548: The Importance of Morale and How to Develop It.

>Join Jocko Underground Full Episodes< https://app.redcircle.com/shows/64a89f88-a245-4098-8d8d-496325ec4f74/exclusive-content The military review US Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, again, November 1960Drawing from rarely discussed military journals written during the Cold War, Jocko and Echo explore the timeless principles behind morale, trust, courage, and why some leaders inspire extraordinary effort while others don't. 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 548 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. So I was reading through some material. I've been looking, trying to get a sense of the leadership during the Cold War. And because everything was just so focused on nuclear war, they were so concerned about it. And I, I came upon some articles from the US Army Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, they have a publication, or they had a publication called Military Review. And this is from November of 1960. And so it's obviously it's post-World War II. It's, it's post-Korea, but clearly prior to Vietnam.

• 0:44Jocko Willink?

  And this is at a time when everyone thought the next war was going to be a big nuclear war. So it's interesting. You see some of that focus in there, but, but there was a couple of articles that I thought were worth going into reviewing a little bit, just because they have lessons that apply to any situation, whether it's conventional war, nuclear war, or non-combat scenarios, where you interact with people, right? People you work with, people you live with, people that you have to lead. So some good information here, let's get into it. This is the Military Review, US Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, again, November 1960.

• 1:27Jocko Willink?

  And some of the articles, interestingly, the first article in it's called Guerrilla Warfare in Ukraine. That's the, that's the start off right there. It had LERPs and nuclear target acquisition. So that's, that's, that's Rangers, early Rangers, pre-Rangers, long-range reconnaissance, and nuclear target acquisition. There's the next article is the Petersburg Crater and Nuclear Weapons. I mean, this thing is just, they're, they're really concerned about it. The Armed Might of Red China, the Mutual Weapons Development Program. There's just a lot of these things, but then it gets into some, some things that I found a little bit more interesting. There's an article called The View From The Bottom, and we're gonna start with that one.

• 2:11Jocko Willink?

  And there's another one called The Morale Of The Soldier In War. So The View From The Bottom, written by someone named Elihu Rose, who was a Air Force reservist, second lieutenant, and he's also ended up being a big, like, real estate magnet in New York, but this is, I think, this is prior to him doing all that. So this, this first article is called View From The Bottom. And that perspective being like, what does it look like? What does it look like for the troops? It says here, "In accomplishing his mission, the commander avails himself of all the apparatus of war that modern armies possess, but his arsenal also contains one weapon which is

• 2:53Jocko Willink?

  unique, which none may bring into being but himself. This weapon is morale, not the morale inspired by ma's apple pie or some vague call to patriotism, but rather that rare, spiritual bond between the commander and those it is his privilege to command." I never thought too much about the uniqueness that each individual leader brings to the table. No two leaders are alike. Well, at least they're not exactly alike. They might be similar, but they're not alike. "Certainly commanders have been successful without this very personal approach, and in the moment of truth, it is, of course, strategic and tactical ability for which there is no

• 3:38Jocko Willink?

  substitute." I was kind of surprised he said that. There's nothing more important than strategic and tactical ability. But I'll tell you, I don't know, you know, the people with the stronger morale sometimes achieve victory regardless. "But in every battle, no matter how well-planned, there remain the variable and unknown quantities those times when men are called upon to produce that extra effort which escapes definition. If the commander is to practice his art on the highest level, he must call forth this effort by the very projection of himself." And you know, this goes into, we, we did a podcast a while back, not too long ago, but we talked about T.E.

• 4:20Jocko Willink?

  Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia, and he had this thing that he, he said that you could learn nine tenths of what you need to know to be a combat leader. You could learn in the books and in the schools and in the field, training, but there was what he called the irrational tenth, this other extra little bit that you can't really teach someone. Now, I think you can teach some of it, but that's what this is talking about, in my opinion, the art at the highest level you have to bring to yourself, you have to bring yourself. Changes in warfare, the, the years, and he goes into a, an example. I'm not going to read the whole example. Uh, it's about Sheridan in the Shenandoah Campaign. Uh, but he says, "Changes in warfare.

• 5:03Jocko Willink?

  The years following the Civil War saw changes in technique and doctrine that altered the very fabric of warfare as it is, as it had been practiced up to that time. Image of the commander. Like theatrical audiences, the military formation must be approached by way of the mass personality. The commander's success in establishing rapport will thus depend upon the image of himself he is able to create in the large number rather than on the personal impression he conveys to the comparative few. There is no formula for image. It varies as people themselves vary. Some commanders, for example, have used crude language in establishing the personality

• 5:47Jocko Willink?

  of a regular guy, while others have attempted the same thing with a startling lack of success." So this idea that, you know, this image that the leader creates is in some ways more important, because that image goes out to everyone than like a personal impression you, you, you put onto a few people. It's an interesting, it's an interesting take, that the way you appear to the troops is more important than the way you appear to just a few of your subordinate, direct subordinate leaders. And the interesting thing about this is, and you're gonna hear this, you, you hear this and you go, oh, so you're supposed to like fake an image and like, what are you doing? That's kind of, seems kind of fake.

• 6:30Jocko Willink?

  But as he goes into it, he's, and he kind of mentions it here. "You can try and portray an image, but if it's not real, and the term that they use nowadays in the world is authentic, if you're trying to, uh, uh, put out an inauthentic image, a quote unquote image of yourself, people are gonna pick up on it, and it's not gonna work." "An order of the day, or a spirited phrase spoken on the eve of battle, might carry with it all the grandeur of Nelson's Signal at Trafalgar, but often the same words from a different mouth fall flat. The lone word 'nuts' was spoken by General McAuliffe at Bastogne, has entered the history

• 7:14Jocko Willink?

  books, not because of its simplicity or magnificence, magnificent, but because whatever qualities it had, it apparently had them just at the right time and from the right person. That's when the German said, hey, we got you surrounded. Uh, would you like to surrender? You confronted at this time, they let, they wrote him this long message, and he just wrote back, nuts." "Considering the many ways by which this emotional relationship can be established, the one common denominator is the concept of recognition." This is being able to see you. "During World War II, Field Marshal Sir William Slim once addressed some troops, saying,

• 7:55Jocko Willink?

  'I was in the ranks myself once, and in those days I was always being shoved around by people I never saw and about whose sanity I had the gravest doubts. Well, I want you to know what I look like, not because I think I'm any oil painting, but because I think you ought to know the bloke issuing the orders. Then you'll know who to blame for them.'" Interesting. You're coming right out and telling the boys, like, hey, I didn't even get to see the leaders when I was in World War I. I'm gonna let you see me, you know who I am. "Today such a thought hardly seems unusual, but it represents a remarkable step forward since the First World War, when senior officers were not always so accessible. Field Marshal Montgomery states in his memoirs that during his entire service as a junior

• 8:40Jocko Willink?

  officer on the Western Front, he never once saw the British Army commanders General French or Haig." God, that's, that would piss a brother off. That would piss a brother off right there. I had, I had legit people come and visit me on deployment. And it was like, okay, cool. You know what I mean? We had General Brown, the four-star SOCOM commander, fly into Ramadi, say what up. The Commodore came out. We had a, the, the CGSOV commander came down. People, people wanted to make sure they knew what was happening. I can't imagine just going through World, WWI. People are getting slaughtered and you never see the leaders at the front.

• 9:25Jocko Willink?

  How the hell do those guys know what's going on? How do they appreciate the suffering? How do they appreciate the tactics that are being used and not being effective? You don't. You gotta get out there. And it's not just so that you can understand better what's happening, but it's so the troops can see you and know you. Different time. People are a lot more accepting of orders in, in that day than we are now.

• 9:57Jocko Willink?

  By World War II, the rule that a commander should be known by his men had become axiom. The satisfactory state of morale existing on the eve of Normandy invasion was undoubtedly due in large measure to the continual troop inspections carried out by all the senior commanders. These clearly indicated to the troops the interest and concern of their leaders and proved well worth the enormous expenditure of time.

• 10:24Jocko Willink?

  A recently, so, World War II, now you have, you know, good interaction with the troops. The leaders are down there, they're inspecting, they're asking questions, they're finding out, and the troops feel that. As opposed to just, hey, go over the, go over the top and go get mowed down by a machine gun.

• 10:41Jocko Willink?

  A recently published history of Major General Frank D. Merrill's marauders relates a minor incident which nevertheless emphasizes this aspect of troop psychology. A body of troops approached General Stillwell's headquarters after an arduous 140 mile march, anticipating the honor of exchanging salutes with their theater commander. Stillwell's failure to appear was doubtless an oversight, but it was noted by the troops, and in the words of one of them, "The chance for an inexpensive gesture that would have repaid him in the days to come." So, these guys marched 140 miles, and, and, General Stillwell?

• 11:25Jocko Willink?

  By, and they, you know, they even say, it's probably by accident, some oversight, like someone didn't tell them all the guys are here, whatever, but man, that hurts. Nothing is more damaging to the morale of combat troops than the impression that a critical event in their lives is regarded with indifference by the very leaders responsible for their safety.

• 11:47Jocko Willink?

  Careful of that. And it's a bit, you know, the thing is, that you have to remember when you're in a leadership position, it doesn't seem like a big deal to you. But it's a big deal to them.

• 11:59Jocko Willink?

  So, to you is, oh, you know, the troops, I, I don't need to go out there, they don't, they don't think that much of me. No, no, no. Whether you think that or not, you need to get out there. You need to go grip and grin with the troops.

• 12:16Jocko Willink?

  This is an interesting section, distinguishing trademarks. Many commanders have found that distinguishing trademarks have aided in establishing both recognition and rapport. The custom probably is as old as warfare itself. A sprig of broom worn in the helmet of Geoffrey of Anjou gave the name Plantagenet to an entire line of English kings. So, a sprig of bloom is like a little, a little yellowish flower, and this guy wore it in his helmet. And then they called that whole line of English kings, Plantagenet, which is, which is like

• 13:00Jocko Willink?

  the Latin name for that flower. So, one guy's kind of personal trademark named a whole lineage of kings. In World War II, the sight of General Patton's ivory handled revolver became so well known that he is reputed to have told a soldier, "If I were seen without this gun, no one would know me. I might as well just go without my pants."

• 13:23Jocko Willink?

  But the use of the trademark is not without its pitfalls. It must be judicious, or it will be degraded into a caricature.

• 13:33Jocko Willink?

  Field Marshal Montgomery's use of a double badged tankers beret is a classic example of the more successful military signature. This is Monty, he wore the, the tankers beret. His memoirs make clear the deliberation with which he set out to find an appropriate symbol, first using an Australian hat, then changing to a tank beret, and later adding an extra cap device as a final distinctive touch. In his own words, "He set out to be not only a master, but a mascot." And that's interesting, so, everyone, you picture Montgomery, you picture him in that beret. I guess, he was wearing this Australian hat, you know, with the big rim on it, or brim

• 14:18Jocko Willink?

  on it, and it kept blowing off in the desert, and one of the tankers gave him a beret, said, you know, "You wear this, it won't fall off, it won't get blown off." And so, he started wearing that, and then he put two insignias on it. One was the sign of being a general, the other one was the insignia of the tank symbol, which is illegal. It's against the rules. You're not allowed to do that. You're not allowed to have this, you know, it's against military regulations, but he's the freaking general, so he did it, and it gave him a little, you know, a little bit of extra.

• 14:50Jocko Willink?

  So, people do that sometimes, they do a little something. Remember the Hulk's mustache?

• 14:56Speaker 01

  The Hulk's, oh, yeah, the Hulk.

• 14:57Jocko Willink?

  Admiral Richard's mustache, that was kind of, it was, it was maybe not 100% within regulations. Now, we know, we look, when he came on here and he had the, the massive handlebar mustache, you know, which is, again, that's Hulk all day, but even when I met him, he had a mustache that was, you know, like I said, barely within regulations, if not, just straight up not within regulations, but, so Hulk, you know, he's the admiral. What are you gonna say, like, "Hey, you're not within regs?" No, you're the admiral.

• 15:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, so is it kind of like that, to a degree, where

• 15:36Speaker 01

  certain exceptions can be made depending on the person, and there will say, I don't know, reputation or performance or whatever?

• 15:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, I would say that is accurate.

• 15:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:48Jocko Willink?

  You know, I had, probably the closest, I don't know what the closest thing I would have had to this, but, one thing I did, I, I used to brief in, in my first deployment, I did a little bit in my second deployment, was I had a baseball bat. So, have you ever heard of MWR, morale, welfare, and recreation? It's like a, it's like a portion in, in the military, they have, in the Navy, in the Marine Corps, they have MWR. So, they're the people that set up baseball games and, you know, set up trips to go to Disneyland, and, like, to do all this kind of stuff.

• 16:24Jocko Willink?

  So, for whatever reason, in Baghdad, MWR had sent, like, baseball bats and gloves. And we weren't playing baseball, there was nowhere to play baseball, but we had, so we had these bats, and so, the first deployment, this is 2003, like, there wasn't much established infrastructure in Iraq at the time. And so, we would brief, we had an old, kind of, kind of, compound, Camp Jenny Posey, and, you know, there's some old buildings on there, and where we ate our food, in this crappy old building is also where we briefed the troops. And since we ate food in there, there was some MWR stuff in there, including these

• 17:09Jocko Willink?

  baseball bats. Well, I didn't have, you know, a laser pointer, you know, back in the day, so I just briefed with a baseball bat. And so, we eventually, we had, like, the briefing bat. You know, I'd be standing there, and it's a good way to get into character, too, by the way.

• 17:22Speaker 01

  Sure, hell yeah.

• 17:23Jocko Willink?

  Baseball bat, now, hey, everyone knows, like, all right, Jocko's briefing some shit, like, this is what we're doing. And so, the briefing bat, and then, when we, when we got into Task Unit Bruiser, I definitely used a bat during, during workup, when we got on deployment, I, I used it less, but briefing bat, you know, there's something, it's a thing. There's some videos of me with the briefing bat, too, by the way, pretty legit. But, you know, it's kind of this little trademark. Now, I didn't carry it out in the field, you know, but then again, I also wasn't a field marshal, you know, I didn't need to be, everyone knew me, wasn't that big of a deal.

• 17:56Speaker 01

  Also, too, with those types of things, sometimes, there's some actual, like, function in it, so like, you know, like, when you had the briefing bat. And you, you use word char- character, get into character, but it's like, almost even to a functional degree where it kind of helps you, like, what do you call, like, embody the, the role that you're, that you're in. See what I'm saying? Like, you know, I told you before we started recording, I was watching A Few Good Men the other day, yesterday, to be exact. But he had a bat, Tom Cruise, right?

• 18:31Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay.

• 18:33Speaker 01

  Caffey, or whatever his name is, he had a bat, but he's like, "Where's my bat? I think better with my bat." So, when he's doing something, he had, like, a bat, you know, that was like his thing, where I, that's, I've seen that movie many times, that always struck me as true, where if it's like, when you have some, yeah, like, ever, and this is kind of like a meme nowadays, but it's absolutely true, when you're on the phone, you know, back in the day, when you're talking on the phone, and you're like, doing the most random, like, things, but if you have something in your hand, you're doing, you know, like, I would doodle, I would doodle on the wall, or something like this, you didn't, don't even really realize you're doing it until you're done, but if you have something in your hand, it, like, helps you, I don't know, with the flow of, like, your role, for some reason.

• 19:13Jocko Willink?

  Well, yeah, there's, there's a whole, like, theory behind that, you know, they give kids little things to fidget with, right?

• 19:19Speaker 01

  Fidget, yeah.

• 19:20Jocko Willink?

  Fidget, fidget spinners.

• 19:21Speaker 01

  Fidget spinner, yeah, but...

• 19:23Jocko Willink?

  Because they think better when they're supposedly doing something like that.

• 19:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 19:27Jocko Willink?

  So, I'd say there's something to it, but, you know, get, you know, I use that term kind of as a joke, like, getting into character, right? Kind of a joke, but, it's also, it became a pattern of, like, oh, everyone's like, "Okay, Jocko's getting ready to brief, he's, he's picking up the bat, like, it's time to, time, like, he's not playing around, this is what we're doing."

• 19:46Speaker 01

  It just, it, what do you call, it primes the environment.

• 19:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I had something like that, too, with, uh...

• 19:54Jocko Willink?

  I had like a stick or something I used to use when I was in training cell at Team One or something like that. I had some because I, when I use, when I use that statement, get into character, it wasn't, it wasn't the first time. I used it before. I can't remember what it was. I'll think about it. Get into character. Um, carrying on here. So he wanted to be a, a, not just a master, but a mascot, which is, which is a weird way of saying it, but at the same time it makes sense, right? Like we're going to rally behind the mascot. We always think of mascots in America as being, you know, whatever, these big fluffy animals and whatnot, but if you have a badass mascot, remember that the San Diego Aztecs had like the Aztec dude that would just get wild? Yeah, fully.

• 20:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's not a fluffy mascot. It's like a badass mascot. So this is the same type of thing. Carrying on, although the essence of morale is emotion, General Montgomery analyzed it intellectually. First recognizing the need, then fulfilling it, that his personality is also particularly well suited to this approach in no way detracts from the basic soundness of his attitude. And the restoration of morale to the shattered Eighth Army on the eve of the battles of Almaha and Alamin will rank as one of the finest military achievements. But however, you're going to go into this, there's some pitfalls.

• 21:17Jocko Willink?

  Any discussion of this aspect of common personality must inevitably come to General George S. Patton Jr. Upon his, upon his death, General Patton was elevated to that semi legendary status, which makes any objective evaluation a risky undertaking. So this is 1960, this is only like 15 years after Patton died. And he's saying, it's funny, he says semi legendary status, no, full legendary status.

• 21:48Jocko Willink?

  His admirers claim that his meticulous and somewhat theatrical military dress helped achieve a great rapport with his men. His detractors ridicule it as pointless affectation and claim less effective results. As in most such cases, the truth probably lies somewhere in between. When questioned about, when questioned by a friend about his fancy regalia, Patton replied, I want the men of the Third Army to know where I am and that I, that I risk the same dangers they do. A little fancy dress is added to help maintain the leadership and fighting spirit I desire.

• 22:31Jocko Willink?

  I can see, there, there's a little bit of, uh, when you're dressed a little bit different, you can stand out more, right? You know, we, we, we covered in the Korean War, the, um, guy, Lee, that put a freaking orange marker panel on himself. So his guys would know where he was. Uh, Navy Cross, by the way. But that makes sense.

• 22:58Jocko Willink?

  That being said, the ultimate success of his program might be open to closer questioning. General Omar N. Bradley, for one, has written that certain chapters of Patton's career were failures in this respect. General Bradley points out that in Africa, at least Patton, quote, failed to grasp the psycholog, the psychology of the combat soldier. He irritated by flaunting the pageantry of his command. That's, that's a different take, right? It's an understandable take. I can totally understand that take.

• 23:32Jocko Willink?

  There was this great story, my buddy at Team Two, I wasn't there for this, but um, they were at the range, they were, this is a peacetime teams, peacetime army. And they're at a range with a SEAL platoon. Actually, I think it was like SEAL snipers. And they're out there, everyone's dressed, dressed different jeans, you know, hunting camo, mismatched camo, civilian clothes, the whole nine yards. And they're out there shooting, different ranges, you know, different, um, weapon systems. And this guy, that army, an army dude pulls up, like an army commander pulls up. And he said, he, he was explaining

• 24:16Jocko Willink?

  that the guy had camouflage paint on because they were in some kind of an exercise, but it was like perfectly just like on the front of his face. You know what I mean? It was like, just like the front of his face had cami paint on, not his, his neck is totally exposed, his hands are exposed. So it, it's the mirror, like, hey, when we're in the field, we wear camouflage paint. Go ahead and put this on, even though he probably wasn't in the field at all. And then the funny part was the guy comes up and he's like, hey, uh, what, what, what unit is this? And as my buddy is about to answer this, this, I think he was a Colonel, uh, or at least a lieutenant Colonel, as he's about to say, oh, you know, we're, we're the SEAL team. And right as he gets done saying that,

• 24:56Jocko Willink?

  one of the guys on the fiery line shouts out like gopher at 50 yards and all the weapons like like scope in on this freaking gopher and unleash hell on this gopher and kill it. And then he said that the army Colonel was just like, uh, Roger that, carry on and just like left. But I'll never, that image of a guy with just cami paint, you know, just on, on his face, it's kind of like I did the, but I've, I've talked about the guys from Blackwater. Coming through my camp, Camp Jenny Posey, once again, you know, now we're kind of like, you know, battle hardened. You know, we've been in Iraq for a few months, so we're just big combat vets, but we were, you know, we'd done a bunch of operations at this point.

• 25:41Jocko Willink?

  I'm being a little bit sarcastic, but we had done a lot of operations. We've been there for a few months. And, you know, we were used to what we were doing. And these guys from Blackwater came up to kind of check in with us. A couple of them were ex SEALs, et cetera. And you're looking at their gear and you're just like thinking, oh, these guys don't, these guys don't really know what they're doing right now. The gear is all brand new. It's placed in weird positions. It doesn't really make a hundred percent of sense. How are you going to draw your pistol when it's on your leg, when you're in a vehicle, like all these little things? And you think, oh, this is, this is probably not good. So anytime, and then there's times where, you know, like you're all just, um, you've been in the field for a while.

• 26:26Jocko Willink?

  And then you see some pogue or Remph that's just all squared away. And occasionally they give people shit, you know, hey, you're, you're, your, your uniform is looking dirty. It's like, we're not, we're not responding to that. So I can see what they're saying here. I can see, you know, Patton's running around with his, with his ivory handled pistols. And he's got his pantaloon pants on, bro. And I'm out here in the bush, in the field, you know? There's two ways to take that. And again, if your attitude is like Patton's cool, you're probably like, hell yeah, there is. If your attitude's Patton's bad, you're probably like, oh, what if, what a freaking piece of shit out here. He's not in the bush. He's not in the, in the shit like we are. Depending on what colored lens you're looking at him through.

• 27:10Jocko Willink?

  And by the way, if you're winning and things are going well, probably looking at him through a good lens. If you're losing, you're probably looking at it through a bad lens. Yeah, yeah. So carrying on, this simple observation illustrates the pitfalls of this device. Troops like to see a smartly turned out uniform, but it, but it contrasts with the filth of combat fatigues. And confidence might easily turn to resentment when such a comparison is at hand. The timeless psychology of the combat soldier was described by Shakespeare 300 years ago, and it's a little Shakespeare activity. But I remember when the fight was done, when I was dry with rage and extreme toil,

• 27:51Jocko Willink?

  breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword, came there a certain lord, neat and trimly dressed, fresh as a bridegroom. For he made me mad to see him shine so brisk and smell so sweet and talk of guns and drums and wounds. God save the mark. That's from, that's from Henry the Fourth. He also says, he talked, there's another part of this where, of that little soliloquy where he says he's, he talks, sounded like a gentlewoman.

• 28:28Jocko Willink?

  So there's a fine line, bro. There's a fine line. Dress and behavior. On the other hand, commanders who have used the one of the boys approach are by no means a new phenomenon. General Grant, for example, rarely wore anything more formal than a private's blouse. And old, rough and ready Zachary Taylor carried the process to its ultimate conclusion by omitting military uniform entirely. More recently, General Stillwell and British General Ord Wingate were both of this school. The two men, so similar in many respects, reflected their distaste for all military formality

• 29:08Jocko Willink?

  by casually adapting of, by casual adaptation of the prescribed uniform. Stillwell carefully cultivated the appearance of, quote, the plain old soldier. And in any field, usually avoided displaying any insignia of rank. In time, his battered old campaign hat became to be well known as General MacArthur's corn cob pipe. You know, what's funny is I saw, uh, on social media, it was on, on, on X. There was a picture of General Milley, who is the, just recently gone. And Eisenhower and like Eisenhower had two rows of ribbons, just a plain looking, just basic uniform.

• 29:54Jocko Willink?

  And then General Milley had just a giant rack of ribbons looking like a Mexican general, as we used to call him. It's kind of interesting.

• 30:06Jocko Willink?

  Wingate's mark of individuality took the form of an ancient sun helmet vaguely reminiscent of Kipling's India and he added to the effect by wearing a patriarchal beard. Such affectations of dress and behavior, whether conscious or not, helped to make these two generals very real to their men, but this particular approach still holds great risk. It requires not only a very special personality, but complete sincerity as well. Here, let actors beware, for the troops are quick to recognize any sham and mark it as hypocritical condensation. So, oh, sorry, condens- condensation.

• 30:49Speaker 01

  Condensation.

• 30:50Jocko Willink?

  Condensation, there we go. Not, not beads of water, condensation. So, there you go. If you're trying to fake this, not gonna work. The troops are gonna see right through that. Here's the conclusions. The human heart is then the starting point in all matters pertaining to war. The best masters are those who know men best, the man of today and the man of history. Let us then study man in battle, for it's really he who fights. End quote. These are words of Colonel DePique, were written in 1870s, a period when warfare was in scientific revolution and when all military verities were being reexamined.

• 31:35Jocko Willink?

  We are once again at a time when technical emphasis threatens to obscure some of the basic truths of men in battle. Basic truths, by definition, are those that transcend local considerations. Thus, principles governing the emotional state of man, of a man armed with a musket, are equally valid for the same man armed with a rocket. I like that the basic truths transcend local considerations. They just are what they are. But morale, stemming as it does from emotion, is a vague and inconsistent thing. Above all, it is a personal thing and therein lies the commander's opportunity. The response of the troops to the projection of the commander's personality is his own

• 32:20Jocko Willink?

  secret weapon and he must develop his proficiency with it, just as a marksman develops aim. Field Marshal Montgomery has written that the spirit of the warrior is the greatest single factor in war. The commander must recognize the obligation this places upon him and as he mobilizes the man, he must also mobilize the spirit. So, that's, you know, when this thing kicked off and it said that the tactics and strategy were most important, but Montgomery says, no, there's something more important. Morale. I agree with him. I agree with him.

• 33:00Jocko Willink?

  And this, this theme of morale is carried on this next article, which is called The Morale of the Soldier in War. And this is digested from a copyrighted article by Brigadier Sir John Smith in the Army Quarterly and Defense Journal. This is obviously a British guy. Great Britain, Great Britain, April 1960. Kick this thing off. What makes one man, to quote Kipling, "hold on when there is nothing in him and another man in the same circumstances decide to quit? What makes one unit in a brigade attack so go steadily forward in the face of heavy

• 33:41Jocko Willink?

  fire and another unit next to it come to a standstill or go the other way?" Those are interesting, aren't they? Like, we seen it, I seen it. Some dudes will keep going, other dudes are gonna quit. Imagine, imagine seeing a brigade, a battalion flee. We had battalions of Iraqi soldiers leave, leave the battle space. It can happen. What makes some men who have previously been courageous soldiers suddenly show cowardice? Why do men who have shown themselves steadfast under shellfire lie at the bottom of a trench when the unit is ordered to advance? So, there's examples.

• 34:26Jocko Willink?

  He's talking about guys that, oh, they've been good to go, good to go, good to go. All of a sudden, they break. All of a sudden, a guy who's been steadfast, all of a sudden, we get told to advance and they're staying in the bottom of the trench. Why does a parachutist who has been trained to jump suddenly refuse to do so? Why does a very fit man break down under certain physical ordeals and a man of far inferior physique overcome them? And finally, does modern war and possibly future war with nuclear weapons demand a different kind of morale, just as it must demand a different kind of training and conduct? Perhaps I might pose an answer to this question right away.

• 35:06Jocko Willink?

  I think the old lesson we have learned with regard to morale in war over the ages still hold good. If only we will understand and apply them correctly. So, courage is courage. The unknown and unexperienced are always frightening to human beings, whether they are in civvy suits or in uniform and whether the new weapons are bows and arrows, knights in armors, tanks, gas or high explosives, or nuclear shells. Unknown and unexperienced, this is Mikey and the Dragons. Things that we haven't done yet are always so much, they always produce so much fear than things that you've done before. That's why you gotta go. Get in there.

• 35:51Jocko Willink?

  Go forward. New weapons, of course, demand new tactics, which in themselves may put a greater strain on morale, but by and large, all the old factors remain. For instance, the morale of a company probably would be more shaken if an operation on the northwest frontier of India, they had left behind them a wounded officer and a half a dozen wounded men and then come along the next morning and seen the horrible results. Then if those same men had been blown to bits by some new form of nuclear shell. Yeah. Next section is called expendable courage. So, first, I would like to propound some of what I believe to be fundamental truths

• 36:34Jocko Willink?

  which lie at the bottom of this problem. I believe courage to be expendable. Interesting. This is a similar take to David Hackworth and he's got his whole thing that he wrote about about face of people's cups getting filled up and everyone's got a different sized cup, but eventually, some people got a really, really big cup, but if it gets filled up, it, it doesn't matter anymore. You see that in the Pacific, the, what's it, mini-series, the Pacific. You see some hard dudes that are hard and they break. You see it in Band of Brothers as well. Guys that are totally good to go, performing exceptionally, totally courageous, and then they break and they're done.

• 37:16Jocko Willink?

  And, and obviously you see some people that don't have much of a cup at all and they just immediately kind of turn into cowards. But some dudes, you see they're hard and they, they turn into cowards at a certain junction that can't take anymore. So, this kind of tracks with that. I believe courage to be expendable. Nearly all of us have courage to a greater or lesser degree, just as we all have possessed certain natural powers of physical, mental and nervous stamina. And all these qualities vary greatly between one man and another. Such qualities can be built up by training, discipline and other means, but they can also be weakened and eventually drained completely under certain conditions. What happens, what, when that happens, either opportunity must be given for the empty vessel

• 38:01Jocko Willink?

  to be refilled or that particular man becomes a liability to his comrades. It's kind of interesting because he's using the opposite, the opposite like metaphor than Hackworth uses. Hackworth uses it as a fills, it's getting, it's a cup that's getting filled up. This, and that's like the combat stress, it's filling up, filling up, filling up, it overflows. This guy's talking about the, what you have to, you know, you have a vessel that's filled with courage and it's draining, draining, draining.

• 38:27Speaker 01

  Like a little battery.

• 38:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, like a little battery, little energy. I have never been able to understand how, for instance, the Right Reverend J.L. Wilson, Bishop of Singapore, captured by the Japanese in 1942, withstood the appalling tortures inflicted upon him by the brutal Japanese. Every man has his breaking point, but they never reached the bishops. This guy was tortured, this guy Wilson, we should do some more, do a program about it or something, but not only was he tortured and didn't break, but he also converted some of his Japanese like captors. Legit. Some men have a horror of heights, but are otherwise brave soldiers. Some are brave in company, but become nervous and vacillating when left on their own.

• 39:13Jocko Willink?

  Almost everyone has his own particular weakness. I've known grown men who were immensely brave under shellfire, but who shuddered at the thought of a bayonet assault. Others were just the reverse. The very thought that they had to hold a position under heavy shellfire almost sent them around the bend, bend, but they would all advance bravely to close with the enemy. That's kind of interesting. You know what I've, I noticed in my years in the MMA world is like, some dudes, they, they really like grappling and they don't like getting hit. And some dudes really don't mind getting hit, but they don't like being held down.

• 39:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:58Jocko Willink?

  It's very bizarre.

• 39:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:00Jocko Willink?

  How much, you know, you, you'll get a guy that, you know, a legit MMA guy, legit. And if you, if you kind of let them take their own course, they're, oh, they're just gonna work on their grappling today.

• 40:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:15Jocko Willink?

  Or, no, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna spar today. Just gonna, just gonna strike today. And they'll always lean towards that because they really don't like that thing.

• 40:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's, and I think we know this consciously, but subconsciously or whatever, it still feels like a little bit slippery and unknown, that your mental state is very comparable to your physical state and you know, like you'll say like, okay, go to the, what do you call it, like mind mechanic, right? If there's something wrong with your mind, you go, you know, like it's an actual tangible thing, even though it doesn't feel tangible, right? So, that, what you're talking about makes complete sense. So, like.

• 40:55Jocko Willink?

  What do you mean that your mind state, your mental state is reflected? I don't understand what you're saying.

• 40:59Speaker 01

  Okay. So, like, if you have a weakness mentally, like what you're talking about, right? Let's say, let's say claustrophobia hypothetically was somebody's weakness, otherwise it's just good to go, we'll say. But when you get in a certain position with your both, you know, double snow angel or something like this, it's like literally like your, your brain malfunctions, like it literally doesn't have the capacity to deal with it. That's hard to quantify, you know, like by as opposed to like a physical capability. Let's say, you know, um, somebody has a weak bench press, we'll say. But every other lift is super strong, deadlift, squat, everything, even pulls super strong. But his bench is very weak and he gets in a position where he has to push something.

• 41:42Speaker 01

  He fails, everyone else is doing good, but this guy fails. It's kind of like, well, that makes sense. He has a weak bench press, you see what I'm saying? So it makes complete sense. But mentally it doesn't because you can't see it. It's less like tangible, you see what I'm saying? But it's literally the same thing. So even though you can't, it's harder to identify because it's all in your head. They like, you know, in some like jumbled up mush in your head, but it's distinct the same way. So yeah, you get a guy who's like brave, like in every situation, he's just brave, like down to do it, down for the team, down like hundred percent good to go in great shape, right? And he's in, let's say, I don't know, a truck or something. And then like a rat comes and he just freaking loses it.

• 42:26Speaker 01

  Right? That, that doesn't sound like some rare thing. That's something like, oh yeah, I could, I could.

• 42:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 42:31Speaker 01

  I think I heard something like that or I seen a movie, you know, like guys are scared of snakes or something like this, right? Meanwhile, he just got freaking shot with a machine gun and got hit, by the way, and he's still here kind of thing, you know, he's like, no, no, I'm not leaving my unit. Like, bro, that's bravery that you can't even fathom when you're not in the, you know, see what I'm saying? But then a rat sends you freaking running, like it doesn't make sense. I was like, yeah, bro, because the brain of your mind is like that and everybody's different. Like the, like the scared of heights thing.

• 42:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 42:58Speaker 01

  Bro, I've seen people just not down for heights and I never was scared of heights ever. And it didn't compute. I was like, bro, you're just kind of being a puss right now. But then certain things where I can literally feel myself, I'm like, I consciously should not be scared of this right now.

• 43:16Jocko Willink?

  Like what?

• 43:17Speaker 01

  Claustrophobia, like certain claustrophobia fucking elements, you see what I'm saying?

• 43:22Jocko Willink?

  Just a little backstory for everyone here. Uh, I used, I used to train with Echo Charles and he would tap from claustrophobia. I would get basically side control, right?

• 43:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:34Jocko Willink?

  I would get like a side control position, get control of his arms where he really couldn't move. And he, he would just freaking tap, which is not, honestly, it's not really acceptable.

• 43:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. No, it's not. I, I believe that too.

• 43:46Jocko Willink?

  Do you still, have you ever seen videos about guys doing cave diving?

• 43:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 43:53Jocko Willink?

  Do, do you hate those?

• 43:55Speaker 01

  Yes, I feel, literally feel that like, yeah, the spelunking, right? Where they're like freaking doing this. I'll, I'll watch the ones where it's, it's more of a story so they don't replay actual footage. But it's a story of like how guys get stuck and they're there for like 19 hours, just freaking upside down with their hands, like freaking stuck in the cave and then they die. Like, bro, that's like the worst way to die in life. I was like, I can't even think of something worse than that. So yeah, brother, and so anyway, the point.

• 44:24Jocko Willink?

  Weird, uh, well, I wonder what like the major gratification of getting through, you know, getting, doing that. You know, you can see, you can see kind of getting the, the rush of kind of flying. You know, if you're going to base jump or something like that, you're going to, oh, okay. I understand the rush of that. I wonder what the rush of like compressing your body and going through a, a long tunnel.

• 44:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:49Jocko Willink?

  I wonder what the extreme gratification is. Maybe it's just over, is it overcoming that, that, that fear?

• 44:55Speaker 01

  I would, I would imagine, this is what I believe, I, I, I don't know at the end of the day, but I don't think, put it this way, I think the fear, that fear, that claustrophobia fear just applies a lot less to some people. And so I don't think it has anything to do with the claustrophobia and overcoming that. I don't think it is. I think it's just like exploring terrain in that way. Cause you know how like a regular cave person, like they go to these crazy crystal caves and like they just love it. You know, or these people who, um, you know, they go diving, like free diving or scuba diving or something like this, you know?

• 45:26Jocko Willink?

  In the caves.

• 45:27Speaker 01

  Uh, in the caves, that's a different one, but just in, let's just say in general, right? People who are just scuba people. They're going to the Caribbean, they're going to Hawaii, they're going to freaking South Africa. They're going everywhere because it's just, that's their jam, you know? What, what do they like about it? And I think it's just like that exploratory curiosity and wonder, you know, kind of a thing, I think.

• 45:46Jocko Willink?

  How much of this, how much of it is you're in an ecosystem where there's a hierarchy? And in order to climb that hierarchy, you just gotta keep kind of doing like more rad shit, harder shit.

• 45:59Speaker 01

  I, I could see that to be the case. That would make complete sense.

• 46:02Jocko Willink?

  There's a great documentary out right now called The Dark Wizard. And it's about climbing and, um, it's really crazy to watch. But there you can see that people are in an ecosystem where it's like, oh, I gotta, I gotta prove myself. I gotta climb the hierarchy in this ecosystem, which by the way, no one cares about. I mean, outside that, this is, this is what's always hard to explain to people. Outside the little ecosystem that you're in, no one cares. It's funny, I was talking to someone the other day, when you, actually I was talking to Noah and, and when you talk to someone that doesn't know jujitsu, like they think you do karate. Like that's what they think. They're just thinking like, oh, you do, oh, you do like the karate. Okay, cool. Like that's what, that's what they think.

• 46:47Jocko Willink?

  That's what, people that don't know it are just, oh yeah, you do karate. You're like, well, I've been training jujitsu for 15 years and they're like, oh, you do karate. You, oh, like can, how, can you break boards?

• 46:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 46:59Jocko Willink?

  You gotta get outside that ecosystem.

• 47:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. But, uh, when was that, last Tuesday?

• 47:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I think so.

• 47:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I kind of briefly talked to him about that too. We went out to sushi right after and, um, you could tell, I don't know, this was my impression. You could tell he was kind of holding on to it a little bit, you know? It was, no, no, there's like, you know, like all the benefits and I started to go.

• 47:20Jocko Willink?

  Wait, holding on to what?

• 47:21Speaker 01

  The, the, the ecosystem is maybe more important than it is.

• 47:27Jocko Willink?

  I mean, we look, I'm not saying, I agree with them. There's all kinds of benefits, crazy good benefits.

• 47:31Speaker 01

  That was, that was my whole point.

• 47:33Jocko Willink?

  Once you're outside of it, bro, this, this ecosystem, no one cares about.

• 47:36Speaker 01

  So see even how you're, and this is kind of how it went. Do it, just to, to a small degree. See how you're explaining it to me, right? And you're kind of explaining it, you know, on air and all this other stuff. So it almost can come off sometimes like, it's like, it doesn't matter, right?

• 47:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 47:49Speaker 01

  But I was like, which I think you're in the same boat where I'm like, no, bro, I'm with you. I, I'm down for the ecosystem. Don't get that part wrong. I'm just saying for the big picture, it's like, bro, besides us and everyone like us, nobody cares. You see what I'm saying? But just me saying, nobody cares kind of was the part that's like, no, but it's all good. I was like, you know, so it was, it was more like that and it was just a fun conversation.

• 48:08Jocko Willink?

  I think that, that ties into as well is, you know, when people have a hard time transitioning out of the military.

• 48:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 48:15Jocko Willink?

  It's the exact same thing because no one, bro, the ecosystem in the military is like, oh, you, you were this place. You did this, you were at this combat, you got this award, you filled this role. Like there's all these little, little ways to rise in the hierarchy, both the, both the paper hierarchy of like, here's your rank and also just the, the tribal hierarchy of like, I did this thing. And you can, you know, you're constantly go, everyone's trying to grab. And then you get out and it's like, oh, you know, like people look at me and they're like, oh, you were in the army. You know what I mean? You were an army guy. And I was like, well, I was actually in the Navy. Oh, so you're on a boat. Well, I was actually in the SEAL teams. Oh, what's that? I was a commander. Oh, so you're like a Green Beret. Well, yeah, pretty much. You know what I mean?

• 48:57Jocko Willink?

  Like they don't care and, and like, oh, then they'll, then they say, oh yeah, I knew a guy that was a Green Beret too. And you're like, oh, cool. You know, no one cares.

• 49:05Speaker 01

  Right.

• 49:05Jocko Willink?

  No one cares about the little details of your little ecosystem that you are so wrapped up in. And it's got to be really difficult, you know, when you, the, the higher you were in that ecosystem, when you get out and no one cares, now everyone's like, oh, cool. Like there's people, there's plenty of people, I'm sitting here talking to one of them right now. Like you tell me the difference between like a master chief and an admiral. You don't know the difference, you know what I mean? Like tell me the difference between a command sergeant major and a battalion commander and a, and a squadron commander. And, uh, you know, you're like, and, and a freaking, uh, a platoon sergeant. To you, to you, they're all just like, oh, you were in the army. Yeah. You know what I mean?

• 49:49Jocko Willink?

  Basically that's what it's like. And there's so many things that are like that. It's like, oh, so you're in the army. That's cool, you know? And oh, you do karate. Oh, that's cool. You know, if you're a, a freaking, uh, what's, oh, ultra marathoner, people are like, oh, you run. You know what I mean? Oh, you, oh, you run.

• 50:04Speaker 01

  For a long time.

• 50:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Or hey, dude, I'm a, I'm a freaking backcountry bow hunter. It's like, oh, so you, you, you know, you shoot bow and arrow, you know? Like it's just no one.

• 50:17Speaker 01

  My son has a bow and arrow, by the way.

• 50:18Jocko Willink?

  Exactly. He's a bow hunter, right? You know, basically he's a bow hunter. He shot a squirrel, you know what I mean? That's what, that's what people are, so when you're in your little ecosystem, you think it's so freaking important.

• 50:29Speaker 01

  That's so true.

• 50:30Jocko Willink?

  And it just, it's not, you know? I had that conversation with my, uh, oldest daughter was in college and she was like, everyone's getting the, in, in the interns at the big tech companies and all this stuff. And I was like, hey, she's like, I want to get in this, you know? She wanted to get one too. And I was like, bro, just come work at Victory for the summer, deadhead. And she's like, yeah, but everyone's, and I was like, no, no, that's just the ecosystem. No one cares. No one cares what your grades are, no one cares what. And you know, there, there's a small percentage of people that care what college you went to. But, but actually that's not that big either. Like especially the people that went to that college, they'll be like, oh, you went to the same college as me. You know, we're, we're a little bit better than everyone else, but no one really actually believes that outside of that ecosystem. Outside of the ecosystem, we don't care because I know people that were, are idiots that went to Harvard.

• 51:15Jocko Willink?

  I know people that idiots that went to Stanford, you like, oh, so you, you tell me, oh, you went to college? Okay, cool, whatever. I don't care. Your little ecosystem doesn't matter to me. So you gotta pay attention to that ecosystem activity. And you also got to recognize that once you get out of that thing, no one cares.

• 51:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. And be okay with it. I mean, that's kind of the thing because you know, when people, when people realize, hey, no one cares and they get, they get mad, you know? Which which is understandable, but it is not helpful, you know, to do that. Right? You're so right, because I know that like a private is not that high, right, of a rank? Private? And then what is, I don't, I don't even know what a private is in. Is that army?

• 51:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 51:54Speaker 01

  Okay, so private and then what Colonel will say?

• 51:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, sure.

• 51:58Speaker 01

  Pretty high, right?

• 51:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 51:59Speaker 01

  And then, like, I know that that Colonel's freaking high.

• 52:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 52:03Speaker 01

  I think. And private is not high, right? But I don't know how, how much higher. I just know, okay, that's how, you know, kind of a thing. Like, me and you will know, like, oh, this guy's like a one month, one month. White belt.

• 52:15Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 52:16Speaker 01

  And this guy is a black belt.

• 52:18Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 52:18Speaker 01

  Like, you know. Twelve year black belt. He's twenty five years old. And. And a competitor, right? We know the discrepancy between that, but.

• 52:28Jocko Willink?

  They both just do karate.

• 52:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, they just both do karate. One guy just started. One guy's been doing it for a while. Like, good, congratulations, you know.

• 52:34Jocko Willink?

  What does it take to get your black belt? How many months does it take to get your black belt? You know what I mean? Oh, you know, you know what you'll hear is like, oh, yeah, my neighbor, their daughter became a black belt. She's four or whatever. She's nine. Like, oh, she, she's like you. She's a black belt. You're a black belt. You know, you should fight her sometimes.

• 52:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you could literally sit that person down, that person that says that, and explain to them, and they'll be like, oh, wow. And they're gonna leave and they're gonna forget it. They don't care about it. Yeah.

• 52:56Jocko Willink?

  It's the same, same. They're like, cool, karate kid. Same, same, same all day.

• 53:01Speaker 01

  It's so true.

• 53:02Jocko Willink?

  You gotta watch out for that kind of thing.

• 53:04Speaker 01

  Gotta watch out.

• 53:04Jocko Willink?

  Hmm, because, because what you gotta watch out for is next thing you know, you're crawling into a freaking cave underwater in order to climb a hierarchy that no one cares about.

• 53:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:14Jocko Willink?

  No one cares about me, right? Like, if I met someone that told me they were a damn, uh, a cave diver.

• 53:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:21Jocko Willink?

  I, I would have no reference at all.

• 53:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:24Jocko Willink?

  You know, none, you know, it just, okay, cool.

• 53:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:27Jocko Willink?

  That's cool.

• 53:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, uh, yeah. And in fact, a lot of people, which is not, it seems bad, but this is just a complete natural, like, thing. Most people would be like, I don't think you should do that.

• 53:39Jocko Willink?

  Really?

• 53:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, so.

• 53:40Jocko Willink?

  And they're kind of right.

• 53:42Speaker 01

  That's what I'm saying. Like, um, okay, so. Here's what I'd start to get in trouble with, too, with you sometimes and, uh, with Noah as well, where I'm like. Implying that, hey, you training every day, like, kind of has diminishing returns after about purple belt.

• 54:00Jocko Willink?

  All right, now we're fighting.

• 54:01Speaker 01

  See what I'm saying, though? So, anyway.

• 54:04Jocko Willink?

  Where'd you come up with that?

• 54:05Speaker 01

  Jiu Jitsu aside, but let's say that back to the spelunking, right? Or the cave diving. It's kind of like you could say, okay, um, that's cool and everything and challenge yourself. Heck, yeah, like, that's a good thing or whatever, but probably like what you're doing is like, it's. It's probably not even that smart to do because of the risk and like, you could probably be committing to other things that would be more, you know, conducive to like your life goals and the people around you and all this other stuff. And like how you said, they'd probably be kind of right, at least to a degree, you see what I'm saying?

• 54:36Speaker 01

  But it's like that with kind of everything. After a certain amount of time, it's kind of like, bro, you're kind of diminishing returns after a while. See what I'm saying? It goes for everything, even like something as fundamental as health. Right? When you have health, but at some point, your health gets good enough that you can live a capable life or whatever, but now you're over indexing on health. So you fail to live your life, you know, kind of a thing.

• 55:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I guess I'd take it to a real extreme.

• 55:02Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 55:03Jocko Willink?

  And look, I don't want to get into a forty five minute debate, but let's face it. Training in Jiu Jitsu.

• 55:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:11Jocko Willink?

  Even, even when you are purple belt and above.

• 55:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 55:15Jocko Willink?

  Training Jiu Jitsu has a multitude of benefits that are way. Good. Training five times a week, even when you've been training for twenty five, thirty years.

• 55:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, I understand. And but what I'm saying is, the benefits that you're talking about, if they're tip top benefits, are gonna be more and more subjective as you. Pass a certain point. I don't know what the point is. Maybe it's purple belt, maybe it's brown belt, maybe it's black belt, maybe it's freaking like the first year, regardless of what belt. I don't know. But I'll tell you this right now. If you over index on a single, like, thing.

• 55:52Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 55:53Speaker 01

  There's gonna be a point where you got diminishing returns and other people who are not in that ecosystem are gonna feel this, whether they're right or not, they're gonna be like, hey. Maybe you're kind of wasting your time to a degree.

• 56:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 56:04Speaker 01

  See what I'm saying?

• 56:05Jocko Willink?

  I could say you could get there. Now, this, are we, are we pulling like world champions out of the equation? Like someone that's, that that's what they do, like they're just a Jiu Jitsu guy?

• 56:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:15Jocko Willink?

  Are we pulling them out of the equation?

• 56:17Speaker 01

  They're out of the, yeah, they're the exception.

• 56:19Jocko Willink?

  Because they're, because that's their profession, that's their job, so they're doing it every day. But yeah, for someone that's, yeah, I guess you could go with someone that is not, you know, earning a living. Or being a world champion at a certain point, it's like, wow. Because you could make the argument with me like, hey, dude, why don't you play guitar more? You know, you're pretty good at Jiu Jitsu now.

• 56:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:38Jocko Willink?

  Why don't you get better at guitar?

• 56:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I could, I could. I could admit that there might be some truth to that. Jiu Jitsu be more fun though.

• 56:47Speaker 01

  You say, yeah, yeah, exactly right. And I'm, I'm with you, but that, again, you're talking about within the hierarchy, same thing, or the ecosystem, sorry. See what I'm saying? So, yeah, when you're in the ecosystem, bro, it's hundred percent worth it. Like, right, you're in the ecosystem, but your family's leaving you because you spend too much Jiu Jitsu time, well, it's worth it in the ecosystem. You know what I'm saying? It can be like that. I'm not saying it's always like that, but.

• 57:08Jocko Willink?

  Well, that's a example, but it's kind of a facetious example for Jiu Jitsu, but like in the, in the SEAL teams, that's a hundred percent going down.

• 57:16Speaker 01

  A lot of stuff.

• 57:16Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah, a lot of stuff, yeah.

• 57:17Speaker 01

  Hell, yeah.

• 57:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you're the business guy, you want to climb the corporate ladder in an ecosystem that no one gives a shit. VP of whatever. You're like, bro. The, yeah, we don't know about any of that. We don't care about any of that. What are you doing? Well, you work, you work a lot, cool.

• 57:33Speaker 01

  It's true.

• 57:33Jocko Willink?

  But I'm the, I'm the freaking.

• 57:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I've been.

• 57:36Jocko Willink?

  VP of such and such.

• 57:37Speaker 01

  This has been my goal since I was a kid.

• 57:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 57:40Speaker 01

  Bro, nobody cares.

• 57:41Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna, I, I got this much money last year. You're like, okay.

• 57:47Jocko Willink?

  What'd you do with it? What are you doing with it? Because I don't a hundred percent sure, I'm not a hundred percent sure what, what, what's happening over there.

• 57:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm, I'm very, but this will sound contradictory, actually, what I'm about to say. I, I gotta hesitate, though. At the end of the day, I gotta hesitate to start like, having those types of opinions because. Everybody's an individual and they kind of choose their own mission, like in life. And with any mission, especially if you get to like a significant amount of success, no matter what it is, it's like, there's gonna be some sacrifice, you know?

• 58:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 58:18Speaker 01

  And it's easy to point out the little things that got sacrificed and say, hey, maybe you should have thought those things were more important, regardless of what it is, you know, regardless of.

• 58:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I, I think it's good, I think you're right, but also I think it's good to keep in mind as an off ramp, right? Like, the day that you don't get the promotion that you want at work and you're all crushed, man, just like. Go to anywhere else.

• 58:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:40Jocko Willink?

  And no one cares about the fact that you didn't get promoted and you can carry on and you can enter a new ecosystem.

• 58:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:47Jocko Willink?

  You know, so it's okay.

• 58:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 58:49Jocko Willink?

  Gonna be all right. So.

• 58:51Speaker 01

  But yes, to answer your question, I think, yeah, I think those are all factors in the. Uh, motivation to go diving into caves and stuff, but you see what I'm saying, though? My original point was like, people have weaknesses and, uh, the, this manual that you're reading is. They chose that word, a weakness.

• 59:08Jocko Willink?

  Did you hear Cowboy Seroni telling that story about Ron Rogan?

• 59:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, about diving?

• 59:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 59:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, bro, it was giving me anxiety, just listening to it. And my younger brother's a diver. And he's the one who told me about that conversation.

• 59:20Jocko Willink?

  But there, there's a huge, huge, galactic difference between a diver and a freediver and a cave diver.

• 59:28Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 59:28Jocko Willink?

  Those are, those are just.

• 59:30Speaker 01

  But a freediver is gonna have way more of a, an accurate kind of perspective when he hears something like that, you know? So it's like, yeah, if he's gonna. If he hears a story like that, he's gonna understand like.

• 59:45Jocko Willink?

  Way more.

• 59:45Speaker 01

  Really how heavy that is, you know?

• 59:49Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 59:50Jocko Willink?

  Cowboys are already dude, just out there, just, you could have a fight coming up and he would just be like, just doing wild shit.

• 59:58Speaker 01

  Yes, especially the diving stuff, because just, you know, what do you, what do you, what's your saying? Say, the water is the great, uh, equalizer. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:00:06Jocko Willink?

  Well, what I used to say is, if you're in the water, it's a real world op.

• 1:00:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:10Jocko Willink?

  Because the water will kill you. It doesn't care.

• 1:00:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:13Jocko Willink?

  It doesn't care. There's no like, training timeout. No, you're drowning, you're dying. That's what's happening.

• 1:00:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:18Jocko Willink?

  So, props. All right, going back to this fears, speaking of fears, common fears. The raw material, therefore, which has to be made into fighting soldiers, is a collection of individuals with varying hopes and fears and idiosyncrasies. And when the natural inclination of all of them, when under fire, is probably to get into some hole and stay there until it's all over. So that's our natural instinct. Shooting starts, I'm gonna get in a hole and stay there. Although, as I've said, all men have natural military assets in varying degrees, they also have certain common fears. The greatest of these are death and mutilation. Perhaps the second is more universal fear than the first, certainly among young men. Although most soldiers naturally fear death.

• 1:01:02Jocko Willink?

  And they may see it all around them, it is curious how they nearly all think that it will not happen to them.

• 1:01:11Jocko Willink?

  I was very struck by this on one occasion when as a young officer, I found myself pinned down on a hillside in France where a British platoon had been caught by a machine gun in Anfield and wiped out to a man.

• 1:01:25Jocko Willink?

  I thought perhaps I might give comfort to some of the relatives if I wrote them to tell them that their boy died bravely and quickly. While searching among their effects for addresses, I found several unfinished letters to the folks at home. And they all expressed a firm belief that whatever happened to anyone else, they would come through it alright. This is going back to Dean Ladd, US Marine Corps, going into Tarawa. They're, they get the, the most hellacious brief. He's telling us about the brief, they're going in, there's machine gun nests, there's enemy dug in, they've been preparing for 18 months. They have to cross this reef, they're gonna be naked on the beach, it's gonna be a nightmare. And I ask him, were you scared? He's like, no, all that stuff happens to the other guy. That's end quote, right there.

• 1:02:10Jocko Willink?

  He didn't, wasn't scared. That's gonna happen to the other guy. Most people, even highly trained soldiers, fear the unknown, although sometimes the fear of the devil you know is greater than the devil you do not. The divisions that were subjected to the first German gas attack in France in 1915 threw down their arms and fled in panic. That must have been a truly terrifying ordeal for the troops who were quite unsuspecting and completely unprotected against such a weapon. But the ordeal of the troops who had to counterattack a few days later, knowing that they would be gassed. And what the gas casualties looked like was every bit as bad. Our first tanks were terrifying to the Germans and what a pity it was that we used them in such a piecemeal way.

• 1:02:53Jocko Willink?

  The jungle is particularly frightening to the untrained man, as indeed is the craggy mountainside, particularly when people by the hardy and generally invisible frontier tribesmen. Victory, of course, is a great morale raiser and troops can stand far greater ordeals in victory and pursuit than they will in defeat and withdrawal. That, that was why Lord Montgomery was so wise never to launch a major attack until the odds were in his favor. He managed to give the Eighth Army a diet of unbroken victory and such, and on such fair, their achievements became progressively greater. And talking of the diet, the British soldier, unlike the Japanese, does not fight well on short rations.

• 1:03:36Jocko Willink?

  Static conditions such as the trench warfare of World War I are apt to be very trying indeed to morale, especially if the enemy has artillery superiority. The British soldier in particularly likes movement and of course, air superiority. So, that idea of stacking up victories, you know, I remember Jordan Peterson talking about like rats, you put rats in a pipe, in a tunnel, and if a rat, they like fight each other and the winning rat is, you know, something like 80% gonna win his next fight and the losing rat is 80% gonna lose their next fight. They just get used to getting their ass beat. So, getting that momentum going, real positive thing for the morale.

• 1:04:20Jocko Willink?

  That's why when people ask me, when, when people have like a company or something or military unit or police unit and they're having morale issues, I'm like, get some small wins, man. They can't be totally insignificant, they can't be like a joke, but you rack up a couple small wins, I'm starting to win a little bit. Same thing with your kids, your kid has a hard time with something, that's why you don't want to put your kids up a level in jujitsu or up a weight class in wrestling. They're getting their ass beat, this shit ain't fun. They're not, their morale goes down. If they're the stronger kid, maybe a little bit older. And look, it's, the, the actual numbers is 80/20. You want them winning 80% of the time and losing 20% of the time. Which is just something to keep in mind, you're not gonna be able to pull it off guaranteed.

• 1:05:02Jocko Willink?

  But if you, if your kid is winning 100% of the time, maybe bump them up a level. You know, in the soccer, whatever, the soccer group or the, the hockey team, if they're winning 100% of the time, maybe bump them up a level. But if they're winning 40, 50% of the time, keep them there. Let them win 80% of the time. They get to 90% of the time, you can bump them up. But, but winning, as I used to tell my wife and my kids, when, I would say, alright, we're going to this tournament today, you know, you try and win this thing. And my wife would say, no, you just want to have fun out there. And I'd say, winning is fun.

• 1:05:38Speaker 01

  But that's even true in like small stuff, like you ever tried to learn, you know, as a quote unquote grown person, grown man, you ever tried to learn like something completely new?

• 1:05:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:50Speaker 01

  And you, and you look into it and you start, you know, I don't know, you can look it up, let's say a tutorial one on the internet or something like this and you, you know, and you try it and you're like, oh shoot, you kind of get that first step, you're like, oh frick, I can kind of do this. And you're down for that next step. As opposed to you try to do it, they, you know, they demonstrate it and you, okay, now it's your turn, you know, you try to do it and you're like, bro, I can't, and you don't get it.

• 1:06:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:13Speaker 01

  You're like, bro, I can't do this, this dump, actually. And it's not for me, like you literally, as an adult, like you feel that. See what I'm saying? So that, that's, those roots just go deep, you know?

• 1:06:24Jocko Willink?

  Check. Winning is fun. Uh, back to the book. Factors affecting morale. Would a nuclear war demand higher morale than for instance, facing a gas attack, a tank attack, or deadly machine gun, a bayonet charge, or the flamethrower? I don't think so. These are all extremely unpleasant things. I like the way he says, all extremely unpleasant, yes. Flamethrower, bayonet charge, deadly machine gun, and nuclear attack, those are all extremely unpleasant. And much more trying than some men than they are to others. Modern war does of course, demand greater dispersion, which in turn demands a higher standard of junior leadership. And of course, good leadership in any type of warfare is one of the greatest morale raisers of all.

• 1:07:09Jocko Willink?

  These are some of the factors which must influence us in selecting and training our modern fighting man. We need good leaders and brave, fit, and well-trained men. We should try to nurse young soldiers into action under the most favorable conditions, as did that wise commander Bill Slim, when he was preparing to lead his 14th Army back into Burma in 1943. Our troops should be well-weapons, well-equipped, and well-fed. And when it comes to battle, we must not take the pitcher too often to the well. Remember always, remembering always that courage is expendable.

• 1:07:50Jocko Willink?

  It's interesting, I, I got very, very lucky in my military career in that I got, what do they say? I got nursed as a young soldier into action, like very nice escalation. It wasn't like day one, I, I had a nice, including even training, like the training escalates, it gets harder and harder and more and more intense, and then eventually combat, I started a very mellow combat. Um, which is the way, which is very, again, very lucky. And if you can do that with your troops, do that.

• 1:08:24Jocko Willink?

  However, although we may know the ideals at which we want to aim, people's opinions differ as to how we should attain them. We do not know how different men will react to certain stresses and ordeals until they actually have to endure them. And even when we know our men, even when we know our men well and have trained them to the best of our ability, they are still only human beings in uniform with the unusual human unpredictability, with the usual, sorry, with the usual human unpredictability. And this is what's, you know, uh, going through basic SEAL training.

• 1:09:00Jocko Willink?

  A lot of it, there's no freaking purpose whatsoever, other than just to make sure you're not gonna quit. And that's it. And like, they're gonna throw all kinds of stress at you, but when you can handle all that stress, bro, it's, it's debilitating. You're getting injured, that's what's happening. You're, you're getting injured while you're going through, let's say, hell week. But it's a pretty good predictor that you're not gonna give up. It's not perfect, but it's a pretty good predictor.

• 1:09:29Jocko Willink?

  Back to the book, and always we come back to the underlying truth that the law is in the circumstances. For example, a week's tour of duty in the frontline trenches in World War I could either be either a very great ordeal or merely a somewhat anxious and uncomfortable experience, dependent upon where on the front you were. But in the bad parts, a unit's tour of duty should have been about three days and nights at most. Sometimes that could be arranged. But often, this was particularly true in the early days, the circumstances simply did not permit. And then, good men became so drained of their courage and their mental and physical stamina that they took a long time to recover.

• 1:10:14Jocko Willink?

  Same thing happened, of course, in the Royal Air Force. Pilots who were allowed to take part in too many dangerous missions without a break, reached a condition when they became a danger to themselves and to their associates. Again, so important. You run that engine in the red, if you keep running the red, it's gonna, it's gonna blow out, it's not gonna be usable anymore. Well, you can run it in the red for a day, what, three days here, run it in the red for three days, get, you gotta take that thing off the line. You gotta pay attention to your people. Pay attention to your people, if you run them to the red and keep running them, they're gonna break.

• 1:10:48Jocko Willink?

  Many books have been written about the ordeals of British prisoners of war in Japanese hands. They were always in a state of semi-starvation and most of them were also suffering some kind of tropical disease. They were brutally ill-treated and grossly overworked, and the percentage of deaths among them was dreadfully high. They had practically no news from home and little from the outside world. The marvel is that so many survived. Another example of unpredictability of human beings was in the type of men who survived these conditions and those who gave up and died. In many cases, the fine athlete of excellent physique went down and the most unexpected types came through. But by the end of their years of captivity, the survivors had been drained of almost

• 1:11:31Jocko Willink?

  everything save courage. And that is why the rehabilitation has in so many cases been a long business.

• 1:11:44Jocko Willink?

  I have tried to pose some of the problems which have to be overcome in order to produce highly trained soldiers in good morale and to keep their morale high in conditions of continuous strain and danger. What are the acknowledged aids, so to speak, in the attainment of these ideals? Love of country, love of family, religion, tradition, pride of regiment, and pride in oneself have all been great factors in morale. Belief in victory is another one. And this feeling of complete confidence in success has never been endangered, engendered,

• 1:12:24Jocko Willink?

  sorry, more than by two of Britain's greatest commanders, Lord Nelson and Lord Montgomery. A high standard of individual training is also a very great morale raiser. Isn't it interesting, all these things, you start stacking these things up? And when you know people that have these things in their life, just in normal life, like, life is better. Life is better. When you have this, this pride, this love of your family, religion, religion, tradition, pride in your unit, pride in your company, pride in your team, discipline. When you have these things in regular life, your life is better. There was, for instance, a very little basic difference between the British and Indian

• 1:13:09Jocko Willink?

  troops who resisted the Japanese invasion of Burma in 1942 and those who finally retook Burma two and a half years later. Had our Burma troops in 1942 been employed in the desert, as they, as had been intended, they would have done very well, but plunged into an entirely unfamiliar environment of jungle warfare for which they had neither training, equipment, nor transport, and opposed, as they were, by highly trained Japanese divisions, their own inferiority soon became apparent to themselves, just as it did to the Japanese. And when, in addition, they were faced with a superior air force, then you had a set

• 1:13:52Jocko Willink?

  of circumstances which could have rapidly reduced the confidence and morale of any troops in the world. But you get off on the wrong foot. That always stings when you get off on the wrong foot, like when the other team scores first, or you get swept, like something happens. When you get off on the wrong foot, man, that, that momentum swings. And what is momentum? Momentum is basically morale. But again, the law was in the circumstances, not in the men. At that particular stage of the war, there were no other troops to send. Next section, discipline.

• 1:14:36Jocko Willink?

  One of the great aids to morale is, of course, a high standard of discipline, both individual and unit discipline. And in the past, one of the chief methods of its attainment was Barrack Square Drill. The chief protagonists of this have always been the Guards. I remember very well the first occasion on which I saw the Guards in action. It was Christmas, 1914, and the place was Gavinci in northern France, which in the previous 10 days had been captured and recaptured several times. At that moment, the Germans were firmly in position of Gavinci and the high ground, and the high ground, and we had been bundled down into the valley where we were preparing

• 1:15:20Jocko Willink?

  to spend a miserable Christmas in wet and muddy trenches. I had been detailed to, to guide a French battalion in a night assault on the position, but finding uncut wire and the hill feature very strongly held, the battalion commander had wisely decided the task was impossible. But at that period of this extraordinary war, all ground lost had to be recaptured, regardless of its value and regardless of losses. We then heard that a Guards Brigade was going to counter-attack, their starting point being our own frontline trenches. So imagine that, you're in this trench, they tell you, hey, you're going to attack this high-ground German position, and then your leader goes, hey, you know what? It's impossible, not going to happen.

• 1:16:04Jocko Willink?

  So you go, okay, cool, we don't have to attack that position. And then another unit shows up, the Guards, and they get told, hey, you're going to attack that German position, you're going to leave from where these guys that wouldn't do it are. The conditions were cheerless. It was a bitterly cold day and snow was threatening. Gavinci was an exceedingly strong, exceedingly strong and commanding position, and there was not nearly enough artillery support available to give the attack more than an outside chance of success. I wondered what the Guards would make of such a situation, and I watched their calm, precise, and thorough preparations with interest.

• 1:16:45Jocko Willink?

  When zero hour struck, the attack started, all hell was let loose. The hefty sergeant, to whom I had given a leg up over the parapet, was back in the trench before he had gone a yard with a bullet through the leg. But the leading companies shook out at the double and then moved forward at a steady walk as though they had been on parade ground, dude. The only men who stumbled or fell were the casualties. I thought of Martial Boss Bocque's remark on the Charge of the Light Brigade. "It is wonderful, but it is not war." But it was war. They were getting there, and their great traditions, discipline and Barrack Square

• 1:17:29Jocko Willink?

  Drill, were paying off. The attack was not a complete success, but I felt that no other troops in the world could have done what the Guards did that day. This episode made a lasting impression on me. So there you go, close it out with this. There's been a tendency in some quarters to consider discipline blimpish and Barrack Square Drill out of date, and there is no doubt that the latter does not now conform to any of the movements required of modern forces in the field. Nevertheless, the more unpleasant and frightening war becomes, the more important it is for

• 1:18:11Jocko Willink?

  the will to be stiffened by individual discipline and by discipline and high morale of the unit. The question is, how can this best be done? I do not pretend to know all the answers. I have just tried to present the problem and make some suggestions. But of one thing I am quite sure, you cannot expect men, however well-trained and equipped they may be, to produce their highest endeavors in conditions of difficulty and danger without some ennobling thought to inspire them. Looking back at some of the aids I quoted earlier, they are all ideas in the mind of the soldier.

• 1:18:53Jocko Willink?

  Love of country, religion, tradition, and pride of regiment. So there you go. Things change, but things stay the same. And so much, you know, so much of it depends on leadership and, and what the troops see and how they react to what they see, and also the training that they've been led through by the leaders. The leadership sets up, it sets up the morale, leadership establishes the discipline, leadership sets the example. And, and I think what is important to remember, that you are in a leadership position right

• 1:19:38Jocko Willink?

  now. You are in a leadership position right now, whether you're the junior person at your company, whether you're the, the mother or father in a family, whether you're the oldest kid or the middle kid, or you're the junior guy in a position, it doesn't really matter where you are. You are in a leadership position, and it's everything that you do. And you have to pay attention to that. You can't, you can't just lumber through life. You have to lead. And that's what I got for the Military Review, November 1960. Listen, when it comes to discipline, we know that doing hard things, now, do I recommend cave diving? Not really.

• 1:20:23Jocko Willink?

  No, negative. It's a hard thing, but I'm not recommending it. We do know that other hard things, safer things.

• 1:20:30Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:20:33Jocko Willink?

  Will give you improved discipline, mental and physical. So that's why we're lifting, we're not cave diving necessarily. Hey, if it's your thing, cool. Just be careful you're not getting sucked into an ecosystem. Cause you might be. But we're lifting, we're working out, we're training, we're running, we're doing jiu jitsu. We're, we're getting after it and we're getting after it. Guess what? Guess what, Echo Charles?

• 1:20:57Speaker 01

  Gonna need fuel.

• 1:20:58Jocko Willink?

  You're gonna need fuel, look at you. Uh, you're gonna need fuel. We recommend, strongly recommend Jocko Fuel. Get some energy drinks. Have you had that? All, all the energy drinks are improved now.

• 1:21:08Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:21:10Jocko Willink?

  Better formulation, improved formulation and improved taste. So they're awesome. I'm very addicted to them. Very addicted to them. Also, we have the best protein. Tasty protein too. Dessert, protein desserts. I'm still on this Greek yogurt scenario. The, the, uh, Greek yogurt.

• 1:21:32Speaker 01

  Recipe?

• 1:21:32Jocko Willink?

  Recipes, Greek yogurt with, with milk in it.

• 1:21:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:37Jocko Willink?

  With protein powder in it.

• 1:21:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:38Jocko Willink?

  You can just, you can have any kind of dessert you want. Like whatever, whatever weird, you know, fantasy you have about dessert, you can make it happen. Chocolate, chocolate, peanut butter, chocolate mint, strawberry, banana, coffee. Like you can do it, you can do it. Whatever fantasy you have, you can do it. And by the way, if you get some, uh, some of the, uh, sugar-free chocolate chips. And maybe, maybe if you really want to go hard in the paint for dessert. Throw some, so throw some whipped cream on top. So you got, you got chocolate mousse. That's so good for you. And so tasty. We got joint warfare, time war. We got everything that you need. Creatine. We're, we're, we're on the path.

• 1:22:22Jocko Willink?

  And that means we need the right fuel. So check out jacofuel.com or go to any store really that you want to go to. I think we're in 50,000 different locations in America. Which is pretty amazing. So you should be able to find it in your store. If they don't have it in your store, ask them. Say, hey, we want that Jocko Fuel over here. We're trying to stay on the path. And we'll get there. So check out Jocko Fuel. And speaking of jiu jitsu, you're gonna need some jiu jitsu gear. We have had a lot of people fight really hard in this country against communism. So we don't want to support communism. So we like to wear communist free jiu jitsu clothing.

• 1:23:01Jocko Willink?

  Communist free jiu jitsu clothing with a hundred percent free of communism. No slavery involved. We got jiu jitsu geese, we got rash guards. I have, because you know me, I kind of like wear the same thing every day. So now I have just like my jiu jitsu, I have the same, what is it? I have the same rash guard with the black raptor camo. And I noticed, I like see videos and I'm like, oh yeah. Every single day I'm wearing the same thing.

• 1:23:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:28Jocko Willink?

  And it, so it's kind of the way, with the way we roll. I don't have to think about it. I'm just putting it on.

• 1:23:34Speaker 01

  Wait, so you have multiple of them or you just choose?

• 1:23:36Jocko Willink?

  I got like five of them.

• 1:23:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, that's all.

• 1:23:38Jocko Willink?

  Five of them. So jiu jitsu, jeans, boots. I did the, uh, I did a speech at the kickoff of the 250th anniversary of America. I did that in Washington DC.

• 1:23:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, I caught that speech.

• 1:23:55Jocko Willink?

  Oh.

• 1:23:55Speaker 01

  Good one, you know?

• 1:23:56Jocko Willink?

  Appreciate it.

• 1:23:56Speaker 01

  Did some good stuff on there for sure.

• 1:23:58Jocko Willink?

  Well, just so you know, and so that we know, I was a hundred percent head to toe. Made in America origin. I was wearing the black denim pants. They are jeans, but the black is so black. There's some, I have to get Pete to expand on it, but the thread itself is black. Like the thread is black. So you, we know you wash a pair of denim blue jeans, they fade over time. These black jeans, they don't fade. It, the thread is black. It's not, that is black. So even though they said, hey, we, they said, hey, you know, dress, you know, how you want to dress, but we, uh, would prefer no jeans. And I was like, well, we're getting in there with the jeans. So I had Origin boots on.

• 1:24:42Jocko Willink?

  Origin jeans, black jeans, which again, they're, they're, they're more like pants. And then I had this new shirt that's just about to come out. Thanks to Amanda and Pete, but I think Amanda. Amanda like found a blue shirt and FedExed it to me. Because it looks sharp, man. It's America. I had a blue shirt on, you know what I'm saying? And then I had a white Origin t-shirt on underneath. So I was head to toe, a hundred percent American made.

• 1:25:08Speaker 01

  Some Origin drip.

• 1:25:09Jocko Willink?

  Origin all day. Because this is America. And, and America, look, America was built by freedom. That's what I said in the speech. And it, when you buy something from Origin, it's built by freedom. It's not built by a slave. It's not built by communism. It's not built by the state. It's not built by the bureaucracy. It's built by freedom. So go to originusa.com and support freedom, support America. 250 years of freedom. This is what we're doing. Originusa.com, check it out.

• 1:25:39Speaker 01

  It's a miracle, I think you said too.

• 1:25:42Jocko Willink?

  It is indeed.

• 1:25:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, man.

• 1:25:45Speaker 01

  Also Jocko's store, if you want to represent, discipline equals freedom. And good is where you can get your stuff. Some shirts, some hoodies on there. It's, uh, summertime, so maybe not. I mean, there's still hoodies, you know, get them if you want. You live somewhere cold. Um, or you want it for the, for the fall or the winter?

• 1:26:01Jocko Willink?

  Well, if you're in California, in California, you have to have a hoodie with you.

• 1:26:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:07Jocko Willink?

  There's almost 90, I would say 97% of the time, you're gonna need a hoodie at night. You're gonna need a hoodie at night. That's just the way it is. Semi-arid desert, the temperature's high during the day, 75, 80 degrees. Maybe even 82 degrees. But at night, it'll drop. Could see the 50s during the summertime.

• 1:26:27Speaker 01

  Well, the good news about that is like, yeah, sometimes it's 50s for sure. But sometimes it's 60s. See what I'm saying? And you don't need that hoodie hoodie. So for that reason, we got a couple, we got a couple of variations. So the lightweight hoodie, I think we only have a few left though. With a lightweight hoodie. It's more of like a thicker t-shirt kind of scenario. It's like a long sleeve t-shirt. Then we got kind of a medium light, which is the quick flip. That was a good one. That one looks good too. Uh, you know, for maybe a 60 degree scenario. And then, you know, then we got the regular hoodie. See what I'm saying? It's not ultra heavy. But it's like, you know, it'll protect, yeah, you're at the beach or something, you know, with your family and stuff like that. Sun goes down, wind kicks up a little bit. Saying, so I see how, but, and boom, you're representing.

• 1:27:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:13Speaker 01

  Discipline equals freedom all day. See what I'm saying?

• 1:27:15Jocko Willink?

  All day.

• 1:27:15Speaker 01

  And you can stay functional temperature wise. Also, uh, some shorts on there. Some hats on there. Um, shirt locker, subscription, new design every month. Don't forget about that. You can check it out, see what it's all about. It's all on Jocko's store. You just click on the top, it'll take you to the page. You'll, you'll, you'll find out everything you need to know on there. It's pretty cool. People seem to like it on, on Jocko's store.

• 1:27:38Jocko Willink?

  I like it. Uh, books. We got Put Your Legs On by Rob Jones. We've got Need to Lead by Dave Burke. I've written a bunch of books, I've written a bunch of kids books. Get those kids books for your neighbors. They want to be on the path, they just don't know it yet. Help them get on the path. Wave the warrior kid. Go get some. ColoradoCraftBeef.com, get yourself some steak. Eclonfront.com. Leadership. You have leadership problems inside your organization? Well, what we do is we teach leadership. The principles of leadership, the skills of leadership. We bring organizations together. If you need help inside your organization, go to Eclonfront.com. Also check out ExtremeOwnership.com. This is where we teach our skills online. Leadership is a skill that can be learned. And you won't be bummed out, you won't feel like Echo Charles felt.

• 1:28:24Jocko Willink?

  When he tried to do something and it didn't work and he said, this is not for me. We will show you that leadership is for you. Go to ExtremeOwnership.com and learn the skills of leadership. If you want to help out service members, active and retired, you want to help out their families, 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 Jimmy May's or, organization, BeyondTheBrotherhood.org. He's got the swim coming up in New York City. So if you want to participate in the, the, the SEAL swim, go to BeyondTheBrotherhood.org, check that out. Also check out WarriorsInNeed.org.

• 1:29:07Jocko Willink?

  As well as StrongholdRescue.org. If you want to connect with us, check out Jaco.com. And then on social media, the great time consumer. I'm at Jocko Willink, Echo's at Echo Charles. Just, just don't, just don't let it get ahold of you. You really shouldn't. It's evil.

• 1:29:27Jocko Willink?

  Thanks to our uniformed personnel around the world right now, especially those who are currently in harm's way. Protecting us and our way of life here in America. Also 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 keeping us safe here at home. And everyone else out there. Remember that one of the greatest aids to morale is discipline. Discipline, a high standard of discipline for you, a high standard of discipline for your team. But remember that discipline does not come easy. It doesn't just show up.

• 1:30:11Jocko Willink?

  You have to make it show up. You have to earn it. And you do that by getting up every day. And getting after it. And that's all we've got for tonight. And until next time, this is Echo and Jocko. Out.