285: STRATEGY. How the Long Way Around is The Shortest Distance Between Two Points.

0:00:00 - Opening 0:11:50 - The Indirect Approach. 2:20:17 - How to stay on THE PATH 2:37:50 - 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 285 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo.

• 0:05Speaker 01

  Good evening.

• 0:06Jocko Willink?

  And also joining us tonight, Dave Berke. Good evening, Dave. Good evening. All right. So we are going to dive into some work that I have been waiting

• 0:18Jocko Willink?

  to dive into it. I waited because I wanted to do it justice. I waited because I wanted to, I wanted to be thorough in covering it. I waited because there's a lot of work to cover. And going, going into this, this particular book, books, series of books, articles, individual, the more I read over the years, it, it got better and better and it kept getting better and kept making more sense to me from a, from a tactical battle war perspective, from a leadership perspective,

• 0:58Jocko Willink?

  from a how to lead

• 1:02Jocko Willink?

  perspective, and also contrarily, like a red cell type, how not to lead

• 1:10Jocko Willink?

  from a relationship, leadership, capital perspective, and a jujitsu perspective. So, so basically I was just seeing everything in my life wrapped up in, in this particular,

• 1:24Jocko Willink?

  this particular individual and his work. And on top of that, so that there's another podcast that I've got waiting in the wings, or it's going to take a series of podcasts, but it's waiting in the wings. I'm super excited to do it, but I can't do that podcast until I do this podcast, or at least this podcast, or at least a couple of podcasts on this individual, this one man, highly influential man, a guy named BH Liddell Hart, Basil Henry Liddell Hart. You can probably guess if you don't know who he is. If you know military history and military strategy and military theory at all, you know who he is. If you don't know who he is, you can probably guess that he's British because he has the first name Basil, right?

• 2:05Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:06Jocko Willink?

  I mean, it's a pretty British name. He didn't go to by Basil, I guess. He went by BH, I guess. I'm guessing. That's how he writes his books. Mother's maiden name was Liddell. She was Scottish. Um, you know, raised, born and raised, I guess on the border of England. The Hart side, the Liddell, the Hart side was farmers.

• 2:30Jocko Willink?

  He was, he was, went to some really nice private schools. So he grew up in England. Born in France, but grew up in England. He went to some really nice private schools. The first, one of the private schools that he went to was called St. Paul's, which is in London. And it was founded in 1509.

• 2:49Jocko Willink?

  High school, founded in 1509. Okay, so you're, that's just kinda crazy when we think about England. Uh, then he ended up at Cambridge University, which by the way, was founded 300 years prior to that in 1209.

• 3:05Jocko Willink?

  1209, 1209. Well, he left Cambridge University when World War I broke out. Uh, volunteered for the British Army. He was in the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry. Glad we did that Light Infantry podcast recently. Dave, you chimed in on, you, you liked that one, didn't you?

• 3:24Speaker 02

  I did.

• 3:25Jocko Willink?

  Made you start thinking about some light infantry, cause it's a mindset.

• 3:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:28Jocko Willink?

  It's not just a, it's not just a way that people are trained. It's a way of thinking.

• 3:33Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I got to pull that real time at muster. I listened to it on the way to muster and put it into my brief.

• 3:38Jocko Willink?

  What was that point that you made?

• 3:40Speaker 02

  Well, the, the whole point behind that, like the largest theory, when you went into it was the size of the force is not the deciding factor. There's a lot of this, if, if you have a smaller force, doesn't guarantee your defeat. And the whole point of this was like, hey, how are we gonna move, think, maneuver in a way that a smaller force that looks weak on paper? And just outmaneuver these big giant forces because they're inflexible, immobile, they're dug in. So that theoretically in my mind resonated with all sorts of stuff.

• 4:07Jocko Willink?

  Can you imagine as I was learning jujitsu and thinking about that actual thing, how many, how many thi- how many elements started to just come into view? Like come out of the fog as I'm thinking through that very thing. I'm learning jujitsu, I'm like, oh, if I can maneuver myself over here and put all my force against a smaller portion of their strength, I can win.

• 4:33Jocko Willink?

  Alright, so he, he goes into the British Army. He is part of the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry. Shout out to Yorkshire.

• 4:46Jocko Willink?

  He spent time on the Western Front, World War I. Got sent back from the front two times because he was blown up and had concussive injuries. Cool. Hey, listen, you went to the front, you got blown up so bad that you got sent back because you had concussive injuries. Cool, you good? Okay, go back. All right, you get blown up again, boom, you know what? You're good? Okay, go back again. Third time he goes back, cool. Gets back just in time for the Battle of La Somme. And during the Battle of La Somme, wounded three times.

• 5:24Jocko Willink?

  Continued to fight. Finally, he gets gassed badly enough that he can't continue fighting. His battalion was just about wiped out on the first day of the offensive.

• 5:35Jocko Willink?

  Battle of La Somme, so his battalion was some of the 60,000 casualties on day one.

• 5:43Jocko Willink?

  And that event and those events clearly left a mark on his mentality. Because you've heard me go off and talk about

• 5:58Jocko Willink?

  the I don't know if I've used the word stupidity before because it's not the right word. But the, the, the problem with World War I of, hey, okay, we just lost a battalion at 0600, cool, 0605, Dave, your battalion's going. Okay, Dave's battalion just got wiped out. Okay, Echo, it's 610, your battalion, go. And that's what we're doing. That left a mark on him. Eventually, after he's wounded, started to heal up, went back, trained new recruits. Wrote the infantry training manual after the war, after, so then after the war, he ends up writing the infantry training manual. He got married.

• 6:40Jocko Willink?

  Got married to a woman named Jessie Stone. We're wondering what layers are there. Had a son, he retired in 1927, became a journalist, military historian, military theorist. Wrote the most, wrote so much, it's ridiculous, so much, it's just writing all the time. Deep historical writing, analysis, worked for Prime Minister Chamberlain. And he was, he was kind of maneuvering and getting people to think in a different way. A different way of using air power, a different way of using tank power, a different way of using maneuver warfare.

• 7:22Jocko Willink?

  And of course, we all know what happened with Prime Minister Chamberlain, he was weak. And Churchill took over, and when Churchill took over, they kind of used the more traditional war strategy in the beginning. Guess who didn't do that? You know who didn't do that? Hitler, the Nazis, who were actually paying attention. Now, there's some question around how much influence Hart, Liddell Hart, had over the Nazis. There's definitely some, meaning they were reading, you know, the line in Patton, "I read your book." Right? So Patton saying he read Rommel's book?

• 8:00Jocko Willink?

  Well, there's, there are actual connections between Rommel and some of the other more known, more well-known, and some of the lesser well-known Nazi leaders that were reading his stuff and being like, "Oh, this makes, this makes sense." There's also a lot of people that will say that, that B.H. Liddell Hart kind of inflated that a little bit, but there was some influence. And also regardless of how much of a connection there was, even if there wasn't a connection, they were both thinking the same things, right? They were both taking, learning the same lessons, right? Uh, which, that's what, that happens sometimes. You know, you put somebody in one situation, they're in a vacuum from someone else.

• 8:42Jocko Willink?

  If you put them in a similar situation like World War I, there's a pretty good chance that they could come to similar conclusions. Like, maybe it's not smart just to line up and start attacking all at once. Maybe we should use some decentralized command, maybe we should use maneuver warfare. So they all kind of came to the same conclusions, meaning B.H. Liddell Hart, meaning some of the German and Nazi leadership.

• 9:05Jocko Willink?

  And so that stuff kind of came into play. So he wrote a bunch of this stuff down.

• 9:13Jocko Willink?

  He wrote a book called The Strategy of the Indirect Approach, which was also printed as The Way to Win Wars, which is pretty cool. And what this is kind of what kicked me into hyperdrive of doing this. And we talked about this on the Underground. So I did a post about about the Civil War. I did a post, a social media post about the Civil War, about the Battle at Chancellorsville, about Jackson taking the indirect path, going 14 miles around to the flank of the Union troops and winning the battle in an hour, as opposed to just taking the direct assault towards the Union troops, which is a half a mile. And some of the comments in there, you know, were, of course, what do I focus on? But most of the comments were like, yeah,

• 9:55Jocko Willink?

  that makes sense. Use the indirect approach. And I talked about using it towards people and in a leadership position, how the indirect approach is normally the best way to go.

• 10:06Jocko Willink?

  And people were like, you know, you should just tell the truth, right? Are you saying you should lie to people? So it was that whole thing. And so I, look, I know where I got these ideas from. It's no mystery to me. And part of it is the fact that you put me in and you put someone in an environment and you make them figure something out, they're going to come to the same conclusions, right? So some of this stuff I was thinking, hmm, man, going to the flank makes a lot of sense and it makes a lot of sense for leadership. But, but I also know that these ideas were dripped into my head over the years. I mean, when you do a basic SEAL assault on a target, guess what? You set up a base element that puts down covering fire and then a flanking element goes around.

• 10:47Jocko Willink?

  That's what you do. This is not, it's not rocket science. So I know that some of my indirect, my theory, my thoughts around the indirect strategy, the indirect approach, I know some of those were just from being in the military.

• 11:01Jocko Willink?

  But I also know that some of it came from reading Hart. And so it made me crack open some of these books again and made me kind of fast forward in my mind to getting to these sooner in this podcast.

• 11:19Jocko Willink?

  Because, let's face it, when

• 11:25Jocko Willink?

  Well, the theory is based in reality, right? And that's what's interesting about this. When you have someone that spent time in the military, because the name of this book, that one of the books we're going to look at today, is The Strategy of Indirect Approach, and it's about the theory, right? But if you have someone, when you have someone that's been in war, and spent time as a military leader, and spent time in combat, and spent time in the worst kind of combat, like the actual worst combat, the actual worst combat, Battle of Saum, like the worst combat, actual worst combat, it's not theory anymore, right? That theory becomes based deeply in reality.

• 12:09Jocko Willink?

  And that's what we have with this book. And we're covering two of his books today, or at least trying to cover two of them. We might make it through. I don't even know how much, because there's a lot to talk about. One is called The Strategy of the Indirect Approach, which, like I said, was also reprinted as The Way to Win Wars. And the other one's just called Strategy, straight up.

• 12:34Jocko Willink?

  So, I guess we're going to get to it. Anything, Dave?

• 12:43Speaker 02

  I wrote down the word travesty when you were talking about World War I. I just wrote that word down, just to remind me of the thing that I think about is, when you talk about losing a battalion, it's a scale that I think is actually kind of hard to comprehend when you think of a battalion. I mean, we have lost, I've been on patrols where we lost a vehicle, we lost people, a whole vehicle. A battalion is on a scale, and just sort of the willingness, the willingness to allow that to happen over and over again. And then, in retrospect, thinking, and I was thinking of this, as you said, was the Germans had to learn that same lesson. They had to have learned the same lesson. You know, and the Marine Corps takes a little bit of pride in sort of showing up, having the similar experience, and then saying, "We're not doing this anymore."

• 13:26Speaker 02

  The Marine Corps really takes pride in that, and we teach that history, but...

• 13:29Jocko Willink?

  In actual World War I, is what you're talking about?

• 13:32Speaker 02

  Yes, in actual World War I, of showing up, sort of after the war had been underway for quite some time, getting on board with how it was being done, and then suffering massive casualties in the very initial engagements, and saying, "We're done with this direct assault approach." And the larger point to that is the idea that not just for him, but for Germany as well. The idea that the way we did that was a travesty. And that you would see how those lessons apply to well beyond just warfare, that that would sink into your psyche in every single, everything you did in your life would be informed is such a bad way to describe like it's influence on a level that

• 14:14Speaker 02

  you wouldn't just rethink how you did war, you would rethink every aspect of your life if you suffered the casualties to that degree. Because of the willingness for leaders to just say, just like you described, your battalion's gone, you're up next. And the fact that it influenced every aspect of his life is actually not even remotely surprised to me.

• 14:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and it boils down to, and I know you like when I say this, Dave. It becomes not just a theory, not just a strategy, but a way of thinking, a way of thinking is what it becomes. And what's interesting is we're about to hear exactly how that transpired in his head.

• 14:50Jocko Willink?

  And this is something we covered this, we actually covered this on the underground, but I just, I had to touch on it on the underground, but we're going to go deep. So here we go, here's the preface. My original study of the strategy of indirect approach was written in 1929, published under the title, The Decisive Wars of History. It has been out of print for some time. So there's another third title that this book has been published under. In the following, in the years following its publication, I continued to explore this line of thought. And from the results of such further study compiled a number of supplementary notes which were privately circulated. Since the course of the present war has provided further examples of the value of the indirect approach,

• 15:35Jocko Willink?

  and thereby given fresh point to the thesis, the issue of a new edition of the book provides an opportunity to include these. So now he's writing this, he's putting this one out in World War II. And actually it's towards the end of World War II because, well, he ends up talking about World War II and what's happening.

• 15:58Jocko Willink?

  When in the course of studying a long series of military campaigns, I first came to perceive the superiority of the indirect over the direct approach. I was looking merely for light upon strategy. So he starts off just looking like, okay, how does this work? How can we win? Seems like this indirect thing is pretty cool. It seems like a good strategy for the battlefield.

• 16:24Jocko Willink?

  With deepening reflection, however, I began to realize that the indirect approach had a much wider application, that it was a law of life in all spheres, a truth of philosophy.

• 16:43Jocko Willink?

  Right?

• 16:45Jocko Willink?

  A law of life in all spheres. So this is where we get crazy because there's so many people.

• 16:54Jocko Willink?

  So many people this like, oh, you gotta be direct. Like, that's just such a common theme in the world. Hey, you gotta be direct. You gotta be frank. You gotta tell. So, so I get it. I get it. I get it. He found that this has a much wider application. And it's a law of all, all, a law of life in all spheres, a truth of philosophy. Its fulfillment was seen to be the key practical achievement in dealing with any problem where the human factor predominates. And a conflict of wills tends to spring from an underlying concern for interests. Okay, so here's where this gets awesome.

• 17:36Jocko Willink?

  So he's talking about conflict, right? A conflict of wills. And what we might fail to realize is that if I'm on the same team as Dave,

• 17:46Jocko Willink?

  we can also still have a conflict of wills. Cause Dave wants to do A and I want to do B. So even though we're on the same team, that's like one of the other perspectives that I think about this. You know, when I said about leadership capital and relationships, that's, this applies 100% there too.

• 18:06Jocko Willink?

  In all such cases, in all such cases, so this is cases that where you have the human factor, anytime you got the human factor, in all such cases, the direct assault of new ideas provokes a stubborn resistance, thus intensifying the difficulty of producing a change of outlook. Dave, how long have you, how many times have you heard me tell this to clients, to people? This is it. It's, I don't have the vocabulary to explain how often we say that in some version of that sentence, in everything, but I gotta be careful because I could probably, just

• 18:47Jocko Willink?

  it's just hearing it invokes so many things to think about, but he's almost articulating it like when there's a human component to this, and I'm thinking to myself, so when is that not, when in my life am I not interacting with another human being? If we're, if we're doing a computer software design, right, we don't need to worry about this. If we're, if we're, if we're actually programming a machine of some kind, we don't need to worry about it. Yeah. Other than that, other than that, if you directly assault an idea, it's going to provoke stubborn resistance. So if I impose my plan on Dave, it's going to get resistance. Even though Dave's on my team, I impose a plan on him, it's going to be resisted.

• 19:27Jocko Willink?

  And it's going to make the change of outlook harder. It's going to make the change of outlook harder. So if my wife wants something and I attack it, it's going to be harder for her to change her mind. There's going to be more resistance for her changing her mind on where we're going out for dinner. That's what's going to happen. Back to the book, conversion is achieved more easily and rapidly by unsuspected infiltration of a different idea, or by an argument that turns the flank of instinctive opposition.

• 20:08Jocko Willink?

  So you're going to get more easy, more easily and more rapidly conversion of their brain will come when you flank them.

• 20:19Jocko Willink?

  Check. And faster. And faster. Rapidly and more easily. By an unsuspected infiltration of a different idea. And by the way, don't let, well, we'll get to it. So, so there's some people that are thinking right now, oh, so what you're gonna do is you're gonna lie to Dave.

• 20:37Jocko Willink?

  No, I'm not gonna lie to Dave. Doesn't mean I lied, doesn't mean I say, well, actually Dave, we should use my plan because, and I'm gonna make up some intel that supports my plan. I'm gonna make up a timeline that supports my plan. No, that's not what I'm talking about at all.

• 20:51Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, in commerce, the suggestion that there is a bargain to be secured is far more potent than any direct appeal to buy. And in any sphere, it is a proverbial that the surest way of gaining a superior's acceptance of a new idea is to persuade him that it is his idea.

• 21:13Jocko Willink?

  Hello.

• 21:15Jocko Willink?

  This is something, um, again, maybe I should just start paying, uh, what is it? Paying royalties. I just owe royalties to be it, because leadership strategy and tactics, oh, that's just all in there. Let us make it their idea.

• 21:29Jocko Willink?

  As in war, the aim is to weaken resistance before attempting to overcome it. And the effect is best attained by drawing the other party out of his defenses. Great, we're not attacking hardened positions.

• 21:44Jocko Willink?

  This idea of the indirect approach is closely related to all problems of the influence of mind upon mind.

• 21:55Jocko Willink?

  All problems of the influence of mind upon mind. All problems. Anytime it's my mind against someone else's mind, this is where we need to go indirect. The most influential factor in human history.

• 22:10Jocko Willink?

  Yet it is hard to reconcile with another lesson. That true conclusions can only be reached or approached by pursuing the truth without regard to where it may lead, or what its effect may be on different interests. So, what are we saying there? Now we're saying, wait a second. Wait a second, what? Shouldn't we be going after the truth? Like, isn't it the... Look, if I'm working with Dave, and I think my plan's better, well, then, I need to tell him that. That's the truth. The truth is, my plan's better. And what's so hard about this, this is one of those universal things that pisses me off.

• 22:44Speaker 01

  I got you.

• 22:47Jocko Willink?

  Is, there's no one that... It's against all moral high ground to lie, right? So, the opposite of lying is what?

• 23:03Speaker 01

  Truth.

• 23:03Jocko Willink?

  Telling the truth. So, if we're starting to think that this is not telling the truth, then what are we doing? We must be lying. So, how do we reconcile? That's what we're saying. How do we reconcile this? Wait, I have a different plan than Dave. I think my plan's better. I should tell him the truth. That's what I should do. I shouldn't lie to him. Well, we're not talking about lying to him. Back to the book. History bears witness to the vital part that the prophets have played in human progress, which is evidence of the ultimate practical value of expressing unreservedly the truth as one sees it. Okay, so now, we're gonna get...

• 23:44Jocko Willink?

  He's gonna use the example, historical examples, and there's countless of prophets. Someone that is a prophet that stands up and says, "This is the truth as I see it", and tells the truth.

• 24:01Jocko Willink?

  Yet it also becomes clear that the acceptance and spreading of their vision has always depended on another class of men. What's the other class of men? Leaders. Leaders who had to be philosophical strategists, striking a compromise between truth and men's receptivity to it. So lately, I've been saying a lot of what good is telling the truth if no one hears it or no one listens to you? If you stab somebody in the eye with the dagger of truth, what are they gonna do? They're gonna be pissed, they're gonna lash out at you, they might even, you know, pull out a sidearm and shoot you in the gut.

• 24:42Jocko Willink?

  But they definitely don't want to hear anything from it and they'll do their best to pull that thing back out and stab you with it. So you haven't made any progress at all. So that's what a prophet does. A prophet says, "This is the truth," and they stab you in the eye with it. A leader has to find that compromise between telling the truth and getting people to actually listen to it. Their effect has often depended as much on their own limitations in perceiving the truth as on their practical wisdom in proclaiming it. So how are you going to tell the truth? Practical wisdom? How are you gonna, what are you gonna say? How are you gonna say it where it'll actually be listened to? And then he goes on to say this.

• 25:26Jocko Willink?

  "The prophets must be stoned." That is their lot. That is their test of their self fulfillment. What happens to the prophet? The prophet gets stoned, the prophet gets crucified. That's what happens. "But a leader who is stoned may merely prove that he has failed in his function through a deficiency of wisdom or through confusing his function with that of a prophet." This is pure brilliance, by the way. This is absolute pure brilliance. So if you're in a leadership position and what you do is you start stabbing people with the dagger of truth in the neck, and you think you're doing a good thing, guess what?

• 26:10Jocko Willink?

  They're gonna tackle you and they're gonna stone you to death. They're gonna execute you because you were stabbing people and it offended them and it hurt them and that you didn't convince anybody of anything. So sometimes you get a leader that's like, "Look, the truth is, listen Dave, I gotta tell you the truth here." That's not good. It's not gonna help you.

• 26:31Speaker 02

  It's crazy. You're like on page one.

• 26:34Jocko Willink?

  I know. Page one half.

• 26:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:40Speaker 02

  I think the the phrase that's been coming to mind a lot lately when you're talking about this is

• 26:47Speaker 02

  is a truth that it's imposed upon somebody compared to the truth that they discover for themselves. The difference between those two. And I'm thinking of all the like the phrases that people use when they're going to reveal the truth. Let me stop you right there. Actually, like, and when you hear people prepping for the the direct assault, which is I'm now gonna let you know. And even the preparation for that, just that phrase alone puts the other person in a position where all they want to do is defend themselves. And and the words that come next almost don't even matter because if I say, actually, Jaco.

• 27:23Jocko Willink?

  The reality is.

• 27:25Speaker 02

  The reality is. The first thing you do is is you mentally, you are dug in. No matter how truthful I'm going to be after that, it just the connection he's making, though, like the how universal that is to all interactions is just

• 27:40Speaker 02

  it's it's crazy listening to this and then the the application to every interaction you have. Like with every with if any human being and how instinctive it is to,

• 27:52Speaker 02

  I guess, tell the truth and how ineffective that way of thinking is if there's an outcome that you're trying to shape.

• 28:01Jocko Willink?

  Echo Charles.

• 28:02Speaker 02

  Yes, sir.

• 28:02Jocko Willink?

  Have you ever seen the movie Raiders of the Lost Lost Ark?

• 28:06Speaker 02

  Yes, sir, I have.

• 28:07Jocko Willink?

  So there's a ark, right? The ark of the covenant. And I think the truth is kind of like that. If you reveal that truth in an improper way, people's faces are melting.

• 28:20Speaker 02

  Melting off. Oh, yeah.

• 28:21Jocko Willink?

  That's what happens.

• 28:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:23Jocko Willink?

  So people people treat the truth.

• 28:27Jocko Willink?

  As if it's only benevolent, as if it can only do good.

• 28:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:32Jocko Willink?

  But you gotta remember there's collateral debt. Truth causes collateral damage and people don't pay attention to that. So when you start pulling off the lid, maybe you gotta like, you gotta prep people for it. You gotta say, hey, turn your eyes for a second here. There's gonna be some bright lights.

• 28:45Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 28:46Jocko Willink?

  If you don't prep them for it. And what, what we want to do,

• 28:51Jocko Willink?

  what we wanna do is we want them to reveal the truth to themselves. That's what we really want. A really good leader. Look, a prophet will show you the truth, maybe you're getting melted. A really good leader, you somehow discover the truth.

• 29:06Jocko Willink?

  I mean, they showed it to you, but you didn't even know it.

• 29:09Speaker 01

  So the whole expression, the truth hurts. You know, that, that's cause that's kinda common, right? Would that be an indicator of maybe a prophet or, or at the very least, not the correct.

• 29:20Jocko Willink?

  That's prophet all day long. Prophet is like, look, look Echo, truth hurts, but I'm gonna tell you something. You know what I mean? How, how, how, how open minded are you when I get done with that statement?

• 29:30Speaker 01

  Oh, I would meet it with stubborn resistance.

• 29:32Jocko Willink?

  Check. And you know, we like to think that, well, you know, I really have a good relationship with someone, you know, great. There might be one person in your entire life that you can be like, hey dude, that was jacked up. And you're like, cool, got it. What adjustments do I need? There's one person in your life you can do that with.

• 29:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:48Jocko Willink?

  Maybe.

• 29:49Speaker 01

  Isn't that at the end of the day, in a way, the indirect approach anyway? Because you know, you say, okay, that one person, yeah, but you know, why is that one person? Because you have this years and years and years and years and years of this indirect, you know, kind of approach or whatever. And then, yeah. So you open up that little hole that, yeah, you have that direct line all day now.

• 30:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, now, exactly. Yes, you are correct. Even that approach. Cause if you would have met that person day one, three years ago and said, you know, I was looking at that video you made. I'm, I'm not feeling it. Actually, you, you know, the camera angles that you use, kinda marginal, right?

• 30:21Jocko Willink?

  It took me five years of working with you before I could be like, bruh. The soundtrack?

• 30:26Speaker 01

  No, actually.

• 30:27Jocko Willink?

  You put a Christmas song in there?

• 30:28Speaker 01

  It was actually right away. I dig it. You're right.

• 30:33Jocko Willink?

  Uh, back to the book. Time alone can tell whether the effect of such a sacrifice redeems the apparent failure as a leader that does honor to him as a man. So there's a chance that you could, you could present something and over time, people go, yeah, he was right. At the least, he avoids the more common fault of leader, of leaders, that of sacrificing the truth to expediency without ultimate advantage to the cause. So occasionally, a leader's like, you know what? We just need to tell the truth. And you sacrifice it. It gets killed, it gets thrown away. And one of the books that I'm, or the podcast that I want to move to from this one, which I will get to, and I'm not 100% sure when, but they got all these examples of problems

• 31:17Jocko Willink?

  in, in the military and military thinking. And one of the problems, and I forget the exact number, but there's been like 20 major advancements in naval warfare in the last 500 years. And every one of them was met with absolutely stiff resistance. No, not everyone, 17 of them were met with stiff resistance by all senior naval leaders in the world. You know, they started making ships from steel instead of what, like this is Creo, you can't repair steel, we can get a welder. They resisted, switching to the steam engine, switching to gas, which I were diesel, switching to like all the, every, people resisted every one of these things.

• 32:02Jocko Willink?

  Every one of them, well, sorry, 17 out of 20. Of great advancements. It happens all the time. Because somebody goes hard with the truth and people defend, they go into instant defense mode.

• 32:16Speaker 01

  So like, remember the movie, uh, Independence? No, no, no, Armageddon.

• 32:20Jocko Willink?

  I don't think I ever actually saw it, but.

• 32:23Speaker 01

  It's too bad, it's a good flick.

• 32:24Jocko Willink?

  I'm sure it's, wasn't that up for several Oscars?

• 32:27Speaker 01

  Anyway, Armageddon, Bruce Willis.

• 32:31Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 32:32Speaker 01

  Uh, asteroid coming in, right? What was the, what was the plan that won out? Do you watch Armageddon, Dave Berke?

• 32:37Jocko Willink?

  Sorry, dude.

• 32:40Speaker 01

  Independence Day, I was dialed in, man.

• 32:43Jocko Willink?

  We're just culturally lost here, bro, I apologize.

• 32:45Speaker 01

  It's okay, I'll explain to you. Asteroid coming in, right? World ending asteroid, global killer. So they're like, hey, let's just blast it with nukes and blow it right out of the sky. Then the smart scientist is like, that's a bad idea. Everyone gets all mad, right? No, that's it. We're gonna need a direct approach. Launch nukes, right? Can't get any more direct than that. But the smart scientist said, nope, this is what you're gonna do. You're gonna go in there, you're gonna drill a little hole, you're gonna put a nuke in that hole, you're gonna just nudge it just a little bit from the side. So now the trajectory gets changed. You see what I'm saying?

• 33:22Jocko Willink?

  That was the smarter approach.

• 33:23Speaker 01

  Same thing, yeah, exactly right.

• 33:25Jocko Willink?

  Here I am going through historical books, trying to figure this stuff out, and I could've figured it out with Armageddon.

• 33:30Speaker 01

  Armageddon all day.

• 33:31Jocko Willink?

  With Bruce Willis.

• 33:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, you don't gotta bother with all this.

• 33:34Jocko Willink?

  Check. Back to the book. We good?

• 33:37Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 33:38Jocko Willink?

  Armageddon?

• 33:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm just saying, these ideas are everywhere. You see what I'm saying?

• 33:41Jocko Willink?

  There we go, man.

• 33:44Jocko Willink?

  For whoever habitually suppresses the truth, see, this is where you have to pay attention. Because, again, it's not me lying to Dave and saying, well, actually, Dave, the timeline that's required for the plan, we better use my plan. Whoever habitually suppresses the truth in the interest of tact will produce a deformity from the womb of his thought. So you can't, you can't lie about what you're saying. You have to maintain, you have to maintain the truth, but you have to take an indirect approach. That's it. It's not a lie. It's an indirect approach, bound to the truth.

• 34:27Jocko Willink?

  He explains it a little bit more. Is there a practical way of combining progress towards the attainment of truth with progress towards its acceptance? So is there a way to get Dave to think about my plan and utilize my plan

• 34:45Jocko Willink?

  with also doing it in a way that he is open to accept this idea? Is there a combination of those two things? Of telling Dave the truth about what I think of his plan and at the same time, getting him to accept my opinion? That's what we want, right?

• 35:03Jocko Willink?

  A possible solution of the problem is suggested by reflection on strategic principles, which point to the importance of maintaining an object consistently, and also of pursuing it in a way adapted to the circumstances. This seems so obvious. Is that we continue to focus on the right thing, but then we continue to move towards this objective, but as circumstances change, we adjust, we maneuver. We say, "Oh yeah, there's a massive enemy location right here. Let's not continue in that direction, let's go around it."

• 35:38Jocko Willink?

  Isn't it smart to do that with our ideas as well? It doesn't mean we abandon the objective. It doesn't mean we say, "Oh, we're gonna change this objective, or we're not gonna continue towards this." It means we adjust our approach, and maybe instead of going direct, we go indirect.

• 35:57Jocko Willink?

  Opposition to the truth is inevitable.

• 36:02Jocko Willink?

  That's a good thing to remember. Opposition to the truth is inevitable, especially if it takes the form of a new idea, but the degree of resistance can be diminished by giving thought not only to the aim, but to the method of approach.

• 36:18Jocko Willink?

  Avoid a frontal attack in a long-established position. Instead, seek to turn it by a flank movement, so that the more penetrable side is exposed to the thrust of the truth.

• 36:33Jocko Willink?

  But in any such indirect approach, take care not to diverge from the truth, for nothing is more fatal to its real advancement than to lapse into the untruth.

• 36:47Jocko Willink?

  So for the people that commented when I talked about the indirect approach, and were like, "Oh, so you're just gonna lie to your people?" No. No, we're not gonna lie to our people. The truth is the objective, but we are going to adjust our approach, so that we're not offensive to the individuals or the groups that we're talking to, so that we don't cause them to put up a more stiff resistance to fight against our idea, to, for them to look at it as if it's not the truth.

• 37:17Jocko Willink?

  We're gonna flank. That's what we're gonna do.

• 37:22Jocko Willink?

  And then he goes on here. And he says, "The meaning of these reflections may be made clearer by illustration from one's own experience. Looking back on the stages by which various fresh ideas gained acceptance, it can be seen that the process was eased when they could be presented, not as something radically new, but as a revival in modern terms of a time-honored principle or practice that had been forgotten." So here's his, one of his little indirect approaches is to take a new idea and, and, and camouflage it with an old idea. It's kind of like what the, what the Christians did with the Vikings, right? Easter, you know, where, you know, the term Easter?

• 38:06Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 38:07Jocko Willink?

  And, yeah, it's, it's a, it's a pagan thing, but we call, it's a pagan word and it's a pagan ceremony. But the Christians were like, "Oh yeah, you can call the thing in the spring? We'll call that Easter. It's cool. It's about Christ rising, but you know, we call it Easter." It's sort of a thing that you guys already do. They just kind of take an old idea and rebrand it. That's actually what they did.

• 38:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think they did that with Christmas too.

• 38:33Jocko Willink?

  Did that with Christmas too.

• 38:36Jocko Willink?

  So that's what we're doing. We're kind of camouflaging this idea so it's a little more open to you. "Hey, you know how you guys do the, the springtime thing? And you guys celebrate birth, right? We, we had, you know, like a rebirth. Kind of co-brand that thing. We're good."

• 38:50Speaker 01

  It's kind of like your dog, right? When you feed him the heart pills, right? Heartworm pills?

• 38:55Jocko Willink?

  Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Put a little, put a little, uh, piece of steak around that thing.

• 38:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, like you've been eating this food this whole time? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just put the, put the heartworm pills in there.

• 39:07Jocko Willink?

  He goes, he goes on to say here, "This required not deception, but care to trace the connection, since there is nothing new under the sun," right? You can always figure out something that ties into what you're doing.

• 39:18Jocko Willink?

  A notable example was the way that the opposition to mechanized mechanization was diminished by showing that the mobile armored vehicle, the fast-moving tank, was fundamentally the heir of the armored horseman. And thus, the natural means of reviving the decisive role which cavalry played in past ages, which is what we call, what do we call armored cavalry now? Why is that? Because people resist this tank, it's gonna get stuck, it takes gas. I mean, a horse can go forever, can eat off the land. How are you gonna refuel these tanks? People just resisted that idea, resist, and then it's like, oh, no, no, this is the new cavalry. Oh, okay, kinda cool, then we're down.

• 39:54Jocko Willink?

  So what can you do as you try and convince people of ideas? Take an old idea, repackage it. And it's true, because there's no new ideas under the sun. It's not like you're lying to them.

• 40:10Speaker 02

  I don't know, obviously, what's coming, in terms of, you know, the, how much detail is in and what we're gonna discuss. But even just, even just the word "the truth", how that's the, the, it's the topic that you're trying to get across.

• 40:25Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 40:26Speaker 02

  And even what that means, like,

• 40:30Speaker 02

  if I have an idea,

• 40:33Speaker 02

  that's different than me, like, trying to get you to understand some sort of, like, hey, two plus two is four. And you're gonna say, no, okay. As opposed to, I think we should do this. And the abandonment of that truth versus, all right, listen, I can't just walk up to Jaco and go, hey, this is how we're gonna, this is the new way we're gonna do, solve this problem. And even just the word "truth", has a connotation like, I'm right and you're wrong. As opposed to, hey, I'm trying to get you to see this a different way. And it might not end up exactly how I've drawn it out. Maybe my drawing is like, ends up in 80% or whatever. But I could see people getting hung up the idea that I have to convince Jaco of the truth, meaning, I know the answer, and he doesn't.

• 41:15Speaker 02

  And if he doesn't, then I've gotta figure out how to, and maybe the fast way to just shove it in his face and go, dude, this is what we're doing. As opposed to getting him to see that there might be another way of doing it, which is actually the truth. As opposed to, it has to be exactly my way. And if there's a minefield between you and me, I guess I could go into that minefield, but it's not going to help me get you to see something different. And he, I think, said the quote is, "Resistance to the truth is inevitable."

• 41:42Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 41:43Speaker 02

  Resistance to your ideas are inevitable.

• 41:45Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 41:46Speaker 02

  So let's not, let's not pretend like you might be able to avoid that resistance, that minefield, that, that barrier, that wall, it is there. I just think the idea of the truth of us committing to it is this way as opposed to, "I want to think of something a different way."

• 42:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. No, that's a great point because what we're really, what, when we start talking about it in a leadership capacity, it becomes, "Hey, it's my idea."

• 42:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:14Jocko Willink?

  And as we were talking on EF Online today, it's like, my assumption is that my idea is flawed.

• 42:20Speaker 02

  Right.

• 42:21Jocko Willink?

  And I can present my idea to you, but I still present it as if not, it's the truth, but it's an idea of a possibility. Now, what's interesting is, what does that do to my idea? It makes it indirect.

• 42:35Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 42:36Jocko Willink?

  It makes it indirect. Me packaging the idea that I have as a possibility, or as a thought, or an idea for me, as opposed to, "This is the way we should do it." It makes it an indirect approach. And what we talked about today on EF Online, I actually believe that. So I don't have to like act, I don't have to pretend like, "Hey, I'm going to pretend like this isn't the best idea ever, and like, Dave should just shut up and do it my way. I'm gonna, I'm gonna pretend that, so that way it's a little more indirect." No, I actually think, you know what, this is, my idea seems like a good idea, but there could be some holes punted into it, which is, which is fine. I'm okay with that. So yeah, when we start talking about getting people's ideas, and anytime you, I mean,

• 43:19Jocko Willink?

  there's very few things that I, actually, here's something I've said, early podcasts, is the amount of times that I say, "Dave, bro, listen, this is what we should do."

• 43:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:34Jocko Willink?

  The only reason I'm going to say that is if I am 100%.

• 43:41Jocko Willink?

  100% convicted that I, and it, you probably have never even heard me say that. Because it's so rare. Now, look, there was times where in the SEAL Team, somebody wanted to do something that was bad. Oh, you wanna, you wanna set up on two sides of a road and ambush someone in the middle? Okay, so that means we're gonna be shooting at each other. Like, this is bad. We do not want to do that. Of course, how often did guys present a plan to me like that? Almost never. So, most of the time, it was, you know, hey, think through that. But very rarely, very rarely do I have the approach that I actually know the capital T truth. So this is a very good point to make.

• 44:25Jocko Willink?

  You, whoever you are, you don't know the truth. Very seldom are you 100% convinced, hey, my idea is the truth. Don't walk around with that attitude. It's not good.

• 44:40Jocko Willink?

  Alright, we're getting into this next section here, which is called History as Practical Experience. Starts off by saying, fools say that they learn by experience. I prefer to profit by others' experience. This famous saying quoted by Bismarck, but by no means original to him, has peculiar bearing on military questions. For it has often been remarked that the soldier, unlike followers of other professions, has but rare opportunities to practice his profession. Isn't that interesting? Look, you're in the military? Cool. You're a professional soldier? Awesome. How often do you actually get to do that job? The answer is, not as often as a normal, not as often as a carpenter, not as often as a plumber, not as often as a software engineer.

• 45:26Jocko Willink?

  You might get to train for it, you might, but how often are you locked and loaded and in combat with someone else in the military?

• 45:35Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. Indeed, it might even be argued that in a literal sense, the profession of arms is not a profession at all, but merely casual employment. And paradoxically, that it ceased to be a profession when the soldier of fortune gave way to the professional soldier, when mercenary troops who were employed and paid for the purpose of war were replaced by standing armies, which continued to be paid when there was no war. So if you're a mercenary, you'd be like, oh, there's a war over there. Cool. I'm gonna go do it. That's kind of like a plumber. Oh, there's a different war over here. Cool. I'm gonna go do that one. Oh, there's a different war over here. Cool. That's a little bit more of an actual profession. You might end up in more combat in your life than if you're in a standing army that's doing that job even when there's no war going on. This logical, if somewhat extreme, argument recalls the excuse often made in the past

• 46:18Jocko Willink?

  for paying officers a rate inadequate to live on, and by some of those officers for doing an inadequate day's work. The contention being that the officer's pay was not a working salary, but a retainer paid to him for the benefit of having his services available in case of war. This reminds me of some of the, some of the information about the British Army and how just the officers during certain phases were just actual aristocrats that had almost no interest in fighting wars and almost complete interest in going to the country club.

• 47:00Jocko Willink?

  Some of the, um, some of the biographies of some of the guys that led the Boer War were pretty embarrassing. And then they showed up for the Boer War with pianos and just, it's like crazy. If the argument that strictly there is no profession of arms will not hold good in most armies today, on the score of work, it is inevitably strengthened on a, the score of practice by the increasing infrequency of wars. So there's less and less wars now. Are we then left with the conclusion that armies are doomed to become more and more amateurish in the popular bad sense of that much abused and misused word?

• 47:43Jocko Willink?

  So, hey, look, if you're in the military, you're not getting to fight all the time. Does that mean you become an amateur over time? For obviously even the best of peace training is more theoretical than practical and experience. And you know what I like? Well, the reason I wasn't going to do this section. But guess what? It's the same thing with leadership. It's the same thing with leadership. You're in a leadership position. How often are you actually in a challenging situation in leadership? How often does someone say, "Hey, boss, I'm not doing this." How often does someone say that, "I'm not working with that person like you?" You end up with combative situations. But how often is that? Because normally people are, "Hey, yeah, yeah, got it, boss." "Oh, that sounds like a good plan." Like, that's what you're normally getting.

• 48:23Jocko Willink?

  You're not normally, as a leader, hopefully, you're not normally being combative. So it's the same thing. How do we train for that? Bismarck throws a different and more encouraging light on the problem. It helps us to realize that there are two forms of practical experience, direct and indirect. And that of the two indirect practical experience may be more valuable. Because it's infinitely wider. So, look, you can get that experience of dealing with a bad employee. But how often do you actually deal with it? I mean, how many Marines did you have to write up?

• 48:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:59Jocko Willink?

  Hardly any, ever. I mean, like, how many SEALs did I have to write up? How many SEALs did I have to fire? When we're working with companies, we were with companies with thousands of employees. The combative situations are much more rare than the day-to-day, "Hey, this is what we're doing," normal leadership.

• 49:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, and how often is the problem even as bad as you think it is? You know, when we'll get questions about, "Hey, how do I deal with a boss who, um, you know, wants my team to fail?" When I say, "Hey, if you really think about the problem, they're not, they're often not as bad or as significant and not of the magnitude that we even make it out to be."

• 49:37Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 49:40Jocko Willink?

  Even in the most active career, especially a soldier's career, the scope and possibilities of direct experience are extremely limited. In contrast to the military, the medical profession has incessant practice, right? They're doing a surgery a day, two surgeries a day, three surgeries a day. Yet, the great achievements in medicine and surgery have usually been due to the research worker and not to the general practitioner. Direct experience is inherently too limited a form to form a secure foundation for either theory or application. So if the only combat experience you're going to get is combat experience, you're going to be, you're going to be screwed. At the best, it produces an atmosphere which is value in drying and hardening the structure of our thought. Ooh.

• 50:23Jocko Willink?

  If you only have a little bit of combat experience, that's what you become if you don't open your mind up. If you only have a little bit of leadership experience, that's what happens when you get in the SEAL teams, you know, we'd have the on-the-job training leadership, that's how guys would become, that's how they'd get their leadership training, just by watching their platoon chief or their platoon commander. So if they weren't good, that bad example would dry and harden in their mind and become the way they would be too, because they didn't open their mind up to different indirect experience. The greater value of indirect experience lies in its greater variety and extent, right? History is universal. Experience, the experience not of another, but of many others, under manifold conditions.

• 51:07Jocko Willink?

  Boom. So we can learn about leadership from everywhere. Here we have the rational justification for military history. Its preponderant practical value in the training and mental development of a soldier. But, but the benefit depends, as with all experience, on its breadth, on how closely it approaches the definition quoted above, and on the method of studying it. So we got to study, and look, the whole premise of this particular podcast is understanding human nature, is understanding leadership by understanding how people act in war. Why is that? Why don't we study a bunch of business cases?

• 51:50Jocko Willink?

  Well, because if you want to see...

• 51:55Jocko Willink?

  Human nature be revealed, you gotta put some pressure on it. You gotta put some pressure, there's no better pressure.

• 52:02Jocko Willink?

  No better pressure than combat. Soldiers universally concede the general truth of Napoleon's much quoted dictum that in war, "The moral is to the physical as three to one."

• 52:14Jocko Willink?

  Cool, we covered that on this podcast and all of Napoleon's maxims. But here we go, "The actual arithmetic proportion may be worthless, "for morale is apt to decline if weapons be inadequate, "and the strongest will is of little use inside of a dead body."

• 52:32Jocko Willink?

  But although the moral and physical factors are inseparable and indivisible, the saying gains its immortal value because it expresses the idea of the predominance, the predominance of moral factors in all military decisions. So obviously, it's not like, okay, here's the numerical. You have this much, you have this much physical situation. Oh, don't worry, morale's three to one. That's not what we're talking about, but it's that idea.

• 52:59Jocko Willink?

  "On them constantly turns the issue of worn battle, "and in history of war, they form the more constant factors changing only in degree, "whereas physical factors are fundamentally different in almost every war, "in every military situation." That's the important part of this. That's the important part of this.

• 53:18Jocko Willink?

  You've got the, you've got the physical factors, right? The physical, but that changes.

• 53:24Jocko Willink?

  But what doesn't change?

• 53:27Jocko Willink?

  The history of war, they form more constant factors, changing only in degree. The physical factors go all over the place because we got machine guns. We got tanks. We got people with night vision. Like it's, there's different physical things, but the, but the, the human nature doesn't change.

• 53:46Jocko Willink?

  This realization affects the whole question of the study of military history for practical use. The method in the last few generations has been to select one or two campaigns and to study them exhaustively as means of developing both our minds and a theory of war. But the continual changes in military means from war to war entail a grave danger, even a certainty that our outlook will be narrow and lessens fallacious. In the physical sphere, the one constant factor is that means and condition are invariably inconsistent. So the physical stuff, we can study it like, okay, what, how did you maneuver in this situation? How did you, how did, what weapons did you use over here? Well, guess what? You fast forward 30 years and we've got different weapons.

• 54:31Jocko Willink?

  You fast forward six years and we go from no night vision to all night vision. So if that's what we're studying, what are we looking at? In contrast, human nature varies but slightly in its reaction to danger. Some men by race, by environment, or by training may be less sensitive than others, but the difference is one of degree, not fundamental. So people are people. The more localized the situation and our study, the more disconcerting and less calculable is such a difference of degree. It may prevent an exact calculation of the resistance which men will offer in any situation, but it does not impair the judgment that they will offer less if taken by surprise

• 55:16Jocko Willink?

  than if they're on alert. This is like, so it doesn't matter where you look in history, the person that's surprised versus the person that's on alert, you're going to get the same, almost the exact same reaction. Less if they are weary and hungry than if they're fresh and well-fed. Look, we go back 1,000 years, 2,000 years, well-fed troops that are well-rested are ready to rock and roll. Weary, hungry, they're not. The broader, the broader, the psychological survey, the better foundation it affords for deductions. So you have to look throughout history and see all these different battles and see what the psychology of the soldiers and leaders was. The predominance of the psychological over the physical and its greater consistency

• 56:01Jocko Willink?

  point to the conclusion that the foundation of any theory of war should be as broad as possible.

• 56:09Jocko Willink?

  An intensive study of one campaign unless based upon, unless based on extensive knowledge of the whole history of war is as likely to lead us into pitfalls as onto the peaks of military achievement. So if you just look at one campaign and that's where you base everything on, you're wrong.

• 56:26Jocko Willink?

  But if a certain effect is seen to follow a certain cause in a score or more cases in different epochs and diverse conditions, there is ground for regarding this cause as an integral part of any theory of war. You see something one time, it doesn't mean jack. If you see something four times, but it's all in the same campaign and the same locale and the same soldiers fighting against the same other soldiers, again, it's a minimal. But when you take it over centuries or millennia and you see the same thing over and over again,

• 57:00Jocko Willink?

  maybe you should pay attention to that one. The thesis set forth in this book is the product of such an extensive examination, it might indeed be termed the compound effect of certain causes, these being connected with my task of military editor for Encyclopedia Britannica. That's kind of crazy. For all I had previously delved into various periods of military history, according to my inclination, this task compelled a generally general survey of all, often against my inclination. So he was the military editor for the Encyclopedia Britannica. You know what that is, Echo Charles? Of course, yes. I'm just saying, are you a millennial? No, I'm not, Chaco. Thank you. Some people, I bet a kid right now does not know what the Encyclopedia Britannica

• 57:43Jocko Willink?

  was. When we were kids, that was kind of it, right? That was Google. That was Google. Yep, that was Google. Got to go find the letter on the spine. Yeah, on that spine, boom, pull it out, there you go. And there are some letters that were like two and one, like Q and R. Alright, cool. We're good with that book, with that volume.

• 58:05Jocko Willink?

  So this guy was the ed- the military editor. And even though, previously, he would just kind of study what he wanted to study, but then all of a sudden, he had to go back and study all these other things, and he starts seeing all these continual similarities through everything he's seeing. And here we go. He says, "And a surveyor, even a tourist if you will, has at least a wide perspective and can at least take in the general lie of the land, where the minor knows only his seam." So if you, if you study one war, one battle, and that's when you just go deep in that seam, hey, you know a lot about that one seam, but the guy that's up at altitude, surveying all the land, he's got the whole lay of the land.

• 58:50Jocko Willink?

  "During this survey, one impression grew ever stronger, that throughout the ages, decisive results in war have only been reached when the approach has been indirect. In strategy, the longest way round is apt to be the shortest way home." More and more clearly has the fact emerged that a direct approach to one's mental object, or physical objective, and he uses, he uses this term a lot, as you're gonna hear me read, he just calls something the "object." We always call it the "objective", and he actually goes into like, why that's not a good word.

• 59:34Jocko Willink?

  So a lot of times, you'll hear him say "object." "More and more clearly has the fact emerged that a direct approach to one's mental object or physical objective along the line of natural expectation for the opponent has ever tended to and usually produced negative results." So if you take that path, that's kind of expected, chances are, we're not gonna, we're not gonna, it's not gonna work out well. "The reason has been expressed vividly in Napoleon's dictum, that the moral is to the physical, is three to one. It may be expressed scientifically by saying that, while the strength of an enemy country lies outwardly in its numbers and resources, these are equally dependent upon stability or equilibrium of control, morale, and supply."

• 1:00:21Jocko Willink?

  To move along the line of natural expectation consolidates the opponent's equilibrium and by stiffening it augments his resisting power.

• 1:00:37Speaker 02

  I think that comment, the one you made just a minute ago, that quote, "The longest way around is the shortest way home." I think that's the piece that, that for whatever reason, I think we see is the most hard to, to, to accept that. And, and I think my point is probably better served by saying the opposite is also true. The shortest way around is the longest way home. There's this belief like, "If I just get to the point, I will get to the end faster." And the opposite is true. And just the, the willingness to recognize, the more indirect I, I am, the longer this journey is to get this other person to see the truth, the faster this is gonna be. And that's such a hard thing, I think, for people to embrace.

• 1:01:21Speaker 02

  And for exactly what you just said is, is the more you see me taking this direct path towards you, the more, the, the more dug in you will become, because you see it coming. And what I'm doing is so much less important than how I am doing it, that you won't hear any things I'm saying, any of the ideas that I'm offering, or any, any of the, the truth that I'm delivering, and it will take me longer. And the, we, I'm a direct person. I have to tell the truth. That's just how I am. The recognition that that is the longest, the longest way. And, and sometimes, you'll never get there.

• 1:01:57Jocko Willink?

  Yep. Yeah. The, the way I often explain this to clients is, I, I usually just preemptively say, "I know what y'all are thinking. Y'all are thinking is that doesn't sound very efficient." It'd be much more efficient for me just to say, "Dave, this is how we're doing it." It'd be way more efficient to do that. And it's just, like you said, it's just so hard to realize that that's the longest way home. That's the longest way home.

• 1:02:22Jocko Willink?

  The, the line I just read, "To move along the line of natural expectation, that's the shortest route, consolidates the opponent's equilibrium."

• 1:02:32Jocko Willink?

  So when you, when you are going where they expect you to go, that's where they put their defenses. That's what happens. That's why in jiu-jitsu, you have to mess with their balance. You have to come from a different angle.

• 1:02:48Jocko Willink?

  And by stiffening, by stiffening it augments its resisting power, by the way. Because when you know where I'm coming at you from, you are ready to fight. And you know what to do to fight.

• 1:03:00Jocko Willink?

  In war, as in wrestling. The attempt to throw the opponent without loosening his foothold and balance can only result in self exhaustion. Increasing in disproportionate ratio to the effective strain put upon him. Victory by such a method can only be possible through an immense margin of superior strength in some form. And even so tends to lose decisiveness. So if we're wrestling, which let's face it, we're wrestling. If what we do is attempt a takedown with no setup or attempt a submission with no setup, it doesn't work. It doesn't work. Like we're training with Kerry today. Kerry's a white belt, right? Guess what?

• 1:03:44Jocko Willink?

  He's a white belt been training for a year. If you grab his arm, you're not going to get it. You're not going to get it. You have to do something else. You have to set him up. Even a white belt in Jiu Jitsu.

• 1:04:00Jocko Willink?

  In contrast, an examination of military history, not of one period, but of its whole course. Brings out the point that in almost all the decisive campaigns. The dislocation of the enemy's psychological and physical balance has been the vital prelude to a successful attempt at his overthrow.

• 1:04:21Jocko Willink?

  Dislocation, he uses that word a lot. Dislocation. Putting people off balance, getting, getting the, getting in their head. Not letting them, well, I guess it's the true opposite. It's the opposite of.

• 1:04:35Jocko Willink?

  Consolidation of equilibrium, right? Like here I am, I'm stable. Oh, dislocated. Now I'm not where I, I'm not where I want to be.

• 1:04:42Jocko Willink?

  This dislocation has been produced by a strategic indirect approach. Intentional or fortuitous. So sometimes people just accidentally end up off balancing somebody cool. It may take varied forms as our analysis reveals for the strategy of the indirect approach is inclusive of. But what, and but wider than the maneuver sur, sur la derrière.

• 1:05:06Jocko Willink?

  Which is French, which I won't even try, but it means maneuver behind someone. Which General Kamen's researches showed as being the constant aim and key method of Napoleon in his conduct of operations. While Kamen was concerned primarily with the logistical moves, the factors of time, space, and communications, this analysis seeks to probe deeper into psychological foundations and in doing so, finds an underlying relationship between many strategical operations which have no outward resemblance to a maneuver against the enemy's rear, yet are nonetheless definitely vital examples of the strategy of the indirect approach.

• 1:05:46Jocko Willink?

  So, sometimes it doesn't look like what you're doing is an indirect maneuver, but it is. To trace this relationship and determine the character of operations is not necessary and is indeed irrelevant to tabulate the numerical strengths and detail the details of supply and transport. Our concern is simply with historical effects in a comprehensive series of cases and with the logistical or psychological moves which led up to them. If similar effects follow fundamentally similar moves in conditions which vary widely in scale, nature, and date, there's clearly an underlying connection from which we can logically deduce a common cause.

• 1:06:29Jocko Willink?

  And the more widely the conditions vary, the firmer this deduction, this deduction. And, and what he's saying there is, look, when you take a bunch of examples over time, throughout history, it becomes really clear that this isn't just a fluke, this is the reality of the situation. And that's, so, so here's what we're gonna do. This guy is a historian, right? And the next giant chunk of these books is he goes historical. What was that book we were reading, like where people went statistical? Oh yeah, that's right. It was one of those World War II things. Somebody went statistical. The officer went statistical on me, started telling me about how, how long officers were living.

• 1:07:13Jocko Willink?

  He's like, the average officer's living about, living about four and a half hours up there. Good luck. He went statistical on me. What B.H. Liddell Hart does, he goes historical. And... He goes from the 5th century to the 20th century. He goes from the Greek wars, the Roman wars, the Byzantine wars, the medieval wars, the 17th century, the 18th century, the French Revolution, Napoleon. He gets to the First World War, the Second World War, and he goes through just detailed battles and talks about the indirect approach. And what we're gonna do is we're actually gonna bypass this. And there's a couple of reasons why. Number one, get the books. Get the books.

• 1:07:56Jocko Willink?

  Number two, this is what we do all the time on this podcast. This is actually what we do all the time on this podcast. We talk about Napoleon. We talk about his push into Russia. We talk about World War I. We talk about World War II. We talk about Vietnam. We talk about Korea. And we've seen and pointed out the indirect strategy all the time. All the time. That's what we do. We... How do I usually talk about it? The flank, right? This is... We talked about maneuver warfare. This is what this is about. This is what this whole podcast is about, is these historical lessons. And, and B.H. Liddell Hart, he, he serves them up for us in this book. The... So, so if you wanna get those, Brian, who knows? Maybe one day we'll jump into these.

• 1:08:41Jocko Willink?

  But if you wanna jump into them, get the book. Get the book Strategy by B.H. Liddell Hart. You can get in-depth on these things. But what I wanna do is I wanna kinda jump ahead to his book Strategy, where he goes into the theory of strategy. And he starts off by saying, having drawn our conclusions from analysis... Oh, by the way, the analysis that he's talking about, that he draws conclusions from is like 315 pages. This is, this is no... This is when, when he's talking about, oh, you need to study all these different eras. He does it and points out the indirect approach and how it wins every single time. Even if it was by accident, it's what makes us win.

• 1:09:23Jocko Willink?

  He says, having drawn our conclusions from analysis of history, it seems advantageous to construct on the fresh foundation of a new dwelling house for the strategic thought. So, he's looked at all these things that have happened, and we gotta kinda get, we kinda gotta hit the reset button.

• 1:09:43Jocko Willink?

  He says, "Let us first be clear on what is strategy."

• 1:09:48Jocko Willink?

  Clausewitz, in his monumental work on war, defined it as "the art of the employment of battles as a means to gain the object of war." In other words, strategy comes, strategy forms the plan of war, maps out the proposed course of the different campaigns which compose the war and regulates the battles to be fought in each. Now, this is probably since episode seven of this podcast, people have been like, "Hey, you gonna do Clausewitz? You gonna do Clausewitz on war? Hey, you gonna do on war?" And there's a couple of reasons why I haven't done it yet, and I'm sure we will, and I owe it to military history to do it.

• 1:10:32Jocko Willink?

  But there's a couple of reasons. One reason, it's like, kind of, it's such a popular one, it's like, "Hey, you know what? That's right out there. Is it really the first one I want to hit? I'd rather hit some other..." Strategical ideas. I mean, I guess I did do Sun Tzu on war, so this is not, this is more of an excuse, maybe? I've always known that Clausewitz, or I always felt that Clausewitz, you know, respect. Respect Clausewitz. We're giving him respect. By the way, here's why. This, Clausewitz is no just, "Hey, military theorist," right? This is a guy that sat in an ivory tower and thought about war. He entered the military at age 12 as a lance corporal. You know what I'm saying?

• 1:11:17Jocko Willink?

  Like, this is no joke. Fought in the Rhine campaigns, fought in the Napoleonic wars, went to the Military Academy at Berlin, worked, worked for Charnehorst, who I've talked about a bunch on this podcast, because when it comes to maneuver warfare, he's kind of that guy in the beginning that lost with the Prussian Army to Napoleon at the Battle of Jena. And when he did, he looked around and said, "What the hell just happened?" And realized there was some decentralized, some indirect warfare going on, and started kind of making that. Well, well, Clausewitz kind of was under his wing.

• 1:11:54Jocko Willink?

  And then when the Prussians made an alliance with Napoleon, Clausewitz was like, no. And he joined the Imperial Russian Army. And then when they broke up that alliance, he went back to the Prussian Army. It was the Chief of Staff of Three Corps and just battles, Napoleonic battles. At the Battle of Waterloo, he was, he was in that campaign. He was preventing some of Napoleon's reinforcements of showing up, which, which obviously caused the problem. Went back, was an instructor and then the Director of the, of the Military Academy at Berlin.

• 1:12:33Jocko Willink?

  And by the way, this whole time, he's writing down what his thoughts are. And then he, he ended up dying of cholera before he had these, before he was able to complete his works. And really before, you might say, and Liddell Hart kind of makes the assumption that he was kind of heading in a different direction.

• 1:12:53Jocko Willink?

  So he's, he's respectful but critical of Clausewitz. That's kind of, that's, I don't want to say that's the way I've always felt, but I kind of have always felt that way a little bit. I don't know, maybe that's because I'm a little bit of a contrarian. But maybe more than that, Clausewitz says things that I go, eh, really? Really?

• 1:13:19Jocko Willink?

  And by the way, the Clausewitz mentality is kind of what brought us to World War I. And that mentality of mass, which is one of his premier, premier principles, is like, hey, we're gonna get, I have more people than you, I'm gonna win. Which, as we know, when we compare that to the, the, the principles behind light infantry, it's not what we're looking for.

• 1:13:49Speaker 02

  There's also a connection in there too, even between what was talking about earlier, between the physical and the moral of these physical attributes and you know, they vary from campaign to campaign, which is part of the reason why you don't want to overreact to the lessons, the physical lessons of a particular campaign because even as simple as like desert warfare versus jungle warfare, those lessons, fording rivers, I think, those are physical lessons and then it's not that they're invaluable, but the, the physical principles of mass or, or those components are less important. Now, one without the other, you have to have them both, but I was even just sitting here thinking of, of when Tom Fife was here, who's talking about World War II, Korea and Vietnam.

• 1:14:34Speaker 02

  Not from a, a historical standpoint, but from actually a participant standpoint. But the lessons he was talking about, he didn't spend a bunch of time, well, in World War II, we were dealing with this physical environment. It was the, the universal, the universal nature of his lessons were take care of your people. I mean, how many books have we, have I listened to on this podcast or read? That the fundamental principle of leadership in success in battle was taking care of your people. I, I'm looking at about faces as I'm looking at the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pages and he probably has a whole bunch of physical lessons. And, and it's not to say that those aren't important, but those are never the ones that the leaders really, when they're talking about

• 1:15:18Speaker 02

  the lessons they learned and that, that moral component, I'm just using moral to, to use the same language. It's the human nature piece like you were talking about and how much more important that is. And I remember even in, in getting a master's degree was, was Clausewitz was sort of central to the strategic studies and there's a physical focus on that and the principle of mass is a great example. And it, listen, I would love to go to war with an advantage in mass every time. I, that's, that'd be awesome. But, but we know that that's not the deciding factor. We know that.

• 1:15:52Jocko Willink?

  Interestingly, as you pointed to about face, there's one book that we haven't covered on this podcast by Colonel David Hackworth, which you would think would be just like prime. It's called Vietnam, Vietnam Primer. And Vietnam Primer is a book to get you ready to go to Vietnam and it literally shows like, hey, here's how far out you should put your claymores in. It's, it's just, we could cover it. I'm sure we could, we could get some lessons from it, but compared to about face, not even close. Here's the other thing that's interesting is that cover and move, right? Cover and move.

• 1:16:27Jocko Willink?

  The, the first law of combat leadership, if you're in the jungle, you better cover and move. If you're in the desert, you better cover and move. If you're doing a river crossing, you better cover and move. If you're doing an assault, you better cover and move.

• 1:16:40Speaker 02

  If you're in an airplane.

• 1:16:41Jocko Willink?

  If you're in an airplane at 38,000 feet, AC kicking.

• 1:16:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:16:46Jocko Willink?

  You better cover and move.

• 1:16:49Jocko Willink?

  So that's, I think what was weird for me was as like cover, move. And that's another thing. Cover and move. Cover and move. Movement. You win by maneuver. You don't win by sitting still. And when you start talking about Clausewitz and Mas, it's like, we are here.

• 1:17:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:17:13Jocko Willink?

  So that's again, I'm not trying to, dude, I'm not trying to like get crazy and talk smack about Clausewitz. Like I said, if you were a Lance Corporal at age 12, I salute you and I will listen to what the hell you have to say a hundred percent. But

• 1:17:33Jocko Willink?

  I will not. I will question anybody. I questioned, I questioned Hackworth. Read, read my opening, like there's like, hey, man, guy was not, guy was not perfect.

• 1:17:45Speaker 02

  I mean, he's, he, you use him as the prime example of a lesson we teach in business all the time is if you lose your influence and he and, and probably the most influential figure in your life as a leader is still your prime example of what not to do in a particular situation. So I think the contrarian component of it is, is important. Look, Clausewitz is awesome. On War is awesome. There's a bunch of good stuff in there too.

• 1:18:08Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 1:18:08Speaker 02

  And I, and I know that you're saying that, but just to link it back to that conversation and, and.

• 1:18:15Speaker 02

  The, the human nature component and thinking about the direct approach and thinking of human nature, if you just thought before you took the direct approach on anything, how would I react to somebody doing that to me? Ninety-nine percent of the indirect, or ninety-nine percent of the direct assaults would go away. If you could just take that perspective on it.

• 1:18:33Jocko Willink?

  Unless you lie to yourself. Seriously. Like unless you lie to yourself, which many, many, many people will do, which is, man, I just want Dave just to come out, hey, if I'm wrong, just come and tell me. Like, if you lie to yourself, then you, you probably just keep taking the direct approach all the time.

• 1:18:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:18:51Jocko Willink?

  Which is not going to work out.

• 1:18:52Speaker 02

  And if you're, if you're the person that prides themselves in listening to other people's direct assaults on you, there's high risk to that you are lying to yourself.

• 1:19:02Jocko Willink?

  Check. All right. Back to the book. One defect of this definition, and that was the definition of, of strategy, which was the art of employment of battles as means to gain the object of war. So that, that's Clausewitz's definition. One defect of this definition is that it intrudes on the sphere of policy or the higher conduct of war, which must necessarily be the responsibility of government and not of military leaders it employs as its agents in the executive control of operations. So he's, he's gonna go through this, but there's, you know, you know, we say all the time, you gotta think strategic

• 1:19:44Jocko Willink?

  all the time. That's what he's about to, about to address fourteen different ways. And he's gonna actually go into a chapter, I don't know if we'll get there today, but there's a higher level strategy called grand strategy. And so he's thinking grand strategy, policy. Another defect is that it narrows the meaning of strategy to the pure utilization of battle, thus conveying the idea that battle is the only means to the strategical end. It was an easy step for Clausewitz's less profound disciples to confuse the means with the end and to reach the conclusion that in war, in every, in war, every other consideration should be subordinated to the aim of fighting a decisive battle.

• 1:20:32Jocko Willink?

  So, so think about that. That's your attitude is like, hey, the whole purpose of strategy is to engage in decisive battle. That's what we're doing. So then what do you do during World War I? You put more people on the line. And you put more people on the line and you put more people on the line. You send another battalion, another brigade, another division over the top. That's what you do. And there's people that lead like this in companies, in organizations, in their families, and they, the way they lead is by trying to win battles. That's the way they lead.

• 1:21:05Speaker 02

  And the commitment that every argument is a decisive battle that has to be won.

• 1:21:11Speaker 02

  And not, not being able to recognize where, and I think, I, I think he called them like inflection points or something along the lines of the recognition of this is where a, this is, this is decisive. And that being able to recognize what an inflection point is in combat. As opposed to like every, every engagement is not an inflection point, is not a decisive point and being able to recognize where those points are. And, and fighting those as opposed to every single engagement.

• 1:21:39Jocko Willink?

  You mean the idea of picking your battles? Hey, pick your battles. Who's been told that before?

• 1:21:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:21:46Jocko Willink?

  Hey, pick your battles. Comments, seems like such common sense, and yet all the time, people look at every discussion, argument, contention as the decisive battle for their ego.

• 1:21:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:22:02Jocko Willink?

  Relation to policy. To break down the distinction between strategy and policy would not matter much if the two functions were normally combined in the same person as with Frederick or Napoleon. But, but as such autocratic soldier rulers have been rare in modern times and became temporarily extinct for the 19th century. The effect was insidiously harmful for it encouraged soldiers to make preposterous claim that policy should be subservient to their conduct of operations. And especially in democratic countries, it drew statesmen onto overstep the definite border of his sphere and interfere with his military employees and the actual use of their tools.

• 1:22:39Jocko Willink?

  So there's gotta be a line between these two things. And we gotta stay in our lanes a little bit. Hey, here's the policy. How do you want to execute it? Hey, here's the resources I need. Oh, don't know, change your policy.

• 1:22:53Jocko Willink?

  Molke reached a clearer and wiser definition in terming strategy. Quote, "The practical adaptation of the means placed at a general's disposal to the attainment of the object in view." Molke is another Prussian guy, chief general in the 1860s, and he's the guy that kind of, I would say, he had that, the idea of the, making sure you have an overall objective. And make sure that people understand what the overall objective is. The German word. Auftragstaktik.

• 1:23:32Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 1:23:34Jocko Willink?

  Overall objective. "This definition fixes the responsibility of a military commander to the government by which he is employed. His responsibility is that of applying most profitably to the interest of higher war policy the force allotted to him within the theater of operations assigned to him. If he considers that the force allotted is inadequate for the task indicated, he is justified in putting this out. And if his opinion is overruled, he can refuse or resign the command.

• 1:24:03Jocko Willink?

  But he exceeds his rightful sphere if he attempts to dictate to the government what measure of force should be placed at his disposal."

• 1:24:11Jocko Willink?

  So like I said, there's a line here that he's talking about.

• 1:24:15Jocko Willink?

  "On the other hand, the government, which formulates war policy and has to adapt to it to conditions which often change as a war progresses, can rightly intervene in the strategy of a campaign not merely by replacing a commander in whom it has lost confidence, but by modifying his object according to the needs of its war policy. While it should not interfere with him in handling of his tools, it should indicate clearly the nature of his task. Thus, strategy has not necessarily the simple object of seeking to overthrow the enemy's military power. When a government appreciates that the enemy has the military superiority, either in general or in a particular theater, it may be wise to enjoin a strategy of limited aim." Before I get into limited aim, let's tie this back to...

• 1:25:01Jocko Willink?

  Corporate leadership and business leadership. What are you doing if you're in charge to make sure that you are empowering your subordinate leaders to make things happen? And not saying, hey, here's exactly how I want you to do it. Here's what I want you to do with your team. Here's what I want you to do with your tools. Here's, that's when you're crossing the line. You shouldn't have to do that. You shouldn't have to have those conversations. We should be able to say, hey, Dave, this is what we're trying to make happen. How do you want to do it? And Dave, who's on the front line says, hey, boss, here's what I'm thinking. Looks good. Go execute. And by the way, Dave might come back to you and say, hey, boss, we can't do that unless you give me some more resources. And I say, hey, that's all we got. Sorry.

• 1:25:43Jocko Willink?

  And you say, well, we need to cut back then, or we need to not do this market area. Cause we don't have the, we don't have the resources we need. Okay, cool. Or maybe I say, well, I think it's just because you suck. You're fired, Echo. You got the con. Yeah. So let's make sure that we delineate the roles and responsibilities clearly enough that we know what, what we're trying to do up and down the chain of command. Now, now to get back to this point of a strategy of limited aim. He, he goes into it a little bit here. This is the strategy of limited, limited aim. It may desire to wait until the balance of force can be changed by the intervention, intervention of allies or by the transfer of forces from another theater.

• 1:26:26Jocko Willink?

  It may desire to wait or even limit its military effort permanently while economic or naval action decides the issues. It may calculate that the overthrow of the enemy's military power is a task definitely beyond its capacity and not worth the effort. And that the object of its war policy can be assured by seizing territory which it can either retain, retain or use as a bargaining counter when peace is negotiated. So, so right, every one of those things is indirect. It's, it's, it's a, it's a limited aim. It's like, oh, you know what? I wanted to kick Dave's ass, but he's way bigger and way better at jujitsu than I thought he was. So you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to like, say, hey, man, instead of us fighting.

• 1:27:11Jocko Willink?

  Why don't I buy you a hamburger? And we'll talk about some stuff. And you know what I'm saying? Like it's a different, it's just taking a different approach. It's a totally different approach. Well, you know what? I think Dave can actually kick my ass. Echo is going to be here in about 30 minutes. Echo is bigger and stronger than Dave. He's been training more jiu jitsu. I'm going to wait till, hey, hey, Dave, do you mind if we wait? I'd rather have you roll with Echo, right? So I'm bringing in some reinforcements.

• 1:27:40Jocko Willink?

  That's the strategy of limited, limited aim. Such a policy has more support from history than military opinion has recognized and is less inherently a policy of weakness than some apologists imply. So just because I say, you know what, Dave? I'm not really looking to roll with you. I'm going to wait till Echo gets here. That's not necessarily weak. In fact, it might be smarter. In fact, if I think you can beat me and I'm pretty sure you're going to beat me, it's way smarter for me to wait till Echo shows up to kick your ass. It is indeed bound up with the history of the British Empire and repeatedly proved a life buoy to Britain's allies as well as of the permanent benefit to herself. However unconsciously followed, there's ground for inquiry whether this conservative military policy

• 1:28:25Jocko Willink?

  does not deserve to be accorded a place in the theory of the conduct of war. So how often did Britain go, eh, you know what? Maybe we don't want to fight that war. Maybe we want to give that up. Maybe we want to give that area up. Maybe we need to bargain and move into an area that we know we can take. And then we'll, we'll negotiate for it back later.

• 1:28:47Jocko Willink?

  The more usual reason for adopting a strategy of limited aim is that of awaiting a change in the balance of force. Wait until Echo shows up. A change often sought and achieved by draining the enemy's force, weakening him by pricks instead of risking blows. What if, well, you know what? Hey, Dave, I don't, you know, I don't really want to roll today. Echo is going to be here in a little while. But while you're waiting, why don't you roll a couple of rounds with Carrie? And then why don't you roll a couple of rounds with Dean? And then, so here you are fighting all these battles. By the time Echo Charles shows up fresh, he's just had a discipline go. He's ready to rock and roll. You're tired, you're nine rounds deep. That's my, that's my, that's a great plan. Great plan. So I weakened you by pricks instead of risking blows.

• 1:29:30Jocko Willink?

  The essential condition of strategy, such a strategy is that the drain on him should be disproportionately greater than on oneself. Cause I was sitting over on the corner keeping time. That's what I was doing while you were rolling with guy after guy after guy. I'm keeping track of time for you.

• 1:29:47Jocko Willink?

  The object may be sought by raiding his supplies by local attacks which annihilate or inflict disproportionate loss on parts of his force by luring him into unprofitable attacks, by causing an excessively wide distribution of his force, and no least by exhausting his moral and physical energy. This is like the exact example, right? I don't think I can kick your ass, but you know what? Echo is gonna be here in a little while, and in the meantime, I'm gonna entice, I'm gonna go, "Hey, hey Dean, go get a couple rounds, go, go, go get a couple rounds with Dave." Boom, and just rough you up, and gonna hit you with a couple different people. By the time Echo shows up, no factor.

• 1:30:24Jocko Willink?

  That's what I'm doing.

• 1:30:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, a- and I'm also thinking of just the idea of even going to war with the American military. And, and most of our opponents, certainly in more recent history, the aim wasn't to destroy the American military. It was to make those series of little pricks, over time, become intolerable, where we are no longer willing to have these little successive losses. So we're, we're not going to have that decisive campaign at all, because you made this intolerable for me. And that connection to policy too, we talk about that all the time of, you know, the will, you know, somebody's will to be doing that is, "Hey, I don't want to keep doing this over and over again." These small little things, these little, those things add up over time, as opposed to like

• 1:31:06Speaker 02

  somehow, the objective is we're gonna have a force on force, you know, culminating event between some military and the American military, which, which, again, generically speaking, nobody wants that. Nobody wants to have a decisive engagement with the American military, so we're gonna do some other things instead, and make that intolerable for us.

• 1:31:24Jocko Willink?

  Which, by the way, we suck in many areas of this, the United States in general. Think of the propaganda damage that gets done to us on a regular basis, that has been done to us on a regular basis, basically since Vietnam. Anytime we get into, I mean, anytime we get into a conflict now, the propaganda that is used to turn us against ourselves in this country is, it's, it's crazy how effective it is. You, you look at the Vietnam War, it's crazy how effective they were

• 1:31:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:31:57Jocko Willink?

  at turning Americans against Americans in that war.

• 1:32:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:32:05Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. This closer definition sheds light on the question previously raised of a general's independence in carrying out his own strategy inside his theater of operations. For if the, for if the government has decided upon a limited aim or grand strategy, the general who even within his strategic fear seeks to overthrow the enemy's military power may do more harm than good to the government's war policy. So what is that saying? That's saying like, I got Dave out there. He's super aggressive and he's like, you know what? I'm gonna, I'm gonna take this whole area. And meanwhile, I'm thinking, Dave, don't take that whole area. Then we're gonna have to occupy it. And I don't have the people to occupy it. And now we're gonna cause more problems. So just because you're winning doesn't mean you're winning.

• 1:32:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:45Jocko Willink?

  Usually a war of limited aim, a war policy of limited aim imposes a strategy of limited aim and a decisive aim should only be adopted with the approval of the government, which alone can decide whether it is worth the candle. Old school expression. I didn't really know what it meant. I had to look it up. Worth the candle means we're gonna do something, is what we're doing worth the candle that the light it's gonna take to, for us to be able to do whatever we're doing?

• 1:33:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:12Jocko Willink?

  Is it worth the candle? Like, we're gonna, oh, we got some work to do tonight? Cool. Light the candle. But how much are we really gonna get done? It's not worth the candle. This is back in the day.

• 1:33:21Speaker 01

  Kind of like, is the juice worth the squeeze?

• 1:33:23Jocko Willink?

  Juice worth the squeeze. Exactly.

• 1:33:27Jocko Willink?

  We can now arrive at a shorter definition of strategy as, quote, "the art of distributing and applying military means to fulfill the ends of policy," end quote. For strategy is concerned not merely with the movement of forces as its role is often defined, but with the effect. When the application of the military instrument merges into actual fighting, the dispositions for and control of such direct action are termed tactics. The two categories, although convenient for discussion, can never be truly divided into separate compartments because each, each not only influences but merges into the other,

• 1:34:12Jocko Willink?

  which is why leadership strategy and tactics is called leadership strategy and tactics. Kind of convenient that it worked out that way.

• 1:34:20Jocko Willink?

  But, but listen, here's what's important is what we're doing. It doesn't matter. What matters is how it ends up. What matters is the strategic effect. That's why we have to think strategic all the time. That's what we need to do.

• 1:34:40Jocko Willink?

  Next section, higher or grand strategy as tactics in, as tactics is an application of strategy on a lower plane. So, strategy is an application on a lower plane of grand strategy. So, he goes one level up. A whole nother thing. We got tactical, we got operational. He doesn't really talk about operational. That must be a modern thing. Tactical, operational, strategic, and then grand strategy. While practically synonymous with policy, what was your, what did you study in college?

• 1:35:10Speaker 02

  Policy.

• 1:35:10Jocko Willink?

  Dang, what's up, man? You want to chime in a little bit?

• 1:35:13Speaker 02

  I do, but no, you're rolling, man. But I mean, there, there's so much clausey and stuff in there, but the, the, the previous comment, it was, as I'm thinking of sort of like the business alignment of this, this military concept is, how often are we, are we engaged in tactical battles that don't promote or support the strategic goal? And I think it was, I think it was the debrief podcast, but you said this is if what you were doing,

• 1:35:41Speaker 02

  if the tactical engagement you're in supports the, the big picture strategy, it's not tactical. It's strategic. And if it doesn't, it's tactical and you're engaged, you shouldn't be doing it. Like, how often do we dig in on these, these small things that even in the end, if we win, don't reinforce the big picture goal, the objective? And how often do I on with my team, the marketing team, dig in on how I want to do this, this thing? And I'm going to fight with the, the sales team over resources and supplies and equipment and priority that don't actually help the company? The company achieves some, some sort of success and being able to look at that as a leader and going,

• 1:36:22Speaker 02

  hey, hey, listen, this, this doesn't matter. This, we don't need to dig in here. Let them have this. We're playing the longer game here because what we want is the company to win. And how hard it is for us to decouple this idea that every battle is a strategic.

• 1:36:37Jocko Willink?

  No, it's not.

• 1:36:38Speaker 02

  It's not.

• 1:36:38Jocko Willink?

  Very few of them actually are.

• 1:36:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:36:44Jocko Willink?

  For the role of grand strategy, higher strategy is to coordinate and direct all the resources of a nation or band of nations towards the attainment of a political object of the war, the goal defined by fundamental policy. Grand strategy should both calculate and develop to economic resources and manpower of nations in order to sustain fighting services, also the moral resources. For to foster the people's willing spirit is often as important as to possess more concrete forms of power, which is why you need to pay attention to what's going on in your country when it comes to propaganda that's being used against you. Grand strategy too should regulate the distribution of power

• 1:37:27Jocko Willink?

  between the several services and between the services and industry. Moreover, fighting power is but one of the instruments of grand strategy which should take account of and apply the power of financial pressure, diplomatic pressure, commercial pressure, and least of ethical pressure to weaken the opponent's will. A good cause is a sword as well as armor. Likewise, chivalry in war can be a most effective weapon in weakening the opponent's

• 1:38:06Jocko Willink?

  will to resist as well as augmenting moral strength. This is why we always say, "Take the high ground of the high ground, take you."

• 1:38:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, take the high ground.

• 1:38:15Jocko Willink?

  Take the high ground of the... Good cause is a sword as well as armor.

• 1:38:20Speaker 02

  And when you give up the high ground, when you get down into the mud, and I think there's a quote you references, when you get down in the mud, you're not getting muddy because somebody's throwing mud at you, it's because you went down there. And how hard it is once you've got up the high ground to get back up onto the high ground, once you give that up.

• 1:38:45Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book. Furthermore, while the horizon of strategy is bounded by the war, grand strategy looks beyond the war to the subsequent peace. It should not only combine the various instruments, but so regulate their use as to avoid damage to the future state of peace for its security and prosperity. The sorry state of peace for both sides that has followed most wars can be traced to the fact that unlike strategy, the realm of grand strategy is for the most part terra incognita. Still awaiting exploration and understanding. That means unknown territory. So this is, this is, you know, beyond thinking strategic.

• 1:39:27Jocko Willink?

  And it's kind of the way we term thinking strategic, you know, if you and I have a relationship and I'm going to bark and order at you, where does that get me? Even if you do that thing, where does it put us in the future? How's our relationship? If we have a client and we decide, you know what, we're going to bill them anyways, even though they didn't, you know, they didn't participate, but we're going to bill them anyways. How's that going to work out for us? Cool, we get a little bit more money right now. How does that, how does that affect us in a year when that client needs help?

• 1:39:56Jocko Willink?

  So the grand strategy looks beyond the war to subsequent peace. How often are we doing that? Looking further in the future.

• 1:40:09Jocko Willink?

  Goes into pure or military strategy. Having cleared the ground, we can build up our conception of strategy on its proper plane and original basis. That of the art of the general. Strategy depends for success, first and foremost, first and foremost, first, sorry, first and most on a sound calculation and coordination of the ends and means, of the end and means. The end must be proportioned to the total means and the means used in gaining each intermediate end, which contributes to the ultimate must be proportioned to the value and the needs of that intermediate end,

• 1:40:51Jocko Willink?

  whether it be to gain an objective or fulfill a contributory purpose.

• 1:40:59Jocko Willink?

  And excess may be as harmful as a deficiency. So that's, first of all, that's a freaking run on sentence. But, but second of all, but second of all, it's important. Because what he's saying is, you should constantly be assessing if, if the juice is worth the squeeze. You should constantly be saying like, listen, we're gonna put this much effort towards this client. We're gonna put this much effort towards this relationship. We're gonna put this much effort towards this team. Who's, we don't know how they're gonna do. So you constantly have to check yourself if the end that you're going towards.

• 1:41:33Jocko Willink?

  Is your investment worth it? What's the ROI?

• 1:41:38Jocko Willink?

  And by the way, spending too much, it can be as bad as not spending enough.

• 1:41:41Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 1:41:42Jocko Willink?

  And, and, and spending much to, to win a particular battle or win a particular war. But you spent so much that you look around and go.

• 1:41:51Jocko Willink?

  Well, that was not, the juice wasn't worth the squeeze. Wasn't worth the candle.

• 1:41:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, what did we accomplish? And that, that next level up to grand strategy. And of course, I think the connection he's making is, is on this large scale. And I literally took a class called American Grand Strategy.

• 1:42:06Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 1:42:06Speaker 02

  And the military is a, is a, is a component of all these other things. You named a bunch of them diplomatic, you know, uh, economic. There's a whole bunch of different tools that are inside there that are actually, you know, they're all connected. But the military is one arm of that, one of many. Of course, you're in uniform, you think the whole world revolves around military power. We know, we say it all the time, we know that's not true. But, an example that you use, we, all the time, and, and, and just trying to explain. This idea of utilizing resources and making decisions. When you talk about means, our means, everybody has limited means. We don't have unlimited means or unlimited resources. And if I'm looking at this particular area, I wanna, I wanna open up a shop here, open up a couple of locations in this physical, uh, you know, this geographic area to compete with our, uh, competitors.

• 1:42:52Speaker 02

  And I take all of my resources, every penny I've got, every tool that I've got, and I get in there.

• 1:42:57Jocko Willink?

  Go big or go home.

• 1:42:57Speaker 02

  That's right. And in the end, we get in there, we get in that region. And I don't know, it doesn't quite work out, or even if it does, but we now have no other tools and resources to do anything else. The, the larger piece of that is, the strategy isn't to get into that area. The strategy is actually to make our company stronger. And that limited understanding, or that understanding being limited of, hey, we're here to take over this region. If that is not connected to the company being successful, that larger piece of it. All the, all the means, all the resources to getting into that area, they don't help you.

• 1:43:32Jocko Willink?

  They're wasted.

• 1:43:33Speaker 02

  It's a waste. You burn that candle.

• 1:43:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah. And you know what's interesting is from a leadership, this is a total, this is a leadership capital discussion, right? It's, hey, is it worth me expending this leadership capital on getting Dave to follow my order? On getting Dave to, you know, pick up a client that I know is going to be painful and I'm forcing him to do it and whatever, whatever the case may be. Is it worth that leadership capital? We, we have to weigh that out. And you know, when you were talking about, oh, we got the, the diplomatic. We got the, the, the commercial pressure, the financial pressure, the ethical pressure, all those things. And the military is part of that. Guess what? In from a leadership perspective?

• 1:44:16Jocko Willink?

  The military thing is, hey, this is my rank. I outrank you and we're just going to go by force.

• 1:44:20Speaker 02

  That's force.

• 1:44:21Jocko Willink?

  That should be, there's six, seven, eight, 12 other components that I can utilize as a leader to make something happen. And the worst one to use, the one that cost me the most leadership capital is the military one, which is my rank, which is, hey, I'm the boss. You, you listen to me.

• 1:44:36Speaker 02

  To compel someone through the threat of force as your only tool to get them to comply, the threat of force. And even, you know, the, the, the moral high ground. I mean, how convenient would it be if you and I were in a situation, looking at something and mine was the moral approach? And yours was the immoral approach, which requires no money, no time, no resources, no equipment to go, oh, you know what? Hey, listen, if we do this, we take the, if we take the unethical and we get found out and somebody just goes, oh, hey, man, you're right. No, listen, man, I was, you're right. We, we need to do, we just need to do the right thing here. The, the, the strategic win from that alone, or the opposite end of the spectrum, the military end is,

• 1:45:21Speaker 02

  I come through force and demand and through a risk of, of destruction. It's how I'm getting you to, to behave in a way that helps the team.

• 1:45:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. I've got this quote later on and I don't even remember where I got the quote from, but I talked about on this podcast. Or maybe I talked about it in EF online. It's, it's something along the lines of, cool, you win and now you're in charge of a wasteland.

• 1:45:43Speaker 02

  Great.

• 1:45:44Jocko Willink?

  Oh yeah. You won the war. Cool. Now you have burnt scorched earth. That's what you have. Cool. Good job. What did you win? Nothing.

• 1:45:54Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, a true, oh, this is, a true adjustment would establish a perfect economy of force in the deeper sense of that off distorted military term. So all the time we heard the term, you know, economy of force.

• 1:46:10Jocko Willink?

  But because of the nature and uncertainty of war, and uncertainty increased by lack of scientific study, even the greatest military ability could not achieve a true adjustment, and success lies in the closest approximation to the truth. Again, his use of the word truth is a little bit, is a little bit broad, but what he's talking about is like, how much should I apply to this? How much force should I apply? We want to apply the minimum force required, but we're not going to be perfect with that. So we want to get as close as we can. This relativity is inherent because however, our knowledge and of the science of war be extended, it will depend on the art for its application. Art can not only bring the end nearer to the means, but by giving a higher value to the means, enable

• 1:46:55Jocko Willink?

  the end to be extended. This complicates calculation because no man can exactly calculate the capacity of human genius and stupidity, nor the incapacity of will. So there's all these things that we have to account for as leaders, you know, and we're, and we're not going to get it perfectly right, but how close can we get it?

• 1:47:23Jocko Willink?

  Next section, elements and conditions. In strategy, however, calculation is simpler and a closer approximation to truth possible than in tactics. So this is a very interesting point. It's easier to calculate big, broad strategic things because you're a little bit further away from the, the human component.

• 1:47:44Jocko Willink?

  For in war, the chief incalculable is the human will, which manifests itself in resistance, which in turn lies in the province of tactic strategy, has not to overcome resistance except from nature. Its purpose is to diminish the possibility of resistance, and it seeks to fulfill this purpose by exploiting the elements of movement and surprise. Now, that's cool and everything. I would say that there's definitely, that's a stretch. Because we've seen the collective will of a people change the outcome of strategic situations, for sure. So even though I said, "Hey, it's closer to", it still can have a huge impact. I mean, look at Vietnam.

• 1:48:28Jocko Willink?

  It was like, "Oh, well, we can beat them because we can kill 150 Vietnamese soldiers and Viet Cong soldiers for every one of our people that killed, so we'll win." No, actually, we won't win.

• 1:48:37Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:48:37Jocko Willink?

  Because guess what? Their collective will is freaking incredibly strong.

• 1:48:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:48:46Jocko Willink?

  But movement and surprise. Movement lies in the physical sphere and depends on calculation of the conditions of the time, topography, and transport capacity. By transport capacity is meant both the means by which and the measure in which force can be moved and maintained. Okay, so there's the physical sphere of movement.

• 1:49:07Jocko Willink?

  Surprise lies in the psychological sphere and depends on a calculation far more difficult than in the physical sphere of the manifold conditions varying in each case, which are likely to affect the will of the opponent. So you've got two things. You've got movement and you've got surprise. This is how we're gonna kind of win.

• 1:49:26Jocko Willink?

  This is how we're gonna win, by movement and surprise. Movement, physical. Surprise, psychological. Although strategy may aim more at exploiting movement than at exploiting surprise, or conversely, the two elements react on each other. So even though they're different spheres, they're still closely woven together.

• 1:49:47Jocko Willink?

  Movement generates surprise and surprise gives impetus to movement. So this is jujitsu, right? If you surprise somebody, they have to react to it. So you can make someone move by surprising them with something. For a movement which is accelerated or changes its direction inevitably carries with it a degree of surprise, even though it be concealed while surprise smoothes the path of movement by hindering the enemy's countermeasures and countermovements. So if I surprise you, you don't have time to react to it. You're not defending it.

• 1:50:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:50:20Speaker 02

  This is obviously not something this guy was thinking about when I think about flying in stealth airplanes. The psychology of that is what I have discovered and it's true, not just in airplane, it's true in every situation. More often than not, people's reaction to being surprised is not the right reaction. They don't usually react well. Even when they react, it's still like an overreaction, underreaction. Think about how you react to when you're surprised. Are those usually like good, smooth, effective responses?

• 1:50:50Jocko Willink?

  Hundred percent.

• 1:50:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, all the time. And when you look at stealth airplanes, the advent of Americans showing up with stealth airplanes and sort of the culminating event really was in Desert Storm when nobody even knew we had them. And all of a sudden stealth airplanes are over Baghdad dropping bombs. And the Iraqis didn't under, they did not understand what was happening. And their reaction was obviously wrong. Now, you know, that they're proliferated. That's why a significantly undersized force, when you're flying around in a stealth aircraft and then I'm fighting against you and your conventional aircraft. And the first call you hear is, hey, the first four of your airplanes are all dead. And the psychological response to that is almost always the wrong response.

• 1:51:34Speaker 02

  The reaction, they behave erratically, they move in different direction, they don't know what to do. The psychological response to surprise is almost always the wrong reaction.

• 1:51:45Speaker 02

  The power of creating that reaction in your opponents is really hard to overstate. And that's really one of the things that stealth airplanes have allowed us to do is get our opponents to behave incorrectly to give us an even more of an advantage.

• 1:51:58Jocko Willink?

  You're gonna off balance them somehow.

• 1:52:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:52:00Jocko Willink?

  Because what you just said, when you say they either overreact or underreact, guess what? You're either, you're off balance, right? A balanced, measured response would be like, okay, we didn't really get them off balance. But you either overreact or you underreact. And through surprise, you cause them to move too far in one direction, too far in the other direction. That's what's gonna happen and that's what we're gonna take advantage of.

• 1:52:19Speaker 02

  And you've explained this a ton. Like if I attack your arm and you underreact to a point where you do not, almost don't react at all, and you just let me have it, then I may actually culminate with an armbar.

• 1:52:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:32Speaker 02

  But more than likely, you're gonna overreact and I want you to overreact to that so I can attack something else. But it's like you said, it's the lack of a balanced response. It's usually an overreaction, usually.

• 1:52:42Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 1:52:43Speaker 02

  That reveals a weakness somewhere else that I can then exploit.

• 1:52:46Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 1:52:49Jocko Willink?

  As regards the relation of strategy to tactics, while in execution, the borderline is often shadowy and it is difficult to decide exactly where a strategical movement ends and a tactical movement begins, yet in conception, the two are distinct. Tactics lies in the fills, tactics lies and fills the province of fighting. Strategy not only stops on the frontier, but has for its purpose, the reduction of fighting by the slenderest possible proportions. So the purpose of strategy is to not fight.

• 1:53:28Jocko Willink?

  Goes on with the aim of strategy. This statement may be disputed by those who conceive the destruction of the enemy's armed force as the only sound aim in war, who hold that the only goal of strategy is battle, and who are obsessed with the Clausewitzian saying that blood is the price of victory. Yet if one should concede this point and meet its advocates on their own ground, the statement would remain unshaken. For even if decisive battle be the goal, the aim of strategy must be to bring about this battle under the most advantageous circumstances. And the more advantageous the circumstances, the less proportionally will be the fighting. So our goal of strategy is we're not fighting. That's what we're doing.

• 1:54:13Jocko Willink?

  The perfection of strategy would be therefore to produce a decision without any serious fighting. History, now, now, think about that from a leadership perspective. I never get in an argument because Dave's doing what I need him to do to make it happen. That's the most effective strategy. It's not how do I outwit Dave in an argument? That doesn't matter. Why am I having an argument? History, as we have seen, provides examples where strategy helped by favorable conditions has virtually produced such a result. And he goes through some examples here. And again, he's, he's recalling back to some of the examples that he talks about in the book.

• 1:54:56Jocko Willink?

  While these cases, while these were cases where the destruction of the enemy's forces, the enemy's armed forces was economically achieved through the disarming by surrender, such destruction may not be essential for a decision and for the fulfillment of the war aim. In the case of a state that is seeking not conquest, but maintenance of its secure, of its security, the aim is fulfilled if the threat be removed, if the enemy is led to abandon his purpose. With such, while such bloodless victories have been exceptional, their rarity enhances rather than detracts from their value.

• 1:55:36Jocko Willink?

  As an indication of latent potentialities in strategy and grand strategy, despite many centuries of experience of war, we have hardly begun to explore the field of psychological warfare. From deep study of war, Clausewitz was led to the conclusion that, quote, "All military action is permeated by intelligent forces and their effects." Nevertheless, end quote, nevertheless, nations at war have always striven or been driven by their passions to disregard the implications of such a conclusion. Instead of applying intelligence, they have chosen to batter their heads against the nearest wall. So here's Clausewitz, like, hey, it's, it's, it's an intelligence, you know, we're doing

• 1:56:21Jocko Willink?

  what, but all the time, we, countries, people, leaders, teams, we get, we do stupid things. We bang our heads against the nearest wall because we get emotional. We're not intelligent and we gotta look out for that.

• 1:56:40Jocko Willink?

  It rests normally with the government responsible for the grand strategy of a war to decide whether strategy should make its contribution by achieving a military decision or otherwise. Just as military means is only one of the means to the end of grand strategy, one of the instruments in the surgeon's case. So battle is only one of the means to the end of strategy.

• 1:57:03Jocko Willink?

  If the conditions are suitable, it usually, it is usually the quickest in effect, but if conditions are unfavorable, it's a folly to use. So cool, you can go to battle, but if you haven't prepared for it and you don't have the advantage, it's stupid.

• 1:57:18Jocko Willink?

  Let's assume that a strategist is empowered to seek a military decision. His responsibility is to seek it under the most advantageous circumstances in order to produce the most profitable result. Hence, his true aim is not so much to seek battle as to seek a strategic situation so advantageous that if it does not of itself produce the decision, its continuation by battle is sure to achieve this.

• 1:57:46Jocko Willink?

  So we're not engaging in battles that we don't know we're gonna win. And if we know we're gonna win them, why can't we convince the opponent that we're gonna win and they bow down?

• 1:57:57Jocko Willink?

  In other words, dislocation is the aim of strategy. Its sequel may be either the enemy's dissolution or his easier disruption in battle.

• 1:58:08Jocko Willink?

  Dissolution may involve some partial measure of fighting, but this is not, but this is not the character of battle. So that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to win the fight without fighting. We're trying to win the argument without having it. I'm trying to get Dave what I, to do what I want him to do without him even knowing that that's what I want him to do. It's his idea.

• 1:58:28Speaker 02

  Yeah. And think about that statement about you getting me to do, do it, do what you want me to get done without fighting with me. And take a step away from this book, which is talking about fighting your enemies, your literal enemies, to someone on your team.

• 1:58:48Jocko Willink?

  On my team.

• 1:58:49Speaker 02

  My team, my guy.

• 1:58:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, because the human nature doesn't change. It doesn't change if we're in the jungle, desert, if we're in 1842, if we're in 1916, if we're in 1942, it doesn't matter.

• 1:59:03Jocko Willink?

  If you're my enemy, or you're my friend, if there's, if there's a component of human will, then we need to utilize these principles effectively.

• 1:59:16Jocko Willink?

  Next section, action of strategy. How is the strategic dislocation produced?

• 1:59:22Jocko Willink?

  In the physical or logistical sphere, it is the result of a move which A, upsets the enemy's dispositions, and by compelling a sudden change of front, dislocates the distribution and organization of his forces. B, separates his forces. God, I got a little, a little, little, little, little tingle in my spine when I saw that. Endangers his supplies. D, menaces the route or routes by which he could retreat in case of need, and reestablish himself on the base. So there's, there's these ways that we can cause strategic dislocation.

• 1:59:58Jocko Willink?

  A dislocation may be produced by one of these effects, but is more often a consequence of several. Right? We're gonna, we're gonna dislocate them from multiple different directions. Differentiation indeed is difficult because a move directed toward the enemy's rear tends to combine these effects. Their respective influence, however, varies and has varied throughout history according to the size of armies and complexities of their organization. With armies which live on the country, drawing their supplies locally by plunder or requisition, the line of communication has negligible importance. So if you've got an army that's out there living off the land, that kind of know what they're doing, you can, you don't, you can't really cut their supply lines because they don't have any. Even if a higher, even in a higher stage of military development,

• 2:00:40Jocko Willink?

  the smaller a force, the less dependent it is on the lines of communication for supplies. The larger an army and more complex its organization, the more prompt and serious in effect is a menace to its line of communication. So depending on who you're fighting, you gotta make some adjustments. Where armies have not been so dependent, strategy has been correspondingly handicapped, and the tactical issue of battle has played a greater part. Nevertheless, even thus handicapped, able strategists have frequently gained a decisive advantage previous to battle by menacing the enemy's lines of retreat, the equilibrium of his dispositions, or his local supplies. So we're doing, so we're, we're throwing people off just by messing with their supply chain, by messing with their communication, and by the way,

• 2:01:24Jocko Willink?

  I'm probably gonna mention this 15,000 more times. He's talking all the time about disrupting your enemy's communication. Each one of those is the red cell.

• 2:01:38Jocko Willink?

  The red team for us to go, man, am I communicating properly? Every time you hear, that's one of the main ways that the indirect approach works is by disrupting the enemy communication. What does that tell us about our communication? It tells us it's freaking critical.

• 2:02:01Jocko Willink?

  He goes into some, some, uh, talk about how to disrupt communication. To be effective, such a menace usually must be applied at a point closer in time and space to the enemy's army than a menace to his communication. And thus, early in warfare, it's often difficult to distinguish between strategical and tactical maneuver. In the psychological sphere, dislocation is the result of the impression on the commander's mind of the physical effects which we have listed. The impression is strongly accentuated if his realization of being at a disadvantage is sudden, and if he feels that he is unable to counter an enemy's move. Psychological dislocation fundamentally springs from his sense of being trapped.

• 2:02:48Jocko Willink?

  That's straight out of like, the jujitsu world. Yes, sir.

• 2:02:55Jocko Willink?

  And this is important, so we feel, we feel dislocated, we feel nervous when we get trapped. Guess what you should never do as a leader?

• 2:03:06Jocko Willink?

  Hey Dave, I know you want to do this, but what if that happens? Why am I trapping him? Why am I trapping you? Don't trap people that are on your team. That's another little red cell. Little red team. If you're, if I set you up to trap you, you're gonna be uncomfortable, you're gonna get defensive, you're gonna be unstable. And my interest in interacting with you the next time, you know, like, oh, here we go. Let's see what, what Jaco's gonna try to do to me this time. Talking about loyalty and respect and the things that you actually want from me in the end, you know, when, when, when you're the leader that likes to set your people up so you could hammer them.

• 2:03:45Jocko Willink?

  Dude, that's a classic like I won that argument.

• 2:03:47Speaker 02

  Oh, I won that argument.

• 2:03:48Jocko Willink?

  Cool, man.

• 2:03:49Speaker 02

  How'd that work out for you in the end?

• 2:03:50Jocko Willink?

  Like a dipshit in that meeting. Good job. He won't want to step up again. This is the reason why it is most frequently followed. A physical move on the enemy's rear. An army like a man cannot properly defend its back from a blow without turning around to use its arms in a new direction. Turning temporarily unbalances an army as it does a man and with the former, the period of instability is inevitably much longer. In consequence, the brain is much more sensitive to any menace to its back. This is why in jujitsu, what are we trying to do? We're trying to attack the back. That's why in the battlefield, we're trying to, we're trying to come around to the rear. Cause then they have to maneuver and face you and they're exposed.

• 2:04:31Jocko Willink?

  In, in contrast, to move directly on an opponent consolidates his balance, physical and psychologically. And by consolidating, it increases his resisting power. When I attack you from the front, you know exactly what's coming at you and you can resist it more. What does that mean from a leadership perspective? That means that I, I don't want to have you resist my ideas by coming right at you. For in the case of an army, it rolls the enemy back towards their reserve supplies and reinforcements. So the original front is driven back and worn thin, new layers are added to the back.

• 2:05:16Jocko Willink?

  So if you make the enemy retreat, well, guess what? That's what the Russians did to Napoleon and to the Nazis. We're just going to retreat. Yeah, yeah, you good job. You beat us today. Cool. We just got closer to our supply chain. Yeah. We just got more reinforcements. Our communication lines got, got shorter. You made our job easier.

• 2:05:35Jocko Willink?

  At the most, it imposes a strain rather than producing a shock. Thus, a move around the enemy's rear against the, a move around the enemy's front against his rear has the aim not only of avoiding resistance on its way, but in its issue. In the profoundest sense, it takes the line of least resistance. The equivalent in this psychological sphere is the line of least expectation. They are two faces of the same coin. This is to widen our understanding of strategy. If we merely take what obviously appears the line of least resistance, its obviousness will appeal to the opponent also, and this line may no longer be the line of least resistance.

• 2:06:16Jocko Willink?

  Used to, when we used to go on recon, reconnaissance missions, and we'd get put on reconnaissance missions like at Camp Pendleton. And you get up to Camp Pendleton and you're supposed to be observing some area, and there's a one spot to observe from. There's like one bush. You're like, we can, it's so tempting to go to that bush. But guess exactly where the, they're gonna look. They're gonna look at that bush. So you're better off digging a hole, doing whatever you gotta do, taking the worst looking bush. You know, there's four bushes. Three of them are pretty good. One of them sucks. Go to the one that sucks.

• 2:06:54Jocko Willink?

  In studying the physical aspect, we must never lose sight of the psychological. And when both are combined, is the strategy truly an indirect approach calculated to dislocate the opponent's balance? The mere action of marching indirectly toward the enemy and on the rear of his disposition does not constitute a strategic indirect approach. So just because you try and come around the rear doesn't mean, because if that's what they think you're gonna do, it doesn't matter.

• 2:07:20Jocko Willink?

  Strategic art is not so simple. Such an approach may start by being an indirect relation to an enemy's front, but by the very directness of its progress towards the rear may allow the enemy to change his disposition so that it soon becomes a direct approach on a new front. Check.

• 2:07:36Jocko Willink?

  Because of the risk that the enemy may achieve such a change of front, it is usually necessary for the dislocating move to be preceded by a move or moves, which can best be defined as the term distract in a literal sense to draw us under. So we have to do multiple moves, just like in jujitsu. You can't just do one move. You can't, he's saying you can't really even just do two. You've got to do multiple moves to make the enemy not sure what's really important, what's really going on. And you know, I was, I was doing a little bit of research because I always, people will sometimes bring up D-Day. What about D-Day? Frontal assault, right? Yep. Yeah, kind of. Guess what?

• 2:08:18Jocko Willink?

  The deception that the allied forces did to make Hitler and the Nazis unaware, I think it was something like, I don't think Hitler committed all of his forces to Normandy for seven weeks because they were expecting General Patton. That was the whole big scam. Like, hey, we got Patton, he's going to come in this other spot. And, and so for seven weeks, the Nazis were like, no, don't commit. So even though it was, it looked like a direct assault, there was a massive fake going on. That, that Germany didn't commit their forces for seven weeks. That's crazy. So it looked like a frontal assault. I get it, but man, there was some distraction going on.

• 2:09:03Speaker 02

  Well, just like he was, he was just saying, it's, it's, it's only a frontal assault if the enemy recognizes this is a frontal assault and then lines up his defenses against that frontal assault. And the psychology of that, the human nature reaction is the thing that actually matters the most is your response to my interaction. And if you think it's a frontal assault, they're going to react like it's a frontal assault and you're going to dig in. And it was like, hey, something's going, something's going on here. And like, actually it's a frontal assault. You don't know it. It actually isn't a frontal assault. It's a flank because they are putting their defenses elsewhere.

• 2:09:38Jocko Willink?

  The purpose of this distraction is to deprive the enemy of his freedom of action, and it should operate both the physical and psychological spheres. In the physical, it should cause a distension of his forces, or their diversion to unprofitable ends, so that they are too widely distributed, and too committed elsewhere. This is exactly what D-Day was. To have the power of interfering with one's own decisively intended move, which was, "We're gonna hit it." In the psychological sphere, the same effect is sought by playing upon the fears of, and by deceiving the opposing command. Stonewall Jackson aptly expressed this in his strategical motto, "Mystify, mislead, and surprise." For to mystify and mislead constitutes distraction,

• 2:10:22Jocko Willink?

  while surprise is the essential cause of dislocation. It is through the distraction of the commander's mind that the distraction of his forces follows. The loss of his freedom of action is the sequel to the loss of his freedom of conception. A more profound appreciation of how the psychological permeates and dominates the physical sphere has an indirect value, for it warns us of the fallacy and shallowness of attempting to analyze and theorize about strategy in terms of mathematics. To treat it quantitatively, as if the issue turned merely on superior concentration of force at a selected place,

• 2:11:06Jocko Willink?

  is as faulty as to treat it geometrically as a matter of lines and angles. It's not just numbers. Even more remote from the truth, because in practice it usually leads to a dead end, is the tendency of textbooks to treat war as mainly a matter of concentrating superior force. In his celebrated definition of economy of force, "Fock" Term this, "The art of pouring out all one's resources at a given moment on one spot of making use there of all troops and to make such a thing possible of making those troops permanently

• 2:11:48Jocko Willink?

  communicate with each other instead of dividing them and attaching to each fraction some fixed and invariable function." Its second part, "A result having been attained, is the art of again, so disposing the troops as to converge upon and act against a single new objective," end quote.

• 2:12:09Jocko Willink?

  It would have been, so, so there's the, there's the economy of force. Like, hey, we're gonna put all of our forces in the right spot at the right time, which we all know, we learn that all the time. And that's, that's part of prioritize and execute. That is part of prioritize and execute is, listen, you've got multiple things, you need to concentrate your forces on an objective efficiently. It would have been more exact, and he's gonna take upon a little, a little hit on this quote from, from Fock, who, by the way, this is Ferdinand, Ferdinand Fock, this is the, the French Allied commander, World War I. So we kinda already aren't super stoked on him.

• 2:12:52Jocko Willink?

  Because guess what he did? He carried out his strategy. Hey, well, gotta get more forces. That's what we gotta do, concentrate all our forces. When we blow that whistle, we're gonna break through this time. No. Here's why. It would have been more exact and more lucid to say that an army should always be so distribut- distributed that its parts can aid each other and combine to produce the maximum possible concentration of force at one place while the minimum force necessary is used elsewhere to prepare the success of the concentration. This is what cover and move is. This is what cover and move is. Is you, and, and there's a doctrinal term,

• 2:13:36Jocko Willink?

  and I used to tell this to the young SEALs, there's a doctrinal term.

• 2:13:41Jocko Willink?

  Called supporting distance. And what supporting distance is you, Dave and me, your platoon and my platoon, or your company and my company, or your battalion and my battalion, we aren't going to get so far apart that we can't support each other. So that means if, if we only have rifles, we're going to be 400, 500 yards from each other, you know, depending on the terrain. If the terrain is, you know, mountainous, or we might be closer than that because I want to be able to provide support to you. If we have mortars, cool, now we can stretch it out a little bit more. If we have artillery, we can stretch it out even more. But we need to be able to cover and move for each other. We need to be able to support each other. And if we get too far apart, you're alone, man.

• 2:14:24Speaker 02

  We had a term that we got to coin. It was called fluid mutual support. Which is-

• 2:14:29Jocko Willink?

  Wait, when you say we got to coin this, expand, bro. This is freaking good deal, Dave, over here making stuff up.

• 2:14:35Speaker 02

  Listen-

• 2:14:36Jocko Willink?

  I'm listening.

• 2:14:37Speaker 02

  When we at Top Guns figured out, like, we used to have just superior equipment, superior technology, better machines, more of them, they worked better. And we were fighting, and I think I talked about this a while ago. We were fighting, fighting an inferior opponent. To be totally honest with you, our tactics were kind of straightforward. It just wasn't that complicated. Now, we didn't just like barge right in there and fight them. But, you know, our tactics relied on the fact that in the end, our stuff was better than your stuff. And if it's flown correctly, well, over time, we couldn't rely on that anymore. Their equipment got better than ours. They were able to do things we couldn't do. And what we had to start doing is taking that same equipment and start to utilize them differently. And one of the things we had to get away from was cover and move for airplanes used to be 1,000 feet away, 2,000 feet away.

• 2:15:22Speaker 02

  And you'd stay together. I turn, you turn, I go, you go. And your job as a wingman, and how I graded your performance as a wingman is how well you stayed inside that, what we called visual, visual mutual support. That was like, and if you lost sight of me, believe me, you were going to hear about in the debrief. And what we-

• 2:15:41Speaker 02

  evolved to was because of inferior equipment, we had to actually get farther away from each other. So in simplest terms, we could figure out who was the person, who was the aircraft in the formation that was fundamentally the most at risk or the most likely to be engaged? And the other aircraft could then flank or maneuver or come in from a different three dimensional direction to support that person. And it was fluid because it changed. It wasn't exactly on the 35 degree bearing line at five miles. It evolved based on weather, based on weapons, based on the formation. And just like you described this, and I had to know, and if I got too far away, I couldn't support you. And if I was too close to you, I couldn't

• 2:16:26Speaker 02

  maneuver in a way that allowed me to have an advantageous entry to the problem, a flank, because I was too, too close to you. And while you were talking about that, I was just thinking of the French approach to World War I, this culminating thing versus just the standard combined arms effect. Oh, cool. I don't need a million tanks. I got a couple of tanks here. You don't want to react to the tanks? Cool. They're going to run you over. You want to react to the tanks? Cool. Come out of your holes. We're going to get you with artillery. You don't want to deal with the artillery you're going to dig in? Cool. I'll roll in with an aircraft. And I don't need an overwhelming force of any of those three, but I need them together in support of one another. And I don't know in the end, who's going to get the kill or who's going to be the reason why I am successful. But you're going to have to react to something. And if you don't, one of those different arms, those different

• 2:17:09Speaker 02

  supporting elements will eventually be the thing that causes you to lose.

• 2:17:15Jocko Willink?

  Supporting distance, cover and move. And, and now fluid mutual support.

• 2:17:24Jocko Willink?

  We better, I'm going to-

• 2:17:25Speaker 02

  Dude, I should have known that I was going to totally submarine your goals of getting through this by talking way too much.

• 2:17:30Jocko Willink?

  I, I planned for this. So we'll, we'll wrap it up with another paragraph and then we'll, we'll, we'll do the next on the next podcast. Here's where he's going to break down Fox's statement a little bit. He says, because Fox said, "The art of pouring all one's resources." So, so Liddell Hart says, "The concentrate all is an unrealizable ideal and dangerous even as a hyperbole." Moreover, "In practice, the minimum necessary may be a far larger portion of the total than maximum possible." "It would even be true to say that the larger the force that is effectively used for distraction of the enemy,

• 2:18:13Jocko Willink?

  "the greater the chance of the concentration succeeding in its aim.

• 2:18:18Jocko Willink?

  "For otherwise, it may strike an object too solid to be shattered." This is like, um, in jujitsu, if you, if I try and sweep you, but it's, I'm not really trying to sweep you, you don't even have to react to it. I have to really try and sweep you. Then if I really try and sweep you, then you expose your neck. Boom, cool, you stick your neck out to, you know, you, you push into me and boom, there's your neck, I can get the guillotine. If I don't actually put enough force to get, but if I put too much force into that, well, and you defend it, well, well, now I've used a bunch of energy and it didn't work. And how often am I going to do that?

• 2:18:58Jocko Willink?

  So we have to be careful and what he's saying is you want to use this and what we talk a lot about, a lot about at Echelon Front, which is minimum force required. Like, how much force do I need to use to get you to react? And if, if I only have to use, you know, 10% of my force over here to get you to react, that means I have 90% of my force to finish your, finish the job on the flank.

• 2:19:20Jocko Willink?

  Closing this out, "Superior weight at the intended decisive point does not suffice "unless that point cannot be reinforced in time by the opponent." But yeah, you can, you can put a bunch, I can go for your arm, but if you're going to grab with your other arm and defend it, well, it doesn't matter that I singled out your arm. "It rarely suffices unless that point is not merely weaker numerically, but has been weakened morally." "Napoleon suffered some of his worst checks because he neglected this guarantee "and the need for distraction has grown with the delaying power of weapons."

• 2:19:58Jocko Willink?

  So there you go. That's a warm up. We're almost two and a half hours deep right now. We're talking, it's, it's only gonna get deeper from here. Um, let's, let's call it for right now. Let's get into some,

• 2:20:13Jocko Willink?

  I don't know, Echo Charles, maybe the, uh, anything, any closing statements, Dave?

• 2:20:19Jocko Willink?

  All right, let's, let's roll into a little, a little quick activity with, you know, maybe a little bit of support.

• 2:20:24Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:20:27Jocko Willink?

  You know, I know we're trying to be indirect, but maybe there's some direct ways we can kinda help ourselves out.

• 2:20:33Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:20:33Jocko Willink?

  What do you got?

• 2:20:34Speaker 01

  Or some help in our, on our path, which includes being indirect as far as effectiveness goes.

• 2:20:41Jocko Willink?

  Concur.

• 2:20:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. So let's talk with our friend Kerry. And you. And I just kinda come to realize that this path is not that hard anymore. It's hard, but it's not as hard.

• 2:20:53Jocko Willink?

  You're talking about the path?

• 2:20:55Speaker 01

  The path.

• 2:20:55Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:20:56Speaker 01

  That we're all on. And this is why.

• 2:20:57Jocko Willink?

  I didn't know that. All of a sudden, the path just got easy.

• 2:21:00Speaker 01

  A little bit easier.

• 2:21:00Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:21:01Speaker 01

  More luxurious. Yeah, easier. It's not easy. Oh, it's hard still, but it's easier in this way. Jaco Fuel. Boom. This is why. You drink energy drinks. That's no longer a problem. If you're on the path and you're like into energy drinks, right? You gotta get rid of those. And sometimes it'll take willpower. I understand. You know, at the very least, an adjustment period that might not be very comfortable.

• 2:21:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:21:22Speaker 01

  But it's not like that anymore. You can drink all the energy drinks you want anymore. Discipline, go. Energy drinks, good for you. Boom. Path. Easier.

• 2:21:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:21:29Speaker 01

  Right? Then adjust with that.

• 2:21:31Jocko Willink?

  I have to concur. The path just got easier. Echo Charles with the correct.

• 2:21:34Speaker 01

  It's true. Also, we wanna have dessert, right?

• 2:21:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:21:39Speaker 01

  If you're on the path, well, you gotta, you gotta start excluding dessert from time to time. In fact, pretty much all the time on the path.

• 2:21:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the occasional dessert can happen. I mean,

• 2:21:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:21:51Jocko Willink?

  I, my daughter's birthday yesterday.

• 2:21:54Speaker 01

  Yes, sir. I understand.

• 2:21:55Jocko Willink?

  I was at Raglan, which is kinda one of my go-to, might be my favorite restaurant.

• 2:22:01Speaker 01

  That's your jam.

• 2:22:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And they have that, that cast iron pan with the chocolate chip. It's, they call it the illegal.

• 2:22:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:22:10Jocko Willink?

  They're like, it's so good, it should be illegal.

• 2:22:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:22:12Jocko Willink?

  Good name. So we had to order some illegals for my daughter's birthday. That's her birthday.

• 2:22:18Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:22:19Jocko Willink?

  Get that illegal, girl.

• 2:22:20Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:22:20Jocko Willink?

  But when it showed up.

• 2:22:23Jocko Willink?

  The ice cream just melts in the pan, dude, it's a whole nother situation.

• 2:22:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, I understand.

• 2:22:28Jocko Willink?

  Let's face it, to your point, we can't be doing that, you know.

• 2:22:30Speaker 01

  Every day.

• 2:22:31Jocko Willink?

  Every day.

• 2:22:31Speaker 01

  Exactly. We would love to.

• 2:22:33Jocko Willink?

  Probably not even more than once per month.

• 2:22:36Speaker 01

  What if you could though? Cause you don't do it for the illegal necessarily, most of us. We do it because hey, that that thing tastes good.

• 2:22:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:22:43Speaker 01

  You know, let's face it, after dinner, raglins, I'm assuming you've got some steak or something like this. It's not like you're like starving and hungry after the steak. You just want something sweet.

• 2:22:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's a sad state of affairs.

• 2:22:55Speaker 01

  So you get it, you get the illegal, you got your thing sweet, cool, but you pay a price.

• 2:22:59Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 2:23:00Speaker 01

  Now on this new path, we don't gotta pay the price.

• 2:23:03Jocko Willink?

  Look at that.

• 2:23:03Speaker 01

  Easier. Do it every day.

• 2:23:05Jocko Willink?

  Must be talking about milk.

• 2:23:06Speaker 01

  I am talking about.

• 2:23:07Jocko Willink?

  Talking about the milk train.

• 2:23:09Speaker 01

  All day, man, all day. So anyway, yes, and you get additional protein in the form of this dessert. So boom, right there, path, little bit easier. You see what I'm saying?

• 2:23:18Jocko Willink?

  Easier.

• 2:23:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um, good news is also we got some other supporting elements, uh, for your joints. Joint warfare, super cool oil, we got stuff for your immunity.

• 2:23:27Jocko Willink?

  Well, you know what you're saying right now is actually a pretty big deal. Like if you think about, if you think about the, the fact that someone right now is like, well, they're drinking three energy drinks a day.

• 2:23:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:23:40Jocko Willink?

  And it's not good for them and it is going to have long-term negative health effects, legitimate.

• 2:23:46Speaker 01

  Well, they're doing it for a reason, right? They need the benefit of the energy drink, whatever that is. But, but it's like, that's not, it's a problem.

• 2:23:52Jocko Willink?

  It's a problem. And, and all of a sudden, like that, like with a snap of the fingers, you're, you can actually, you can actually still get the benefits with no downside. That's freaking crazy.

• 2:24:05Speaker 01

  No problem. Yeah.

• 2:24:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, same thing with dessert. All the benefits, sweetness, goodness, filling. Uh, uh, let's face it, there's a certain texture too, like that you kind of, you know, you want that milk.

• 2:24:19Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:24:19Jocko Willink?

  Want that milk.

• 2:24:20Speaker 01

  Hell, yeah.

• 2:24:22Jocko Willink?

  Alright, I'm getting crazy.

• 2:24:24Speaker 01

  No, but, but it's all true. So, you know, does that go against the whole, hey, man, the path is hard. Embrace the hardness. Yep. Okay. But here's, here's the dichotomy. You turned me on to this. Okay. It's a big deal. This is a big deal too.

• 2:24:37Jocko Willink?

  Okay. Oh, jeez.

• 2:24:38Speaker 01

  I think.

• 2:24:38Jocko Willink?

  I thought BH Liddell Hart had some info for us today, but apparently Echo Charles is coming in. Ah, with the facts, the truth.

• 2:24:44Speaker 01

  I'm doing the best I can.

• 2:24:45Jocko Willink?

  Talk to me.

• 2:24:46Speaker 01

  To benefit the group.

• 2:24:49Speaker 01

  Look, our, the goal isn't to drink milk. That's not the goal. It's a means to an end.

• 2:24:57Speaker 01

  I'm learning to.

• 2:24:59Speaker 01

  So the milk is the protein to help us recover from our workouts.

• 2:25:02Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 2:25:03Speaker 01

  See what I'm saying?

• 2:25:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:04Speaker 01

  Right? So it's more efficient. Why should we fight that battle when we don't have to? See what I'm saying?

• 2:25:10Jocko Willink?

  Cool.

• 2:25:11Speaker 01

  Just take the milk.

• 2:25:12Jocko Willink?

  Take the milk.

• 2:25:12Speaker 01

  No battle, no factor.

• 2:25:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:14Speaker 01

  Easy money. Boom, more efficient.

• 2:25:15Jocko Willink?

  Win without a fight.

• 2:25:16Speaker 01

  You're not choking down some crap. Yeah, some chalky.

• 2:25:21Jocko Willink?

  How much do you look forward to milk?

• 2:25:24Speaker 01

  Very much so.

• 2:25:24Jocko Willink?

  I look, I'm, I get super amped.

• 2:25:27Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. And it's the kind, and this is good enough.

• 2:25:30Jocko Willink?

  I had a milk before we trained. Normally I don't do that, but I had a milk before we trained today.

• 2:25:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:25:35Jocko Willink?

  Cause I got done with EF online at like, what, 12:30? And we weren't gonna train until 2:30. I was like, hmm. Cause normally I don't eat until after the train.

• 2:25:46Speaker 01

  Same.

• 2:25:46Jocko Willink?

  But today.

• 2:25:48Speaker 01

  Again. It was calling you. You know how certain desserts call your name? That's what it's happening to you. Yeah, I understand. I understand fully. But guess what? No problem.

• 2:25:56Jocko Willink?

  It's calling.

• 2:25:57Speaker 01

  This path that we're on just got a little bit easier. So you don't gotta worry about that anymore.

• 2:26:00Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 2:26:01Speaker 01

  So yes, like I said, immunity, we got, you got immunity stuff as well. Cold War, uh, vitamin D3. Boom. Take that. I'll guarantee you, your path would be a little bit easier versus if you don't take that.

• 2:26:10Jocko Willink?

  Now we're not getting sick all of a sudden.

• 2:26:12Speaker 01

  Negative.

• 2:26:12Jocko Willink?

  Which we like.

• 2:26:13Speaker 01

  We don't like to worry about that.

• 2:26:14Jocko Willink?

  You can get this, you can get the drinks at Wawa, by the way, on the east coast. If you're on the east coast, you can go to Wawa. Get yourself, you can clear out shelves, whatever. That's kinda like what we're doing.

• 2:26:23Speaker 01

  Sanctioned, really.

• 2:26:24Jocko Willink?

  Sanctioned, authorized.

• 2:26:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, authorized.

• 2:26:27Jocko Willink?

  Cory, my boy Cory, my cousin Cory, rolled in with an actual cooler to a Wawa and just started clearing shelves straight up. Like what? Yeah, that's what we're doing.

• 2:26:37Speaker 01

  The worker's just looking at him like, is this a cycle?

• 2:26:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Uh, you get a Wawa, you can get, you can get this stuff at Vitamin Shoppe. Vitamin Shoppe has the whole line of, uh, of the, the supplements.

• 2:26:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:26:47Jocko Willink?

  So you can go to Vitamin Shoppe or you can go to jockofuel.com.

• 2:26:52Jocko Willink?

  And get some, if you want some.

• 2:26:53Speaker 01

  Yep. And if you're interested in a little discount, little free shipping, little not having to worry about remembering to make sure you're always stocked. Get the subscription.

• 2:27:06Jocko Willink?

  Path just got a little easier, easier.

• 2:27:07Speaker 01

  Even easier.

• 2:27:08Jocko Willink?

  The path just got even easier.

• 2:27:09Speaker 01

  More efficient.

• 2:27:10Jocko Willink?

  Remembering, we're not worried about it, more efficient. We can focus on something else.

• 2:27:14Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:27:14Jocko Willink?

  No distraction.

• 2:27:16Speaker 01

  Technically.

• 2:27:16Jocko Willink?

  BH Liddell Hart would be like, oh, you got a distraction going on, you gotta write down, remember to order. No, let's just eliminate that distraction. We can focus our efforts.

• 2:27:22Speaker 01

  Exactly right.

• 2:27:23Jocko Willink?

  Hundred percent.

• 2:27:24Speaker 01

  In a way, it's decentralized command too, because Pete guys over there, they're over, they're taking over. That's their jam now.

• 2:27:30Jocko Willink?

  And they're covering for you, so you can go move elsewhere.

• 2:27:33Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 2:27:34Jocko Willink?

  All kinds of goods. You can subscribe, is what we're saying.

• 2:27:36Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 2:27:37Jocko Willink?

  Get free shipping. Check.

• 2:27:38Speaker 01

  Yep, it's true. Also, originusa.com is where you can get your American-made goods, durable goods, as it were. But what that means is you can get American-made denim, jeans, a few models there. We've got Delta 68 in the

• 2:27:53Jocko Willink?

  Factory.

• 2:27:54Speaker 01

  Factory.

• 2:27:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:55Speaker 01

  Boom. And you say factory like they don't like.

• 2:27:57Jocko Willink?

  I was at the UDT Seal Museum in Fort Pierce, Florida.

• 2:28:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, hell yeah.

• 2:28:02Jocko Willink?

  And, yeah, it's awesome. And they had a guy, they had, what, it's like a statue? No, it's not a statue. It's a mannequin. Is there a word for that?

• 2:28:12Speaker 01

  Mannequin.

• 2:28:13Jocko Willink?

  Okay. There's a mannequin, but he's dressed up like a, like a NOM SEAL.

• 2:28:18Jocko Willink?

  And straight up just wearing jeans.

• 2:28:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:28:20Jocko Willink?

  Just straight up. That's what, he's in the case, you know, the glass case.

• 2:28:23Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 2:28:24Jocko Willink?

  Like a, like a.

• 2:28:26Speaker 01

  Like an action figure.

• 2:28:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, a big one.

• 2:28:28Speaker 01

  Big, life-sized. Yeah.

• 2:28:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you can get, so we made those Delta 68s, because I know, look, I'm probably gonna be living multiple lives, you know? I'll be back here as another, fighting another war. And when I come back, it's probably gonna be back in NOM again, could be, possibly. I don't know, the jungle. I'm gonna wear jeans, and I'm gonna wear Delta 68 jeans, and I just want the world to know that.

• 2:28:51Speaker 01

  It makes sense. And like I said, they all are made in America from the, even the raw materials.

• 2:28:57Jocko Willink?

  The dirt to the shirt.

• 2:28:59Speaker 01

  Dirt to the shirt, or the jeans, as the case may be. Also, there's belts on there, there's some cool wallets on there, hoodies, athletic wear. Anyway, there's a lot of stuff on there. You get what I'm saying.

• 2:29:08Jocko Willink?

  All made in America.

• 2:29:09Speaker 01

  All made in America, originusa.com. Also, good news, we have our own store. We've been had our own store since day one, which is again, good news. Just in case you didn't know.

• 2:29:20Jocko Willink?

  Was it day one?

• 2:29:21Speaker 01

  Day eight.

• 2:29:22Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:29:23Speaker 01

  I think.

• 2:29:24Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:29:24Speaker 01

  Maybe, I don't know. One of the early days, we'll say that. It's called Jaco Store. So you go to JacoStore.com. And this is where you can get your shirts, hats, hoodies, rash guards, this kind of stuff. Discipline equals freedom. Represent while we're on the path. So boom, not only did the path get a little bit easier, got a little bit cooler. It's my opinion. JacoStore.com. Oh, also we have a subscription situation as well. It's called the Shirt Locker. This is all the shirts that you may or may not see me, sometimes Dave Berke now, Kerry, wearing. Where you're like, oh, I didn't see that shirt on the store. And you're like, oh, where do I get that one? Where do I get that one? I know I'm saying this because people are literally saying that to me or whatever.

• 2:30:08Speaker 01

  You go to the Shirt Locker and you subscribe. That's where you get those shirts. So yeah, the designs are more, um, how should I say? A little bit off, off the straight and narrow and more creative. That's the best way I can say it right now. Unless it's called the Shirt Locker. So subscribe for that one if you want.

• 2:30:24Jocko Willink?

  Okay. Yeah. And by the way, you can scrub to this podcast. You can also check out Jaco Unraveling, which I'm doing with Darryl Cooper. We're going hard in the paint with that one. We got the Grounded Podcast. We got the Warrior Kid Podcast, which I know you also got that Jaco Underground. The Underground Podcast where we're, we're doing amplifying information. We're doing a lot of Q and A on that one. Cause we have a little direct methodology. You can ask questions. So we're doing a lot of Q and A.

• 2:30:52Speaker 01

  Bro.

• 2:30:53Jocko Willink?

  Yo.

• 2:30:53Speaker 01

  You've been giving some good advice on that one. And I'm speaking from my position personally. That one about the, um, 13 year old kids, right? The teacher's trying to control the class. And like sometimes they're kind of, they get kind of crazy sometimes, but it's like, man, they kind of get crazy. Some like, what do I do? How do I deal with that? Man, that was a good one. That was really good.

• 2:31:13Jocko Willink?

  And a lot of that is, yeah, it's just good questions coming in. So hey, if you want to get to, if you want to listen to that. We set this up because we needed to have some kind of an alternative platform in case, in case, in case what? Well, contingencies happen. What if, what if some of these platforms decide to start charging you money? What if some of these platforms start, decide to start interjecting their own advertisements into them? What if they just straight up censor us because they don't like what we're talking about? Any of these things could happen. If those things happen, we wanted to have our own backup plan. So we have one, jockounderground.com. It costs $8.18 a month to support the cause. And if you can't afford it, no factor. We're the reason, which isn't like,

• 2:31:57Jocko Willink?

  oh, we don't want you in the game. We want you in the game. If you can't afford it, email [email protected] and we'll take care. We also have a YouTube channel that you can also subscribe to if you want to see my assistant director skills, which are in action on that. Origin USA also has a YouTube channel. If you want to see main ties skills.

• 2:32:22Speaker 01

  Doing some good work up there.

• 2:32:23Jocko Willink?

  Main tie.

• 2:32:24Speaker 01

  Yep. I was talking today about some stuff. I won't go into it.

• 2:32:28Jocko Willink?

  Main tie, making the connects.

• 2:32:30Speaker 01

  All day. Yep. Also, Psychological Warfar. If you don't know what that is, it's an album, Jaco album with tracks, Jaco tracks, telling you, us, how to get past and through our moments of weakness. Make them be less of a factor on this path. Boom, got a little bit easier. Again, now you got Jaco there, supplements it, tastes good, no factor, and boom, you can just keep rolling on that path a little bit easier, a little bit more luxurious.

• 2:32:57Jocko Willink?

  You can also get flipsidecanvas.com. Dakota Meyer's company. He's putting stuff to hang on your wall, stuff that's cool. American made. Check it out. We got a bunch of books. Final spin. Got a novel coming about novel stuff. Have you read the, have you read the final, Dave?

• 2:33:18Speaker 02

  I don't know. I mean, I've read, I think you might've made a couple of small edits since then.

• 2:33:23Jocko Willink?

  What's your assessment?

• 2:33:24Speaker 02

  You know what my assessment is?

• 2:33:27Speaker 02

  The better assessment was my wife's assessment.

• 2:33:29Jocko Willink?

  What about your wife's assessment? That was the real assessment.

• 2:33:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:33:32Jocko Willink?

  Cause she has no, uh,

• 2:33:34Speaker 02

  Zero.

• 2:33:34Jocko Willink?

  Skin and, or not skin in the game, no.

• 2:33:36Speaker 02

  Loyalty.

• 2:33:37Jocko Willink?

  Dog and yeah.

• 2:33:39Jocko Willink?

  In fact, she's sick of hearing about me. She's probably looking to drop the hammer. What was her assessment?

• 2:33:43Speaker 02

  Well, the best assessment was, uh, she finished it in two sittings.

• 2:33:49Jocko Willink?

  Wow.

• 2:33:50Speaker 02

  And that's like going to bed, I'm going to crack the book open. I'm like, hey, just, hey, read this. Tell me what you think kind of scenario, not like a big pressure move. And, um, she kind of got through two, two thirds of it. And then the next night finished and she's like, that was really good. Like that, the, the finished a book in a day, in two readings, like two sittings, uh, speaks volumes to that.

• 2:34:12Jocko Willink?

  That's a good deal.

• 2:34:13Speaker 02

  It's good.

• 2:34:13Jocko Willink?

  Uh, so that's coming out, actually the date change on when it comes out. It's coming out now. No, it's coming out a little bit earlier.

• 2:34:20Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 2:34:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Seems like the demand is kind of kicking.

• 2:34:24Speaker 02

  It's good.

• 2:34:25Jocko Willink?

  Looks like we're moving that. I think it's November 6th now. So if you want that, you know, the deal, if you want that first edition, Leadership Strategy and Tactics Field Manual, The Code, The Evaluation, The Protocols, Discipline is Freedom Field Manual, Way the Warrior Kid, one, two, three, and four. About Face, we talked about it today. Mikey and the Dragons. Mikey and the Dragons. It's incredible how often I have to talk about Mikey on the, Mikey and the Dragons. I explain that story to adults.

• 2:34:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:34:56Jocko Willink?

  Cause people are like, I'm afraid to do this. I'm afraid to do that. It's like, oh, it's a common question. And even from leaders, like, I'm afraid to address this. It's like all the time.

• 2:35:05Jocko Willink?

  About Face Hackworth, we talked about it today. And then Extreme Ownership and the Dichotomy of Leadership. We have a leadership consultant consultancy. We solve problems through leadership. If you want to check that out, go to echelonfront.com. We have online training as well. It's like a leadership gym.

• 2:35:23Jocko Willink?

  Right? With trainers. Yeah, with trainers. What? Do you just think you're gonna just stay in shape by sitting at home? No, you gotta go to the gym. What? How's your leadership gonna get better? How's your leadership just gonna even stay at a good level? Gotta go to the leadership gym. That's where we've got EFonline.com. Yeah, EFonline.com Extreme Ownership Academy. So, if you wanna learn about leadership, go there. We got courses on there. We're doing live stuff all the time. We're doing live stuff all the time. You wanna ask me a question, go there. I'll answer your question and I'll actually dig down. And Dave will come in off the top ropes. Leif will be flanking the whole situation, like we're there. And we have the muster.

• 2:36:07Jocko Willink?

  We just got done with Orlando. Next muster is Phoenix in August, August 17th and 18th. Las Vegas, October 28th and 29th. Go to extremeownership.com. Everything we've done is sold out. So if you wanna come, go and register. We also have EF Battlefield. We also, hey, EF Battlefield, we don't have one on the calendar right now. The next thing we do have on the calendar is FTX, where you're gonna put on gear, laser tag gear. We have this high-speed laser tag system. You're gonna run operations and learn these leadership lessons. The next one we're doing is in San Diego, Dago, right here in SD, July 12th and 13th. So, if you wanna come, there's only 32 seats for that.

• 2:36:52Jocko Willink?

  We haven't really talked about it yet, so we kinda, we kinda turned it on when they started filling up. We filled up another one, so here we go. July 12th and 13th, FTX in San Diego. You're gonna run operations. You're gonna put these principles to use. Give it, check it out. And then if you wanna help service members, you wanna help service members, active and retired, their families, Gold Star families. Check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. Heard she's got a charity organization doing all kinds of great work for veterans. One of the main things she's doing is getting medical treatments for our vets that maybe aren't being covered by the VA. If you wanna donate or you wanna get involved, go to AmericasMightyWarriors.org.

• 2:37:36Jocko Willink?

  And if you want more of my protracted pontifications, or you need more of Echo's misplaced meanderings, or perhaps even more of Dave's animated additions, you can find us on the interwebs, on Twitter, on the Gram, and on Facebook. Echo is at @echocharles. Dave is at @DavidRBurke. And I am at @JacoWillink. And to the military servicemen and women out there, thank you for putting the strategy of freedom into tactics and keeping the world from darkness. Same goes to our police and law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, Border Patrol, Secret Service,

• 2:38:20Jocko Willink?

  and all first responders. Thanks for keeping the world safe from evil here at home. And to everyone else out there, the direct approach is not as direct as you think. So think again. And maybe, maybe just try taking the long way around, because the long way around, you might find out, ends up being the shortest distance between two points. Until next time, this is Dave, and Echo, and Jaco. Out.