395: Building a Powerful Culture Around Your Organization. With Leif Babin

Jocko and Leif recount lessons to help build a powerful culture around an organization or group. 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 395 with Kerry Helton and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening Kerry. Good evening. Also join us tonight, Leif Babin. Good evening, Leif. Good to be here. Echo, still not here. Still. I guess people are getting worried. Look, not that they don't like Kerry Helton, but he's got that, you know, he's like the people's champion. Absolutely. They like the Echo Charles. Echo Charles, man of the people. And so they're kind of wondering where he's at. Don't worry, everybody, Echo will be back. He's, he's on important strenuous business right now. Important? Important strenuous business right now in Hawaii. In the meantime, let me tell you this.

• 0:40Jocko Willink?

  The Colonel expected the highest level of discipline from his first of the 506th soldiers. He knew that slacking here, even when just going to the chow hall for lunch could result in horrific wounds and death. Discipline in such a situation started with the little things. High and tight haircuts, a clean shave every day, and uniforms maintained. With that, the more important things fell into place. Body armor and helmets worn outdoors at all times and weapons cleaned and ready for use at a moment's notice. Discipline created vigilance and operational readiness, which translated to high performance and success on the battlefield.

• 1:22Jocko Willink?

  We sent Task Unit Bruiser SEALs from Delta Platoon to live and work out of Camp Corregidor to train and combat advise Iraqi soldiers there and support the first of the 506th Band of Brothers. When the SEAL element arrived, they humbly took on the same habits as their first of the 506th hosts. Despite more relaxed grooming standards, SEALs typically enjoy elsewhere. The SEALs at Camp Corregidor cropped their hair short, shaved every day, and even donned the same ACU Army Combat Uniform camouflage of their Army counterparts.

• 2:02Jocko Willink?

  And that right there is a little excerpt from a book called Extreme Ownership, which was written by Leif and me. That is from chapter four, Check Your Ego. And the reason we're pulling that quote today is not to talk about ego, or at least not initially, but more to talk about culture inside of an organization. The first of the 506 from the 101st Airborne is one of those units in the military that has an incredibly strong culture. When you work with them, you could absolutely recognize and feel the culture that they have.

• 2:45Jocko Willink?

  And there are a lot of military units that have a strong culture inside of their organization. And there's also civilian companies and businesses that have strong cultures inside of their organization. I know that in Tasking a Bruiser, we had a strong culture inside of Tasking a Bruiser. You could say the same thing that we've got at Echelon Front. The Marine Corps, Kerry?

• 3:13Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 3:14Jocko Willink?

  How's the culture in the Marine Corps? Report.

• 3:16Speaker 01

  It is one of the strongest cultures I've ever experienced.

• 3:21Jocko Willink?

  I agree. I think that the Marine Corps has one of the strongest cultures in any organization in the world. I know that's a bold statement, but the Marine Corps has got an extremely strong culture. The SEAL Team culture, the SEAL Teams actually has a very strong culture. Some of it good, some of it not good. You could say the same thing about the Marine Corps as well. You could, there's parts of any culture that can be negative. In the SEAL Teams, we have some outstanding culture, and we also have some culture that hurts us. Sometimes they're similar, right?

• 4:04Jocko Willink?

  We don't have much doctrine in the SEAL team, the cultures that you can kind of figure it out, which is kind of good because it makes you very flexible. But also, there's times when it'd be nice if you had some doctrine. There's a, there's a culture in the SEAL teams of bending rules. Would you say that's an accurate statement, Leif?

• 4:24Leif Babin?

  Definitely accurate.

• 4:26Jocko Willink?

  Now, when you went through BUDs, did you guys say if you're not cheating, you're not trying?

• 4:33Leif Babin?

  Yes, that's a pretty common saying.

• 4:34Jocko Willink?

  And, and did, did your instructors reinforce that? Or did they pull you back towards following the rules?

• 4:46Leif Babin?

  Uh, I mean, if we're in like a Boku race and you got busted cheating, I mean, you paid the man for that, certainly. So I think there, there were folks um who tried to push that certainly and, and um,

• 5:01Leif Babin?

  you know, I, I, I think, I would say my instructors largely tried to, tried to bash that out of us. You know, like, hey, if you, if you're cheating on this, you're not following the rules, like we're gonna drop a hammer on you.

• 5:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And at the same time.

• 5:13Leif Babin?

  You're only cheating yourself.

• 5:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, we definitely got told you're only cheating yourself. The thing is, and I think I talked about this with Ben, Ben Milligan for sure, um, talking about from his book,

• 5:26Jocko Willink?

  By Water Beneath the Walls, worst title ever, Ben.

• 5:30Leif Babin?

  Awesome book, though.

• 5:31Jocko Willink?

  Probably one of the best, it actually is the best historical book about the SEAL teams. But the title, which I've been harassing Ben and Ben about since I met him. And I actually harassed him about the title of each and every chapter that he's got, which is long. But what an incredible writer and what incredible job he did on that. But that's one of those things where you can see where the culture comes from. And if you think about what your overall strategic goal as a special operations warrior is.

• 6:02Jocko Willink?

  We're gonna figure out a way to cheat against the enemy, right? Like you, you wanna be able to sneak up on the enemy, catch him when he's not looking, sucker punch him, deceive him in any way possible. Never, never fight fair. Right, never fight fair. These are, these are all attitudes that make sense. They're part of our culture. And you can see where if you're looking, if you're actually looking for guys that have that kind of attitude, there's some, you know, you're borderline, you're borderline, or you're brushing up against a criminal mindset, right? Which is I'll break rules, I don't care. And you kinda need some of that. In a SEAL platoon, if you have, if every single person is a rule follower, you're, you're

• 6:45Jocko Willink?

  not gonna be, you're not gonna be able to do your job at the highest level. Because everyone's gonna look at a problem and they're only gonna solve that problem within the rule set, whatever that rule set might be. Maybe it's just the doctrine, but there, but if you have someone that says, hey, I'm gonna need to follow these freaking rules, which you, you are gonna have in a SEAL platoon, at least, at least three guys that are like, why would we do it like that? Let's do it this way. Let's cut this corner, let's figure out how to do this, let's trick them, let's deceive them, they're gonna cheat. So, that's the type of thing where it's really good for your culture. That being said, when it, if you, if you have a guy that now is supposed to be following

• 7:26Jocko Willink?

  the rules of a city or a state, and, and he decides, look, I don't have to follow the rules, I'm a special operations dude, so I'm looking how, how I can get away from these rules, that culture needs to be reined in and you need to really kinda put some guardrails up around your culture. Same thing with the Marine Corps. I mean, can you imagine the Marine Corps in World War II? You're like, hey, we want you to kill everybody, which is what they were doing. You're going into Iwo Jima, what, what are your rules? Kill everybody.

• 7:57Jocko Willink?

  Then the war ends and now all of a sudden you're in mainland Chi- mainland Japan and you're doing basically security force operations, which you know, you can read about in Eugene Sledge, China Marine. That's like, you gotta, you gotta be able to just pull that culture back from killing everyone to being a diplomat, a warrior diplomat. So, things are good, things are bad. The culture, the culture, what I'm saying is actually, is the culture will be strong. Culture is strong. And if you don't have control over the culture, it can, it

• 8:36Jocko Willink?

  can definitely cause problems. Um, you know, throughout the book about face, Hackworth, he, he continually refers back to this unit that he worked with early in his, um, early in his career. And he says this in about face, "For the next four years, I learned my trade, one year with the recon company of the tank battalion in the Poe Valley and three more with Tri- Triest, United States Troop, Trust. The illustrious unit whose 5,000 handpicked members, Walter Witchell called, quote, 'The chrome-plated soldiers of Europe,' end quote. We worked hard during those years, long merciless days of training, repeating,

• 9:20Jocko Willink?

  repeating, repeating, until we got it right. Our transformation into soldiers inspired and monitored by those battle-savvy NCOs who well knew that discipline and tactical proficiency on the battlefield were direct results of discipline and combat skills instilled on the parade and training grounds. At night, it was down on our hands and knees, all of us hand waxing the barracks floors until we had enough money to chip in and buy a buffer. You could eat off those floors, just as you could almost be blinded by the brass belt buckles and brown boots that each of us wore, polished every night to a dazzling finish. The only way out of these activities was sick call, but rarely was it used as, as an excuse. It took as much effort to see the dock. You had to strip your bed, cram

• 10:04Jocko Willink?

  your perfectly pressed clothes into a duffel bag, see the supply sergeant, and then the first sergeant, not to mention the lion's share of the month's pay you'd spend having to re- having clothes repressed when you came back, as it did to continue on with the normal routine. Punishment was meted out by a process known as NCO justice."

• 10:23Jocko Willink?

  And if I ever create another hardcore band, I might call it NCO Justice. For crimes such as a uniform of less than starched perfection, a bed that didn't bounce a quarter, or even a mildly insubordinate smirk, the sentence could range from 50 pushups to double timing around the parade field, holding a 9.5 pound M1 rifle over your head, yelling, "I'm a shithead, I'm a shithead," until you collapsed. General of the Army George Catlett Marshall once said, "Morale is a state of mind. It is steadfastness and courage and hope, confidence and zeal and loyalty, esprit de

• 11:07Jocko Willink?

  corps and determination." "Morale," he said, "is staying power, the spirit which endures to the end, the will to win." These words could have been the motto of the 15th tank and for that matter, all of trust. A command that really did live 20 regular army years behind the times. So, you can see, when you've got a unit like that,

• 11:33Jocko Willink?

  everybody, I mean, he was a private soldier at the time, you know, Hackworth, and he knew what he was doing. He knew what the standard was. He knew how he was supposed to act.

• 11:45Jocko Willink?

  That's a culture.

• 11:47Jocko Willink?

  And you get culture in the civilian sector too.

• 11:51Jocko Willink?

  Tesla. What's the culture at Tesla? Dudes are sleeping on the floor, right? Like, you're working 22-hour days. Remember when Elon Musk bought Twitter? And he got rid of, what, 2/3 of the staff? Something like this? 2/3 of the staff later. It might have even been more, it might have been 3/4 of the staff. I think it was 80% of employees. Yeah, so he was getting rid of people. And then I remember seeing a picture on Twitter. And he had like this core group left and it was two o'clock in the morning and they were grinding it out. And he was basically like, yeah, the culture just changed. From and everyone, the culture was, remember that video that floated around some girl, she was like, did, you know, work day at Twitter?

• 12:31Jocko Willink?

  And it was like her getting a cup of coffee, then her sitting in a lounger, then her getting a massage, then her, like it was just this whole day of leisure, basically. And it was like, oh, I have a meeting now. And then in the meeting, they were, you know, uh, laughing and joking around. And then it goes to Musk and in two o'clock in the morning and they're all freaking grinding. And eating like they're eating a midnight pizza so they can work more. There's a culture shift. The culture shift can happen, right? And he did that culture shift there with like a, with like a baseball bat.

• 13:04Jocko Willink?

  Tesla.

• 13:07Jocko Willink?

  SpaceX, like that's the, that's what you hear about those places. You're gonna get, if you want to go work there, you're, you're gonna, you're gonna get after it in a big way. That's the culture. Apple, you know, culture of innovation. So you end up with culture inside these organizations and the culture that you have is just so so powerful. The culture is going to be stronger than the leader over time. But it's the leader that can set that culture in motion. And yet, and I've told many companies and organizations this, who's responsible for culture inside of an organization? Everybody. Because if you have the E5 mafia, they can, their culture can overpower the culture of the boss.

• 13:52Jocko Willink?

  The, the middle, mid-level managers, if they've got like a strong culture within the mid-level managers, they can overpower the more senior managers, just their culture is stronger. If it's good, that can be great. If their culture is bad, it can, it, it, it's going to be a problem. So.

• 14:12Jocko Willink?

  You know, we were just thinking about, um, what do we do with culture? How do we set culture? How do we make it happen? How do you establish a good culture? Because ultimately, and this is, this is something we've been talking about at Echelon Frontline is, culture is the ultimate form of decentralized command. And if somebody is part of a culture, a strong culture inside of an organization, they know what they need to do. They understand what the, what the mission is and what, they understand who they are, what they're doing, how they're doing it. You understand all those things from culture, which is, which is a pretty crazy thing. I wrote that down somewhere. I wrote this earlier, I took a note. Culture is who you are, what you are, what you do, and how you do it.

• 14:57Jocko Willink?

  I never thought of that before, but I was trying to think of like, what specifically is culture? It's who you are, it's what you are, it's what you do, and it's how you do it. That's what culture is. It's those things right there. Again, this is a, my thought today, maybe somebody will expand on it, maybe I'm wrong, but it seems like a pretty good, pretty good thing, right? This is who we are, this is what we do, this is how we're doing it. That's a legit, legit statement. Um, so, let's talk about it a little bit. How do you, how do you, how do you establish culture? And I think the number one thing, number one thing out of the gate is, is set the example. Like, what example are you setting? We just talked about Elon Musk.

• 15:40Jocko Willink?

  He's working at 2 o'clock in the morning alongside his people. He's, remember when he was some, there was something wrong, I think at Tesla or SpaceX? And they were, they had pictures of him, he's just sleeping in his office on the floor? That's the culture. That's the culture that he set. We're gonna work hard. So, the culture that you set, the way that you act, the example that you, you fall under, is the way it's gonna be. So, when I got to team one...

• 16:10Jocko Willink?

  Oh, you're you want to know when that was, Kerry?

• 16:12Leif Babin?

  When was that?

• 16:12Jocko Willink?

  Oh, that was perfect. So when I got to Team One, I was a young kid, show up there. And the culture was so, uh, strong at SEAL Team One. And it was a culture of sort of extreme professionalism. Now, was it was it extreme professionalism compared to the Marine Corps? No, it was not. Was extreme professionalism compared to the kind of compared to the regular Navy? It was like, yeah, we kind of were on board or or could compete with the professionalism of the regular Navy. And we certainly were more more professional in our uniforms and haircuts and all that stuff was than, say, Team Five down the street or Team Three down the street as well.

• 16:57Jocko Willink?

  It was it was this was a well-known thing.

• 17:01Jocko Willink?

  You saw that when you got there. You saw like all the senior people, all the all the chiefs and the senior chiefs. They all freaking looked squared away. Uh, what was it like when you checked into Team Five, Leif? What'd you have going on there? Which was what, nineteen? Was it two thousand and?

• 17:17Leif Babin?

  I checked into SEAL Team Five in August, two thousand and three.

• 17:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so you, yeah, so the culture, look, there's still some of the culture. But as as Admiral Richards explained when he came on the podcast, around two thousand, they started an initiative which made all the teams pretty much have the same mission around the world. Back in the day, the seat, the teams all had their own, they were geographically assigned. So back in the day, I was at SEAL Team One. And our area of operations was Southeast Asia, Nam. Now, it was nineteen ninety, which, you know, just didn't meant we were going to like Thailand and uh, SEAL Team Three was Southwest Asia, so they had the desert.

• 18:04Jocko Willink?

  And then SEAL Team Five was, I guess, North East Asia because they were the the cold weather Korea guys.

• 18:15Jocko Willink?

  And you all had different assignments and then you you got to like stay at a SEAL Team for a long time. Like there was guys that were at SEAL Team One that had been there for like 15 years, 12 years. It was it was no big deal for a guy to be at Team One for for 10 years. You just, oh yeah, I'm at Team One. Oh, when did you get here? Like, oh, 1974. You're like, hey, that's awesome. Then they made, so you had the teams were they were more separate. And because you could homestead at a team and those people that set the examples were there for a long period of time, it the cultures at each one of the teams

• 18:59Jocko Willink?

  was very different. So, but when you got to Team Five, 2003, so that only happened in 2000 and then it's it actually started to fully take place in 2001. So when you got to Team Five, Team Five still had the reputation of like, hey, we're laid back. We're we're team guys. We don't really have to comply with

• 19:21Leif Babin?

  Yeah, but by laid back, I think, I mean, they were Team Five certainly had the reputation of partying hard and and I mean, work working hard, but certainly playing hard. Um, and maybe playing harder than the other teams down the street. Originally, I had orders to SEAL Team One out of butts and or at least that was what I was gonna get and because of the rotation cycle.

• 19:44Jocko Willink?

  They rejected you?

• 19:45Leif Babin?

  Exactly. I didn't. I didn't make the cut. No, but the because of the rotation cycle, I was gonna jump right into a platoon commander tour.

• 19:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 19:53Leif Babin?

  Like I would have missed, I and I was already a lieutenant, so I would have missed having an assistant platoon commander tour um, under my belt, which I didn't want to do. And luckily I had some some friends that pulled some strings for me. Um, and and Over Team Five, they're like, yeah, come on over here, we'll get you in, we'll plug you in. So they were just starting their workup cycle. So as I showed up, the first guys were coming back from the Iraq war, uh, from SEAL Team Five. They were just getting bad and they got back September of 2003.

• 20:23Jocko Willink?

  I turned over with.

• 20:23Leif Babin?

  Which you turned over with, yeah. So that, that was, but there was still very much, there was, it was stalag one, you know, it was the, uh, definitely like, it, it still kinda had that reputation, even though that was sort of, it was sort of, it was definitely starting to dissipate a little bit. Um, but then, you know, I, I think certainly there was some real pride in Team Five of like, hey, we get after on the battlefield, but there was definitely a reputation for, uh, um, yeah, the, the squared away haircuts and uniforms, it was the opposite of that, certainly. A lot of visors and, uh, cut up uniforms and however we cannot look military was, uh,

• 20:59Jocko Willink?

  One of my, one of my, uh, one of my best friends that I checked it, that I went through BUDS with and then checked into Team One with, and you, you know who he is, he's like, just a complete, um, just a, just like a Viking freaking warrior dude that if you could, he's like, he's on the list. If you're going to war, he's on the list, like he's, he's, he's on the list, a hundred percent. And everybody knows, like, he's just a savage. And we showed up and we were going on our first run at SEAL Team One and he, and he came walking out with a visor on. And Master Chief, Master Chief faculty walks up to him and is just like, if I ever see you with a visor again, I'm sending you to the fleet. I mean, we just graduated BUDS, bro.

• 21:44Jocko Willink?

  No, there was no in-brief, it was like, hey, we were doing a, whatever it was, the, the Coronado run, it's like a seven mile run. We roll out there, first big run with the, you know, now you're at a team and we're all fired up. And this, this friend of mine rolls out with that visor on, the green faded visor. And Master Chief just walks over to him and is like, if I ever see you with a visor again, I'm sending you to the fleet. And I was like, God, okay. So there you go. We also had this, when you're, when you're. It's weird how you like what you just said, you're at team five and you're like, oh, this is our thing. And you get told that and you're like, okay, that's, that's, you take on that, that culture almost immediately. Like it's, you can watch it happen.

• 22:28Jocko Willink?

  Like that happened with my buddy and I was like, okay, cool. Visors are lame. Visors are weak, like we don't wear those. That was part of it. There was also this, some of the older guys would say, team, team one. It's not just a number, it's an attitude. And you'd be like, yo, we're one, we're one, you know, what? Next question, of course, we're one, number one, that's us, that's our attitude. We're number one. And you hear that and you're 19 years old and you're like, well, obviously this is what we're doing. You know, this is what is happening. So that example that you see, and when you're in a, when you're part of an organization, that's the number one thing you do.

• 23:11Jocko Willink?

  That's the number one thing you do to start establishing culture is you have to set the example

• 23:18Jocko Willink?

  that you believe the culture should be. And you know, this is, this is what I saw with, um, when I got to team one. And even what you're saying, like you got to team five and it was like, things are a little bit loose. We're going to work really hard, but we're not, you know, getting dressed up. We don't have to do this dumb shit. We're not doing this chicken shit stuff. We're, we're freaking badass team guys. Okay, that, that's your attitude. That's what you're doing. So certainly, um, setting the example is important. You gotta remember that people are watching you.

• 23:53Jocko Willink?

  Establishing who you are. And there's a couple of different ways to do that.

• 24:03Jocko Willink?

  You know, one of them clearly is the, is the, one of the many, many, many, many things I stole from, from Hackworth, which is naming, giving your, giving your team a name. And I, I can't tell you how many construction companies I've worked with now and sales teams. And they've taken this and they've named their sales team and they've named their, their construction shift. Like that's, this is very common and it freaking works. So Hackworth in the Korean War, he took over Foxtrot or Fox company changed it to fighter company. Gets to Vietnam Battalion Commander, he takes over the, the hopeless and changes it to the hardcore. That and then, you know, when I took over tasking at Bravo,

• 24:48Jocko Willink?

  which is a lame name, but changed it to Bruiser. And and it's funny because that's not an official thing. Oh, it wasn't an official thing, but it sure is official. You know what I mean? Like you can see it in, you know, when we talk to the people that are still in the SEAL teams, they they talk about it. That's the way it is. That's what it was. Pretty deep. Just established.

• 25:11Leif Babin?

  What's what's what's funny about that? I was I was just reviewing my copy of About Face, which is

• 25:18Leif Babin?

  what you gave to me as tasking a bruiser, you know, when our separate ways when we came back from Ramadi and, you know, in the fall of 2006 and you didn't like you just handed me a copy of it and I had you I had you write in it. And it just says to snow from J K O and then the day it was like Janu- it's January 2007. So, but what's awesome about that, as I was reading through that book, that's the first time that I even I realized like, okay, where where this thing came from. You know, is this this new identity that that Hackworth had given his units, you know, with Fighter Company and the the hardcore recondos. I think it's. And so at the time, I remember when we're like, we're tasking a bruiser.

• 26:04Leif Babin?

  And and it was.

• 26:05Jocko Willink?

  Did you see how Lays voice changed when he said that? He just stepped up next level.

• 26:09Leif Babin?

  But you you said that and we're like, I mean, when I first heard that, it was it was kind of like, it wasn't even it wasn't like a people weren't like, oh, oh, we're tasking a bruiser. You know, it was instantly you're like, tasking a bruiser. Okay, it gave us an identity. And and it was something that just instantly we stood apart from everybody else and I think it's the genius of that. It was something that at the time, like, I didn't really give it a lot of thought. I was like, okay, cool. We're tasking a bruiser, like, whatever, you know? But then as it very quickly became like, we're freaking tasking a bruiser. Like, oh, they're tasking Alpha, they're tasking Charlie. We're tasking a bruiser.

• 26:46Jocko Willink?

  And you'd get like the skipper would be like, oh, the bruiser guys are going to come down like that. They would say those kinds of things and you'd be like, yeah, exactly. The bruiser guys are coming down. That's what's happening. A I just thought this going back to that example thing real quick. I remember talking to General Mukuyama.

• 27:04Jocko Willink?

  And he's talking about how when Hackworth showed up and I was asking like, oh, did you guys know who he was? He's like, yeah, everybody knew who he was. And then he says, yeah, he walks in and he's like high and tight. A high and tight haircut is uniform is just impeccable. He's got that look on his face. He's lean, he's strong and you could just tell. And you're like, bro, and this is Hackworth. And the funny thing is like, you look at pictures of Hackworth, he's a pretty slight dude, you know? But he just presented himself in a way. He set the example. He wasn't even in a battalion at that time. He was just setting that example.

• 27:42Leif Babin?

  Well, that was a, that was pretty, you, you followed that model pretty well, man. Cause, cause when you, you came over being the admiral's aide. And so we had all kind of formed up and been together for a couple of weeks, you know? And, and you know, Seth Stone and I, the Delta team, we're good friends. We've been through Bud together, like, you know, we, we, we, uh, we'd known each other, you know, for, for several years at that point. And I was excited to work with Seth, but we got long, you know, like our hair, it wasn't that our hair was, like, we had haircuts. But we did, we definitely didn't have shaved heads, that's for sure. And then, you know, you showed up with this, like, just straight up ax murderer look, but your uniform was immaculate. Squirt, you know, your, your head was shaved and you just like glared at everyone and didn't really say anything.

• 28:26Leif Babin?

  And, uh, you know, and when we met you, you were like, I'm Jocko, like squeezed our hand, you know, and, and, and didn't say anything. And it was, but it, it definitely set the tone right away of like, oh, this guy squirted away. Oh, this guy's got a shaved head. This guy has a squirted away uniform. And, uh, and you never like, hey, this is what we're going to look like, but you, you, you certainly brought that example in. And then, so when it became tasking a bruiser, it was, um, it, it immediately gave us, like, we're unique. We're unique, we're different from everybody else. We're, we're different and, and certainly that can be in a bad way, you know? If the culture went, went that direction. But for us, it meant like, hey, we're gonna, we're unique, we're special, like, oh, it's, it's too hard for everybody else.

• 29:09Leif Babin?

  Like, we're good, we're tasking a bruiser, we're going to work harder, we're going to come in early, we're going to stay. We're gonna make things happen, you know, it's uh, and it just started to immediately establish that culture and and you you you live that. I mean, it was, I just remember you totally standing out from every, we had a formation behind SEAL Team Three. So the whole teams formed up. The first time the teams actually getting together, people are coming in, you know, from different units and and it was, I'd never, I'd never seen you before. I'd heard about you and we certainly knew of your reputation, but you instantly looked different than every other SEAL back there, uh, just with the shaved head and squared away uniform. And I was like, check.

• 29:47Jocko Willink?

  I can tell you, I was, when I was at SEAL Team One, I put in for the SEAL Admiral package and I didn't get picked up. And then the other, there was a, the first class got picked up and shortly after they got picked up, they went to OCS and then one of those officers that was a SEAL, an East Coast SEAL, he went to OCS and he came out to the West Coast to Team One. So now I'm in E5 at Team One and this Ensign shows up from the, from the SEAL Admiral program. And I was looking at him going, dude, what is going on with this guy's freaking uniform? He looked one, he looked 100% 100% next level squared away.

• 30:30Jocko Willink?

  And I didn't, I didn't know what was happening, but you could, you, if you stood him, same thing, like if you put him in a line with 10 other officers, then you said, which one of these guys do you want to, you know, are you gonna put your trust in? You'd be the look at him and you go, I think this guy over here, he looks freaking squared away. And then I went to Officer Candidate School and that's where, that's where he learned to do that. And the freaking uniform inspections are so psycho down there. Like you wear those shirt stay things. And did you wear shirt stays? Yeah, you wear these shirt stay things and you tuck everything in and you, everything's tight and you've, it's ridiculous. But damn, you look freaking squared away.

• 31:14Jocko Willink?

  And so anyways, that's where that's where I definitely got at OCS and you know, you you went to you probably got, you know, I guess you might have gotten some uniform inspections in BUDS, but those aren't real uniform inspections, at least in my opinion. We are you you differing opinion?

• 31:29Leif Babin?

  Well, I mean, I had spent a lot of time having uniform inspections through four years of the Navy.

• 31:33Jocko Willink?

  Well, that's what I was gonna say. You you were you were you did four years of the Naval Academy doing uniform inspections, but then you went to the fleet, then you're out there and you're.

• 31:41Leif Babin?

  Our uniforms were immaculate at BUDS, man. I'm talking like boot shine, like totally pressed, like, you know, the the grease uniforms.

• 31:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 31:50Leif Babin?

  Totally dialed. And and I passed every single one of those and I got hammered every single time because I was the class of Y C.

• 31:58Jocko Willink?

  Of course.

• 31:59Leif Babin?

  So if one one person fails, which they always do.

• 32:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Um, and I thought of a funny story, too. When I when I took over a platoon at SEAL Team Seven, the the assistant platoon commander, so he he was working for another guy. Now he's working for me. And, you know, we're having like our first conversation.

• 32:19Jocko Willink?

  And he's a great dude. But, you know, we don't know each other. So he's like, hey, is there anything I, you know, we're like wrapping up at the end of the at the end of our first day working together. And he's like, uh, is there anything else I need to do? And I was like, yeah, go get a haircut. And he goes, I I just got a haircut. And I said, like mine.

• 32:39Jocko Willink?

  So he said, Roger that. Uh, good times.

• 32:43Leif Babin?

  What what I think what really stands out to me, though, is like, you know, not only did you, you demonstrated this through through um, by setting the standard yourself, but what it started for me and what it started for Seth Stone, and I think for a lot of us in Task Unit Brizzer was was what we thought was cool, you know, in SEAL Teams, like, like in SEAL Team Five, what I thought was cool is the guys that like, yeah, man, that guy's kind of like, hey, that guy's an awesome operator, you know, and but, yeah, he might have got arrested on the weekends, but who cares? Like, he's you know, he's an awesome operator. That's what you you want to be. And who cares if his if his uniforms not squared away and his hair is messed up? Like, we kind of take take pride in that. And I think what it started to do was. That the professionalism of like, oh, it's actually cool to be squared away.

• 33:28Leif Babin?

  It's actually cool to have a squared away looking uniform. It's actually cool to be the most squared away looking guy in the entire formation and to have your head shaved. And you stand out apart from everybody else. And so that started to kind of change my mind of, and I didn't even realize it at the time. You know, cause, cause we're just meeting you for the first time.

• 33:48Jocko Willink?

  And just FYI, everybody, this is not to say that you should not be freaking the hardest operator that you can possibly be. By all means, this isn't like the, cause there's dudes that are super admin freaking dorks, garrison freaking warriors, right? That are super squared away, but they suck as being SEALs. So that's not what we're talking about at all.

• 34:10Leif Babin?

  No, I'm saying what, what it was, was we're talking about both. We're talking about like, hey, we, we want to be.

• 34:14Jocko Willink?

  They're not mutually exclusive at all.

• 34:16Leif Babin?

  We want, and, and I hadn't, I didn't see it that way. Cause it almost seemed cool to make it mutually exclusive. Instead of looking at it as like, hey, no, we want to be the most awesome badass operator. We can be on the battlefield and train ourselves for the worst case scenario. And in garrison, we want to be squared away. We want to have shaved heads, want to have, you know, we want to, we want to, we want to be professional and we want to be as professional and squared away as we can possibly be in both arenas.

• 34:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's a, it's a definitely a different mindset, but it's real easy to see. It's real easy to see the difference and you take, if you take people that aren't focused on that. And look, there's plenty of SEALs that are freaking awesome, but they just didn't ever focus on that. No one ever told them like, hey, I'm going to send you to the fleet if you wear a visor. I got told that or my buddy got told that it's like, so we were focused on that. And then, you know, you start to just see it that way. And if you didn't get that, you wouldn't ever look at it. It's just one of those things. If you're not paying attention to it, you're not paying attention to it. So it's not like some other SEAL at team three at the time was a bad person. They didn't even think about their uniform. They didn't even think about it. It wasn't even a thing.

• 35:26Jocko Willink?

  They're like, oh yeah, I put my boots on. Oh, it doesn't really matter what they look like. Or they're just not thinking about it at the time. But when you think about it, and you know, it's not like we're competing against the uniforms or the squared away uniforms of the Marine Corps, because like they would win. Like you can't put, there's no SEAL platoon that could beat a Marine platoon in an inspection of any kind. Like we just, it's just not possible. But if you're even leaning in that direction, you could do pretty good against the other SEAL platoons, because that's just The bar's low. The bar's pretty low. That's like when, uh, when SEALs have to do some kind of close order ceremonial drill, they do whatever they can to minimize it as much as possible.

• 36:07Jocko Willink?

  Like, eh, okay, if we're gonna go out prior to and be standing in formation where we need to be, because if we have to march out there, it's gonna be a disaster. So we'll all just go out there and stand for an extra half an hour. So that way we don't have to march out there. Um, so there you go. Establish who you are. The other thing that I was gonna say, and this is, this is, there's a little bit of risk involved here.

• 36:33Jocko Willink?

  But coming up with some kind of values out of the gate, coming up with some kind of mantra out of the gate is something that you can do. And actually, I wish I had this stoner to this. When Stoner took over, uh, the task unit, and he didn't really, I, I can't say, and he would, he would refuse to say that he took over tasking a bruiser, because he's like, we're not tasking a bruiser, we're not. Because they split up a bunch of the guys, and he really only had the remnants of tasking a bruiser. So he, he just ended up taking over a position of being in a task unit. But he wrote out, like, this is what we're doing. And he had it on his, he had it pinned up, and I was like, freaking legit.

• 37:18Jocko Willink?

  I, quite frankly, I think that my personality conveyed all that shit that he had written down. Like, it just conveyed it. But when I saw that, I was like, it's freaking squared away, dude. Nicely done. He had the, he had made little letterhead, you know, Stoner, he'd get all crazy, he'd made little, little task unit two, because I think they had changed the number system or something, task unit two, you know, uh, whatever, values and focus. And then it said, you know, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do this. And it was like, we're gonna train harder than anybody else. It's like all the normal stuff, but he had written it out, so it made it perfectly clear. So that is something that you can do.

• 37:58Jocko Willink?

  The only risk of it is, is if you roll into somewhere and now you're just from the top, creating values and imposing them on everybody. There's, it's, it's gonna have a better, it's gonna, it's gonna gain more traction if it evolves over time. If it comes more organically from the troops themselves. And even Hackworth, you know, taking over the 439th, it was like, we're gonna change small things. He, he changed little things at a time. He didn't go in like, here's the way it's gonna be now. He, you know, he did say like, okay, anything you can't freaking travel with in a rucksack, we're getting rid of it. They're like, what the hell are you talking about? That was one step. And eventually it's like, yeah, we travel light.

• 38:41Jocko Willink?

  You know, so, so you gotta, you gotta think about that. You gotta think to the extent of which you do that. And I would say probably a good compromise or a good move would be to set out some sort of minimum aspirational ideas. Like, we're gonna work hard. Like something that people aren't really gonna be able to argue with without being super detailed. Because even if I, you know, if I said, all right, listen, we're gonna be, we're gonna look squared away and inspection ready. I can't ima, if I would've, if that would've been my leading like idea, I wouldn't have liked me. You know what I mean? When I was in E5, I would've been like, this guy talking about, dude, we're freaking SEALs, we're operators. Like, who cares what we look like?

• 39:22Jocko Willink?

  So, but if it would've said, hey, we're gonna work hard and we're gonna be exceptional at our jobs. You're like, I can get on board with that. So, I think if you're gonna set up some values like that out of the gate, or some kind of a mantra, and the mantra's another thing. The mantra's something that can come, it's better off coming organically. And so you end up with something like BTF. You know, you end up with something like Semper Fi. You end up with, uh, never quit. You end up with something that comes organically. BTF's a good one. Like, that was just, Tony just started saying it. But it became

• 39:59Leif Babin?

  BTF, BTF, BTF.

• 40:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, big tough frogman, meaning it's an adjective. Yeah, this guy's a big, it's a noun. This guy's a big tough frogman. It's a, it's a verb. We're gonna BTF. It's a motivational chant, you know, BTF, BTF, BTF. So, but it just came organically, but, and yet it answered so many questions. It, it was part of the culture because the culture is, hey, guys, should we do another immediate action drill in the 120 degree heat? Or should we call it a day? We all know the answer to that. The answer is BTF. The answer is just, we know what we're doing. It's BTF. That's what we're gonna do. Should we?

• 40:43Jocko Willink?

  Should I say that I'm hot right now and I, and I, and it's very sweaty? And I, and I feel like it's too warm out? Or should I just not say anything? It's like, oh, I'm gonna BTF. Should when I'm freezing cold, say like, hey, guys, I'm cold. Um, can I get in the Humvee and, and wait until we hit the target before I go outside? Or should I just BTF? The answer is you're just gonna BTF.

• 41:09Leif Babin?

  But back to your, you know, your open discussion about like, if you're not, you're not trying and how that can become part of the culture. I mean, that was very prevalent. When I joined the SEAL teams, like people were debating about like, you know, the, the, the old school years, you know, from the nineties of like, hey, we're gonna do the, you know, uh, uh, we're gonna, we're gonna drop you off for the 14, you know, kilometer patrol in like, hey, we roll open vehicles now. We don't need to do that stuff anymore. Um, and there was a real, there was an attitude of some people in the teams that like, hey, we don't need to do that. Like, hey, you know what? Hey, we'll just, we'll just, uh, we'll just have a, you know, we'll just virtually say we foot patrolled in and they'll drop us off at this point here and we'll, we'll go ahead.

• 41:51Leif Babin?

  In 500 yards, we'll go ahead. So we'll cut down what should be a two and a half kilometer patrol into, you know, the last 500 meters.

• 41:58Jocko Willink?

  Or, or a 10 and a half kilometer patrol.

• 42:00Leif Babin?

  Yeah. And so, and we weren't even doing that kind of stuff just because of the, the. largely urban focused combat of Iraq. I don't think I ever did a 10 and a half kilometer patrol. Yeah, but we were doing two or three kilometer patrols over some rugged terrain, certainly. But guys were cutting that down to where they were like, no, no, we're just gonna, we're just gonna.

• 42:20Jocko Willink?

  On the X.

• 42:21Leif Babin?

  Yeah, we'll just, we'll just, we'll just get dropped off right there. And, and it was, I think for, you know, BTF answered that to say like, hey, you don't foresee a situation where we might have to foot patrol. And ironically, it was, you know, you, you right away were like, there was no, you know, for you, for Tony, like for the, the culture in the task unit was like, hey, we're not gonna, we're not gonna ask for breaks. Why? Because we, we may actually have to full patrol it. And ironically, when we deployed to Ramadi, it was so freaking dangerous to drive on these roads. I mean, 80% of US casualties being inflicted by IEDs or roadside bombs. So we would, we would drive to the nearest, you know, safest roads we could get to like the nearest combat outpost of,

• 43:04Leif Babin?

  and then we would foot patrol into these areas because you couldn't drive into them. So, so we did a hell of a lot of foot patrol all the time and carrying a ton of weight on our backs. And if we hadn't have done that, we wouldn't have been prepared for it. So, and in fact, even still, I don't think I was as prepared as I, as I should have been because the first patrol I went out with the Marines was just kicked my ass on that patrol trying to, you know, carry the gear I needed and water and ammo and stuff for 48 hours, you know, in, around firecracker circle up there with Lima Company, three Marines. So I think those, but that, that BTF mantra, you know, was like, yeah, we're not gonna, we're not looking to cut corners. We're looking to train hard. We're looking to push the standards higher. And that was part of that unique identity of being, being task unit bruiser.

• 43:50Leif Babin?

  We're different than everybody else. We're not, we, we're gonna push the standards harder. Oh, they, they, they wanted to get dropped off near the target. We don't. We actually, can we get dropped off further away so that we can actually train ourselves and push ourselves harder?

• 44:03Jocko Willink?

  Dude, I went to a couple of debriefs with Trade at. So, at the end of a training block, we would go to Trade at and Trade at would debrief the skipper and us on like performance. And, but before that, we would debrief Trade at on like how the training was and what, you know, what could be better and what could, could be improved.

• 44:29Jocko Willink?

  And like, I'd go in there and unfortunately, like, especially one of the other task units would be like, when they'd say, well, they'd give their feedback and it would be like, literally, it would be, you know, there's no, there's no wifi hotspot at the thing. And we need better, like, access to hydration, you know, after our IAD drills. And, you know, also, we thought it was a little bit too strenuous to work late and then get our mission taskings early in the morning. Like, they would unfortunately legitimately give those feedback points.

• 45:10Jocko Willink?

  And they'd get to me and I'd be like, it was outstanding. You know, it would, everything that they complained about, they would maybe think I was gonna double down, but I couldn't do that because I didn't feel that way at all. I felt like, yes, work us until late, we will get up in, early in the morning for mission tasking. Of course, that's what we're gonna do. So, uh, what's the correct answer? The correct answer is, good to go. We're freaking good to go.

• 45:35Leif Babin?

  But you, you did that from a detached position of like, what does that look like strategically? What does this look like strategically? And I think that, that to me was, you know, when I think about the culture of tasking a bruiser, you know, even the, the appearance, we were talking about uniforms being squared away, that to me is like, we took pride in, you know, SEALs take pride in wearing whatever kind of crazy uniforms. You've talked about it a ton on the podcast here. Hey, we, we're gonna wear off the shelf camouflage and some guys have woodland tops and desert bottoms on and ball caps.

• 46:09Jocko Willink?

  In the book, in the book Blood Meridian, they talk about the Comanches and the Comanches are out just like killing and stealing. And, and so Cormac McCarthy, rest in peace, he's just passed away. Never got to talk to him. But he's like describing them as they're approaching and it just, it sounds like a SEAL platoon, like people are wearing like, top hats and this guy's wearing like a dress and this guy's wearing like a vest and this guy's wearing a cowboy hat. And they just all look freaking crazy and different. And when I, whenever I'd read that, I'd be like, that's basic SEAL platoon right there. Basically, that's what you get, you know, like I'm gonna wear jeans, I'm gonna wear a freaking whatever, just, just whatever random, I got a new Cabela's, you know,

• 46:55Jocko Willink?

  uh, cami shirt, and plus I got some, you know, old Vietnam, whatever, and they're just going down the list of what random stuff they're wearing. So yeah, it gets pretty wild.

• 47:03Leif Babin?

  And that's it, and that's, we almost, we took pride in that, as long as we're able to go and perform on the acts and, you know, accomplish our mission, like, who cares? In fact, you almost take pride in how crazy you look. So when you, you approached us in tasking a bruiser about like, about this issue, and about like, hey, should we try to look uniform? And so, in the, in, and how that came about was like, when, when you first kind of brought the subject up, like, hey, you know, let's, let's all try to look uniform. Seth Stone, I thought you were totally insane, but I was, I was like, this is totally crazy, you know, we were new guys at one platoon, and, you know, under our belt, um, you know, as the platoon commanders know, but like, there was massive

• 47:47Leif Babin?

  pushback inside the platoon, like, what do you mean, we have to, I have to set up my op gear that looks like everybody else? And Charlie Platoon has to look like, what are you talking about? This is insane. So we actually, we came to you, I remember this conversation, well, in your office, this is like during the workup cycle, we came to you in your office, uh, up there in the SEAL Team Three headquarters with the little task unit office, and, and we're like, hey, we, we both like had talked about it, like, let's go set Jocko straight. I mean, it wasn't, uh, it, it wasn't that we were gonna come set you straight, but like, hey, let's go, let's go.

• 48:21Jocko Willink?

  Pushback against.

• 48:22Leif Babin?

  We're gonna, we're gonna.

• 48:22Jocko Willink?

  Obviously, there's some things that I don't understand.

• 48:24Leif Babin?

  This doesn't make sense. We're getting a lot of pushback. So we think we're, we're gonna take care of our team. And so we walk in there and talk to you about that, and you're, you just asked us a question, like, how freaking cool would it be if we all look like storm troopers? If everybody looks the same, everyone looks exactly the same. And when you said that to me, I was, I was like, that would be freaking cool.

• 48:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, especially it's like, hey, you know what the other task units look like, right? Well, yeah, you know how they all look, all like a bunch of Comanches running around? Yeah. Imagine if we all are completely uniformed, we all look the same, like storm troopers.

• 49:02Leif Babin?

  That was pretty much

• 49:03Jocko Willink?

  Wouldn't that be cool?

• 49:04Leif Babin?

  That was pretty much how you said it. And what was interesting to me there is like, in about a 30 second question that you asked, and it wasn't you were like demanding that we do that. You simply asked us the question, which allowed us to reveal the truth to ourselves. So Stoner and I left there like, this is freaking awesome. We're all gonna look the same. It's gonna be different from everybody. And it gave us that unique culture. And when we put it out that way to the team, it wasn't like, hey, Jocko, you know, saying this. It was like, hey, this is the way. How awesome is this gonna be? And it was, and people took and ran with that. But it was outstanding.

• 49:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there was also wanting to be able to PID and not wanting to be mistaken as a Mujahideen fighter is a huge part of that as well. And also, now that we're talking about uniforms, I remember, I think it was Stoner that was wearing like one of those like Mujahideen scarfs. What are those things called?

• 50:02Leif Babin?

  In Iraq, they call them the kaffiyah, but what do we, we call them a

• 50:06Jocko Willink?

  Shamag?

• 50:07Leif Babin?

  Shamag, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 50:08Jocko Willink?

  So we get out to our desert training place and here comes Stoner rolling up and he's got one of those things on. And I'm just like, I'm like, oh, are you moosh? And he's like, no. And I go, fuck you wearing that scarf for? He just like took it off and was like, chat.

• 50:24Leif Babin?

  He took it off and never wore it again. And I think we all got the word on that too, because no one in Tachianabrisor wore those things. But what was, what really stood out to me on that is like, it, it made it cool. Like it made it cool to be like, hey, we want to look all the same because that's going to set us apart from everybody else. It's gonna, we're gonna look professional. And, and it just like, it was, it was instantaneous for us to, to, to take that from like, hey, we think it's cool to all look different and do different stuff and to look like just a bunch of renegades out there that don't look military to like, hey, we actually look military.

• 51:00Jocko Willink?

  Hey, we're part of a gang. This is what we are. So watch out.

• 51:05Leif Babin?

  This is how we roll in testing and bruising. Now, we did take that to an excessive level when we spray painted Punisher skulls on our on every single vehicle and and who is who the a general came out to to see us was it was it?

• 51:21Jocko Willink?

  I think it was General Brown.

• 51:22Leif Babin?

  Yeah, I think it was him. And you were you were like, take this off.

• 51:26Jocko Willink?

  No, it must have been earlier than General Brown because General Brown came out pretty late. Uh, I don't know who it was, but to me it was PID like it was PID, you know, this is like not a good thing where you're rolling around and you're advertising like, hey, this is us. Here's our mark. Um, did look cool, though.

• 51:46Leif Babin?

  It did. It looked really cool. And there had been a lot of time and effort on, you know, every every single like gun truck had the Punisher skulls on them. So but then we just we just put them on our uniforms. Yeah, it worked out.

• 51:57Jocko Willink?

  The stencil still came in handy.

• 51:59Leif Babin?

  We took it off. We took it off helmets and we took it off the the Humvees.

• 52:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's freaking legit. And, you know, that's one of those things where

• 52:08Jocko Willink?

  you know, as I'm hey, so it looks looks fine. I'm not worried about it. You know what I mean? It's like it's one of those things. Where do you where do you hold the line and where do you let it slide? And it's like, hey, man, we we got a badass bunch of troopers here. And this is actually a uniform now, so we're gonna roll with it.

• 52:28Jocko Willink?

  And it's also a lot harder to identify like a like a vehicle.

• 52:33Jocko Willink?

  It's pretty obvious what that is.

• 52:35Leif Babin?

  I I think, though, the questions we get from, you know, from from leaders, and we were just talking with a bunch of leaders up at the council about this, you know, about how you set culture for the team. And, um, you know, we we had some, uh, some leaders of, uh, some some fairly big construction companies up there that were talking about like, hey, how do I get my people to have their job sites squared away, you know, or make sure they all have safety gear or to make sure that they're the the trucks are cleaned out at the end of the day. And I was telling them about that. We were using this as an example of like, you gotta make it cool. You gotta make it cool. Hey, think about what everybody else looked like. The question you just asked, what does everybody else look like? You know, they've got stuff, you know, it's not squared away. They don't have, you know, they, they, they don't all look uniform. There's trash laying on the job site.

• 53:17Leif Babin?

  Wouldn't it be cool if, how, how badass would it be if, if you showed up on our job site and it instantly looks different than everybody else? It instantly looks squared away. It instantly looks freak, like you, you're like, hey, these guys are professional. These guys are freaking awesome. And I think when you threw that out there, it, it just, it creates that culture where you don't have to go around and tell people to square their uniforms away because we're all doing it because hey, you, you gotta look like everybody else. Why? Cause it's important. We gotta look professional so that we can go out on the battlefield and actually have an impact, close with and destroy the enemy. Um, and we're gonna do that all looking like a bunch of storm troopers. They all look the, the exact same.

• 53:58Leif Babin?

  But I can go out there and have a, a huge impact. So, um, I, I think that's as leaders trying to set culture for the team, you gotta make that we're unique, we're special. We got a different identity. We're gonna outperform everybody else. Uh, and that matters. And if you make that something cool that people are striving to do, then you've got a team of people that are holding themselves accountable. And you've got that like peer pressure to like get squared away and get on board with the standard so that everybody goes out and kicks ass and outperforms the other teams out there.

• 54:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the, the gang polices itself, you know, once you have those standards set, the gang polices itself. They don't let no, no slack occur.

• 54:38Jocko Willink?

  Then when it comes to that, you know, the, the behavior of other people when you're trying to establish culture, establishing culture, that means you reward behavior that is within the culture and you punish or at least mitigate behavior that's not within the culture. So, you know, you use carrots and sticks basically. And, you know, we prefer to use carrots, right? We prefer when somebody does something that's super squared away. That's what we prefer to focus on. We don't wanna go like, oh, you were, you, you, you need to wear a different uniform. Like, like you said, I didn't really do that, but the E5 mafia would tighten, tighten some fools up. That's for sure, but just carrots and sticks. And so if you're in an organization and someone

• 55:22Jocko Willink?

  does something, they, you know, you have a, you're, you're the, the client, the, the customer's always right. Great. Okay. Customer's always right. Well, when one of those cashiers goes out of his way to, you know, take care of a customer that was having an issue and they needed to help carrying stuff to the car. So they locked up the register and went and carried the stuff to the car and took care of the customer and whatever, like then you, you reward that person and you tell that story. So people understand that they will be rewarded for these behaviors that support our culture that we have. And then when someone does something stupid, look, and, and you gotta be careful about making example out of people and you don't necessarily have to name them, but if somebody does something that doesn't support

• 56:02Jocko Willink?

  the culture, then you call that out as well. And again, am I looking to call out individuals and make them look like idiots? No. But to say, hey, you know, this really negatively impacted our company because we had a bad Yelp review. Why did we get a bad Yelp review? Cause we treated a client, we treated a customer bad. And here's what happened. And now we gotta go and we've, we're gonna give that person, you know, a gift certificate or whatever we're trying, but why we, why are we doing that? Let's not let that happen. That's not what we do here. That's not who we are. That's not what we do. That's not who we are. That's not how we do it. You violated one of those, right? So think about rewarding the positive

• 56:41Jocko Willink?

  support to the culture and punishing or mitigating or calling out things that are not in support of the culture.

• 56:49Leif Babin?

  I don't know. I mean, I'm trying to think about like, I don't remember any like, I guess there were some punishments, you know, meted out for folks that got in trouble before we deployed. And there was some, there were some uniform inspections and things like that in tasking and bruiser, but that, that was minimal stuff and none of that came from you. It came from the, you know, the NCOs that were trying to hold the line. And it was, but I think for me, like there was a lot of. It was it was an opportunity to educate people about why this is important and how it's going to impact us. So like, so not only do we have to look squared away, we actually have to treat the soldiers and Marines that we engage with with professionalism and respect.

• 57:34Leif Babin?

  And, you know, and if we don't do that, then we're actually going to, we're not going to actually go out and be able to operate in the battle space. They're going to assume we're a professional. They don't want us here. And particularly, we had so many examples of special operations units that had treated them unprofessionally and caused some bad blood between, you know, conventional army and marine units and special operations units. So we had to overcome, we're actually digging ourselves out of a hole. And even just, even walking up to a senior officer or NCO and just treating them professionally and talking to them and addressing them by their rank and, and, you know, it just, that right away, like immediately set us apart. And I think you did a great job of educating

• 58:15Leif Babin?

  us about why, about why that's important and how that was going to impact our ability to go out onto the battlefield and conduct operations and have an impact.

• 58:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it might sound crazy. So if you're a civilian and you're listening to this, the way it works is you have geographic areas and the geographic areas are controlled by conventional forces. So for instance, the city of Ramadi overall was controlled by an army colonel. And then it was broken up into smaller sectors that were controlled by either Marine Corps battalion commanders or Army battalion commanders. And then those sectors were broken up into smaller pieces that were controlled by Army or Marine Corps company commanders. They own that real estate. They literally own that real estate. If you

• 59:06Jocko Willink?

  want to go into their real estate, you have to ask them permission to go in. You want to go to a party at their house, you've got to ask them, you can't just barge in there. You can't just go, oh, I'm a SEAL, I'm going to go party in this house. You can't do that. It's their house. It's their land, so you have to actually be invited or you have to ask permission. So if you act like an idiot or a jackass or an arrogant person, why would they let you in there? You're just going to cause problems. It's obvious. But if you show up and you're respectful and you treat them with respect and you listen to what they have to say and you, you talk about and explain to them how, what you're going to do at the party, how you can help the party.

• 59:47Jocko Willink?

  Like, hey, I have the capability to set up a DJ booth and play music for the party. We can help out here. They're like, oh, okay. Okay. That sounds good. You seem like you, you just don't go in there and start kicking indoors and blasting music. Doesn't work that way. So yes, we had to build good relationships and yes, the, your mom taught you in fourth grade that you don't get a second chance to make a first impression. So what's the first impression of a battalion commander that's been in the army for 19 years? What's his, what's the first impression he gets from you? It's your uniform and it's your haircut and it's your shave. Period. End of story.

• 1:00:29Jocko Willink?

  Period. End of story. You can't help that. You cannot help that. Even though they might know that that stuff really doesn't matter and they, we've all been taught this stuff. We've all been taught that no combat ready unit has ever passed inspection and no inspection ready unit has ever passed combat. We all know Murphy's laws. We know those things, but there still is an inherent judgment that's going to take place when you show up. And if you show up looking like a jackass, you're going to get treated like a jackass. So be professional and yes, that's, that's, that's what I explained to the guys like, hey, we've got to, we, we've got to show these guys respect. And I also distinctly remember saying, listen,

• 1:01:12Jocko Willink?

  this company commander that you're about to go talk to has probably been in Iraq for 16 months right now. He's a company commander. This is his second tour in Iraq and they're doing one year tours in the army. So that's who you're talking to. And by the way, you know, Lieutenant JG, how long have you, how much time have you spent in Iraq? Um, four days. How many times have you shot your weapon? Zero. So, these guys have been in serious combat for extended period of time and treat them that way. Give them some respect.

• 1:01:44Leif Babin?

  I remember talking to, uh, main gun, Mike Byma, who was the Bulldog Company commander. We worked super closely with from, uh, Bravo. He was the commander for Bravo Company for, uh, 137, uh, of the Ready First Brigade, First Armored Division. And, uh, I would say like I, three combat deployments to Iraq, I think I spent a total of about 17 months in Iraq, uh, total. And, uh, he, he spent 37 months in Iraq.

• 1:02:11Jocko Willink?

  Well, he had done, I, I think, I want to say, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but his first deployment to Iraq, I want to say was 14 months. And it was like, you know, 2000, it was fighting 14 months straight. Then he went home for a year, took over a company and, and now he's back and he'd, and he'd been there already. I think up in Tal Afar or something for already six months. So he'd already been in Iraq for 20 freaking months. In a leadership position the whole time. So, and, and then you talk about the battalion commanders, you know, you talk about those company commanders. You know, I, I remember going over to Corregidor for the first time and I'm meeting the, the company commander of gun, gunfighter.

• 1:02:50Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, he's already like been there for five months and he's lost a dozen guys. You know, like these guys have been in serious sustained combat. I mean, I'm here to learn. I'm here to support. We, we're here to help you. What do you, how can we help you? And it's, it's bizarre to think that that might slip by you, but you know, when you're in the SEAL Teams, you, you're kind of isolated. You know, you're, you're, you're in a, a little bit of a vacuum in the SEAL Teams. Even my first deployment was a little bit of a vacuum. We're, we're living on our own little camp.

• 1:03:30Jocko Willink?

  We don't have to leave our camp for anything. We're basically going out and conducting operations wherever we wanted to. All we would do is, as I said earlier, checking with the battlespace commander. We would leave, go back. It's just us debriefing. Like you get, then we go back, we do, we come back to America, we do a workup by ourselves. We do very little interoperability with other military units. And you just get a little bit isolated. So if you, on your second deployment. And you roll to Ramadi and you're like, kind of like, I'm kind of a badass. You know, I've done thirty-eight direct action missions. It's like, bro.

• 1:04:12Jocko Willink?

  Think about what these other guys have been through. Think about their perspective.

• 1:04:15Leif Babin?

  There was a, uh. There was a SEAL I worked with who, uh, was rolling out with a marine unit, um, kind of the latter part of the Fallujah, the Fallujah battle and, uh, so he gets in the Humvee and there's a marine, a marine man in the fifty cal. And he was like, uh. He's like, you know, he, he was like, have you had space and time this thing? Like he asked a question. The other SEALs in the vehicle were like,

• 1:04:37Jocko Willink?

  Yo.

• 1:04:38Leif Babin?

  Man, do you? Like you're, you know, we, we got, we got like a, we got like a thirty minute class on how to headspace and time a fifty cal. I'm like, you're asking a marine machine gunner if he knows how to headspace down vehicle like that.

• 1:04:51Jocko Willink?

  Twelve of the Battle of Fallujah.

• 1:04:52Leif Babin?

  Yeah, that guy has done that thing ten thousand times. Like he'll know, know more about that weapon than you ever can even imagine. It's, it was, uh.

• 1:05:00Jocko Willink?

  He can headspace and time it with his pinky.

• 1:05:02Leif Babin?

  Exactly. Yeah, it was, uh, it was not a good look for the SEAL team.

• 1:05:05Jocko Willink?

  That's a bummer.

• 1:05:06Leif Babin?

  But the folks around him, I think, uh, administered some, some corrections. But, you know, the, back to the culture stuff though, I, I want to make clear, man, like, you know, we wrote in Extreme Ownership, Chapter Two, like, it's not what you preach, it's what you tolerate. So certainly if people aren't performing, you know, holding the standard or performing the way they should, um, or, or, uh, then, then, yeah, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta hold them accountable, gotta make an example out of them, but you never, it wasn't, it wasn't like, uh, you know, this wasn't like you beating us down and saying like, we need to be squared away. It's, you actually took extreme ownership of explaining, yeah, hey, I gotta explain to you why this is important.

• 1:05:46Leif Babin?

  And I think for the leaders that are listening to this, when you want to build a culture of, of, of a high performance winning team, you don't go beat people down if they're not, their job site isn't squared away or they're not looking, they're not as professional as they should be on a call with a client. You actually need to take that as an opportunity to, you know. Holding them accountable doesn't mean you just smash them over the head. It means that you take ownership of not explaining why this is important. So they understand how it's going to help them. If they, if they, they fall short of those standards, it's going to hurt the mission and it's ultimately going to hurt them. You know, and, and back to the construction, you know, site example where, you know, we're talking to leaders that are well,

• 1:06:27Leif Babin?

  obviously if our job site doesn't look good, that's going to affect our ability to, you know, uh, to, to, uh, to, to win other bids, you know, for the, for the, for the next, next job. But the frontline troopers don't, they don't see that. The guys that are out there working, they, they don't see that. So you as a leader have to take ownership of educating them, of training them, of helping them see why this is important. How it not only helps the overall mission, but connecting that thread of why back down to them. And how it's going to create more opportunities for them to, to win the next bid if you have a squared away looking job site. So I think that's just an important point to make is this isn't beating people down. And, and I was never like, oh, if we don't do this, Jock was going to yell at us. There was, you never yelled at us.

• 1:07:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:07Leif Babin?

  It was, you explained why it was important. And then you didn't have to explain it to anybody else because I was explaining why it was important to my team and they're explaining it to each other. Some new guy shows up that plugs in as an augmentee. We're letting them know like, hey man, your uniforms look like everybody else's. Here's how you set your gear up.

• 1:07:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So explaining the why, always critical. And then it's also an alignment check. Because if I say to Leif Babin and Seth Stone, hey, we want to look squared away. The reason why we want to look squared away is because the army and the Marine Corps owns the battle space. And we want to do a lot of operations in their battle space. Therefore we need their respect and trust and the first impression that we give them is our uniforms. Do you guys want to conduct a bunch of combat operations? The answer is 100% yes. So as long as we're aligned, you're like, oh, this is going to get us to

• 1:08:06Jocko Willink?

  conduct operations. Cool. We're in. That's all. That's all it is. If I don't have a why, then all of a sudden you're like, well, why are we doing this? Well, because it looks better. That's not a reason. Or because I said so. That's not a reason. Or because, you know, even if I refer back to doctrine, which in this case is because that's the military uniform, even if I do that, it's not an answer. That's not a why. Why, you know, because the book says so is not an answer. Because I outrank you is not an answer. Because this is the way I've always done it is not an answer. None of those are answers. The why actually has to be a valid reason. And then it makes sense. And then you then then I don't have to worry about it anymore. I don't have to worry about it anymore because you got it. You understand. We're aligned. We want to go kill bad guys.

• 1:08:50Jocko Willink?

  This is going to help us go kill bad guys. Period. End of story. That that whole thing I've talked about the trump card. You have that trump card of alignment. It's like the trump card of alignment. Do you not want to do missions? Because if you look like a jackass, you're not going to do missions. No, I definitely want to do missions. Cool. Don't look like a jackass. Makes sense? Yes. There you go. Another thing for culture is history. Like making sure people understand who you are, where you came from, right? The who you are part also entails where you came

• 1:09:28Jocko Willink?

  from. Look, it was amazing to me that the other military units, the 137, you walk into the 137. This is their temporary tactical operations center in Ramadi, Iraq. It's a freaking crappy old dusty blown out building that they squared away. And you walk in there and they've got their, they've got articles hanging on the wall from World War II that they went on deployment with to show what they did as a battalion in World War II.

• 1:10:05Jocko Willink?

  Same thing with the first, the 506, the 38 Marines. They are saying this is who the battle streamers are there in combat with them. That is a source of pride. It's a source of history and yes, it is a source of culture. It allows you to see where you came from. If you know where you came from, this is like when people look up their 23 and me. You ever seen that thing where the dude like looks at his readout and he's got point 002%. You know, Nordic Viking. And then they just show him in his front yard. He's got a broadsword and a Viking helmet like.

• 1:10:47Jocko Willink?

  That's it's, it's actually the point is you can take that thing where you came from and you can transfer it into how you're going to behave right now. So when you know about these things, like, you know, when I got to SEAL Team One, you walk into SEAL Team One, the quarter deck back in the day. Medal of Honor recipients, there's Mikey Thornton. Yep, that's, that's the goal. That's the, that's the, that's the model. That's what I'm going to be. That's what I'm going to try and be. I'm not going to be that because I'm not definitely not going to be that, but I'm going to try. I know what the example is. The example is you risk your life for your freaking teammate. Even when people are telling you he's dead, you still do everything you can. That's the example. So that's the culture.

• 1:11:32Jocko Willink?

  That's the SEAL. That's part of the SEAL culture is you don't let your teammate down. Mike Thornton, that's the story. Mike Thornton, the, his Vietnamese SEALs come back to him and say, the lieutenant is dead. He's dead. We need to leave. And Mike Thornton says, negative. I'm going to go get him and saves his life. So what better example of you don't leave your teammate behind? There you go. That's it. That's the culture. So when you have a company, when you have a business, where'd you come from? Who started the company? Why did they start it? What did they overcome? Did they make it through the depression? Did they make it through?

• 1:12:15Jocko Willink?

  You know, what's interesting is nowadays, we talk to companies that made it through 2007, 2008, the economic downturn. They went through a war for them. And they made it. And that's part of their history. I worked with a company in Austria. That was five, over 500 years old. They, they work with metal now, but back in the day, they made, they made armor. They made suits of armor. And now they make chains and cables. But they've been in business for over 500 years. There's some pride there, right? Like you're doing something. So if you want to establish a strong culture, then you need to figure out what's your history.

• 1:12:57Jocko Willink?

  And you don't need to be, you don't need to be like this, this ancient company. That's a cool example of someone that's been around for 500 years. But it's also a cool example of someone that that's formed in 2003. And they made it through the economic downturn. They kept people on board and they had to scrap and they had to take pay cuts. And they had to furlough people, but they made it. That's part of the history. It's part of the story. Tell people. So they know where they came from. If you know where you come from, it's an indication of how you should be acting.

• 1:13:29Leif Babin?

  You, you always talk about propagate the story and, and I think it's a super powerful concept. And I always, you know, when I was teaching the junior officer training course, you know, when we got back from Ramadi and I went to the, to run that course for two years. Every single SEAL officer graduated from our, our training pipeline. The mandatory reading for, for all those, those officers was, was Basilevax, UDT SEAL Operations in Vietnam. And then the Naked Warriors about the underwater demolition teams in, in World War II. And I think they're, that to me was like just giving, you know, and now obviously you could add, By Water Beneath the Walls, which is a fantastic book that captures so much of our history.

• 1:14:14Leif Babin?

  I always felt like, one, if people understand that, they realize it's not, it's not just about them. It's about this legacy and heritage that we've inherited. So if you go out and get drunk on the weekends and, you know, or, uh, and, and arrested, uh, and give the SEAL teams a bad name, it's, it's not just about you or your platoon or the current SEAL team you're part of, but the entire legacy that, that you're a part of. And I, I think it also, you know, it also, uh, just gives you like, there's been so many, uh, incredible SEALs that, that contributed to this legacy and, and, uh, particularly by Water Beneath the Wall, some of those things that, uh, you know, I've talked to Vietnam SEAL friends of mine that were blown away by some of the history they didn't even know about

• 1:14:56Leif Babin?

  it, that they read in that book. Um, and when you realize like, these guys just, you know, went into China and figured out like, hey, how can we, what can we do to actually go and attack the Japanese and, and, uh, offer a solution here to go and, and, and close with and destroy the enemy and, um, you know, create this indigenous army running around. I mean, all, just some of those operations, uh, I, I always found that to just to be a, a fascinating way of, of giving people not only pride in their, in their heritage and where they came from, but then how can I actually contribute to this? And then how can I make sure that I, I, I don't tarnish that legacy? The things that I do, you know, could, could contribute negatively and impact our, you know, our heritage.

• 1:15:38Jocko Willink?

  A hundred percent. I mean, I've talked to young SEALs and, you know, I'll see young SEALs at, let's say a memorial day, see those guys, young SEALs up at, up at Mikey's grave, up at Mark's grave, up at Seth's grave, you know, and I'll, I'll talk to them and, and say, hey, you represent these guys now. Like, I don't, I'm retired. No one cares about me. You, you guys represent these guys that sacrificed their lives for their teammates. You represent them now. So what you do reflects on them. They're not here to, they're not here to do anything else. They made their sacrifice and now it's on you. So represent them well. That's absolutely true, absolutely true.

• 1:16:22Jocko Willink?

  And yes, propagating the story is propagating this, making sure you remember that history. And then when things occur, when you're inside of an organization, it's, it's sort of like what I was saying earlier about rewarding, but not just reward, but how do you capture that information and let people know what you're doing? Inside the organization. Cause cultures, cultures for internal, right? And look, culture will bleed over and, and people on the outside of the organization will see and they'll appreciate. Hopefully, if you develop a good culture, they will understand the culture inside of your organization. But the focus for culture is inside the organization. So propagating the story and making sure that people inside the organization understand

• 1:17:07Jocko Willink?

  what we're, we're create, we're writing that history right now. You're, if you're part of this team, you're part of the history of this organization. If you're at Echelon Front right now, you're part of the creation of the history of Echelon Front right now. So what you do matters and what you do is going to leave a mark. And when you do something, when you get this client and you turn them around and they start, they start outperforming anything that they've done in the past, that's part of the history of the company. You did that. That's you. You're a part of it. So propagating that story is absolutely important.

• 1:17:43Leif Babin?

  I was just thinking about this in the context of, you know, tasking a bruiser in our operations, Ramadi. And, you know, for so long in, uh, particularly in the Iraq war, right? It was, it was SEALs and other special operations units going out at nighttime, doing these capture kill missions at nighttime, coming back before the sun was up. Um, and so that became like, oh, that's the special operations mission. And, uh, and so we got some criticisms for going out and being out in the daytime because that's when the, that's when the enemy was actually moving around. That's when we were able to, to engage them. That's when we can engage the local populace, you know, as well. And, and that's, we, we've, we, we found that we could have the most impact on the battlefield. We'd go in at nighttime, set up the sniper over watches, but remain over day when the enemy was actually moving around and had, thought they had freedom of movement.

• 1:18:29Leif Babin?

  Um, and so that's when we could do the, the most damage to them and have the most impact. And it was interesting to me as, you know, as we received some of those criticisms because we were doing something that was different from what a lot of the other special operations units were doing. It was very similar to underwater demolition teams in World War II, where they were doing these nighttime reconnaissance, beach reconnaissance. And then Draper Kaufman, I think was one of the, you know, the father of the underwater demolition teams. He came from the schoolhouse, and I think it was, was it Saipan? Maybe it was his first, I think it might have been his first operations in, in, in the Pacific. As he left the schoolhouse to go out there. It was either Guam or Saipan. I don't, I don't remember.

• 1:19:10Leif Babin?

  I believe it was Saipan, but these huge operations, you know, to take these, these Japanese held islands back. And, and they're doing it in the daytime. And he was like, this is crazy. Like, how can we do this in the daytime? You're gonna get killed. And then the, the SEALs that are the, are the, the frogmen, the underwater demolition team, that had been conducting this realized like, hey, we can go out and we can do this in the daytime. They almost, almost no casualties as a result of swimming off the beaches. It was minimal, but they were able to do a much better job of the reconnaissance and come back. And then, interestingly enough, in Vietnam, it was the opposite. So you didn't go out at nighttime. Charlie owned the night. And, and so you didn't go out at nighttime because Vietcong were gonna ambush you and kill you.

• 1:19:54Leif Babin?

  And so US forces would just kind of hunker down, you know, overnight in their defensive perimeters. SEALs figured out, you know, pretty early in the war, like, hey, we can go out at nighttime and actually have some impact. And so, so that seemed crazy to a lot of people. But it was, it was part of, I felt like we were part of that legacy and tasking a bruiser of like, hey, where can we have the most impact on the battlefield? Where could, you know, where can we contribute most to the mission? We were certainly taking, are we taking some more risks to be out in the daytime? I'm sure, but there's ways of mitigating that risk, which is exactly what we did just as the, just as the frogmen did and just as the SEALs in Vietnam did.

• 1:20:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and, and I look at that as, as, as my fault. And this is when we talk about propagating the story. I didn't do a good enough job of explaining broadly what we were doing, but more important, why we were doing it. You know, when, when, when we got back and I actually would sit down with someone and be like, dude, why are you going out in the daytime? And I'd say, oh, here's the reasons. And you go, oh, well, we had to work with Iraqi troops. Iraqi troops didn't have night vision. Iraqi troops had one flashlight per four guys and we'd give them more, but even that wasn't really sufficient.

• 1:21:02Leif Babin?

  They didn't know how to use that one flashlight.

• 1:21:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. The enemy was only out, the enemy didn't come out during the night at all, which means you could go out, walk around all you want, but you're not going to have any impact because there's nothing there. And once I kind of, oh, and the, the conventional forces that we were working with, they had to push out and they had to control areas and you have to control areas, not just during the night. You have to control them during the day too. That's why we did it. And guys would go, oh, okay. Yeah, that makes sense. I didn't do a good job while we were on deployment or, or even when we got back of explaining what was going on, what we were doing and most important, why we were doing it. I should have done a better job of that. And then some of, some of the folks would have gone, oh, okay, I get it. And there was a couple of times, like I had one friend that was in Baghdad and he emailed me like, dude, what are you guys doing? And I emailed him back like, hey, bro, let me

• 1:21:48Jocko Willink?

  explain it to you. I should, that should have been an indicator to me, but I, I didn't, you know, I didn't catch on that, oh, some people might be saying, what the hell are you doing? And again, too bad I wouldn't have read, uh, Ben Milligan's book because I probably, if he had written it faster, or I guess he couldn't have written it at the time. But if, if that kind of book with that kind of information would have been around, I would have known, okay, I gotta propagate this story a little bit better. I gotta do a better job of explaining what's going on because otherwise people look at it from a distance and they go, oh, that doesn't make any sense. Like you said, just like they said to the, the frogmen and just like they said to the seals in Vietnam, like, what are you doing going out at night? Charlie owns the night. No, we own the night and we owned

• 1:22:30Jocko Willink?

  the day in Ramadi as well. Like we owned it. Um, so yeah, those are good points.

• 1:22:38Jocko Willink?

  Language. The language that you use creates a culture. I'm going to go to a little bit more about face right now. Here we go. The men of the 439th had no unit identity and no pride in themselves. As a first step toward rectifying this, I decided to call my hard luck battalion, the hardcore and the troops, Ricondos. The latter being part, the latter being the nickname of the first brigade, ninth division, of which the 439th was a part. Just as I had in three, in the three, three at Fort Lewis, I insisted on a airborne all the way greeting between 439 soldiers and their officers.

• 1:23:19Jocko Willink?

  So when he was at the three, three in Fort Lewis, he would, the, the, the enlisted guys would say airborne and the officer would say all the way. Uh, when a soldier, but in the 439, when a soldier saluted an officer, he said hardcore Ricondo, sir. And when the officer responded, it was with a heartfelt, no fucking slack. At first, my cynical hippie troops sniggered over what they considered G I Joe bullshit, but it didn't matter. I knew the time would come when it would mean one hell of a lot to each and every one of them.

• 1:23:55Jocko Willink?

  So the language that you use starts to form your culture. The BTF is a great example. All Navy, all the time. Remember saying that?

• 1:24:06Leif Babin?

  I do.

• 1:24:06Jocko Willink?

  I've had, and I always, always have this stuff in my platoons. Like we'd have platoons and we'd have these things that we'd start to say, and it would become part of the, part of the language, right and tight. Like I was in a platoon at team two, we said right and tight 47 times a paragraph. You know, get your shit right and tight, boy. Hey, get, is that the right and tight over there? Like we just said it all the time. And guess what? When you're saying right and tight all the time, that is what you start to behave like. When you say, like, like already explained about BTF, that's what we're doing. Are we complaining? No, we're BTFing. Are we taking the easy road? No, we're BTFing. Are we going to be soft? No, we're going to BTF. That's what we're doing.

• 1:24:45Jocko Willink?

  So the, the idea that the language that you use is going to also formulate your culture is absolutely true. I remember at, um, First the 506th, like at the end of the meeting, the battalion commander would say, you'd say, "Curry," and they'd all go, "Stands alone." Like, that was everything. And you're like, "Dude, this is awesome." But, just like he says, he's, he's admitting, Hackworth is admitting, like, "In the beginning, I knew these guys were like, "This is freaking bullshit." But after a little while, you're like, "No fucking slack." That becomes part of the way you function and operate. That becomes part of the way you function and operate.

• 1:25:29Jocko Willink?

  So, the language that you choose to use, and the language that you choose to propagate inside your organization, it becomes the way you operate. At Echelon Front, relationships are paramount. Everybody says that, relationships are paramount. What, what, what does that mean? That means relationships are paramount. That means, if you're interacting with somebody, and there's something straining the relationship, you're gonna prioritize the relationship. That's what we're doing. That's how we operate. That's what we're doing. It becomes part of the culture. So, think about the language that you use inside your organization.

• 1:26:03Leif Babin?

  I think it has massive impact. It's massive impact, and you know, as I read that statement, um, for the first time, in that copy of About Face that you gave me, in, you know, January 2007, it, uh, it really stood out to me, because it's very much my experience in tasking a bruiser, you know? I'm sure there are people that are like, "Oh," that kind of rolled.

• 1:26:21Jocko Willink?

  Oh, no, there was, there was definitely haters, and friends, like, I, uh, friends of mine at, at Team Three, that were in other tasks, you'd be like, "Bro, what's up with your freaking guys, dude?" I was like, "Hey, bro, you know, we're just BTFing, what can I tell you?" They were like, like, make, making fun of us, jabbing at us, and at the same time, kind of being like, "Damn, that's kind of cool."

• 1:26:44Leif Babin?

  For sure, for sure. And, and I think that, what's interesting, though, is, I think a lot of the guys who might be, there, there was some complaining going on. "Hey, we're, you know, why are we working so much harder than everybody else? I, I didn't, you know, we're going in earlier, we're staying later." Even when the instructors had said, like, "Hey, you guys are good to go." I mean, I remember multiple times, we were like, "Hey..." You would just ask the question like, hey, do you think we're ready for the worst case scenario on the battlefield? And we look at each other and be like, let's do another run, you know, and, and we would do that where other, other task units were not doing that. And so that hadn't been people's experience previously. And so there was some complaint about that initially going, oh, we don't get enough sleep. We don't get to go out of town or, you know, we don't get to do all these other things that they, they wanted to do and the other task units are doing them.

• 1:27:30Leif Babin?

  But the moment that like, the moment that we started outperforming everybody, you know, as, as that outperformance became very apparent. And those other guys were kind of looking at like, hey, what are these guys doing over here? And the, the training, you know, detachment instructors were like, dang man, you guys are the best task unit I've seen come through here. You know, those, when we started to hear that kind of stuff, those complaints just, those complaints went away pretty quickly. Because people took pride in being a part of a, a unique unit that was able to outperform, you know, uh, everybody else. Like, hey, we're bruiser. We do things different. We do things better. And, and that translated directly on the battlefield. I mean, that turned, the turnover that we got of like, hey, don't go into these areas of Ramadi because you're all going to get killed.

• 1:28:14Leif Babin?

  You know, and we're, we're looking at how can we get in there? How can we actually get in these areas? Yeah, we don't all want to get killed. We're going to have to take some, we're going to, we, we took tremendous steps that we could and to mitigate the risk to our, our forces. But if, we knew that if we went into some of these areas that nobody else could get into, uh, that we could actually have some massive impact on the battlefield. Um, and, and, and so we took pride in being able to go places that other people couldn't go.

• 1:28:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:41Jocko Willink?

  Two things. Number one, this is our perspective, right? And, and here's why I want to point this out. You can hear what we're saying. You can hear Leif saying like, dude, we were tasking a bruiser. We were better. We were working harder. That's our perspective. Look, were the other task units working hard? Hell yeah, they were. They were freaking getting after it. And let's say they were working harder than us, which they weren't, but let's say they were, let's say they were. Let's say they were. There was some other, other freaking outstanding freaking dudes in those other task units, a hundred percent.

• 1:29:16Leif Babin?

  No doubt.

• 1:29:17Jocko Willink?

  Just freaking outstanding guys.

• 1:29:20Jocko Willink?

  Even if they were working harder than us, guess what we thought? We were working harder. Like, we were, we, inside our world, we had a strong level of confidence that we were outworking and outperforming everybody else. So, that's a positive thing. What are we gonna watch out for? And what did we watch out for? Freaking arrogance, all the time. Like, letting, letting that task unit bruiser thing become a, "Hey, we're better than you", is, is what you have to watch out for. Cause if we're better than you, and I think I'm better than you, that means I don't have to work as hard as you. That means I don't have to train as hard as you. That means we don't need to plan as much as, as you. That means we can just, we can just make things happen, because we're bruiser. No, it's not like that. It's actually the opposite of that.

• 1:30:04Jocko Willink?

  It's, we're tasking a bruiser, which means we have to work harder, which means we have to prepare more, which means we have to plan more, which means we have to do extra runs. It's because we're tasking a bruiser that we have to do more. It's not the opposite. So, be careful. And you know, we were talking about this, and I've actually used this, I've been talking about this a bunch now, this, this idea of being in stressful situations, and how you prepare for performance, and how you gotta prepare. You plan, you rehearse, you visualize, you, you don't worry about things that you can't control. And ultimately, at the moment of, just before the moment of execution, you have to get a little bit cocky. You have to get a little bit cocky. And that's the way that I operate. It's the way I've always operated. As humble as I can possibly be, until I put my night vision goggles on,

• 1:30:49Jocko Willink?

  or until I lock and load my weapon, then, watch out, because I'm a bad motherfucker, and I'm coming to get you, and you're not gonna be able to do anything to me. That's what's happening. Or like, jujitsu, like, I'm training my ass off. I'm training my ass off. When we, when you look at me like, "Hey, let's roll", and we clap hands, all of a sudden, I'm gonna get you. Like, that's what's happening. I'm not nervous, I'm not scared, like, "Oh, what's gonna happen?" So, so, having that humility, that then you can lean into, "All right, it's go time, and now we're confident", and that's what you're doing. You know, we used to do that with fighters. Like, you get that fighter, you're getting ready, getting them ready for a fight. They're getting their ass kicked in the beginning of training camp. You're, you're making sure they're getting their ass kicked. You're making sure you're bringing in fresh people, they're kicking ass, they're getting their ass kicked,

• 1:31:32Jocko Willink?

  they can't get up, they can't get off the ground, their striking sucks, they're behind. And then as you get closer and closer, they're doing better and better. By the time you're a week out... They're kicking your ass, whether you, whether they can or not, honestly. And I'm not trying, look, I'm out of the business now, I'm not training fighters anymore. But you don't want to kick a guy's ass three days before he gets into the cage against a world-class dude. Cause his confidence is not going to be there. So you're gonna, you're, you're gonna let them build that confidence back up. Just like a dog, you know, a working dog, when you have a working dog, an attack dog, an attack dog never loses a fight in training. They never lose a fight, they don't even understand what that means. When that freaking Belgian Malmo comes at you, it is, when it's coming to get you,

• 1:32:17Jocko Willink?

  it has never lost a fight before, ever. It's coming, it knows 100% in its mind it can win. When you come to my house and I have Odin, my German shepherd, that weighs 120 pounds, he's never lost a fight before. He's never had a bite that didn't take someone down and stop them. He doesn't understand. You have a gun, a loud gun, he's been through that where that's not going to stop him. He's heard that loud bang before, it's not going to stop him. So what you have to do is you have to be prepared to die. Because these animals, they've never lost. So as you're going through that mental, cultural formation,

• 1:32:59Jocko Willink?

  you want to have them humble, you want to have them work. But then you also want to teach them, hey, look, we, we win. That's what we do. Clutch time, we win. What happens when, what happens when a player or an individual gets the reputation of like they're a go-to guy in the clutch scenario, Michael Jordan? He's, oh, who are you going to give the ball to? You give it to Jordan. When he's feeling good, what are his chances? They go up astronomically. When he's feeling bad, or if he missed a couple of shots, now his game is off like, I mean, Jordan's the wrong person to say this about because what Jordan does is, ah, I blew that one, but watch this. He'll, he'll refocus, he learned how to do that.

• 1:33:42Jocko Willink?

  To go, oh, I blew a shot, cool, watch this. We used to see this, you know, you see somebody shooting headplates, right? You got standard drill, you gotta shoot six headplates. You're going against me against Leif. So beep, the, the, the, the timer goes, I pull out my weapon, crack one, crack two, I miss a shot. I've been shooting head plates all day and I've been shooting head plates for 15 years. I miss a shot. Oh damn, I missed it. Oh no, life's gonna beat me. Uh, miss another one, miss another one, miss another one. When you miss a shot, you gotta be just be like, whatever. I meant to do that. Crack. So getting your culture to have that nice level of humility all the time,

• 1:34:25Jocko Willink?

  but then also be able to flip the switch and be able to execute as a team. Extremely important, extremely important. You actually wanna have, you can actually work with a team. Where, you know, like, uh, starting up the vehicles.

• 1:34:44Jocko Willink?

  There's something about that I always found when we'd say, uh, starting vehicles in three, two, one, start them up. And all the Humvees would start at the same time. You knew at that moment in time, you were an in sync organization that was about to go just do whatever we gotta do to win. Cause it, everything, everything, you've been running around, you got planning, you're doing this, you're looking for your radio, all this stuff's going on. And then you get in the vehicles, everyone's loaded up, mount up, mount up, mount up.

• 1:35:12Jocko Willink?

  In three, two, one, start them up.

• 1:35:15Jocko Willink?

  And it's like a mental thing that's going on and everybody feels it. So think about what you can do with your team where you can activate their confidence. Where you can tell them it's go time. You get done with a brief and what's the last thing you say to them? That's gonna get them in that mode where they're gonna overcome. That's what we do.

• 1:35:37Leif Babin?

  I, I think those things are directly related and I'm getting fired up. You're talking about starting the Humvees. I mean, it, it's just that there's nothing like when you got a uniform group and everybody's in sync. You know, and we talk about the dichotomy, right? Of balancing confident, but, but not cocky. You gotta be confident, but you can't be cocky. And so when you're talking about, uh, whole, you know, like never getting arrogant and thinking like, oh, we're the best. I actually, I think that what gives you the confidence to go and execute when it's go time on a combat operation. And I've never, you know, I've never fought in the UFC or been a professional MMA fighter, but I got to imagine it's a similar deal is is that you have put in the work, you have challenged yourself,

• 1:36:21Leif Babin?

  you know, and I think what made us good at tasking a bruiser was that that we were we would critique ourselves harder than anybody else. And right, you know, when when I was used to the the training instructors really picking us apart, you know, going through the workup cycle of like, yeah, you need to fix this, you need to fix this, you screwed that up. They didn't, they didn't have a lot to say when we were done debriefing ourselves because, you know, for the most part, because we were just eviscerate ourselves about all the things that we actually needed to work on. And and so that was, that enabled us to push the standard. We're always looking to get better in everything that we did. And because, you know, that's why we talk about humility is the most important quality of a leader, constantly scrutinize scrutinizing ourselves about like, hey, are we actually

• 1:37:06Leif Babin?

  ready for this worst case scenario? Can we actually get better? Can we improve? And because we pushed ourselves that hard, and and because we were humble, and because we we put in the extra time and the extra work and the extra preparation, it gave us the confidence to go and execute in a way that that I think those are directly related. So, you know, I one of the things that really stands out to me is, I mentioned earlier, like, the training instructor said, you guys are the best task unit I've seen come through here. And so, you know, when you get assigned to train training detachment, this is what like a three year tour typically, two or three year tour for for most of these guys. So they've seen a bunch of different task units come through. And I remember very distinctly say, don't ever say that again. Don't ever say that again, my guys.

• 1:37:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:49Leif Babin?

  And you didn't take that as like, oh, thank you for saying that. I appreciate it. You actually were upset because you knew that that's the kind of thing that would make us cocky. And now we think we're awesome. So we don't have to train hard. We don't actually have to push ourselves hard, which is then going to make sure that we get our that's going to set us up for failure when it's time to actually roll out operations for real. And and so I think those things, the harder that you're pushing yourself in training, the harder that you're preparing, the more discipline that you have, you know, in those training procedures, it gives you the confidence to go and execute well.

• 1:38:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. You can definitely set those things up properly, where you can learn to flip that switch. You can learn to become a little bit cocky in the just a moment before execution. And it's something that I, I, and what I remember telling you about it, oh, cause I told you about it at Total Archery Challenge. Right? Cause here we are at Total Archery Challenge. I'm shooting my brand new bow, which you know, you gotta get used to a new bow, right? You gotta get used to it. It's, I got different cams on it. It's a little bit, you know, feels a little bit different. And so you're getting used to the new bow and I, this was only like my third time shooting it.

• 1:39:00Leif Babin?

  And which is insane. Yeah. If, if you don't know anything about Total Archery Challenge, it's freaking awesome. Uh, it's, it's an incredible experience, but it is, uh, I mean, you're making a, the first, the first shot out of the pipe for us on day one, on, on the, uh, the course that we shot was a hundred and seventeen yards. So I mean, this is a, that is a, that's like, that's like a thousand yard rifle, uh, shot.

• 1:39:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:23Leif Babin?

  And you're taking, you're going out of the pipe and you've only shot this bow just a couple of times. What 20 yards?

• 1:39:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And now look, Dudley, you know, this, this bill is, bow is built by one of the premier guys in the world. So we're getting a high quality item, but still it takes reps and I'm not, I'm, you know, I've only been doing archery for five years. So I'm not like some stud at this stuff, but I had just done this podcast, uh, with Echo on, on the underground, talking about, and someone had asked like, how do you handle, what do you do to get ready for stress? And I talked through this whole thing. You gotta prepare, you gotta, and then I said, and you know what I do at the moment, just before execution? I get a little bit cocky and what made me think about that was like shooting head plates, you know, back in the day. You're going up like I would, I would never be the best shot, but I might be like fourth in the platoon.

• 1:40:14Jocko Willink?

  You know, depending on the run, maybe I'd win one thing or two things, but I wasn't gonna be like, there's always gonna be a guy that's just freaking awesome shot, right? But you know, when I was, time to walk up, this is calling it competition. I just almost called it competition, but it is, you're like competing like, okay. You and me life and I, at the, at that moment, I'd be like, cool. I'm gonna kick your ass like a life sucks. Like I'm gonna, and it would just be that enough to be like, just, it's enough to let go of the, the, of the pressure and just be like, I got this. So we're at Total Archery Challenge and I had this in my head the whole time. So every time, and these are freaking stupid shots, hundred yards, freaking seventy,

• 1:40:52Jocko Willink?

  what was that? Seventy-three yard freaking white rabbit like, and you and me both hit that bad boy, but like I'm walking up to the line like, watch this, like step aside and. It really did help. There's the best I've ever shot at TAC and it's the least prepared I've been. It was the least prepared I've been at TAC and the best I've ever shot. And it's because I consciously now was telling myself, watch this. Oh, you got this. I'm gonna smoke this thing. Leif's gonna look like an idiot when I get done with this. Like, what do you got, Dudley? Like, just all this. And you know what? And you can see Dudley do that, too. You can see Dudley has a little switch that flips where someone will talk shit to him. And all of a sudden, he looks like a little bit different. And you're like, oh, he's gonna murder this target.

• 1:41:37Jocko Willink?

  I had a guy that was a, I was on a ship with. And, you know, I was a radio man. This guy worked in the radio room. And, you know, we're talking, because I'm building relationships. I'm talking to him. He's like, yeah, you know, I played AA ball or AAA ball. Which one's higher? He was like just underneath the major leagues in baseball. I forget which one it is, AAA, AA, but he was just underneath the major leagues in baseball. And, you know, in the Navy, I don't know if it's like this in Marine Corps, but in the Navy, every, just about every dude could have been, you know, a contender, you know, could have been a professional, could have, you know, had scholarships, but blah, blah, blah, blah. So I'm figuring he's one of these guys. And he's like, yeah, you know, he's like, I'm gonna try again when I get back. I'm gonna try and make another run at it.

• 1:42:21Jocko Willink?

  He's like, do you, can you catch for me? And I was like, well, I was like, dude, I suck at baseball, but, you know, I got a buddy. And as a matter of fact, it's the same buddy I was talking about earlier, the visor wearer. I was like, yeah, one of my buddies is a sick athlete. Now I'm sure he'd do it. And so he goes, yeah, meet me up. And I hooked them up. And he, the guy traveled with a catcher's mitt, just so he could pitch, because he's a pitcher. And so I walk up with my buddy, because this guy's gonna meet him on the flight deck and pitch to him. And dude, this guy's a kind of a dorky looking radio man, like stuck inside all day, pale white, like. And he comes walking out and he's got like a baseball hat on and the fat dip in.

• 1:43:00Jocko Willink?

  And he looked like a totally different person. And I was like, oh, this dude's, this dude's a badass. And sure enough, like, I couldn't have caught the pitches that he was throwing. He's ripping those things at 90 miles an hour. So that little bit of confidence.

• 1:43:15Jocko Willink?

  At the moment of execution is a powerful thing and it lets you get into the mode of, I think it lets you let go of worry, right? Cause you're like, oh, what if I blow this shot again? Freaking Leif's gonna make fun of me and Dudley's gonna think I'm an idiot and the freaking photographers here. Like all that stuff could be going through your head or you just be like, are you filming? Cause you're gonna wanna catch this.

• 1:43:41Leif Babin?

  Here's a free lesson.

• 1:43:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so that's a, that's a good thing and it doesn't just work for you. Yeah.

• 1:43:47Leif Babin?

  You let, you let me in on that little secret, uh, right after you made this ridiculous shot. I think it was like, it was like a, it was like an 84 yard bomb through like two trees. And I think I just shellacked one of the trees and uh, cause everyone's like talking smack over my shoulder. Cause that definitely gets in your head and you, you got up there and there was smack talk coming at you too. And you just, you just slid it right in there, freaking nailed the target. And I was like, that was a freaking money shot. And you, you said, I gotta let you in on the secret. And as I thought about that, I'm like, that's, that's a really powerful thing because it really, there, there is something in, when you're, when you're second guessing yourself at the moment of execution, it does not help you at all.

• 1:44:31Jocko Willink?

  Terrible.

• 1:44:32Leif Babin?

  Second guessing yourself about whether or not you're fully prepared in, in the weeks and months up to something. Sure, that's great. Push yourself hard. But in that moment of execution, to be able to clear your mind and execute with confidence. I think, I think it's a really powerful tactic to employ.

• 1:44:47Jocko Willink?

  And, and for instance, right now, I could be like, yo, I shot so good at TAC. Uh, you know, I'm freaking good to go. That's the, that's the disease of victory, right? That's like, oh, I'm good to go. That, that's what I, I, I will not do that. I'm gonna shoot even harder than I ever have. Cause these are sort of like my month's getting ready for September right now. I could easily go, oh, you know, I'm freaking kinda dialed this year. You know what I mean? It'd be so easy to do that. But that, then what will the results be? The results will be freaking a disaster on game day. So, don't, you gotta, once you switch that on and when you're done, cool. Go back to, just like we go on an operation, we're confident going out there. Maybe even just borderline a little bit cocky. We get back, what do we do? What can we do better? What mistakes do we make?

• 1:45:32Jocko Willink?

  How can we improve? So you gotta flip that switch, little bit of, little bit of confidence, up the confidence a little bit. As soon as you get done, go right back to where you were. Humble. Start working.

• 1:45:44Jocko Willink?

  I think this is the last thing I want to talk about when it comes to when it comes to culture and that is what I call material items and we've talked about it a little bit already. These are like, these are the t-shirts, these are the patches, these are the the the uniforms, the material things that represent the culture and unify the culture. And I got another piece in here from Hackworth. And you know, this is a part of, it's a part of About Face that I haven't talked about too much. And this is when, when Hackworth is in Vietnam, he stood up an element that was called the Tigers. And there's a bunch of controversy about them. They ended up with like war crime charges after he left. I haven't gone into

• 1:46:27Jocko Willink?

  much detail on my bottom, but they're a huge part. It's just one of the many parts of About Face that there's, you know, 850 pages in there and I just haven't covered it all on the podcast. But in in one of those things, he talks about this, uh, this, he was also very fond of snipers, which is where I got all my fondness for snipers. So he he had set up a sniper program in one of these battalions. He says this, as with Night Hunter, the daytime sniper program was tremendously successful. The result of it all was that the snipers, like the Tigers before them in the 1327, became my pets. I called them my little babies and showered them with attention and recognition for their contribution

• 1:47:12Jocko Willink?

  to the battalion's efforts. I even gave them their own uniforms, camouflage, tiger stripe, with the added touch of black berets with a red ricondo patch sewed on.

• 1:47:26Jocko Willink?

  So what are you doing? Why is Hackworth doing this? Why didn't Leif and his little arguments to me with Seth when they'd go, why didn't they pull it? See, they, if I give them About Face, they'd be like, hey, Jocko, Hackworth said patches good to go. I would have been like, hmm, you know, good point. Let's do it. But, you know, they didn't quite get there. But that's the thing. And, you know, we also write about, hey, it's not about what you hang on your wall. It's not about the PowerPoint that you make. But you have to remember that these material things are not just words, they're part, they can become part of your culture. They, they can absolutely become part, part of your

• 1:48:03Jocko Willink?

  culture. So, things like t-shirts, things like baseball hats, things like patches, things like coins. I mean, there's people that are obsessive with coins, or with patches, or with baseball hats, or with t-shirts, all these things. And you can make them mean something. You really can. My, uh, kid, my son went to a camp. It doesn't exist anymore, unfortunately, because it was freaking outstanding. J-Rob intensive wrestling camps. And at J-Rob, you would, the whole goal is to get this shirt. Get a t-shirt, a freaking t-shirt that says,

• 1:48:45Jocko Willink?

  "I did it." That's what it says. You get a t-shirt that says, "I did it." You're not guaranteed that t-shirt. And they have, they grade you the whole time. There's demerit you get. You have to, you can't miss so, so-and-so stuff. Like, it's, it's, it's hard to get the shirt. I don't know what the percentage is, but it's, you're not guaranteed the shirt at all. My kid had, uh, like a badly sprained ankle going there. And it didn't get any better while he's wrestling three times a day and doing conditioning. So, the last thing you have to do to get the shirt was you have to do a 12-mile run. And there's no time limit, but you just gotta complete it. And so, I was talking to him, and his ankle's been hurting the whole time, and he's been taping it up and everything, and

• 1:49:28Jocko Willink?

  trying to push through. And now he's gotta do a 12-mile run on a bum ankle. And I'm talking to him at night, and I said, "You know, how are you doing?" And he said, "Oh, I'm doing okay." And I said, "How's your ankle?" And he says, "Oh, it's hurt bad." And I said, "What are you gonna do?" And he said, "I'm gonna tape it up so it can't move, and I'm gonna do that fucking run."

• 1:49:50Jocko Willink?

  And sure enough, he went out there, you know, whatever, and knocked out that 12 miles on on that on that bad, bad leg. Why? Cause he wanted that T-shirt. He wanted that T-shirt. And so what are you doing? What's your culture? What do you, what are you doing inside your own? I mean, think about getting a trident. Like, it may not seem like a big deal, you know, but when you were young,

• 1:50:20Jocko Willink?

  man, like, that's a big deal. You get your trident?

• 1:50:24Jocko Willink?

  Eagle Globe and Anchor?

• 1:50:25Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:50:26Jocko Willink?

  What's up with that, dude?

• 1:50:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. So all through boot camp, you can't wear the Marine Corps insignia on your uniform outside of the one that's stitched on the cover. And on graduation day of boot camp, your drill instructor hands you your first Eagle Globe and Anchor that you can wear on your uniform. And it's a big deal.

• 1:50:46Jocko Willink?

  Do they give that after the crucible now?

• 1:50:48Speaker 01

  I believe so. I think they've changed it up since.

• 1:50:50Jocko Willink?

  Cause I've seen a bunch of muddy dudes with tears in their eyes.

• 1:50:54Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm not opposed to that. You know, the crucible, I think was a week or two before you, you graduate boot camp. So it's right there at the end of the line of training. So I, you know, that, that seems appropriate to me too. Plus the, the level of like, just in the game you are after the crucible too. I can definitely see that.

• 1:51:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Well, this is like, that's, that's the call, right?

• 1:51:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:19Jocko Willink?

  You get them, you got them freaking broken down. You got them fatigued, sleep deprivation, emotionally freaking at their lowest. And then you roll in with that EGA and a hand salute. Bro, yeah. You're ready to rock and roll. USMC Semper Fi.

• 1:51:39Speaker 01

  I, I will say that at graduation, when I got mine, uh, it was pretty powerful because you've got your platoon with you. You've got the people in the stands. You've got family there and stuff. And it's, it's pretty powerful that way too. I will say.

• 1:51:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah, pretty legit. So, what are you doing? Are you making patches? Leif Babin's over there making freaking patches for Tasking the Bruiser.

• 1:52:01Leif Babin?

  Heck yeah. I mean, I think if it, it means something, right? If they just handed you an Eagle Globe and Anchor, it wouldn't really mean anything. But you know, you actually, hey, man, you went through the, the toughest boot camp, you know, of any US military service. I think that's pretty generally widely accepted that Marine Corps boot camp is, sets the standard there. So, it means something, man. You go through BUDs, you know, and then SQT and Graduate, get your trident. It took you a year and a half to get that thing, you know, with a 70, 80% attrition rate. Like, it means something. And I think that when you create something around that, it's part of that unique identity. It's part of that unique culture. It gives you some idea of like, hey, we're different. We're separate. I think that's what it was for us, for the patches, really.

• 1:52:44Leif Babin?

  That's why we violated your order. There's not too many direct orders I've gotten from Jocko, ever. And they're certainly not, not, I don't, I don't recall any other time where I've directly violated an order that you told me. But when Seth and I came up, you know, with this idea of like, hey, we should get some patches made. You know, when I threw it out there to him as an idea, I didn't actually know what he was gonna say. I, I thought he might be like, "Dude, Jocko said no, man, we can't do it." You know, and, and it's, and he was like, "Dude, we gotta freaking do it." And, and we did it because, you know, if I think about, I never really, I didn't really give it a lot of thought at the time about dissect why that was important to us. But it was important to us because we knew that this was a unique and historic unit

• 1:53:29Leif Babin?

  that we were a part of. We wanted to have that identity. We wanted to actually go have some impact on the battlefield. You know, and I felt like a unit patch would be really important to that. So, I, I think, you know, when you're thinking about building the culture of your team, you know, what are those things that you can do? We've seen some of our clients, you know, where they, they've got stickers for their hard hats, you know, that they're, and you gotta earn that Extreme Ownership sticker. You gotta earn that Cover Move sticker. You know, when, when you actually do something that sets a standard, it means something. And you get recognized in front of your peers and, and put something like that on your uniform. I think that gives, that just creates part of that culture so that people know, this is what the standard is. This is what good looks like. I want to aspire to actually get that. And, and I think it's, it's a very powerful thing.

• 1:54:14Leif Babin?

  I, I don't remember the exact quote, but- Napoleon, but he said something along the lines of it's amazing what a man will do for a worthless piece of cloth. When he's talking about a ribbon that's being awarded to you for your valor on the battlefield, you went and put your life on the line, or even maybe even gave your life and you're getting recognized with this kind of worthless piece of cloth that actually costs nothing, or you know, and yet this is the public recognition of, hey, here's what I did to actually earn that thing. I want to earn that thing. I want to actually be special. I want to be unique. I think there's something really powerful in that.

• 1:54:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And, and you could, this is the cool thing. You can create this. You can create these kinds of things inside your organization. And all these things that we're talking about will help you create a culture, a strong culture. It will help define who you are, what you do, and how you do it. And if you have a strong culture, it is one of the most powerful things that you can have inside an organization. So build it and protect it. That's culture.

• 1:55:28Jocko Willink?

  Uh, speaking of building, we're trying to build up, right? We're trying to get stronger?

• 1:55:34Speaker 01

  Always.

• 1:55:35Jocko Willink?

  Always trying to get stronger. If you need to get stronger, you're going to need the right fuel. We recommend you use Jocko Fuel. Get yourself some mulk. Get yourself some energy drink. What do you, what flavor you got over there, Leif?

• 1:55:53Leif Babin?

  I got, uh, I got a little sour apple sniper right now, representing for JP Denell.

• 1:55:58Jocko Willink?

  That's the, um, yeah, sour apple. I'm on the tactical tea train, which Kerry has entered the train. You, you're on board the train.

• 1:56:06Speaker 01

  I'm on board the train.

• 1:56:07Jocko Willink?

  What happened?

• 1:56:08Speaker 01

  So I've been going through kind of cycles. I was on the orange train for a long time. And then I got on the pink mist train.

• 1:56:18Jocko Willink?

  Okay. Yeah, I can see that.

• 1:56:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. And now the wave is the, the 50 50 tactical.

• 1:56:22Jocko Willink?

  Underrated, under recognized.

• 1:56:25Speaker 01

  Under recognized for sure.

• 1:56:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And it's because we, we made the flavors better. And like, I loved the old one, but some people didn't love the old one. And maybe they shied away from it. But if you like, if you like that Arnold Palmer, and let's face it, bro, let's face it, an Arnold Palmer. It's good.

• 1:56:43Leif Babin?

  It's summertime too.

• 1:56:44Jocko Willink?

  It's summertime.

• 1:56:45Leif Babin?

  I think that might be playing into it. It's July.

• 1:56:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's July. We're going summertime. Arnold Palmer. Salute to Arnold Palmer. Salute. He was like, hey, give me some tea, put some lemonade in it. That's what we're doing. So, good call. But I said, yeah, that's, that's, if I'm out, when I'm drinking, when I'm drinking, that's what I'm drinking. Like if Leif's like, hey, let's go get crazy tonight. I'm like, cool. I have an Arnold Palmer at the bar, right? Tastes freaking good, man.

• 1:57:11Leif Babin?

  Actually, what you normally order is iced tea, unsweetened iced tea with a shot of lemonade. Just a shot.

• 1:57:17Jocko Willink?

  Just a shot. Shot of lemonade.

• 1:57:19Leif Babin?

  I gotta, I gotta say though, man, the, the fifty fifty tackle is tasty. Obviously, citrus psycho is my flavor and that's my go to. But I love to mix it up and it's, that's, that is a close second there. I usually rotate between that, the fifty fifty tactical, citrus psycho and like pink, pink mist.

• 1:57:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:38Leif Babin?

  And the, the Dax Savage is always good.

• 1:57:40Jocko Willink?

  These are all good, man. And it's nice, like, you could probably figure out a rotation, like, working out where you're like, look, tactical tea, tactical tea, tactical tea, pink mist, tactical, tactical tea, tactical tea, citrus psycho. Like, you could figure out a good rotation where you're just.

• 1:57:55Leif Babin?

  In Texas, it's been frigging a hundred degrees. So like the, the ice cold fifty fifty tactical is good. I tell you what else is good. Ice cold is the tropic thunder.

• 1:58:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's just freaking tasty. Yeah. So anyways, jockofuel.com, get yourself some Molk, some RTDs. God, those things are good. And they're, look, honestly, they're a little too convenient, right? They're a little too convenient because you got that RTD and you know, you can get thirty grams of protein in fourteen seconds. Just get jacked. You're just, let's go. There's a little bit, when you have to work for it a little bit, when you gotta get the shaker, you know, when you're doing that whole gig, maybe you, but when you got that thirty, thirty grams at a cap twist, boom, it's going down the hatch.

• 1:58:41Leif Babin?

  It's awesome, but it actually, I mean, man, if I've been tracking the macros and it's, unless you're just gonna eat freaking ground turkey and bison all the time, like it's, it's hard to hit that. You know, it's hard to hit that freaking two hundred grams of protein. And those RTDs are awesome for that. Just hammer one down, post jiu jitsu roll or coming out of the, um, coming out of the CrossFit gym.

• 1:59:03Jocko Willink?

  It almost feels like cheating, you know, because it's supposed to be harder to get protein.

• 1:59:07Leif Babin?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 1:59:08Jocko Willink?

  Right?

• 1:59:08Leif Babin?

  That's true.

• 1:59:09Jocko Willink?

  Meat. Mixing up the milkshake, it almost feels like it should be harder.

• 1:59:14Speaker 01

  It's weird.

• 1:59:15Jocko Willink?

  Have you ever done, cause this is sort of become sort of a protocol for me. Get done like on a Saturday, Sunday, wake up, lift, run, come to jujitsu. Go on the way to jujitsu, which I know is technically cheating, kind of maybe a little bit. Get there, train, get done, milk cookie, milk. There's 44 grams of protein, done. Like we're done. And you know what's interesting about that is then you're, you feel full. You don't feel, and this is after a workout, run and then jujitsu. Like this is a lot of energy expended. So you're going to be hungry, but you go and get that much protein in you. And you're like, oh, I'm good to go.

• 1:59:54Jocko Willink?

  Which means the afternoon, you're not like just food coma from a freaking slab of meat in a bun, whatever. You know what I mean? That'll put you down. You'll be like, yo, you're like Sunday after Saturday afternoon, Sunday afternoon. You got podcasts to prep and you're like looking at the freaking computer and it's starting like the eyes are getting heavy. Cause you just ate whatever, a pound and a half of freaking meat. No, you're feeling, you're just like light stomach, boom, 44 grams of protein, good to go. That's, that's my recommendation. That's my recommendation out there. Uh, yeah. Jocko Fuel.com, go get it. We got everything that you need. You got joint warfare, super krill, vitamin D3, cold war. Dude, time war, time war.

• 2:00:38Jocko Willink?

  I got being out on the road, Jocko Live, got a lot of reports on time war. Just that, that redirection of life, that being on step. That I feel good now, which is a, which is a very broad statement to make and I can attest to it. Like, oh, I feel good now. That's what I feel like. So check it out. We got it for you there. Uh, wah wah, you can get it at vitamin shop, GNC, we're in the military commissaries. I was telling some military folks the other day, just, just grab one. We're, we're going in the exchanges right now, like the NEX, which is a big deal. Cause I know all you freaking 24 year old Marines, you're not shopping at the commissary.

• 2:01:21Jocko Willink?

  All you 18 year old soldiers, you're not going to the commissary. That's too much planning, but you're definitely stopping by the exchange. The, you, you know, 21 year old sailor coming back from a, a, a three week exercise, you're not going to the commissary. That's like a big deal, but you're going to the NEX. So we're in there. Afees, Hanaford, Dash Doors, Maryland, Wake Fern, Shop Right, HEB. How are we representing?

• 2:01:49Leif Babin?

  Representing Strong and HEB.

• 2:01:52Jocko Willink?

  Tejas.

• 2:01:53Leif Babin?

  Good times.

• 2:01:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Like, uh, end caps and stuff, like it's on. So the reason it's on, the reason that we're, we're able to do that in HEB is because you all down there in Tejas are just getting after it. So appreciate it. Same thing with Meyer up in the Midwest. Same thing. Like you guys are crushing it. So that's a huge deal. Harris Teeter, another one. Appreciate it. Lifetime Fitness, Shields. And, and by the way, small gyms out there, jujitsu gyms, CrossFit gyms. If you want to, if you want your people to get better and give them every advantage you can, email [email protected] and we can, we can hook you up. You can start to sell stuff inside your store. That's, there you go. jockofuel.com. Check it out.

• 2:02:36Leif Babin?

  That's actually, uh, both still a jujitsu, our jujitsu gym and, and well as CrossFit Second Wave, our CrossFit gym. They got, they got all the Jocko products right there. So you get done pre, pre-workout, get, uh, jump on the train, the mole train post-workout. It's awesome.

• 2:02:51Jocko Willink?

  So we got, this is, this is Leif Babin protocol. You got CrossFit Second Wave, which is in Dripping Springs, Texas, right? That's, that's where you're training your physical fitness. And then you've got Stoic Jujitsu, which by the way, we just did a podcast with Ryan Holiday. I, I didn't even mention Stoic. I talked to him about it, but it wasn't, we weren't recording.

• 2:03:12Speaker 01

  Correct. This was after the podcast.

• 2:03:15Jocko Willink?

  Or we already wrapped it up. So stoic jujitsu also in dripping springs. Is it in dripping springs?

• 2:03:19Speaker 01

  Dripping springs.

• 2:03:20Jocko Willink?

  So you can, you can train that jujitsu. You can train that CrossFit. Go get a friend together. Go get, go get an Anna together. Go get a Grace together. Go get one of those workouts. Go get it and, and, and help yourself. You know, Leif, I know you've, you've gone through some like injuries.

• 2:03:38Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 2:03:38Jocko Willink?

  And you know, you and I have talked about that. And the attitude is when you hurt, when your back is hurt and you can't deadlift, the idea isn't I can't deadlift. The idea is I have to get back to deadlifting. When you hurt your shoulder, the idea isn't, oh, I can't do shoulder presses. The idea is I need to get back to shoulder. Get out the PVC. I'm no stranger. I was talking about this with Burt's horn. Like I'll get out the PVC all day. Oh, I can't, I can't do an overhead press right now with any weight because my shoulder's tweaked. Cool. Where's the PVC? I'm going to try and keep that mobility up. And this is something that I need to focus on right now. Because my mobility right now sucks.

• 2:04:20Jocko Willink?

  And so I've been trying to open that game back up. And it takes a while. You blow it off and I'm, I'm the worst. I have the worst attitude. Stretching bores me. It makes me mad. I don't like it. I'd rather throw something, hit something, choke something. It's so far down on my list of pleasure in life, but it's what I need to do. So that's what you gotta do. You got a, a little issue, work through it. Do what you can. And that's the cool thing about CrossFit. You can, you can adapt to what's happening. Oh, you can't do a heavy deadlift right now? Okay, that's cool. You can do burpees instead. Or you can't do an overhead press right now because your shoulder's tweaked? That's okay. Do a one arm snatch with the other arm that's working.

• 2:05:02Jocko Willink?

  So that's what you gotta do. You gotta scale these things, but the worst thing you can do is get off the bus and stay off the bus. Same thing with jujitsu. Same thing with jujitsu. You look, sometimes you gotta get off the bus, right? You going, I just did.

• 2:05:17Jocko Willink?

  It was two weeks ago, I was gone for like four straight weeks off the bus. Like I didn't train, I was on the road. I think I trained twice. And then I came back and it was like, I got back on a Friday night and I know what I was staring at. Cause Saturday, you know, you know, it's on Saturday. So I'm like, okay. I see the bus and there's all kinds of reasons not to get it back on. Cause you know, you haven't been training and the guys are already, and you're freaking tired and you've been on the road and all these excuses. To not get on the bus. I'm going to tell you right now, get on the freaking bus, get back on the bus. Same thing with your whole workout program. Oh, you couldn't do something as you were tired, you were hurt, you were sick, you were hurt. Cool. Get back on the bus. Dude, my back's tweaked right now.

• 2:06:02Jocko Willink?

  I, today I posted dealing with it. I'm sure people have no idea what I'm talking about. But you know what I did? I freaking did what I could. I couldn't do my normal workout, but I went in there and did what I could. That's what I'm gonna do. And it's not like I've got some major back, you've got a freaking little tweak. I'm not going to tweak it worse, but I'm, I'm not going to sit around and just let it freeze up and lock up and let, let the, let the, the clock keep ticking. So that's what we're doing. What do you got?

• 2:06:27Leif Babin?

  And nobody cares. No, nobody cares if you've not been on the bus. Nobody noticed.

• 2:06:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:06:32Leif Babin?

  Nobody even, it's you in your brain thinking somebody cares about you not being on the bus.

• 2:06:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:38Leif Babin?

  Nobody even noticed, bro.

• 2:06:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there's two ego things going on. Number one, oh, now I'm going to get tapped out by freaking Fred because he's been, I've been gone. That's part of your ego. The other part of you goes, do you think Fred cares? You think that Fred's been watching and plotting on you? He doesn't care. Fred's worried about Fred and I'm worried about you. So get back on the bus, people.

• 2:06:56Leif Babin?

  That, you know, you mentioned me having a bunch of injuries and I think that's the, the worst thing that you can do is, is the not, not train. I mean, I think, you know, the do what you can, like you were just talking about with, with Peter T on, on the podcast, uh, that he was on with you. I think that's, you gotta do what you can and that's, that's been something that's game changer for me. Um, and it gets me back in the gym. If I gotta scale it or I gotta do something different in the workout, like cool, no, no big deal. Um, I gotta tell you, man, too, speaking of Jocko Fuel products though, if, if I'm, you know, if I'm hitting that krill oil, you know, uh, or the joint warfare stuff, that makes a massive difference. I've noticed that so much when I'm off of it.

• 2:07:35Leif Babin?

  And, uh, it, it is something that just, it enables me to keep going to get after it and, and just to stay on the path. It's, that's been a huge, a huge one.

• 2:07:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, those, those products you can, those are some of our most highly subscribed, actually Joint Warfare is our most subscribed product. So people that just are gonna be, they're on that, they're on that train, there's a reason for it. It's exactly what you said. When you go off of it, you feel it. So get on the bus, get on Jocko Fuel, let's go, rock and roll. Also, originusa.com. We're making stuff in America. And this, it was very interesting talking to Ryan Holiday about this and what happened with American Apparel. And, you know, he understood so clearly the idea of greenwashing. Have you, you know what greenwashing is? I do. So greenwashing is, hey, we have, we have a company, we make shirts.

• 2:08:26Jocko Willink?

  And we give 1% of our profit or 3% of our profit to environmental causes because we love the environment. And you go, oh, wow, that's really nice. Where do you make your shirts? And they're like, oh, we make them in China, we make them in Bangladesh, wherever, where a place where there's no environmental protection whatsoever. That's what they're doing. So they, they destroy the environment and then throw a little 1% Band-Aid on it. It's called greenwashing. It's lies. That's what it is. And we're not doing that at Origin USA. And they do the same thing with their workers. I, I read some freaking little, little, uh, little, uh, catalog, online catalog. And it was like, and our, and our workers earn a fair wage.

• 2:09:11Jocko Willink?

  According to who? According to Mao Zedong? Is that what we're doing? Is that who is according to? You know, a fair wage? Bullshit. You're liars. And then you, and then you call and you try and make it sound like you're, you're, you're, you're doing the right thing. You're not, you're full of shit. If you really, truly, this is the facts, if they really, truly wanted to do the right thing, if they really, truly cared about the environment, if they really, truly cared about people and workers, they would not manufacture that stuff overseas. Period, end of story. Period, end of story. They would not do it. They don't give a shit and they try and make like they do. They're liars. We actually care about workers. We care about America. We care about the security and national security in this country. And we care about the environment. That's why we make it 100% here in America.

• 2:09:55Jocko Willink?

  So go to originusa.com and get.

• 2:10:00Jocko Willink?

  Workout gear, get jujitsu gear, get hunt gear, get blue jeans, get rash guards, t-shirts, boots, get what you need, but get it from a place that is actually backing up and doing what we talk about, not throwing 1% and, and, and virtue signaling that how great we are because they're full of shit. So that's originusa.com. Go, it's national security, by the way. It's national security. You buy a pair of jeans, you want to help, you, oh, you want to protect freedom? Cool. Go buy a pair of jeans. That's not, that is not a stretch. That is a fact. You

• 2:10:42Jocko Willink?

  are helping the national security of this country. You're helping the freedom of this country. You're helping people not be in slavery around the world. So, originusa.com, go get some.

• 2:10:56Speaker 01

  Also, if you want to represent on the path, go to JacoStore.com, get yourself some Discipline Equals Freedom gear. Check out that Shirt Locker subscription. We've got a new shirt every month coming out with different layers portrayed by Echo Charles.

• 2:11:11Leif Babin?

  Those Shirt Locker, those Shirt Locker shirts are legit, man. So, those are awesome.

• 2:11:15Jocko Willink?

  And there's a little cultural activity going on there, right? There's a cultural activity. When I was at Jocko Live and I looked out and just see Shirt Locker shirts, people representing on the path, that's what we're doing. And you know, you know, you can't have that Discipline Equals Freedom t-shirt and miss a workout. You know you can't do it because it's a little peer pressure from us, from all of us. We're in the game. Get in the game. JacoStore.com, go get it.

• 2:11:40Speaker 01

  Is this a material item?

• 2:11:42Jocko Willink?

  It's a material item, 100%.

• 2:11:43Speaker 01

  Reinforce the culture.

• 2:11:44Jocko Willink?

  Reinforce the culture. Bond with your teammates. What team are you on? We're on the get after it team.

• 2:11:50Speaker 01

  Def core.

• 2:11:51Jocko Willink?

  Yes. We're on the Def core team. What team are you on, by the way? Are you on the Slack team? Is that the team you're on? Because we're over here on the Def core team.

• 2:12:00Jocko Willink?

  Get in the game. JacoStore.com.

• 2:12:04Jocko Willink?

  Subscribe to the podcast. Subscribe to Jocko Underground, JacoUnderground.com. Subscribe to the YouTube. We got Echelon Front YouTube channel. We've got Jocko Podcast YouTube channel. We got Jocko Fuel YouTube channel. We got Origin USA YouTube channel. They're all different stuff. You want to know what's going on inside of these various worlds? Check them out. FlipsideCanvas.com. Dakota Meyer, he's making cool stuff to hang on your wall. He's making material items to hang on your wall to keep you on the freaking path. We got a bunch of books. You know them all. If you need books, get them. And get those kid books. Get the books for the kids. I signed so many kids books at Jocko Live and there was probably,

• 2:12:47Jocko Willink?

  I don't know, maybe a total of 20 Warrior Kids. Ton of Warrior Kids. That showed up, asked questions, freaking legit, outstanding. You can tell that these kids are going to do better in life because they are on the Warrior Kid path. Hundred percent. I guarantee it. I guarantee it. So get those books for your kids. Hackworth, we read a little Extreme Ownership today, Dichotomy of Leadership. You know the books. Go get them. Echelon Front, we have a leadership consultancy. We solve problems through leadership. That's what we do. We go inside your organization. We can help you build culture. We can help align your leadership. We can help solve whatever problems you have. Hey, what am I talking about? What do you mean, Jocko? You can solve whatever problems we have. How can

• 2:13:31Jocko Willink?

  you do that? We can do that through leadership. Because whatever problems you have, it's a leadership problem. So go to EchelonFront.com if you need our help in whatever organization you're in and whatever problems you're having. Also, we have live events. Next one, we have the muster in Dallas, but it's sold out. We just posted, it's sold out. So Dallas muster. Next one's gonna be in San Diego, right? Dago? We're coming back to Jocko's AO, my area of operations. If you want to come to one of those musters, check it out. EchelonFront.com. We also have the FTX. JP's running a bunch of those back to back down in Texas. We have

• 2:14:16Jocko Willink?

  Battlefield coming up. I think it's sold out. You can check. There might be a couple spots left for Little Big Horn checking out that Battlefield.

• 2:14:26Jocko Willink?

  Lot of lessons learned there. Lot of lessons learned. And then also, we have the Women's Assembly. We got Jamie Cochran, the COO of Echelon Front. She is running a Women's Assembly in September, September 14th through 16th in Phoenix, Arizona. And if you didn't hear her on the podcast, when she initially said she wanted to do this, I was like negative because the principles are the same. But what I realized, I looked at it from a jujitsu perspective, and there have been many, many, many women over the years that didn't want to get on, they didn't connect with what that jujitsu thing was. They didn't want to get on the freaking mats with Kerry Hilton, or Jocko, or Echo, or Leif. That looked like, I don't know what's

• 2:15:08Jocko Willink?

  going on, but I don't think that looks, that's not, that's not for me. But that Women's Class, all of a sudden, they go, okay, I see that. I see what's going on. Oh, there's something, you can learn techniques. Okay. And then once they come in the Women's Class, then they start to understand jujitsu. It opens the door. Next thing you know, they're choking Kerry Hilton.

• 2:15:24Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 2:15:25Jocko Willink?

  That's what's going down. So same thing here. An opportunity to check these things out from Jamie Cochran's perspective. She's an outstanding leader across the board in her own right. So you can go learn from her and some of the other women on the Echelon Front team. We also have an online training academy, extremeownership.com. These are skills. Leadership is a skill. And it may not seem like it. And if you're, it may not seem like it, just like it may not seem like fighting is a skill. Like you think, oh, I can just, when I see red, no one can beat me. No, they can beat you. As a matter of fact, 140 pound dude that

• 2:16:05Jocko Willink?

  knows jujitsu can beat you. But I'm 210 pounds. Yep. Then you'll get beat. You'll get choked out. These are skills. Leadership is a skill. And it's a skill that you use in everything that you do. It's a skill that you use, even if you're the lowest ranking person in your organization, you're still in a leadership position because you have to interact with your peers and you have to lead your boss. And even if you're the lowest ranking person in your organization, guess what you still have?

• 2:16:34Jocko Willink?

  A girlfriend, a boyfriend, a wife, a husband, a couple of kids,

• 2:16:40Jocko Willink?

  a little league team, the parent teachers association. You're interacting with other people. That's what you're doing. And it is an actual skill to do that. And if you don't have these skills, you don't know what you're doing. And you're going to get choked out by a 140 pound individual. Don't let it happen.

• 2:17:01Speaker 01

  We've got two new courses on there.

• 2:17:03Jocko Willink?

  What are they?

• 2:17:03Speaker 01

  The read back and the debrief with you and Carlos Mendez.

• 2:17:06Jocko Willink?

  Okay, there you go. Two new courses. And listen, I said this on the last one, at a minimum, at a minimum, please, go and take the free courses that we've got on there. Go and take the extreme ownership framework. Go and take that course so you can understand. This is going to help in everything that you do. In everything that you do. This is like, I'm going to give you $6,000 cash right now. What if I was like, hey, Kerry, is this going to help you if I give you $6,000 cash?

• 2:17:35Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:17:35Jocko Willink?

  Leif, can I give you $6,000 cash? Is that going to be helpful to you?

• 2:17:37Speaker 01

  Bring it on.

• 2:17:38Jocko Willink?

  Is that going to help some part of your life? You go and take this free course, just take $6,000 cash, put it in your pocket. Cause that's what it's like. You all of a sudden, you're going to get help. You're going to be able to help with the things that you do. Your life is going to get a little bit better. Maybe it might even get a lot better. There's people that have, there's people that when they, when they, when they see extreme ownership and they actually comprehend it. There's people that it doesn't just change their life a little bit. It transforms their existence. I just met 30 people like that during the live events. 30 people that came up to me and in 28 seconds, said that this information transformed their life. Transformed the way that they are living their life.

• 2:18:23Jocko Willink?

  They got promoted, they kept their marriage together. They got a better relationship with their kid, on and on and on and on.

• 2:18:30Jocko Willink?

  So at a minimum, just go take those free classes. They're on there, please. I'm giving it to you, please take it. Don't want anything else from you, just go take that because it's going to make your life better.

• 2:18:41Jocko Willink?

  Extreme ownership.com. Go check it out.

• 2:18:43Leif Babin?

  I think one thing I love so much about Extreme Ownership Academy, you know, these online courses, they're, they're interactive, you know, and they dive so deep into these principles. People, you know, loved Extreme Ownership and these concepts that are in there. And yet we break down each chapter, you know, with a course there and all the, the other course that come out, the debrief course, you know, and, and the relationships course, all these other courses that, that, uh, the read back, the course that we released, it's breaking down some small detail that got mentioned in the book, but really expanded on that and going deep. And then talking about how it applies in a real world scenario. And we do those, those, those, uh, role plays where we talk about what to do and what not to do, which is sometimes the most helpful thing, you know, to learn. So, uh, I think those, those courses are, uh,

• 2:19:28Leif Babin?

  uh, I have, I have been deeply impressed by the amount of information that can be conveyed and how you can actually test someone's knowledge about whether or not they, they understand it, you know, through these courses. So definitely it is a massive resource. As you've said, it's probably the, the best kept secret we have at Echelon Front, that Extreme Ownership Academy is, uh, this is something that can absolutely change the game for you to help you understand these principles and how to apply them in your life.

• 2:19:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Extreme ownership.com. Go check it out. That's all I'm saying. And if you want to help service members, active and retired, you want to help their families, you want to help Gold Star families, check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. She's got an amazing charity organization. We know, like everyone at this table right now, Carrie, Leif, myself, we know personally, people that have gone through Mama Lee's programs and it has transformed their lives. So if you want to help a veteran, go to Americas Mighty Warriors.org and donate

• 2:20:34Jocko Willink?

  or get involved however you can. And also don't forget about Micah Fink. He's up there with Heroes and Horses.org. What's the latest report?

• 2:20:44Speaker 01

  Um, I believe Micah did a, uh, flying backflip off of a cliff edge to spear a grizzly in the back of the neck to save a couple of children on the trail.

• 2:20:56Jocko Willink?

  Okay. So this is like a normal day for Micah Fink. He's just out there, uh, doing what he's doing. Seriously, he's up there taking our veterans and first responders up into the wilderness and they are reconnecting with their souls. It's an incredibly powerful thing. He's an incredible guy. If you want to help him out, heroesandhorses.org. And if you want to connect with us on the interwebs, we're on there. Leif is on Twitter @leifbabin. He's on the Gram @realeifbabin. He missed? Missed out, huh? You blew it. You're a little late. A little late to the game on the Gram?

• 2:21:34Leif Babin?

  Actually, I think, I actually think that back in the day when, when you were vehemently against social media and my wife Jenna and our now COO Jamie Cochran conspired to launch your, to, to launch your, your social media for you and you're, even though you're vehemently against it. I, I think that there was one launch for me at that time on the Gram as well, which now no one knows the login. So, so I'm @realeifbabin.

• 2:22:05Jocko Willink?

  So you're @realeifbabin on the Gram. Are you on threads?

• 2:22:09Leif Babin?

  I'm not.

• 2:22:10Jocko Willink?

  Okay. Kerry, speaking of late to the game, Kerry with the underscore. This is like a, this is like both you guys. That's like a, that's the red badge or the scarlet letter, right? The real life, real life babin? That's scarlet letter. Underscore scarlet letter. I'm over here talking shit. I am. Cause guess what I got? @Jocko Willink. That's it. You can't even mess with me. You can't mess with me. I got it. I was in the game and I wasn't even in the game yet. So there you go. How you like them apples? Underscore.

• 2:22:44Speaker 01

  I'm officially putting out the word @Kerry Hilton. I'm coming for you. So, so I'm not taking this from Jocko.

• 2:22:51Jocko Willink?

  So do you think @leifbabin actually exists?

• 2:22:54Leif Babin?

  It does. Yeah.

• 2:22:55Jocko Willink?

  And you think you might have it? I mean, if I got @Jocko Willink, you must have gotten that life.

• 2:23:01Leif Babin?

  I think he was launching at the exact same time, but.

• 2:23:06Leif Babin?

  It was uh

• 2:23:07Jocko Willink?

  This is a bummer dude.

• 2:23:08Leif Babin?

  Too difficult to recover.

• 2:23:10Jocko Willink?

  Uh, are you on threads?

• 2:23:11Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:23:12Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so we got. In the game, are you, are you underscore?

• 2:23:18Speaker 01

  It's, it's connected to the Instagram profile.

• 2:23:20Jocko Willink?

  So you're connected to that underscore. That's gotta be a bummer.

• 2:23:25Speaker 01

  It is kind of a bummer, yeah.

• 2:23:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, just always having to throw that in there.

• 2:23:28Speaker 01

  Just eats at me.

• 2:23:29Jocko Willink?

  Constantly reminded. So you're gonna try and, you coming at Kerry Hilton?

• 2:23:33Speaker 01

  I am.

• 2:23:34Jocko Willink?

  Do you reach out? Who do you, how do you do it?

• 2:23:37Speaker 01

  I, the last time I just DM'd the guy, yeah.

• 2:23:39Jocko Willink?

  Did he respond?

• 2:23:40Speaker 01

  Nah, because he, he hadn't been active in like, you know, years on it or something. So maybe he just left it.

• 2:23:47Jocko Willink?

  Just, just squatting on your soul.

• 2:23:50Leif Babin?

  Dude, keep, keep that underscore, bro. Gives you, gives you character.

• 2:23:56Jocko Willink?

  Nope, you can't make it cool, bro. You can't. All right, yeah, if you want to connect with us, that's where we're at. Just, just be careful. Because as Leif pointed out, I used to be vehemently anti-social media. And I still kind of am. Because I recognize that there is an algorithm in there that's powerful. That's, that the smartest group of engineers they could assemble, get together every day and figure out how to make you spend more time on that thing. That's what they want. That's what they're begging for. That's they're manipulating you. That's what they're doing. So it works. We know that people get addicted to it. We don't want that to happen to you. So just be careful. Just be careful of the algorithm.

• 2:24:41Jocko Willink?

  Keep your, uh, watch your six, because the algorithm is sneaking up on you. And thanks to all the troops that are out there in uniform right now, holding the line. Thank you for what you do to protect us. And the same goes to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, Border Patrol, Secret Service, and all you first responders out there. Thank you for holding the line here at home. And to everyone else out there.

• 2:25:14Jocko Willink?

  Just remember that the way you act and what you do is who you are.

• 2:25:21Jocko Willink?

  Who you are is your culture, your personal culture.

• 2:25:28Jocko Willink?

  That's how you live your life. So be someone you can trust. Be a fighter. Don't allow any slack. At all. Instead, be a hardcore Ricondo.

• 2:25:46Jocko Willink?

  Let that be your culture. Let that be who you are. Let that be what you do and let that be how you do it. November, Foxtrot Sierra. And until next time, this is Leif and Kerry and Jocko. Out.