366: Place Duty Over Your Personal Feelings or Desires. "Fundamentals of Marine Corps Leadership"

You have to be able to educate people remotely. "Fundamentals of Marine Corps Leadership". An analysis. With Dave Berke and Jocko. 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 366 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. Also joining us tonight, Dave Berke. Good evening, Dave. Good evening. Dave happens to be kind of in San Diego right now, so here you are.

• 0:16Jocko Willink?

  Leadership Strategy and Tactics, wrote a book called Leadership Strategy and Tactics. And in that book, I talked about whether leaders are born or made.

• 0:26Jocko Willink?

  And the answer is, of course, both. People are born with certain characteristics that are beneficial for leadership, right? The ability to simplify things, the ability to detach, being articulate. These are all things that you can be born with various levels of.

• 0:45Jocko Willink?

  And thankfully, they're all things that you can improve. Right? You can learn to simplify things. You can learn to detach. You can learn to become more articulate. It's not easy. And some people can learn more easily how to simplify things. Some people can learn more easily how to detach. Some people have a really hard time with it. There's some things that you can't improve. Right? I know in the book, I use the example of being able to speak loudly. Because being able to speak loudly in combat is beneficial. And even if you're trying to get, you know, you're, you've got an event going on. And you've got to get everyone to move to a different room.

• 1:28Jocko Willink?

  It's, it's good to have a loud voice and a loud voice is a genetic thing. And sure, you could train it a little bit, but you, some people can only talk so loud.

• 1:37Jocko Willink?

  Genetic in my family, it's loud at my house, a bunch of loud people. So it's genetic trait. So everyone's got some level of inherent leadership capability. And when you have some kind of a lack, like if you don't have a loud voice, cool. You get someone on your team that does.

• 1:57Jocko Willink?

  And there are some natural leaders out there, right?

• 2:01Jocko Willink?

  And the, I don't know how, look, natural leadership means that they might have some better characteristics, but what it really means is that they're humble and throughout their lives, they've developed themselves over time, right?

• 2:18Jocko Willink?

  Some people have very little leadership, natural ability. And then you have everyone in between. I mean, there's, there's some people that they just don't, they just got, they didn't get the, the positive leadership characteristics and they might be really awesome at other things. Right? They might be a great athlete, right? How many great athletes are there that weren't great coaches? There's a lot of them. Some, in fact, some of them are actually bad coaches. They were a great player, but they're a bad coach. They have great skills, athletic skills, great ability, you have great peripheral vision. They had great skills for athletics, but they didn't have a great leadership

• 2:55Jocko Willink?

  capability and maybe they never developed it. I imagine if you're like the best ball player, you can end up with a pretty big ego. Maybe you don't need to listen to a bunch of people. So maybe you don't end up being the best leader. But leadership is what drives the success of an organization. So the question is, how do you develop leaders? And we know, we talk about all the time, we do it, Dave and I do it for a living. We develop leaders, we teach leaders, we train them, mentor them. We put them in leadership positions, put people in leadership positions. We coach them, we have developed those programs inside of organizations, all very hands-on.

• 3:32Jocko Willink?

  So how do you train leaders? If you're in an organization that has hundreds of thousands of people? Obviously you're going to use decentralized command, right? Because you as the leader in charge of a couple hundred thousand people, you're not going to be able to train everyone yourself. So you have to use decentralized command. So that the training and the mentoring and the coaching is going to take place at, at the subordinate levels.

• 3:57Jocko Willink?

  But then if you have a few hundred thousand people in your organization, how do you set a baseline of knowledge that's going to drive the leadership, training and drive a leadership culture inside your organization? Well, a couple of months ago, Dave handed me a manual. And the manual is called, it's from the Marine Corps. I know it's a big shocker coming from Dave Berke handing me a manual. It's called the fundamentals of Marine Corps leadership. And for all practical purposes, it's a correspondence course, which is kind of a joke in the military, right? In the military, it's like, oh, you went to BUDs through the correspondence course, meaning you just, you know, filled out some paperwork and then you graduated.

• 4:42Jocko Willink?

  Or you went to flight school, what'd you do? Correspondence course to get through this? But correspondence course, it's a real thing. It's something that is necessary. You have to be able to educate people remotely. And now it's a lot easier to do that, right? Because now we have online training and everyone does online training. It's advanced a lot. We have the, we have the Extreme Ownership Academy. And we've got a whole new platform rolling out with that. What date does that come out? What date's the new platform? January 1. Oh, my goodness. It's happening. Oh, so this will be live. So we have a new platform with that. And even, you know, when, when Leif and I first started talking about having an online training platform, both of us, I think Leif more so, because I'd seen some other possibilities.

• 5:24Jocko Willink?

  Leif was just thinking about what we had, you know, in the, in the, in the Navy, these online trainings that you had to take, they were super boring, super not user friendly, and it didn't seem like a viable option. Of course, COVID hit and all of a sudden everyone's online. Everyone understood the benefits. And so luckily, we had kind of started the academy now. And then we went hard on it. And now we've got an outstanding, the new, the new one is outstanding. Yeah, it's awesome. I was pretty impressed. I was extremely, I could, actually, I couldn't have been more impressed. So we've got the Extreme Ownership Academy. But before that was available, things like this manual were out. And the manuals dated October of 2000. So there wasn't really a big online training capability.

• 6:09Jocko Willink?

  And also, this is something to think about. This is before the war kicked off.

• 6:16Jocko Willink?

  So there's some times, as I read through this manual, that I was like, we've been, we've been at peace for a while, haven't we? Because war teaches and reteaches lessons unlike any other instructor.

• 6:32Jocko Willink?

  And you'll see some of those. So anyways, that being said, there's a bunch of good lessons and reminders about leadership. And I want to talk through some of those today. And also put this up as kind of an example of the type of, the type of program you can put in place. If you're running a large organization or if you're running a small organization. How often do we talk to clients that have forty people? But they got a decent churn rate, a little higher than they want. They got new people checking in all the time. Or like you get a medical staff, let's say, medical staff, you've got professionals, but they might work with a different team for three days and then not see that team again. There's certain environments where you're going to have a rapid turnover.

• 7:15Jocko Willink?

  So it's nice to realize that you can set up a standard operating procedure that you can give people some level of baseline knowledge very quickly. And, and you could move forward as a unified team if you have a good plan around it. And this is sort of an example of that. So.

• 7:33Jocko Willink?

  I also really appreciate the Marine Corps. Because they, they have a, an ability to speak to their audience in a way that can be pretty transformational.

• 7:49Jocko Willink?

  So a young Marine stopped by the gym today, just out of boot camp, you know, and you, you're looking at him, yep, a hundred percent. You know, as soon as I saw him, I was like, yep, this guy, this kid just graduated from Marine Corps boot camp. You know, he's standing at attention, waiting to talk to me. I'm like, check. He's like, you know, good afternoon, sir. Yep. Good afternoon. When did you graduate from boot camp? Four days ago. Outstanding, you know? So the Marine Corps gets that job done. So. Let's go to this book, the fundamentals of Marine Corps leadership. It starts off by saying congratulations, which is a really like, again, they're getting in your brain right away. Congratulations on your enrollment in a distance education course from the Distance Learning and Technologies Department of the Marine Corps Institute since nineteen twenty heritage.

• 8:35Jocko Willink?

  Heritage. Since 1920, the Marine Corps Institute has been helping tens of thousands of hard-charging Marines. What kind of Marine are I'm a hard charger. You got this, but you're already a hard charger. You're already in the game. Like you, to improve their technical job performance skills through distance learning. By enrolling in this course, you have shown a desire to improve the skills you have and master, master new skills to enhance your job performance. So you can see how they're coming out of the gate.

• 9:04Jocko Willink?

  And then it says, your personal characteristics. This isn't a question, by the way. It's not a survey about your personal characteristics. It's saying your personal characteristics. You are properly motivated. You have made a positive decision to get training on your own. Self motivation is perhaps the most important force in learning or achieving anything. Doing whatever is necessary to learn is motivation. You have it. This is outstanding.

• 9:30Jocko Willink?

  You seek to improve yourself. You are enrolled to improve those skills you already possess, possess and learn new skills. When you improve yourself, you improve the core.

• 9:43Jocko Willink?

  Listen, you, Corporal Lance Corporal Schmuckatelli, you are helping the entire Marine Corps right now by reading this book, by going through these procedures. And we thank you for it. You have the initiative to act. Of course, the Marine Corps is always trying to get you to take initiative. By acting on your own, you have shown you are self-starter, willing to reach out for opportunities to learn and grow. You accept challenges. This is like the affirmations that people say, but they're saying it to you. You have self-confidence and believe in your ability. And by the way, it's all true. Like, these are all factual things. You have the self-confidence and believe in your ability to acquire, acquire knowledge and skills. You have self-confidence to set goals and the ability to achieve them, enabling you to meet every challenge. You are able to set and accomplish practical goals.

• 10:28Jocko Willink?

  You are willing to commit time, effort, and the resources necessary to set and accomplish your goals. These professional traits will help you successfully complete this long-distance learning course.

• 10:40Jocko Willink?

  And then it goes on. I could read the entire thing and just, you know, we could just sell a, what's an audio book, right? Just get fired up. But then it talks about how to begin the course and it tells you how to do it. It's like, oh, leaf through the text and do an assessment of the different phases and then study the first unit. It tells you how to study. Cause you know, look, a lot of these kids, they, you know, if you're in less than the Marine Corps, you may or may not have paid attention to one class in your entire high school, right? And then you're preparing for the final exam and it tells you, gives you these unused, unused minutes. Apply what you have learned. Use the shakedown cruise technique. Ask another Marine to lend a hand by asking questions about the course. Choose a particular study unit and let your buddy fire

• 11:23Jocko Willink?

  away. This technique can be interesting and challenging for both of you.

• 11:28Jocko Willink?

  If you followed what the Marine Corps told you to do, you'd be an outstanding Marine.

• 11:34Jocko Willink?

  The sooner you complete your course, the sooner you can better yourself by applying what you learned. However, you have two years from the date of enrollment to complete this course. I hope it doesn't take somebody two years to complete this. Graduating as a graduate of this distance education course and as a dedicated Marine, your job performance skills will improve, benefiting you, your unit and the Marine Corps Semper Fidelis. So that's the intro. They're coming out of the gate hard. They're getting right in your head. Like 18 year old Jocko, I'm ready to rock and I'm ready to do some correspondence courses, bro. Now here's the thing. This is what you gotta watch out for. How does this sound?

• 12:11Jocko Willink?

  It depends on who is reading it, right? So you could look at this thing. If you got a, did you have a, have like a slang term for Marines that were just, they didn't want to be there?

• 12:24Dave Berke?

  Yeah, I'm thinking like strap hangers and some other terms. There's probably some more derogatory ones that I'm, I'm blanking on right now, but yes, there were definitely terms. I just can't think of it.

• 12:32Jocko Willink?

  Somebody with like a negative mindset.

• 12:34Dave Berke?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes.

• 12:36Jocko Willink?

  You could take, uh, you know, the last podcast that we did, we talked about building a palace or building a lean to. You could read this and be like, dude, this is such a load of shit. You could totally do that. I could do it right now. We could go back through this thing. I could laugh at it, right? It could be like, uh, uh, congratulations on your enrollment in distance education course. Since 1920, the Marine Corps Institute has helped tens of thousands of hard charging, you know what I mean? Like you can see, you see what I'm doing?

• 13:06Jocko Willink?

  And Jamie got a client from an email the other day and she was mad about it. And I was like, because she doesn't have a, there's like a little, a little issue with the client and she's working through it. And I'm like, um, so she read me the email. She's like, can you help me with this email? Bad. And so she read it to me and the tone that she read it was like super negative. And I go, I go, cool. I go read that again and pretend that I'm, that it's an email from me. And she just went quiet. Cause what the email said was like, hey, we want to adjust some dates on this thing, but it was like, the way she read it was like, hey, we need to adjust the dates. I was like, whoa, girl.

• 13:49Jocko Willink?

  So you gotta kinda, you, you're gonna, you're gonna read it the way you want to hear it. So why not build a palace instead of a lean to? Why not turn this thing into something awesome?

• 14:03Jocko Willink?

  That's my recommendation.

• 14:06Jocko Willink?

  So lesson one, and the way this thing's laid out is it's like got the lesson plan, got the learning objectives. It's like sort of normal military stuff. It starts off placement and purpose of the Marine NCO in the chain of command. The chain of command is the system the Marine Corps uses to, to ensure that each Marine receives instructions for a particular task from only one supervisor. Each immediate supervisor in turn receives instruction from his or her immediate supervisor. This process continues up to the commandant of the Marine Corps.

• 14:35Jocko Willink?

  In this way, each supervisor is a link in the chain of command from the commandant to each Marine.

• 14:42Jocko Willink?

  That's a, that's like a,

• 14:45Jocko Willink?

  and they might as well put the president in there, that the president of the United States is in there too. They should throw him in there, except for the fact that the, look, you don't really care. Hey, man, I work for the commandant. Never mind anybody else, but I work for the commandant of the Marine Corps. That's where I'm at.

• 15:00Jocko Willink?

  This chain serves two purposes. The first of these purposes to decentralize authority.

• 15:06Jocko Willink?

  Since it is impossible for one person to assign duties to every Marine or to supervise every task personally, assignments are passed down through the levels of command. This is called decentralization of authority. For example, the mess officer tells the chief cook what foods to prepare for a meal. The chief cook then tells the section cook, who in turn tells the other cooks. Whenever duties are assigned to a subordinate, that subordinate must be given the authority to accomplish those duties. The subordinate is held responsible for accomplishing the task, but overall responsibility for its success remains with the Marine originating the order. This is a horrible example. And there's a couple of reasons why.

• 15:51Jocko Willink?

  Number one, it's talking about cooks, and we don't want to hear about cooks. Right? Not that logistics don't win war, because they certainly do, and not that I don't love the people that make food for me when I'm in the military. But that's not really what makes it a bad example. It's actually good that they're given some various things, but here's the thing. The mess officer tells the chief cook what foods to prepare for a meal. Right? That is wrong. The mess officer should be saying, hey, this is how many people we have to feed. Make it happen.

• 16:31Dave Berke?

  Yeah. He could be like, hey, this is all we were able to get from headquarters supply. This is the, you know, like, he doesn't tell, I shouldn't tell him anything, other than when he needs to get done and what he's got available to make that happen.

• 16:41Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 16:42Dave Berke?

  Yeah. I just literally wrote down, I was showing like, I literally wrote down the word "tell" with a question mark. Like, don't do that.

• 16:48Jocko Willink?

  Yep. And really, then the chief cook should be like, hey, guys, you know, here's how many people we got to feed. What do you guys think we should make? And let the troops decide. This is authoritarian leadership, and it's not the best way to lead. So, watch out for that. Just watch out for that. Besides the decentralization of authority, another purpose of the chain of command is to link different levels of command. It is a way that the infantry private can talk to his battalion commander. The private first goes through his fire team leader with a problem. If the problem cannot be solved by his fire team leader, he's sent to squad leader, then to platoon sergeant, then to platoon commander, and finally the company commander.

• 17:28Jocko Willink?

  If the problem cannot be solved by any of these Marines after they have, they are seen in order of their authority, the private is sent to the battalion commander. Any Marine can go as high as necessary to get the problem solved. All that the Marine must do is follow the chain of command one step at a time. A Marine does not have to disclose the subject of a request mast to anyone in the chain of command, except the commander with whom he is requesting the mast. This was always like a big threat of requesting mast. Did you, did you guys hear that threat?

• 17:57Dave Berke?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 17:59Jocko Willink?

  What would make a guy want to request mast?

• 18:01Dave Berke?

  Usually the sense of being wronged or something like that. Listen, I heard, I mean, I obviously knew what requesting mast was, and at some point in my career, I was going to be the person that they were going to be requesting.

• 18:11Jocko Willink?

  Did you ever have one?

• 18:12Dave Berke?

  Dude, it never happened.

• 18:13Speaker 02

  Wait, what is it?

• 18:14Dave Berke?

  It's basically like, and I know Jocko could add to it, but like, you want, you want to make sure Marines understand that they, they, they do have the latitude that if somehow that there's, there's, there's some misconduct occurring in their chain of command, they can go up the chain to the right authority to, to have their grievance air, their concern articulated to the boss. So something, somebody isn't getting the way. So you can go up to the chain and I can actually skip my boss. It's rudimentary in this example, but I can skip my boss and go to the, the, the big boss if I need to request mast. And like he was describing, it could almost be like he used like a threat or like I'm going to request mast.

• 18:51Speaker 02

  Is that captain's mast?

• 18:53Dave Berke?

  No.

• 18:54Speaker 02

  That's something else?

• 18:55Jocko Willink?

  Captain's mast is, that's, that's in the other direction. That's like echo, you did something dumb and you lost equipment or you did something dumb, got in trouble. Now you're going to captain's mast.

• 19:07Speaker 02

  Okay. So it's like, okay, got it.

• 19:09Jocko Willink?

  But this one is, this one is like, you know, I'm in an argument with Dave. Dave is my boss. And I think Dave's making us do a dumb plan. And I could literally say, I'm requesting captain's mast. I'm requesting mast.

• 19:22Dave Berke?

  I'd be like, Jocko, you're not on duty tomorrow, but you're going to come in and it's like Christmas day or something. And you're like, no, I'm not on duty and I don't have to do that. And like, this is the, the duty roster and I have the day off. I'm like, nope, you're coming in. And he in theory could be like, I'm gonna go over your head and I'm gonna go to the boss and say like, hey, I think he's treating unfairly and and that way he's not evicted by my really awful leadership of making him do something that's dumb or not fair.

• 19:45Speaker 02

  So it's like an, or it is an official, uh, like, what do you call, protocol to to go above, above the chain or whatever.

• 19:54Jocko Willink?

  That's it.

• 19:55Dave Berke?

  Off disgust, rarely executed.

• 20:00Jocko Willink?

  When we, we, when we had that mutiny, that was kind of like that. It wasn't quite official because, but we were like, hey, we want to talk to the skipper and we went and talked to the skipper, but it wasn't like we didn't, we didn't have to go to the full. There was another time, there was almost like a request mast scenario that someone was talking about, but I don't remember what it was. All right.

• 20:22Jocko Willink?

  Purpose of the Marine NCO in the chain of command. The Marine NCO, non-commissioned officer, is the lowest rank link in the chain of command. The first purpose of that link is to carry the orders and information passed from the NCO's immediate supervisor to the NCO's subordinates and pass requests from the Marines up the chain of command. And let me give you a little hint, everybody. You're gonna be translating what is said down the chain of command and translating what is said back up the chain of command. So if I'm working for Dave and Echo works for me and Echo says, this is the dumbest thing we've ever done. I say, hey, sir, we'd like to reconsider the way, approach that we're taking. And when, when Dave says, tell those guys to shut up and

• 21:05Jocko Willink?

  do what I told them to do. I say, hey, Echo, I did brief the skipper about this and we're gonna go ahead. We want to proceed with what we've been directed to do. So you're gonna do translation and your translation, you're actually buffering the friction that's gonna be there because it's definitely gonna be there. Uh, in this manner, the NCO is a link between Marine subordinates and their commanding officer. As this link, the NCO is responsible for enforcing the orders, the commands, orders and commands of the commanding officer. The NCO accomplishes this by assigning tasks and then supervising work. That's what, you know, I mentioned that this was, this is coming out in the year 2000 and you can see it's, and we're gonna get to some part where they go more decentralized and they're using the term decentralized, but what we're reading is not

• 21:45Jocko Willink?

  decentralized. This is orders and execution and following duties, right? That's what, that's the way this reads. And.

• 21:55Jocko Willink?

  Again, this is aimed at a very low rank. It's written in here somewhere, but this is aimed at like corporals and Lance Corporals, like E2, E1s, E2s, E3s, um, maybe E4s. So.

• 22:08Dave Berke?

  Yeah. So, and I didn't read that opening piece, but if, when I hear NCO in the Marine Corps, a corporal in the Marine Corps is an NCO. That's actually not common across. So you're, you're, I see this as a way to teach enlisted Marines, E1, E2, E3, private Lance Corporal, private, private first class Lance Corporal, how to one day become an NCO. And I mean, it's like, man, this is rudimentary. It's almost like they're doing it on purpose. Like they're describing decentralized command in a way that's actually not decentralized command because it's so rudimentary. Like, don't tell people what to do, but I go, okay, I think what they're trying to explain is like, this is how, this is how it works in the chain of command. It's really low level in the way that's described.

• 22:49Jocko Willink?

  Uh, when a subordinate is given a task to supervise, the NCO must also give the Marine enough authority to accomplish the task, but overall responsibility remains with the NCO. Remember, and here's a great point, as a supervisor in the Marines or civilian life, you can delegate authority, but you can never delegate responsibility. And this is something we talk about giving ownership. You know, when I give ownership to Dave to go and accomplish a project and he messes it up, I still own the failure. So, um, a second purpose of the Marine NCO is to train Marines to perform their assigned tasks. This training usually in the Marines MOS is a combination of on the job training and classroom instruction.

• 23:31Jocko Willink?

  The Marine NCO must be able to demonstrate and teach. More important, he must inspire the Marines, making them want to learn the skills expect he's expected to master, or they expected to master. And the third purpose is to ensure close supervision and personal guidance of junior Marines. And this part disturbed me. Without a supervising NCO, many tasks would not be finished properly, if at all.

• 23:58Jocko Willink?

  The personal guidance provides a junior Marine with someone else to turn to with help or personal problems or forensics. So.

• 24:06Jocko Willink?

  We don't like that. We, meaning me, I don't know if you did, I shouldn't, I say, I should, I don't like it.

• 24:11Dave Berke?

  I understand exactly what you're saying.

• 24:13Jocko Willink?

  So, we, you don't want to have a group of people who unless they are supervised closely, they don't do things right. That means I'm failing in like 19 different ways as a leader. So that's, that's not our goal. Our goal is not to just have everything so supervised that it gets done. Because if we're supervising that closely, well then we're too close to the problem and we aren't seeing the other things. We're not seeing the big picture. And by the way, why, why, why do we have troops that aren't doing what they're supposed to do? So if you're a leader in an organization, if you're working at a company and the only way things get done properly is if they are being strictly supervised, this is a horrible sign.

• 24:56Jocko Willink?

  You need to start going down the path of giving more ownership, giving more autonomy, giving people parameters, giving them mission type orders, which means telling them what needs to get done, why it needs to get done, but not how to do it. That's what we're gonna go for.

• 25:13Dave Berke?

  Yeah, you, you said it already and I was thinking about this, this, the concept of decentralized command and how it's different from, I tell you, you tell your subordinate, you tell your, like, that is not decentralized command. That's the direction in which the things flow in the chain of command, if you want to use that from a hierarchy. But I just, I can't help but think about the, the timing of this, like October of, of, uh, I'm sorry, October of 2000.

• 25:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 25:38Dave Berke?

  Like that's like nine, 10, that's like right before 9/11. And before that was like Desert Storm, which, listen, Desert Storm was legit, but it was like four days long, like, and so you have an era here and what I had, what I wrote down is like DC works, decentralized command works. But it doesn't, it doesn't become.

• 25:59Dave Berke?

  Is is it doesn't reveal the necessity of it until you're in an environment by which nothing else will work other than decentralized command. And in Garrison, you can kind of, you can kind of power your way through. You can, you're, you can still micromanage and chain of command lead in Garrison. And if you spend a, like, a career in Garrison, what they're describing, and this is not to defend it, like, you just, you said it well, like, this is not, we don't want to do this. But unless you've been in a situation like combat, like, oh crap. The only way, the only way we will be successful is if we have real decentralized command. Mission-type orders, Jocko goes and makes things happen, because all he knows is the outcome, and I can't help him with anything else, because he's off doing his thing.

• 26:43Dave Berke?

  You don't understand how, not just how important it is, but how it actually works. And there's this, these little, there's these like little, little pieces of like Garrison leadership inside that even it's like, oh, that's the wrong word. Don't use that word. It's the wrong word. And without the context of knowing when and how it works, and I, I know it's kind of like arrogant to say the real world, but I'll talk about combat. Without that, you are going to use the words that they're using, and they're not the right words.

• 27:12Jocko Willink?

  The Psychology of Military Incompetence, that book was so spot on, and it was able to capture sort of the, the things that I always thought about. But the, the fact that in the Garrison environment, you can totally micromanage. You can totally micromanage. Like, it's like if you work at a restaurant and you only have, like, you've got, you've got 10 tables. And hey, here's the rules at our restaurant. Only five tables are going to be filled at a time. We've got five tables, we actually have five waiters, and we've got five cooks. And boom, waiter's going to talk to that cook, and okay, cool, yep, hey, you getting what they need?

• 27:56Jocko Willink?

  Yep, everything's, like, you micromanage everything. You can, hey, bring them their bread, bring the table that bread. You know, you can do, do they get their drinks? You can micromanage everything in a restaurant that has five tables, five waiters, and five cooks. Because everything is just, it's going to work. And even when someone says, you know, hey, can I get extra onions? You're like, no, no, no, that's not on the menu. You can't get that. Now, if you go to a real restaurant, like a big restaurant, a bunch of different people in there, like, those waiters are gonna have to make some decisions. The cooks are gonna be like, alright, we're gonna get this done. Hey, run over to Vons and grab some extra milk. Cause like, that stuff's gotta happen. People gotta make decisions. So in the garrison environment, you can micromanage things, but as soon as you get into a dynamic environment,

• 28:41Jocko Willink?

  as soon as you get into a combat environment, you have to use decentralized command, 100%. And in any organization, that's, that's going to progress, you have to use decentralized command. So yes, if you work at a completely controlled environment, you can micromanage. It's gonna, it's not gonna be as efficient, but it is a feasible thing. Yeah. It's not gonna be as efficient, but it's gonna be a feasible thing. As soon as you get to any, any kind of dynamic environment, you're gonna fall apart if you, if you try and micromanage everything. It's the way things work. All right. Four areas of NCO responsibility. Your country, one responsibility as a Marine

• 29:25Jocko Willink?

  NCO to your country is to demonstrate behavior that dignifies the United States of America and the American people. For example, when you're in a foreign country, conduct yourself in such a way that the people of that country will not be offended. Convey the feeling that you are an ally and are in their country as a guest, friend, and protector of freedom. Not every Marine read that section when I was in the SEAL teams in the 1990s. On ships with the Marines pulling into port. The Marine Corps, as a Marine NCO, it is your duty to be loyal to the Marine Corps policies. You have responsibility to develop leadership skills, professional knowledge, and proficiency. You develop this skill, knowledge, and proficiency through on-the-job

• 30:10Jocko Willink?

  experience, reading, taking correspondence courses, attending service schools, and by seeking new tasks. You also have the responsibility of presenting a favorable image of the Marine, of the United States Marines to both public and our sister services, community activity, and friendly interservice competitions are ways of presenting a favorable image.

• 30:28Jocko Willink?

  Check. Organization, your responsibilities to your own organization are many. One important responsibility is training Marines as a team and developing that team's loyalties. And it says here, to achieve good teamwork, a unit must show unhesitating response to orders and regulations. You accomplish this by demanding discipline within your unit by taking responsibility at all times for the conduct of your Marines. So they're going hard in the paint for the Garrison Life.

• 30:54Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 30:56Jocko Willink?

  You're bummed out you gave me this book, aren't you?

• 30:58Dave Berke?

  Well, no, I think it's awesome because I'm like, I can't help saying, I know what you're trying to say. I, that's what I'm telling myself. I'm like, I hear what you're saying. I know what you're trying to say. And so inside that, and you do a good job, like you, you can pull out the components of like, this is really what you need to be doing. And so words like demanding, we're not going to say that. But, but in the end I go, oh, I know what they're getting at. So I think it's actually a really cool exercise to go through this and other things and actually look and go, hey, this is what they're talking about here. This is a better way to do that, or this is a, a way to pull out what the lesson could be, even though it's not explained very well or not written very well. And the other side is like, it'd be better if they just did it, said it differently.

• 31:42Dave Berke?

  It's like, this book is awesome and everything's perfect in here, but which is not.

• 31:46Jocko Willink?

  The crazy thing is we've covered so many Marine Corps manuals where they literally are perfect. I mean, you read warfighting and it's just like, okay, yep, this is a, totally, don't change a word. And as a matter of fact, embrace this and put it into your every aspect of your life.

• 31:57Dave Berke?

  Yeah. And maybe the thing about this, and dude, we always talk about this. We always try to picture the room of the people that are like in here writing this and who these people are. I wonder if they like, it's almost like you fall into the trap of like, oh, these young Marines, they need to be, they need to have it explained to them at some, and it's like, no, like you don't need to do that quite so much. Like I almost feel like they fell in the trap of, oh, these kids are so young. They're so uneducated. They're so inexperienced. We have to make this so rudimentary that they actually don't do it correctly. As opposed like, no, we need to explain this the way you'd explain it to anybody, whether either CEO of a giant company. Now, is there differences? Sure. Depending on your lay of leadership, but it's almost like they make it. Too narrow because they maybe don't think the audience would understand it.

• 32:41Jocko Willink?

  Well, I'm gonna go one step further. I think you're right where they're like, hey, we're telling these guys what they need to do is shut up and unhesitatingly follow all orders.

• 32:49Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 32:49Jocko Willink?

  That's basically it. Like, you're gonna get told what to do and you should do it immediately.

• 32:53Dave Berke?

  Right.

• 32:53Jocko Willink?

  That's what they're saying. That's literally what it says. Unhesitating response to orders and regulations. Like, that's what it's saying. Now, listen. Is there an element of that in any organization? Sure. However, unhesitatingly, what we're getting at is I'm not gonna question anything that I'm told. And this is the last thing I actually want.

• 33:16Dave Berke?

  Totally.

• 33:16Jocko Willink?

  And if I'm dealing with a brand-new guy that doesn't know anything, I still want him to go, hold on, sir, can you explain to me why we're doing it this way? Because I want him to know that.

• 33:24Dave Berke?

  Yeah. And they don't, they don't reveal the fact there's a balance in any of this or dichotomy because there's actually examples you give where you're like, hey, do this. And actually, you need your people to respond right away. And when they don't, you need to realize, oh, damn, they know something I don't know. And there's a reason they're not doing it unhesitatingly. So even inside that, there's, there's a, there's a balance and a dichotomy that's just not revealed. So you're gonna read and go, uh, un, whatever the word, do exactly what I say when I say it. Like, I know what you're saying, but that's not right. Like, that's not what you're doing.

• 33:56Jocko Willink?

  What podcast did we talk about Colonel Pogue? What were you doing?

• 34:00Dave Berke?

  It was, it was one of those Marine Corps, I believe it was one of those manuals and we were picturing.

• 34:05Jocko Willink?

  Like, there was one guy kept throwing in a sentence.

• 34:08Dave Berke?

  And like, it was like the last paragraph of each section. It was all these awesome paragraphs in this one. You're like, that sucks. That's not right. And you pictured like the guy in charge was Colonel Pogue, who took all like his junior Marines' awesome writing. And he's like, I'm gonna make sure they also know at the end. The person in charge still gets to do what he wants to do or some garbage like that. And it was that, I don't remember which one. It was that Colonel Pogue.

• 34:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And if you don't know what a pogue is, that's a slang military term for like the rear echelon person that's all authoritarian leadership style and never does anything.

• 34:40Jocko Willink?

  Real. That's the poke. And speaking of Colonel Pogue, unit courtesy is clearly related to the unit's discipline and cooperation. An example of unit courtesy is coming to attention for an officer. This is like, so pre 9/11. Unit courtesy has a special and practical use. Often instructions for a mission must be given in noisy surroundings. Time and effort are saved if the commander has the attention of all Marines at once rather than waiting for Marines to be quiet. The officers should not be expected to shout over the voices of the Marines and compete with surrounding noise too. So, like, you see, they put a nice element of truth in there, like, oh yeah, you're kind of like, yeah, yeah. But also, you're like, thinking, hmm.

• 35:21Dave Berke?

  It's like telling, it's, and there is, I am a believer that there's truth that being a good follower is, gets you on the path of being a good leader. Like, being a good follower is important. And there's just this, this overarching piece of, of how to be a follower is like the foundation of this. Like, oh, when, when Colonel Burke walks in, we better stand at attention. Like, Roger that. You know, like, I know what you're saying, but yeah, that followership in there is like, this blind obedience is not what you want from your people.

• 35:49Jocko Willink?

  When the skipper would, when we'd be getting ready to do, like, at SEAL Team One, when I got to SEAL Team One, and the skipper would come and talk to everyone, like, we'd all be in the classroom. And when the skipper would walk in, they'd say, "Feet." That's what they'd say. Did they say that to you guys?

• 36:01Dave Berke?

  Attention on deck.

• 36:02Jocko Willink?

  They'd say, "Feet." I always liked that, because it was a big change from, you know, you go to boot camp, and it's attention on deck, attention on deck. And you get to SEAL Team One, and I'm young Jocko, and they're like, you're all standing by, and he comes in, and he goes, "Feet." And you're just like, boom. Yeah. I was motivated by some weird stuff when I was younger. Developing unit loyalty is another of your responsibilities to your organization. Just as you must ensure loyalty toward Marine Corps policies, you must ensure your Marines have loyalty toward the organization's policies.

• 36:38Jocko Willink?

  It's kind of strange to be talking about policies like in this book at this juncture. I don't know. Like, let's talk about combat, people. Let's talk about every Marine's a rifleman.

• 36:51Dave Berke?

  And belief in the mission.

• 36:53Jocko Willink?

  Yes, and taking care of your brothers.

• 36:55Dave Berke?

  Is that what you're talking about? Is that what you mean?

• 36:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Wait, did you mean, do you mean take care of your, your, your fellow Marine? Is that what you mean here? Is that what you mean by?

• 37:06Jocko Willink?

  If unit PT is required, this is how you know. This is how you know. If unit PT is required, you must conduct real PT session. You can't just go through the motions, making each assigned task as interesting as possible and doing each task enthusiastically will help you develop your unit loyalty. Okay, we'll give it to them.

• 37:24Jocko Willink?

  Subordinates as a Marine NCO, you have certain responsibilities to your subordinates. It's qualifier of certain, right? You have certain responsibilities to subordinates. Actually, you're 100% responsible to your subordinates. You must train subordinates in their MOS to develop the proficiency and skills Marine, the Marine Corps needs. Often proficiency and MOS means life and death, either to the individual Marine or to another Marine. You must educate your subordinates in the military skills and encourage individual self-improvement. You must be aware of educational opportunities and the unit's policies to know where to direct Marines desiring aid. Cool. They want to educate their Marines. This is, this is...

• 38:06Jocko Willink?

  When you invest in your people, when you, you know, when you're working at a bank and you got a teller and you're like, hey, we can pay for your, you know, to get you to get your CPA and you can become a financial advisor. Like, when you set people up and you invest in them, you want to talk about developing loyalty. That's how you develop loyalty. You take care of your people. Invest in their education. Give them more opportunity. Talk to them about what it's going to get to get them promoted. It says here, perhaps the most important of the responsibilities of the NCO towards subordinates is taking care of their physical needs. These needs include quarters and food. You have no control over billeting, which is an interesting thing to say. You have no control over billeting. Okay.

• 38:50Jocko Willink?

  But you can ensure that the assigned areas are as good as the situation allows by enforcing high standards of police cleanliness and discipline, you can make the quarters as comfortable as possible with as with building, you have no control over food preparation. But by ensuring that the Marines are on time for meals and in proper uniform, you can make meals more pleasant.

• 39:13Jocko Willink?

  I'm starting to lose it, dude. I'm starting to lose it. Well, here's a here's one thing that's crazy to me. I get it, man. I have no you have no control. That right there. I've I don't think I've ever told a person in my life, you have no control over this particular thing, right? I don't think I've ever I don't think I've ever told I certainly would never teach a group of individual human beings, you have no control over your building. It's like, oh, wait a second, what are you talking about? We don't like where we live? Okay, well, what can we do to fix it? What can you do to make it better? Well, well, let's let's let's get together and explain what the shortfalls are so we can pass up the chain of command so we can get some improvements. We want, you know, to get this the the sink in the bathroom to stop dripping.

• 39:56Jocko Willink?

  Cool. We I do that maintenance myself like what I have no you have no control over what you eat? Really? No control over what you eat? Like, maybe today. But if I'm gonna live here and I'm in this chow hall, and you don't think that I can raise problems and get things fixed and adjusted and moved? Please don't tell me I have no control over something.

• 40:19Jocko Willink?

  Um, there you go. I'm firing up a bunch of Marines right now are getting fired up. This is the first time the Marine Corps at large is gonna be mad at me. Everyone's gonna be going to the chow hall like, we want steak. Send for five brothers, you deserve steak.

• 40:33Jocko Willink?

  Um, in the field, you will be the last one to eat. Check. You can take care of your Marines' needs by ensuring that all problems such as those in quarters, maintenance, food quality, and food quantity are brought to the attention of your media supervisor. So you have control. Come on. Marines like everybody else need relaxation. Recreation time is made available for all Marines. Organized organizational sports and unit get togethers are ways of letting Marines relax mentally and physically. You must ensure that Marines get their fair share of liberty. This responsibility to your subordinate Marines is as of much such importance that it will be discussed in a later separate lesson. Before you can expect the most of your subordinate Marines, you must ensure their well being. Take care of your team and they will take care of you. Take care of your people and they will take care of you.

• 41:20Jocko Willink?

  Mayhem out there. Importance of leadership. Why'd you hand me this manual? Just to make me frustrated?

• 41:27Jocko Willink?

  It sounds worse. You know, you know, sometimes I've, I've told you, I've told both you guys like, I'll read a book, like when, especially early on when I'd read a book for the podcast. And I would, it first happened with The Forgotten Highlander. I was reading that book and I was like, damn, this is a pretty heavy book, but when I read it out loud, it was so amplified in my head, you know, it was so much more emotional and so much more harsh. When I was reading this a few days ago, I read it on a plane. And I was like, ah, that's kind of funny, but now it's like actually cracking me up.

• 42:01Jocko Willink?

  Check. All right. Leadership in general. Importance of leadership. Why is leadership so important? The answer to this question is simple. Without leadership, nothing requiring teamwork can be accomplished. Check. Before you can talk effectively about leadership, you must know what leadership means. There are almost as many definitions of leadership as there are leaders. The definition that combines all the ideas is simply this. The sum of those qualities of intellect, human understanding and moral character that enables a person to inspire and control a group of people successfully.

• 42:37Dave Berke?

  Can we come up with a different word than control?

• 42:39Jocko Willink?

  Maybe. Just maybe we could use the word influence. But they use the word control.

• 42:44Dave Berke?

  Totally.

• 42:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So again, we're talking garrison mindset. Like I'm going to get my waiters to do exactly what I tell them to do because I have control over everything and I can control them. Not a good sign.

• 42:59Dave Berke?

  That's so funny, man. There, and I don't remember the exact saying, but there's like this metaphor of like when someone's sort of in the right area, but, but, but off the mark, they, they'll say something like, and I wish I could remember it like you did in the reference, you're shooting, you're, you're shooting on the right target. Which means I'm

• 43:16Jocko Willink?

  On paper.

• 43:17Dave Berke?

  I'm sure, yeah, but I'm missing the, the, the mark or whatever. It's like, if I'm way off, I'm like shooting on somebody else's target. Like that's a real problem. So I can't help but like, I know what you're you're you're sort of in the right like you're pointing to the right place but you're you're you're hitting all over the you're not off the target but you were off the mark like

• 43:37Jocko Willink?

  we would say in the teams like you're on paper okay like there's a bullseye that's a little black thing yeah and then there's like rings around it yes you're not in the rings but there's a broader like big giant piece of paper at the butts at Camp Pendleton or at an island and it's like okay you're actually you're you're on paper I mean you're you're hitting it yeah we you're off the mark yeah you have shooting on the right target which is means like if Echo is like shooting at someone else's target like okay we need like this is a whole different problem but I just like you are not hitting the target but but you're on the I know what you're trying to say but you're just they're on paper but they got some they gotta make some adjustments

• 44:14Dave Berke?

  and and that difference is is 20 years of war it's like yeah

• 44:19Jocko Willink?

  yeah and that difference on being on paper versus being that's a kill shot versus not you know you're you're all gonna die because you can't shoot straight

• 44:26Dave Berke?

  totally man crazy

• 44:29Jocko Willink?

  elements of leadership and you know what's funny is you're gonna see we're not gonna cover this whole manual but you're gonna see when they get back to sort of fundamentals it seems like they're trying to explore new territory here that's what it seems like to me

• 44:43Dave Berke?

  you can almost picture like hey go back and come up with um you know like the best example you can yeah and they're like okay okay I remember this time when I was like the mess hall like they're not remembering Ramadi or Fallujah or Baghdad or they're remembering cooking or like which is fine but that's all they have in their repository to come out of like oh the scenarios that they want to use to illustrate these examples they don't have the examples

• 45:09Jocko Willink?

  and what the problem here's the problem with those examples the problem isn't the example of being being logisticians in the Marine Corps and cooking in the Marine Corps God bless you and in the Navy God bless you the problem is they're not the dynamic situations that demand The type of leadership that we know to be effective. So it just doesn't work as well. If you are cooking in a combat environment, you're talking about how these people need to make decisions on what they're going to put forward. Like those are things that that's decentralized command is going to is the only way it's going to work.

• 45:43Dave Berke?

  How are you going to get food for four platoons or in four different locations right now?

• 45:47Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 45:48Dave Berke?

  Doing like crazy 24 seven operating. Yeah, totally.

• 45:52Jocko Willink?

  Uh, elements of leadership. This definition does not mention the military because leadership is not exclusive to the military. We concur. Leadership is necessary wherever two or more people get together to perform a common task. Check. The leader's primary purpose is to ensure that the job is done. Or in the words of the military, the mission is accomplished. Three essential elements are needed to perform the role of a leader. The leader is the first essential element. The second element leadership is the group. And the third is the situation. And I'm not going to cover this because again, this is something that I'd never seen before. And it seemed like maybe somebody had an idea.

• 46:29Jocko Willink?

  And the idea is that it needs for leadership to happen, there has to be a leader, there has to be a group and there has to be a situation. And that's what leadership is. So I get it, but we're not going to spend a bunch of time on it. The objective of military leadership. The United States military has the mission of keeping our country free. To accomplish this mission, strong military leadership is essential. Marines are all potential leaders and military leadership should be important to everyone. The objective or goal of military leadership is the creation and maintenance of an organization which will loyally and willingly accomplish any reasonable task assigned or indicated. And will initiate suitable action in the absence of orders.

• 47:09Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 47:12Jocko Willink?

  What's interesting is it's interesting that it says the goal of military leadership and it doesn't really say anything about war and combat. That's number one. Because that's what the military is for, by the way, is for war and combat. And it can do a bunch of other things as well. And it does. Here's another thing. Willingly, loyally and willingly accomplish any reasonable task. You know what that should be? It should be legal task, right? Because we want to make sure that people are doing things that are within the code of contact, within the, within the law of land warfare.

• 47:50Jocko Willink?

  And then they get it right at the end, which is suitable action in the absence of orders. That's like, yeah, the tiniest sliver of what we want.

• 48:00Dave Berke?

  Yeah, even in the beginning, like, I think it said something like all Marines are potential leaders. Like, stop. All Marines are leaders.

• 48:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, Marines are all potential leaders.

• 48:11Dave Berke?

  Yeah, nope.

• 48:12Jocko Willink?

  No, everybody.

• 48:13Dave Berke?

  Every, every Marine is a leader.

• 48:14Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 48:15Dave Berke?

  Every one of you.

• 48:15Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 48:16Dave Berke?

  Yeah, totally.

• 48:18Jocko Willink?

  It's like you said, they're on paper.

• 48:20Dave Berke?

  They're on the paper.

• 48:20Jocko Willink?

  We get what you're saying.

• 48:21Dave Berke?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 48:22Jocko Willink?

  We hear what you're saying. Three reasons for military leadership. The first reason is the coordination of people and activities within a unit. That is getting the right people to do the right job. Okay, that's good. Without such coordination, capable people will not be assigned the right tasks. Okay. Second reason for military leadership is to hold a military unit together. A military unit is made up of people organized to accomplish a mission that requires the successful completion of a series of tasks.

• 48:50Jocko Willink?

  When the unit is deployed, a number of set tasks must be assigned and completed. Again, it's all top down. This is like, this is the top down manual.

• 49:02Jocko Willink?

  The unit must be inspected to ensure readiness. Training schedules must be prepared and logistics plans must be made up. Because it would be difficult for one leader to do all things alone, unit leaders are needed. Okay, so we want a little decentralized command. Thank you. In the Marine Corps, these unit leaders form a chain of command from a commandant on down to the smallest unit. So, third reason for military leadership is to ensure a unit's success. The unit achieves success by accomplishing the assigned mission.

• 49:31Jocko Willink?

  Through demonstration, motivation, and hard work, leaders ensure that all missions are accomplished. A leader's failure to ensure that subordinates accomplish their task leads to the failure of the unit to accomplish its mission and thus failure of the military service in carrying out a larger mission. And if the military service fails, our country and way of life are in danger. Okay, somebody cool wrote that little section and didn't get too heavily edited by Colonel Pogue.

• 49:54Jocko Willink?

  Responsibilities of leadership. Leadership implies responsibility.

• 49:59Jocko Willink?

  Within the military structure, there are two general areas of responsibility for every leader in every situation. They are, one, the responsibility for ensuring that the mission is accomplished, and two, the responsibility to the subordinates who work to accomplish that mission. Excellent, right? Completion of the mission is the first priority of leadership.

• 50:18Dave Berke?

  I swear, I was just about to say, I wish he had just reversed those two, like, in the previous paragraph, like, the way he wrote it in order.

• 50:26Jocko Willink?

  And here's the thing.

• 50:29Jocko Willink?

  These, these two, the, the, the men and the mission, the subordinates and the mission, taking care of the, and, and putting the mission as the priority, listen.

• 50:44Jocko Willink?

  There are times, and that's, that's what the military does, the military has to sacrifice, or at least put at risk their troops in order to accomplish the mission sometimes. But if you continually put the mission above the troops, you won't have any more troops. And by the way, you'll probably have a mutiny as well.

• 51:07Dave Berke?

  Totally.

• 51:08Jocko Willink?

  Because if you're just throwing people to die to accomplish the mission, then they're going to rebel against you.

• 51:17Dave Berke?

  Yeah, I mean, this is, I mean, th- this is an ongoing debate, this conversation I've heard and, and been a part of and listened to countless times, all throughout my military career, and even to, to now, even in business, you know, this mission or people debate, a- and I remember when I was, I was out, I was on an exchange with the Air Force, when the Air Force, like, changed their motto, and I think the motto became, motto's the wrong word, so, not their motto, but some guiding principle that said like, yeah, like, it's, they ended up becoming, like, resolving to, like, mission first, people always. And, and the way I, I, I heard that was like, yeah, it's really hard to articulate, this is more important than that, I mean, obviously, we have to achieve the mission.

• 52:02Dave Berke?

  The concept of the people, if you want to say the people are the mission or the people are first, it's actually in the vein of making sure the mission gets done. It's not to subordinate the mission over the people, it's to recognize as the number one thing I have for me to make sure that I'm successful in my mission, which you could say is the most important thing, is my people. And if you can recognize that, then all of a sudden, you don't, this isn't a debate of like what's more important than the other. But if you get them out of order, you undermine your ability to be successful in that mission because without your people, it will not happen. And in fact, the best thing I can do to be successful in my mission is put my people ahead of myself and the chance of me being successful in the mission go up.

• 52:47Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 52:50Jocko Willink?

  The other thing is, when you accomplish your mission, even with sacrifice, you should, it should be a win for everyone. So if you're doing missions where there's not, like every single person should be saying, yes, this is what I want to do because I want to take, I want to protect our way of life, I want to protect freedom, I want to protect my family, I want to protect my country. In order to do that, I want to do this mission. So when you accomplish, when you execute, you plan and execute and accomplish a mission, you have, the mission is taking care of the people, right? That's what should be happening. You shouldn't be going, oh, we're gonna go and do this mission, but no one in my platoon will benefit.

• 53:35Jocko Willink?

  Every single person in your platoon should benefit from executing a mission because you're protecting their families, their way of life. Like that's what we're doing.

• 53:43Dave Berke?

  And nowhere is that more true than in combat. And that's, that's how that manifests itself. That's how it becomes to be so real. And when you're in a leadership position, is that concept of the meaning behind those missions is like, you would never send your SEALs out on a mission that didn't do anything to accomplish the mission. And in that same vein, you wrote about it, that is, in the core of that is the ultimate dichotomy is you care about your people enough that you know, when you send them out there, they might not come back. And the balance of inside that, but that reveals itself and magnifies itself so much in war. That understanding of what am I actually having to go do? And, and I wouldn't waste an ounce of human life on something that doesn't actually help us win. But if it does,

• 54:27Dave Berke?

  the risk of that is they don't come back.

• 54:32Jocko Willink?

  Gets into this section here, leadership styles. There are two extremes in leadership styles. The authoritarian, autocratic, and the persuasive, democratic. Each leader is free to choose a style of leadership.

• 54:51Jocko Willink?

  Oh, the choice of leadership style is influenced by situation, by the situation, the subordinates and the leader's personality. Authoritarian style, the authoritarian leader leads by personal control. Characteristics of the authoritarian leader's style are as follows. Let's support, let's subordinates know he is in charge.

• 55:15Jocko Willink?

  Makes subordinates into a team but remains outside the team membership. Tells subordinates what to do and how to do it. Makes all decisions without asking for suggestions. And then there's the persuasive style. The persuasive leader uses personality to lead and influence subordinates. Characteristics of the persuasive leadership style are as follows. Doesn't emphasize that he's in charge. Develops subordinates into a team of which the leader is a member. Asks subordinates to do their jobs. Makes the decision, but asks for, listens to, and sometimes takes subordinates advice.

• 56:00Jocko Willink?

  Oh, it's beautiful. I like, I like how like even in the extreme example of the persuasive style, it's sometimes going to take the advice. You know, and still have to make sure that he's making the decision.

• 56:13Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 56:14Jocko Willink?

  So that's, that's good stuff. And it says that the two styles of leadership mentioned above are the extremes. Each style has its bad and good points.

• 56:25Dave Berke?

  What are the good points of the first one?

• 56:27Jocko Willink?

  Like letting everyone know I'm in charge, making people in a team, but not being a part of it, telling subordinates what to do and how to do it, and making decisions without, there's like, there's no upside in that.

• 56:38Jocko Willink?

  Dang, man.

• 56:39Dave Berke?

  And how about like, oh hey, by the way, you're Jocko, you're free to pick whatever one you want. However you want to do this, not one is good and one is bad.

• 56:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it just, you know, you can pick which one.

• 56:51Jocko Willink?

  As displayed in front of subordinates, the authoritarian must be perfect or the subordinates will lose respect for the leader. That's, that's a great, that's, so hey, look, if you want to be authoritarian, obviously just be perfect. That's, you know, hey, just go ahead and be perfect. Uh, the persuasive leader must be very alert that subordinates won't play on friendships to get out of doing their work.

• 57:13Jocko Willink?

  Oh gosh, very few marine leaders are strictly authoritarian or strictly persuasive. So we finally get a taste of some dichotomy.

• 57:20Dave Berke?

  Balance.

• 57:21Jocko Willink?

  Most of them fall somewhere between the two styles, taking bits and pieces from each. The pieces used from each style are determined by the individual leader, the subordinates in the situation at the time.

• 57:31Jocko Willink?

  Every marine from private to general needs leadership, whether Marines are aware of it or not. They seek leadership and it goes into talk about these tangible.

• 57:40Jocko Willink?

  Um, reasons for needing leadership and intangible reasons for leadership. The tangible things are like training, instruction. Physical necessities like your shelter and your food, those are why you need leadership. Cause you won't be able to get them on your own, I guess. Uh, incentives, if you want to fulfill the need for incentives and challenges, that's why you need leadership. The intangible ones are you have the, uh, people have the, the desire for adventure and security and belonging and recognition. So those were not going to spend a bunch of time on those things. Can we get to the leader's code? Lesson six, the leader's code. To be an effective leader, you must know your profession, professional strengths and weaknesses. The leader's code is a guideline to use in making an honest evaluation of yourself in leadership.

• 58:23Jocko Willink?

  After you determine these areas, you can improve weak areas and exploit the strong areas. I didn't think we were going to have this much fun with this. But here's a good example, like the leader's code, this is obviously a big deal. And you've never heard of it before and it didn't make it out of this book. It's not horrible. But I become a leader by what I do. This is the leader's code. I become a leader by what I do. I know my strengths and my weaknesses and I strive constantly for self-improvement. I live by a moral code with which I set by an example that others can emulate. I know my, isn't there a little bit of arrogance in that statement? I'm just wondering. Hey, you know what? I'm just gonna, I'll be over here just setting an example that you guys can emulate. You guys good?

• 59:05Jocko Willink?

  Uh, I know my job and I carry out the spirit as well as the letter of the orders I receive. I take initiative and seek responsibilities and I face situations with boldness and confidence. I estimate the situations and make my own decisions as the best course of action. No matter what the requirements, I stay with the job until the job is done. No matter what the results, I assume full responsibilities. Cool. I train my men as a team and lead them with tact and enthusiasm and with justice. I command their confidence and their loyalty.

• 59:38Jocko Willink?

  Interesting use of the word. They know that I would not assign them any duty I would myself would not perform. Check. I see that they understand their orders and I follow through energetically to ensure that their duties are fully discharged. I keep my men informed. Check. And I make their welfare one of my prime concerns.

• 1:00:02Jocko Willink?

  Check. These things I do self, selflessly in fulfillment of the obligations of leadership for the achievement of the life of the group goal. Check. So make their welfare one of your prime concerns. This should be up there somewhere, you know? Uh, and then you're supposed to do like a self-evaluation according to this code. Kind of an interesting concept. And you know, look, I'm, obviously I'm skipping through, but they've got like suggested activities that you can do. At some time in your career, you've been assigned a job which both you and your senior know you could do. For some reason, your senior stood over your shoulder and kept telling you how to do it. The senior did not trust you with the authority of that job. How did that make you feel? To make matters worse, you discovered later that the job should not have been done in the way that you were instructed to do it.

• 1:00:47Jocko Willink?

  And your supervisor seemed to hold it against you. That he was gigged for the job. What can you learn from this? Gives you a bunch of little examples, which some of them are pretty good. And then it gives you a test and little exercises to do. So that's how you, you complete these books.

• 1:01:06Jocko Willink?

  Developing leaders.

• 1:01:09Jocko Willink?

  Leadership traits and principles. And this is where you get to sort of fundamental, more pragmatic stuff that is taken from more historical.

• 1:01:19Dave Berke?

  Yeah, I'm guessing when you get into traits and principles, those are, I'm guessing those are going to be like the traditional like ubiquitous Marine Corps, JJ did tie boggle, those type of things that that have stood the test of time.

• 1:01:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Uh, nature of leadership traits, leadership traits are individual characteristics, proper understanding of the 14 leadership traits will help you gain respect, confidence, willing obedience and cooperation of your Marines.

• 1:01:44Dave Berke?

  Check.

• 1:01:46Jocko Willink?

  The purpose of leadership traits. The purpose of the 14 leadership traits is to help you set guidelines for yourself by evaluating your own personality. And with respect to your leadership traits, you can find personal strengths and weaknesses of leadership by following traits as a guide. You can exploit your strong traits and develop your weaker leadership traits. And then it talks about leadership principles as well. And here's the 14 leadership traits. Number one is integrity. And it gives you a definition of what integrity is, but then it tells you sort of how to execute integrity. As leader, you must have unquestioned integrity, honesty, a sense of duty, moral principles must be placed above all else. You must be totally trustworthy for subordinates to have faith in you and for your seniors to have confidence in you.

• 1:02:29Jocko Willink?

  The trade of integrity is developed by following four practices. Here's these four practices. Practice absolute honesty and be trustworthy at all times, not only with yourself, but with others. Never shade the truth. Be accurate and truthful in all statements. Don't tell your supervisors only what you think they want to hear. Tell it as is, but tactfully. Stand for what you believe. Even if your belief is an unpopular one, place honesty and duty above all else. So that's the number one thing, integrity, obviously very important. Next one is knowledge. Nothing will gain confidence and respect of your subordinates more than quickly demonstrating knowledge. And it talks about correspondence courses and reading newspapers for current events and having discussions with experienced people. And it gives you the, the things to do.

• 1:03:12Jocko Willink?

  Read all kinds of articles and take courses, listen to experienced people, ask questions.

• 1:03:18Jocko Willink?

  The next trait is courage. Courage, the physical and mental control of fear is essential to leadership. Courage is a mental quality that allows you to recognize fear, yet enables you to meet danger or opposition with calmness and firmness. Courage is a quality of mind that gives you personal control, enabling you to accept responsibility and act in a dangerous situation. You show physical courage when you continue to perform in the face of personal danger. Physical courage also means controlling your emotions. You show moral courage when you stand up for and enforce decisions that are right, even in the face of popular disfavor. Admitting errors takes real moral courage.

• 1:03:57Jocko Willink?

  To develop the leadership trait of courage, you need to do the following. It's funny that admitting errors is put on the pedestal of needing real moral courage. That kind of shows you the mental attitude. Whoever's writing this, I'd be like, hey, bro, I mean, like, that's like 101. There's no moral courage in saying, hey, you know what? I made, I made a mistake here. For this dude, he's like, bro, you need so much moral courage to say I was wrong.

• 1:04:22Jocko Willink?

  This is a good one, though. Place duty over your personal desires or feelings. Look for and accept responsibilities. Speak in a calm tone. Keep an order, order needless, orderliness in your thought process and not make any physical danger or hardship bigger than it really is. Stand for what is right, even in the face of popular disfavor. Never blame others for your mistakes. Check. Recognize fear, but control your emotions. So there you go. Courage. Decisiveness.

• 1:04:55Jocko Willink?

  I think we might, I mean, we might even just call it like you never, you ever met at a game where you're like, all right, dude? Hey, we just need to walk away right now. Like, we're calling the game. This one might do it to Dave Berke. It might do it to me. I don't know. So here we go. Next thing is decisiveness. Decisiveness is the ability to weigh all the facts in a situation, analyze the facts, and then arrive at a sound and timely decision. But before you make a decision, you must be sure that you have all the facts.

• 1:05:26Jocko Willink?

  Decisiveness is largely a matter of practice and experience. To develop the trait of decisiveness, you should do the following. So here's why we're laughing at that. There is no situation where you have all the facts.

• 1:05:38Dave Berke?

  Doesn't exist.

• 1:05:39Jocko Willink?

  I mean, even the word fax is a strong word to use. In combat, fax is a, is a word you probably shouldn't even use.

• 1:05:46Dave Berke?

  Yeah, just insert combat into that scenario and no combat leader would would they just wouldn't articulate that way because all you're doing is recognizing you have to make decisions with the void of all sorts of useful information. That's just the nature of it. Forget about facts. Just like basic scenario, understanding of what's going on, which is why the essentialized command is so important because the closer you are, the more you're

• 1:06:12Dave Berke?

  Yeah, this one is almost like maybe you're off the target a little bit like

• 1:06:17Jocko Willink?

  I'll give it to you. This is like you. You just you didn't even hit the berm, bro. You missed. You had a misfire.

• 1:06:26Jocko Willink?

  So interesting, but you know, when you look at the military in the eighties and nineties and look at you, but you and I were both in the nineties where this isn't me pointing the finger. This is me. This is what we did was, hey, we need to know everything. When we would plan these big missions with a 96 hour planning cycle, that was the standard in the SEAL teams. Did you guys have a standard?

• 1:06:49Dave Berke?

  I actually think there was I know that phrase, the 96 hour planning.

• 1:06:52Jocko Willink?

  96 hour planning. So if you wanted to go conduct a direct action mission, you need to have a 96 hour planning cycle. I have literally conducted direct action missions with seven minutes and go and launch. Like that's what we got to. So, and if you think I had quote, all the facts, bro, we had like a rough grid of where the target might be, update us as we move.

• 1:07:19Dave Berke?

  Well, we had, I mean, I think the term QRF is somewhat universal, like the quick reaction force. We had a stand a standing QRF all the time, which had a very short after five minutes, we had some number like it was five minutes, some at some period of time from the time that got triggered to launch the QRF was a very, very short period of time, minutes, whatever it was. The most likelihood of direct action happened on those. Like if you were launching a QRF, you were going to get into some fight somehow. And you had nope, there's nope. I mean, best you're like, you're like yelling at the turret gunner, who might not even be your turret gunner, because he's not actually like, so he's in the chow hall, like dude, we gotta launch. And so even inside that, and listen, somebody wrote this and, and, and that guy might be listening to this.

• 1:08:03Jocko Willink?

  Best intention.

• 1:08:04Dave Berke?

  Best intentions, fully, in every way, as I hear this, I keep telling myself, I understand what you're saying. That said, and I don't want this to become like a lesson of, oh, if you're not in combat, you don't understand this. That's not the point at all. The, actually, the opposite is true, is the point behind that is the recognition of all these things that you feel like you want to control, when you get in the dynamic environment, in business, in raising your kids, and having a relationship with somebody, and in combat, and all things, is the recognition is that you can't do any of these things. You can't do any of these things. So I don't want to be like Dave's over here, like, oh, because I was in war, I know all this stuff. It's the recognition of how much

• 1:08:44Dave Berke?

  less you can dictate, and how much more you have to rely on the people around you, which is why I think the frustration, or some of it is the humor coming out of like, bro, did you just say control? Like, you can't control what they do. Did you just say dictate? You can't dictate to them what they do. And, and I think inside that is why I'm laughing at this. But in all seriousness, the intention behind that, I understand that. And I have this sense of like, you're like pulling someone from the boot camp scenario and starting to like ease them into the, the real Marine Corps. And listen, boot camp and OCS, those are authoritarian experiences. Nobody's like, hey, hey, Chaco, what would, nobody's doing, nobody's asking what you want to do. And it's almost like

• 1:09:25Dave Berke?

  they're pulling them into, just like a step away from that. My take on this is as you, is you lead and train your people and lead and train yourself, just behave, act, teach, and train the way you're supposed to, without the sense of that they're not capable of understanding, or they're not capable of, of embracing the right type of leadership. You don't need to moderate, moving away from authoritarianism. You should say, don't be an authoritarian leader. Here's the reasons why. Not, hey, do what you want, and however you want to do it. It's, it's not good leadership. But if all you have is boot camp and do you want Marines to to to be responsible for it? Yeah, I do. I want Marines to do what I tell them to do. I understand why you're saying that, but how you make that happen isn't like telling them what to do.

• 1:10:10Dave Berke?

  So the gap that's inside there for me is the connection between where they might have come from. And I'm just assuming you pulled this from boot camp, which is not the real world. It's not how you want to lead people and somehow trying to meet like moderate them into the real Marine Corps.

• 1:10:24Jocko Willink?

  They've done.

• 1:10:24Dave Berke?

  I'm guessing, obviously.

• 1:10:25Jocko Willink?

  Uh, I think Jim Webb, James Webb's son, you know, he writes articles and he sent me an article that they've made some like significant changes in Marine Corps infantry training and they sounded outstanding. And what it sounded like was it has shifted towards like what I, when I ran training, what we did, which was like really decentralized, like it was going to be mayhem, it was going to be chaos. And they're now hitting these Marines with those type of scenarios so that they're even more prepared. So that's a great thing to hear and um, you know, again, it's just, it's interesting how we're gonna drift, right?

• 1:11:06Jocko Willink?

  It's, it's when you're in an environment where you can get away with things, you'll drift towards getting away with them. And it's important, this is almost like a really good reminder. Like you said, it's like not like somebody wrote this with bad intentions, but um, this is what, this is what we're drawn to and the, and the authoritarian mind is drawn to this even more. And the orderly mind is drawn to this even more. And the highly disciplined, which as you know, obviously, discipline is like my favorite characteristic. And if you have too much discipline, you're going to fall apart in combat because this is not a disciplined environment.

• 1:11:48Jocko Willink?

  Combat is not a discipline, you need discipline in combat, but things aren't going to happen the way you want them to happen. And they're not going to happen the way you expect them to happen. And the Marine that's been obeying you because he was scared of getting written up, he's not going to listen to you now because you're telling him to go across the street where there's a freaking, you know, machine gun fire going down, he's not going.

• 1:12:09Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:10Jocko Willink?

  Or he can't hear you or he didn't, you know, his radio got shot. Like there's a million things that are going to happen.

• 1:12:15Dave Berke?

  Yeah, and you're setting him up to fail too.

• 1:12:17Jocko Willink?

  Yep. So the, the less you can do.

• 1:12:22Jocko Willink?

  As a leader, and the more you allow your team to do, the better they're going to perform. So you're not going to have all the facts.

• 1:12:33Jocko Willink?

  Now, it says this, form the habit of considering several points of view for every problem. That's a good call. Learn from the mistakes of others. That's a good call. Force yourself to make a decision and then check the decision to see if it's sound. Well, that's a good call. Talk to people and practice making your conversations logical and clear. That's a good call. So those are all, those are all positive. Dependability, a dependable leader is one who can be relied on to carry out any mission to the best of his or her personal ability. Cool.

• 1:13:03Jocko Willink?

  It says the steps are practiced, honest thinking. Avoid making excuses.

• 1:13:11Jocko Willink?

  We can go stronger than avoid. We can actually say do not.

• 1:13:16Jocko Willink?

  Accomplish the assigned task regardless of the obstacles. Cool. Always be prompt to perform all tasks the best of your ability. Yeah, check. Be careful about making promises and personal deals. But when you have made them, build a reputation on keeping them. What kind of personal deals are we talking about here? I'm not 100% sure. Maybe that's like in the civilian sector they're talking about. Like I'll sell you this car for 900 bucks.

• 1:13:40Jocko Willink?

  Initiative.

• 1:13:42Jocko Willink?

  The trait of initiative is key to being a successful leader. Initiative is simply seeing what has to be done and doing it without having to be told to do it. Yes. As a Marine NCO, you must develop initiative not only in yourself, but in your subordinates as well. Yes. Your Marines will develop trust and respect when you take prompt action in meeting new situations. You develop initiative in subordinates. To develop initiative in subordinates, you should assign tasks according to the subordinate's ability and experience. But once a task is assigned, don't tell subordinates how to do it unless they ask for suggestions. By allowing subordinates to do the job, it not only develops initiative, but frees you to do other tasks. Yes, we nailed one. We nailed one. Good job.

• 1:14:25Jocko Willink?

  Closely related to initiative is resourcefulness. It goes on about that. Another side of the, another side of initiative is the ability to anticipate. Simply stated, this is the ability to foresee situations before they arise.

• 1:14:37Jocko Willink?

  This prior knowledge gives you a chance to plan for the event and have preparations ready to deal with situations. Great.

• 1:14:44Jocko Willink?

  And then just talks about it giving you an advantage. So here's the, here's the steps. Develop and maintain a state of mental and physical alertness. Look for tasks to do. For tasks to be done without being told to do them. Practice thinking and planning ahead. Anticipate situations before they're created.

• 1:15:00Jocko Willink?

  The next one is tact. Tact is the ability to deal with people without causing friction or giving offense. More simply stated, tact is the ability to say and do the right thing at the right time. You must

• 1:15:14Jocko Willink?

  use tact not only when dealing with seniors, but with subordinates as well. To successfully use tact, you must be courteous because courtesy given will be returned. It is important that courtesy not be misunderstood as brown nosing inexperienced. Inexperienced NCOs may feel wrongly that politeness in a military command is a sign of weakness. All orders given will be obeyed, but those given with courtesy will be obeyed willingly.

• 1:15:41Jocko Willink?

  Even in emergency situations, I'm going to get, I'm digging myself a hole in the Marine Corps and I'm chuckling too much. I'm sorry Marines.

• 1:15:49Jocko Willink?

  But quite honestly, I haven't worked with a Marine that's in this mode.

• 1:15:53Dave Berke?

  I was gonna say, I don't think you have any issues because the Marines that are listening to this are like.

• 1:15:57Jocko Willink?

  They're like.

• 1:15:59Dave Berke?

  Like all orders will be obeyed.

• 1:16:03Dave Berke?

  Good luck with that.

• 1:16:04Jocko Willink?

  Usually you will find that, usually you will find that a calm and courteous though firm manner of speech gets the best results. Tact becomes very important when criticizing a subordinate. Lack of tact can crush Marine spirit and initiative. Criticism can be, criticism must be made in a manner that points out a weakness in the subordinate's action, but still encourages the subordinate to continue to show initiative. Cool. To develop leadership trait of tact, you must do the following. Be considerate. Develop the habit of cooperating in spirit as well as fact. Study the actions of senior NCOs who enjoy a reputation for being able to handle Marines successfully. Check yourself for tolerance and patience. If at fault, correct your own habits. Apply the golden rule. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

• 1:16:46Jocko Willink?

  Let no Marine superior or subordinate exceed you in courtesy and consideration for the feelings of others. Cool. That's not a bad goal. Try and be nicer to everybody than they are to you. Echo Charles, you're pretty successful at that one. You're a pretty nice guy.

• 1:17:01Speaker 02

  Oh, I like to think so, yes sir.

• 1:17:03Jocko Willink?

  I don't think I've ever seen you be mean to somebody.

• 1:17:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't know. It's been a long time, I feel like.

• 1:17:13Speaker 02

  I don't know what else to tell you, brother.

• 1:17:15Jocko Willink?

  Good courteous marine over there. Next one is justice. Justice is fairness. Search your mental attitudes to determine prejudice. Seek to rid your mind of them. Learn to be absolutely impartial when imposing punishment or giving rewards. Search out the facts of each case. Study human behavior. Be honest with yourself. Recognize those subordinates worthy of commendation or reward. Next one is enthusiasm. Explain, and I'm going straight, I'm jumping through some stuff. Explain why the mission must be accomplished whenever you can do so. How about almost always? Know and believe in your work. Tackle all tasks with a cheerful can-do attitude. Believe in your mission no matter what it is.

• 1:17:59Jocko Willink?

  Look, you gotta be careful with that one. What is your mission? Why are we doing it? If it doesn't make sense, man, ask some questions. Ask some questions. Bearing. Bearing is a Marine's general appearance, carriage, deportment, and conduct. By your bearing, you establish a standard for your peers, superiors, and subordinates. Your appearance should show confidence, competence, elotness, and energy. Your clothing, equipment should be neat and clean at all times. Your voice and action should be under control. Few things can steady the morale of troops like a leader who, with full knowledge of the difficulties of the situation, neither looks or acts worried. When speaking to Marines, talk in short, plain sentences. Never talk down Marines or allow sarcasm to enter the conversation. Vulgar speech, frequent loss of temper. Like it says, frequent loss of temper.

• 1:18:44Jocko Willink?

  Like occasionally, go for it. And an irritable nature show lack of self-confidence that subordinates easily see. They react to the lack of self-confidence with resentment or even insubordination. Avoid criticizing the entire group of Marines for the failings of a few. Those who didn't want, those who didn't do anything wrong will resent it. Your bearing should show dignity and control of both your emotions and your actions. Dignity shows pride and confidence in yourself and the ability of your Marines. Emotional control shows that you have any situation well in hand to develop and improve your bearing. You should do the following. Practice control of your voice, facial expressions, and gestures. Demonstrate calmness, sincerity, and understanding.

• 1:19:25Jocko Willink?

  Master your emotions so that you can control them and they do not control you. Speak simply and directly. Never reprimand, subordinates, and sp-. Ah, observe and study leaders who enjoy reputation. Uh, no one in here, regulations.

• 1:19:40Jocko Willink?

  Demand the highest of standards for yourself and your subordinates. Avoid indiscriminate coarse behavior, profanity and vulgarity. They didn't see Full Metal Jacket, maybe. It is amazing. Like, I went to OCS and those Marines, those Marine generals, because they never swore it. I mean, but I mean, they probably swore five times or something like that. What about the basic school?

• 1:19:58Dave Berke?

  I mean, to be quite honest, like, I, after OCS, I mean, even partially at OCS, like, the best leaders that I worked with were, were professional and they, they were articulate in this book professionally. If I look back and like the guys that I looked up to the most, they were professional. That said,

• 1:20:19Dave Berke?

  the, the use of vulgarity was, I would say, like, commonplace.

• 1:20:24Jocko Willink?

  Even at the basic school?

• 1:20:26Dave Berke?

  Uh, amongst the Marines.

• 1:20:28Jocko Willink?

  Were there females going through the basic school?

• 1:20:29Dave Berke?

  Yeah, I was in an integrated company, like, I think one of the first one in a while. Uh, amongst, like, the Marines was, everybody was cursing all the time.

• 1:20:38Jocko Willink?

  What about the instructor staff?

• 1:20:39Dave Berke?

  No, that's what I'm saying. Like, yeah. Um, and I think my point to that was, it wasn't something that was policed. It was something that was, I think, demonstrated. And, like, I don't remember my platoon commander, a guy I respect, I don't, I have no recollection, and it could have happened, but I don't have a recollection of him cursing. And I have a recollection of some, and some not. But like, the lieutenants, like, I think I cursed, I mean, we cursed all the time.

• 1:21:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the staff did.

• 1:21:04Dave Berke?

  Correct.

• 1:21:05Jocko Willink?

  That's the main thing.

• 1:21:05Dave Berke?

  That's right. The example that was being shown, it's like, we weren't emulating that example. The staff, even at OCS, were pretty professional people in terms of not cursing and just being articulate, well-spoken leaders was valued.

• 1:21:18Jocko Willink?

  Is it hard to get a billet? Like, as an OCS instructor?

• 1:21:21Dave Berke?

  Not OCS. No, I think TBS is a, is a more, um, I don't know if demanding is the right word. And this is, you know, however many years now, but, no, TBS was a much harder thing than, than OCS back in the day to get a job there.

• 1:21:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the marine drill instructors at OCS for me had like their whole vocabulary of non swear word swear words.

• 1:21:43Dave Berke?

  Totally, yeah. That's a dagum friggin', I remember hearing all that and that stayed true, but amongst your peers, like it's like you didn't follow that example.

• 1:21:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:21:53Dave Berke?

  What's TBS?

• 1:21:55Jocko Willink?

  The basic school. So every marine, go ahead.

• 1:21:58Dave Berke?

  No, we got it. We talked about it earlier, every marine, no matter what your job is going to be, pilot, infantry, or everything in between, goes through a six month course as an officer, which gives you a little bit of exposure to basically every potential job out there. Everything from supply to logistics to communication to artillery to tanks to infantry. So every marine officer has a little sense of all the things the Marine Corps does. So even a pilot knows what infantrymen are doing. And the Marine Corps places a big premium on that concept. Every Marine is a rifleman and the investment they make as a Marine, and even if you know you're destined to go be an aviator, you go through the basic school like all Marines do. It's like general education. Yeah, kinda like that, yeah.

• 1:22:43Dave Berke?

  So you get enough of exposure to do what we talked about before, which was just understand what might be going on. You're not going to be an expert in any of it, but you do get exposure to all of it, which is awesome. It paid huge dividends to me. We used to joke about it, like, the last time I shot a rifle before I went to Ramadi was at the basic school. Which is crazy.

• 1:23:02Jocko Willink?

  So that's like, what, 12 years, 13 years or something?

• 1:23:04Dave Berke?

  Yeah, basic school 94, Ramadi 06.

• 1:23:06Jocko Willink?

  12 years.

• 1:23:07Dave Berke?

  Yep.

• 1:23:08Jocko Willink?

  And you hadn't shot a rifle?

• 1:23:09Dave Berke?

  I had not squeezed the trigger on a rifle since the day I sighted in my M4, I don't know, couple of months before I deployed.

• 1:23:16Jocko Willink?

  Damn.

• 1:23:18Dave Berke?

  But I had done it, so I had just enough, like, you know, the basic fundamentals of understanding, but you know, I had done everything from like 50 cows and two 40, or M60s at the time and Mark 19s and all that stuff.

• 1:23:29Jocko Willink?

  That is so jacked up.

• 1:23:30Dave Berke?

  It's crazy, man.

• 1:23:31Jocko Willink?

  Like, think about me.

• 1:23:33Dave Berke?

  Totally dude.

• 1:23:34Jocko Willink?

  Like I had spent like literally my entire adult life just doing that. You know how many millions of rounds I'd shot?

• 1:23:40Dave Berke?

  Maybe you're rethinking bringing Dave on all those missions.

• 1:23:44Jocko Willink?

  In my mind, I was looking at you like, hey, he's a pilot, but he's a squared away Marine Rifleman at heart.

• 1:23:50Dave Berke?

  Yeah, I shot the pistol every year for however many years, but I hadn't touched a rifle.

• 1:23:54Jocko Willink?

  Which way does the magazine go?

• 1:23:55Dave Berke?

  Yeah, totally, man.

• 1:23:57Jocko Willink?

  Oh, that's crazy.

• 1:23:57Dave Berke?

  It was a steep learning curve for me to get back.

• 1:24:00Jocko Willink?

  Did you, how long was like a workup? How did you get ready? How many rounds did you shoot before you went on deployment?

• 1:24:05Dave Berke?

  Dude, remember, man, so I got to my Angoka unit basically October of oh five. And I spent the first, I don't know, month basically doing the tactical air, you know, T A C P.

• 1:24:17Dave Berke?

  All that was, I was just gonna be in Japan for a year. And then around Christmas time, like, hey, we need volunteer, you know, I got volunteer for that. I volunteered for that job. Like, hey, we need volunteers to go to Iraq. I'm like, well, I'll go to Iraq, you know? You know the whole story behind that. But it wasn't till.

• 1:24:30Jocko Willink?

  That was in January.

• 1:24:31Dave Berke?

  That was in December. So over Christmas, it was like, hey, honey. You know, that was when I kind of broke the news like this.

• 1:24:37Jocko Willink?

  And you were newlywed at that time.

• 1:24:38Dave Berke?

  We had just gotten married. That's right. Hey, sorry. So we go on Christmas, come back in January.

• 1:24:43Jocko Willink?

  She was thinking like, maybe a trip to Japan.

• 1:24:44Dave Berke?

  Totally. She's like, this is gonna be the blast.

• 1:24:46Jocko Willink?

  Go to see the Kodakon.

• 1:24:47Dave Berke?

  That's right.

• 1:24:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Judo players, where are you at?

• 1:24:50Dave Berke?

  We, we go Christmas vacation, the holidays, whatever. And in January, they're like, hey, all the Iraq Marines are going to Camp Lejeune. So I got to Camp Lejeune, January, I don't know, I'll call it like the 10th or whatever it was. And I deployed February 20th. So I had five weeks. Five weeks.

• 1:25:09Jocko Willink?

  How many, how many?

• 1:25:10Dave Berke?

  Not a lot, dude. Not a lot. A little. I, it was like BZOed and then I did a couple of courses. But, you know, keep in mind too, like, I use my rifle, obviously.

• 1:25:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:21Dave Berke?

  But my primary weapon there was the radio and, you know, clearly I was, I was much more inclined to do that. Um, but dude, I don't, I, I, I wasn't shooting rounds to that rifle at all. Hardly ever.

• 1:25:33Jocko Willink?

  Did you do immediate action drills?

• 1:25:36Jocko Willink?

  Like with your team?

• 1:25:38Dave Berke?

  Yeah, like I did very little of that. Now, I had a couple of pretty squared away staff and CEOs.

• 1:25:46Jocko Willink?

  Dude, you must have been so stoked rolling out with us. You must have been like, hell, yeah.

• 1:25:50Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:51Jocko Willink?

  Like, these guys have got me covered.

• 1:25:54Dave Berke?

  I was mostly, I was more, and I, you know, I look back and talk to Leif about it. I was mostly stoked that you were cool with me coming with you. Like, that, even to this day, I look back, like, the fact that they had enough confidence in me and my guys, so we could be with you guys, was pretty awesome for me.

• 1:26:11Jocko Willink?

  Now, your guys, these are, these are like infantry Marines that get assigned to Anglicos? How's that work?

• 1:26:16Dave Berke?

  Well, it's, it's, my guys were almost 100% artillery.

• 1:26:22Jocko Willink?

  Really?

• 1:26:22Dave Berke?

  Yeah, just most Anglicos artillery, they're, not all, there, there was some.

• 1:26:27Jocko Willink?

  And that's because they serve as forward observers at some point or something?

• 1:26:29Dave Berke?

  That's exactly right. They had experience with calling an air, uh, I'm sorry, calling for fire, artillery call for fire, um, and forward observers, things like that. It's not some rule that it has to be artillery, but the thing that was crazy though is my team, my, so I had a 13 man team. My five of us that I stayed, because we ended up doing missions as, as a small unit leader, I had three teams. I was one of those three teams. Every one of my guys was artillery and had never deployed.

• 1:26:57Jocko Willink?

  Dang, bro.

• 1:26:58Dave Berke?

  So it was kind of crazy.

• 1:27:01Jocko Willink?

  That's wild.

• 1:27:02Dave Berke?

  Glad you didn't know this back then.

• 1:27:04Jocko Willink?

  I didn't either. Damn, you guys were pros though, like.

• 1:27:08Dave Berke?

  We did all right, man.

• 1:27:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:10Dave Berke?

  We did all right.

• 1:27:11Jocko Willink?

  That's freaking legit.

• 1:27:13Dave Berke?

  It was pretty cool, uh, to be with you guys.

• 1:27:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I mean, that's wild, except like thinking like randomly you and I would be just like out in a building somewhere in Ramadi and you're like telling, I'm like, hey, what do you got? You're like telling me what's going on. I'm just thinking you're a rifleman.

• 1:27:35Jocko Willink?

  Oh, that's freaking awesome. Uh, next thing, endurance. Endurance like courage has two distinct parts. Physical endurance means being able to function effectively when tired or in pain. Mental endurance is the ability to think straight when fatigued, distressed, or in pain. Demonstrated endurance brings respect from subordinates. Lack of endurance fails not only to set a proper example for subordinates to follow, but can also be mistaken for a lack of courage.

• 1:28:03Jocko Willink?

  You can increase both mental and physical endurance by doing the following.

• 1:28:08Jocko Willink?

  Avoiding excesses that lower both physical and mental stamina. Keeping physically fit by exercise and proper diet. Check. Learning to stand discomfort by undertaking hard physical tasks. Check. Forcing yourself to study when you are tired and your mind is sluggish. Check. Finishing every job regardless of obstacles. So, there you go. Good to go. We support.

• 1:28:32Jocko Willink?

  Next one is unselfishness. The unselfish leader is one who gives credit where credit is due. Unselfishness means not taking advantage of a situation for personal gain at the expense of others. No subordinate can respect an NCO who takes credit for jobs well done and blames other when performance is poor. Check. An unselfish Marine NCO will ensure subordinates' needs come before personal needs. Check. To develop your trait of unselfishness, you should do the following. See that subordinates have the best that can be obtained for them under the circumstances. Try to understand the problems, military or personnel, of subordinates.

• 1:29:12Jocko Willink?

  David Bellavia, he told that story about his like battalion sergeant major and they're like out in the street. And his battalion sergeant major has an old M16 with iron sights on it. And everyone else has got like the high speed stuff. And he, like, that's what David Bellavia remembered is that his command sergeant major who was killed in combat. What he remembered about him is like, he wouldn't take the good weapon. You know, that's, that like, I remember thinking about that after he was on the podcast and I was like, that's what he remembered. Of all the things you remember, he remembered a bunch of other things, but like, think of how much that stands out. Like this guy, he wouldn't take the good weapons from the troops, even though he's the senior enlisted man in a freaking battalion.

• 1:29:57Jocko Willink?

  Might even have been a regimental sergeant major. But, um, just awesome. Put the comfort, pleasures and recreation of your subordinates before your own. In the field, you're Marinesy before you do. Give credit to subordinates for jobs well done. Check.

• 1:30:11Jocko Willink?

  Loyalty.

• 1:30:14Jocko Willink?

  Loyalty is the quality of faithfulness to your country Marine Corps seniors and subordinates. Demonstrated loyalty wins respects and confidence. Loyalty means supporting the views and methods the unit employs, but doesn't mean becoming a yes man. Thank you. So there you go. We get a little bit of, you know, some Vietnam dude. You got a Desert Storm guy in there, right? Yeah, Desert Storm guy. Threw some in there.

• 1:30:41Jocko Willink?

  To develop loyalty, you should do the following. Be quick to defend subordinates from abuse. Well, thank you.

• 1:30:48Jocko Willink?

  Never give the slightest hint of disagreement with orders from seniors when giving instruction to subordinates. Now, I made a little note here. Cause there was a, I don't know if you remember this, the very first trait that got covered was integrity. And it says, be accurate, truthful in all statements. Don't tell your superiors only what you think they want to hear. Tell it as it is, but tactfully. Practice absolute honesty at all times, not only with yourself, but with others. Never shade the truth. So now, just FYI, we're saying never give the slightest hint of disagreement with orders from seniors when giving instructions to subordinates.

• 1:31:29Jocko Willink?

  So it's like, we understand the caveat that we're throwing on there. Here's the problem. This is not a good plan. It's not. First of all, because the team will see through it. Cause you're telling them to do something that doesn't make sense. You know, it doesn't make sense. And if you know it doesn't make sense, they're all going to know it doesn't make sense. Okay, maybe they all know, but you got a platoon of 40 guys, 12 of them know, nine of them know. Nine of them are looking at you like you're a jackass and we don't believe you. So how do we make this happen? It goes back to earlier when we're, when we're talking and we develop a relationship with our boss so that we can say, hey, boss, can you explain to me why we're doing this? And if you have a good relationship with them and something doesn't make sense, either they can explain it to you. So it does make sense, or you can explain the ramifications that are going to occur and why this is a bad idea.

• 1:32:14Jocko Willink?

  And if you still get the shut up and do what I told you, you go down to the troops. You don't lie to them. You go down to the troops and say, hey, fellas, look, I pushed back against the boss. Here's what we're doing. Here's why we're doing it. We're going to do the best of our ability. And here's how we're going to mitigate whatever problems might occur. That's what you do.

• 1:32:33Dave Berke?

  I'm even thinking, you know, Hackworth going on those patrols. Like there's even that the whole, the whole spectrum that's inside there of like, all right, Jocko is the worst boss in the world. He's going to order my guys to do something to get him killed.

• 1:32:45Dave Berke?

  I can, I can fall on my sword, which is like the classic, it's like the, um, what's the word? It's like the most romantic, like, oh, that Dave's going to fall on his sword. I keep reminding people, you know what happens when you fall on your sword? You, you fall on your sword.

• 1:32:57Jocko Willink?

  You die.

• 1:32:57Dave Berke?

  You die. That's not good. And then Dave gets replaced with Echo is like, whatever you say, boss. And in that case, like, all right, we're going to go on that patrol.

• 1:33:07Dave Berke?

  These are dumb. So what I'm going to go outside the wire. I'm going to set up this, come back. Hey, we got no contact today. So even you've been talking, even the spectrum inside there. But the thing of it is that you, I think the key takeaway from that, because the truth of the matter is most of the time you're not getting these orders going to get your people killed.

• 1:33:22Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 1:33:22Dave Berke?

  That's such a rare, like an extreme example. Most of the time it's just like dumb. Okay. Nobody's going to die. It's not going to ruin the company, but it's dumb. Inside there. If I come back and go, hey, Jocko, hey, guys, this is the best idea ever. Boss is awesome. And we're going to go do this. I'm going to lose so much leadership capital, leadership credibility, but I can't say, hey, listen, I know this can be frustrating sometimes. I know sometimes it makes sense. Here's what we're going to do. Here's why. Let me explain it. And if it's not going to get anybody killed or put any risk, they'll, they'll still do it. But the reason they're doing it is not undying obedience to your leadership. It's actually that you are being honest with them.

• 1:34:00Jocko Willink?

  You have integrity.

• 1:34:00Dave Berke?

  Got integrity. Exactly. And so even that, that deck, that definition side, even understanding that there's a balance even inside that concept.

• 1:34:08Jocko Willink?

  I remember, uh, getting told, there's two, two, two good examples of this. One of them is from,

• 1:34:16Jocko Willink?

  Band of Brothers, when they send the recon across the river, someone gets killed. They come back the next night. The Colonel's like, hey, send some, send another recon tonight. And he's like, I don't think that's a good idea. He's like, shut up and do it. He says, okay. And they go sit in the basement of the thing and drink wine.

• 1:34:29Dave Berke?

  Yep.

• 1:34:29Jocko Willink?

  There was, I, I heard this story when I was a new guy that, you know, in Vietnam, these guys got told, hey, you're going to go out and do a patrol in this area and they, or set up an ambush in this area. And they're like, hey, it's a bad area. It's not going to be anything. And they're like, no, shut up and do it. And he goes, okay, cool. Yep. Or whatever. The platoon commander says, cool. Got it. They went patrolled, you know, 200 yards outside the gate. Sat in the bushes for five hours, patrol back in, hey, no, no contact, didn't say anything.

• 1:34:51Dave Berke?

  Yeah, I just said that I associated with Hackworth, but that I'm misplacing that. It's a story, it's that story that you told of like, I don't know why I connected to Hackworth, but it was that those patrols of like, boss says to do this, I'm gonna go do this, but I'm actually not really doing it.

• 1:35:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:04Dave Berke?

  Um, that's, that's exactly what it was. It came from, from the story you told.

• 1:35:07Jocko Willink?

  Right. And that is like, look, that is, now, now we're, now we're starting to develop some issues. Right? Yep. Now we got some issues. Um, we got some issues because now we're, we're giving false information up the chain of command. So now we're in just as bad of a spot as good doing down. So that is not the right answer.

• 1:35:26Dave Berke?

  Totally.

• 1:35:27Jocko Willink?

  Um, the right answer is to develop that relationship. But what you're talking about, you said, use the term in extremis, people are gonna get killed. So if we're talking in extremis, people are gonna get killed, I'm not gonna get my guys killed if it doesn't make sense.

• 1:35:39Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:40Jocko Willink?

  So, but that, like you said, this is not like, oh, another day in the military, got ordered to do something that's gonna get about, that doesn't, I got asked this the other day, a just guy pulled me aside after an event, and he's like, you know, what are you doing? You get ordered to do something that is, you know, immoral. And I was like, oh, don't do it. He goes, oh, you just don't do it? And I was like, no, you can't do things that are immoral, unethical, or illegal. You can't do them. As a matter of fact, I said, it's your duty not to do them. A general order of the century says, you must obey all lawful orders. It's, if there's things that are unlawful, you don't do them. In fact, you have to not do them. And he was kind of looking at me surprised. He goes, well, how often did that happen? I go, it never happened. Exactly. Never, actually zero times in 20 years.

• 1:36:18Dave Berke?

  And that's, that's really the point, the center of the point I was trying to make is, we create this like, we create some story that I'm being told by this awful evil boss trying to get all my people killed. And how do I handle that? Like, that never happened to me. Has it happened in history? Yeah, I guess it, it does. And then inside that, but from your perspective, or from the point you're making, from a leadership standpoint, if, if I've done all these other things right, and I got a good relationship with my boss, Jocko, what do you, what are the chances you're gonna, hey, Dave, I got this unethical thing I want you to go, it's not gonna happen.

• 1:36:47Jocko Willink?

  I got a, I got a plan. I want you to go, actually, it's a bunch, a bunch of people are gonna get wounded or killed, go ahead and execute it.

• 1:36:51Dave Berke?

  Totally. So those, those scenarios don't.

• 1:36:53Jocko Willink?

  And I have no reason why.

• 1:36:54Dave Berke?

  Right. They, they don't, and they don't just sit by themselves. That doesn't just happen. Uh, so we want to avoid the idea that like, all right, what do you do in this case? Well, that never happened to me, but it didn't happen. I never once had a relationship with my boss by which he said, hey, come here. Half your people are gonna die. It serves no purpose, but I want you to go do it. Come on, man. Like, we're not doing that.

• 1:37:13Jocko Willink?

  Hey, Dave, you know what? This is gonna cost the company a bunch of money. It's gonna give us a bad reputation, and we're probably gonna get some people to quit.

• 1:37:19Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:19Jocko Willink?

  I want you to go and execute this.

• 1:37:20Dave Berke?

  Right.

• 1:37:21Jocko Willink?

  And you're like, cool, got it. Stuff doesn't happen. But that's also why, truth, that's the leading trait here was integrity up and down the chain of command. So, we like that.

• 1:37:31Dave Berke?

  Yes.

• 1:37:33Jocko Willink?

  Practice doing every task the best your ability. Wholeheartedly support your commander's decisions. How do you best support your commander's decisions? By guiding your commander and pushing back against your commander when something doesn't make sense. And getting on board with the little things that aren't gonna matter that much, totally. You tell me to do something, I'm gonna do it, man. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna get it done. I'm gonna kick ass at it. If you tell me to do something that's totally stupid, I'm not gonna let you make that mistake. That's how I'm gonna wholeheartedly support you, is by being smart and having a good relationship with my boss. Never discuss the personal problems of subordinates with others. Cool. Stand for your country, the Marine Corps, your unit, and your fellow Marines when they are unjustly accused. Check. Never criticize seniors in the presence of subordinates.

• 1:38:15Jocko Willink?

  Check. With a caveat. You know, like you said, if you're doing something, if you're being told to do something that doesn't make sense, but it's not worth, quote, "falling on your sword over", it's like, hey, listen, here's why we're doing this. I know it's not maybe the best way to get it done, but in order to develop a better relationship with the boss and gain more clout with him, we're gonna go ahead and execute this. We're gonna wear our freaking dress uniform tonight. And everyone's like, "You gotta be kidding me." Yup. I wish I was kidding you, but I'm not.

• 1:38:43Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:44Jocko Willink?

  We're gonna, and you know what? We're all gonna look so sharp that the boss is gonna know that we're the platoon that can get things done.

• 1:38:49Dave Berke?

  That's such a great example, cuz those are the, it's like, boss wants the paperwork done 12 hours ahead of the due date. You know, like, oh, come on. Like, guys, listen. That's the, those are the scenarios. Wear your uniform you don't wanna wear. Getting paperwork done. Those are the far more realistic scenarios where you had to come down and go, hey, guys, I know this is a little bit frustrating, but... As opposed to, boss is sending us on the suicide mission with no benefit. That's not, that's not the scenario that's more likely. It's the one you used to describe, like, guys, I know you don't wanna do this. I know sometimes this comes out, it can be kinda frustrating, but we're gonna do this, and here's why. And, and if you got a good relationship with your people, most of the time, I'm gonna go... Okay, fine. No worries, Dave. We got your back and they're gonna just get it done. It's not that big of a deal.

• 1:39:31Jocko Willink?

  I just remembered at Stoner's funeral in Hawaii, there was some guy that was there. I want to say it was in Hawaii, who was stationed on the ship with Stoner. And Stoner was in charge of like, I don't even know, he's in charge of like some department on the ship. And they pulled into port and Stoner like gave the liberty brief. He's like, hey, you guys, you know, like liberty, go, go, don't get in trouble. And they were all like, damn, we don't have any duties or whatever. And as this guy, he said they were leaving the ship and they looked like wherever on the ship. And Stoner was there like doing the duty that they all had to do. Like they had to clean something to do something and he was up there just like doing it by himself.

• 1:40:13Jocko Willink?

  And I was like, check. And the dude was so freaking like pumped, you know? That's taking care of your people. Never criticize, oh yeah, never criticize your seniors and presence, you know, check. Do not discuss command problems outside the unit, check. Be loyal to your seniors and subordinates, check. Support the lawful policies of senior officers, whether you personally agree with them or not. Loyalty is a two-way street. What I would ask you to do is not to support the lawful policies of senior officers, whether you personally agree. What I would ask you to do is understand them. I would ask you to understand why your boss wants you to wear a uniform on a Tuesday night.

• 1:40:54Jocko Willink?

  I would want you to understand why your boss wants you to turn the weapons in at a certain time before. You know, like, understand and give them the benefit of the doubt. That's, that's, that's a little bonus too, because you could be super hypocritical about everything and nothing makes sense. If you want to be hypocritical, literally nothing makes sense in the military. It's all freaking, it's all just dumb. So if you want to go level 12 hypocritical, and it's the same thing in any company. You go, I could go to some company right now and start talking to the subordinate team. Start talking to the frontline personnel and we could get a list of stupid things that that company's doing. And we could never stop writing them down.

• 1:41:32Jocko Willink?

  So instead of looking for what's stupid, try and understand why these things are happening.

• 1:41:38Jocko Willink?

  And this is the last one, judgment. Judgment is the ability to logically weigh facts and possible solutions on which to base sound decisions and includes common sense. When faced with a new problem or information you don't understand, seek advice before you attempt a solution. It isn't degrading to ask questions. Note to self. In leadership strategy and tactics, one of the things that a leader is supposed to do is ask questions. It is embarrassing to arrive at a poor solution because of the lack of judgment to seek help. To develop the trait of judgment, you should do the following. Practice making estimates of the situation. And that's something you can do as a leader.

• 1:42:21Jocko Willink?

  Get your, get your team members, someone that you're trying to coach and mentor, be like, hey, Echo, what do you think we should do right here? What do you think's going on? And talk, have them talk you through it. And you're going to get better. You're going to come up with a better solution anyways, but if I have Echo try and come up with a solution, estimate the solution, or estimate the situation, come up with a solution, come up with a plan, I'm detached and all of a sudden I get to see a different perspective that I didn't see before. So there's a little, a little bonus, there's a bonus to that. Anticipate situations which require decisions to be prepared when the need arises. Cool. Avoid making rash decisions. I like how they use the word avoid. I would go strong, like, don't make rash decisions.

• 1:43:03Jocko Willink?

  And I wouldn't use, you know, you want to say never, but you need to go stronger than avoid. Like, as often as possible, avoid making rash decisions, right? Maybe even a little stronger than that. We'd have to break out the thesaurus and get busy to figure out where we're going. And the last one here, approach problems with a common sense attitude, which may sound common sense, but sometimes it's not.

• 1:43:32Jocko Willink?

  There you go. Some more leadership. What do you got, Echo Charles?

• 1:43:35Speaker 02

  When you, you, kind of rewinding to that, maybe a few, one, few lines ago. When, you know, let them come up with a plan or whatever, just to give, give them the, the opportunity to exercise their capability. Are you going in there with knowing you're not going to use their plan? And they know that? Or are you like?

• 1:43:54Jocko Willink?

  Maybe you come up with a good plan. If you come up with a plan that's like viable.

• 1:43:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:43:59Jocko Willink?

  Sounds good to me.

• 1:44:00Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:44:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. If you come up, if you come up with an idiot plan, we're not going to use it. But what are the chances of you coming up with an idiot plan? If, if I said to you right now, you have no military experience. If I was like, hey, Echo, we've got to attack this building.

• 1:44:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:44:16Jocko Willink?

  You'd probably come up with a plan that was almost usable, right? You'd be like, well, we should put some guys over here and maybe I gave you a five minute class. Then you, if I gave you a five minute class, you could probably come up with a plan that we would execute.

• 1:44:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:44:28Jocko Willink?

  And I'd be like, cool, sounds close enough.

• 1:44:30Speaker 02

  Okay. So, so it's like the primary, primary purpose for you doing that is to give them exercise, but completely open for, for, for that to be the, the jam.

• 1:44:40Jocko Willink?

  And as you know, this is like how I roll anyways. I mean, this is like what I do all the time with everything.

• 1:44:45Speaker 02

  That's kind of why I was asking. Cause I'm like, are you like in your mind saying, I'm going to come up with a plan, but in case he does, we'll go with it, kind of a thing?

• 1:44:52Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 1:44:53Speaker 02

  Or, because there's a difference between that and then really leaning on someone for the plan. Like, you know, if, if it's clear that Dave knows more than you or me or whatever about something, you're like, hey, we, we better go to Dave for, for this plan, you know? That's like leaning on him for it. But sometimes it's like unnecessary. But the primary reason, you want to give them the exercise so down the road or whatever, they're going to be really good. But that's the primary purpose. You see what I'm saying?

• 1:45:15Jocko Willink?

  I don't even know if it's the primary purpose, because when, if Dave's working for me and he's a platoon commander, he's a project manager for me. And I go, hey, Dave, how do you want to execute this? Yes, he gets education. Yes, he gets to learn. But yes, he's probably gonna come up with a decent plan. And as long as he comes up with a decent plan, we're probably gonna execute that thing. Maybe we gotta make a couple of adjustments, but that's kind of what we're doing. So it's a it's not even like, hey, if you're trying to change, train someone.

• 1:45:47Dave Berke?

  Right, right.

• 1:45:48Jocko Willink?

  If I'm working with someone, I'm gonna try and let them come up with a plan. It's gonna make me better because when Dave comes up with a plan, I look, I have a plan in my head, right? I've got something, even if I look at a target for three seconds, or I look at a project for three seconds, I go, yeah, I know what I do here. As soon as I ask Dave, I get a whole totally different perspective. And so, and, and by the way, Dave only sees what Dave sees. So now, when I say, throw something out there, he's like, oh, and it's like, building my leadership capital, because I'm listening to him, but I also have good ideas myself. It's just a win, win, win, win across the board.

• 1:46:28Dave Berke?

  I understand.

• 1:46:30Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 1:46:32Jocko Willink?

  Fundamentals of Marine Leadership, Dave Berke. There you go. You handed me this manual.

• 1:46:39Jocko Willink?

  We got some good, we got some bad, we got some ugly. We only covered a little bit of it. I don't know if we're gonna dig back into this thing, but the important thing is to always dig, see what you can find. What do you got? Anything else?

• 1:46:51Dave Berke?

  No, I think we said it. I mean, inside there, like I said, in every case, I was thinking to myself, I understand what you're saying, but so that's all good to go. I actually, I'm actually interested to see if there's like a new, like, an updated version, you know, the, the 2017 version of this that has, you know, 17 years or 16 years of combat experience inside there.

• 1:47:14Dave Berke?

  For me, it's kind of cool, though, the 14 leadership traits, those, those, you know, we called it JJ Did Ta Bum, that's the acronym, Justice, Judgment, Decisiveness, Initiative, you know, all, all those letters that go on, you know, that you talked about. That has stood this test of time. And as you, as you read what they meant, I'm like, that's right, that's right, that's right. It also, I think, gets to the, you know, explaining this stuff is harder than it seems. And we talk about leadership all the time. We teach some of the most rudimentary leadership behaviors in the world. Cover and move. Communication and yet we know how hard it is to do them. And so inside this, you get this sense of even, even for these folks, understanding it and explaining

• 1:47:58Dave Berke?

  it and being able to do it are very different things. The stuff is hard. Explaining it is hard. Learning it and understanding it is so much harder than it is to just say it. And it was, it's actually cool to hear as, as you're talking through that my leadership radar, my leadership here like wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. And to be able to pull out even some of the nuance inside there, even like you said, don't say avoid being a tyrannical leader. Don't be a tyrannical leader. And this was, you had some fun with that, but this was cool to see that I had this sense of this as someone struggling to articulate a concept they understood, but didn't know

• 1:48:41Dave Berke?

  how to teach it and didn't have the, the, um, the experience reservoir to go, oh, okay. This concept now I can put meaning around this content, concept based on my experience.

• 1:48:52Jocko Willink?

  I would say that a little yes to that, but also I would say that where I thought you were going with that is look, you can read the word decisiveness and you can understand, you can understand what that means and I can understand what that means, but someone else, apparently this guy thinks that decisiveness means you need to understand all the facts. So even these things that we understand a certain way, their interpretation of what decisiveness means is different. And quite frankly, in some of these cases, not correct. So they were able to take correct concepts and teach them in a way that are incorrect.

• 1:49:36Jocko Willink?

  I don't think it had anything to do with not being able to express it or articulate it. I think they actually didn't understand the thing.

• 1:49:46Dave Berke?

  What that actually means.

• 1:49:47Jocko Willink?

  What's that actually means. I mean, when you're talking about, um, some of those decentralized command that we're running, I'm kind of like flipping through, see some of those examples where I like wrote, like no, like, like what we just said, never give the slightest hint of disagreement with orders when giving instructions to support it. So we're, we're, we're not telling the truth to our troops. Loyalty. I would focus on, hey, if you're loyal to your boss, you don't let them tell you to do something that that doesn't make any sense. That's not being loyal.

• 1:50:19Dave Berke?

  Totally. It's the opposite. Yeah.

• 1:50:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. The last thing I want for loyalty from Dave Berke is I'm like, hey, Dave, charge that machine gun nest with your squad elevated position. Go. The last thing I want for you to do is you. Yes, sir. And charge. I want you to be loyal to you, to your troops and loyal to me by saying, hey, boss, this is dumb. We need to lay down cover fire and we'll maneuver around the outside. So there's some, there's some swings and some misses, which is very interesting. I was thinking this, I started thinking about this. I'm like, is, was this thing like the Navy Achievement Medal of some like, some like Lieutenant Colonel or Major that was like, oh, we wrote the Marine Corps fundamental, like, and he just kind of, that was his project. He got after it, you know?

• 1:51:01Dave Berke?

  Yeah. I wish, it's the same with all the ones. I wish you could have just been in the room because there's shades, there's little peaks of, oh, that guy nailed it. Whoever that guy was, like you went through that one, you're like, nailed it. You almost have this sense like that's someone who understands it and got his fragments of this thing in this pub. Whereas the other guy who doesn't understand it, got his fragments in. And when you put them something like, yep, nope.

• 1:51:26Jocko Willink?

  You know, it's what you were talking about, being on paper versus being on target, right? And this, this, this has happened to us at Echelon Front where we get a leader, we go and work with the leadership team and they take a principle and we check in with them, you know, three weeks later we'll go back there and you can see this one person, they're on paper, but man, they're not hitting the mark. And you know, for them, extreme ownership meant, I'm going to dictate everything that's happening here. Or decentralized command meant, I can go to the Bahamas for the next two weeks on vacation because I'm going to let my team. So they take it and interpret it the wrong way. So this stuff, there's, there's probably just like,

• 1:52:11Jocko Willink?

  just like shooting, like there's a chance, you know, I'd take Dave and get you dialed in at 300 yards on your rifle, you're going to do pretty good. If I take a group of a hundred people and do that, I'm going to have some people that cannot, that aren't going to be hitting paper.

• 1:52:22Dave Berke?

  Yep.

• 1:52:24Jocko Willink?

  And so that's what we have to watch out for. And that's, you know, what's interesting about working at Echelon Front, like because we do this all the time.

• 1:52:33Jocko Willink?

  Like we, we, we know, and we also have the ability to go up. Yep. This person's gonna be a little bit off target. Hey, two clicks to the right, one click down. We're gonna get you dialed in bullseye on this stuff. And even that can be hard. There's some people, they're, they're, they're, they're praying spray. Some people have the vision of, you know, finally Jocko's gonna come to my company. Get everyone in line. It's like, it's like, no, it's not quite gonna go like that. So when I read all these things,

• 1:53:03Jocko Willink?

  keeping an open mind about what you're reading, what you're interpreting, about what you're understanding, thinking that, you know, even when someone presents me tomorrow afternoon, I'm working with a company and someone says, "Hey Jocko, I don't think cover and move works." I don't think to myself, "Hey, shut up. You don't know what you're talking about. I know it." No, I go, "Talk to me about why not? What is the situation?" So keeping an open mind and not thinking that you know everything is, is extremely important. And even dictating, right? That's one, I think one thing that sat a little bit wrong about this, this book for both of us

• 1:53:45Jocko Willink?

  is there's a lot of dictating the way things are with, with no outs, with no deviations. And that's always problematic. It's always problematic to paint yourself into a corner. It's always problematic to carve things into stone.

• 1:53:59Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:00Jocko Willink?

  There should be some things carved in stone, very few. The things that you carve in stone, they, they should be very, very few. And even when you carve them into stone, you should be able to move that rock around a little bit.

• 1:54:11Dave Berke?

  Yeah. I, I think that's an awesome metaphor. And then the other word that, that certainly triggered a response to me is the concept of control. How this is about controlling, like, and we both, that word of like, wow, that, that. But even conceptually, like if you are, if you in your mind think this, this is a tool or technique to control people, your interpretation is going to be wrong. Because even the outcome that you're trying to achieve, or even what leadership really is, you've got, and you talk about different perspectives. If the perspective is this is a tool to control other people, you've got this wrong.

• 1:54:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:43Dave Berke?

  And that was the other one that really hit me like, man, that's, that is not what we're trying to achieve here.

• 1:54:48Jocko Willink?

  If you're like throwing out, hey, if you gotta be authoritarian, you know, there's time and a place, hey, and you know what, is there? Yeah, sure. There's a time and a place. There's a time that there's emergency going on, people don't know what's happening and you gotta get up and be like, hey, everyone be quiet, we're moving over to this thing. That happens. But it shouldn't be happening a lot. So, there you go. Leadership, lessons learned. Thank you, Marine Corps. You know, Marine Corps, you're my people. So, I know you're with me now. We just had to, we had to dispel some stuff in this one. Appreciate it. What else, what else we got to echo? People getting, we're getting smarter.

• 1:55:26Speaker 02

  We are.

• 1:55:27Jocko Willink?

  We're keeping an open mind.

• 1:55:28Speaker 02

  We are, we are trying to, yes.

• 1:55:29Jocko Willink?

  So we're on the path.

• 1:55:30Speaker 02

  We're avoid keeping in a closed mind, I'll tell you that.

• 1:55:34Jocko Willink?

  Definitely a good thing.

• 1:55:35Speaker 02

  Doing our best to avoid that. Uh, yes, so, you know, we're on this improvement path, growth path. And we need supplementation sometimes, the Jocko has supplements, we're gonna talk about first. So, additional protein in the form of a dessert, short description.

• 1:55:52Dave Berke?

  It's called Malt.

• 1:55:53Jocko Willink?

  You did it. It's its own thing.

• 1:55:56Speaker 02

  Yep, it is. Um, also energy drinks, but they're not regular energy drinks, they're good energy drinks. Boom. Called Go. That's gonna help us on our mental and physical path as well.

• 1:56:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:07Speaker 02

  Creatine, speaking of physical, bringing it back. Studied, proven for improved, uh, performance, results, gains, all that.

• 1:56:17Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, that's true. Actually, you know, I there I only had a small stint of creatine.

• 1:56:22Jocko Willink?

  Oh, really?

• 1:56:23Speaker 02

  Yeah. It was, I guess, not so coincidentally, the strongest I've ever been though in the weight room.

• 1:56:28Jocko Willink?

  See?

• 1:56:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:56:30Jocko Willink?

  There you go. Scientifically proven and bro scientifically proven.

• 1:56:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, I just never was that into supplements.

• 1:56:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:36Speaker 02

  And then, yeah, maybe I should have been. I don't know. But I got some creatine now, though.

• 1:56:40Jocko Willink?

  Got caught up now.

• 1:56:42Speaker 02

  So we're back in the game. Yeah. Um, also, what else? We got joint health. Keep your joints. Pretty much everything for every every supplement for pretty much any part of our path.

• 1:56:52Jocko Willink?

  We got you.

• 1:56:52Speaker 02

  We got you. Not to mention some new stuff coming out. I'm not going to talk about that. I'm not going to pop the hype bubble on the new thing.

• 1:56:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:59Speaker 02

  But there's some new.

• 1:57:00Jocko Willink?

  Keep the hype bubble.

• 1:57:01Speaker 02

  Some new hype coming.

• 1:57:03Jocko Willink?

  Um, there you go. Chalkofuel.com. Get it at Wawa Vitamin Shop.

• 1:57:09Jocko Willink?

  Um, Meyer, Murphy's, HEB, Military Commissaries. It's in there. Hanford in there. So we a bunch of different places. Circle K down in Florida. Chalkofuel.com. If you need to order it, order it. Get stronger, get smarter.

• 1:57:26Speaker 02

  Well, yeah.

• 1:57:27Jocko Willink?

  Get healthier, get better.

• 1:57:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, those MOC RTDs are like.

• 1:57:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:32Speaker 02

  And you don't really understand like how good they are until you really have them because they're only good on paper. Yeah. It's funny as we're using the expression on paper. Because you know what on paper usually means like, um, it makes sense if you on paper do the equation on paper, but in real life.

• 1:57:49Jocko Willink?

  On paper, yeah.

• 1:57:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, real life or in the field or whatever is different or whatever. So that's what I mean by this one. But, um, so on paper, you're like, okay, yeah, cool. RTD, you don't got to mix it up or whatever. But that element of it is a big deal when you really have them. Bro, I'm just sucking them down.

• 1:58:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's a little too easy, right?

• 1:58:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, like you're like drinking like four of them.

• 1:58:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:07Speaker 02

  In a day.

• 1:58:08Jocko Willink?

  A hundred and twenty.

• 1:58:09Speaker 02

  Sometimes five.

• 1:58:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there you go. Uh, I was gonna say a hundred and twenty grams of, you know.

• 1:58:14Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, the protein. Yeah, thirty grams each.

• 1:58:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:58:17Jocko Willink?

  Uh, Dr. Field.com, OriginUSA.com. Get your g's. Get your American made jeans. Jeans are American. Hundred percent. Jeans are American. And you might think you're buying some iconic American jeans that got made by a slave laborer.

• 1:58:34Jocko Willink?

  In a foreign country, in a, in a unhealthy environment, in a dangerous environment. So don't do that. Get yourself an American-made stuff. OriginUSA.com jeans, gees, boots. Support America, support yourself. There you go.

• 1:58:52Speaker 02

  Are you, would you guys ever do bell bottoms? Like a throwback to the seventies jeans?

• 1:58:59Jocko Willink?

  I don't think so.

• 1:59:00Speaker 02

  Did you wear bell bottoms?

• 1:59:01Jocko Willink?

  No, I'm, I'm a man.

• 1:59:06Jocko Willink?

  Actually, you know when I wore bell bottoms in the Navy? In the Navy, when I went to boot camp, you had to wear these things called dungarees. They don't wear them anymore and they were, they were bell bottoms. They were, bro, it was so lame. It was the lamest uniform ever.

• 1:59:21Speaker 02

  Okay, so you weren't down with the bell bottom?

• 1:59:23Jocko Willink?

  We called them dungare jams. Cause they called them dungarees in the Navy. We called them dungare jams and buds. And you were so happy to get out of those things, but you remember Higgs? Yeah. Jeff Higgs, so he got dropped from training? And they took away his buds' uniform? And they put him back in his dungare jams? And he was, he wouldn't, they want, they dropped him and he was not leaving. And he would just show up to PT. Like the class would come out, he'd go with them. And they, instructors were like, dude, you can't be out here. And he would just like ignore them. And then they would like escort him out of there. And then the, then they'd be like, dude, you like, you can't be here, like you did.

• 1:59:59Speaker 02

  And he had his dungare jams on is what you're saying?

• 2:00:01Jocko Willink?

  Just like, dude, I'm staying with the class, whatever, fools. And they, they dropped him and, and then finally, like, he just stuck with it. He just was not quitting. And then finally they're like, all right, dude, this guy's a badass. We need to keep him. Jeffrey.

• 2:00:18Jocko Willink?

  They, yeah, they would like, they would get him away from the class and then they'd send him to, you know, lock him in a room somewhere and he'd like break out and then he'd get back.

• 2:00:27Jocko Willink?

  He was just freaking not quitting.

• 2:00:30Speaker 02

  With the dungar gym.

• 2:00:31Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 2:00:32Speaker 02

  Alright, so no bell bottoms. Okay, I understand.

• 2:00:34Dave Berke?

  That may be the first time I think I've ever like tried to answer a question for Jocko. I was looking at him like shaking my head no. Usually I just sit here and listen, but he said bell bottoms. I look at you, I'm like, I'm shaking my head no before you say no. I don't think I've ever done that before, but that one just like, I'm like, no. It's not happening.

• 2:00:49Speaker 02

  Put it this way, I was not surprised with your answer, but sometimes you just never know.

• 2:00:53Jocko Willink?

  Hey, honestly, the enlisted Navy uniform, dress uniform, those are bell bottoms too. I think they are, right? When those be classified, I mean.

• 2:01:01Dave Berke?

  Yeah, and I know what you're talking about and that's not what he's doing.

• 2:01:04Jocko Willink?

  Like the crackerjack, crackerjack uniform, you know what that is?

• 2:01:07Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:07Jocko Willink?

  It's like the dress blues for, for a Navy enlisted guy below the rank of E6, E6 and below. Like you, you look like a crackerjack box, you know, you look like a, like a stereotypical sailor, right? With the, with the Dixie cup hat, they call it.

• 2:01:23Speaker 02

  Okay, yeah, is that the white with the blue and the, the deal?

• 2:01:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:27Dave Berke?

  The flare up pants.

• 2:01:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the flare up, kind of bell bottomish.

• 2:01:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, bell bottomy for sure. Yeah, no, I was thinking like more disco days. So here's the thing, so Jocko used to be in early seventies, right? So when you were growing up.

• 2:01:38Jocko Willink?

  I just rolled deep.

• 2:01:39Speaker 02

  Maybe, because look, think about.

• 2:01:40Jocko Willink?

  I was like four.

• 2:01:42Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 2:01:42Jocko Willink?

  Getting after it.

• 2:01:42Speaker 02

  Nine, I don't know, seventy nine, right?

• 2:01:45Jocko Willink?

  Maybe we have to inspect like old pictures and see if I ever had any rolled up.

• 2:01:50Speaker 02

  It's part of my point, because right now if I'm like, hey, Jocko, like hairstyles and all this on your bare hairstyles. Hair is only to look good, so whatever, I'm here to win. What was the speech you gave? I don't know, whatever. Yeah. Well, let's bring up some old photos of that.

• 2:02:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, old Jocko. Get some shit going on, boy.

• 2:02:09Speaker 02

  When they say suave, right? You know when someone looks suave? You see him saying that was Jocko's look in some of those pictures. You see him saying, all I hate.

• 2:02:15Jocko Willink?

  Picture to share.

• 2:02:16Speaker 02

  Hey, look, the point is, I was not surprised at this answer, but you just never know.

• 2:02:20Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:02:21Speaker 02

  You see, so no bell bottoms in the, in the, in the pipe.

• 2:02:24Jocko Willink?

  Hunt gear though.

• 2:02:27Jocko Willink?

  We talking about cool stuff. Alright, originusa.com, jacostore.com.

• 2:02:32Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 2:02:32Jocko Willink?

  Jacostore.com.

• 2:02:33Speaker 02

  You want to represent?

• 2:02:34Jocko Willink?

  We don't have bell bottoms there.

• 2:02:35Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no, no.

• 2:02:36Jocko Willink?

  And we're not gonna.

• 2:02:37Speaker 02

  No. Negative shirts, hats, hoodies for sure. Yeah, lightweight hoodies even.

• 2:02:42Jocko Willink?

  Which you are representing in.

• 2:02:43Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, Big Jump, that's perfect. See, I know you're from New England or whatever and you're like, no, either you hoodie, no hoodie. Which I understand, but there's nuance to, to weather and requirements.

• 2:02:54Jocko Willink?

  There you go. Lightweight hoodies from jocko store.com.

• 2:02:57Speaker 02

  Discipline equals freedom. Represent. That's where you can get it. It's true. Also, short locker, subscription. Cool designs on that one. New design every month. Boom, boom. Yeah, people have been pretty, pretty happy about that one. Some good feedback. But yeah, check it out.

• 2:03:11Jocko Willink?

  Any bell bottoms coming on?

• 2:03:12Speaker 02

  No bell bottoms, no idea. I'm gonna be honest, I never was really into the bell bottoms look. You know how people go, they go retro and they kind of do that? That's their job. Never was. Never could understand it. Here's the thing, the closest thing I got was boot cut. You know, boot cut means?

• 2:03:26Jocko Willink?

  Goes around boots.

• 2:03:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, I guess so. I guess that is, it's wide enough to go around the boot.

• 2:03:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:33Speaker 02

  Yeah. Okay.

• 2:03:34Jocko Willink?

  One of my friends was like a rocker, like a rock and roll dude.

• 2:03:37Speaker 02

  Hell, yeah.

• 2:03:38Jocko Willink?

  Pete, his name is Pete, English Pizza. And I saw a picture of him. Do you know English Pizza? Yeah, you've been around English Pizza. But, uh, oh yeah, he did sound when we did that recording.

• 2:03:46Speaker 02

  Yes, sir.

• 2:03:47Jocko Willink?

  But he, he, like, I saw a picture of him in like nineteen, probably, whatever, eighty-six. And he, he, he was like full on rock and roll. He had, he had bell bottoms on, bro. Like, he was ready to, like, he looked like a rock star. Like, straight up. You know what I mean? So there you go. English Pizza night.

• 2:04:06Speaker 02

  But yeah, uh, but yeah, jocko store.com, uh, check it out if you like something.

• 2:04:09Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 2:04:10Speaker 02

  Get some.

• 2:04:10Jocko Willink?

  Subscribe to the podcast, subscribe to Jocko Underground, subscribe to the YouTube channel, get your flipside canvas.com, get your psychological warfare. Get it. I've written a bunch of books, got a bunch of books. Check out those books, jockopublishing.com, warriorkid.com. Get your kids, go to Amazon and get these books. So, got a bunch of books. Check them out. Echelon Front Leadership Consultant, if you want to talk about these leadership things that we talked about today. And you want to get the correct interpretation of these things, we will come, work with your company. We'll do it virtually. We'll do it live, whatever it takes to get the job done. Echelonfront.com. Also, we have extremeownership.com, which is an online training. So we don't have to send

• 2:04:55Jocko Willink?

  you a book, a correspondence book. You can come online. You can do live events with us. We do a lot. We're on there live every week, answering questions. There's courses to take. It's just awesome. We just redid the entire website, have a brand new platform. It's outstanding. So extremeownership.com. Anything else on that, Dave?

• 2:05:18Dave Berke?

  It's awesome. And I love how you said like the correct interpretation.

• 2:05:23Jocko Willink?

  If you want the correct interpretation.

• 2:05:24Dave Berke?

  That's what you want.

• 2:05:25Jocko Willink?

  There it is.

• 2:05:26Dave Berke?

  That's where you get it.

• 2:05:27Jocko Willink?

  Yep. And if you want to help service members, active and retired, their families, Gold Star families, check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. She's got a charity organization. If you want to help out, or you want to donate, go to AmericasMightyWarriors.org. And also, don't forget about Mike Affink and HeroesAndHorses.org. If you want to connect with us on the interwebs, on Twitter, on Facebook.

• 2:05:50Dave Berke?

  Yep.

• 2:05:50Jocko Willink?

  Instagram. Then you can go to David R. Burke, or Echo Charles, or Jocko Willink. Just watch out for the algorithm, because it'll grab you. And thanks to all of our military leaders at every level, from E1 to O10, in leadership positions around the globe. Thank you for keeping us safe and leading from the front. And the same goes for all the police and law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, Border Patrol, Secret Service, and all first responders. Thank you for keeping us safe with your leadership here on the home front. And everyone else out there, one of the traits of a leader

• 2:06:33Jocko Willink?

  spelled out in this Marine Corps manual was courage. And it talked about physical courage, and it talked about moral courage, and it talked about the mental control of fear. And the book gave some recommendations on how to be courageous. But the first recommendation that it gave was place duty over your personal feelings or desires.

• 2:07:00Jocko Willink?

  Place duty over your own personal feelings or desires.

• 2:07:05Jocko Willink?

  And that's it. And I think we can bring that down to a personal daily level. Duty means do what you're supposed to do. That's how we build courage. By ignoring how you feel and ignoring what you desire and by doing what you are supposed to do. Which means we need to get out there and get after it. And until next time, this is Dave and Echo and Jocko. Out.