179: Playing The Long Game. Millennials, Mindset, and Leadership Mistakes from Battle, w/ Jason Gardner.

0:00:00 – Opening 0:02:53 - Jason Gardner: Playing The Long Game. Millennials, Mindset, and Leadership Mistakes from Battle. 2:17:39 - Final thoughts and take-aways. 2:22:17 - Support: How to stay on THE PATH. 2:49:48 - 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 179 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo.

• 0:07Speaker 01

  Good evening.

• 0:10Jocko Willink?

  So, the spear Danes in days gone by and the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness. We have heard of those princes heroic campaigns. There was shield sheafson scourge of many tribes, a wrecker of mead benches rampaging among foes. This terror of the hall troops had come far. A foundling to start with, he would flourish later on. As his powers waxed and his worth was proved.

• 0:52Jocko Willink?

  In the end, each clan on outlying coasts beyond the whale road had to yield to him and begin to pay tribute. That was one good king. Boom. Opening with a little bit of Beowulf and that is the opening of Beowulf translated by Seamus Haney. What I notice is even back in the day, in the opening of the, the original Old English poem, the first one written, what are they talking about?

• 1:34Jocko Willink?

  They're talking about war and they're talking about leadership. And you can hear in the beginning, he was a little bit of a weak leader. He was a foundling to start with, but he would flourish later on, became a good king. And that's what happens. You learn, you get better, and that is why we talk about war and leadership here. And speaking of war and leadership. Back for a third time. My brother, Jason Gardner, retired Master Chief, who I've known since I got into the teams in the early 90s. He's been on the podcast before, so if you haven't listened to 167 and 168, go listen to those first. There's a lot of ground covered on those podcasts.

• 2:18Jocko Willink?

  And I told him to listen in and listen to them again and see which, what we missed. So we could go back and that's what we're gonna do now. Cover some more ground, hit some of that stuff that we missed. So, welcome back, Jason.

• 2:33Jason Gardner?

  Thank you.

• 2:34Jocko Willink?

  Check. There's, I, when I first got that translation, which was actually when I was in college, and it starts off with, "So", I just said, "Oh, my God, this is totally legit." So I start things with "so" a lot. Now, when I write, I do that. I do that. So, uh, yeah, welcome back. How's retirement treating you?

• 2:59Jason Gardner?

  Good to go. I was gonna say awesome, but I beat awesome absolutely to death in the last two podcasts, so I'm gonna try and ban it.

• 3:08Jocko Willink?

  Did your Southern California childhood creep out with some awesome?

• 3:12Jason Gardner?

  Yes.

• 3:13Jocko Willink?

  Everything is awesome?

• 3:14Jason Gardner?

  Yep.

• 3:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So you gotta watch out for that. So what did we miss? I know we missed something from your youth. What were you talking about? The best, the best show you ever saw, the best punk rock show you ever saw?

• 3:24Jason Gardner?

  Yeah, there was one that, and this is before I could even drive. Buddy of mine, Justin Hawkins and Alessio, went up to this, this gig at Cypress College. And it was DI, Plain Rap, The Dickies, The Vandals, The Circle Jerks. And there might have been one other band for $7 in pre-sale. So we got pre-sale tickets. We went up there. Got in, there was probably about 500 people outside who weren't able to get in because it's sold out.

• 3:59Jocko Willink?

  Oh wow.

• 3:59Jason Gardner?

  So they just went ahead and knocked the doors down and all flooded in. So what that meant was, nobody got searched coming in for security. And people had crazy stuff like firecrackers. It was way overcrowded for, you know, what the safe, safe amount for the building was. So when you went up by where the doors were, the security guys had just put, pushed all these tables and chairs and were sitting on them up against the doors to keep anybody else from coming in. And the, the show is just unreal. There were three mosh pits. And then when the circle jerks came out, they opened up with wild on the streets.

• 4:40Jason Gardner?

  The whole floor exploded. One of the pits started floating, crashed into another pit. People were throwing bricks of firecrackers around. It was mass pandemonium with so much.

• 4:52Jocko Willink?

  And so you were like 14 or 15?

• 4:53Jason Gardner?

  15 years old, yeah. My mom had dropped me off at the, dropped us off there.

• 4:59Jocko Willink?

  Oh, that's awesome. Good for your mom.

• 5:01Jason Gardner?

  Oh yeah, she's good to go.

• 5:02Jocko Willink?

  That squirted away, man. That squirted away.

• 5:04Jason Gardner?

  Yeah.

• 5:04Jocko Willink?

  Cause a lot of times if your parents, if parents try and shield their kids from that, or they won't let them go, then you would have just snuck out. They would have never known where you were.

• 5:14Jason Gardner?

  Yup, and gotten in trouble.

• 5:15Jocko Willink?

  And you would have rebelled against it. Right?

• 5:19Jason Gardner?

  Yeah.

• 5:19Jocko Willink?

  Cause that's what happens. If you're, if you're, if your parents try and control you too much, it's kind of like with, with any person, right? You try and control them too much, then they get out of control. They rebel against you.

• 5:30Jason Gardner?

  Right. It was a discussion I think I was having the other day with, uh, um, your daughter about people just trying to box people in. And it's another example of over centralized command and

• 5:40Jocko Willink?

  Yes, it is.

• 5:41Jason Gardner?

  Too much, too much stuff like that. They're just gonna go the other way.

• 5:44Jocko Willink?

  I was actually, I was talking about this with a leader in a company and I was explaining, cause like for sure, money drives people. Compensation drives people, but

• 5:55Jocko Willink?

  Ability to choose your fate or have some influence over your fate is is it also very powerful motivator and incentive for people to follow. So when you have a like, if you have one job where you make more money, but you don't have any freedom and you don't have any control over your own fate versus a job where you get paid less money, but you have really a lot of autonomy. Most people will go with the autonomy. There are rare people that don't want any autonomy. They just pretty much want to get told, hey, give me my paycheck. I'll do whatever you tell me to do. And that's fine. And they're not into their job. But but a lot of people, the more autonomy you give them, the more into it they are, the more they enjoy what they're doing. Whereas if you're just micromanaging them or centralized command scenario, they're not into it. And that's a problem.

• 6:38Jason Gardner?

  And that the first person you gave the example of probably exercises no initiative whatsoever.

• 6:42Jocko Willink?

  Exactly, exactly. You know what? You have to address that. You have to address that when we're working with companies, that there are people that they just want to get their paycheck. They're going to punch the clock at 459 every day. And that's the way it is. They don't want to get promoted. They're fine with that. And so you got to know. And you know, my answer to those people always is, oh, if you're leading someone like that, okay, you know what you've got, get the most out of them, take good care of them, and they'll do their job well. And you know, you can count on them for that. So that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. It just that somebody that does have higher goals or different goals, I guess, where they want to break out of that, then you got to give them the opportunity. And those people, if you box them in, they're going to rebel against you. Got to look out. They'll be like Jason Gardner, age 15, with a mohawk.

• 7:28Jocko Willink?

  Check, check. So I know one of the other things that that you wanted to talk about a little bit was was Scotty Wertz.

• 7:36Jason Gardner?

  That's right. You know, and just coming after right after Memorial Day, it's really fitting to discuss him. Scotty was a good friend of mine. Just a fantastic team guy. He did. He did six years in the teams and then separated 2005. And he did what a lot of guys did at the time was he started contracting overseas because he wanted to be at that point of friction. And for Scotty, I don't think he was ever, ever happier than than when he was at that point of friction. So he did a bunch of contracting. He wound up getting hired by the Defense Intelligence Agency as a as a GS position, a full time position. And then

• 8:19Jason Gardner?

  January, uh, this last January, he was, uh, killed by a suicide bomber when he was out operating in Syria. Mm-hmm. And I remember when I got the text message, we were all in a group text that, that he passed and I just, man, it kinda floored me for a second, but then, you know, it's like, Scotty died doing what he loved. And he was just such, he was a maniac in the best sense of the word. Like, uh, uh, the hardest I've ever laughed in my life is with him. And, and most people will tell you that anytime they've had a good belly laugh or something, he, you know, it was with Scotty.

• 9:01Jason Gardner?

  And he had that kind of contagious smile where you look at pictures, and Seth is a lot like this. When I look at Seth's pictures, he's got that smile that just has that special thing about it that automatically makes you, you smile, then you know, you are not ever gonna be the voice of reason and you are always gonna be a good time and you're a good friend. And so while there's, there's remorse that he's not here anymore, I'm so fired up that I got to spend the time with him that I did. And, uh, so anyway, I, I mean, there you really have it. He passed, he's from St. Louis, so they had a big funeral for him there and it was at

• 9:46Jason Gardner?

  this Catholic cathedral. There had to be a thousand people inside that cathedral and it was raining the day they had it. So, the, the funeral procession from the cathedral to the military sem- uh, cemetery where they buried him had to be like, at least thirty miles. Every single overpass on the freeway on the drive there had fire trucks and first responders out on it. The freeway, they shut the freeway down, every exit was stopped by police officers, which is, which is pretty, pretty dang cool. That's awesome. But then when we got off the freeway and we were driving on the surface streets...

• 10:33Jason Gardner?

  People, the people of St. Louis just pulled their cars over and they were standing at attention out in the rain. And so it's moving when someone in uniform does that, but you almost kind of expect that out of them. But when you see like a 30-year-old mother of two and her two like eight-year-old kid and seven-year-old kid. Standing at attention with their hands in the heart, over their hearts in the rain, and it was a cold rain as, as he went by, it's just. It's an, it's an amazing and humbling experience to, uh, to see that kind of love and respect

• 11:17Jason Gardner?

  by the people of this country and the people of St. Louis.

• 11:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's, that's awesome. I, well, I was with, with Chris Kyle's procession going, um, down to where he was buried and that was a long drive. I want to say it was a few hours.

• 11:31Jason Gardner?

  Wow.

• 11:32Jocko Willink?

  And the entire thing, and again, it was raining, same thing. We're in Texas, but it's raining and sure enough, I mean, there was, people were lined the entire way. And I was riding with one other guy and it was just, and we were in this massive, there was a massive procession of people, but it was just, I, I remember sitting there for a long time and it's just the windshield wipers just going back and forth. We were not talking because there's nothing to say. You can't, you can't put words to that. You know, you can't put words to thousands of people standing out in the rain with their hands on their hearts, just every bridge, fire trucks, flags hung up from the ladders extended.

• 12:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, this, uh, that same, same type of feeling that, that I had when, when I was doing that. And it definitely makes you realize that regardless of all the, what do they say these days that America is? Division. All this division that everyone talks about. There's plenty of people that, that understand what it, what it takes to keep this country free, for sure.

• 12:37Jason Gardner?

  Absolutely. I feel like it's such a small and maybe vocal minority.

• 12:44Jason Gardner?

  That's out there and I don't think it's on a whole, I think we're, we're on, even though a lot of us have our differences and I think we're figuring out how to discuss politics, just by looking at how people discuss stuff on social media and people are dialing it in and they're, they're able to have realistic discussions with each other without getting too hateful and there are some people that are still figuring that out.

• 13:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, for sure. I'll say two things about that. I was on, I was on Ben Shapiro's podcast. And you know, Ben was like, and Ben's a real nice guy. He's, you know, very nice to me and, and all, and all that. And he's, you know, he's, what's pretty cool about him is he's, he's like got this running list of everything that he said that's stupid or wrong or whatever, you know, his mea culpa list. But anyways, as we were having this conversation, he was hinting at the fact of this massive division and you know, these massive right against the massive left and, and you know, I said, listen, man, I travel the, our whole country all the time. I work with construction companies, with finance companies, with, now you do too,

• 13:56Jocko Willink?

  insurance companies. I mean, we meet people from every different industry. I said, these people aren't on the extreme right. They're not on the extreme left. They're common sense. They're Americans. And I said, you Ben, you're, you're like here at, at, at ground zero for political like mayhem. And so what do you expect to see? Like you're, you're the, you're the lightning rod for a lot of this stuff. And so that's what you hear. I said, normal America in, in really like that, you know, it's just not, it's just not, I'm out there all the time. You're out there all the time now, you know, you see it. No one's coming up to you saying, you know, with, with some extreme views. Are there a small number of people? Sure.

• 14:37Jocko Willink?

  On both sides? Yes, absolutely. But in general, people are realizing, oh, well, that's not a bad point. And then I was on Brian Koppelman's podcast and we were talking about the same thing. And what's interesting is, you know, Ben Shapiro's pretty, pretty far on the right and, and Brian Koppelman's pretty far on the left and me, I think they're both really nice guys that are super cool. And, but what I said to him was, You know, what you're saying, what I believe is leading to the attitude kind of shifting is basically this, if you're not humble and you think you know everything, then why should I listen to anything that you say? You know, why should, if I'm on the far left, why should I listen to anything?

• 15:21Jocko Willink?

  I know everything and everyone on the right is wrong. If I'm on the far right, why should I listen to anyone that anyone say, anything that anyone's saying on the other side? I know everything. If you're humble and you say, you know what, I've got some ideas, but I'm probably not a hundred percent right. You know, maybe I'm only ninety-eight percent right. No, if you just look at other people and say, oh, you know what, I probably don't have the full solution for this. Maybe I should listen to other people's opinions and try and, try and come up with a, a more broad-based idea than just what I think. So I think people are starting to realize if you take one extreme view and you don't listen to anyone else, then you're wrong. And so I think people are becoming a little bit more balanced. I certainly hope.

• 16:03Jason Gardner?

  I, yeah, and, and I know that, that I've got some really, really close friends that are on both ends of the spectrum. And when I sit down with them and have a logical conversation with them, I find out that our values are the, they're the same.

• 16:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 16:22Jason Gardner?

  And really it's just a lot of misrepresentation and, and some unfortunate semantics sometimes that you know, have drawn us to different directions or put us on different sides.

• 16:37Jason Gardner?

  And you know, that's it.

• 16:40Jocko Willink?

  Speaking of the left hand and the right hand.

• 16:46Jason Gardner?

  This is great.

• 16:47Jocko Willink?

  You gotta tell the story about, and this is, this is a good revealing story about. I've, I allude to oftentimes the dark sense of humor in the teams. And there's a dark sense of humor in the military and you kind of have to have a dark sense of humor. And I think, did you see the movie Range Fifteen?

• 17:05Jason Gardner?

  No.

• 17:05Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay. It's, it's about, it's just a crazy movie that Tim Kennedy and, and, and Matt Best and the Black Rifle Coffee Company, all those guys.

• 17:16Jason Gardner?

  They throw the keys to the girl.

• 17:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. It's just, it's just every horrible, dark joke that you can make, they make and.

• 17:26Jocko Willink?

  I don't know how well it did or whatever. It did good enough. It did good enough. I mean, I'm sure it offended a lot of people. I'm sure it offended a lot of people, but they, they did it. So good, good on them. But you know, you talk about that, that kind of dark sense of humor. And I think this story, which you like called me, I don't know, whatever it was six months ago, or whatever you go, I gotta tell you a story, which whenever you call me and tell me that I get super excited. I tell my kids to leave the room and I like put you on speakerphone and I put you on speakerphone and then I mute. So I don't, I don't interrupt you by laughing so hard. Cause whenever you call me, you tell me you got a good story. I'm thinking, here we go. So yeah, tell us about the hand.

• 18:07Jason Gardner?

  So, and, and I talked to Aaron Kendall this morning to make sure I got the details correct. So Aaron Kendall is a SEAL that was working at the training detachment when I was the command master chief there. And he is on a hunting trip out in Texas, like a foundation supported hunting trip. And he's driving one of those side by sides out to where he's gonna hunt.

• 18:32Jocko Willink?

  Like side by side ATV?

• 18:34Jason Gardner?

  Yeah, like an ATV, like one of those razors, right? And it rolls. And it's smat, the roll bar smashes his left arm. So he makes a tourniquet out of his belt and walks like a mile back to the range house. And then they call, uh, they try to call lifelight, lifelight can't come out. It's too foggy. They get an ambulance, comes and gets him. They start driving him up towards, uh, to a hospital at San Antonio. Now he's in the hospital. They wind up having to amputate his left hand in the hospital. In this first hospital.

• 19:10Jocko Willink?

  Why is that?

• 19:12Jason Gardner?

  Oh, cause it was just completely smashed.

• 19:14Jocko Willink?

  It was so smashed that everything was just destroyed.

• 19:18Jason Gardner?

  It was done. He was losing so much blood through there and they, they ended up like, they kind of had to fight to save the amputation below his elbow. Cause they were worried that, because later on in surgeries are taken more and more. So there were a couple other team guys that were there and other team guys flew in to help out and they're staying at this hotel right outside the, the hospital where he's at.

• 19:41Jocko Willink?

  So they take him from where he was, they take him to this hospital?

• 19:43Jason Gardner?

  He's at this hospital and at that hospital, they have to amputate his hand. So he's bedside talking with the other with some other seals and they're the surgeon who amputate his hand is in there checking on him and they asked the surgeon, hey, do you guys still have his hand? And the surgeon says, yeah, I think so. I don't, you know, we haven't destroyed and they asked him, what are you going to do with it? And he goes, well, you know, I guess we they destroyed or whatever. And so Aaron asked, well, can I have my hand? And the surgeon says, I'll go check. So he goes and checks with the administrators, right? And they they come back and they say, yeah, you get to fill out these forms, but we'll give you the hand.

• 20:27Jason Gardner?

  So they fill out the forms, they give the hand to um, one of the other seals actually receives the hand because Aaron now or has has had to move to a different hospital that's a little bit better to deal with the amputations. And they've got his hand with the intent to take it to a taxidermist. So in the meantime, they're keeping it in the freezer of the hotel. And they're taking turns spending time with Aaron. So a guy will be there at the hospital with Aaron while he's in the other hospital and other guys at the hotel and they're flipping back and forth.

• 21:04Jocko Willink?

  Which is a little testament to like, oh, the way it is for team guys.

• 21:07Jason Gardner?

  Guys are just looking out for each other.

• 21:08Jocko Willink?

  Just gonna take care of you. Like you're in the hospital, want someone's gonna stay with you 24 hours a day. It's awesome.

• 21:13Jason Gardner?

  Right. So one of the guys that's back at the hotel room decides that either he's got to go somewhere and he wants to put the hand in the other guy's freezer, or he's going to play a joke on one of the other guys and put the hand in his bed. And so he comes up with these different ruse to try and get the hotel staff to let him into the room and they're not having any of it because he looks kind of shady and he's a team guy.

• 21:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 21:40Jason Gardner?

  So he

• 21:41Jocko Willink?

  So he's telling them, oh, hey, you know, my friend left his phone in the room. Can I get in there? And they're like, well, no, or hey, well, no, actually it wasn't his phone. It was his ID and I need to go like all that stuff.

• 21:49Jason Gardner?

  That that kind of stuff.

• 21:50Jocko Willink?

  And they're shutting him down because he looks like a criminal.

• 21:51Jason Gardner?

  Yes. So then he he leaves to go to the hospital, I guess.

• 21:55Jocko Willink?

  But they're suspect.

• 21:56Jason Gardner?

  They're suspect. The poor maid goes in there and finds a hand in the freezer.

• 22:04Jason Gardner?

  I have a picture of it. It's horrible. It's all gray and just like ripped off right there. So.

• 22:12Jocko Willink?

  Addams Family style.

• 22:13Jason Gardner?

  Yes. And so they, of course, call the police. The police show up and they just detain everybody. Of course, of course. And then Aaron's in the hospital and all the nurses come up. And they're like, hey, all these police are calling here. They need to talk to you something about your hand. So he's got to get on the phone and explain to the police. Why his hand is in the thing. I think they probably validated something with the doctor too. And you know, calm them down that this wasn't some kind of murder.

• 22:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 22:46Jason Gardner?

  And, uh.

• 22:48Jason Gardner?

  Then they kind of settled everything. They threw everybody out of the motel. Aaron gave his hand to the taxidermist. He had a nice, what they call European mount where the taxidermist in Texas is awesome. So they they mounted like the skeleton hand is in this really cool mount inside glass. All done up for him. And, uh. Aaron just had, he had the best sense of humor. About the whole thing, you know, if if you're gonna get depressed, I mean, losing a limb is a is a pretty good way to do it, you know, and in a lot of ways, he's. Like some of the stuff you see out of guys like, you know, Travis Mills. Where it's just funny, you're not guys like that. You're you're not gonna bum them out. You're just gonna keep them going, but.

• 23:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 23:34Jason Gardner?

  Hysterical.

• 23:35Jocko Willink?

  So then that's obviously one of it's like one of many stories. How does that translate to like when you're dealing? With your with your family, like so, for instance. My wife, when I when I had to go to college, I had to go to the University of San Diego. And so this is my first time in my adult life that I wasn't like in a platoon. And so I was. I didn't really think about it, but now all of a sudden I didn't have anyone to like attack verbally all day. Cause when you're a SEAL platoon, it's just constant, you know, attack and combat, verbal combat, sometimes physical combat. And so when I would come home from school, of course, there's my wife and I'd want to have some verbal sparring matches. So I start hacking away at her, you know?

• 24:21Jocko Willink?

  And finally, after three months, she goes, she goes, she goes, she's a break, you know, she she says, uh. Hey, I'm not a team guy, you know? And when she said that to me, I instantly, I instantly realized exactly what she was talking about. And I knew she was a hundred percent right. I can't treat my wife as if she's a E5 in a seal.

• 24:42Jason Gardner?

  No, and especially like the weapons cleaning table.

• 24:45Jocko Willink?

  Oh.

• 24:46Jason Gardner?

  When we're all stuck there cleaning weapons is when guys would just, that's when you'd look for weaknesses in any spot and any guy and just start pick, pick, picking, waiting for the reaction.

• 24:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you, you spend so much time with people and so much time just waiting, you know, it's a hurry up and wait thing. So, oh, what are we going to do on a, on a four hour van ride?

• 25:05Jason Gardner?

  Yeah.

• 25:05Jocko Willink?

  We're gonna destroy someone, get into a fight, spill Cheetos everywhere, you know, just like total chaos and mayhem. But yeah, it's all about that. But that, but I guess what I'm asking is, I know, you know, Iris obviously had to get,

• 25:23Jocko Willink?

  uh, what's the word indoctrinated into the life of being, cause you know, I met my wife when I was pretty young.

• 25:30Jason Gardner?

  Yeah.

• 25:30Jocko Willink?

  And you, you were not that young.

• 25:33Jason Gardner?

  No.

• 25:33Jocko Willink?

  And so you, you know, you, how'd that work out?

• 25:35Jason Gardner?

  So.

• 25:36Jocko Willink?

  The ideal wife, the, I don't wanna say ideal, I'm gonna throw that on you, poor Iris, listen to this, but squared away, let's say that, squared away spouse.

• 25:44Jason Gardner?

  You.

• 25:45Jocko Willink?

  What does that look like?

• 25:48Jason Gardner?

  So I gotta go back to,

• 25:52Jason Gardner?

  if you look at my career and, and you know this, cause you said this to her when you was on the podcast, like she's the best thing that ever happened to me.

• 26:01Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 26:01Jason Gardner?

  Because she's completely squared away and it's because she's so solid and independent. And so there was never ever any aspect of me having to worry about the home front. And there's a constant, she's like very dialed in and challenges me. Like a lot of my, I, I, I, I had a lot of like pretty far right political views. And then when we sit down and have discussions and stuff, she's really opened my aperture up on that. But you know, you look at her history where she, uh, she worked on ranches where she was the only female wrangler with a whole bunch of cowboys.

• 26:46Jason Gardner?

  So. She she got it. She had that aspect of what it's what it's like to be around and then around guys and then when I be messing with her like that, you know, she just same deal as Helen. Let me know.

• 26:59Jocko Willink?

  Just put you in check.

• 27:01Jason Gardner?

  Basically, yeah, and the.

• 27:06Jason Gardner?

  You know, this this job that we have where we're constantly going forward in harms way. And there there I chose my words kind of poorly on the last podcast when I was talking about her. I said that she put up with a lot of stuff that other women wouldn't and that that gives the indication that she tolerated a lot of shenanigans. Negative. She was. The strength that she had to have to be home while I was on combat deployments and then deal with me. When I came back. That strength. Most. Most women just can't deal with that kind of lifestyle.

• 27:48Jason Gardner?

  And don't have that kind of.

• 27:49Jocko Willink?

  What were the words that you used on the last podcast? She put up with a lot of.

• 27:53Jason Gardner?

  Yeah, I said.

• 27:54Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 27:55Jason Gardner?

  And so that that was a really poor choice of words because it indicates like she was just a pushover and she isn't absolutely not a pushover.

• 28:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 28:03Jason Gardner?

  It it's.

• 28:04Jocko Willink?

  It's more, yeah, it's more like she had the strength to contend with the the the hard life that it is.

• 28:10Jason Gardner?

  Exactly.

• 28:11Jocko Willink?

  Of being married to some guy that's going on constant deployment and isn't around a lot. And then when they're gone, by the way, they might die. They might come back horribly wounded, whatever, and you sign up for that as well.

• 28:24Jason Gardner?

  And she's working long hours and raising two little kids. While I'm going on six month deployments.

• 28:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 28:33Jason Gardner?

  And then she's she also. Like, in in. I pretty much I stayed in contact with with her pretty often, so we we pretty much talked at least three times a week, three times a week on deployment. And, um.

• 28:52Jason Gardner?

  And that's the model at work for us.

• 28:55Jocko Willink?

  I've described it and I forget who I described it to as emotional independence. Like my wife had, has and had enough emotional independence that she was gonna run the show if I'm not there, she's not freaking out, you know?

• 29:09Jason Gardner?

  Yeah.

• 29:10Jocko Willink?

  And I think that's, if you're gonna look for a, a, a good spouse, they gotta be, you can't be, they can't be codependent, right? Codependence is actually, actually like a bad thing, right? I mean, that's an, an actual bad thing, right? Codependency. So, yeah, so, but if you go to the other end of the spectrum, or not, maybe, I don't know, maybe there's, I guess if you go too far on that spectrum, then you get to where, hey, I don't even, oh, you're gone, I wasn't aware of that. Sorry, I'm over here doing my own thing. So you, but you gotta find a good, strong balance, probably leaning towards independent, in my opinion. You gotta be leaning towards independent. Cause if you're not leaning towards independent, I mean, when you don't get the, you, you know, it sucks being here by yourself for six months.

• 29:49Jason Gardner?

  It's not a true partnership. If, if, if they're not equal, right? If you're kind of not equal footing and one person really needs the other one, um, then, then the partnership at, ship aspect of it is, i- i- it's not there.

• 30:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's a, that's something to, to pay attention to. Cause the thing that's kinda weird is when you're young, guys get suckered into the being, how it's, it feels all empowering to have someone that's all dependent on you. You see what I'm saying?

• 30:26Jason Gardner?

  Oh, yeah.

• 30:26Jocko Willink?

  When you're young and you got the girl and she's all dependent on you and the world revolves around you. And then when you're not there, she's falling apart and you feel, oh yeah, I'm the man. And so it's easy, I think that I've seen that happen a lot, where guys get suckered into those situations and that's not a good situation to get.

• 30:44Jason Gardner?

  It never works out because then they're like, who's, well, and then she's in a situ, if it's, if it's that kind of girl, she's gonna find someone else to take care of her while you're not there to take care of her. Um, and then the case with Iris is like, we're inside the same box as far as, uh, just the things that we enjoy, where we wanna be in the outdoors, it's, it's all the same thing. So, you know, it's like I said in my retirement ceremony, when I look, look, I look at the trajectory of my career and then when Iris and I became together, I went from platoon chief to master chief, first time up, every time, and just hammered it.

• 31:24Jason Gardner?

  Because she was a good partner and she drove me to be better and is always driving me to be better.

• 31:34Jocko Willink?

  It helps to have somebody that's super squared away like that. You know what that does? It forces you. Like you're not just doing it for yourself because it's easy. Sometimes it's easier to let yourself down, right?

• 31:43Jason Gardner?

  Yeah.

• 31:44Jocko Willink?

  It's easier to let yourself down than to let down this person that's, that's looking at you thinking, hey, you could do better than that. Come on. Are you serious right now?

• 31:53Jason Gardner?

  And, and that's the kind of stuff that she'll say to me. You know, she's very straightforward and I'll be go, I'll just say, check. Got it. And then we, we've gotten to the point where we can give each other pretty honest feedback. Without there being any resentment involved.

• 32:10Jocko Willink?

  I've been pretty straightforward with Iris on some things. We're working on some projects together.

• 32:14Jason Gardner?

  Yep.

• 32:15Jocko Willink?

  And it's pretty cool for me to be able to just be real straightforward with her, you know?

• 32:20Jason Gardner?

  Yeah.

• 32:20Jocko Willink?

  And she's like, no, tell me. Well, actually, no, how does she says it? She says, no, go ahead and tell me.

• 32:25Jason Gardner?

  Yep.

• 32:28Jocko Willink?

  Check. So, you know, speaking of Afghanistan.

• 32:35Jocko Willink?

  You're, you, you, you, you did, the, the last time you were on, you know, we, we breezed through Afghanistan pretty quick.

• 32:41Jason Gardner?

  We did.

• 32:42Jocko Willink?

  But that was actually a, a, a really, um, pretty big deployment in terms of what you guys did there.

• 32:50Jason Gardner?

  Yep.

• 32:50Jocko Willink?

  And I know there were some details that you wanted to get into on some of those operations and some of the things that you brought home from those operations, lessons learned, et cetera. I mean, you were talking about one earlier. Talking about the Ma'adus and bringing the Ma'adus. That's it, that's it, that's a good piece of gear to bring out on an operation.

• 33:13Jason Gardner?

  Yeah, and usually you got it marked on, mounted on top of a truck. But, uh, um, when we did that, that operation, uh, as Frag 06 and, uh, Siege Engine, and we actually went into Marja, and the element that I was with was in a blocking position that was looking down a road that ran east-west, and we were the furthest east position, so we were blocking position on, on that direction. And where we got dropped off was really close to where we were gonna stay for four days. So, we were, you know, we brought a mortar in, we brought the, the M2HB, the heavy barrel, 50 cal machine gun with the big, uh, tripod for it and everything.

• 33:57Jocko Willink?

  How'd you break that up? How many guys would carry that? God, that's a lot of weight to carry, man. You talk about the ammunition and the weapon and the tripod.

• 34:07Jason Gardner?

  Well, the ammunition got pear dropped into us, but the initial, the initial insert, we had an ATV on the helicopter, and a lot of that stuff was loaded on the ATV, plus we were inserted maybe 200 yards from the position. So, everything was kicked out of the helo, staged, we went and cleared the building, and then hauled everything over there and set it up. And we'd done all the, you know, the imagery set up for, okay, here's what we're gonna be, here's where our firing lanes, all that, all that stuff was pretty much set up ahead of time.

• 34:39Jocko Willink?

  Once you guys were doing that, we started, the guys in trade that, that we were putting through training started doing it, started carrying them in. There was some big team guy.

• 34:47Jason Gardner?

  Oh, he just got back from deployment. I know exactly who you're talking about.

• 34:51Jocko Willink?

  Carry the 50 cal, like he looked like he was carrying a 60.

• 34:53Jason Gardner?

  He did.

• 34:54Jocko Willink?

  And it was a legit good to watch.

• 34:59Jason Gardner?

  His nickname was Pignip.

• 35:00Jocko Willink?

  His nickname was Pignip.

• 35:02Jason Gardner?

  And he's a beast. I know he's listening. Good on ya.

• 35:06Jocko Willink?

  That's one of, one of my favorite nicknames.

• 35:10Jocko Willink?

  You don't have some feature about you that gets noticed in the dames because everyone's gonna call you by some weird name.

• 35:16Jason Gardner?

  And the funny thing about him is he is super, he's a big guy and he's super intelligent.

• 35:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 35:21Jason Gardner?

  Just a good, good guy everywhere you measure it. So, we set this thing up in a window, in, you know, inside, so just the barrel was sticking out and of the compound that we were holding, aiming right down the east-west road because our, our biggest fear is a, a, a vehicle borne IED coming down that road. And along, across that road, there was this, there was like a hedge row and there was a little irrigation ditch over there. And so the Taliban kept coming down that hedge row and firing at us from the trees. And then just put that 50 on the tree line, stitch it like at shin level because that

• 36:06Jason Gardner?

  would be chest or a little bit high level for somebody in the ditch and just send a belt all the way down and back and then push them back further. Well, at one point, some guys had come up from a different direction and they were getting really, really close in this tree line.

• 36:24Jocko Willink?

  Bad guys.

• 36:25Jason Gardner?

  Bad guys, Taliban guys, and we could not traverse the gun over far enough. So, we tried to shove it out the window, it wouldn't go out the window. So, me and the EOD warrant officer who was with us, and then, uh, one of my E5s who right now, he's a, a troop SEA over at one of the SEAL teams.

• 36:48Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 36:49Jason Gardner?

  Dragged the thing out and put it in the street and just started laying it down. So, we got the 50 cows set up in the street right out in front of our compound and... For a second there, we were taking heavy fire, pretty heavy fire, PKM fire, but it was all going a little bit high and we just kept stitching, stitching, stitching and then they were done. They broke contact. They did not like that big gun. In fact, the next day it kind of slowed down for us because they didn't want to come, you know, they did, they're like, ah, we'll find a different direction. Cause we were holding, you know, basically four square blocks. So they started penetrating in from, from different directions.

• 37:33Jason Gardner?

  Then later on, two days later, guys pushed out to another building that was about a hundred yards in front of the position. And they got into a little tick up there. So we started lighting up the area that we thought they were taking fire from. And the 50 cal was so loud that they thought that they were taking direct fire from the 50 cal when we were shooting.

• 37:56Jocko Willink?

  From the rounds passing by them?

• 37:58Jason Gardner?

  From the rounds passing by them were so loud and knocking dust off the wall. That's why I was saying, I can't even imagine what it would be like to be in a building.

• 38:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 38:07Jason Gardner?

  In, you know, that one situation that Tony was in where someone's lighting your building up with several hundred rounds.

• 38:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, the, the blue on blue situation, those guys put 150 rounds into, 150 rounds of 50 cal from, I don't know, 20 meters away. I mean, from the corner, it was a building on the corner and they stopped in the corner and just shot. And those guys coming out of that building after we got the thing under control. I mean, I kicked open the door. I saw Tony there and, and then, but the, and Tony looked pretty much just like normal Tony.

• 38:38Jason Gardner?

  Yeah.

• 38:39Jocko Willink?

  Everyone else in that building looked like they just saw death and they actually just did see death. I mean,

• 38:45Jason Gardner?

  Yeah.

• 38:45Jocko Willink?

  They're in a building, they get 150 rounds of 50 cal. The guy that was on the roof, he was, he, he, he was telling me, he was telling me this like a year ago, like we were just talking about. And he goes, he goes, yeah, I, I got out my pistol. I a hundred percent thought that we were going to get overrun and I was going to die. If I didn't just take a round through the concrete into my head.

• 39:03Jason Gardner?

  Right.

• 39:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 39:05Jason Gardner?

  So did they know it was blue and blue or they think that they were just getting hammered by it's just like holy cow?

• 39:09Jocko Willink?

  Well, one of the, one of the, one of the many little like components of this. So that guy, the guy that was on the rooftop that I was talking to, 12 hours before, he was in another position and he got lit up with a Dishka, a 12.7 millimeter, you know, weapon, which is the Soviet equivalent of a 50 cal. For those of you that don't know, he got lit up with that and hit with RPGs. So he said, I remember as soon as, you know, as soon as this was all over and we got back to base, he, he, that's another thing he told me, but he told me this way back then. He said, he said to himself, I can't believe the guy with the Dishka found me again. He was so, he was so, and we were only, you know, a couple of days in deployment and, and that same guy.

• 39:54Jocko Willink?

  So when he got lit up, he was in this, he was in, he was on Camp Corregidor in an overwatch position, looking for IED emitters. He's sitting there on his sniper rifle and all of a sudden he starts taking machine gun fire and it's, it's a Dishka and then he gets hit with a couple RPGs. Well, I'm inside with the company commander from, from the, from one of the companies from the first of 506. And we were planning an operation that we were doing the next day. So we started hearing gunfire and all of a sudden we hear RPGs, boom, boom. And I said to him, the, the machine gun fire starts and he goes, oh, it sounds like we're in contact. And I go, hey, my snipers are up there. Don't worry about it. Like just Jaco the badass, right?

• 40:38Jocko Willink?

  And all of a sudden, boom, boom. So we hear the RPGs hit. So we go running outside and I'm, I'm still just, I say, hey, don't worry. My guy's got this. And right as those words are coming out of my mouth, out of the bottom of the sniper tower, cause we, we were right next to it. Out of the bottom of the sniper tower, out pours that guy, who I'm sure will be on the podcast one day. He comes pouring out of the tower, his, his weapon, his sniper gun had been blown, like the stock up blown off, bro. By the RPG and he's, he just looks like, oh my God. And I said, okay, well, maybe not. It was horrible, but so that's the guy when they're getting when they're getting shot up with 50 cal.

• 41:20Jason Gardner?

  Yeah.

• 41:21Jocko Willink?

  He he just thought and the rest of the guys too, because everyone knew that this had happened. No, we briefed it. Hey, they hey, just imagine the the PLO going out to this. I'm saying, hey, guys, these guys have DISCA 12.7 millimeter, you know, anti aircraft gun out there. So be ready for some significant heavy weapons. And sure enough, that's the guy on the rooftop thinking to himself, I can't believe this guy with a DISCA found me again. Yeah.

• 41:45Jason Gardner?

  Man.

• 41:46Jocko Willink?

  The and and that was one of the big lessons learned when I got to trade at where guys would put 50 rounds of 50 cal into a building with blanks, you know, simulating combat and and then we have a trade that guy in there that would get up and shoot someone and they'd be like, that's bullshit. You know, that guy that that would never happen. And I'm like, oh, yes, it would happen, you know, you we had guys survive 25 millimeter chain gun from from Bradley's and still stumble out of, you know, not friendlies.

• 42:14Jason Gardner?

  Right.

• 42:14Jocko Willink?

  Not not not for me, but but, uh, you know, there was enemy that made it out of buildings that had whatever, however, many rounds, a bunch of 25 millimeter chain gun rounds coming out of the building or coming coming into your building and they'd still live. So you don't know what's going to happen with bullets, you know, you just don't. It's hard to tell.

• 42:35Jason Gardner?

  And that, yeah, the frustration and the blame casting that goes on some of that training, we'll get into that. That layer, but man, gosh, that that 50 cal is such a badass weapon.

• 42:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 42:51Jason Gardner?

  Period. And then, you know, later on, we had those things mounted on our trucks and the the clearance of Mosul. Guys were stopping V bids that are completely armored with those things just hammering on them, but then it's on a Crow's remote system. And.

• 43:11Jason Gardner?

  That's a number.

• 43:11Jocko Willink?

  That's just a beautiful thing.

• 43:13Jason Gardner?

  It's incredible that that gun was made in the early 1900s.

• 43:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

• 43:18Jason Gardner?

  John Browning.

• 43:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's an incredible weapon, use the exact same weapon today.

• 43:23Jason Gardner?

  Yup.

• 43:23Jocko Willink?

  That's amazing. That's a feat of engineering.

• 43:26Jason Gardner?

  Someone was asking me when I posted, uh, pictures of all the brass all over the floor of that room on, on Instagram. They're like, oh, did you have any jams? No, we know how to set our headspace and timing. Got the gauge right there on it.

• 43:38Jocko Willink?

  Boom. That's, that's an awesome weapon. Now, another one, you know, you were telling me another one about getting extracted in like a, like a, like a, like a Russian, like hip 17.

• 43:52Jason Gardner?

  So the, um, we went into this operation in Zari Panjway, which is a really, really hot area. And we didn't like to drive anywhere because Afghanistan's limited, you know, it's limited roads. And so their IED threat was huge, plus there were culverts everywhere. So they would just pack all the, a covert full of explosives. And it could blow up like, you know, two, uh, MRAPs and kill everybody. That, and, uh, so we didn't have helicopter support for this one operation, but we were working with the DEA FAST teams.

• 44:32Jason Gardner?

  And they had their own Hilo support and they had these MI-17s, which are these, you know, Russian helicopters, which are super durable helicopters. And, uh, um, contracted, you know, American pilots in them, obviously.

• 44:47Jocko Willink?

  Okay, that's cool.

• 44:48Jason Gardner?

  And, uh, so they had this operation. They're like, hey, you guys want to go on it with us? So we're, you know, we're the main force on that. And it was during one of our turnover ops. It was actually the op after the, the, uh, when Dan lost his leg. So we did two. And, uh,

• 45:08Jason Gardner?

  Get dropped off first thing in the morning, go in, clear two compounds, and we found a whole bunch of, uh, on that, there were fields and fields of marijuana around here. And then on that operation, one of the compounds just had a whole bunch of hash. It was like huge burlap sacks of, of hash, and I think, I think they said there was 200 pounds of it. They had in the middle, they destroyed it. And so it was the typical thing that happened. Women and children left, fighters came in, and then we were in, you know, a 360 firefight. And we're in the firefight, and over the radio, we're hearing from, from our aircraft

• 45:51Jason Gardner?

  overhead, they're saying, "Hey, there's a white van, and it's dropping fighters off around you." So this white, this white minivan is driving off, picking up fighters, and then driving a big circle around us and dropping off fighters. So, this is like an hour later. You didn't blast that thing? I did. So this is the story. So, about an hour later, there's, they're like, "Hey, the white coming over." Cause I'm, I'm on dual com, so I can hear on the fires net, and, and that's like the other radio frequency outside of inter-squad comms, for those of you don't understand that is, is this one where the aircraft are talking, and one where we're all talking, and I'm

• 46:35Jason Gardner?

  on both of them, and I can hear the aircraft saying, "That white van is back." And, so, all of a sudden, I'm looking straight north at 200 yards, and I see a white van pull into the open, and stop in, you know, in an alleyway. So, get on the radio, "Where's that white van, and is it directly north our position?" And the aircraft comes back, "Yeah, it just dropped off two guys, and they're stopped, they're looking at you right now." Crack, crack, crack, two rounds, and then a 60 gunner just mows the thing down, and they're just done, through. Well, firefight just kept going.

• 47:16Jason Gardner?

  Now, the MI-17s, they can't fly after dark, they didn't have some kind of certification, so they had to come in there and do a hot extract on that LZ to get us off.

• 47:29Jason Gardner?

  So there's, there's bullets flying all over the place. We get stacked to set our breakout. So everyone's kind of broken down from their position. We still have security. They're, they're setting up the LZ. And then my job as the senior enlisted guy on my aircraft was I run out, I'm the first guy to the aircraft and I count guys getting on. And I'm the last guy on that aircraft. So that aircraft isn't going until I have whatever number of people getting on it, getting on it. Everybody's piling on there. I get a full head count. I'm like, I got a full head count and there's no seats for me. So I gotta hop on the ramp and hook an arm through one of the guy's legs. My feet are dangling off the ramp as we take off.

• 48:14Jason Gardner?

  And then I'm shooting just half ass from the hip because it's cool.

• 48:18Jocko Willink?

  Just for fun.

• 48:18Jason Gardner?

  Just for fun.

• 48:19Jocko Willink?

  Just for the qual.

• 48:20Jason Gardner?

  Just for the qual, the apocalypse now qual at, at, uh, you know, a place we were taking fire from as we took off and then we got out of there. It was a, it was a lot of fun. I'm gonna stop short of saying it's awesome because I'm not gonna use that word anymore, but it was pretty dang great.

• 48:35Jocko Willink?

  Does that not merit an awesome right there? That sounds pretty awesome.

• 48:38Jason Gardner?

  It was.

• 48:40Jocko Willink?

  And no one got hurt? No one got wounded?

• 48:42Jason Gardner?

  Not in that one. Nope. Amazing. Like you said, all these bullets are flying around and it's just incredible because just the laws of chance.

• 48:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Well, those aircraft too, you know, it's like, um, those old school aircraft, like when you read about the Vietnam guys and I'm reading a book right now. Those aircraft, they were flying these king, they were, they had Vietnamese pilots in these King B aircraft. And those things, they, the guy came back from one op, they had 48 holes in it. Been shot 48 times. And, and this American SF guy's looking at the aircraft and he's looking at the pilot, he's getting in like you were and he gets in. And he, he's looking at this Vietnamese pilot and the Vietnamese pilot looks cool. He's just like Roger. And I got, it's a great quote. The guy says something along the lines of when I'm flying, I'm just thinking about flying.

• 49:36Jocko Willink?

  I'm not thinking about bad guys. I'm not thinking about bullets. I'm just flying my aircraft. If it's my day, it's my day. Period. End of story. But that coming in a hot extract like that, that's sketch.

• 49:47Jason Gardner?

  And those guys, they, they come in super fast and super, the speeds, speeds on their side and it is sketchy. It's a, um.

• 49:55Jocko Willink?

  I was in a random Russian air helicopter, a, a hip or what do you MI 17, I guess the, the, the NATO term is like a hip. But yeah, I was in Africa working and, and that's like, we needed to get somewhere and the only thing they could get us was contracted, contracted helicopters, but there was, but it was contracted pilots too. And I was happy to land on that one.

• 50:21Jason Gardner?

  Yeah, those are a pretty common sight over in there in Afghanistan. A lot of the other, other agencies were using those and somebody had told me, and I don't know if this is true or not, that they were, they were so inexpensive, it wasn't worth doing the maintenance on them. So when they got to a maintenance schedule, they'd just destroy it and buy another one.

• 50:41Jocko Willink?

  That's crazy.

• 50:42Jason Gardner?

  Yeah. And, and I, I don't know if that's true, you know, that's something I heard from some guy over at the Chow Hall who.

• 50:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Who was well informed.

• 50:50Jason Gardner?

  Apparently. But the, the, those pilots were so, so good. And they, you know, they were all probably ex TF160 guys that were now hired on by these other guys to do the job over there. I was incredible.

• 51:05Jocko Willink?

  So speaking of wounded or in that case not wounded, but you were telling me a story about, um, and I cut you off, so you didn't tell it to me, but you were telling me a story about a Taliban guy getting shot in the leg?

• 51:18Jason Gardner?

  Yeah. So last time I was telling you the story about, last time I was telling you the story about the, uh,

• 51:27Jason Gardner?

  the operation where we'd set pop flares out because guys were, were able to get so close to us. And during that firefight, one of our firing positions up on a roof, they're like, hey, there's, there was someone that had circled around kind of behind our position and we weren't taking any fire form. They were in, in, in the process of trying to flank us. They're like, hey, there's a guy back here and we just shot him. We killed him. So stuff calmed down and I talked to the TU commander. I'm like, hey, I'm gonna press out with these two guys because it appeared as if it was like right around the corner, around this wall, and we're gonna go see if the guys got a radio on him or anything like that. So we push out of the compound and we loop around a wall, but it's not just

• 52:11Jason Gardner?

  one wall, it's several walls, and we get a little bit farther away. So we round the corner where the guy's supposed to be, and there's no dead guy at all, but there's a guy standing 30 yards away on a hill and he's shooting at me. So I have got, I'm patrolling with my scar heavy, but I folded the buttstock like a dummy. And, because I, you know, I thought that was a cool way to patrol. And so now, I'm like, oh no, I can't shoulder my scar, so I just tried to lock it out on the sling.

• 52:47Jocko Willink?

  Like we used to do with the MP5Ks?

• 52:48Jason Gardner?

  Yes.

• 52:49Jocko Willink?

  Just punch it out, dude, just punch it out.

• 52:52Jason Gardner?

  Punched it out, squeezed at him, missed him, and then it had a stovepipe and a feed jam, so I just took a knee and started to reload and then cleared the jam real quick, started shooting him again, but he was gone. And then he turned up again when we had, when we went to do our extract the following day, we had to clear a couple of buildings near where the helos were gonna land, and then we found that same guy with his leg all bandaged up. Because they didn't kill him, they just shot him in the leg. And then we just wound up, you know, leaving him there. So like, so-

• 53:35Jocko Willink?

  Was that the last time you patrolled with your scar heavy with the stock folded in?

• 53:38Jason Gardner?

  Ever. And then, you know, on another op, it was that I learned the lesson of never taking off my body armor and helmet because it was hot.

• 53:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 53:47Jason Gardner?

  Yeah.

• 53:48Jocko Willink?

  What happened on that one?

• 53:49Jason Gardner?

  Oh my goodness. So, we were, it was Operation Swali Khat where we'd taken high ground above a couple of compounds that we'd cleared. And-

• 54:04Jason Gardner?

  The next day, the Taliban, we'd gotten to the point, right, where we'd started to get a little bit complacent. And all our engagements with the Taliban, we'd always had the upper hand against them. We'd completely, we had air power, we had better weapons, we were trained better. And on this operation, we had a piece of high ground, right behind the compounds that we took.

• 54:32Jocko Willink?

  Was everyone wearing, was everyone using the ACOG's on their, on their SARS, generally? Or what were they using?

• 54:37Jason Gardner?

  Guys, variety of ACOG's. The snipers actually took the scopes off their SR25's and put them on the, the SCAR heavies.

• 54:44Jocko Willink?

  So everyone had, basically everyone had scopes, and so?

• 54:47Jason Gardner?

  Lots of them. And we had 300 Win Mag sniper rifles that we brought along on this.

• 54:51Jocko Willink?

  I'm just thinking mentally from the viewpoint of where the enemy's at, like you're reaching out and touching them accurately, way further than they can get you.

• 54:57Jason Gardner?

  Pretty much.

• 54:59Jocko Willink?

  Which, which again leans towards you thinking to yourself, we're gonna kick these guys ass every time.

• 55:04Jason Gardner?

  Yup.

• 55:04Jocko Willink?

  And then you did kick their ass a bunch of times.

• 55:07Jason Gardner?

  And, and so then, these guys start to take high ground all around all our positions. And we can see a guy pushing out with a PKM onto this flat ledge of rock, he's 1,100 yards away, and we're shooting at him with a 300 Win Mag, but it's windy. And, and we're missing, we're missing close. And he'd go back, and then come back out, go back, come back out. And they were getting set up all around us, and then they just brought it. They let us go with a salvo of rocket propelled grenades, and then just steady PKM fire. And we thought, they're 1,000 yards out, they really can't do that much. Oh, it's, you

• 55:50Jason Gardner?

  know, 105 degrees out, so we'll take our body armor and helmets off. And then they just laid the hammer down. Luckily, for me, I happened to be right on top of my body armor helmet, because I was in, in the prone position, and then I just was able to snake into my body armor and get my helmet back on my head. And, you know, in this, this is a position where, this is the first time we'd been somewhere, we couldn't fill sandbags, so we just stacked a bunch of rocks, as best we could to make a fighting position. And the bullets were just steadily hammering the rocks, and hammering the rocks, and hammering the rocks. And I was thinking, man alive.

• 56:31Jason Gardner?

  I'm gonna get shot and I'm I wonder if it's gonna hurt, but it's definitely gonna happen. The odds are odds are there and somehow I didn't. And then then a B one bomber came on station and dropped a whole bunch of ordinance and laid the hammer down. But after that, and I ran out of water. We all ran out of water up on this high ground position. It was like 112, 14 degrees at 2:00 in the afternoon. We ran underwater and there was no getting any water until that night when the sun went down.

• 57:04Jocko Willink?

  Did you listen to that podcast with Ron Scher on?

• 57:07Jason Gardner?

  I'm sure I did.

• 57:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, SF guy Medal of Honor recipient. But if you go watch the videos of that.

• 57:14Jason Gardner?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 57:15Jocko Willink?

  Like the castle that they're attacking.

• 57:17Jason Gardner?

  That's crazy.

• 57:18Jocko Willink?

  Just straight uphill. I was just, I couldn't believe that. I when I when I as I was reading, like, I was reading a bunch of articles about the situation. And then they kept talking about video and I said, oh, you know, check out YouTube. And I saw it. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it.

• 57:36Jason Gardner?

  And the way he described it, it was just incredible.

• 57:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 57:39Jason Gardner?

  He just laid it out there. It's like, oh, yeah, you know?

• 57:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. He's so understated.

• 57:44Jason Gardner?

  Uh huh.

• 57:45Jocko Willink?

  He's like, well, you know, it was a little bit of a hill. And there was a pretty big building. I'm like, it was a cliff. And it was a castle. I'm talking to the cliff, bro.

• 57:54Jocko Willink?

  What a freaking awesome guy. You know, another thing that we were talking about and you made, obviously, and this is getting leaving Afghanistan, but it's getting back early in your career, when you were when you failed the stalking section of sniper school and then you went back and you and you, you know, you obviously made it through, you passed the stalking section. And you kind of touched on it when you were on last time, but I was wondering like, a little bit more granularity on what you changed. That you went from failing the stocks to, all right, here's here's me knocking out whatever 10.

• 58:32Jason Gardner?

  Yeah, and and it comes down to basically doing what I'd been taught and and and people were telling me is that.

• 58:42Jason Gardner?

  You start the stalk. You're told to find the OP, which is, you know, 1,200 yards away. And the first thing you've got to do is figure out where that OP hit. An OP is an observation point. And that's where the guys that are grading you on the stalk, who are other sniper instructors, that's where they're at. And you take that, this model. And I was just thinking how it applies to problem solving, basically, across the board. Where, okay, I need to find a goal in my future here somewhere. In this case, it's the stalk. And then, before I start executing on moving toward that, that goal, going to find that OP,

• 59:27Jason Gardner?

  I need to take some time and study the terrain and see what my, you know, line of attack is going to be and how I'm going to move all the way up to where, to where I'm going to go. And then I need to put it into action. And while I'm putting it into action, I'm constantly reassessing that goal and adjusting my actions across the way. And that, when I went from that model, I went from, you know, failing stalks to being the first one done, hardly spending any time on my belly and doing that. So then you take that and you apply it to life. And you think about just goal setting. Where, where do I want to be in five years?

• 1:00:12Jason Gardner?

  And identify it and then say, okay, do a little research. How do I get there? And then get on that damn path, stay disciplined, and then just keep the eye on the target and keep adjusting your aim as you go. And I can look back at times in my life where really I wasn't paying attention. I'm really just treading water, you know? Living paycheck to paycheck, doing whatever. And now, you know, I take, take that model and I apply it to where do I want to be in five years? Where do I want my kids to be? What kind of parent do I want to be? And how am I going to get there? And what's the path I'm going to lay out for it?

• 1:00:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and that's from a leadership perspective, obviously, this applies. Because from a leadership perspective, if you're, and I was just on Peter Attia's podcast. And we were talking about a little bit about that.

• 1:01:04Jason Gardner?

  Strategic framework tactical, right? I'm listening to that this morning.

• 1:01:07Jocko Willink?

  And, and you know, what I said to him that where it first started to occur to me that was, hey, if my guys don't know what it is that we're trying to accomplish, they can't make it, they can't, they can't move in there. Sure, I can tell them move eight yards forward and then they can't hear me anymore. Now what they're going to wait for me to get wherever they are. I can say, go take that building right there. Well, now they can't hear me anymore. So now what do they go? They're gonna sit there and wait for me to come up and tell them to do something else? No, they need to know what we're trying to get accomplished. And then they need to have this, the, the standard operating procedures down well enough so they, and the parameters that they're allowed to maneuver within, and that allows us to actually accomplish the mission. And that's something I think I, I, I mean, I don't even know when I learned that, but without that strategic objective, and, and

• 1:01:51Jocko Willink?

  that's a strong word. Okay, I get it. I, I get strategic. I get what it means. And I'm not talking about, you know, global warfare, but when you're in a town and you have a, a mission objective that, okay, we're going to get to this building, or we're going to move to this area, or we're going to take this piece of terrain, and everybody knows that. And even when those things change, because as you know, you get into a contact or you get into a situation where you change what you're doing. You have to let everyone know that, hey, we're breaking contact, we're getting out of here. Hey, we're going to a strong point of this building or whatever. Once everybody knows that, then they can act on it, then they can carry it out. Same, same thing that, of what you're talking about there. Now, on a bigger picture, of course, it still applies on a bigger

• 1:02:34Jocko Willink?

  picture. If, if your troops in the field don't know what it is you're trying to achieve, then they make bad decisions. If they don't know that you're trying to protect the populace, if they don't know that that's a broad strategy, then they get out there and treat the, the populace, they, they act like idiots. If they know that's what they're trying to do, then they make better, I'm not saying they make perfect decisions, because they don't, but they'll make better decisions because they understand what that broad strategy is. And it's certainly the same thing in business. And with business, it goes back and forth too, because business, sometimes in business, you're, you know, I run into it with businesses where they're, for instance, trying to go public, so they need to make money every quarter. They need to show that profitability increase. And so the biggest thing they got on their mind is trying to show a good quarter.

• 1:03:18Jocko Willink?

  And they'll sacrifice some strategic things, like they'll sacrifice a little bit of taking care of a customer. Because they want to scrape a little more money out of it, out of the situation. That's a bad strategic play, but they do it short term. At the time, because they know they gotta make more in the quarter so they can come back and reinvest more. So, but everybody's got to know that because if everyone thinks, hey. Hey, the number one thing is we, we never let our customers down. Okay. Guess what? We lost money this quarter. Now we, now we can't go public because we, and again, this is really. Uh kindergarten level examples, but that's the kind of thing. Where what you're talking about, if people don't understand what that longer term goal is. Then they can't really operate and function on their own, which is a problem.

• 1:04:02Jason Gardner?

  No, and you're not thinking long term. You're just thinking day to day, basically.

• 1:04:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I, I kinda went off at the muster on that one kid. That asked me. How often are you thinking strategically and how often are you thinking tactically? And, you know, I just kinda was going off about, look, man. Every single thing I do is strategic. I'm not making any tactical moves. I'm not, I'm not worried about the tactical wins and losses. Now, there's a reason for that. I'm in a good spot right now where a little tactical loss doesn't mean that much to me right now. And it's really easy for me to just focus on the strategic stuff. You know, when I was younger, I had to focus more on some tactical things, you know, that's the way it is. But even as a young person. You gotta keep that, you know, you might have to take some tactical, you might have to, you might have to make some adjustments and win some short term battles just this, because that's the way it is.

• 1:04:54Jocko Willink?

  But you should be thinking tactics all the time, or sorry, you should be thinking strategy all the time. You should be thinking long game all the time. All the time thinking about the long game, all the time thinking about how is this decision affect? Where I'm gonna be in the long term, because the short term decisions. Those are the ones that beat you down.

• 1:05:14Jason Gardner?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:15Jocko Willink?

  Gotta play that long game.

• 1:05:16Jason Gardner?

  Nested inside that long term goal, you know, strategy.

• 1:05:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:20Jason Gardner?

  Yeah, I, I actually kind of appreciated that he brought that up.

• 1:05:23Jocko Willink?

  Oh, totally. It was a good question. He was, and he was a younger guy. And you could see he's thinking, you know, he probably, he probably thought to himself, hey, it seems like Jaco keeps talking about. The long game and he thought to himself, how often is Jaco thinking about that? And so he asked the question, good on him. So I could explain, I'm thinking about it all the time. I'm thinking about it all the time. That's the way you gotta do it.

• 1:05:45Jason Gardner?

  And and Peter Tia as well for bringing that, that the whole framework of bringing the whole framework and everything up.

• 1:05:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:05:52Jason Gardner?

  On that aspect of that, because I was listening to that this morning and I'm like, yeah, this lays, that's the same thing. That makes you successful on a stock, choosing that goal and then working your way to it, doing your, you know? And you, you gotta watch out for the situation where you get paralysis by analysis or. And that's caught up by the, you got a time limit on a stock. Okay, you got three hours to get this done, so you gotta get it figured out and you gotta get moving. Or I, I think a lot of people will fall into that trap where they do too much study, too, too much study.

• 1:06:29Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 1:06:29Jason Gardner?

  And then they're not, no action.

• 1:06:31Jocko Willink?

  In life.

• 1:06:32Jason Gardner?

  In life in general.

• 1:06:33Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 1:06:33Jason Gardner?

  And in, in stocks, guys will run out of time.

• 1:06:36Jocko Willink?

  I said something the other day, uh, most things don't get finished because most things don't get started. And people don't even start, people don't even make that move.

• 1:06:45Jason Gardner?

  Right.

• 1:06:45Jocko Willink?

  Of course, hey, guess what? Big shocker, there's a dichotomy and that's the bottom line. There's a dichotomy. If you rush into it and you start moving without having a long-term plan, you're probably going to make a bad move. If you take too long, you're going to wait too long and the whole world's going to pass you by.

• 1:06:59Jason Gardner?

  Yep.

• 1:06:59Jocko Willink?

  So you have to constantly modulate and figure out where you're at. And no one's going to be able to give you the answer. I can't sit here and be like, oh, you know what you want to do right there? You want to make this, no, no one's going to be sitting there telling you that day by day. You've got to figure that out and you've got to figure out if it's really, really moving you in the right direction.

• 1:07:15Jason Gardner?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:17Jocko Willink?

  Way it's gotta be. When you were talking about coming back to trade at. And, you know, you and I both had the, the, the luck to be at trade at in the positions we were in. I was the, I was the trade at OIC, you were the trade at CMC. So basically we're the senior dudes, we weren't together unfortunately. But what a good job and what a good opportunity to see how things unfold. And what a good opportunity to take these standard operating procedures and pressure test them.

• 1:07:51Jason Gardner?

  You, exactly. So.

• 1:07:56Jason Gardner?

  I was hit up the other day in a brief where I was talking about when I was there as a troop SCA and we did our first FTX and you had just changed training to where we, prior to that, every time I'd been through land warfare, prior to coming through as a troop senior enlisted advisor in 2008, our FTXs were all live fire. Great. Live fire is cool, but it's so canned, because it has to be for safety, that it really doesn't put any pressure on the leadership, and there's not really any pressure brought to bear on any of your SOPs.

• 1:08:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. To put this simply to everyone, when you're in a gunfight, there's two horrible things that the enemy will do. They will shoot at you and they will maneuver. And when you're using live fire for training, your enemy is a bunch of paper targets. At best, they're mounted on those little carts that can move around, but they're very, very limited, not even remotely close to what a human being is going to do. So when you're going with live fire, your enemy neither shoots back at you, nor do they maneuver. So in the SEAL Teams, we would destroy our paper targets all the time. We would crush them all the time relentlessly. We would outmaneuver them because they couldn't move. We would outshoot

• 1:09:16Jocko Willink?

  them because they didn't shoot. So it was pretty easy to dominate. And sure, there was that level of stress of the fact that it is live fire. And when you're out, like in the desert, you are, and you do do, and we still do this, where you have to shift fire and you're walking and you're, you know, you're making sure that you're safe because you can't, you know, you can shoot each other. But that type of stress compared to the stress of, okay, now the enemy, we're using laser tag guns or paintball, and the enemy is full-on maneuvering, they're full-on shooting back at us, that's a big step up.

• 1:09:50Jason Gardner?

  Yeah, and so...

• 1:09:54Jason Gardner?

  We just completely, epically failed that first operation. And we took a hard look at the four biggest things we did wrong and identified where our standard operating procedures were flawed. And then we sat down with our leadership and we got input and started to modify those SOPs to, so we could build up standard operating procedures that were resilient enough to withstand all the pressure that you guys were putting on us in training. And someone asked me at a keynote I was giving the other day, like, "Well, didn't you guys have SOPs prior to that?"

• 1:10:36Jason Gardner?

  And we absolutely did, but they weren't good enough because they couldn't withstand the pressure, so they had to be modified. We had to modify the way we were doing SOPs for getting headcounts. We had to modify how we were dealing with our downed men. Like, honestly, we weren't carrying litters around. We weren't. But it's just an absolute abject disaster. If you get a wounded guy, sure, I can drag him off the X. But now, if I patch him up and I gotta throw him over my shoulder again, I'm gonna blow out every bandage I just put on him. That's stupid. You know? Our radio comms going when everything is confusing, we had to fix that.

• 1:11:17Jason Gardner?

  So we had to dial those SOPs in, the standard operating procedures. And the beauty of Trade-Ed is that as stuff is happening on the battlefield, we immediately modify that in the training. And we're putting that on top of the guys in training so they can see if their standard operating procedures are good to go, or if they're flawed and they need to be modified. So we can constantly modify, if people are honest about them. And that's the beauty of the, basically, the Petri dish or the lab that we had out there at Trade-Ed, because the other thing is, we could see... When, when people were being honest about their mistakes, or when guys were, were blame

• 1:12:00Jason Gardner?

  casting and not taking ownership of what was going on and, uh, and not being honest with their SOPs. And then you just develop these SOPs, like they don't just apply to the battlefield. We came up with standard operating procedures for, uh, you know, how we did our admin stuff, how we dealt with, with anything that you can think of, we would think of a good way to do it and then test it and then run through it. So, you know, you might not like this, this analogy, but I think that SOPs kind of are a life hack. Because it is one of those things that you can lay in.

• 1:12:42Jocko Willink?

  There is no hack.

• 1:12:43Jason Gardner?

  I know. Except for the standard operating procedure is pretty dang close to one.

• 1:12:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. You know what's, as you were, as you were talking about that, one thing that I definitely noticed is the, you could have, almost 90% of the time that you use the word modify our SOP, you could have used the word simplify. Because most of the time, it was someone saying, "Hey, we got this crazy, we, this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna do this and you're gonna do that." And then there's all these crazy things. And they realize that doesn't work. So you make it simpler and simpler. Now where that's counterintuitive is like in Extreme Ownership where I talked about doing SSE. And when we first started doing SSE, the plan was real simple. Just smash everything and just take whatever you'd find, right? But that was a horrible plan and it didn't work. So we had to, we had

• 1:13:32Jocko Willink?

  to put something that was a little bit more, looked on the surface to be a little bit more complex, even though when you broke down the individual human beings and what they were doing, it was very straightforward and very simple. So, so yeah, yeah, no, there's no doubt that having that opportunity to watch SOPs get tested and either pass or fail, and it was so obvious either way. Because it was so cool when the platoons and the tasking would start to work together and they'd start to cover and move for each other and they'd start to use decentralized command. They would, they would crush the Trade Edge guys. Or they would, they would at least. Get the best of them. They'd at least kill them all. Hmm. Whereas when they're not doing it, it would be comical. Four trade at guys would kill forty guys or whatever it was.

• 1:14:17Jocko Willink?

  And you'd just be thinking, hmm, and, and, and you're right. This is where you'd have ego problems would show up. Because guys would think, and it was so hard from, from my perspective, from your perspective, when you're like, listen, the, the trade at cadre is going to do the same. They did the same thing to the last nine troops or the last five troops. They did this exact same scenario and, and the other troops used simple standard operating procedures. They covered a move. They used a senseless command and they, they won. Here's what you're doing. This is from my perspective and I know it's hard, but what you're doing is you're trying to control everyone or what you're doing is you've got these, these standard operating procedures that are too complicated or you're not prioritizing and executing. You're just, you, you, you've got to follow these simple rules.

• 1:15:00Jocko Willink?

  And it would be hard to convey to some guys. If the guys wanted to put up their ego barrier and, and let it offend them and think that would never happen or no, that's just the trade that guys knew what we were gonna do. Yeah. The trade that guys know what you're gonna do. You know what? You're attacking a target area. Anyone, any, any military mind in the world is gonna get the high ground. And then they're gonna sweep through if they can from high ground to low ground. That's what, that's what everyone's gonna do. It's not like the trade that guys. They, anybody could figure that out. Any, any military mind is gonna look at a target and do it one of three ways. Or one of four ways. And fifty percent of those four ways actually is gonna overlap. So you don't have to be a freaking rocket science or scientist or, or,

• 1:15:45Jocko Willink?

  or, or Napoleon to be able to figure out, okay, here's the target. Where do I think the seals are gonna come in from? It's like, oh, okay. They're probably gonna come in from here. I'll set up two guys there. There's also a chance they're gonna come in from over here. Cool. I'll put two guys over there. There you go. We knew, you knew our plan. It's like, yeah, bro. The enemy is, it's like you talked about. You had situations where you went in and you're like, oh, we'll go get on the high ground. Oh, the, the, the enemy put IEDs there. Yeah. Guess what? It doesn't take a rocket science to figure out, oh, if you're gonna assault us here, you're probably gonna want to get this piece of, this piece of terrain over here. So that would offend guys and they'd get into the, hey, this is, this is wrong. And instead of saying, okay, what did I do wrong? Can you, can you just tell me what I did wrong again? Cause

• 1:16:29Jocko Willink?

  I need, I'm not sure I understand it. Oh, well, what you did is this, you didn't prioritize next. You, you didn't use decentralized command. And they would just. If you're not gonna listen to that, you know, it's a problem. I had a guy at the muster just asking me about like, how do you handle it? When someone really picks you apart on a debrief? And I'm like, bro, you know how I handle that? I, what I do is I look them right in the eye and I say, thank you. Thank you for telling me that. Please, thank you and, and I appreciate it. And I'm gonna go look at what you just told me and I'm gonna try and figure out if I can fix it. Because otherwise, like you, you just, I could see it in this guy's eyes.

• 1:17:11Jocko Willink?

  Like he's asking me that question because his ego is getting offended. And everyone's ego gets offended. Mine gets, I get offended when somebody tells me that. When somebody gives me the nine big debrief points on what I did wrong, I'm freaking mad. I don't wanna make mistakes. I have an ego just like everyone else, if not a freaking larger ego than anyone else. And when somebody tells me I did nine things wrong, I'm pissed, I'm pissed at myself. And it's really easy for me to look at you and get pissed at you for telling me that I screwed this up. But instead, I've gotten old enough to realize, even if I don't like you, it's even harder if I don't like you. It's even harder, when I don't like you, it's even harder, right? That's what makes it super hard. But when you go, you know what?

• 1:17:50Jocko Willink?

  You bite down and you go, okay, thank you. Let me assess what you just told me. If you could make that little step up in your life, it's epic. And when guys would, to your point, when guys wouldn't make that step in, that step up in coming through the trade at training, it would be a nightmare. It was a nightmare. And the thing is, man, like, I love all these team guys. I want them to go kick ass. That's all I wanted was them to like go do great things on deployment. And when you get that, the guy coming through that just would be offended by it and I'd, I'd be so bummed out. I'd, I'd, you know, I'd just, I'd be so bummed out. I'd be like, bro, I, I just want you to do good. I'm just telling you like, don't focus on a head count when you're in the firefight. That's what I'm saying.

• 1:18:35Jason Gardner?

  Yeah. And then, then you, you get to the point where.

• 1:18:43Jason Gardner?

  You're just like, "Oh, man, you're not gonna get it, and now I'm just gonna make you suffer."

• 1:18:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:49Jason Gardner?

  But, the... Because you'll get critique points where guys will say, "Hey, we need to get an op so we can go start to finish, where you let us win, basically." And, you know, if you're playing football and your college team goes against a high school team, that's not challenging for anybody, and you're not gonna really learn anything out of it.

• 1:19:12Jocko Willink?

  Most importantly, you don't learn anything.

• 1:19:13Jason Gardner?

  That's why I gave you a walkthrough. And so, after seeing that so many times and running land warfare, I started going out at the front, day one, and saying, "Hey, guys, listen, you're gonna get a walkthrough, that's your time to work through your whole script on how you're gonna run a target assault. But, I'm shortchanging you if I'm not putting pressure on you when we have these FTX nights, because we only have this place for a limited period of time, and this is where you're gonna find where your weak points are and get better." And then, knowing about myself, when I have those two voices arguing in my head, the one, that's my ego, and it's making an excuse for everything that you're... that someone who's debriefing me is picking apart,

• 1:19:58Jason Gardner?

  and the other reasonable voice, which I'm trying to turn the volume up on, that's going, "Oh, yeah, that's a fair critique." "Yeah, well, I got a little lazy there, shouldn't have taken my body armor off."

• 1:20:14Jason Gardner?

  That kind of stuff. Or, the worst was like the OIC that would come out after you were OIC. And if he came out to training and he would find some stuff that was screwed up, and he's like, "Why am I the one fixing it?" And I'm like, "You are exactly right." And guys would get angry. He's like, "He comes out here and he calls us out." He goes, "We deserve it." "Let's not do this ever again. We cannot have our boss coming out here and looking at how we're running training and calling us out." And a lot of it was...

• 1:20:49Jason Gardner?

  I'll give you an example. Go out to an IADS range and a platoon has decided to have their 60 gunner walk point. Because that's gonna work good for an immediate action drill. But that's not what you're really gonna do. That's patrol to contact. That's not what we're training in an immediate action drill when we're training for a sucker punch. And he's like, what in the wide world of sports is going on here? And we'd be like, yeah, but guys wouldn't wanna tell the platoon. It'd be one of these small things where, and I failed in this in leadership a lot of times where it's just like, I'll just let that slide. I'll just let that, and pretty soon everything's sliding and you're not really giving people any guidance.

• 1:21:32Jason Gardner?

  But, uh, um, yeah. People come, you gotta be honest with the critique and look at it and then move forward. And at the end of the day, you always kind of know when you're wrong and to take ownership of it, you feel better about it because now you have power over it, right? And then it's like, oh, if I think that the, the trade at staff is cheating, now I'm powerless against it and it's just kind of a stressor that I'm dealing, exactly.

• 1:22:03Jocko Willink?

  They're just gonna win. It doesn't matter. Blah, blah.

• 1:22:08Jason Gardner?

  And then it's, it's also on, on a trade at, it's, and it's difficult to, to debrief people and not come off as condescending. That's a real skill. And that's, there's some guys are really good at that. And that's something I try to work on. And I, I, I'm not perfect at it, but to give people constructive criticism in a manner that they'll accept it. That it doesn't feel like I'm poking in the eye.

• 1:22:30Jocko Willink?

  One of the things that's hard about that in trade at is you don't really have a good relationship with 50% of the guys that are coming through. So some guys I'd come through, like when you're coming through, I'm like, hey, bro, like we, I could just like be pretty straight up with you. Some guys I don't really know you and you're from like a different team and I never worked with you before. So I have no sort of, sort of relationship. And then it's harder, you know, to say, hey, man, that was a really bad job. You know, now, I, I don't know. I, what I, what I ended up doing at trade at was I would just be like, hey, this is what happened. You know, and by the way, I recorded you on my audio thing. Like I would carry a little voice recorder. And then when people would be panicking or freaking out, I would record them. And I'd say, you were kind of freaking out out there. And they'd say, I wasn't freaking out. I'd be like, okay, listen to this. Everybody needs a, a, a, a, a, a. Like, does that sound like freaking out to you? Is that your calm voice?

• 1:23:17Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 1:23:18Jason Gardner?

  The, and the other fun thing about the ditch gear was.

• 1:23:25Jason Gardner?

  You could hit them with the near miss because if they got killed, they would get now drugged through the desert by their ankle.

• 1:23:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:32Jason Gardner?

  And guys didn't want to die, so they still weren't as honest about fire as they could be, but they would still like, my favorite thing to do would be put the god gun, which is just a regular thing I had as a lane grader on near miss. And if guys were screwing around, like they, they would not, you know, they'd all be standing up in a perimeter where they shouldn't be standing and I would just near miss them all. Guys would just dive.

• 1:23:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:58Jason Gardner?

  Dive into walls.

• 1:24:00Jocko Willink?

  It was like legitimate real rounds were covered out of where they'd hear that near missing because they didn't want to get drugged through the desert for freaking two kilometers to the extract point, have all their gear be beat up and bruised.

• 1:24:11Jason Gardner?

  And gone.

• 1:24:12Jocko Willink?

  Punished all their, whoever has to carry you is just getting completely punished. I can't feel my face, man. Can't feel my face. Yeah. Well, how are them younger guys coming out? You know, everyone talks about the big millennials. And I'm, I, well, from what I've seen, when I, when I've talked to teams and when I've gone out to some training sites, guys are awesome.

• 1:24:35Jason Gardner?

  I think across the board, they are.

• 1:24:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:38Jason Gardner?

  I, I mean, I, I've looked at all, all the new guys and the, the quality of the new guys now compared to who I was.

• 1:24:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:47Jason Gardner?

  I'm not sure I could have made it through training if I was compared against all the guys now. They're smart, they're motivated and they're hard.

• 1:24:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:55Jason Gardner?

  And, uh.

• 1:24:56Jocko Willink?

  They're only coming in because they want to go to war.

• 1:24:59Jason Gardner?

  Yeah, because that's a given.

• 1:25:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Did I want to go to war? Absolutely. But it wasn't a known thing. I, I gotta admit that I kind of thought it was. I thought like, oh, I'm going to NOM.

• 1:25:08Jason Gardner?

  Yeah, that was, I thought that for sure too.

• 1:25:11Jocko Willink?

  I thought I was going to NOM in 1991 when I got in the team. But yeah, these guys know for a fact. I mean, they, they, they see, they, they see, you know, memorial services on TV. They know what's, what they're getting into for sure.

• 1:25:25Jason Gardner?

  And the complaints, the complaints about the millennials that I hear are that, "Oh, they want to know why they're doing something." Well, duh, you know, and you just covered that in that, that document that was written after World War II that says, "Hey, guess what? You need to tell guys why they're doing something," or "They're not going to be the most effective." And it's generationally, generationally, it's just more blame casting where people are whining about the next generation. It goes back forever.

• 1:25:56Jocko Willink?

  That's just normal, right?

• 1:25:57Jason Gardner?

  I, I think it's one of those normal whiny things that you gotta be-

• 1:26:02Jocko Willink?

  The young guys suck.

• 1:26:04Jason Gardner?

  Uh huh.

• 1:26:05Jocko Willink?

  No, they don't. You suck.

• 1:26:07Jason Gardner?

  When I was at one of the, the leadership courses with some regular Navy leadership, and one of the master chiefs was telling a story that she had an E5, and she worked in, in, in supply, and she's like, "Hey, I need you to go do the inventory today." And she's, checks back, comes back like an hour and a half later, and the guy had to go inventory this whole warehouse. And he's hanging out in the coffee lounge an hour and a half later, and she's like, "Hey, what, what the heck is going on here?" And he's like, "I did the inventory." And she's like, "No way. That takes all day. Let's spot check it."

• 1:26:49Jason Gardner?

  Spot just randomly pulls up a couple items off that inventory list, checks it. She's like, "How did you do this?" And he's like, "Well, you know, I got this app reader on my phone, and I just went and scanned all the barcodes. He used his phone and completed the inventory like that with a little bit of ingenuity." And so basically, she just told him the end state and got out of his way. It was by accident, but she got out of his way and let him figure out how something to do it, and then, then went with it.

• 1:27:25Jocko Willink?

  Nothing wrong with that?

• 1:27:26Jason Gardner?

  Nope.

• 1:27:27Jocko Willink?

  What about for you, as you've gotten older, what kind of mindset changes have you gone through? Where, like I just kind of talked about one from my perspective, you know, as I got older, see, see different things and I always try and make that perfectly clear to everyone that, you know, I kind of,

• 1:27:48Jocko Willink?

  you know, I learned. I learned and I'm still learning. And so, you know, would you, what, what, what like were some things that if you could have learned or changed your, your mentality on earlier?

• 1:28:05Jocko Willink?

  Like what?

• 1:28:06Jason Gardner?

  Yeah, I mean, shutting down the ego. Uh, uh, you know, uh, a lot of my growth honestly is being married to Iris and is a hundred percent responsible for her and

• 1:28:17Jocko Willink?

  She shuts down your ego.

• 1:28:19Jason Gardner?

  Shuts my ego down, but then has honest conversations about, well, what are you really thinking here? And then, you know, actually listening to what someone's saying, because the, the trap I used to fall into was when someone was talking to me, I wasn't really listening to them. I was just formulating what I was gonna say back to them.

• 1:28:40Jocko Willink?

  Formulating your counter punch.

• 1:28:43Jason Gardner?

  Exactly. And, and I probably score a high in trait disagreeableness.

• 1:28:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:49Jason Gardner?

  So, you know, and, and it's just my nature to wanna be at that point of friction, but that also makes me just, you know, wanna go stick my finger in people's eyes and offend them and stuff like that. And so, stepping back and opening my mind up to other points of view. Um, and then being a little bit more cognizant of Other people and how they're reacting to me so I can adjust how I interact with them relationship wise.

• 1:29:21Jocko Willink?

  I don't know if you remember this question at the muster guy had asked, hey, what, what do you do when you, how do you deal with someone who's super negative and about, you know, the, the, the, the team or whatever. And, you know, I said, here's a really good leadership technique that you can use. It's very complicated. It's called listen. How about you listen to them? How about you actually listen to what people are saying? Somebody feels really negative about my team. Guess what? I want to know why. I want to actually hear their explanation as to why they're being super negative. And by the way, when you allow someone to voice their opinion and you listen to them carefully instead of formulating a counterpunch, which is what our instinct is to do, if instead you go, hmm, okay, what, what's wrong, Jason? What I mean, what's, what's the problem over here? I actually want to listen to you.

• 1:30:06Jocko Willink?

  I want to hear what you have to say. And that is such an advantage as a leader, instead of always feeling like, hey, anybody that steps to me is getting crushed. Like, no, actually, anyone that steps to me is going to teach me something and I'm, I'm happy to hear it.

• 1:30:21Jason Gardner?

  Yeah. Boom. It, and then just being aware of, you know, my biases. My biases and then, and then I find this a lot of times with the dang media presses the heck out of my buttons. And so I, I, I got to the point where I just, I don't watch the news anymore. Because the news is, is hard, it, it's there to get you angry so you'll pay attention to it and gets them better ratings. And a lot of times when I'll see some really extreme things that they're claiming people said, when I dig into, when I actually take the time to dig into it, it's like not quite what it was. And now that I've become a lot more introspective.

• 1:31:08Jason Gardner?

  And so I'm paying attention to how things make me react. I'm paying attention to when my face flushes out or I grip and I'm like, okay, now it's time to detach and step back. I've noticed that it's just like, it's not a positive, positive, you know, thing in my life to have my blood pressure spiked again and again and again and again because I've got a 24 hour news feed coming in. And so, uh, another teen guy pointed this out to me. He's like, hey, I was talking about the news and I was all angry about something. And he's like, you know what? I quit watching the news. And he goes, I'm a lot happier since I stopped watching the news. It doesn't matter. And I'm like, are you kidding me? Of course it

• 1:31:49Jason Gardner?

  matters. But he planted a little seed and watered it. And then I'm like, okay, I'm gonna quit watching the news. And it doesn't, it doesn't matter. And I was to the point where I'll just check the news like first thing in the morning to make sure a volcano went off. Now I don't even do that. If there's a volcano going off, I'll see the smoke or someone will tell me.

• 1:32:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you're gonna find out about it. The 24 hour news cycle is filled with a lot of things that you don't need to know. You don't need to know at all. And that's, that's the kind of way I am. I mean, I still look at it, but it doesn't, it, I'm completely, I can look at, I can look at 19 headlines in a row and none of them have any remote impact on my mentality at all. Until I see one that says, oh, there was a terror bombing here. And I go, okay, let's see what's going on. Or hey, there was a US serviceman killed here. And I'm like, oh, okay. But every other of the 17 headlines that I read that were,

• 1:32:44Jocko Willink?

  I'm trying to think of a good one right now because there's just, you know,

• 1:32:48Jocko Willink?

  everything is going down. And you're like, okay, fine. Yeah. No, everything's not going down. The world isn't going to end.

• 1:32:55Jason Gardner?

  But it's clickbait, isn't it? And I, you guys are the first ones I heard use that word. I'm like, oh, that's what that is.

• 1:33:02Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:33:03Jason Gardner?

  This is exactly what it's going on, clickbait, but it's just clickbait on the TV to get you to dial in and get them higher ratings.

• 1:33:10Jocko Willink?

  And then you gotta listen to that Sam Harris, and I forget the female's name that was on, but she did this whole research about it, talking about how the Russian, the Russian bots and all that stuff. And yeah, you can create headlines that are gonna make people click. And then you can make fictional, random, you can just make up stories.

• 1:33:28Jason Gardner?

  I know.

• 1:33:29Jocko Willink?

  And people, they'll catch, you know, someone else will report that story as being true. It's a crazy world.

• 1:33:35Jason Gardner?

  The Onion, that joke newspaper, they've gotten, the AP has picked their stuff up like two or three times before.

• 1:33:42Jocko Willink?

  Totally nuts. So you gotta learn, you should definitely add a minimum, learn to detach when you read the news.

• 1:33:50Jason Gardner?

  Yeah, and then, uh, something that I found real helpful is, is, is putting a filter on my thoughts. So, the, and, and this is something that, that Iris has kinda talked about. She's like, the first filter is, am I whining?

• 1:34:06Jason Gardner?

  And then the second filter is, am I resentful? And then the third filter is, am I jealous? And if I can just catch that stuff, once I identify it, it doesn't bother me anymore.

• 1:34:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:19Jason Gardner?

  But prior to identifying it, if I'm just like, oh, so and so just got a promotion, that's bullshit. He, you know, and then, then I realize, oh, wait a minute, I should be happy for him for getting that promotion. Uh, and Jordan Peterson says something about be careful who you share good news with. And, and, and I just don't, that's not, that's not something I, I, I'm proud of when I see it come up in myself. And it's one of the things that, that as I age, I'm, I'm trying to fix. The other thing that, that as I've gotten older, is I used to be very group identified. And now I find myself becoming more of an individual, if that makes sense.

• 1:35:04Jocko Willink?

  No, that makes, that makes sense.

• 1:35:05Jason Gardner?

  And, and this, this is, that's where I'm trying to go, and this is, this is the path that, uh, that I'm on, and it's a, it's a struggle, and it all comes down, and I, I kinda wish there was two words for ego, right? Cause the ego, if I didn't have an ego driving me to be better, I, I would just be sitting at home eating chocolate chip cookies on, on the couch.

• 1:35:29Jocko Willink?

  There's not two words to describe ego, but there is the dichotomy of ego.

• 1:35:32Jason Gardner?

  There is.

• 1:35:33Jocko Willink?

  And so then you're good to go.

• 1:35:34Jason Gardner?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:35Jocko Willink?

  You know, uh, one of my team guy buddies, a long time ago, used this phrase, which I, which I always remembered, cause I thought it was really good. Basically, someone was whining about something, and you know, you know, raised their hand and said, well, you know, why are we doing this? And then afterwards, my buddy goes, hey, that's cool, put yourself on report for being a bitch.

• 1:36:00Jocko Willink?

  And so like I've been hypersensitive to that for a real long time. I do not ever, you know, I don't care what I'm going through. I will not complain about anything like I am hypersensitive about that. At least I try to be, I mean,

• 1:36:13Jason Gardner?

  Yep.

• 1:36:14Jocko Willink?

  You know, cold, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna say anything, uh, you know, hurt, like I hurt my knee.

• 1:36:20Jason Gardner?

  Hmm.

• 1:36:20Jocko Willink?

  And I, I, my knee was all swollen up, all jacked up. And I didn't tell anyone. I told him, hey, I injured my knee. No, no factor. And finally Leif was like, hey, you know, what's up with your knee? I sent him a picture. It's like the knee is just twice as big as the other one. He's like, oh my God, are you gonna need surgery? I'm like, no, no factor. But, and I only sent it to him like, six or seven days, the swelling had gone down. But out of the gate, I wasn't gonna say anything because I don't, I don't want to sit there and complain like, bro, I hurt my knee doing jujitsu. Oh no. You know what I mean? Like, come on, bro. I'm not gonna complain about that. Uh, but yeah, those other things about being resentful and being jealous. Whenever I feel that tinge of,

• 1:37:03Jocko Willink?

  when I feel that tinge of jealousy, when I feel that tinge of, when I feel like, when I feel like mad at someone for doing something, I automatically know it's me. I automatically, and I've known that for years. There was a stoner, as a matter of fact, was going to, he wanted to go to Princeton.

• 1:37:18Jason Gardner?

  Hmm.

• 1:37:19Jocko Willink?

  And he, he said to me, he, and he, I wasn't, we weren't, we weren't together at Team Three anymore. And so he was talking to some people. And finally he comes to me and he says, hey, man, I want to go to Princeton. I want to put together this package and go to Princeton. He said, but uh, some of the other people I'm talking to are telling me it'd be bad for my career. And I'm like, bro, those guys are just jealous. Uh, that's not happening. I go, you go and you get your freaking degree from Princeton. Are you kidding me? How is that gonna be bad for, and he did, he ended up doing it. And he, he got in, he got accepted. And, but that was one of those things where it was so obvious to me. Like whoever told you that is just telling you that because they don't want you to have, have another punk card to pull on you.

• 1:38:04Jocko Willink?

  Cause like, hey, you're stoner, you're, you know, you got a bunch of combat experience, you got a bunch of combat awards. You're, you're this big strapping dude. And by the way, you're gonna go to Princeton. Like no one wanted that final punk card to be issued to stoner.

• 1:38:19Jason Gardner?

  It's hard when you see someone else that's successful and you know that like, I should be getting up off my ass and getting into Princeton myself. Or going and you know, you can't control whether or not you're deployed to combat. But a lot of other stuff is, and I think that's where it gets painful for guys. It's like, okay, well, I'm not going to make the effort. So I don't want anybody else to make the effort either. I'm a crab in this bucket and I'm going to drag that crab that's trying to climb out back in the bucket.

• 1:38:48Jocko Willink?

  And this is actually in Way the Warrior Kid 3. This is why I had to address this, which in Way the Warrior Kid 3. Have you read it yet?

• 1:38:56Jason Gardner?

  Not yet.

• 1:38:56Jocko Willink?

  So in Way the Warrior Kid, there's a new character that comes, his name is Danny Reinhardt and he's like good at everything. He's better at Mark than everything. He's like a little bit smarter, does better on the tests in school. And he's a little bit faster and he can do more pull-ups. And then like to take the cake, because he's a new kid moves in and Mark still thinks he's got the ultimate punk card to pull. Which is, I do jujitsu and I can choke you, so none of the other stuff matters. It turns out Danny Reinhardt's been training for two more years. And that's exactly what happens is Mark, instead of saying, wow, I can learn from you. Wow, you can help me. Wow. Uh, that's awesome. I know you worked hard for that. Instead, he just tries to undermine and he just is jealous. And so that's something that you deal with when you're starting to be, even as a little kid, you know?

• 1:39:40Jocko Willink?

  As even a little kid, you can be jealous. So checking, check yourself if you're being resentful. If you're jealous of someone, those are like the first things I check when I start getting mad at someone. Those are the first things I check when I start getting mad at someone. I go, am I being jealous right now? Yes, I am.

• 1:39:58Jason Gardner?

  Hit that filter.

• 1:39:59Jocko Willink?

  Yep. That is not, is not good.

• 1:40:01Jason Gardner?

  And, and what's worked out really well for me is when you identify these, these people that are good at everything. Keep them around you.

• 1:40:09Jocko Willink?

  Oh, for sure. For sure. For sure. And that's the other, the other clincher in, in the way the warrior could three is, is Danny Reinhardt. He's not only like better, he's also like a really nice kid.

• 1:40:20Jason Gardner?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:21Jocko Willink?

  And so that makes Mark even madder because everyone wants to be friends with him, you know, just because he's nice. So yeah, you gotta watch out for that. Check yourself. Don't get that. Uh, I wanted to.

• 1:40:34Jocko Willink?

  Talk about some leadership mistakes that you've made. And I was thinking to myself, well, I could talk, I could call out Jason for leadership mistakes that he's made. That's kind of jacked up if I don't talk about any leadership mistakes that I've made. Now, of course, I've listed a bunch of leadership mistakes that I've made in the economy of leadership and in extreme ownership. So there's that, but I got a couple that I thought of. And I was trying to think of some broad ones. One of them is when I was in Ramadi. I hate to start off like that. When I was in Ramadi, I did not do a, as good a job as I should have.

• 1:41:11Jocko Willink?

  And I'll go a little bit further to keeping the rest of our community informed as to what was happening and why it was happening. And to be honest with you, the reason I say I'll go further than I just didn't keep them informed. I wasn't even thinking about it. I wasn't even thinking about it. When I got home and one of our good friends said to me, and he was all fired up. And he's like, we were reading your, he's like, we were reading your AARs at quarters every day. Like, so every day at trade at, at the time, while we were in Ramadi, they were reading the AARs, like the after action report for the, hey, they killed nine guys, they killed seven guys. And, and, and I, that's, you know, I was like, hey, that's awesome. That's cool. I didn't really even think of that.

• 1:41:56Jocko Willink?

  But what I also didn't think of was guys that were saying, hey, wait a second. What are these guys doing over there? Hey, wait a second. Wait, why are you conducting operations during the daytime? Hey, wait a second. Why are you staying out after you get contacted? Why are you staying in position? Hey, wait a second. Why are you working alongside the conventional forces? Why aren't you doing stuff with just special operations? And I did a bad job of explaining these things to our community as a whole. And even when we got back, I had the opportunity to do it. And I, I spread the word to some people and was able to explain to them. But by then, some people had already thought, oh, well, these guys were just over there do, doing these rogue operations by themselves. And they shouldn't have been doing it. So that's, that's one.

• 1:42:43Jocko Willink?

  That's one big one that I wish I would have done a better job and I just, I just wasn't even paying attention and you know what it's like, man? I mean, this is my, this is my excuse is my, it's my fault because I was over there and I'm thinking like, hey, we got an operation tomorrow. I got two, I got, I got two elements going out in the field. I'm not worried about what they're thinking. I just didn't even think of it and I should have. So I don't know if that's an excuse. It's the reason why I didn't think of it the way I should have and I was wrong for not doing that.

• 1:43:13Jason Gardner?

  How much bandwidth could you have expended on it though in the moment?

• 1:43:15Jocko Willink?

  You know what? If I would have been a little bit smarter and a little bit better, I could have taken 15 minutes to send out an email and say, hey, everyone. Want to let you know what this op was really like. Cause they're reading the opsums, right? The opsum is an official document. If I could have supplemented that with, hey, guys, Jaco here. I know this one sounds a little bit crazy. Here's what's going on. The Iraqi soldiers that we're working with, they don't have night vision. They have one flashlight per fire team to go out at night with these guys is completely, uh, it doesn't work. And so we gotta go out in the daytime with them sometimes. And so that's what we're doing. Here's why we're doing it, you know?

• 1:43:55Jocko Willink?

  I could have done it. I could have expended a little bit and I just didn't have the awareness that I should have had to explain these things. Also to explain them in plain English. Cause it's one thing to read the opsum. That's an official document that's written a certain way. It's another thing to say, hey, guys, Jaco here. Here's what's going on. And cause I mean, let's face it, at that time I'd been in for

• 1:44:17Jocko Willink?

  a long time and I had friends everywhere. I mean, and when my friends would reach out to me, this is probably should have been my best indicator. Some of my friends that reached out to me and said like, hey dude, what's going on? Like, I heard you just got a guy, I heard one of your guys got shot. What's going on? How's that happening? And I had one specific friend of mine who wrote me like a long email and, and I wrote him back, right? And said, hey man, this is what's going on. But that should have been an indicator. If one of my friends was reaching out to me and saying, hey, what's going on? I should have been more cognizant of the fact that people beyond and people that didn't know me at all, you know, would be thinking what, you know, whoa, this guy's, this guy's a hyper aggressive and they're just out there taking too many risks. It's like, no.

• 1:45:01Jocko Willink?

  And, and what was cool was there were some guys. That were in Ramadi, other SEALs that were in Ramadi or working in and around Ramadi at the time, who I knew, and they were like, oh, you guys are crushing it. You guys are doing great. This is awesome.

• 1:45:13Jason Gardner?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:14Jocko Willink?

  But I didn't do a good job. So that's, that's one thing. Um, I don't know what it looked like from your perspective. Where were you when I was over there?

• 1:45:21Jason Gardner?

  In Pacon, poolside, at Thailand, explaining to my guys why we had to put the missions first.

• 1:45:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, check, check. Yeah.

• 1:45:30Jason Gardner?

  But at the time, I was excited for you guys because it was like the, that was like the first sustained heavy combat.

• 1:45:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:41Jason Gardner?

  Of that war.

• 1:45:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:45:43Jason Gardner?

  Everything had been, we were talking about the big news to stand around and talk about when you were at the bar was, was maybe a tick or a firefight that lasted five minutes.

• 1:45:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:56Jason Gardner?

  And you guys were troops in contact 100% of the time, every time you walked outside the gate.

• 1:46:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it wasn't quite that, but it was a lot. Yeah. And that's for sure. And, and that's what, that's what I think. I think I should have explained that better than I did throughout the community. And, you know, I still talk to guys, I still have the opportunity when I, you know, some guys that I'll, I'll still explain this to some guy that I haven't seen, because you know how it is, you run into a guy that you haven't seen in 15 years. And they'll be like, dude, what were you doing over there? I was like, hey, let me explain it to you. I've had people sit through kind of the, the Ramadi brief.

• 1:46:27Jason Gardner?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:46:27Jocko Willink?

  And be like, oh, okay, I get it. I get, yeah, that makes sense. Or, hey, Roger. But yeah, should have done a better job of that from a leadership perspective. Um, I was trying to think of a tactical example of, and this is real easy story. One time I personally chased down some dude over like multiple rooftops as a, in Baghdad, you know, like just got in the one man pursuit. Well, I had another guy like trailing me, but basically we're hitting a target. There's a squirter. I'm outside the building.

• 1:46:58Jocko Willink?

  As it's happening and all of a sudden, you know, the, the, the overhead asset reports that there's a squirter and he jumped to another rooftop. And I had a radioman, the radioman was like near me and we both know the radioman. And he's like, hey, he's like, hey, you went to the next roof. And I was like, got him. And so I climb up a palm tree, I climb up a palm tree, like in between a palm tree and like the garage and I get to the roof and I get, and then he's like, he jumped to the next one. And so the radio, the JTAC is in the street with me, following down and telling me what's going on. And basically I left my, I shouldn't have done that, you know, I should have sent a couple of guys and eventually I got someone else with me and then we, we got the guy.

• 1:47:41Jocko Willink?

  But, you know, I just was trying to think of, hey, where, where did I make some mistakes? Where, that were more on a tactical level? And that's one right there is, you know, I, I'm in charge of the assault. And if I'm out there chasing a guy from rooftop to rooftop, I'm not doing my job.

• 1:47:59Jocko Willink?

  But they did have it on video. And it was pretty awesome to watch.

• 1:48:06Jocko Willink?

  And I tried to get a hold of it, but of course it's classified, so I couldn't have it. But yeah, it was pretty cool to, to watch, you know, you doing like parkour in, in kit. Climbing palm trees? Yeah, climbing the palm tree and then jump from roof to roof to roof. And then eventually they're like, he's in that one right there. And, uh, yeah, so that was one. And then the last thing, again, I was trying to think of like a variety of different mistakes. And here's something from a leadership perspective that I really, when I look back, I wish I would have done a better job and that's helping guys with their finances, young guys. I mean, how many young guys reenlist? They get a hundred and fifty thousand dollar reenlistment bonus and they show up at work

• 1:48:48Jocko Willink?

  two days later, they've got a new Ford F three fifty super duty Harley Davidson, uh, version and they have, you know, they're, they have, they have a sixty two thousand dollar truck. That is now worth, they just had it for a day and they've now worth forty eight thousand. So they already lost money. And guys that would rent instead of buy, you know, just all those things where. And and I wasn't like super at it, but I was ahead. And I should have been telling guys like, hey, man, let me talk to you. Hey, guys, let's do a little. Let's talk for half an hour about where you're at. Right now, let's come up with a strategic objective of where you're gonna be. In five years, you know, do you still want to be renting an apartment in I B? Cause that's probably not great.

• 1:49:34Jocko Willink?

  Or do you want to be buying a place, get with one of your buddies? So. I never talked about that kind of stuff. And again, what it boils down to is my own. My own uh being obsessed like. I didn't care about that stuff. You know what I mean? I guess I cared about it enough to do it and I got lucky. I had a, I had an officer one time. That said, I bought a house every three years and kept it. He just said that to me and I was like, that seems like a really good idea and that's what I tried to do. But I didn't pass that word on and I could have probably helped out more guys. So. Kind of a bummer on that one.

• 1:50:07Jason Gardner?

  I, yeah, because.

• 1:50:12Jason Gardner?

  That aspect, I completely dropped the ball on that. Early in my career as well. Later, later on, I got a little bit better at it. But, you know, cause I did thirty. But uh, um, I, I could tell a guy how to be a good shooter.

• 1:50:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:27Jason Gardner?

  But then I didn't look at the whole rest of the dang pie chart. And realize that if I fixed all that other stuff.

• 1:50:35Jocko Willink?

  They'd be an even better shooter.

• 1:50:36Jason Gardner?

  Exponentially better, right? And. Yeah, that, that, that was something that, that actually helping guys and there were stuff that. This is, this is something I really failed at is like, I could see guys messing up. But I didn't want to have that uncomfortable conversation with them to like, bro, you, you gotta. You gotta kind of fix this like, hey. You know, you've used the analogy before. If I have a booger hanging out, I want somebody to tell me. And so I.

• 1:51:08Jocko Willink?

  Then you get mad at them. What are you talking about? I wanted that booger there. No, I, I definitely wouldn't. I, I had some of those conversations for sure, and I'm sure you did too. Like, hey, bro, this girl, she's not the one. I'm gonna tell you that right now. This isn't gonna work out well for you. The problem is getting somebody to listen to that conversation is real hard when it comes to the ladies.

• 1:51:32Jason Gardner?

  Yeah, and that aspect of just, most times it blows up in your face and then sometimes you're just like, hey, I, I realize that maybe I'm gonna lose my friendship with you.

• 1:51:41Jocko Willink?

  True.

• 1:51:41Jason Gardner?

  But, uh,

• 1:51:44Jason Gardner?

  I gotta tell you this. And later on in my career, when I started to, to start like struggling with anger issues that were probably a result of my combat deployments, and started to go sit down with a psych, and I would see-

• 1:52:03Jocko Willink?

  You know, you were super angry even before.

• 1:52:04Jason Gardner?

  I was. I was like, probably pretty predisposed to it all, and it just ma- it just turned it up to 11, right? And, uh, and then I would see myself in other guys and I would tell them, "Hey, man, here's the deal. Here's the psych's number. I want you just to give him a call, and you don't have to see him after that, but do me this favor." And some guys it would help and other guys, I made the effort, and they'll come to that conclusion at some point, but it's like, you know, we gotta look out, look out for each other and do the best we can. And that was something that I, you know, missed out on. Uh,

• 1:52:46Jason Gardner?

  I, I think I probably would have made an awesome platoon chief about the time I was a ops master chief, two echelons above it, and really realized what that job was, because as a platoon chief, one of the things that I missed out on was, uh, that the guys are always looking at me to set the example. And so it was one thing during working hours I could set an example, but if I'm a buffoon out drinking too hard- They're like, you're an idiot. Or

• 1:53:15Jocko Willink?

  They follow your example.

• 1:53:16Jason Gardner?

  They, and they, they'll follow my example and think that this is acceptable behavior. Uh, if, if I'm gonna bad mouth my leadership, which is I'm embarrassed to say it, but it's the stuff that if I didn't, didn't really have my aperture open on the big picture and would complain about the command and then I complain in front of the guys, just screwing them over. And I did because they're like, well, he's whining.

• 1:53:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:42Jason Gardner?

  Now I'm gonna go ahead and whine. Uh, I, I had issues where like personally, I didn't like the person that I was working directly for. And that, that tainted my interaction with that person. I didn't have any relationship with them and then my whole platoon would suffer because I had a bad relationship with the next guy up just because I didn't like him. Which is complete weak sauce.

• 1:54:14Jocko Willink?

  Oh yeah. I was having a conversation with Dave Burke.

• 1:54:17Jason Gardner?

  Good to see you.

• 1:54:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And it was, we, we had, he just quoted me yes, uh, yesterday, I was hanging out with him and the quote was like, whatever, six months ago, we were having a conversation and I said something like, hey, Dave, whether I love you or hate you, you won't know either way. And, and he was like, he's like, well, it kind of freaks me out because you're super nice to me and now I'm thinking you could just hate me and don't care. And you know, we laughed about it, but, but that's exactly right. And that is the truth. Like the guys that I hated never knew it. I mean, to this day, they don't know it.

• 1:55:02Jocko Willink?

  And so, I mean, you and I were having a conversation about a couple of people that I obviously don't like at all. They don't know that. So, so you've got to be professional at all, at all times and it's a very small number of people. Most people are pretty cool to me, you know, and most people support what I'm trying to get done. So I'm, I'm pretty lucky in that way. But yeah, if you, if you let that out, that's bad.

• 1:55:29Jason Gardner?

  Is there ever really a reason not to be polite?

• 1:55:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, very seldom. Yeah.

• 1:55:34Jason Gardner?

  You could politely punch someone in the face.

• 1:55:37Jocko Willink?

  And here's where people freak out. Here's where people, here's where people get all like, oh, well, you know, that's what you're talking about, Jocko. You're, you're a kiss ass. It's like, actually, let me tell you what I actually want to do. What I actually want to do is I want to win. What I actually want to do is I want to have my platoon able to get the support that they need. What I actually want to do is I want to be able to have my platoon get the support that they need so that we can actually do a better job doing our mission. That's what I'm doing. What I care about is my guys and my mission. That's what I actually care about. And if I've got to be polite to someone to make that happen, if I've got to overlook the fact that someone might not be the personality type that I particularly like, I don't care. I don't care. Guess what? I'm going to deal with it. I'm going to accept it. I'm going to absorb whatever kind of crap that, that they want to throw and I'm going to deal with it. It's fine. Now,

• 1:56:23Jocko Willink?

  do you get into situations where you actually have a bad boss? That you have to show, let's face it, if I'm treating you like a piece of shit and, and you, or I'm making really bad decisions and all you do is support me and you're a yes man, well, your guys are going to lose respect for you. So you, there's times where you have to say, hey, listen, guys, here's what's going on. I don't agree with everything that the boss says, but you know what? He's the boss right now and what we're going to do is try, the easiest way, the way for me to get him to make better decisions is if he trusts me. So right now, what we're going to do is we're going to kick ass. And so suck it up, quit complaining, we're going to do a great job and I'm going to get a better relationship over him where he will start listening to me and we'll move forward.

• 1:57:07Jocko Willink?

  And by the way, unless we're going to have a mutiny, which we're not going to have, this is the best option. The other option is me to have an antagonistic relationship with the boss, in which case all he's going to do is screw us over. So how do you guys want to play this? You know what I mean? So sometimes you've got to be transparent about that stuff. And, and that's fine too. I mean, I've, I've been in situations where I've had to do that. Where it's like, okay, hey, guys, here's what's going on. I know this seems a little bit crazy. I know that the boss may seem like he's making a rash decision on this. Here's what we're going to do. Let's explain his perspective. Here's what the boss is seeing. He doesn't want this to happen again. He's tightening the noose. He's tightening the leash way more than I want him to. But guess what? Let's show him that he can let loose on the leash again. Let's get in line.

• 1:57:47Jocko Willink?

  You know, so you gotta have those conversations sometimes. But broadly, I'm gonna get along with everybody. Why not? I wanna do my mission. I wanna take care of my guys. The best way to do that is if I have good relationships up and down the chain of command. Boom.

• 1:58:01Speaker 01

  Oh, question.

• 1:58:02Jocko Willink?

  What?

• 1:58:02Speaker 01

  So in your-

• 1:58:03Jocko Willink?

  No, I don't like you.

• 1:58:03Speaker 01

  In your-

• 1:58:04Jocko Willink?

  Even in secret.

• 1:58:05Speaker 01

  In your-

• 1:58:06Jocko Willink?

  The secret is out.

• 1:58:07Speaker 01

  Uh huh, yeah. I was, I was, I kinda got that. Either way. In your view, what, um, what's the difference between that? How you say like you get a lot, like even if you don't, if you really don't like someone, they won't ever know. In your view, what's the difference between that and being like, oh, what do you call like a toothpaste or a, you know? Like, let them say, oh, he's a toothpaste person or whatever.

• 1:58:27Jocko Willink?

  Well, one big thing is I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not getting along with them so that I can, so that I can, uh, better my own life. I'm not doing it so I can take care of me.

• 1:58:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:36Jocko Willink?

  Cause I don't really care about me. I'm doing it so I can do my job well, so I can take care of my platoon, so I can take care of my team, so I can accomplish my mission. That's number one. If I'm doing it so I can get the promotion, I'm actually the guy that I don't like. The guy that's like, oh, I'm doing this so I can get promoted? No, I'm not doing that. And, and that's another thing. The troops see through that every single time.

• 1:58:56Speaker 01

  Everybody does.

• 1:58:56Jocko Willink?

  They have a name for it in the teams. That guy's a ticket puncher. They're trying to get their ticket punch. Oh, he's just trying to get his ticket punch. He's trying to grab onto that guy's, grab a hold of that person's coattails and ride him up. You know, ride him up to the next rank. It's like, no, everyone sees through that. If you're doing the right things for the right reasons, people are like, hey, you know what? Jocko, you're, I mean, how many times people are like, dude, you're a patient guy. Leif Babin told me that, hey, you're so patient, I don't, I don't see how you do, I don't see how you do it. You know, this is when he was younger. Like, bro, how do you deal with that? I care about our task unit. I will make this happen. I can, I can absorb some impacts. No factor. Bring it.

• 1:59:34Speaker 01

  I remember when I was working the club as a guy who I thought was two-faced. And when I listened to you like how you're like, oh yeah, because you said that before that you like, if you didn't like someone, they probably wouldn't know. And I was like, oh yeah, that makes sense. You know, because it like, it helps the relationship, helps morale, like helps, helps all these things. Right. And then, so I think, oh yeah, a two-faced guy, there was a distinct difference. And one of the main things on top of what you said, because what you said was like, I think it would more thorough ultimately view minus a little bit more, what should I say?

• 2:00:07Jocko Willink?

  Straightforward.

• 2:00:07Speaker 01

  Ground level, I guess.

• 2:00:09Jocko Willink?

  Can I guess what you're gonna say?

• 2:00:11Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:00:12Jocko Willink?

  You can. Well, because the other option, the other answer I was gonna give is, I'm not acting differently in one situation. I don't go, hey, boss, yes, I got it. And then go back to the platoon and go, he's an idiot. No, no, no, no. I don't do that. I go, hey, boss, you know what? And even if, even if it was a situation where I was saying like, I might go back and tell the guys like, hey, guys, this is what's going on. I would tell the boss, I wouldn't say, boss, that sounds like the greatest plan ever.

• 2:00:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:00:34Jocko Willink?

  No, I'd say, hey, boss, I'm not, I don't think I'm a hundred percent on board with this. I see some other ways we could get this done. If this is what you're telling me you want me to do, I'm gonna make it happen. But I think we could, you know, I'm, I'm gonna, so I don't act differently.

• 2:00:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:00:47Jocko Willink?

  I'm not, I'm not a different person in front of, you know, I was, I was doing an event the other day. And I was like, talking to a company and I was backstage talking to CEO. And we were just, you know, and all of a sudden, you know, there's like, he's like, hey, it's only another half an hour before you go on. Do you need some time? And I was like, no, I don't need any time because the person that's gonna walk out on that stage is me. And I'm not acting any different way. It's just me, I'm gonna, you know, I don't need to get into character. I'm in character. I'm walking around. I'm like, this is me. And he was like, oh, that's awesome. So same thing. I don't, I, when I'm dealing with the boss that I don't like or whatever, I don't show that to anybody.

• 2:01:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:24Jocko Willink?

  I don't act differently.

• 2:01:25Jason Gardner?

  But you're, you're also.

• 2:01:29Jason Gardner?

  You're doing a good, you're doing a good, you're managing what hills are worth dying on.

• 2:01:36Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 2:01:37Jason Gardner?

  When you go to your boss so that you've built up that equity with them.

• 2:01:41Jocko Willink?

  No doubt about it.

• 2:01:42Jason Gardner?

  That when you need it, you can cash it in. And that's why you have to establish those relationships with them. And that's what I really failed as, as a young leader before my aperture started to get opened up, before I got introspective and I started thinking about all this stuff from a big picture. And then my little ego was in the way.

• 2:02:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:03Jason Gardner?

  And, uh, um,

• 2:02:06Jason Gardner?

  you know, if you're not, if you're not the guy that is bitching every time, when you do bring something up in a respectful manner, then they're gonna at least consider what you have to say. And nine times out of 10, they're actually gonna go with it.

• 2:02:18Jocko Willink?

  Oh, they're gonna go with it. Yeah. That's, that's the, that's the extreme ownership story.

• 2:02:25Jason Gardner?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:26Jocko Willink?

  That's the, and it was me sitting around with your task unit commander, the other task unit commanders from all the different teams. And everyone's, you know, say they got this problem, that problem, the other problem. You know, and the, the Commodore at the time, who was a friend of mine, says, hey Jaco, what do you need? And I was like, hey, sir, we don't need anything. We're good to go. And, and you like, it, it, you know, for whatever reason, I was like the last guy to go. So it had even more impact because everyone was complaining about this thing and the other thing.

• 2:02:52Jason Gardner?

  Absolutely.

• 2:02:53Jocko Willink?

  And he goes, he goes, Jaco, which this, they gave it even more impact because he's just like, you know, he knows me. He goes, Jaco, what do you need? And I'm like, nothing, sir. We're good to go. And you can see, you know, four months later, when I go in there and I say, hey, sir, we need X. He goes, cool. Go to supply. I'm calling them right now. Boom. Taken care of. That's, that's how it should be. Another thing that I was thinking about

• 2:03:16Jocko Willink?

  when you were talking, somebody asked me at some point. You know, at which, what point did you start sort of like looking at yourself? Kind of what you're talking about. What point did I start to look at myself? From an external position and say, from a detached perspective and say, wait, are you being jealous? Are you being resentful? Are you complaining? I can tell you right now that when I stepped into a leadership position, what I knew was that, as you said, every guy in my platoon is looking at me. And I looked at myself the same way. I, because as a young enlisted guy, because my first leadership inside of a platoon was as an, as an assistant platoon commander, you know, as an ensign.

• 2:04:01Jocko Willink?

  And so, sure, I was a little bit, you know, when I was an E5, I was a, I was a three platoon E5. And are you in a leadership position? You know, a little bit, sure. But not really, a little bit. When I was a platoon ensign, I was thinking the whole time, these guys are looking at me just like I used to look at my officer. So if I complain that it's cold, or I complain that it's, because when my officers used to do that, dude, this sucks. Oh, really? I'd be like, I would, I would just, I would, I'd just, I would get furious. And that's why that's the, when I really started looking at myself.

• 2:04:45Jocko Willink?

  And I'll, I'll, quite frankly, when I started putting in an officer package as a young enlisted guy, and I was like, wait a second, these guys, I want these guys to think that I actually should be in charge. I need to tighten it up. They're looking at me right now thinking, why does Jaco think he should be an officer? Here's why. Here's, I need to act like I actually deserve this. So that was a real precursor. To me, looking at myself from the outside saying, "Man, I know what it's like to be an E5 in a platoon, looking at the officer going, "Oh, you forgot that piece of gear, did you? And you're in charge of me? You're making more money than me? You're making the decisions tonight on this operation? You didn't bring your handset?

• 2:05:30Jocko Willink?

  Really? That's where we're at? I know what that felt like, and so I held myself to a high standard because I didn't, didn't want somebody to be looking at me thinking, "Jock was complaining. He's weak. He's making a, he forgot a piece of gear. He didn't show up on time. He didn't show up on time." You know how many times I was late when I was in the US Navy? For 20 years? Zero. Zero times late. Zero. Never. Why? Paranoia. High level of paranoia. Don't want to have guys like, when my officers were late, I'd look at them and think, "Oh, you can't even show up on time. You're in charge of me?" You know, that's a young arrogant kid, for sure. Absolutely. That's me.

• 2:06:14Jocko Willink?

  But I, I, I ate that, and I held on to it. And that's one of the first things that made me, and, and at some point, it turned from this kind of hostility into like, "You need to be a better person." You know? If you're going to be in charge. It went from like this attitude that I'm kind of portraying right now of like, "Oh, you suck." Into like, "Hey, you need to do a better job. You need to hold yourself to a high standard. You need to be a better person. If you're going to be in charge of these guys, you need to hold the line. And you need to elevate that line." So that had, that definitely had a big impact on me. And bro, if anybody knows this, you do. You knew me when I was E4, 20 years old. Maniac, right?

• 2:06:59Jason Gardner?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:59Jocko Willink?

  And then you, you know, you ran into me, however many years later, and you're like, "Hmm, he seems a little bit different." You know? Not totally different. But, because even when I was a young kid, I was fired up.

• 2:07:09Jason Gardner?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:07:11Jocko Willink?

  But, you know, I had to elevate. Had to elevate some.

• 2:07:16Jason Gardner?

  Yeah, that introspection is something that, that I didn't figure out till way later. But I'm sure glad I'm dead because I think it paid off.

• 2:07:28Jocko Willink?

  It's, that's one of the things, and it's one of those things that, you know, did your dad ever give you any advice?

• 2:07:39Jason Gardner?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:40Jocko Willink?

  So did mine. How much I listen to?

• 2:07:44Jason Gardner?

  It's about the same amount as I listen to my dad.

• 2:07:46Jocko Willink?

  It's one of those things where you're, you, you just, there's some things that you have, that, that you, it's like you can't be taught. Yeah, you, you, like someone can't tell you this. For some reason, there's some things that people can't tell you. Unless you can just completely open your mind and get humble and put your ego in check, which is really hard to do when you're 22, 23, 24.

• 2:08:08Jocko Willink?

  Like, there's things that I look at and I go, oh, you know what, I've heard that before. I, I learned that lesson. I got told that lesson, but I didn't learn it.

• 2:08:15Jason Gardner?

  But it's, you, you can pick it up pretty dang quick by, by example. And so, you know, how often do you get people asking you, well, how do I get that guy over there to take extreme ownership?

• 2:08:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:26Jason Gardner?

  It's like you do it.

• 2:08:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 2:08:29Jason Gardner?

  You take extreme ownership and it will be contagious.

• 2:08:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:08:33Jason Gardner?

  Um, and in, in that manner, when people see those modeled behaviors, then it just goes out and it, it goes back to that thing that Leif talks about. There's no bad teams, there's bad leaders. And I've seen groups, SEAL platoons and SEAL troops that have raw talent in them.

• 2:08:52Jocko Willink?

  Oh, for sure.

• 2:08:52Jason Gardner?

  And then they'll have kind of a, a guy come in that's a tyrant and an egomaniac. And that will permeate into everybody. The same way as, you know, the one, oh, I see that you're talking about, that, that I've worked around. Everywhere that guy goes, he lifts everybody else. Everyone that's around him becomes better by his example.

• 2:09:18Jocko Willink?

  Yep. Yep. Any other mistakes?

• 2:09:25Jocko Willink?

  Or made your mistakes?

• 2:09:27Jason Gardner?

  You know, it just back to being a when I was at the troop senior enlisted advisor over in Afghanistan and we were doing the remain over day operations and there were a lot of my younger guys that didn't understand why we weren't going, why we weren't just going in hitting a target and coming out during the same cycle of darkness. They felt like that would be more effective. And instead of sitting down with them and explaining to them why we were doing what we were doing, I would just tell them shut up and get out there. And, you know, hindsight, not, not the right thing to do because then they really don't know why they're doing what they're doing. And then there's, there's resentment that's

• 2:10:07Jason Gardner?

  building and then they're just not going to be the most effective at what they've got going on.

• 2:10:13Jocko Willink?

  Yep. Man, I wish we could do this whole job over again.

• 2:10:19Jason Gardner?

  We kind of can though. I mean, it goes back to the resentment thing and, and another bad R word is that regret.

• 2:10:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:27Jason Gardner?

  I've, I've learned, like all these dang mistakes I've made and every big setback that I've experienced in my life, I feel like it's kind of set me up for success.

• 2:10:38Jocko Willink?

  True.

• 2:10:38Jason Gardner?

  Moving forward. So it's kind of like glacier, you know, I'm every time I've taken like a foot back, I then move forward.

• 2:10:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:46Jason Gardner?

  Three feet.

• 2:10:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:48Jason Gardner?

  Learn from it and press on.

• 2:10:49Jocko Willink?

  Well, what's interesting for me is as I look back at my career now, and I was actually doing this when I was thinking about mistakes. Man, and I was actually talking to Dave Burke.

• 2:11:00Jason Gardner?

  The deal Dave?

• 2:11:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And like the things that I talk about all the time now, I, I did those things. Like when I was a platoon commander, I was doing this stuff. I wasn't, I wasn't as crystallized. But like when I was a task unit commander, boom, I was, this is what I was doing. This is what I was doing. It wasn't like I had it crystallized. It wasn't like I had this like, oh, this is what I had seen enough and most of it I'd seen, as you just said, through modeling from some good officers and from some bad officers and some good chiefs and some bad chiefs where I'd say, oh, that's what that, I'm gonna, hey, why does that guy do that? He always tells me what's going on. Okay, I'm gonna always do that. You know, like that kind of thing. It's, but, but like you said, when you, when you get done with

• 2:11:45Jocko Willink?

  a job, you look at it and be like, man, let me just do that one more time because I will knock this thing out of the park.

• 2:11:50Jason Gardner?

  So when is the moment, do you think for you that you're, the collective light bulb went off? And you kind of put a lot of this together?

• 2:11:59Jocko Willink?

  The collective, well.

• 2:12:01Jason Gardner?

  That, you know, the first FTX is at Trade Ed when you got there?

• 2:12:04Jocko Willink?

  That was part of it. Like, I, like my assistant platoon commander in my OIC. Um, I was telling him this stuff, you know, I was like, hey, man, here's what's going on. Like, hey, we need to do this. Hey, you, when you go in and brief this guy, you need to be like, this, this stuff, I was doing it. But then the next deployment, it was like when I was, you know, when I was working with Leif and Seth.

• 2:12:31Jocko Willink?

  You know, it was me saying, hey, man, come here. And, and, you know, those guys would whip out the freaking, the wheel books, you know, like after they realized what was going on, which was like three days into our, our, our task unit. I'd be like, hey,

• 2:12:47Jocko Willink?

  check this out. Boom. They'd get out and they'd write, and they'd write down like, okay, this is what, okay, got it. Yes, that makes sense. And, but as far as actually taking it and crystallizing, yeah, it was absolutely my first, the first FTX I went on with Trade Ed and watched the, watched the task unit out there just fall apart. And, and, and all I was doing was sitting there thinking, if this was my task unit, number one, here's what I'd be doing. And number two, when I got back, I'd be telling the platoon commander, this, this and this. I'd be telling those guys, hey, this is where you screwed up. And I just was watching it and go, okay. I, here's, I basically condensed everything that I had told my guys and said, okay, here's what you guys need to do. And that was cover, move, simple, prioritize, and execute decentralized command.

• 2:13:32Jocko Willink?

  The answers to so many, the answers to all problems.

• 2:13:35Jason Gardner?

  Boiled down to four things and they all kind of overlap.

• 2:13:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, they definitely are intertwined and they overlap. And you do have to throw extreme ownership on there only because if you don't take ownership of the problems, then they're not going to get solved and that is going to hurt you. So, yeah.

• 2:13:53Jason Gardner?

  At, at the muster, JP was saying some stuff that really stuck with me and he said it out at the, at the PT. And he's like, hey, everybody,

• 2:14:05Jason Gardner?

  we get to be here.

• 2:14:08Jason Gardner?

  This is an opportunity that you have to be here.

• 2:14:13Jason Gardner?

  And he said that, and I thought, man, that is just an awesome perspective to have. I called him up yesterday. I'm like, hey, I want to talk about this. And, you know, just fill me on what your mindset is. And he goes, yeah, he goes, you know, because when he was at Bud's, the way he looked at a four mile timed run, which I hated four mile time runs. I just, I would throw up every four mile time run. His, his attitude was, I get to do this four mile timed run. So if you take that and you start applying that to everything, heck yeah, they just don't have, there's no room to bitch about a damn thing.

• 2:14:54Jason Gardner?

  You know, I moved through the airport today and I see a guy with no legs. And I'm like, man, my life is so good. Both my legs work.

• 2:15:05Jason Gardner?

  And, and, and I shouldn't, I shouldn't have a complaint in the world.

• 2:15:10Jocko Willink?

  One of, one of the last thing, and we're getting kind of like, getting pretty long here, but, um, you know, one of the things I, I wanted you to talk about, and I know this isn't really, well, I guess it is. Cause as a leader of your family, I know that we, we have to, we have to lead our family, right? And one of you, you, you posted something the other day that was legit.

• 2:15:36Jocko Willink?

  I think it was called a promise to my daughter. And I was, I just asked if you could bring it in, because I think if, if you don't mind reading that to everyone, I think it's a pretty cool setup of how to take ownership of, of your family and how to, how, what you, what you as a leader and as a dad, and as a father, and as a husband, what you are putting forth as your goal, as your objective, as your strategy with your daughter. And I thought it was pretty awesome. So if you wouldn't mind reading that, that'd be cool.

• 2:16:11Jason Gardner?

  Absolutely. A promise to my daughter. I will love you always, unconditionally, no matter what.

• 2:16:23Jason Gardner?

  I will not pamper you. This will forge a resilience that will help you conquer all of life's obstacles. I do not intend to raise a princess, but rather a warrior with fire in her heart and ice in her veins.

• 2:16:41Jason Gardner?

  In my mind, there is nothing you can't do, no job or goal beyond your reach.

• 2:16:49Jason Gardner?

  I will challenge you so that you stand confidently on your own two feet. And I will set the example on how to treat those you love so that when you choose a partner, it will be someone that lifts you up.

• 2:17:04Jason Gardner?

  I will invest my time and energy in you so that when I am gone, enough memories of me will be with you in your heart to keep forever. Stand tall with your shoulders back. This world is yours for the taking.

• 2:17:22Jocko Willink?

  Boom. Yeah, that's awesome, man.

• 2:17:26Jason Gardner?

  And obviously I would think the same stuff for my son.

• 2:17:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:17:32Jason Gardner?

  But.

• 2:17:33Jocko Willink?

  Well, you'll have to write one a little bit specific to him. Very similar, I'm sure.

• 2:17:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, that's awesome. And that's really cool. And I bet a lot of people will, A, listen to it, and B, plagiarize it, and you know.

• 2:17:50Jason Gardner?

  Absolutely.

• 2:17:52Jocko Willink?

  For their own family. But no, that's awesome, man. And like I said, we're, we're going pretty long right now. So I think that's a good place to wrap up this one. What is this now? We've done something like seven or eight hours?

• 2:18:09Jocko Willink?

  Seven or eight hours? Awesome. So Echo, speaking of.

• 2:18:16Jocko Willink?

  Having a strategy to get to where we want to go. To be a little bit better across the board in all aspects. What do you got for us?

• 2:18:27Speaker 01

  Got some tips. Oh, by the way, yeah, I read that on Instagram if I'm not mistaken. And I considered plagiarizing it. For my daughter. Now I got the confirmation or what do you, what do you guys call it? Cleared.

• 2:18:38Jocko Willink?

  You're cleared hot.

• 2:18:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're cleared hot. Alright, there you go. Uh, and you were right about the, the two face thing when you said, oh, let me guess what you're gonna say.

• 2:18:47Jocko Willink?

  Oh.

• 2:18:47Speaker 01

  You're absolutely a hundred percent correct.

• 2:18:49Jocko Willink?

  Cool.

• 2:18:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, like act one way, like, hey, boss, hey, you know, hates him.

• 2:18:54Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 2:18:54Speaker 01

  Hey, hey, you're awesome, you're awesome. And then right when he leaves, then, you know.

• 2:18:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:58Speaker 01

  You say the opposite. Yeah.

• 2:19:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, don't do that.

• 2:19:03Speaker 01

  Last, yes, we're on the path. Okay, good. The strategic versus, uh.

• 2:19:09Jocko Willink?

  Tactical.

• 2:19:10Speaker 01

  Tactical. Long game, short game?

• 2:19:13Jocko Willink?

  I know you've been in the long game for a while.

• 2:19:14Speaker 01

  Big picture, small picture, all the same thing.

• 2:19:18Jocko Willink?

  When people ask Echo.

• 2:19:21Jocko Willink?

  What's like the big takeaway? I think that's his primary takeaway is focusing on the long game. Which he's a football, so you know, he like thinks the game thing or Super Mario Brothers.

• 2:19:34Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:19:34Jocko Willink?

  As well.

• 2:19:34Speaker 01

  More, more broadly, yes.

• 2:19:36Jocko Willink?

  But, you know, as opposed to thinking short game.

• 2:19:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:19:38Jocko Willink?

  And if you look at your life every day. In long game slash strategic, instead of short game slash tactical, you're gonna end up in a better spot.

• 2:19:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. And when I say the biggest, I mean, that's the one that applies to like the, my whole life. There's the other stuff, no complaining. That one was, that's a big one. No complaining, no, uh, blaming, of course. And then, um. Resent. Resent. I never really had the resent thing, the jealousy thing. That's something I never really had that. They're kind of entwined. Um, that one to me always felt obvious. When I, when I, when I discovered, um, like anger. Like, when you're mad, that's like something up with you kind of thing, even though it's natural, whatever.

• 2:20:19Jocko Willink?

  Capital plum. That's one of the biggest, one of the biggest things I got from doing this podcast is Captain Plum saying when they were in the, in the Hanoi Hilton.

• 2:20:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:20:29Jocko Willink?

  And him saying, if you were annoyed with your prison bunkmate.

• 2:20:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:20:34Jocko Willink?

  It was your fault. I was like.

• 2:20:36Speaker 01

  Hit me like a diamond bullet.

• 2:20:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:39Speaker 01

  Right between the eyes. That was.

• 2:20:41Jocko Willink?

  Extreme ownership, next level.

• 2:20:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:20:43Jocko Willink?

  Cause always annoyed with that other person. You go, no, actually, you know what? That's my fault.

• 2:20:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, that was good. When I, when I discovered it was a book I was reading called Mind Games, I mentioned it before. And it said, small little passage said, basically, um, in a nutshell, like when you have anger issues, not to say when you get mad, but it just says, if you have anger issues, it has something to do with your self-esteem, like you have low self-esteem. And that hit me really hard. Like, oh, man, that hit me so hard that I was like, man, I can never get mad ever again.

• 2:21:13Jason Gardner?

  That's, that's like a reverse psychology on your ego because then your ego is going, I gotta turn myself down because I got low self-esteem here.

• 2:21:22Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:21:22Jason Gardner?

  It's genius.

• 2:21:23Speaker 01

  Same thing with the drinking. Now you, you, uh, you put it into words good, where okay, so drinking, right? I ended up, um, figuring out or it being revealed to me that drink, like when you drink, when you have a drink and you want another one and you want another one in your mind, and the more you have, the more you sort of want, you can't really stop or whatever. You don't want to stop. It's just your brain tricking you. You know, it's your brain tricking, like your brain is chemically saying, oh, we need this. Hey, we need this. You know, we need more or whatever.

• 2:21:46Jocko Willink?

  You felt like you were getting manipulated.

• 2:21:48Speaker 01

  Felt like I was a sucker, as you said, and my ego was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, I'm not a sucker. I don't care if it's my own brain. I'm not a sucker or whatever. And it was just that easy, man, that easy to control it. But yes, it is a reverse psychology on your ego.

• 2:22:02Jocko Willink?

  Good.

• 2:22:02Speaker 01

  As opposed to regular psychology on your ego, short term and long term. Jiu-jitsu, right?

• 2:22:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. I thought you were gonna use the word reverse reversal. I thought that's, I thought that you were gonna handle the transition.

• 2:22:15Speaker 01

  Negative, negative. I'm saying, uh, I'm on the first, uh, long game and short game. Jiu-jitsu is one of those long game, short game situations, hundred percent. Part of the path, part of the many activities that we're all doing on the path. Jason Gardner got into good shape, obviously.

• 2:22:32Speaker 01

  So we're exercising, we're doing jiu jitsu, we're eating healthy. We're not getting mad at people. We're not showing resentment. We're not complaining.

• 2:22:41Speaker 01

  Various other things that we'll go over. Anyway, jiu jitsu, when you do jiu jitsu, you're gonna need a gi. What gi do we get? Origin gi. Get it from originmaine.com. This is where, all their stuff, by the way, is made all in America. From the cotton they grow from the ground, all the way to the end.

• 2:22:57Jocko Willink?

  From the dirt to the shirt.

• 2:22:59Speaker 01

  Shirt, gi, all that. Anyway, originmaine.com.

• 2:23:02Jocko Willink?

  Also June's.

• 2:23:04Speaker 01

  Yes, American.

• 2:23:05Jocko Willink?

  American, yeah.

• 2:23:06Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:23:07Jocko Willink?

  Which we are producing right now. We are hiring more people to produce even more. So my apologies on it. If you're ordering right now, maybe we don't have your size. We're working it. We're working it hard. We're growing.

• 2:23:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was good. Some people at the.

• 2:23:23Jason Gardner?

  I appreciate that they have the 28 inch inseam.

• 2:23:28Jason Gardner?

  Usually I can only get 30s.

• 2:23:30Jocko Willink?

  Oh, there you go.

• 2:23:31Speaker 01

  But we're accommodating everybody. Yeah, there's a few guys at the muster who had them on. I was like, okay.

• 2:23:35Jocko Willink?

  A couple people got them in.

• 2:23:38Speaker 01

  Good. I don't have any, but hey, those are the breaks and that's just the life I live. Also, they have sweatpants and shirts and whatnot, other stuff on there. Also supplements.

• 2:23:47Jocko Willink?

  Supplements.

• 2:23:48Speaker 01

  The best kind of supplements, by the way.

• 2:23:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. There were some, there were some people freaking out on the strawberry slayer. Have you tried strawberry slayer yet?

• 2:23:58Jason Gardner?

  Yeah, that's just not me.

• 2:24:00Jocko Willink?

  Oh, you don't like strawberry?

• 2:24:01Jason Gardner?

  Not that kind of strawberry guy. I definitely got some and tried it. It didn't work. I'm, I'm a hardcore mint chocolate chip and then the vanilla for mix.

• 2:24:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you get that vanilla gorilla and throw it inside your, uh, your coffee.

• 2:24:12Jason Gardner?

  Heck, yeah.

• 2:24:14Jocko Willink?

  That's your sweetener, kind of? That's your cream and sugar?

• 2:24:17Jason Gardner?

  Yeah, boom.

• 2:24:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was a good method.

• 2:24:20Jason Gardner?

  And then that's Iris is mixing that and everything.

• 2:24:23Jocko Willink?

  When do you drink that in the morning?

• 2:24:24Jason Gardner?

  Uh, oh.

• 2:24:26Jocko Willink?

  Like what time?

• 2:24:27Jason Gardner?

  Like right, right after I PT.

• 2:24:29Jocko Willink?

  And then how, when do you feel hungry for your next meal?

• 2:24:32Jason Gardner?

  Oh, I don't eat until like one, one or two o'clock.

• 2:24:36Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 2:24:37Jason Gardner?

  It's just that and.

• 2:24:38Jocko Willink?

  And Iris is just putting it in everything? She's making milk pancakes.

• 2:24:43Jason Gardner?

  She's making milk pancakes and smoothies and all that stuff. So we go through quite a bit of milk in our house. Yeah. And the kids love it.

• 2:24:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, that strawberry can make like a, it's like a milkshake smoothie hybrid.

• 2:24:55Jocko Willink?

  Here's what I said the other day. If you put in front of me.

• 2:25:01Jocko Willink?

  Haagen Dazs strawberry milkshake.

• 2:25:04Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:25:04Jocko Willink?

  Right?

• 2:25:04Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:25:05Jocko Willink?

  Nestle's strawberry quick.

• 2:25:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:25:09Jocko Willink?

  And strawberry slayer milk. And I was gonna die in 15 minutes. So we're just going pure satisfaction.

• 2:25:17Speaker 01

  Pure short, short game.

• 2:25:18Jocko Willink?

  Short term, like the long game is out of the picture.

• 2:25:21Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 2:25:21Jocko Willink?

  I'm going straight to the strawberry slayer milk, cuz that's what tastes the best. That is the taste test, right? No one does a taste test like that. I'm not throwing a caveat on there, but the Haagen Dazs is gonna be sugary. Or the Nestle's quick is gonna give you a sugar. No, we're taking the long game, totally out of the picture. We're going pure, short-term, tactical taste. Where you at? Strawberry slayer, bring it.

• 2:25:46Jason Gardner?

  The name's awesome, too.

• 2:25:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, you know.

• 2:25:49Speaker 01

  I agree. Also joint warfare for the joints?

• 2:25:51Jocko Willink?

  Pete was trying to like tell me product names and he's like, he's like brainstorming. Pete goes, you know, Pete's like Mr. Creative.

• 2:25:58Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:25:59Jocko Willink?

  Right? He's like into being creative.

• 2:26:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, he even told me.

• 2:26:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. He'll tell you like that's his creative stuff, right? So Pete's like hitting me up. He says, so he said, sent me all these, all these things, strawberry sniper. I'll have to pull out the list. It's so funny. Everything is random military terms. But yeah, don't catch Pete. He gets into these moods. Creativity is just coming out of his, coming out of his brain. And he'll start hitting me up with texts about strawberry sniper.

• 2:26:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm not, I'm not that mad at strawberry sniper.

• 2:26:30Jocko Willink?

  Not that mad. He had some ones that were real.

• 2:26:32Speaker 01

  Slayer is better. I'm used to slayer. So when I hear sniper, I'm like, oh, I see why that was like a distant second or whatever.

• 2:26:36Jocko Willink?

  I'm trying to think of some of the other whack ones that came up because of, sorry, Pete, bro. Yeah, some of them were real funny. Actually, I texted him. He texted Brian and me. He's texting us all these names. And I was like, okay, stop no more. He just started laughing. Yeah, so check that. He probably had a, he had probably a little too much discipline. Go.

• 2:26:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, potentially.

• 2:26:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:26:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:27:00Jocko Willink?

  How many discipline go are you on right now?

• 2:27:02Jason Gardner?

  Four.

• 2:27:03Speaker 01

  Daily.

• 2:27:04Jason Gardner?

  No, per day?

• 2:27:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:06Jason Gardner?

  Just cuz I had to get up at 3 a.m. this morning.

• 2:27:08Jocko Willink?

  What time did you go to bed?

• 2:27:10Jason Gardner?

  What, ten, ten PM?

• 2:27:12Jocko Willink?

  So you're on five hours of sleep right now?

• 2:27:14Jason Gardner?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:14Jocko Willink?

  Did you sleep on the plane?

• 2:27:15Jason Gardner?

  No.

• 2:27:16Jocko Willink?

  Can you sleep on planes?

• 2:27:17Jason Gardner?

  Yes.

• 2:27:17Jocko Willink?

  I can sleep on planes like a boss.

• 2:27:19Jason Gardner?

  Sometimes I can, but I was, I was just writing all these notes in here to get ready for this and some, sometimes I can just turn it off, but I wasn't able to sleep on the plane.

• 2:27:27Jocko Willink?

  I can sleep on planes, not as well as Echo though. Echo gets the world championship belt. We're sleeping on planes. We get on a plane, I got a plane with him. Within, within thirty-eight seconds, he's asleep. And he looks, he puts his sunglasses on, he looks like he's awake. But it's a lie.

• 2:27:44Jocko Willink?

  So, yeah, so discipline go, that's a good situation.

• 2:27:47Jason Gardner?

  I take two every morning.

• 2:27:48Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 2:27:49Jason Gardner?

  So, get up in the morning, two discipline go, and then, um, joint warfare. I'm taking morning and night.

• 2:27:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:57Jason Gardner?

  And I notice a difference.

• 2:27:58Jocko Willink?

  How many do you take?

• 2:27:59Jason Gardner?

  I'm taking two in the morning and two at night, and then...

• 2:28:02Jocko Willink?

  And what's your body weight right now?

• 2:28:03Jason Gardner?

  One sixty, something like that.

• 2:28:05Jocko Willink?

  I take three, I take three joint warfare, three krill oil, morning, three joint warfare, three krill oil, night. And if I'm, if I got a little, little situation going on, I might, if I'm around, I'll take three during the day for lunchtime too.

• 2:28:21Jason Gardner?

  Dang, so you just got the infusion.

• 2:28:23Jocko Willink?

  Infusion, infusion.

• 2:28:25Jason Gardner?

  It's good, man.

• 2:28:26Jocko Willink?

  So, that's that, yeah. Don't forget about the Warrior Kid Molk too.

• 2:28:29Jason Gardner?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:29Jocko Willink?

  For the Warrior Kids.

• 2:28:30Jason Gardner?

  Yeah. Well, so, all right, well, let's, let's talk about it then. What's, what in your opinion, Warrior Kid Molk Strawberry or Strawberry Slayer? Strawberry Slayer is thicker, it's like a shake.

• 2:28:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I think actually, I think the way that they are, they are actually suitable for their audience. So the, the strawberry, the Warrior Kid Strawberry Molk is just a little bit, a little bit lighter, we'll say, because it does have less protein. And the one, the adult one is a little bit heavier.

• 2:29:01Jason Gardner?

  Gotcha.

• 2:29:02Jocko Willink?

  A little bit more like that Haagen-Dazs hitter.

• 2:29:04Jason Gardner?

  Sure, yeah, just like that.

• 2:29:07Jocko Willink?

  Where are you at, Theo Von, with that hitter?

• 2:29:14Speaker 01

  Also Jaco White Tea. Yes. Very refra- I'm gonna say the light, the nice stuff about it, very refreshing. Certified organic pomegranate white tea. Doesn't sound hardcore. But it can after deadlifting eight thousand pounds.

• 2:29:28Jocko Willink?

  That is kinda hardcore.

• 2:29:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, proven by the way, Jason Gardner. Scientifically. Yeah, you know all about that. You know what I'm talking about. Hundred percent guaranteed.

• 2:29:36Jocko Willink?

  Can I get sued for that?

• 2:29:37Speaker 01

  Uh, I, you know.

• 2:29:38Jocko Willink?

  Maybe I guess if there was someone that couldn't hit an eight thousand pound deadlift, then they might come at me.

• 2:29:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:29:44Jocko Willink?

  Come at me, bro. You know what I'll say? Lift harder.

• 2:29:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, man.

• 2:29:47Jocko Willink?

  Drink more.

• 2:29:48Speaker 01

  You can't, yeah, you gotta train.

• 2:29:49Jocko Willink?

  Cause there's no way everyone else is deadlifting eight thousand pounds. What's wrong with you?

• 2:29:53Speaker 01

  The guy, yep.

• 2:29:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:29:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, makes sense. Also, we have a store. It's called Jaco Store. I think we all know that. This is where you can get rash guards, T-shirts, gonna represent discipline equals freedom.

• 2:30:06Jocko Willink?

  Truckers hats.

• 2:30:07Speaker 01

  Truckers hats.

• 2:30:08Jocko Willink?

  Beanies.

• 2:30:09Speaker 01

  Some beanies there. Man, I gotta refill the beanies.

• 2:30:11Jocko Willink?

  Oh, so maybe you don't have beanies there.

• 2:30:13Speaker 01

  Well.

• 2:30:15Jocko Willink?

  Echo never wears hats, so these apparently are low on the pro- have you even had a cold head before?

• 2:30:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I have had a cold head before, sure.

• 2:30:23Jocko Willink?

  In Hawaii?

• 2:30:24Speaker 01

  Well, depends on what you mean by cold, but you know, yeah, you put the hood on, you know, put that lightweight hoodie on. Curve the coldness on the head. Yeah, man, right when you shave it, like with the, what do you call the razor? Or the bick rate, and they say when you bick your head, that's what, that's an expression. Oh yeah, it can get a little nippy, I guess, kinda cold.

• 2:30:43Jocko Willink?

  Well, anyways, the rest of us would like some more beanies online.

• 2:30:46Speaker 01

  Yes, sir, you got it.

• 2:30:47Jocko Willink?

  Even for the summertime.

• 2:30:49Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 2:30:49Jocko Willink?

  Cause if you're up in Maine in the summertime, or you're up in Michigan in the summertime.

• 2:30:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:30:54Jocko Willink?

  Or you're up in Washington in the summertime, once the sun goes down.

• 2:30:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:30:59Jocko Willink?

  You can get that little chilly.

• 2:31:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:31:02Jocko Willink?

  Coming at you.

• 2:31:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, I agree, and that's how it is here too, in my opinion.

• 2:31:05Jocko Willink?

  And you might as well have a beanie that says, discipline equals freedom.

• 2:31:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, man, represent with everything. Also, the hoodies, like I mentioned, lightweight hoodies.

• 2:31:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:31:15Speaker 01

  Lightweight hoodies? Jason

• 2:31:16Jason Gardner?

  Yeah, I saw you at John's at the muster.

• 2:31:18Speaker 01

  You look good, right?

• 2:31:19Jason Gardner?

  Not bad.

• 2:31:19Speaker 01

  Well, thank you.

• 2:31:20Jocko Willink?

  Oh, now we don't know how everyone looks.

• 2:31:22Speaker 01

  Well, well, it's part of the game. It can be part of, maybe not for you. Aesthetics wise, right? We got functionality, we have aesthetics. They're not exclusive.

• 2:31:30Jason Gardner?

  Yeah, and you remember I was asking you about the heavyweights? Because that's what I, but that's what I need up in northeastern Washington. Our Canadian border.

• 2:31:38Jocko Willink?

  We are working.

• 2:31:38Speaker 01

  Functionally, you're correct.

• 2:31:39Jocko Willink?

  We are working currently at this time. So that by the time fall rolls around, we offer the heaviest of heavyweight hoodies.

• 2:31:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:31:48Jocko Willink?

  That's the plan.

• 2:31:49Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:31:49Jocko Willink?

  I'm talking big time.

• 2:31:51Speaker 01

  The real deal.

• 2:31:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:31:52Speaker 01

  For freebies, yeah.

• 2:31:53Jocko Willink?

  Where there'll be no doubt in your mind, you'll be like, oh yeah, this is, this is the heaviest hoodie I've ever heard.

• 2:31:57Jason Gardner?

  Like putting on five pounds.

• 2:31:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. That's what we want.

• 2:32:00Speaker 01

  Utility, but aesthetics, how, how, let's say a factor of 10 is function, right?

• 2:32:06Jocko Willink?

  You don't have to answer this question, Jason.

• 2:32:07Speaker 01

  You need, you need level 10 functionality, obviously. Aesthetics, what are we, what are you at? What number?

• 2:32:14Jason Gardner?

  A seven.

• 2:32:15Speaker 01

  That's pretty significant. Jocko, what are you at? Zero.

• 2:32:18Jocko Willink?

  Zero.

• 2:32:18Speaker 01

  Straight up zero.

• 2:32:19Jason Gardner?

  Doesn't like the lightweight.

• 2:32:20Speaker 01

  Hmm. The lightweight, any, anything having to do with fashion. I think, I think you're at a one. That's what I think.

• 2:32:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, if, if there are some things where I'd be like, this looks stupid. Therefore I will not wear it.

• 2:32:34Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:32:34Jocko Willink?

  So that we are correct, that puts me at a level one.

• 2:32:36Speaker 01

  All right, well, how about this? You got, you have three, four t-shirts.

• 2:32:39Jocko Willink?

  Hmm.

• 2:32:40Speaker 01

  One.

• 2:32:42Speaker 01

  Green.

• 2:32:43Jocko Willink?

  Hmm.

• 2:32:44Speaker 01

  Like green, green. Not OD green.

• 2:32:46Jocko Willink?

  Hmm.

• 2:32:47Speaker 01

  Green, green. One red.

• 2:32:48Jocko Willink?

  Hmm.

• 2:32:49Speaker 01

  One black.

• 2:32:49Jocko Willink?

  Hmm.

• 2:32:50Speaker 01

  One purple. Which one are you choosing?

• 2:32:52Jocko Willink?

  Black.

• 2:32:52Speaker 01

  Why? Looks better, right?

• 2:32:55Jocko Willink?

  Doesn't get dirty as easy.

• 2:32:57Speaker 01

  No, man.

• 2:32:58Jocko Willink?

  Oh, traps.

• 2:33:00Speaker 01

  Anyway.

• 2:33:01Jocko Willink?

  Where's that punk card?

• 2:33:02Speaker 01

  Anyway.

• 2:33:02Jocko Willink?

  It's got pulled, boy.

• 2:33:03Speaker 01

  Anyway, some women's stuff on there too. It is jocko store dot com. This is where you can get stuff to represent. Yeah, check it out. Like something, get something.

• 2:33:13Jocko Willink?

  Did you say originmaine.com?

• 2:33:15Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:33:15Jocko Willink?

  Okay, cool.

• 2:33:15Speaker 01

  That's for, yes, for the origin stuff.

• 2:33:17Jocko Willink?

  Somebody might want some of that strawberry.

• 2:33:19Speaker 01

  Of course, man, of course. Yes. Also subscribe.

• 2:33:23Jocko Willink?

  Strawberry Slayer should have like a, like a, like a theme. Like when you say it, it should be like in the background should go strawberry Slayer.

• 2:33:31Jason Gardner?

  Got a double bass drum hammer.

• 2:33:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know if I agree with that, but you know, it is a good name for sure. Hundred percent. Also subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already on iTunes and wherever you get your podcasts.

• 2:33:47Jocko Willink?

  And don't forget about the Warrior Kid podcast.

• 2:33:49Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:33:50Jocko Willink?

  Which comes out not as frequently as it should. It should step up this summer as time opens up to create and record that particular podcast.

• 2:34:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a good one.

• 2:34:03Jocko Willink?

  And, and then you can get some of that Warrior Kid. So you're friends with Matt, right?

• 2:34:08Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 2:34:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Up there, Aiden making it on his farm.

• 2:34:12Jason Gardner?

  Irish Oaks.

• 2:34:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. IrishOaksRants.com. How do you know him? Through Iris? He come to your farm?

• 2:34:19Jason Gardner?

  Yeah, we were gonna buy meat from him. And then when he came to deliver it to you, he swung by and visited us. I was gone that day, so I didn't meet him, but him and I have chatted on the phone a whole bunch of times.

• 2:34:29Jocko Willink?

  Awesome. Yeah, he's a firefighter up in Ventura County and he's got a farm as well. And his son, Aiden, who's a young warrior kid, makes soap so that everyone in the world can stay clean.

• 2:34:44Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:34:45Jocko Willink?

  Cool.

• 2:34:46Speaker 01

  That's good soap too, by the way. Functional soap. It's not the decorative, you know, the ones that your little niece makes and it's like here. It's not.

• 2:34:54Jason Gardner?

  You're not even supposed to really use it. It's just a decoration.

• 2:34:56Speaker 01

  A gift, if you will. Yes. Also, we have a YouTube channel, the Jocko Podcast YouTube channel. This is where you can get the video version, of course. You wanna see what Jason looks like? Very handsome. You're a good looking guy, I'd say. You know, Jaco, what?

• 2:35:12Jocko Willink?

  Just take it easy.

• 2:35:15Speaker 01

  Hey man. Either way, if you are interested in that, we have a YouTube channel, also some excerpts on there. You know, we'll cut up little excerpts.

• 2:35:24Jocko Willink?

  And sometimes Echo puts cello music behind him and he puts explosions in them.

• 2:35:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, sometimes when I want to enhance them, maybe, maybe like a certain message that you talk about hits me hard. I say, hey, let me express this, you know, put some stuff on there.

• 2:35:38Jocko Willink?

  Do you ever feel like maybe we should just get a couple of cello players in here?

• 2:35:42Speaker 01

  No, I don't, I don't ever feel like that at all. And, you know, I think we should stick with what we're doing. That's my opinion. Here's the thing about YouTube though, as far as subscribing.

• 2:35:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:35:52Speaker 01

  So it doesn't even matter. And you might notice, Jay, do you spend time on YouTube?

• 2:35:56Jason Gardner?

  Yes.

• 2:35:56Speaker 01

  Like, okay, so here's what I learned and observed. If you subscribe to someone on YouTube, it doesn't matter that much. Like their stuff won't show up all the time, like how you'd expect. You'd think like, oh, if you subscribe, their stuff is going to sort of show up on your, what do you call it? The home.

• 2:36:13Jason Gardner?

  Yeah.

• 2:36:14Speaker 01

  Page or whatever. Doesn't so much do that anymore.

• 2:36:16Jason Gardner?

  But I get an email every time you post something new.

• 2:36:19Speaker 01

  Okay, now you're talking, see, yeah, now you're talking because when you subscribe to someone and you do that additional step, you click on the little bell. I think it's like right next to or on the subscribe button or wherever it is right there. If you do that, then you'll get the alert email or whatever.

• 2:36:33Jocko Willink?

  My alerts, my alerts actually come onto my phone. They like spring up.

• 2:36:38Speaker 01

  On that from YouTube or for your email?

• 2:36:40Jocko Willink?

  Jocko Podcast just posted a new video. That's from my, from the app.

• 2:36:44Speaker 01

  From the YouTube app.

• 2:36:45Jocko Willink?

  From the YouTube app.

• 2:36:46Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:36:47Jocko Willink?

  Which is pretty cool.

• 2:36:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. So if you want that, this is what I'm saying. So when you subscribe, it's almost like a half subscribe. Not even a half, it's like a quarter subscribe. That's what it is. Cause you're sort of like, oh yeah, I officially sort of subscribe, but YouTube's like, cool.

• 2:37:02Jocko Willink?

  Okay, I think.

• 2:37:02Speaker 01

  We're not gonna let you know. No, I don't think you do. This is way different. This is different. I'm saying if you want to subscribe and you want to get alerts and you want it to sort of be in your, what do you call it? The feed or whatever? You gotta hit the little bell.

• 2:37:14Jocko Willink?

  This is what I'm worried about. I'm worried about, since you're very decentralized, since there's a lot of decentralized command here.

• 2:37:20Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:37:20Jocko Willink?

  I'm worried that if people don't subscribe, all of a sudden you're just going to start putting the little thing at the end of your enhanced videos that says, that says, like, share and click subscribe.

• 2:37:32Speaker 01

  Like share and subscribe.

• 2:37:33Jocko Willink?

  Like it shows the little finger, click subscribe.

• 2:37:35Speaker 01

  And read it out.

• 2:37:36Jocko Willink?

  And if that happens, we're gonna have a problem.

• 2:37:38Speaker 01

  Uh, yes, sir.

• 2:37:39Jocko Willink?

  The videos make it centralized real quick. Real quick.

• 2:37:43Speaker 01

  Well, Eric, we're not gonna worry about that because I agree with you 100%.

• 2:37:47Jocko Willink?

  Like, share, subscribe.

• 2:37:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:37:49Jocko Willink?

  Hey, before you watch this video, go down to the bottom right and click subscribe now.

• 2:37:56Speaker 01

  I'm just saying, I'm sure there's some function.

• 2:37:58Jason Gardner?

  I hate it when I see that.

• 2:38:00Speaker 01

  But I'm sure there's some function in that.

• 2:38:02Jocko Willink?

  What's the equivalent of when you meet someone? Like, what's the equivalent of a, of a human interaction? Where you say that?

• 2:38:08Jason Gardner?

  Somebody dropping the S-bomb.

• 2:38:10Jocko Willink?

  Would it be like, yeah, that, but it would be like, like, hey, good to meet you. Can I have a pat on the back, please? Like, isn't that basically what it is? That's the human interaction equivalent.

• 2:38:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:38:19Jocko Willink?

  Like, hey, nice to meet you. Um, give me your phone and I'm gonna index, I'm gonna put my phone number in there. So, so I can text you. What I'm doing. All the time.

• 2:38:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:38:31Jocko Willink?

  Give me a pat on the back. Alright, sorry.

• 2:38:32Speaker 01

  Uh, no, I might figure that, that's actually a good little, an analogical, anal- analogy, um, like comparison. Task. To find the analogy is what I'm saying.

• 2:38:44Jocko Willink?

  Psychological warfare, iTunes, Google Play, MP3 platforms. If you wanna, if, if you wanna wake up call. Which a lot of people say, can't you make an alarm? Can't you make an alarm? Can't you make an alarm? Yes, you can use psychological warfare as an alarm. There's a bunch of alarm options there. There's also something on there. If you're, if you're feeling like you wanna eat a donut or you wanna eat a bag of Cheetos. When's the last time you ate a bag of Cheetos? One time I ate a whole bag of Hershey's Kisses, and this is when I was in the teams. I'm talking about grown man.

• 2:39:13Speaker 01

  How big was the bag?

• 2:39:14Jocko Willink?

  Like a, like a good size, like the size of a book. The size of a regular sized book, like it was one of those.

• 2:39:19Jason Gardner?

  Yeah, it was like six years ago, my mom came over to my house and put a whole bag of candy corn. It was around Halloween. And every time I walked by it, I was stuffing the things in my mouth and pretty soon they're all gone. I'm like, oh my god.

• 2:39:32Speaker 01

  You like candy corn?

• 2:39:33Jason Gardner?

  They're, they're good. I sense I, I, I bet I couldn't eat one right now, cause I, you know, kinda cut sweet stuff out and every time I slip, I taste something, I'm like, holy cattle.

• 2:39:44Jocko Willink?

  The thing I noticed that is with, with Coca-Cola. Like, I can't even, can't even come close to drinking a Coca-Cola. I mean, I haven't had one legit, like, hey, I'm gonna have a Coke in probably 10 or 15 years or something like that, a long time. Actually, probably even longer than that. But when I, when I look at them, or like the last time I tried to sip one, I was like, ew.

• 2:40:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:40:04Jocko Willink?

  They're like syrup.

• 2:40:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:40:05Jocko Willink?

  So anyways.

• 2:40:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, makes sense. I can see that. I can drink Coke though.

• 2:40:09Jocko Willink?

  So that's psychological warfare. You can get that on any of those platforms. Also, flipsidecanvas.com. If you want the visual reminder of something, my brother Dakota Meyer has a company called flipsidecanvas.com. And he's making all kinds of cool stuff. He's about to run out some Warrior Kid stuff too. Some little Warrior Kid.

• 2:40:30Jason Gardner?

  I like his Teddy Roosevelt stuff and all that.

• 2:40:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So he's making some really cool stuff. Art.

• 2:40:37Speaker 01

  Art with layers, by the way.

• 2:40:38Jocko Willink?

  Art with layers. There you go. I like that.

• 2:40:41Speaker 01

  Yep. Also on it, you're expanding your home gym. You're getting more kettlebells, which I did, by the way. Darth Vader.

• 2:40:48Jocko Willink?

  How much does it weigh?

• 2:40:49Speaker 01

  Seventy.

• 2:40:50Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:40:50Speaker 01

  Here's the thing about the seventy pound. Like, sure, I'm not, you know, I'm gonna be more impressed with your hundred pound kettlebell that you were whatever bragging to me about.

• 2:40:58Jocko Willink?

  One oh six.

• 2:40:59Speaker 01

  One oh, there you go. There you go. One oh six. But the seventy and the seventy-two, the gorilla one or whatever, those, in my opinion, have the most like place.

• 2:41:07Jocko Willink?

  Universal usage. Yeah.

• 2:41:09Speaker 01

  Universal usage, yes.

• 2:41:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, those are good. I agree.

• 2:41:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. Plus the Darth Vader. I mean, come on, man. It's the ultimate one, I think.

• 2:41:15Jocko Willink?

  But they should, they should have made the, they should have made the Darth Vader like a hundred, at least over a hundred pounds, in my opinion.

• 2:41:22Speaker 01

  Maybe.

• 2:41:23Jocko Willink?

  Jason, you're the Star Wars expert.

• 2:41:25Jason Gardner?

  Yeah, he should definitely be the heaviest.

• 2:41:27Jocko Willink?

  Who's the most, who's the most powerful character in Star Wars?

• 2:41:31Speaker 01

  Darth Vader.

• 2:41:32Jocko Willink?

  Doesn't, doesn't seem like he's kind of a chump sometimes.

• 2:41:34Speaker 01

  No, negative. No, you'd think the Emperor maybe, but it's Darth Vader. Darth Vader smashes the Emperor.

• 2:41:40Jocko Willink?

  You're about to get called out.

• 2:41:41Jason Gardner?

  What do you think? Yeah. I mean, I, I don't know. You know, Darth Maul was pretty dang badass too.

• 2:41:48Jocko Willink?

  No, but I mean, who is like the?

• 2:41:49Speaker 01

  Chopped up pretty quick.

• 2:41:50Jason Gardner?

  But I mean Darth Vader lost.

• 2:41:52Speaker 01

  Darth Vader lost to Luke Skywalker, who crumbled immediately, by the way.

• 2:41:58Jason Gardner?

  Yeah.

• 2:41:59Speaker 01

  Later on. So it's Darth Vader, man. I think it's Darth Vader.

• 2:42:03Jason Gardner?

  Yeah, I like Vader.

• 2:42:06Jason Gardner?

  Nonetheless, a real leader lifts people up. You ever see that meme and Darth Vader's holding

• 2:42:12Jason Gardner?

  that Ramo guy up my lips?

• 2:42:16Jocko Willink?

  That is so funny.

• 2:42:17Speaker 01

  But Darth Vader went through the whole arc. He was good, bad, good, boom. You know, not I'm thinking, well, I'm sure. Nonetheless, yes, I got that kettlebell. There's a lot of good stuff. There's these, there's these electrolyte minerals that are part of my daily, daily mega mix with the discipline. Nonetheless, go on there, on it.com slash Jaco and check out some stuff on there. Some really good stuff from there.

• 2:42:40Jocko Willink?

  All right, some books. Way the Warrior Kid 3. The book is called Where There's a Will. There is a good message. Talked about it already. Check that one out. It is available now. Also, Way the Warrior Kid 1 and 2. Mark's mission is 2. Number 1 is Way of the Warrior Kid. Check those out for your kid to teach your kid these lessons, these lessons that, that Jason I just talked about for two plus hours are broken down, simplified, and, and sprinkled, sprinkled throughout these books so that your kid is gonna read them. Your kid is gonna say things to you. Like, Dad, I think you, that might be your ego talking.

• 2:43:26Jocko Willink?

  That's, that, that, so that the idea of ego gets introduced in Way of the Warrior Kid 3. That's where it gets introduced for the first time. So why? Because I wish somebody would have told me about my ego. I wish somebody would have explained to me that I was resentful. I was jealous. I was, I was

• 2:43:46Jocko Willink?

  whining.

• 2:43:49Jocko Willink?

  No one did. Or if my dad did, I didn't listen because I was a young punk. So, uh, get those books. Also, if you've got a younger kid, you can get Mikey and the Dragons as well. Which, again, this is the thing where your kid gets taught a lesson. Hey, I didn't listen to my dad. My, I didn't listen to my mom. Jason didn't listen to his mom. Jason didn't listen to his dad. I've been sitting around with a bunch of like real.

• 2:44:19Jocko Willink?

  Really squared away people, business people. And we start talking about kids and, and then I say, hey, wait a second. Who here listened to their parents? No one raises their hands, like very few. There's the one occasional, two occasional, Eddie Haskell's.

• 2:44:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:44:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I always listen to my parents. No, you didn't liar. Most, most, but you, but what happens is when they hear it from another angle. They listen to it and they go, oh, okay, I understand that. And they think it's cool. It's Uncle Jake saying it. It's not my dad. Cause your, your kids want to rebel against you because they know they have to leave the nest. So they gotta set up some kind of a barrier. So they need someone to give them advice. Let that someone be Uncle Jake. Let that someone be the king in Mikey and the Dragons. So there you go. That's that. Also, we got obviously Discipline = Freedom Field Manual. If you're an adult, you need to know how to get on the path and stay on the path. Get that book and put it by your bedside and read that. Read a page in the morning.

• 2:45:21Jocko Willink?

  Have you ever had a book that will get you out of bed?

• 2:45:23Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:45:24Jocko Willink?

  Okay, Discipline = Freedom Field Manual, put it next to your bed.

• 2:45:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:45:27Jocko Willink?

  You'll be like, I'm getting out of bed. I'm gonna go get some, so. Then there's Extreme Ownership and the Docomy Leadership. These are the books about leadership written by me and my brother Leif Babbin. About the lessons that we learned overseas. Now you can apply them in your team, in your business, in your life. Also, we got Echelon Front Leadership Consultancy.

• 2:45:50Jocko Willink?

  And we're very busy. You know why we're very busy? We're very busy because no matter what problem you have in your team, in your business, the problem is a leadership problem. And if you want to get it solved, you gotta solve the leadership.

• 2:46:06Jocko Willink?

  The leadership problems that you have. And if you can do that, then they're gonna solve the problems in your company. So it's me, it's Leif Babbin, JP Danelle, Dave Burke, Flynn Cochran, Mike Sorelli, Mike Byma, and Jason Gardner. If you want us to help you.

• 2:46:26Jocko Willink?

  Go to echelonfront.com for details. We got the muster. Chicago's done. Did it sell out? Yes, it did. How'd you like the muster? That was your first muster, Jason. How'd you like it?

• 2:46:36Jason Gardner?

  Wow, that was amazing.

• 2:46:39Jocko Willink?

  Don't you wish you got to go to that when you were 25 years old?

• 2:46:43Jason Gardner?

  Yeah, and you know, I was super impressed by it. There were people that had their kids there.

• 2:46:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. That's not normal, right? Eh, I mean, when you say there was people, there was probably, okay.

• 2:46:55Jason Gardner?

  And by my kids, there were, I'm talking, there was one 13 year old that was there, but there was quite a few like teenagers and in high school age.

• 2:47:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I would say 16 to 21, there'll be, there'll be a good amount, maybe a dozen, right? And then, but yeah, there was one 13 year old, the warrior kid, that was just straight getting after it. He was coming in early morning PT.

• 2:47:22Jocko Willink?

  You mentioned that Warrior Kid Rashguard, if you want to get that. Anyways, that's the muster. They always sell out. The next one is in Denver. It's 19th and 20th of September. And it's gonna sell out. Sydney, Australia, December 4th and 5th. It's gonna sell out. We got people in Australia? Yes, we do. When I went to Brizzy, there was people from all over Australia coming to hang out.

• 2:47:49Jason Gardner?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:47:50Jocko Willink?

  Home of David Hackworth, Brisbane. That's where he moved.

• 2:47:54Jason Gardner?

  Dig it.

• 2:47:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And if you want to come to that, go to extremeownership.com. Get on it early. EF Online. If you can't come to the muster, or you can't bring your entire company to muster, because the muster's expensive.

• 2:48:09Jocko Willink?

  Then get, go to EFonline.com. And what that is, it's leadership training. But the thing is, leadership training is not an inoculation. You can't just go to leadership training one time and then you're like, oh, cool, I got extreme ownership. Now I'm good to go. Doesn't work like that. Just like you can't go to one jujitsu class, or even one week's worth of jujitsu class. You can't go to a two day jujitsu seminar and now you're good to go. No. You need to keep training. And that's what happens here as well. So you, it's not, it's not an inoculation. You gotta get it repeatedly. And that's what EF Online does. Or if you can't make it to the muster, go to efonline.com. And also EF Overwatch. Taking proven leaders from Spec Ops and Combat Aviation

• 2:48:53Jocko Willink?

  and putting them in companies in the civilian sector that need leaders. Now, you might think, "Well, they don't have any experience in my industry." Cool, they'll learn it. That's what we do. Hire for their character, hire for their leadership capability, and then teach them the industry specifics. They'll pick up and they will fill in the leadership holes that are causing you problems.

• 2:49:14Jocko Willink?

  And if you want to hear more about 90's TV shows or Super Mario Brothers from Echo,

• 2:49:23Jocko Willink?

  or you want to hear more about war or leadership from Jason or me, then all of us are on the interwebs. Jason is on Instagram, jason.n.gardner. He's on Twitter, jasonngardner. He's on Facebook as well, Jason Gardner. And obviously Echo and I are both on those platforms. Twitter, Instagram, and at

• 2:49:54Jocko Willink?

  Echo is at Echo Charles and I am at Jocko Willink. And thanks to all the veterans out there like Jason, who did their time on the line. And thanks to everyone else out there right now in the fight. Thanks for protecting our way of life.

• 2:50:12Jocko Willink?

  You got any other closing thoughts?

• 2:50:15Jason Gardner?

  Nothing for the group.

• 2:50:17Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 2:50:19Jocko Willink?

  And also, thanks to police and law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, Border Patrol, Secret Service, and all the first responders. Thank you all for keeping us safe here at home. And remember that we all make mistakes.

• 2:50:43Jocko Willink?

  But the mistakes that you can't recover from are the ones that you don't own, the ones that you don't admit.

• 2:50:51Jocko Willink?

  So step up, admit your mistakes and own your mistakes and then no matter what, keep getting after it. And until next time, this is Jason Gardner and Echo and Jaco. Out.