563: The 3 Traits Every Great Leader Must Have According to Gen. Matthew Ridgway

>Join Jocko Underground Full Episodes< https://app.redcircle.com/shows/64a89f88-a245-4098-8d8d-496325ec4f74/exclusive-content Examining General Matthew Ridgway's timeless leadership principles, exploring the importance of character, courage, competence, and the moral strength to challenge bad decisions. From the battlefields of World War II and Korea to the distractions of modern life, they discuss what it takes to lead effectively, stay prepared, and earn the trust of others. 00:00:00 – General Matthew Ridgway: A Legendary Military Leader 00:05:33 – Is Leadership an Art or a Science? 00:10:03 – The Three Keys to Leadership: Character, Courage, and Competence 00:14:21 – Self-Discipline, Responsibility, and Leading by Example 00:20:41 – Physical Courage vs. Moral Courage 00:28:29 – When Good Leaders Must Challenge Orders 00:36:32 – Physical Fitness as a Leadership Requirement 00:48:38 – Modern Convenience Is Making Us Weak 00:56:32 – Be Ready: Leadership Requires Preparation and Presence 01:01:13 – Knowing Your People, Developing Leaders, and Leading from the Front 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 563 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo.

• 0:05Speaker 01

  Good evening.

• 0:06Jocko Willink?

  General Matthew Bunker Ridgway. Now, the last podcast we did, this name was mentioned briefly, and I kind of did a little, little inquisitive dig on these various individuals that were mentioned. And I thought that this guy immediately goes, hmm, we got some information here. This guy was born in 1895 in Virginia. His dad was an artillery officer, so he's already just a, you know, born into the business. Grew up on military bases, eventually went to West Point. He was manager of the football team.

• 0:44Jocko Willink?

  You have any prejudice against that?

• 0:46Speaker 01

  Well, I don't know, because, because old is, I think manager, the old school manager is means like coach, right?

• 0:52Jocko Willink?

  I don't know. No, he was like, I think he was like this, he was a student. He wasn't, he wasn't.

• 0:56Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 0:57Jocko Willink?

  Coach. He was like, you know, manager.

• 0:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, okay. No, I don't have, but it is, it's a, it's like, in our team, there's the, the coaches. And then, I guess the student assistants, and then there's the managers. That's like the water boy-ish thing.

• 1:13Jocko Willink?

  So he's the manager, graduated number 56 in a class of 139 individuals. So, you know, a little bit on the, the lower end of the spectrum, but as we heard on the last podcast, doesn't, well, that means this guy might be good. The, the best leaders, generally speaking, aren't coming number one. Not that there hasn't been number one, but I'm just saying, his generalization.

• 1:39Jocko Willink?

  He graduated in 1917, which by the way, two weeks after America entered World War I. Immediately commissioned as an infantry officer, thinks he's gonna go get some. Guess what? He doesn't. And he stationed like down by Mexico in World War I. He's not happy about it.

• 1:59Jocko Willink?

  After the war is over, gosh, I can't imagine missing that war. He spent time in, at the Army Infantry School, 15th Infantry Regiment in China, spent time in Nicaragua. He's an advisor in the Philippines. He went to the Army Commanding General Staff School. He went to Army War College. He was the Assistant Chief of Staff of Sixth Corps. He was the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Second Army, so he kind of moved up the ranks.

• 2:21Jocko Willink?

  And then in World War II, he's the Assistant Division Commander for the 82nd Infantry Division under General Omar Bradley. Eventually, he's promoted to Two-Star General. He's Command of the 82nd Division, which eventually became the 82nd Airborne Division. They fought in Sicily, they fought in other parts of Italy, eventually jumped in with his troops for the D-Day Invasion.

• 2:45Jocko Willink?

  Also jumped in to Operation Market Garden, was fought in the Battle of the Bulge. And by the way, how old is he at this point? Was that, yeah, he's like 45, something like that? Forty-five years old, just getting after it. Wounded by a German grenade in 1945.

• 3:03Jocko Willink?

  Pressed on, led throughout the invasion of war of Germany. Standard assignments kind of between World War II and Korea, which wasn't a very long period of time, like five, what, five years, six years? And then the Korean War, he took over command of the Eighth Army in Korea after their generals killed in a Jeep accident. And they had been retreating. It was kind of a rough situation that the Eighth Army was in. He comes in and kind of does a turnaround. He does a turnaround with the, with the Eighth Army.

• 3:33Jocko Willink?

  When General MacArthur gets relieved by President Truman, Ridgway becomes, he's promoted to Supreme UN Commander. He eventually becomes the Chief of Staff of the Army. Disagreed with the politicians and the staff.

• 3:50Jocko Willink?

  They wanted to drop nukes in Vietnam, and he was like, what are we doing here? And he also, he also was part of this group called the Wise Men. This is after he retired in 1955. But eventually he became like an advisor, these, these wise men advisors advising President Johnson about the Vietnam War. Johnson didn't listen, unfortunately, because he was a guy that was going, listen, they were saying, oh yeah, you know, the Vietnamese and the Chinese, where they're not gonna keep fighting, like they, he, you know, our leadership underestimated the will of the Vietnamese people and the will of the Chinese people. And he was like, hey, I fought these people. I fought them in Korea, and I'm gonna tell you right now, their will is a lot stronger. They're not gonna break. And no, they didn't listen to him.

• 4:32Jocko Willink?

  But despite the fact that Johnson, who as you know, is not one of my favorite people, he's one of my least favorite presidents. And so the fact that this guy didn't like him, I'm down. Omar Bradley said that the turning of the tide in the Korean War, that, that Ridgway orchestrated, was the greatest feat of personal leadership in the history of the Army, coming from Omar Bradley, bro. This is legit. And he wrote an article in, it's about leadership. He wrote it in 1966. And it's got some pretty powerful lessons, lessons for all of us. And so, let's get into it.

• 5:12Jocko Willink?

  Leadership, that's the name of the article, by General Matthew Ridgway. What do they got a little footnote in here? What do they say? General Matthew Ridgway commanded his 82nd Airborne Division during World War II in North Africa, Sicily, and France, the 18th Airborne Corps in Belgium and Germany, Deputy Supreme Allied Commander in the Mediterranean, Assistant Commander of the Eighth Army in the US in Korea in 1950. Yeah, that's kind of what I went over. They have a little, little bio on him. But let's get into it. Leadership. In discussing the subject of leadership, I'm struck by two diametrically opposed concepts. This is kind of thing that draws me in when I'm reading something. When I see like a lead in like that, I go, hold on a second.

• 5:54Jocko Willink?

  One conceives leadership as an exact science capable of being understood and practiced by anyone. This view is ably developed by Colonel Sherman L. Kaiser, US Army retired, in his book, "The American Concept of Leadership." An opposite concept holds that no amount of learning will make a man a leader unless he has natural qualities of one. So one person says it's science, the other person says it's like you're born with it. This latter view was that of General Sir Archibald P. Wavell, and has expounded in his published lectures in generals and generalship. And we did a podcast with him. One, not with him, but about him.

• 6:37Jocko Willink?

  One concept treats science, treats leadership as a science, the other as an art. I inclined, I inclined strongly to Wavell.

• 6:47Jocko Willink?

  While re, while recognizing that there are many principles or truths pertaining to the exercise of leadership, and while firmly believing that powers of leadership can be greatly increased in any individual through knowledge of these principles and in practice of their application, I still think the variables of human nature combined with those of combat, and to a lesser degree, those in peacetime training, make the exercise of leadership far more of an art than a science. Now, I have to make this note.

• 7:21Jocko Willink?

  Art, when we think of art, a lot of times I do, I'll let you tell me what you think. Do you think of art as a skill or as a blessing?

• 7:36Speaker 01

  I guess, my full answer is both. But yeah, it's like a blessing is like creativity is the blessing part of it, and then like your, whatever your output is, that's kind of the skill.

• 7:50Jocko Willink?

  Yep. I just want to mention that I agree with you, but I think people underestimate the amount of skill that is in art. And my classic case is a guy named John Bozak.

• 8:01Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 8:02Jocko Willink?

  So Bozak, he drew, like he drew the Warrior Kid stuff, but when we were kids, he was an awesome artist. And I always thought that was just, he just was born that way, you know? So listen, was he born with some natural talent? Yes, he was, but I, but he told me, and I saw him over the years, he would draw all the time. He was practicing all the time. He would like draw something, it didn't look good, draw it again, didn't look good, draw it again, looked a little bit better, draw it again. It's, it's literally practicing. And so to think that, because, I think people make the mistake of thinking that because something is an art, you can't get better at it. That's not true.

• 8:38Jocko Willink?

  When the art is also a skill, or at least there are skills around it, probably what you said is, is accurate, maybe even more accurate than you think. Which is, the creativity is the thing that's kind of a blessing. Like, we may or may not get that. But I'll tell you right now, there's people out there, and I've talked about this, like you gotta squeeze your brain to get some creativity out of it. Like the creativity might not just show up. Sometimes it does, hopefully. But if it doesn't, like, you know, you gotta, you gotta force it. You gotta like keep working it. If you write every day, eventually there's gonna be some, something good comes out on paper. So, yes, I believe also that there is, obviously there's a science, there's some level of science leadership. What do they, what does he call them here? Like, principles? Yeah, I mean, I talk about the principles of leadership all the time.

• 9:21Jocko Willink?

  There's principles, there's individual knowledge, and but then there's the art side, but I gotta remember, a lot of the art side is really just a skill. It's the skill of leadership, and you get better with it. You get better over time. Just like when you were younger and you're in a leadership position and you did, you approached something this way and you kind of did this thing, and you get older, you're like, no, that wasn't a good move. You get better at it.

• 9:42Jocko Willink?

  So, continue on. This, of course, there is, of course, a great deal of bad leadership as well as good. It too deserves study so that its pitfalls may be avoided. But in general, I believe that bad leadership is the result of either the violation of basic principles, or the lack or failure to develop one or more of the qualities of good leadership. In any event, I want to speak now of good, the good type of military leadership, with some specific reference ladder to the combat leadership of large units, division, corps, and army. The chief ingredients of leadership, as I have known it to be exercised by those whose careers I have studied, or under whose command I was privileged to serve,

• 10:27Jocko Willink?

  are three. I call them the three Cs: character, courage, and competence. So there you go. There's his big, his big leadership needs, ingredients. Character, courage, and competence. Character is the bedrock on which the whole edifice of leadership rests. It is the prime element for which every profession, every corporation, every industry searches in evaluating a member of its organization. With it, the full worth of an individual can be developed. Without it, particularly in the military profession, failure in peace, disaster in

• 11:08Jocko Willink?

  war, or at best mediocrity in both will result. So his, out of the gate, the foundation of everything is character. What I like is he get, kind of gets into it, some types of character. We often use this word, character carelessly. There are those of notoriously evil character, as well as those of exemplary one. Yet it is, yet in its usual acceptation, it stands for those magnificent traits which placed George Washington first among his countrymen, and in fact, made him the father of his country, the unanimous choice for our first president.

• 11:48Jocko Willink?

  It stands for, and it being the word character, it stands for, character stands for, the time honored code of the officer corps. It stands for self-discipline, loyalty, readiness to accept responsibility, and willingness to admit mistakes. It stands for selflessness, modesty, humility, willingness to sacrifice when necessary, and in my opinion, for faith in God. Let me illustrate. So, very important to understand. We're through, this word, character, gets thrown around all the time, and I'm sure we could tweak this, we could, we could, you know, modify it, we could put some spin on it, but it's very important. And you know

• 12:32Jocko Willink?

  what I've talked about, kind of universally respected things, universally respected values? And you, discipline, like when you and I are walking, you know, and we see, it's late at night, you're driving home, you see a guy outrunning. You know what I mean? Like, we all go, hell yeah. You know what I'm saying? When someone's loyal, we all go, hell yeah. You know, when someone stands up in the situation for their boy, hell yeah, loyalty, right? Willingness to admit mistakes, um, I guess we wrote a book about that, Extreme Ownership. Readiness to Accept Responsibility, wrote a book about that, Extreme Ownership. Selflessness, that's what a hero is. Universally, universally, we respect the, the person that's selfless.

• 13:15Jocko Willink?

  Now, can you get these fringe elements? It's like, no, you gotta look out for number one. Of course, there's fringe elements that are idiots. Or, no, not idiots, but there's fringe elements that don't believe what, what most people think. Humility, obviously, most important characteristics for our leadership, and for a person, willing to sacrifice when necessary, of course, and faith. So, that's what we're talking about here. That's what this guy's saying is the, like, you have to have these things. And he's gonna illustrate it. During a critical phase of the Battle of the Bulge, when I commanded the 18th Airborne Corps, another corps commander just entering the fight next, next to me, remarked, "I'm glad

• 13:55Jocko Willink?

  to have you on my flank. It's character that counts." I had known, I had long known him, and knew what he meant. I replied, "That goes for me, too." There was no amplification, none was necessary. Each knew the other would stick, however great the pressure would extend help before it was asked if he could, and would tell the truth, seek no self-glory, and everlastingly keep his word. Such feeling breeds confidence and success. So that's when you know somebody, and you know they're gonna be there for you. It's powerful. Self-discipline.

• 14:34Jocko Willink?

  Only those who have disciplined themselves can exact disciplined performance from others. When the chips are down, when privation mounts, and the casualty rate rises, when the crisis is at hand, which commander I ask receives the better response. Is it the one who has failed to share the rough going with his troops, who is rarely seen in the zone of aimed fire, and who expects much and gives little? Or is it the one whose every thought is for the welfare of his men, consistent with the accomplishment of his mission, who does not ask them to do what he has not already done, and stands ready to do again when necessary?

• 15:14Jocko Willink?

  Who with his men has shared short rations, the physical discomforts and rigors of campaign, and will be found at the crisis of action where the issues are to be decided? Who's getting followed? I mean, it's, you even have to ask that question, rhetorical question. We don't like that guy who's failed to share the rough zone, who hasn't been in aimed fire, who's, who's slacking. We want to follow the guy that's been there with us. I know your answer. Self-disciplined, self-controlled, and in, and so in control of others, no matter how tough the going. Washington at the Battle of Long Island, and at Valley Forge, Grant

• 15:57Jocko Willink?

  at Shiloh, Mackenzie of the Fourth Cavalry in his epic raid, the junior officer pursuing hostile Indians in sub-zero weather on our western plains, closing up at dark for a dawn attack with no fires permitted, and only cold rations, if any, before H-hour, much the same many times in Korea, I might add, and I am sure, under equally arduous conditions in Vietnam today. The young ship commander named Kennedy, his patrol torpedo boat sunk in action, his crew safely on the beach, then swimming out in shark-infested waters to try and intercept a friendly destroyer and rescue his men. These are the type of

• 16:38Jocko Willink?

  people. These, and it's, it's interesting, the root of those actions are self-discipline, right? The world's annals are filled, and our own are studded with such, with the names of such men, of all services and all grades. Always ready to assume responsibilities, they could always assign them to others, and know they would be willingly accepted. True to themselves, and their conscience, their men sense they will be true to them, giving them full credit, and frankly, admitting mistakes and accepting responsibility when they themselves are to blame. So that's what people are looking for. That's what people

• 17:20Jocko Willink?

  see, and believe me, they see it. General Washington wrote to Congress from Valley Forge, quote, "Without arrogance, or the smallest deviation from the truth, it may be said that no history now exempt can furnish an instance of an army's suffering such uncommon hardships as ours have done, and bearing them with the patience and fortitude. To see men without clothes to clothe their nakedness, without blankets to lie on, without shoes by which their marches might be traced by the blood from their feet, and almost as

• 17:59Jocko Willink?

  often, without providence as with, or without provisions as with, marching through frost and snow, and at Christmas, taking up their winter quarters within a day's march of the enemy, without a house or a hut to cover themselves till they could be built, and submitting to it without a murmur, is a mark of patience and obedience, which in my opinion, can scarce be paralleled," end quote. And what Washington did not say, a mark of his own unexcelled leadership, an eyewitness report of Lee after Pickett's failure, stated,

• 18:38Jocko Willink?

  "His face did not show the slightest disappointment, care, or annoyance, and he addressed, addressed every soldier he met with a few words of encouragement. All will come right in the end. We'll talk over, we'll talk it over afterwards. And to a brigade commander, speaking angrily of heavy losses of his men, never mind, General, all this has been my fault. It is I who have lost this fight, and you must help me out of it the best way you can." So there's General Lee taking ownership after Pickett's charge at Gettysburg. For leadership, through willingness to admit mistakes and instantly accept responsibility, I think

• 19:18Jocko Willink?

  history can offer few examples to surpass this. So, it's, you know, this, this is, came out, this article's written 1966. I would love to tell you that through research, I thought, you know, I figured out that taking ownership was, you know, the best, the move. It wasn't through research, it was through what I saw, my, my own experience, you know, seeing people that took ownership, and seeing that people that didn't. Willingness to Sacrifice. Archibald Rutledge once wrote, "That there can be no real love without a willingness to sacrifice. Tuck this away in your inner minds. It may pay off in some crisis coming to you in the years now hidden beyond the horizon. Do you love your country and its

• 20:00Jocko Willink?

  flag? Do you love the branch in which you are serving, the, with the men, the men with whom you'll be privileged to share your service and command? If you do, then you will be prepared to sacrifice for them, if your responsibilities or situation so demands." The commander, the commander of torpedo squadron eight at Midway, the four army chaplains on the torpedoed SS Dorchester off Iceland in predawn darkness in February of 1942, the many aircraft commanders who have ordered abandoned ship, then stuck long overdue, stuck overlong to the controls to ensure their last man was out. Courage, the second

• 20:45Jocko Willink?

  C, could well be treated as a trait of character, as indeed it is. Yet it deserves, I believe, a separate category, for I know of not one recipient of history's accolade for battle leadership of enduring fame, who is not known for great gallantry.

• 21:06Jocko Willink?

  So now we're getting into this courage thing, physical and moral courage. There are two kinds of courage, physical and moral. And he who would be a true leader must have both. Both are products of character forming process of the development of self-control, self-discipline, physical endurance, of knowledge of one's job, and therefore of confidence. Isn't interesting, right? We think of like courage as just something that you either have or you don't have. But according to him, which I'm in agreement with, it's the product of character forming process. It's the, it's the development of self-control. It's self-discipline. It's physical endurance. It's those things. Courage is going to be built up.

• 21:51Jocko Willink?

  These qualities minimize fear and maximize sound judgment under pressure with some of that indispensable stuff called luck.

• 22:02Jocko Willink?

  Often bring success from seemingly hopeless situations. Putting aside impulsive acts of reckless bravery, bravery. Both kinds of courage bespeak, which there's nothing wrong with that. Means hey, impulsive acts of reckless bravery. Yep, that's, that's still bravery. Let's not, let's not just kind of, we should put that on a pedestal. Like there's that, right? Both kinds of courage bespeak an untroubled conscience, a mind at peace with God. An example is Colonel John H Glenn, who was asked after his first rocket flight if he had been worried and who replied, I am trying to live the best I can. My peace has been made with my maker for a number of years, so I had no particular worries.

• 22:46Jocko Willink?

  Examples of physical courage are neither confined to combat nor limited to a stout-hearted few, but are common throughout the world among men and women of every color, creed, race and age in peace as well as war.

• 23:03Jocko Willink?

  However, examples of moral courage are less well-known. They can be considered proof of true greatness of soul. Where the individual has not measured up, he has generally failed fortunes bid to fame.

• 23:19Jocko Willink?

  To me, such incidents most frequently found in war are those where the career of the leader is at stake and where his actions or decisions will determine the saving or slaughter of many of his men. History is full of these cases, the lure of glory, the fear of being thought afraid, of losing personal power and prestige, the mistaken idea that blind obedience to orders has no alternative. All have been followed by tragic losses of lives with little to no gain. So here he's talking about the moral courage side of things. Like this isn't happening out on the battlefield. This is like, oh, I'm in a situation as a military leader where I'm being told to do something, I'm being told to send my men to go do something and I don't agree with it.

• 24:05Jocko Willink?

  And he's saying countless times, the lure of glory, the fear of being thought afraid. Oh, what do you, you can't do this, are you scared Echo? Right? Losing personal power and prestige. Oh, Echo's going down in my respect level because he's not stepping up and doing what I told him to do because he's a little bit scared.

• 24:21Speaker 01

  So to clear, to clarify, moral courage is essentially like having the courage to kind of stand up to something, not, not necessarily like, you know, charge of

• 24:32Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 24:33Speaker 01

  machine gunness, like to stand up to go outside of maybe like what's sociological or societal or structural.

• 24:43Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 24:44Speaker 01

  Confines.

• 24:44Jocko Willink?

  So for instance, like a whistleblower that takes courage, somebody that, you know, somebody that blows the whistle on something that's going wrong, somebody that says, hey, I'm not doing this. You know, you could even look at Hackworth at the end of the Vietnam War, when he was like, all right, you want to interview me? Cool, I'm going to tell you what's going on. And he gets drummed out of the army. He doesn't, he, he had to have the moral courage to say what he said. Now, was it an emotional decision? Sure, you know, and they even asked him in that interview, don't you think you could be emotional about this? And he's like, yeah, I've seen so many studs be wounded and killed that there's no way I could be here without being emotional about it.

• 25:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. And yeah, to me, that's part of it can be, it's that's that part's less relevant. Yeah. If it's emotional or a logical decision or something. So it's essentially going against, uh, what the status quo, the, the whatever out of during the, doing the right thing.

• 25:32Jocko Willink?

  Doing the right thing. And, and, and also you are now going to be, or at least you could be punished in some way. Maybe it's not like, hey, I'm gonna, you're going to go to jail.

• 25:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 25:43Jocko Willink?

  But maybe it's, oh, you're going to get demoted, you're going to get ostracized from whatever.

• 25:48Speaker 01

  Okay, yes, clear.

• 25:49Jocko Willink?

  Yep. So continuing on, history often glosses over the countless thousands of lives which would have been fruitlessly sacrificed to pull, to the pole of power, prestige and publicity. Hague's Flanders campaign in 1970 is a conspicuous example. Here, a hundred thousand men were sacrificed for the gain of a thousand yards of almost a bottomless morass. That's like a bog, it's like a marsh. So for a thousand yards of marsh, a hundred thousand men were killed. It's freaking disgusting. It is easy to gamble with other people's money and sometimes easier still with other

• 26:33Jocko Willink?

  men's lives, particularly when your own is in no great danger. You remember the commander's conference prior to one of the big offensives in World War I, when a corps commander, whose command post was miles behind the front, spoke out during a lull in the meeting, saying, I'd give 10,000 men to take that hill. And a liaison officer from a frontline infantry unit remarked to a brother officer standing beside him in the back of the room, generous, isn't he?

• 27:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, those World War I officers or leaders.

• 27:13Jocko Willink?

  I, I, the, um, there's a war memorial in Indianapolis that I spoke at one time and it was made after World War I. And as you go, as you're walking into like the main area, it, there's all these names on the wall and they're made, they're just like ascribed on the wall and it's all the killed, it's all the killed. Soldiers, Marines are on this wall, little tiny writing, like you have to walk up next to it. And then you get it, this hallway leads you into this big, I don't know what to call it, big room where they have these giant paintings slash statues of all these leaders, of all the World War I leaders. And like I, I still get

• 27:59Jocko Willink?

  like viscerally angry when I think about that because those leaders were terrible. Like those World War I leaders were just sending people to, to, to their deaths. And more, by the way, they were in the rear and they were saying, I'd give 10,000 men, take that hill. And sure enough, they actually did that. This isn't like they said that, no, they did that and they did it over and over again. A hundred thousand men for a thousand yards of a bog. You know, like that's, that's just sickening.

• 28:24Speaker 01

  And they, in this memorial, you're saying the men who actually kind of made the sacrifice are written all teeny tiny everywhere. And then the leaders are pedestalized.

• 28:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, big, big pedestals and got their name and they look all dramatic.

• 28:37Speaker 01

  I understand.

• 28:38Jocko Willink?

  It's freaking terrible to see. It's absolutely terrible to see.

• 28:43Jocko Willink?

  That's how it goes. Generous, isn't he? Yep. Opposition to orders. The military services deal harshly, as they should, with failure to carry out orders in battle. The commander present on the scene is entitled to full, instant and enthusiastic execution by subordinates. Yet when faced with different situations from those anticipated, as well as in the transition from plans to orders, there sometimes comes the challenge to one's conscience, the compelling urge to oppose foolhardy operations before it is too late, before the orders are issued and lives are needlessly thrown away. Like I had to, um,

• 29:23Jocko Willink?

  wrote about this in Dichotomy of Leadership, but you know, we were getting told we had to take a certain number of Iraqi soldiers in the field and it, and it meant I was going to be sending, you know, whatever, 20 Iraqi soldiers and two or three SEALs out in the field. Made no sense, made no sense. It was totally unsafe. And eventually I said, hey, well, not eventually, when, when this got ordered to me, I raised my hand and said, hey, boss, this doesn't make any sense. Here's why. That's a situation where, you know, again, I'm not trying to make it a big deal. It wasn't like, I was like, oh, I'm sacrificing my career or anything. I didn't need to. But it's one of the, sometimes the orders that come down, they don't make sense to you on the front lines. Again, I had a good relationship with my boss. I explained the situation. He's like, yeah, cool. Of course.

• 30:06Jocko Willink?

  I'm trying to think of other situations like that in my career, but that's the one that just comes to mind because we wrote about it. It's like, oh yeah. You can't just blindly follow orders if they don't make sense. You raise your hand. If you have a good relationship, you get told, yeah, okay, that makes sense. So that's what he's talking about here. Sometimes you get ordered to do something, it doesn't quite make sense. You gotta, you gotta know when to stand up.

• 30:27Jocko Willink?

  Or the leader may be faced with the decision, shall I take the responsibility of discarding the original mission? Shall I take the initiative and strive for success along different lines? He will then have to put those questions to his conscience. Blind obedience, said Napoleon Bonaparte, is due only to a superior present on the spot at the moment of action. I concur. So he's like, yeah, people will listen to you if you're right there.

• 30:52Jocko Willink?

  I still support a statement of mine of some years ago, and this is a quote, he's quoting himself. It has long seemed to me that the hard decisions are not the ones you make in the heat of battle. Far harder to make are those involved in speaking your mind about some harebrained scheme, which proposes to commit troops to action under conditions where failure seems almost certain and the only results will be the needless sacrifice of priceless lives. When all is said and done, the most precious asset any nation has is its youth. And for a battle commander ever to condone the unnecessary sacrifice of his men is inexcusable.

• 31:35Jocko Willink?

  In any action, you must balance the, balance the inevitable cost in lives against the objectives you seek to attain. Unless the results to be expected can reasonably justify the estimated loss of life the action involves, then for my part, I want none of it.

• 31:56Jocko Willink?

  That's what good leaders are doing. And man, there are some people that don't, they don't want to be told no. There's some really bad leaders out there. They come up with their freaking, what is it called? The harebrained idea? Is that the, yeah, he used harebrained and it's, it's H A R. So like a rabbit brain.

• 32:15Speaker 01

  Wait, is that how it's always been?

• 32:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I believe so. Yeah. Harebrained.

• 32:21Jocko Willink?

  We, we learn something new every day. That's why I pointed it out, dude. You're not the only one. I thought, you know, hair.

• 32:26Speaker 01

  Hair, the hair on your head.

• 32:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. No, it's hair. It's like a little bunny rabbit, like.

• 32:34Jocko Willink?

  Carrying on, General George C. Marshall. One of the noblest men who has worn the American uniform since Washington, once said of decisions of this kind, "It is hard to get men to do this, for it is when you lay your career, perhaps your commission, on the line." So yeah, when you gotta stand up and say, "Look, we're not doing this. This doesn't make any sense." "Twice in my personal experience, as a division commander, I felt compelled to protect against tactical decisions that were about to be assigned to my 82nd Airborne Division. The first occasion was the planned drop on Rome in September of 1943. I have recounted the incident in some detail in my book Soldier. Recently, however, published memoirs of German generals then

• 33:17Jocko Willink?

  present in Rome, in the Rome area, have confirmed my views. One passage from the account of that incident illustrates the point I wish to make."

• 33:27Jocko Willink?

  And this is from, uh, from his book. "When the time comes that I must meet my maker, the source of most humble pride to me will be not the accomplishments in battle, but the fact that I was guided to make the decision to, to oppose this plan at the risk of my career, right up to the theater commander." The drop was not ordered. So they were wanting him to drop in Rome, perish it. He's like, "Nope, not a good call. Don't think we should do it." And he was able to hold it off. "The second experience was a proposed attack by the 82nd against the Volturno River, where the Germans had brought the Allied advance to a halt. The sector chosen involved getting

• 34:09Jocko Willink?

  across an unfortable river, and then, after an advance of roughly a thousand yards across open, flat terrain, the attack and seizure of a line of hills curving away from the river on one flank, then like a bow, curving back to the stream again on the other flank of the attack zone, so that the assaulting troops would be under concentrated fire from the front and both flanks." Freaking nightmare.

• 34:38Jocko Willink?

  "While the proposal to use the 82nd was a high compliment, since it was the weakest numerically, and the most lightly armed of any of the divisions in the 5th Army, I could only view the proposed operation as a suicide mission that would result in the loss of the most, of most of the assaulting troops, and then with small chance of success. I could not accept such a mission without protest. But first I decided to discuss the plan with General Lucian K. Truscott, commanding general, US 3rd Infantry Division, a field commander conspicuous for competence and gallantry, and an old friend. He said he wouldn't touch it with a 40-foot pole, even with his heavier

• 35:20Jocko Willink?

  division. So I spoke my mind, first to the corps commander, under whom the operation was to be mounted, and I recall I used the word fantastic. And finally, to the army commander, the plan was cancelled." And by the way, this, the use of the word fantastic, it's not like fantastic good, which is kind of how that word has morphed for us to think. It's, it means like fantastical, like fanciful, like unrealistic, impractical. So he was like, "Dude, this is, this is a fantasy." Basically, yeah, this is a fan, your plan is a fantasy. So he stood up, got told to do something that didn't make sense. He stood up, discussed it with a couple of friends. "Hey, let me bounce this off of you, brother. This seems a little crazy." "Oh yeah, I wouldn't touch that with a 40-foot pole, and I have freaking heavier weapons than

• 36:05Jocko Willink?

  you have and more people. This is not a good move." Then he went and stood up.

• 36:12Jocko Willink?

  "In action and out, there is often a thin dividing line between recklessness, boldness, and caution. Even, even later study of battle records may fail to erase that line, for it is next to impossible to reconstruct the exact picture as it was thrown on the screen of the commander's brain at any particular crisis of combat. Yet experience, your own and that of others which you have absorbed, together with common sense, will be your best guides, and with good luck, we'll see you through."

• 36:46Jocko Willink?

  So knowing when to say when is critically important, and being able to have the moral courage to do that.

• 36:56Jocko Willink?

  Next section, right after moral courage, physical fitness.

• 37:03Jocko Willink?

  Physical fitness comes under competence, the third of my three basic ingredients of leadership. It plays a great part. My own earlier training at Fort Leavenworth, Fort Benning, Fort Sam Houston, with the 2nd Division, with the 33rd Infantry in the Panama area, and with the airborne, paid off in battle, first as a division, then as a corps, and finally as an army commander. Because of strenuous and unremitting physical training, I was able to keep up with the best of my troops in the hottest sectors and the toughest terrain and climate. Again, this dude's 40, 45, 47 years

• 37:45Jocko Willink?

  old, jumping into this shit. Props. I wish he had a little bit more on his unremitting physical training. Cause like back in the day, what were you doing? You know what I mean?

• 37:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, it feels like, you know, you see these old,

• 38:01Speaker 01

  whether it be videos or whatever.

• 38:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, footage, footage, exactly.

• 38:04Speaker 01

  Of, um, it feels like everyone is in better general shape than everyone, but the feats of strength nowadays seem like they go harder than they might have back in the day.

• 38:16Jocko Willink?

  Well, first of all, I mean, there's a bunch of reasons behind that, right? Like, we like, we specialize now. Like dudes aren't just focusing their life on a thousand pound deadlift like we are now. And not to mention, we have steroids, better training protocols, better nutrition protocols. So yeah, at the fringe high ends of these things, you're gonna get the, you're gonna get better numbers, but a hundred percent, dude. Back in the day, like when you see pictures of the California beach, like beach people in like 1962, bro, everyone's kinda in shape. Like everyone's just kinda blanking in shape. Never mind, you seen that thing that like the John F. Kennedy, like physical fitness program that they ran at some couple of schools out in California?

• 39:01Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah, yeah.

• 39:02Jocko Willink?

  They have these giant like obstacle courses, and every guy is just freaking jacked. Well, I shouldn't say jacked. They're like, every one of them is like highly physically fit. And they're doing rope climbs and they're pull-ups, pull-ups, everyone's doing pull-ups, they're doing monkey bars. Dude, that shit is so epic. And you have that video, you ever seen the video? I think it's a, yeah, it's a video of Kennedy, but I think he actually says like, "There's nothing worse than like a fat kid." I think he actually says those words. You know, he's just, just putting out there. It was just a different time, but you know, obviously we have our food problems, which is probably the biggest culprit. But if it's not the biggest culprit, it's at least in the game with sedentary lifestyle. Sitting around playing video games, sitting around scrolling on your

• 39:44Jocko Willink?

  phone, sitting around watching TV, like all those things didn't exist. We used to watch cartoons on Saturday. There was like, Saturday was like a cartoon day. We'd get the big bowl, I used to get the big bowl of Lucky Charms, and, and I would just sit there and watch, you know, like probably two hours, maybe an hour and a half. I'd forget the number, but like of cartoons on Saturday. And then you're like, "All right, dude, this sucks." And you just go, go outside and just go run around and do shit.

• 40:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's not, and you didn't have the option, and you kinda knew consciously and subconsciously, you didn't have the option of anything else. You know, after that two hours, and I would say that's about right, two hours, right? Four cartoons, it's half hour, half hour, half hour. After that, you're kinda like, "Yeah, it's something." And the cartoons would get progressively less popular, so you'd be like, "Who cares?" But yeah, but you can't like, um, scroll to the next one.

• 40:41Jocko Willink?

  I know. And plus, there's commercials on there, right? Which is, have you ever watched something with commercials like recently?

• 40:47Speaker 01

  No.

• 40:48Jocko Willink?

  Exactly, bro.

• 40:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know. I got DVR, you know, so yeah, you fast forward through that.

• 40:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, just fast forward, do that shit. Cause it's crazy. If you, if I get subjected to a commercial right now, I'm like, "Yeah, I'd rather not watch this." That's how, that's how trained our brains are to just like, "Give me, give me what I want right now."

• 41:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's available. Yeah, back then, none of it's available. It's like scarce. Actually, and you can kinda, I mean, maybe as adults now, we might not, then you probably will. So sometimes every once in a while, right? I'll be like watching TV.

• 41:23Jocko Willink?

  Like regular, like TV, yeah. Like channels.

• 41:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. And like, um, let's say, this was a long time ago, but still in recent, the recent past, I'd say Predator was on, Predator. And it was on like USA with commercials, you know, like censored, you know, like it was on TV though. And it was more interesting. I literally have the DVD of Predator, and I think I have it on like Amazon Prime too. Can watch Predator whenever I want, the full version. But it was on TV, and I was interested in it. Like I watched a little bit of

• 41:55Jocko Willink?

  You sat through the commercials or like the second commercial came, you're like, "Oh no."

• 41:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I sat through like, let's say, no, I didn't sit through the commercial, it wasn't that long, but you know, five, 10 minutes of Predator I'm watching, sitting there, it had my attention. In theory or on paper, it should not have my attention. I can watch Predator whenever I want, any part of it I want. I can freaking rewind it and repeat it. I can do whatever I want with Predator. But it was, since it was on TV, it was kinda scarce. You see what I'm saying? So that idea

• 42:21Jocko Willink?

  But you didn't even make it through the first commercial.

• 42:23Speaker 01

  No, no, no. Well, I'm watching TV, so I don't know, like, watching TV is not that fun. I don't know if you ever, ever watch, like, unless it's like the new, the local news.

• 42:31Jocko Willink?

  Not like the old days where like TV was like, "That's what we're doing."

• 42:34Speaker 01

  Right, right. It's different now.

• 42:36Jocko Willink?

  We, we used to watch like, well, my dad would watch the news every night with Walter Cronkite. You know, so that was kinda like a thing. And I wasn't, I wouldn't watch it with him, but I met, watched, you know, like a few minutes of it, just like, "Who's this boring old dude? What's he talking about? The world, whatever. That's the way it is. Whatever, bro. I'm over here trying to throw rocks at shit. Just dumb."

• 42:56Speaker 01

  My guy would come on at four. So at four you're watching.

• 43:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you see, I know you're into MacGyver. Uh, I get that was a little bit. Yeah, I was a little old for that, I think.

• 43:06Speaker 01

  Maybe, yeah.

• 43:07Jocko Willink?

  You know, it just never really fired me up too much.

• 43:12Jocko Willink?

  Now Magnum P I used to watch that.

• 43:17Jocko Willink?

  For sure, of course. And you know, he's he's a SEAL.

• 43:24Speaker 01

  But but that idea.

• 43:25Jocko Willink?

  Jack Carr goes deep. You ever seen Jack Carr? Jack Carr will like post about Magnum and it's like. He goes hard with that. He's a he's a Magnum fan.

• 43:34Speaker 01

  Oh, for real?

• 43:35Jocko Willink?

  And I'm a Magnum fan too. But and Jack Carr's right, like when you watch some of the some of the episodes. They're like, there's like PTSD kind of flashback type scenarios and like some brotherhood type like it's it's kind of a. You know, it's it's it's like pointing in the direction of modern kind of understanding of combat and stuff like that. And the will you a guy moving from combat to the civilian sector, but but it's it's it is a damn good show. And I will say this, I try to get my wife like, I try to like go like, because you can watch it now. You know, on some service, you can just watch, start watching Magnum P I. And I tried to watch it a bit and it was a didn't quite get me. I couldn't go full Jack Carr on it, you know, I couldn't go full.

• 44:20Jocko Willink?

  Hey, no, I all respect, all respect. And my wife actually went and saw. Thomas Magnum, Tom Selleck at like a speech thing because he wrote a book. And you know, she was like, oh, he's super cool. So she's been kind of, so I might try and re-attack Magnum. But Jack Carr, he's all about it, bro. I bet he has like a DVD collection.

• 44:44Speaker 01

  I do wonder now that you mentioned Magnum P I. So Magnum P I, so I wonder how Jack Carr feels about, I gotta ask him. But the new mag, because there's a remake of Magnum P I. It's older, Eddie. It's like two thousand ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen. It was all right, not nothing. It's absolutely nothing compared to the original, in my opinion.

• 45:02Jocko Willink?

  The cool thing is, is Magnum P I, instead of being like this kind of stereotypical tough guy. He's Magnum. He's funny. He's kind of chill. He does some dumb shit.

• 45:11Speaker 01

  Some ladies, man.

• 45:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, he's like, he's got all these kind of things that you wouldn't quite predict. Yeah, it's interesting when we were making the Warrior Kid. With the first, the first look at the script that I got, the opening was like Uncle Jake comes in, he's. You know, got a beard and tattoos and all this stuff. And it was kind of like your modern kind of stereotypical special operations vet. And I was like, no, I'm like, you know, clean cut, just very, I wanted, I wanted him to be. Normal looking, you know, athletic, whatever, but but not to be. Just a stereotypical, hey, this guy, oh, this guy's clearly some kind of a special operations veteran, right?

• 45:53Jocko Willink?

  I wanted him and that's kind of, I wanted him to be kind of more normal and and even talking to. Pratt about that is like, dude, like, it's fun to be a SEAL and SEALs can be funny and they're not always serious. And it's that's cool, you know, and so. What that's what I think Magnum kind of caught that Magnum had like this guy and if we'll have to ask Jack Carr because I think. I don't think they kind of made him into a SEAL until a little bit later in the series, if I remember correctly.

• 46:22Speaker 01

  So I didn't remember him being a SEAL at all, even though I didn't know what that was back then. My dad would watch it, we'd watch it with him. Just a sick action show filmed in Hawaii. Hell, yeah, all day. And that guy always had chicks around him and stuff like this, so.

• 46:38Speaker 01

  And I didn't realize that wasn't his Ferrari.

• 46:41Jocko Willink?

  I know it was Higgins. Well, no, no, it's Robin. What's his name? Master Robbins? What's his name? Robin Masters.

• 46:50Speaker 01

  Something like that.

• 46:50Jocko Willink?

  I think it was. And Higgins was kind of a cool character, you know, and I always liked, I always liked the British military. When I was a kid, I was real into the the British commandos. Like that was, that was kind of my jam. And so you had Higgins, who was kind of like this British type dude. And I was like, okay.

• 47:08Speaker 01

  And the remake Higgins is a girl.

• 47:12Jocko Willink?

  Why do they do that kind of shit?

• 47:13Speaker 01

  Well, I guess she's like a special secret, something, but it's a girl.

• 47:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So is the new Magnum no good?

• 47:20Speaker 01

  It's fun. I thought it was fun.

• 47:21Jocko Willink?

  What's his background? Is he a former SEAL?

• 47:24Speaker 01

  He's a decorated, if I'm not mistaken, he's a Navy SEAL, but I forget, I don't know. It because it just has it in the intro. I don't know that they, it's all right, you know, but not compared to the Tom Selleck. Tom Selleck's all day. Now Hawaii Five O, on the other hand.

• 47:39Speaker 01

  The new one I got into a lot more.

• 47:41Jocko Willink?

  Is anyone we know in that?

• 47:43Speaker 01

  Other people I know for sure.

• 47:45Jocko Willink?

  Like who?

• 47:46Speaker 01

  Well, oh, I know, uh, he died the Tiila Tuli, right? You'll see the big, he was, he was like one of the main characters in that.

• 47:52Jocko Willink?

  Oh shit.

• 47:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then, um, Scott Khan, you know, James Khan and Scott Khan. Yeah, yeah. You know, I'm from like, um, he's in a bunch of movies. Scott Khan's one of the main guys and then this other guy, McGarrett, that you might not be, he's in some romantic movies. Nonetheless, a freaking good team. You know how people, what they call a chemistry, you know, on screen. Kind of like how they're fun and like that, they they had a heavy doses of that for sure.

• 48:20Jocko Willink?

  Going back to where we got this freaking tangent. Magnum P I, but but before that, we were just talking about fitness, right? And how back in the day, when you see these people back in the day, it's like everyone was more fit. Because they had, they had better food and you couldn't sit around, you could watch Magnum P I, but that was going to give you one hour. On one day a week, one hour. It wasn't, I mean, bro, there's so much content that you can just, you can just do that for the rest of your life, you know? It's kind of like the movie The Matrix, you know what I mean? You live your life through this fantasy that you're watching on your screen. You know?

• 48:56Speaker 01

  Never ending.

• 48:56Jocko Willink?

  It never ending, it just, and that's how you survive, just feeding you the green slop through the tube and you're just like, just. Just you're hooking me up back up to the matrix. Just let me see this stuff more.

• 49:06Speaker 01

  If you think about it, it kind of gets spooky beyond the normal, obvious spookiness because you know how like. You can watch like the best movie in the world after like ninety minutes. You're ready for it to wrap up, right? Because your attention and it gets boring, you know? But the scroll never gets boring. And that's the thing. So now if you're like, if that's just how it is, oh, yeah, it's like the matrix. It's like you're literally plugged in.

• 49:30Jocko Willink?

  You're plugged in.

• 49:31Speaker 01

  Because it's not like.

• 49:32Jocko Willink?

  You're plugged in and your and your, your life. Is fake because your life is in that little thing that you're watching right there for eighteen seconds. That's what it is. We're just feeding, just hook the slop tube up to my like, my stomach, just pump the sugar slop right in there directly. And just let me keep watching some some shit pass by my eyes and make me feel good for eighteen seconds.

• 49:58Jocko Willink?

  Six seconds at a time, nine seconds at a time. Like this is it, this is what I'm gonna see.

• 50:04Speaker 01

  I I thought of it and still do think of it as back then, we'll say in the eighties and nineties or and before, before, of course, I'm saying.

• 50:12Jocko Willink?

  Seventies for your boy right over here. Because the seventies is when I was watching TV, you know, like I was, I mean, I was born in nineteen seventy one. So you know, by the time it's nineteen seventy, seventy six, seventy seven, seventy eight, I'm watching TV, you know? You had the ability to watch TV in the seventies for me.

• 50:28Speaker 01

  So in a nutshell, you had to work for everything, everything, even the small things.

• 50:33Jocko Willink?

  Commercial.

• 50:36Jocko Willink?

  It's so weird how a commercial has just been, just been turned into like a, a, a, an obstacle, you know? Where I'm like, oh, you gotta be, I'd rather just not watch this thing whenever.

• 50:49Speaker 01

  Unacceptable. So yeah, not back then you had to work for everything. Now. And as time goes on, you have to work less and less and less for everything.

• 50:56Jocko Willink?

  To the point where, but they will literally deliver your food, whatever, whatever. I mean, look, we live in San Diego, California. Anything that you want to eat, you can have delivered to your house in forty five minutes. Anything, you name it, anything that you want to eat, anything. Because we got a, we got some different cultural, like you could think of some worldwide foods and you'd still be able to get it in San Diego. Like somebody bring it to your door in forty five minutes, it'll be there, it's still warm, good to go. So that's how the bar has been lowered. You can't make it unless they hook the feeding, the sugar feed tube into your stomach or just like, it's just, you know, it's just swelling. And you just press it like a button, like when you, when you see people in the hospital hitting the, uh, the dose for their, for their painkiller.

• 51:42Jocko Willink?

  And it's like click, click, click, click, click. Like that's what you're doing. Just, just put the slop into my mouth.

• 51:46Speaker 01

  It's crazy. I mean, obviously that's an extreme picture of it, but that's kind of what it is with the whole just. Pressing the button thing and action, you know, because everything is slowly. In a lot of cases, rapidly becoming just press the button instead of go out and work for it in whatever way, mental, physical, whatever. So yeah, that's it. That's how I see the whole foundation of it.

• 52:09Jocko Willink?

  And that's why, so between the food that we get, which is crap processed junk and the lack of. Outdoor slash physical activity that we do. But just imagine this, just imagine this part. I mean, this is like a micro, but imagine if you're in an office. And you gotta talk to somebody.

• 52:30Jocko Willink?

  Twenty years ago, you got up and went and talked to them. Now you send him a direct message and you open a video chat. You don't even, you're just like in here. In the South Park, you see the South Park, like when the guy's playing video games, he like can't move anymore. He's just all fat and just like, he's playing whatever, some video game. That's what we're all turning into. No, I don't have to get, I don't have to get up and go and talk to this person. I can just send him a text message and just, that's what, that's what we're doing.

• 52:57Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 52:58Jocko Willink?

  You don't even have to answer, look, you say you have to get up to answer your phone in your house.

• 53:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:02Jocko Willink?

  You don't even have to do that. You just have to get up to change the channel.

• 53:05Speaker 01

  Even texting someone is kind of more like a video game than it is actual talking to somebody.

• 53:10Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 53:10Speaker 01

  Dang, that's crazy, huh?

• 53:12Jocko Willink?

  It's a whole total detachment, plug you in, hook up the slop machine to your, and they want to put sugar on your tongue, like you got like sugar going on to your tongue, but then the food that you need is going directly in your belly. And then you just got your eyes are just like staring at the screen and you're just like giving you this, this nice low level satisfaction that you just can't get away from. It's just like, I just love this. I love it. That's what we're doing. As opposed to, as opposed to in nineteen whatever, fifty-three, where it's like, oh, you wanna, you wanna, you wanna stimulate your brain? Cool. You gotta go outside, grab a, uh, by the way, a surfboard. That weighs thirty-eight pounds because it's made of ball, so it's not quite as, you know what I mean? Like everything, that's what we're doing.

• 53:54Speaker 01

  We working for it.

• 53:54Jocko Willink?

  You want to impress someone? If you're a young man, you want to impress a girl, back in the day, you had to like build a car. You know what I'm saying?

• 54:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:03Jocko Willink?

  Now you're just like filming yourself.

• 54:07Jocko Willink?

  You're just filming yourself. I mean, like, I got this freaking new shirt or whatever.

• 54:13Jocko Willink?

  Oh, we gotta get back.

• 54:16Speaker 01

  But you mentioned the feats of strength, right? Where those are higher now. So it kind of paints like, kind of a bigger picture, if you gotta use your brain though, that's the thing. Where it kind of produces these huge opportunities to do these outstanding things or whatever, but on a general level, it's, it's pretty low bar.

• 54:35Jocko Willink?

  There are so many things that are trying to, you know, distract you and that, that idea of like your, your animal instincts, right? Your animal instincts, which you have to tap into sometimes to like step up and make things happen. But most of those, a lot of those animal instincts in the modern world lead to sloth. They just lead to sloth. They're just like, you don't need to move, you don't need to do anything, just hook me up to my machine. And just, you know, at some point, are they gonna have, you ever seen those real like nice high-end massage chairs?

• 55:06Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 55:07Jocko Willink?

  You know, so they're gonna have something like that, that you'll just like go into like a little pod. And you just go into it and it's gonna dri, it's just gonna like drip sugar into your mouth, like a little bit of fat. And then you're just gonna have a screen in front of you and you're not gonna have to move and you're just gonna sit there.

• 55:22Speaker 01

  It actually gets worse than that, by the way. So now you, you can, even now, it's been like this for a while. Where it's like, okay, but if you do that, right? You won't have like the muscularness that you want, or the, your body fat will be too high or whatever. So like, oh, well, we got a solution for that too.

• 55:42Jocko Willink?

  A pill for that.

• 55:43Speaker 01

  Inject you with this. You ever, you ever, you ever seen like fake abs, people with fake abs, fake pecs, fake calves? This is, I'm talking about it, men too. Don't get me started on the girls. But they'll, oh, you, you can buy that too, bro, whatever you like, you know, all this stuff that like, all the way down to the stuff that literally exists because you earn it. That's it. That's, it's only function of existing is because you earn it. You know, like strength and like all this stuff or whatever. No, no, no, don't worry. We got a little, we got a little, uh, product for that as well. See what I'm saying? So now you can sidestep all the work, you know, when back in the day, you gotta work for it, right? Now we could sidestep all that work, bro. Hook you right up. See what I'm saying?

• 56:21Jocko Willink?

  Yep. Well, I'll tell you what, unfortunately, we don't have, um, his unremitting physical training. We could probably find some army version of physical training, you know, back in the day. I'll, I'll try and see if I can research that and find something, but we don't know what he was doing, but we know that physical fitness was important. And he says, let me mention briefly what I think the standards should be for commanders of large units. The division commander should have the physical endurance, stamina and reserves of his best infantry battalion commanders. Because that is where he belongs with them, a good part of the time. The corps commanders, those of his infantry regimental commanders and the army commanders, just about the same. So he's basically saying you gotta be able to hang with the people that are like one below you in the chain of command.

• 57:02Jocko Willink?

  And remember this, since no one can predict today, when you may be thrown into combat, perhaps within hours of deplaning in an overseas theater, as happened to thousands in Korea, and I, as I have no doubt to many in Vietnam, you will have no time to get in shape. You must be in shape all the time. Freaking legit. There's another element in battlefield leadership, which I want to mention and illustrate. It is a cardinal responsibility of a commander to foresee insofar as possible where and when crises affecting his command are likely to occur. It starts with his initial estimate of the situation, a continuing mental process

• 57:47Jocko Willink?

  from the moment of entering the combat zone until his unit is pulled out of the line. Ask yourself these questions. What are the enemy capabilities? What shall I do or what could I do if he should exercise that one of his capabilities, which should be most dangerous to me? Or most likely to interfere with the accomplishment of my mission? It's something we always learn to ask, uh, these questions. What's the end, we call it enemy most likely course of action and most dangerous course of action. So like, what's the worst thing the enemy could do? Is this? Okay. How are we gonna handle that? What's the most likely thing you're gonna do? Okay. How are we gonna handle that?

• 58:23Jocko Willink?

  Personal presence. As a commander, as commander of a division or smaller unit, there will rarely be more than one crisis. One really critical situation facing you at any one time. The commander belongs, that, and again, he's talking about it as the commander of a division. So we're talking about, uh, like at the higher level. There's only be one really truly cri, when you're like a platoon commander and there's like a person that shot and there's, you're in a gunfight and you got wounded guys, like that's all, that, that's a lot of problems at the same time. The commander belongs right at the spot, not at some rear command post. He's talking about the place where the critical stuff is happening. He should be there before the crisis erupts if possible.

• 59:06Jocko Willink?

  If it is not possible, then he should get there as soon as he can after it develops. Once there, then by personal observation of terrain, enemy fires, reactions and attitudes of his own commanders on the spot, by his eyes, ears, brain, nose and his sixth sense, he gets the best possible picture of what is happening and can best exercise his troop leadership and the full authority of his command. You gotta go there and see what's happening.

• 59:33Jocko Willink?

  He can start help, he can start help of every kind to his hard-pressed subordinates. He can urge higher commanders to provide additional fire support, artillery, air, other infantry weapons, and in the future, perhaps nuclear strikes. Okay, we're going there. No other means will provide the commander with what his personal perceptions can provide if he is present at the critical time and place. He can personally intervene if he thinks that necessary. And then he's got an interesting caveat, which I was surprised he threw on here, but only to the extent that such intervention will be helpful and not interfere with his subordinates. He is in a position to make instant decisions to defend, withdraw, attack, exploit or pursue.

• 1:00:17Jocko Willink?

  So it's interesting that he says, hey, when you show up there, you can make calls, but only if your calls are gonna help out and not interfere with what these people are already doing.

• 1:00:27Jocko Willink?

  If at this time he is at some rear command post, he will have to rely on reports from others and the time will be lost. Perhaps just those precious moments which spell the difference between success and failure. Notwithstanding the console capabilities of future television in combat. I still believe what I have said is true. In any event, keep this time factor ever in your mind. It is one of the irretrievable, inextensible, priceless elements in war. So he's saying in the future, there's gonna be some kind of TV.

• 1:01:01Jocko Willink?

  He was right. He called it. You can watch this shit going down and you can try and tell people what to do that are out in the field. And you're probably, you're gonna be able to do that a little bit better because we have such good communications, but it still is not a replacement yet. I don't know when it'll become a replacement, probably never will.

• 1:01:17Jocko Willink?

  Relief of commanders, and by the way, this is firing people. The occasion for the relief of commanders may regrettably arise. If it does, there are three points to consider. Is your decision based on personal knowledge and observation or on secondhand information? That's important because you always know there's some people that their personality clashed with someone else and now suddenly they got beef. What will the effect be on the command concerned? Are you relieving a commander whose men think highly of him, even with affection, regardless of professional competence? And finally, have you a better man available? Those are some big questions to ask. Every man is entitled to go into battle with the best chance of survival. Your forethought as a leader can provide.

• 1:02:01Jocko Willink?

  What best helps you discharge this responsibility? Sharing things with your men. To be always in the toughest spots, always where the crisis is, or seems most likely to develop. Always thinking of what you can do to help give your commanders who are executing your orders. Do your utmost to see that the best in the rations, shelter, first aid and evacuation facilities are available. Being generous with praise, swift and fair with punishment. When you have the facts intolerant of demonstrated failure in leadership on which lives depend. Yet making full allowance for human weaknesses and the stresses and strains of battle on individuals.

• 1:02:46Jocko Willink?

  So those are the things you're trying to do to make everyone have the best chance of success in combat. It's a lot of stuff there.

• 1:02:56Jocko Willink?

  And as much as you need to, you know. If someone makes a mistake, you need to punish them for it, especially when when lives are at risk. But at the same time, you got to understand, man, there's people are going to make mistakes. And when you're going to fire somebody, do you have someone good to replace them? Because if you don't, what are you doing? There's a lot of, a lot of things to think about in these scenarios.

• 1:03:16Jocko Willink?

  Next section. Know your men. Know your men and be constantly on the alert for potential leaders. You never know how soon you may need them. During my two years in command of the 82nd Airborne Division in World War II, I was in close and daily touch with every regimental and most battalion commanders. Before ascending to command of division. While, and while I was General Omar N. Bradley's assistant division commander. I had learned to call by name every infantry officer in the division. It's pretty awesome.

• 1:03:49Jocko Willink?

  Later, by frequent exchange of views with infantry regimental commanders and the divisional, divisional artillery commander. I knew in advance whom they had earmarked for battalion command. I do not recall any instance where I thought a regimental commander had not picked the right man.

• 1:04:07Jocko Willink?

  The payoff came in Normandy. So he kind of racked and stacked his, his guys and, and who knew who is who and knew who, what the succession plan was. Who was identified as like a potential good leader? And that comes into play here, and this is crazy. Uh, Normandy, I went in with 12 infantry battalion commanders, four regiments. And I had 14 new ones when we came out.

• 1:04:33Jocko Willink?

  For some battalions, lost as many as three commanders during the 33 days we were in that fight. Bro, that's freaking crazy. Battalion commanders.

• 1:04:43Jocko Willink?

  Losing three battalion commanders in a single battalion, that's insanity.

• 1:04:49Jocko Willink?

  And 14 new battalion commanders for 12 battalions in 33 days.

• 1:04:58Jocko Willink?

  Freaking crazy. The qualities of a leader are not limited to commanders. The core, the requirements for leadership are just as essential in the staff officer. And in some respects, more exacting since he does not have the ultimate authority, which can be used when necessary and must rely even more than his commander on his own strength of character. His tact and persuasion in carrying out his duties. So like when you're a little, you know, when you're a staff officer, you're not the man. Well, guess what? You still got, you got to have a little bit more leadership because you can't just bark orders because you don't have that authority. So you've got to be even better leaders, your character is even more important.

• 1:05:37Jocko Willink?

  Between the commander and his chief of staff in a division or larger unit, there should be a thorough mutual understanding, respect and confidence with no official secrets between them. Together they form a single dual personality and the instructions issuing from the chief of staff must have the same weight and authority as those of the commander himself. But this does not mean that a commander who delegates such authority to his chief of staff can now allow his chief to isolate him from the rest of the staff. If that happens, the commander will soon find out, find himself out of touch and the chief of staff will be running the unit. Little word of caution. There is a fine balance here. The chiefs of staff sections should know that they always have access to their commander.

• 1:06:21Jocko Willink?

  He should see them and visit their sections with sufficient frequency to understand their problems, to let them know that he appreciates their efforts and that he stands ready.

• 1:06:32Jocko Willink?

  To help where he can.

• 1:06:35Jocko Willink?

  Now, along with knowing your men, the next section is called inform subordinates. Closely akin to the relationship with staff officers is keeping in close personal touch with your principal subordinate commanders. In the division with your brigade and separate battalion commanders, in the corps with your division commanders, their chiefs of staff. And as many of the commanders of the attached corps units as you can. And in the army with the corps and division commanders and their chiefs of staff. There is always time for these visits. Administrative work can be done at night. By day, you belong with your troops. Boom. So all this work that you got to do, all this administrative stuff that you do, you do that, you do that on your own time.

• 1:07:18Jocko Willink?

  You know, the, what you're doing is you've got to be out there with the boys, got to be out there with the troops, you got to be out there with your subordinate leadership. Getting to know people, making sure you understand what's going on.

• 1:07:28Jocko Willink?

  Building those relationships. That's what we're doing. Do that administrative stuff on your own time.

• 1:07:36Jocko Willink?

  And continuing on with this idea of keeping them informed, keep them informed of your thinking and plans. When you have the concept of an operation first in mind, consult your principal commanders without delay and get their reactions. That's so smart. Don't, don't, don't start spinning up a plan in your own head without telling the, your subordinate leadership what's going on.

• 1:07:56Jocko Willink?

  No matter how sound a tactical plan may be, the chances of successful execution will be greatly increased if you have first secured. The willing acceptance by commanders responsible for execution of the mission you plan to assign them. Yes, get them bought in. And again, I will tell you the black belt move there is to let them come up with a plan. You come up with the objective, you come up, say this is what we want to get done. How do you want to make it happen? They're gonna, they're gonna, what is the word he used there? They're going to willingly accept it because they thought of it.

• 1:08:24Jocko Willink?

  Ensure that they receive notice of your decision and that principle, the principal details of your plans. As approved in ample time to permit them and their subordinates to make necessary reconnoissances and issue their orders.

• 1:08:38Jocko Willink?

  These are some of the reasons why I hold that leadership is not a science, but an art. It conceives an ideal, states an objective and then seeks actively and earnestly to attain it, everlastingly persevering. Because the records of war are full of successes coming to those leaders who stuck it out just a little bit longer than their opponents. And sometimes you just gotta keep freaking going. And then it closes out, he kind of wraps it up here. Some suggestions for leadership are. Read widely and wisely all the history and biography possible.

• 1:09:19Jocko Willink?

  Soak up all the personal experiences you can of battle tested brother officers. This broadens your understanding of an art of which you can never hope to know all.

• 1:09:32Jocko Willink?

  Study thoughtfully the records of past successful leaders and adapt their message, methods to yours. Work hard to keep fit. That little extra stamina may someday pull you out of some deep holes.

• 1:09:50Jocko Willink?

  Dude, do you think they even back then, like, you know, now we got VO2 max? Like, at what point did they start to realize that someone that worked out was going to be in better shape? You know what I mean?

• 1:09:59Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:10:00Jocko Willink?

  That's, I mean, physical culture's been around for a long time.

• 1:10:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, and there, there's two kind of separate elements, like, we knew about VO2 max a long time ago. But just like now, okay, so weightlifting, for example, we'll say, forget VO2 max for a second. Uh, weightlifting, so weightlifting is freaking old school. You know, you got strong men, you got even bodybuilders.

• 1:10:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, even lifting rocks over in Scotland.

• 1:10:23Speaker 01

  The circus guys, like the whole thing, right? That's been in society. But then you have weightlifting in sports, we'll say. So at some point someone was like, oh, wait, this weightlifting stuff applies to sports. And how does it apply to sports? And then develop the science behind that combination. See what I'm saying? So that's really the, I think that's what you're kind of wondering where it's like, you're talking about VO2 max. You know, that's something you test in for other situations. But it's like, wait a second, let's bring that tech to freaking military.

• 1:10:55Jocko Willink?

  But don't you remember when, well, when I was little, like they would say, if you lifted weights, you would get muscle bound. Remember that, remember that term, muscle bound?

• 1:11:03Speaker 01

  One of my coaches told me that. Oh, yeah, when I was in, uh, Pop Warner football too, by the way.

• 1:11:09Jocko Willink?

  Get muscle bound.

• 1:11:10Speaker 01

  Muscle bound, yeah, it's like, yeah, you wake up one day, you can't even scratch your ass, he's saying that.

• 1:11:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:14Speaker 01

  It's like, all right, well, I believed it back then, you know, so I was like, oh, shoot, I gotta stretch, but.

• 1:11:19Jocko Willink?

  Check. Well, work hard to keep fit. Uh, also work hard in your own way at being tops at your job. Keep the three Cs, character, courage and competence always before your mind and with faith in God. Be yourself. And then the last one, remember there are many others on your team and be inwardly humble. Every man's life is equally precious, although all are at the disposal of our country. And the contribution each makes in battle is of equal potential value.

• 1:11:58Jocko Willink?

  And that's what we got. That's what we got. The three Cs, character, courage, competence, outstanding things to keep front of mind, um, coming from General Ridgeway. It's interesting how these, this Venn diagram, just throughout centuries of time, has the continued overlap of the things that we talk about. And no matter where you are on that timeline, you can reach in and you're going to find, you're going to land on these things. So, one of those things you're going to land on, by the way, is keeping physically fit.

• 1:12:39Speaker 01

  Competence.

• 1:12:39Jocko Willink?

  You know, I remember, you know what's weird? When I wrote Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual?

• 1:12:43Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:12:44Jocko Willink?

  I remember kind of like, you know, you, you, you kind of feel like a meathead, right? You're like, hey, man, you got to work out like it's an important thing. And as a leader, you know, you kind of be like physically fit. It's an important thing, you know, you kind of feel like, oh, just like, oh, like, ah, well, yeah, so might offend some people or whatever, but it's like, man, I'm telling you, like, it's a real, it's real. Now, now, look, and I'm coming from, obviously from the military perspective, but it's true in any situation. Like, you gotta be physically fit. So that's why we're getting after it. That's why we're training. That's why we're lifting. That's why we're sprinting. You know, the whole nine yards. And when we're doing that, guess what we're going to need? Echo Charles, guess?

• 1:13:20Speaker 01

  I'm gonna take a wild guess, maybe some fuel.

• 1:13:22Jocko Willink?

  Got to fuel that mission, right? Got to fuel that mission. Uh, check out jockofuel.com. We have protein. We've got the best protein, the tastiest protein. We've got the pumpkin spice. Let's face it, the pumpkin spice is kind of...

• 1:13:32Speaker 01

  We like the pumpkin spice.

• 1:13:33Jocko Willink?

  It's such a good little, uh, it's like such a mix up. You know what I mean? It's just out of the, out of the left corner, you know, just like boom, what is going pumpkin spice today? And we lean into the spice. It's tasty. It's sweet, but it's tasty. So we got protein, we got energy, we got greens, we got creatine, we got, we got everything that you need. We got everything that you need. And, uh, you can get that at jockofuel.com or you can go to whatever store is in your local neighborhood. And you can say, hey, where's the jocko fuel? And they'll point you in the right direction. Sometimes it's in the health section. Sometimes it's in the whatever, the drink section. So you gotta kind of figure out where it's at. And if they don't have it, then just tell them, hey, man, I want my jocko fuel and we'll get it to them.

• 1:14:16Jocko Willink?

  So jockofuel.com. We got what you need to fuel your mission. Go get some. Also, originusa.com. Look, we talk a lot about these American military units, Battle of the Bulls, we're jumping into Italy. Like, there's a lot of things that went down. A lot of wars that have taken place, Vietnam, a lot of Korea, like all these wars that took place to try and protect freedom. Well, right now, there's an economic war going on worldwide. And we got adversaries out there that Americans accidentally send money to. And I say accidentally because I don't think they really, I was at like a,

• 1:14:51Jocko Willink?

  I was at like a patriotic event the other night. Did I tell you this?

• 1:14:53Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:14:54Jocko Willink?

  Okay. Yeah. Patriotic event. I'm thinking everyone's patriotic and they're wearing stuff that's made in China. Bro, what's, what's, what is this? What are you doing? You love America and you're, you're buying your blue jeans, an iconic American item. And you're buying ones that are made from China, made by slave labor. Sending our economic power overseas. Don't do that. American made, a hundred percent American made, a hundred percent communist free, no slave labor. Go to originusa.com, check it out. Let's go.

• 1:15:25Speaker 01

  It's true. Also, don't forget about Jocko's store. You know, sometimes you'll, you'll be walking around town and you'll see somebody wearing that Discipline Equals Freedom shirt.

• 1:15:33Jocko Willink?

  Get hyped.

• 1:15:34Speaker 01

  Or the shirt that says good on it in a very like, kind of like slightly unique way, like, oh, I think, you know, this is where you can get this stuff. Jocko's store.com. Boom. Mystery solved. Um, uh, there's other stuff on there as well, not just discipline equals freedom, five versions, by the way. Three versions are good, by the way, but the standby gets, um, you know, uh, get after, you know, these things. So when you're on this path.

• 1:15:58Jocko Willink?

  And you want to represent?

• 1:15:59Speaker 01

  And you want to represent, but it's not just any path. It's this path of, uh, competence, courage.

• 1:16:06Jocko Willink?

  Character.

• 1:16:07Speaker 01

  And character. And you want to represent, how Jocko said, boom, this is where you get your stuff. Boom. Some hats on there as well for the people who wear hats.

• 1:16:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I just ordered one.

• 1:16:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, they see, there you go. Even Jocko's ordering hats from here. It's freaking legit. Also the Shirt Locker, new design.

• 1:16:24Jocko Willink?

  Are those some more creative or something?

• 1:16:26Speaker 01

  Creative designs. If, if you're into creativity, I don't know. Maybe that's the fourth C. I don't know. There's some layers on there for sure. You know? Um, but nonetheless, yes, a little bit outside the box, you know, representing a more unique way from time to time. Boom. Represent the Shirt Locker subscription scenario. You already know that. But yeah, you want to, if you don't know about it, just click on the top says, uh, check out the Shirt Locker.

• 1:16:47Jocko Willink?

  Does it say subscription scenario?

• 1:16:48Speaker 01

  I'm just gonna say subscription scenario, but no, it does not say that. No, no, no, no, we're keeping it because it is accurate. Um, anyway, you want to check it out, click on the Shirt Locker thing. It'll take you to the page. You'll see what it's all about. And you know, if you like something, get something.

• 1:17:02Jocko Willink?

  Check. Uh, also books. We got the Way of the Warrior Kid books and we have the Way of the Warrior Kid movie coming out November 25th. On Apple TV, global release, April 20th, or sorry, November 25th. This is when everyone's home with your families, Thanksgiving. You're going to be able to watch the best movie ever made. It's called Way of the Warrior Kid, starring Chris Pratt, directed by Mick G. Echo Charles is in it.

• 1:17:27Speaker 01

  Jocko Willink's in it.

• 1:17:28Jocko Willink?

  Jocko Willink's in it. Ran a Willink's in it.

• 1:17:30Speaker 01

  Ran a, Coach Hannah's in it.

• 1:17:32Jocko Willink?

  Yep. It's, and also the books. You don't have to wait until November 5th. The books are out right now. And by the way, the, all of the Warrior Kid books are now available on audiobook. So go to wherever you get your audiobooks and you can get Way of the Warrior Kid audiobooks. And you can listen to those on your way to Jiu Jitsu practice with your kids, which is awesome. Got some other books. Uh, we got Put Your Legs On, Put Your Legs On by Rob Jones. We've got Need to Lead by Dave Burke. We got Extreme Ownership, Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual, Dichotomy of Leadership, Leadership Strategy and Taxes. We've got a bunch of books. So you can check out those. Also, echelonfront.com. This is our leadership consultancy. We teach leadership and we help you solve problems in your organization through leadership. And the problems that you have are, are leadership problems.

• 1:18:14Jocko Willink?

  So if you need help inside your organization, go to echelonfront.com and check out the options there. Also, extremeownership.com. We teach leadership skills online. Those are available at extremeownership.com. And then 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. If you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to AmericasMightyWarriors.org. Also check out HeroesAndHorses.org. And finally Jimmy May's organization, BeyondTheBrotherhood.org. And if you want to connect with us, go to jocko.com or you can check out the Underground Podcast. And that is where we answer your questions. And other than that,

• 1:18:57Jocko Willink?

  you know, stay away from social media. Don't hook the sugar feeder up to your face and go, don't go into the pod and just die. Don't do that. Instead, go out and live. And to all the service members who are holding the line around the world right now, thank you for stepping up and protecting us and our freedom. And thanks to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, secret service, as well as all other first responders. Thanks for what you do to keep us safe. And everyone else out there, as, as General Ridgeway recommends, read as much as you possibly can, especially from history. Study what other people have done that's worked and use their methods, right?

• 1:19:40Jocko Willink?

  Work hard to stay in shape, obviously. Work hard to be awesome at your job.

• 1:19:46Jocko Willink?

  And maintain your character. And that character, it's self-discipline, it's loyalty, it's willingness to accept responsibility, it's willingness to admit mistakes. Character's selflessness, it's modesty, it's humility, it's willingness to sacrifice when necessary and it's faith. And all those things,

• 1:20:07Jocko Willink?

  these things are what we call the path.

• 1:20:12Jocko Willink?

  So stay on the path. And that's all we've got for tonight. And until next time, this is Echo and Jocko.