176: Morale is the Most Important Thing on The Battlefield? From Bernard 'Monty' Montgomery.

0:00:00 - Opening 0:11:05 - Bernard Montgomery on Morale on the battlefield. 1:57:27 - Final Thoughts and Take-aways. 2:09:03 - What is THE PATH? And how to stay on it. 2:30:32 - 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 176 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo. Good evening.

• 0:11Jocko Willink?

  Usually when I write a letter, it is very much overdue and I make every effort to get it away quickly.

• 0:20Jocko Willink?

  This letter however is different. It is a letter that I hoped you would never receive as it is verification of that terse, black edged card which you received some time ago and which has caused you so much grief.

• 0:39Jocko Willink?

  It is because of this grief that I wrote this letter. And by the time you have finished reading it, hope that it has done some good and that I have not written it in vain.

• 0:52Jocko Willink?

  It is very difficult to write now of future things in the past tense, so I am returning to the present.

• 1:01Jocko Willink?

  Tomorrow we go into action.

• 1:05Jocko Willink?

  As yet, we do not know exactly what our job will be, but no doubt it will be a dangerous one in which many lives will be lost. Mine may be one of those lives.

• 1:20Jocko Willink?

  Well, Mom.

• 1:23Jocko Willink?

  I am not afraid to die.

• 1:27Jocko Willink?

  I like this life, yes. For the past two years have planned and dreamed and mapped out a perfect future for myself. I would have liked that future to materialize, but it is not what I will, but what God wills. And if by sacrificing all this, I leave the world slightly better than I found it, I am perfectly willing to make that sacrifice.

• 1:55Jocko Willink?

  Don't get me wrong though, Mom. I am no flag waving patriot, nor have I ever professed to be. England's a great little country, the best there is. But I cannot honestly and sincerely say that it is worth fighting for.

• 2:16Jocko Willink?

  Nor can I fancy myself in the role of a gallant crusader fighting for the liberation of Europe.

• 2:24Jocko Willink?

  It would be a nice thought, but I would only be kidding myself.

• 2:29Jocko Willink?

  No, Mom. My little world is centered around you. And includes Dad, everyone at home. And my friends in Wolverhampton.

• 2:43Jocko Willink?

  That is worth fighting for. And if by doing so, it strengthens your security and improves your lot in any way, then it is worth dying for too.

• 2:57Jocko Willink?

  Now, this is where I come to the point of this letter.

• 3:02Jocko Willink?

  As I have already stated, I am not afraid to die. And am perfectly willing to do so, if by my doing so, you benefit in any way whatsoever.

• 3:15Jocko Willink?

  If you do not. Then my sacrifice is all in vain.

• 3:22Jocko Willink?

  Have you benefited, Mom?

• 3:25Jocko Willink?

  Or have you cried and worried yourself sick?

• 3:29Jocko Willink?

  I fear it is the latter.

• 3:33Jocko Willink?

  Don't you see, Mom, that it will do me no good? And that, in addition, you are undoing all the good work I have tried to do?

• 3:44Jocko Willink?

  Grief is hypocritical. Useless and unfair. And does neither you nor me any good.

• 3:56Jocko Willink?

  I want no flowers. No epitaph, no tears.

• 4:02Jocko Willink?

  All I want is for you to remember me and feel proud of me.

• 4:08Jocko Willink?

  Then shall I rest in peace, knowing that I have done a good job.

• 4:15Jocko Willink?

  Death is nothing final or lasting. If it were, there would be no point in living.

• 4:21Jocko Willink?

  It is just a stage in everyone's life. To some, it comes early, to others, late, but it must come to everyone sometime.

• 4:32Jocko Willink?

  And surely, there is no better way of dying.

• 4:39Jocko Willink?

  Besides, I have probably crammed more enjoyment into my 21 years than some managed to do in 80. My only regret is that I have not done as much for you as I would have liked to do. I loved you, Mom. You were the best mother in the world. And what I failed to do in life, I am trying to make up for in death. So please don't let me down, Mom. Don't worry or fret. But smile. Be proud and satisfied. I never had much money.

• 5:22Jocko Willink?

  But what little I have is all yours. Please don't be silly and sentimental about it. And don't try to spend it on me. Spend it on yourself or the kiddies. It will do some good that way. Remember that where I am, I am quite okay. And providing I know that you are not grieving over me, shall be perfectly happy. Well, Mom. That is all. And I hope I have not written it all in vain. Goodbye.

• 6:07Jocko Willink?

  And thanks for everything. Your unworthy son. Evor. And that was a letter from Private Evor Roelberry, who served in the British Army, in the South Staffordshire Regiment. And the letter can be found in a book called Last Letters Home. And it was his last letter home. He was killed in Ochnem on 17 September 1944 in the opening action.

• 6:56Jocko Willink?

  Of Operation Market Garden,

• 6:59Jocko Willink?

  which was conceived and planned and championed by

• 7:05Jocko Willink?

  Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery.

• 7:10Jocko Willink?

  And this massive operation, overall, it's generally assessed as a failure.

• 7:19Jocko Willink?

  Although, history has been kind and some people look back and theorize that it did have a more positive impact on the battlefield than was initially thought, but nonetheless, it didn't achieve, achieve its objectives and there was a significant amount of casualties.

• 7:40Jocko Willink?

  And as I said, this was Monty.

• 7:44Jocko Willink?

  Monty's plan is the plan that he pushed. And as I said on the last podcast about him, this is one of the things that makes him controversial. That he led this, this operation Market Garden. And as I said on the last podcast, he was able to redeem himself somewhat in the Battle of Bulge, but this, this negative was pretty impactful.

• 8:13Jocko Willink?

  And with that, that doesn't mean that there's nothing we can learn from that situation. We've covered it on the podcast, the, that, that battle from that perspective.

• 8:25Jocko Willink?

  And we have to learn, we have to learn from people's successes and people's failures, just as we have to learn from our own successes and our own failures. And on the last podcast, we talked about Monty's view of leadership. And if you haven't listened to that podcast yet, it's number 174, that kind of talks a little bit more detail, slightly about Monty and his thoughts and we debated a little bit, the, the meaning of the word dominate, which he kind of puts as one of these driving forces as a leader, is the leader's ability to dominate. And I, I talked about how I'm not quite sure where he falls with that word. You know, because dominate can have a very negative connotation.

• 9:08Jocko Willink?

  And I actually asked for feedback and a bunch of people gave me feedback and. I think I landed somewhere kind of in the middle. I don't think it's the dominate with the with the hey, I'm just gonna rule over my people. I don't think that's how he meant it. I think he but I don't think he meant it in like, hey, I'm just dominate. I dominate my skills and that's why I'm good. I think he meant it somewhere in the middle. And then I talked about the fact that one of the other major important factors that Monty talks about is morale. And he wrote another little thing about morale called morale in battle.

• 9:50Jocko Willink?

  And I think I actually wish I would have covered this one first. And this one almost trumps the the leadership, his thoughts on leadership, because I think this is even more applicable and relatable. But it's it's good, solid stuff from someone that led massive numbers of troops in battle and saw a lot of war war in World War One and World War Two, obviously. So with that morale in battle, and we're gonna jump right into it. Here we go. This paper is an attempt to analyze what is at the root of morale in battle,

• 10:32Jocko Willink?

  and thereby to discover how it can be developed. High morale is defined as endurance and courage in supporting fatigue and danger. In other words, the quality which makes men go forward in an attack and hold their ground in defense. It is the quality without which no war can be won. So this is a this is a and I'll get to this in the end. He talks about morale being the most important factor on the battlefield. Obviously. I think leadership is the most important thing on the battlefield and I'll break that down a little bit later, but from his perspective, as a guy that had led massive operations,

• 11:12Jocko Willink?

  he feels morale is the most important thing. So without a doubt, it is important. Here, we get into his thoughts on it. And again, I think you're going to see this, the stuff that he talks about morale, he seems to nail this, I think even better than he nails leadership. So here we go, the quality of morale. "In war, the moral stature of some men increases and their characters grow stronger and more closely knit in proportion to the discomforts and dangers which they are called upon to face." I've said this over and over again. War, war can make you stronger. War can make you a better person. This is something that Peter T. and I talked about when he first

• 11:56Jocko Willink?

  came on the podcast and we talked about families that were slightly fractured and if they have a major incident, a medical emergency, somebody gets wounded, somebody gets cancer. If the family's close, it'll make them closer. If the family's fractured, it'll blow them apart. He's saying the same thing here. Back to the book. "Such men will occasionally perform in battle remarkable acts of selfish courage and daring and will endure with extraordinary fortitude and patience the burdens thrust upon them. Other men, however, will, under the stress of hardships or dangers, surrender to fear or fatigue and will allow their characters to disintegrate." So the same thing that Peter T. was talking about with families. And this is the same

• 12:39Jocko Willink?

  thing with any team or organization. You have a team that's pretty close and they go through something rough, they get even closer. You have a team that's kind of fractured and they go through something tough, they're going to explode. Same thing happens with people's personalities and character in war. This disintegration is usually, will usually take the form of a loosening of the moral fiber which results in timidity of action and slackness in appearance.

• 13:06Jocko Willink?

  He talks a lot about appearance. He's one of these guys.

• 13:09Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 13:10Jocko Willink?

  In battle, men who have kept a firm grip upon themselves will appear clean and vital in their appearance, while those who have gone to seed will be dirty and their appearance will be slovenly. So he's one of those guys. Hey, if you don't look good, and this is, obviously, this is much of the military, they will judge you on how you look. That's not always true. Sometimes you get a guy that looks like a rogue street person, and he's a good operator. And sometimes not. It depends.

• 13:47Jocko Willink?

  Similarly, timid officers will be found during quiet periods in the line groveling in the filth of some cellar, while their signalers and runners, separated from the light, attempt to do their jobs by the flame of a guttering candle. In these latter cases, there's been a general loosening of the character due to a partial surrender to fear. So you get these timid officers that are out there, and they cower, and they're scared. And they, while their troops are up trying to do their job.

• 14:23Jocko Willink?

  In extreme cases, men who have become afraid have sunk to the level of beasts. No longer in full control of themselves, they have become as sheep or rabbits, unable to act alone or think rationally. Their instincts have become those of the herd. They are either paralyzed by fear or gripped by unreasoning panic. Such men are exceptions, but they are a reminder of the value of high morale. The good soldier, the man with high morale, has not surrendered to fear and has maintained his personal standards. The bad soldier, the man with low morale, has become incapable of dependent action, of independent action, and has to some extent

• 15:08Jocko Willink?

  shed a part of his human individuality. So this is what you get. People that all freaked out, and they don't act for themselves anymore, they're just gonna fall to her.

• 15:19Jocko Willink?

  Morale is a mental and moral quality. It is a quality peculiar to human beings because it is essentially the product of a mind with a conscience.

• 15:30Jocko Willink?

  It is that which in battle keeps men up on humanities level as opposed to being a beast. But humanities level is not high enough because the strongest human instinct is the instinct of survival. Morale is also that which develops man's latent heroism. So that he will overcome his desire to take the easy way out and surrender to fear. So you gotta be a little bit beyond human because the human instinct, the strongest human instinct is I'm just gonna stay alive. That's my goal. You gotta be, you gotta be more than that. You gotta be better than that.

• 16:09Jocko Willink?

  It is necessary now to make clear what high morale is not. It is not contentment or satisfaction bred from ease or comfort of living.

• 16:22Jocko Willink?

  Both of these contain a hint of complacency and acceptance of luxury as an end in itself. High morale is far more than any of these for it implies essentially the ability to triumph over discomforts and dangers and carry on with the job. So if you're one of these leaders, you're in a leadership position and you think, well, you know,

• 16:44Jocko Willink?

  what, how do I raise my, the morale of my men? Give them luxury days. Give them Theo Von luxury days.

• 16:52Jocko Willink?

  Theo, negative, not happening. That, that doesn't do it.

• 16:58Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, nor is, no, because I'm sorry, because what you have to do is you have to give them challenge. You have to give them discomfort or not, you have to give them, they have to face discomfort. They have to face danger and that's what increases morale when they face and they triumph over that. That's what, that's what increases morale. Pizza.

• 17:18Jocko Willink?

  And fine satin sheets do not increase morale. They might get a little surface nudge, but they don't increase morale. Otherwise, your morale would be through the roof.

• 17:30Speaker 01

  Through the roof all day. Wait, so that so the morale is so it's like not to be confused with because you do need like the rest between sets.

• 17:39Jocko Willink?

  Yes, you need rest and and.

• 17:41Speaker 01

  But that's different.

• 17:41Jocko Willink?

  And you can't just beat people down all the time, right? You can't, you can't, you know, you have to get sleep, you have to get rest, you have to have some level of comfort or your morale will get beat down. But that can't be the primary aim.

• 17:53Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 17:54Jocko Willink?

  Of you as leaders to provide comfort.

• 17:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, it's not like, hey, let's boost morale by.

• 17:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 17:59Speaker 01

  Letting people sleep or whatever.

• 18:01Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 18:01Speaker 01

  Or not letting them sleep, but you know, yeah, give them love.

• 18:03Jocko Willink?

  Give them, give them two days off. How about one day off and we come back and train hard and we work?

• 18:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, it seems like you wouldn't, you wouldn't give them the day off if they don't need the day off. Like you need the day off for something very specific, like some sort of fatigue situation or whatever.

• 18:17Jocko Willink?

  Bottom line is the is a dichotomy, right? Can you go too far with comfort and pleasure and leisure? Yes, you can.

• 18:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:23Jocko Willink?

  Can you go too far with discipline and hardness and sternness and scarcity of resources? Yes, you can. You have to find the balance somewhere in the middle. I think the point here is that people lean towards, well, if I want to increase morale, I just need to give luxury to the troops. That's the, that's the wrong way to lean. You should actually lean, I'm not saying go full bore, but you should lean in the direction of hard training, discipline. Lean in that direction. Don't go full bore in that direction, lean in that direction.

• 18:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's almost like, I mean, you think about it, it seems like making them feel what like empowered or strong, right? That's kind of the result you're going for.

• 19:03Jocko Willink?

  Hey, let me just break it, break it down for you real simple. If you go and you have a good training jujitsu, how do you feel when you're done?

• 19:10Speaker 01

  So I'll.

• 19:10Jocko Willink?

  How's your morale?

• 19:11Speaker 01

  Pretty high.

• 19:11Jocko Willink?

  Morale is high. If you sit there and watch TV all day and you eat a pizza and a donut, how do you feel at the end of the day? How's your morale?

• 19:19Speaker 01

  Shabby.

• 19:19Jocko Willink?

  Morale's shabby. Now, if you train jujitsu nine hours for 14 days straight. How do you feel? Broken down.

• 19:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:27Jocko Willink?

  Right? And then how do you feel when it's like, hey, man, day off today, Echo, all good. Hey, guess what? I ordered some pizza for you too. It's coming, it's gonna be here in 15 minutes. We're gonna chow down, we're gonna watch the fights. Cool, that's a good morale boost, we're all good.

• 19:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:40Jocko Willink?

  But you gotta find that balance.

• 19:44Jocko Willink?

  All right, back to the book. Nor is high morale achieved through fitness or healthiness alone. It is important not to confuse the idea of physical happiness with morale. The happy faces of men after a good game of football are not necessarily the faces of men with good morale. Morale is a mental rather than a physical quality. A determination to overcome obstacles and instinct of instinct driving a man forward against his own desires. Driving a man forward against his own desires. That's a good one. That's a good one. And he detaches the physical and the mental part a little bit more than I do. I think they're a little bit more closely related. I think that when you're in good physical shape, it helps your mental morale.

• 20:29Jocko Willink?

  But he goes on to say this, which is spot on. High morale is not happiness. Happiness may be a contributory factor in the maintenance of morale over a long period, but it is no more than that. A man can be unhappy, but can still regularly and without complaining, advance and defend within the terms of the definition. So that's, so that's an important thing. And again, this is, this is a trap that leaders get suckered into. Hey, if I can make my people happy, then morale is good. No, no. Pizza will make your people happy, but it won't increase morale. It might increase morale if you get it at the right time for the right reason.

• 21:10Jocko Willink?

  Do you eat Hawaiian pizza?

• 21:11Speaker 01

  No.

• 21:11Jocko Willink?

  Check. Is that just a lie?

• 21:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a complete violation.

• 21:15Jocko Willink?

  We don't even, we don't even eat that kind of pizza in Hawaii.

• 21:17Speaker 01

  Generally speaking, yeah, correct.

• 21:20Jocko Willink?

  Well, there you go.

• 21:21Speaker 01

  That's the thing. It's like, it's like Canadian bacon.

• 21:24Jocko Willink?

  What does, what does Hawaiian pizza do to your morale?

• 21:31Jocko Willink?

  Apparently it's an inhibitor.

• 21:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's an inhibitor. Well, you know, like Canadian bacon, yes, like Canadians, like, hey, is this Canadian? You know, Canadian bacon is just a little piece of ham, basically.

• 21:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 21:40Speaker 01

  You go, hey, to someone from Canada, be like, hey, this is Canadian bacon. They're like, no, that's ham. Like you, you made that up.

• 21:46Jocko Willink?

  Have you ever had an English muffin before?

• 21:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 21:49Jocko Willink?

  You can't get them in England.

• 21:50Speaker 01

  Cause they're not.

• 21:51Jocko Willink?

  They don't, yeah.

• 21:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, they just call them just like french fries, right?

• 21:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 21:55Speaker 01

  Or wait, is that?

• 21:56Jocko Willink?

  In French, in France, they're called something else, though.

• 21:58Speaker 01

  Chips.

• 21:59Jocko Willink?

  They're not called french fries. No, that's England. I think they're called palm frites.

• 22:02Speaker 01

  All right. Yeah, that makes sense. Same deal then.

• 22:05Jocko Willink?

  All right. This is another, this again, you can see I was in going through this to figure out what I was gonna, what parts I was gonna single out, I ended up doing so much of this one.

• 22:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:16Jocko Willink?

  Because almost every line is like, yes, you need to know that. Yes, I need to know that. I need to remember that. So here's one. High morale is not toughness. This one caught me a little off guard. Some very tough men in this war have turned out to be very disappointing in action. Toughness is a physical and not a mental asset. Tough men will occasionally perform an isolated act of bravery. Morale, however, is not a quality which produces a momentary act. It influences behavior at all times. So that's completely true and it's true in, it's true in combat. It's true in training even.

• 22:58Jocko Willink?

  Like some, somebody like going through basic SEAL training, there were some tough guys there. Like tough, where you go, that guy seems like a tough guy. Quitter. And then, and then there's guys that get through BUDs. It's like, oh, they were tough in BUDs. Like they did some good job in BUDs, but it has nothing to do with how well you're gonna do as a SEAL.

• 23:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:17Jocko Willink?

  Like it does, it's, I would say there's some correlation, but it's, it's a very loose correlation. Being a good SEAL BUDs trainee has very little to do with being a good SEAL

• 23:32Jocko Willink?

  in a SEAL team. And I think that sometimes surprises people, but then again, it shouldn't really surprise people because being good at BUDs, BUDs is, is a physical evolution, has very little to do with, with your mentality and has very little to do with leadership and unit cohesion. And so to show up at a team, what's the most important thing when you get to a team? The most important thing when you get to a team is to be a team member and be a leader in that team or a follower in that team. If you aren't those things, you're not gonna be good. You can be super tough. That's great. And there's times when it pays to be tough.

• 24:12Jocko Willink?

  And you definitely, as a SEAL, you can't not be, you can't not have some level of toughness. You know, when I think about being a SEAL?

• 24:24Jocko Willink?

  There's stuff that you just do on a regular basis that when it's your life, when it's just the way your life is, you don't really think about it. But when you take a step back and you think about what you like, when I think about my old job, and I'm talking about going back to the nineties, right? Oh, we're gonna go, we have dive week, which is or dive training. So you go for like four or five weeks of dive training. And you're diving two times a day. It's your wet suit, your, your, your wet suit's wet when you're putting it back on. And then you're gonna go get in a boat and you're gonna drive for an hour and a half up the coast and then you're gonna, it's gonna be dark. And you're gonna put on your Drager rebreather.

• 25:09Jocko Willink?

  And you're gonna get in that water again and you're gonna kick in the darkness with bio luminescence flying around you for three and a half hours. You're gonna get into this random harbor, you're freezing cold. You're gonna plant a limpid, fake limpid mine on some Navy ship somewhere. Then you're gonna paddle, you're gonna swim, fin your way back out. You're gonna run out of oxygen. Once you run out of oxygen, you're gonna come to the surface and then you're gonna swim on the surface for another forty-eight minutes. And then you meet up with that little Zodiac boat, you get in, you're freezing, you're exhausted. And then you drive an hour and twenty minutes to get back to Coronado. When you get back, you're gonna debrief, you're gonna get, take care of your Zodiacs. Then you're gonna take care of your dive rigs, then you're gonna take care of your personal gear.

• 25:53Jocko Willink?

  Then you're gonna take a shower. And then you're gonna sleep for three hours and you're gonna wake up with another dive mission task and you're gonna do the same thing again. Just cold, wet, miserable. That's the life. That's the life. So, do you gotta have some level of mental toughness? Sure you do, and every SEAL's got that, but.

• 26:19Jocko Willink?

  This part talking about like, you know, when you start talking about leadership and being a team player and being a, being a good leader and being a good follower and being smart and tactically sound and being a good decision makers, those are the things that matter. When you start talking about the, just the idea of being tough, it's like, that's cool. And it's important and everyone in the teams has that, or most people in the teams have that baseline. Uh, cause it is a little bit challenging to, to make it through SEAL training if you don't at least have some level. It does happen. You get some guys where you think, man, what happened to you? Or, you know, you just break down. Some people have the idea that once they get through SEAL training, they're done. You know, you shouldn't be in SEAL training to go through SEAL training. You should be at SEAL training to, to get to the SEAL teams, to serve your country,

• 27:04Jocko Willink?

  to go into combat, to take the fight to the enemy. That's why you join the SEAL teams, not to see how tough you are. So, next, in brief, high morale is a quality which is good in itself and is latent in all men. It maintains human dignity and it enables fear and fatigue to be overcome. It is involved with the idea of a conscience, but it should be not confused with fitness or happiness or toughness. So he goes to pretty good lengths to make that distinction. Section two, basic factors of morale. It is now necessary to consider what factors constitute the morale of the soldier in the heat of battle. Certain factors may be described as essential conditions without which high morale cannot exist.

• 27:49Jocko Willink?

  These four basic factors are, one, leadership. Two, discipline. Three, comradeship. Four, self-respect. A fifth factor, devotion to cause must exist, but need, need not necessarily influence all of the soldiers. Finally, there are numerous contributory factors which are of great importance, but not essential conditions. So that's what he's got. The four things that you have to have in order to have high morale. Then the first factor, of course, is leadership, which again, he's supporting my argument that leadership is the most important thing on the battlefield. Cause if you don't have leadership, you're not going to have good morale.

• 28:27Speaker 01

  Right.

• 28:28Jocko Willink?

  So right there, I already got you beat, Monty.

• 28:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:30Jocko Willink?

  And guess what his second one is, discipline. Where does that come from? Leadership. What about comradeship? That's comes from, so all these things come from the, anyways, we'll get to that. Leadership morale is in the first place, based on leadership. Good morale is impossible without good leaders. The quality of leadership is one which must be studied. Human beings are fundamentally alike. In, in that very common characteristics apply to all men in varying degrees. And this is what such a great dichotomy of humans is that all humans are the same and all humans are different. Right? Like you know, it's true.

• 29:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:11Jocko Willink?

  How can that be true? All humans are the same. All humans are different. And that's a completely true statement. In battle, the most important of these characteristics is fear. All men are afraid at one time or another, and to a greater or lesser extent, in moments of fear, they band together and look for guidance. They seek for a person to give decisions. They look for a leader. In times of war, the leader has opportunities denied to him in peace. The difficulties, dangers and discomforts inseparable from the battlefield make men cry out for the leadership they can do without in peace. At such moments, men are too weak to stand alone. They find the burdens too great to bear and their own selves unequal to the task.

• 29:55Jocko Willink?

  The leader himself accepts the burdens of others and by doing so earns their greatest and the right, earns their gratitude and the right to lead them. So, challenging times, things are going sideways, bad things are happening, that's when people are most susceptible to leadership. This is completely true. Have you ever seen a team dynamic where like when everyone, everything's going good? Pretty much like you can, it's might be hard to tell who the leader is. And then all of a sudden, something happens. Something that's chaotic or something that's challenging happens. And then you can see that leader just rises to the top.

• 30:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:38Jocko Willink?

  I've seen that a million times. I've seen that a million times putting platoons through training. And you kind of not really know what's going on. Who's really, who's really running this? Boom. You start hitting these guys with some down men and some IEDs in the training battlefield. You'll see the real leaders will start to step up hopefully. Unless they don't step up at all. But, and this is totally true. You see, people want to be led. People want to be led. There's going to be sometimes a little leadership vacuum. And sometimes you've got to step in and fill that leadership vacuum. Back to the book, consider a platoon, i.e. 30 men in action in the line. They, the men are drawn from all classes and all types. They are there in the line because they have obeyed a long series of orders, which it was easier to obey than to disobey.

• 31:21Jocko Willink?

  But now the test comes. It is easier for them not to obey orders. It is easier for them to stay where they are behind the hill and not advance over the crest into full view of the enemy who lies in wait beyond. The dominant motive force which drives them over the hill is the leader. It is his quality of leadership above all things which inspires the men to action. And this is one of those, he paints that out very clearly when people talk about, well, you know, in the military, everyone just does what you said because you're in charge, right? Well, try that once, everyone's going to die. Or once your, your lives are at stake. People just don't Roger up to say, oh, that's, hey, Echo's plan's kind of lame to go charge the machine gun nest, but you know what?

• 32:06Jocko Willink?

  He's in charge, so I'm going to go do it. No, doesn't work. You have to lead.

• 32:12Jocko Willink?

  These men recognizing their leader, some quality which they themselves do not possess. That quality is decision. Fear makes men sluggish and indecisive, unable to decide and act for themselves. And this is, this is, you know, people talk about

• 32:34Jocko Willink?

  being frozen by fear or, or have you ever had that thing where you're not quite sure what you're going to do? Like you, I don't know if I want to do this. I don't know if I want to, even like, like something stupid, like, uh, not something stupid, but you know, buying a house. Right? That's a big purchase. You're going to lay down a bunch of money. The market could go up or down. You're committing to a payment for 30 years. There's not so many things in life you commit to for 30 years. Basically, there's only one other one, you getting married, right? Is there any other commitment that's 30 years? I guess you get a tattoo. That's a lifetime, right? So there's these decisions that you have to make and Sometimes we don't, sometimes you see people don't wanna make decisions, right? They don't wanna make a decision. What's making them indecisive? If you think about it, what's making people indecisive is fear.

• 33:19Jocko Willink?

  They're afraid of what that outcome might bring.

• 33:23Jocko Willink?

  So if you find yourself being indecisive, instead of asking yourself, is this the right decision or a wrong decision? Ask yourself, what am I afraid of?

• 33:34Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, "The leader's power over his men is based on his ability to cut through this this fear paralysis and in doing so, to enable others to escape from it. The rightness of the decision taken by the leader is irrelevant."

• 33:50Jocko Willink?

  Think about that from a leadership perspective. If there's a decision that needs to be made, whether you're right or wrong is irrelevant. What you need to do is be decisive. What matters is that the decision should be taken and that the leader should shoulder the responsibility for that decision. "The leader must convince his men of its rightness, even though he himself might be may be uncertain of his own judgment. If the leader will decide, the men will follow and fight. If there is indecision, they will hesitate and flee."

• 34:23Jocko Willink?

  In short, fight and survive, or fear and be slain. The leader decides.

• 34:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 34:36Jocko Willink?

  Moving on, "The leader's power of in of the leader's power of decision results from his ability to remain imperceptible in the crisis. His calmness prevents panic and his resolution compels action. It follows that this, it follows from this that the leader must be less fearful than his men. He need not be impervious to fear, since men require a human figure to lead them. What he must do is radiate an atmosphere of confidence, which will show his men that he is less afraid than they. He must have the moral courage to stand firm when his men are wavering. In this respect, they will judge him by his power of thought and action in crisis.

• 35:21Jocko Willink?

  Fear destroys the faculty of thought and paralyzes action. The leader must continue to think longer than his men and his thoughts must lead to action." So there you go. Don't panic, don't freak out. You gotta stay calm. And how do you do that? You train for it. And how do you, and when you train for it, what do you learn from the training? You learn how to detach. That's what you learn how to do. That's how you keep your emotions in check. You don't let them get a hold of you.

• 35:47Jocko Willink?

  The leader's greatest asset is the ability to act normally in abnormal conditions. This is normal face 101. To continue to think rationally when his men have ceased to think, to be decisive in action when they are paralyzed by fear. So this is a, that section is something you should always strive to do from a leadership perspective. Stay calm. Don't panic. Think about what's happening. He didn't say it, but I'm going to say it. Detach mentally. So you don't get caught up in the emotion and the fear and the chaos. Next, the object of training must be firstly to select those who possess

• 36:30Jocko Willink?

  within them, the potentialities of leadership and second to develop these potentialities. So yes, you gotta look for who's going to be a good leader. And then you gotta hone that leader. This is accomplished by giving the leader responsibility. Boom. My favorite cure for leadership problems is put people in leadership positions.

• 36:49Jocko Willink?

  A leader's character will develop in proportion to the responsibility with which he has been entrusted. The more responsibility you put on someone, the more responsible they're going to become. Think about the little kids, right? Think about a little kid. The more responsibility you give a little kid, the more mature they're going to be, the more responsibility they're going to take. It starts with making your own peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. You should be doing that on your own. As soon as it's physically possible, you're going to make a mess. Guess what? Then you learn to clean up the mess. Every time you break down. And you make that PB and J for your little child. You're taking responsibility away from them and you're making them a weaker human being.

• 37:35Speaker 01

  And they feel it.

• 37:36Jocko Willink?

  And they feel it.

• 37:38Speaker 01

  I made my, she's six, my daughter. I made her set the table, you know, the classic one, set the table. And she knew what it was, but she hadn't really gone through the whole deal before. So sure enough, she's like, you know, she didn't want to. But I'm like, hey, you know, you set the table, this is what you do, you know, you're, you're kind of, you know, this is your job, this is your duty kind of thing. So once she set like the first one.

• 38:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 38:02Speaker 01

  And she did it correctly. She was rolling with it. It was her table. She was like, hey, I'm, I'm here. Boom. She was making decisions, all this stuff.

• 38:09Jocko Willink?

  Taking ownership.

• 38:10Speaker 01

  Oh, full on.

• 38:10Jocko Willink?

  Stepping up.

• 38:11Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. And you could tell just in her tone, kind of like she was super empowered, little six year old.

• 38:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 38:16Speaker 01

  You know, where, and kind of to look on the whole situation where this was someone who didn't want to do it, didn't, it was a chore.

• 38:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 38:24Speaker 01

  Do the chore, but you know, you implement it, I mean, in my case, correctly.

• 38:30Jocko Willink?

  You give them ownership. That's what you did, Echo Charles. You gave your daughter ownership. This is your job. This is your responsibility. You, this is how you do it, but you do it. You make it happen.

• 38:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, that, and I use that term a lot, make it happen. And it's weird. I don't know if it, what it is about that term with my specific kids.

• 38:49Jocko Willink?

  Cause that's, well, that feels good.

• 38:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, like you have influence over this whole situation.

• 38:54Jocko Willink?

  Think about it, when you're, as a human being, it's kind of weird that you can make things happen.

• 38:58Speaker 01

  Things straight up happen. Yeah.

• 39:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's a positive thing.

• 39:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, man. And yeah, that's a good one. Make it, make it happen, make it happen. And you know, like, cause, and adults do this too. I do this. We all do this. Maybe you don't, I don't know. But you, you know how like, if you say, hey, can you do this? And then whether you don't want to, or you don't know how to, you're just sketch about, you know, the whole thing. You ask a lot of questions. Well, what if this? And you know, like people do that. It's almost like they put a bunch of excuses.

• 39:25Jocko Willink?

  Preloaded.

• 39:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, where to indicate, hey, I can't really do this, you know, kind of thing. And it's almost like just, maybe it's like them being hesitant, maybe it's everything, you know, all this thing. So my kids will do that a lot, you know, like, oh, but what is, you know, all these questions kind of thing indicating they don't want to do it. They want to throw up all this smoke. So you finally just go, hey, I'll do it or whatever. And I started saying that I was like, I don't know, make it happen.

• 39:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 39:51Speaker 01

  And they just do it. They just make it happen. It's all that. I mean, sure, the job won't be the greatest the first time kind of thing, but they have the attitude of just making it happen, you know?

• 40:01Jocko Willink?

  You ever?

• 40:03Jocko Willink?

  You ever heard like the old guy that's like, when I was your age?

• 40:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, sometimes that's me.

• 40:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I was gonna say, no, you just made me think that because I do that.

• 40:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 40:13Jocko Willink?

  You know, I'll be like, when I was your age, I was in a SEAL platoon. Are you kidding me?

• 40:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, that doesn't work in my case. Does that ever work for you?

• 40:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 40:20Speaker 01

  It does, man. It never works.

• 40:22Jocko Willink?

  Because you know, when one of my older kids that are, you know, my age, when I was in a SEAL platoon, it's like, you know, you're asking me how to do like some such simple life thing.

• 40:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:34Jocko Willink?

  Or asking me to do it for you?

• 40:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:37Jocko Willink?

  Like, are you serious right now?

• 40:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:38Jocko Willink?

  Are you serious right now?

• 40:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:40Jocko Willink?

  When I was your age, I was in a SEAL platoon. I was going on deployment overseas. I had guns and radios and encryption devices. And you're telling me what, you know, whatever the thing is, you can't make that happen? Is that where you're at right now?

• 40:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:55Jocko Willink?

  Are you kidding me? When I was your age?

• 40:58Speaker 01

  I always feel like when my dad or whatever would say that, and I feel like if I say it to my kids, they're gonna be thinking like, yeah, but you know.

• 41:05Jocko Willink?

  Cool. It's not, it's, it's, I'm actually saying this, putting myself like in a little bit of check. It's like we, we talked about last time, you know, you can't just be like, whoa, when I was there. No, you need to be, I need to do a better job. But it is good. The thing is, it is good to, because the way my, it'd be usually my older daughter, because my oldest daughter, because she's the one that actually is of age that I was in.

• 41:27Jocko Willink?

  She actually takes it in a, in a positive way, like she'll have a look on her face like, dang, I am actually being like really, really dumb right now to, to be even asking this. Like, I can obviously figure this thing out, whatever it is, you know? Some, you know, the DMV.

• 41:45Jocko Willink?

  How do you set an appointment at the DMV? Are you serious right now? Are you serious right now?

• 41:49Speaker 01

  Make it happen.

• 41:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you can't figure that out? You never heard of something called Google?

• 41:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:55Jocko Willink?

  Think of how easy things are now.

• 41:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:57Jocko Willink?

  But you can't even do that? No, not happening. I was in a damn SEAL platoon when I was your age.

• 42:02Speaker 01

  I think.

• 42:02Jocko Willink?

  I was responsible for stuff. They were telling me you can't figure out how to set an appointment at the DMV? Are you kidding me?

• 42:07Speaker 01

  This is what I think. This is my hypothesis here. I think that you say enough like stuff to your older daughter in this case where she can relate where it resonate like I get what you're saying and she gets it. But I think that once you say, when I was your age, I was in a SEAL platoon, she goes, she checks out.

• 42:24Jocko Willink?

  No, that's what I need to be careful of.

• 42:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 42:27Jocko Willink?

  That's what I need to be careful of. The other thing I'll get from my kids, which you're, you know, you're, you, well, you, you know what I mean? They kind of, yeah, I'm not like, well, that's of course you did that.

• 42:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:37Jocko Willink?

  And I'm like, no, no, not true. It's not just like, oh, I did that because I'm more squared away than you are. No, you're actually more capable than I ever was. You just need to step up your game.

• 42:49Speaker 01

  I know, and this is my whole point. The thing is, you're correct with what you're saying, you're correct. But from the kid's standpoint, they don't believe that. Like, if my dad would tell me that kind of stuff, I'd be like, yeah, I'd literally think that's it because you're you. Not to say that you're tougher or you're whatever. It's like, Brian, you're you. You lived in the caveman days. Leave me alone about like figuring. But then if you're like, hey, uh, go make the DMV appointment, go on Google, figure it out kind of thing. That that relates to them. It's like, yeah, he's right. And if she's a grown up, essentially, you know, she's gonna, she's gonna relate.

• 43:22Jocko Willink?

  When my son was like 10 years old. And my son's a good surfer. And I was out surfing with him and I was watching him surf. And I said, you know, he was paddling, I just caught a wave, like beautiful wave. He's paddling out and I said, in a little while, you're going to be a better surfer than I wa- I am. And I thought he'd say, oh, that's cool. He looked at me like I was completely insane.

• 43:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:48Jocko Willink?

  And like, it was the craziest, like, it'd be like, you could see in his eyes, he thought that that was not a humanly possible thing that would ever happen. I mean, imagine that, like, that's the look in his face and he kind of just completely shrugged it off and was like, yeah, right.

• 44:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:03Jocko Willink?

  And, I mean, six months later, he was better than me and now he's just like infinitely better than me.

• 44:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:10Jocko Willink?

  But to your point.

• 44:13Jocko Willink?

  When you know, when you're looking up at dad, then sometimes it's this is an unachievable thing.

• 44:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:21Jocko Willink?

  And actually, that's not true. And the young kids got to recognize that they can outperform their lame parents. If they put their mind to it.

• 44:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:30Jocko Willink?

  And the same thing that happens with subordinates, right? You have your subordinate on your team and you think, hey, you have more skill than I ever had. You have more talent than I ever had. If you apply it correctly, you will be able to outperform me without question. And sometimes people look at you like, oh, you're crazy. That could never happen. It's like, no, it can happen.

• 44:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:51Jocko Willink?

  It can happen, but you gotta train. That's another thing is people think, oh, well, you just, this is natural. It's like, no, no, no. Oh, no.

• 44:59Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. On the other.

• 45:00Jocko Willink?

  No, and that's why that's another thing. Like when we, when I was on with, um, when we had Captain Plum and Jim Conklin on and they were like throwing me in the basket of being like them.

• 45:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 45:13Jocko Willink?

  And I'm like, hey, guys, just hold on. Just check yourselves. I'm forty seven years old and I'm barely hanging on to like figuring this stuff out. I'm not in the, I'm not in the game with you guys in terms of figuring out what you all have figured out. I mean, those guys are leaps and bounds and, and iteration upon iteration of knowledge above me. And, and I'm just sitting there thinking, take it easy, Captain Plum.

• 45:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. But again, that's just a kind of a, a matter of perspective, you know, like that. Things can seem so much, like they can seem like a very, something very specific. But just because of your perspective, you know, you don't get the whole picture, you know?

• 45:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. All right, check. Going back to the book. His position as the man responsible for the lives and well being of his men must be impressed upon him.

• 46:09Jocko Willink?

  In battle, his preoccupation with his men's affairs will give him less time to think of his own fears. The mere fact of responsibility will increase the leader's powers of decision and make him confident of his ability to handle any crisis. So you've got to train people in these challenging situations. Training must also seek to equip the leader with the other qualities which will help him in his task. Here are those qualities. A leader should be efficient. He should possess self-confidence. He should be firm and just in his dealings with his men. He should be clear-cut and definite in giving orders. He should pay attention to administrative details.

• 46:53Jocko Willink?

  He should prepare his men in advance for any new experience they may have to meet. All these things are important, but they can never be a substitute for A, decision in action, and B, calmness in crisis. Yeah, stay calm. Now, one thing that I get a little nervous about talking about decision in action is sometimes what that means, the way that translates to a young platoon leader is, "I'm gonna make a decision right now." Hey, everyone, boom, I'm gonna jump into it. And you can't do that. You have to do assessment. You have to look at what the situation's going in.

• 47:37Jocko Willink?

  Actually, you've got to have a protocol of how you're gonna make those decisions, right? You've got to think about the way it's gonna go down. You can't just jump at the first thing that pops into your mind. You need to think about it. You need to think about the options. You need to think about the consequences of those options, and then you need to see if you can move in the right direction without full commitment, right? Do you have to occasionally make full commitment on a decision? Yes. If you got ambushed and you're in the kill zone, guess what you're gonna have to do? Assault through the ambush. That's what you're gonna have to do. You're gonna have to do it decisively and powerfully and with full 100% commitment. But if you take some rounds, but you're not sure if it's an ambush, well, you might not want to necessarily assault through that position.

• 48:22Jocko Willink?

  So you need to think, you need to allow things to develop. It's a very, it's part of the art. Of leadership was teaching young SEAL leaders, okay. You need to let the situation develop. Here's the problem. Once the situation starts developing. If you let it develop too far, it's out of control now, right? It's a little. It's a little problem, right? When you look at it, then you need to look at the problem and make sure you understand the problem. Meanwhile, the problem in some cases is growing. If you allow the problem to grow too much. Now you can't control the problem anymore and you're going to get crushed by the problem. If you if you see a small problem and you jump right into solving the problem, that might. The problem might not be what you thought it was.

• 49:07Jocko Willink?

  And you went at it the wrong direction. So there's a fine line like decision and action is important. But thoughtful decision is what it should be thoughtful decision. And the reason I keep trying to stress and articulate to people. That you don't necessarily need to make a full commitment to a plan. You can take them, you can take a smaller step, an iterative step in the right direction. Before you just jump in. So that's just important to think about. How does all that compare to making no decision? Well, making no decision is the worst thing you can do, right? Making no decision, standing there in the kill zone, getting overrun by the enemy and everyone killed. That's the worst thing you can do.

• 49:51Jocko Willink?

  We want to at least make some kind of a decision. So that's why I think he stresses so the importance of decision in action so much. Is because he's probably seen people being decisive in battle and it's a horrible, horrible thing. So yes, you want to be decisive, but let's take that one little step further. We want to have thoughtful decisions. Do we want to have a mental 20 minute debate over the decision? No, a thought can take five seconds. You can let it, you can let a situation develop for for eight seconds. And you go, wait a second, I think this is what's happening. Let me confirm, do I see anyone over there? Yep, with the enemy fire is increasing. You know what? We need to make this move. Boom, you do it. That's what we're talking about.

• 50:39Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. These are two vital attributes of a leader with which he will succeed and without which he will fail. These two vital qualities exist in varying degrees in every leader. Those men who possess them to a limited extent can nevertheless become adequate leaders by being trained in the qualities already enumerated. Such leaders must in the first place be efficient. This efficiency will impress itself on the men, thereby creating an atmosphere of confidence with which will partially compensate for any lack of personality. By this means, training can make men into competent but not outstanding leaders. There is another aspect of leadership in its

• 51:21Jocko Willink?

  relation to morale. The best type of leader earns the respectful admiration of his men because he possesses certain good qualities which they lack. A brutal leader who disregards the feelings of his men will not infuse them with the quality of self-respect. The morale of the troops he commands regardless of his qualities as leader will not be the highest. So even Monty, who kind of comes across as being, you know, aloof to the troops, he's, there you go. The brutal leader's not gonna have good morale, factually.

• 52:01Speaker 01

  An element of self-respect.

• 52:03Jocko Willink?

  Self-respect. There's a whole section on self-respect that's coming.

• 52:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:08Jocko Willink?

  But yes, if you have a dog and you beat the dog and you're a brutal leader, the dog will not have any self-confidence. It'll be a broken dog. You can do that with human beings too.

• 52:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:20Jocko Willink?

  If you bark at your people and you break them down all the time, they won't be able to stand up.

• 52:27Speaker 01

  Another way to do that in a more, or should I say less brutal way, is to do everything for them.

• 52:33Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 52:34Speaker 01

  Same thing, man. No self, like...

• 52:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, if you're setting the table all the time, your daughter never realizes that she has the capability of doing that, handling that job. She's...

• 52:46Speaker 01

  Tying shoes, carrying backpacks, like all that, you know.

• 52:49Jocko Willink?

  Everything.

• 52:50Speaker 01

  It's like, man.

• 52:51Jocko Willink?

  If you're helping your kids, you're hurting your kids.

• 52:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, and it's, yeah, and that clarifies it even more, and it's so true. I mean, once you kind of latch on to that idea, you just see it everywhere.

• 53:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 53:01Speaker 01

  Like, man, you ever see these kids, like, I don't know, like a TV show or documentary type, where they're in, I don't know, somewhere in Asia, or some village where the four-year-old girl goes and like kills a snake and skins it and then walks like in the mud for another mile back home, cooks it for the family, you know, like, and you're like, dang, that girl's four.

• 53:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 53:21Speaker 01

  And she can do like, I can't even do that stuff, you know, kind of thing. It's like, man, you kind of put it into perspective where it's like, these are kids who are just like making it happen.

• 53:30Jocko Willink?

  Human beings are so adaptable. Like, you see the little gymnast kids?

• 53:34Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 53:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, they're six years old, iron cross. They're crazy, doing athletic feats that are just insane.

• 53:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:44Jocko Willink?

  And why is that? Well, because they were put in that position.

• 53:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:47Jocko Willink?

  And, and trained hard. Now, some of those, sometimes those kids train a little bit too hard.

• 53:52Speaker 01

  I think so, yes.

• 53:53Jocko Willink?

  They can lose other aspects of their life. But dang, if you wouldn't like to be able to do an iron cross when you're six years old, come on now.

• 54:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, the point still totally remains, yes, exactly right.

• 54:04Jocko Willink?

  So let your kids develop and let your subordinates develop. Give them responsibility, build them up. Back to the book, moreover, it is important to realize that while men are dependent on the word of the leader, they are capable of much independent action on their own and are even capable of making their own decisions. So this is kind of, this is kind of funny, right? It's Monty basically saying, look, I got a little surprise for you. Little surprise, your troops can actually think for themselves.

• 54:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 54:35Jocko Willink?

  You know?

• 54:35Speaker 01

  Imagine that.

• 54:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, imagine that. And so obviously, this is decentralized command, right? This is it. And you have to let your subordinate leaders lead. He goes on to say, British soldiers have much native character and individuality. What is required is that the leader shall give the initial and vital decisions along with which the men can work. So, yes.

• 54:55Jocko Willink?

  And you know what? This is actually, I'm glad that glad that Monty said it in that kind of funny way. It's the same thing that we're talking about with kids where you think, oh, well, my kid's probably not capable of doing that. Your kid is capable of doing that. Your kid can go out there and kill a snake and bring it back and skin it and and cook it.

• 55:12Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 55:13Jocko Willink?

  You just have to allow them the the the room to to let that happen and give them the authority, empower them to do it.

• 55:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, fully. And that, yeah, it's so it's so night and day to the other, actually last night. Oh, I was making chicken. Yeah, I make chicken. And I usually make rice. In Hawaii, you make rice with everything. So anyway. So I'm like, okay, make the I go, hey, I tell my daughter, she's six again, by the way. I was like, hey, make the rice. Here's the thing. I showed her how to make rice. Make rice isn't hard, but it's not like, I mean, in most.

• 55:47Jocko Willink?

  There's some steps.

• 55:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's some steps for sure. And it wasn't well, for me, anyway, before I taught her how to make rice. It wasn't real obvious that a six year old should be making rice, you know, like, not in a rice cooker too, by the way, just like on the stove regular. Um, but I thought at that point, I was like, hey, why can't I just show her how and teach her how? Even if I don't teach her in one day, okay, the next time we make rice, which is going to be soon, I'll we'll go over it again, kind of thing. Why should she not know how to make rice right now? Why should I have to do this for her or whatever? Anyway, I teach her, I tell her to make rice, super simple. Boom. Last night was the first time where it was her responsibility to make rice. She makes rice, six years old, makes rice, boom.

• 56:28Jocko Willink?

  Boom. It ain't a snake, but you know what? We're moving in the right direction.

• 56:32Speaker 01

  Exactly right. That's what I thought.

• 56:33Jocko Willink?

  So the point is too, is that you as a leader, as leaders, the same thing. You let your let your guys run the operation, let your troops step up and take control of something that you and your. egotistical maniac mind think only you're capable to guess what your boys can get it done too. And if they if they bat of eighty eight instead of a hundred, cool. Next time they're gonna get a ninety two and the time after that they're gonna get a ninety six.

• 56:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, cuz that's a big obstacle too, right mentally. It's kinda like, sure, I could teach him how to do it, but why would I?

• 57:05Jocko Willink?

  Well, yeah, you see that you see that even more. See, in parenting, it's like, cool, my kid can make the rice.

• 57:11Jocko Willink?

  But in in a team environment, our ego our ego flares up because we wanna be the one, right?

• 57:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, especially if you can do it at a ten and this guy's only do at an eight at the end of the day when the job's done.

• 57:24Jocko Willink?

  You know what? And you feel you feel like that's your little power. You know, that's my little power is like, well, you know, you really not do this. I better come down and check out how you're prepping this stuff cuz you know, I'm kinda the man, you're not. That's where it is.

• 57:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, kinda like when you like, let's say they had to like screw on some stuff or okay, I used to work at a moving company, right? You know this. And at the end, you load up the crates and you put them on the truck and you have to tie them with a certain kinda knot, right? Learn how to tie that knot, the kinda that's super tight, but you all you gotta do is pull one string to get it. Cool little thing. So I learned how, right? And yeah, one of the supervisor or whatever, be like, yeah, go tie it off or whatever. And I could totally do it. We've been doing this for months or whatever and then but he'll go and he'll check it and he'll like, then he'll pull it just a little bit more.

• 58:11Jocko Willink?

  Signature from the man.

• 58:12Speaker 01

  I see what you're doing right there.

• 58:14Jocko Willink?

  But we do that all the time. We like to just, we like to have our own little rice bowl, speaking of rice, right? That's a weird term, but you've heard that term before, right? Like, hey, you don't want somebody messing with his rice bowl, meaning like this is mine. Like, oh, I'm the guy that does this part of the job and I don't want anyone else to know how to do it. That's my little rice bowl. Stay out of my rice bowl. There's a lot of rice bowls. I was never into that. Well, at least at least once I was actually in leadership positions, I was very. I'm not, I don't care. Like, oh, you're good. You come on, come on and grab some of this rice cuz if you can, if you can take my rice bowl from me, guess what? I can go find another rice bowl. I'll bring it in here and we'll start, we'll have more rice.

• 58:52Speaker 01

  It's good, man, cuz it's not as like intuitive, you know?

• 58:57Jocko Willink?

  Everyone thinks that everyone thinks that they're, everyone leans towards, hey, I wanna be the guy. The ego flares up.

• 59:09Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. Good morale can be created in a narrow sphere by a good leader. But a platoon or company is obviously influenced by the general feelings existing in a division or army. So now we're talking, so you got multiple layers, multiple layers above the platoon or the company. You've got the army, you know, the division. Good morale implies confidence in the high command and in the plan. And you capitalized the plan. The plan. A strong leader on a high level can have a powerful influence on the general attitude of the men of a platoon. He cannot, however, influence their movements over the last few vital yards of an attack. On the other hand, a strong leader on the low level can make his men carry out a single

• 59:53Jocko Willink?

  fine attack, but he cannot sustain their morale indefinitely if there is a lack of confidence in the high command and its plan. That's a challenge. It's a challenge. If your troops, if your troops are looking at the strategy going, what the hell are we doing? Like you can get the guys through one attack or two, three missions, but eventually they're saying, hey, what's going on? Why are we doing this? This doesn't make any sense. And vice versa. A leader cannot do without discipline. Do you ever think about when I say discipline on the podcast, you should put some little like a sound effect? Every time I say it.

• 1:00:35Jocko Willink?

  Especially when I say something like this. A leader cannot do without discipline. His aim must be to create such a disciplined body of men that all his orders will be obeyed instantly. This habit of obeying leaders' orders must be so instilled into his men that they will carry on and fight even though he himself falls. There's a problem with that statement right there. Right? The aim, this aim cannot be achieved without discipline. The second factor of morale is discipline. So, a couple of things here. First of all, I don't want my team to instantly obey all my orders without question. If I tell them to do something stupid, I actually want them to tell me no.

• 1:01:22Jocko Willink?

  On top of that, if you think for one minute that all your people do is obey you, that when you die, they're just gonna suddenly sprout leadership skills and start leading, you're wrong. You have to, you have to raise them in a way and treat them in a way that they are, they are being challenged as leaders themselves and they're being allowed to lead and they're stepping up and leading and they're not waiting to instantly obey everything you do. Cause if you're, if all you're doing is waiting for orders, you're not being proactive, you're not leading, decentralized command isn't happening. And if something happens to me, you're gonna freeze. So this little section from Monty, no, I don't like it. Discipline is something that is important. You have to understand that you have to have disciplined standard operating procedures.

• 1:02:07Jocko Willink?

  You have to have discipline to stay within those procedures. But on top of that, you have to have the, the freedom to when those procedures aren't working to say, hey, boss, this isn't a good call. Here's what we should do instead. Now, does this mean you and I are gonna have a debate in the middle of a firefight over what the plan is? No. Cause we work together, we trust each other. You, you know what I'm coming from. I know where you're coming from. And when I make a call, you're gonna do it. And by the way, if you make a call, even though I'm senior to you, if you make a call, guess what I'm gonna do? Guess what I'm gonna do? Follow. Yes, I'm gonna follow you. If you're like, hey, Jaco, punch right. Get ready to flank these guys. And I'm the senior guy, but you just told me to do that. Guess what I'm gonna do?

• 1:02:51Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna support you. So that's, that's what you want. Um, you, you have to be careful. Cause as people, if you have someone whose personality is sensitive to that. Yeah. Right? And you say, hey, Jaco, punch right. Get, get, get on their flank.

• 1:03:13Jocko Willink?

  And my response is, excuse me a minute? Just who do you think you are? Actually, I'm in charge of this platoon. Why don't you just lock it up? We're not gonna punch right. We're actually gonna move. You know what I mean? That's, we can get into that situation all day long. Guess what's gonna happen to all of us? We're all gonna die. So we have to figure that stuff out. We have to figure out that. That we have to work together, but at the end, one of us has to submit to the situation, submit to the other person's leadership. And by the way, there's 16 people in a platoon, in a SEAL platoon. There's 30 or 40 in a infantry platoon. It's pretty easy to get in the habit of like, hey, when the boss speaks, we're all going to submit to what he's saying.

• 1:03:54Jocko Willink?

  Oh, if the one of, if my platoon sergeant speaks, okay, well, he barks out something, guess what? We'll submit to that. Occasionally someone else will rise up and see something. We have to, we have to work and train together so that we know when we need to submit to someone else. Or when we, or when we need to say, hey, negative, we're not doing that. We're going over here. These are, these are challenging things, right?

• 1:04:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:19Jocko Willink?

  It's think of how easy for, think of how easy it is to, to have the Monty attitude. And it'd be really easy for me to say right now, like, hey, listen, this is what happens. You'd have to have your men so disciplined that when you tell them to do something, they do it. That's the easiest solution, right? Okay, great. Jock was put out the word. Oh, and by the way, if I get hurt, follow the guys in the second chain of command. Okay, cool. That's easy. That's an easy day, right? Now we're going to win every time. No, wrong. Cause guess what? Occasionally me, I'm the leader, I'm going to make a bad decision. And somebody needs to check me. Now are you going to check me every single time? No, you're not. Are you going to check me? You know what? We're going to work together so much that if you think, you know what? I'm not sure Jock was making the right call, but at least I'm going to start to execute it. I'm going to keep a heads up. I'm going to move forward.

• 1:05:01Jocko Willink?

  And then if I see what I think might be a problem happening, I'm going to say something. But my response out of the gate is we're going to go. That's the kind of thing that's going on here. This is a dynamic environment, interaction of human beings. It's freaking challenging.

• 1:05:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:15Jocko Willink?

  But to blanket everyone, when I tell you to do something, you do it. I want instant obedience to everything that I say. Again, that works great 94% of the time. 6% of the time it's an utter disaster and everyone dies. So we don't want to allow for that. We want to allow some flexibility in there. That is harder to do. It's harder to have that flexibility. It's much more challenging. But it gives you such better capability and survivability that that's how you want to set it up. It takes a lot more. That's why, that's why the more advanced you get in, the more tactically advanced you get, the more there is of that.

• 1:05:56Jocko Willink?

  So if you go to a Marine Corps infantry platoon, they're going to have less pushback and less. They're gonna have more obedience, more just straight rote obedience, as they should. Because guess what? An 18-year-old Marine doesn't have as much knowledge as a 25-year-old Staff Sergeant, like, or the platoon commander that went to the basic school and he's, right? So there's, you're gonna have these situations that are gonna, so in a, in a normal infantry platoon, there's gonna be less pushback. You get into a SEAL platoon, well, now you've got a bunch of experienced guys. Just about everyone there has a few deployments. The new guys aren't gonna say anything, but the guys with two or three platoons, they're gonna say, "Hey, boss, not a good call," or they're gonna give you some pushback. Why?

• 1:06:38Jocko Willink?

  Because you've got a more experienced field of people. So it takes more practice to get that, to get, to be able to interact together properly and have that flowing chain of command that's docile and, and can, and can expand and contract and can move from one person to the next dynamically as a mission is happening. I mean, there's times in, in close quarters combat where basically there's, there's a person at the front of the train and that person rotates out every few seconds. There's tactical situations where there's a new person making the calls every 10 seconds. Think about that. That's, that's radical. To have a new person making a call every 10 or 15 seconds, there's a new person doing it. How

• 1:07:21Jocko Willink?

  do you do that? Well, they understand. Everyone understands. They understand the tactics. They understand how we work together. That's what we want. As opposed to, there's only one person that can make the call. That's just centralized command. So again, it's very, it's hard for me to, to, to throw this out there, right? Because I don't want an 18-year-old Marine thinking, "Whoa, you know, if I follow like what the platoon commander says, I'm just gonna tell him no." That's not what I'm saying. Not what I'm saying. I do want you to think. I do want you, as an 18-year-old Marine, to think. I want you to be understanding what decisions being made to the best of your ability. And yes, if you see something happening that is absolutely not good and you know it, you're damn right you should speak up and your platoon commander should be happy that you're speaking up.

• 1:08:07Jocko Willink?

  But if you're a guy that's gonna speak up every time a decision gets made, because you think maybe of a different way that might be a little bit better in your mind, you're gonna suffer the consequences of, number one, the whole platoon being indecisive, and number two, your boss is gonna tell you to shut up. Cause your, your idea that might be eight percent better than his idea, we don't have time to discuss that right now.

• 1:08:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:29Jocko Willink?

  So unless you see something that's real significant, yeah, shut up and do what you're told. If you see something that's really significant, okay. Hey, boss, negative, can't do that. There you go. The second factor, discipline. The object of discipline is the, is the conquest of fear. That's, this is new perspective for me, that the reason we have discipline is to conquer fear. It's interesting, right?

• 1:08:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:57Jocko Willink?

  Factually true, too. What is it that gets you to do that thing that you're afraid of? You have the discipline to just drive through it.

• 1:09:05Jocko Willink?

  Adequately to determine the best method of doing this requires an analysis of fear to be made. There are two aspects of fear. Fear can suddenly attack a man through his imagination. A corpse in a ditch or a grave by the side of the road will remind him of the peril of his position. He will suddenly realize that he himself is liable to be killed. It is a function of discipline to fortify the mind so that, so that it becomes reconciled to unpleasant sights and accepts them as normal everyday occurrences. Fear can also creep in upon a man during periods of monotony in the line. So this is the other type of fear. There's two types, right? The one that just jumps on you, and the other one is, is creeps on you.

• 1:09:48Jocko Willink?

  At such a time, he will have the opportunity to appreciate the dangers which beset his life. Fear acting through his thoughts can so reduce a man's hardcore of courage that he will become nervous and fearful. Discipline strengthens the mind so that it becomes impervious to the corroding influence of fear. It teaches men to confine their thoughts within certain definite limits. It instills the habit of self-control.

• 1:10:17Jocko Willink?

  Keep your emotions in check, keep your fear in check. That requires discipline.

• 1:10:22Jocko Willink?

  The basis of fear is the awareness of danger. In itself, this is healthy. For a man who is aware of danger, automatically takes steps to provide against it. It is only when fear dominates the mind that it becomes unhealthy and leads to panic. So fear is good, we know that. Fear is healthy, we know that. Until you let it dominate your mind, and then it's a problem. Men must be urged to fight fear with courage so that they will advance or defend and not take refuge in fight, in flight, or in action.

• 1:10:54Jocko Willink?

  Man becomes aware of da- when man becomes aware of danger, when he feels himself opposed to something more powerful than himself.

• 1:11:03Jocko Willink?

  Right? Man becomes aware of danger when he feels himself opposed to something more powerful than himself. In other words, when he feels that his own armament is unequal to that of the enemy who oppose him. It is important for a man to lose his individual feeling and to become an integral part of the battalion, division, and army to which he belongs. The larger the unit of which he feels himself to be a member, the larger will be the estimation of his own armament, and the less will be his fear.

• 1:11:36Jocko Willink?

  It is here that discipline shows its value. For it can help a man to lose his own identity and become a part of a larger, stronger unit. It is in this way that discipline will conquer fear.

• 1:11:52Jocko Willink?

  Got to relate to that bigger group.

• 1:11:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:56Jocko Willink?

  You see this in like gang fights. The one person by themselves is a coward, but then when they have ten of their friends, all of a sudden they're courageous. It's a horrible example, but it's a reality, right? It's a total reality.

• 1:12:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:12Jocko Willink?

  I used to see that in the streets.

• 1:12:14Speaker 01

  Sure, the streets.

• 1:12:15Jocko Willink?

  Back in the day, like, yeah, you know, like one person, myself included. You know, you're two or three of us, okay, we're a little bit, we got a little, uh, we got a little, a little froggy. Right? But when there's eighteen of us, all of a sudden you're real tough, right? That's me when I was fifteen years old. Oh, I'm super tough with all my friends, right?

• 1:12:37Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:12:38Jocko Willink?

  Bad, it's a bad example, but it's the reality.

• 1:12:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I liked it.

• 1:12:41Jocko Willink?

  Big scraps. This corporate sense, which discipline creates, helps men face the unknown. At night, men in the line become afraid of the unknown which stretches out in front of them. At all times in action, they are afraid of new and terrifying weapons which may be used against them. They realize that these unknown quantities may bring danger to them. Their ability to face these dangers is immensely strengthened by feeling themselves to be part of a group. The group is known and a certain quantity which they feel is strong enough to stand up to the unknown dangers which surround them. Strengthened numbers.

• 1:13:20Jocko Willink?

  The method by which the conquest of fear is achieved is the unifying of men into a group or unit under obedience to orders. See, he rolls right back to obedience to orders. Monty does. And part of the reason is, he's talking about conscripts a lot, draftees, not volunteers. So there's a little bit of a, that's what, that's what he's dealing with. Now, as we know from Hack and from General Mukuyama, like, hey, if you treat your people right, doesn't matter that they're draftees.

• 1:13:51Jocko Willink?

  Men require to be united if they are to give of their best. Discipline seeks to instill into all ranks a sense of unity by compelling them to obey orders as one man. This obedience to orders is the indispensable condition of good discipline. Men learn to gain confidence and encouragement from doing the same thing as their fellows. They drive strength and satisfaction from their company. Their own identities become merged into the larger, stronger identity of the unit. You know what's interesting? Is I'll go, I'll even go a little bit more hardcore against Monty.

• 1:14:26Jocko Willink?

  You know what, to me, is an exceptional unit? Is the unit where you don't even have to give orders. Where you just, where everyone knows what the intent is, where you give them a way of, it's like, hey, this is the intent. And people just do what they're supposed to do with no orders.

• 1:14:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:42Jocko Willink?

  That's what you really want. You know, there's a... A chapter that Leif wrote where he's talking about prioritize and execute. And he's talking about how it's when one of our guys fell through the roof. They were on a mission. They were in Overwatch. They ended up having to sledgehammer through a concrete wall. And Leif and I were talking about, he's like writing the chapter. And he was gonna talk about like what his priorities were. And how he told the guys like, you know, you do this, you do this. And he's like, yeah, well, the thing is I didn't tell anyone to do anything. And I was like, yeah, check. Cause his guys knew, oh, wait, we got this going on. We're gonna set security. We're gonna move like everyone knows what, that's what you want.

• 1:15:25Jocko Willink?

  And then what that allowed Leif to do is like, think about, okay, now bigger priorities. And that's what he wrote about, but.

• 1:15:32Jocko Willink?

  Your troops, they shouldn't, you shouldn't even have to give them orders because they should be trained well enough. To respond based on the situation and knowing and understanding the standard operating procedures and knowing very quickly what it is that your intent is. As the leader. So all you need to say is set security. And the guys get into position where they're supposed to go. That's how it should be. I'm not looking for, I'm not looking for obedience. You know what I'm looking for? I'm looking for what we used to call. Thinking shooters. You know, I want a platoon full of thinking shooters, meaning that they're thinking for themselves. They're making things happen.

• 1:16:12Jocko Willink?

  They understand what it is that I want done, whether I said it to them or whether we pre-briefed it or whether. We've been through this, we've drilled it, but whatever they know what it is that I want done and I want my team to be thinking. This is decentralized command. When you get into just rote obedience, we're losing the, the aspect of decentralized command. And as Monty said earlier, believe it or not. Believe it or not, your men might be able to make some decisions on their own. It's like, yes, take that a lot, many, many steps further than that.

• 1:16:46Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 1:16:50Jocko Willink?

  Continuing on, men must learn to obey orders when all their instincts cry out for them not to be obeyed. They must learn to obey orders in times of stress so that they will do so in times of danger. They must learn to carry out their tasks under any condition and despite all difficulties. In this way, the mass of loose individuals with their fears and weaknesses can be welded together into a united whole, ready to act on the word of the leader. So, again, what I'm saying is, I don't want them ready to act on the word of the leader. I want them ready to act on the thought of the leader.

• 1:17:30Jocko Willink?

  Discipline helps men to display fortitude in the face of fatigue and discomfort, while at the same time it helps them conquer fear. It enables them uncomplainingly to triumph over difficulties which would have overcome them in times of peace. This constancy in enduring hardship and fatigue is the quality which is most frequently required of a soldier. Individual fortitude and corporate courage are the twin products of discipline. So there we get, that's the, that's the just straight positive aspects of discipline that, that I think of. Hey, things are gonna be, we're gonna be tired, whatever. Discomfort, whatever. Fear, whatever. We have discipline. Discipline conquers all those things. Discipline implies a conception of duty.

• 1:18:14Jocko Willink?

  Nothing will be accomplished in the crisis of, by man without a sense of duty. The sentry in an outpost holds his ground in the face of an attack because he has a sense of duty to those behind him. This sense is instilled by discipline because it teaches men to obey orders as a matter of course, to know that it is wrong not to obey them and right that it is their duty to do so. For the soldier, this conception of duty does not embrace abstractions such as freedom or empire or democracy. In battle, a soldier's sense of duty extends only to the friends who are around him. It is the job of the junior leader to encourage this sense of duty.

• 1:18:56Jocko Willink?

  Abstractions are the sphere of a politician. So, he goes real extreme in this one. And we all have heard this before. Hey, when you're in combat, you're not fighting for this political ideology. You're fighting for the man to your left and to your right. Absolutely true. Absolutely true. I would say, well, I know that it's not just that. You have to, you, you, when, when the immediate battle's over, you need to look and say, okay, well, why are we doing this? Oh, we're doing this because we believe in our cause. So, to me, it's both. You can't just cast out, you know, in my opinion, abstractions are the sphere of politicians. No, troops need to believe in what they're doing.

• 1:19:41Jocko Willink?

  A certain type of training may induce men to go forward in an attack simply out of fear of the consequences of not doing so. This applies only to the weakest and most feeble of men who are of little value in battle. This type of training is an essential part of discipline, but is never be mistaken for the whole. So, he kind of goes one way and then the other. It's like, yeah, sometimes you're just gonna have to, you have to make people do what you want to do because they're afraid of you, or they're afraid of the consequences. If you have to lead through fear, if you, if you, if you, if your team is doing something only because they're afraid of the consequences, that's a losing battle. Yeah, well, it's a losing war, right? You might win the battle, but you're not gonna win the war. Continuing

• 1:20:24Jocko Willink?

  on, the type of training mentioned in the preceding paragraph, which implies a certain harshness and hardness, has its value.

• 1:20:33Jocko Willink?

  Material comforts are now so insidious that there is some danger that this is the old fashioned idea of discipline, and it will be allowed to disappear. This must not happen. Soldiers will not win battles if their training has not been hard.

• 1:20:55Jocko Willink?

  That's a little lesson for your entire life.

• 1:20:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:58Jocko Willink?

  Soldiers will not win battles if their training has not been hard. The softening influences of civilian life must be replaced by the exacting demands of military training. Soldiers must forget the pleasures of peace and concentrate on the realities of war. Isn't it funny that this, this could be written right now and some of the whole, you know, training is getting easier and all that. It's like, we always think that, gotta keep it hard.

• 1:21:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:21Jocko Willink?

  You always gotta, you always gotta fight against the slippery slope of things getting easier.

• 1:21:27Jocko Willink?

  In brief, discipline seeks to conquer fear by welding men into a cohesive whole. United by obedience to orders. Yeah.

• 1:21:38Jocko Willink?

  No, I'm not with you, Monty. It aims to create a body strong enough to carry each of its members through dangers and difficulties which they themselves would be unable to face alone. In this way, it promotes comradeship, which is the third factor of morale. Okay? I, I, much more important in my opinion than the blind obedience of orders morale. So we're talking about comradeship now. Morale cannot be good unless men have come, unless men come to have affection for each other. A fellow feeling must grow up, which will result in a spirit of comradeship. An army is made up of human beings. So that however much a leader may inspire his men, however perfect the discipline, morale will be hard and unsympathetic

• 1:22:24Jocko Willink?

  if the warmth of comradeship is not added to it. War, though a hard business, is not necessarily a grim one. Men must laugh and joke together, must enjoy each other's company, and must get fun out of life, even in times of danger. Check. The spirit of comradeship must begin at the section or tank crew level and work its way upward to army level. The importance of encouraging men to band together and identify themselves with their units has already been emphasized. This will be necessary to make considerable efforts.

• 1:23:01Jocko Willink?

  To further this spirit of comradeship. Junior commanders must plan to create this spirit in the same way they plan to train their men and fire their weapons. Men must not be moved from unit to unit, or even from platoon to platoon unless there's good reason for doing it. And these reasons must be made clear to the men. A man who has served among friends in the same platoon for a long time will be helped by them to face the trials of battle. He will feel around him his reserves of courage and purpose upon which he can draw. There will be a feeling of solidarity and out of this feeling there will grow up a determination to advance together and defend together and even die together.

• 1:23:40Jocko Willink?

  In wartime with such heavy casualties and constant reinforcements, it is always found that this comradeship can be built up most quickly by ensuring that new arrivals as reinforcements belong to the part of Britain from which the unit is originally drawn and to which it belongs in peacetime. So, that's what, uh, you gotta have your team joining together and then he's saying, "Look, if you've got new reinforcements coming in and they came from Darbisher and there's a unit from Darbisher, send them to go work with the guys from Darbisher. They already have a connection."

• 1:24:14Jocko Willink?

  Comradeship is, and you know who didn't do that? The Soviets. The Soviet Union was famous for not doing that because they didn't want there to be a really strong unity in the, in the forces because then that unity might turn into, you know, a movement. Yeah, yeah. So they didn't want that. They would, they would notoriously split everyone up. You would never be with a guy from your hometown, you know? They'd split everyone up. This is the opposite of that. Comradeship is based on affection and trust which between them produce an atmosphere of mutual goodwill and feeling of interdependence. Men learn to have faith in each other and to depend on each other according to the abilities of each.

• 1:24:55Jocko Willink?

  In a tank crew, gun team, or infantry section, men do not work well together merely because they are disciplined and well-led. They do so because they trust each other and because they are bound together by an affection which is never expressed in words, but shown itself in deeds.

• 1:25:13Jocko Willink?

  Comradeship is a great antidote to fear because it gives a man friends. A man must take friends, a man must make friends in his platoon, friends whom he respects and admires. In battle, these friends will prevent him from feeling lonely. A man alone is a man who will find it hard to stand up to the dangers of the line. A man alone is a man afraid. If he has to be, if he has friends, he will derive strength from their presence and he will be anxious not to let them down in battle. He will seek to do his fair share of all tasks which come to his crew or section. He will feel ashamed if he cannot assist his friends in their duties and maintain his place with them in the line.

• 1:25:57Jocko Willink?

  All men have a, within them, a touch of, of streak of generosity and unselfishness, a touch of nobility. And these qualities will be brought out in the attitude to their friends. Friendship causes men to get, causes men to give their best. So, you know, I guess we started talking about this a little bit in the beginning. If you're not, if you don't want to be a part of the team,

• 1:26:24Jocko Willink?

  you are going to miss this whole section of what makes a unit to have high morale. If we're not friends, that hurts our morale. So, you know, they have these, these things and the, the Rangers do a really good job of it. You can peer someone out.

• 1:26:44Jocko Willink?

  Meaning we as peers can, can look at someone that we don't like, or that doesn't want to be a part of the team and we can get rid of them. So it's called peering someone out. We don't really, there's not an official system. In the SEAL teams, like you can do it, but it's like, it's, it's a little bit case by case. So in the, in Ranger school, and forgive me Rangers if I don't get this a hundred percent right, but basically you have to rank your, you have to rank everyone in your patrol. So you got 20 guys in your patrol, you rank this guy was number one, meaning performance wise, this guy was number one, this guy was number 20. If you're number 20, like a multiple times in a row, three times in a row or something, they kick you out. So what we have to do is we have to work together as a team and say, okay, you know what? It's my turn to be the last guy.

• 1:27:30Jocko Willink?

  So put me as number 20. Okay, Jaco, let's put you as 20. Okay, cool. Next time it's going to be Echo. Next time it's going to be Bill. Next time it's going to be Mike. So that way, if we all want to stay, what we have to do is we have to coordinate, work together to rank ourselves accordingly. So it's real easy. If none of us like Echo, it's real easy just to put Echo at the bottom, three patrols in a row, and you're gone. In the basic SEAL training, we don't really have a system like that. It takes a little bit more, you have to be a little bit more proactive because it's not just an existing thing. Uh, we did have, in my SEAL training class, we had one guy that we basically peered out. Like, my officers, you know, got feedback from everyone and said, this guy shouldn't be here. And they went up to the instructors and the instructors got rid of them.

• 1:28:14Jocko Willink?

  So it happens, but it doesn't happen in a quite that official way. And the only reason, it wasn't performance. It was like, hey, this guy doesn't, for lack of a better word, and this doesn't sound real good in this politically correct world that we live in now. You get someone that doesn't fit in.

• 1:28:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:28Jocko Willink?

  Right? Like, this guy just doesn't fit in?

• 1:28:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:30Jocko Willink?

  Cool, we're gonna get rid of him. Because we don't want to have someone on the team that's not, that doesn't want to be part of the team.

• 1:28:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:37Jocko Willink?

  And believe me, th- this happens very seldom. Like, you gotta be a real, you gotta fit in in a real bit, not fit in in a real big way. To stand out in a, with a crowd of SEALs. There's all kinds of different guys.

• 1:28:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:49Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 1:28:50Speaker 01

  Can, I, I heard, um, it seems like, anyway, that you could do that, like, within a roommate situation. It'd be less official. Like, you're talking about a system, what, that it's sort of official? Like, you said, hey?

• 1:29:02Jocko Willink?

  And the Rangers, like, official.

• 1:29:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, you say, hey, let's just, wait, what's the ranking, uh, based on, on the Ranger thing?

• 1:29:08Jocko Willink?

  Well, they're saying, hey, Echo did a great job on this patrol. I rank him as the number one guy on this patrol. Jaco was number 16, so he's number 16. And, and Bill was horrible, and he's number 20.

• 1:29:18Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:29:18Jocko Willink?

  But you do that every patrol you go on.

• 1:29:20Speaker 01

  So wait, so let's say that we weren't gonna phase anybody out or, or, or period.

• 1:29:25Jocko Willink?

  So then what, then what we would do is we would just rotate. Hey, I'm, I'm the bottom guy this time, okay?

• 1:29:28Speaker 01

  But you wouldn't really perform at the bottom necessarily?

• 1:29:31Jocko Willink?

  No, no, no.

• 1:29:31Speaker 01

  Oh, just on the, uh?

• 1:29:32Jocko Willink?

  On the record, you have to force rank everyone. And so you rank, hey, we're just gonna rotate who's the bottom one, so none of us get eliminated.

• 1:29:38Speaker 01

  Gotcha. And then, yeah. Yeah, it's weird. I thought what you meant by peer someone out, which kind of might even be the same thing in a way. Where let's say you have three roommates or let's say four roommates. And they're like, hey, like this guy's not fitting in. He's I don't know. He snores or I don't know, whatever. And you know how roommates were friends typically, right?

• 1:29:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:00Speaker 01

  When you room with someone. And then after a while, you just sort of like not invite that one friend all the time.

• 1:30:06Jocko Willink?

  You sort of peer him out.

• 1:30:07Speaker 01

  Peer him out like, yeah, like just in more than anything. I mean, in a nutshell, basically you just make his experience with the group just a little less enjoyable.

• 1:30:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:15Speaker 01

  So he's sort of on his own, just sort of phase himself out.

• 1:30:18Jocko Willink?

  He's gonna find some new friends.

• 1:30:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, just slowly, just naturally kind of thing.

• 1:30:22Jocko Willink?

  Then eventually you're just like, hey, bro, we're peering you out.

• 1:30:24Speaker 01

  You don't tell them. You don't tell them. I mean, I guess you could break, you know, when you break up with your friend, you ever had to do that?

• 1:30:30Jocko Willink?

  No. I'm a dude.

• 1:30:33Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no.

• 1:30:34Jocko Willink?

  Breaking up with people.

• 1:30:34Speaker 01

  It's an expression. No, it's an expression like where you know how you ever had a friend who's like, they want to be your friend and everything. But man, being friends with this person is just kind of too much. You ever, you read that?

• 1:30:45Jocko Willink?

  First of all, I don't have a lot of people that want to be friends with me and I don't have a lot of long list anyways, so I really haven't had that happen.

• 1:30:51Speaker 01

  Right. Like, I don't know, like if your friend, every time you go somewhere with him, he gets in like arguments with people or he gets in fights or or like, I don't know, you know, the kind of guys, he's just too much to be a friend with and you gotta break up with him or he just calls you too much. Bro, leave me alone. You know, like that kind of friend. Anyway, sometimes you gotta do that.

• 1:31:12Jocko Willink?

  I don't have a lot of, this is making me feel real lonely over here. I don't have anyone who does it.

• 1:31:16Speaker 01

  Maybe, maybe you're the one who got phased out.

• 1:31:18Jocko Willink?

  I got phased out big time. I got peered out across the board over the past forty seven years. Phased out.

• 1:31:24Speaker 01

  Could be, Brad. You're too intense. You're too intense with your four thirty wakeups.

• 1:31:27Jocko Willink?

  Jocko, he's gonna be all fired up for this.

• 1:31:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, we can't drink around him. That's weird how people think they can't drink around you.

• 1:31:34Jocko Willink?

  Nah, maybe some people do, but no, no, I'm pretty mellow about it, you know? So I'm not trying to get peered out over here.

• 1:31:43Speaker 01

  No, you're too late already, Brad. You're peered out.

• 1:31:46Jocko Willink?

  But there's some people I think feel internally guilty. Right?

• 1:31:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:50Jocko Willink?

  Like, so they don't want me around because they know like, oh, well, I want to get, I want to do horrible things tonight to my body.

• 1:31:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:58Jocko Willink?

  Right?

• 1:31:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:58Jocko Willink?

  And if I have Jaco here, I'm gonna feel guilty about it.

• 1:32:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, I might be judged or, that's what it is. I think they think you judge.

• 1:32:06Jocko Willink?

  Always judging.

• 1:32:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:06Jocko Willink?

  Always judging. It's funny because I'm saying that sarcastically. I kind of really don't care.

• 1:32:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. I don't think you've even indicated that you cared, like, not even in a little bit, a little way. It's funny.

• 1:32:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And, and actually, I think I don't like to indicate because then the person might tighten their track up a little bit, then they're gonna be like tougher to deal with on the mats of justice.

• 1:32:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. Alright, see, yeah, he sets the whole plan.

• 1:32:30Jocko Willink?

  I'm bringing donuts, bro.

• 1:32:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, have some of these.

• 1:32:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:32:34Speaker 01

  Pretty workout, donut.

• 1:32:35Jocko Willink?

  So, yes, I think it's a good system that the, that the Rangers have, and like I said, we have an unofficial methodology, and certainly, once you get it to a SEAL team, there's, the same thing can happen, right? You get a guy that just doesn't quote unquote "fit in", and that's a real thing. And like I said, it's a real broad spectrum. Like, there's very few people that I know, that I know, or that I've saw got peered out. I don't think I ever, I think we might have peered out one guy in like my second or third platoon. We actually had a guy that was just like, "Yeah, you really just don't belong here." And, you know, the idea was like, hey, we need to, and what'll happen is, the dude will probably get

• 1:33:15Jocko Willink?

  some safety violations, which is, by the way, one of the reasons why a guy's gonna get peered out, like, hey, this guy just doesn't, can't keep it together in the house, you know what I mean? That's not good. We don't want him here. So, yeah, you don't want, because, and I think it's because, and it's not like anyone, not like anyone says, "Well, you know, comradeship is a real important part of morale, and morale's very important on the battlefield." I never said that.

• 1:33:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:38Jocko Willink?

  But you feel it in a platoon. You've got some guy that just doesn't fit in.

• 1:33:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I can see how that could be, especially with you guys in the teams where it matters. It matters like way more. You know, it's not like you're, you know, at the, in my case, as a mover. You know, you're going little cruise, you know? And it's like, right, it's just way less at stake, you know, being like a cohesive team.

• 1:34:02Jocko Willink?

  There seems to be a bit less at stake.

• 1:34:04Speaker 01

  A little bit different. But yeah, so it makes sense, man. Totally does.

• 1:34:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's...

• 1:34:11Jocko Willink?

  And again, I don't want people freaking out, but I will say this, what was it? I was going to college when I was going to college and I was out of the SEAL Teams for a little while. And this, one of my professors was, you know, like, well, you know, it must be so nice to just be going to college. And I'm like, no, it's hell. I want to go back to the teams immediately, right now, like this minute. Cause in, in this professor's mind, you know, she's thinking, oh gosh, think of how wonderful this must be to be here and being educated and learning and expanding your brain and you don't have to do all that hard work, military stuff with guns. And meanwhile, I'm literally the exact opposite.

• 1:34:51Jocko Willink?

  I don't want to do anything at college and I want to go back to the teams immediately. And I said, no, I, if I could go back right now, I would immediately give me an F in every class. If they let me go back and still be, still be in the teams, I'd do it. And she goes, well, what is it you like so much about it? And I said, well, everyone's kind of like me. You know, you're hanging around with a bunch of guys that are kind of like you, not exact, but like they have the same mindset. They laugh at the same jokes. There's, they have the, you know, that it's like just a bunch of similar type of people. Which of course that's who you want to hang around with. You don't want to hang around with a bunch of people that are the opposite of you. Now you're not hanging around with like, hey, this person's nothing, or this person's different than me.

• 1:35:36Jocko Willink?

  I don't, I don't want to hear their input. No, actually I like getting different people's input. But there's a nice, kind of solid base of like, hey, you're a team guy, I'm a team guy. And we kind of have the same, kind of just broad life perspective. And that's nice to have. And it doesn't really matter where you came from, because in the teams, you get all kinds of people from all kinds of different backgrounds. Right? You get guys from Hawaii, you get guys from the, from the ghetto, you get guys from the farm, you get guys from the city. You get guys from, you get guys from everywhere. And yet, all those differences are like surface differences, but the core dude is pretty much like this dude. You know what I mean? Like, we're all pretty similar. Doesn't matter

• 1:36:18Jocko Willink?

  what, you know, kinda how you grew up, or what race you are, or what religion you are. It's like, oh yeah, he's a team guy, so we kinda get it. I know what you're thinking. And you know what I'm thinking. And that's kinda cool to be around. And that is part of comradeship, and that is part of what makes a unit tight. And when there's a person that doesn't, then that's problematic. It's not just problematic, it's problematic for the team. It starts to hurt morale.

• 1:36:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's weird, and not weird, but in football, it's the same thing. But it's not the whole team, though. People gather in positions, like the wide receiver, in my case. All the wide receivers, same deal. They all come from different places. Hawaii guys, mainland guys, different part, you know, just such different people. But for some reason, they all just sort of gravitate towards each other. You know, when you go to the cafeteria, or wherever you go, like in football camp, you see, you can tell a lot by where people sit.

• 1:37:16Jocko Willink?

  There's the quarterbacks.

• 1:37:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, the quarterbacks all sit over there. And it's so interesting, given this concept that you're talking about, where you would think most of the people from a certain area, maybe a certain race, would gather together. And there is some of that, for sure. But for the most part, it sorts itself out by position.

• 1:37:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's interesting.

• 1:37:37Speaker 01

  Like, you see sort of the linemen kinda go over there, and, you know, the receivers are kinda like over here. Yeah. And it doesn't matter, like, where they come from, or their little background, or whatever. Cause there's this underlying interest that they all sort of share, you know?

• 1:37:53Jocko Willink?

  There's a core, like a core part of their personality that's the same. And that's, I guess, the thing here. Got that core part of your personality that's the same. And some fundamental characteristics of the good team guy. You know, like, there's a fundamental, like, hey, this guy's gonna work hard. Hey, this guy's gonna take care of his gear, he's gonna take care of the platoon gear, he's not looking out for himself. It's like a real, it's a real problem. Like, if you're a, yeah, you don't wanna be that guy. And so if you have those, you know, then it doesn't really matter what you're like. Whatever you layer on top of that, it's fine. It's fine, no one cares.

• 1:38:31Speaker 01

  Part of the game.

• 1:38:33Jocko Willink?

  No one cares. Check.

• 1:38:36Jocko Willink?

  Next section, the fourth factor, self-respect. No man can be said to possess high morale. If the quality of self-respect is lacking, soldiers must be encouraged to respect themselves at all times, under all conditions. This quality is involved with those of discipline and comradeship to such an extent that it is perhaps wrong and certainly difficult to separate them. But no man will have high morale who does not possess a greater, a quality greater and wider than comradeship and discipline. Self-respect implies a determination to maintain personal standards of behavior. A man who respects himself will neither allow himself to become slovenly nor his quarters

• 1:39:21Jocko Willink?

  dirty.

• 1:39:24Jocko Willink?

  Right? This is, this, this is the root of, you know, the stereotypical,

• 1:39:32Jocko Willink?

  adult saying to the kid, "Don't you have any self-respect?" Right? "How could you walk around looking like that? How could you wear that? How could you grow your hair like that? How could you..." You know, like all those things. "How could you live in this pigsty?" Right? It's all, all those things boil down to self-respect.

• 1:39:51Jocko Willink?

  Even in action, he will take care to see that his personal appearance suffers as little as possible. Monty's a bit of a fashionista, I think. Representing that beret.

• 1:40:04Jocko Willink?

  That's Monty. It is the job of the NCO to maintain this aspect of discipline. It is the function of the officer to encourage and instill self-respect. So, once again, who's, who's instilling self-respect? It's the leaders. And how do they do that? It's the little things that we just talked about.

• 1:40:24Jocko Willink?

  I, I believe you instill self-respect by doing things you just talked about, which is giving people responsibility, letting them figure out jobs themselves, letting them do things.

• 1:40:34Jocko Willink?

  Here's how Monty wants to do it. The officer must ruthlessly insist on maintenance of personal standards.

• 1:40:40Jocko Willink?

  And then he says this, this is why you gotta, you know, Monty's coming off hard, but here we go. At the same time, however, he must let his men understand that he appreciates and respects them as human beings. Soldiers must be treated with humanity and controlled by discipline. So there's a, there's a balance in his dichotomy here, right? Treat, treat them good, but control them by discipline, but treat them good. So he's got a dichotomy here. If the officer does this, he will gain the respect of his men and at the same time he gives them self-respect. Efficiency is inseparable from self-respect. The sense of a good job well done, of a hard task successfully accomplished is indispensable to good morale. Men must take pride in their ability to carry out all jobs allotted to them.

• 1:41:21Jocko Willink?

  They must feel that they are good soldiers and therefore of value to other people. That's a good little, good little thing to sprinkle in, especially kids, right?

• 1:41:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:32Jocko Willink?

  Like making, have you ever been around kids that have been told, you know, that they're worthless their whole lives?

• 1:41:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:38Jocko Willink?

  Like that's not, it's a horrible sight. And then what do they not have? They don't have self-respect. Men can be persuaded of this fact by being trusted.

• 1:41:51Jocko Willink?

  A man who feels he is trusted will feel that he's efficient and will, he will at once begin to respect himself. This is like critical.

• 1:41:59Jocko Willink?

  Leaders, I mean, subordinates, kids, either one, when you start giving them that trust, like your daughter's not old enough, but eventually you're gonna be saying, hey, you're gonna stay at home, I'm gonna be gone for about a half an hour, going to the store, right? And she's gonna like stand up a little straighter.

• 1:42:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:16Jocko Willink?

  Cause it's like all of a sudden that's a big deal, right? That's a big deal.

• 1:42:20Jocko Willink?

  And that same thing happens with your subordinates. Hey, listen, I'm gonna be gone for a little bit. Hold down the fort.

• 1:42:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:26Jocko Willink?

  You got this. They stand up a little bit straighter. Their self-respect increases when you give them trust.

• 1:42:37Jocko Willink?

  A man who feels he's entrusted, a man who feel he's entrusted will feel that he is efficient. And he will at once begin to respect himself. He will have confidence in his own ability to fight. Men who are trusted gain self-confidence. It is the job of the officer to convince his men that he trusts them. So once again, it's a leadership scenario.

• 1:42:56Speaker 01

  That's so true. I remember learning to drive with my dad.

• 1:43:00Jocko Willink?

  That's a big one.

• 1:43:01Speaker 01

  Oh yeah. So he, um, he, first he taught, we, we learned on a manual transmission. Are there any manual transmissions nowadays? Yeah, hardly huh? And it was a truck too, which is, it's just harder. I mean, in my experience, the one that we learned on wasn't that easy to get. And so we learned how to just do it, you know, just use the manual transmission for a second, third, fourth. And, um, but still not necessarily driving like on the streets. So the first time he told me to drive, like on the streets, I knew how to do the shift and all that. He just jumped in the, um, passenger seat and he put, you know, put me in, he said, just said, take us there. And we're going to, you know, where at the store or whatever. And he was just like, take us there.

• 1:43:45Speaker 01

  It wasn't the kind of like, okay, now what you want to do is do all, you know, he was, it was nothing. He was, he just said, straight up, take us there. And I felt that, I felt that like, yeah, I'm the driver now, you know, and I went and yeah, a little bit nerve wracking, but man, way more confident than I would have been. If you would have been like, okay, be sure to check your mirrors, check your mirrors. Okay, easy, you know, like that kind of stuff. None of that. He just said, take us there. Boom, I took us there. It was good.

• 1:44:10Jocko Willink?

  B C.

• 1:44:11Speaker 01

  I liked it. Yep. Dropping knowledge even back then.

• 1:44:15Jocko Willink?

  Check. Self-respect is a quality which will develop inevitably if the three essential factors already considered are present. It is true to say that without self-respect, good morale is impossible. It is equally true to say that if the standards of leadership, discipline and comradeship are high, the quality of self-respect will also be high.

• 1:44:40Jocko Willink?

  So this all boils down to leadership. Additional factor devotion to a cause is impossible to make a is impossible to make devotion to a cause either a basic or contributory factor to good morale. It must stand by itself between these two categories. It is important to clear the mind of some misconceptions connected with the influence of a cause in shaping morale. Men do not fight primarily for a cause. They do not have they do not advance over dangerous ground in pursuit of an ideal. They do not now fight as crusaders may have done long ago. They fight because they are ordered to do so. And they do it well or badly according to the strength of various factors which have

• 1:45:25Jocko Willink?

  already been considered. So. Yeah, this is one that I'm again, I'm not really, I'm not really down too down with Monty on this thing. I think if you've got troops that are have no idea why they're fighting and they're not fighting for a cause, you're gonna have a breakdown. You know, you're gonna have a breakdown in your units. As a matter of fact, he kinda said that. He said it earlier. He said, if you don't have remember this, if you don't have respect for the plan and this and the higher leadership, well, that's what a cause is. A cause is like we have a plan. We have we are higher leadership. Who's that? That's the leaders of our country. That's the highest leadership.

• 1:46:06Jocko Willink?

  So if you don't, if you don't believe in that, then you're gonna have a problem. And then he says this, and this again, this is a little arrogance coming from coming from Monty. This is not so in the case of leaders. Some men fight, some fight for the same reason as the men. The more intelligent because they have because they at heart believe in what they fight for. Such leaders are usually the best in the army and wield the greatest influence. Thus numerically, cause is of little importance, but it is a powerful factor because the leaders are greatly influenced by it. So he's basically saying, listen, you know, the senior leaders have a understanding of the cause and so whereas the men are just fighting because they're ordered to. He literally says that. Come on, bro. That's not that's that that doesn't work.

• 1:46:51Jocko Willink?

  That doesn't work in America. And you know, you talk like, look at that, that letter I read from the beginning. That's kind of why I wanted to read that letter as a con as a contradiction to this. And as an, I mean, what he says in that letter is like, look, I'm not fighting for the great of England. He says that, but he's fighting for the cause, the cause of security for his family, right? So people are thinking about that. You don't, you don't, you don't say, I'm willing to die just because some random dude ordered me to do it. No, you have to have a connection to something greater than that. Otherwise you're, you're suicidal, right?

• 1:47:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. I remember saving Private Ryan.

• 1:47:34Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 1:47:34Speaker 01

  When he said that he said.

• 1:47:35Jocko Willink?

  There's a movie. Yes.

• 1:47:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. He's Tom Hanks, right? He, uh, he was like, I don't know who Ryan, you know, they gotta save Private Ryan, obviously. And, um, they're at this part where they're kind of questioning things, you know, guys, you know, morale is breaking down.

• 1:47:52Jocko Willink?

  Hmm.

• 1:47:54Speaker 01

  And, you know, things happen and what he says in part of his speech was like, hey, I don't know who Private Ryan is. I don't know him. So I basically questioning that particular cause, but he said, but if going and rescuing him earns me the right to get back to my family, then that's my mission. So same deal, same deal as the letter right there.

• 1:48:13Jocko Willink?

  He had a cause.

• 1:48:13Speaker 01

  He has, he had his cause. Oh yeah. And that was the one he was fighting for.

• 1:48:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:21Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. Nevertheless, nothing which has been stated here must be interpreted as minimizing the influence of cause on those officers and men who are moved by it. So then he, he, he brings it back a little bit. For these few, cause will be a sustaining and strengthening factor and maybe of greater importance to them than any of the other four factors. There are times when a few men will be gripped by a cause and will perform astonishing deeds of heroism to further it. Such men do not require the ordinary bonds of discipline which unite and strengthen others. Their devotion to the cause is in itself all sufficient. Nor do they require the same kind of leader that has been described. They themselves will all be leaders. Such men may be properly described as guerrilla or irregular fighters, fanatically devoted

• 1:49:06Jocko Willink?

  to a political, religious, or national ideal. They must not be confused with conscript soldiers to whom this paper applies.

• 1:49:16Jocko Willink?

  So, there you go. I mean, in America, you know, we have all volunteer.

• 1:49:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:21Jocko Willink?

  But I'm telling you, even, it doesn't matter. You've got it. You, people have to understand, there has to be some kind of a deeper cause as to what you're doing, or else you're gonna have real problems. Sure, you can order people if they're conscripts, and you can punish them if they don't do what you're gonna tell, if they don't do what you tell them to do, you can punish them. That is a way, but that is not going to be a successful way. You know, that is not gonna be the ideal way.

• 1:49:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:46Jocko Willink?

  And by the way, if you're not using the ideal way, you may win. But if you're going against somebody that is using the ideal way, that has a cause that they believe in, and on top of that cause, they have all these other things, the, the, the, the group that has a real cause will win every single time.

• 1:50:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:06Jocko Willink?

  Now, there's some other contributory factors that he brings up here. One is success. This is a real obvious one. Success. High morale is, is possible in defeat, but not during a long period of defeat. On such occasions, confidence in leaders will never be wane, and the first basis will be undermined. Success will aid good morale by creating confidence in the leader and in the command. This factor requires no enlargement.

• 1:50:34Jocko Willink?

  Next one is regimental tradition. Regimental spirit can be a powerful factor in making for a good morale. The more a soldier feels himself to be identified with his regiment, the higher will be his morale if the four essential conditions have been fulfilled. It must be realized, however, that not only that there can be a good morale without strong regimental feelings, but that regiments with a great tradition do not necessarily always produce good battalions. So, the, the tradition, which there's some units that have awesome traditions, and you know, being with some of those, some of those units overseas,

• 1:51:16Jocko Willink?

  I mean, the first, the 506, obviously comes to, comes to light, and, and they're...

• 1:51:22Jocko Willink?

  Their tradition, the 101st airborne tradition was so thick. There's that pride was in every soldier that wore that that ace of spades, that spade on their gear. It was like, yeah, there's pride there. There's tradition. But he's saying it's not going to replace these other things, but it is a factor that you can use. Another factor, again, contributory factor, personal happiness. A man should be happy in the sense that his personal life should be in order. Nothing weakens a man more than trouble at home.

• 1:52:03Jocko Willink?

  It encourages, it encourages him to think of home and all that it implies when he should be occupied with the enemy. It turns his mind to peace and his desire to live at the moment when it is necessary for him to steel himself to face the possibility of death. He must never be allowed to forget that it is his job to fight. The function is to kill the enemy and in doing so, he must expose himself to danger. Anything which weakens his will to fight and expose himself must be considered to lower his morale. A soldier is only a family man after he is a soldier.

• 1:52:40Jocko Willink?

  He must look forward at the enemy and not back towards home. Some realism to that, definitely. I think it can go either way. I think there's times where people can be driven to success by their family back home and by thinking of their family, but it can definitely become a distraction.

• 1:53:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:53:05Jocko Willink?

  Depending on the situation.

• 1:53:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, it seems like when there's a lot of risk involved, it'll be a distraction.

• 1:53:13Jocko Willink?

  Maybe. I think it depends on the individual. I think it depends on the circumstances. I, I think wha- what may be better to look, whether it's a distraction or not, is, is like what's going on at home. That's what's more important. If there's disruption at home, that's a problem. Right? If you've got a guy that's overseas and is, there's problems in the family life, that's, that's, that's gonna hurt.

• 1:53:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, it's weird, cuz like, you know, guys at work, sometimes, anyway. Sometimes, um, you know, they, something bad can be going on at home, and they'll use work to sort of cover it up, like, bling, in their mind, you know, they'll be like, hey, that, like, again, I'm sorry for another movie reference, but there's a movie called True Lies, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

• 1:54:00Jocko Willink?

  I've seen that movie.

• 1:54:00Speaker 01

  He goes, yeah, so, Arnold.

• 1:54:02Jocko Willink?

  I haven't seen it enough times. It came out 20 years ago to be pulling a quote from it and a storyline, but hey, let's go with it.

• 1:54:09Speaker 01

  It's kind of beside the point of this one, but he goes, uh, you know, Arnold finds out that his wife is, or thinks that his wife's cheating on him with the guy. And then the, the partner, Tom Arnold, goes, he's all, let's just focus on work. That's what I, that's what I always do when my life turns to dog shit. I just focus on work, you know? Well, but, and the, the, the point is, like, some people, that's how, you know, something's going wrong at home, they'll be like, you know, I'm just focused on work. Screw that. Forget about it. You know, I'm immersed myself in this other thing.

• 1:54:37Jocko Willink?

  You can control work, because you might not be able to control your relationship the way you think you should be able to.

• 1:54:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:54:43Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 1:54:45Jocko Willink?

  Continuing on, all soldiers do not have morale affected by home troubles. Some men thrive on unhappiness and fight all the more fiercely because they hold a bitter, a secret bitterness within them. Such men are the minority. That's the person you just talked about, right? Hey, I'm just gonna go work harder. But such men are the minority, but they are a large minority. They are a reminder that happiness cannot by itself produce good morale. Next is administration of man's ordinary day-to-day life must be well organized, thus, hard conditions imposed on him in training to inculcate discipline do not rule out the desirability of good living quarters. And, in the line, a soldier's morale will be much improved if the administration, administrative arrangements are good,

• 1:55:30Jocko Willink?

  and if he is assured of proper conditions with a reasonable amount of leisure and comfort when he leaves the front. Leisure day. Where you at?

• 1:55:43Jocko Willink?

  We were at the Yvonne and then he says this, "But here, a warning must be given. There is a danger today of welfare being considered as an end in itself and not as a means to an end. One of the means of maintaining morale. Welfare by itself will not produce good morale because it is essentially soft. And it has already been stated that morale cannot be good unless it contains a quality of hardness.

• 1:56:15Jocko Willink?

  Man, you gotta remember that, right? You gotta remember that. You're not ever gonna have good morale unless there's like an element of hardness to it.

• 1:56:27Jocko Willink?

  And continuing on, hardship and privation are the school of the good soldier.

• 1:56:35Jocko Willink?

  Idleness and luxury are his enemies. Men will endure great hardships if they know why and are convinced of the necessity. Blood, toil, tears, and sweat is not for nothing one of the great rallying calls of the English race. Goring's cry, guns before butter expressed the same truth. If men believe in the need, hardships are in themselves stimulant to morale. But the opposite is also true. Let there be any suggestion that butter can come before guns and the men will at once choose butter. If this happens, there will be no morale in this sense of the definition.

• 1:57:18Jocko Willink?

  Then we get propaganda. The uplifting effect of modern propaganda on a soldier is perhaps a new development. A man's morale is raised immensely by the feeling that his efforts are appreciated and applauded, not only by his comrades and his officers, but also the world at large. You gotta get, you gotta get that propaganda working for you. I've had a couple of companies I've been working with lately and one of them was being assaulted by.

• 1:57:52Jocko Willink?

  Its competitors. And it had a better product. Its product was doing well, but they were getting assaulted and they were getting assaulted. By the way, with lies. Like the competitors are just making stuff up, right? Just making stuff up, putting that word out there, putting out their rumors unofficially.

• 1:58:10Speaker 01

  Sir.

• 1:58:11Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, here's the thing, the CEO was kind of. Did, was quite sure what to do. And I said, you have the most towel, the most powerful tool. In your arsenal. It's the truth. But you gotta weaponize that truth. You gotta weaponize it. You gotta turn it into a weapon that you can use to crush the lies. Because if you're doing great things and you're not telling anyone, you're not putting out any propaganda. Well, then guess what? No one's gonna know about it. You just lost your, your most valuable weapon, which is the truth. If you're doing good things and your product is better and you can prove that it's better and people know that it's better. But you're not telling anyone. You're going, it doesn't matter. You have to weaponize that truth and get it out there. So that's what propaganda is.

• 1:58:59Jocko Willink?

  Now we are moving into the conclusion right here.

• 1:59:05Jocko Willink?

  In brief, high morale has been defined as the quality which makes men endure and show courage in times of fatigue and danger. The cultivation of morale depends upon the training of leaders. The inculcation of discipline, the encouragement of comradeship and the infusing of self-respect. The leaders must have a belief in their cause. And they must pay attention to numerous contributory factors of considerable but secondary importance.

• 1:59:33Jocko Willink?

  And here's how he closes out. Man is still the first weapon of war. His training is the most important consideration in the fashioning of a fighting army. All modern science is directed toward his assistance, but on his efforts depend the outcome of the battle. The morale of the soldier. Is the most important single factor. In war. So there he is saying it again, the morale of the soldier is the most important single factor in war. And as I said, I will argue with that. Because as far as I'm concerned, without question, leadership is the most important thing on the battlefield. And I'm actually, like I said, I'm thinking I'm right.

• 2:00:16Jocko Willink?

  So no offense to Monty, but I think I'm right because

• 2:00:21Jocko Willink?

  his factors to review them, leadership, that's the number one factor. Well, that's leadership. Discipline, where does that come from? Discipline comes from leadership. Comradeship, where does that come from? It comes from good leadership. Self-respect, where does that come from? And I'm not, I'm not saying that's what Monty's saying. Monty said that discipline comes from leadership. Monty said that comradeship comes from leadership. Monty said that self-respect comes from leadership. So as far as I'm concerned, no offense, Monty, as far as I'm concerned, leadership is the most important thing on the battlefield. But that being said, let there be no doubt that morale without question is a necessity and a requirement for victory. And I will add this.

• 2:01:07Jocko Willink?

  Morale is important. Extremely important, not only for a team, not only for a military unit or a business or any kind of organization made up of people, but morale is also important for individuals.

• 2:01:27Jocko Willink?

  For us, day to day, how is your morale? Where's your morale at? Think about how you approach the day when your morale is good. Think about how you go into the day. Just like you're going into attack, if you're, if you're going to attack the enemy and your morale is high, you're going to attack with vigor and you're probably going to be successful. If you go in to attack the enemy and your morale is low, you're going to attack without vigor, without enthusiasm. And you're probably going to fail. Well, what about you as a person? If your morale is low, guess what? If you roll into the day, you roll into your mission and your morale is low, likely you are going to fail.

• 2:02:11Jocko Willink?

  So then the question is, how do we increase our personal or individual morale? And I think it's the same way we improve team morale. We improve our personal morale with discipline, with hardship and with privation and with efficiency and with emotional control and by facing our fears. And of course, most important is leadership. Leadership, leading yourself and not allowing this leadership vacuum in your head.

• 2:02:51Jocko Willink?

  Right? When I was putting SEALs through training, if there was chaos broke out, there were some times where no leader would step up and take charge and that would create a leadership vacuum. And it was hard to tell what was happening because no one would be saying anything. It would just be silence and you didn't hear anything. And so it's hard to recognize that all of a sudden, wait a second, there's no, no one's leading. You don't recognize it because it's not happening. It's like seeing something that's not there. It's not there, so you don't think about it. Well, when no one's leading, you take, sometimes it can be hard to notice that. And I'd call that a leadership vacuum and I'd teach these young SEALs like, hey, when that happens, you need to step up. Well, the same thing can happen in your head. You get this leadership vacuum in your head. When you're not leading, you're going to start to slide down the path of least resistance.

• 2:03:35Jocko Willink?

  You're going to slip on down that slippery slope. You're going to walk away from discipline. You're going to not impose hardship and privation on yourself. You're not going to push yourself and your morale is going to go down as well. And if your morale fails, well, it becomes very easy for you to fail. So don't allow that. Don't allow your morale to fail. Lift up your morale, increase your morale by inflicting yourself with discipline,

• 2:04:16Jocko Willink?

  by doing hard things, by controlling your emotions, by controlling yourself and by leading yourself on the path of discipline, which as we know, leads to freedom.

• 2:04:34Jocko Willink?

  And I think that's actually all I've got.

• 2:04:38Jocko Willink?

  For tonight, so Echo Charles.

• 2:04:41Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:04:42Jocko Willink?

  Speaking of controlling ourselves and

• 2:04:47Jocko Willink?

  leading ourselves down the path. I know you've got some, let's say some guideposts on the path, some markers on the path.

• 2:04:57Speaker 01

  I do.

• 2:04:58Jocko Willink?

  Some signals.

• 2:04:59Speaker 01

  Big time.

• 2:04:59Jocko Willink?

  Pointing in the right direction.

• 2:05:01Speaker 01

  Huge time.

• 2:05:02Jocko Willink?

  To get us down the path.

• 2:05:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I was thinking about this today.

• 2:05:08Speaker 01

  I'm watching my daughter's performance, little singing performance.

• 2:05:11Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 2:05:12Speaker 01

  This morning, all good. Um, so for whatever reason, good, fine. It was a big group of.

• 2:05:18Jocko Willink?

  What grade?

• 2:05:19Speaker 01

  Kindergarten.

• 2:05:20Jocko Willink?

  No, what grade did you give her when she was done?

• 2:05:24Speaker 01

  I didn't give a grade.

• 2:05:25Jocko Willink?

  How's she gonna know how she's gonna improve her performance?

• 2:05:28Speaker 01

  I'll give her a grade when she gets home.

• 2:05:30Jocko Willink?

  Check. Okay, good. What you're gonna give her for a grade?

• 2:05:33Speaker 01

  Uh, probably F for sure, cuz it's a long story. That's beside the point, by the way.

• 2:05:39Jocko Willink?

  Wow, an F?

• 2:05:40Speaker 01

  Probably, yeah.

• 2:05:40Jocko Willink?

  What'd she do?

• 2:05:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, just, it was, there were some things that happened post-performance.

• 2:05:48Jocko Willink?

  What, tears?

• 2:05:49Speaker 01

  That, that I didn't approve of, the reason for them happening.

• 2:05:53Jocko Willink?

  Tell me a little bit more about what happened.

• 2:05:54Speaker 01

  Anyways, we'll go over that later. Um, so the point is, I'm thinking like, what is the path?

• 2:06:01Jocko Willink?

  This is probably the first time I've ever wanted you to go into detail on the story.

• 2:06:06Speaker 01

  It doesn't matter.

• 2:06:08Jocko Willink?

  Did she freak out? Was she shy? Just give us a little deep.

• 2:06:11Speaker 01

  Okay, so she was, yeah, so she's shy, she's performing good, fine, like, you know, it's the whole class, though. Um, you know, like, what do you call it, an assembly?

• 2:06:19Jocko Willink?

  Okay, yeah.

• 2:06:20Speaker 01

  And.

• 2:06:21Jocko Willink?

  So we're talking a hundred kids on stage, or is it just one class and there's only 25 kids on stage?

• 2:06:25Speaker 01

  One class.

• 2:06:26Jocko Willink?

  Twenty-five or thirty.

• 2:06:26Speaker 01

  And it's not even really a stage, it's like.

• 2:06:28Jocko Willink?

  Okay, it's in the classroom.

• 2:06:29Speaker 01

  In a courtyard kind of situation.

• 2:06:30Jocko Willink?

  Check, so it's a real official scenario.

• 2:06:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, so she, yeah, they go, they perform good. As far as performance goes, fine. You know, she remembers the song, she performed it in front of us.

• 2:06:41Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 2:06:41Speaker 01

  You know, the night before and the night before that, all good.

• 2:06:44Jocko Willink?

  Preparation.

• 2:06:45Speaker 01

  But then they had to sit down, and then the assembly sort of went on.

• 2:06:49Jocko Willink?

  Uh huh.

• 2:06:49Speaker 01

  So they're sitting down and I look over and I see her crying, which I didn't, I was confused, but I know my daughter, like, she's like, she's softy like that, my fault, I know. So she's looking back on me. She's looking back to me all salty and um I'm like I'm not concerned because I know something didn't go wrong. Something's happening that she just doesn't like like she's tired of sitting there or something like that. So she's looking back at me. I'm just like, um, you know, I don't give it that much attention. Later on, I find out as she's walking to her class because after the assembly, they go to their class. And she's like, oh yeah, I didn't like how long the assembly was going on.

• 2:07:32Jocko Willink?

  That's what she said?

• 2:07:33Speaker 01

  To me. Yeah, that's why she was crying. That's why she didn't ask. Yep. Well, and here's the thing, it she shouldn't feel that strongly about it, you know?

• 2:07:43Jocko Willink?

  There's something else going on, to be honest with you, bro.

• 2:07:45Speaker 01

  I she she's like a softie. She's like a like when things don't go her way in certain ways, you know? And she's uncomfortable or whatever.

• 2:07:54Jocko Willink?

  If I were you, I'd break it down like this. I wouldn't just give her an F across the board. I would give her like I'd break out maybe some different, different categories. I'd give her like an A for singing or maybe a B, you know what I mean? Because I'm not hitting every note, right? Maybe a B minus or whatever. And then give her, you know, presence. I used to this is how I used to grade my kids when they would do stuff like this. I'd give them presence. I'd give them attitude. I'd give them clarity, enunciation. Like there's a bunch of things you can break it down and and you don't want to give her five O's across the board, obviously. Because she you know, five O performer, not an age six, don't exist.

• 2:08:31Speaker 01

  Nope.

• 2:08:31Jocko Willink?

  Gotta break her down a little bit, right? So so but then you say, listen, by the way, all your performance, which you have a, you know, you got a three point eight on. That's your average score. Post-performance behavior. Had to give you a zero.

• 2:08:47Speaker 01

  Zero, yeah.

• 2:08:48Jocko Willink?

  Tears.

• 2:08:49Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:08:50Jocko Willink?

  Weakness. Don't ever let these other kids know that you've been you should be having the attitude. I could stand out here. I could sit out here all day in this assembly. Bring it.

• 2:09:00Jocko Willink?

  Check. All right.

• 2:09:01Speaker 01

  Anyway, so as this is unfolding.

• 2:09:04Jocko Willink?

  Oh, there's more to the story. Okay.

• 2:09:05Speaker 01

  Well, that wasn't the point at all. That was just the setting.

• 2:09:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, okay.

• 2:09:09Speaker 01

  But I was just thinking like, you know, what is the what is the path? Like, what is that? Is it just the stuff that Jaco does and now we do it? No, it's not that. Not at all, actually. Granted, some of the stuff you do, in my opinion, is essential.

• 2:09:28Speaker 01

  Quintessential.

• 2:09:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:30Speaker 01

  It's like ideal.

• 2:09:32Jocko Willink?

  Right, okay.

• 2:09:32Speaker 01

  That's what I think, that's my opinion.

• 2:09:33Jocko Willink?

  I'm trying. I'm missing by a lot, my, you know, coming in a solid two-two. Most, most categories.

• 2:09:39Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, but that's just you being hard on the stand, on the, on the, on the scale.

• 2:09:43Jocko Willink?

  I don't know.

• 2:09:43Speaker 01

  Right, on yourself.

• 2:09:44Jocko Willink?

  I don't know.

• 2:09:45Speaker 01

  Put it this way, the path is something specific, but more than that, I just, I just realized, not realized, but more like consciously thought of what's not the path. That's what, that's important. So it's like, okay, if you're doing jujitsu, are you not on the path? Hmm, not necessarily. You have to be doing or neglecting some very specific things to not be on the path. Like, if you don't care about what you're eating, like, you're just like, whatever feels, sounds good tonight. That's told, the total standard in which you base your

• 2:10:16Speaker 01

  meals on.

• 2:10:17Jocko Willink?

  Uh huh.

• 2:10:17Speaker 01

  You're probably not on the path. That's a big indicator.

• 2:10:20Jocko Willink?

  Well, you're.

• 2:10:20Speaker 01

  That's one of the factors.

• 2:10:21Jocko Willink?

  It's, it's an area where you need to tighten things up.

• 2:10:23Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:10:24Jocko Willink?

  Because we know you're not performing optimally if you're not eating correctly.

• 2:10:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:10:27Jocko Willink?

  We know that.

• 2:10:28Speaker 01

  So we'll just say that element is considered not on the path.

• 2:10:31Jocko Willink?

  Right. Check.

• 2:10:32Speaker 01

  So, and that's just one example of many, you know, like, if you just straight up don't exercise at all.

• 2:10:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:38Speaker 01

  You know, and I'm not, and some people have active lifestyles in general and they don't consider it quote unquote, exercise. I get it, but, and then that's different or whatever, but if you're like inactive, you're sedentary.

• 2:10:48Jocko Willink?

  Yep, that's bad.

• 2:10:49Speaker 01

  That quality is not on the path.

• 2:10:51Jocko Willink?

  True.

• 2:10:52Speaker 01

  See what I'm saying? So basically what is not on the path is if you have most of the elements of your life is not on the path. You'll know.

• 2:11:00Jocko Willink?

  Also, there's also a really broad thing because you could, you don't, even if you're, even if you're trying, right?

• 2:11:09Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 2:11:10Jocko Willink?

  That's what the path is, right? The path is trying, right? The path is like, hey, I'm try, now I guess, yeah, I guess that's a little bit strong because I could say I'm trying to work out, but I just didn't make it again today. So, yeah, you know what? You're not on the path.

• 2:11:23Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 2:11:23Jocko Willink?

  That's a good point.

• 2:11:23Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:11:24Jocko Willink?

  But you don't have to be, you know, doing the nine-hour workout.

• 2:11:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:11:29Jocko Willink?

  With a, with a six-hour jujitsu session afterwards. No, like, oh, you only had an hour, you only had thirty minutes to train today. Cool, got it done quick. I did a pretty quick, where I did twenty minutes today.

• 2:11:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:11:40Jocko Willink?

  That's what I got, I. Got flu in late last night, woke up this morning, I had another call, so I was like, okay, cool. I'm I'm gonna hammer this thing out. I had that window closing too.

• 2:11:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:11:50Jocko Willink?

  You know, the window is like, well, maybe I'll just.

• 2:11:52Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:11:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, just maybe this, you know, not, no, you can't let the window close. That was a really good concept. We talked about the jujitsu window.

• 2:12:00Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:12:02Jocko Willink?

  It happens with working out too, right?

• 2:12:04Speaker 01

  Even though that's mostly self-imposed.

• 2:12:06Jocko Willink?

  It is mostly self-imposed for working out, but it does happen if you have work to do, legitimate work to do, you have meetings, you have calls. And you're like, well, you know, I took that one call or I woke up this morning and oh, well, you know, I got that call and wait a second, I, you know, I'm brushing my teeth and wait a second, I'm just gonna check my email. Oh, now the window, it's all, no, the window just shut. Now I'm gonna have to work out later, which will never happen.

• 2:12:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:12:28Jocko Willink?

  Don't let the window shut.

• 2:12:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, just, yeah, jump through it, man.

• 2:12:32Jocko Willink?

  Jump through the window.

• 2:12:32Speaker 01

  Jump in. Um, but hey, man, it, and to recognize what the path isn't, is just important as recognizing what the path is. Cause if you're like, hey, are you uh, trying to like, I don't know, you know, what, what, what do people say? Like, are you trying to improve yourself or whatever? Most people will say yes.

• 2:12:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:50Speaker 01

  They'll be like, oh, yeah, look at all the things that, but it's like, you kind of know, you know, like, it's different. You just sort of know. Like, if you're doing jujitsu, you're sort of on the path with that alone, maybe not fully, but that is a legitimate element. So when you do jujitsu, if you're new or not new, whatever, you're gonna need a gi.

• 2:13:08Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 2:13:09Speaker 01

  What gi are we getting? I think we all know Origin because they are the best gees. So how are they the best gees? Okay, so if you just put one on, you'll sort of know, but here's an indicator, won't go too deep into it, but Coach Adam. The same coach in way of the where Warrior Kid, by the way, there's a real Coach Adam. So Coach Adam puts on his Rift Gi, inside out. Top.

• 2:13:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:32Speaker 01

  Gi top, inside out. I think he thought it was correct.

• 2:13:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:37Speaker 01

  And that was indicative of just, because it shows the stitching, you know, when you have it on the inside, it shows the stitching. And I looked at it, I was like, dang, that looks, that looks kinda cool, right?

• 2:13:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, what's interesting, because Pete was saying, he took the jeans, Origin jeans, which are now out. Uh, and he was, he turned, he said, hey, if you want to know what the quality of these jeans turns them in, he turned them inside out. And he's like, look at what they look like from the inside. So now you have Adam, who sees the, he puts his gi on inside out, because the quality is so high that you can't even tell.

• 2:14:03Speaker 01

  He thought that was the correct way to do it. He thought that was what was cracking. Meanwhile, the logo is all backwards and stuff, so you know, he really should have known that, but you know, hey, to each their own, and it looked good either way.

• 2:14:13Jocko Willink?

  So that's where we're at with Origin. We got clothing, including jeans, gees, t-shirts, sweatshirts, uh, other stuff, and then we got supplements as well.

• 2:14:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, supplements are good. Joint warfare, I think I'm talking to Greg Train, right? One of our main training partners, and he has an AC joint situation, two sides, by the way. And I'm tell, I'm telling him, if you put together the joint warfare with the super krill oil, disciplined every single day, that thing will heal straight up faster, measurably faster than just, you know.

• 2:14:51Jocko Willink?

  Look at my knee situation, which.

• 2:14:53Speaker 01

  Man, I'm a believer now.

• 2:14:55Jocko Willink?

  You're now a believer.

• 2:14:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:14:57Jocko Willink?

  I'm, I'm increased my beliefs of my own personal, kinda like Wolverine healing powers, which I joked about before, even though it wasn't really joking, you know, you, you know, you joke about something, but you kinda mean it.

• 2:15:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:15:10Jocko Willink?

  I feel real lucky, man, real lucky, because my knee was straight up.

• 2:15:15Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:15:16Jocko Willink?

  Injured, and it's, it's not healed yet, but dang, if it hasn't progressed a lot.

• 2:15:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, and it's not like, you know, when you're like 18 years old, uh, maybe a lighter weight person or something, it's like you tend to sort of heal faster. Let's face it, you're, you know, you're old school. And you're not very small.

• 2:15:34Jocko Willink?

  Old school or old?

• 2:15:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. I don't, you're old school, man. And you know, what are you walking around at two thirty, two thirty-five? I mean, that, I'm just saying that's not an easy racket for the knees all the time. And meanwhile, you're just boom, boom, boom, bouncing back that fast. That's saying a lot.

• 2:15:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:50Speaker 01

  Saying a big lot.

• 2:15:51Jocko Willink?

  Joint warfare, krill oil, uh, get some of that. Also the discipline and, and the discipline go. I had a scenario the other day. That's actually yesterday.

• 2:16:02Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:16:03Jocko Willink?

  Crazy flight situation, thunderstorms, rerouting, landing, buses, trains is ridiculous. Anyways, I, I'm going into an interview on two hours of sleep.

• 2:16:14Speaker 01

  Oh dang.

• 2:16:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. And this is just after, you know, Peter Attia is telling me about all the horrible, like cognitive problems that are gonna give you cause.

• 2:16:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:16:28Jocko Willink?

  And so, yeah, I took, I took like, I took like two discipline go. Right when I woke up, I was like, all right, yeah, I got the interview and like, and then I got there and I did a little bit of, you know, playing around or not playing around, but they're like prepping for the interview. And then I took like three more. So I took five discipline goes. Rocked it. I went in, I was like, a what? You got a question? Oh, let me tell you. So anyways, try that discipline go out. If you need something to uh, focus your cognitive

• 2:17:01Jocko Willink?

  skills.

• 2:17:02Speaker 01

  Skills, for sure.

• 2:17:03Jocko Willink?

  You can get some of that or you can get the discipline go. You can get the discipline powder.

• 2:17:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:17:08Jocko Willink?

  Should we have just called that pre jujitsu powder?

• 2:17:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's sorting itself out to be that.

• 2:17:13Jocko Willink?

  Kind of seems like something where you are going to jujitsu. You know, you're gonna need cognitive skills and you know, you're gonna need some physical skills or some physical.

• 2:17:25Jocko Willink?

  Enhancements.

• 2:17:26Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:17:27Jocko Willink?

  So you just jump on a couple scoops of discipline, maybe three, if you need to.

• 2:17:30Speaker 01

  Right, if you wanna get nuts.

• 2:17:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:17:32Speaker 01

  But yeah, yeah, that's good. And that's part of my everyday now. I'm pulling the Dave Burke every day.

• 2:17:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, that's, that's, I was, look, there's one thing that's good about it. It doesn't have some crazy amount of caffeine in it.

• 2:17:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:17:43Jocko Willink?

  You don't wanna be all amped up on caffeine. When you take something, oh, this stuff that makes me feel really good. Well, you just took a big hit of caffeine and you're gonna get, what's that word? You're gonna get a tolerance to it and then it's not gonna have the effect that you want. Discipline has like fifteen milligrams of caffeine per scoop. That's not that much. So what you feel, when you feel like the, you're not really feeling, you're feeling the other ingredients in there.

• 2:18:04Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:18:04Jocko Willink?

  So, don't, don't fool yourself into getting all amped up on caffeine, you know, or otherwise you might as well go do meth or cocaine.

• 2:18:12Speaker 01

  Or just drink some coffee, whichever, you know, I mean, I don't know what the meth, you know, that's kinda off the,

• 2:18:17Jocko Willink?

  No, I'm just kidding, children, don't do meth or cocaine. Don't do drugs, period. However, if you wanna do something that gives you sort of a addiction, try some strawberry milk, which is now out for adults. It is absolutely delicious if you want some extra protein in your body so you can get bigger, stronger, faster.

• 2:18:44Speaker 01

  Better.

• 2:18:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, true. And you, and, or, or, if you just want dessert.

• 2:18:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:18:50Jocko Willink?

  If you just want some dessert, have some strawberry milk or some peanut butter milk or some mint milk or some vanilla or dark chocolate. There you go.

• 2:19:00Speaker 01

  And Jaco White Tea. If you're into tea, or even if you're not into tea, really. I never was really into tea. I'm not, you know, against it. But, you know, it's one of those things. So the OG original Jaco White Tea Pomegranate.

• 2:19:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:15Speaker 01

  Right? Not a pomegranate chai.

• 2:19:18Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 2:19:19Speaker 01

  No. White tea. Jaco decides to make his own white tea with side effects. Deadlifting eight thousand pounds. Alright, I'll roll with it. It's actually pretty good. So yeah, get that. It is available on Jaco's store now, by the way, and Amazon. And, you know, just, you know, go on the internet, basically, and get it. So yeah, that's a good one. Um, speaking of Jaco Store, Jaco does have a store. It's called Jaco Store. Just like this is called Jocko Podcast, Jaco Store. So JacoStore.com, that's where his online store. This is where you can get rash guards for your jujitsu to supplement your gis from origin. Also t-shirts.

• 2:19:58Jocko Willink?

  If you're doing no gi.

• 2:19:59Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 2:20:00Jocko Willink?

  You can wear a rash guard.

• 2:20:01Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 2:20:02Jocko Willink?

  Or if you're doing ring workouts, using your rings. If you're doing dips, if you're doing ring pushups, if you're doing muscle ups, you're the, what is it? The, what did Greg Train say? Like the outside of your arm? He's got, he's always got the medical terms for everything.

• 2:20:18Speaker 01

  Your radial.

• 2:20:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, whatever. You'll get all like chafed up.

• 2:20:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:20:22Jocko Willink?

  When you're doing a bunch of muscle ups or a bunch of ring dips or whatever, if you wear a rash guard, you won't.

• 2:20:27Speaker 01

  Oh, Jaco going for comfort over here. Speaking of comfort, if you like, even so, I got into riding bike a little bit. Not totally, but if you wear a rash guard, riding bike, like cycling.

• 2:20:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:37Speaker 01

  It's like surprisingly, I'm gonna say it's surprisingly comfortable. Functional, it's functional. So you know, there's a lot of other things we do with our rash guards. Um, and actually I forgot to say this, we forgot to say this for a while. It does add another 19% performance in literally everything you do, literally.

• 2:20:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:59Speaker 01

  Uh, also.

• 2:21:00Jocko Willink?

  Scientifically proven.

• 2:21:01Speaker 01

  Yep, 100%. Also t-shirts, if you want to represent discipline equals freedom, good, any, any of the layers that we've come to exploit. Is that the correct term, terminology?

• 2:21:13Jocko Willink?

  Maybe.

• 2:21:13Speaker 01

  Exploit the layers. Um, anyway.

• 2:21:15Jocko Willink?

  Explore the layers.

• 2:21:16Speaker 01

  Explore for sure that.

• 2:21:17Jocko Willink?

  Sometimes you exploit the layers, which you know, is questionable behavior. Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast.

• 2:21:26Jocko Willink?

  Wherever you subscribe to podcasts. I wouldn't think that you would listen to this whole podcast and not subscribe to it, but maybe you did. Don't do that. Subscribe to it. And then leave a review so I can read your funny review about getting after it and whatnot.

• 2:21:40Speaker 01

  You also were your kid podcast. Speaking of subscribing.

• 2:21:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:21:45Speaker 01

  So that's, that's not just for the kids. That's for everybody. If you want just simple, straight up, simple, uh, answers to your questions that your kids happen to beat you to the punch in asking. My daughter has a question for Uncle Jake, by the way.

• 2:21:59Jocko Willink?

  Nice.

• 2:22:00Speaker 01

  Um, nonetheless, you, even if you're not a kid, will like this Warrior Kid Podcast.

• 2:22:06Jocko Willink?

  Don't forget to check out that Warrior Kid that's making soap. Aiden, IrishOaksRanch.com, making trooper soap, making Jaco soap. You can use that soap so that you can stay clean.

• 2:22:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, always stay clean. Also for the video version of this podcast, if you want to watch it, rather than just listen to it, we do have a YouTube channel. Also, uh, excerpts on there. If you want to, you know, share some elements of the podcast that are good takeaways individually. Share them with your friends.

• 2:22:39Jocko Willink?

  It's not like, hey, I saw, I got a cool idea for you. Here's a four hour podcast. Watch the whole thing.

• 2:22:44Speaker 01

  Just listen to it. You'll catch it. I forget where it is, but you know, it's in there somewhere. Yeah, they're not gonna listen to that on a whim.

• 2:22:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:22:50Speaker 01

  So you can just, you know.

• 2:22:52Jocko Willink?

  Send them a little hitter. Oh, that's what we should have called them. Little, little video hitters.

• 2:22:57Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:22:58Jocko Willink?

  There you go. I like that better than McNuggets.

• 2:23:01Speaker 01

  No, Brad, you're the one who made up Jaco McNuggets.

• 2:23:03Jocko Willink?

  Doesn't mean I can't change my mind and come up with something better. A little video hitter.

• 2:23:07Speaker 01

  There it is.

• 2:23:08Jocko Willink?

  That video hitter. You need to make more of those hitters.

• 2:23:11Speaker 01

  Yes, sir. There you go. But nonetheless, if you are interested in any video things.

• 2:23:15Jocko Willink?

  Hitters?

• 2:23:16Speaker 01

  In hitters in regards to this podcast. Yeah, it's, it's probably an acquired situation. It just sounds cooler when Theo says it.

• 2:23:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I know.

• 2:23:26Speaker 01

  So I'm like, I'm used to you saying it, so it's cool, but me saying I'm not ready yet. But I'll get there.

• 2:23:32Jocko Willink?

  Also, Psychological Warfare, that has a bunch of little short audio hitters that you can listen to if you need to power through a moment of weakness. It's on iTunes, Google Play, or other MP3 platforms. FlipsideCanvas.com, my brother Dakota Meyer.

• 2:23:52Jocko Willink?

  He started a company. Why? Cause he's a badass and he wanted to start a company. The company that he started is making things to hang on your wall. Art, we'll call it.

• 2:24:02Speaker 01

  With layers.

• 2:24:03Jocko Willink?

  Little art with layers. The art has layers. Little art hitters that you can put up on your wall.

• 2:24:11Jocko Willink?

  I can tell I frustrated you with that.

• 2:24:13Speaker 01

  No, man. Keep it going. It's good.

• 2:24:14Jocko Willink?

  And you get those, you can get them from flipsidecanvas.com. Makes all kinds of cool stuff. One that says good. One that says, all your excuses are lies. One that says time is running out. One that says, discipline equals freedom.

• 2:24:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:24:30Jocko Willink?

  So you can get those. Flipsidecanvas.com. Support my brother, Dakota Meyer.

• 2:24:35Speaker 01

  Also, when you're expanding your home gym, your home exercise situation, really, go to Onnit. So go Onnit.com slash Jaco. This is where you can get your kettlebells. Good kettlebells. Artistic kettlebells.

• 2:24:50Jocko Willink?

  A lot of art floating around here today.

• 2:24:52Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, big time. The Primal Bells. They got the, um, the Star Wars ones now. Anyway, got that one. I'm gonna, I think I'm gonna get another one, man. The kettlebells have been a huge part of my recent workouts.

• 2:25:02Jocko Willink?

  That's good.

• 2:25:03Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, building that functional strength. Nonetheless, you can get rings there as well. Uh, some immunity stuff. I say that because that's, I've been on that recently. And you see little kids running around with colds. You know, runny noses.

• 2:25:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah. When your kid's going to school, your kid is just a, just a host for disease to bring back into your house.

• 2:25:23Speaker 01

  A little lab.

• 2:25:23Jocko Willink?

  Especially when they're crying.

• 2:25:25Speaker 01

  I know, man. I know, man. F, F minus. Anyway, so yeah, I've been on that. The Shroom Tech Immune. It's a good one. Anyway, they got, they got a lot of good stuff on there. So yeah, Onnit.com slash Jaco.

• 2:25:38Jocko Willink?

  We got some books. I have a new book coming out. It is called Way of the Warrior Kid 3: Where There's a Will. It is available for preorder right now. The publishing company needs to know how many of these books to print. The publishing company is me.

• 2:25:56Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:25:57Jocko Willink?

  So if you want to have this book, please preorder it ASAP. So I know how many copies to print. The name of the book is Way of the Warrior Kid 3, and I'm actually putting that on the cover. Now, when I made Way of the Warrior Kid 2, I said to the publisher, hey, can we put Way of the Warrior Kid 2 on the cover? And they said, no, we can't do that. And I said, well, why not? And they said, well, if people know it's the second in the series and they don't have the first, they won't buy it. So we can't put that on the cover. We don't want to hurt sales. So I said, oh, I thought to myself, well, we're just trying to confuse people. So they will buy more. I'm not trying to confuse anybody here. Way of the Warrior Kid 3 on the cover.

• 2:26:43Jocko Willink?

  It's the third book in the series. John Bozak, the artist, thinks it's the best book in the series. Lessons to be learned.

• 2:26:50Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 2:26:51Jocko Willink?

  There's also Way of the Warrior Kid 2, which is called Mark's Mission, and there's the original Way of the Warrior Kid. And then on top of that, for your children, and possibly for you too, we got Mikey and the Dragons. You can order that one now. For your younger kids. Also, the Discipline Goes Freedom Field Manual, already talked about that one. The audio of that is on iTunes, not on Audible. So it's on MP3. And then Extreme Ownership and Dichotomy Leadership, which I wrote with my brother Leif Babin, and we talk about leadership from our perspective, going from the military, combat, taking those lessons learned, bringing them back, and now

• 2:27:33Jocko Willink?

  turning them over to the civilian sector. And on top of that, we also have a leadership consultancy called Echelon Front, where we solve problems through leadership. If you want us to come to your company and help you with your leadership, go to echelonfront.com. If you want, if you want someone on my team to come and speak to your company, including me, don't reach out to a speakers bureau. Don't Google Jaco Speaking and click on the first advertisement that pops up. Go to echelonfront.com, which echelonfront.com will pop up as well, but you might not recognize that. So come straight to the source, echelonfront.com if you need leadership help at your company, team, or organization. We've also got the muster.

• 2:28:18Jocko Willink?

  May 23rd and 24th in Chicago, sold out. September 19th and 20th in Denver, getting to be sold out. Sydney, Australia, December 4th and 5th, looking forward to all those. Check extremeownership.com if you want to get in the mix at the muster. If you can't come to the muster, but you want to get in the mix, go to efonline.com.

• 2:28:42Jocko Willink?

  This is interactive leadership training. It is based on what we do at the muster, on getting granular on the principles that are in the book Extreme Ownership and the Dichotomy of Leadership and everything I talk about on this podcast. It's, it's in there concise, clear ways so people can understand it. And then on top of that, it's interactive. So you get put into leadership situations, you have to learn to make decisions. It's a great program and if you want to check that out, it's efonline.com. And then last, we've got EF Overwatch, which is our,

• 2:29:20Jocko Willink?

  basically it's our Manning company where we will take individuals from special operations and the combat aviation communities and put them into leadership positions inside of companies that need leadership inside their organization. So if you're looking for leadership, which you are, because every problem that you have in a company or on a team is because of leadership. So if you need help with your leadership, go to efoverwatch.com and fill out the information.

• 2:29:52Speaker 01

  And if you want to cruise hard with us more, we're on the interwebs, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

• 2:30:05Jocko Willink?

  The what?

• 2:30:06Speaker 01

  The Facebook. The Facebook, you know, the Facebook is the original name.

• 2:30:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I did know that.

• 2:30:12Speaker 01

  Justin Timberlake was like, hey, don't, sorry, not Justin Timberlake, Sean Parker. Anyway, you ever seen the movie It Shows?

• 2:30:20Jocko Willink?

  What was the reason?

• 2:30:21Speaker 01

  He's like, drop the the, just Facebook.

• 2:30:24Jocko Willink?

  Who said that?

• 2:30:24Speaker 01

  Cleaner, Sean Parker, the Napster guy.

• 2:30:27Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:30:28Speaker 01

  Played by Justin Timberlake in the movie.

• 2:30:30Jocko Willink?

  Got it, got it.

• 2:30:32Speaker 01

  Very good.

• 2:30:32Jocko Willink?

  Well, if you're on those platforms.

• 2:30:35Speaker 01

  Sure, yeah. I'm at Echo Charles, Jaco is at Jaco Willing on all of them.

• 2:30:40Jocko Willink?

  We can keep it simple like that and. Thanks to all of our military folks out there who keep their morale high and keep their bayonets sharp out there on the line. And thanks to the police and law enforcement and firefighters and paramedics and EMTs and dispatchers and correctional officers and Border Patrol and Secret Service and all the other first responders. Thanks to all of you for standing up and facing evil so that we don't have to. And to everyone else out there, your morale might be low from

• 2:31:25Jocko Willink?

  time to time. It can happen. It can happen to anyone and it does happen to everyone. And when it does start to slip, recognize it and then remember that you can actually do something about

• 2:31:42Jocko Willink?

  it. Like young Evor Roeberry said in that letter, "Don't grieve. Don't cry. Don't worry or fret. Surely, there's no better way of dying," he said, "than fighting, than standing up." And that is what you do. You fight. You stand up. You impose discipline on your life. You face the things that you fear, the things that are crushing your morale. You face them. And you lift

• 2:32:20Jocko Willink?

  up your morale through force of will by leading, by going out and getting after it. So until next time, this is Echo and Jaco, out.