107: To Be a Leader, You Must Be a Life-Long Learner. Hal Moore on Leadership.

0:00:00 - Opening 0:06:45 - "Hal Moore on Leadership: Winning When Outgunned and Outmanned." http://amzn.to/2CI6e0s 1:41:42 - Final Thoughts and Take-Aways. 1:43:00 - Support: JockoStore http://www.jockostore.com stuff, Super Krill Oil and Joint Warfare and Discipline Pre-Mission http://originmaine.com/origin-labs/jocko/, Origin Brand Apparel and Jocko Gi http://www.originmaine.com, withJocko White Tea http://www.jockotea.com, Onnit Fitness stuff, http://www.onnit.com/jocko and Psychological Warfare (on iTunes) https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/psychological-warfare/id1183222322. Extreme Ownership (book) http://amzn.to/2jonHTx, The Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual. http://amzn.to/2szgaEj 2:12:44 - 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 107 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. So the battle of Idrang Valley was over for now and

• 0:19Jocko Willink?

  we just spent two podcasts talking about it. And one of the things that you forget sometimes about the military is that the machine rolls on.

• 0:31Jocko Willink?

  The machine rolls on. There's a work to do and it doesn't, it doesn't matter what you've been through or what you experienced, or how many men or friends or leaders you lost.

• 0:44Jocko Willink?

  The machine is going to roll on. There's still work to do. At least it's going to try and roll on. And that means normal things are going to continue to happen, meaning that

• 0:55Jocko Willink?

  people are going to get reassigned. People are going to leave the army. People are going to retire. People are going to transfer. You don't stay together. You don't, you don't stay together with these guys that you just went through, whatever you went through with.

• 1:08Jocko Willink?

  And as much as you might feel like a family with that group of guys, you're not going to get treated like a family in the military. It's the machine is going to roll on. And with that in mind, to close out the book, We Were Soldiers Once and Young, that again was covered in Podcast 105 and 106, I'm going to read one more passage from that book. And here we go back to the book. "Every morning during those final bittersweet days of my command of the 1st Battalion 7th Cavalry, Sergeant Major Plumley would appear with a group of men bound for the airfield and the plane that would take them home for discharge."

• 1:51Jocko Willink?

  Specialist 4 Pat Selick of the recon platoon says, "Colonel Moore shook our hands and said, 'Thank you and go back home.' I was the second or third guy he spoke to, and he had tears in his eyes. I remember what he said. I see that you're married. You have a wedding ring on. Just go home, pick up the pieces and start your life all over again."

• 2:21Jocko Willink?

  Then basically, that's what I did. I came home to a wonderful wife, tried to readjust, did a decent job at it. I did what Colonel Moore said. I tried to put the war behind me. I served. I did my job. I came home. I didn't ask for anything, no fanfare, no parades. I went back to work, back to school, and did my best. He might be a general, but he's still Colonel Moore to me. If it wasn't for him and all his knowledge and training, I don't think any of us would

• 3:01Jocko Willink?

  have survived the Idrang Valley. On Tuesday, November 23rd, the day came for me to turn over command. For the change of command, I requested a full battalion formation with officers front and center, the division band trooping the line, honors to the reviewing officer and colors, and then pass in review, reminiscent of our weekly retreat parades back at Fort Benning. I requested that Captain DeDurex Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry, and Lieutenant Sisson's platoon of Alpha Company, 2nd of the 7th, be included in the parade of 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, in token of the fact that they fought bravely alongside us in the

• 3:46Jocko Willink?

  battle at X-Ray. And so it was. The band played Colonel Bogie and the Washington Post March and Gary Owen. General Kennard pinned on my Eagles, and I spoke briefly and with deep emotion. Spec 4 Ray Turner of Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, said, "We stood in formation, with some units hardly having enough men to form up." Colonel Hal Moore spoke to us, and he cried. At that moment, he could have led us back into the Idrang. We were soldiers.

• 4:30Jocko Willink?

  We were fighting men, and those of us who were left had the utmost love and respect for our Colonel and for one another.

• 4:39Jocko Willink?

  As I reflect on those three days in November, I remember many heroes, but no cowards.

• 4:47Jocko Willink?

  I learned what value life really had.

• 4:52Jocko Willink?

  We all lost friends, but the bravery they showed on the battlefield

• 4:59Jocko Willink?

  will live forever.

• 5:09Jocko Willink?

  Well,

• 5:12Jocko Willink?

  we have tried here

• 5:15Jocko Willink?

  to

• 5:17Jocko Willink?

  remember and display

• 5:21Jocko Willink?

  and spread the word on some of that bravery that was shown on the battlefield so that it does live on.

• 5:31Jocko Willink?

  And I think that is the least we can do.

• 5:40Jocko Willink?

  That

• 5:42Jocko Willink?

  and learn.

• 5:44Jocko Willink?

  Try and learn. We must always try and learn and we can certainly learn from a man that had been through so much and was so respected and revered by his men. And so today we're going to delve into another book.

• 6:00Jocko Willink?

  And this one is actually by General Hal Moore and co-written by another Army Vet, a younger Army Vet, another author, Mike Guardia. And the book is called Hal Moore on Leadership. And it's just that. It's principles and thoughts about leadership that Hal Moore learned and then implemented throughout his life and his career. And again, if you haven't listened to Podcast 105 and 106 yet, go back and listen to those podcasts first because that'll give you some context as to what General Moore lived through and

• 6:45Jocko Willink?

  why we should pay attention to what he has to say. So again, the book is Hal Moore on Leadership.

• 6:55Jocko Willink?

  The subtitle is winning when outgunned and outmanned. Kicks off in the prologue, it says, "All of one's life is a learning experience. I learned a lot of lessons along the way. I'm still learning."

• 7:11Jocko Willink?

  "These are values, principles, lessons I've learned, mistakes, successes, and my thoughts on leadership from watching, studying, and reading about leaders in action. Good leaders, mediocre leaders, and bad leaders."

• 7:28Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 7:30Jocko Willink?

  He wrote this book. This book only came out, I actually have to check, it came out, it came out in 2017. So, this book is at the end of, of Hal Moore's life.

• 7:45Jocko Willink?

  And here we go, we're gonna jump right into some of these principles. He starts off with four basic principles of leadership. Principle number one, three strikes and you're not out. In the game of baseball, three strikes and you're out. Not so in the game of life. Three strikes and you're not out. There are two things a leader can do. He can either contaminate his environment and his people with his attitude and actions, or he can inspire confidence. Good point. There's always another way in life, right?

• 8:17Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 8:18Jocko Willink?

  Three strikes, four strikes, you can keep swinging. There's no umpire to call you out. Back to the book, "He must have, have and display the will to prevail by his actions, his words, his tone of voice, his appearance, his demeanor, his countenance, and the look in his eyes. He must never give off any hint or evidence that he is uncertain about a positive outcome."

• 8:46Jocko Willink?

  So that's something that, you know, we saw in action in the book. We were soldiers once and young when, you know, Rick Raskoloff comes up and says, "Where are they at? Good. I hope they bring in everything they got tonight." Just even though inside he admitted he was worried, but, and then you hear the reactions of the other guys. They were saying, "Well, that's, at least this guy's in the game. Look, I'm, I'm game. If he's game, let's go."

• 9:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. Do you think that that could elicit some sort of a? Blowback.

• 9:12Jocko Willink?

  It definitely could.

• 9:13Speaker 01

  That rule.

• 9:14Jocko Willink?

  In fact, I have my note there. You want to see my note right there, Seth? Can you read that? It says, really?

• 9:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:20Jocko Willink?

  Cause it's one of those things for sure. You're right. And if you roll in and you're getting smashed and you show, you can, you can seem oblivious to reality.

• 9:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly.

• 9:29Jocko Willink?

  He addresses that. Stand by. Here we go. Back to the book. It struck me early in my reading in school and later in life that is a common theme running through books and stories about great leaders was their positive outlook, positive mental attitude, PMA. For all those Bad Brains fans out there. They were aware of the pitfalls. They were, this is your point. They were aware of the pitfalls and negatives, but they refused to fret and worry about them. So there you go. We're not talking like, oh, this isn't happening over there. Like, remember Baghdad Bob? Are you old enough to remember that?

• 10:03Speaker 01

  No, but I think you mentioned it before.

• 10:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Baghdad Bob, while tanks were just, while the Iraqi army was getting obliterated in the first Gulf War, he was sitting there going, oh, yes, we've had many victories. You know, he's just completely oblivious to what was happening.

• 10:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:21Jocko Willink?

  And, and there's, I think there was literally like bombs going off in the background. Yeah. Baghdad Bob. Okay, here we go. Back to the book. Principle number two. There's always one more thing you can do to influence any situation in your favor. And after that, there's one more thing. And after that, there's one more thing. And after that, one more thing. The one more things you do, the more one more things you do, the better your chances are for achieving success in any situation. Elite. This is interesting. A leader must create time to detach himself mentally and ask, what am I, what am I doing that I should not be doing?

• 11:03Jocko Willink?

  And what am I not doing that I should be doing to influence the situation in my favor? So he's talking about detachment.

• 11:12Jocko Willink?

  I agree with him clearly.

• 11:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a good. It's good to have those like specific things to ask yourself when you detach. You know how like, oh, I'd always ask myself like, okay, what do we have here? But even that, that's like a broad question.

• 11:25Jocko Willink?

  That's too broad, right?

• 11:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's like, that's way better. That's good.

• 11:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, if you think about. If you think about your life.

• 11:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:35Jocko Willink?

  And you were constantly saying like, what, what, what should I be doing right now? And what should I not be? We're all doing things that we should not be doing, right?

• 11:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, you know, not me, but yeah, man.

• 11:44Jocko Willink?

  Oh, you're.

• 11:45Speaker 01

  You're perfect.

• 11:45Jocko Willink?

  Perfect. So we're all doing things that we, we, we know we shouldn't be doing. And we all know that there's things that we should be doing that we're not. So detach, look at yourself, do an assessment.

• 11:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. I'm sure that's like a gold mine of things you can change right there.

• 12:00Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 12:00Speaker 01

  Those two questions.

• 12:01Jocko Willink?

  For sure. Here's, here he says, a leader is paid to do three things. Get the job done and get it done well. Plan ahead, be proactive, not reactive. Exercise good, sound judgment in doing all the above.

• 12:15Jocko Willink?

  To get the job done, the leader must have a clearly defined mission along with specific goals and objectives.

• 12:23Jocko Willink?

  So there you go. Brandon Pickworth hit me up.

• 12:26Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 12:27Jocko Willink?

  Cause the last podcast I was talking about goals and he had sent me a text about. Getting belts, I think it was about getting belts in jujitsu. And I think that's what it was. But anyways. He was basically calling me a hypocrite.

• 12:45Jocko Willink?

  Cause you know, my, my, my thing is like, hey, you train to get better. You don't train because you want this thing, right? You train because you, you have a, I should, see, it's not that, it's not that there's no goal there. But your goal is different. Your goal isn't a material item of cloth.

• 13:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:02Jocko Willink?

  Your goal is to get better at jujitsu. Brandon.

• 13:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:05Jocko Willink?

  You're on lockdown.

• 13:07Speaker 01

  You want to hear a very seemingly far fetched analogy to that, but it's not. So the other night I was, uh. I was making arts and crafts. Uh, with my daughter.

• 13:19Jocko Willink?

  With Presley, oh, you just chilling out doing some paper mache.

• 13:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, so, uh, why did she do she, she what, basically I said a joke, right? And then she laughed at, no, no, she said a joke and then I laughed. And then so she said, I'm gonna, I'm gonna say this joke again and laugh again, just like how you did before.

• 13:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 13:44Speaker 01

  So I'm like, so I thought about that. Of course I did it. But.

• 13:48Jocko Willink?

  Weak.

• 13:51Speaker 01

  Story of my life right there. But, um, so she says that I do it, right? And I'm thinking like, isn't that interesting? She got the laugh and that was a big payoff. But here's the thing, in a way, she shouldn't be focusing on the laugh. She should be focusing on saying funny jokes. The laugh just.

• 14:08Jocko Willink?

  Bro, she's forward. You take it easy.

• 14:10Speaker 01

  No, I didn't tell her that in school, but you see what I'm saying? No, same thing. Jiu Jitsu, you focus on getting better at Jiu Jitsu. The belt will come as a, as kind of like a result, a little byproduct, if you will, just like the laughs. So, you know, when you're telling jokes, go for the funniness, not for the laugh. The laugh will.

• 14:27Jocko Willink?

  I'll talk to Presley. I'll pull her aside. Have a little chat with her.

• 14:31Speaker 01

  Well, maybe, you know, Brandon Pickworth, you know, maybe he, you know, find that very enlightening. Just saying.

• 14:37Jocko Willink?

  Tighten him up.

• 14:39Jocko Willink?

  He did, by the way, he did do his hundred burpees in sub ten minutes. He actually got, I forget what his time was.

• 14:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, I never, I never went back there to, to do that, man.

• 14:47Jocko Willink?

  Didn't you did it easily? Didn't you do it easily?

• 14:49Speaker 01

  I did it. It depends on what you mean by easily.

• 14:52Jocko Willink?

  You did it or not?

• 14:53Speaker 01

  I did it.

• 14:53Jocko Willink?

  Okay, then cool.

• 14:54Speaker 01

  I did it with the.

• 14:54Jocko Willink?

  I was gonna say it was easy. Did you have minutes to spare?

• 14:57Speaker 01

  I had, uh, I, I had a minute to spare. If I remember correctly, I had one minute to spare. And I knew that at like the last.

• 15:07Jocko Willink?

  So you coasted, cruised.

• 15:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, I coasted into the finish line.

• 15:10Jocko Willink?

  Weak.

• 15:10Speaker 01

  It was still kind of, I was sore the next day. I was actually sore.

• 15:14Jocko Willink?

  Really?

• 15:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:15Jocko Willink?

  Brandon, on his video, he did good burpees. I'll give him that much credit. Better burpees than my normal burpees, for sure.

• 15:21Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 15:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, like his burpees look, they look clean.

• 15:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 15:24Speaker 01

  So mine.

• 15:25Jocko Willink?

  They didn't merit like 12 minutes. But he got that down.

• 15:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. If you would have saw my burpees and said, hey, those aren't full, all of those aren't full burpees. I would not be surprised. Put it that way.

• 15:39Jocko Willink?

  All right, going back to the book. The smart leader should always think through the what ifs and have a plan on how to handle them before they occur. Time so spent is never wasted. Things do not always go as planned. So again, he talks a bunch about planning and he's like, yeah, things don't go as planned. And, and we all have to remember that. The smart leader must also be mindful of his organization's constraints and center of gravity. There can be one or several constraints that inhibit getting the job done. And I think we all kind of understands that. And he says that the constraints must accurately be defined. But the center of gravity idea was, was a little bit more interesting to me. Here we go to the book. The center of gravity is the principal thing or activity that must be in balance or under control for an organization to operate.

• 16:24Jocko Willink?

  It is the organization's source of strength. In addition to understanding your own center of gravity to protect it, you must recognize and attack your enemies or competitors' center of gravity to defeat them. In that battle in Vietnam, my center of gravity was the landing zone. So he's talking about the Idris Valley and he knew that and locked that thing down and fought hard for it.

• 16:48Jocko Willink?

  Dean, I was training with Dean, I don't know, a few months ago. And then he was teaching a class and one thing he said that was really interesting and really smart about jujitsu is he's like, hey, when you're on the ground, you can't have your balance attacked. Meaning if you're on the bottom, you can't have your, you're already, you're down there. So you have to mess with the person's balance on top. He's like, they can't mess with your balance because you're already down there. You need to mess with their bounce. Good point. Yeah, exactly. It's one of those things. Yeah, there's a lot, there's a lot to that. Yeah, there's a lot to that.

• 17:22Speaker 01

  Interestingly, it's like now you're, because you're talking about like a really deep fundamental concept, one single one. And a lot of times we don't learn all of them, you know, in jujitsu and in, obviously in life too, but we don't learn all the fundamental concepts. So even you can go through life and be successful, you know, varying levels and then. Get introduced to one fundamental concept that'll just like dang.

• 17:45Jocko Willink?

  And this is something that you know, I know, we all know if you did jujitsu, you know that if you're on the bottom, you gotta sweep to get on top. You know, you, you know that you, but what he was, he wasn't even saying sweep.

• 17:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:54Jocko Willink?

  He was saying you have to, you have to attack their balance.

• 17:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:59Jocko Willink?

  Cause you can't have your balance tacked because you're on the ground already.

• 18:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:02Jocko Willink?

  You attack their balance and it's just going to open things up. He wasn't talking, you're going to sweep every time. No, you're not. You're going to get the arm lock though. You're going to get the, um, a position change, going to get roll them into a heel hook, right?

• 18:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:14Jocko Willink?

  But it's interesting when he talks it like when, when Hal Moore, General Moore here is talking about not only do you have to know your center of gravity, you gotta know your opponent's center of gravity. So that's what you attack. Which is interesting because people would most heavily defend their center of gravity, you would think. And therefore it would be counter to the Sun Tzu principle of don't attack the heavily guarded area, but

• 18:40Jocko Willink?

  or a heavily defended area, but

• 18:43Jocko Willink?

  you gotta find a way to get through to their center of gravity. Otherwise you're not going to put them off balance. You're not going to win.

• 18:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. Like that's one of the goals, you know, is to attack that. Cause some people, I mean, even because Dean totally clarified the concept for you.

• 18:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 18:58Speaker 01

  Where it's like, this is going on in the game.

• 19:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 19:01Speaker 01

  And you know, maybe, maybe in certain circumstances, it's intuitive, like, okay, I'm going to attack this guy's balance because specifically I'm going for a specific sweep or whatever. Maybe it'll come in and out of your mind, but if you have that clear in your mind that that's part of this whole game that we're playing.

• 19:15Jocko Willink?

  And, and go back to the Sun Tzu. Well, just because this is me figuring out right now is just because you're attacking their center of gravity, doesn't mean you have to do a frontal assault on it. You should still flank it.

• 19:26Speaker 01

  Exactly what I mean. Yeah. What, but now at the end of the day, now that's part of my goal, you know, my goal isn't just to kill everyone.

• 19:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 19:34Speaker 01

  Or whatever. It's like, okay, we're going to attack this, this center of gravity specifically because that'll open up, you know, for everything else that comes with it.

• 19:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 19:43Speaker 01

  But it's clarified now.

• 19:44Jocko Willink?

  It is.

• 19:47Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, while getting the job done, the leader must plan ahead and create the future. He must be proactive, not reactive. Truly great leaders have acuity, are perceptive, aggressive, enthusiastic, can see trends, analyze them carefully and correctly, have a vision, have confidence in it, and can inspire and motivate himself and his people to make it happen. That's a big laundry list of things for a leader to be doing.

• 20:13Jocko Willink?

  That's why leaders, that's why leadership is a hard job. Think about all those things I just rattled off. He must have a positive attitude and must hate the word no. He must have smart, well-trained people to run day-to-day activities. He must check up on them and make sure the job is getting done while he stacks the deck for future success. So you can see right now, he's not micromanaging. He's getting people that can do the job and then he's looking forward.

• 20:38Jocko Willink?

  Principle number three, when nothing is wrong, there's nothing wrong, except there's nothing wrong. That's when a leader has to be most alert. Complacency kills. Leaders are paid to create order out of chaos. History is replete with examples of leaders who failed because they became too complacent. In the days and months leading up to Pearl Harbor, American military leaders were confident that the Japanese could never strike American soil. Our naval intelligence said that Pearl Harbor was too far out of reach for a Japanese naval task force. They were also convinced the harbor was too shallow for a torpedo attack. Instead of prioritizing the threat from an aggressive naval enemy, the Army Air Corps commander at Wheeler and Hickam Fields put a higher priority on the threat

• 21:22Jocko Willink?

  from spies and saboteurs. They grouped the planes together at the airfield to make them easier for walking sentries to guard on foot patrol.

• 21:34Jocko Willink?

  But when the Japanese bombers arrived on December 7th, the clustered American planes became turkey shoot targets. Didn't know that. Didn't know that. Wrong threat assessment. And now you're doing something that's actually going to help your enemy's real attack. But it's complacency.

• 21:55Jocko Willink?

  Principle number four, trust your instincts. Instincts are the product of one's personality, experience, reading and education.

• 22:08Jocko Willink?

  That's, that's interesting, right? He puts reading in there. You're actually getting experience from reading and you know how it's said that? General Mattis. General Mattis, he, he reads, I think he has a personal book collection of like 5,000 or 7,000 books, personal book collection.

• 22:25Jocko Willink?

  And he said he, that's to prevent him from being surprised because if you know history, you know the future.

• 22:35Jocko Willink?

  But that's a great definition of what instinct is because people think instinct is this something that's some mysterious thing, right? But no, it's your personality, experience, reading and education.

• 22:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, as far as the context he's putting it in, I mean, instinct obviously is clearly defined as something else.

• 22:53Jocko Willink?

  What is it clearly defined as?

• 22:55Speaker 01

  I didn't say I knew.

• 22:56Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay.

• 22:57Speaker 01

  No, no, no, you know how like animals have instincts to, and we have instincts to procreate, like all this stuff like that. I mean, obviously he's talking about a specific concept.

• 23:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, he's not talking about the instinct of procreating.

• 23:06Speaker 01

  No, no, no, something else. But I'm saying, you know what I mean? It's not that as mystical.

• 23:12Jocko Willink?

  Yes, his definition is not mystical.

• 23:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:15Jocko Willink?

  It's like, hey, read, learn, experience.

• 23:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, and then, yeah, so you, you know, like how, um, you know, your gut feeling kind of thing. So, yeah, it's me, like, if you don't have any experience in any, uh, like you're not reading nothing and you don't have any, you're not going to have many gut instincts.

• 23:31Jocko Willink?

  No, you will, you'll still have them.

• 23:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, they'll be way off. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

• 23:34Jocko Willink?

  Isn't it funny? I was talking about this with someone when, uh, sometimes like with an injury, let's say, you have an injury and you think, I'll just do this. But what you're doing is actually completely wrong.

• 23:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:48Jocko Willink?

  That happens to me sometimes.

• 23:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:50Jocko Willink?

  I'll have an injury and I'll say, you know what? I'll just keep stretching it.

• 23:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:52Jocko Willink?

  It hurts a little bit, but it'll be okay. I think that's helping it and I'm just wrong.

• 23:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:56Jocko Willink?

  Just completely wrong.

• 23:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. And that, so let's say you were, you did that just over and over, over and over and over and over and over again. Which you probably have, but I'm saying the normal person, you do it over, then the instincts will kind of recalibrate itself.

• 24:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, cause eventually I go, hey, this doesn't work.

• 24:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:16Jocko Willink?

  And now my instinct becomes, hey, demobilize that broken wing or whatever.

• 24:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, exactly.

• 24:22Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 24:23Speaker 01

  Just like if you don't know jujitsu and you get into a fight with someone who does know jujitsu, you're gonna do your instincts that you know, which is nothing, by the way.

• 24:29Jocko Willink?

  And your instincts are gonna be completely wrong.

• 24:30Speaker 01

  Completely wrong, but you do jujitsu.

• 24:32Jocko Willink?

  I'll push this guy off me.

• 24:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Or I'll power out of this, or, oh, you know, I'll go all, all super hard.

• 24:38Jocko Willink?

  Well, that's, that's a great example.

• 24:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then when you learn jujitsu, it recalibrates your instincts now.

• 24:43Jocko Willink?

  Now your instincts are good.

• 24:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:46Jocko Willink?

  And proper.

• 24:46Speaker 01

  Unless you get one of these tricky guys who knows your instincts, so he's gonna base his instincts off of your instincts, you understand what I'm saying?

• 24:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, now we're getting into strategy though.

• 24:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's true.

• 24:57Jocko Willink?

  All right, back to the book. It's a, now he's talking about instinct. It's a kind of sixth sense. When seconds count, instincts and decisiveness come into play. In quick developing situations, the leader must act fast in part confidence to all around him. Must not second guess a decision, make it happen. In the process, he cannot stand around slack jawed when he's hit with the unexpected. He must face up to the facts and deal with them and move on. When my head tells me to do one thing and my gut tells me to do another, I will always go with my gut. Why? Because my gut, because my gut, as I've learned, is rarely wrong.

• 25:38Jocko Willink?

  Now that's, that's a bold statement right there.

• 25:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:41Jocko Willink?

  You gotta, my, if my instincts are telling me one thing and my brain is telling me something else, that is, to me, that's time to reassess what's going on. Cause I got some conflicting things happening.

• 25:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:55Jocko Willink?

  Going, because I'm fairly logical in thinking through things. And if that is getting completely countered by just some emotional feeling, which kind of, that's what an instinct is, right? That's, that can be, might even be, it can be. Emotional.

• 26:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:13Jocko Willink?

  Right?

• 26:13Speaker 01

  You gotta watch out.

• 26:14Jocko Willink?

  So you gotta watch out for that.

• 26:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, it seems like in a emotion or a situation predicated on emotion strongly, like a, I don't know, a relationship with some, somebody, you're, I'm just gonna go with my, in this case, not your guts, your heart.

• 26:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, yeah, people saying, go with my gut. Yeah, you're wrong.

• 26:31Speaker 01

  No, no, yeah, you're probably wrong on that one. Think about it. Think about it.

• 26:35Jocko Willink?

  Think the logic, logical side.

• 26:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:37Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. Instinct is a kind of caution light, an early warning or a gut feeling which can on occasion result in a far better decision than one based on a logical process. One rule of thumb I learned more than 60 years ago at West Point is if there's a doubt in your mind, there's no doubt at all. In other words, if you know in your heart that an action is wrong, don't do it. One of my sons calls this the rule of doubts. Above all, never try to fake out, deceive, or fool the people under you. Not only is it wrong, but the troops can smell BS from miles away.

• 27:17Speaker 01

  See, and that starts to make more sense if it's something that's wrong.

• 27:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, then it makes a lot of sense. Then it makes a lot of sense.

• 27:23Speaker 01

  Rather than right.

• 27:24Jocko Willink?

  The, the way I heard, would hear this in the teams. I didn't know it came from West Point, but they'd say, if there is a doubt, then there is no doubt, which I guess is the same thing, which is just shorter. If there is a doubt, then there is no doubt.

• 27:37Speaker 01

  And that means what? Like if there's any doubt, then that means there's no doubt that it's wrong.

• 27:41Jocko Willink?

  Yes, yes. Or if you're saying, wait, I don't know if this is the right thing to do, it's probably not.

• 27:46Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 27:46Jocko Willink?

  Probably not.

• 27:50Jocko Willink?

  Instinct.

• 27:57Speaker 01

  Like when ducks fly south for the winter. Wait, is it's north or south?

• 28:01Jocko Willink?

  They fly south for the winter.

• 28:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. That's an instinct.

• 28:05Jocko Willink?

  I don't know what that is. Is that an instinct?

• 28:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, cool. Straight up. Just like, like if your baby, uh, like suckling, you know, so you can feed, that's instinct.

• 28:16Jocko Willink?

  Interesting.

• 28:20Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book.

• 28:23Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, the discipline that makes an effective leader begins in the home. In most cases, learning comes through observation and experience. It is through the parents and or legal guardians where we first begin to understand right from wrong and success or failure. In having guidelines and expectations set before me as a young boy, having to toe the line was the standard of every day. While I remember my mother and father requiring discipline and proper conduct, there was an equal balance of love, fun, fishing, reading, religion, and daydreaming. Yes, daydreaming.

• 29:00Jocko Willink?

  Discipline.

• 29:02Speaker 01

  Cool.

• 29:05Speaker 01

  Daydreaming makes sense, but you don't automatically associate that with discipline.

• 29:12Jocko Willink?

  No, you don't. You don't. But if you follow your daydreams all the time, then you won't end up with anything. So you have to have them both.

• 29:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 29:23Jocko Willink?

  Next one, no job is ever beneath you. In whatever you do, do it to the best of your abilities.

• 29:33Jocko Willink?

  Next, the best leaders try, the best leaders strive to create a family environment within their organization. A good leader aims to make his subordinates feel that they are valued members of a team. The same loyalty that goes up the chain of command must also go down the chain of command and across the network of subordinates. And, and by the way, of course, as always, I'm not reading this whole book. There's all kinds of better detail in the book itself and explanations and I'm hitting the, the wave tops, as they say.

• 30:04Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 30:06Jocko Willink?

  I like this one a little bit. The first person you have to lead in discipline is yourself.

• 30:13Jocko Willink?

  Good versus poor choices make all the difference in the world.

• 30:21Jocko Willink?

  Concur. Back to the book, to be a leader, you must be willing to be a lifelong learner. The leaders who fail are those who think they know everything or that they have nothing left to learn. They resent having to learn something new or adapt to a new situation. Gotta be humble.

• 30:42Jocko Willink?

  This is interesting. I like to do a lot of listening. That way I pick up a lot of good ideas, many from subordinates. When you listen, you know twice as much as the other guy, what he knows and what you know. Also, whenever the boss talked, I not only listened, but I took notes. I still carry three by five cards today. So that's, that's a great one. If you let someone else talk. I was doing, uh, security detail in Iraq, my first deployment over there and I, and we picked up a high, high ranking officer and we were the security detail for him and he was picking up some subordinate officers along the way. And it was so interesting

• 31:27Jocko Willink?

  how this high ranking officer, depending on who got in the vehicle, because we met with multiple different subordinate officers of his.

• 31:37Speaker 01

  And this is American guy.

• 31:39Jocko Willink?

  What's that? Oh yeah. These are all Americans, all Americans. But the senior officer, he, he would barely say anything. And the guys would get in and you could hear them, you know, at first they'd sort of listen for a minute and they couldn't handle it. So they'd just start talking and they'd tell this, they'd tell the boss everything. It's a great technique. You just sit there quietly and you, these people are spilling their guts.

• 32:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. Isn't that a negotiation technique too?

• 32:04Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 32:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. Where you just don't say anything. You just look at them and they'll be like, well.

• 32:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. You can make people uncomfortable. Yeah. But that's a great way of looking at it. When you talk, you're, and that same thing happens in any situation. I've said it before on this podcast. The more you talk, the less people listen. Yeah. Just the way it is. Yeah. He had a kind of some challenges getting into West Point and he did get in and he had a couple lessons learned from that. Never say no to yourself when you need to ask for something. Make the other guy say no. That's, that's, that's a good point, right? Like, I'm not just gonna say, oh, Echo would never say yes to this. So I'm just gonna, not gonna ask him. No, I'm gonna ask him. Echo, can you make a couple more videos? Worst thing you can do is say no, which is likely.

• 32:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, I was, I forget if I read this or listening to it, but there's two kinds of askers. People who ask for stuff, right? There's two kinds. One who thinks like that, whereas like the worst they can say is no, so might as well ask. Or the second kind who is like, he, you know, he might say no, but you know how like some people, I don't know if you're like this, maybe you are, I don't know, but some people they're uncomfortable when to like saying no to someone, like it's like you're the bad guy.

• 33:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 33:20Speaker 01

  Kind of like, hey, can you retweet this charity or something like that?

• 33:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 33:25Speaker 01

  If you say no, you're the bad guy and that's an extreme example, of course, but the people are like that. But some people, they're, if they're, I forget the name of the asker, but if you're the kind of asker, that's like, oh, the worst they could say no, if you're that kind of person, someone asks you, you have no, usually have no problem saying no. But if you're the other kind where it's like, dang, now he put me into the, in a position to be the bad guy, they're way less likely to ask for stuff because they don't want to.

• 33:52Jocko Willink?

  Feel that way.

• 33:52Speaker 01

  They don't want to put that person in that position. So it's like, yeah, the worst they could say no, but I don't want to put him in that position because he's going to feel like how I would feel.

• 34:00Jocko Willink?

  Interesting.

• 34:00Speaker 01

  There's like two kinds of people, but it's weird when you get the clash of the kind of person, let's say I'm the kind of person who I don't want to put you in the position to say no. So like kind of, I'll be real shy to ask, but you're the opposite. You're going to be asking me for stuff and I'm going to be like, I won't answer you. I'll be bothered by a few, you know, for a few days and be like, man, I can't believe he's asking me to do this. You know, I can't believe he's asked me to give me a ride.

• 34:26Jocko Willink?

  You should just say no.

• 34:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, but in my mind, if I say no, now I'm the bad guy. Now you're in my mind, you're at home saying, I can't believe like he won't do this for me. Or you know, you go through all this stuff, but um, yeah, that's when you get that clash.

• 34:39Jocko Willink?

  Dude, it's tormenting living in your head.

• 34:44Jocko Willink?

  Me, I'm like, no, next question, let's move on.

• 34:46Speaker 01

  See, but then even when you say like, no, like text message, fully with text messages. You know how you'll, you say in real life, but at least I can see the look on your face. Like you're kind of half joking, I see it and all this stuff, but in text message, you say no, period. Right? That's it. So I'm like, no, Chalk's mad at me. He's mad at me for something. He's like, he, he wouldn't have said it like that. He would have, you know, but so yeah, you make it really hard, man.

• 35:11Jocko Willink?

  People read into a lot of stuff and that's obviously you have to read into some stuff to figure out what's going on.

• 35:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:18Jocko Willink?

  But sometimes people go crazy with that.

• 35:19Speaker 01

  Bro, are you even married? Bro, you gotta read into everything, every little thing you gotta read into. Hey.

• 35:27Speaker 01

  Yes, so you gotta, you know.

• 35:29Jocko Willink?

  All right, back to the book, never quit. Obvious. Next one, find a way to turn every minus into a plus.

• 35:40Jocko Willink?

  Good.

• 35:42Jocko Willink?

  There is a solution to every problem. Some are more complex than others. There's always a way.

• 35:49Jocko Willink?

  While he was at West Point, he learned about toxic leadership and here we go. They were, they were putting under the command or they're putting his squads and here we go. Each squad had two different squad leaders, one month with each. I've never forgotten those two men. The first one was arrogant, was an arrogant, sadistic person who screamed and yelled at us, made us do unmerciful physical exercises, apparently with the goal of driving the weak to quit the academy. I despised that man. A leader should never be arrogant, spiteful, condescending, or engage in gossip. To the contrary, he should always act with humility and treat his subordinates with respect and dignity. As a leader, your words and action have greater impact on your subordinates than you realize.

• 36:33Jocko Willink?

  Thus, choose your words carefully. Avoid sarcasm and flippancy. Do not insult or take digs at anyone's intelligence. Remember, everyone processes information differently and at different speeds. Don't automatically assume that someone is stupid or indifferent because they haven't mastered a particular task yet. That stuff is so important. This is something that I screw up because you know, being in a, growing up in a SEAL platoon, everyone's always like picking on each other. What's that called verbally sparring and cutting each other down. You know, that's just the way it is. And I still have that in me. Like, I still have that in me.

• 37:20Jocko Willink?

  I don't know. Do I not do that to you? So what, but I can do that sometimes when I know I should. I'm like, I'll do it to my kids sometimes, to my wife sometimes and and and sometimes I don't realize it until afterwards. And the thing is, in my mind, I'm kidding.

• 37:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:38Jocko Willink?

  Like, it's all good. Like, I'm, I have no ill will, but you know, you can't do that.

• 37:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:43Jocko Willink?

  So that's one I need to always be careful of because I have a tendency to treat other people like they're E5s in the seal with me and that that's not always good.

• 37:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, especially the wife thing. You mentioned that before, the wife.

• 37:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 37:59Speaker 01

  Oh, I said, this was the other day, January 1st, right, first day of the new year. And I forget what my wife did.

• 38:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, I forget what she did, but I was like, what a loser, right?

• 38:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 38:14Speaker 01

  And here's the thing, I've said that plenty of times and you know, whatever to her and she said it to me or whatever, but.

• 38:19Jocko Willink?

  Not on Christmas, then you didn't.

• 38:22Speaker 01

  But.

• 38:22Jocko Willink?

  Not on New Year's Day.

• 38:23Speaker 01

  Either way, it was kind of, it's not like with you, if I said that or something like that or whatever.

• 38:29Jocko Willink?

  You'd be getting choked.

• 38:32Speaker 01

  There would be a consistent reaction, I think.

• 38:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 38:35Speaker 01

  Hundred percent consistent.

• 38:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you're, you're right, right.

• 38:37Speaker 01

  Where you'd be like, yeah, it's obviously, I don't really think you're a loser. The fact I said it is part of verbal smart, whatever, that's a consistent kind of interpretation.

• 38:45Jocko Willink?

  Verbal juice sheets.

• 38:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, and um, but so she said back, she's like, oh, first insult of the new year. Kind of like, sure, that was her joke back.

• 38:55Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 38:56Speaker 01

  Right? Like, you know, the first.

• 38:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, but that's still a little.

• 38:58Speaker 01

  It's still a little like, and what I interpreted that or read into it is that dang, like, it didn't take you much time to start messing with me like that, you know? Like, it's like.

• 39:12Jocko Willink?

  Oh, that's, that's what she said. Yeah, yeah.

• 39:14Speaker 01

  That's my interpretation.

• 39:15Jocko Willink?

  You were right.

• 39:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think I was.

• 39:17Jocko Willink?

  Was correct.

• 39:18Speaker 01

  I felt it immediately and I was like, dang, I gotta, you gotta be careful with that kind of stuff. If I said that to my brother, you wouldn't care.

• 39:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. This continues back to the book. Contrary to popular belief, yelling and yelling at and berating your subordinates will not make them move faster, nor will it inspire their loyalty. In fact, it may encourage them to begin plotting your demise.

• 39:42Jocko Willink?

  Many years from now, your subordinates will not remember what deadlines were met, what sales were closed, what products were shipped, or what training schedules were executed. What they will remember is how you, the leader, treated them. Whether you inspired a climate of trust and dignity, or ruled through fear, metrics, and intimidation.

• 40:02Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 40:04Jocko Willink?

  And again, that's, that's something that I don't do. Like, I might take jabs at people in a fun way that sometimes are not as interpreted as fun as I want them to, but I don't yell at people, I don't berate them, uh, don't do anything like that. And this is a hundred percent right, when you see people like that,

• 40:24Jocko Willink?

  it's not good. And I, when I started on this, like, working with civilians, I think they actually, people actually thought I was gonna come and yell and scream. You know, and I'd be like, no, I, and Leif and I used to be like, Leif, when we worked together for eighteen months, how many times did I raise my voice at you? And he'd be like, zero. And we, we sometimes make the audience guess, you know, or whatever. And Leif always cracks the joke of like, there's a lot of times he wanted to yell at me. But, you know, we, you know, like, that just doesn't work.

• 40:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, that is interesting how people think that you're gonna do that.

• 41:01Jocko Willink?

  I know.

• 41:03Speaker 01

  Maybe because you-

• 41:03Jocko Willink?

  Maybe that's good.

• 41:04Speaker 01

  Maybe, yeah, maybe that's kind of part of the whole thing, the whole picture, you know? But why do they think that? Maybe because you yell and scream at other situations.

• 41:14Jocko Willink?

  I don't, though.

• 41:16Speaker 01

  Well, I have a few videos of you yelling and screaming.

• 41:19Jocko Willink?

  Yelling and screaming what?

• 41:20Speaker 01

  I don't know, stuff. When you get into other stuff, you never yell and scream at someone.

• 41:27Jocko Willink?

  Oh, you mean like, um, like, um-

• 41:28Speaker 01

  You get fired up.

• 41:28Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay, well, that's a little bit-

• 41:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:30Jocko Willink?

  I mean, if I'm raising and my voice is being a little bit more poignant-

• 41:34Speaker 01

  Escalated.

• 41:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, escalated, that's not screaming, though.

• 41:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, that, so that's not yelling and screaming at someone, you know?

• 41:40Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 41:41Speaker 01

  So maybe they just, like, feel that, they're like, oh, that's a lot of, um, fire coming from this guy, and he's real effective in leading people in hard, intense situations, so then maybe they just draw that connection, maybe.

• 41:54Jocko Willink?

  It's weird. The movies make it, too.

• 41:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:57Jocko Willink?

  Because people are yelling in boot camp.

• 42:01Jocko Willink?

  Here we go to another thing from West Point. This is Showfield's Major General John Showfield of Civil War fame. This is his definition of discipline. So now this is, this, this is cool because we're talking about a guy from the Civil War. Right? Here we go. The discipline which makes the soldiers of a free country reliable in battle is not to be gained by harsh or tyrannical treatment. On the contrary, such treatment is far more likely to destroy than make an army. It is possible to impart instructions and to give commands in such a manner and in such a tone of voice as to inspire in the soldier no feeling, but an intense desire to obey.

• 42:45Jocko Willink?

  While the opposite manner and tone of voice cannot fail to excite strong resentment and a desire to disobey. The one mode or other of dealing with subordinates springs from a corresponding spirit in the breast of the commander. He who feels the respect which is due others cannot fail to inspire in them regard for himself. While he who feels and hence, and hence manifests disrespect towards others, especially his inferiors, cannot fail to inspire hatred against himself. So again, that what's cool, that might sound all new worldy. That's written in Civil War.

• 43:29Jocko Willink?

  That's Civil War, right? That's old school. And he's still talking about, hey, you've got to respect your people. You've got to treat them well. That's a great, that's a great definition of how to, how to impose. And I use that word as I, it's, you're not imposing. That's the point. You're not imposing discipline. You're, you're opening the door and showing the way and leading. That's what you're doing.

• 43:55Speaker 01

  Cultivating an environment of discipline.

• 43:57Jocko Willink?

  Very, very nice. I like that. Now he goes into the various brands of toxic leaders. I'll, I'll burn through these bully leaders, those who inflict emotional pain, deliver threats and ultimatums, hurl insults and invalidate the opinions of others. Narcissistic leaders, those who are arrogant and self-congratulatory. This brand of toxic leader will often contrast his own abilities against a subordinate shortcomings. Look at me, I can do this so easily. Why can't you?

• 44:26Jocko Willink?

  Insular leaders. This brand of leader forms cliques and goes to great lengths to ensure that his followers are shielded and enjoy special privileges. These are all different brands of toxic leaders. Hypocritical leaders, this is the one you talked about earlier. These leaders live by the mantra, do as I say, not as I do. And rarely practice what they preach. The hypocritical leader will hold his subordinates to a high standard, but won't apply that same standard to himself. As a leader, you should be, you should be applying a higher standard to yourself than your people, for sure. Enforcement leaders, this is interesting. Enforcement leaders, this mid-level leader seeks the approval of his superiors without

• 45:10Jocko Willink?

  regard to his subordinate's welfare. He will consciously follow orders that are bad, unsafe, or illegal, only to stay in the good graces of the organizational culture. That's bad. Those guys, those are bad leaders. You see them in the military. They're just, they only lead, they only, they only do what they're told to look good, but everyone hates them.

• 45:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:34Jocko Willink?

  And it's interesting, like you talk to someone that was above them in the chain of command, and they go, oh yeah, that guy's a great guy. Yeah, you're super. And you talk to someone that's below, I hate that guy. Isn't that funny? That, that, that Schofield's definition? He said, you cannot fail to inspire hatred.

• 45:50Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 45:51Jocko Willink?

  Hatred.

• 45:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. Sure thing.

• 45:54Jocko Willink?

  Treat people this, you know, that, that, you know what that is? I think that is psychologically, right? Human beings, we want to be free. We want to have, we want to determine our, our path, right?

• 46:04Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 46:05Jocko Willink?

  When you take that away from someone and just crush it, they, they, they spite you for it and they hate you for it. Whereas if you can say, hey, look, you can do this, you can execute this mission how you want, Echo Charles.

• 46:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:19Jocko Willink?

  You can do what you want. Here's the goal. You figure out a way.

• 46:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:23Jocko Willink?

  As opposed to, here's how you're going to do everything my way.

• 46:25Speaker 01

  My way.

• 46:28Jocko Willink?

  Next one, callous leader in similar vein to the enforcement leader, the callous leader has a blatant disregard for his subordinate's welfare or desires. Credit hog leaders, these leaders show, show their toxicity by taking credit for an employee's success or contribution. They resent the notion of giving credit where credit is due.

• 46:49Jocko Willink?

  Blame shifting leaders, the mirror image of the credit hog is the blame shifter. This leader is quick to point the finger for anything that goes wrong and many times he actively looks for someone whom he can assign the blame. The blame shifter will often maliciously accuse someone of wrongdoing without evidence or probable cause. That's a person that does not take extreme ownership.

• 47:15Jocko Willink?

  Bunch of toxic leaders that he talks about there.

• 47:20Jocko Willink?

  Here's another

• 47:23Jocko Willink?

  thing he talks about. As a leader of any stripe, you cannot simply give orders and expect your subordinates to follow them blindly. To the contrary, you must establish a clear intent addressing the why and the desired end state.

• 47:39Jocko Willink?

  It will never suffice for a leader to say, because I said so, as a reason for performing tasks. If you can't justify the rationale of an order to yourself, don't make your subordinates do it. Reevaluate your reasons and find another method.

• 47:56Speaker 01

  Have you ever said that as a parent? Cause I said so.

• 48:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 48:01Speaker 01

  Every once in a while you gotta bust that out.

• 48:02Jocko Willink?

  No, it's stupid. It doesn't make sense to do that. And when you say every once in a while, you gotta bust it out like

• 48:08Speaker 01

  Like saving time or something like that.

• 48:10Jocko Willink?

  Emergency situation. Hey, we look, I'm telling you, just put your shoes on. We gotta go like that.

• 48:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 48:15Jocko Willink?

  Because I said so. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's what happens. And you know what happens in the military too, where you, you don't always have time, you know? If you're in a, if you're in a combat situation, you know, you can't say, hey, take that building over there. And the reason why I want you to do this, because you don't have time to do that. So, but you have trust with your subordinates and they know where you're coming from and all that.

• 48:37Speaker 01

  Interesting. So really, when, when you really break it down is

• 48:43Speaker 01

  You never want to do that ever, right? You never want to be, just because I said so, ever. But, life's not perfect.

• 48:49Jocko Willink?

  Well, this is, this is the

• 48:50Speaker 01

  emergencies, all the stuff.

• 48:51Jocko Willink?

  This is another thing that Leif and I talk about is there's times definitely where I was like, Leif, hit that building over there.

• 48:56Speaker 01

  Right.

• 48:58Jocko Willink?

  And this is what's cool. There's also times, because I was the guy that was in charge. There was also times where Leif had looked at me and said, hey, Jocko, move your Humvee over there. And I was like, oh, okay, because he needs me to do something.

• 49:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:08Jocko Willink?

  So we have a mutually supporting relationship.

• 49:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:11Jocko Willink?

  It's not about like, hey, I'm the one that's out here barking all the orders. We're doing, we're trying to get something accomplished together.

• 49:18Speaker 01

  Right.

• 49:19Jocko Willink?

  And if he told me to do something, I know he's got a good reason why. Because if he had time to tell me why, he would tell me, hey, can you put your Humvee over there? Because we're about to, you know, move guys out in this whatever, blah, blah, blah, blah.

• 49:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 49:31Jocko Willink?

  I don't need to hear all that unless, unless I've got my Humvee there for a reason. And now he's saying to me like, hey, move your Humvee. Hey, hold up, I've got good coverage down this road. Oh, okay. I didn't see that. Can you push it back eight feet? Yeah, we can move it. Okay, cool. You know what I mean?

• 49:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, fully.

• 49:43Jocko Willink?

  So it's, it's good. We, we're cruising like that.

• 49:46Speaker 01

  Sure. Yeah, but that's good. But as far as like the actual dynamics of why you shouldn't say, because I said so. Because it's not in your case, let's say you don't have time to explain why, right? And you just say, hey, move the Humvee, right? And you move the Humvee. Still, even if he didn't explain why, the reason still isn't because I said so. And you know that because of all that trust that you guys built.

• 50:11Jocko Willink?

  The reason, the reason is because there's some tactical situation that's unfolding. Yeah, of course.

• 50:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. So it's one of those things where ultimately you never, it never, you never should be like, because I said so, never really should. But in the event of not having time to explain or whatever, even though there's an explanation needed, in the event of that ever happening, you need to kind of build trust.

• 50:32Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 50:32Speaker 01

  So you can kind of alleviate that for the, you know, for the lack of time.

• 50:36Jocko Willink?

  That's exactly what I explain to people when I talk about Leif and I on the battlefield, that we had trust with each other. So if we, you know, if I said to do something, he'd do it. And know that I had a good reason for it. If he told me to do something, I would do it because I know he had a good reason for it. And then later on, he'd say, yeah, you know, I need you to do that, move that Humvee. Because we had, we, we were blocking the fields of fire from inside this building. Like, oh, okay, cool. That's why I moved it. We're all good.

• 51:02Speaker 01

  So without that trust being built.

• 51:08Speaker 01

  And you put that on top of my expectation of you to just follow my order without asking why as a parent or whatever. That is wrong. That's what you're saying. You should not say, that should not be a leading slash parenting.

• 51:26Jocko Willink?

  And also you gotta remember, you can get away with it for a little while. Like a new chief checks into a SEAL platoon. He says, hey, guys, you know, do this. The guys are gonna do it.

• 51:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:36Jocko Willink?

  Like they're gonna do it. There's, there is a chain of command. There is a rank structure. But if that's the persistent methodology of leadership, it's not gonna work for the long term. That's what you gotta remember. And when you do occasionally say that, like when I would say to my guys to do something, they do it. Like they do it because they, because it was so seldom that I would utilize like some sort of like, hey, do this now. I would very rarely exercise that, that power over the guys.

• 52:09Speaker 01

  And it would probably, I mean, I'm just assuming now, but, and it's probably because you never went to the because I said so.

• 52:18Jocko Willink?

  Yes, no, no, no.

• 52:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:21Jocko Willink?

  I don't think I, I don't think I actually ever said that.

• 52:24Speaker 01

  So the less.

• 52:25Jocko Willink?

  Even in situations where I would wanna say it. Like, like sometimes I'm right. You know, sometimes I do like, I'm right, you're wrong.

• 52:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:32Jocko Willink?

  And I would, I remember there was a, we were running a block of training and the guys pulled out this certain element of training. And I said, hey, why did you pull out this element of training? And they're like, well, you know, they had, they gave their reasons, which were all wrong. And I, and I was like, I was like, uh, well, no, here's, here's the reasons why you're wrong there, you're wrong there, and you're wrong there. But they were kinda adamant. And I wanted to just say like, hey, shut up and do what I'm telling you to do. Put that, put that element of training back in there now. And I held myself back from doing that. And I'm glad I did. Of course I'm glad I did. Because, because, because here's the deal. If you're right and you can articulate it, I mean, eventually I, it just took me more

• 53:14Jocko Willink?

  time to explain to the guys, hey, look, that element of training, it might not be happening right now, but it could very easily happen again in the future. Here's some examples, here's some places we are in the world, here's other elements that are out there that are doing that same thing right now that we could easily get folded into. So we need to continue to do that type of training. And they were like, yeah, okay, makes sense. But that was, you know, that took 20 minutes. That took 20 minutes. I knew I was right. A hundred percent. No, no, no, no doubt in my military mind at all.

• 53:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:46Jocko Willink?

  I wanted to just say, hey, shut up and put the element back in training.

• 53:49Speaker 01

  Still didn't do it.

• 53:50Jocko Willink?

  But I didn't do it. It hurt.

• 53:52Speaker 01

  Discipline, yeah, that's how. So really, almost ironically, the less that you do say, because I said so, the more you can.

• 54:05Jocko Willink?

  Yes, absolutely. Just what I just said before, the more you talk, the less people listen. It's the same thing.

• 54:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:10Jocko Willink?

  The more you demand people do things, the less you can demand of them. The less you demand people, the more you can.

• 54:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. So the more.

• 54:17Jocko Willink?

  Use that tool very sparingly as a leader, very sparingly. And you know, you kind of went down that rabbit hole, but this one, if you can't, this other thing, going back to the book, I already read it, but I'll read it again. If you can't justify the rationale of an order to yourself, don't make your subordinates do it. This is something I get asked all the time. They're like, well, what if, what if somebody came up and said, hey, and they told you to do something that you didn't want to do? Or that you didn't think was right. I mean, I wouldn't do it.

• 54:42Jocko Willink?

  They're like, well, really? It's like, yeah, of course, really. And here's the, this is what they don't realize. They think that everyone in the military is like running around giving orders that are stupid and don't make any sense. That's not true. You know, when I got told to do things that didn't make sense, and one good example of that was, was taking Iraqis with us on the battlefield. And they were saying we had to take a ratio of like seven to one, or whatever the ratio was at the time, and it didn't make sense. And I said, no, we're not going to do that. And I ran up the chain of command. They're like, yeah, you're right, it doesn't make sense. You don't have to do it. Take what you can. And we were like, okay, cool. But there's a, there's a perfect example of me being like, you know, I'm carrying the line. I'm a company guy. I'm all on board for the big win. But if you tell me to do something that's stupid, I'm not going to do it.

• 55:20Speaker 01

  You know, it's funny, I heard that about you.

• 55:22Jocko Willink?

  What'd you hear?

• 55:22Speaker 01

  That, that, that's what you, it was one of my friends, you, obviously we know him, but. He'd be like, Jocko's so such a badass. He'll like, the way he talks to the superiors is like, it's so gangster. He'll be like, he'll like, no, we're not gonna do that. Doesn't make sense, you know, whatever. And now that you're like explaining it to me, it makes more sense.

• 55:43Jocko Willink?

  Cause I wouldn't be that gangster.

• 55:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, but you know, in their mind, you're they're like, oh my gosh.

• 55:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, because I would be explaining it to them, you know, and and you gotta be very careful. Uh, that you're not coming across as arrogant, that you're not coming across as a know it all, which sometimes I would have a tendency to come across like that. And I had to be very careful. I had to check myself sometimes because you want to. It's the same thing. Just like you, just like you, I want to tell my subordinates, like, shut up and put that element of training back in there. You want to tell your superiors the same thing. And, you know, hey, shut up. That's a dumb idea, but you can't do that.

• 56:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:12Jocko Willink?

  And all you're gonna do then is what you're gonna do is you're gonna make them mad at you. The same thing that I just talked about going down the chain of command goes up the chain of command too. So if if I treat, if you're my boss and I treat you with disrespect, you're gonna hate me. And it's gonna work out worse for me because I'm on the bottom side of that that little pyramid we've built.

• 56:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:32Jocko Willink?

  So when I would talk to guys, to my superiors and say that something doesn't make sense, I would do it in a very respectful way. And again, I had to be careful because sometimes, especially people that didn't know me, if you didn't know me. I maybe that usually the people that didn't know me well, I might come across as more arrogant, you know, and which is bad. I'm not saying like that. That's bad. I wish I wouldn't. But if I didn't believe in something, I wasn't gonna do it. And I wasn't gonna be a jerk about it, but like, hey, here's what's going on. If we take these number of guys in the field with this many Iraqis, we're not gonna have all the people that we should have in the field to be safe. You know, you're talking about leaving behind a corpsman, you're talking about leaving behind a a radioman, you're talking about leaving behind a a close air support fires guy. Those are guys I can't go in the field without, or someone could get killed. And the the up the chain of command was like, you're right. Cool.

• 57:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:17Jocko Willink?

  And then this didn't, again, there would be occasional things, but it doesn't happen all the time where people are giving you stupid orders. My bosses didn't give me dumb, didn't tell me to do dumb things.

• 57:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I'm sure that's kind of what added to it.

• 57:29Jocko Willink?

  Sometimes they told me to do dumb things, but they were little dumb things. And you know what? I did them. We did them.

• 57:33Speaker 01

  Little pawns.

• 57:34Jocko Willink?

  Little little things. You want to do something? You want me to do something stupid, but it's small and small and stupid. I'll do it. And I'll save my, my objections to things that actually matter.

• 57:42Speaker 01

  Makes sense.

• 57:43Jocko Willink?

  Goes back to that paper where they'll life talks about doing paperwork and always like, you know, we don't want to do paperwork. And I'm like, hey, we're going to do the best paperwork because it's a little thing. We don't care about it. You know what? So we got to stay up an extra hour and do some paperwork. Who cares?

• 57:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:53Jocko Willink?

  We're going to build that trust and that way when we come time to say no for real, we'll be able to say no for real and the bosses will listen to us.

• 57:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure that that added to the whole cachet though, you know, where, where when you did say something or did push back or whatever, it would still, you'd still get the results, you know? Where someone who may not understand that fully as much as you did, they just witnessed kind of the, kind of the, the end and be like, dang, Jocko's gangster like that. He's making stuff happen up the chain.

• 58:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Cause, cause you know, cause to my guys, I might be like, hey guys, we're not doing that.

• 58:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:24Jocko Willink?

  My guys be like, hey, what they told us? I'd be like, we're not doing that. And they'd be like, oh shit. And then I go to the, go to the, you know, the boss's office and be like, you know, and deep be like, hey, sir, I'm just wondering about this plan we got here. Here's what I'd like to do. And here's what I'd like to do. And then I come back. We're not doing it.

• 58:39Jocko Willink?

  So yeah, maybe that is, you know, level three gangster.

• 58:45Jocko Willink?

  All right. Here's another one. Leaders stay informed of current in events and they should anticipate challenges based on those events. Just be, be informed of what's happening. That makes sense. Here's some other West Point lessons learned. I was able to function mentally and physically in top form with only five to six hours of sleep a night. Just saying, take that for what it's worth. I don't advocate sleep deprivation, but I'm just saying there's an example there that you might want to listen to. Another thing that he learned at West Point, read. I love to read books and have, and have since a very young age. At West Point, I discovered a magnificent library loaded with books on military history and leadership.

• 59:24Jocko Willink?

  Ever since then, for more than 60 years now, I've been fascinated by the study of leadership, military, political, business, athletic, et cetera. And within that, a focused interest in why leaders fail. Remember, a good leader is a lifelong learner who continually studies to perfect his craft.

• 59:44Jocko Willink?

  It's interesting to hear these great leaders read, you know, again, General Mattis is the classic. 5,000 books in his personal library. Hopefully we can get him on the podcast to discuss some of his favorite books.

• 1:00:01Jocko Willink?

  Okay, after he graduates from West Point, he missed World War II. He goes to Japan and he's in the occupation of Japan. Back to the book, I was flown up to Japan in October of 1945 and was sent north on a train on the 11th Airborne Divisions Jump School or for the 11th Airborne's Division Jump School. Arriving in Tokyo Central Train Station, I was struck by the cleanliness of the place and by the hundreds of Japanese soldiers in uniforms, sitting on floors, leaning against walls, all unarmed, no weapons, and showing no anger toward American soldiers. A Japanese rail conductor showed me to a spotless alcove with a short bunk and clean sheets.

• 1:00:43Jocko Willink?

  The train left on time and I arrived in the next morning exactly on time. Here was my observation, these people were six weeks out of a five-year war and they had already began cleaning up and disciplining their services. When they get back on their feet, watch out. Even in the midst of defeat, carry yourself professionally and maintain your discipline.

• 1:01:09Jocko Willink?

  That is the quickest way towards recovery. Interesting story, the Japanese, well, we just lost a five-year war. We got atomic bombs dropped on us. Guess what? Okay, we lost. Sign unconditional surrender. Unconditional surrender. That means you have nothing, you have no power, zero, nothing. Unconditional, unconditional surrender. You know what? Keep your uniforms on, be squared away, get the trains running, clean this place up. We gotta get back, we gotta get back together, gotta get back in the game.

• 1:01:39Speaker 01

  It's kinda like if a girl breaks up with you, right?

• 1:01:43Jocko Willink?

  No, it's not an unconditional surrender.

• 1:01:45Speaker 01

  No, no, no, I'm not saying the surrender part, I'm saying the clean yourself up part.

• 1:01:48Jocko Willink?

  Yes, clean yourself up.

• 1:01:49Speaker 01

  Quickest way to recovery.

• 1:01:50Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 1:01:50Speaker 01

  Don't go drink spiraling, letting yourself go.

• 1:01:53Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 1:01:53Speaker 01

  If you get back in the gym, right? Start reading, what else?

• 1:01:57Jocko Willink?

  When you go, when you're, when you're, no, you're 100% right. You are right. When you are defeated, the best thing you can do is maintain your discipline. That's the best thing you can do, maintain your discipline.

• 1:02:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, you'd be surprised how quick you get back on your feet.

• 1:02:15Jocko Willink?

  There's very few people, the only, some people are, the reason they're, they're jammed up is because they're not paying attention to things they should be paying attention to. Like they're, they're working out 17 hours a day and they're not paying attention to their family. Those are, sometimes those guys get into scrubs, right? And I kinda gotta say, look, man, you're in good shape. You need to spend some time with your, you know, with your wife, with your kids. Give a little bit back. Cause that, that happens to team guys sometimes.

• 1:02:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:51Jocko Willink?

  Gotta be careful that one. Where, where we tend to be workaholics.

• 1:02:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:55Jocko Willink?

  And the work is so fun that it just like can take over everything.

• 1:02:58Speaker 01

  Wait, so, so what is that? How does that, does that contribute to their recovery in other situations?

• 1:03:03Jocko Willink?

  Well, let, let's just say there's a family problem going on, right? And so what does the guy do? He's, he's, he's in the game, right? He's, he's gonna work out even more. He's gonna go to jujitsu even more.

• 1:03:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:14Jocko Willink?

  But what he's doing, he's not helping the problem.

• 1:03:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:17Jocko Willink?

  You see what I'm saying? This is the, most people don't have that, but most people have the opposite problem.

• 1:03:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:21Jocko Willink?

  When they get down, when they get down, they go, uh, you know, I don't feel like working out. I'm just gonna drink and eat pizza and donuts, right? That's what most people do. A lot of times seals will be like, I'm not feeling good. Cool. I'm gonna work out harder.

• 1:03:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:34Jocko Willink?

  You know, oh, my family's not fun right now? Cool. The gym is fine.

• 1:03:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:39Jocko Willink?

  Jujitsu's fun. I'll go surfing on a nine day trip.

• 1:03:42Speaker 01

  Dang, that's like a, a, a feedback loop, kind of, right? In a way. So it's like, okay, there's an issue with my girlfriend. I will make it less serious. An issue with my girlfriend.

• 1:03:53Speaker 01

  Girlfriend's giving me grief, whatever. I'm not around or something like that. Or I'm not sensitive to her feelings. Ah, you know how I'm gonna deal with that? I'm gonna go work out and go hang with my team guys, which makes the problem worse now. Cause you're paying attention less, even less sensitive to her feelings.

• 1:04:06Jocko Willink?

  Girlfriend is one thing though, the wife is another thing.

• 1:04:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Cause the girlfriend, the guy will be like, okay. The wife is a different scenario.

• 1:04:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:14Jocko Willink?

  They got kids and they got all this.

• 1:04:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, it means one for sure.

• 1:04:17Jocko Willink?

  You just, you just, your example wasn't good.

• 1:04:19Speaker 01

  It was.

• 1:04:19Jocko Willink?

  You took a big, you took what you thought was a small step, but it was a big step.

• 1:04:23Speaker 01

  Dude, there's too much of a difference in the example.

• 1:04:25Jocko Willink?

  Too much different examples.

• 1:04:26Speaker 01

  So same example, wife and kids as opposed to girlfriend.

• 1:04:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:30Speaker 01

  Feedback loop.

• 1:04:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, you, this is what I'm saying. Instead of, instead of the guy going, because normal person good, man, I'm not feeling good because my, because my wife, my girlfriend, a normal guy, it's like, hey, well, you need to get back in the gym, get your game together, get up early, get on the program.

• 1:04:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:04:45Jocko Willink?

  And they'll start feeling good and they'll start feeling good about themselves and then they'll start being a better person and being a better husband.

• 1:04:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:50Jocko Willink?

  You say that to a team guy and they're like, okay, cool. I'll work out nineteen hours a day.

• 1:04:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:54Jocko Willink?

  And the other five, I'll be doing jujitsu.

• 1:04:59Jocko Willink?

  Or whatever. Next, a good leader studies the culture of any location where he's planning to go and ensures his subordinates are properly educated on the same.

• 1:05:10Jocko Willink?

  Here's a good one. When in charge, take charge. But treat your subordinates with respect, dignity and common courtesy. Here's another one. A worker's performance often reflects the attitude of his leadership. If you want something done, ask nicely. If a subordinate forgets to perform a task, don't take it personally. Just remind them nicely. In any organization, everyone has a to do list. While juggling these tasks, some things will inevitably fall through the cracks. When this happens, don't assume that the subordinate is lazy or stupid. Simply re-engage them on the task and if necessary, emphasize why it's a priority. If a subordinate performs a task and the outcome is not what you expected, don't attack their intelligence or character. Politely explain the deficiencies and offer an idea for solution.

• 1:05:55Jocko Willink?

  Subordinates quickly lose respect for a leader who is all problem and no solution.

• 1:06:02Jocko Willink?

  Speaking of problems, wherever possible, solve problems at the lowest level. When leaders are confronted with disciplinary problems, be it willful disobedience, negligence or honest mistakes, they must resolve these problems at the lowest level before raising the, the issue to higher echelons. If the problem can be fixed and remedy instituted at lower levels, it will benefit your relationship with your subordinates, improve the health of the organization and not divert higher level resources away from their priorities. Solve things at the lowest level. That's, you know, that's, I used to say this exact same thing to my guys, especially when it, well, when it came to anything, but the topic would come up a lot of guys getting in trouble. Like, hey, if a guy gets in trouble, solve it. Like, solve it at your level. And

• 1:06:45Jocko Willink?

  if you, and if you don't think you can contain it, tell me.

• 1:06:48Speaker 01

  What do you mean, get in trouble like?

• 1:06:50Jocko Willink?

  Oh, guy gets in trouble.

• 1:06:50Speaker 01

  DUI or something.

• 1:06:52Jocko Willink?

  Well, DUI is a pretty big one, but guy gets in a fight.

• 1:06:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:54Jocko Willink?

  Guy gets into a fight out in town. Hey, if you can, hey, you can punish him. You know, the platoon chief hears about it and the platoon chief says, oh, I'm gonna punish him. He's gonna be doing brass pickup or whatever. He's gonna be doing something. Cleaning the military vehicles is always, you know, one of the best. Wax the six by. That's, you can handle it there. You don't need to tell the platoon commander, the platoon, the, the task unit commander. Now, it could be different. If the guy gets in a fight, now he gets arrested. Cause now we're gonna hear about it. Cause they're gonna find out the guy's in military. They're gonna wanna know, talk, contact the chain of command, cause that's what they do. That's their, that's their policy. And so now they're gonna contact the chain of

• 1:07:35Jocko Willink?

  command. So now, can it be contained? That's the question. If it can't be contained, then you gotta run it up the chain of command, cause you don't want your boss to get, get hit, uh, what's it called? Blindsided, right? Hey, one of your, Jocko, one of your guys was arrested, you know, yesterday. Why didn't you tell me? You don't want that to happen. If you can contain it, contain it. If you can't, you gotta, you gotta tell the chain of command. But you should try and contain it. Be like, hey, we got it handled. Boss, there was a guy got in trouble yesterday. Here's the punishment I dealt out and here's where, you know, here's where we're at.

• 1:08:11Jocko Willink?

  No one wants to be the senior guy with a secret. Have you ever heard that before?

• 1:08:14Speaker 01

  Senior guy with a secret?

• 1:08:15Jocko Willink?

  Senior guy with a secret. Meaning, meaning if you did something wrong and, and I find out about it, that means I'm, I have the secret now.

• 1:08:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:27Jocko Willink?

  And if I'm above you in the chain of command and now my boss finds out, well, now I'm going to get in trouble. So it's the easiest, the easiest way for me to do it is to be like, hey, boss,

• 1:08:35Speaker 01

  got it.

• 1:08:36Jocko Willink?

  Echo did this wrong. He got in trouble and then my boss now has the secret. Or is he going to tell his boss?

• 1:08:42Speaker 01

  Fully.

• 1:08:42Jocko Willink?

  Right?

• 1:08:42Speaker 01

  That's like the friend, you know, who catches his friend's girlfriend or something cheating on him. And it's like, shoot, I don't want to, do I want to ruin the relationship or, you know?

• 1:08:54Jocko Willink?

  The relationship is already ruined.

• 1:08:56Speaker 01

  You're right.

• 1:08:56Jocko Willink?

  So that's not a good example.

• 1:08:58Speaker 01

  No, it's kind of a good, maybe not cheating. No, because there was a movie called, I think it was called this, I don't know if it was called the secret, but that's what it was predicated on. And so that's the whole thing. He didn't want to, he put it this way, if he told, if he was, if you tell the secret, he would like, I don't know, ruin some relationship. And if he didn't, it was like, they'd be fine, but you're the senior with a secret. Then of course, at the end of the movie, you know, they, they find out, you know, the big reveal. Who is that? Vince Vaughn was in it. Anyway.

• 1:09:32Jocko Willink?

  Talk to someone else about that stuff. You need to have your own podcast, Echo Movie Reviews.

• 1:09:37Speaker 01

  Oh, man, it's the same concept I'm telling you.

• 1:09:40Jocko Willink?

  Praise in public, punish in private. I think everyone knows about that. Here's some, here's some other lessons he learned when he was a occupying force in Japan. Be confident, but not arrogant. Self-confidence and humility are the keys to getting any job done. Little dichotomy in those two. Obviously, there's always a way. Either you find a way or you make one. If you can't think of a way, don't hesitate to ask for help. Take counsel from those who have information and experience. It's so funny how some people won't ask for help.

• 1:10:13Jocko Willink?

  Supervise, check up on things, but don't micromanage. Make sure your subordinates understand their priorities of work.

• 1:10:21Jocko Willink?

  I mean, these, I'm, I'm, I'm, I just realized I was almost reading those as if like, hey, we already know these things. It's like, these are things that we know. Um, not that, not that they're not important.

• 1:10:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:33Jocko Willink?

  And obviously, Hal Moore knew him before I did. He learned him in the occupation of Japan.

• 1:10:40Jocko Willink?

  Here, he talks about someone that he worked for.

• 1:10:45Jocko Willink?

  "The officer under whom I served for the longest period in Japan was Major Mansfield. He was always cool, never raised his voice, very perceptive, took no wooden nickels, and was a natural leader. He told me that what he wanted to be done and let me run with the ball. He trusted me, and I went an extra two to three miles to make sure I would never let him down, never do a shabby job, or never lose his trust." That right there is this like, you could just give that to people and say, hey, think about this, man. If you're gonna be in a leadership position, think about this. Always cool, never raise your voice. Give people what you want to do and let them run with the ball. Like, that's just basic stuff, but it's so important.

• 1:11:29Speaker 01

  What's a wooden nickel?

• 1:11:30Jocko Willink?

  Wooden nickel is, it's, it means, it means you take, you take things that aren't worth anything.

• 1:11:34Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:11:35Jocko Willink?

  Fake.

• 1:11:40Jocko Willink?

  A couple more lessons learned. Tell your subordinate leaders your standards at the outset and what you expect. That's a pretty good one. If you let people get away with stuff for a while, then when you jerk the chain back, it hurts them more. Push authority down to make decisions, but keep responsibility for the results. Don't blame subordinates for bad results. Blame yourself for not training them properly or giving poor instructions. Stream ownership, boom.

• 1:12:03Speaker 01

  That's another parenting one.

• 1:12:05Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 1:12:06Speaker 01

  Always meh. Well, I see it and then I'll see, I feel like I've done a good job in being conscious of this, you know? Okay, so if I say, okay, so one year old, four year old, four and a half, whatever. And I say, hey, you know, watch him. I'm gonna go grab this thing from my car, whatever. Watch him. Don't let him climb up on that bike and fall down. He's one. So I run in the, you know, I come back, of course, climbing the bike.

• 1:12:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:33Speaker 01

  Falls down.

• 1:12:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:35Speaker 01

  Hey, I thought I told you not to.

• 1:12:37Jocko Willink?

  You told the four year old.

• 1:12:38Speaker 01

  I know, Brad. That's what makes the example even more powerful because look, hey, look, her failure is my failure. That emphasizes my failure even more. So four year old, that's my failure. But it's the same thing for big time.

• 1:12:53Jocko Willink?

  Check. Be dead honest with those above you and below you. Totally candid, but not harsh, straight talk. Respect your people.

• 1:13:04Jocko Willink?

  Taking care of your people is not just about the obvious things, pay, working, conditions, concern for their welfare and that of their families, but seeing that they are properly trained and have the personal discipline and desire to get the job done and get it done well.

• 1:13:18Jocko Willink?

  Carry a notebook or three by five cards and take notes when being given instructions or when your boss is explaining his philosophy or guidance on a matter. I also found that when running or doing other physical exercises, ideas and useful thoughts would pop into my head, possibly related in some medical way. Blood movement goes to the brain. So I took scrawling notes when running. That's not a bad, I've done that before. I'll be like working out and I'll, in my workout book, I'll have a little like four words of something I thought of or like, yeah.

• 1:13:48Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 1:13:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. I don't know if it's that interesting, but it's worth noting.

• 1:13:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, if that's true, you know, like we're like.

• 1:13:55Jocko Willink?

  They're carrying a notebook around now. Nowadays, people put notes in your phone. Do you put notes in your phone?

• 1:13:59Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:13:59Jocko Willink?

  I put notes in my phone too. Do you take voice memos sometimes?

• 1:14:02Speaker 01

  No, I, I saw someone doing it. I thought it was so cool, but I, the habit didn't, didn't stick.

• 1:14:08Jocko Willink?

  Didn't stick. It's not bad. I usually type in the notes.

• 1:14:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:12Jocko Willink?

  But sometimes if I'm driving, voice note.

• 1:14:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. Dang.

• 1:14:16Jocko Willink?

  Okay. Now he's a company commander in Korea. So Korean War. So, you know, he, there's again, we're jumping through this book, but. This is the, I thought this was awesome. He takes over as a, as a company commander. "One of my first acts as commanding officer was to move six men out of the worst boar's nest in the place. These mortar men had been billeted in a derelict bunker which was infested with rodents. I moved them into the officers' bunks. And I moved down there, moved us down there into the first mortar man's old bunker. I had some Korean support troops clean it first though, and it was very adequate for my gunnery officer, recon officer, warrant officer, and myself. A few mice and bugs, but not bad.

• 1:15:00Jocko Willink?

  One corner of my end was dug into an old Korean grave which was immediately covered, but there is still a lingering odor. I keep my feet down at that end, and liberal use of an aerosol bomb and open, and opening the door, and it's not bad sleeping at all. These graves are hard to avoid since they are scattered, helter-skelter all over these hills where our positions are." So, what I thought was awesome about that? He takes over as company command. The enlisted guys are living in this crappy, stinky, rodent-filled barracks. He kicks them out, moves them into the officers' barracks, and moves the officers into the crappy barracks. That's what I'm talking about. That is legit. Some more points from Korea. "Good leaders don't wait for official permission to try out a new idea.

• 1:15:44Jocko Willink?

  In any organization, if you go looking for permission, you will inevitably find the one person who thinks it's his job to say no. It's easier to get forgiveness than permission. Put the welfare of your own troops above your own. They eat before you eat, they sleep before you sleep. Simple acts of courtesy and graciousness have found profound impact on subordinates, morale, self-perception, and performance." So, "Every leader is put through an informal process in the first few weeks wherein his people judge him and decide whether or not he's worthy of their trust. He must earn their trust. How?

• 1:16:25Jocko Willink?

  A leader must prove himself by his actions, appearance, demeanor, attitude, and decisions." I like that, you're definitely getting looked at. When you take over something for the first time, you're getting looked at hard.

• 1:16:39Jocko Willink?

  The leader must be visible on the battlefield. He must be in the battle battalion commander on down brigade and division commander on occasion. He must exhibit his determination to prevail no matter what the odds or how desperate the situation. He must have and display the will to win by his actions, words, tone of voice on the radio and face to face. His appearance, his demeanor, his countenance and the look in his eyes. He must remain calm and cool, no fear.

• 1:17:06Jocko Willink?

  He must ignore the dust, the noise, the smoke, the explosions, the screams, the wounded, the yells or the dead lying around him. That is all normal. He must never give off any hint or evidence that he is uncertain about a positive outcome, even in the most desperate situations.

• 1:17:26Jocko Willink?

  So again, you know what you brought up earlier of this, hey, we're not going to show any fear. We're not going to show any possibility of ever losing. You know, I don't think he's talking about that.

• 1:17:39Jocko Willink?

  I think he's talking about even though you might be thinking that and even though you might give the indication, hey, look, if we don't get our act together, we could lose this thing. But we're not going to.

• 1:17:51Jocko Willink?

  Some more Korea examples. I'd been taught for years that leaders must set the example and I tried to do so. But in battle is absolutely mandatory and especially so during the Korean War at the company level. I learned that I could keep calm and functional in the bedlam, stress, noise, blood and killings of a fierce battle. I had no choice but to remain calm. Stay in shape. When we were not in battle or another operation, I took a run in the late afternoon for an hour or so.

• 1:18:21Jocko Willink?

  The first reports in the battlefield are usually exaggerated for good or bad and are not entirely accurate. This is normal since they are sent back by leaders in a moving battle and are fragmentary. First reports are always wrong. That's what we used to say and that's usually pretty true.

• 1:18:40Jocko Willink?

  Here's a good one. Be ready so you don't have to get ready.

• 1:18:45Jocko Willink?

  A good leader will preposition as many assets and people as he can before an event or as in a contingency in case of disaster. Thus, when the alert and or emergency inevitably comes, you'll be better prepared to respond to it. Be ready so you don't have to get ready.

• 1:19:07Jocko Willink?

  He talked about when things are quiet and here he's talking about when things are quiet, on the line and nothing's going wrong, tighten up security. Be sure the listening outposts are alert, especially at night and particularly if it's raining or snowing. That's the most appropriate time for the enemy to close in.

• 1:19:26Jocko Willink?

  It's interesting how he's talked about that. He talks about it a bunch, but you know, for him, when, if there's nothing going on, do something, right? If you've got a day off, do something to make your position better. If you're not getting attacked, good, improve your position. Every moment he's thinking about that.

• 1:19:47Jocko Willink?

  When you draw up a plan of attack or defense, you must have information on the weather, terrain, and enemy capabilities, but you cannot coordinate your plan with the enemy.

• 1:19:58Jocko Willink?

  Therefore, you have to think through all the what ifs.

• 1:20:03Jocko Willink?

  If the enemy does this, what happens if the enemy does that, what happens? It's time well spent. I always say the enemy gets a vote and that's what he's saying. Yeah, you can make your plans, but your plans aren't coordinated with what the enemy's gonna do. They're gonna, the enemy's gonna do what the enemy's gonna do. Soldiers in battle, fight, kill, and die, and die primarily for each other.

• 1:20:30Jocko Willink?

  Don't complain to your boss.

• 1:20:33Jocko Willink?

  He wants solutions, not just problems.

• 1:20:39Jocko Willink?

  Right?

• 1:20:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:40Jocko Willink?

  And that's not just to your boss, that's up and down the chain of command.

• 1:20:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. I'm saving Private Ryan when he said, "You never gripe down the chain of command."

• 1:20:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Definitely.

• 1:20:50Speaker 01

  I mean, I think that was a different point he was making, buddy.

• 1:20:53Jocko Willink?

  Well, it's, it's, well, I just said up or down the chain of command. He's saying, "Don't gripe up."

• 1:20:57Speaker 01

  No, he's saying, "Don't gripe down." Grips go up.

• 1:20:59Jocko Willink?

  He's saying, yeah, well, he's saying, "Don't gripe up," and you're saying, "Don't gripe down," and I'm saying, "Don't gripe."

• 1:21:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Well, he's saying, uh, "Don't complain."

• 1:21:09Jocko Willink?

  Don't complain to your boss. Yeah, like, that's a gripe.

• 1:21:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, yeah, the way I took it on Saving Private Ryan, anyway, was gripe, meaning like, I have a complaint about this that I need the answer to, kind of thing. It's more of a comprehensive thing.

• 1:21:20Jocko Willink?

  Dude, you cannot delineate the difference between gripe and complaint. They're the same thing.

• 1:21:27Speaker 01

  Well, I feel like complaining, because only because he said, I want a solution.

• 1:21:30Jocko Willink?

  A complaint is, might be a little bit more formal than a gripe. A gripe is like, man, I can't believe we're not getting the same food again. That's a gripe. But it's also a complaint.

• 1:21:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think you're right about that.

• 1:21:41Jocko Willink?

  Now, a complaint could also be, we are low on ammunition. That's beyond a complaint, right? That's like, it's a critical situation.

• 1:21:47Speaker 01

  So gripe is less?

• 1:21:48Jocko Willink?

  Gripe is a little bit less, but they're the same freaking thing. And you shouldn't do either one of them up or down the chain of command. Unless you bring solutions with you.

• 1:21:55Speaker 01

  Okay, so that is what I think was kind of like a given, what I felt, anyway, in Saving Private Ryan. Meaning like, okay, if you have an official complaint, like, okay, we need to change this. And then again, you might be right, because he doesn't want you to do it down, because it makes you look like a weak leader, kind of thing, I'm assuming. With this, he's saying, hey, don't just come with all your complaints and no solutions to your superiors, because superiors want answers.

• 1:22:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, they want solutions. Yeah. But when you gripe down the chain of command, there's two things. Number one, if you just complain down the chain of command, then the guys are gonna take that and run with it. But that doesn't mean you don't explain things down the chain of command. That doesn't mean you don't say, hey, guys, we're low on ammunition, here's what's going on. Our vessel transport got hit and sunk by a torpedo. They didn't deliver the ammo. Then people go, damn. As opposed to just like, can't believe we don't have enough ammo.

• 1:22:51Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. We don't have enough ammo. This is an issue. Maybe that's kind of what he meant. That only goes up. I'm trying to think.

• 1:23:00Jocko Willink?

  But both of them, you have to tell your guys that you don't have enough ammunition. You have to say, hey, guys, we don't have enough ammunition. Here's what's going on. I put in for more. The transport got sunk. And this is the situation we're in. We need to use our ammo as sparingly as possible. That's not a complaint.

• 1:23:15Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:23:15Jocko Willink?

  That's an explanation of what's going on. And a commander's intent about how much ammunition we're gonna use. And conserving ammunition.

• 1:23:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:26Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 1:23:30Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, we're getting into Vietnam shortly after 9 a.m. On June 29th, 1964, I was handed the colors of the 2nd Battalion, 23rd Infantry. Accepting the colors means the commander is now responsible for all his command does or fails to do. Yeah, once you're in charge, you're responsible for everything.

• 1:23:56Jocko Willink?

  Now, if you remember in We Were Soldiers Once and Young, there was the Lost Platoon, which was led by Henry T. Herrick, Lieutenant Henry T. Herrick, and this guy was known to be aggressive, aggressive to the point of being reckless, right? Overly aggressive. And his Sergeant Major, and this is, this is from the book here, Sergeant Major Plumley told him, Colonel, if you put Lieutenant Herrick in there, he will get all of them killed. His senior enlisted man, his Sergeant Major told him, hey, don't put this guy in charge. He put him in charge anyways. And he regretted that.

• 1:24:37Jocko Willink?

  And he said that that was one of his leadership letdowns, that he failed to remove a toxic leader from the ranks and Herrick's soldiers ultimately were the ones that, that paid the price. And therefore, he says, when you identify a toxic subordinate leader, remove them. If you cannot remove them, reassign them to a role where their toxicity can be minimized.

• 1:25:02Jocko Willink?

  So, and I mean Herrick, that was a, and again, you have to get the book, We Were Soldiers Once and Young, so you get the whole story, because I didn't cover it in enough detail, because it's one thing that's going on in that, in that whole scenario. And Herrick kind of redeemed himself, getting the guys together to at least defend themselves for days out in the field, being attacked like over and over and over again. But it was his hyper-aggressiveness that got them in that situation in the first place. This is an interesting one. He's talking about his troops and he says, their duty at their level is just as important as my duty at my level.

• 1:25:45Jocko Willink?

  That's, that's awesome. And I've talked about this before, how I always wanted like every guy in my platoon to think that they were the most important person in the platoon. And that's what he's saying. And it's right. It's not just like I was like manipulating. It's like, no, you're the radio man.

• 1:26:00Jocko Willink?

  If we need help, you're the only person that's gonna get us help. You're the corpsman. If one of our guys gets wounded, you're the only person that's gonna be able to save him. You're the machine gunner. You're the most important job on the platoon. Without you laying down cover fire, we can't move. It's like everyone, everyone's the most important. Everyone's job is important.

• 1:26:20Jocko Willink?

  Now, he,

• 1:26:24Jocko Willink?

  he's actually, uh, critical. And, and I got some feedback with, with, on, we were soldiers once and young, you know, here, here's a guy that led his troops into the situation and a bunch of guys died. And how is that in any way heroic? And that's valid, right? I mean,

• 1:26:43Jocko Willink?

  a valid point. We don't, now, the, the counter to that is look, you don't know you're gonna get ambushed. If you get it, if you know you're gonna get ambushed like that against, you know, 1,500 soldiers, Vietnamese soldiers, then you would make this different decision. But we don't know that. We don't know that. We don't have a crystal ball.

• 1:26:59Jocko Willink?

  But here's some of Hal Moore's criticism of the way the Vietnam War was fought. And again, this is similar to Hackworth. And Hackworth eventually stood up and said this out loud during the war, which is why he got so much criticism from the army. And also, one of the reasons why I like Hackworth so much is because he did what I was talking about earlier. He was like, no, I don't believe in doing this and we're, we're, we're not gonna win this way. He said that.

• 1:27:30Jocko Willink?

  Here's what Hal Moore says, "From 1964 until the American withdrawal in 1973, our objectives kept changing from political stability and preventing an enemy takeover to preserving the independence of South Vietnam and training the Arvin forces. At first, the US pushed the South Vietnamese Army aside and took the war over with a brand of fighting that only American forces and American logistics could support. When we left in 1973, our heritage was just that, a form of war that the South Vietnamese and its armed forces could not sustain."

• 1:28:07Jocko Willink?

  In the late 1970s, the Army Chief of Military History, General Douglas Kennard, wrote a book called The War Managers. He sent a questionnaire to 175 Army generals who had served in Vietnam. His book is the analysis of their replies. Nearly 70% of those generals were uncertain and unclear as to what the US objective was in Vietnam. Damn. That's horrible. That's absolutely horrible. 175 generals. And 70% of them didn't know what the objective was. Now, if you, that's the generals, you take that down a step to the colonels, to the battalion commanders,

• 1:28:52Jocko Willink?

  to the company commanders, to the platoon commanders, to the squad leaders. You get down to the front lines and you guys have no idea what they're doing there. How do we expect to accomplish the mission when no one in the chain of command really understands what it is that the objective is, what the mission is?

• 1:29:11Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 1:29:14Jocko Willink?

  With that, Colonel Moore says, "A leader must have clearly defined objectives. He must ensure that these objectives are clearly understood by his subordinate leaders."

• 1:29:25Jocko Willink?

  Lesson learned.

• 1:29:34Jocko Willink?

  Here's a.

• 1:29:37Jocko Willink?

  Speaking of family life, there are at least five activities that must be kept in balance through proper time management. These five activities are the job, physical fitness, personal time alone, recreation, and social relationships. Also, if they apply, two others, religion and family. If any of these get out of balance, then life gets out of balance.

• 1:30:01Jocko Willink?

  From my own personal experience and observation of others, being a workaholic is the most common area of imbalance. And again, that's what I saw a lot with, with, with the guys I used to work with. They, they're workaholics. And not only that, you know, you meet business guys all the time. You're not, you're not, there's so many business guys that are workaholics.

• 1:30:22Jocko Willink?

  Business men, business women that are out there, they're grinding. They love it.

• 1:30:27Jocko Willink?

  And they don't want to stop. And that's, again, that's problematic. It's not, it's not the most common. But business leaders. Why are they in a leadership position? Cause they built something. Why'd they build something? Cause they wanted to win. Cause they wanted to take over. Well, that doesn't just stop at a certain point. It keeps going. It keeps growing. You reach one goal and you've set another one, a higher one, a harder one. That keeps going. Be careful of that one.

• 1:30:53Jocko Willink?

  Balance.

• 1:30:57Jocko Willink?

  After Vietnam, he went and took over a base where they were running basic training. And here's what he said about basic training. The goal was for every man leaving basic combat training to be in the best physical shape of his life and to know it. To stretch his mind and his muscles and to assist him in thereby gaining more pride in himself, more self-confidence, and above all, more self-discipline. A man who has more self-discipline, has more confidence in his ability to do the job. I got asked a while back, and we answered on the podcast, but you know, a guy said, hey, I took over a unit. They're kind of downtrodden. What do I do to get their, their pride back up? It's like, yeah, work them hard. Do hard training. That's what you do.

• 1:31:38Jocko Willink?

  Discipline.

• 1:31:40Jocko Willink?

  Hard training. Give them something to brag about. Give them something to take pride in.

• 1:31:46Jocko Willink?

  He was dealing with Vietnam protesters. When he was running that base. And he just said, guys, don't even show your weapon. No, don't even, we're going to completely underreact. Not going to give them what they want. And that's one of his tenets here. Don't overreact and never overreact to an overreaction.

• 1:32:08Jocko Willink?

  And I'm going to close this out with a pretty big chunk here, but this is when Hal Moore got back from Vietnam. He wrote a little piece called Lieutenant Leadership in Combat.

• 1:32:26Jocko Willink?

  And here's what he says, "This is a compilation of a few of my views on leadership of and by lieutenants, specifically infantry platoon leaders in a combat zone. It will be somewhat mixed in perspective and is not possible in these few words to get across my full views on leadership. In my judgment, a leader builds over time his own unique brand of empathy, or lack of it, with his subordinates and creates his own leadership debits and credits with those under his orders." So you've heard me talk about leadership capital. Same thing he's talking about there are leadership debits and credits. He is not, he does through, he does this through personal contact and shared experience based on the interplay between leader and lead,

• 1:33:08Jocko Willink?

  working with mixed perspectives shaped by the dynamics of real time and real life.

• 1:33:15Jocko Willink?

  Leadership is a highly personal, individual matter. Each leader must establish his own approach based on an internal compass using a method geared to his personality, his capabilities, but always oriented toward accomplishing the mission while knowing and taking care of his men. Now, while he says that, you gotta come up with your own, your own method of leadership. They're the fundamental principles that he talks about, that we talk about all the time, that we wrote about. Those don't change. You gotta find your methodology of presenting them and carrying yourself, but the fundamental principles are fundamental.

• 1:33:54Jocko Willink?

  As officers, we are given groups of men to lead. Other officers, NCOs, and enlisted soldiers. Each has a different background, different problems, a different outlook, and different duties. But no matter what their background or their previous experience, no matter how much love, care, and effort may have been spent over the years by their parents in raising them, when they are turned over to us are now ours to care for. At that instant, the parents, teachers, or system that brought them to that point will be in the past. Their lives and future

• 1:34:35Jocko Willink?

  are largely in our hands. This is a terrible responsibility for a fire team leader to have, not to speak of a battalion, a division, or a corps commander.

• 1:34:52Jocko Willink?

  You got all these different people coming in and you're responsible for them now. And I'll tell you, I've had this conversation with business leaders too. Business leaders are the same way. Because when you're paying someone's paycheck, they're feeding their family, they're paying their mortgage, they're saving for their kids to go to school, they're paying their car payment. That's their life. And if you as a leader are not helping them to achieve, you're letting them down.

• 1:35:20Jocko Willink?

  Now, is it the exact same thing as having their actual life or death in their hand? No, it's not the same thing. But the pressure is there.

• 1:35:29Jocko Willink?

  Among other attributes,

• 1:35:33Jocko Willink?

  I feel soldiers of any rank must have confidence in four directions. The first is to have self-confidence. Developing it leverages many resources. The primary source is expert knowledge of his assigned duties and readiness at any time to take on the next higher job.

• 1:35:51Jocko Willink?

  So you don't want your people just trained to do their job. You want them to be able to step up and do the next job above them in the chain of command. In addition to creating confidence through individual expertise, his superiors facilitate its development through trust in how they treat them. This is imperative. Every person's dignity must always be respected. I feel that if anyone under me fails, the fault is at least half mine. A man should never be caused to think poorly of himself. And this requires a subtle and sensitive touch by the leader, especially when taking disciplinary action.

• 1:36:30Jocko Willink?

  So the first thing he wants you to have is self-confidence, right? And you develop it by how you treat him. Second, but not in priority order is the necessity for each to have complete confidence in his personal weapon, as well as any other weapon he might have to handle. To include using radios and knowing the procedures for requesting and controlling mortar and artillery fires. Developing this takes leader-controlled, leader-supervised training. So you want to be good at your job. You want to be expert in your job. The more expert you are in your job, the more confidence you're going to have.

• 1:37:11Jocko Willink?

  The third confidence in the unit and the men who are fighting, the third is confidence in the unit and the men who are fighting with him. At whatever level, the leader must strive to develop an intense esprit de corps, but never by running down other units. An example of what not to do is to permit internal sub-units to be so disloyal to the organization as a whole as to criticize, snipe, or run down sister units, be it a squad, platoon, or company on up. It is self-defeating and tears the unit as a whole, tears down the unit as a whole. So, you want them to have esprit de corps, but you don't want them to get it by cutting

• 1:37:54Jocko Willink?

  down other units that are within your team. Fourth and so vital, a man must have confidence and trust in his leaders. He must know and utterly believe his leaders are competent professionals who know what they are doing and are not careless or casual in their outlook toward their responsibilities. For a subordinate to be confident in his leader, the subordinate must know the leader is aware of and appreciates what the subordinate must face and the life he must lead in performing his job. The leader must make every effort to get inside the heads of his men and see their problems and the world from their viewpoint.

• 1:38:39Jocko Willink?

  You gotta get the perspective of your people. You gotta understand what they're going through. You know, we talked about, and we were soldiers once and young, that in the, in the Civil War, the, the officers, it was like bad if you couldn't ride your horse all the time. Because you didn't understand the guys that were marching, what they're going through. And in Vietnam, some guys were riding the helicopter all the time. Some commanders would stay over the battlefield at 2,000 feet out of a small arms range. We're safe up here, nothing can happen. But you forget what those guys are going through down there on the ground.

• 1:39:13Speaker 01

  Jiu Jitsu, um, the instructor jams them up sometimes when, you know, when you're trying to teach someone something, and I said this before, they call the curse of knowledge, where you don't, you're so advanced, you forgot what the white belt is going through in his learning, you know, so you start teaching stuff and, you know, they, you forget that they need to know this stuff first before they can pick up this other stuff, you know?

• 1:39:36Jocko Willink?

  You need perspective, you need their perspective.

• 1:39:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:41Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, "This takes some doing, and while the leader cannot be intrusive into personal affairs, he must help solve personal problems if he can, especially if the problems penalize individual or unit performance." For example, in garrison and to some extent even in a combat area, most disciplinary problems stem from women, alcohol, firearms control, money, and vehicles.

• 1:40:07Jocko Willink?

  This is, this is from my old job, this is 100% true. Women, alcohol, firearms control, not so much, money and vehicles for sure. Guys crashing cars, guys DUIs, guys crashing motorcycles, guys getting in trouble with girls, drinking is encompassed in all those.

• 1:40:27Jocko Willink?

  Knowing this, a leader can perform a lot of preventative maintenance. As an isolated but not sole example, pay problems often arise for separated families living on limited income. Many of these can be eliminated in advance by real leadership.

• 1:40:45Jocko Willink?

  In summary, my views are, take care of the troops, develop four-way confidence, and be professional. This ensures we can carry out our first duty accomplishment of the mission. Finally, concerning professionalism. I believe even now, the clock is bringing us closer to some few seconds, minutes, or hours in the future, when the professionalism we will have or will not have will make a life or death difference for the men placed under our leadership and whose families can only trust, hope, and pray that we know our business.

• 1:41:39Jocko Willink?

  And again, there's more in that book.

• 1:41:46Jocko Willink?

  But I think we'll close it out there.

• 1:41:52Jocko Willink?

  Because what a thing to keep in your mind. Just keep that in your mind that even now, the clock is bringing us closer.

• 1:42:02Jocko Willink?

  Closer to a moment when your leadership will be tested.

• 1:42:11Jocko Willink?

  And it is your professionalism. And that means your ability, your mental and physical strength, your knowledge, your judgment. It will all be tested at some point.

• 1:42:28Jocko Willink?

  Have we done enough to prepare for that moment? Have we trained hard enough? Have we studied hard enough? Have we read enough? Have we learned enough?

• 1:42:42Jocko Willink?

  Are we prepared?

• 1:42:47Jocko Willink?

  For what is coming?

• 1:42:52Jocko Willink?

  And I think that's all I've got for tonight. So Echo, speaking of being prepared.

• 1:43:01Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:43:02Jocko Willink?

  Maybe you can give us some advice on getting a little more prepared.

• 1:43:06Speaker 01

  Sure, be glad to. Prepared for, I'll start with preparation for jujitsu. Few jujitsu references, jujitsu's life.

• 1:43:17Speaker 01

  Grappling is life, jujitsu is life. Jujitsu is life, by the way.

• 1:43:21Jocko Willink?

  There's a lot of similarities.

• 1:43:22Speaker 01

  I would say.

• 1:43:23Jocko Willink?

  You shouldn't say jujitsu is life. Well, if you say that, then that's cool.

• 1:43:26Speaker 01

  It's a metaphor.

• 1:43:27Jocko Willink?

  No, no, no, no, no. But for some people, jujitsu is life.

• 1:43:30Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:43:31Jocko Willink?

  They're just training. Good, good for them.

• 1:43:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:34Jocko Willink?

  Maybe.

• 1:43:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:35Jocko Willink?

  It shouldn't be your whole life. You should have some other things to life.

• 1:43:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, I didn't mean it that way. I meant it like.

• 1:43:40Jocko Willink?

  Jujitsu reflects life.

• 1:43:41Speaker 01

  It's like a metaphor for life.

• 1:43:43Jocko Willink?

  Yes, affirmative.

• 1:43:44Speaker 01

  So in the event of you being in jujitsu, like many people are, and more people are becoming.

• 1:43:52Speaker 01

  A lot of people ask me what gi to get. I know. Yep, I'm going into it. You get an origin gi, that's it.

• 1:44:00Speaker 01

  How many do you have?

• 1:44:02Jocko Willink?

  Four.

• 1:44:02Speaker 01

  Four. Okay, I have three. Okay. Every single one of them is outstanding.

• 1:44:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, designed.

• 1:44:12Speaker 01

  Outstanding, designed.

• 1:44:14Jocko Willink?

  Designed here, though, here.

• 1:44:17Speaker 01

  In America.

• 1:44:17Jocko Willink?

  In America.

• 1:44:18Speaker 01

  And the resources.

• 1:44:19Jocko Willink?

  By jujitsu players, by the way.

• 1:44:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:21Jocko Willink?

  Jujitsu players.

• 1:44:22Speaker 01

  So I was, I watched one of their, one of Pete's videos.

• 1:44:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:27Speaker 01

  And it was, it's, if you go to their YouTube channel, you know, the, you have the main video.

• 1:44:32Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 1:44:33Speaker 01

  It's watching that. And it made sense, you know, you see everyone that's part of the, the factory, they kind of give their input in the video a little bit. And it made sense. So like, you know, like, there's a lot of gis that are made, you know, kind of thing, but if it's made by jujitsu people, they're gonna know, like, when you put on a gi jacket.

• 1:44:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:52Speaker 01

  They're gonna know the difference between a gi that's, that whoever designed it had this in mind, where when you put your hands up, what's that gi gonna do? You know, if you're just, oh, I'm just, I'm gonna make a gi, and they don't necessarily do jujitsu, they might not pay, pay attention to that kind of stuff.

• 1:45:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:09Speaker 01

  Or, um, you know, when you do jujitsu, let's face it, like, if you do karate, your body goes through a certain thing, right? While you're doing karate in whatever capacity. If you do jujitsu, your body's gonna go through a certain thing. And more appropriately, your gi is gonna go through a certain experience.

• 1:45:26Jocko Willink?

  Oh, so you're saying you can't use a karate gi for that jujitsu?

• 1:45:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's one of the things I'm saying. So let's say, the way you put on and keep on a karate gi or a jujitsu gi is gonna be, gonna play a role in when you do jujitsu. So like, you tie, you know, when you tie your pants or something like this?

• 1:45:48Speaker 01

  How your pants are tied?

• 1:45:52Speaker 01

  Matters when you do jujitsu.

• 1:45:54Jocko Willink?

  True.

• 1:45:55Speaker 01

  Just like how your belt, your belt is tight. It matters. Anyway, Pete and these and Origin, they kept that in mind when they designed it and it shows too, by the way. So anyway, these are some of the reasons that you should 100% get an Origin gi if you're still wondering what gi to get.

• 1:46:14Jocko Willink?

  More important than that, if you don't do jujitsu and that's why you don't need a gi, start jujitsu.

• 1:46:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, then you'll need a gi.

• 1:46:21Jocko Willink?

  Then you'll need a gi.

• 1:46:22Speaker 01

  And then you.

• 1:46:22Jocko Willink?

  More important, you start jujitsu.

• 1:46:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:25Jocko Willink?

  That's what we're talking about.

• 1:46:26Speaker 01

  The parallels between jujitsu and life.

• 1:46:28Jocko Willink?

  And you'll get in good shape and you'll, you'll learn to defend yourself in real situations.

• 1:46:34Speaker 01

  Recalibrate your instincts.

• 1:46:36Jocko Willink?

  Recalibrate your instincts, which are completely wrong, by the way.

• 1:46:39Speaker 01

  They're wrong.

• 1:46:39Jocko Willink?

  They're wrong.

• 1:46:40Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:46:40Jocko Willink?

  If you, right now, if you're listening and you're thinking, you know, my instincts aren't that bad. No, I'm telling you they're wrong.

• 1:46:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:45Jocko Willink?

  If you don't think they're wrong, go to Jujitsu Academy.

• 1:46:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:47Jocko Willink?

  And tell them you got good instincts. Let's roll.

• 1:46:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. Here's one. In life, do you want to turn your back to your problems in life?

• 1:46:56Jocko Willink?

  No, you do not.

• 1:46:57Speaker 01

  In jujitsu, do you want to turn your back to your opponent?

• 1:46:59Jocko Willink?

  No, you do not.

• 1:46:59Speaker 01

  Okay, but your instinct might tell you in a fight and sometimes in life, you do it because that's what we do sometimes.

• 1:47:07Jocko Willink?

  See, that's where, that's why Hal Moore, we're sorry, we're not listening to our instincts all the time.

• 1:47:11Speaker 01

  Not all the time.

• 1:47:12Jocko Willink?

  Not all the time.

• 1:47:12Speaker 01

  But.

• 1:47:14Jocko Willink?

  We listen to them, we don't follow them.

• 1:47:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:16Jocko Willink?

  You can listen to it and that's a caution.

• 1:47:18Speaker 01

  Right, but no, no, no. He's saying if they're predicated on your education experience, learning, reading.

• 1:47:23Jocko Willink?

  Reading, yeah.

• 1:47:24Speaker 01

  Right, so essentially you are gonna listen to your recalibrated instincts after you train in jujitsu with your Origin gi because that's the one you're gonna get because that's the best one straight up. That might sound like an opinion, but it's a straight up fact. You get these gis at originmaine.com. They have some other stuff on there. Some apparel, rash guards, compression gear.

• 1:47:49Speaker 01

  That being said, there's also other stuff, supplemental stuff, supplements. Okay, so krill oil, you know, we talked about supplements that I think Jocko thinks, I'm speaking for you right now, what are good supplements? Krill oil.

• 1:48:04Jocko Willink?

  Joint warfare.

• 1:48:05Speaker 01

  Joint warfare. These are things to maintain your, um, structure, bodily structure. Is that too scientific sounding?

• 1:48:13Jocko Willink?

  No, I don't think you have the capability of sounding too scientific.

• 1:48:20Speaker 01

  Dang, bro. I think you might be right.

• 1:48:21Jocko Willink?

  See, that was one of those digs I was talking about earlier. Like, I don't mean it in a bad way, but it kind of come across like I'm a jerk.

• 1:48:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, what are you saying? I'm stupid? You're saying I'm stupid?

• 1:48:29Jocko Willink?

  No, I'm just saying you don't sound real scientific.

• 1:48:31Speaker 01

  Should I just not talk anymore?

• 1:48:33Jocko Willink?

  Some people would support that.

• 1:48:35Speaker 01

  Don't answer that. Anyway, supplements. Yes, Jocko has supplements.

• 1:48:39Jocko Willink?

  There's echo lovers and there's echo haters.

• 1:48:41Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:48:41Jocko Willink?

  They're both, there's two camps.

• 1:48:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:43Jocko Willink?

  The echo lovers is a bigger camp.

• 1:48:46Speaker 01

  Hopefully.

• 1:48:47Jocko Willink?

  The echo haters is a louder camp.

• 1:48:50Speaker 01

  Sure. Yeah. And it makes sense, you know, the gripes, I think they come up the chain or down the chain.

• 1:49:00Jocko Willink?

  Both.

• 1:49:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. Man, it makes sense. Hate. To me, if you're honest, you're honest. There it is. Nonetheless, back to supplements. Jocko has supplements. They're good supplements. Supplements Jocko actually takes. See, that's a big deal. Do what I say, not what I do. In this case.

• 1:49:16Jocko Willink?

  You got, you got some discipline in you right now. You're doing all kinds of bringing stuff back, closing the loop from the podcast.

• 1:49:22Speaker 01

  You know, I'm just trying to learn these things, you know, apply them to my life. And in this particular situation, life is telling the people

• 1:49:32Speaker 01

  about joint warfare and super krill oil. Anyway, it's omega threes in the krill oil. Obviously, if you don't know about krill oil, I think that

• 1:49:41Speaker 01

  krill oil ended up to be one of those sleeper, what do you call them? Sleeper supplements. You know, something where you like, it's been going on the whole time and you didn't know about it.

• 1:49:50Jocko Willink?

  No, you didn't know about it. I've known about it.

• 1:49:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, okay, then. That's me. Nonetheless, Jocko has it, takes it. I take it. And I will say 100% effectiveness. My opinion. Origin Maine.

• 1:50:02Jocko Willink?

  Scientific opinion.

• 1:50:03Speaker 01

  Scientific. Yeah, big time. Double blind, triple blind. Um, originmaine.com, that's where you get it. Also, for a pre-mission supplement. New supplement. Jocko supplement. It's called disciplines. Like a pre-workout cognitive enhancer.

• 1:50:23Speaker 01

  Is that accurate?

• 1:50:25Jocko Willink?

  Well, yeah.

• 1:50:25Speaker 01

  You call it that?

• 1:50:27Jocko Willink?

  It's pre-life.

• 1:50:29Speaker 01

  Life, yeah, mission.

• 1:50:30Jocko Willink?

  Because, yeah, because what's your mission? Because I just don't need cognitive enhancement when I'm, when I'm gonna get in the game.

• 1:50:37Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:50:38Jocko Willink?

  I also need to have physical.

• 1:50:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:40Jocko Willink?

  Force multiplication.

• 1:50:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:42Jocko Willink?

  So that's why we made it.

• 1:50:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:45Jocko Willink?

  Because I wanted, because, because when I do stuff, it's physical and mental.

• 1:50:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:49Jocko Willink?

  It's physical and mental. You need to be, both of those need to be tuned up.

• 1:50:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:55Jocko Willink?

  And firing.

• 1:50:57Speaker 01

  Enhanced, if you will, at, at the very least, it should be squared away.

• 1:51:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, and the good thing, you can feel it.

• 1:51:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. See, and that works real good for jiu-jitsu too, because jiu-jitsu is one of those things, let's face it, if I'm doing a bench press.

• 1:51:12Jocko Willink?

  You know, people have asked me all the time, like, do you take a pre-workout in the morning? Because I get up early in the morning and I work out. I do not take a pre-workout in the morning before I go and work out in the morning. No.

• 1:51:21Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:51:22Jocko Willink?

  That's not when I take the discipline. No, I don't take coffee. I, I go in there, I drink water, I brush my teeth, I drink water. Then I go and, and do my morning workout. So I do not take a pre-workout or a nootropic prior to working out in the morning. However, for the jitsu.

• 1:51:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:39Jocko Willink?

  There is a, I would say I'm about sixty or seventy percent of the time, I'm on, on the discipline when I go in there.

• 1:51:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, because you can feel it, like, you can feel better, like, why not have good training?

• 1:51:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that seems like jiu-jitsu is one of those things, like life, is one of those things where this kind of supplement makes a hundred percent sense because it is physical and mental and not just, oh, you know, like, everything's mental. I get it. Your brain dries out. I get it. It's true. Even if you're doing, you know, bench press or whatever, it's still mental for sure. But jiu-jitsu is like, your mind has to be going at the same pace. You know, you, you're using your mind just as much, if not more, during jiu-jitsu, and you're using your body, by the way.

• 1:52:24Jocko Willink?

  I think if you were gonna do, look, okay, so in the mornings, I don't need it.

• 1:52:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:30Jocko Willink?

  Bro, I don't need it. Like, I don't, in the morning, I'm ready. Like, I wake up and, and I'm. Like ready to rock and roll. I don't, I'm, I'm gonna get in there. I'm gonna get it, get it.

• 1:52:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:42Jocko Willink?

  I will say this during, uh, over the Christmas time, some of my workouts in the morning, cause I had other responsibilities during that time period. Cause you got early morning tactical things that you're doing around Christmas, et cetera. And, cause you got kids and whatnot. And so some of my workouts were, and then in the, when I was working on the afternoon, I was getting on the discipline in the afternoon because it's not the morning time anymore.

• 1:53:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. So you're like one of those guys who like, you know how certain people, they have their, their like, uh, what do you call it? It's like time of day where their performance kind of, kind of peaks their potential.

• 1:53:16Jocko Willink?

  I don't think, I think my performance actually peaks in the afternoon, like most people. I think that's the most common time.

• 1:53:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:53:21Jocko Willink?

  But in the morning, when I get up, I'm ready to rock and roll. This is what I'm saying. I don't, I just wanna get in there and get it done. Like I'm, I feel like I missed out a bunch of stuff when I was sleeping.

• 1:53:31Speaker 01

  Oh, for real?

• 1:53:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, like what just happened?

• 1:53:34Speaker 01

  I kind of feel the opposite. I feel like when I'm working out, I'm like, dang, I could be sleeping.

• 1:53:38Jocko Willink?

  There you go. You need discipline.

• 1:53:41Speaker 01

  Nonetheless, it's called discipline, the pre-mission. We'll call it a pre-mission.

• 1:53:45Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 1:53:47Speaker 01

  Supplement.

• 1:53:47Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 1:53:48Speaker 01

  It's good.

• 1:53:48Jocko Willink?

  It's a good, good name.

• 1:53:49Speaker 01

  Check it out, originmaine.com. That's where you get it. Also for kick ass fitness gear. On it.com slash Jocko. I get the kettlebells. I have the kettlebells. My collection is grow. I'm going for all of them. That's my, that's my, my, my goal. Clear and concise. Cool. You know, if you want a, if you wanna make your workout routine more interesting, there's a lot of cool stuff on there. Battle ropes, maces, and you can look up all the workouts you wanna do. I think that's a big deal for people unlike you, by the way, who don't mind doing the boom, boom, boom, routine, routine, routine. You wanna mix it up.

• 1:54:29Speaker 01

  That's what I think. Anyway, on it.com slash Jocko. That's where you can get them. Awesome stuff. Also, when you get the book, We Were Soldiers Once and Young, and also.

• 1:54:45Speaker 01

  How more on leadership, winning when outgunned and outmanned.

• 1:54:51Speaker 01

  That's what it's called. When you're getting these books, don't worry. I have the list of books, including this one, by episode on the website, jockopodcast.com.

• 1:54:59Jocko Willink?

  While you're doing that, make a note to yourself that you need to put the link to the new Extreme Ownership, because somebody tweeted me that you have the old Extreme Ownership linked in there, which is not good.

• 1:55:09Speaker 01

  Are you guys selling the old one?

• 1:55:11Jocko Willink?

  I don't think you can get it anymore.

• 1:55:14Jocko Willink?

  If you can get it, well, no, I don't think you can get it anymore. Just the new one. It gets sold out.

• 1:55:18Speaker 01

  Alright, there you go. Boom, yet another book on the list, and that list is at, like I said, jockopodcast.com. Go to the top of the menu there, click on books, boom, all the books, including the ones we, the one we went over today. Extreme Ownership. I'm gonna call it the new one. What do you call, what's the official?

• 1:55:35Jocko Willink?

  The new one.

• 1:55:36Speaker 01

  The new one, that's it.

• 1:55:37Jocko Willink?

  The re-release.

• 1:55:40Jocko Willink?

  The black one.

• 1:55:41Speaker 01

  The black one. The one with the black cover.

• 1:55:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's got the black cover.

• 1:55:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, there it is. Anyway, either way.

• 1:55:48Jocko Willink?

  The new one has excerpts from the podcast. When we talk about leadership on the podcast, the really prominent questions. Put some of those in there. They're included in there. And there's also a new foreword. And there's new pictures in there. Color pictures.

• 1:56:07Jocko Willink?

  Held the line, tried to hold the line.

• 1:56:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, it didn't work out.

• 1:56:09Jocko Willink?

  Color pictures.

• 1:56:10Speaker 01

  Color pictures are cool, man.

• 1:56:11Jocko Willink?

  For them, it's a step up. For me, it's a step down.

• 1:56:17Speaker 01

  I don't mind the colored pictures. I think they're cool. But yeah, there it is. Nonetheless, you can get it all on jockopodcast.com in the book section. Click on there. It's a good way to support. Boom, takes it to Amazon. Do some shopping on there. With these books here, or whatever else. Hey, carry on. That's how. Also, subscribe to the podcast, iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, all these podcasting providing platforms.

• 1:56:44Speaker 01

  If you haven't already, leave a review if you're in the mood, if you're in the mood, if you're compelled to. Leave a review. Also YouTube, we have a YouTube channel.

• 1:56:52Jocko Willink?

  I haven't read any podcast reviews on the podcast in a long time. So if maybe there's some really good ones, I'll break them out. Some really funny ones.

• 1:57:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, very good.

• 1:57:02Jocko Willink?

  Funny ones.

• 1:57:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's like, um.

• 1:57:04Jocko Willink?

  Like, good doesn't mean like, hey, this is the best podcast ever. Good means you're just.

• 1:57:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:57:09Jocko Willink?

  Something that's funny and creative and it's still good.

• 1:57:12Speaker 01

  Yes, of course. Well, because in your way of saying good, it can still be a negative review as long as it's good, a good one.

• 1:57:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, sure.

• 1:57:19Speaker 01

  You know what I'm saying?

• 1:57:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:20Speaker 01

  I mean, I don't recommend, obviously, but as far as your criteria for the word good in this specific case. Good, good.

• 1:57:29Jocko Willink?

  Good review.

• 1:57:30Speaker 01

  Good review.

• 1:57:31Jocko Willink?

  Entertaining, I should say.

• 1:57:32Speaker 01

  Entertaining, there it is.

• 1:57:33Jocko Willink?

  Entertaining.

• 1:57:34Speaker 01

  There it is.

• 1:57:34Jocko Willink?

  Same with, same with on Amazon.

• 1:57:36Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:57:37Jocko Willink?

  There's some entertaining reviews. I've read some of those. I'll read some more of those because they're good. People put time and effort into those.

• 1:57:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, they do, for sure.

• 1:57:47Jocko Willink?

  And their, and their sense of humor.

• 1:57:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, I support that too, by the way. Also, like I said, YouTube, subscribe. We have a YouTube channel, Jocko Podcast, is what it's called. It's what it's called, YouTube channel. Boom. Got some excerpts on there. If you'd want to necessarily watch the whole two, three hour podcast video format. Some excerpts on there. You can take specific lessons. Boom. All on the YouTube channel. Most of them. All of them. Most of them. Nonetheless.

• 1:58:15Jocko Willink?

  That's a tiny fraction of them, actually.

• 1:58:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, you know, some of them will say, also, there are deleted scenes. Every once in a while, I'll put some deleted scenes if you care or are interested in what Jocko digs at me about. While we're not, actually technically, we're recording, but it's not part of the podcast.

• 1:58:37Jocko Willink?

  Pre-recording.

• 1:58:38Speaker 01

  Pre-recording, yeah. If you're interested in that kind of stuff. It's on the YouTube. Every once in a while, I'll post them. Also, Jocko has a store. It's called Jocko's Store. Obviously, this is where you can get, if you want, the shirts. Shirts, hoodies, maybe some hats on there. Rash guards. Strange, a lot of people have been hitting me up for rash guards and I've been seeing them out in the wild way more recently.

• 1:59:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:03Speaker 01

  People are getting after Big Ten.

• 1:59:06Speaker 01

  Warrior Kid rash guards are on there for the youth, youth sizes.

• 1:59:10Jocko Willink?

  For the warrior kids.

• 1:59:12Speaker 01

  Kids, yeah, exactly right. Boom, they're up, up, shipping, going out already. Um, also, we have a new one on there. Just if you want any of this stuff, this is where you can get them. JacoStory.com. Some good stuff, girl stuff on the women's stuff on there. Also, psychological warfare, if you don't know what that is, I know.

• 1:59:31Speaker 01

  I've explained it before, but in the event of you not hearing it yet, this is what it is. It's an album with tracks, not songs, they're Jocko tracks. So basically what these tracks are for are in your, in your.

• 1:59:45Jocko Willink?

  I thought you were gonna keep it concise for a moment.

• 1:59:47Speaker 01

  Nah, nah, well, here's the thing, I think is important, you know what?

• 1:59:50Jocko Willink?

  Let's see if you can do it in 10 seconds.

• 1:59:52Speaker 01

  No, I can't do it in 10 seconds, 10 seconds, I'm not gonna do our people the disservice of making it 10 seconds.

• 1:59:58Jocko Willink?

  I'll be quiet, I'll be quiet.

• 1:59:59Speaker 01

  This, this is, this product was made for me. This is my product, essentially.

• 2:00:03Jocko Willink?

  True statement.

• 2:00:04Speaker 01

  When it comes down to it. So when you come, okay, here's what it is. When you come across your moments of weakness in life.

• 2:00:13Speaker 01

  Kinda sounded like you right there, didn't it? A little bit.

• 2:00:17Speaker 01

  Weakness in life, like, you know, you're waking up early, right? You wanna keep it consistent all year. New year, new me, waking up early every single day. Maybe not on Sundays, or maybe Sundays too, I don't know, whatever, either way. When you wake up, sometimes you're not gonna feel like it. Sometimes you're gonna wanna hit the snooze. Boom, put in one of these tracks.

• 2:00:39Speaker 01

  It's Jocko on there telling you pragmatically, giving you practical advice on why you shouldn't hit the snooze. Same thing with skipping workouts, same thing with cheating on the diet.

• 2:00:53Speaker 01

  Do you call it cheating on the diet?

• 2:00:55Jocko Willink?

  I don't know what you call it. I call it eating doughnuts.

• 2:00:58Speaker 01

  Eating doughnuts, slipping on the diet, you know, hitting these speed bumps. Weakness speed bumps is what they are. Speed bumps.

• 2:01:07Jocko Willink?

  I had some chocolate chip. I had some chocolate cake with mint chocolate chip ice cream on all of this. And it was good.

• 2:01:14Speaker 01

  How many times? More than once?

• 2:01:15Jocko Willink?

  No, I you you know what? I had twice in the same situation.

• 2:01:21Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 2:01:21Jocko Willink?

  Like like right there. Like boom, I'm back again.

• 2:01:23Speaker 01

  Boom, like two hits and boom, said goodbye.

• 2:01:26Jocko Willink?

  It was like chocolate cake with mint chocolate chip ice cream, which is not normal. So that's why it kind of got me. I wasn't listening to psychological warfare at the time.

• 2:01:35Speaker 01

  See, that's a perfect example where, actually, that's not a perfect example because I'm sure you were kind of like, hey.

• 2:01:41Jocko Willink?

  Freedom.

• 2:01:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was the freedom. You were.

• 2:01:43Jocko Willink?

  Freedom part of discipline equals freedom.

• 2:01:44Speaker 01

  Yes, you're exercising the freedom part. This is for times where like you're at work.

• 2:01:49Jocko Willink?

  I'm actually fasting right now, other than having some Jocko Y T and some discipline.

• 2:01:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:55Jocko Willink?

  I'm fasting.

• 2:01:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:56Jocko Willink?

  People, some people are like, it's no fasting, whatever.

• 2:02:01Speaker 01

  I think they're right, actually.

• 2:02:02Jocko Willink?

  Twenty seven thousand calories a day to eating four calories a day.

• 2:02:06Speaker 01

  Still not fasting. I think fasting is zero. I don't know. I'm not a fasting expert. Either way, what this is about, what um psychological warfare, what what?

• 2:02:16Jocko Willink?

  You were done.

• 2:02:17Speaker 01

  Who it's for? No, no, no, no.

• 2:02:18Jocko Willink?

  You were done.

• 2:02:19Speaker 01

  Bruh, there's a whole explanation not even done. We're still unclear about what it is. No, no, no.

• 2:02:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, your album tracks.

• 2:02:25Speaker 01

  You said, no, you said, you use the example of you eating chocolate cake.

• 2:02:31Jocko Willink?

  Okay, I'm with mint chocolate chip ice cream.

• 2:02:32Speaker 01

  With ice cream as one of the scenarios.

• 2:02:37Jocko Willink?

  The chocolate cake had like a hard shell of chocolate on it.

• 2:02:40Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:02:41Jocko Willink?

  It's legit.

• 2:02:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, that is. Well, the reason I asked, how many times?

• 2:02:46Jocko Willink?

  Ice cream was kind of melted a little bit.

• 2:02:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's how.

• 2:02:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's good.

• 2:02:50Speaker 01

  Or you do it with like a brownie, so it melts naturally onto it's kind of the same.

• 2:02:55Jocko Willink?

  There's a, there's a restaurant in San Diego, Obi, California. It's called Raglan.

• 2:03:02Jocko Willink?

  And they have something there called the illegal.

• 2:03:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:05Jocko Willink?

  Because it's so good that it should be illegal, right? And it is, it's a, it's no big deal, right? This is what makes it so good is it's just the, uh, a little cast iron pan. Just a little cast iron pan and they cook a chocolate chip cookie in there. And then they put vanilla ice cream on it.

• 2:03:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:25Jocko Willink?

  That thing is legit.

• 2:03:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that, that might be, you know what, my psychological warfare might not work against the illegal at Raglan. So watch out for that one.

• 2:03:37Speaker 01

  That's saying a lot because as of right now, I think it's 100% success rate, actually 101%. Alright, so I heard, I heard out in the field reports, but you were saying.

• 2:03:49Speaker 01

  You were saying.

• 2:03:50Jocko Willink?

  Saying what?

• 2:03:51Speaker 01

  That that's the example when to use it, it's not.

• 2:03:55Jocko Willink?

  Oh.

• 2:03:55Speaker 01

  The example is when you're on the path, but you feel like the moment of weakness.

• 2:03:59Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay.

• 2:03:59Speaker 01

  I don't think the chocolate chip.

• 2:04:01Jocko Willink?

  That was a conscious decision of.

• 2:04:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, it's the holidays, I'm gonna do this, you know, kind of thing. I'm gonna exercise my freedom because of all my discipline, all that. It's like when you're at work, it's not lunchtime yet, it's almost lunchtime, but not quite yet. Boom, they got the donuts, right? Cause there's some big office meeting, they want to cater, you know, whatever. It's that kind of situation.

• 2:04:19Jocko Willink?

  Cause you don't have a plan. That's what's good fasting, recalibrate that, that little hunger vibe.

• 2:04:24Speaker 01

  Unless you hit a speed bump of weakness during the fast.

• 2:04:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:29Speaker 01

  Which you can, by the way.

• 2:04:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, oh yeah, for sure.

• 2:04:32Speaker 01

  Like peanut butter, like you ever been fasting?

• 2:04:34Jocko Willink?

  The biggest thing, I think the biggest thing, somebody was asking me about it the other day. The, the reason, he's like, what's, what's the hardest part? Like the first eight hours, the first 12 hours, the first 24 hours? And I was like, the hardest part of a fast is the parts where you're not doing something.

• 2:04:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:04:49Jocko Willink?

  Like I haven't thought about eating one time during, while we've been recording this podcast. I haven't thought about eating one time.

• 2:04:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:04:55Jocko Willink?

  When we get done and we. Square ourselves away and you leave.

• 2:04:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:05:00Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna be like, oh, cool. What am I gonna do now? You know?

• 2:05:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:05:04Jocko Willink?

  But then if I was to go from here and like drive to go do something, I wouldn't think about it.

• 2:05:08Speaker 01

  Are you talking to the phone?

• 2:05:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you got something going on.

• 2:05:10Speaker 01

  What, what, um, how long is this?

• 2:05:13Jocko Willink?

  I don't know. I think I'm actually gonna eat this afternoon or this evening.

• 2:05:16Speaker 01

  Oh, so you're like, hey, I'm just gonna fast. What? Do you have a minimum amount?

• 2:05:20Jocko Willink?

  No, I'll do like 24 hours. Usually I do 24 hours once a month and then I'll do 72 hours once a quarter.

• 2:05:27Speaker 01

  Dang.

• 2:05:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. I'll have, I'll have a few handfuls of mixed nuts. Like throughout the day, I'll grab a handful of mixed nuts. I'll have some tea, some chocolate white tea, by the way. Uh, this is the first one where I've done discipline, which I think is really good because it's, it's ma- making me feel great. So, and like, uh, there's no calories in it or there's one calorie or something really small in there.

• 2:05:51Speaker 01

  Incidental calorie.

• 2:05:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. But, yeah, and, and recalibrate your hunger sensitivities. And man, I feel good when I do it. So have you done it? You do 24 hour fast. You feel good, right? You feel good or no?

• 2:06:04Speaker 01

  I, here's the, here's the thing. Wait, wait, 24 hours? Yeah, I've done 24. Yeah, plenty.

• 2:06:09Jocko Willink?

  See, I do 24. I actually probably do 24 hours more than once a month because a lot of times I'll just wake up, I'll be traveling and I just won't eat.

• 2:06:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:06:17Jocko Willink?

  And so I ate the night before. I wake up early in the morning. I go, I travel, I get somewhere at night and then I eat dinner. Well, that means I just went 24 hours without eating.

• 2:06:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. And that's the kind, essentially kind of how it happened for me early on, but after a while you're like, you know, the kind where you're like, dang, I totally missed lunch, but I don't want to eat now because I won't be hungry for dinner with the family kind of thing. So I'm like, hey, I'm not gonna eat. Then I'm like, wait, I just went 24 hours.

• 2:06:40Jocko Willink?

  You, you know what I've noticed this time? And like I said, it's only been 36 hours right now, but what I've noticed this time is the actual, I felt good about exercising discipline. Like I felt good about like, I'm not eating that because maybe it's because, because.

• 2:06:56Jocko Willink?

  I just, I've been thinking to myself like, yeah, I don't need to eat right now. And that feels good. I've been actually enjoying the discipline of it.

• 2:07:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:07:02Jocko Willink?

  Which is, normally I don't enjoy the discipline of it. Normally, I haven't, not that I don't, I've never even thought about it before. This time I've been like, yes.

• 2:07:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, that makes sense.

• 2:07:09Jocko Willink?

  I'll shut you down.

• 2:07:10Speaker 01

  Kind of.

• 2:07:11Jocko Willink?

  And I do remember, I know we don't talk about SEAL training a lot, but when you go through hell week, which is like when you stay awake for five days. One of the things that I thought about when I was going through hell week was like, oh, it's gonna feel so good to sleep when I get done with this, that it kind of made me feel good to do it. Like, I was like, oh, man, can you imagine how good it's gonna feel when I get done with this? I could go to sleep and it's gonna feel so good. And right now, I'm kind of like the same thing. I'm kind of thinking, oh, it feels so good to not, to not eat right now, because in two days, I'm gonna eat.

• 2:07:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's the same way I feel strangely, not strangely, but same way I feel when I go on vacation. Or I'm like, if I didn't do a lot of work for the, you know, the past months or whatever, like, let's say work is like kind of cruise, we'll say, like, you didn't like test me. You know how like,

• 2:07:58Speaker 01

  if I shoot all day, like at the muster, I'm kind of shooting all day from four thirty.

• 2:08:02Jocko Willink?

  When he talks about shooting, everyone, he's talking about taking pictures and videos. Cause I'm like, where are you shooting?

• 2:08:08Speaker 01

  I don't shoot guns for work. No, I don't. Nonetheless, you do a few musters, you make some, you know, in my case, you know, you do some work. And then you're like, oh, you're looking forward to that vacation kind of thing. But if it's like, oh, you have a trip planned, but you haven't been working that hard, you're like, the brown one, I like, I want to stock up on a bunch of hard, hard work so I can enjoy that vacation. You know what I mean? So the vacation seems more appealing, same thing. Yeah.

• 2:08:29Jocko Willink?

  Feels good. Feels good. Give it a try. Check with your doctors, right? I guess.

• 2:08:33Speaker 01

  What? Super free fast. Yeah, sure. But nonetheless, if, back to the speed bump thing, if you hit your moments of weakness.

• 2:08:40Jocko Willink?

  No way you can carry this thread all the way back to psychological warfare.

• 2:08:42Speaker 01

  Psychological warfare is good because sometimes you hit those moments.

• 2:08:46Jocko Willink?

  All that you've said about it, you never said, hey, you can get it on Apple, iTunes, Amazon Music. You never even gave out the goods.

• 2:08:53Speaker 01

  Not yet. I was about to. Big time. I was about to demonstrate the whole thing, but you already did, and I thank you for it.

• 2:08:58Jocko Willink?

  Cause now we can do it. Yeah. Hey, also on Amazon, you can get Jocko White Tea. Which, uh, you know, there's been a lot of scientific studies done and a lot of people have tried it. We have witnesses. You can absolutely deadlift 8,000 pounds, including Jordan Peterson, by the way. Yeah. He's been now deadlifting. He's only deadlifting 7,000 pounds before and this is coming from him. Yeah. Now he's deadlifting 8,000 pounds. So that's good. Jocka White Tea. There's some great reviews on there. You might want to read those. Uh, we got some books. Way the Warrior Kid shows kids the path. The next Warrior Kid book is coming out April 28th.

• 2:09:39Jocko Willink?

  So you can, I'll let you know when you can get that. I don't know when you can right now, but that's when it's coming out. I'm done writing it. Just doing editing now. And also there's the book we talked about earlier, Extreme Ownership, written by me and my brother Leif Babin and the new edition's out. Combat Leadership for Business and Life. There's a lot of lessons in there. You can learn from it. I learned from it. Also, The Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual. And when you say that, you gotta say it like that.

• 2:10:15Jocko Willink?

  Because sometimes people don't, don't want to say field manual. But someone pointed out, I don't know. They say it was discipline equals freedom.

• 2:10:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:10:23Jocko Willink?

  Discipline equals freedom field manual. A guy said today on social media, on Twitter, he hit, he hit it up and he said, hey, it's a field manual. It's not a book. You don't read from cover to cover. It's a field manual. So you take it out when you need it.

• 2:10:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:10:39Jocko Willink?

  You refer to it. You go through it. Maybe you go through it one time because it's not long, not a long read. This Ain't About Face by Colonel David Hackworth. You can probably read this in two hours. Three hours.

• 2:10:54Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:10:56Jocko Willink?

  Then, once you've read it, you go back to it.

• 2:10:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:10:59Jocko Willink?

  The field manual.

• 2:11:02Jocko Willink?

  Teaching you how to get after it mentally and physically. The thoughts and actions that you can take to get better. Opportune time. A lot of people got it for Christmas. Now they're implementing New Year's.

• 2:11:17Speaker 01

  Good.

• 2:11:17Jocko Willink?

  New Year's Resolus.

• 2:11:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:11:21Jocko Willink?

  Also, a lot of people still asking for the audio version of the Disciplinical Freedom Field Manual. It is not on Audible. It is on iTunes, Amazon Music, Google Play, and other MP3 broadcasting platforms. That's where you can get it.

• 2:11:39Jocko Willink?

  If you need further implementation in your business, or your organization, or your team beyond the podcast and beyond the books, we have Echelon Front, which is our leadership consulting company. It's me, Leif Babin, JP Denell, Dave Burke. Email [email protected] or check out the website echelonfront.com. On top of that, we have the muster.

• 2:12:06Jocko Willink?

  The muster is a

• 2:12:10Jocko Willink?

  leadership gathering.

• 2:12:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:12:13Jocko Willink?

  It's in Washington DC, May 17th and 18th. It is in San Francisco, October 17th and 18th.

• 2:12:23Jocko Willink?

  Come and get it. You can register at extremeownership.com. And if you need to follow up with us, with questions, or answers, or comments, or just to cruise. That's cool. We are actually on the interwebs, Twitter, Instagram.

• 2:12:45Jocko Willink?

  And the Facey Boy. Echo is at Echo Charles, and I am at Jocko Willink. And thank you for listening to the show. And thanks to those of you that are listening that make this show possible. Those of you in the armed services that are out there on the front lines worldwide, keeping peace and protecting our freedoms to police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, and other first responders. Thanks for holding the line here at home and keeping our families safe. Thank you for your service as well. And to everyone,

• 2:13:25Jocko Willink?

  remember.

• 2:13:28Jocko Willink?

  That even now, the clock is bringing us closer.

• 2:13:33Jocko Willink?

  Closer to that moment.

• 2:13:37Jocko Willink?

  So, train hard and work hard and do everything you can to be prepared. So when that time does come, you can step up and get after it. So until next time, this is Echo and Jocko. Out.