254: Discipline is The Supreme Thing That All Victory is Built on. Guidelines for the Leader and Commander pt. 4

0:00:00 - Opening 0:01:00 - Guidelines for the Leader and the Commander, by Gen. Bruce Clarke 1:47:32 - Final thoughts and take-aways. 1:48:56 - How to stay on THE PATH. 2:09:57 - 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 254 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. And joining us again is Dave Berke. Good evening, Dave. Good evening. Last few podcasts, 251 with Leif Babin, 252, 253, also with Dave Berke. We've been making our way through the book Guidelines for the Leader and Commander, which I brought my actual sacred, real copy, not just the photocopy, so Dave could lay eyes on it. And we're approaching the halfway point. We should get to the halfway point today, no promises, because there's, this book is dense. There's all kinds of stuff to unpack.

• 0:46Jocko Willink?

  This is the root of the book that taught me the most about leadership, About Face by Colonel David Hackworth.

• 0:54Jocko Willink?

  Hackworth references this book multiple times in About Face. So the book is Guidelines for the Leader and Commander by General Bruce Clark. World War I, World War II, Korea, Distinguished Service Cross, three Silver Stars, 45 years of service as a leader and a trainer in the Army. Plenty of lessons to learn and we're learning them. We are learning them. So let's get into it. Chapter eight.

• 1:24Jocko Willink?

  Philosophies and principles of training in overseas areas. This is a whole section on how do you train when you're deployed? Section one, the training task, the missions.

• 1:37Jocko Willink?

  The primary mission of all US military forces is to deter communist aggression and if deterrence fails to defeat aggression, when and where it occurs. So sometimes I work with companies and they want to have a mission statement. There's a good example of a mission statement. That's what you're trying to do. This is what, you can make so many decisions based on that kind of mission statement. What your job is, why do we exist?

• 2:07Jocko Willink?

  You ever thought about that one? Why do I exist? What am I here for? You ever think about that Echo Charles? Yes. You think to yourself, I'm here too? I haven't come up with the answer yet. We're working it. Make some video, I don't know, press record, apparently. Check. The mission of the United States Army in oversea, in oversea areas stem logically from this broad US forces mission. Our first commission is to ensure the readiness of US Army forces to defeat communist aggression in overseas theaters. In doing so, we contribute most effectively to the accomplishment of our deterrence mission. Additionally, we have the mission to support US contingency operations in peripheral areas.

• 2:51Jocko Willink?

  The Lebanon and Congo operations are examples in of such contingencies. These missions require that all US Army personnel and units instantly be ready to undertake combat operations. This requirement provides the basis for all overseas training objectives which are presented and discussed in the following paragraph. So, here's what I think you find in organizations. That really nice kind of clean thing gets put out to the troops and then the troops start to do their job and they start to live their lives and they lose track of this. It can happen to an organization. It can happen to you as a human being. You kind of forget where you're going. You forget what you're trying to do.

• 3:35Jocko Willink?

  You forget what the team is here for. You forget what the mission is. Can't let that happen. Got to think about that stuff. So easy to veer off a course. So easy just to, just to get off course a little bit. Have you ever seen, you must have seen this? Gulf War I. Gulf War I, I'm almost positive. Helicopters are holding station. They're, they're holding station and there's a blue on blue and they end up shooting a, an APC. I want to say, was it, was it a Bradley?

• 4:15Speaker 01

  I know, I know what you're talking about. It's a friendly position. I thought it might even have been marine LAVs. Maybe I'm wrong, but it's, yeah, it's a lightly armored American vehicle.

• 4:25Jocko Willink?

  Yep, and you can hear it. It's, it's one of the most horrific things to listen to. But what happens is, these helicopters are in position, and there's just a little bit of a cross breeze. Just a little bit of a cross breeze. And so they don't really recognize it, because they're just slowly getting blown off of their, where they're supposed to be. And guess what? There's multiple helicopters. They're all getting blown off. So, relative to the other helicopters, they're in position. And it's the open desert. And it's hard to tell where you are in the open desert. There's no real, oftentimes, there's no real clean reference points. Oh, there's the, the mountain with the little peak next to it, or there's the river, or the whatever. Those things don't exist. Just big, flat, open.

• 5:06Jocko Willink?

  So these guys drift, and the next thing you know, they're calling in, "Hey, we see an armored vehicle." "Well, there should be no armored vehicles in your area." "Well, are you sure?" "Yeah, we're sure. You should engage that." And not only do they engage the vehicle, some of the guys get out of the vehicle, and they engage the guys that get out. It's, it's absolutely, it's, it's, it's a night, it's a complete nightmare. And here's the really crazy thing. When, once that call goes down, and the pilot realizes what he did, and he says something like, you can hear in his voice, he's gonna throw up. He's just absolutely sick to his stomach. And he says, "Can we return to base? We just, we just, we just engaged our friendly troops."

• 5:49Jocko Willink?

  And whoever's the air mission commander, is that the right term? I guess it's the air mission commander says, "Negative, go back to station and hold for, you know, enemy, enemy vehicles. That's what, you know, you still have your job." But what an example of little, slow drift off course with catastrophic results that can happen when we lose sight of what our mission is.

• 6:16Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, "Objectives of Training." "In order to ensure effective accomplishment of assigned combat operational contingency and peacetime operation missions, the training goal of US forces overseas is to maintain all units and headquarters of the High Command in a state of combat readiness. This goal is equally applicable to combat, combat support, technical and administrative type units, and it is attained through careful attention to the following seven specific training objectives." So, you know, you're in an organization, and we always think of whatever the, whatever the critical mode, the critical piece of that organization is, whether it's the frontline

• 7:00Jocko Willink?

  salesperson, whether it's the frontline infantryman, whoever's making the actual, you know, hand-to-hand combat, who's doing the work? We always focus on them, and he's laying out everybody else, combat support, technical and administrative type units. Everyone's important, and they all have to be trained with this mission in mind. So here's the objectives. One, maintain the proficiency of the individual soldier. That's number one. Proficiency of the individual soldier is number one. Number two, develop a high degree of responsibility and resourcefulness in the commanders and

• 7:43Jocko Willink?

  key personnel, both officers and non-commissioned officers of all units. And one thing, you know, as I continue to read through this book, you can, you can sense there is, there are threads, there is, there is remaining DNA of World War I, of centralized command, of like obedience, and you can feel, you can feel some of that in there, and you can also feel the rejection of that. And so that's why when he says things like, "Hey, it's responsibility and resourcefulness," right? You, this is to, you know, we need our subordinate units to take ownership, we need our subordinate

• 8:25Jocko Willink?

  officers to take ownership and figure out how to do things. That's what, that's the number two. Look, we want our soldiers to be proficient. Number two, we want our leaders to be resourceful and to take ownership.

• 8:38Jocko Willink?

  Number three, achieve on a continuing and progressive basis, the effective integration of new weapons and equipment, new organization and new techniques at all levels of command.

• 8:49Jocko Willink?

  Learning is what the Marine Corps came out with that manual. How legit was that?

• 8:57Speaker 01

  I mean, he's basically saying, you need to figure that you need to adapt, you need to figure this out.

• 9:02Jocko Willink?

  You need to figure this out. And by the way, continuing progressive basis, when does that end? Oh, that's right. It doesn't end. Continuing progressive basis doesn't end. Next, maintain an effective fighting team of the combined arms and supporting units.

• 9:18Jocko Willink?

  Maintain an effective integrated team of the branches and services. We need to work together. And so, so combined arms. What is combined arms? Combined arms is the use of multiple different weapons platforms, all in conjunction to support each other. It's the sort of the highest form of cover and move, right? Because we got aircraft in the sky that are covering the tanks as they move in. The tanks are covering for infantry. The infantry are also covering the tanks, actually. Artillery covering all people. So this is combined arms. It's all these elements covering and moving for each other.

• 10:00Jocko Willink?

  What did I miss on that?

• 10:02Speaker 01

  The piece of that too, you got it right, is, is the intent there sooner or later, the enemy is going to have to respond to something. And when they respond to the tanks, that frees up the infantry. They respond to the aircraft, that frees up the tanks, whatever it is. And the beauty of that is that all these different things you're bringing to bear, I don't care which one is the one that ends up closing the deal. I don't care if it's the tanks that take the final shot of the aircraft. We don't care. We're going to work together. We're going to create a problem for the enemy that they cannot handle. They got to pick one and they're going to lose to the other. And I don't care which one it is.

• 10:31Jocko Willink?

  And this brings forth, this brings forth one of my favorite doctrinal terms of all time, which is, it's the equivalent of checkmate, which is, we are going to capture the enemy in the combined arms dilemma. Meaning there is no escape. You're either going to get killed by the infantry, by the air, by the artillery, by armor. We have you. You are in checkmate. That is the combined arms dilemma where we have you. One of my favorite doctrinal terms.

• 11:08Jocko Willink?

  That put a smile on my face for the day. Also talks about, I already said this one, but maintain an effective integrated team of the branches and services. So yes, Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, all need to work together, develop a high degree of competence in combined and joint operations. Once again, it's interesting teamwork, teamwork, teamwork. All the last three of these are all about working together. And was the last one, develop coordination techniques for the effective accomplishment of inter-allied operations. So it's teamwork, it's out of the seven, four of them are about teamwork. We have to learn how to work together. Understanding the cycles of training. Combat readiness is the joint joining of well-trained men with properly maintained equipment in an organized

• 11:53Jocko Willink?

  unit of high esprit. The first requirement is that the men of this unit be trained as individuals and as a team to carry out their combat jobs with thoroughness and speed. This task surpasses all others for the commander overseas. That type of clarity, once again, if you're a commander on the ground and you're looking at, hey, what's my priority? There you go. This task surpasses all others for commanders overseas, is to make sure that guys are trained, individuals, to work as a team to carry out their jobs. That's the most important thing. Readiness training is therefore the first priority task of every such unit commander. Within the concept of readiness training,

• 12:38Jocko Willink?

  each commander will be required to plan cycles or phases of training to meet varying situations and requirements, the most conspicuous of which is an annual loss of approximately 50% of his personnel who will be replaced by soldiers of varying levels of training and service. And look, the whole time I'm reading this book, and you and I had a funny conversation, when I started sending you pictures of texts of like little sections of the book, and you eventually sent me a text to just cover the whole thing. And I'm like, I will. But I, you know, I, there's parts of it where I go, you know what, that's not 100% applicable, or I'm not really sure how that ties in. And sometimes there are some points where we get to a level of detail. What I found so interesting, and why I wanted

• 13:19Jocko Willink?

  to read this is, there's not too many, you know, when you hear, when you talk civilian companies, they're thinking, oh, well, you know, in the Army, you've got these guys, and they're trained, and they're selected, and, you know, everyone's got this baseline of training.

• 13:35Jocko Willink?

  Well, guess what? You're also losing 50% of your people annually. They're just cycling out. They're either getting out, and this isn't even talking wartime. This is just like life. People move on. So you're constantly in this struggle to train and maintain efficiency. And every time you train someone, for every person you train, one of those people that you trained leaves. One out of every two people that you train leaves, which is, which makes it a hard job. What do you got?

• 14:05Speaker 01

  I'm already coming back to the very first thing you said, which is, you said the word clarity, I think, a couple of times now. And just hearing that mission statement of what we do, the amount of clarity in his first comment, here's our mission. We're here to deter an enemy. If we don't, we're going to fight them and kill them. That's our mission. And the very next thing he says is, everybody else's role is to train to be prepared to do that. That actually sounds really simple, but it's really hard to create a message that's that clear. So by which the infantry man and the person who's running administration, who seem like completely different, have clarity in how what they

• 14:47Speaker 01

  do contributes to the overall mission. That is not easy to do. And this idea of communicating in a simple, clear, concise manner, which we talk all the time, is really hard. But from the very beginning, he's like, hey, this is the mission. Here are seven things that we're going to do to allow that to happen. Subordinate commanders, your job is to make it happen. So he's tying all these things together, and it sounds so simple when I'm hearing him say it, but I'm realizing how hard that actually is in an organization to get everybody to understand what it is they do to contribute. If you can make your administrative folks feel like they are warfighters, you have a clear mission statement.

• 15:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Imagine that, I have no idea how many troops he's talking to. He's talking to overseas American troops. This is millions of, maybe not millions, but this is hundreds and hundreds of thousands of troops.

• 15:35Jocko Willink?

  This continual turnover of personnel precludes commanders from programming a single training cycle common to all men as employed in a basic training center. It requires a programming of a number of successive cycles which may overlap to some degree and at times may operate concurrently. During any 12-month period, the commander will need to place emphasis on the following cycles of training. So, again, he's just emphasizing the fact that you're gonna lose people, you're gonna lose them all the time, and that's gonna make your job hard. Here's the things that you need to focus on. Advanced individual training to improve the proficiency of minimum service soldiers or to provide refresher training for men of longer service. So you've gotta just train individuals. Basic unit training to improve the proficiency of crews, teams, and squads.

• 16:18Jocko Willink?

  Advanced unit training to integrate teams, crews, and squads into small units. Combined arms training to integrate infantry, armor, artillery, engineer, and other supporting units into company and battalion group exercises. And then combat mission training to include readiness tests, rehearsals of operational plans, and joint combined training. So that's what you're doing. He's saying that same thing over and over again. You've gotta train the individual, then you've gotta train that that next level team, then you've gotta integrate them with the other teams, then you've gotta get all those teams working together. Very good way to think about how you train in any organization you're in.

• 16:56Jocko Willink?

  Next, the need to maintain a high-level combat readiness without peaks and valleys of proficiency prevents the commander from concentrating for long on any cycle before going into the next. This is not to imply that a unit must perform all five cycles at one time. It does mean that the commander must elevate continually the level of proficiency of his men and unit in each of these five phases of training. Based on this evaluation, he plans his training program.

• 17:24Jocko Willink?

  Ideally, the commander assesses the proficiency of each soldier in all five cycles and organizes his training so that individuals and the unit as a whole progress systematically through all cycles. And he goes on to explain this. And, and what I like about this is how often with whatever organization you're in or whatever organization you're leading, do you actually think in a holistic way, comprehensively, about the methodology that you're using to train your people?

• 17:50Jocko Willink?

  The answer is probably not great.

• 17:54Jocko Willink?

  So if we don't have even a goal of what good looks like, if we haven't written down what good looks like, how are we possibly going to get there?

• 18:06Jocko Willink?

  Going ahead a little bit, based balancing unit and activities. The training for combat readiness is not the only mission of the commander. He must also make adequate provisions for the supply and maintenance of the unit equipment, administration and discipline, community relations program, troop morale and welfare programs. And the, all these activities demand their share of resources, time and emphasis. So, so not only do you have to train people for combat, that's great. That's your number one priority. He already said that. You also got all these other things that you need to handle, which by the way, is the same in any organization, in any organization that you're in. Guess what? You gotta, you gotta take care of the families. You gotta make sure that your guys are healthy. You gotta make sure that they've got something to distract their mind and keep them occupied.

• 18:51Jocko Willink?

  Continuing on, the immediate day to day pressures of these additional functions result in a tendency to emphasize them at the expense of combat readiness needs. So all of a sudden, he just went from like, look, you gotta take care of those other things. You gotta get, it's like the, um,

• 19:08Jocko Willink?

  it's like when you, it's like when someone goes, you know, I just read, you know, I read, I read in that fitness magazine that, you know, rest is even more important than working out.

• 19:19Jocko Willink?

  You know what I'm saying? And all of a sudden that becomes

• 19:21Speaker 02

  The thing.

• 19:22Jocko Willink?

  The prevailing mode is rest.

• 19:27Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 19:28Jocko Willink?

  You know, you know what I'm talking about.

• 19:29Speaker 02

  I do know what you're talking about.

• 19:30Jocko Willink?

  You got that chuckle.

• 19:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, you're over here looking at me kinda like I said.

• 19:33Jocko Willink?

  Have you ever caught yourself in that combined arms dilemma?

• 19:36Speaker 02

  No.

• 19:38Jocko Willink?

  Where you were kinda like, well, you know, rest is important, important.

• 19:42Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yes, I have in a way, but in this way, which might even kinda apply to this in, in, as far as the concept goes. Cause you use that as the example. If I'm working out, or if I don't feel like working out. And I'm like, well, I did work out pretty hard yesterday and rest is important.

• 20:02Jocko Willink?

  Rationalizing.

• 20:02Speaker 02

  Maybe I should rest. It's not like this rest today will hurt me. If anything, it'll help me. Right, yeah, a little bit complicated kind of question or statement. I get it, but I'm just saying, it's kind of the same thing where, yeah, if that starts to become the, because for that moment, it was the prevailing thing.

• 20:20Jocko Willink?

  Got it. So, we have to make sure that we provide ample room for rest and recovery.

• 20:27Speaker 02

  Yes, sir.

• 20:27Jocko Willink?

  But we can't let that become the prevailing mode of operating.

• 20:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:32Jocko Willink?

  Which, let's face it, what do people gravitate towards? People like to gravitate towards that couch.

• 20:39Speaker 02

  Yep, the comfort.

• 20:41Jocko Willink?

  The fun part. The unit commander must recognize that even after the elimination of nice to have activities, necessary functions remain, which cannot be fully executed within the resources available to him. His only recourse is to do first things first. And I got a question like that today talking to a client. What, what do we do when we're resource constrained? What do we do when we don't have the manpower? It's like, oh, cool. Yeah, we already talked about, did you hear me talk about prioritize and execute it earlier? Yeah, that's, that's what we're talking about. That's what it is. It's prioritize and execute.

• 21:15Jocko Willink?

  It's interesting, too. I used to use this quote, and when I was talking to clients, I'd say, "There's no organization in the world that has unlimited resources."

• 21:30Jocko Willink?

  We've worked with some companies now that come pretty damn close to unlimited, at least financial resources.

• 21:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:36Jocko Willink?

  They, they have, for all practical purposes, unlimited resources. The problem is, the problem becomes human capital, right? You can only get, you, there's only so many people in existence that have a certain job skill, have a certain capability, and so that becomes a limiting factor. So even with a company that has more money than they can spend, they could throw all kinds of money at whatever problem they have, but they're limited by, they're limited by human resources. And you could, even when you say, "Look, we can pay, we can pay, you know, however many people, a million dollars a year", those people just do not exist.

• 22:19Jocko Willink?

  And so, and so there is, I've had to modify that a little bit. But the statement remains true. There's no, there's no organization in the world that has unlimited resources. Everyone has limited resources, everyone. Every company, the biggest companies in the world have limited resources. That's all there is to it. And so what do you always have to do? You always have to prioritize and execute. You always have to prioritize and execute.

• 22:52Jocko Willink?

  He must go.

• 22:54Speaker 01

  What he's, there's a part that I think he's also getting at too is if you understand what that, what that number one priority is. Those other things he talked about and he kind of did kind of the classic dichotomy, hey, this is important, but yeah. He also understands that all those things, those morale, welfare, recreation type of things, what they're actually designed to do is when we need to come back to that priority, when we need to surge for that most important thing. Investing in that is actually the best way to have your guys have the energy to exert themselves even more. I'm kind of thinking about like surge operations or thinking about, you know, when I'm on a deployment, we're supposed to go for six months and we get the, we get the notification, four and a half months into it, you're getting extended for six weeks. And this six month deployment is now going to be closer to eight months.

• 23:37Speaker 01

  If you've made that investment in your family and they are all in because you've demonstrated that you care about them, you can do those six, extra six weeks. It's no factor. But when you, you forsake all these other things and don't recognize that those things are important, it's really hard to get anything extra out of your guys. And this is a guy who's obviously has experience with, we're going to have to exert ourselves at some point. And when that time comes, hey, weekends at home with the family, those things aren't going to happen. And the way for that to happen is to invest in that when you can, when you have the time and resource to do it, knowing that it's going to actually come back to the thing that matters the most, which is you going to do your job.

• 24:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's, it's a great correlation to the rest and recovery that we're talking for physical working out. If you've got time, you need to rest because there's going to be a time where there's not going to be rest and you're going to get, you're going to catch a beat down.

• 24:28Jocko Willink?

  That's the way it's going to happen. Continue on, "He must analyze his mission and determine the relative priority and degree of interdependence of the functions essential to mission accomplishment. Based on these considerations, he must develop a program of unit activities which provides a balanced distribution of resources amongst these functions." So yes, you gotta take care of your people. "To plan such a balanced program, a commander must first survey his many tasks in toto." T-O-T-O. Do you think I looked that word up? Yeah, I think you did. I sure did. Yeah. And it's a word. Toto. It means everything. It means just what it sounds like. It means everything, completely. So you gotta look at everything. And then you can do a little prioritize and execute.

• 25:13Jocko Willink?

  "And then, having made a complete list, listing of appropriate to his command, the commander should analyze the proportion of hours and manpower being given to each activity. One method is to calculate the man-hours devoted to each activity as a percentage of the total man-hours available to the units. A continuous, realistic appraisal of the unit's man-hours is an essential part of command. When the commander feels that an imbalance exists and that the accomplishment of his mission is thereby threatened, he must take positive aggressive action to rectify the situation. When he has exhausted all means at his disposal without correcting the imbalance, then he should seek assistance from his higher commander." That little trick, I'll call it a trick of man-hours.

• 25:57Jocko Willink?

  That little trick of when people say, "We can't get this done." And you go, "Oh, how many man-hours will it take to get this done?" You ask that question because a lot of times, they've just looked at the task and made a gut decision. But the problem with that gut decision is they could be right, but it doesn't help you because you have nowhere to go. Because if Echo, if I say, "Hey Echo, how long is it gonna take you to pour, you know, to build this block wall?" And you say, "I don't, I can't get it done. I don't have, it's gonna take way too long." Okay, well, how long is it gonna take? How long would it take one man to do it? But just you by yourself? It'd take a week. Okay. So that's 40 hours. What if I give you three more people?

• 26:42Jocko Willink?

  You know what I'm saying? So digging in a little bit and figuring out how long it takes to do something.

• 26:49Jocko Willink?

  That's the data, that's the data that you need.

• 26:53Speaker 01

  He's also telling you, don't go back to your boss and complain. If you're under resourced, show them the information. Hey boss, hey listen, you need to get this done. It takes X amount of time, X amount of people. I'm understaffed, I can't get this done on time. That's a totally different thing than, Jaco dude, I can't do this man, it's too hard. It's too much work. Don't go to your boss and complain. If you don't have what you need, no factor, we can address that. But we can only address that if you actually come back to me with something that's solvable, other than this is too big of a problem for me.

• 27:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, that, that is really what it is. It's like, it's, it's too big of a problem than I'm in the mood for. It's like that kind of situation, because you do this all the time, even on a small level. You'll start asking those questions, like, well, well, you know, and then.

• 27:32Jocko Willink?

  Wait, wait, wait, you're being real vague here.

• 27:34Speaker 02

  I know, but I, because I can't really think of anything. That just gave me that feeling, right? When you, when, when you said, hey, how long is this concrete wall gonna take? I was like, dang, like, I know that feeling. Where, and I see what you're doing, because you're like, hey, we, like, this is a problem that needs to be solved to me. You know, and you put some task on me, that it's like, bro, that's just your idea, like, bro, let's think. So instead, instead of like, okay, let's think through the whole thing, really understand what it takes to do it. You know that that process exists, no matter how big and how small. Me, I just see how big it is, or estimate how big it is, and I'm like, eh, I'm really not in the mood for this right now. You know, and then you just get to the bottom of it, so it's kind of like undeniably doable.

• 28:18Speaker 02

  You know, and I'm like, I gotta do this thing, man, I don't really.

• 28:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there's a, there's a surface level way of looking at things, and just seeing, like, what's on the surface and going, hey, you know, you see the tip of an iceberg, and you go, look, that iceberg's huge. I can't, I can't handle that whole iceberg. It's too, it's too big. Well, let's get a snorkel and mask, and look underwater, and see how much ice is down there that we gotta chip away. That can be done.

• 28:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:48Jocko Willink?

  And I kind of boxed you in sometimes.

• 28:50Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, big time. Even that analogy right there, the iceberg, like, I see it. You're like, okay, that's the tip of the iceberg. We know that iceberg is big. To me, I'm like, yeah, I don't deal with big icebergs. Next, like, just move on. And you're like, okay, it's big, but, you know, there's more to it than that. And we're like, man, I don't even, I'm not in the mood for all that part, you know, you see what I'm saying? It's like that is the difference, you know? But at the end of the day, it's kind of like, that's how we all are naturally, right? Where if you see a big task, or let's say you see like a goal, right? Or something like this, and you're like, yeah, man, I want that goal. I want that, you know, element of success or whatever. And then you start like going for it. And you, the moment you realize that, man, this is going to take a lot more than I'm in the mood for.

• 29:30Speaker 02

  Whether it be things get boring, or you realize it's more work, or you realize, shit, I gotta learn this new skill to even get to step two. And I didn't really account for that when I wanted that thing to begin with. You start to be like, oh, well, it's too, it's too much, you know? So you, or even if it gets boring or something like that, rather than analyzing and be like, okay, well, what would it take to do that? Oh, no, I gotta learn this. Okay, let's learn that. And then let's revolve, you know, step by step by step. And most of the time, in the beginning, you're just not in the mood for all those steps, man.

• 29:58Jocko Willink?

  You know, you just revealed a pattern of thought that I have. That I realize that I do all the time. And I think it's actually very important. And I've never really talked about it before.

• 30:11Speaker 02

  Effective.

• 30:12Jocko Willink?

  But I think what it boils down to. I look at things. And I see them. Or I, I will look at them until I understand that they are finite. That they're, that the things are finite. There's, whatever that thing is, I will, I can get to the end of it.

• 30:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:34Jocko Willink?

  I can get to the end of it. I can pull that string and I will get to the end. That, that thing is finite. There is nothing. There's nothing that I'm going to find on earth to, to attack that's infinite, right? There's no infinite thing that I can think of, that I would look at as, as, with a view of like, okay, here's something I want to do. Oh, it's an infinite task. No, doesn't exist. There's nothing that I'm gonna do that's an infinite task.

• 31:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:02Jocko Willink?

  Look, and we, could we say it's, it's infinite that we want to continue to learn? Yes, that's an infinite thing. Is it infinite that we want to try and? Improve ourselves and get better? Yeah, that's an infinite thing. Is there any particular task that we can come across where it's infinite? No, you get a scuba mask, you get in the water, you dive and you will find the bottom of that iceberg. And maybe you have to come back up and get scuba tanks and you have to go down there. Maybe you've even got to get a mini sub. But you can find the bottom of that thing and then guess what? You can get it back up. You can grab a little, little pickaxe and you can start chipping away at that thing.

• 31:39Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. And then, and at that point, really, at the, at the end of the day, like if you be honest with yourself, you can come to a point and determine whether or not it's worth it. Like if you go down and you're like, hey, we're trying to move this iceberg because we want to do this and do that and whatever, right? And then you go there and you're like, dang, this is, this iceberg is way bigger than we thought. And it's kind of not worth it. Our end goal isn't worth all what we're going to expend, you know?

• 32:02Jocko Willink?

  Think about your difference in mentality, though, when you see that something is finite.

• 32:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:10Jocko Willink?

  That, that totally changes your attitude from thinking this thing could go on forever. Cause now your, your, your efforts are futile, literally futile.

• 32:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:23Jocko Willink?

  But once you know that there, this thing is finite, this job has an end, guess what? I'm going to start chipping and I can, I can be persistent and I'm going to make progress.

• 32:35Speaker 02

  You know what? I don't know if this is like two of the same thing, but you have this thing where, you know, the whole idea of like doing something even though you don't feel like doing it?

• 32:44Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 32:44Speaker 02

  Like you don't really have that. Like you don't have the, you don't have the opposite. You like, you don't have that thing that tells you, hey, like, don't do it. Like if you don't feel like doing it, don't do it. If you think it needs to be done. So having that quality helps that kind of situation. So like, okay, I'll apply it to like working out, right?

• 33:01Jocko Willink?

  Where, so what's the thing that I quote, don't, don't have?

• 33:06Speaker 02

  Like your behavior changing because you don't feel like doing something.

• 33:09Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 33:09Speaker 02

  Like you'll be like, oh, I don't feel like it, but that has nothing to do with what I'm doing, you know? So like if you're about to work out and you're like, man, I got this hard workout. I got, I got twenty five sets till failure today. That's my workout with all these exercises and all this stuff. If I don't have, if I only got one hour of sleep, like that's just not doable for me, you know? The fact, the fact is it is doable. It's gonna suck, but if that's not a factor in your thinking, then you're just gonna do it. You're just gonna, the sucking part is just gonna be part of the workout kinda thing and it's gonna sorta get done. So if you start thinking like that in the beginning, like start asking yourself, well, we know that it can be done. What will it take to get it done, the workout?

• 33:49Speaker 02

  And then you're like, uh, kinda the same stuff. It always, it like, that's the truth. The same stuff it took last time, you know? It'll just suck less and then boom, then you have that finite thing like, oh, I see exactly what's making me not wanna do it. And then you sorta gotta admit that to yourself.

• 34:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. You ever have like a horrible workout and then you think to yourself, well, okay. Sometimes I'll be staring at whatever workout and I know it's gonna suck. And you know what? You know what? I, I just realized I do. I go, well, I'll start now. It will be over in one hour and twenty minutes.

• 34:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:22Jocko Willink?

  If I start right now, it's gonna be over in twenty. I know what I have to do. I'll just turn off my brain. It's, but it becomes a finite thing.

• 34:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:28Jocko Willink?

  I make it, I use time to put a, to put a end on it in my mind. I won't say, oh, this workout's gonna suck. I'll go, oh, this workout's gonna suck. It's gonna be over an hour and twenty minutes. Done.

• 34:39Speaker 02

  So interesting. Yeah. I do the exact, I mean, essentially it's another version of that where, okay, when I first sorta started out, I timed my rest and I still do, but I can time it in my head now way better cause I'm so used to it or whatever. Um, but if I'm like really not feeling like working out, I'll set the timer right there. So it's like the workout's gonna be done regardless, regardless. So if I don't set the timer, I'll take a little ten, twenty second more rest and then it extends it out more and becomes sort of this thing.

• 35:05Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 35:06Speaker 02

  But if you, the timer's rolling right there, you're gonna do it whether you feel like, cause that's part of the workout, you know? And then you're done and you're just done. It's, it actually goes quicker.

• 35:13Jocko Willink?

  The one of the hardest moves to make, one of the hardest movements to make in the gym is pressing start on the stopwatch. And I do that something and I'll write it like in, I'll write it on social media. I'll be like hemmed and hawed, hesitated, waited. Uh, stretch some more, um, get a little more warm, like just per, and it's usually, let's face it, it's usually squats where you're like, okay, well, you know what? Maybe I should just do a little bit more stretching. Maybe I should do a little bit more overhead squat form with the PVC just to make sure I'm good. And you do all these things and all you're doing is just putting it off. And then finally I go, okay, you know what? Shut up. And when I go, this thing only ends when I start. It can only end if I start.

• 35:58Jocko Willink?

  This thing can only end if I start it.

• 36:01Speaker 02

  That's a good thing to say. I never tried that one. It can only end if it starts.

• 36:04Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 36:05Speaker 02

  Bro, I'll do stuff, all like organized little thing. Oh man, that's kind of messy right there. Let me organize, you know, you know, like that kind of stuff.

• 36:11Jocko Willink?

  You're clean, bro. It can be that.

• 36:16Jocko Willink?

  Well, that's good. I've never gone that far, dude. I might do an extra couple of sets of warm up, but I'm not starting to vacuum.

• 36:23Jocko Willink?

  Oh, that's sketch, dude. Oh, man. Check. All right. Getting back to the book. Everything that I have said about the balancing of unit activities is doubly valid for the training program itself. The most valuable resource available to the commander is his men's time. And time once lost can never be regained. That's fitting.

• 36:49Jocko Willink?

  Time once lost can never be regained. Poorly, poorly prepared, unimaginative or unnecessary instructions waste soldiers time. Worse, it is boring and soon results in ineffective, poorly trained individuals with no initiative or a spree. The skillful commander is the one who adopts the philosophy of gainful employment for each man. And one who takes maximum advantage of every training hour to ensure value received. Man. Remember all that dumb training you did in the military?

• 37:26Speaker 02

  I do.

• 37:27Jocko Willink?

  Like do, when they started, yeah, you would just do some training. You just go, man, this is just horrible, horrible. What are we doing? It's a waste.

• 37:39Jocko Willink?

  In this respect, prior preparation and effective supervision are essential. Prior preparation must not be limited to determining merely what is material, is to be merely what material is to be presented and gathering appropriate training aids. Meetings and rehearsals should be held for appropriate officers and non-commissioned officers sufficiently in advance to ensure that the training preparation meets the desired standards. Hey, prep for your training. If you're an instructor, you owe it to the students. Nevertheless, a commander must realize that the instructor is his most important training

• 38:20Jocko Willink?

  tool and that any time required, including duty hours to prepare that tool for its job, is time well spent. The hours given to preparation and rehearsal of instruction will be repaid manyfold in the hundreds of man-hours that are saved by not wasting soldiers' time with poorly presented training.

• 38:38Speaker 01

  Totally legit. Dude, don't waste your people's time. And if you actually want to apply decentralized command, the best thing you can do with your time is train your people. It's the best thing you can do. I think we talked about in the last podcast about how much you learn when you teach. We're talking about that, I think, on the very last one, just how, when you become an instructor, that's when you learn the most. Man, when you have guys on your team that can train, you want to talk about liberating yourself to do other things. And people talk about how hard it is to train your instructor, how hard it is to get your people where they need to be.

• 39:21Speaker 01

  That is time well spent is training your trainers. And again, everything, I know where he pulls all this stuff from, the experience this guy had. In anybody, and you asked me, and I just sat there and just kind of got depressed hearing it. Anybody that's ever had their time wasted by a bad instructor, I don't care if it's in school or anywhere else, we all know that feeling of, this is a waste of my time. It's like the most corrosive thing you could do to somebody else is waste their time. Your instructors, your, and look, instructors is synonym, mentors, teachers, leaders, whatever, that's what an instructor is. Those are the people that matter the most in your organization because they're the ones actually responsible for other people's time.

• 40:05Jocko Willink?

  I I took over trade at and I had a meeting.

• 40:12Jocko Willink?

  And I rolled into the meeting and I had like a wheelbook or whatever, a little notebook and I had like four bullet points of things I needed to tell the guys. And I walked in there and I told the guys what I needed to tell them. And then I walked out and like one of my bros was like, dude, you can prepare to this stuff, right? And I was like, he's like, you come prepared to this stuff, huh? And I was thinking to myself.

• 40:37Jocko Willink?

  Well, yeah, I mean, what?

• 40:39Speaker 01

  What's the alternative?

• 40:40Jocko Willink?

  What's the alternative to walk in there and really not know what the hell you're gonna say? That's crazy. That's crazy. That's that. You know what that is? That's disrespectful.

• 40:52Jocko Willink?

  Which I have a problem with.

• 40:56Jocko Willink?

  Uh, there's a chunk in here about safety, obviously always important. And we work with a lot of industries that safety is is absolutely paramount where lives are at risk. So there's a section there about safety. The success of any safety program is dependent on the quality of support and leadership rendered by all unit commanders. You know, it's like, oh, we have a safety officer. Great. That's great that you have a safety officer. And guess who else is responsible for for safety? Everyone.

• 41:27Jocko Willink?

  Training under tactical conditions. To me, it is basic that all field training should be conducted under tactical conditions. Setting up an administrative bivouac is the easy way out. But it is bad practice and has no place in the field training of today's soldier. Each soldier participating in tactical training will learn to think and act in a manner fitting for combat. He'll make mistakes at first, but it will be easier for him to overcome them in a tactical environment. Then it'd be easier for easier for him to overcome them in a tactical environment than an administrative one. Realistic combat habits developed in training will be second nature to soldiers in combat.

• 42:10Jocko Willink?

  Poorly trained soldier, the poorly trained soldier, taken by surprise without a weapon in his rare, in his hand, rarely gets a second chance to amend his habits. So look, obvious, this, this, the, the connection to the military here is obvious. When you're gonna go to the range, or you've got range time, don't bring out, you know, an RV to sit around and play video games while you're not shooting. Go and set up tactical hide sites and spend time in the field and make the most of that. The same thing in the business world, right? If we're gonna train people for a certain scenario, then do it in the most realistic way that you maximize the training.

• 42:53Jocko Willink?

  After entering combat, commanders will find it's too late to teach dispersion, first aid, marksmanship, camouflage, care and maintenance of equipment, and the thousand and one other things that go to make up the well-trained soldier in unit. It is also a little late to furnish him an adequate training background of information.

• 43:13Jocko Willink?

  So, if you wait, it's gonna be a problem. It's the similar thing of people that think, "Well, you know, if I get into a fight, like a real fight, bro, I'll just go full rage. You know, I'll go full rage." And they think that that's gonna make up for 18 years of jiu-jitsu, wrestling, Muay Thai, and boxing, right? It's not happening. You will lose. There's no, it's too late. You have to train, you have to prepare before it actually happens. From a leadership perspective, isn't it crazy? Isn't it crazy to think that, hey,

• 43:55Jocko Willink?

  I can just roll into a leadership situation without any training, without role-playing, without thinking through some contingencies in my mind, and things are just gonna go, I'll just know what to do? Why would you think that? Why would you think that? Why would you get that idea in your head? Why would you get the idea in your head that if you gotta go talk to, you know, one of your subordinates that had an outburst and is upset about something, why would you think that just rolling in there, you'll just know what to do? Why would you not think through that? Why would you not train? Why would you not prepare? If you have subordinate leaders... That are working for you. Why would you assume that if there's a contingency that unfolds that they're just gonna figure it out?

• 44:39Jocko Willink?

  Why would you assume that they're gonna know how to handle when somebody flies off the off the handle? Why would you assume that they're gonna know how to handle when a client comes in and is having a having an outburst? Why would you assume that they're gonna know what to do? And if they know what to do, why would you assume that they're actually be able to do it? Cause that's the next level, right? Is you can do the moves all day of Muay Thai and wrestling, but until you're going against someone, until you spar with someone, until you role play with someone, you're not actually able to do it. Why would you assume that? The answer is you'd assume that if you were dumb. Don't assume that. Train. Train for those leadership situations.

• 45:21Jocko Willink?

  Train for those hand to hand combat situations. Next section. Training for good habits and discipline. In battle, the habits and discipline that have been instilled in training are of supreme importance. First, because men in combat will do instinctively what they have been in the habit of doing in training. And second, because only the extra drive of discipline will enable the soldier to overcome

• 46:03Jocko Willink?

  the fear that all men experience in battle. There you go. Supreme importance, by the way. This guy is not, he's not throwing words around just because they sound good or just trying to emphasize something a little bit. He's using this word, it might be the only time he uses it. Habits and discipline are of supreme importance.

• 46:39Jocko Willink?

  Men will do in combat what they have been in the habit of doing in training. Every experienced commander knows this, but too often he fails to appreciate the absolute necessity of practicing only correct procedures. It is essential that good habits be so deeply ingrained in each individual soldier through correct teaching and intensive practice, that even under the stress of battle, he will do the right thing, both immediately and instinctively. Conversely, because practice makes perfect, a commander must never, under any circumstances, permit training errors to be repeated.

• 47:14Jocko Willink?

  There you go. To the question of discipline. I would ask you to consider this more in the light of self-discipline. Because all too often, the word "discipline" takes on the connotation of restriction, overbearing authority, and blind obedience. We do not want an automaton. We want an effective combat-ready soldier, who has a keen sense of duty, and who feels an obligation to his commander, to the men around him, and to his unit. So, anybody that's questioning, you know, even me, when I'm saying, "Hey, look, you get some DNA coming from World War I, you get some of that, you get some of that feeling

• 47:57Jocko Willink?

  that he's sort of, hey, listen, you know, the rank structure's important, you better do what you saw." There it is. Blind obedience, no, not what we want. Overbearing authority, not what we want. Restriction on what you're able to do, not what we want. What we want is self-discipline.

• 48:18Speaker 01

  I'm partially just enjoying picturing you reading that, and the reaction you had as you're reading that in General Clark's book for the first time. The only thing I wrote down, I wrote it down before you said, this is, the good news in all this, when he's talking about the challenge of making difficult and realistic training, people like hard training. They like hard training, they respond to hard training, and for whatever pushes you away from not wanting to make things difficult, that's actually what your people want. When I look back on all the things that I did, the hardest things I did were the things I enjoyed the most. So, whatever you're feeling like, the harder it is, the better it is, because he talked about the end state of, this is what's gonna keep your people alive in war, for sure. But hard training is actually what your people want.

• 49:03Jocko Willink?

  Funny you should say that. Let me read the next paragraph.

• 49:10Jocko Willink?

  Instilling discipline in troops is actually not as difficult as it may appear. As a matter of fact, the answer to instilling discipline can be given in one word. Training.

• 49:23Jocko Willink?

  Good training overcomes resistance to obedience and resentment of authority.

• 49:28Jocko Willink?

  So I wrote about this in Leadership Strategy and Tactics. You want to build morale in a team, you got to do hard things.

• 49:33Speaker 01

  Do hard things.

• 49:34Jocko Willink?

  Go through suffering together. That will bring your, that will bring your unit together. That will increase your rear morale. It will also increase your discipline.

• 49:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, that covers the tangible things. It makes them better at the skill, whatever skill you're training for. But the intangible things like morale, the discipline you just talked about, the esprit de corps, the willingness to take and make sacrifices. That's the intangible qualities that also come from that as well, which is every bit as important as being really good at your job.

• 50:05Jocko Willink?

  I like this guy.

• 50:07Jocko Willink?

  One of the keys to successful training is developing our men into the proper attitude toward training. Generally, our men want to do what we want them to do. And when they don't, it's usually because we have failed to instruct them properly. It's our fault.

• 50:24Jocko Willink?

  A guiding principle that applies to all units and organizations is that a man must understand clearly what is expected of him. Merely telling him is not enough. He must be instructed. Proper training will also foster pride and confidence in the individual, a pride and confidence that will be extended to his leaders and units as well. When that pride and confidence have been nurtured to a point that obedience becomes a habit and response becomes natural and willing, you've gone a long way towards your goal of combat readiness. As you can see, habit and discipline go hand in hand. A poorly disciplined unit is evidence that its commander has failed to instill proper habits through his training program right from the very start.

• 51:10Jocko Willink?

  Now, again, now you feel a little bit of lean back, right? A little bit of lean back to obedience becoming a habit. And response becomes natural. So you get a little bit of a lean back towards, all right, so now we're getting somebody that's going to be like obedience is sort of part of that discipline. Even though he said earlier, look, we don't want automatons. We do not want automatons. That's not what we're looking for. It's not what we're trying to, that's not what we're trying to train.

• 51:37Jocko Willink?

  And that's the last thing that I want.

• 51:41Jocko Willink?

  Decentralization of responsibility.

• 51:46Jocko Willink?

  Once he has set his goals and started his training program in motion, a commander must rely upon the initiative of his subordinates. Gee.

• 51:57Jocko Willink?

  By properly delegating responsibility and the related authority, a commander will foster this initiative and will enhance the development of all subordinates, officers and non-commissioned officers alike. I must emphasize here that this principle cannot be restricted merely to the training program, but should extend to all unit activities. This is it. This is decentralized command. This is the fourth law of combat. Decentralized command. That doesn't only apply to training. It doesn't only apply to planning. It doesn't only apply to operations. It applies to everything. Decentralized command is how you need to operate.

• 52:31Jocko Willink?

  How many officers are doing the jobs of their non-commissioned officers? We speak of enhancing the prestige of our non-commissioned officers, but the best possible way of doing this is by giving them responsibility to do the jobs themselves while also insisting insisting that they accomplish them properly. What's that? Giving people ownership. Let them do it.

• 52:53Jocko Willink?

  Try that with your kids. Make dinner. Make tie your own shoes. Clean your own room. Do your own laundry. Make them responsible.

• 53:04Jocko Willink?

  Decentralize that command and guess what you can do then? Then you can focus on getting them better training.

• 53:14Jocko Willink?

  This is not to say that the commander should abdicate his own responsibility, but a one man shop of is a one man shop is evidence of poor leadership. There you go. So if you're running everything, bad leadership. A good commander will patiently and carefully instruct his subordinates to ensure they know what is expected. He may even have his subordinates return and present their plans for accomplishing the tasks, but he will then insist that they get the jobs done without detailed guidance. So again, now we're back to like this leaning back towards, hey, I'm not going to tell you exactly what to do. Look, I, I want obedience, but you go figure out what you want to do. So he's balancing this dichotomy of leadership between,

• 53:58Jocko Willink?

  hey, you need to put some structure in place so people know what to do, but I still want you to go and figure out how do you, how you're going to get it done.

• 54:06Speaker 01

  It's almost like you have to take the word obedience and, and change what that natural reaction you have is. Cause I hear the word obedience. I don't like that word. There's a, I don't like that word. And just like you described, I actually don't, I don't want my people to feel like they have to be obedient to me. And so it's almost as if the obedience isn't, I say to do something and you do it. It's the obedience is, it's the natural,

• 54:31Speaker 01

  almost unspoken reaction that what we need to get done is going to get done. As opposed to you will do what I say. Because that, if that's the obedience you're looking for, you actually just, you're just hurting yourself in so many different ways. But there's, there's language in here. When I hear you say it, my kind of get that little like, oh, I don't, I don't like that. But as he explains it and kind of peels that back, the obedience he's referring to isn't, I demand you to be obedient to my orders. It's, I want, and when he talks about decentralization, I want the obedience to be, we are going to solve this problem. We're going to get whatever needs to get done. I'm actually going to have you figure it out half the time.

• 55:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And I think to take what you just said, and to take it one step further, what obedience is, and, and it's, everything he is saying is, is leading to, towards the result of what obedience is. If you're obedient, you're driving towards accomplishing the mission. That's it. That's my obedience. We got a mission and I'm going to accomplish it. That's what I'm going to do. Cause he's literally saying, without detailed guidance, I'm not going to tell you how to do it. Here's the mission. Go accomplish it. That's obedience.

• 55:40Jocko Willink?

  By giving them responsibility and authority and by underwriting their honest mistakes, he will encourage them to exercise initiative and accept responsibility. He will help them to develop into more effective individuals and hence into more effective soldiers and officers. This in turn will result in a better unit. That sentence right there, giving responsibility and giving authority and underwriting their mistakes. Okay, you made a mistake. Okay, I got it. No problem. It's no problem. You're encouraging them. That's how you create leaders that are going to take initiative, which is exactly what you want, if you're a good leader.

• 56:25Jocko Willink?

  A problem arises when individuals are given the authority to make decisions on various types of actions and then fail to use it. How much time is wasted by passing the buck to the next level even though authority existed to make a decision on the spot? Training supervision. Proper supervision of training still remains primarily the commander's responsibility. A good moderate bear in mind is an organization does well only things the boss checks. He goes over that over and over again. He talks about inspections again here and we covered that on one of the earlier podcasts. And one thing he does say, and I'll just reemphasize it, "A word of caution is in order.

• 57:07Jocko Willink?

  Inspections that are poorly scheduled or executed will harass the troops." And if you're harassing the troops with your little freaking inspection, you're wrong. You're wrong. That's not what inspections are for. Training methods. Proper methods of training will produce better soldiers in less time and hence speed the building of combat-ready units.

• 57:32Jocko Willink?

  A discussion on training methods invariably includes the question of the committee system versus the unit method of training, which is better? Probably a combination of the two methods at the lowest practicable level of command is the best answer. Decentralized command. Small unit commanders should be responsible for the bulk of training, although specialized subject or those involving a small segment of several units often lend themselves to centralized instruction by committee. So that's all good stuff. If you've got some universal skill that everyone needs to learn, hey, send people to a schoolhouse for that. We get that. And, you know, he goes in through these things.

• 58:16Jocko Willink?

  Talks about some bad practices as well. Bad practices such as having men wait in line to run a lane on the assault course, or having men wait behind the ready line to fire on a range. You've got to eliminate those things, he says. And he says it cannot be emphasized too often that a man learns best by doing. In every appropriate subject or element of training, practical application must be stressed. Got to do. Sometimes I would get these instructors. I remember especially going through close quarters combat training, you know, so clearing rooms. And in the beginning, when you're taking a task unit through the instruction of room

• 58:58Jocko Willink?

  clearances, you know, you start at a very fundamental, basic level, and guys are doing one and two man room entries. That's what they start off, or sorry, two man room entries. And so, it's like I would get, basically maybe take two platoons to do two different sections of the kill house. And one of the instructors would be a guy that would focus on really explaining things a lot, going into a lot of detail, maybe, maybe like to hear himself talk a little bit. The other person, maybe is a guy that's like, hey, here's what you got to do. All right, let's start running, let's start doing it. And by the end of the day, I'd have to switch the platoons, because the platoon that was doing would be way ahead of the platoon that was listening. You have to freaking do stuff. You have to freaking do stuff.

• 59:44Jocko Willink?

  What'd you write down?

• 59:45Speaker 01

  Um, I mean, you gotta remember too, I'm sitting here listening as you're talking about it. And I'm hearing it from you through him for the first time, connecting it to the things that I've experienced. And I'm hearing all these little, there's all these common things he keeps coming back to. He's talking about not wasting people's time. He's talking about pushing decision-making down. He's talking about giving your people authority and responsibility and then taking ownership of their honest mistakes.

• 1:00:14Speaker 01

  A great way to not waste your people's time is to not have them be reliant on you to make decisions for them. And as you push that decision-making down, your subordinate leaders get closer and closer to the problem. And their ability to solve those problems and do things that are constructive and useful for their people is them not being reliant on you. And why I wrote it down is he asked a question in the beginning. He said, "How many officers are doing the jobs of their non-commissioned officers? How many leaders are making decisions and doing things on your team, in your organization, right now, that you really shouldn't be doing?" And the answer is probably almost all of you. And if you can just have a mental exercise of, "Let me just think for a minute of any task that I do

• 1:00:59Speaker 01

  that I really shouldn't be doing." If you're doing that, you are wasting your people's time, you're hindering their development. Find a task that you shouldn't be doing and push it down to them. And then when they screw it up, take responsibility and ownership for it. Train them better, resource them better. But as you push those decision-making, push that decision-making down, you waste less of their time. And just, I'm just hearing him connecting all these things together. And how crazy, how simple it sounds when he says it, but how often we don't do the very thing he's describing.

• 1:01:31Jocko Willink?

  And isn't it strange that this is a guy that spent 45 years in the military? And it, well, 45 years in the military, whatever, 50 years ago. And actually 100 years ago, because he was got in in 1917. So 103 years ago, and he spent his whole life in the army, multiple wars. But what we're talking about, you and I, we definitely apply it to, we reflect on our time in the military. And we reflect on businesses right now in every single industry that we work with all the time. We talk to on a daily, how many companies do you talk to a day? Three, four, five different companies a day? Yeah, every day. Me too. And personnel at different levels inside those companies. And all these things apply.

• 1:02:15Jocko Willink?

  All these things apply. Universal. There are universal truths to leadership. There really are universal truths to leadership. Improvement through ideas, research and development. The army is constantly seeking ways and means to improve the training of the individual as well as to develop and improve equipment and procedures. Research into new and more modern methods and ideas is a continuing process. Various organizations, both military and civilian, devote all their energies to projects of a research nature. And he goes on talking about that. Applying well-established scientific principles to military problems.

• 1:02:58Jocko Willink?

  These groups observe the test individuals and units over a period of time to determine the best method of performing a specific operation or the advisability of adopting a specific item being studied. So he's, he looks at things not saying, hey, I got the answer. That's him saying, look, we gotta, you gotta bring in experts that actually can study and see what the right answer is. Commander should always encourage imagination and ingenuity, seeking better ways to solve their training, maintenance and management problems.

• 1:03:34Jocko Willink?

  Next section, chapter nine, training the individual, adjusting the soldier to his new career. The individual begins his military career in an army training center or in a selected unit. To the new soldier, this is the front door to the army. Here, he gets his first taste of military life. This is where he is indoctrinated in the fundamentals of military service and where he forms the thoughts, ideas, and habits that stay with him throughout his service and that go with him when his service is terminated.

• 1:04:09Jocko Willink?

  From this starting point in his career, the soldier will develop in proportion to the effort made to put him on the right track and to the application of sound training practices during this vital period of adjustment. This is something that I absolutely saw all the time, and I don't know if you would, I don't know if this would apply to flying jets. But what you learn, what guys learn in their first SEAL platoon, they always are biased towards that as being the right thing. Doesn't matter if it was right or wrong, archaic or not, new, old. They, what they learned in that first platoon, they always, I know I always was, and I had to fight against that unnatural bias or natural bias that I would have towards, hey, well, you know, this is what I learned, this is the way you do it.

• 1:04:55Jocko Willink?

  I guess the first thing you learn leaves the deepest, the deepest scars, the deepest trail. Does that happen with flying jets?

• 1:05:06Speaker 01

  Totally, man. You show up in your first squadron and the things that, that the more experienced guys are saying is gospel. And it's probably not a lot different for you, you know? Most guys that did what I did, we spent our whole lives dreaming about doing it. And by the time you finally got to your first squadron, which was the, the top of the mountain you've been climbing your whole life, everything there is what is, everything that's said there is gospel. Cause you made it to where you wanted to be and these guys that have been there are telling you, that stuff is seared in your brain and the truth is, is it's not all right. A lot of it is, is not right and it's really hard to undo those bad habits. Same thing happened to me. I got there, first squadron, people are talking, that has burned into my brain.

• 1:05:49Jocko Willink?

  Is there anything that you learned in your first squadron that later you were like, wow, I learned that the wrong way?

• 1:05:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, a lot. You and Leif do this a lot when you, when you tell stories about what was unique about Task Unit Bruiser. And the uniqueness of that was, was a lot less about the tactics and the maneuvers that you executed and, and the weapons and things like that. It was so much more about the culture, the mindset and the, and the recognition of ownership and leadership being the thing that's going to make you unique. What I learned or looked back on in my, in my, the lessons of my first squadron, I certainly learned some things like, hey, that's not the best way to run the system or the best way to maneuver your aircraft. But what I learned the most in retrospect was the leadership that was either good or bad. And it's really hard to diagnose bad leadership when you're a really young guy, at least initially.

• 1:06:40Speaker 01

  You'll show up and kind of whatever's going on there like, okay, this is how it is. Cool. And you kind of get on board. And it's actually connected to, to a note that I, I wrote when you were talking about people walking in the front door. We may think we've got a lot of time with those new folks, but they start to form those opinions very quickly. You know, the first couple of days are just kind of clueless. They're just going to get on board. But very quickly they're going to start to take note of what's going on around them. And they're going to acclimate to whatever type of leadership you give them. And if it's good leadership, they're going to, they're going to align with that. And if it's not, they're going to align with that too. And so the clock that you're running with these new folks, they start to move to whichever direction you push them very, very quickly.

• 1:07:21Speaker 01

  And my, what I look back on is the lessons that I learned. I look back like, man, I thought that squadron was really good. And it really wasn't. We didn't do a lot of these things that we should have been doing. And it's mostly centered around the things you've always talked about, about, hey, you know what? When we take our squadron up to Fallon for, for three weeks for a big Fallon air wing debt. You know what we're doing on Friday nights? Everybody's going out to the bars on Friday nights. And that's what we did. And when I was in squadrons, units that they didn't do those things because they knew that they had limited window for training and they were going to stay and, and, and get better.

• 1:08:00Speaker 01

  That's when the contrast became much more clear about the things that I'd grown up with that weren't nearly as good as I thought they were at the time.

• 1:08:07Speaker 01

  And look, man, when you're on the other side and you tell these stories about trade at, when you've seen 10,000 runs of the same clearance, literally just thousands upon thousands, it becomes very easy to see what good and bad looks like.

• 1:08:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the the the PID, the positive identification of good and bad. Man, I don't know why I was paying attention to that stuff when I was a young frog man. And it was.

• 1:08:39Jocko Willink?

  You know, we we showed up in the 90s, man. We showed up in the 90s. And the 90s was after the 80s. And I know that might sound funny, but it's important. Because the 80s, there was basically no war.

• 1:08:59Jocko Willink?

  I mean, most of the 70s. Yeah. So think about that. You know, like the last SEAL platoon. In the early 70s, what is it 72, 73, something like the last SEAL platoon, there was a couple more stragglers over there. But then you go 70, then you go all the way to 1980, then you go all the way from 80 to 90. And you had, look, you had Grenada, handful of guys, you had Panama, handful of guys, and by handful, you know, 50 guys, whatever the number is. But it's a very tiny percentage of the community. And then you roll into the 90s, but I'm coming off the 80s.

• 1:09:34Jocko Willink?

  So, understanding what it meant to be combat ready was a faded picture. It was a faded picture. And there were some guys that knew, and they thank God. Thank God, some of those old Vietnam guys were there. Thank God, some of the second, some of the people that had learned firsthand from the Vietnam guys. They were there to to to hold that line.

• 1:10:01Jocko Willink?

  But there was also guys that were, you know, we ain't going to war. We ain't going to war. We're going drinking. Totally. You know, that's what, and even if we're not going drinking, you know what, we're not going, we're not going to war. We're going to hang out with our family. We're going to go run some side business. We're going to go do other things besides just be a team guy.

• 1:10:24Jocko Willink?

  And and that's a weird place to come from. It's a weird place to roll into the teams when you have these expectations. Like I had the. I had the dumbest expectations, you know, I thought I was going to Nam.

• 1:10:37Jocko Willink?

  Thought I was going to Nam in 1991. I was ready to freaking deploy to Da Nang. You still think. I still kinda do think that. Man, whenever I talk to Tilt, those guys, I remember asking Tilt, like, was it hard to vol- or no, maybe it was, maybe it was Dick Thompson. I was like, was it hard? Cause he volunteered for this, volunteered for that. And I said, was it hard to volunteer? He's like, no. They were like, oh, you want to go to special forces? Cool. Right over here. Oh, you want to go to SOG? Cool. Right over here. Oh, you want to be an officer? Cool. Right over here. He stepped right, oh yeah. We got openings, man. We got openings. Why do we got openings? We got openings. We have more than 100% casualty rating. More than 100% casualty rating.

• 1:11:21Jocko Willink?

  If you show up here, you will be wounded or killed. How's it going? You, yeah, there's the line.

• 1:11:28Jocko Willink?

  And those Tilt Frenchmen, Dick Tom, just rolling in, just, yeah, good. Let's do it. What do you got? We can't tell you about it? Cool. I'll sign up. What I put my name. Don't do the titles for the SOG episodes of this podcast. Dead man walking. Don't, don't go to SOG. That's what, that was the word. That was the gouge. Did you use that term? The gouge? Yeah, totally. That's the gouge. That was the gouge. Don't go to SOG. Don't go to SOG. And these guys are like, well, why wouldn't we go to SOG? Everyone gets wounded or cool, killed. Oh, cool. Sign me up. Yeah.

• 1:12:06Jocko Willink?

  So I thought I was going to Nam.

• 1:12:10Jocko Willink?

  So when I get to the team and, and you know what I had to do with Vietnam? I got Vietnam issue, Vietnam era H gear. That was leftover from Nam. I got that. You couldn't tell the difference. When you saw me going through SQT, my, like, the, the gear that I used was Vietnam gear. Like, that's the same gear, the same canteens, the same mag pouches. Everything was the same. So I kinda was going to Nam.

• 1:12:38Jocko Willink?

  But that impression that you get in that first platoon, man, it leaves a mark. Yeah. It leaves a mark. And so that's why if you're in a leadership position and you got people checking on board, you gotta recognize that you're making a mark. Don't play around with that.

• 1:12:59Jocko Willink?

  Essential to the smooth and orderly transformation of the individual from a citizen to a soldier is the organization and caliber of the training establishment. The commander of this training activity must be given the tools to work with and enough priority to ensure assignment of the most competent officers and men. Personnel should be carefully selected, highly motivated, and imbued with the standards prescribed for basic combat training. A prerequisite for later command has its foundation in this criteria. Until an officer, a non-commissioned officer, has served in these capacities, he is handicapped in the art of training units. That's powerful. How often is it that we actually invest our best people into being instructors? Not often enough. Not often enough.

• 1:13:45Jocko Willink?

  You guys do it. The Top Gun does it.

• 1:13:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I was thinking that you guys do it as well. I mean, the parallels between what you did and trade at.

• 1:13:53Jocko Willink?

  This is the thing. When I got into the teams, no one wanted to go to training. It was, hey, man, I don't want to go over there. I want to go on deployment.

• 1:14:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:01Jocko Willink?

  I want to go to NOM. I want to go on deployment. That's what everybody wanted to do. Part of the reason was because one of the ways that you got cred.

• 1:14:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Was by doing deployments, right? Hey, I did three deployments. I did four deployments. I did five deployments. You were in the pecking order. There was a pecking order. So, nobody wants to get out of that cycle. They just want to go on deployment, deployment, deployment. Because you want to go up that hierarchy. You want to be five platoons. You want to be seven. You want to do as many platoons as you can, as fast as you can.

• 1:14:32Jocko Willink?

  It's kind of funny because when the, you know, you'd be a new guy in your first platoon. But then, I was talking to a NOM guy. And he was like, you're a new guy until you go into combat. So, all you motherfuckers are cherries.

• 1:14:51Jocko Willink?

  It's like, Roger that. This dude's sitting there with six deployments under their belt, but they never went to war. So, he's just like, yeah, cherries.

• 1:14:58Speaker 01

  Whatever.

• 1:14:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Cherry boys, whatever. Keep it up.

• 1:15:05Jocko Willink?

  Man. What a life. Trainer personnel will face many problems with their new soldiers. Trainees come from every aspect of life. So this is what I think the reason I wanted to cover this part is because we work with companies all the time. They hire people all the time. What's your indoctrination program? How are you welcoming them aboard? What are you doing to train them out of the gate? Oh, you gotta, you're so critical to get them in the role that you can't spare four days to set aside and get them trained up and familiarized and meet them with the right people. You can't do that? It's more important that you just get them totally blind rolling into their role? That doesn't make any sense, man. Set aside some time. Trainees come from every walk of life, all kinds of schooling, other civilian experience, multitude of aptitudes, beliefs, skills.

• 1:15:51Jocko Willink?

  From this complex mixture of raw material, the training unit commander has to turn out trained soldiers who are ready to undergo further training and ultimately become combat-ready fighters in the Army's combat-ready units.

• 1:16:05Jocko Willink?

  During this period of his training, this new soldier will have to learn how to live as a soldier with other soldiers. He will learn to accept discipline, to keep physically fit, to develop proper habits of eating, sleeping, recreation and sanitation, and to live harmoniously with his fellow soldiers. These things will not come easily to all trainees. Many will need lots of help and lots of guidance to overcome their troubles. Their commanders are the ones who can and should give them this assistance. Isn't that weird to think about? This is where you're going to develop these people that have just, they're, they're just random. I know I never, I always joke about the fact that I, I never flossed my teeth until I joined the Navy. And in boot camp, they're like, you need to floss your teeth every night.

• 1:16:50Jocko Willink?

  And I was like, okay, whatever. I've never, I've flossed my teeth every night since then. I was just a savage that didn't floss my teeth. But that's one of the many habits where they, and this is what you do. This is what you're supposed to do. Cool, Roger that. I'm that kid.

• 1:17:10Jocko Willink?

  Of course, I can floss some of my teeth with like a piece of rope.

• 1:17:16Jocko Willink?

  Although new soldiers are being trained as replacements for other units, all training commanders will do well to look at their trainees this way. These are my men. I will train them as if I'm going to fight alongside them and as if my life will someday be in their hands. That's, that's, that is one cool thing that you hear from guys that worked as BUDS instructors, is the attitude of like, hey, do I want this guy in a platoon with me?

• 1:17:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:17:40Jocko Willink?

  That's a great place to start.

• 1:17:44Speaker 01

  That criteria is, is, is so important. I mean, yeah, Top Gun, we talked about a little bit, maybe a difference. There was, there was a key emphasis put on training in my community. Top Gun was obviously a place that resembled, reflected that apex of that training facility, if you want to call it that. But really what it was, there was a chance to pass on information, to teach guys, and the criteria for finishing that program was if you as an instructor, who was gonna, if I'm gonna put that Top Gun patch on your shoulder, the criteria was, would I go to war with you? That was the criteria. Is this guy someone that I would go to war with

• 1:18:22Speaker 01

  as his wingman? And again, you've talked about it. It may be a little bit more evident in the military example, because we're talking about literal war, and we're talking about a guy who's written something based on his experiences in war. But the translation to anywhere in the private sector, even your own family, isn't that hard. If you think about, what is the criteria that really matters to you, what you'd be willing to do with or for this person? It doesn't have to be war as the outcome. And you're talking about, you know, the investment you're making in your people upfront. Can you spare, can you spare a week to put this person on the right path? So his, his ability to be successful in the organization is 100 times greater than if you just shoved him out there because we're understaffed, or we gotta

• 1:19:07Speaker 01

  get this job done.

• 1:19:08Jocko Willink?

  Go get that person in the role.

• 1:19:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:10Jocko Willink?

  Got to make the, the investment that you make upfront will be tenfold than not making it.

• 1:19:21Jocko Willink?

  Next section is entitled "The Army is Built on Discipline." When a man comes into the army, he usually leaves home for the first time. He leaves behind his parents, his friends, the inhibitions he has built up from being around those who have been close to him. Without the restraining influence of these inhibitions, and in the quick tempo of his new life as a trainee, he is likely to slip in morals, in neatness, and in energy. The one thing that will keep him on the right track is discipline. Development of discipline is the best way to reinstitute the desirable inhibitions he may have lost. How can commanders instill discipline in their trainees?

• 1:20:05Jocko Willink?

  The answer can be given in one word, "training." This is a rehash, right? "Good training overcomes resistance to obedience and resentment of authority. When obedience becomes habit and is natural and willing, training is paid off in terms of disciplined soldiers. Development of discipline can be part of every period of training. During basic training, commanders have many opportunities to stress the importance of these things which make a disciplined soldier: obedience, alertness, neatness of dress, and physical fitness. The trainee will also develop a respect for commanders and a renewed devotion to his country. In battle, discipline is of supreme importance." See, the only time you use the word "supreme."

• 1:20:46Jocko Willink?

  "Most men are afraid in battle, but discipline produces the courage to overcome this fear. Discipline in a soldier implies a sense of duty and obligation to his unit. When the soldiers of a unit share that obligation, the unit has gone a long way toward the goal of combat effectiveness." Only one kind of discipline is acceptable: it is perfect discipline. "When trainees show evidence of poor discipline, it is generally because their commanders have failed to insist on perfect discipline from the start." And that's Patton. That's a Patton quote. "Only one kind of discipline: that's perfect discipline."

• 1:21:21Jocko Willink?

  He talks about getting to an overseas environment. "The new arrivals should be indoctrinated in the customs of the new country in which he is stationed. He should be encouraged to meet his new neighbors, learn their ways, study their language, become familiar with their history."

• 1:21:39Jocko Willink?

  And then he talks, I'm gonna skip forward a little bit to,

• 1:21:47Jocko Willink?

  well, I gotta cover this one. This one of the little section. Simultaneously with his, with his new geographical environment must come adjustment to his new situational environment. The transformation is one of attitude in which the new arrival must be made to realize he is no longer in a basic training or garrison situation. He must now apply the training principles and garrison experience he has gained. He must be made aware of the seriousness of his situation that he is in the front line of defense against aggression.

• 1:22:18Jocko Willink?

  While there are many educational and recreational diversions overseas, the commander must keep the new arrival constantly alert to the necessity of keeping himself combat ready. The astute commander must be not only a leader and trainer of men, but a student of psychology and human nature as well. He must be able to instill in his men the feeling that they can enjoy their tours of duty overseas, benefit from the experience, and at the same time be prepared to assume more serious endeavors when called upon.

• 1:22:52Jocko Willink?

  So there you go. You gotta understand human nature. You gotta understand a little psychology.

• 1:23:00Jocko Willink?

  Motivation for performance. It has been said that man is the army's most valuable asset. Even the greatest asset, however, becomes a liability if improperly used. The American soldier must be properly motivated before he will efficiently and willingly perform his assigned tasks. From this motivation, develop esprit, enthusiasm, morale, effort, competition, and accomplishment.

• 1:23:26Jocko Willink?

  When, I mean motivation of the American soldier overseas is best accomplished when he, number one, knows why he is there. That's the number one thing. The number way, number one way to make sure someone's motivated, make sure they know why they're doing what they're doing. Same answer I give nine times a day.

• 1:23:51Jocko Willink?

  Is made to feel that he belongs, is performing primarily a job for which he has been trained.

• 1:24:00Jocko Willink?

  Knows where his efforts fit into the big picture. Is recognized and rewarded for success. The one of those that I would say was a was a new thought in my mind was that is performing primarily in a job for which he's been trained. And I was kind of like, that's a good point. That's a good point.

• 1:24:23Jocko Willink?

  Think about when you're, when you're doing something like, oh yeah, this is what I've been, this is what I learned. You know, in jujitsu, it's real clear, right? Oh, I learned this escape and you use it. That's just a total reward.

• 1:24:36Jocko Willink?

  How about when you learn some new technical skill on the filmmaking and then you get to apply it? Sometimes you kind of force it in there. In many cases.

• 1:24:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like you'll do it. Yeah, just because you're pursuing that very thing, right? That you're talking about.

• 1:24:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So when it comes naturally, when it naturally occurs, it's a super positive thing.

• 1:24:54Speaker 01

  Big time.

• 1:24:55Jocko Willink?

  Dave, how long were you in the Marine Corps for before you dropped a bomb on target from an F-18?

• 1:25:05Speaker 01

  Six years.

• 1:25:06Jocko Willink?

  Six years. Did that feel good?

• 1:25:09Speaker 01

  It did. Yeah.

• 1:25:11Jocko Willink?

  Did that give you motivation?

• 1:25:12Speaker 01

  It's crazy. I had to do the math there. I was thinking, man, how long was it? It was six years.

• 1:25:17Jocko Willink?

  What year did you get commissioned?

• 1:25:18Speaker 01

  Ninety-four.

• 1:25:21Jocko Willink?

  And then you dropped bombs?

• 1:25:23Speaker 01

  Bomb. Singular.

• 1:25:24Jocko Willink?

  You dropped a bomb?

• 1:25:27Speaker 01

  Two thousand.

• 1:25:28Jocko Willink?

  In two thousand?

• 1:25:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. Listen, like you said, man, remember this is by all intensive.

• 1:25:34Jocko Willink?

  You were straight up like Top Gun experiencing the MiG, right? Like Maverick didn't Maverick have the close fly by with the MiG? I'm saying that because, because in two thousand, how many people dropped bombs?

• 1:25:47Speaker 01

  I, look, I can't, I don't know if it's fact, but if it's not fact, it's really close. I was like the first guy in the world to drop a JDAM. Because I had, my squadron on deployment was the first squadron that had GPS.

• 1:26:02Jocko Willink?

  Good deal. Dave Berke is coming in hot.

• 1:26:04Speaker 01

  But at the time.

• 1:26:06Jocko Willink?

  Billions of dollars developing this weapon system and you're the guy that gets to drop it.

• 1:26:10Speaker 01

  Again.

• 1:26:11Jocko Willink?

  Okay. Would you know, do you remember the date?

• 1:26:13Speaker 01

  No, but it was April of 2020.

• 1:26:17Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so April of 2000, we're going out there just canvassing the world. If there's anyone out there that knows anyone that dropped the JDAM before April of 2000, please let us know so I can put this guy over here, Good Deal Dave Berke.

• 1:26:32Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:26:33Jocko Willink?

  Put him in check.

• 1:26:35Speaker 01

  It's like you said, though, man, I mean, first of all, at the time, for me, that was it, dude. We're done. Check in the block. I can die a happy man. It's because of what you said. There wasn't anything going on. I mean, you look back now, you know, post 9/11, it's, I mean, it is, it's embarrassing. I don't even like, we talk about this all the time, I don't even like bringing it up. But at the time, that was it. And to get back to your more serious point of, dude, was I stoked? I never felt more useful in what I was doing than that night. I can picture it hitting that pickle switch and that bomb coming off my jet, blowing up that SA3 launcher in Iraq.

• 1:27:20Speaker 01

  That was like the most important thing I'd ever done in my life.

• 1:27:22Jocko Willink?

  How many people did that after you dropped yours? Did things start to escalate?

• 1:27:26Speaker 01

  Well, no, we were.

• 1:27:28Jocko Willink?

  You just get the one.

• 1:27:32Speaker 01

  Look, man, it was kind of a cool thing at the time. It really was. And yeah, if I'm out of turn, let me know. There's just not that many people out there that have the potential of doing it, given the systems that required when the bomb hit the fleet and everything. It was a confluence of a lot of things that just went my way.

• 1:27:49Jocko Willink?

  So you're saying that in the whole fleet, the JDAM had just kind of arrived?

• 1:27:55Speaker 01

  First of all, the JDAM had just arrived and what was required is a GPS aircraft. On my carrier, there was one squadron that had GPS on board, which was my squadron.

• 1:28:06Jocko Willink?

  In your aircraft?

• 1:28:07Speaker 01

  In the aircraft. The other aircraft, the other four squadrons couldn't even carry the weapon.

• 1:28:13Jocko Willink?

  And this was the first time?

• 1:28:15Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:28:15Jocko Willink?

  And Marine Corps got it before Navy?

• 1:28:17Speaker 01

  No, it's not that the Marine Corps got it. It just so happens that on my deployment, the three, the Navy squadron of fighters, they didn't have GPS aircraft, which is kind of crazy, but we did. So, again.

• 1:28:29Jocko Willink?

  So you dropped the first ever JDAM?

• 1:28:32Speaker 01

  Like I said, if it wasn't the first, it was really close. It was definitely the first on that.

• 1:28:37Jocko Willink?

  What about, what about, uh, what about Bosnia? What about Sarajevo?

• 1:28:41Speaker 01

  That's, I'm, I'm almost positive that predates GPS guided weapons. That's all laser guided, some other, other guidance systems. That's not GPS guided weapons.

• 1:28:50Jocko Willink?

  You're going out on a limb.

• 1:28:51Speaker 01

  I am. And look, fix it if I'm wrong. Dial in, send a message. I'd be happy to.

• 1:28:56Jocko Willink?

  There's gonna be JDAMs hitting your brain.

• 1:28:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, maybe.

• 1:28:59Jocko Willink?

  When there's some guys that flew into Sarajevo dropping bombs.

• 1:29:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I mean, look, I could definitely be wrong. Uh,

• 1:29:07Speaker 01

  at the time I wasn't like.

• 1:29:08Jocko Willink?

  Do you know I'm gonna add this to like your bio when I talk about you?

• 1:29:13Jocko Willink?

  Cause you know, I got my little, you know, hey, he was this, he was that. And I'm gonna say, he also dropped the first ever JDAM. The first ever GPS guided munitions was dropped by Colonel Dave Berke.

• 1:29:25Speaker 01

  The 2000 pound JDAM in 2000, in the year 2000 was this brand new incredible thing that we just got trained on, which was kind of crazy.

• 1:29:33Jocko Willink?

  What were the circumstances that got you cleared hot?

• 1:29:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, the circumstances were, you know, during the day, uh, I was scheduled for like a night mission, just a, a pre-scheduled mission that probably involved, you know, a handful of airplanes doing operations, Southern Watch, just kind of monitoring the airspace, which we did.

• 1:29:53Jocko Willink?

  I was on deployment.

• 1:29:54Speaker 01

  Right on.

• 1:29:56Jocko Willink?

  I was on deployment.

• 1:29:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I was about to head home. What aircraft carrier were you coming off of?

• 1:30:02Speaker 01

  The Stennis.

• 1:30:04Jocko Willink?

  Was the JFK? Did you replace the JFK?

• 1:30:06Speaker 01

  We replaced the JFK.

• 1:30:07Jocko Willink?

  I was on the JFK. So I guess I missed you.

• 1:30:11Speaker 01

  That's, as we're talking, that's the other carrier that would have had the potential. And I think there was only one squadron on that carrier. The other Marine Hornet squadron might have had the chance. So there, if it's gonna happen, it's gonna be off that carrier. But between the JFK and us during that, you know, spring to summer of 2000, which was just monitoring the no fly zone. What happened was in the middle of the day, on a day that I happened to be already hard scheduled. We got triggered what's called an RO, a response option, which means Saddam did something that met some criteria that we had a pre-planned response to. And what he happened to do in this case was took a SAM launcher south of, you know, the, the, the parallel of the, the line that we were, that we were responsible for. So intel says, hey, they moved a SAM site down south of where they're not allowed to be here, below this line, they can't be

• 1:30:55Speaker 01

  here. And the big debate was, so we got this information, this intelligence, the debate was, hey, we're not going to let the brand new guy go on this mission. This is a response option that mandates, we're going to go blow this thing up. And my squadron commander was like, negative. That's the schedule. He's going flying. And if it wasn't-

• 1:31:14Jocko Willink?

  So wait, you were a new guy?

• 1:31:16Speaker 01

  I was the-

• 1:31:16Jocko Willink?

  Was this your first deployment?

• 1:31:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, my first cruise, my first deployment.

• 1:31:21Speaker 01

  And the only reason I was on there was just, you know, every fourth or fifth night, you just ended up on the schedule. I was, you know, dash whatever of this, of this mission. It turns out that my flight lead-

• 1:31:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I'll tell you, I look, I'm, I'm, I'm all about being fair and everything. If I was the squadron commander, or the squadron XO, or the ops officer, or one of the other-

• 1:31:40Speaker 01

  Or anybody else in the squadron.

• 1:31:42Jocko Willink?

  I would have been like, ah, that new guy just broke his left heel. He got heel hooked.

• 1:31:47Speaker 01

  Weird.

• 1:31:48Jocko Willink?

  I don't know what happened, but I'm taking his place.

• 1:31:51Speaker 01

  Dude, it was one of those things that the, the air wing had scheduled responsibility to cover the no-fly zone. I was on the schedule. It was going to be a totally boring night mission, which we'd done all the time, was just covering the no-fly zone. Middle of the day this happened, we knew that that package that was going in was going to go from a, a, a monitoring mission to a targeting mission. The, the mission loadout required a GPS-guided weapon. There happened to be one aircraft in that formation from one squadron that had the GPS aircraft and GPS-guided weapon. I was there, I was scheduled for that. There was a behind-the-scenes conversation, I was not part of, over whether this new guy, Chip, was going to get to go, because this is garbage, because he's brand new. The squadron commander

• 1:32:33Speaker 01

  was like, I'm not building a habit pattern by which, because of the mission, I'm going to change the formation. He's a young guy, he could go do it. I went and did it. I launched, I joined on the wing of, of some other squadron aircraft. We flew north for two and a half hours. I blew this thing up and I came home.

• 1:32:49Jocko Willink?

  Were, were you nervous?

• 1:32:52Speaker 01

  I was, yeah, but not like, I was nervous, but not like-

• 1:32:56Jocko Willink?

  Were you super confident?

• 1:32:58Speaker 01

  I knew that, I was, I was nervous and stoked.

• 1:33:01Jocko Willink?

  I guess you're dropping a GPS bomb. I mean, is this a hard job?

• 1:33:05Speaker 01

  No, it is not a hard thing to do. As a matter of fact, the beauty of this mission, just to put things in context, is that before I even got into my airplane, I was handed the precise latitude and longitude, which I pre-programmed into it, basically a disk that I downloaded to the airplane. So before I even took off from the carrier, I, my aircraft, and the bomb all knew exactly where to go. It was literally, I'm just carrying this thing on my wing. My only job was to arm it up and press the button.

• 1:33:32Jocko Willink?

  Do you, did you fly flat, dumb, and happy, like at a certain altitude? Or did you, come on, did you kind of like, hey?

• 1:33:38Speaker 01

  Bro, I would love to tell you the coolest story in the world. It's not a cool story. That's what I told you. Telling the story now is almost embarrassing because people listening now, when they think about what we have done since 2001, this story is the least exciting combat story you'll ever hear, and combat should be in quotes. In 2000, it was the coolest thing I had ever done.

• 1:34:01Jocko Willink?

  We did a, we did a bunch of ship boardings in, on that deployment.

• 1:34:05Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:34:05Jocko Willink?

  So in the millennium deployment between 2000, 1999, 2000, we did like ship boardings overseas. And one of the ship boardings that we happened to do was of a big Russian oil tanker, and it was on CNN and all this kind of stuff. So it was kind of the big mesh, kind of the same thing. And just to put it in perspective, when we got back, so we were on the carrier, and then there was another platoon from Team Two that was on the ARG. And when we got back, we had to like brief the CO and the Commodore about like what we did on deployment. And so we got to brief, you know, that we did this thing, which was kind of, you know, at the time was pretty cool.

• 1:34:45Jocko Willink?

  And just to put it in perspective, what the other platoon commander briefed was that they did an in extremis, uh, propeller clearance for the ARG ship, like something got tangled in the propeller, and they like anchored the ship, and they dove down and like cut the thing off, and they kind of like helped. That was what they briefed. That's what a SEAL platoon did in, you know, in the year 2000. And that was the highest level thing that they did with the most visibility that they could debrief. Was we did a maintenance dive on the ship we were on onboard.

• 1:35:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:26Jocko Willink?

  So that just kind of tells you how, what it was like at the time.

• 1:35:30Speaker 01

  Things were different back then, man.

• 1:35:31Jocko Willink?

  So I'm, I'm a hundred percent, I can totally imagine what you were feeling going into this and coming out of it.

• 1:35:40Speaker 01

  It, yeah, it was, it was awesome at the time. And look, when I came back, I mean, the whole ship knew about it. Um, there was a press release that I have a copy of somewhere that, that the Iraqi media put out that, you know, uh, uh, I honestly think it was like straight up a baby milk factory had been attacked, you know, the standard propaganda, you know, unarmed civilians were killed, the whole story. I got into the intel officer came out, hey, check this out. This is the report from your attack. I've got all the stuff somewhere.

• 1:36:12Jocko Willink?

  Send it to your mom.

• 1:36:12Speaker 01

  Totally. Yes, absolutely. So it was, um, it was an interesting time. It was a time that I had, obviously none of us knew what was coming, you know, and I didn't know the following year, how, how much things would change. And I actually thought at that time, that was probably the only chance I was ever really going to have to do something that contributed to the mission, which is exactly how I felt. I felt like I finally did my job after a lifetime of dreaming about it and six years training for it. Little did I know.

• 1:36:43Jocko Willink?

  That's awesome.

• 1:36:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. So if you're in, uh, if you're in CAG nine on the Stennis, or if you're in CAG two on the JFK, which was two fifty one, it was the Marine Hornet Squadron, let me know if I got my facts not straight. But at that time, there was just not, not a lot going on. JFK did some work the ship you were on too.

• 1:37:03Jocko Willink?

  They dropped some bombs?

• 1:37:04Speaker 01

  They did.

• 1:37:05Jocko Willink?

  But maybe not GPS guided?

• 1:37:06Speaker 01

  I don't think so. Like it really matters, but call me out.

• 1:37:11Jocko Willink?

  Apparently he does.

• 1:37:12Speaker 01

  It did at the time, bro. I can tell you it did at the time.

• 1:37:15Jocko Willink?

  Check. Uh, legit.

• 1:37:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:18Jocko Willink?

  He goes through looking at these, these, these items to, to motivate, keep someone motivated.

• 1:37:31Jocko Willink?

  First of all, a man does any task better when he thoroughly understands the reasons for performing that task. Surely you have heard the question, what am I doing here? What have you, the commander, done to answer this question? Have you made your troop information program merely a corner bulletin board in the dayroom? Have you explained to your men the role of allied forces in your overseas area as part of the United States Army and what it plays in that role? Have you discussed with them the threat of communism? Have you shown them how an alert, well-trained, strong force in peacetime becomes a deterrent to aggression and armed conflict?

• 1:38:14Jocko Willink?

  So, that's the why. And that's the why that we talk about all the time.

• 1:38:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, do they understand how what they're doing contributes to the mission? It's as simple as that.

• 1:38:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and when you're working on the front lines of a factory, look, if you understand how that contributes to everything that's happening and what we're trying to do, that makes a difference.

• 1:38:39Speaker 01

  The only way they're ever gonna know that is if their leadership makes that a priority, or else they're gonna get stuck down there and their perspective of the world's gonna get smaller and smaller. They're gonna feel more and more disconnected and they're not gonna understand it. You have to make that happen. That will not happen on its own.

• 1:38:54Jocko Willink?

  That's one thing that's cool. Up at Origin,

• 1:38:58Jocko Willink?

  you know, the troops that are on the front line, they see what's happening, right down to the fact that they can see people competing in their gees, right? They can see people working in the jeans that they made. They get thank yous. They get, you know, pictures of the jeans being worn in North Dakota, being worn in Texas, being, you know, being used. And it's awesome. And they know that that they can feel what that means because it's bringing back the community. And so, everybody understands that why. It's so important. Pete does a great job making that clear.

• 1:39:39Jocko Willink?

  The second item I outlined as a motivation force is a sense of belonging. Very few drives of a man are stronger than his desire for identification with a group. When he knows what that he has wanted, he has a definite niche, a specific job, and that his efforts contribute to the achievement of a common goal. Then he becomes proud of himself, his unit, and his superiors. Develop your men, developing your men this feeling of identification and your task will be lighter. Then, when the chips are down and they are called upon to do battle, they will perform as members of an integrated team, not as individuals. This brings us to the utilization of man, and this is what, this is the, this is the story of Dave Berke. Thousands of dollars were spent to train each man, first as a basic soldier, then as a specific MOS.

• 1:40:24Jocko Willink?

  Is each man in the unit doing, being used in the job for which he was trained?

• 1:40:31Jocko Willink?

  I realize only too well that commanders must occasionally put men off their jobs to meet temporary requirements. The men realize the necessity for this too. Too often, however, commander forgets to put the man back in the job for which he is trained. The men do not understand this, and such action is often demoralizing and results in the loss of unit effectiveness. When it becomes necessary to assign an individual to a position other than the one for which he has been trained, the commander will rise in stature if proper counseling is given. Explain why the temporary assignment has been made. And let that man know as soon as possible, he will be reassigned to duties commensurate with his MOS. One thing should be kept in mind, however, no amount of motivation will make a man tackle his job he knows is too big for him.

• 1:41:16Jocko Willink?

  That's the infinite thing.

• 1:41:20Jocko Willink?

  Where a man fits into the big picture, obviously important, and then goes into that a little bit. And finally, there's a great deal of vanity in each of us. And few things are more motivating than recognition for a war and reward for a job well done.

• 1:41:36Jocko Willink?

  He then jumping forward a little bit. He's got a little section on physical fitness, which I always like to cover. The vision of a push button war suggests that the physical rigors of the battlefield belong to the past. Isn't that crazy? 1963 he's thinking that. Just think of that. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Physical fitness in today's army is even more important than it has been in the past. And this is especially true in overseas theaters where to meet any communist block aggression. The fighting man on the ground is the ultimate weapon, the fundamental factor of the decision. The soldier overseas must be combat ready, not only in terms of equipment, training and conviction, but also in terms of ability to withstand the rugged demands of physical combat.

• 1:42:20Jocko Willink?

  The time to begin is the day a new physical, a new replacement arrives in your command. In many cases, he will be fresh from basic or advanced individual training, and it will merely be a matter of maintaining his high state of physical fitness that he brings with him. In other cases, you may well have to start from scratch and bring the man up to the desired standard. In both instances, your solution as a commander is a physical fitness program that will provide for progressive and continuous physical conditioning of your men. It can and should be integrated into a phase of pro, of phases of training in your program. As an asset to your unit commander is the highly developed sports program. And he talks about how important that is.

• 1:43:04Jocko Willink?

  How important it is to, to have these kind of programs where you're running. He talks about care of equipment. Got to take care of your gear. He uses this little quote in here. Remember the rhyme, rhyme, my, the rhyme about for want of a nail. And I had never heard it. Have you ever heard that before? So I had to look it up. For want of a nail, the shoe was lost. For want of the shoe, the horse was lost. For want of the horse, the rider was lost. For want of a rider, the battle was lost. For want of the battle, the kingdom was lost. All for the want of a horseshoe nail. Does that little thing? Just that little, just that little thing.

• 1:43:45Jocko Willink?

  Talks about, he goes into like, this is where I started kind of breezing through some stuff. Cause he's talking about, he's getting in the weeds a little bit about how do you get people to take care of their vehicles? He goes through some execution charts, proficiency of weapons, testing the abilities of soldiers. He runs into this a little bit, performance testing, and talks about how you've got to continually test people so that you know that they can do their job. Schooling, he talks about schooling of the individuals. And again, this is, he starts getting into some of the weeds. And then he gets into professionalism. And professionalism,

• 1:44:23Jocko Willink?

  to me, is, you know, a word, you know, talk about your first experience in the military, and how that leaves a mark. Well, in 1991, when I checked into SEAL Team One, there was an underlying theme of professionalism. It was, hey, professionalism. SEAL Team One, the nickname for SEAL Team One was Stalag Team One, because, you know, we had haircut inspections every two weeks, or, yeah, and then uniform inspections, I think, the first Monday of every month. SEAL Team Five, they, we can, we can confirm this with Jason Gardner, but I

• 1:45:04Jocko Willink?

  don't think they had uniform inspections in the decade. So, you know, everyone looked at Team One, the Stalag Team One, and it was, the underlying tone was professionalism. Back to the book, "In today's army, we can afford to keep only the worthwhile individual in our ranks. Every effort must be made to strive for professionalism in all things.

• 1:45:27Jocko Willink?

  Retention of the desirable and dedicated individual is the goal. Constant supervision by officers and non-commissioned officers is necessary to raise standards of performance. A great deal can be accomplished by each individual by setting the example and being a professional himself. More than any other thing, demonstrated competence, ability, and efficiency, i.e. professionalism, will encourage new officers and enlisted men to make the army their profession."

• 1:46:02Jocko Willink?

  What is real professionalism for the career Army officer? Many do not understand what is meant by professionalism. I submit that professionalism to the young soldier, to the career non-commissioned officer, to the young reserve officer on limited active duty, and to the reserve officer on extended active duty is different from that applicable to the career regular Army officer with 20 years of service. I will explain this as I see it. If you enumerate, if you enumerate the various things that have to be done in order to produce a combat-ready army to meet the demands of our country in case of emergency, I believe you will find that these necessary operations pretty well cover the field in creating an army.

• 1:46:46Jocko Willink?

  So here's the list of things that you have to do in order to create an army. Raising an army. Organizing the army. Equipping the army. Training the army. Supplying the army. Leading and commanding the army. Administering the army. Moving the army. Communicating within the army. Employing the army.

• 1:47:04Jocko Willink?

  A career regular Army officer who wants to prepare himself to be a professional should learn the general requirements, techniques, and principles of each one of these necessary operations. In addition, he should become a master of one and have at least one other as a strong minor.

• 1:47:35Jocko Willink?

  And I think that's probably a pretty good place to stop right now. We could go all day with this, but what's interesting, I find it interesting about that is if you've got 10 broad operational fields in the Army, and you can only be a master in one of them, because we just don't have the ability to be more than that, you could be a minor in another, then how can you be a professional? Right? Because I was kind of expecting him to say, "You need to learn all these things." And he says, "You can only become a master of one, and you can only become a minor in one more." So I'm thinking, "How do you become a professional?" And I think the answer is humility. To actually know that you're not a master of everything, to actually know that you

• 1:48:19Jocko Willink?

  have shortfalls and you have deficiencies, and then what you do is you surround yourself with people that are masters in those areas. You build a team.

• 1:48:31Jocko Willink?

  You build a team and that starts with humility. It starts with knowing your weaknesses. So you can turn those weaknesses into strengths by bringing the right people into your organization.

• 1:48:50Jocko Willink?

  There you go.

• 1:48:53Jocko Willink?

  Echo Charles.

• 1:48:54Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:48:55Jocko Willink?

  Speaking of turning weaknesses into strengths.

• 1:48:58Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:49:00Jocko Willink?

  Do you have anything that can kind of help us maybe turn weaknesses into strengths?

• 1:49:03Speaker 02

  Technically.

• 1:49:04Jocko Willink?

  Factually.

• 1:49:05Speaker 02

  Factually.

• 1:49:05Jocko Willink?

  Do you know you're known for saying the word factually?

• 1:49:08Speaker 02

  I do now, yeah.

• 1:49:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, some people will occasionally just throw a just a factually like in the comments.

• 1:49:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, apparently. My daughter gives me

• 1:49:19Speaker 02

  shit about that as well. So I couldn't, you know, you understand what I'm saying. Anyway, so yes, okay, we're on the path, right? Turning weaknesses in into strengths. Okay. So the thing we don't want to worry about is our joints. So Jaco has.

• 1:49:32Jocko Willink?

  Speaking of comments, maybe we should just ask the question. You are gone for two podcasts.

• 1:49:37Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:49:37Jocko Willink?

  This whole sort of support section, you know, it was like, I don't know, three minutes, seven minutes, something like that.

• 1:49:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, way too short.

• 1:49:45Jocko Willink?

  Maybe people could put in the comments, you know, what, you know, how they're feeling about that. Maybe they missed it.

• 1:49:50Speaker 02

  Yes. Well, we'll just say technically the support section, factually as well. Yeah. It, the support section and all these fine products and services are infused into the section as a whole. Same thing.

• 1:50:08Jocko Willink?

  So the section isn't only about support.

• 1:50:10Speaker 02

  It's how to stay on the path straight up. That's what the section is. If you want to, you know, get all namey, naming things. As far as sections go. Anyway, thing you don't want to worry about is your joints when you're on this path that we're all on.

• 1:50:26Jocko Willink?

  Definitely don't want to be worried about your joints.

• 1:50:28Speaker 02

  No, sir. So Jaco's supplements, overall, a bunch of supplements, all Jaco supplements called Jaco Fuel. The joint supplements to keep your joints in the game. Don't have to worry about them. Don't have to think about them. Don't have to consider them when you're doing individual, specific things.

• 1:50:49Jocko Willink?

  I like when you paint yourself into a corner and then you gotta kind of work your way out of there verbally.

• 1:50:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, it's funny.

• 1:50:54Jocko Willink?

  Cause individual specific things, that's, that's deep.

• 1:50:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, nonetheless. Joints, we're not worried about them. We're doing deep squats. We're not worried about joints. You know why? Cause we're on this. Joint warfare, super krill oil. You, you go on that consistently. You don't worry about none of that stuff. You're worried about your gains. So, speaking of gains, boom, milk. I know I'm skipping around. Don't worry about it. I got you. Milk, protein in the form of dessert. That's what you take after you're working out. So boom, break down, build back up. All good. Okay. So here's what we do want to talk about. Discipline and discipline. Go.

• 1:51:29Jocko Willink?

  Wait, can I add something on the milk scenario?

• 1:51:33Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:51:33Jocko Willink?

  Cause there is something to talk about. It's a little something called smashing pumpkin.

• 1:51:37Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:51:38Jocko Willink?

  It's a new flavor. Have you tried it?

• 1:51:40Speaker 02

  No, it literally came in when I was leaving right now.

• 1:51:43Jocko Willink?

  It is, it is at the top of my list. Have you got it yet, Dave?

• 1:51:46Speaker 02

  Negative.

• 1:51:46Jocko Willink?

  It is, it just is at the top of the list right now. It's just beat everything. Now, part of that is because it's new and I'm sure there's some level of, hey, just like the variety and it tastes good to have something different. But I am, I already, you know, Pete and Brian, well, you know, it's a seasonal thing. I was like, no, stop. This is not a seasonal thing. There's no, this is, this is a new, this is in the game. This is, this is, this is part of Jaco Fuel, smashing pumpkin. I don't even, I didn't even really understand what pumpkin, have you ever eaten pumpkin before? Like when you were a little kid, carbon pumpkins, you just ate some because you were an idiot?

• 1:52:21Speaker 02

  No, not the raw pumpkin.

• 1:52:22Jocko Willink?

  I did, no. Right? I was like, hmm, let's see what this tastes like. It doesn't taste like anything, right? Basically it's slimy.

• 1:52:27Speaker 02

  That makes sense.

• 1:52:28Jocko Willink?

  So I'm thinking, what is, what is pumpkin flavored milk gonna taste like? Slime? You know, I wasn't really sure. Cause that's what pumpkin, pumpkin has no taste, kind of. It's just sort of slimy.

• 1:52:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:52:42Jocko Willink?

  So I wasn't a hundred percent sure, but you know, these guys are all fired up and they send me the sample. And I mix it and I was like, good lord. I don't even, so it's, it's a pumpkin spice.

• 1:52:55Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:52:55Jocko Willink?

  Flavor.

• 1:52:56Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:52:57Jocko Willink?

  And there's a cinnamon situation, but what it, I don't know. Look, does it taste like pumpkin spice? Maybe. I've never really eaten anything that tasted like pumpkin spice. Let me tell you this, it tastes freaking good. It tastes real good. It tastes shockingly good.

• 1:53:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, I understand. You know what's pumpkin spice is, right?

• 1:53:21Speaker 01

  I, I don't know. I kind of.

• 1:53:23Jocko Willink?

  Okay. So is pumpkin spice a thing?

• 1:53:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a thing.

• 1:53:26Speaker 01

  It's a flavor. Like, my wife will get pumpkin spice drink.

• 1:53:31Speaker 02

  Exactly right. Some latte or some.

• 1:53:32Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so I, you know, so.

• 1:53:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's why it's funny when you're like, I've never eaten anything with pumpkin spice. Yeah, because that's not what pumpkin spice tends. Pumpkin spice tends to be like drinks and stuff, you know, so they're trendy drinks. That's what it gets like, you know, the rap for or whatever. It's a fall thing. It's a seasonal thing. It's kind of softy, softy kind of thing.

• 1:53:53Jocko Willink?

  That's why Pete was all like seasonal.

• 1:53:55Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:53:56Jocko Willink?

  What else did you say besides seasonal?

• 1:53:57Speaker 02

  Softy, softy.

• 1:53:58Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:53:59Speaker 02

  If it's fall, it's a fall thing.

• 1:54:01Jocko Willink?

  Cause you know Pete leans towards, you know, like that.

• 1:54:04Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. I dig it. I dig it. I mean, you gotta have balance. You gotta have balance for sure.

• 1:54:08Jocko Willink?

  Sometimes we wonder if Pete listens to these parts of the podcast and I can tell if he does or does not. Cause I'm always busting his chops here. Whether he listens or not, he's kind of messing out and he can't defend himself.

• 1:54:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:54:22Jocko Willink?

  So you either listen or you can't defend yourself. Your call Pete.

• 1:54:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:54:26Jocko Willink?

  But we know that you're leaning towards, what'd you say? Comfy comfy? Softy, softy.

• 1:54:32Speaker 02

  Softy, cozy, cozy.

• 1:54:33Jocko Willink?

  Pete hadn't even tried pumpkin spice yet. He hadn't even tried smashing pumpkin today.

• 1:54:37Speaker 02

  Oh, the actual.

• 1:54:38Jocko Willink?

  I told him and I said, bro, this stuff is so good. This stuff is so good. He goes, I haven't even tried it yet. I go, cause he's got a sweet tooth. Like that guy main lines baklava. Like it's going out of style. And people send that guy, you know, they send him like cookies and donuts and stuff. Just to, just to torment him. So pumpkin spice. Anyways, smashing pumpkin, mulk.

• 1:55:06Speaker 02

  Wait, not anyways, we're still getting to the bottom of the pumpkin spice thing. I thought, okay. Oh, we're not getting to the bottom of it.

• 1:55:12Jocko Willink?

  No, no, no, go ahead.

• 1:55:12Speaker 02

  No, no, no, we don't have to get to the bottom.

• 1:55:14Jocko Willink?

  I wanna know. I thought it was a food.

• 1:55:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. That's kind of my point, right? So you know how you were saying, okay, my wife, you know, my wife gets it. It's a trendy thing, right? So Pete's saying seasonal, but it is Halloween. That's a pumpkin thing, too.

• 1:55:28Jocko Willink?

  Yes, that that I do know.

• 1:55:29Speaker 02

  Okay, pumpkin spice. Think about pumpkin pie. You have pumpkin pie before?

• 1:55:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and again, to me.

• 1:55:36Speaker 02

  What?

• 1:55:36Jocko Willink?

  Okay, yes, I've had it.

• 1:55:38Speaker 02

  Okay, so like, consider like, this is the closest I can get it, get to it, is like a cinnamon added to the pumpkin pie, kind of flavor, you see what I'm saying?

• 1:55:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:48Speaker 02

  And then boom, milk, all good. But so seasonal, is it because of fall season? Or is it because of Halloween season? You know, jack-o'-lanterns and whatnot.

• 1:55:56Jocko Willink?

  Well, pumpkins.

• 1:55:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:55:59Jocko Willink?

  Halloween.

• 1:56:00Speaker 02

  Just, you think not the fall though, because pumpkin spice is fall. That's a fall thing. You see what I'm saying?

• 1:56:05Jocko Willink?

  Alright.

• 1:56:06Speaker 02

  But it's not seasonal.

• 1:56:07Jocko Willink?

  I quit.

• 1:56:08Speaker 02

  I'm asking you about the milk. Is it seasonal now or is it not seasonal? Can't look in January or March or spring or whatever.

• 1:56:16Jocko Willink?

  We will keep it in the line. We have to keep it in the line because it's too freaking good.

• 1:56:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:56:21Jocko Willink?

  Smashing pumpkin.

• 1:56:22Speaker 02

  I believe it. Actually, when you mentioned it, I was like, dang, that's a whoever came up with that kind of idea for milk? Like, that's pretty, that's good. That's solid.

• 1:56:29Jocko Willink?

  It's really good. I'm not sure. It might have been my daughter.

• 1:56:33Speaker 02

  Who came up with the idea?

• 1:56:35Jocko Willink?

  My daughter. I said, we, because my daughter is into nutrition and stuff and she's into milk. And she's into mixing up recipes.

• 1:56:43Speaker 02

  Yep, sure, hell, yeah.

• 1:56:44Jocko Willink?

  And I, one day I was texting with her and I said, hey, you know, what flavor do you want? And one of the things that she said she wanted was pumpkin.

• 1:56:53Speaker 02

  Pumpkin.

• 1:56:53Jocko Willink?

  Spice, which I didn't even really know was a thing.

• 1:56:56Speaker 02

  It's a thing, man. Big time. And hey, hey, man, you're down for it. Obviously, you like pumpkin spice.

• 1:57:01Jocko Willink?

  Apparently.

• 1:57:02Speaker 02

  So, you know, you're down for it.

• 1:57:03Jocko Willink?

  I don't like pumpkin spice. I like smashing pumpkin.

• 1:57:06Speaker 02

  Alright, well, there you go, you know? There you go. Either way, yes. Okay, so plenty of other flavors too, by the way. So all good. Milk, protein, form of a dessert and in form of a, some pumpkin spice. Boom. There you go. Milk is good. Um, also, okay, I skipped around a little bit. We usually talk about the vitamin D. That's important, too. Now the season's changing. You're not gonna be outside that much, getting sun.

• 1:57:28Jocko Willink?

  Oh, good point.

• 1:57:29Speaker 02

  So boom, you wanna be sure you got that kind of stuff. Also, Cold War. Free immune system. Vitamin D is good for immune system too, but boom, in combo, same, same deal. You don't gotta worry about your sickness.

• 1:57:43Jocko Willink?

  Let's face it, I think everyone should be upping their immune system at this point in the world.

• 1:57:49Speaker 02

  I think so.

• 1:57:49Jocko Willink?

  In time.

• 1:57:50Speaker 02

  Yes, that is my.

• 1:57:51Jocko Willink?

  There's plenty of reasons. There's one big reason. Get that immune system kicking.

• 1:57:56Speaker 02

  Yes, sir. It's true. Also, Jocko White Tea. Get that in bags and in cans. What's up with the cans?

• 1:58:09Jocko Willink?

  Well, what's going on right now is we may have initiated a little bit of a war. In the drink world, in the, in the canned drink world. So, there might be a delay in getting Jocko White Tea back in the game. We've been, we've been drawn into, there's been, there's been a declaration of war against Jocko Discipline Go cans.

• 1:58:38Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:58:38Jocko Willink?

  Yes. So we're, it's, it's on. I'm not gonna talk too much detail, but let me just say, we are at war. And, and look, it's one thing when you're kinda down there and you're scrapping and you're, you know, but whatever, you're just having a good time. But then all of a sudden you realize you, you're at war.

• 1:58:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:58:57Jocko Willink?

  And so we, we had some events unfold that some, some big actors have taken action to attempt to suppress our people.

• 1:59:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:59:13Jocko Willink?

  So we're gonna have to fight.

• 1:59:15Speaker 02

  Yeah. Oh, yeah, looking forward to hearing more about that one. Plans and whatnot. Nonetheless, you did mention Discipline Go. So Discipline, Jocko Discipline and Discipline Go. Discipline is the powder. Discipline Go is the cans and pills and capsules, by the way. But we're talking about the cans, RTD, you know, ready to drink. Right, this was for.

• 1:59:34Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 1:59:35Speaker 02

  Ready to drink, deploy. Um, okay, a health, a health, an actual healthy energy drink.

• 1:59:43Speaker 02

  Actually healthy though, not the kind like

• 1:59:47Jocko Willink?

  No, no, actually healthy.

• 1:59:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, actually healthy, good, no preservative, no nothing. Okay, available in Wawa, Vitamin Shoppe and online, boom.

• 1:59:58Jocko Willink?

  It's a, speaking of war, so check this out. Part of this war is driving and crushing the enemy. So we're not in all Wawas yet. We want to. And by the way, Wawa is just the beginning, but we got a crush. So check this out. So right now we're only in Florida. The Florida Wawas, we have like a battle map. Especially now that we're at war. We have a battle map. If you're in, check this out. If you want to support the cause, go to Wawa in Florida and just clean out, just get yourself some discipline, go, get yourself some discipline, go and help us win the war.

• 2:00:45Jocko Willink?

  Appreciate it. Also Vitamin Shoppe, you can get it there if you don't have a Wawa near you. Also, originmaine.com.

• 2:00:54Jocko Willink?

  And let's face it, also Amazon.

• 2:00:57Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:00:57Jocko Willink?

  Yep, available. Prime.

• 2:01:00Speaker 02

  You mentioned originmaine.com, other stuff on originmaine.com, jujitsu stuff.

• 2:01:04Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 2:01:05Speaker 02

  We'll say everyday stuff to wear jeans, specifically American denim. It's a big deal, American denim. Also boots on there. Real good stuff. Um, yeah, go in there, get something, man. If you want something, American made stuff. It's not like that's not a big deal.

• 2:01:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. By the way, you may have been looking for Delta 68 jeans. They were unavailable for a while. They're back. We're, we're catching up right now and they're freaking awesome.

• 2:01:38Jocko Willink?

  And I have a confession to make.

• 2:01:43Jocko Willink?

  You know how I'm always like, you know, I mean, I literally have written books about putting your people out of you and take care of the people and all that.

• 2:01:51Speaker 02

  You already know the confession.

• 2:01:52Jocko Willink?

  So there we kind of re-engineered the Delta jeans a little bit. We re-engineered the fabric a little bit. We re-engineered the cut. And so Pete sent me like the we we went back and forth like three iterations, finally sent the iteration.

• 2:02:09Speaker 02

  Like recently?

• 2:02:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. He sent me like, okay, this should be it. I put him on. I sent him a text. I'm like, execute, send me two pairs immediately. Put me above everyone else that's waiting.

• 2:02:23Jocko Willink?

  I got a package. So I have I all of my other jeans are in the garbage because now it's just Delta, Delta sixty eights, the best things ever. Yeah, totally good to go. So if you want those, you can get those.

• 2:02:37Speaker 02

  You know, it's funny. It's like now you're not too mad at Pete for his design and fashion. It's functional design, functional fashion. Can we say functional fashion?

• 2:02:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:48Speaker 02

  Good job, Pete, man. Keep up. Keep being you, Pete. Great guy. Anyway, also, we have Jaco as a store. It's called Jaco Store. Got some that's where if you want to represent, you want Discipline Equals Freedom shirts, hats, hoodies, some board shorts on there. Boom, all that stuff.

• 2:03:04Jocko Willink?

  I'm wearing them right now, by the way.

• 2:03:06Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. But heavy rotation. Oh, yeah. Camouflage and black. We'll have some other ones on there, too. Some good stuff on there.

• 2:03:14Jocko Willink?

  You say we'll have other ones on there?

• 2:03:15Speaker 02

  We will have other ones on there.

• 2:03:16Jocko Willink?

  Oh, dang.

• 2:03:17Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:03:18Jocko Willink?

  Look at you.

• 2:03:19Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 2:03:19Jocko Willink?

  Decentralized command.

• 2:03:20Speaker 02

  Oh, man. Oh, yeah. We're doing the best our we can over there. Anyway, yeah, some good stuff on there. Christmas is coming up. Maybe not this month, but soon. See what I'm saying? I'm just saying that there's there are good gift items on there. Anyway, yeah, so JacoStore.com. If you want something, get something.

• 2:03:37Jocko Willink?

  Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast because Echo Charles thinks you should. Don't forget that we have some other podcasts. One's called Jaco Unraveling, which Echo should be putting out some episodes.

• 2:03:47Speaker 02

  It has its own thread.

• 2:03:48Jocko Willink?

  It has its own thread now.

• 2:03:50Speaker 02

  Feed, sorry.

• 2:03:50Jocko Willink?

  Own feed. So if you want to get the unraveling podcast, it's on its own feed. That one you can subscribe to to make sure you're getting them when they come out. There's, we have some in the bank. Let's get them out.

• 2:04:02Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 2:04:02Jocko Willink?

  I'm not talking to everyone else Echo Charles, I'm just talking to you right now.

• 2:04:05Speaker 02

  Yes, sir.

• 2:04:05Jocko Willink?

  This isn't like a, this isn't a kind of a universal statement to the people.

• 2:04:09Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:04:09Jocko Willink?

  This is a little statement for one person.

• 2:04:11Speaker 02

  Yes, sir.

• 2:04:11Jocko Willink?

  We have episodes in the bank. We don't want them in the bank. We want to spend them. We want to get them out to the people.

• 2:04:17Speaker 02

  I understand fully.

• 2:04:19Jocko Willink?

  Is that, what's the man hours that it takes to get that done?

• 2:04:26Speaker 02

  Uh, roughly, what, point two?

• 2:04:29Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:04:29Speaker 02

  Man hours?

• 2:04:30Jocko Willink?

  So maybe it's something we could make happen.

• 2:04:32Speaker 02

  That's very possible, yes. Here's the thing about that though, okay, so the unraveling podcast used to be called the thread, used to be. So if you're subscribed to the thread, if you were, and then it's in your like library, I don't know the different sections. And I'm talking about, um, like iTunes or the Apple Podcasts, whatever. I'm not sure if it works for Stitcher, I'm not sure. It might very well, but it'll be in your library still. But you'll, when you click on there, it won't indicate that you're subscribed, so you just gotta click it again.

• 2:05:02Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:05:02Speaker 02

  So you don't have to go search for it is what I'm saying, if you were already subscribed. But, you know, if you're not, then yeah, go there, get it.

• 2:05:08Jocko Willink?

  So the unraveling, the Jocko unraveling podcast, subscribe to it. It's me and Daryl Cooper. Grounded podcast, Warrior Kid podcast, we have a YouTube channel. If you want to see what Good Deal Dave Berke looks like, uh, or if you want to see what Echo Charles looks like, if you want to see what I look like, or you want to see some enhanced videos that Echo puts this effort into allegedly. And a lot of the videos you gotta remember, some people they go, oh, you know, Echo, good job. And they always forget

• 2:05:39Jocko Willink?

  that Echo might be the guy that pressed the record, but I'm the assistant director to these videos. There's no, I'm the, the kind of the, the glue that brings it together. Assistant director, that's me. So keep that in mind. If you want to see videos that have me as the assistant director, subscribe to our YouTube. Hey, we got an album called Psychological Warfare. A bunch of me talking about how to overcome whatever problem you're dealing with. Flipside Canvas, Dakota Meyer, making awesome things to hang on your wall. A bunch of books about face by Hackworth. I wrote the foreword to the newest edition. Leadership Strategy and Tactics Field Manual. Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual, brand new version is out right now.

• 2:06:22Jocko Willink?

  Way the Warrior Kid Four Field Manual is out right now. I just brought the first copies in, one for Dave and his kids, one for Echo and his kids. Way the Warrior Kid One, Two, and Three are out. Mikey and the Dragons just got elected, selected on amazon.com as a teacher's pick. Teacher's pick, kind of a big deal. Yeah. Kind of a big deal, very cool. So, thanks to all the teachers out there that selected Mikey and the Dragons to be a teacher's pick on amazon.com. Extreme Ownership and the Dichotomy Leadership, where it started. Also, we have Echelon Front. It's our leadership consultancy where we solve problems through leadership.

• 2:07:05Jocko Willink?

  Go to echelonfront.com for details. We also have EF Online, which is online interactive training for leadership as a skill for leadership. Remember when I was sitting there earlier saying, hey, why would you go into a room if you haven't trained? Why would you think you could know how to have a conversation if you hadn't? Yeah, it takes training. We know that, so we made online training. EF Online, if you want to ask Dave a question, if you want to ask Dave, if you want to ask Dave about dropping the first Jdam in history and what courage it took to do that, then you can go to efonline.com and Monday, Wednesday, Friday, we are live, we are there, we're answering questions.

• 2:07:49Jocko Willink?

  If you want to know how awesome it was when I was doing shipboardings in the Gulf, overcoming fear to board these smugglers' vessels.

• 2:08:01Jocko Willink?

  No, but seriously, if you want to ask us questions, you want to talk about leadership, go to efonline.com. We also have the muster. There's only going to be one muster this year. It's in Dallas, Texas. It's December 3rd and 4th. Check out extremeownership.com. We've got, we've got social distancing, COVID protocol in place. We're not going to do jujitsu. We usually do jujitsu the last night, but what we're going to do instead of jujitsu, we're going to do a jujitsu philosophy course of instruction slash Q and A. Myself and another black belt will be there. Maybe two other black belts. One of them will be Echo Charles. I'll probably get another

• 2:08:44Jocko Willink?

  one. Yeah, going to talk about jujitsu, how those, how the jujitsu principles apply to life. And I've been doing some writing about jujitsu, which should be coming out shortly. So I might read a little precursor of that.

• 2:08:59Jocko Willink?

  And then EF Overwatch, if you need executive leadership inside your company, go to efoverwatch.com. We have military veterans that understand these principles that are ready to go to work. If you're a company that needs veterans, go to efoverwatch.com. If you want to help service members, active and retired, their families, Gold Star families around the world, then check out Mark Lee's mom. She's got a charity organization, Mama Lee. It's called America's Mighty Warriors. And if you want to donate or you want to get involved, then go to AmericasMightyWarriors.org. And if you find yourself

• 2:09:36Jocko Willink?

  thirsting for more pain,

• 2:09:40Jocko Willink?

  and you want more of my droning drudgery, or you want more of Echo's farcical folklore, or maybe you just want some more of Dave's overzealous zingers, then you can find us on the interwebs, on Twitter, Instagram, which Echo will only refer to as thegram, and on Facebook, Dave is at David R. Burke, Echo is at Echo Charles, and I'm at Jocko Willink. And thanks to General Bruce Clark and Colonel David Hackworth for leading our nation's best in combat and for passing on those lessons to us. And thanks to all the people in uniform out there right now, putting those lessons to the use, keeping democracy and freedom safe in the world.

• 2:10:23Jocko Willink?

  And to police and law enforcement, to firefighters, paramedics, and EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, Border Patrol, Secret Service, and other first responders. Thank you for keeping us safe here at home. And everyone else out there, remember what you have heard from General Clark. Remember what he said, that it all starts with discipline. The Army is built on discipline. But so, so are us. So are we, as individuals. General Clark said that the one thing that will keep a trainee on the right track is discipline.

• 2:11:05Jocko Willink?

  That's the one thing, the supreme thing. So maybe we should be more disciplined, and maybe we should stay on the right track. Maybe we should stay on the path every single day. By getting after it. And until next time, this is Dave and Echo and Jaco. Out.