03Jocko Willink?

  I think that certain things, why don't you do this? Why don't you start with like today? You talked about 14 different eighties movies. Why don't you put a little clip in there or put a little something? Make a Terminator robot or something, right? Just put it in there. People will go, oh, cool.

• 2:00:21Speaker 01

  I don't think they will because I think explosions, Terminator robots, et cetera, are, uh, do have levels of appropriateness, given, given.

• 2:00:32Jocko Willink?

  You have any limit, bro. You have no limit to the appropriateness of explosions and.

• 2:00:37Speaker 01

  Given what kind of video it is. So, you know, we're gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna err on the side of.

• 2:00:43Jocko Willink?

  Bro, can you at least try to put one effect into a three hour podcast video?

• 2:00:51Speaker 01

  You know what? The jury's still out on that one, whether or not that's a good decision, but we're gonna, I'm gonna keep checking in. And you know, maybe, maybe not, but you know, either way, we're gonna, we're gonna move forward. Nonetheless, yes, YouTube channel, it is there. A lot of people, a lot of us, we'll, we'll play the podcast. Straight up, just play it on our TV, our smart TV, you know, that's a thing now. And you know, they'll just play it. It's kind of like boom, the conversation going around, going on in the room with you. You see what I'm saying? It does create that environment is what I'm saying. Nonetheless, tune into that one on the YouTube. That's the way to do it. Boom. Other stuff on the, some excerpts on there too. If you don't necessarily want to listen to the whole thing all at once or whatever, you know?

• 2:01:31Jocko Willink?

  Cause you lack discipline.

• 2:01:32Speaker 01

  Or whatever. But no, some people, they'll just catch the like the YouTube excerpts and be like, oh shoot, let me just let this one play. It's a good topic, but it's just the one topic. You see what I'm saying? That's good too. Very beneficial. Um, yeah, boom. There you go. Also, Psychological Warfare, if you don't know what that is, is an album with tracks, Jaco tracks, Jaco telling you, helping you. Really? Helping you. What? You don't want help? You don't need help? That's what you're saying? No, that's not what you're saying. Sometimes we all need a little bit of help. Psychological Warfare will help you through those moments of weakness, big weakness, small weakness, whatever. You will get help through it. Hundred percent. Hundred percent.

• 2:02:09Jocko Willink?

  I just saw you riff. I liked it, man. Good job. Because you didn't repeat this, you know, you stepped off your, your standard.

• 2:02:19Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:02:20Jocko Willink?

  I don't want, I, I can't say script because it's not a script because you're not reading it. It was just the same thing that you, you know, when I had to ban you from saying that a while ago.

• 2:02:29Speaker 01

  Right. Cool.

• 2:02:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Also got flipsidecanvas.com, Dakota Myers Company, and he makes visual representations to keep you on the path. We, I got a bunch of books. The Code. Leadership Strategy and Tactics, Way the Warrior Kid One, Two, and Three, Mikey and the Dragons, Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual, Extreme Ownership and the Agathomy of Leadership. If you like what we talk about here, we wrote them down. We wrote this information down for every level of child, of adult, of human, you can start to get on the right path. Also have a leadership consultant company.

• 2:03:08Jocko Willink?

  It's called Echelon Front. If you need help with leadership inside your organization, go to echelonfront.com. We have EF Online, which is where I've been investing a ton of time going online, interacting. We do, right now, we're doing three times a week. I'm there. You want to, you want to ask me a question? And you sent me a Twitter thing three months ago and I didn't respond because there was 19 million of them? Or you sent me a Facebook message and I didn't respond? Look, I apologize. I, I, it's not possible for me to look at them all. If you want to talk to me, go to EFOnline.com. Just go to EFOnline.com. You will be, I will be in your living room with you on Zoom, the Zoom call.

• 2:03:50Jocko Willink?

  I will be in your living room. You'll be, you'll be talking to me. We'll be having a conversation. That's what's happening. Go to EFOnline.com. There's a bunch of other information on there. There's a bunch of other, we got, we got courses to go through. We've got a question of the day. We've got leadership primers. Get all kinds of stuff. So go check it out. EFOnline.com. We really ramped that up and we got into the COVID scenario.

• 2:04:15Jocko Willink?

  If you want to come to the muster, which is our leadership event, the next one is going to be in Arizona, September 16th and 17th, then Dallas, Texas on December 3rd and 4th. Go to extremeownership.com for details. Look, it's probably going to be a social distance situation, which means we're going to have less tickets to sell, which means it's going to sell out faster. So extremeownership.com if you want to come. EF Overwatch, if you are a military individual that is moving into the civilian sector, or if you're a civilian company that needs people that understand the principles we talk about here, go to EFOverwatch.com, fill out the appropriate information, and we will move you in the

• 2:04:53Jocko Willink?

  right direction, both of you. AmericasMightyWarriors.org, this is Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee, and she is out on a daily basis, making it her mission to help service members, their families, the Gold Star families around the world. So if you want to get involved, or you just want to donate, go to AmericasMightyWarriors.org. And if you want some more of my inept interpretations, or you would like to hear more of Echo's prolonged proclamations, then you can find us on the interwebs, on Twitter, on Instagram, and on Facebook. Echo is at

• 2:05:37Jocko Willink?

  @EchoCharles, and I am at @JockoWillingcan. To all the folks out there in uniform, actually enacting and living these military principles to keep us safe and free, thank you to all of you, and to police and law enforcement, and firefighters, and paramedics, and EMTs, and dispatchers, and correctional officers, and Border Patrol, and Secret Service. Thanks to all of you for holding the line for us here on the home front, and to everyone else out there. Listen, Wu Chi said that maybe we should try to shake the world with awesomeness.

• 2:06:17Jocko Willink?

  But like he also said, stay balanced. Don't run with that idea. Stay on the high road. Don't dwell in magnificence and power. That's your ego. Keep that thing in check. Instead, follow the way, how things should be done. Do things with righteousness.

• 2:06:42Jocko Willink?

  Do things with propriety. That means you hold the standard. That means you conform. It actually means you conform to doing what is right. Be benevolent, take care of people.

• 2:06:58Jocko Willink?

  And if you do those things and you do them humbly, well, then you can.

• 2:07:05Jocko Willink?

  Get out there. And shake the world with awesomeness, not for yourself,

• 2:07:12Jocko Willink?

  but for others.

• 2:07:15Jocko Willink?

  And that is leadership.

• 2:07:20Jocko Willink?

  And until next time, this is Echo and Jaco.

• 2:07:26Jocko Willink?

  Out.