211: TACTICS. Leadership Strategy and Tactics Review. Pt 2. with Dave Berke

0:00:00 - Opening 0:00:20 - Leadership Strategy and Tactics Review. Part 2, Tactics. 2:18:36 - Final Thoughts and Take-aways. 2:29:23 - How to stay on THE PATH. 2:50:41 - 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 211 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. And also joining us again is Dave Berke. Good evening, Dave. Good evening. And we are going to roll right back into the book Leadership Strategy and Tactics because we only made it halfway through on the first attempt. So the first part that we did make it through was called Strategy. That's the strategy part. And now we are getting into the tactics part. Section one, part two, section one. And it starts off with this section right here.

• 0:41Jocko Willink?

  Becoming a leader. How to succeed as a new leader. Once you have been selected as a leader, it is time to lead. What is the best way to do this? Like many things, starting off on the right foot is simple, but not easy. Here are some fundamental rules to keep in mind as you take command. One, be humble. It is an honor to be in a leadership position. Your team is counting on you to make the right decisions. Two, don't act like you know everything. You don't. The team knows that. Ask smart questions. Three, listen. Ask for advice and heed it. Four, treat people with

• 1:22Jocko Willink?

  respect. Regardless of rank, everyone is a human being and plays an important role in the team. Treat them that way. Take care of your people and they will take care of you. Five, take ownership of failures and mistakes. Six, pass credit for success up and down the chain of command. Seven, work hard. As the leader, you should be working harder than anyone else on the team. No job is beneath you. Eight. Have integrity. Do what you say, say what you do. Don't lie up or down the chain of command. Nine, be balanced. Extreme actions and opinions are usually not good. Ten, be decisive.

• 2:06Jocko Willink?

  When it is time to make a decision, make one. Eleven, build relationships. That is your main goal as a leader. A team is a group of people who have relationships and trust one another. Otherwise, it is just a disconnected, incoherent cluster of people. Twelve. Lastly, get the job done. That is the purpose of a leader. To lead a team in accomplishing a mission. If you don't accomplish the mission, you fail as a leader. Performance counts. These are straightforward rules. They make sense on paper, but they can be hard to remember and implement in a leadership environment. Review them often. Look at them in the morning before meetings and when you are about to make things happen.

• 2:50Jocko Willink?

  Review them before you go to sleep at night. Soon, they will become second nature. But if you find yourself struggling, pause, reread these rules. And ensure that you are following them. So there you go. Straightforward. Because how many times has this question come to me? Just took over a team, just starting, just got promoted. It comes over and over and over and over again. So these are very simple, very straightforward rules to to abide by.

• 3:26Dave Berke?

  Review them often. No joke, because guarantee you of that list. At any given time, you're not doing something on that list. You need to remind yourself, what did you need to do to be successful as a leader?

• 3:39Jocko Willink?

  And you know what's interesting, even as you say that, Dave? It's like, yeah, this is like, oh, I'm talking to the new guys, right? I'm talking to someone that hasn't been in a leadership position. I'm talking to someone that's just about to take over. And when you're saying that, I'm thinking, yeah, yeah, he's right. Not just about the new guy, he's right about me. 100% right about me. So, yeah, this is becoming a leader, but you might want to just take a look at these from time to time and see where you're at. Roll, skip forward a little bit here. When you are not chosen. When you're not chosen to be a leader, there are times when you will not be selected as a leader. Perhaps they promote someone else from within your team.

• 4:22Jocko Willink?

  Perhaps they bring someone from outside your team or outside the organization to lead. When that happens, you might feel frustrated or angry because you were not chosen. Keep those feelings to yourself.

• 4:37Jocko Willink?

  Instead of allowing yourself to become angry and frustrated, take the opportunity to do a good, honest assessment of yourself to see why you were not chosen. After you've done that, and after you have given yourself time to calm down. You can even ask your supervisors why you are not selected for promotion. Of course, this must be done with tact. Don't say, "Hey boss, why wasn't I selected for a promotion? I'm just as good, if not better than the person you gave the role to." How's that gonna go over?

• 5:08Speaker 02

  Poorly.

• 5:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, poorly. And yet, people do that all day. Instead, say, "Hey boss, I wanted to get some feedback from you. As you know, there was a recent promotion here and I eventually want to move up into a more senior leadership position too. I want to know if there's anything I can focus on to do better. So I'm more qualified and more prepared to lead when the next opportunity comes. Can you help me out, boss?" I mean, think about what that does. Somebody says that to me, man, I'm like, "Okay, this person's tracking." This person is tracking.

• 5:41Speaker 02

  Same thing with Jiu-Jitsu belts, by the way, too. Don't act up when you don't get promoted.

• 5:46Jocko Willink?

  Didn't get the promotion? Cool, let's get mad.

• 5:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, behavioral. And would you, would you recommend that someone didn't get promoted to whatever belt at a promotion day? Would you recommend they ask the instructor, "What can I do to get a whatever belt?"

• 6:07Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 6:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, I say no. I say just you kind of gotta know, just get better at what you, you know.

• 6:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there's a, a little deviation from the, from the correlation of jujitsu in life. That's a little deviation. Cause really with jujitsu, we're 100% not asking about belts.

• 6:28Speaker 02

  100%. Yeah, actually, you know what? So in a way, it's not even really a deviation because getting a promotion and being in a very specific position, that's like, there's a reason for that. You know, and it's like, there's, there are many legitimate reasons for that. I mean, especially with like the raise and like all this stuff. The belt, that's just superficial.

• 6:45Jocko Willink?

  But check this out. What if instead of saying, hey, Echo, I, you didn't promote me to purple belt? What can I work on so I can get promoted to purple belt? That's one thing. What if two days after the promotion, after I let my, after I calmed down, I was like, hey, Echo, I'm looking to improve. Is there any holes you see in my game that I can work on?

• 7:08Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 7:10Jocko Willink?

  And then you know what you have to do? It's the same thing, but so actually the correlation is back on track.

• 7:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 7:15Jocko Willink?

  Jujitsu in life.

• 7:16Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 7:16Jocko Willink?

  Cause same thing, when you, when you ask, even, even the way I worded that right there. I want to be more prepared to lead. It's not even saying I want to get promoted, saying I want to be more prepared to lead.

• 7:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:28Jocko Willink?

  We're keeping this thing soft. Keeping it, keeping it indirect and tactical, flanking.

• 7:35Speaker 02

  Yes, sir.

• 7:35Dave Berke?

  Yeah, there's a piece there. I think the correlation is completely intact. There's also a little piece here too, that look, if you're in this position, you find out you didn't get what you were expecting, you shouldn't be too surprised. And if you are, where you actually need to start is with yourself a little bit. Before you go run into the boss, for even, even in a positive light, take a step back and say, hey, look, this caught me off guard. I didn't expect this. I thought I was gonna get that promote. Okay, didn't work out. Take a step back and you need to look at why you were caught off guard. Figure that piece out first. That, I'm not saying don't go to your boss and say, I want to get better. You absolutely can do that.

• 8:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 8:10Dave Berke?

  That's not where you need to start. And I think the correlation is totally doubted.

• 8:13Jocko Willink?

  It is. And, and that even in the book, I started with, take the opportunity to do a good, honest assessment of yourself to see why you're not chosen. And then after you have done that. That's when you go, if you can then deem it appropriate. And then what's interesting, and this also makes sense on both fronts. And when you receive that feedback, actually listen to it. After all, you just asked for it. As human beings, we have a strong tendency to get defensive. Don't, instead of getting defensive, listen, truly listen and try to understand the perspective being offered. Then take ownership of those shortfalls and try to make improvements in the areas of critique you have received.

• 8:58Jocko Willink?

  There's a whole

• 9:02Jocko Willink?

  whole thing that's been unwinding in my brain. And you and I were talking about it, Echo, the other day, not on the podcast, but just in life. There's this whole thing where the ability to detach is what allows you to see your ego. The ability to detach is what allows you to say, oh yeah, I'm not as good as I think I am. Or as what it looks like from my perspective. So this is what made me think of this, the way you just said, if you're caught off guard. If you're caught off guard and you don't get promoted, clearly you aren't detached enough to see where you actually rank out with everyone else. So this idea of

• 9:49Jocko Willink?

  of ego, of the ability to detach and of cognitive ability that Dick Thompson talked about. Those things are all this, this thing that's all wrapped up in one. That one, I don't know if they're wrapped up in one, but they're all related. Cause if you, if you talk to someone that has a big ego, their ability to detach is tiny. Because if they were able to detach, they'd be able to take a step back and see how out of line their ego was. And they'd see how other people are perceiving them. That's the crazy thing about someone with a big ego, they don't even see how other people perceive them.

• 10:30Jocko Willink?

  Or like you said in our conversation the other day, when they get told they have a big ego, they actually see it as a positive thing. Like you're damn right, that's because I'm over here winning. And you say, hmm, interesting, because no one likes you.

• 10:45Jocko Willink?

  And that means, yeah, you can for blunt force trauma some stuff right now, but where it's gonna end up is not good.

• 10:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:50Jocko Willink?

  So this whole thing of being able to detach. If someone has a big ego, it indicates that they're not able to detach, because if they could, they'd see it.

• 11:03Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah, it's almost like they they're like, okay, I'm awesome. I'm the man. I'm awesome or whatever. And you're like, hey, you have a big ego, right? And to them, they're like, yeah, like, I'm awesome. Of course, I have a big ego. Like, I just I'm recognizing my awesomeness. Like, that's kind of the only way to see it. Like, it's obvious that everyone else sees it, and I'm just one of the many infinite people that recognizes it too. Well, yeah, I am one of those people. Yes, it's like real obvious, you know?

• 11:29Jocko Willink?

  You should probably raise the flag that says, I don't know how to detach.

• 11:36Dave Berke?

  Yeah, well, you're talking about the cognitive component of that, too. That ego also does another small little problem was prevent you to do the thing that you just said was actually listen to the feedback and get better, uh, which you you can't do if you have an ego. So the ego, when we say it infects everything, it infects everything. And you say this in all the books that you talk about on the podcast. I know you already said it. I'll be repetitive. You have to read every word of this book. Everything, Jaco skipping, you know, just out of necessity for time. Everything needs to be read, even in the sequence too, from strategy down to tactics. And even this, what seems to be small components of that actually feed into this larger thing. You have to read all of this, uh, when you get this, every word.

• 12:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there's

• 12:21Jocko Willink?

  there's a lot in the words.

• 12:25Dave Berke?

  Yes.

• 12:26Jocko Willink?

  There's a lot in the words that I'm definitely not covering right now to give people kind of an overall feeling

• 12:33Jocko Willink?

  of what is in the book.

• 12:36Jocko Willink?

  And there's an audio book as well, which I read. So there's that as well. If you're not really into reading. Okay. I had to, I had to cover this too. Which is overcoming a grudge. Go into the book. There will be times in your career when there will be, when you will be the one promoted into a leadership position and placed above your former peers. This can be challenging, but when handled correctly, the challenge can be mitigated. Most of your former peers will accept the situation and get on board.

• 13:02Jocko Willink?

  But sometimes there are people who get bitter and resentful. That they weren't promoted and they show that bitterness. There are some ways to mitigate a bad attitude. From your former peers. At first, don't try and force your rank down their throats. Tell them you appreciate their experience and you'll be looking to them to help lead. Let them come up with plans and ideas. Ask for their input. If they come up with a solid plan, let them run with it. When the opportunity arises, put them in charge of some tasks, projects and missions. This shows them that you trust them, that you do, do truly appreciate their experience and knowledge. And if they can put their egos in check, the situation can be overcome. But also be advised that some people will be hypersensitive. And see you putting them in charge of something as condescending.

• 13:47Jocko Willink?

  Or as proof that you don't know what you're doing and that they should have been promoted, not you. Isn't that an interesting little dynamic, like one end of the spectrum to the other? Like if I say, hey Echo, you know, would you mind running this? There's one person that goes, yeah, yeah. Now he has put me in charge of these little projects because he's been promoted. He thinks he's the man. So that's one negative attitude. The other negative attitude is more like, hey Echo, do you think you can run this project? You're like, yeah, I can run it because you don't know what you're doing. What are you doing there? Yeah. So, and, and by the way, I'm gonna get this into, when, when their pouting and bad attitude become apparent, recognize that the likely reason they were not promoted. Is because they likely lack the humility and maturity, maturity to be a leader.

• 14:31Jocko Willink?

  If that's the case, continue to be cordial, treat them with respect and try and build a relationship, but don't expect rapid, rapid improvement from them. This will be a long process. You're going to have to be patient. Make sure you don't let them distract you from the mission or the rest of the team. So there's another classic example. The person that doesn't get promoted, the reason they don't get promoted, because they lack self-awareness, they don't know how to detach, they've got a giant ego and all that stuff just feeds into this problem.

• 14:58Jocko Willink?

  And you can barely even discuss it with them.

• 15:07Jocko Willink?

  I think this is this next section I'm skipping to.

• 15:11Jocko Willink?

  Might be my favorite subtitle in the book. It's called, "Don't Go Overboard, Rambo."

• 15:20Jocko Willink?

  And here we go. And this, this, you know, much of the specific subjects to cover in this book are directly from questions from the podcast. This is one of those questions that I got asked early on and I was like, oh yeah, I forgot about that guy. We all know this. We all know this John J. Rambo guy. This leadership guy, right? Not that John, not the John J. Rambo.

• 15:44Speaker 02

  Did they call you Rambo back in the day?

• 15:46Jocko Willink?

  That's, that's stories in this book too. We might get there. "Don't Go Overboard, Rambo." Here we go. "You want to be a leader." "That's great." "But don't be offensive about it." What does that mean? It means don't run around saying, "I'm the leader. I'm in charge. Listen to me. I'll make all the decisions." "This attitude will offend many people." "It's the equivalent of, 'Look at me. I'm important.'" And it doesn't go over well. "Rambo might be a cool movie character, "but charging out alone with, without regard for others doesn't work in a team environment." "Saying, 'I'm the leader. Follow me,' can offend people's egos." "In their minds, perhaps they're thinking, 'You don't deserve to be in charge.'"

• 16:28Jocko Willink?

  "There is a good chance they're even thinking that they are the one who should be in charge. So you barking at them that you are the leader is not a good idea." "And when you do make some kind of a mistake, "which you will, they'll be ready to pounce on it." "Leadership in most cases should be subtle."

• 16:47Jocko Willink?

  I remember seeing these young junior officers in the SEAL teams that

• 16:53Jocko Willink?

  like either they would, they went through ROTC or they...

• 16:58Jocko Willink?

  You know, the Naval Academy or whatever, wherever they came from, wherever they got the commission, but somewhere along the way, they like, they like took leadership classes, right? And they were into it. They were into it. And so they kind of walked around like they were, you know, into it. And man, that was offensive to people. And it's weird because as a instructor, right? You're, as an instructor at the Naval Academy or at the basic school or, or at the company command course in the army. You're what you're telling these guys, hey, you're the leader, you're the leader. Like leadership is important. Leadership is the most important thing on the battlefield. We say it all the time at Esalen Front. We're, we're programming everyone that leadership is the most important thing and you're a leader and you just step up and lead.

• 17:42Jocko Willink?

  So it's, it's, I guess not to be unexpected that someone actually decides they're gonna act that way. Without realizing that they're going overboard. They're getting crazy.

• 17:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, kind of like they're important, the most important thing on the battlefield.

• 18:01Jocko Willink?

  For sure. Nicely done, Echo Charles. Exactly. Leadership is the most important thing on the battlefield. You aren't the most important thing. Excellent work. That might, that might have topped your last, your last epic contribution.

• 18:19Speaker 02

  Well, right. The football one, the wide receiver and the quarterback.

• 18:23Jocko Willink?

  Yes, that was, that was the other one. So there's been some times, some moments.

• 18:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:29Jocko Willink?

  We are all appreciative of.

• 18:30Speaker 02

  Right on.

• 18:33Jocko Willink?

  All right. So we talked about this on the last podcast. We'll go into a little bit more detail here. Leadership skills, this is section two. When to step up and lead?

• 18:47Jocko Willink?

  There are times, I'll jump a little bit into it. There are times when a leadership vacuum occurs. No one is taking charge of a situation. Bad circumstances are unfolding, but no one is doing anything about it. No one is leading. That is a moment where someone needs to jump in and take charge. You will see that people are waiting for it. They are waiting for leadership. And when you step up with a simple plan and give clear direction, they will accept that direction and execute. So that's what you said earlier, Dave, on the last podcast, you were talking about that, like when there's a leadership vacuum. There's a void.

• 19:27Jocko Willink?

  And you step in and make a call like people will be ready to execute, which, which is absolutely true. Going back to the book, but it isn't always that simple. If you are the only one who has recognized the threat of inaction, if you are the only one who recognizes the leadership void, then other people on the team might not be waiting for someone to start leading. They might think everything is okay. So if you jump up and start barking orders, they might be taken aback by it. They might be offended or feel you're stepping on their toes.

• 20:00Jocko Willink?

  So that's a very interesting dynamic. And you know, when I was writing this part of the book, and I forget what, what triggered me. I think it was probably a question from the podcast to really start thinking about all these situations that I've been in, where being detached, having, you know, stepping back and watching these things unfold, and then seeing even detached from myself where I'm watching when I'm going to step in, and then watching when I was running training, watching platoon commanders, you know, jump in there and start to take control. When the moment wasn't, they were close, but the moment wasn't ready for it. And this is a matter, this could be a matter of seconds. It could be a matter of seconds. When the platoon chief and the LPO and the machine gunners all think they know what's going on,

• 20:44Jocko Willink?

  and then all of a sudden you jump in and say, hey, we need to fall back. The first response you're going to get is hell no. And now what we have is confusion and, and breakdown. If you give them one, you know, you give it another two seconds, where all of a sudden that, that building, people see that that building you're moving towards is occupied. People go, oh, and they stop and get down. And now you go fall back. Everyone was waiting for that command and they executed.

• 21:16Jocko Willink?

  Continuing on, that's why you might want to hesitate a moment when you see that leadership vacuum appear. That is a tactic I used as a leader throughout my career. Of course, if there was an immediate threat that needed to be addressed instantaneously and no one was doing anything, I would step up immediately and make a call. I would fill the leadership void. However, if there was a problem unfolding a little more slowly, I wouldn't rush to take charge. I would let the problem develop a little bit. I would look around detachmentally and truly observe the situation. I would confirm that what I was seeing was correct. I would allow an opportunity for someone else to step up and fill the leadership vacuum. And if someone else did, then I would initially assess their plan and the directions they were giving. If they were giving good guidance, I would support them. If they gave bad guidance, I would continue

• 21:59Jocko Willink?

  to consider what a better plan was, so I could give corrections when the time was right.

• 22:05Dave Berke?

  You said something earlier that actually is, was true for the entire first part, and it's permeates all throughout this, is that leadership almost always is subtle. It's a subtle thing, not this loud, overbearing thing. And one of the things we get asked about a lot when we're talking about dichotomies is this phrase, default aggressive. So it's the first mindset. We talk about being aggressive with solving problems. But people take that with, I'm being aggressive, so I am doing the right thing. No matter what it is, if I'm being aggressive, that's what we have to do. And the idea of waiting, you know, a couple of seconds, whatever this, the idea of waiting to be effective, the most common pushback was, there was a vacuum,

• 22:50Dave Berke?

  there was a void, there was somebody needed to step up and lead. And the hardest feedback to give people is, actually, that's not what was happening. That's what you thought was happening. But what they were over there doing is they were assessing, or they were considering, you even talked about a little bit between those two platoon commanders, where you made a call, people right on that, that first platoon, and it was the right call. He kind of did almost the same thing. Well, in that situation, that, the vacuum actually wasn't there to be filled. And this idea of leadership being subtle, it's not as satisfying as people want it to be. And they want this thing where it's loud and spotlight's on you and you jump in and

• 23:28Jocko Willink?

  You mean where your ego gets completely gratified by being the man?

• 23:31Dave Berke?

  And you want to look around and, and you're welcome. The subtlety of that, in all the examples you go through, it's, it's everywhere in leadership is the subtlety of it. And that really comes from, part of it comes from experience, but it's also recognizing what are other people going through before you make a decision.

• 23:49Jocko Willink?

  This reminds me of something we talked about early on this podcast, this podcast. Was, you know, I was saying, listen, if you're doing it right, you're winning a battle and the other person doesn't even know that there was a battle going on, right? You won it and, and then you have to, you have to control your ego enough that you don't say, look, I just won. You didn't even know it. Cause then you just threw it out the window. Same thing here. If you're really doing leadership well, the team barely even knows that you're leading them. They can barely even feel it like they, it's like this unseen forces there. They kinda know, but they almost feel it's their own force and they're making things happen that they think are their own things. And all you're

• 24:32Jocko Willink?

  doing is you're, you're, you're being so subtle that they barely even know that they're being led. And that is optimal. Now you do have to be careful because people have to, people have to, you can't do that so much that they don't recognize you as the leader. Cause now there's going to be times when they look to turn to someone and they don't turn to you, right? Which can be a problem. So

• 24:54Jocko Willink?

  we have to be a little bit careful, but that is so rare that you could actually pull that off. And the reason it's rare to pull that off is because teams and organizations and people trying to get things done require leadership. They require times when the leader's known. And so those times are enough, few and far between. If it's seven, like we talked about on the last podcast, if it's seven times in every three years, does, is there anyone that's walking around like, well, you know, I doubt Jaco's, he doesn't even seem like he knows what's going on anymore. Like there's no one walking around saying that, but the leadership is subtle. It's like, we seem to be, man, we're doing good. What's going on here? This, this is working out nice. Wow. This is cool.

• 25:36Jocko Willink?

  No one's going like, hey, well, I'm ready to just, I'm doing all this myself.

• 25:43Jocko Willink?

  And that's the way you want it to be. You want to win without them knowing you're fighting and you want to lead without them barely even know, knowing that you're leading and the biggest, hardest part of that to do in both those cases is put your ego in check enough that you can, that you can win without gloating and that you can lead without credit. That's what you want.

• 26:11Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna continue on here. When someone else wouldn't step up quickly, it was usually because no one else had noticed that there was a leadership vacuum. They wouldn't notice because they were not detached. Their minds were absorbed in the situation. Since I practiced being detached, I wasn't lost in the details of what was going on. I was mentally in a different place, looking at the scenario unfold from a virtual distance, which allowed me to see problems more quickly. That still doesn't mean I would jump right in. By letting a little more time pass, by letting that leadership void linger just a little bit longer, everyone else would begin to notice it. They would recognize there was a problem. Since that time passed and now everyone else knew there was a problem, when I gave orders on how to solve it,

• 26:54Jocko Willink?

  people would listen and they would execute.

• 27:00Jocko Willink?

  Another reason to pause before jumping into a leadership vacuum as soon as you see it is to make sure that no one else is jumping in there. If two people step in to fill a leadership void at the same time, they usually bump into each other when they get there.

• 27:14Jocko Willink?

  And then while the problem's growing, they have to take precious time to sort out which person is actually gonna lead and which one is gonna stand down. And if egos clashed at that moment, we're gonna have an even bigger problem.

• 27:27Jocko Willink?

  I would rather avoid that. If someone else is going to step in with a plan, it's fine with me. When I see the void, I pause, look around, assess if anyone else is gonna step up and lead. While I do this, the problem grows. Pretty much very soon, everyone notices the problem. I see that and then step up and make a call, a call that everyone know needs to be made. Now, what, this is a real obvious answer, but it's not so obvious when you're in the heat of the moment. Something's going on and I make a call and Echo makes a call at the same time. What do I do?

• 28:02Speaker 02

  Let me lead.

• 28:03Jocko Willink?

  Immediately defer. Alright, hey, cool. I got you. I mean, as long, I, I assess your plan in a half a second and go, good enough. Alright, cool. I got you. You're right. Go.

• 28:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, but you gotta be like pretty aggressive with that letting them lead thing. Cause you know how like, you know, like you're going to the supermarket, right? And then you're walking in and you're about to hit the entrance door, boom. And someone else is coming with, you know, they're hitting the entrance door at the exact same time. See what I'm saying?

• 28:27Jocko Willink?

  Part of your team are unknown.

• 28:29Speaker 02

  Unknown or whatever. No, no, unknown. Yeah. I guess unknown, but whatever. Yeah. Unknown. This is where it would happen the most with a stranger. Then you're like, oh, you're a polite guy, right? Let them go. But they're just as polite as you. So they're like, no, no, you go. No, no, you go. And then you guys both decide, okay, let's not play this game. I'll, I'll go. But you both decided at the same time. So you guys both go. Now you're at the state, uh, step one again. See what I'm saying? So what I would do.

• 28:55Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 28:56Speaker 02

  I'm not saying.

• 28:56Jocko Willink?

  You had one good comment today. Maybe you're reaching.

• 29:01Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no, no. But I, but it kinda seems like the same thing. Different level, different level.

• 29:07Jocko Willink?

  It is, it is, it is the same thing where both people are going, alright, I'm gonna make a call. And, and that is why. Yes, you're right. That's why even when I did this four second role play, I was like, you're right. You got it. Like I'm gonna make it that clear.

• 29:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. I feel that way too. Like if someone's like, like, nope, you go. Like straight up, nope, you go. If they have like this weird aggressive sort of way, I'm be, I, I will be way more compelled to go. See what I'm saying? Or if it's like a lot of times, if it's like with a friend who you're just not quite as close with them. So there's kinda, you just, you're still trying to be polite. I'll just push them in.

• 29:41Jocko Willink?

  We might wanna, we might wanna do a podcast on that. Like just that, right? Just supermarket entries.

• 29:50Speaker 02

  Maybe.

• 29:55Jocko Willink?

  I got it. One more little section on this.

• 29:59Jocko Willink?

  There's also an inverse to the leadership vacuum and that. This is one you see a lot as well, which is too many people try and lead. Everyone wants to offer their opinion, give advice and weigh in on the decision. This can inhibit the decision-making process and the leader's ability to lead. And then I go on to talk about dispersion and the way that breaks out tactically, but, and how you solve that problem. What you do when you've got a bunch of people that are all trying to lead at the same time.

• 30:27Jocko Willink?

  Next section. This is one where I was like, eh, do I really need to put this section in here? Does it really need to be done? And then I went like and worked with a client. I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna put it in there. It's called, don't take things personally. This may seem obvious, but I see it all the time where people take things personally. Don't take anything personally. It's hard to do this. You have to fight your ego to avoid taking things personally, even when people ask for critique points, they often get mad when they actually hear them. Don't allow yourself to do that. Don't take criticism personally. Not about the plan you came up with, not about the idea you had, not about the presentation you gave, not about the decision you made.

• 31:07Jocko Willink?

  Even when your biggest rival, the last person you want to hear from has something to say, listen. Even when someone you don't think is on your level, someone who isn't even close to having the knowledge, position, or authority to give you one iota of feedback, wants to speak, even then, do yourself a favor and just listen. Detach and listen to what they have to say and from an objective mindset, see if you can learn anything at all from their commentary, then apply it.

• 31:42Jocko Willink?

  And say, thank you. I know that stings and get over yourself. This takes humility, but it'll make you better.

• 31:51Dave Berke?

  Dude, that last one is huge because what is universal in every company and every team I've ever been a part of, even in the military is experience has a ton of value. So if you and I are both kind of equal experience level, pretty senior guys, third to fourth squadron, third to fourth platoon, and a brand new guy says something, I'm gonna think to myself, you know, who's this new guy? And you're gonna feed on that and we're gonna feed each other like, yeah, this guy. And, and I'm gonna get almost all the reinforcement I'm gonna get from the organization is to not listen to him. The, the organization is gonna reinforce that ego because all those that have experience.

• 32:25Jocko Willink?

  So it's because all of our egos have been collectively offended.

• 32:28Dave Berke?

  Yes, that's exactly right. Who does this guy think he is? So it isn't just you thinking, man, you know what? I gotta, I gotta listen to this guy. It's that a whole, nobody else is gonna think you should, and so, and if you don't, you're almost gonna be rewarded for squashing that new guy. And so that check of your ego, that part where it stings, it's gonna sting even more, the more experience you get, because the people around you are gonna expect you to crush that guy, because that's how most organizations are. If you can detach in that situation, now you're on a path where not only will that junior guy appreciate it, the rest of the people in the organization are gonna go, wow, that's, I'm pretty, Jaco is able to listen to that guy?

• 33:12Dave Berke?

  Okay, maybe I need to reassess a little bit how I view, you know, that, that situation, because not, almost always that we feed on each other and push that even more.

• 33:21Jocko Willink?

  And once again, it's the, it's the subconscious or conscious, you know, when I say, hey, you know, that's a good point, you know, new guy? Hey, that's a good point, you know, maybe we should try that. Everyone else in the room listens and goes, dang, like, he's so confident that he can listen to a new guy. And I'm over here all offended and all hurt and all freaked out because that, that person said something? Like, that's just so money.

• 33:47Dave Berke?

  Yeah. You wanna talk about being, being supremely confident that you'll listen to anybody?

• 33:54Jocko Willink?

  Give them the proper respect that they deserve. That's a good point. Hey, can you expand on that a little bit? I mean, and to, to the other thing that you said, which is no insignificant matter, what that new guy thinks of you is like,

• 34:13Jocko Willink?

  instead of shutting them down. He's, you've got, you've got a, you've got a, you've got a supporter. You've got someone you can count on.

• 34:21Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 34:23Jocko Willink?

  Next section, I got, this, who knows? Who knows?

• 34:29Jocko Willink?

  Who knows why this hasn't been discussed in the world at a deep and profound level?

• 34:41Jocko Willink?

  Cause it's such a, an important thing to know and understand. This little section is called, "Don't Dig In." General George S. Patton famously told his troops not to dig in. He wanted them to advance, advance, advance. You can't advance if you're dug in. Patton's idea of not digging in actually translates incredibly well from a leadership perspective, and it is one that I always kept in the back of my mind. When you have an idea, thought, or opinion, don't dig in. And what that means is, don't over commit to your ideas. Keep an open mind and leave yourself an out.

• 35:26Jocko Willink?

  When I was in a leadership position in the SEAL Teams, there were always a lot of different ideas floating around, how to execute a mission, what plan to use, which tactics were best. And like many organizations, no one could ever seem to agree on anything.

• 35:40Jocko Willink?

  But it was always safe to assume that when different people had different ideas, the idea that people liked the best was almost always their own. Maybe it's ego, maybe it's pride, or maybe it's just that people can see their own perspective better than anyone else's. This is not unique to the SEAL Teams. People in different organizations everywhere all do the same thing. They tend to think their idea is the best, and they get hung up arguing about it. And arguing is generally bad. It means wasting time without moving forward. And what's worse, people often argue not for the best idea, but for their idea.

• 36:16Jocko Willink?

  And what really makes for a horrible situation is when people not only think their idea is the best, but they dig in to protect it. They aren't going to give any ground. They cannot concede a single inch in admitting theirs is not the best idea of all time.

• 36:33Jocko Willink?

  The more they come under attack, the deeper they dig in, they will not change their minds. To translate this back to tactical terms, when people dig in to defend their ideas, not only can they not advance them, they also cannot maneuver and change their thoughts. They're dug in and they can't move.

• 36:57Jocko Willink?

  And I used to see this all the time with some SEAL leaders inside of a SEAL platoon. They would come up with their ideas or plan and then dig in with and defend it with zero compromise. It was awful to see hours of fruitless arguments, which were not ever driving toward the best solution, but driving toward the leader's own solution.

• 37:16Jocko Willink?

  Leaders often painted themselves into a corner so that they eventually would be left with no choice except to order their subordinates to follow their plan.

• 37:27Jocko Willink?

  So, and I go into some more details about this, but you know, here's, here's how I kind of reflect my, my tactics around this. I always avoided this. I would seldom dig in and get overcommitted to my idea, my plan, or my opinion. When someone had an opposing point of view, I didn't look for ways to prove my idea was better. Instead, I looked to see which idea was actually better. If my idea wasn't good, I conceded and accepted theirs. If the ideas were relatively equal, I would defer to theirs. So they had ownership. If my idea was far superior, then the differences were usually obvious enough to convince the person with the opposing view that they were wrong.

• 38:11Jocko Willink?

  And I would never have to admit that I was wrong because I never claimed that I was right.

• 38:20Jocko Willink?

  That's such a little tricky move.

• 38:22Dave Berke?

  Yeah, that, that, that's almost that, that tricky movie just talked about, that question comes up. We were talking at the last Q and A's is, hey, how often do you think I'm wrong? And people are like, oh, you're wrong all the time. You're like, actually.

• 38:37Jocko Willink?

  Oh, this was at the muster?

• 38:38Dave Berke?

  Yeah, at the muster.

• 38:38Jocko Willink?

  And I asked everyone, I forget what spurred the question. I said, how often do you all, how often do you guys think I'm wrong?

• 38:43Dave Berke?

  Yeah, exactly. But it is.

• 38:46Jocko Willink?

  And so what was?

• 38:47Dave Berke?

  Well, the media inclination was like, like, I'm always right because I have, I have so much experience. I have, the reason it's, I'm almost never wrong is that I never make the claim in the beginning to put myself in the position. And the reason why I think that, that conclusion is so important is, when as a leader, do you think it's beneficial for you to be in a place where you cannot maneuver? Under what situation would it be good for, and if you can't maneuver, what does that mean for your team? You are the leader. There's the, and so it's not just about you and your inability to maneuver, to turn, to move to whatever is required is what essentially seals your fate and for the people and the best way to be able to maneuver is, is like, well, you say never dig in, but

• 39:33Dave Berke?

  when people are having those conversations, you want those conversations. If you're the leader, you should be the, one of the last people communicating about what you think we should do because more than likely, the minute you talk, nobody else is going to talk because you're in charge. People don't want to talk over the leader. But if you're listening, not, not waiting to talk, but actually listening, and you actually have the team that you think you have, the right answer will come out long before you have to say anything. And you never have to be-

• 39:59Jocko Willink?

  99 out of 100.

• 40:00Dave Berke?

  Totally.

• 40:01Jocko Willink?

  Or

• 40:04Jocko Willink?

  293 times out of 7.

• 40:09Dave Berke?

  I mean, and, and it's the inability to maneuver. If you think about, we talked about it later, these are, this is tactics, but you were thinking strategically all the time, all the time. If I go down the road of what I think we should do, what, what will this do to my ability to maneuver down the road? And almost always if the harder you dig in, the harder it will be to move.

• 40:32Jocko Willink?

  And, uh, you know, and I cover it in the book, I'm not going to cover it right now, but I do talk about when do you dig in? When are you not going to change? And there are situations like that and you've got to be cognizant of that. So, but the part that most people screw up is they dig in on the dumbest things, the worst ideas, or even decent ideas, but they don't want to maneuver and they just end up

• 40:57Jocko Willink?

  in horrible situations because of it.

• 41:00Jocko Willink?

  I do, I do a section on iterative decision making, which is, which is really important for people to understand. It makes, that idea of iterative decision making, it, that, that is in this book, makes decision making an entirely new.

• 41:21Jocko Willink?

  An entirely new process for people.

• 41:23Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 41:24Jocko Willink?

  To, to understand how to iteratively make decisions is, is, is a tool that people can use. And it's not the right tool all the time, but it's a tool, a large percentage of the time. And if you understand how to do it, it is, it changes the process and improves the results of your decision making.

• 41:45Dave Berke?

  Yeah. And the more you grow as a leader, the more strategic your viewpoint and thinking needs to be, the more iterative decision making is important. Yes, there are times that a very small tactical thing, I don't want to iterate on that. I'm going to kick in that door and I'm going to go.

• 42:00Jocko Willink?

  Absolutely.

• 42:01Dave Berke?

  The more you grow, the more strategic you need to think, the more iterative it has to be. And so, yes, I will never put my hand up and say always, I will, I won't say that. But the more you grow, the more experience, the more it shifts towards almost always in that direction. That iterative decision making is right almost all the time. Not always, the more you do it, the more that's the way you need to do it.

• 42:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Helped me so much and what, this is, this is what's interesting about it, right? So iterative decision making in a nutshell is like, we're going to make small decisions based on what we suspect. And some people consider that to be indecisive, right? Here's what's funny. My reputation in the SEAL teams and now is of being extremely decisive.

• 42:52Jocko Willink?

  Like people just think, oh, like, oh yeah, he's going to make the call.

• 42:55Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 42:55Jocko Willink?

  And what's funny is I am. And the reason I got that reputation is because when there was a decision to be made on the battlefield or during training, I was going to make a decision and it was going to come and it was going to be there and everyone was going to know it really quick when it needed to happen. But it would be the small decision that was leading in the direction that I thought overarching was correct. But man, is it a, it's a, it's a kid, it's almost like a trick, you know? It's a tactic. That's what it is. It's a, but it's a really nice little tactic about what we're going to do, how we're going to move forward.

• 43:36Jocko Willink?

  See, that's another one. This is again, there's a bunch of parts of this book where people go, people are saying, "I didn't really expect that," right? "I didn't expect Jaco to tell me to make small decisions." "Big, bold action, make a decision." "Hey, I'm telling you, make a decision. Make the smallest decision you can." "That's moving in the direction you think." "And then you can make changes. You can iterate on that." "It's funny that people don't understand this."

• 44:04Dave Berke?

  Yeah. The feedback you're looking for to know if you made the right decision is down the road of the decision. So you actually need to move in that direction. But you don't need to move that far to start getting feedback. And it's the, that's the feedback you need and see if you're right. Yeah. That whole section is, is, it's good to go.

• 44:21Jocko Willink?

  Here's another little section that people will, this'll flank some people. It's called "Conform to Influence." Here we go to the book. "As a new guy, I was extremely motivated. I wanted to train as hard as possible to prepare for war. But this was 1992, and there was no war happening. The first Gulf War had ended six months earlier and lasted only 72 hours. The Vietnam War, where SEALs had earned their fierce reputation that made me want to be a SEAL, had ended 20 years earlier. This was full-on peacetime Navy, but I was young and figured my war was coming, so I wanted to be ready for it. So I did things a little bit differently from most of the other people at SEAL Team One. I got to work early. I did our team conditioning runs with heavy boots on instead of running shoes.

• 45:06Jocko Willink?

  I wore a rucksack with a 40-pound sandbag in it when we ran the obstacle course. I did night ocean swims alone with my web gear on. I tried to do everything just a little bit harder than what was normally required. I thought I was doing the right thing. After all, I was preparing for war."

• 45:24Jocko Willink?

  Unfortunately, my attitude was not appreciated by some of the older guys in my platoon. Sure, the other guys knew, knew me. Sure, some of the other new guys who knew me understood my attitude because they went through BUDs with me. They knew I was just fired up. But for some of the older guys, but some of the older guys thought I was going overboard. For them, have, after having been in the SEAL teams for six, eight, 10, or even a dozen years, they knew that sustained performance as a SEAL wasn't a sprint, it was a marathon. They knew that additional wear and tear on the knees, shoulders, ankles, and back had to be monitored and mitigated. They knew we were about to start an extensive and arduous workup of long patrols, parachuting, fast roping, diving, and all kinds of other evolutions

• 46:08Jocko Willink?

  that would put intense physical demands on all of us. Those demands would be even harder on guys who had already done multiple deployments and workups. But for us new guys coming straight out of BUDs, we were healthy and ready to charge, and in my mind, I was personally trying to take it to the next level. It didn't take long before I started to hear grumbling from some of those more experienced guys. Little comments started to let me know they weren't seeing things quite the same way I was. "Here comes Rambo!" Or, "Look at this tough guy!" At first, it sounded like they were joking, but the tone got stronger, and before long, I realized that they did not like what I was doing.

• 46:50Jocko Willink?

  Now, it would have been very easy for me to assess the situation and cast the blame on them. I could have said to myself, "What is wrong with them? I'm the one who's working extra hard. They are being weak. I'm hardcore, much more hardcore than they are. I am preparing for war. These guys should be working hard to be ready for combat like I am. In fact, can I even rely on these guys?"

• 47:16Jocko Willink?

  As a young SEAL, still teeming with confidence after completing the world's hardest military training, I could easily rationalize my own behavior and at the same time denigrate the other members of my platoon, especially because in my platoon, some of the older guys weren't in the best physical condition. Of course, they don't want to do extra physical activity. They are weak. I am strong. They must be intimidated by me. Their egos are too big to handle a new guy like me coming in and getting after it.

• 47:47Jocko Willink?

  But then I thought about it from their perspective. Who am I? I am a new guy. I've never been on deployment before. I'd never been through a workup before. Who was I to judge them? What did I know? Then I thought about it from a team perspective. We are a platoon. We are supposed to be a team to work together. And here I was, alienating myself from the team. There was a rift forming between some of the older guys in the platoon and me. That was wrong. It was disrupting the unity of the platoon, which negatively impacted our operational readiness. So you know what I did?

• 48:29Jocko Willink?

  I backed off. I did the extra work on my own time. But when I was with the platoon, I tried to act like the rest of the guys. To put it bluntly, I conformed.

• 48:42Jocko Willink?

  That is something no one wants to hear. That I simply conformed with the pack. People think Jaco is hardcore. He would never give in to the weakness of the pack. But that would be wrong. If I were to hold my ground on this, if I were to never give in, it would just mean that I thought my personal feelings were more important than the team. It would mean that I let my ego, it would mean that my ego couldn't bear to step down and subordinate itself and conform to what the team was doing. It would announce to the world that I believed I was more important as an individual than the team.

• 49:19Jocko Willink?

  All of that is obviously the wrong attitude to have. Let there be no doubt. The most important thing in a team is the team.

• 49:30Jocko Willink?

  Now, some people might think this is weak, but it isn't. The whole reason the team exists is to accomplish the mission. The more unified the team is, the more capable it is of accomplishing the mission. If I am causing a rift in the team, I am hurting our mission capability.

• 49:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 49:51Jocko Willink?

  And it goes beyond that, right? It goes beyond just saying, okay, I'm going to conform. Because what am I trying to do with conforming? It goes on here. If I have no relationship, I have no influence. If I have no influence, I can't get them to do anything. I learned an important lesson. This is skipping ahead when I go through the kind of details of how it trans how it unfolded from there. I learned an important lesson. I can't change the group if I am not in the group. But if I'm in the group, I can move it. Maybe not as much or as quickly as I want to, but at least I can move it in the right direction. So that's what this is. That's why that that's why the the section is called Conform to Influence. Because when you're not part of the team, you have no influence. If you're an outsider, that's great.

• 50:36Jocko Willink?

  You held the line for yourself. Awesome. Awesome. Great.

• 50:39Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 50:39Jocko Willink?

  Guess what? The female that asked this question down in Australia. Really good question. At the muster in Australia, you know, she said, hey, I'm trying to get other people on my team to, you know, take care of themselves with physical fitness.

• 50:55Dave Berke?

  Yeah, I remember that.

• 50:56Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, well, no matter what I tell them, they're not doing it. And here I am. I work out every day. I eat clean foods all day. I work out after work. They see me heading to workout. They see me coming in after I got done working out. They see the foods that I'm eating and they just don't care. And, you know, I kind of had to tell this story, which is, well, how much influence are you having over these people to improve their health when they don't like you? I don't think I said don't like you, but when you don't have a relationship, when you're not part of their team.

• 51:28Dave Berke?

  Yeah. That the way you described that in the book, and we've talked about it a whole bunch. It's actually kind of intuitive for relatively new guys. So you're brand new to the platoon. You're brand new to the squadron. When I had my very first squadron, this wasn't that hard of a concept for me. It was like, all right, hey, I'm the new guy. I'm going to keep my mouth shut. And I'm actually, I'm going to conform. And I'm going to give whatever whatever task. And when I got to my first squadron, I got the most menial task that you could get. It was called the coffee mess officer. So my job was literally to buy coffee, sell T shirts. And, you know, it kind of goes cyclical. It just happened to be my turn. It is the most menial thing. And you know what? I crushed that job. I just dove in headfirst. I just looked for any way to get people to think Dave's on board the team.

• 52:12Dave Berke?

  This is equally true in any position. And when I came back to that same squadron, eight years later, post two combat deployments, post Top Gun, post Factor with you guys, I came back to the same squadron as the XO. I was undeniably the most tactically capable, the most well-known. I had all the attributes you might want. And when I showed up, I didn't start telling everybody how things are going. You being in charge doesn't mean you're on the team. As a matter of fact, if you're that bad as a leader, you'll get a mutiny. And so the same idea of conforming is true whether you're the junior guy or the senior guy. If there are traditions, if there's things, if there's components of the team that you

• 52:55Dave Berke?

  aren't aware of, even if you're the most senior person, that conforming, that showing everybody you're willing to get on board with that, gives you a mass amount of credibility. But you don't get to cash that in the more senior you are and go, well, I'm a senior guy, we're doing it this way. It's the same rule applies for the first day in your squadron or the most senior, to include being a squadron commander. You don't want to walk in, tell everybody, we're doing things differently now, just because you're in charge. Because they may nod and go, Roger that, boss. But they're going back and they're not doing anything you're asking them to do. This idea of being tactically smart about conforming, that never goes away.

• 53:30Jocko Willink?

  Actually, I think we talked about this on the Grounded podcast when you were on. When you got to Echelon Front, after a few months, you're like, oh, seems like jujitsu is something that we're doing here. And you were like, I had no interest in it. I didn't really understand what it was, but like, that seemed like that's what we were doing. So you said to yourself, okay, well, I guess I'll start doing some of this stuff and figure out what it's about, so I know what's going on. And that's a classic example. You're a, how old were you? Forty-five-year-old retired lieutenant colonel from the United States Marine Corps? And these knuckleheads are over here doing some random sport that you've never heard of? Okay, well, let's see what it's about.

• 54:04Dave Berke?

  Yeah, I'm in.

• 54:04Jocko Willink?

  That's legit.

• 54:08Speaker 02

  Hey, so when you were being all like fired up and stuff at that time, was there, be honest, was there a part of your brain that was like, that you recognized like, I'm for real, like actively showing off right now? Like, you know, like demonstrating like how I'm like legit?

• 54:31Jocko Willink?

  My, my initial response to that is to say yes, so I can show humility and be like, yeah, I knew. But honestly, I really wanted to be a good SEAL. And as far as I could tell, there were a couple of people that were around that were super hardcore. And I was like, hey, I want to be super hardcore too. So I didn't really think like, I, I, I was honestly, I was trying to be hardcore. I was trying to be like, ready for war. That's, that's really what my thoughts were. I wasn't, I'm trying to think, there was other, I mean, there's a million other things that I've done that were stupid. That I was like, hey, look at me.

• 55:15Jocko Willink?

  That really wasn't one of them. That really wasn't one of them. And you know what? It doesn't matter because guess how it came across? It came across like that's what I was doing. So whether, so that perception is reality. That was the perception. The perception was I was showing off, hey, look at me. And that pissed guys off. That pissed guys off.

• 55:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, it kind of feels like that too, like in, in sports, kind of the same deal where you get a new person who has not proven themselves at all. And then they want to go the extra mile, but in this real overt way, in this like real like spectacular way, you know, like in your case, you're like running with these, you're the only one running with your boots on. Everyone else is doing, and you know, they, so they do it in this real attention getting way. And it's real obvious like, like, yeah, this person is, is trying to like show off how hard of a worker they are, or show off this or that to get kind of recognition or attention or even respect or whatever. But meanwhile, the people who have proven themselves, whether guys who've been there, been, you know, overseas or been in combat or whatever. They're kind of like, brother, that's not landing with us at all.

• 56:21Jocko Willink?

  You know? And, and I think it's important to say.

• 56:26Jocko Willink?

  That as I thought through answering your question, you know, again, I want to come off as like being all humble. And so I'm like, yeah, you know, I want, but I honestly wasn't, I honestly wasn't. And what's even more important about this is that the fact that the, my intentions did not matter. They didn't matter. Right. They didn't matter if I was to tell everyone, hey, guys, I just want to be ready for war. It didn't matter if I was to say that. What people perceived was, oh, you're out here running with a rucksack on, thinking, you know, you think you're cool. Even though I was thinking, hey, aren't we going to carry weight when we go into combat? That's what I was thinking. Hey, I'm not going to go into combat wearing running shoes. I'm going to go wearing jungle boots. So I'm wearing my jungle boots.

• 57:09Jocko Willink?

  That was what I was thinking. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter the best intentions. And then if you take that in a really mature way, which I lacked, but I was, I would, this is again, these are like, these are like maneuvers that I barely made. You know, like when the terminator responses popped up in my eyes, when guys started, you know, getting a little bit more straightforward with me. Like who, who do you think you are? Like that kind of thing is, you know, well, I think I'm a SEAL. You know what I mean? Like those kinds of things. Yeah. And actually now that I say that, you know what? At this point, I didn't even have my trident. I didn't have my SEAL trident. So I wasn't a SEAL. So I still, so that's even, that might've been when Dave talks about like, hey, it's pretty straightforward. You best conform.

• 57:51Jocko Willink?

  I was definitely feeling some of that. So, so it wasn't just me being hyper mature and super detached and able to. Part of it was like, hey, man, I don't want to piss these guys off. These guys are the guys that give me my trident or not. Yeah. But I definitely felt that this was a platoon. I wanted to be part of the platoon. And if you're not part of the platoon.

• 58:18Jocko Willink?

  You're, you're, you're hurting the team. You're truly hurting the team. They need you and you need the, the most powerful thing in a platoon is the glue that holds you all together. It's the friendship. It's the trust. It's the relationships that you have. That's what makes a platoon awesome. When one person is outside that bond, that, that's a, that's a detriment to the team. And I felt that and I didn't want to do that. So it's like, okay, I gotta conform. I gotta get on board with what the guys are doing. As Dave said, it was real obvious for Dave when he checked into a squadron, like, hey, okay, I'm, I'm doing my thing here. I'm doing, I'm doing what people are doing. You know, when in Rome, do as the Romans. It's there's, there is that. And you know what?

• 58:59Jocko Willink?

  Here, going back to the book, does this mean you follow mine and conform no matter what to be the part of the team? No, absolutely not. You should maintain your individual individuality and unique personality and perspective. Just make sure your personality doesn't interfere with your ability to build relationships within the group. But what if the group is bad?

• 59:15Jocko Willink?

  As I've said before, and I covered this in another section, if it is, if the group is doing some things that are immoral, illegal, or unethical, you have to stand up. You have to be smart about, but you have to be smart about how you make your stand, but participation or passive approval of such behavior makes you culpable. And then I say I covered this section in another part on a different page. And then I go into like, hey, what if they're not doing anything illegal, unethical, but it's, but it's gonna be pretty bad for the mission? Well, then what do you do? Well, once again, is it better for me to have an antagonistic relationship with everyone on the team? Or is it better for me to have good relationships where I can say, hey, can, can we talk about what we're doing? Cause right now I'm feeling like we might not be able to accomplish

• 59:59Jocko Willink?

  our mission or we're gonna, there's the difference. Yeah. I mean, we've all been a part of a team where there's people on the team that aren't part of the team. And guess, guess who's listening to them? Right? Who, no one's listening to them. There were, their, their opinion means nothing. And so what you have to do is you have to conform in order to influence.

• 1:00:20Speaker 02

  So when you, uh, when you were being all fired, you know, Rambo or whatever, was there any like superiors, like a boss, uh, figure that was like, yeah, good job. Like kinda, maybe not even like as a direct result of it, but that, that you were trying to kinda impress where?

• 1:00:38Jocko Willink?

  I wasn't trying to impress every, anyone. But it's interesting you're asking these questions, but I did get a vibe from some people that weren't in my platoon that was kind of like, kind of like, yeah, and most of those guys were way older, like way older, like they weren't competing with me, right? They weren't in a platoon, they were beyond platoons. And so for them, it was like, oh, young blood. Like, I'll tell you what, when I go to the teams now and I see some young blood that are toeing the line, that gets me so happy, right? I love it. I'll talk to those guys all night long, I'll hang out with them because I like, they're not, I'm not competing with

• 1:01:19Jocko Willink?

  them, right? I'm totally gone, I'm literally retired. Whereas maybe you're good, you know, if I was a little bit more in the zone with them, I might be like, who's this guy think he is, right? You might have that attitude. So there was some people that were way above me in the chain of command that I could sense, you know, they were kind of giving the little nod, little nod to a new guy means a lot coming from some dude from NOM, right? But didn't really matter. Inside the platoon, I was doing the wrong thing.

• 1:01:44Speaker 02

  Right. And so in a way, it makes it worse. So, and I'm trying to think about my scenario, my past scenarios. So, you know, like you get a new guy at work and he's working like extra hard, doing the right thing in a way, but he's, and we get the feeling, whether it's true or not, we get the impression, strong impression, by the way, that he's doing it to impress the boss, right? So now we hate him.

• 1:02:10Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 1:02:11Speaker 02

  Because not only do we not want to work that hard, you're trying to basically make us look bad to, for a specific reason, for, to the specific people, right? So it makes it worse, that dynamic makes it worse. So now you're really not part of my team.

• 1:02:24Jocko Willink?

  The first job I got working construction, I showed up, I got hired out of Wendy's and the guy, I was, he had a little crew and he comes in and he looks at me and I'm, I'm the guy with the burgers on the grill and I'm flipping burgers and he looks at me and he goes, what are you, he's like, what are you doing working here? And I said, paying rent, you know, I was like 16 or 17. And he says, you want to work construction? I'm like, I'm so I you can't even believe how happy I was and I go absolutely and he goes because they were doing a project across the street and he goes come by tomorrow morning six o'clock in the morning.

• 1:03:05Speaker 02

  Well, this was like a like a customer or something?

• 1:03:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, he was getting Wendy's him he was getting Wendy's for he had like a five man crew. And the next day. I show up there, man, I'm so happy, man, I turned in my Wendy's visor. Bro, I was so happy. Show up and the first thing he tells me was there was a bunch of concrete blocks had been dropped off. It by a dump truck and they were whatever fifty meters away from where they were gonna need to be placed for the foundation of this building we were building. And so he leaves me and this other guy, uh, Lewis. And Lewis was a character, man. He had just gotten out of prison. And he was, he looked like, he looked like a young Robert De Niro, he was Italian.

• 1:03:52Jocko Willink?

  And and I mean, he really looked like Robert De Niro, like he could have played, he could, he could have been Robert De Niro, he looked just like him. And he just gotten out of prison and his, he was related to the owner. And so it was, you know, hey, can you give, can you give, uh, Lewis a job? Yeah, okay. So. We get tasked to the, they leave me and Lewis there to move these blocks. And bro, I, I am so happy to have this job. I'm running, I'm running with two blocks at a time, one in each hand, I'm running back and forth and putting them in the position. And I mean, he gave, they gave us like three hours to get this done and I was done in forty five minutes and I'm not even kidding, like I was getting after it. But yeah, it took like ten minutes.

• 1:04:36Jocko Willink?

  For Lewis to, you know, tell me, hey, partner. And actually, he talked like there wasn't a hey, partner, he was like, this is, this is, uh, the northeast like Italian, he's like, he's like, hey. You need to, uh, you need to slow it down, my friend over there.

• 1:04:53Jocko Willink?

  And I just, I told him, hey, you don't need to do anything, I got this. I mean, I was, I was pumped and, um, but yeah, same thing, right? Like, like, but in that one, I didn't conform to influence, I just worked so hard. I said, you just don't need to worry about me, I'm happy, uh, I'm as happy as a person can get. To be moving some blocks around and crawling underneath foundations and getting after it. So.

• 1:05:19Jocko Willink?

  I know no one wants to hear that, right? Man, conform to influence. Section three, jumping ahead here. Maneuvers.

• 1:05:31Jocko Willink?

  Whole section here on using leadership to teach and build. And I talk about, I talk about fixing when someone has a negative attitude. How do you fix that? How do you teach someone humility?

• 1:05:45Jocko Willink?

  And what we're doing is we're using leadership. We're using leadership to solve. So someone has a negative problem? How do we, how do we fix that? Put them in charge. We have someone that needs to get humbled, that needs to learn some humility. How do you do that? Put them in charge. That's what you do. You put them in charge of something that they can't barely handle. And what's interesting is sometimes you get feedback like, wouldn't it be better? Like, let's say Dave has a big ego. And wouldn't it be better just to have a straightforward kind of robust conversation with Dave? And say, listen, Dave, I think your ego is a little out of control. And I think you need to humble yourself.

• 1:06:21Jocko Willink?

  Are there instances where that may work? There are. If Dave,

• 1:06:28Jocko Willink?

  in addition to having a big ego, looks at me as a, as a person that he can learn a lot from, and he has a ton of respect for me. And that, and we have a good relationship. And I can approach it in a, in a way that's indirect enough that it doesn't offend him. And I can sit him down. And, and sometimes you can be direct with someone. Some, you've got a great relationship with someone. If you and I have a great relationship and I go, hey, man, you're letting your ego get the best of you. If I think you're trying to help me, I'm going to listen to you. Yep, yep. So, so there are times that that can work. Here's the problem. There are more times where the reason that the person, the reason that we have a problem is because the person has a big ego in the first place. That's the whole reason why we have the problem.

• 1:07:12Jocko Willink?

  So when we just point blank tell them, well, we're attacking their ego. They're going to dig in. It's going to get even worse. Okay, so there's one example. What about when we got someone that lacks confidence? And wouldn't it be good if we could just tell them, hey, look, Dave, have more confidence? Guess what? The reason the person doesn't have confidence is because they don't have confidence. Just telling someone to have more confidence is zero effect. Okay, maybe it has 5% effect. Maybe it has an 8% effect. But when I say, hey, Dave, you know what? You lack confidence. So I want you to have more confidence. That's not what we're talking about. When instead I say, hey, Dave, you know what? I've been watching you. And, and I'm seeing what you're doing. And it seems to me like you've got some potential here for real leadership. And what I want to do is I want to assign a couple of things to you here.

• 1:07:57Jocko Willink?

  In fact, we got this project that we're working on and I want you to actually take charge of this. And then Dave, who lacks confidence says, ah, boss, I'm not really ready for this. I go, hey, look, let me, let me just show you what the project consists of. It's this and this, it's, it's pretty straightforward. I know you've actually already done this, you just haven't been the person with the name on it. Look at it, look at the, look at what the, oh yeah, yeah, you see you can do this? Cool. This is a great place for you to start. Let's knock this thing out of the park. And all of a sudden Dave does it and his confidence goes up a little bit, right? It's real, it's real. So the idea that we can just use words, look, it's, it absolutely. Hey, can I have a conversation with Dave and say, hey, Dave, you know what? Right now, you might not feel like you're ready, but you're ready. Can that boost his confidence?

• 1:08:41Jocko Willink?

  Yes, it can. I'm not saying that it can't. It can. Can I possibly say, hey, Dave, your ego's out of control? And you need to, you need to start being a little bit more humble and that can work? Yes, it can work. But for the reasons I just gave, there's, there's the, the more powerful tool is using leadership, using leadership to teach people. So got a whole section in here on that, building or rebuilding confidence. And by the way, you don't necessarily need to be correcting a problem to use leadership as a, as an instruction tool. You don't need that. You don't, you don't need it at all. You can, you can actually use leadership to teach and build just for your team,

• 1:09:26Jocko Willink?

  just to make them better. Like you don't need to have a problem. I don't need to go to Dave and think, oh, Dave's got a big ego or lacks confidence or bad attitude to say, now I'm going to put him in charge. No, no, I want to have an awesome team. So what I'm going to do is put people in charge. I'm going to use leadership to build an awesome team. These are things that.

• 1:09:45Jocko Willink?

  Counterintuitive answer to a lot of people. I mean, when somebody asks me, "Hey, I got a person with a bad attitude," and I say, "Put him in charge." Someone says, "Hey, I got a person with a big ego," and I say, "Put him in charge." Someone says, "Hey, I've got a person that lacks confidence," and I say, "Put him in charge." Counterintuitive every time, but it is absolutely the best tool to educate.

• 1:10:05Dave Berke?

  The difference is, is the leader that actually really cares, that truly cares about his people, is not, "I'm not doing that, I'm not gonna put Jaco in charge just so I can crush his ego." I'm still actually doing it to try to help him out. That's the difference there, as opposed to, "Watch this, bro." And then I just roll in on Jaco with the big ego, because what I really want to do is crush him and assert my authority over him. The leader that actually cares about his people, that really wants the team to be successful, will look and then go, "Okay, this guy's got a problem." It's a totally understandable problem that most people have. I'm gonna use this as a tool to help him be successful. I would like his ego to be put in check as a result, but I still, what I really want is for him to grow and develop, and I'm using the best way to do it. The common denominator amongst the guy that's just growing and evolving and needs more responsibility,

• 1:10:49Dave Berke?

  and the dude that is out of his head and overweight, huge ego, that needs, is that I still care about both of them. And so, as a leader, if you're listening to this, this isn't a punitive tool to destroy your people whose egos are out of control. It's a tool to help crush the biggest hindrance this person have to being individually successful and contribute to your team. But as a leader, you need to care about that person and really want him to be successful, knowing that the best tool to do that for him is, "All right, bro, you got a big ego. Hey, let's put you in charge of this." You're doing a lot of subtle things and runs, but if your whole thing is, "Oh, Jaco told me to just pile on this guy until I break him," that's not what this is about.

• 1:11:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and by the way, it doesn't start off, "Hey, you got a big ego, I'm gonna put you in charge of this." It starts off with, "Hey, Dave, man, you've been kind of dominating." And you know what? I think you can start stepping up, and I got some stuff here that I think is gonna be easy pie for you. Here's the next project and Dave grabs it goes, I got this.

• 1:11:47Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:47Jocko Willink?

  But as you know, again, this is all explained in detail to the books of how much, what, what level of project are you going to give? We want it to be enough that we're not crushing them with that project.

• 1:11:57Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:57Jocko Willink?

  Right?

• 1:11:58Dave Berke?

  Totally. And just for me, it's eager to get wrapped around, easy to get wrapped around the idea of, of fixing this person's problem. But what a good leader really does is looks at all his people, even the ones that are doing all the things that, that frustrate you is, hey, really need help. It's the same thing with my kids. I got my kids doing things that drive me nuts that I want to crush, but I'm actually doing it because I want them to be successful over time, not because I just want to prove the point of overwhelming them with responsibility to their, to their, to their breaking point. You have to know that what you're actually trying to do is make this person get better.

• 1:12:31Jocko Willink?

  And you use this word hindrance, which is, it's so important to understand that the problem that you're trying to fix, the ego, is the hindrance to why the direct conversation isn't as effective as real world experience. Same thing with someone that lacks confidence. That, the, the, the problem is the hindrance. When I lack confidence, me being told that my confidence, that I, that I should have more, isn't enough to propel me past it. Just like when someone tells me I need to be more humble, that's not compelling

• 1:13:12Jocko Willink?

  enough for me to actually get humble because I already think I'm awesome. And when I lack confidence, I, I don't think I'm good enough. So what we need is to actually reinforce with compelling methods, how to improve people in this paradigm of, of problems that they have.

• 1:13:30Dave Berke?

  Yeah. And that's why the direct approach almost never works.

• 1:13:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah. The amount of people, the amount of relationships that are so strong that this sort of, hey, just going to hit you with the direct feedback is, you know, tiny percentage, tiny percentage of relationships.

• 1:13:53Dave Berke?

  Yeah. And if your relationship actually is that strong, that problem that you're dealing with would never get to an out of control state anyway. So if you're contemplating the direct approach, it's such a narrow, narrow, narrow, uh, times to use that.

• 1:14:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:10Jocko Willink?

  All right. Yeah, be subtle once again.

• 1:14:15Jocko Willink?

  Now, I'm gonna jump to this section, leading peers. Leading peers is one of the most challenging types of leadership. When rank and position are equivalent, more tact is needed and an even better relationship must be built. Once a relationship is built, you can use influence to lead the team in the right direction. This is not a bad thing since influence is always the preferred method of leading. I'll say that again. Influence is always the preferred method of leading. Influence is especially critical when leading peers. Influence can be a challenge to develop with peers because when rank is equivalent, egos often become more visible, right? Rank, my superior ranked yours, has some level of trumping your ego, beating down your ego. When, when there's no rank, when the ranks are equivalent, all of a sudden the ego's

• 1:14:59Jocko Willink?

  becomes the rank in many cases. People are always either looking to prop themselves up to get an edge on others. If you allow your ego to manifest itself when working with peers, you will draw out the worst of your peers' ego as well. Egos must be subdued. Start with subduing your own.

• 1:15:18Jocko Willink?

  If you fail to subdue your ego, you will develop an antagonistic relationship with your peers. That will result in a blue on blue. The military parlance for friendly fire, which means you will end up destroying your own team. Don't allow that to happen. Take the high ground and put your ego in check. Yeah. Hey, how do you do that? Here's it, again, here's the tactics of it. One of the best ways to subdue your own egos and start building a relationship with your peers is by supporting their ideas. They might come up with a plan that's slightly different from yours, but if it's functional and will get the job done, support it. Let them take the lead. Don't feel the need to stick your chest out and flex your ideas. Instead, support your peers' ideas, even if you think your idea is better. If your peers' idea is close, go with it.

• 1:16:06Jocko Willink?

  Straightforward, and I do talk about the fact that some people, you know, you might take offense to that when I say, hey, Dave, why don't you lead this? You might be thinking, whoa, you're trying to get me to do all the work? So you have to monitor that as well. You got people, people are crazy.

• 1:16:21Dave Berke?

  People are crazy.

• 1:16:22Jocko Willink?

  People are crazy.

• 1:16:22Dave Berke?

  Well, it's connected to what you were just talking about, the Rambo scenario too, is you use the word competition. Look, peers, my assumption is that in the SEAL teams, it's exactly the same with just other things. When everybody gets to a fighter squadron, everybody wants to go to Top Gun. It's unspoken. Nobody walks in and goes, I want to go to Top Gun. Or I want to go to weapon school. I want to be a senior instructor. But everybody knows that's what you're competing about. And you might have nine guys all checked in within the same time, they're all peers. And don't pretend like there's not competition amongst your team, all vying to have whatever that opportunity is. It's not Top Gun on the teams. It's, it's something else. It's whatever is relevant. So that competition is there. And so that is another component of why leading your peers is so hard.

• 1:17:06Dave Berke?

  Because there is a competition piece of that too, that the what got you there is the same thing that gets you to want to be successful there as well. I didn't get to my first squadron to say, well, my whole goal was just to be a pilot. I'm here, I'm done. I'm just going to ride this wave to shore. I got there, I'm like, okay, what's the next level on this mountain that I'm climbing, which was that next thing and out of the nine guys in my squadron that were there, nine guys wanted to go to Top Gun. And so you're competing with them over things that are hugely important for them. So it makes that leading your peers thing even harder. When done incorrectly, you can actually torpedo the entire squadron. When those nine guys are fighting against each other, so much so that it undermines the squadron.

• 1:17:50Dave Berke?

  And guess what? Nobody's going to Top Gun. None of those guys are going anywhere to include you. And that subtle art of leading your peers, if you can get that down early in your career, that carries you, that will carry you forever. Because what you get on top of that is now you get more positional authority, more influence. It makes things a little bit easier if you got some credibility because you're in charge. But what you're leveraging is a skill you got at the beginning. That's part of the reason why those lessons you talked about early in the book are so important is that the foundation to be a good leader. Starts way earlier than you think. You're on the clock the minute you show up to any team, even as a junior guy. And the right frame of mind gets you to absorb more things early on so you can leverage that moving down the road. That is hard to do for a young person, especially when you're competing with the other dudes that want the exact same thing that you want.

• 1:18:35Jocko Willink?

  You're on the clock.

• 1:18:37Dave Berke?

  On the clock, man.

• 1:18:39Jocko Willink?

  I go on here skipping for a little bit. If one of your peers egos is out of control and they begin to maneuver to make themselves look good, or even make you look bad, don't fall into the ego trap. Don't attack them. Simply continue to do great work and put the mission first. They might get some initial positive attention from their selfish actions, but eventually they will be uncovered. Take the high ground or the high ground will take you. You know, that's like the guy that doesn't pass information about, you know, what technique you're using when you're flying your jet, just going to keep that to yourself. It's like, everyone's going to figure that out.

• 1:19:13Dave Berke?

  And those traps are so easy to fall into because you want to, you want to go hard as soon as you see that. You talked about, you've talked about truth bombs in the past when people kind of throw those little subtle lies, those little kind of indications. You have to hold the high ground and know that sooner or later, that approach that they're taking, that's a losing approach. And that instant gratification does not come. It's not going to happen that day. It's going to frustrate the hell out of you. But that, if you get pulled into that, you will lose. You will lose as well. You've got to stay on the high ground there.

• 1:19:46Jocko Willink?

  So easy to get trapped by that. So easy to just, and it's like from, from the boss's perspective, when you see the guy that's trying to torpedo the other people, and it might take you a minute to realize, right? It might take you, it might take the boss a little bit of time. And don't be the rat either, right?

• 1:20:03Dave Berke?

  Oh, God, no. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:20:04Jocko Willink?

  You don't want to be the rat either, but you keep, you focus on the mission, you focus on doing the right thing. That rat's gonna, that rat's gonna, his tail's gonna get seen. It's gonna get caught in the trap.

• 1:20:14Dave Berke?

  Yeah. You can't hide.

• 1:20:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Got a section, micromanaging, indecisive, or weak bosses. And I talk about what we do. How do we handle them? When I talk about the weak boss, because I do a little section for each of those, but the weak boss,

• 1:20:33Jocko Willink?

  there are some bosses who are just plain lackluster. "My boss is weak. It is horrible." I've heard this complaint over and over again. I never looked at a weak boss as horrible. I always looked at a weak boss as an opportunity. If my boss doesn't want to come up with a plan, guess what? I will. If my boss doesn't want to clarify the mission, guess what? I will. If my boss doesn't want to take ownership, guess what? I will. And if my boss doesn't want to lead, guess what? I will. So that's pretty straightforward. You can probably imagine, there's a but coming, BUT!

• 1:21:13Jocko Willink?

  Be cautious. As with micromanaging bosses or indecisive bosses, with a weak boss, you have to be careful when you step up to lead. Even with the feeblest and weakest of bosses. Sorry, even the feeblest and weakest of bosses have egos. And if you offend them, they may lash out at you. So don't be offensive or overly assertive when you start to make things happen. Use soft language and frame things in ways that do not diminish the boss's ego, but actually boost it.

• 1:21:49Jocko Willink?

  Here's some examples. "Hey boss, I know you've got a lot going on, so I was thinking it might be helpful if I jumped on this project over here and moved it forward, and move forward with it. Would that be alright?"

• 1:22:00Jocko Willink?

  Or, "Hey boss, I'm sorry for being slow on the uptake, but I just want to make sure I fully understand your vision. Do I have it right when I say..." There you go. Put the vision in their mouth.

• 1:22:12Jocko Willink?

  "Hey boss, I'm just trying to step up my game. Would you mind if I took a crack at planning this next project so I can get some experience?"

• 1:22:19Jocko Willink?

  So that's what you do. You don't violate your relationship. You don't treat a weak, this is a guarantee. You know, you know, like a, a dog, right? And talking to Mike Ritland, when I was looking to get my dog, he's, he's, he's giving me advice and tests to give my dog. The dog that's like weak, that's the dog that snaps at you, right? The dog that's scared, that's the dog that snaps at you and bites your kid or bites someone. The dog that's confident, the dog that's strong, that one's comfortable. Like they're good. And this is the same thing. People think, oh, the boss is weak. I can walk all over him. Yeah, try that. See how it works out. That guy's gonna bite you. That boss is gonna bite you.

• 1:23:05Jocko Willink?

  So you need to use caution in that scenario.

• 1:23:12Jocko Willink?

  Jumping forward here to the nearly indefensible leader. The nearly, and this comes on a, you know, talking about a bunch of things about

• 1:23:23Jocko Willink?

  how, what you do, how you defend your leader, how you, how you take your leaders ideas on board and move forward with them. Like, we're talking about that, right? We're supporting our leader. We're talking about that. So continuing on here, it's always good to support your leader. If you undermine a leader, it not only hurts them, it also hurts the morale of the troops as well as you as a subordinate leader. You are setting an example. If the example you set is one of disrespect up the chain of command, you can expect much the same from the people you're leading. So think about that. You're setting the example. If you're talking smack about your boss, they're gonna talk smack about you. And that's a little trap you can fall into too, because if Dave and I are working for Echo and Echo's whatever, got problems, weak, jacked up.

• 1:24:05Jocko Willink?

  One really easy way for you, for me to bond with you, Dave, is be like, Echo sucks. And you go, yeah, and we're bonding, but it's not good. It's not good. So continuing on, when presenting a plan to your troops that you don't necessarily agree with, you could say, well, I don't agree with this plan, but it's what the boss is telling us to do, so we have to do it anyway. And everyone always gives an example like that. Clearly, that is not a good approach. They will see that you don't believe in the plan, and if you don't believe in it, why should anyone on your team believe in it? And if no one believes in it, then why on earth should the team actually execute it? When a decision is made or a course of action comes down from the chain of command, you must execute it as if it were your own. Sure, you can debate your boss behind closed

• 1:24:50Jocko Willink?

  doors about what course of action you think is best, but once the decision has been made, you get on board and execute to the best of your ability. You tell the troops, the boss and I talked through this for quite a while. And when you look at it from all different angles, especially considering some of the bigger picture effects, I actually think this is the best solution for how we execute. So we're going to get it done. Like, okay, you know, okay, that's cool. And this is, this stuff is just so nuanced. And we already talked about some of it on the last podcast. Now, how do you explain when you're doing something that maybe doesn't make as much sense as you want it to? And, and by the way, the whole belief thing, like if I don't believe in what we're doing, real problem. And I talk about that as

• 1:25:30Jocko Willink?

  well. But here we go. But there are times. So I'm saying, hey, when the boss, if the boss is doing like, like reasonable stuff, borderline reasonable, right? Or the things that you were talking about, I think it was on the last podcast, Dave, it's like, hey, we're, the chances of me getting ordered to do something that is legitimately catastrophic are so small. So we're not talking about that. Most of the time, we're talking about somebody like, hey, I don't 100% agree with this, but we're going to work, we're going to build a relationship, I'm going to build a relationship enough so that, you know, my boss is never going to tell me, you're going to let me do whatever I want. That's where I'm going to get to. I promise I'm going to get that, get there with my boss. I promise that that's what's going to happen.

• 1:26:13Jocko Willink?

  So we're not talking about that. Now, now we start talking about a boss that is nearly indefensible. There are times when the boss can be nearly indefensible. Notice I'm saying nearly. Perhaps she is egotistical or arrogant. Maybe he is condescending to the troops. Or maybe the boss makes bad decisions over and over again. In these cases, blindly defending the boss will put you at odds with the team members. They see and know the boss is horrible. And if you blindly defend them, if you blindly defend the boss, your credibility takes a hit.

• 1:26:51Jocko Willink?

  But that doesn't mean that openly belittling or disparaging the boss is a good option. That behavior from you leads to complete disrespect from the team and a failure of good order and discipline. You have to balance defending the boss with connecting with the troops.

• 1:27:07Jocko Willink?

  Here are some phrases that convey the right message, that even if you don't have the highest regard for your boss, you still value the importance of accomplishing the mission. So that's the scenario. You got your boss that is like, they're not good, but you can't openly disparage them because they're not doing any, any hanging offenses, right? They're not doing anything or ordering catastrophic missions. So here's the type of language we're going to use to the, to the troops. Listen, the boss might not be perfect, but he is driving us toward the same strategic goal we want to accomplish. So we're moving. Another one. Look, the boss might not be ideal, but she still gives us the support we need. And the

• 1:27:51Jocko Willink?

  better we perform, the more support we will get. There you go. Lucky you're on that fine line. Here's another one. A, the boss has some quirks, but we know where he stands. So we work with him to the best of our abilities, which means dealing with those quirks so we can get the job done. Another one, complaining about the boss doesn't get us anywhere and it doesn't make our jobs easier. What we can do is try to form a good relationship with her so we can influence her in the right direction. So that's what you do. And by the way, none of these are, none of these are lies. These are like the truth. These are what you should do. These are what you are doing as a leader.

• 1:28:33Dave Berke?

  Dude, I was just thinking about that, that section earlier of, of telling the truth. And there's a common thread in every type of boss.

• 1:28:44Dave Berke?

  Do a really good job and support as best you can. Good bosses, bad bosses, micromanager, laissez faire, wants all the credit, is afraid of being... If you do that, in almost every situation, you're gonna get towards the outcome that you want. And if you actually have, if you have a hard time with your team, walking back from a meeting where, okay, setting aside the one in a million catatshoff, just like stupid plan, nobody really likes it, they don't really want to do it, they can't really get behind it. What does it say about you as a leader to come out of that meeting, Jaco and I go back and forth for hours, A, at the end, this is the plan, I'm moving forward. Hey team, hey, listen up. Here's what we're doing. Okay, all the grumblings push back. If I can't go, li- li- guys, listen, I understand, I understand some of those frustrations, but listen, here's the deal.

• 1:29:27Dave Berke?

  We actually, we have a lot of influence here, a lot of control. The best thing we can do is get through this as quickly as we can, as effectively we can, and move on to other things. What does it say about you as a leader when your people are like, "No, we're not gonna do it, the plan is that stupid." And, and the last thing you want to do is convey the, "Yeah, we shouldn't do this, this is really stupid, and he's an idiot."

• 1:29:51Dave Berke?

  Most of the, almost all the time, when I find myself, and I've, I've implemented really dumb plans for my boss, a million times. And just about every time I told my guys what we're gonna do, you know what they said? "Okay, run to that boss." And you know what? They just go do it, the job gets done, and you move along. And that's kinda how it happens. And so if your people are pushing back so hard against the bad boss,

• 1:30:13Dave Berke?

  the problem probably isn't your bad boss. The problem really is with you, and the solution to that is the exact same solution when I work for the best leaders I've ever worked with in my career. Do a really good job and support them as best I can, and just move on.

• 1:30:32Jocko Willink?

  Very good advice.

• 1:30:35Jocko Willink?

  I, I, I go into a section here that's called punishment.

• 1:30:41Jocko Willink?

  Punish must be, punishment must be dealt out at times, but a good leader should need to use it seldomly.

• 1:30:50Jocko Willink?

  If, if a leader gives good, clear guidance about what needs to be done, how it needs to be done, why it needs to be done, and what the consequences are if it is not done correctly, the troops should carry out what has been asked of them.

• 1:31:06Jocko Willink?

  So I'll just continue. If for some reason your troops don't execute the plan, then of course you should first look in the mirror. Do not assume the troops have simply decided to do what, decided not to do what was required of them. Instead, assume you did not give them appropriate direction, and that is the reason for the transgression.

• 1:31:28Jocko Willink?

  If you have confirmed that a rule was violated or direction not followed, even though it was understood, some punishment must be meted out. Again, this should be rare because if a leader is doing his or her job correctly, members of the team will understand what, how, and why they are doing what they are doing and executed appropriately. The need to punish someone on the team is almost always a direct reflection of the leader and the failure to lead appropriately. This might seem extreme, and in fact, it is. It is extreme ownership. If a team member is late, perhaps the leader failed to explain the importance of being on time. If the team member fails to complete their portion of a project, perhaps the leader didn't give the support required.

• 1:32:11Jocko Willink?

  If a team member drinks alcohol and gets into trouble with the police, perhaps the leader failed to set clear parameters around drinking. The list could go on indefinitely. A leader is always responsible for the actions of his or her subordinates. So punishment, you know, and then I go, look, I get into it. I get into the fact that sometimes punishments do need to take place. But man, the amount of times that I punished people, like that I gave legitimate punishment to people that have worked for me is it's, it's, it's less than, I mean, I can count on one hand where this person like knowingly violated something and it was just, you need to, you, you need to pay.

• 1:32:57Jocko Willink?

  You need to pay the man on that one. But it should happen so rarely.

• 1:33:05Jocko Willink?

  Got a section in here called "When to Quit."

• 1:33:10Jocko Willink?

  Again, no one wants to hear that. No one wants to hear that. One of the mantras in the SEAL teams is "Never Quit." That is one of the main refrains utilized during SEAL, basic SEAL training. And it makes a lot of sense during that training because that is how you make it through. You don't quit. No matter what training evolution comes along, no matter how hard it is, no matter how tired, sore, frustrated, exhausted, or otherwise broken you are, you don't quit. That is how you make it through SEAL training. And that is how you eventually become a SEAL. But when you get to the actual SEAL teams, that extreme attitude has to be adjusted. It has to be modulated because if it isn't, it can lead to disaster. The classic example of this is a young SEAL leader

• 1:33:52Jocko Willink?

  who has made it through the basic SEAL training and shows up at the SEAL time, team. He has heard the mantra, mantra, "Never Quit," thousands and thousands of times. He has yelled it to his friends and whispered it to himself. It has become ingrained in his head. And I go through a scenario, which is one of many, where guess what? What, what you just, what you need to do is actually quit. You need to stop. You need to stop what you're doing. You need, you're, you're gonna get your entire platoon killed. You're gonna, you're gonna destroy the situation that you're in. And you need to be able to detach, look around, and figure out a different way. Of course, no one wants to hear that.

• 1:34:35Jocko Willink?

  But if you are patrolling towards a target and they open up with multiple bunkered machine guns with interlocking field of fire on your avenue of approach, and you decide you're not gonna quit, guess what? Everyone's going to die.

• 1:34:56Jocko Willink?

  So I go through that and I go, I go through how we measure that.

• 1:35:02Jocko Willink?

  When is the appropriate time? Why it's the appropriate thing to do? So I even talk about some of the classic examples, right? Uh Dunkirk.

• 1:35:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah Dunkirk. Guess what? That was quitting.

• 1:35:19Jocko Willink?

  General George Washington led the retreat of continental forces out of New York, an escape that was crucial for the ability of the revolutionary army to continue to fight later engagements and win, by the way. So what are we talking about?

• 1:35:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, we're talking about tactical and then I explained this in the book. Strategic, like we're not going to quit on our strategic goals. But a tactical situation, we might quit on.

• 1:35:42Dave Berke?

  Yeah, I mean, you said it. Obviously you're talking about tactics. This, the tactical decision is actually enforcing what matters, which is not winning that engagement. It's winning the war. And if I'm flying around in my airplane and I get engaged with three aircraft and I have 500 pounds of usable gas and my wingman just went home with an emergency. You know what I should, I need to run away. I need to set what we call separating. I need to set up a plan where I can separate and I need to leave this fight. I need to run away from this fight. I need to quit this engagement and get away. And nothing about that sounds sexy. None of it sounds rewarding. None of it sounds good in any way. And the story they want is like, oh, I turn decisively and get, I will die.

• 1:36:26Dave Berke?

  I'll be in a parachute. I'll be dead, whatever it is. Quitting tactics is actually just iterative decision making going, oh, you know what? This isn't work. This isn't getting me towards my goal and I'm just maneuvering in another direction. The worst thing you can do is what we, when we decide to fight in an aircraft, you and I've met, you're a bad guy. I'm a good guy. We decide to get to an engagement and we turn, we call that anchoring. And there's a reason it's called anchoring. Because just like with a ship that has dropped anchor, guess what? You're not going anywhere. You are going to anchor right there and you can't, and your decisions have now gone from an infinite number of decisions down to one, which is I'm going to sit here and turn until one of us dies. You know what that does to every other person involved in this engagement?

• 1:37:10Dave Berke?

  The 50 other airplanes or the SAM, they all know I'm right there. I have almost no maneuvering room. I have no options. And the likelihood that I'm going to anchor and survive are very, very small. But people want that satisfying answer of never, ever, ever quit. We see this in the FTX all the time. Send me two more. They're dead two. Get the other two. Okay, then they're dead. And now you're saying it so plainly, but it's that mantra in their mind is never quit. And they don't understand that you're talking about a tactical versus a strategic thing. And that's the biggest difference.

• 1:37:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Don't anchor is similar, I guess, than to don't dig in.

• 1:37:49Dave Berke?

  Don't dig in.

• 1:37:50Jocko Willink?

  Cause you're gonna give up your ability to maneuver.

• 1:37:52Dave Berke?

  Exactly.

• 1:37:53Jocko Willink?

  And is that because once you, once you decide you're gonna fight, you just don't have the aircraft, doesn't have the capability to just get out of there?

• 1:38:01Dave Berke?

  Two reasons. One, no different than you as a task unit commander, looking down the sights of your rifle. So I'm now decisively engaged with one other aircraft. 100% of my attention is on that aircraft. 100%. I have zero bandwidth for anything else. And two, those fights, 100% of the time, go from fast speed to slow speed. Because you're turning, so all your energy, all your maneuvering, all the G's slow that your plane's down. So you go from 400, 500 knots down to usually about 115 knots. And you can have the most advanced airplane in the world. When you're turning around 115 knots, you're a Cessna. You're just sitting there, slow compared to that. And so you don't see anything else that's happening and you have no literal maneuver, maneuvering speed. So you're slow and you can't, you're not paying attention to anything else.

• 1:38:46Dave Berke?

  Cause if I stop looking at you, I look elsewhere, you're gonna kill me. It's, it's, you have no options. So anchoring in aviation is the exact same thing as digging in. And once you do it, you have no options.

• 1:38:57Jocko Willink?

  And this conversation based around one-on-one fighting, and this was a revelation to me last time, that the conversation around one-on-one fighting is not very realistic. Because we're not, I'm not gonna be alone.

• 1:39:10Dave Berke?

  No. Now, you and I might end up in a one-on-one fight, but the other 20 airplanes aren't in that one-on-one fight. And they're all gonna focus on that. And one of the two of us is gonna get picked off by our, by our allies, by our friends. So you and I might be fighting one against one.

• 1:39:25Jocko Willink?

  And then you're gonna get blasted by Echo Charles.

• 1:39:28Dave Berke?

  And even if I, it's right, even if I beat you, even if I win that fight, that, that dogfight.

• 1:39:32Jocko Willink?

  You, he's already behind you.

• 1:39:33Dave Berke?

  He's, yeah, if I get, maybe a matter of time, but the likelihood. There is no such thing where the enemy takes off, let's want, launch one aircraft. And then the Americans respond, we're gonna launch one aircraft. It does, it never happens like that. So you might be in a one-on-one fight, but there's 20 other airplanes out there.

• 1:39:47Jocko Willink?

  Are you, is our strategy? Is the strategy of air combat, hey, we're gonna send more planes than you?

• 1:39:55Dave Berke?

  It used to be. We thought, well, that's been a cycle. That was the Russian strategy in the 80s. Just build a whole bunch of airplanes, 70s and 80s. And turns out that we discovered that with technology, we could build less that were way better. And I have a system that could take down six years for, you know, everyone of mine can shoot down six years. So then the strategy shifted to technology. And now we leverage that we actually don't think mass in and of itself is what we need to do. We actually need to have the ability to, guess what?

• 1:40:23Jocko Willink?

  Maneuver?

• 1:40:24Dave Berke?

  Maneuver and know more than you. Have more awareness and more information and be able to focus on much more than than just one thing. And so, um, technology isn't just about being high tech. It's about giving the pilot more information about more different things that are going on, which is the exact same thing as, as a pilot, I no longer need to stare down the scope of my rifle. I don't need to look at my sights. I actually have a system that lets me look at 15 different things at the same time and have high fidelity information to decide on, I can think strategically in a one man fighter, which nobody ever thought was possible. But it actually is possible if you can detach. And you use a great language in here. You talk about detach, not just, um, physically, but detaching mentally. Aircraft

• 1:41:07Dave Berke?

  now allow pilots to detach mentally in ways they never could before.

• 1:41:11Jocko Willink?

  And are there aircraft that are detached from the situation that are monitoring? So, am I, as the air mission commander, or whatever the name is, am I some guy that's at, whatever, 30,000 feet or 10 nautical miles away? And I can see this entire thing on radar and I can be like, Dave, uh, hey, everyone, Dave's in a fight. Uh, you know, dash, you know, Tac 2 and Tac 4, go take, go, go support him.

• 1:41:34Dave Berke?

  I would, I would still compare it much more to like a platoon commander on a platoon size, uh, uh, operation or a TAC that you're there.

• 1:41:44Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 1:41:44Dave Berke?

  But you're, you're physically detached, but not like literally, you know, back away.

• 1:41:48Jocko Willink?

  So it's not like? Uh, I'm in a platoon on the ground and someone in a talk way away that can barely doesn't even really know what's happening. And they're trying to give me directions because that's what that comparison. That's right. Got it. Check. All right. Uh, skip into another section here. Rumor control. If rumors are running rampant in your organization, and you might think, why am I, why would I need to put this in here? Because you and I both have seen rumors just decimate companies. Quickly. Maybe decimates a strong word. That is too strong a word, but. Rumors get out of control. We have seen rumors get out of control and start to hurt companies where,

• 1:42:32Jocko Willink?

  where they can be decimated, you know, that might not be the final blow, isn't the rumor, but it can definitely be a contributing factor to a real broad, to real significant downfalls. Yeah.

• 1:42:46Jocko Willink?

  If rumors are running rampant in your organization, you have, you have created the environment to allow them to grow. The environment that rumors grow in is one of which there's lack of information. If you don't tell people what's going on, they will make up their own versions and their versions will not be pretty ones. And by the way, I think this whole section right here that we're in is actually called communication. Communication. Yeah. So we're in a, in a, in an entire section of the book called communication because that's what, that's what leadership is. Leadership is communicating with other human beings. So, yeah. Man, I, I think that that idea, which I kind of start this chapter off with, or this section off with, with explaining what it's like in a patrol

• 1:43:28Jocko Willink?

  and how the word gets passed back. And if you're in the back of the patrol, you just have no idea what's happening. And that's another thing that just left such a mark on me. I could have put that, I could have put that as one of the fundamental kind of underlying characteristics in the beginning of this book, which is understanding how important communication was in an organization and knowing what it's like to be a frontline trooper and have no idea what's happening. But because it's so directly tied to communication, I led the communication section with that. But man, the idea of keeping the troops informed is.

• 1:44:08Jocko Willink?

  Is right up there with the underlying leadership principles that I learned as a young SEAL. So getting back to the rumor thing, get the word out ahead of rumors. Just like on patrol, and again, that's referencing the story. You need to keep the troops informed. Need to lay some people off? Explain why? Have to discontinue a product? Tell the troops why. Shutting down an office? Communicate the reason to your people. All of these are tough subjects to cover. It's easy to find excuses not to talk about them. And it is certainly more comfortable to keep your mouth shut and hope no one notices. But they absolutely will notice. And they will fill in the reasons with their own ideas. Need to lay some people off? The rumor will be, we're going out of business.

• 1:44:54Jocko Willink?

  Have to discontinue a product? Same thing, we are going out of business. Shutting down an office? Now it is absolutely certain, we are going out of business. So you have to combat those things. And the way you do it is by telling the truth. Explaining to people, think that's happening. And you know, another good point, this is an earlier chapter, but and you mentioned it, but we didn't cover it. I have a section on telling the truth. And that seems like it's really easy, but there are tricky situations. It's hard to do, but

• 1:45:26Jocko Willink?

  one of the, one of the things that I cover in that section is sometimes you can't tell the truth. And then you might get someone like Sam Harris

• 1:45:35Jocko Willink?

  that says, no, Jaco, you should always tell the truth. So Sam, I'm sorry, you're wrong. And I can give you some situations. There's two situations that are really obvious. You can't tell the truth in a situation. Well, let me rephrase that. You can't, well, you'll see what I mean. If there's a legal battle going on, there are times that we work with companies like this. They have a legal scenario unfolding and they cannot discuss it, which means they can't tell people what's going on. And in the military, it was, oh, we had compartmentalized information that we literally cannot share. It is against the law. You are not need to know, and I cannot tell you. So therefore, does that impede us from telling the truth? The answer, now we're back supporting Sam Harris.

• 1:46:20Jocko Willink?

  Sam, yes, we can tell the truth. The truth is, hey, Dave, listen, I really want to explain to you what's going on here, but you know that there's a legal, a legal suit going on and We cannot discuss this and I cannot tell you, I can tell you these things around it, but I cannot tell you the actual piece of information you want. As soon as we are allowed to tell you legally, believe me, I'll fill you in. Or in the military, hey, look, Dave, I understand that you want to know where this piece of information is coming from. It is actually need to know and compartmentalized and I cannot, I cannot tell you as soon as this thing becomes declassified or as soon as you get the need to know, believe me, I'll fill you in. But until then, you know the deal, man.

• 1:47:03Jocko Willink?

  We gotta follow the rules. And, and, and also what the information that you want to know, it's not significant enough that it's going to matter. It's like, okay, so we do want to tell the truth. So Sam, you're, you're back in the game.

• 1:47:20Dave Berke?

  The tool you have to have that conversation is, is they have to trust you. The tool you have is trust and the way you cultivate that trust is every other opportunity you have that you're not hamstrung by these things, you're telling them everything that you can. Everything you could possibly let them know the big picture. You've done that so much. You've made so many leadership capital deposits, so many. At the time you go, hey, man, look, there's a couple of reasons why I can't do this. They go,

• 1:47:45Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 1:47:45Dave Berke?

  All right, bro. I understand. No factor. And they just go off and back and do their thing and it's, and it's, it's not an issue.

• 1:47:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:52Jocko Willink?

  Oh, having a good relationship with people is just, it's so important.

• 1:47:57Dave Berke?

  It solves so many problems.

• 1:47:59Jocko Willink?

  I mean, just, just whatever you do, whenever you do these little miniature one man role plays with yourself, like on the podcast, and you're always like, you know, usually conclude to something like, I got it, bro. Like, and there's been times where you've said that to me like, hey, got it. You know, where I've been like, yeah, well, let me get back to you on that. I got it. You know, it's, yeah. And that's just the way it is. Why? Because I know you care about me. You know, I care about you. I trust you. You trust me. It's like, okay, hey, man, got it. You know, I don't even want you to tell me. You tell me what you need me to do. I got it. No factor.

• 1:48:32Dave Berke?

  No factor.

• 1:48:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. You know what? Since we are talking about delivering the truth, I'm going to actually jump into this little section right here, which is called tactfully delivering the truth. When delivering criticism, it is important to do it with consideration and delicacy. If you punch someone in the face with criticism, they will become defensive and are unlikely to take the criticism on board. So a more indirect approach is needed. And again, that's what we just talked about with the other section, which is, oh, look, I'm just gonna tell them what's up. You need to control your ego. You know, that's gonna work out great. Okay, so, how do we do this? How do we tell the truth tactfully? Okay, here.

• 1:49:15Jocko Willink?

  First, care about your people. That's number one. Care about your people. If you truly care about them, they will know that and they will accept your criticism more easily. And this is, this is something that I thought about talking with Flynn. And when I was the OIC of Trade at, I was actually listening to Flynn at the muster. And he was talking about these savage debriefs that I would give. And I, I have some recorded. I'll play them for you sometime, bro. They're savage. Yeah. I was coming off the top ropes.

• 1:49:57Jocko Willink?

  I mean, I was coming off the top ropes. And as I'm sitting there listening to Flynn, cuz even at that time, like Flynn Cochran, not hard guy to read, right? Like, like he's, he's not a guy that's like, uh, uh, hey, I'm not sure what he's thinking. Like, you know, you're looking at Flynn, you're like, okay, I see where he's at. Leif, same thing, right? Leif is like, hey, you know, what is that, what is that term? Where's, where are your emotion on your sleeves, right? Leif is no stranger. Leif is not shy about saying, hey, I'm not exactly, uh, good. And he's, I mean, imagine, you know what Leif's like now, but imagine when Leif was whatever, a student, right?

• 1:50:39Jocko Willink?

  Not exactly able to contain his emotions or hide his emotions. So, as I'm listening to Flynn up there, talking about how I used to give these savage debriefs. And Sorelli, same thing, right? How hard is it to tell when Sorelli's pissed off? It's like so easy, right? So, when I'm sitting there listening to this, I'm thinking, man, I used to debrief these guys, and all those guys, every one of them, I gave them debriefs that were scornful, right?

• 1:51:08Jocko Willink?

  And I'm thinking to myself, why? How is it that on any of their faces, any of their faces? I never saw that look of like, screw you. You know what? Shut up. You don't know what you're talking about. Never. And, and I real, and it was the same with like, I, I, I had one guy that had that, that I could read that on, that I put through training. And he's the guy that in podcast number five, I wrote a counseling letter for, which I very seldom did. And explained to him that he was not going to make it in the SEAL teams. If he didn't be more, if he wasn't, didn't become more humble and a bunch of other things. But that's a guy that I could, I could see on his face. Like when I was debriefing him, he was pissed.

• 1:51:50Jocko Willink?

  But every, now think, I mean, I debriefed hundreds of guys. And, and yet they would always be like, Roger, you know, like that kind of, like they disappointed me. Like it wasn't, they were disappointed. That, that's the, that's the feeling I always got from Flynn was like, you know, Roger. Or from Leif, like Roger, you know, like, that's what I, that's what I always got back. Why is that? It's real easy. The reason is because all those guys knew and, and the guys that I was putting through training knew. More than anything else in the world, I cared about them. And I knew that they were going overseas and I knew that they're going into combat. And more than anything else, I wanted them to be able to accomplish the mission.

• 1:52:32Jocko Willink?

  And I wanted them and their guys to be safe and okay and come home. And they knew that. So when it comes to delivering truthful feedback, the number one thing is to care about your people. Number one. And then the next thing is take ownership of your problem, of the problem itself. Of course, extreme ownership should be the fundamental principle used, utilized by any leader. And there are tactics of employing extreme ownership when trying to critique a subordinate. You utilizing extreme ownership while providing feedback might sound like this. Here's some tactical maneuvers. Instead of saying, you failed to get the project done on time.

• 1:53:15Jocko Willink?

  Use what support or assets could I have given you so that we could have gotten the project done on time? Instead of saying you failed to meet the mission objectives, try using, "I don't think I did a good job of explaining the mission objective. Did you fully understand it?" Instead of saying your lack of professionalism caused this client to go to our competitor, try saying, "I think I allowed things to get too slack around here in terms of our professionalism. I think that's one of the reasons why we lost that client to one of our competitors."

• 1:53:46Jocko Willink?

  Now, there's guaranteed to be people listening to this right now that are thinking, "That's weak. You should just tell them. How are they ever going to understand what you're talking about?" And it goes back to this.

• 1:54:00Jocko Willink?

  When I attack them, they're not listening. That's all there is to it. When I attack them, they're not listening. Now, if you have a great relationship with them, if they know you care about them, if you know that, if they know that you have their best, their best interests, and that's why you're talking to them, yeah, you can, you can go harder. And also, when you get people that you try indirect approaches on and it fails, well, then you escalate your directness and over time, until you're eventually like, "Listen, you failed this project and this is not acceptable." And if it happens, like, yes, you get there. Totally. Absolutely. Don't start there. Don't start there. And by the way, also, this is in the book.

• 1:54:42Jocko Willink?

  It is important to take note that these are not simply techniques you are utilizing so your pesky subordinate falls into line. That is not the point. The point of all these statements and the whole point of taking ownership is that you must truly believe what you are saying. And you should because the ownership statements in those examples are not simply lip service. They are true. If the leader follows up with the team members and makes sure that they have all the support and assets they needed to complete the job on time, then the job will get done on time.

• 1:55:09Jocko Willink?

  If a leader correctly explains the mission in simple, clear, concise manner, and then ensures it is understood by the team, the team will accomplish the mission. If a leader fails to emphasize the importance of professionalism, then it should come as no surprise that subordinates fail to act professionally. Yes, it's on you, the leader.

• 1:55:26Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 1:55:30Jocko Willink?

  That's that escaland we wrote about the escalation of counseling in the dichotomy of leadership. Same thing with direct versus indirect, indirect versus direct. We start off indirect and generally that's going to work. And by the way, if it doesn't work, you have somewhere to go. You have somewhere to escalate to. If you go direct and it doesn't work, that's it.

• 1:55:52Dave Berke?

  You're out of options.

• 1:55:53Jocko Willink?

  You're out of options. Not only, not only is it your only shot, but it is a shot that has less chance of doing the job.

• 1:56:04Dave Berke?

  It's got way less chance. And if you start with the indirect approach and it doesn't work, what you get to do simultaneously with, with this required escalation is to reflect on yourself as, hey, why am I not, what am I not doing that I can't get through to this person? You can actually start to look at what you're doing wrong. When you go to the direct approach, you've already come to the conclusion that 100% of the problem is that other person. And so what you don't get to do in that same process is go, man, what am I missing here that this more subtle indirect approach isn't getting through to this person I work with every single day? And that is every bit as important, if not even more important than that required escalation,

• 1:56:48Dave Berke?

  which you most certainly need to do. Which is looking at why, what is it you haven't done? Or what is the problem that you have created that that isn't working out of the, out of the gates?

• 1:57:00Jocko Willink?

  And it's apparently subtlety is becoming a solid word amongst us right now because really that the correction that you give, you give the most subtle correction possible and you escalate from there.

• 1:57:13Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:14Jocko Willink?

  And if I do it right, if I do it right, I've put you back on course, Dave, and you didn't even know that I touched your compass.

• 1:57:23Dave Berke?

  Totally.

• 1:57:24Jocko Willink?

  Like I, I just nudged your steering wheel. You didn't even know it. You like looked over your right and you said, oh, I'm good. Well, you didn't even know what happened.

• 1:57:31Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:32Jocko Willink?

  And that is what we want. And you know what? Sometimes I nudge that and it, and it doesn't course correct. And now I have to nudge a little bit harder. And at some point, yes, I may have to take hold of the steering wheel and be really direct. Yes, it does happen.

• 1:57:49Dave Berke?

  You did the demo at the muster and I think we've done it too now.

• 1:57:54Dave Berke?

  There's actually sort of a, an ideal way that, that we should all aspire to be able to communicate with the closest people on our team that aren't doing the things we want them to do. Which is when I can look at you or you can look at me and go, "Bro." And that is, that is all the correction that is required. That is all the feedback that I need to hear from you and look at me and go, "Bro." And I go, "I got it." And I go solve whatever that problem is, whether it's I came in late to work, insert whatever the problem is. That is as a leader, what you're actually aspiring to is to be able to have a type of relationship and I can look at the people around me and say that one word.

• 1:58:35Jocko Willink?

  Or no words.

• 1:58:37Dave Berke?

  Certainly. I just like that, that example when we're looking at it, it's like everybody's waiting for this big, long speech you're gonna give and you're like, "Bro."

• 1:58:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. Roger. Yeah, somebody asked, "What if I had decided that this was important and I needed to counsel Leif on this issue? What if I decided it was the time to, that I needed to get direct with him?" And I was like, "Oh." I would have walked into his office with a piece of paper that showed what the problem was and I would have said, "Bro." And Leif would have gone, "Bro, I'm sorry. I got this. Don't ever worry about it again." And that's the way it would have gone down.

• 1:59:12Dave Berke?

  Yeah. Like. And, and as funny as, kind of as humorous that, that interaction was on the stage and as funny as it might sound listening to it, that's totally a real thing. That's totally legit. Like you can have a close relationship with everybody in your team by which you can just look at them or kind of just say that one word. And it, it isn't a joke, it's real. And they'll go, "Dude, that's, that problem is handled. You will never have to come back here ever again about that thing, ever."

• 1:59:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:38Dave Berke?

  And, and it's done and you move on.

• 1:59:39Jocko Willink?

  That is, that is, that is the way that things are supposed to work, really. The escalation of counseling starts with zero words.

• 1:59:49Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:50Jocko Willink?

  Starts with a glance and a, and a, and a, and a four millimeter raise of the eyebrow. You know, that's it. That's like, and you get, the response is a shake of the head.

• 2:00:03Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:04Jocko Willink?

  Signifying no, or a nod of the head signifying, "I got it." And there's not another word spoken because it's a problem solved.

• 2:00:11Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:16Jocko Willink?

  I had to throw this one in, man, ultimatums. Ultimatums are not optimal leadership tools. Like digging in, they allow no room to maneuver. No one likes being trapped and controlled. But there are extremely rare times when ultimatums can and should be utilized. When enough is truly enough, then an ultimatum can be used. And when it is used, the leader must hold the line and adhere to it. Never make an ultimatum you can't keep. And I've got a few sections in here, making an ultimatum as the boss. And the reason I had to talk about this, oh, here we go. If you feel you have to issue an ultimatum to your subordinates, one of the first things you should ask yourself is where did my leadership fail? Because the fact of the matter is, as a leader,

• 2:01:00Jocko Willink?

  you should be able to get what you need out of your subordinates through solid leadership, not ultimatums. Explaining why a task is important to the strategic mission and how achieving that mission will ultimately benefit everyone on the team should be enough to get people to do what they need to do. That is no easy feat, and sometimes it takes considerable time and effort to communicate that information properly. But sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you can't get the message through. In those cases, ultimatums are a tool of last resort. After all, other efforts to get an individual to do what they are supposed to do have failed. I mean, you should use an ultimatum so rarely. Once an ultimatum has been delivered, it can't be reversed, which is one of the biggest problems in giving them.

• 2:01:44Jocko Willink?

  Ultimatums by their very nature are immovable objects and can't be adjusted. That makes, this makes the people you delivered them to feel trapped, and no one likes feeling trapped. If you do make an ultimatum and don't keep it, your credibility is going to take a hit. Yeah. All that being said, if you have done everything in your power, if you've coached, mentored, persuaded an individual to do something, and they still will not do it, then it might make sense to give them an ultimatum. Make it explicit, not only in the requirements of what needs to be done, but also in the consequences of exactly what will happen if the ultimatum is not met. Use no uncertain terms and ensure that the individual fully understands. Again, I mean, ultimatums are...

• 2:02:28Jocko Willink?

  Very rare. I got a section on making ultimatums as a subordinate, which we see, which obviously, you know, and I, there, is there a time? Yeah, there's a time. But when it's, you know, very rare, you better have your ducks in a row, big time. And I talk about dealing with an ultimatum that gets placed on you, which this is, this happens, right? This happens.

• 2:02:55Jocko Willink?

  So what should you do when your boss puts an ultimatum on you? Tell the truth. You should start with telling yourself the truth. Do a hard, honest assessment of the situation and figure out if what you are being tasked with is actually possible. Are you making every possible effort to achieve the task? Is there anything else you and your team can do to get the job done? If the answer to these questions indicates that you can do more, then redouble your efforts and do more. There you go.

• 2:03:25Jocko Willink?

  You should also tell your team members the truth. Let them know the ultimatum has been placed on you and thereby the team and explain why you're going to all dig in and do your absolute best to get the job done. Hopefully after pulling out all the stops and getting after it like you have never gotten after it before, you and the team are able to deliver on the ultimatum. You get a high five from your boss, tell your team, well done, and move on to the next project. Unfortunately, that doesn't always happen. Often the reason ultimatums are given is because the task or project was an extremely difficult one, perhaps even impossible. Even after you and your team go into hyper productive mode and put forth maximal effort to get the job done, sometimes it just isn't enough. What should you do then? Again, the answer is to tell the truth, only this time to your boss.

• 2:04:09Jocko Willink?

  First, figure out if there are any other measures that might help you accomplish what you've been tasked, asked to do. Perhaps you need more people, maybe you need more funding, perhaps you need to let some other tasks slide while you focus on getting the ultimatum fulfilled. Once you have all the information you need to explain the situation to your boss, explain that despite the ultimatum, you will not be able to accomplish what he or she has asked you to do.

• 2:04:33Jocko Willink?

  That's if you, if it literally can't be done. Describe what you would need to get the job done and what will happen if you do not get what you need. If you have done a good job communicating with your boss and they have enough humility to listen, after you detail the situation, they should recognize the truth and withdraw, or at least modify their ultimatum. But that is no guarantee. Bosses who resort to delivering ultimatums might not be rational enough to listen to reason and could hold the line on it. If that happens and your leader maintains the course, then simply knuckle down, do your best, protect your team to the best of your ability, and stand by to suffer the consequences with your head held high. Don't be spiteful, don't have a bad attitude, don't disparage the leader, and don't give up.

• 2:05:15Jocko Willink?

  Maintaining your dignity and the morale of the troops is the victory in a case like this.

• 2:05:22Jocko Willink?

  Boom.

• 2:05:25Jocko Willink?

  Got a section in here on reflect and diminish. I've talked about that on this podcast, but I laid out in some good detail. Here's something that you talked about earlier, I'll hit it again, getting people to listen. As you are rising through the ranks, you will need to have your say. When you speak, you will want people to listen, but sometimes there will be people who do not listen. And they interrupt or talk over you. How should you handle that? The answer is fairly simple. Let them talk. Let that person jump in and say what they want, and let them finish their thoughts. This works for a multitude of reasons. If someone wants to talk a lot, then listen. There's no better cure for a person that wants to talk than letting them get their thoughts out of their head. Let them say what they want to say. When they have nothing left, you will be able to make your point.

• 2:06:09Jocko Willink?

  This is also good because as they unload all their ideas, you now know not only everything you know, you also know everything they know. Armed with this knowledge, you can assess their ideas. You can formulate counterpoints or recommendations around their thoughts. This works just as well, or even better, in a group where you listen to multiple people, break down their own ideas, argue with one another, and ask questions of one another about the details of their ideas. Once again, this whole time, you get to more clearly understand the thoughts of others while quietly strengthening your own thoughts or ideas around the subject. When you finally do find the opportunity to speak, you have the most comprehensive and developed thoughts.

• 2:06:51Speaker 02

  Jocko just revealed the secret behind his secret power, right there.

• 2:06:56Jocko Willink?

  That is definitely.

• 2:06:57Speaker 02

  That was one of the major ones, yeah. Remember I told you, like, I didn't really realize how deep that goes, that concept right there. And then when I sort of, I still probably don't know how deep it goes, but now, like, I see it a lot. I'm like, ooh, and then when you do it, you're like, oh, man, I should have done this from the beginning.

• 2:07:14Jocko Willink?

  We had a muster, and I, the, the, the numbers I gave was, hey, as a leader, you should be listening 98% of the time and talking 2% of the time. But that's the way it is.

• 2:07:25Dave Berke?

  Yeah. What's the depth of that you're talking about? What's actually required, though, during that, that time, is that you're actually listening, though? Not just like, I'm gonna let it get out of their system, or you're being just, you actually need to listen with enough humility to go, there is a good chance, somebody here is gonna say something that I haven't thought about, that I haven't considered. If you, as a leader, like, I've got it all dialed in, but I'm gonna play this game to kind of let my people talk, and what you're doing is just letting it get out of the system, so you can then come in with the final. That's not what that 98/2 is. That 98/2 is, man, they got a lot of people, a lot of things to say here. I'm surrounded by probably a few smart people. Somebody's gonna say something I haven't thought about, and you need to listen actively for what those things are.

• 2:08:10Dave Berke?

  And that gets back to a comment from earlier in the book, and a comment we've hit over and over again, is you have to care about your people. You have to care about them, and which means you have to trust them and believe in them, and vice versa. And somebody's gonna say something that is right. And it's not a game to wait till the end, so you drop in your 2% and win. It's that you are armed with all what you have, and then what they have too, and actually makes you a better leader. The caring about your people part is easy to say, that's really, that's hard. That is hard to do.

• 2:08:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, even in a conflict situation.

• 2:08:43Dave Berke?

  Yeah, I mean, especially in that, right?

• 2:08:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's when, yeah, it's gonna show itself a lot, big time, where, especially when there's more than one, one person in the conflict, right? Like a debate or something like that. It's interesting, because you're so compelled, especially if you got a little knowledge yourself, right? To jump in and correct you right there and all you were wrong about this, this is actually really what you know. Kind of thing. But yeah, if you just sit back, let that fly, listen, let them fly, you know, let that fly. Maybe they even meant something else, you know, and just like you're saying, like really listen. Cause you'll find out really what they're talking about. Cause if you interrupt too quick, a lot of the time in my experience anyway. You interrupt too quick and then it's like, oh, they were getting to that. You know, like you shouldn't have interrupted, then you would have known that without even looking dumb or whatever.

• 2:09:27Speaker 02

  So, yeah, man, so at the end, then you have like all the information, just like you're like, not only do you know what you knew. And maybe you changed your mind. Maybe you didn't, but at least now you know.

• 2:09:39Jocko Willink?

  You've improved your position. And, and this is just one of the, one more thing that's counterintuitive. Because someone might think, hey, I want the team to listen to me. So what I'm gonna do is talk more and talk louder. And, and it is the absolute opposite is what happens. The, the less you talk, the more people listen. The less you talk, the more people listen. Totally counterintuitive and 100% undeniable. Now, what's interesting too is. When you're coming to these conclusions in your head, which.

• 2:10:22Jocko Willink?

  As you're watching or as you're listening to some people talk or discuss or debate or argue, right? That whole time you're thinking, okay, and at some point. You can chime in, right? And what's interesting is you don't even have to try and chime in with an answer. There's times where after 20 minutes of debate, I chime in with one question. And yet the question is because that's the, all these other, all these other. Less important questions and answers have been brought up and discussed and but there's really one question that hasn't even been brought up and no one can see it because they're in the battle. So I can ask because because again, I'm not to your point, Dave, I'm not sitting

• 2:11:06Jocko Willink?

  there thinking I'm waiting for everyone because I already know the answer. I'm actually listening and trying to assemble this entire picture. So when I as this picture gets filled in by what everyone's saying at the end, now it's revealed that there's something that's still missing. And now guess who gets to ask this profound question that if we as a team can answer this question, we will actually have the solution.

• 2:11:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's all clear to him. It's all clear to us. We're like, what about this? What about that?

• 2:11:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's the I the ability to detach to step back to listen instead of talk is really powerful for a leader. Got a little section about the about apologizing. I got a section about how you gotta be careful with your words as a leader. You must be careful not to gossip, not to become too familiar, casual, or unguarded with your troops. Gossip, sarcasm, and flippant remarks all carry too much weight when thrown around by the leader. Ribbing comments that might seem harmless among friends can have a real impact on a subordinate. Even legitimate criticism needs to be delivered with caution, preferably in private, so that

• 2:12:22Jocko Willink?

  dignity is maintained. This is not to say that critical mistakes should not be reviewed so the whole team can learn, but criticism must be constructive and aimed at not in an individual's potential, but at the specific mistakes themselves. This is I'll do this. I'll because you know, I'll be sitting around joking around with everyone and we'll be having a good time and I'll throw a zinger at someone and I'll be like, yeah, that was an uncool, you know, and sometimes I won't even I won't even realize it and I'll have to think about it. And I'll say, oh, yeah. What conversation did you and I have about being an asshole? I was like, hey, Dave, you know, like, I'm an asshole and I have to basically muzzle that.

• 2:13:01Speaker 02

  We've had that several times.

• 2:13:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, we've had it several times. And you have thrown some zingers out where I've given you the look like, well, that was an asshole move right there. Like, yeah, you're like, yes, it was. Perhaps worth it, maybe not. But yeah, that's one of those I I.

• 2:13:18Jocko Willink?

  I realize this, you know, there's two, there's two ends to this. One end is when you're in a leadership position, you don't realize the weight of your compliments. And you don't realize the weight of your criticisms. So you might not think saying, "Hey Echo, that video looked great," you know, or whatever. You might, you might think, "I'm not gonna tell Echo, because I don't care. Hey, the video was, video was good to go, but he knows that." No, it's like, like, it actually carries weight. And, and I will forget that all day long. I'll be, and, and basically, it's a, it's a lack of awareness of like, "Hey, I'm actually like in an elevated position in this team."

• 2:14:02Jocko Willink?

  Whatever. I'll make that mistake. You know, I made, I would make this mistake at Trade Day, you know, when I was, or in tasking a bruiser. But I would make the mistake, but as I started to understand, I realized, "Hey, you need to be careful with your words." You need to be careful. You need to understand the weight of the impact of the things that you're saying, both positive and negative. Because they carry weight that you may or may not understand from that leadership position.

• 2:14:36Jocko Willink?

  You know what, let's, let's get, wrap this into the conclusion.

• 2:14:43Jocko Willink?

  Conclusion, it's all on you, but not about you.

• 2:14:49Jocko Willink?

  And I try and sum this up, but I'm gonna skip a little bit of it here.

• 2:14:56Jocko Willink?

  Leadership is all on you, but at the same time, leadership is not about you, not at all. Leadership is about the team. The team is more important than you are. The moment you put your own interests above the team and above the mission is the moment you fail as a leader. When you think you can get away with it, when you think the team won't notice your self-serving maneuvers, you are wrong. Your people will see it, and they will know it.

• 2:15:30Jocko Willink?

  The leadership strategies and tactics in this book are to be used not so you can be successful. These strategies and tactics are to be used so the team can be successful. If you use them to further your own career or your own agenda, eventually these strategies and tactics will backfire and bring you down. You will fail as a leader and as a person. But if you use these strategies and tactics with the goal of helping others and of helping the team accomplish its mission, then the team will succeed. And if the team succeeds,

• 2:16:11Jocko Willink?

  you win as a leader and as a person. But infinitely more important, your people win. And that is true leadership.

• 2:16:30Jocko Willink?

  So probably a decent enough place where we tried to get through it. What are we only at two hours? That's not too bad. That's not too bad right there. Yeah. So obviously, we skipped all kinds of stuff in this book. I like Dave. Thanks for pointing out the fact that the details in the book are important. Obviously, the sections we covered, there's sections, but even just the sections that we did cover, but then I didn't read everything. There's a lot in it. Yeah. It's it's pregnant with information. And that's a term that would get used to describe Shakespeare when I was in college, that these words. Now, am I over

• 2:17:15Jocko Willink?

  here trying to imply that Will Shakespeare just wrote Leadership Strategy and Tactics? No.

• 2:17:19Speaker 02

  Sounded like it. I don't know.

• 2:17:21Jocko Willink?

  Danger close. Danger close. But what I am saying is what Dave said.

• 2:17:26Speaker 02

  Kind of the same. They're kind of the same.

• 2:17:28Jocko Willink?

  No, they're not even close. I'm not even in the same ballpark. But what Dave said is true. Lots of the information in there is.

• 2:17:37Jocko Willink?

  It's there's, there's a lot in the words, in the chapters, in the details, in the stories that will add to your comprehension as a leader.

• 2:17:46Speaker 02

  The, what, um, okay, so I have the original PDF of this, by the way. I'm not gonna say why, but I do. Uh, when I like all read certain chapters, if I'm thinking of a very specific scenario going down for myself, you know, like if, you know, whatever, you know, whatever the case may be, this is not my scenario, but let's say you get into an argument with your coworker or something like this, or your boss or wife or whatever, even like with your kids or whatever. And you say, okay, I have this scenario, how am I gonna like navigate through this scenario? Cause you're still, you're mad and you're this and you, whatever. And then you read that, that's when, in my experience, that's when that really, really helps.

• 2:18:29Jocko Willink?

  Well, working, the book is short chapters. It's heavily indexed, so you can just look up, hey, what do I do here? What do I do there?

• 2:18:38Speaker 02

  That helps, yeah.

• 2:18:38Jocko Willink?

  I'm sure people will put tabs all through it like they do with dichotomy leadership, like they do with extreme ownership, that they'll be able to, well, here it is, yep, I'm making this mistake, oh, here's, here's how I should handle this situation. So, yeah, I'm sure, um, yeah, I just, I, I hope it, I hope it's able to give people information, give them strategy and tactics they can actually implement that they can use, and we covered a bunch of it, not all of it, but I wish I had this book. I just wish I had this book 30 years ago when I joined the Navy. I wish I had this book, cause it would have made everything so much easier, it would have made me so much better and so much more effective.

• 2:19:23Jocko Willink?

  But, oh well, you know, the best, best time to plant a tree was 30 years ago. The second best time is right now. So there you go, leadership strategy and tactics. So, probably a good place to wrap it up. Echo.

• 2:19:37Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:19:37Jocko Willink?

  Charles.

• 2:19:38Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:19:38Jocko Willink?

  So, any final thoughts on the leadership strategy and tactics?

• 2:19:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, so the...

• 2:19:47Speaker 02

  The field manual, the first field manual.

• 2:19:51Jocko Willink?

  The discipline equals freedom field manual.

• 2:19:52Speaker 02

  Field manual, yes. It's a field manual for getting after it, right? Yes, true. This is a field manual for life. So. And I say, I mean, a bold statement, I get it, but here, this is what it is. Like, let's say hypothetically, I mean, really, maybe, is this realistic? Maybe, maybe not, but let's say you had it in your pocket the whole time, everywhere you went, right?

• 2:20:13Jocko Willink?

  Jack.

• 2:20:14Speaker 02

  Any situation where you get into like some conflict with someone else, the, like, you'll literally find the answer in there. For your answer, and this is why. So, you know how like, um, and let's be realistic, like in a, in a scenario with a coworker. Love, you know, when you're in it, when you're not detached, you're all emotional. And you know, you say how to, how to deal with that, where you're like, um, you know, take a deep breath and you gotta recognize the signs and like all this stuff, right? So you gotta go kind of through this little process. Some of us do go through this process to kind of calm down or whatever, right? You just reading it, not necessarily you, but like if you read it for yourself, like you read the solutions, that in and of itself will detach you from it.

• 2:20:56Speaker 02

  Cause it's like the words are like, oh, this is what you're going through right now. And you're like, oh, this is what I'm going through right now. This is what you do. Okay. And then you just do it. You see what I'm saying? So yeah, man. And it's so like, um, like, what do you call, when you chopped it up like pretty, you just said the word.

• 2:21:11Jocko Willink?

  Index, highly indexed.

• 2:21:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, highly indexed. Yeah, yeah. So it's not like.

• 2:21:15Jocko Willink?

  Highly indexed. I think there's like, there's eighty plus chapters in there. Whereas, you know, a normal book has what, ten, twelve, something like that, chapters.

• 2:21:23Speaker 02

  Yeah. So you know what I mean? So it's gonna be a little bit more difficult to, to apply that kind of concept to like a, let's say a regular book.

• 2:21:31Jocko Willink?

  And to be quite honest with you.

• 2:21:35Speaker 02

  Please.

• 2:21:36Jocko Willink?

  The, we tried to ma, I tried to make the book a little bit smaller, so it is more portable.

• 2:21:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:21:42Jocko Willink?

  So there you go. And by the way, one thing that, uh, you need to get credit for is on the cover. So.

• 2:21:52Jocko Willink?

  We'll say that we designed the cover.

• 2:21:53Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 2:21:54Jocko Willink?

  But the FM Tac 02 was 100% from Echo Charles. And when I saw that, I was like, okay, that is legit. That is totally legit. And people that are wondering about the cover of the book. It's got some military symbols on it from operational terms and graphics of 101 Tac 5 Tac 1. And what they actually show is one of them is a support by fire position. One of them is a attack by fire position. And what that is is cover and move. So you've got one element that's putting down support fire, the other element that's attacking. And then the symbol is a enemy headquarters and the X through it means destroy.

• 2:22:39Jocko Willink?

  So there is some.

• 2:22:40Speaker 02

  You know what that is, right?

• 2:22:41Jocko Willink?

  There's layers. That's a little something we call layers. So hopefully, and we do know that you do have a fineness, a fondness for cargo pants. So there's a possible cargo shorts, sorry.

• 2:22:54Speaker 02

  Both pants, shorts.

• 2:22:56Jocko Willink?

  There's a possibility that the cargo shorts or pants could have a cargo pocket that is big enough possibly to enable you to carry this with you at all times.

• 2:23:05Speaker 02

  It's possible, you know, or get the Kindle version, whichever.

• 2:23:08Jocko Willink?

  Just kidding. It's not that small. Oh, good point. Good point. Awesome. All right, Dave, any closing thoughts?

• 2:23:15Dave Berke?

  I agree with you, Echo. I think the way you said that is actually pretty good.

• 2:23:20Dave Berke?

  You know, I got a chance to read this little advanced copy and then I also read the final version right before he printed it. So I've seen it a couple of times and we've talked about it. When, when you guys out there, whenever he's out there reading this, one of the things I did, and I started to think about this is all those little indexes. There is a thread of every single thing in this book, every little index, every little story, whatever the situation is, that goes back to the ultimate strategy for being successful as a leader, which is the threat of extreme ownership. And so for each one of those things that you're going through it, when you're thinking about, we were talking about ultimatums or yelling or all.

• 2:24:01Dave Berke?

  Every one of those situations, what you can look at is think, what is it that I've done to be either the recipient of this situation or me acting out this way as a leader or my behavior? The connection to the one thing that actually is the most critical strategy in all of this. Which is extreme ownership is embedded in every one of those things. And I think that's why I made such a big deal early on about having to read every single little thing in this book, all the different components that we might have skipped over just for time. They're all in there. They all circle back to that theme. Which without it, that's missing. If you can't do, if you can't get over that hurdle,

• 2:24:45Dave Berke?

  all like kind of the answers and the conclusions and solutions, they won't work.

• 2:24:49Speaker 02

  Yep, they're gonna slip.

• 2:24:50Dave Berke?

  They won't work. And so for this field manual to work, what is required is the ultimate strategy, which is you are responsible for everything. And if you read it that way, you will see the connection in every one of those indexes back to that one thing. And those two things are indelibly connected as a leader. And without that, none of the other stuff can happen.

• 2:25:11Speaker 02

  So true. So true. Because it's easy to be like, oh yeah, my boss, he really needs to do the, you know, that whole classic thing. Like, man, if my boss would just take some extreme ownership. That's a good book. That's a good book. It explains my boss very well. You see what I'm saying? But it's no man, it's yourself.

• 2:25:26Jocko Willink?

  And you know,

• 2:25:29Jocko Willink?

  inherent in that, and this is another piece of it that people get wrong. We all get wrong. It's a mistake that we all make because we think leading is about us. We think leading is about us. And it isn't. It isn't about us at all. It is about, it is about your people. It's about the people.

• 2:25:59Jocko Willink?

  And if you take care of your people, yes, then those people will take care of you. And that's what this book is about, is how do you actually take care of your people? How do you actually do that? How do you communicate with those people?

• 2:26:19Jocko Willink?

  And if you can learn, a huge part of that is yes, you are going to take the onus on yourself.

• 2:26:29Jocko Willink?

  Of communicating correctly because when you're talking you're 50% of the solution. The other person actually has to hear you. How do you get them to hear you? How do you become 100% of the solution? How do you learn to communicate in a way that people actually listen and hear you and understand you?

• 2:26:47Jocko Willink?

  And then how do you give them that underlying? The underlying, the underlying thread of what you're doing as a leader, you need to know that they understand. That you care about them, that that's what you're doing.

• 2:27:04Jocko Willink?

  And when you care about them and when you can communicate with them properly.

• 2:27:10Jocko Willink?

  Then you can lead them.

• 2:27:13Jocko Willink?

  So. Leadership, strategy and tactics. Thanks for the feedback, guys.

• 2:27:20Jocko Willink?

  And speaking of. Communicating with people.

• 2:27:26Jocko Willink?

  I am going to go communicate with people. I'm going on tour. Yes.

• 2:27:30Speaker 02

  Hell yeah.

• 2:27:30Jocko Willink?

  Yes, like a rock band. Now, there will be no music.

• 2:27:33Speaker 02

  No.

• 2:27:34Jocko Willink?

  And there will be no Jägermeister.

• 2:27:35Speaker 02

  Okay, alright.

• 2:27:37Jocko Willink?

  And there will be no tour bus.

• 2:27:39Speaker 02

  Good.

• 2:27:39Jocko Willink?

  But I will be speaking about a myriad of subjects. I'll be talking about leadership. I'll be talking about war. I'll be talking about discipline. I'll be talking about fear.

• 2:27:49Jocko Willink?

  I'll be talking about life. I'll be talking about death.

• 2:27:53Jocko Willink?

  I'll be answering questions. I'll be meeting with you. So if you want to. Experience that with me. Then come to the live gigs on the road. January 6th in DC. January 11th in Austin. January 16th in New York. January 20th, LA. January 27th, Seattle. January 28th, San Francisco.

• 2:28:20Jocko Willink?

  Some of the gigs are sold out. Go to jockolive.com to see if you can get tickets for one of the gigs. Look forward to seeing you there.

• 2:28:31Jocko Willink?

  So that we can get after it and get after it is something that uh let's face it in my little scenario here get after it gets used quite a bit and I was searching for the words to explain to people like what I'm going to do at the live shows what I'm gonna do and the I'm not kidding the only thing I could come up with is I'm gonna get after it and if you know me you know what that means and it means a lot of different things but I'm gonna get after it at those live shows so hope to see you there

• 2:29:10Jocko Willink?

  and beyond that I know we talked about leadership a lot today we talked about taking care of our people we talked about taking ownership

• 2:29:20Jocko Willink?

  how do we take care of ourselves Echo Charles which in turn will help us to take care how do we take ownership of our own lives and get ourselves on the right path anyways I bet there's a lot of people that are wondering what your answer is gonna be right now

• 2:29:34Speaker 02

  all right well gonna be a little bit different as far as the approach because

• 2:29:41Speaker 02

  I read some books watched some videos right so I'm just saying throughout my life and a common or a common tip bit of advice is exercise right exercise pretty much the most beneficial step you can take to improve quick like right away

• 2:30:00Jocko Willink?

  universally across the board

• 2:30:02Speaker 02

  universally across the board right so and I'm I'm not a stranger to exercise we'll say but you know how you get in a routine right how's is your exercise routine pretty repetitive like it's pretty the same

• 2:30:15Speaker 02

  like week to week we'll say

• 2:30:19Jocko Willink?

  we'd have to have a whole like spin off conversation about that right there's a whole lot of things wrapped around

• 2:30:25Speaker 02

  okay here here's a question then uh

• 2:30:27Jocko Willink?

  yeah specify

• 2:30:28Speaker 02

  do you switch up your workout so it's more interesting because that's the thing

• 2:30:34Jocko Willink?

  Not so it's more interesting, but so it's more effective.

• 2:30:36Speaker 02

  Okay, gotcha. So, a big part of exercising, right, is it gets monotonous. So people will be like, "Oh, I want something more fun."

• 2:30:44Jocko Willink?

  Yep. You know what I will say today? I was doing a routine. So that means there is some, and I have a bunch of, you know, routines that I do, or whatever. Discipline vs. Freedom Field Manual, they're in there. I was doing, I've been, and I'll get focused on one for a while, and kind of like, you know, uh, trying to improve that area. And today, I had a pull-up day, right? And so it was weight vest pull-ups, I was doing L-sit pull-ups, tuck pull-ups, dead hang pull-ups, chin-ups, and then kipping pull-ups, right? And I was doing a lot of them. And I mean, four pull-ups into this workout, which is gonna be hundreds of pull-ups, I was just so bummed out.

• 2:31:27Jocko Willink?

  I was like, I was, I was scrambling through my brain, looking for any reason that I should not do this workout. And then I just did it. But I felt it.

• 2:31:40Speaker 02

  When, when was this?

• 2:31:41Jocko Willink?

  This was this morning.

• 2:31:41Speaker 02

  This morning. Man, that's coincidentally, I went through the same thing yesterday. Five times throughout the workout, I was doing that. Like, oh, because I had legitimate, like, I had an AC joint situation. So when I'm like lifting heavy overhead, it's like, it just didn't go. And I was, and I was fired up to do that exercise. So I wasn't trying to, I was like, no, I'm gonna power through. It was injured. It's injured. So I was like, okay, I can't do that exercise. So I was like, man, I might as well just make it a rest day, and I'll pick it back up tomorrow, or the next day, or whatever, maybe next week, whatever, you know, kind of thing, right?

• 2:32:15Jocko Willink?

  Nice little excuse was packaged up for you.

• 2:32:17Speaker 02

  It kind of was. I mean, that's kind of legit, right? Because it kind of will throw up.

• 2:32:21Jocko Willink?

  I had no excuses this morning. I was searching for it.

• 2:32:24Speaker 02

  Well, anyway, so the thing went on, and that happened five times throughout the workout. Five. Powered through all of them, though. Got the workout done. And actually did a little, four extra reps at the end.

• 2:32:35Jocko Willink?

  See, discipline begets discipline, right? You got fired up, you got disciplined, and you impose more discipline.

• 2:32:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's true.

• 2:32:42Jocko Willink?

  I have no idea why we're talking about this right now.

• 2:32:43Speaker 02

  Oh, well, okay, okay, yeah, a little bit of deep deviation for sure. But, exercise, good for you, across the board, universally, one of the best steps you can take. Short-term and long-term, by the way. For yourself, to improve yourself, stay on the path, be on the path, get on the path. Right, but here's the thing, so exercise does get, like, my workout routine is the same. Week to week, it's the same, more or less. And you know, every time, and here's why I don't switch it up. It's kind of a weird mindset, I guess, but it, so you know, okay, okay, sometimes I'll switch an exercise to be, and then I'm thinking, dang, this is like more fun, it's more interesting, because it's interesting, it's new, you know, it's a new exercise.

• 2:33:21Speaker 02

  So I don't, I don't do that a lot. In fact, I don't want to do that because what if I really need to do it then, because it'll be boring after a while if I keep doing that, see what I'm saying? Like if I do barbell clean and press, right, and I'm like, let me switch it up to kettlebells, then I started doing kettlebells and that gets boring, now what do I have, nothing.

• 2:33:36Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:33:37Speaker 02

  I can't do it, you know? Anyway, it's a weird thing, but here's the thing though.

• 2:33:42Jocko Willink?

  I'm sure there's a point coming somewhere in the very near future.

• 2:33:45Speaker 02

  Critical, critical point too. So that's just the fitness part of it, but here's what I realized, this is why lifting the same routine and conditioning with the same routine is no problem. Because I do jiu-jitsu. There's no monotony, there's no repetitiveness in jiu-jitsu. Well, unless you're getting tapped out by Jaku's Guillotine, then that gets kind of repetitive and monotonous. But aside from that, always different. That's why it never really gets boring. You ever realize that?

• 2:34:12Jocko Willink?

  So you recommend jiu-jitsu?

• 2:34:13Speaker 02

  Big time. Kind of like surfing too, by the way.

• 2:34:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, true.

• 2:34:17Speaker 02

  So, one of the many benefits.

• 2:34:18Jocko Willink?

  Based on your strong recommendation to do jiu-jitsu. We start jiu-jitsu. We're gonna need a gi.

• 2:34:24Speaker 02

  That's true, or jin gi, by the way.

• 2:34:26Jocko Willink?

  Get an origin gi.

• 2:34:27Speaker 02

  In case you were wondering on that one.

• 2:34:29Jocko Willink?

  Origin gi, not just because they're made in America, not just because they grow our economy, not just because they make freedom stronger in the entire world. Those are all good reasons. On top of that, you might as well get the best possible gi that was designed for jiu-jitsu by jiu-jitsu players.

• 2:34:46Speaker 02

  Yep, in the world too, by the way. Very true. Also jeans, so jeans, yeah, no, you're not gonna work out in the jeans, I get it, but.

• 2:34:55Jocko Willink?

  You can.

• 2:34:56Speaker 02

  You can.

• 2:34:57Jocko Willink?

  Definitely can. I'm going to, I'm gonna do a squat workout in the jeans just for, just, just, just because.

• 2:35:04Speaker 02

  Cause, yeah, yeah, market, market, re- research, something like this. Anyway, jeans, same deal, American denim, made in America, from the cotton all the way to the jeans, boom, big deal, same thing with it.

• 2:35:17Jocko Willink?

  Did you say t-shirts?

• 2:35:19Speaker 02

  I did not say t-shirts, but.

• 2:35:21Jocko Willink?

  So basically clothing, we can cover it. And then, uh, what about supplementation?

• 2:35:26Speaker 02

  Supplements, most important kind of supplements for your joints. You can take all the creatine in the world. But if your joint's not working, you still got problems. You're not moving forward, not very fast. Anyway. I don't think so. Anyway, nonetheless, joint warfare, krill oil, super krill oil.

• 2:35:44Speaker 02

  These are things for your joints. Also, discipline. Okay. Dave Berke. Good deal, Dave.

• 2:35:50Speaker 02

  We started to have a discussion about your discipline use.

• 2:35:57Speaker 02

  Do we, are we preferring the canned, uh, what do you call them? Ready, RT, RTD, discipline, go cans? Or the powder?

• 2:36:07Dave Berke?

  RTD is ready to deploy. Is that?

• 2:36:09Jocko Willink?

  Ready to drink.

• 2:36:10Dave Berke?

  Ready to drink.

• 2:36:10Jocko Willink?

  And it's actually an industry term.

• 2:36:12Dave Berke?

  Got it. It was a military play on term.

• 2:36:15Jocko Willink?

  I like, ready to deploy better.

• 2:36:17Dave Berke?

  I have, I was shifted. I had, I had shifted my bias to the RTD cans. Cause I had a bunch of them. They are literally on my way between the house and the car. If I'm going somewhere. I can grab it and literally I'm on the, I'm ready to, it's ready to deploy at any moment. Little curve ball in the can scenario, which was the Jaco Palmer powder. So the powder showed up and I tried it and I realized what it was and then how good the Jaco Palmer was. I have now. Reduced my reliance on the cans and I'm back on the powder a little bit.

• 2:36:50Jocko Willink?

  The powder, not only is it Jaco Palmer, look, it tastes good. Look, it delivers, it delivers what it says it's going to deliver. But do we not all have just steeped in our brain memories of, of Arnold Palmer iced teas? Just in restaurants, in real nice restaurants. I was down in South Carolina and I went to this restaurant. They had that Arnold Palmer. It's so good. You know what I mean? Does everyone not just have that? Remember, remember this too? You go to different restaurants. And they they're not all the same Arnold Palmer said well some of them are really good. Some of them and some of them. You want it, you want it, you want to uproot the entire restaurant and move it next to your house so you can get that Arnold Palmer.

• 2:37:35Jocko Willink?

  Whenever that whenever you want it. That's what that's what this is.

• 2:37:41Speaker 02

  That's your jam.

• 2:37:42Jocko Willink?

  That good.

• 2:37:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, the answer is no, I don't think all of us have those thoughts, but yeah, man, sounds good and it does taste good for sure. Yeah, yeah, all good. Also, speaking of tasting good, milk, okay, now, milk, the dessert in the form of a protein.

• 2:37:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:37:58Speaker 02

  Or the protein.

• 2:37:59Jocko Willink?

  Protein in form of dessert.

• 2:38:00Speaker 02

  Dessert, hey, vice versa, what's good for the goose is good for the, again, you understand what I'm saying. Anyway. The mint, we have not spoken about mint chocolate in, I would say, one month and a half.

• 2:38:13Jocko Willink?

  That's definitely a problem. Because if you think I haven't, I, that is still my go to, that is still my go to. When I need a dessert. Hitter. The top of the pack for me is still mint. Mint chocolate chip. I get it, Dave, that has abandoned mint.

• 2:38:38Speaker 02

  He has, okay.

• 2:38:39Jocko Willink?

  He's abandoned mint, he's abandoned peanut butter. And he's gone full strawberry.

• 2:38:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:38:45Jocko Willink?

  Strawberry milk.

• 2:38:46Speaker 02

  That's good, but.

• 2:38:47Dave Berke?

  Is that the point that, so we did a muster where we laid out a single serve pack of all the mulks across all the tables? And I actually considered taking all the strawberry singles or impacts, like, this is not happening. I'm taking all of these. I didn't do that, but I actually, I had that thought.

• 2:39:06Jocko Willink?

  You thought about it.

• 2:39:06Dave Berke?

  I did, no.

• 2:39:08Jocko Willink?

  I will say. That when you put them on the dessert meter, zero is not dessert, 10 is dessert.

• 2:39:20Jocko Willink?

  The strawberry is the, is dessert. I mean, it is dessert. You have to really think through it to think that you're not eating dessert.

• 2:39:30Jocko Willink?

  Mint is awesome.

• 2:39:31Speaker 02

  Agreed, fully.

• 2:39:32Jocko Willink?

  Mint is awesome, but mint is like having chocolate milk, like, like old school, you mix up a Nestle's quick and you're like, oh, this tastes good right now. I like it a lot. But that's not dessert level. It's really good. It's a nine. But the strawberry is dessert, straight up.

• 2:39:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, agreed. That, that is true, for sure.

• 2:39:51Jocko Willink?

  I mean, and I drink the nine all day long, because even, I mean, I'll drink the nine, and the peanut butter is the same thing.

• 2:39:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:39:58Jocko Willink?

  And I had the chocolate the other day, because Be Little, I said, Be Little, how, tell me about the chocolate again. And he goes, he says, dude, you need to, he goes, how many times have you had it? I said, twice. And he goes, have it again right now. So I, I went home and I mixed up a chocolate. And I had to say, this is good.

• 2:40:19Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:40:19Jocko Willink?

  The darkness.

• 2:40:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, I am sticking with the mint chocolate, but I put peanut butter in it.

• 2:40:26Jocko Willink?

  Which is just weird. Why don't you have peanut butter?

• 2:40:29Speaker 02

  Because then you don't have the mint. Then it's like, man, why even, why even carry on, you know?

• 2:40:33Jocko Willink?

  I'm not gonna make any progress.

• 2:40:35Speaker 02

  Nonetheless, this is all good stuff. Also, Jaco White Tea, by the way, certified organic, very light, very refreshing, very delicious. These are soft words compared to the hardcore persona slash image that we may have of Jaco, but hey, these are the facts, and that's how it's going down.

• 2:40:54Jocko Willink?

  I thought that you were gonna say that we may have, meaning you.

• 2:40:57Speaker 02

  Of you.

• 2:40:58Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:40:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's true.

• 2:40:59Jocko Willink?

  Good maneuver. I think you painted yourself in a corner. You found a way out.

• 2:41:02Speaker 02

  Hey, man, I'm just, you know, I'm just cruising. Anyway, we get all this stuff at orgyidbane.com.

• 2:41:07Jocko Willink?

  Yes, indeed.

• 2:41:07Speaker 02

  Good stuff on there. Also, Jaco's store, it's called Jaco Store, jacostore.com. This is our website. This is where you can get t-shirts, jackets, hoodies, hats.

• 2:41:20Speaker 02

  Rash Guards, representative of the path. Discipline equals freedom, good, def core, to the core, all that stuff.

• 2:41:31Jocko Willink?

  Don't forget about this podcast and the fact that you should subscribe to it if you haven't already, which is entirely up to you.

• 2:41:39Speaker 02

  Completely, yes.

• 2:41:40Jocko Willink?

  We recommend that you do subscribe to this podcast. And also, don't forget that we have the grounded podcast, which is about life.

• 2:41:51Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:41:52Jocko Willink?

  And a lot of jujitsu.

• 2:41:53Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:41:54Jocko Willink?

  Which is the same thing in many ways.

• 2:41:56Speaker 02

  Same thing, yeah, correct.

• 2:41:58Jocko Willink?

  And the Warrior Kid Podcast, have you listened to the new ones yet, Dave?

• 2:42:01Speaker 02

  No.

• 2:42:01Jocko Willink?

  With the children?

• 2:42:02Speaker 02

  Nope.

• 2:42:03Jocko Willink?

  I think you're gonna like them.

• 2:42:04Speaker 02

  That will happen soon.

• 2:42:04Jocko Willink?

  I think you're gonna like them. I think the kids are gonna like them. There's some lessons. I get done recording those. And I don't know, I don't know what else in my life gives me the feeling of getting done recording a Warrior Kid Podcast where I felt like I've done something really good. Like just something, I'm like, I'm like, yep, I mean, I get done and I go, yep. I passed a good, I did, I did a good deed.

• 2:42:31Speaker 02

  That's good, yeah.

• 2:42:32Jocko Willink?

  And then this is kind of revealing because it shows you that I don't do a lot of good stuff. Most of the stuff I'm doing is bad.

• 2:42:40Jocko Willink?

  So when I get done recording, I'm like, man, I, I, that was, that was a good thing. A kid's gonna hear that and it's gonna help them. That makes me feel good. And then speaking of kids, speaking of Warrior Kids, check out IrishOaksRanch.com where young Aiden is making soap from goat milk on his farm so that you can stay clean.

• 2:43:07Speaker 02

  Yes, sir. And we are looking forward to the new, that new one.

• 2:43:12Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 2:43:13Speaker 02

  Right, that's still a go.

• 2:43:14Jocko Willink?

  We are making a new soap and the soap has antibacterial.

• 2:43:20Speaker 02

  Bacterial.

• 2:43:21Jocko Willink?

  Antibacterial properties to it, antifungal properties.

• 2:43:26Speaker 02

  Take it.

• 2:43:27Jocko Willink?

  And the soap is going to be called. Killer soap.

• 2:43:31Speaker 02

  Boom. Good. Simple. Very much in line. Yeah, very good. Also YouTube, we have a YouTube channel if you are interested in watching the video version of this podcast. Also excerpts on there, enhanced excerpts from time to time on there if you enjoy.

• 2:43:50Jocko Willink?

  Explosions and fire.

• 2:43:52Speaker 02

  And music to.

• 2:43:54Jocko Willink?

  Dramatic cello music.

• 2:43:55Speaker 02

  To help deliver the message of the path visually and audibly.

• 2:44:02Jocko Willink?

  We're four years deep right now.

• 2:44:05Speaker 02

  Yes, sir.

• 2:44:05Jocko Willink?

  We were talking about videos the other day and you were talking about some of the victory MMA videos early and you were saying, hey, these are cut, you know, now, at the time, they were kind of awesome.

• 2:44:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:44:17Jocko Willink?

  And they were.

• 2:44:18Speaker 02

  Thanks.

• 2:44:19Jocko Willink?

  Now we look back and it's like, well, you know, they're kind of commonplace.

• 2:44:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, not so awesome.

• 2:44:23Jocko Willink?

  Are you feeling, how are you feeling about the early Jocko podcast videos? Have we, have they become dated yet? Are they timeless?

• 2:44:31Speaker 02

  They're timeless.

• 2:44:31Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:44:32Speaker 02

  I don't know. They're not timeless, obviously, but.

• 2:44:35Jocko Willink?

  Charles over there making timeless videos.

• 2:44:37Speaker 02

  That's not what I'm saying.

• 2:44:39Jocko Willink?

  Well, it's kind of like me being Shakespeare over there.

• 2:44:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, well.

• 2:44:44Speaker 02

  The, let's, I mean, they're a lot more simple than that. You know, I mean, what you figure the first enhanced excerpt was more of an incidental situation. The one, good, good. I, I think that will be timeless, not as far as the video production goes, but like it's the message is the front runner of that whole situation. Let's face it.

• 2:45:07Jocko Willink?

  Cool. I thought it was just your enhanced.

• 2:45:09Speaker 02

  In my opinion.

• 2:45:11Jocko Willink?

  Making that so popular, right?

• 2:45:14Speaker 02

  Anyway, in my opinion, that message is timeless. Yes. So yes, they do still hold up and I think they will hold up for a very long time.

• 2:45:24Jocko Willink?

  Well, I'm glad you feel so good about that.

• 2:45:26Speaker 02

  Anyway, YouTube channel, Chaco Podcast, we do have a YouTube channel. Boom, there it is.

• 2:45:31Jocko Willink?

  Uh, we also have psychological warfare, uh, me talking to you directly into your ears when you are about to make a mistake. And you know what that mistake is? It looks like a donut. I'm not gonna let you do it. It's looks like skipping workout. Not gonna let you do it. Looks like sleeping in in the morning. Not gonna do it. So check out psychological warfare on iTunes, Google Play, whatever MP3 platforms. And if you need a visual, if you need that visual reminder of the path and you need it big on canvas, cool. Go to flipsidecanvas.com, which is my brother Dakota Meyer, Chaco Podcast 115, by the way, who makes graphic representations of the path. So you can hang them on your wall and you'll wake up to them every day.

• 2:46:16Jocko Willink?

  And then we got some books. Obviously, we spent the last two podcasts reviewing leadership strategy and tactics. I think we've got that one out there. Probably enough time for you to preorder right now and get a, a, a first edition. Or you can also not do that and live the rest of your life in shame with a second edition. Choice is yours. I will still sign a second dish. I'll still be like, yeah, man, cool. I'll barely even let you know to be subtle. Be a subtle.

• 2:46:45Speaker 02

  Are you gonna go like, are you gonna look at him and go, dude?

• 2:46:48Jocko Willink?

  No, no, won't it be that?

• 2:46:50Speaker 02

  Cause it's not an issue.

• 2:46:51Jocko Willink?

  No, not a big issue. I appreciate the support.

• 2:46:54Speaker 02

  Makes sense.

• 2:46:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So you can give that a try. Way the Warrior Kid books, one, two, and three. Get them for the kids that you know. Mikey and the Dragons. Get them for the little kids that you know, and some of the big kids too. Learn how to overcome fear. Discipline and Freedom Field Manual, Field Manual 01. Now, I guess it's pre-designated. So that is the, as Echo just said, the field manual on how to get after it. Very important. As Echo Charles says.

• 2:47:22Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:47:23Jocko Willink?

  Lots of Echo Charles quotes over here coming from me. The audio version of that is on iTunes, Amazon Music, Google Play, and also Extreme Ownership and The Dichotomy of Leadership, the two books that I wrote with my brother Leif Babbin. About leadership and how to use the leadership principles we used on the battlefield in your business and in your life and Echelon Front, which is our leadership consultancy. And what we do is solve problems through leadership. Whatever problems you are having in your organization, they are leadership problems. They are absolutely leadership problems, 100%. And I know that might sound crazy for you to hear right now, for me to say that 100% of the problems that you are having in your organization are leadership

• 2:48:08Jocko Willink?

  problems. It is accurate. That's what the problems are. That's where they come from. And we will get them fixed. Go to echelonfront.com for details on that. EF Online, Dave, what do you got?

• 2:48:21Dave Berke?

  If you are on the leadership path and you're training with us, EF Online is an awesome resource to get additional reps and it is a great tool that we use in between working with clients. However, this is completely dual use, that if you are not even remotely engaged with Echelon Front and doing leadership training, this is still a skill that you can develop. And you can go to EF Online and go directly to that as a resource and exposed to all the things that we're teaching, all the things we're teaching clients and customers and all the people we're working with is actually available for anybody. And it is a easy and guaranteed way to apply the principles that we teach everywhere, directly at any

• 2:49:04Dave Berke?

  time you want. It's an awesome, awesome resource.

• 2:49:07Jocko Willink?

  We also have a live event that is the entire Echelon Front team. It's called The Muster. We are doing three gigs in 2020. We're doing one in Florida, Orlando, we're doing one in Dallas, Texas, and we are doing one in Phoenix, Arizona. Go to extremeownership.com for details. All of our musters have sold out in the past. These will sell out too. Don't hesitate. And then we have EF Overwatch and EF Legion. This is our talent acquisition firm where we are taking leaders from the military, from both special operations, combat aviation, and all forces. And we are placing them into civilian businesses. So.

• 2:49:58Jocko Willink?

  If you're a business, you can go on there and look for people to hire. If you're a vet, I'm telling you, go to EFLegion.com and

• 2:50:09Jocko Willink?

  enter yourself, enter your information so that you can see what jobs are out there. You can get information on how to get hired. We can, you can look at jobs that are posted and you can start your next mission of getting after it. That's EFOverwatch and EFLegion.com. And if you haven't heard enough from us yet, which would be surprising. Well, we are available on the interwebs, on Twitter, on Instagram, and on, on that Facebook.

• 2:50:44Jocko Willink?

  Dave is at David R. Burke, B E R K E. Echo is at Echo Charles, and I am at Jaco Willinkan. To all the military folks out there, thanks to you all for protecting our way of life. We, we cherish the gift that you give to us and we thank you for it. And to our police and law enforcement and firefighters and paramedics and EMTs and dispatchers and correctional officers and Border Patrol and Secret Service and all first responders. You also protect our way of life here at home. So thanks to you all as well.

• 2:51:21Jocko Willink?

  And to everyone else out there, just remember that leadership is all on you, but it isn't about you.

• 2:51:33Jocko Willink?

  It's about your team. It's about your people.

• 2:51:36Jocko Willink?

  It's about taking care of your people so they will take care of you. So be that leader.

• 2:51:45Jocko Willink?

  Be that leader. Be the leader that elevates your people and elevates your team by utilizing the right leadership strategies and by utilizing the right tactics.

• 2:52:00Jocko Willink?

  And by going out there every day and getting after it.

• 2:52:08Jocko Willink?

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