190: How Tolerance Can Be Your Greatest Risk. USMC Tactics Pt.4 w/ Dave Berke

0:00:00 - Opening 0:18:03 - MCDP 1-3. Final Chapters. 2:12:52 - Final Thoughts and Take-aways. 2:13:55 - How to stay on THE PATH. 2:42:06 - 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 190 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. And joining us once again is Dave Berke. Good evening, Dave.

• 0:13Dave Berke?

  Good evening.

• 0:14Jocko Willink?

  The last three podcasts Dave has been on 187, 188, and 189, and we have been talking about the first six chapters of the Marine Corps publication called the One Tac Three Tactics.

• 0:31Jocko Willink?

  And if you haven't listened to those three podcasts, go start with those. You'll hear about Dave Berke. And if you have listened to them, then we're going to continue on today. The last, the last podcast of this series, hopefully we can make it through the last two chapters, chapter seven and eight. Marine Corps First Lieutenant at the Basic School. Time now.

• 1:02Jocko Willink?

  Are they listening and getting anything out of this particular series of podcasts?

• 1:14Dave Berke?

  Based on the number of messages I get from lieutenants at TBS just talking about this podcast, they are listening in a way that and and and learning things that I never learned when I was at TBS. The impact of this on the Marine Corps is huge because the fact that I listened to this stuff and looking at this manual totally differently than I did 25 years ago.

• 1:37Jocko Willink?

  There's um, there's just a different way to observe things through a different lens than your own. And and when you're young, hey, man, and listen, any of those, any First Lieutenant at TBS right now, I will trade places with you immediately. If I can do that, I will, I will trade places with you right now. I will, I would give anything to be in that position, but.

• 2:05Jocko Willink?

  So it's so, so I'm not trying to disparage your situation in life. What I'm saying is when you're seeing this for the first time and you're 21 years old, you just don't have the, the breadth of experience to go, oh, I can, I can relate to that. And for me, that's what learning is. And I've complained about this before in schools, in all schools. Every subject that you learn in school should be tied with a thread to every other subject that you learn in school. Because it is, because everything that you learn about is tied to everything else. That's, that's the way it is. The science, the art, the literature, they're all interwoven through history, through mankind. And so what happens is if you can tie those threads together,

• 2:50Jocko Willink?

  then you get a better understanding of what is actually what you're being taught. So what I like and what, why I appreciate the fact that the young military personnel, whether in the Marine Corps or whatever service they're in, they can take what your experience is, is Dave, what my experience, and we can weave some other aspects of this information in so that, so that people, including me, get a better understanding of, of this knowledge. Cause the knowledge is there. I mean, the knowledge is there, the framework is there. And I'll, and I'll get to a point where I, I, I,

• 3:30Jocko Willink?

  I make a critique of this manual. And the critique of this manual that I make is it's, there's a level of simplicity, one that, that they could, they could make things a little bit clearer and a little bit more simple a couple of times. There's some times where I think it could be a little bit simpler and a little bit, a little bit, a little bit simplified, a little bit more straightforward. To be honest with you, that's what I think cover and move, simple prioritized and execute and decentralized command. That is like the, the base level of, hey, man, this is what you need. And then this all just builds so, so perfectly upon that. And, and of course there's, that's like one situation. There's the other 80,

• 4:11Jocko Willink?

  the other 98% of this is where I look at it and go, yeah, they wrote this way better than I ever could have. Than Dave, than you ever, like, we just don't have, and that's, that's why I, even though I said the last podcast, like, I know there was, there had to be one guy that was like overseeing this. But the group of people that put this thing together, they were good at what they did. And, and they did a great job doing this. So I'm glad to be able to talk about it. I'm glad to be able to learn from it. And it's amazing because I don't remember when I read this for the first time. I, I don't know. I know that, and I was telling you this earlier, Dave. When I came back and wrote down the laws of combat for the first time, those were,

• 4:57Jocko Willink?

  look, I absolutely, I know I plagiarized them from various places. But they were,

• 5:06Jocko Willink?

  but I didn't, I didn't say, oh, this, this comes from here. Cover and move, I know where I learned that from for the first time. I learned it from Roger Hayden. It's actually the first time I learned. I was like, oh, okay. Well, that's the first time I put it together. I'd heard it before. That's the first time I said, oh, that's what that actually means. The simple thing, kind of the same thing. You know, some of those old Vietnam guys, you gotta keep things simple, you know? Prioritize and execute. That's, I had to put a word to, I had to put words to that. Cause I didn't have, I'd never, before I wrote that down, I had never told anyone to do those things. I'd said it in a million different ways. I'd said it in a million different ways, but I'd never said, okay, this is prioritize and execute. That's what you need to do. Decentralized command, obviously people have been saying that for a really long time.

• 5:51Jocko Willink?

  But for me, the first time I wrote them down was when we got back from Ramadi. And I didn't, like I said, I knew that I kind of plagiarized them. But at the same time, I couldn't point to the sources, right? I couldn't say, oh yeah, I took this from here. I took that from here. I couldn't. It was a bunch of information that was in my head that had been fermenting for a long period of time. And then when I realized I had to teach this stuff, I, I needed to write it down in a, in a distilled manner. So, so then, and I was, this, this is the, getting to the part that I was telling you. I was telling you that once I wrote these four laws, I was kind of like a little bit paranoid. Cause here I am.

• 6:35Jocko Willink?

  You know, getting up on a pedestal and saying, hey, here's the laws of combat, which is a really arrogant like statement to make, right? To say, oh, I've written the laws of combat like, no, like, that's not what I'm saying. And I, and I questioned, as I started putting them out to guys, I started questioning, okay, how universally, are these the right way? Is this the right way to go? Is this the right thing to think about? Have I captured these correctly? And one of the ones that I was most concerned about, oddly enough, because it's the most obvious one, was simple, was keeping things simple. And, and part of that reason was because, man, the planning had gotten so completely

• 7:17Jocko Willink?

  crazy and out of control in the SEAL teams and in the whole US military. The 96 hour planning cycle, it had just gone completely buck wild crazy. And I, as a being raised that way in the SEAL teams, I had, I, I was a little nervous about saying to myself, look, hey, I've been told about all this detailed planning for the last 15 years, 16 years, 17 years of my life. And now I'm saying, no, what you gotta do is keep it simple. And so I started reading through some of these manuals that I had skimmed through, that I had looked through, that I had, that I had looked down on. If you showed me this manual, if I read this manual when I was in E5 in the teams, I'd

• 8:02Jocko Willink?

  have been like, oh, whatever, man, I'm in the teams. You know, that's, I'm just being straight up. That's what my attitude would have been. As I started, so, so then when I referred back to them and I started going, okay, let me confirm some of what I'm saying. And when I started, so the first one that I really looked at was simple because I felt like, oh, I'm telling guys to be simple, but is that really the right answer? And I found that keeping things simple is a military maxim of war that has been around since the beginning of war. Since the beginning of war, they've been saying, hey, dumb ass, you gotta keep things simple. And then from there, I continued to read these different perspectives, these different

• 8:45Jocko Willink?

  manuals, these different historical documents, and just the same things just get repeated over and over and over and over again. And that's, that's why when you hear it from a different angle, a different perspective, and especially one that's this clearly written.

• 9:03Jocko Willink?

  It's like, yes, this makes absolute sense. So when I say there's a little critique I want to make, trust me, I am not making a critique of like, hey, listen to me, I know. No. Alls I'm saying is like, I guess what I'm saying is this is where I think it fits together. This is where I think, you know, being able to explain something to people from a different, just a slightly different angle, it's beneficial. And there's be plenty of people that will go, well, you know, Jaco's point's okay, but the Marine Corps tactic thing, the Marine Corps manual explains it better. And, and there's some people that will say, oh, you know, the Marine Corps tactics thing makes sense, but I actually received it better when I heard Dave say this, or I heard Jaco say that.

• 9:47Jocko Willink?

  Like that's, so, so when you take these things and you parse them and you look at them, and you look at them from your viewpoint, from my viewpoint, all it does, all it does is gives people a better understanding. And what that understanding does is it gives you the ability to recognize these patterns in more, in different places.

• 10:09Dave Berke?

  If you've got the humility to recognize that, that, that point of view exists in a whole bunch of different places, I read Extreme Ownership at the end of my career, at the tail end of my career. And what I learned from that at the time was significant, but more importantly, I've gone back and reread that and seen different things in it. And I think the key, more than anything is, it actually doesn't matter which of those ones speak to you the right way. It's the recognition that, and it goes back to when you know the way broadly, you see it in all things. It, the ability to, to see something and read something and have that teach you something, that you, no matter how long you've been doing it, whether you're a second lieutenant at the basic

• 10:54Dave Berke?

  school, or a colonel in the Marine Corps, that you will find these lessons and these different perspectives in a whole bunch of different places. And what's required is the humility to, to recognize that you're going to learn things from a different perspective. And if you keep an open mind on when you're reading this stuff, you'll go back. If you're a lieutenant at TBS, you're going to read this one, three, and five years and it's going to say totally different things to you. If you go in with that mindset of you were going to take something away from it different than the first time.

• 11:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And the, you know, we talked about on the last podcast, getting reps in, right? Getting reps in, you know, in whether it's training, whether it's you in an airplane, maneuvering around the sky against an enemy with a wingman, whatever, you get reps in. And you get reps in doing immediate action drills out in the desert or in an urban environment. You get reps in and then as a leader, you get the reps in of, oh, here's something I don't recognize. How can I put my recognition over what I'm looking at and how can I make a good decision? You get reps in and the more reps you get in, the better you get. As you go through tactics and you start to think about it and you start to pick them apart and you start to hear them from different angles.

• 12:01Jocko Willink?

  It's a rep and every rep you get makes you a little, little tiny bit better. So when I hear the Marine Corps Tactics Manual, talking about cooperation. And I've been talking about cover and move consistently for, for a long time. Let me think for 12 years, 13 years, I've been talking about cover and move. And yet they come in, they call it cooperation. It's the same thing, but guess what? I know it better now. I have just a little bit more, I, I understand it a little. I have, I now understand cover and move as cooperation. And that's actually the way I describe it is I say cover and move is teamwork. They say cooperation is teamwork. Guess what?

• 12:46Jocko Willink?

  Same thing, little bit different angle. I now have a better understanding of it. And that means I'm going to be able to recognize it in different places. It where I might not have, I might've seen it in 94 places out of 100. Now, now maybe I'll see it in 96. Maybe I'll see it in 95, but I'll see it better. I'll see it more clearly. So. No matter where you are in your, on, on the path, no matter where you are on the path, you're gonna, you're gonna see more. And this is something Leif and I have talked about. We, like the first muster, or no, we did an event with someone and then they came to the muster.

• 13:26Jocko Willink?

  And they said, oh, I really liked the way you changed the, the, the laws of combat. And Leif's like, we didn't change, we haven't changed anything. As a matter of fact, the, the slides that you saw are the same slides that you saw when you came to, when we came to your company two and a half years ago or whatever. But to your point, what happened to that individual is his perspective changed. We didn't change, but your, but that individual's perspective changes. And that's what, you know, I always talk about the, the fact that Mike Sorelli, when Mike Sorelli took over the junior officer course from Leif, and I was going in there with each class and going through the laws of combat brief. And on the ninth time I taught it, when Mike Sorelli was running

• 14:10Jocko Willink?

  it, and I, and he pulls up a chair in the back and sits down with his notebook, and I'm like, bro, are you gonna sit through this again? And he's like, well, yeah. And I said, but why? And he goes, because I, I learned something new every time. And, you know, you talk about this a lot. You talk about the fact that clients need repetition.

• 14:31Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 14:32Jocko Willink?

  And how often, how often do you teach somebody about

• 14:38Jocko Willink?

  cover move or simple? And, and they go, oh, cool, got it.

• 14:43Jocko Willink?

  It just doesn't happen.

• 14:45Dave Berke?

  No, it doesn't. And it doesn't happen for any of us. And even if you do get it, something sinks in, it only sinks in a little bit. And then you've got enough, and this is, it's not just so you see it, you can actually teach it different. It's another way to explain the exact same thing. Knowing that the people working with you, some will understand it when they see it this way, some will understand it when they see it that, that way. And the more different ways you can explain it, the quicker they learn to see it in all the other places that actually will help it really sink in. I don't care who you are, me included, none of it sinks in the first time. And even when it does sink in, it's not the whole thing.

• 15:25Jocko Willink?

  And to take this one step further, so Jimmy Page, my favorite, I guess my favorite example of this is Jimmy Page, the guitarist from Led Zeppelin, arguably the, the greatest rock and roll guitarist of all time, who was incredibly beyond comprehension creative with that instrument, the guitar, the git box. He was so creative, but he was a studio musician for many, many years. And he was one of the best studio musicians in London, which is no, no small feat, because London is a music town. So he had this, and when you're a studio

• 16:09Jocko Willink?

  musician, you play the notes that they tell you to play, then you play them how you, how they're written on the page. It is 100% disciplined, follow orders, you do what you're told. And then guess what? Once you have that, those standard operating procedures down, then you can take them and you, you can get creative and you see the patterns where you, no one else sees them. So the same thing, the same exact thing happens with the laws of combat. The better you know them, the better you can take and you can get creative, you can creatively apply them to problems and, and, and they overlay properly on those problems because

• 16:48Jocko Willink?

  you understand how to use them better. So, I mean, I find that all the time, clients we've been working for a long time, or clients that have, you know, people that read the, read the book 10 times, read, read dichotomy leadership 14 times, they've listened to every single podcast and they'll be presented with a problem at their job. And, and the first thing they do is blame someone. The first thing they do is, is make a really complex solution. It's like, it's hard to do. Now, the, and, and different people learn at different rates. Yeah. Because we've got clients, I've got clients that could easily teach, teach, teach classes for Echelon Front because they're so good and their business is doing great because

• 17:31Jocko Willink?

  they've come so far and they've absorbed so well. And I will tell you right now, the common trait that every single one of those, those high level.

• 17:43Jocko Willink?

  Applieders of the laws of combat to their business, every single one of them is like the most humble, incredibly humble human that is like, oh yeah, oh, well, you know, I went to this school and I've been doing this for this long. Yeah. And it doesn't matter because I know I'm not a good leader and I'm going to get better at it. So that's a way to kick it off. Now, going, going to the book. One Tac Three Tactics. We're on Chapter Seven. Chapter Seven is called Exploiting Success and Finishing. Here's some quotes it starts off with, "Do not delay in the attack. When the foe has

• 18:26Jocko Willink?

  been split off and cut down, pursue him immediately and give him no time to assemble or form up. Spare nothing. Without regard for difficulties, pursue the enemy day and night until he has been annihilated." That's Field Marshal Prince Alexander V. Suvarov, who is a Russian general who fought against the Ottoman Empire, who fought in the, against the Polish uprising, who fought in the Italian campaign, the Italian campaign, which was actually not a, not a war against the Italians. It was a war against the French. It was a war against Napoleon's army. He

• 19:08Jocko Willink?

  never actually came face to face with Napoleon, but he fought him and did very, very well. And that's where this next little quote comes from. It says, "Pursue the last man to the Adda and throw the remains into the river." Same, same guy, Field Marshal Suvarov. And that's what he's talking about. They fight in the French in Italy and what you do, you pursue them to the Adda River. And then you, once you've killed them, you huck their remains into the river. That's the level of finishing that we're talking about. And then the last quote that they kicked us off is, "When we have incurred the risk of a battle,

• 19:52Jocko Willink?

  we should know how to profit by the victory and not merely content ourselves according to custom with possession of the field." Hey, just getting the field isn't good enough. That's not good enough. Don't, don't, don't accept that. And that's Maurice de Saxe, who we've covered on this podcast, podcast number 110, Reveries on the Art of War.

• 20:16Jocko Willink?

  De Saxe was a German soldier. He was a, he was a leader in the Army of the Holy Roman Empire. And he ended up being one of the lead generals of France. So,

• 20:29Jocko Willink?

  knows what he's talking about. And what he's talking about is just because you won the field, not good enough. Keep going.

• 20:38Jocko Willink?

  And here's how the Marine Corps puts it. "It is not enough merely to gain advantage. The enemy will not surrender simply because he is placed at a disadvantage. The successful leader exploits any advantage aggressively and ruthlessly, not once, but repeatedly until the opportunity arises for a finishing stroke."

• 21:00Jocko Willink?

  Can we just stop the podcast there? "The successful leader exploits any advantage aggressively and ruthlessly, not once, but repeatedly until the opportunity arises for a finishing stroke."

• 21:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 21:18Jocko Willink?

  "We must always be on the lookout for such opportunities, whether we create them in, whether we create them ourselves or they arise in the flow of action. And when we perceive an opportunity to be decisive, we must seize it."

• 21:32Jocko Willink?

  "The application of Marine Corps tactics does not mean that we expect to win effortlessly or bloodlessly, or that we expect the enemy to collapse just because we outmaneuver him. It means we look for and make the most of every advantage and apply the decisive stroke when the opportunity presents itself."

• 21:51Jocko Willink?

  Building on the advantage. Once we have gained the advantage, we exploit it. We use it to create new opportunities. We then exploit those opportunities to create others, shaping the flow of action to our advantage. This is so much jujitsu. It's ridiculous. I mean, it's so much everything, but the direct correlation to jujitsu is just crazy. Even small favoring circumstances exploited repeatedly and aggressively can quickly multiply into decisive advantages. This is when you're rolling with Dean Lister and you give him part of one quarter of an inch of arm position and he gets it.

• 22:33Jocko Willink?

  And you think, well, you know, no big deal. It's just a quarter of an inch in arm position. And then he exploits that small circumstance repeatedly and aggressively until he's got your arm. He's ripping it off your body. That's what I'm talking about.

• 22:49Jocko Willink?

  Well, back to the book. Like the chess grandmaster, we must think ahead to our next move and one beyond it.

• 22:58Jocko Willink?

  How am I going to use this advantage to create another one? For example, an attack by penetration, once we have created one advantage by punching through the enemy's position and getting to his rear, we create another by pouring forces through the gap, generating the expanding torrent that Liddell Hart wrote about.

• 23:19Jocko Willink?

  You keep going. Relentless attack.

• 23:23Dave Berke?

  Yeah. And those, those windows, those opportunities, not only are they fleeting, like those are going to be second sometimes that, that, that opportunity is actually there before he figures out a way to, to prevent that from happening. All the other resources that you need to bring to bear for that have to be ready to go. So these things that they're describing, as simple as they're describing, look for an oppor- those windows are really, really small. And when you see them, you might get one in an entire fight. You might get one, maybe two. You have to have all those other things that you need to win, ready to go and fill that unrelenting until the end.

• 24:02Dave Berke?

  They are making, I mean, they're describing it a very simple way, but man, that is to see that and exploit that to the finish.

• 24:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and I'm not, to me, sometimes the, the, um, people will talk about like how the importance of mindset, right? This is one of those things, what you just said is like, you have to have the mindset. Pre, prior to the opening happening, you have to be thinking, as soon as I see this, I am going. And if you don't have that, the split second that it takes you to look at it and go, wait, I think that's an opening, I think I should go, the, the open's gone. So having that proactive and pre-existing mentality of when I see this, I'm going, you

• 24:54Jocko Willink?

  know, you see kids wrestling and shooting takedowns, like, that's what they're doing. They are so pre-planned to, once they do that setup and that, that counter starts to take place and they see that boom, they're in there, there's no thought process going, and if you think about it for one millisecond, that opportunity's gone.

• 25:17Jocko Willink?

  Rommel recounts how exploiting each advantage in the battle for Cook

• 25:26Jocko Willink?

  in the Carpathian Mountains during World War I led to another opportunity. As his detachment exploited each situation and moved further behind enemy lines, it generated more surprise and advantage. During this actions, during this action, Rommel's detachment captured thousands of enemy soldiers with very little fighting, due largely to his unwillingness to lose momentum. One success led directly to another opportunity which he seized immediately, and that's from, that's from Rommel's book, Attacks, Infantry Attacks, which is a great book. We haven't covered it on here yet. It's super tactical. It is super tactical. It is like talking about where to maneuver squads. It's that tactical. What's good about it, and when I covered on the podcast,

• 26:12Jocko Willink?

  Every section in that book has a little italicized last three, four paragraphs that explain what just happened. Like, hey, here's, it's, it's not quite like a full lessons learned. It's not quite, hey, here's the let takeaway from this, but it, but some of them are pretty close. So when I cover attacks, infantry attacks on here, probably do that, but that's what we're talking about. I'm not going to slow down. I'm not going to stop.

• 26:44Dave Berke?

  The people, when we work with companies and they have these really good business leaders that we're working with, CEOs, or guys that are just in the game, that's how they are, that's how they are everywhere in their life. Everything in their life is like they are always looking everywhere in life for those little fleeting opportunities and they are so, they are so triggered and ready to attack those positions when they reveal themselves. It's, and you talk about the mindset, it, when you see it done, it permeates all aspects of people's lives and they look for those windows everywhere. And it's something you actually have to, you don't want to look back on your life and think of all the times that you missed to attack whatever

• 27:27Dave Berke?

  opportunity was there. And think about how often that happens. But just think about the guys that we work with, the ones that are really good. It's not just at work and they're like some different person. It's like that all the time.

• 27:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And obviously, what can we screw up here? We can attack every open that we see.

• 27:44Dave Berke?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 27:45Jocko Willink?

  That we see. That's the dichotomy. So the, the more experienced you are as a leader, the better you can, the better you can see the pattern recognition, then you recognize what opportunities are good and what are, if somebody asked me this the other day, like, you, what opportunity, how do you sort through all these opportunities, you know? And for me, I definitely, I mean, I get a lot of opportunities and which ones am I going to invest time into? What's the, and here's, here's what the answer is. The answer to that question is, okay, how much investment is it going to take from me time wise? Cause I don't have enough time to do everything that I want to do. It makes me mad, but I, I don't. And so, and then what's the return on investment going to be? How is it interact and support every other thing that

• 28:29Jocko Willink?

  I've got going on? Because I'm not going to go and start some venture that's outside, that doesn't positively support everything else that I'm doing.

• 28:40Dave Berke?

  The pieces that fit in everything else and make everything else better. Those are the ones that you have to attack on. The ones that fit in everywhere else in your life.

• 28:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 28:50Jocko Willink?

  After the battle for Tarawa in November 1943, Major Henry Crow, commanding officer of 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines, was asked why he thought the Japanese had been defeated so quickly once the Marines were established ashore. He remarked that it was due to the constant pressure of naval gunfire, bombs, and mortars. The Marines used their advantage in supporting arms to create opportunities for success. Pressure. Putting that pressure on. When you put the pressure on, that's what creates the opportunities. That's what you feel at when I'm in jujitsu all day long. Andy was working me over on the mat yesterday. Constant pressure, constant attack.

• 29:32Jocko Willink?

  It was me just trying to fill in the gaps as they were opening up. And how long can you fill in the gaps for? You can't do it indefinitely. Because when you're filling in one gap, guess what's happening? Another gap is opening up. And so you gotta be careful of that. That's going back to what we just talked about. Like if you try and fill gaps that don't, that aren't good opportunities, you're leaving other areas exposed and that's going to be a negative.

• 30:00Jocko Willink?

  Next section is called consolidation, exploitation, and pursuit.

• 30:06Jocko Willink?

  Once we have created leverage, how do we take full advantage of it? A decisive result or victory rarely stems from the initial action, no matter how successful. More often, victories are the result of aggressively exploiting some relative advantage until one becomes decisive and the action turns into a rout.

• 30:26Jocko Willink?

  Victories are the result of aggressively exploiting some relative advantage until one becomes decisive. Casualty rates historically tend to remain constant and often fairly even until one side or the other tries to flee. Only then do significantly asymmetrical casualty rates commonly occur. This exploitation of the enemy's bad situation can yield surprisingly great results.

• 30:56Jocko Willink?

  We can take several specific types of actions to exploit opportunities we have created or discovered. The first way we can exploit success is by consolidation. As we consolidate our forces after seizing a position we intend to hold against the enemy. Here, our aims are limited to protecting what we have already gained. We must realize that by consolidating, rather than continuing to force the issue, we may be surrendering the initiative. That's talking about holding position. There are, there may be any number of reasons for choosing this course. Perhaps we lack the strength to continue to advance. Our new gain may be, may be of critical importance and the risk of losing it outweighs the advantages of any further gains. Perhaps the new gain

• 31:41Jocko Willink?

  itself grants a significant advantage. For instance, a position that provides excellent fires or threatens the enemy lines of communications may put the enemy in an untenable position. Perhaps the new gain compels the enemy to meet us on our terms. For example, we seize a critical piece of terrain with a strong, with strong defensive qualities, forcing the enemy to attack on unfavorable terms. So there are times where you hold position. There are times when you strong boy, you, you consolidate your forces, you get everyone together, you, you, you dig in. There are absolutely times to do that.

• 32:18Dave Berke?

  And they say it too, and if you do that too long, that can stifle the, the initiative. And, and I need, I think about this sometimes is that, and I, I need to be more careful sometimes. And I think about this even with clients that I work with. Every time I say something, I know that there's a dichotomy to what I'm saying, that there is no absolute, and I sometimes forget to say, and if you push too aggressively, you can get too spread out. Every, everything that's being said here and all the conversations we're having.

• 32:49Dave Berke?

  By definition, there is a dichotomy in all that. You can go too far in any of these directions. So as you read this and listen to these things, and even the things that I say, we don't always talk about what the dichotomy is, but that's a perfect example of, hey, we can consolidate. That might be the right thing to do. But if we do that too much, we lose the advantage we have of how fast or what our tempo is. And if we're too aggressive and get too spread out, too thinned out down the line, then that could be a problem, too. There is a dichotomy in every action that we can take as a leader. And I know that in my head, and I don't always articulate and say that, but that's the way we should think in all the movements, no matter how aggressive we're going to be, to remember, you can overdo all of this stuff.

• 33:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Well, that's one of the reasons we wrote the dichotomy of leadership is because, and when I first started talking about the dichotomy of leadership, I would say, it was because a lot of questions we got were about the dichotomy of leadership. But the real reason we wrote it is because the answers are about the dichotomy of leadership.

• 33:48Dave Berke?

  Yes.

• 33:49Jocko Willink?

  And every, and it's, it's a, and I talked about this already on this series of podcasts, that, that the reason, one of the things that brought the dichotomy of leadership to my brain was the fact that, what was, was, I had to admit that I was wrong. I had to say, you know what? Being aggressive, be aggressive, be aggressive, be aggressive. And, and then I realized, that can be wrong. Oh, you can be too aggressive. Yes, you can. Oh, you can strong point a building too long. And that was something we'd see all the time in training, was we'd, we'd be attacking guys in an urban environment. They would do the right thing and strong point a building. And if they got bogged down in that building,

• 34:33Jocko Willink?

  then they would get surrounded and they'd get picked off and they'd get slaughtered. If they strong pointed that building, they made a quick, rapid plan on how they were going to break out of there, they would do fine. So they had to find that, they had to find that balance.

• 34:55Jocko Willink?

  The second way to pursue an advantage is through exploitation. An offensive tactic that is designed to disorganize enemy in depth. Exploitation usually follows a successful attack that has created or exposed some enemy vulnerability. For example, an attack that has torn a gap in enemy defenses allows us to attack vital enemy areas. The object of exploitation is not to destroy the combat forces directly opposing us, even though they may be weakened. Instead, the object is to disrupt the entire enemy system by attacking important activities and functions.

• 35:35Jocko Willink?

  It's real easy to get distracted into the little tactical battle that you could win, as opposed to looking at what's going on strategically and how you can attack, how you can disrupt the entire enemy system.

• 35:49Dave Berke?

  In Desert Storm, there was, I'm sure most people have heard of there's something called the Highway of Death. And there was this string of enemy armored vehicles that went for miles and miles and miles up into Iraq, out of Kuwait. And that started, and I don't know 100% of the story, but it started with this formation of fighter attack aircraft that, under most circumstances, you would hit that lead element. That's the tactical smart thing to do. It preserves the most amount of fuel. It's the best for your weapons. And they actually bypassed that lead formation and went all the way to the tail end of the formation. So rather than just disrupt that, where the point of attack was at that lead element, where our forces had met their forces, and they actually bypassed that

• 36:32Dave Berke?

  and went all the way to the tail end of that enemy formation, and devastated that tail end and blocked the road. And that allowed, for the next 30 hours, wave and wave and wave of aircraft to then pick off every other vehicle that had no place to maneuver. By bypassing what seemed to be the most obvious answer, which is that first line, which they recognized, this is our opportunity to shut this whole system down. And that was the genesis of that, is recognizing this is the area we need to exploit. And we're actually going to take it. We're going to skip the tactical answer here and go all the way to the end of this formation and that created a route that the enemy couldn't recover from because they had nowhere to go because those guys saw the opportunity to do that at the very beginning

• 37:14Dave Berke?

  of that campaign whereas mostly I'd think you go to hit first element, come back, do it again and that gives them all that time to recalibrate and do something different.

• 37:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and especially and I don't I don't know too much about that scenario from the air perspective, but from the ground perspective, you would think, well, the lead element is the one that you're most worried about. They're the ones that are closest to friendly forces. We need to go and eliminate them first and we'll go from there. So to bypass that is a pretty bold decision to make.

• 37:46Jocko Willink?

  Continuing on, for example, during Operation Desert Storm in 1991, the Army's Tiger Brigade was deployed by the 2nd Marine Division as an exploitation force during the division's final attack. The brigade had the advantage over the Iraqis in speed, firepower, and night combat capabilities. With these advantages, the Tiger Brigade sliced deep into the rear of the Iraqi 3 Corps and sealed off the vital highway intersections north of Al-Jara. The result was total disruption in the Iraqi organized defense. The third way to exploit advantage is through pursuit. A pursuit is an offensive tactic

• 38:28Jocko Willink?

  designed to cut off or catch a hostile force that has lost cohesion and is attempting to escape in order to destroy it. If the intent is to bring about the final destruction or capture of the enemy forces, then pursuit should be pushed with utmost vigor. It is here that operations turn into routes and overwhelming victories often occur.

• 38:53Jocko Willink?

  General Grant's pursuit of General Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia from Petersburg to Appomattox in

• 39:05Jocko Willink?

  April nineteen eighteen sixty-five is a classic example of pursuit. Here, Grant pushed his forces to their limits in order to prevent Lee's escape. This ultimately led to the capture and surrender of Lee's forces.

• 39:20Jocko Willink?

  The Confederate Army's Lieutenant General Thomas J. Stonewall Jackson summed up pursuit when he said, "Strike the enemy and overcome him. Never give up the pursuit as long as your men have the strength to follow. For an enemy routed, if hotly pursued, becomes panic-stricken and can be destroyed by half their number."

• 39:44Jocko Willink?

  So you, once you got him on the run, run him down.

• 39:50Jocko Willink?

  Run him down.

• 39:53Jocko Willink?

  Finishing the enemy. Ultimately, we want to cultivate opportunities into a decisive advantage. Once we do, we make the most of it. Marine Corps tactics call for leaders who are strong finishers.

• 40:08Jocko Willink?

  We must have a strong desire to go for the jugular.

• 40:14Jocko Willink?

  I'm so thankful they put that in there. Cause that's, that's, you know, usually that's sort of like a, like a ruffian comment to make, right? It's usually said in a negative way.

• 40:26Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 40:27Jocko Willink?

  Like, dude, I can't believe you went for the jugular like that.

• 40:29Dave Berke?

  The disproportionate response.

• 40:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. No.

• 40:32Dave Berke?

  No.

• 40:32Jocko Willink?

  We're talking that's the right response.

• 40:34Dave Berke?

  That's what we're gonna do.

• 40:34Jocko Willink?

  Go for the jugular. We must be constantly trying to find and create the opportunity to deliver the decisive blow. At the same time, we must not be premature in our actions. Oh, they should call this the dichotomy of leadership. We must not make the decisive move before the conditions are right.

• 40:55Dave Berke?

  Yeah. When you guys talk about the idea of being aggressive, though, you described as you use the phrase default aggressive. It doesn't say be aggressive one hundred percent of the time. There are times not to do that.

• 41:07Jocko Willink?

  Absolutely.

• 41:08Dave Berke?

  But really what this is talking about is the type of mindset you want to cultivate is that, that's gonna be my default unless I have to, I want to pull the reins back on my guys at the times and say, no, no, no, this is not the time to do it. I don't want to be in a position to say, hey, look, change your default and get aggressive now and start pushing them into that breach. So. That is actually right. That's the default. And then there are times that you go, not now. Because there's other things at play here that maybe you don't see and I might see from up here. That they're pulling you into that. We don't want to go in that direction. But the default, actually, I want every one of my guys to be aggressive and I'll pull them back as opposed to, "Well, I thought the best thing to do was hold off until you told me to go."

• 41:48Dave Berke?

  That's the default that will get you killed is not being aggressive. So it doesn't say be aggressive 100% of the time. But your default needs to be in that position.

• 41:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And what's, what's, the reason that's necessary is because the moment, the split second that it takes to tell someone, "Okay, now we're going to turn on our aggressiveness."

• 42:09Dave Berke?

  Window's gone.

• 42:09Jocko Willink?

  The window's gone. And counter to that, the moment that it takes to tell someone, "Hey, actually, we're not going to do that." They go, "Oh, okay, cool." It's not that big of a deal. They didn't miss an opportunity. They, they, they started their exploitation and then they said, "Oh, we're going to pull back. Fine."

• 42:24Dave Berke?

  No factor.

• 42:25Jocko Willink?

  No factor. One works, the other does not work.

• 42:30Dave Berke?

  Period.

• 42:32Jocko Willink?

  This ability to finish the enemy once and for all derives from, first, from possessing an aggressive mentality.

• 42:41Jocko Willink?

  Second, it stems from an understanding of the commander's intent. Third, it stems from a keen situational awareness that helps recognize opportunities when they present themselves and understand when the conditions are right for action. So again, it's not 100% of the time. It's when the conditions are right for action. So those, those are the three things. First, aggressive mentality. Second, understanding the commander's intent. Third, situational awareness. So you understand if the actions are right.

• 43:13Jocko Willink?

  Next section, use of the reserve in combat. The reserve is an important tool for exploiting success. The reserve is part of the commander's combat power initially withheld from action in order to influence future action. The reason to create and maintain a reserve is to provide flexibility to deal with the uncertainty, chance, and disorder of war. The reserve is thus a valuable tool for maintaining adaptability. In general, the more uncertain the situation, the larger... Should be in reserve. Napoleon once said that war is composed of nothing but accidents. And a general should never lose sight of any, everything. To enable him to profit from those accidents.

• 43:57Jocko Willink?

  These accidents take the form of opportunities and crises. And crises. The reserve is a key tactical tool for dealing with both.

• 44:11Jocko Willink?

  The commander should have a purpose in mind for reserve employment and design it to fulfill that purpose. To truly exploit success may warrant assignment of the commander's best subordinate unit. Or a preponderance of combat power or mobility assets to the reserve. So sometimes your, your reserve should be your strongest and most powerful element. Whether it's the best or whether it's the, the one with the most combat power. Those commanders who properly organize, task and equip their reserves. Are usually the ones with the capability to finish the enemy when the opportunity arises. Winston Churchill recognized the value of a reserve when he wrote. It is in the use. And withholding of their reserves that great commanders have generally excelled. After all.

• 44:57Jocko Willink?

  When once the last reserve has been thrown in. Commanders, the commander's part is played. The event must be left to pluck. And to the fighting troops. And pluck is like an old term for courage. Basically, once you've put, committed your reserve, you're done. You've made your move. You've made your move. And now you gotta let it go. You gotta, you, you, you don't have much influence over it anymore. And always important to keep that, keep that reserve strong. Always important. Financial reserve, that's a big one to think about. And we, we, we deal with companies and they're weighing out the risk.

• 45:40Jocko Willink?

  Cause sometimes like we need to go all in right now. Yeah. And when you commit the reserve. That can be the decisive moment.

• 45:51Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, a strong reserve is also a way to retain the initiative. If an advance slows, the reserve can increase momentum. If an advance picks up speed, the commitment of the reserve then can can then create a route. We may use the reserve to expand or exploit gaps or penetrations. We may commit the reserve to attack in a different location, thus exploiting opportunities for success instead of reinforcing failure. Without a strong reserve, even the most promising opportunities can be lost.

• 46:24Jocko Willink?

  A classic example of the use of reserve is the battle for Tarawa. With the 2nd and 8th Marine Regiments held up on the assault beaches, General Julian Smith decided to land the 6th Marine Regiment, the Division Reserve, to break the stalemate. The 1st Battalion 6th Marines, which was tasked, organized as part of the Division Reserve, landed on the western end of the island, passed through the 3rd Battalion 2nd Marines, and from the flank, conducted a swift and violent assault of the Japanese fortifications across the island. Within 48 hours, the Japanese forces were annihilated and the island secured.

• 47:09Jocko Willink?

  When you're training the jiu-jitsu?

• 47:13Jocko Willink?

  What do you consider your reserve echo when you're training jiu-jitsu?

• 47:17Speaker 02

  What do you mean, energy reserve?

• 47:20Jocko Willink?

  See, that's what I think of.

• 47:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, so essentially athleticism is a reserve, right?

• 47:25Jocko Willink?

  Yes, that's one reserve. And one reserve you have is energy, right? How much energy do you have? And knowing when to commit that. Because let's face it, if you commit your energy really early on against a fruitless attack, you're going to run out of energy.

• 47:42Dave Berke?

  You're talking about a white belt right now. You're talking about me. That's what I know the most about is not, I wish I knew. It's that... Thirty seconds into it, I'm too tired, too exhausted. I've over exerted myself. When almost always my coach will, when we'll replay it, there was no reason to do it. There was no thing that I was triggering, like this is the time to, to, to apply my exertion. Yeah, I mean, that's what you're talking about, someone who doesn't know when to, when to do that. And when they don't know, they do it at all the wrong times.

• 48:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's, that's the way I feel. When I roll, I feel like I'm, I have a good reserve. I feel like I maintain my reserves and I don't commit them unless it's time.

• 48:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, huh. Yeah, if you can consciously be aware and yeah, the earlier on you are, the harder it is for you to control it more than anything where like, yeah, you're, you know, Jocko, your level is like you almost not even consciously can control that, you know, it's like, it's almost like you're, you're subconsciously triggered to like, okay, you know, like this is maybe this, this match or this, this training, whatever is heating up. So let me maintain the reserves right now, you know, kind of thing. You, you'll still use your technique.

• 48:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, for sure.

• 48:56Speaker 02

  But when the guy is bringing it, it's kind of like dang, you gotta fight his energy with your energy. You're like, okay, I'm not gonna do that. I might take a guard pass or something like that and save it till it, till it's ready.

• 49:06Jocko Willink?

  Till it counts.

• 49:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, man. It's true. And at the end of the day, that's really the, the reserve. It's the reserve. Even if you say athleticism or strength or muscling it is your last ditch effort. All that takes energy.

• 49:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 49:20Speaker 02

  And that's essentially what you're using.

• 49:21Jocko Willink?

  Even your good technique takes energy.

• 49:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And let's face it, if you had unlimited energy.

• 49:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:28Jocko Willink?

  Then you would just win.

• 49:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:30Jocko Willink?

  I mean, unless you're going against someone that's just technically vastly superior to you.

• 49:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. And when you're in a battle.

• 49:36Jocko Willink?

  In a battle, in a battle, you've got one reserve.

• 49:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:39Jocko Willink?

  And it is that, the energy. Sometimes we must employ the reserve to deal with some crisis, rendering it temporarily unavailable for commitment elsewhere. In such instances, a reserve should be reconstituted as rapidly as possible. So sometimes you gotta scramble.

• 49:56Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 49:57Jocko Willink?

  And move and use some energy and then as soon as you get to a good position, rest.

• 50:04Jocko Willink?

  We should look for the opportunity to employ the reserve to reinforce success. However, we may employ the reserve. However, we employ, we may employ the reserve. We should always think of it as the tool for clinching victory.

• 50:19Jocko Willink?

  That's also why you see a guy gets us, gets a submission, thinks, let me rephrase that. A guy thinks he gets a submission and expends all of his energy trying to clinch the victory. Expends all of his reserves. You see this in MMA a lot too. Spends all of his reserves, has nothing left. The person gets out of the, the possible submission and the game is now, the tide's turned. In this respect, Marshal Falk, who is a French general. He was actually the supreme allied commander in World War One.

• 50:58Jocko Willink?

  Leading troops to victory at the, at the Marne, which I don't know, man. I like, every time I read like the background of a general or of someone that's getting quoted, I'm always like, yeah, there you go. But when you were the, in charge of all allies in World War One, no offense.

• 51:21Jocko Willink?

  I'm not super, I'm not super stoked on what you have to say.

• 51:27Jocko Willink?

  Cause, cause, yeah. Anyways, he wrote that the reserve is a club. Prepared, organized, reserved, carefully maintained with a view to carrying out one act of battle from which a result is expected, the decisive attack. It is generally, and then that's the end of his quote, which I'm glad I said I wasn't too impressed with him because I wasn't impressed with that quote. Is that just my own bias? Do I hate World War One that much?

• 51:56Dave Berke?

  No, it's because all the other things we've talked about in the last four podcasts about requirements to be successful in combat were almost all missing.

• 52:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 52:05Dave Berke?

  The creativity, all those things that you talked about. The human way of advancement to steal 75 yards from the enemy only to give it up at sunset was none of those things. So I had the exact same response in my mind.

• 52:17Jocko Willink?

  Well, that quote's over. It is generally through offensive action, even in the defense, that we achieve decisive results. Since the reserve represents our bid to achieve a favorable decision or to prevent an unfavorable one, it often becomes the main effort once committed and should be supported by all other elements of force. Along with the tangible assets used as a reserve, the prudent commander must also be aware of and plan for the intangible factors that impact on combat power and its sustainment. Intangible factors include fatigue. That's number one. It doesn't say this is in order, but that's number one. And by the way, that's what we've been talking about fatigue. We've been talking about energy,

• 53:00Jocko Willink?

  but the opposite of energy is fatigue. So number one fatigue. Number two, leadership quality. No surprise. Number three, proficiency. Number four, morale. Number five, teamwork. Number six, equipment maintenance. We build reserves also by reserving aviation sortie rates or numbers, withholding unique or low-density munitions, or holding critical supplies such as fuel or petroleum, oils, and lubricants for a specific goal. We consider these intangible factors when creating and tasking the reserve as we do in all assignments of task.

• 53:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and this is, again, this is what businesses have to think about all the time because you do not know what the market is going to do. I don't care who you are. I don't care how long you've been doing this for. You don't know what the market's going to do. You can, you have good suspicions. That's great. You don't know. Big difference.

• 54:00Dave Berke?

  Yeah, it's actually telling you to be extremely disciplined. They use the term low-density. That just means something you don't have a lot of. You know, low-density, high-demand items in the military are these really unique capabilities, different types of aircraft and weapons, but you don't have a lot of them. So you have to be really disciplined with their use. So when the time is actually right to use them, they're available to you to use them. Incredible concept.

• 54:26Jocko Willink?

  These concepts apply not only to units initially designated as the reserve, but also to any unit, since any unit can be shifted or recommitted as the reserve. Thus, a commander must always be mentally prepared to redesignate roles of units and to create and use reserves as the situation requires. I know what, you know what's interesting is we see this,

• 54:47Jocko Willink?

  we see these, these businesses that end up eating other businesses. Is that the right word? Acquiring, I guess, but, but basically, when you get a business that maintains a solid reserve, when opportunity reveals itself, they're there to cash in

• 55:05Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 55:06Jocko Willink?

  and buy other companies and take them over. And then they come out of that, you know, if you don't maintain reserve, the opportunity is there, you can't exploit it.

• 55:17Jocko Willink?

  Same thing with your leadership capital, right? Same thing with you as a leader. If you sit there and you expend all your leadership reserve, all your leadership capital, you don't leave any reserve, you have no more, for lack of a better word, you have no more favors to ask. Does, as a leader, should you be asking favors? Yeah, you are asking for favors. That's what, every time you ask a subordinate to do something, you're asking for a favor. That's what you're asking, you're asking them to put their trust in you to do this thing that you want. That's a favor. And if you expend all your leadership capital, you have no more favors to ask when the time is needed

• 55:54Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 55:54Jocko Willink?

  and you've expended those reserves, you're not going to be followed anymore.

• 55:58Dave Berke?

  That's why relationships are so critical to all this. I mean, that's how you build up your, that's your leadership reserve. That's your capital, that's your reserve force is how strong those relationships are. So when the time is right, you can cash in on that. Not that you cash in on them and, and use them as some sort of expendable resources, that you actually leverage that relationship as that recognition that you need to build that now. You don't know when you're going to need it, but you're going to need it. And I say this. Answer the question all the time with companies about needing to real The crisis that you're dealing with now, that's not, you can't start there. And if you haven't built it up, the reality is, is there's really no answer I can give you. Cause if you don't have anything in reserves, there's very little you can do to leverage to try to solve this problem.

• 56:41Dave Berke?

  What you need to do is think about it well in advance. And the strength of those relationships from you contributing to them is how you have something left in reserve when you need it. People want to know what to do. I get this all the time. I'm flying against another aircraft. He's directly behind me at a thousand feet and he's about to shoot his gun at me. What do I do? Like, you know what? There's not, I know I'm a top gun instructor here, but I don't have a lot of good answers for you. You have nothing left available to utilize here to defend yourself against this situation. The answer is you gotta go back to the beginning, uh, which you can't do. And people want the solution then, and the solution is you, you gotta go back. You gotta build capital in other ways before you get to that position.

• 57:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's like the, how do you escape the rear naked choke? Yeah. Well, you know, is it possible? Sure. The other person can make a mistake. You could, you could do something, but the bottom line is you get, someone gets a legit rear naked choke on you, or someone gets you in the triangle. There's, there's a way to get out. It's called submitting.

• 57:44Jocko Willink?

  This is the conclusion of this chapter. Most decisive victories do not result from the initial action, but from quickly and aggressively exploiting the opportunities created by that action. We may find any number of ways to exploit tactical opportunity, but they all have the same object to increase leverage until we find, until we have the final opportunity to decide the issue once and for all in our favor. A goal in Marine Corps tactics is not merely to gain advantage, but to boldly and ruthlessly exploit that advantage to achieve final victory.

• 58:26Jocko Willink?

  And now we will get to the eighth and final chapter of Marine Corps Tactics. And it is called, you might think that these guys sitting around in a room writing doctrine would come up with more doctrinally doctrine sounding things, things that, things that they would come up with at, in the, in the halls of academia, right? You might think that. What do they call chapter eight? They call it making it happen.

• 59:02Jocko Willink?

  That passes muster. So making it happen, chapter eight. Here's the quote it starts off with, nine tenths of tactics are certain and taught in books. But the irrational tenth is like the kingfisher flashing across the pool. And that is the test of generals. It can only be insured by instinct, sharpened by thought, practicing the stroke so often that the, that at the crisis, it is as natural as a reflex. And that's by T E Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia. Nine tenths of tactics are certain.

• 59:45Jocko Willink?

  I love the irrational tenth. There's a tenth of tactics that are irrational. And this is where you become, this is why if you can't tap into that creativity, if you can't train that creativity in your brain, that's why you're not going to be successful. Well, I shouldn't say that. You're not going to be eminently successful. You'll be somewhat successful. You'll be reliable. And that's admirable. It's good to be reliable. But if you want to go next level, you need to be able to be a little bit irrational at times. You need to be able to handle the irrational.

• 1:00:19Jocko Willink?

  And the next quote is, "It cannot be too often repeated that in modern war, and especially in modern naval war, the chief factor in achieving triumph is what has been done in the way of thorough preparation and training before the beginning of the war." Which is, which is what you were talking about, Dave. Like, why are you in that position? And that's by, by the way, that's Teddy Roosevelt. Theodore Roosevelt, President Theodore Roosevelt, Rough Rider Theodore Roosevelt, Medal of Honor recipient Theodore Roosevelt. Who, by the way, his son,

• 1:01:05Jocko Willink?

  Teddy Roosevelt Jr., Medal of Honor recipient, D-Day. You know how old he was at D-Day? You know how old Teddy Young Jr. was on D-Day? When he was present on the beach in Normandy?

• 1:01:21Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 1:01:22Jocko Willink?

  Fifty-six years old.

• 1:01:25Jocko Willink?

  Fifty-six years old. Demanded that he be allowed to lead his men into that situation. And, and he was not, he was not like a strong, healthy, fifty-six years old. You want to know why he wasn't strong and healthy at the age of fifty-six? Because he was still having problems, health, major health problems, from the wounds that he suffered in World War I. So there you go. There's the quotes. These are quotes we listen to.

• 1:01:58Jocko Willink?

  And going to the book. "Reading and understanding the ideas in this publication are the initial steps on the road to tactical excellence." Reading and understanding. Boy, they throw those words out there real easy, don't they? Reading and understanding, as if it's like if you read, you understand. That is not true. Reading and understanding have almost nothing to do with each other.

• 1:02:24Jocko Willink?

  Reading and understanding. That should be capitalized and italicized and in a different font.

• 1:02:33Jocko Willink?

  Reading and understanding the ideas in this publication are the initial steps, that's just the initial steps, on the road to tactical excellence. The primary way a marine leader becomes an able tactician is through training and education, both of which are firmly rooted in doctrine. Doctrine establishes the philosophy and the practical framework for how we fight. Education develops the understanding, creativity, military judgment, and the background essential for effective battlefield leadership. There is a lot to learn.

• 1:03:14Jocko Willink?

  Training follows doctrine and develops the tactical and technical proficiency that underlies all successful military action. Individual and group exercises serve to integrate training and education, producing a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. The lessons learned from training and operational experience then modify doctrine. Doctrine, next section, doctrine. Doctrine establishes the fundamental beliefs of the Marine Corps on the subject of war and how we practice our profession. Doctrine establishes a particular way of thinking about war and our way of fighting, a philosophy for leading Marines in combat, a mandate for professionalism, and a common

• 1:03:57Jocko Willink?

  language. That is important. That's one of the things when we work with companies, the common language part. These companies know that they're making mistakes. They don't know how do I properly identify what their mistakes are, or what their issues are, until we come in and we start teaching them about cover and move, about simple, about prioritize and execute, about decentralized command, about default aggressive. They, they, they are, they know there's a problem, but they can't put their finger on it. And then, once they, once we come and they can put their finger on it, and then they can talk about it in a common language, that's like the initial foothold in victory, is

• 1:04:40Jocko Willink?

  actually being able to communicate with each other about what the damn problem is.

• 1:04:47Jocko Willink?

  Doctrinal development benefits from our collective experience and distills its lessons to further education and training. Our doctrine within the Marine Corps begins with the philosophy contained in Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication 1, which is called Warfighting, which we covered on this podcast early on. That was one of the earliest ones I covered, and that's the reason, because that one is a good, solid foundation, a good, solid philosophy for doctrine, for warfighting. This publication underlies, this philosophy underlies publications in the Marine Corps Warfighting Publication Series that contain tactics, techniques, and procedures for specific functions.

• 1:05:31Jocko Willink?

  The body of thought helps form Marine tacticians through its implementation in education and training. Now, they have this little diagram, and there's been some other diagrams, which I didn't really try to explain too much, because you can get the book. It's free. It's a PDF. But this one has, it has this loop. The loop has education, it has training, it has operational employment, and it has doctrine. And they all, so you, you get educated, you go train, you employ operationally, that operational employment becomes doctrine, the doctrine is what we teach on. So, so there's the doctrinal development cycle.

• 1:06:09Jocko Willink?

  And what I added into this little thing is that in between each of those steps, you adapt, you assess, and you adjust. So, that's what's happening. You educate, and as you educate, then you go train. Well, when you train, you're going to make adaptations, you're going to make assessments, you're going to make adjustments. Then, when you deploy and employ, you're going to do the same thing. You're going to assess where you're at, what worked, what didn't. You're going to make adaptations, then you're going to put that in the doctrine. With the doctrine, you're going to take that and educate people, and you're going to continually assess and adapt and adjust what you're, what you're teaching and what you're training on.

• 1:06:47Jocko Willink?

  Next section. Education, while combat provides the most instructive lessons on decision making. That's an understatement of the year. While combat provides the most instructive lessons on decision making. Tactical leaders cannot wait for war to begin their education. We must be competent in our profession before our skills are called upon. The lives of our Marines depend on it. Our education in tactics must develop three qualities within all tactical leaders. The first quality is creative ability. Tactical leaders must be encouraged to devise and pursue unique approaches to military problems.

• 1:07:30Jocko Willink?

  No rules govern ingenuity. See now, this is not what people expect. We did the, we did the chapter on discipline. And this seems to be completely counter to that. That's why there's a dichotomy here. But the number one quality to develop is creative ability. And there's no rules that govern ingenuity. The line separating boldness, boldness from foolhardiness is drawn by the hand of practical experience. That said, an education in tactics must possess an element of rigor. Too often tactical discussions lack an in-depth analysis of cause and effect.

• 1:08:15Jocko Willink?

  The tactically proficient leader must learn how to analyze solutions to tactical problems. Lacking such a rigorous analysis, the tactician will not learn from experience nor exercise creative ability. This applies to everything, by the way. It applies to everything. Anything that you're trying to learn, you should, you should, you should focus on this attitude. Of, of really truly doing in-depth analysis and, and making sure that you're not just learning how to apply the techniques as they were taught, but how to apply them as they were not taught creatively.

• 1:08:56Jocko Willink?

  The second quality is military judgment, which includes the skills for gaining situational awareness and acting decisively. The tactician must readily recognize the critical factors in any situation, enemy capabilities, weather, terrain, characteristics, and the condition of our own forces, to mention just a few. Marine leaders must be able to cut to the heart of a situation by identifying its important elements, developing a sound plan, and making clear decisions. Our educational approach should emphasize the ability to understand the mission, issue clear intent, and determine the main effort.

• 1:09:33Jocko Willink?

  Now, for all the first lieutenants at the basic school,

• 1:09:39Jocko Willink?

  and all the other young officers and NCOs that are out there, when they talk about the tactician must readily recognize the critical factors in any situation, I promise you that if you want to be able to do that, what you need to learn how to do is to detach from the situation, is to take a step back when there's enemy capabilities that you have to understand, when there's terrain, when there's maneuvering elements that you need to understand and recognize, you will not be able to do that if you are staring down your ACOG, or staring down your iron sights, or you've got your helmet pressed up against your radar in an F-18.

• 1:10:23Jocko Willink?

  You will not see what you need to see.

• 1:10:28Jocko Willink?

  So, learn to detach. Get your head on a swivel. Take a step back. This will make you infinitely better, infinitely better,

• 1:10:44Jocko Willink?

  than the same you if you're sucked into your weapon system.

• 1:10:51Dave Berke?

  The sooner you learn the ability to do that...

• 1:10:57Dave Berke?

  The amount of leadership advantage you have by being able to do that in the most difficult situations is, it's, I don't have the words.

• 1:11:05Jocko Willink?

  It's not even fair.

• 1:11:07Dave Berke?

  It's not, that's right.

• 1:11:08Jocko Willink?

  It's not even fair. You will be head and shoulders. And the reason I, I say that with a little funny tone is because I remember I had a guy that was in TU Bruiser and he was a platoon commander and I was putting him through training. And it was like some scenario unfolding and I was like, I was like, bro, come here. I'm like, just, just come with me over here. Over here was like six inches away. And I'm like, look around. And it was so obvious. I'm like, hey, man, if you can be one inch, if you can be one inch at altitude above

• 1:11:49Jocko Willink?

  everyone else, you can see, you can see a thousand times more what they can see. A thousand times more. So if you want to be able to have that situational awareness, you have to learn how to detach. The third quality is moral courage. Moral courage is the ability to make and carry out the decision regardless of personal cost. It is different from and rarer than physical courage. The cost of physical courage may be injury or death, whereas the cost of moral courage

• 1:12:30Jocko Willink?

  may be the loss of friends, popularity, prestige, or career opportunities. The burden of conflicting responsibilities in combat, responsibility for lives of subordinates, support for peers, loyalty to superiors, and duty to nation can be heavy. Our educational efforts should lead potential leaders to work through the proper resolution of such conflicts in peacetime. Leaders often need to make morally correct decisions in combat, but there will rarely be time for deep moral or ethical contemplation on the battlefield. Now, what's interesting about this is, first of all, they say it's rarer than physical courage.

• 1:13:15Jocko Willink?

  And then it says, the cost of physical courage may be injury or death.

• 1:13:20Jocko Willink?

  To most people, that sounds like the worst thing is possible. But then they're saying, but whereas the cost of moral courage may be loss of friends, popularity, prestige, and this is the one I find most interesting, or career opportunities.

• 1:13:38Jocko Willink?

  So what they are saying right there, I mean, obviously, if my boss wants me to make a certain, a correct moral decision, he's going to promote me. But what they're saying in that statement right there, that there are times when you will be making decisions that are morally correct, that will actually hurt your career. That's the statement, or you will be at risk of hurting your career. I can think of a thousand examples of this, right off the top of my head, from being in SEAL platoons. You know, because you, you, you want, what happens to leaders sometimes in a SEAL platoon is they don't want it, they're insecure about their leadership, and there's something going

• 1:14:19Jocko Willink?

  on that they don't feel comfortable about, but they don't have the moral courage to say anything. And part of that is because, hey, they, they say, oh, this is, this shouldn't be happening. And as soon as they say that, they're drawing the spotlight on themselves, and they're not really sure about themselves, and all of a sudden, they feel like if their boss is going to look at them like they don't know how to lead their men, and now I'm not going to get promoted, like that whole thing unwinds. You know, Leif and I were talking yesterday, and, you know, he was like, hey, you told me, he was saying that I told him, like, if you don't do this, you're failing as a leader.

• 1:14:59Jocko Willink?

  And, and what he realized was, much of what Leif Babbin had in his head was correct, but he just didn't really have the confidence yet to say, to, to, to, to, to implement, you know, to implement it, until I was like, hey, man, if you allow this to happen, that, that's actually you being a bad leader. Whether it was, you know, and I'm just talking about anything, any, anything that you just, you, you know what's right, you know what's wrong, or at least you have a strong suspicion, okay, you know what, this doesn't seem right to me, but I'm not really convicted of it, so I'm just not going to say anything, I'll just let it, kind of let it go. And that is wrong. And that's what takes this moral courage.

• 1:15:43Jocko Willink?

  To step up when you're going to be unpopular, when you're going to be the guy that says, hey, guess what, we're not going to do that.

• 1:15:51Jocko Willink?

  And in the teams, a lot of it is, oh, you're, you're a pussy. You're a wimp if you don't, if, oh, you just need to get on board with what we're doing. It's like, no, actually, I don't.

• 1:16:02Jocko Willink?

  We're, we're actually going to do what the right thing is here legally.

• 1:16:06Dave Berke?

  Most of the catastrophic events that I saw in my career weren't on the battlefield, weren't getting beat in combat or outmaneuvered by an enemy. Most of the catastrophic events were teams, squadrons, what have you, that had leaders that allowed those things to happen and build over time because they were afraid to get involved. And eventually something catastrophic would happen inside that team that ironically ended up being a reflection of their leadership anyway. So the thing that they were most afraid of was what culminated anyways, reflection of their leadership, allowing those questionable ethical behaviors, those questionable ways that we allow our Marines to behave out in town or, or even in, in the space.

• 1:16:47Dave Berke?

  Out of a fear of doing what seems to be unpopular or being what you just described, those are the ones, when I saw squadrons suffer, you talk about SEAL platoos getting disbanded, things like that. It wasn't because they were getting beat at the point of friction in, in combat. It was that things that happened inside the organization that leadership tolerated and ended up leading to what they were afraid of in the first place anyway, which was that they were viewed upon as a leader who couldn't lead their team. And the greatest risk that I saw in leadership in the Marine Corps was allowing the people around you to behave in ways that you knew were wrong. But the fear of looking unpopular, or being unpopular by getting involved in those things

• 1:17:31Dave Berke?

  because they weren't cool or whatever they were, were the undoing of the more, more leaders in the Marine Corps than anything they ever did in an airplane or as a, as a commander in some sort of tactical situation.

• 1:17:43Jocko Willink?

  So I went through this.

• 1:17:47Jocko Willink?

  And to be quite honest with you, I cheated. I pulled a maneuver on my troops that allowed me to come at this from an angle that they could not argue with. And when I used to teach the young officers, I called this the trump card. The trump card. I had the trump card in my back pocket. If you wanted to argue with me, that you wanted to do this thing, or do this behavior, or act in a certain way, you wanted to do that. And what you were saying was, "Hey, Jaco, you're kind of a pussy,

• 1:18:32Jocko Willink?

  because you don't want to do this, or you're not going to allow this, or you don't want us to act in that way."

• 1:18:40Jocko Willink?

  My trump card was real simple and real straightforward, and it won 100% of the time. It was the ace of spades.

• 1:18:47Jocko Willink?

  And what I would say to guys is, "So what you're saying, what you're saying is you would rather do this behavior and risk getting in trouble and not go to war, not go to combat, because you'd rather do this behavior? If that's where you're at, fuck you. I don't want you on my team. I don't even want to be associated with you. I'm here to go to war. I've waited my whole life to go to war. That's what I was born to do. And to have you put that possibility at risk because you want to do some behavior one night, one little thing that you want to do? And you're talking to me like I'm a bitch? You're a bitch. Don't even bring that up to me again."

• 1:19:31Jocko Willink?

  That was my trump card. I got a text the other day from one of the guys that used to work for me. And he said, "Hey, I was thinking about what you told us about behavior." And he sent this little quote to me. I told him, I said, "If any of you do anything that prevents us from going to war..."

• 1:19:57Jocko Willink?

  I will never forgive you and I will hate you forever.

• 1:20:02Jocko Willink?

  And I laughed, you know, because I don't remember everything that I said. But that right there.

• 1:20:09Jocko Willink?

  That's to me is the ultimate trump card. Oh, you'd rather you'd rather go out and get drunk than go and fight Al Qaeda. That's what you'd rather do. That's what you're telling me right now. And who can argue with that? You can't argue with that. And, and you know what? Guys wouldn't argue with that. The team guys, you know what they want to do? They want to fight and go to war. Okay, are there some, is there a small percent of course? That don't really want to do that. But the guys that were with me, that's what they wanted to do. So that right there. Is the trump card. And it's the truth. The, the, it's the absolute truth. I don't care about anything else. There's enemy, there's bad guys.

• 1:20:54Jocko Willink?

  There's, there's a, a group of human beings on this planet that want to destroy our way of life. And I, I have the opportunity to go and hunt them down and kill them. And you're going to take that away? Or you're going to put that in any kind of risk? Not happening. Not happening.

• 1:21:14Jocko Willink?

  Moral courage.

• 1:21:17Jocko Willink?

  Next section. An effective leader willingly takes on the risks which come with military responsibilities. In that light, the greatest failing of a leader. Is a failure to lead. Two steadfast rules apply. First, in situations clearly requiring independent decisions. A leader has the solemn duty to make them.

• 1:21:43Jocko Willink?

  Whether the subsequent action succeeds or fails. The leader has made an honorable effort. The broad exercise of initiative by all Marines will likely carry the battle in spite of individual errors.

• 1:21:57Jocko Willink?

  So you make a call. And look, if you mess up a little bit, don't worry. There's 250 other Marines that are making decisions and they're going to, the majority of those decisions are going to be okay. We got you.

• 1:22:13Jocko Willink?

  Second, inaction and omission based on a failure of moral courage are much worse than any judgment error reflecting a sincere effort to act.

• 1:22:27Jocko Willink?

  So, not doing anything is like the mortal sin.

• 1:22:33Jocko Willink?

  Errors resulting from such moral failings lead not only to tactical setbacks, but to the breakdown of faith in the chain of command. Proper training, education, and concerned leadership are the keys to instilling the qualities of creative ability, military judgment, and moral courage in the minds of all Marines.

• 1:23:00Jocko Willink?

  Next section, training. Good tactics depend upon sound, technical skills. These are the techniques and procedures which enable us to move, shoot, and communicate. I made a little note here. Move, shoot, and communicate. In the team, is that where you always hear it?

• 1:23:20Dave Berke?

  I hear it backwards.

• 1:23:21Jocko Willink?

  Right, you hear shoot, move, and communicate, right? I believe that is correct. Marine Corps, please, adjust this. We need to shoot first. We need to put down cover fire so we can move. We're not going to move, shoot, and communicate. We're going to shoot, move, and communicate. That's what we say in the teams. I'm pretty sure that's what the Marine Corps means as well. We achieve technical competence through training. We build skills through repetition. Training also instills confidence in weapons and equipment. It develops the specialized skills essential to functioning in combat.

• 1:23:54Jocko Willink?

  One of the ultimate aims of training is speed. Essential to speed is the requirement for accuracy. Speed without accuracy may be counterproductive and causes more damage than inaction.

• 1:24:08Jocko Willink?

  Whether Marines compute firing data, practice rifle marksmanship, or weapons gunnery, rearm and refuel aircraft, repair vehicles, stock or transport supplies, or communicate information, the speed and accuracy of their actions determine the tempo of the overall force. Training develops the proficiency which enables this effective combination of speed and accuracy.

• 1:24:37Dave Berke?

  All the things you're talking about here, this is really the first time this tactics gets into tactical components of the things these individual Marines are supposed to do. But something that was mentioned earlier that set the stage on this was what this pulls from, the first doctrinal pub in the Marine Corps is Pub 1, 1 TAC 1, is called Warfighting. And that is the unifying thing that ties every Marine together, is the understanding that you, and it's really all the things you've just been talking about, you are here as a warfighter. First of all, why would you do anything, why would you expend any energy

• 1:25:21Dave Berke?

  or take any action to do anything that could potentially undermine your ability to do that? Whether it's getting drunk on a Friday night because it's what the dudes are doing, what the bros are doing, to do anything that would undermine, but it's also the common belief system that we all have that that's what we do. We are here to fight wars, period. And every single thing I'm going to do, whether it's putting gas in an airplane, pulling the trigger, or memorizing how the logistics train, whatever it is, you are here to be a warfighter. And the only way any of this works is that common belief that all Marines

• 1:26:03Dave Berke?

  have, that that's why you're here and that's what you do, and it guides every single thing you do. But without that first understanding of what it is that we are, none of this other stuff works. You can't get to Pub 2 and Pub 3 and Pub 6 if you don't understand what it is that we are. And I think that's why they were describing, all this other thing pulls from that overriding understanding of what you are. And now, what, warfighting? Tactically, it could take a thousand different forms. There's a thousand different things tactically you can do to be a warfighter. I just think it's how many organizations we work at where what they do is the thing that they do. I do logistics, I do mar, but

• 1:26:47Dave Berke?

  they don't actually understand what they are. And the tactical application of what you do, unless you understand what that fits into, it doesn't do anything in the end.

• 1:26:59Dave Berke?

  I just think the idea of a warfighting being what we do is sort of driving everything is the coolest. It's the coolest thing.

• 1:27:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and it's one of those things, as you just said, if that thread gets lost by someone that's out working on vehicles, if that thread gets lost by someone that's delivering fuel, if that thread gets lost by someone that is computing firing data, then the whole thing can fall apart.

• 1:27:25Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:25Jocko Willink?

  And that's the same in any organization. If we lose track of the underlying theme and thread of what it is we are trying to do, we can fall apart. Who's responsible for making sure that happens? That that that that doesn't happen, that we understand what our underlying core mission is? That's us as leaders.

• 1:27:47Dave Berke?

  Leaders.

• 1:27:50Jocko Willink?

  Continuing.

• 1:27:53Jocko Willink?

  Small unit training should focus on proficiency in such techniques and procedures as immediate action drills, battle drills, and unit standard operating procedures. Practicing to reach technical proficiency applies to all types of units, whether a section of aircraft executing air combat maneuvers, a maintenance contact team repairing a vehicle under fire, an artillery gun team conducting displacement drills, or a rifle squad conducting an in stride beach breach of an obstacle. We develop and refine these measures so that units gain and maintain the speed and accuracy essential for success in battle.

• 1:28:35Jocko Willink?

  Staffs, like units and individual leaders, must train to increase speed and accuracy. Staffs increase speed by accomplishing three things. First, by obtaining and organizing information to help the commander and themselves understand the situation. Boy, this is like every, this should be printed on the walls of every staff organization in the US military. Second, by understanding the commander's decision and court decision and coordinating efforts to focus combat power to achieve the commander's goal.

• 1:29:08Jocko Willink?

  And third, by monitoring events, maintaining situational awareness and anticipating and then and adapt and adapting to changes. As staffs train, they increase accuracy by becoming more proficient, both in their respective areas and in functioning as a team.

• 1:29:29Jocko Willink?

  That's what the staffs are trying to do. And notice that if you're in a staff, you better know what the commander's goal is. You better understand what that intent is. If you don't understand what that intent is, if you don't understand that goal is, you are completely lost. And if you're a commander and there's any doubt in your military mind whatsoever, that your staff doesn't know what your intent is and what your goal is, you better make it crystal clear.

• 1:29:58Jocko Willink?

  Field Marshal Erwin Rommel Rommel knew the value of speed and accuracy for his staff when he wrote, "A commander must accustom his staff to a high tempo from the outset and continuously keep them up to it. If he wants allows himself to be satisfied with norms or anything less than an all out effort, he gives up the race from the starting post and will sooner or later be taught a bitter lesson."

• 1:30:34Jocko Willink?

  Allow yourself to be satisfied with the norms. Allowing anything less than an all out effort, you give up the race from the starting post.

• 1:30:48Jocko Willink?

  That's what I'm talking about. Now, can we burn people out?

• 1:30:54Dave Berke?

  Absolutely.

• 1:30:55Jocko Willink?

  Yes, can we burn ourselves out? Absolutely. So you, what you have to know, what you have to learn and what you have to understand is you have to understand and learn when you're going to conserve energy and when you're going to go on the attack. You know, that's, that's Rommel talking and, and that sounds cool, but trust me, and I've seen it and we, and I know you've seen it in the military, plenty of commanders that they lose touch with their people and they just burn them out and they have horrible command climates and more important, they're, they become ineffective at executing their mission.

• 1:31:33Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:34Jocko Willink?

  That's the real problem.

• 1:31:39Jocko Willink?

  Continuing, the speed and efficiency of a unit depend not only on the technical proficiency of its individual members, but also in large part upon its cohesiveness. Such cohesion requires both personnel stability and solid leadership. Training should also prepare Marines for the uniquely physical nature of combat. Living and caring for themselves in a Spartan environment, confronting the natural elements, and experiencing the discomfort of being hungry, thirsty, and tired are as essential in preparing for combat duty as any skills training. The point is not to train individuals on how to be miserable, but rather on how to be

• 1:32:23Jocko Willink?

  effective when miserable or exhausted.

• 1:32:26Dave Berke?

  Yeah, think about that for a second. We're not going to do this so we can survive these difficult environments. We're going to do this so we can thrive and take advantage of these situations. The cold in Korea, we're not going to train for that just so we can survive the cold. We're actually going to use it to destroy our enemies. You talked about a little bit earlier about leaders that will just, they'll lose sight of what they're trying to do, and what they'll do, they'll just push really hard. And it's not that they're pushing harder than their other counterparts, it's that they don't understand when and why they're pushing hard. They don't know when they should build up their reserves, so they just go hard because they know going hard, we should go hard. And it isn't that they're going harder and they burn them out, it's that there's no connection

• 1:33:09Dave Berke?

  to why they're going hard, to what they're actually going to try to accomplish in that training, that disconnect of why they're doing what they're doing versus what they're doing. And I've been in units where the leader, we just go hard, and a lot of people are like, what the hell are we doing? And nobody knows. And those units will fall apart before they actually exceed their physical capacity to do things, whereas other units can actually, you can actually go harder if they understand why, so that thing you really want to do, if you can make the connection to the reason they're doing it, you can go as hard as you want. And it's not the going hard that burns the units out, it's having no idea why they're going hard, or when they should go hard. Those are the units that burn out.

• 1:33:46Jocko Willink?

  Here's where you can run into a problem with this attitude of Rommel's, of hey, we're just going to go hard 100% all the time. You don't know, you're not, you're utilizing your reserves out of the gate, that's what you're doing. And so that's a problem. And what the problem is, we're...

• 1:34:05Jocko Willink?

  Where a leader is even more inaccurate in their assessments than they think is that it's the it's the idea that I've talked about of the guy that's leading PT. And when you're leading PT, PT is kind of fun. Because when I'm leading PT, guess what we're doing? We're doing pull-ups. Because I'm good at pull-ups. Right? That's what we're doing. And so we're going to do a ton of pull-ups. And if you're not good at pull-ups, PT sucks for you. And by the way, I didn't tell you when we were going to stop. I didn't tell you how many we were doing. I'm just like, hey, we're doing pull-ups. You should be happy because I'm happy. And so you miss you miscalculate how much the guys can actually take. And there's a decent chance that they can't take as much as you.

• 1:34:50Jocko Willink?

  Because they're not leading it. That's why when you put subordinate leaders in charge, it allows you to more closely and accurately judge how much they can actually take. And by the way, they'll push harder if they're running it. They'll actually go harder. They'll give you more if you let them run with it. If you think you're gonna lead from the front and and whip them to keep up with you, you're wrong. You will not get the same mileage out of them as you will if you say, hey, you take this and run with it. So be careful there, young First Lieutenant Rommel out there. Back to the book. Likewise, training should enable us to take appropriate action in any environment and at any time.

• 1:35:35Jocko Willink?

  This readiness includes operating during inclement weather and periods of limited visibility. We must make terrain, weather, and darkness our allies if we are to gain advantage and deliver decisive force at a time and place of our choosing. We can neither anticipate nor appreciate the inherent friction that these natural factors produce unless we experience them.

• 1:36:00Jocko Willink?

  Next section, training and educational methods. That's such a, that's here, that's boring title number one. That's the only, that's the first boring subsection we've got. Training and educational methods. Okay, I don't know, we expect a little bit higher standards.

• 1:36:18Jocko Willink?

  There is no single best approach to developing tactical proficiency. However, any approach should be adaptable to all echelons and grades. The environment should be one that is challenging and conducive to creative thinking. Like all preparation for war, training should reflect the rigors of that environment. The following examples may provide some tools for developing tactical proficiency in Marines.

• 1:36:47Jocko Willink?

  Number one, professional reading and historical study. Because of the relative infrequency of actual combat experiences in most military leaders' careers, Marines must seek to expand their understanding through other less direct means. The study of military history is critical to developing, to developing judgment and insight. It enables us to see how successful commanders have fought through and fought through the situations they faced. Not many people can do it instinctively. Few possess the rare native ability to think militarily. Even those few can enhance their abilities through study and practice.

• 1:37:31Jocko Willink?

  What General Mattis say about this?

• 1:37:33Dave Berke?

  The whole time, the guy Mattis, just all I was thinking about in the last two minutes was Mattis.

• 1:37:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And he said, he said that every situation he saw, yeah, I'd seen it before.

• 1:37:41Dave Berke?

  Yeah, he wasn't afraid of any situation because he had prepared for, that's right, that whole time, Mattis. Just his, his approach to it.

• 1:37:47Jocko Willink?

  Personal, personal library of 5,000 books.

• 1:37:51Jocko Willink?

  And you you take 5,000 and and I imagine that when Mattis reads them, he's reading them with this incredible depth.

• 1:38:02Dave Berke?

  Yeah, not as a homework assignment.

• 1:38:03Jocko Willink?

  It's not a homework assignment. He's not 21 year old First Lieutenant David R Burke saying, okay, well, I gotta read this before I can go grab a beer with the boys.

• 1:38:13Dave Berke?

  What am I enabling learning objectives so I can write them down real quick so I can move on to something? Yeah, no, he's reading that with the level of depth and understanding that he he not just that, but he puts them all together. He wasn't afraid of any situation.

• 1:38:24Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 1:38:25Dave Berke?

  Because he had prepared for every possible situation that was out there through study of history. Because guess what? The stuff has all happened at least one other time before, maybe twice.

• 1:38:34Jocko Willink?

  You know what I've admitted to a couple of times in the recent past? And you've been with me when I've admitted to it. There's nothing that I like more than something that I didn't expect, or that's seems problematic or chaotic. Ah, that's what I want. Like, that's that's when I that's when my that's when my adrenaline just gets a little bit of a release. Because when I've seen it 90 million times, it's like, cool, I'm down. Like, well, we'll handle this problem. But man, I like it when something comes at me that I'm not expecting. I love that. I've loved that for a long time.

• 1:39:12Jocko Willink?

  And part of the reason is because it's just an experience once again. It's it's an it's an opportunity to put some of that creative muscle to work. And that's fun.

• 1:39:27Jocko Willink?

  Continuing on, historical studies provide the most readily available source of indirect experience in our profession. These studies describe the leadership considerations, the horrors of war, the sacrifices endured, the the commitment involved, the resources required, and much more, as if that's not enough, and much more.

• 1:39:50Jocko Willink?

  These studies include biographies and autobiographies of military figures, books on specific battles, wars, and military institutions, unit histories, after action reports, films and documentaries. Group discussions help to expand the insights into leadership and battle that we have gained through individual study. And this is a solid 98% of what this podcast is.

• 1:40:13Jocko Willink?

  Biographies, autobiographies, books on specific battles, wars, military institutions. That's what we do here.

• 1:40:22Jocko Willink?

  And like Liddell Hart said, when you study about war, you're gonna learn about life. That's why, that's why so many people listen to this podcast that aren't first lieutenants, or colonels, or generals. They listen because they go, oh yeah, I can take that same theory and apply it to my business, to my family, to my life.

• 1:40:44Jocko Willink?

  Professional readings and study are not solely the responsibility of military schools. Individuals cannot afford to wait for attendance at a military school to begin a course of self-directed study. Military professionalism demands that individuals and units find time to increase their professional knowledge through professional reading, professional military education classes, and individual study.

• 1:41:15Jocko Willink?

  It's on you. No, you cannot wait for your battalion, your regiment, your squadron to train you. You cannot wait for that. And if you wait for that, you are just wasting so much opportunity

• 1:41:33Jocko Willink?

  to be so much better at this job.

• 1:41:39Jocko Willink?

  Tactical exercises, tactics, tactical success evolves from the synthesis of training and education, the creative application of technical skills based on sound judgment.

• 1:41:50Jocko Willink?

  Exercises enable leaders to practice decision-making and individual staffs and units to practice perfect collective skills. Exercises also serve to test and improve tactics, techniques, and procedures, immediate actions, battle drills, and combat standard operating procedures. And by the way, I've been changing sta- it keeps saying standing operating. You're just saying standard? I'm saying standard. Rewrite this thing.

• 1:42:20Jocko Willink?

  An exercise should serve as a unit's internal assessment of the quality of its training and education and not as grading criteria for higher commands. Oh, that's a nice little thing. We're not grading you for higher commands. We actually just want you to learn.

• 1:42:37Jocko Willink?

  Like, you know, those schools where they say, well, you're not going to get graded here. And it sounds super lame and it was like, well, think about if you if you said, look, what I really want you to do here is learn. And I remember saying that when I was running trade, I'd be like, listen, man, I just want you to be ready for combat. That's what I want. I'm not looking to to to write you up or anything. I just want you to be ready for combat, bro. That's what I want. Like, that could have been a good introduction to Lieutenant Dave Berke. He's like, listen, don't worry about where you're going to break out in this class. What I want you to do is learn and understand what we're saying to you. It's hard to do that. It's hard.

• 1:43:16Dave Berke?

  It's so hard to do that. I think of how many things that I gaffed off early in my career, simply because I didn't understand that it was going to make me better. I just didn't make the connection in my mind that doing this, not the motions, but actually listening and learning to whatever it is that they were teaching me, would make me better and more successful. If you told me that there was a, it was a competitive thing, there was a ranking and a grading and a measurement that you were going to get, I'm all in, man. I mean, I'm all in. Why wouldn't I? But the number of things that I was, I just, and I know how many young leaders are out there listening, not just in the military, in the business world, too. Young leaders are listening to this.

• 1:44:00Dave Berke?

  I ignored so many early in my career. It just took me a while to figure that what you just described. I just didn't understand it. And I wish I could go back and tell Second Lieutenant Burke, just pay attention. Just pay attention. This is going to pay dividends. You're going to be able to cash in on this down the road. And your peers are going to wonder what the hell is going on with you, because you're going to be so far out in front of where they are if you just pay attention to this stuff.

• 1:44:25Jocko Willink?

  One of the things that you can do to make that happen, in my opinion, is you, you actually have to try and put yourself into the scenario that you're being, that you're being taught, that you're reading. And I'll tell you, you can hear it. When I'm, when I'm reading.

• 1:44:44Jocko Willink?

  When I'm reading with the old breed, man, my brain is there. It is there. When I'm reading One Soldier's War, when I'm reading The Coldest, Colder Than Hell, when I'm reading Excursion in Hell, my brain, my mind is there. I'm putting myself right there. That's what I'm doing. When you get taught something, when you hear something, put yourself there. Put it into, put it into your world and put yourself into that world. Being able to do that, the earlier you can start doing that, the better comprehension you will receive from whatever it is that is being bestowed upon you.

• 1:45:31Jocko Willink?

  And that, that's, it's hard to do. It's hard to do. And you know, I go talk to the young, the young seals and nowadays, I mean,

• 1:45:43Jocko Willink?

  you can see the kids that are listening because they are absorbing and they are in it. You can see it in their, on their face. And there'll be a couple, there'll be a couple that are, they're just not there. They're like, oh, I, you know, I have to listen to another person talk right now.

• 1:46:03Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:04Jocko Willink?

  And there'll be a, that's usually a pretty small number, but the, but then the guys that are just, they're, they're absorbing what you're saying. You, it's like they're gaining actual experience. Okay. Is it actual experience? No. It's like they're gaining such a closer approximation of experience than the person that's sitting there going, oh, I gotta, I gotta take notes so I can get, do good on the quiz.

• 1:46:30Dave Berke?

  It's because they've made the connection and I remember avoiding stuff like this because I don't have the time for that. If you actually make the connection, think of how much faster it goes and how much easier it is to go through it when you actually make that connection to you and what it is you're trying to learn. It's easy and the avoidance of that and the, and the resistance to doing it.

• 1:46:52Dave Berke?

  Is the thing that actually makes it more difficult than it needs to be. And that's, that's what I did. I'm like, what am I gonna get from this? And I just resisted. And when I'm, I remember even in college, spending a couple of years in college, like, I'm gonna do all this work? What the hell am I gonna do this work for? When I figured out that doing what I learned from doing the work and how much better it made me, the work was 10 times easier. Uh, making that connection, putting yourself inside of that. And, and look, these books are actually, some of these books are really good. I'm missing some really good learning that are really well-written. With the Old Breed was the one, that was the trigger for me early in my career. I wasn't, I was probably a junior captain when I was like a young captain.

• 1:47:37Dave Berke?

  So probably maybe four years in the Marine Corps when I read that. That was one of the first big light bulbs for me was that book.

• 1:47:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:44Dave Berke?

  Sledge and just, holy cow, just reading that book. That was one that turned me back into paying it. That's gotten me on that, that path. And I, don't get me wrong, there are times that I've veered off that. That book for me was a big turning point.

• 1:47:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And for me, obviously it was About Face, reading that for the first time. And, and the first time I read it, I read it because it was the most awesome war story. Or, or I shouldn't say the most because I, you know, you can't compare. Because With the Old Breed,

• 1:48:12Jocko Willink?

  hmm.

• 1:48:14Jocko Willink?

  Tough, tough to outdo. Colder than Hell though.

• 1:48:17Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:18Jocko Willink?

  Colder than Hell, when the Marines, when the wounded, starving, frost-bitten Marines are rolling back into base camp after escaping the envelopment, and somebody calls out, "Fall in", and they start marching back into camp and the other Marines line up and like salute them. I mean, come on.

• 1:48:39Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:39Jocko Willink?

  So, but About Face for me, there's definitely, the first time I read it was like an awesome war story. And then the second time I read it, it was like, hmm. There's, there's a little bit more here, there, here than I originally saw. And then as you read it five times, you go, oh man, that's a gem. Oh, the, oh, I never, my intuition is completely wrong. And this is clearly the right way to do it.

• 1:49:10Jocko Willink?

  So yeah, putting these, putting yourself into these situations is a, is a way I think we'll, we'll start to open the door on how to read this stuff where it will have the most benefit and impact for you. Yeah. Back to the book. Exercises also test the ability of units to sustain tempo for an extended period of time. Since victory is rarely the product of single actions, the ability to operate and sustain combat effectiveness over time is important. Knowing when hostilities will cease is a convenience denied the combat marine. Equipment must be maintained and people must be sustained with adequate rest, nourishment,

• 1:49:54Jocko Willink?

  and hygiene until they accomplish their mission. Tactical exercises can range from field exercises to command post exercises to tactical exercises without field troops. Field exercises conducted by units of any size involved, involve all unit personnel working together to learn, test, and refine their collective battlefield skills. Such exercises can be general in nature, or they can be detailed rehearsals for specific upcoming missions. Command post exercises are largely limited to commanders and their staff. Their purpose is to familiarize the staff with their commander's personnel, personal preferences, and operating styles, as well as to exercise staff techniques and procedures to review a particular, to review particular contingency plans.

• 1:50:39Jocko Willink?

  So for those of you that aren't in the military, sometimes the leadership, the staff can rehearse and practice and do exercises as if there's a, as if there's a Their maneuver Elements out in the field are working, and even though they're not. Tactical exercises without troops provide tactical leaders opportunities to exercise judgment while permitting other unit elements to conduct training and education on their own.

• 1:51:07Jocko Willink?

  There are two approaches to conducting them. The first method provides a leader an opportunity to evaluate a subordinate's ability to perform in a given scenario. Boom, scenario-based training, role-playing. You don't need anybody. You don't need anybody in the field. You can make it happen. This method places students in an area of operations and provides a situation upon which to plan and execute a task. For example, establish a reverse slope defense. The aim here is to

• 1:51:37Jocko Willink?

  exercise tactical proficiency in the sighting of weapons and the use of terrain. The second method also places the student in an area of operations and provides a situation, but gives them a mission or a mission order. For example, prevent enemy movement north of Route 348. The aim here is to exercise judgment. After walking the ground, the students must first decide whether to defend or attack, supporting their conclusions with reasoning. The reasoning is then discussed and criticized. This approach encourages students to demonstrate ingenuity and initiative.

• 1:52:17Jocko Willink?

  They have free rein to employ their resources as they see fit to achieve the desired results. So, just putting people in scenarios. And then equally important is discussing and criticizing and asking people why they're doing what they're doing, why they made that decision. Figuring out how they're thinking and why they're thinking.

• 1:52:37Dave Berke?

  Yeah, that part, that last part of, hey, why did you do this? And not the, why'd you do this? Not that why, like you're wrong and I need to know what you're... You're like, hey, what were you seeing that made you think to do this? And look, if it turns out that it's just tactically a mistake and you, no factor. This stuff is free. You're not really moving people around. You're not really spending gas. None of that is happening. You can do this all day long. But it's the leaders that actually ask, hey, why were you doing that? What were you seeing there that you start to... That's also, I remember being asked as a young flight lead, having seen your flight leads, more often than not, it's like, "What are you doing?" And you don't want to answer, and you're like, "I'm sorry, I must..." The best guys I ever flew with go, "Hey man, what did you see there?"

• 1:53:21Dave Berke?

  Like, "Well, I saw this and that," and often, they weren't seeing it. And that ended up becoming, that built my confidence up, that, "Hey, it's like you were describing earlier, my brain actually is working pretty good. What I lack is the confidence to take action on what I see, because I'm afraid he's going to think there's something wrong with it." And the takeaway from this, and we see it with companies all the time, is they think training is elaborate, and training requires all these things. It doesn't require anything. You could sit at a table like this and have the conversation, and if you have a strong enough relationship, go, "Hey man, what were you thinking there?" "When I started to figure out that my instincts were pretty good, and I understood it better than I thought, and I started to build my confidence, I started to contribute to the organization better."

• 1:54:04Dave Berke?

  And that comes from the leaders when they say, "And the critique..." And then I was willing to be criticized. I wasn't defensive about being criticized. I was actually listening to their point of view as well. And it's not that hard. It's just a little humility from leadership to go, "Well, what'd you see, man? Why? That's pretty good. I didn't see it like that." These conversations aren't that hard.

• 1:54:22Jocko Willink?

  And they're free.

• 1:54:23Dave Berke?

  They're free.

• 1:54:25Jocko Willink?

  Next section, war gaming. War games can be a valuable tool for understanding the many factors that influence a leader's decisions. Morale, enemy and friendly situations, the higher commander's intentions, firepower, mobility and terrain are only a few of the decision factors included in the play of war games. In all these simulations, from the sand table to a commercial board game, to a computerized simulation, routine should be avoided. The less familiar the environment, the more creativity the student must display. Sand table exercises, tactical decision games, and map exercises present students with a general situation, mission orders,

• 1:55:10Jocko Willink?

  and a minimum of information on enemy and friendly forces. Sand table exercises are especially suited to novice tacticians. They present the terrain in a three-dimensional array, whereas a map requires interpretation.

• 1:55:25Jocko Willink?

  Both map and sand table exercises enable students to conceptualize the battle, deliver their decisions, and issue orders to subordinates. Afterwards, students discuss their decisions and are critiqued. The discussion should focus on making a decision in the absence of perfect information or complete intelligence.

• 1:55:48Jocko Willink?

  Those are, again, these are things that are free. Free, you can do with your business, you can do with your team, you can do with your platoon. Next section, terrain walks. Terrain walks introduce the realities of terrain, vegetation, and weather. Terrain walks can be conducted in at least two ways. The first method provides students with an area of operations, a general situation, and a mission.

• 1:56:12Jocko Willink?

  As in sand table and map exercises, students describe their view of the battle. Choosing one plan, the group then begins to walk the terrain according to the plan. The group will then encounter unanticipated terrain and obstacles, while the instructors introduce enemy actions into the play of the problem. In this way, students must contend with the disparity between actual terrain and vegetation and maps, as well as the chaos and uncertainty generated by enemy actions that invariably occur in real-world operations.

• 1:56:42Jocko Willink?

  Just think of all the ways you, as a business owner, can employ that right there. Playing the bad customer, playing the good customer. I mean, there's so many ways to do this. The second method involves the firsthand study of historic battlefields.

• 1:56:58Jocko Willink?

  We gain a special vantage on battle by walking the ground and seeing the battlefield from the perspective of both commanders. We gain a new appreciation for historical commander's blunders. Often such blunders seem incomprehensible until we see the ground. Only then can we realistically consider alternative courses of action that the commander might have pursued. And interestingly, at Echelon Front right now, we've kind of, we're starting to prepare some historical battlefield walks and terrain studies that we're gonna offer up to a small number of clients.

• 1:57:38Jocko Willink?

  So that will be, that'll be awesome. Some of the sites we're checking out right now. It's gonna be great. Next section, competition. Exercises should provide realism. The means to achieve tactical realism are competitive free play or force-on-force exercises. Yes. Whenever possible, unit training should be conducted in a free play scenario. This approach can be used by all leaders to develop their subordinates. It affords both leaders and unit members the opportunity to apply their skills and knowledge against an active threat. Free play scenario. So when you're setting these up, this is a, this is like a little tiny thing. I remember doing this.

• 1:58:18Jocko Willink?

  So we'd have certain areas we'd be training on, let's say a base somewhere, and there'd be some area that we weren't allowed to go into. You know, for whatever administrative reasons, hey, you guys aren't allowed to go over there, cuz that's the whatever. And the common thing would be like, hey, guys, just an admin note, you're not allowed to go over there. And I hated that because it ruins the free play scenario. It puts in everyone's mind that, well, you know, this is, this is like lame. So I would say, hey, guys, yeah, you can go wherever you want. By the way, intel indicates that there's IEDs heavily planted in this area. And then sure enough, we'd plant some fake IEDs right on the border and they might hit one, but they wouldn't continue in that direction.

• 1:59:02Jocko Willink?

  So as you're setting up scenarios, try and make them as realistic. There's always constraints on a real battlefield. Don't make them admin, make them real.

• 1:59:09Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:12Jocko Willink?

  What's an admin constraint? Like what? Like for this game? Does it indicate that it's a game in their mind? It indicates that it's a game in their mind. So you might have, let's say we have a, let's say this, we're going to a, an urban terrain village. And the army says, hey, this one building we got over here, the, it's unsafe and we don't want your guys going in it. And so instead of me saying, okay, guys, it's free play, except for this building, it's not safe. So don't go in there. And everyone goes, that's kind of lame, right? Whereas if I say, hey, guys, do whatever you want. This building right here, heavily IED. Intel reports indicate that it is heavily IED. And if you go in there, you're you are almost guaranteed to take a casualty. And then in the doorway, I put an IED.

• 1:59:57Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:59:58Jocko Willink?

  A fake IED. And it's like, yeah, so it just keeps the mindset in the game.

• 2:00:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:00:04Jocko Willink?

  Fully.

• 2:00:04Dave Berke?

  We did that in aviation all the time. We'd go out to a range, you know, Nellis or whatever, and you'd have part of the range and some of the part you wouldn't have because another squadron was training there. And most of the admin briefs were, hey, we don't have this range and this range, stay out of there because, you know, you're not supposed to be the other guys in there training below X altitude to avoid them. The good flight leads would say, we have a SAM ring here from this surface to air. Guess which, guess which scenario had more violations of that range? The one where you had a SAM ring where you'd die in the, in the mission, you'd die and get colored out and you wouldn't get to fight anymore. Or the admin violation, they would just say, move to the north, you're in violation of the

• 2:00:41Dave Berke?

  And making it realistic isn't that hard. There's a whole bunch of places that we would fly all the time where you can't go there. Why? That's Iran. They have this system here. You don't want to fly there. Not because it's an administrative border.

• 2:00:50Jocko Willink?

  Totally.

• 2:00:50Dave Berke?

  And 95% of the time, the one that you would violate would be, you're not allowed to be there. Why? Well, you're just not because we don't have it today and whatever. Or you put a live threat there and guys like, I'm not gonna, I don't want to get killed.

• 2:01:03Jocko Willink?

  There you go. Make it realistic.

• 2:01:07Jocko Willink?

  Free play exercises are adaptable to all tactical scenarios and benefit, beneficial to all echelons. Whether it is fire teams scouting against fire teams, sections of aircraft dueling in the sky. Do you get a little bit like that, don't you?

• 2:01:26Speaker 02

  I do.

• 2:01:26Jocko Willink?

  Or battalions, or companies, battalion squadrons and marine air ground task force operating against one another. Both leaders and individual Marines benefit. Leaders form and execute their decisions against an opposing force as individual Marines employ their skills against an active enemy. Through free play exercises, Marines learn to fight as an organization and deal with a realistically challenging foe.

• 2:01:55Jocko Willink?

  Next section is about critiques. A key attribute of decision makers is their ability to reach decisions with clear reasoning. Critiques elicit this reasoning. Critiques elicit this reasoning process. Any tactical decision game or tactical exercise should culminate with a critique. The standard approach for conducting critiques should be, should promote initiative. Since every tactical situation is unique and since no training situation can encompass more than a small fraction of the peculiarities of a real tactical situation, there can be no ideal school solution. Critiques should focus on the student's rationale for, for doing what they did.

• 2:02:37Jocko Willink?

  So there's, it's like you said, I'm not going to say, Dave, you chose this method. That method was wrong. I mean, okay, are there exceptions to that? Yeah, you could do something that was tactically unsound and then we talk about it. But you made a decision, let's talk about why you made that decision. What factors did a student consider or not consider in making an estimate of the situation? Were the decisions the student made consistent with the estimate? Were the actions ordered tactically sound? Did they have a reasonable chance of achieving success? How well were orders communicated to subordinates? These questions should form the basis for critiques.

• 2:03:15Jocko Willink?

  The purpose is to broaden the leader's analytical powers, experience level and base of knowledge, thereby increasing the student's creative ability to devise sound innovation, innovative solutions to difficult problems.

• 2:03:32Jocko Willink?

  And I used to explain to my guys when I was running training that the goal was not to, the goal of training was not to put their brain in a box. It was to open up all those doors and allow them to make decisions that they, that aren't, that aren't standard.

• 2:03:50Jocko Willink?

  Critiques should be open minded and understanding rather than rigid and harsh.

• 2:03:57Jocko Willink?

  I'll read that again. Critiques should be open minded and understanding rather than rigid and harsh. This is the big, tough United States Marine Corps telling everyone that your critiques should be understanding. Yes. Why? Because mistakes are essential to the learning process and should always be cast in a positive light. Mistakes are essential to the learning process and should always be cast in a positive light. Imagine if you applied that to your children.

• 2:04:32Jocko Willink?

  The focus should not be on whether a leader did well or poorly, but rather on the progress achieved in the overall development. Win or learn, as I talked about in Warrior Kid. You're gonna win or you're gonna learn. That's the Marine Corps saying. We must aim to provide the best climate to grow leaders. Damaging a leader's self-esteem, especially in public, therefore should be strictly avoided. And that's exactly what you talked about, Dave. You talked about the good, the good leaders that would build your confidence, but I'm sure along the way you had guys that were like, "The hell were you doing, Burke?"

• 2:05:09Dave Berke?

  For sure. Look, your, your best tool to figure out how to not make a mistake in combat is to figure out the mistakes you made in training. That's the best thing you can do is figure out all the things you did wrong. And what that sort of relied on over time, what you actually wanted to get to is guys willing to admit the mistakes that they made that people didn't see. And look, and that's, that's magnified in a single seat airplane. Most people didn't see a lot of what I, a lot of my mistakes people didn't see. Or you could certainly cover them up. If you had a squadron where guys were willing to, "Hey, you didn't see this, but I screwed this thing up by myself." If you get to that point, now you're at a place where that squadron

• 2:05:51Dave Berke?

  Inside on the idea of, hey, I'm just here to make everybody better. I'm not afraid of admitting any mistake that I made. And I'd be a squadron and you see the senior guys that would just crush the junior guys. And guess what they did with all those little mistakes? They would hide them all. All those little things that you might not hear about that that you're never gonna see. I'm not gonna volunteer and I'm not gonna get crushed again. And you know who you're hurting when you're done? The whole team. You're crushing the whole team. And if you can get to a point where your guys are offering up errors that you didn't even see, now you're at a place where you know you've got a team willing to figure out all the, and how do you think that team's gonna do in combat? How do you think that team's gonna do in the real world? But yeah, man, all the time ego gets in the way. You see these guys. And what they really want to do is they want to look smarter in front of everybody else and they're gonna do

• 2:06:35Dave Berke?

  it at your expense. And yeah, that that feels good for about 30 seconds. I crushed this guy in public. Well, guess what? You actually hurt yourself in the long run. You hurt the team in the long run. And it's so obvious when we talk about it, but it happens all the time.

• 2:06:46Jocko Willink?

  Who looks at a leader that crushes someone in public and goes, wow, that was cool.

• 2:06:50Dave Berke?

  Dude was awesome. That was so awesome. That was so cool. With Tug Bruiser, we would, because when you get done with a run, whether it's a land warfare or urban or whatever, you debrief, and then the cadre debriefs you. And, you know, the cadre usually just rips task units apart, but tasking a Bruiser, we would hammer ourselves so hard that the cadre be like, yeah, we got nothing else. Go get ready for another run.

• 2:07:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And this is how they close out this little section. A leader's self-confidence is the wellspring from which flows the willingness to assume responsibility and exercise initiative. So every moment that you are cutting down a leader's confidence, you are crushing their their willingness to assume responsibility, take ownership, and exercise initiative.

• 2:07:41Dave Berke?

  Which is what you need them to do.

• 2:07:43Jocko Willink?

  What you absolutely need them to do. Crazy. And here's the conclusion.

• 2:07:52Jocko Willink?

  In this publication, we have explored themes that help us to understand the fundamentals and to master the art and science of tactics. From the study of our warfighting philosophy, we have gained an appreciation for the requirement to be decisive in battle. To accomplish this, we must clearly visualize the battle space gained through gained situational awareness, recognize patterns, and make decisions intuitively. We have also discussed ways we can gain advantage over the enemy and force him to bend to our will. We also explored how to be faster in relation to the enemy, to adapt to changing conditions,

• 2:08:36Jocko Willink?

  to cooperate for success, to exploit success, and to finish the enemy. Finally, we discussed how we can begin to act on these ideas during our training for combat. The ideas presented in this publication have implications far beyond battlefield tactics and the doctrinal way we think about warfare. They also influence the way we organize, using task organization and flexible command and control relationships, and the way we equip ourselves for combat. Waging war in maneuver warfare style demands a professional body of officers and Marines

• 2:09:18Jocko Willink?

  schooled in its science and art. When asked why the Marines were so successful in Operation Desert Storm, General Boomer replied, "The thing that made the big difference on the battlefield is that we had thousands and thousands of individual Marines constantly taking the initiative." The young Lance Corporal would take a look, see something 75 or 100 meters out in front that needed to be done, and go out there and do it without being told. As I read through the award citations from Desert Shield and Desert Storm, this theme reappears time and time again.

• 2:10:00Jocko Willink?

  That aggressive spirit comes from being well-trained and confident in your professional knowledge.

• 2:10:10Jocko Willink?

  And here's how they close this thing out. Everything we do in peacetime should prepare us for combat. Our preparation for combat depends upon training and education that develop the action and thought essential to battle.

• 2:10:33Jocko Willink?

  And that wraps up.

• 2:10:36Jocko Willink?

  MCDP one tactic, tactics. Everything we do in peacetime should prepare us for combat.

• 2:10:48Jocko Willink?

  Everything.

• 2:10:52Jocko Willink?

  And let's just take that one step further, that everything that you do matters. It matters. And I know that everyone's not necessarily preparing for combat.

• 2:11:13Jocko Willink?

  But we are actually preparing for life, for the next opportunity that we are going to see and we are going to seize and we are going to exploit, or the next obstacle, or the next crisis.

• 2:11:28Jocko Willink?

  We have to be ready and everything we do should prepare us for that.

• 2:11:36Jocko Willink?

  So don't take it easy and don't slack off.

• 2:11:42Jocko Willink?

  Be ready to aggressively attack or counter and get the upper hand. And then be ready to exploit repeatedly until you finish the enemy.

• 2:12:01Jocko Willink?

  That's what we're doing here.

• 2:12:06Jocko Willink?

  All right.

• 2:12:09Jocko Willink?

  Good review.

• 2:12:12Jocko Willink?

  I did not think this was gonna take four podcasts. Yeah. What's probably eight to 10 hours, I guess. I guess maybe around eight hours. But that is eight hours well spent. And I hope that, I hope that people listening to this, clearly, my number one priority is I hope that the folks that are gonna be going out on the front lines to protect this country can get something and take something away from, from this series of podcasts. Kind of, it's been awesome having you here, Dave. To hear your perspective from the Marine Corps, to hear your perspective from just how closely these things relate, air, ground, doesn't matter.

• 2:12:52Dave Berke?

  No.

• 2:12:52Jocko Willink?

  It's like, it's the same thing.

• 2:12:54Dave Berke?

  It is.

• 2:12:54Jocko Willink?

  It's leadership, it's tactics, they're all related.

• 2:13:00Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 2:13:03Jocko Willink?

  Did you think we would go that deep?

• 2:13:04Dave Berke?

  No, I, I didn't. And I actually

• 2:13:09Dave Berke?

  I learned so much just listening to it again. Uh, and that for me was probably the most fun is me just sitting here, hearing you say the words that I've read before, a couple of times. And making the connections to a whole bunch of things that I had made the connection on before. This was, I mean, look, this was awesome for me to be here. Uh, and of all the, the books to be talking about Marine Corps tactics, that's, that's good to go.

• 2:13:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So, Check, Echo Charles.

• 2:13:40Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:13:41Jocko Willink?

  Speaking of being prepared for combat for life.

• 2:13:45Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 2:13:46Jocko Willink?

  I know you're pretty, you're pretty into that.

• 2:13:51Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 2:13:52Jocko Willink?

  You know?

• 2:13:53Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Big deal.

• 2:13:54Jocko Willink?

  You got that, uh, .50 cal Desert Eagle.

• 2:14:01Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 2:14:01Jocko Willink?

  Was that your first handgun that you got?

• 2:14:03Speaker 02

  Uh, well, you know, technically. Yeah.

• 2:14:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's a good.

• 2:14:09Speaker 02

  I bought a bunch of them together, so yeah, so the first one that I paid for and signed for, yeah, technically.

• 2:14:17Jocko Willink?

  Desert Eagle.

• 2:14:18Speaker 02

  But it came, it took a while for it to come in, so into, you know, before it came in, I got other ones.

• 2:14:22Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 2:14:23Speaker 02

  You know. I bet it's cool to shoot that thing. Yeah, well, you do know. Oh, yes. I did. It was, that thing was awesome. Yeah.

• 2:14:29Jocko Willink?

  Preparedness, that's part of your preparedness.

• 2:14:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, very practical, um, cause I also have a refrigerator, so you know, if someone attacks me, they hide behind the refrigerator. Boom, I'm prepared, you see what I'm saying?

• 2:14:41Jocko Willink?

  Oh, cause you got the, the Desert Eagle.

• 2:14:43Speaker 02

  Can shoot through the refrigerator.

• 2:14:44Jocko Willink?

  Penetration that you need.

• 2:14:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:14:45Jocko Willink?

  For the in-house scenario.

• 2:14:47Speaker 02

  In-house scenario.

• 2:14:48Jocko Willink?

  What if you don't have a weapon, what can you use?

• 2:14:51Speaker 02

  Uh, okay, so, and I think about this too, a lot, not a lot, we'll just say some of the time, where, yes, you, you can be prepared with weapons.

• 2:14:59Jocko Willink?

  Most of the time you're thinking about like, if you wanna talk about what you think about a lot, it's like Hawaii Five-O.

• 2:15:05Speaker 02

  You know.

• 2:15:06Jocko Willink?

  Mario Brothers, Super Mario Brothers.

• 2:15:09Speaker 02

  Yes, nonetheless, you can be prepared with weapons.

• 2:15:13Jocko Willink?

  Somebody called you Echo Nonetheless Charles.

• 2:15:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:15:18Jocko Willink?

  Just saying.

• 2:15:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, and that's a.

• 2:15:19Jocko Willink?

  Do what you want with that information.

• 2:15:20Speaker 02

  That's, that's a quasi-important point too, cause I don't say nevertheless, some people will try to tease me and be like, oh yeah, you say nevertheless, but I don't say nevertheless.

• 2:15:30Jocko Willink?

  But we're splitting hairs.

• 2:15:31Speaker 02

  I don't want to split hairs. Anyway, like I was trying to say, you can be prepared with weapons, Desert Eagle or otherwise. But what if you like, don't have ammo, the weapon fails, or you simply don't have the weapons? I know like, we're encouraged to have your tools on you at all times, I get it, but are they on you at all times?

• 2:15:54Jocko Willink?

  They should be.

• 2:15:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:15:57Jocko Willink?

  But, let's say you're in the shower.

• 2:15:59Speaker 02

  Let's say you're picking up your kids from school, no gun zone. What if you're on the airplane?

• 2:16:04Jocko Willink?

  Check. Yep, there you go.

• 2:16:05Speaker 02

  We're in the airport, pass security, you see what I'm saying?

• 2:16:08Jocko Willink?

  Two good scenarios.

• 2:16:09Speaker 02

  Anyway, it's possible, is what I'm saying. So then what do you have? And I'm not saying like, you need to be Bruce Lee, uh, Hoist Gracie or something like this, but don't have nothing, don't go from level 10, prepared to level zero in one pass of the security checkpoint, you see what I'm saying? So what can you have? You can have the jujitsu.

• 2:16:32Speaker 02

  It's true. It's absolutely true. Anyway, so yes, we're doing jujitsu. And the good part about this is like this preparedness for taking jujitsu is fun, beneficial health wise, and also therapeutic. So mentally fun is or mentally conducive.

• 2:16:49Jocko Willink?

  Did you see the big fight at Disney World?

• 2:16:52Speaker 02

  Negative.

• 2:16:52Jocko Willink?

  Disneyland? Did you see it? It was on YouTube or whatever.

• 2:16:55Speaker 02

  Oh, like a fight?

• 2:16:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, big fight.

• 2:16:57Speaker 02

  I didn't even know about it.

• 2:16:57Jocko Willink?

  At some point, some dude just walks up and puts a dude to sleep and then walks away. The no factor. Just comes in incognito, walks up behind him, puts him to sleep, lays him down, walks away.

• 2:17:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, so.

• 2:17:08Jocko Willink?

  That's jujitsu. That's, that's, that's one month of jujitsu. Cause I was sitting here thinking, you hear the argument, well, you know, I have too much time to invest in it. How good could I really get? Like, you trained for a month and you can put someone to sleep.

• 2:17:23Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Train for one month, just two times a week. And, and I'm not saying you will, you'll be effective against another jujitsu.

• 2:17:30Jocko Willink?

  Oh, no, no, no, you're not gonna be.

• 2:17:31Speaker 02

  But you compare yourself to the guy who doesn't know any jujitsu, which is a lot of people.

• 2:17:35Jocko Willink?

  And here's the question, when are you going to be attacked? It might be in a month, but it might be in two years. In two years, you could be that much more prepared for the situation. And on top of all that benefit of just this pure self-defense aspect, you got in better condition. And you broadened your view of the world.

• 2:17:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:17:54Jocko Willink?

  You became a better human being. Your perspective is better. You see the thread in all things.

• 2:18:03Speaker 02

  Yes, you will. So you do.

• 2:18:05Jocko Willink?

  So we're doing jujitsu, by the way.

• 2:18:06Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Big time. And, and it makes sense when people go in the first day, second day, and they get addicted. Because they see the power, whether it's demonstrated on them, or if you just learn. I have a six-year-old daughter currently. She's six. So I'm not saying to do this, but I'm saying this is an example of how it can be kind of fun and empowering. So I taught her the rear naked choke. It's fun to do that. If you teach kids who are responsible with it, you don't need them going to school and choking out everybody. I understand.

• 2:18:33Jocko Willink?

  Actually, you need them not doing that.

• 2:18:35Speaker 02

  Yes, correct.

• 2:18:35Jocko Willink?

  You have to explain to them that this is not for school, unless it's a serious self-defense scenario.

• 2:18:41Speaker 02

  Yes. And there's a whole, you know, protocol with that. But, so we're at a party. On Koi and you know, we're like, hey, you know, you're we're talking about this, talking about that. And my daughter, she wants to demonstrate the rear naked choke. And most people, if they don't know about the rear naked choke, they're like, oh my God, you're six. You know, you're not, yeah, exactly. Right. And so like, all right, well, just let her put it on you. And you know, like, if you can resist it, cool, man, you're right. And.

• 2:19:08Jocko Willink?

  Did she put someone to sleep?

• 2:19:09Speaker 02

  No, the, the thing is you, you know, when you're going to sleep, even I mean, how's this? My wife's nephew put my wife's brother to sleep before, but he was like 14, 15 years old. But nonetheless, so these kids or even adults, whatever, they'll learn these, these moves first day. And they'll become addicted because they know the power, the power that a sixty, six year old can get. And one day, by the way, not even one day, 20 minutes, really. And they have the potential to put an adult to sleep.

• 2:19:40Jocko Willink?

  Crazy.

• 2:19:41Speaker 02

  Whether it be at Disneyland or other places. Yes, sir. So one, you're trained jujitsu, you're gonna need a gi if you're doing gi, I recommend gi and no gi. So if you're doing gi, when you're doing gi, get a Origin gi from originmaine.com.

• 2:19:54Jocko Willink?

  Made in America.

• 2:19:55Speaker 02

  Made in America, best gi's, 100% by far factually.

• 2:19:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and maybe you're a patriotic person. Maybe you just like to support the economy in this country. Well, years ago, they took the economy away from Maine. They took it away.

• 2:20:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:20:15Jocko Willink?

  They sold it overseas. We are bringing it back. So if you want to train jujitsu and you want to at the same time, support the economy of our country, go to Origin Maine. And if you aren't training jujitsu or you're gonna train jujitsu and you got an Origin gi, but you don't want to wear that gi to the store.

• 2:20:38Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 2:20:39Jocko Willink?

  Cause you want, cause you don't want to be that guy.

• 2:20:42Speaker 02

  Right, wearing your gi at the store.

• 2:20:44Jocko Willink?

  Have you ever worn a gi to a store?

• 2:20:45Speaker 02

  Negative, not even.

• 2:20:46Jocko Willink?

  I have not either.

• 2:20:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, I saw a kid with a gi in the store.

• 2:20:50Jocko Willink?

  My daughters, my youngest daughter has worn her gi. Actually, I think all my kids have worn, my kids have worn their gi's straight up out to dinner. You know, when they were little kids and stuff, just bringing them from jujitsu, they're just straight wearing their gi's.

• 2:21:04Speaker 02

  The whole gi, belt tied, everything.

• 2:21:05Jocko Willink?

  Tied everything, you know, I'm not gonna disrespect that gi. But yeah, my little daughter, even right now, I mean, she's 10, but you know, if we're gonna go grab some food afterwards, after jujitsu class, we might, you know, she might be in her gi, no factor.

• 2:21:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, all good.

• 2:21:20Jocko Willink?

  I know that kinda, that kind of improves their, it improves their posture.

• 2:21:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:21:27Jocko Willink?

  When they're wearing the gi.

• 2:21:28Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:21:28Jocko Willink?

  They're kind of got that, that, that.

• 2:21:31Speaker 02

  I could see that.

• 2:21:32Jocko Willink?

  Improved self-esteem.

• 2:21:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:21:34Jocko Willink?

  When they're wearing that gi.

• 2:21:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, in their mind, they're walking around, they're like, hey, they see what I'm wearing.

• 2:21:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:21:39Speaker 02

  There's no mistake, they see what I'm wearing.

• 2:21:41Jocko Willink?

  Basically, I'm training. I'm over here training, what are you doing? That's what my little 10-year-old daughter's walking around saying.

• 2:21:48Speaker 02

  It's good.

• 2:21:48Jocko Willink?

  She's not saying it verbally, but just giving that implicit message to the world, I'm over here training. What are you doing, eating donuts? That's what it looks like to me. Alright, so yeah, if you don't, if you don't want to wear your gi, you can wear jeans. We have jeans at Origin. We have t-shirts at Origin. And we have supplements at Origin to help your physical and mental and cognitive power.

• 2:22:18Speaker 02

  Preparedness.

• 2:22:19Jocko Willink?

  To keep you prepared.

• 2:22:20Speaker 02

  Cause really, that's what, yeah, so, so krill oil, joint warfare, these are for your joints and general health, cause you know, your cumin, that's in joint warfare. So there's anti-inflammatory stuff in there, really good stuff. This will keep you in the game physically. Like your joint, like, man, and again, I said this before, where, you know, when you think supplements, we're thinking creatine. Stay jacked, you know, implement gains because of the supplements.

• 2:22:44Jocko Willink?

  The base, the base, this is what I think you've been trying to say for the last three years, or however long. The, the foundational supplementation should be focused on joint health.

• 2:22:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know what that's like? So. And I might have said this before, maybe, maybe not, whatever, but it's true.

• 2:23:02Jocko Willink?

  I might have been not listening to you.

• 2:23:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, so you wouldn't really know. Yes, yes, I get it. And you're not wrong on that one, but this is still correct. It's like when you take these creatine, protein things, it can be looked at, is it like this? If you don't take the foundational joint or joint stuff, stuff that'll keep you in the game capable.

• 2:23:19Jocko Willink?

  Overpower.

• 2:23:21Speaker 02

  No, it's like you're watering, like if you have a plant or a tree, it's like you're watering the leaves. You see what I'm saying? No, you water the roots. The roots allow anything to grow on top there. And then it's gonna be, you know, based on hard work and discipline and consistency, all that stuff. But you water the roots, the roots are strong, right? You're gonna stay in the game. Same thing with your joints. Hundred percent.

• 2:23:42Jocko Willink?

  Dave, last time you talked about the Discipline Go pill, which I know you take prior to, to quote you from last time, prior to anything. But I also know that you pound quite a bit of the Discipline pre-op powder drink.

• 2:24:02Speaker 02

  Dude.

• 2:24:03Jocko Willink?

  You hammer that stuff.

• 2:24:06Speaker 02

  The Go in all forms has become my go-to supplement. I use it everywhere. I do. And, you know, we were kind of kidding around. I'm, I'm dead serious. If I want to be in the game mentally, which I do for kind of everything.

• 2:24:22Jocko Willink?

  Other than watching TV. Right? Because we don't need to be in the, right?

• 2:24:26Speaker 02

  I'm gonna be honest with you.

• 2:24:26Jocko Willink?

  No, wrong.

• 2:24:27Speaker 02

  Watching TV, no, I'm, I'm in full agreement. Watching TV for me, which is a relatively rare event, that's a, boy, that's a social obligation.

• 2:24:36Jocko Willink?

  No, I was gonna say, not to go into your personal life, but you were telling me the other day, when you watch TV, it is not for you.

• 2:24:42Speaker 02

  It is.

• 2:24:43Jocko Willink?

  It is for your family.

• 2:24:44Speaker 02

  It is.

• 2:24:45Jocko Willink?

  It's like, hey, we're gonna watch this thing.

• 2:24:46Speaker 02

  It's a deposit, yeah, absolutely.

• 2:24:47Jocko Willink?

  You're like, cool, I'll sit down and watch this and I'll, for me, it's like time to sleep.

• 2:24:51Speaker 02

  It is.

• 2:24:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I will power nap.

• 2:24:53Speaker 02

  I will, I will sleep through, I take my kids to movies, my wife and I will take our kids to movies. I have a 100% success rate of sleeping through a majority of those movies.

• 2:25:02Jocko Willink?

  All right, well. I'm gonna miss out a whole movie.

• 2:25:04Speaker 02

  Important question then, are you gonna take Discipline Go or otherwise when you're watching the new Top Gun movie?

• 2:25:12Jocko Willink?

  Oh, this is a whole situation.

• 2:25:14Dave Berke?

  There's a very strong chance that I will. Cause that will probably be the first movie, not just because I want to see what happens, because I am sure I'm gonna get ten or more questions about that movie at the completion of it. And I want to know what.

• 2:25:28Jocko Willink?

  Are you in it?

• 2:25:29Speaker 02

  Like what accuracy questions?

• 2:25:30Jocko Willink?

  You're not in it, are you, did you advise in on it or anything?

• 2:25:33Dave Berke?

  Maybe.

• 2:25:36Speaker 02

  Alright, so you're kind of on the.

• 2:25:37Jocko Willink?

  You're kind of in it.

• 2:25:38Dave Berke?

  Maybe. I'm not in it, you won't see me. You won't see my name in the credits. But are you asking me if I was involved in it? Maybe.

• 2:25:46Jocko Willink?

  Wait, all of a sudden, he's doing top secret missions for Hollywood over here?

• 2:25:50Dave Berke?

  The only reason I would say maybe is that I wouldn't be able to allow, I wouldn't be allowed to tell you based on when I contributed to that movie.

• 2:25:56Jocko Willink?

  Oh, shit.

• 2:25:57Speaker 02

  So he'd be allowed to, oh no, he could tell you, but then he'd have to kill you.

• 2:26:03Dave Berke?

  No, I'd tell him.

• 2:26:04Jocko Willink?

  Good luck with that.

• 2:26:04Speaker 02

  Bro, that's a line from Top Gun, the main, original one. It's classified. It's cla- oh, bruh.

• 2:26:11Speaker 02

  Anyway, so yes, discipline go while watching the new Top Gun. It's called Maverick, by the way.

• 2:26:15Dave Berke?

  Anytime I want to be engaged in something, I'm taking go.

• 2:26:18Speaker 02

  Hell, yeah.

• 2:26:18Dave Berke?

  Which is basically every waking hour of my workday. And not when I'm watching TV.

• 2:26:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, because that's, that's sort of the thing that I was getting to is, you know, you might drink. Hey, I'm thirsty, I'm gonna have a, have a glass of water. Hey, I'm thirsty, I'm gonna eat a Coke or a Sprite if you're a human, if you're a person that doesn't care about getting after it. But if you're, if you're a person that does care about getting after it, you can be like, oh, I'm kind of thirsty. I'm gonna have some discipline go and I'm just gonna get up on step and I'm gonna stay there.

• 2:26:51Dave Berke?

  Yes.

• 2:26:53Jocko Willink?

  Cause there's no overload of caffeine, by the way. There's no, there's very little caffeine, fifteen milligrams per scoop.

• 2:26:59Dave Berke?

  Yeah, and it doesn't take much too. You don't need to be pounding five, six cans of, it doesn't take much to get on the step.

• 2:27:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm with, I'm with you there.

• 2:27:06Jocko Willink?

  If you do need protein, then you can get some from Molk, which is Molk.

• 2:27:14Speaker 02

  Disguised as protein. Well, actually it is protein in the form of a dessert.

• 2:27:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And so you can check that out. We keep talking about how good it is and yes, it is that good. And Warrior Kid Molk, you can get for the children's that you may or may not have.

• 2:27:30Speaker 02

  Formulated.

• 2:27:31Jocko Willink?

  And of course, tea, another thing that you can drink all day long.

• 2:27:37Jocko Willink?

  Hot in the wintertime, cold in the summertime. So there you go. That's originmaine.com.

• 2:27:43Speaker 02

  Also, Jaco has a store. It's called Jaco Store. Anyway, this is where you can get shirts, Discipline Equals Freedom, you know, represent the path while you're on the path, you know, rash guards, hoodies, hats, dry, not dry fit. No, we're gonna get dry fit stuff, by the way.

• 2:28:02Jocko Willink?

  Oh, we are.

• 2:28:03Speaker 02

  Shirts, yes, for working out. Overwhelming recommendations for dry fit. I got a dry fit.

• 2:28:08Jocko Willink?

  Who recommended that, that you finally, because I've been asking you that for 14 years, before I even knew you, I was asking you that.

• 2:28:15Speaker 02

  I know, bro. And you know what? That's, that's before you knew you.

• 2:28:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:19Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, and I get it. And you were, you were right. And here's, here's why I'm arriving to that conclusion, even on an emotional level. Okay, so one of our friends, and I wish I could, I could.

• 2:28:31Jocko Willink?

  Devulge?

• 2:28:32Speaker 02

  No, no, I wish I could remember his name. He gave me a dry fit shirt, representing his team. And it's like, it's, it's a cool, it's a red one. So I'm like, oh yeah, cool. I don't really wear dry fit, but hey, man, cool. So one day I put it on and I was like, man, this thing is good. Like it fits good. It like feels good. It's lighter. It's like breathes. You know, I was like, man, I could wear. So then another time I went and worked out in it. And I'm like, okay, that's when I became a believer in the dry fit. I always thought they just didn't look good or something like that. I don't know.

• 2:29:02Jocko Willink?

  You thought they didn't look good?

• 2:29:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:29:05Jocko Willink?

  Check. See, that's the big difference between you and me. I go form over, I go, I go function first.

• 2:29:12Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:29:13Jocko Willink?

  And you go looks.

• 2:29:14Speaker 02

  Well.

• 2:29:15Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 2:29:16Speaker 02

  Yeah. Oh, kind of like on White Men Can't Jump. Remember that movie?

• 2:29:19Jocko Willink?

  I do remember that.

• 2:29:20Speaker 02

  You'd rather look good and lose than the other, you know, look bad and win or something like that. Woody Harrelson.

• 2:29:27Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 2:29:28Speaker 02

  Kind of like that. Anyway, so yes, I'm like, okay, I'm a believer fully. So boom, dry fit coming soon. We're gonna have dry fit stuff, Discipline Equals Freedom. Also. Lightweight hoodies, flex fit hats and trucker hats, by the way.

• 2:29:42Jocko Willink?

  Check, choco store.com. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast. If you've forgotten for three years, for three years, if you've forgotten to subscribe to the podcast, put it on your list of things to do.

• 2:29:57Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 2:29:57Jocko Willink?

  In the coming year, subscribe to it. And don't forget to subscribe to the Warrior Kid Podcast. So that your little kids are just aligned with your thought process. Isn't that a nice thing?

• 2:30:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:30:11Jocko Willink?

  Dave, your kids. Do your kids absorb, do, let me think of a way to write, answer this. Ask this correctly without being offensive. Do your kids listen to Uncle Jake or you? Which one gets the higher priority?

• 2:30:33Speaker 02

  The, the, the question is, is they listen to both. But the success rate that Uncle Jake has is significantly higher.

• 2:30:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's what I would say. I can't do this experiment with my kids.

• 2:30:46Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 2:30:47Jocko Willink?

  Because my kids don't differentiate between these, these things. They just, they're just, you know, they, that's what they get.

• 2:30:56Speaker 02

  So your youngest, when she first heard the Warrior Kid Podcast, you were like, ask Uncle Jake. And you'd be like, bro, that's just you.

• 2:31:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:31:02Speaker 02

  Like she knows what's behind the curtain already. She heard your voice.

• 2:31:05Jocko Willink?

  You know, Narit?

• 2:31:07Speaker 02

  Sure, of course.

• 2:31:08Jocko Willink?

  Someone said, someone asked Narit, Narit is a female black belt that we have at the gym. And, and someone was, and she, I mean, we spent a lot of time on the mat for the last 10 years or whatever. And so, and I've given her, I gave her some advice over the years, right? Little counseling sessions about things and it's worked out really well for her. And anyways, someone else asked her a question. And she was answering it and the person goes, God, you, you sound just like Jocko Podcast. And Nuri goes, I don't listen to Jocko podcast. You know, and then she told me that story and I said, well, you don't listen to Jocko podcast. You listen to me. You listen, you've been already hearing this stuff for 10 years. So there you go.

• 2:31:53Jocko Willink?

  So the, the children sometimes it's a, it's a little bit of a hit on the ego. Because you think, well, I want my kid to listen to me.

• 2:32:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:32:03Jocko Willink?

  But you know what? I want my kid, I want my kid to listen to someone that's making sense.

• 2:32:06Speaker 02

  It's only a hit on your ego if it's more important they listen to you than for them to be successful.

• 2:32:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:32:12Speaker 02

  Like, oh, they're gonna go win. Good to go. I don't care where it came from.

• 2:32:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I would rather, that's like what you just said, Echo. I would rather my kids listen to me and lose than listen to someone else and win. So we gotta watch out for that. Don't forget about the Warrior Kids Soaps, IrishOaksRanch.com, where young Aiden is making soap on a farm in California. You use that soap, you can stay clean.

• 2:32:34Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 2:32:35Jocko Willink?

  YouTube channel?

• 2:32:36Speaker 02

  Yep, we do have a YouTube channel. If you're interested in the video version of this podcast.

• 2:32:43Jocko Willink?

  If you wanna see how much Dave Berke looks like Tom Cruise.

• 2:32:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, which is not zero. Like, there's some overlap there. There is.

• 2:32:53Jocko Willink?

  What's the overlap?

• 2:32:54Speaker 02

  They're, oh, no, their hair, I guess.

• 2:32:57Speaker 02

  They have the same hair, is what I'm saying. You're taller, I think. You got, you know. Yeah, man, all good.

• 2:33:03Jocko Willink?

  So you can check out what Dave, you can also look at the videos that Echo's super proud of. Overly proud of. You can put comments on those things and he reads them. I read them. I read the little comments on there. Usually someone writes Echo is jacked.

• 2:33:21Speaker 02

  Yep, I've, uh.

• 2:33:22Jocko Willink?

  And someone else writes Echo has skinny knees.

• 2:33:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, there is that one.

• 2:33:28Jocko Willink?

  Gotta take the good and the bad.

• 2:33:29Speaker 02

  I'm not saying I read the comments. I'm not saying I don't read the comments. But I'm, I am saying from time to time, when I do read a comment across various platforms, I will say this. When someone does say Echo is or looks jacked, the number of As in Jack has been steadily increasing.

• 2:33:50Jocko Willink?

  So does that mean you're getting more jacked? So I posted, I posted a couple of.

• 2:33:58Jocko Willink?

  Things on on the gram.

• 2:34:00Speaker 02

  Sure, the gram.

• 2:34:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the Instagram. And I was reading those comments. Those comments are almost worth reading aloud. Some of them are so funny. Especially when I made a salad. On Instagram in three minutes. It takes three minutes to make this salad. And some of the comments that people were making about. I can't believe you eat chicken from a can. You had to come in and give me fire support on that one.

• 2:34:29Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, a little bit. Yeah.

• 2:34:32Jocko Willink?

  So, yeah, those were those were those were funny. I think I might make a little. I think I might make a little video of me reading some of those comments. I was laughing out loud when I was reading those comments.

• 2:34:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, those, yeah, very good.

• 2:34:43Jocko Willink?

  What are you doing drinking milk?

• 2:34:45Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, dairy.

• 2:34:46Jocko Willink?

  It's like I was drinking. It's like I was drinking formaldehyde. It was just some people were just getting crazy. But I like that some people were just so super stoked saying, that sounds cool, man.

• 2:34:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:35:00Jocko Willink?

  I mixed my I mixed my salad dressing in a used water bottle.

• 2:35:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, you mix a lot of stuff in a used water bottle, by the way.

• 2:35:07Jocko Willink?

  I'm pro used, but people like, you know, some people were like, there's. Oh, yeah. BPA, you got it, you're gonna die.

• 2:35:17Jocko Willink?

  I'm like, dude, take it easy.

• 2:35:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, hey, man, you know. That that's a good, here's the thing, though. Overall, if those things get in them, this is for real. Like, how quick you made a salad? Because I make a salad similar to that, like just super basic and blah, blah. Where some people, they think, wait, you make a salad every day? Like, bro, making a salad is a big deal. You got to chop up the thing and it's boom, it's the whole gourmet thing. It's like, bah, yeah, not even, yeah, three minutes, exactly right. Oh, yeah. And then guess what?

• 2:35:45Jocko Willink?

  I did have the can. I did have the can of chicken open, preopened.

• 2:35:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, there you go, three minutes, 10 seconds, easy money. But no, because most people, they're like, oh, wait, I have, uh, don't have time or whatever. So what are they gonna make a freaking Hot Pocket in the freaking microwave?

• 2:36:00Jocko Willink?

  You know? Which is horrible for you. Is that worse than salad dressing mixed in a water bottle? I think yes.

• 2:36:05Speaker 02

  And canned chicken? Yeah, man. So, and that's really the point right there. It's like, oh, yeah.

• 2:36:09Jocko Willink?

  Then I did the workspace video.

• 2:36:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:36:12Jocko Willink?

  And people were like, you're gonna get carpal, uh, whatever that's called. And someone else said, your posture is gonna break down. I mean, wait, why?

• 2:36:20Speaker 02

  Bro, it's so funny, man. Why will you get carpal, carpal tunnel?

• 2:36:23Jocko Willink?

  I don't know.

• 2:36:24Speaker 02

  Cause you.

• 2:36:24Jocko Willink?

  I don't know, but I type all the time. I don't have it. So what does that mean?

• 2:36:28Speaker 02

  Oh, wait, you need like an ergonomic typewriter, uh, keyboard or something like this?

• 2:36:31Jocko Willink?

  Anyways, funny stuff that's, uh, going on. Psychological Warfare, it's an album with tracks you can get. Me talking to you about moments of weakness. Flipsidecanvas.com, that's Dakota Myers Company for artwork to hang on your wall to keep you on the path. You can rock that. And then there's onit.com slash Jaco.

• 2:36:53Speaker 02

  Yes, good stuff on there. Kettlebells, that's the number. When I think on it, I think kettlebells, but they got a lot of, lot of good stuff on there. Rings as well. That's, that one, that one's a key. If you don't have rings, get rings. Hundred percent.

• 2:37:05Jocko Willink?

  Definitely.

• 2:37:06Speaker 02

  Onit.com.

• 2:37:07Jocko Willink?

  The books I have for you. Warrior Kid Three, Warrior Kid Two, Warrior Kid One. These are the books that will get your kids on the path. Man, like, like, you know how we're reading this the whole time, Dave? We're like, man, I wish I would have read this like type of thing when I was 20. Well, when you were nine, you wish you had the Warrior Kid books. I guarantee it. And you know what? If you didn't have them when you were nine, you're gonna wish you had them when you were 38.

• 2:37:33Speaker 02

  True story, hundred percent.

• 2:37:34Jocko Willink?

  Somebody's, somebody asked me in an interview the other day. What does it mean to be a man? Right? Okay, fair enough question. And I said, oh, it's not an easy question to answer in a quick interview, but I wrote a book about it. It's called Way of the Warrior Kid. In fact, I've written a whole series about it. It's about what it means to be a man, what it means to be a person. Cause there's girls and boys that read that book and the lessons are how to live a good life as a human being. So you might want to check those out. And then Mikey and the Dragons. How old is your youngest, Dave? How does Mikey and the Dragons come across?

• 2:38:15Dave Berke?

  He loves that book. And what he does now, when we, when we bust that thing out, he actually is spending more time with uh Warrior Kid now, as he's getting older. You know what he holds when we're reading Mikey and the Dragons? He's got a sword. So he's super stoked cuz, cuz he's got a sword.

• 2:38:36Jocko Willink?

  I like all the little notes I get and of whatever the fear was, you know, it's like, and I told him to be like Mikey and face the dragons and, and he stood up and jumped in the pool or he stood up and got up on stage or whatever the case may be. So yeah, Mikey and the Dragons.

• 2:38:54Speaker 02

  My boy is two. Well, he'll be three next month. And, you know, I read it to him and, and, you know, my daughter as well. And cool, good. Of course they, you know, they like that, but they can look at the pictures too, you know, cuz the picture, pictures are a lot more vibrant, you know, than the Warrior Kid ones. I'll catch him, not often, but every once in a while, I'll catch him acting. He cannot read. He's two, you know, but he's acting like he's reading it, but he's really looking at the pictures. You know how kids, they'll sometimes do that. They'll look at the pictures and then they'll just assign a story to every picture, you know, and he's doing that. He's like, oh, the dragon came and it was just a baby dragon or something like this. It's like, man, but that's a testament to the pictures in there. John Bozak representing.

• 2:39:33Jocko Willink?

  Coming on strong. Uh, speaking of pictures, Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual. That's a, a book for adult humans.

• 2:39:43Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 2:39:44Jocko Willink?

  The things you wanna know about life and getting after it. The audio version of that is on iTunes, Amazon Music, Google Play and other MP3. And then Extreme Ownership and then The Economy of Leadership. Leadership books I wrote with my brother Leif Babin that you can apply to everything in your world. We got Echelon Front, which is our leadership consultancy. And what we do there is solve problems through leadership. Dave and I referred back to it a hundred times. The companies we work with, that's what we do. We get them on a path where their leadership is aligned. And when your leadership is aligned, your company will absolutely win. And when your leadership is not aligned,

• 2:40:24Jocko Willink?

  guess what's going on? Your company is losing. Go to echelonfront.com if you want us to come and work with you. We got EF Online because training for leadership is not a one-shot, one-kill deal.

• 2:40:39Jocko Willink?

  Another topic that Dave and I talked about, you don't just read a book, you don't just sit through one seminar and go, "Oh, cool, I'm a great leader now." No, you never say that. And so, we made the online training to reiterate and embed the concepts of leadership that we know to work. Embed those things into your brain and into the brain of everyone at your company. efonline.com. We've got the muster coming up, the next one is September 19th and 20th in Denver, after that, December 4th and 5th in Sydney, Australia. If you want to come, register now, or you will not be able to come because it will be sold out. Go to extremeownership.com for details there. And if you need people,

• 2:41:23Jocko Willink?

  if you need leaders at your company, you can get former special operations and former combat aviation leaders that are leaving the military, that have been trained and have been proven with their leadership skills, and you can hire them to come into your company and utilize their leadership skills to help your team and your company win. Go to efoverwatch.com for that. And if you feel like there's a bunch of topics that we haven't really covered in-depth enough yet, and you want to continue to discuss them with us, then you can find

• 2:42:04Jocko Willink?

  us on the interwebs. We're on Twitter, we're on Instagram, and we're on dein Friesenbock.

• 2:42:15Jocko Willink?

  Echo is at Echo Charles, Dave is at David R. Burke, B-E-R-K-E, and I am at Jocko Willink. Echo, anything else? Dave, anything else?

• 2:42:27Dave Berke?

  Negative.

• 2:42:28Jocko Willink?

  Thanks for coming out, man.

• 2:42:29Dave Berke?

  Dude, it's so good to be here.

• 2:42:31Jocko Willink?

  And thanks to, well, thanks to all of our armed forces that are out there right now, that are standing on that wall and keeping us safe. And to our police and law enforcement and firefighters and paramedics and EMTs and dispatchers and correctional officers, Border Patrol, Secret Service, all the first responders, thanks you for standing inside that wall and keeping us safe here at home. And to everyone else that's out there.

• 2:43:08Jocko Willink?

  Try to remember how the Marine Corps wins. The Marine Corps wins by constantly taking initiative.

• 2:43:22Jocko Willink?

  By chasing the enemy down to the last man and killing him and throwing his remains into the river.

• 2:43:33Jocko Willink?

  That's how you fight.

• 2:43:36Jocko Willink?

  Do that. Do that with your own personal wars. Do that to your own personal weaknesses. And do not delay in the attack. The time is now.

• 2:43:52Jocko Willink?

  So get up and go get after it.

• 2:43:57Jocko Willink?

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

• 2:44:03Jocko Willink?

  Out.