Jocko Podcast - 135: Supreme Excellence with Discomfort and Extreme Ownership. With Dave Berke.

Episode Date: July 25, 2018

0:00:00 – Opening 0:07:59 – Dave Berke on History and importance. 0:52:55 – The Mental game. 2:14:09 – Support. 2:40:40 – Closing gratitude.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 135 with Echo Charles and me Jocco Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. Dear Mrs. Spearing, there is grief in my heart and in the hearts of all my comrades for the great sorrow that this war has brought to you and to us. We all unite to express our heartfelt sympathy and condolence to the mother and family of one who has fallen in a cause as imperishable as will be the names of those who have fallen to defend it. Should there be anything my comrades and I can do to mitigate your grief and to allay your sorrow,

some little keepsake of Walt as a Marine perhaps, but name it, dear lady, and it shall traverse the ocean to you. Because you do not know me, please do not think it presumptuous for me to write. You are Walter's mother. I was his inseparable friend and comrade. That makes us two kindred souls in common grief for our nearest and dearest. Then too, this letter fulfills my duty that I am bound by oath and will to perform. Many months ago, Walt and I promised each other that should the God of battles call to one, the other would console the sorrowing mother.

Now Walt has gone west to home and to you forever. But his figure, his voice, his wonderful personality will always be living truths to me. I, myself, should the great call come, will go gladly. Confident of a reunion and with faith in the eternal truth of that cause for which I die Beneath the Green and Bella Woods Forever connected to the honor of the Marines lies Walt with his two comrades Dead on the field of honor above their graves the stately pines sway in their grandeur an imperishable monument but greatest of all epitaphs is that engraved within the hearts of his comrades a man than whom there was no peer in kindliness and understanding in comradeship beyond compare we alone know what could have been had circumstances so

Willed it whatever befall whatever sorrow fills us one thing I swear to you here hard by that lonely grave the very paper that I write upon taken in a captured German dugout I swear that Walt is well avenged that he has died not in vain For his spirit leads us on to ultimate victory you are proud I know for for you are the mother of a martyr a martyr in a holy cause freedom and liberty dear lady the very thought that you are in grief tears my heart do not sorrow death after all is not so terrible and here why here it is glorious mother in the name of the 23rd company in the name of the Marines I salute you and all my comrades salute you devotedly Saul Segal and that was a letter written by Saul Siegel who was an 033 heavy

machine gunner and he was 20 years old when he wrote that letter at the graveside of his Marine Corps brother Walter Spearing was his name who was from Philadelphia who had been amongst the earliest of the Marines to ship over to war Who was one of the 1,811 Americans killed at the Battle of Bellawood and Walter Spearing died on June 26th 1918 and as he said that letter was written on captured paper from a German dugout And you hear that writing that articulate that that that poet writing by a 20-year-old Marine Corps machine gunner and it's a letter that captures

so many different aspects of war and in capturing different aspects of war it teaches us teaches us about leadership it teaches us about human nature teaches us about suffering it teaches us about death and it teaches us about life tonight back here again to talk to us about all those different subject as a Marine that I was honored to serve with on the battlefield and who I am now honored to work with once again on a different front his name is Dave Burke he's been on the podcast before already so if you haven't heard that one it was podcast number 69 and you should listen to that one first to hear about

Dave's incredible background as a Marine Corps F-18 fighter pilot F-16 pilot F-22 pilot F-35 pilot top-gun pilot top gun instructor top gun instructor and of course Anglico team leader on the ground with us in the battle of Ramadi and if you've listened to podcast 69 then you can hear all about that and tonight we'll go a little deeper on all these different subjects. Dave, thanks for coming back on the show. Thanks, Jocom. Stook to be here, man.

You just find these letters like that, and it's incredible. I know, I was like, hey, read this, and, you know, your reaction's like, this is a 20-year-old Marine. Yeah. Is it a different time? Is it, the language is different back then?

Yeah, and the language is different. And if you just hear the word, it sounds like a completely different world and then when you think about what he's saying I know exactly what you can you can feel what he's feeling and it comes through so so clearly and and I've read letters like that I've heard you read letters like that I've seen letters like that and I've written a letter like that it didn't sound that eloquent it didn't but I know that feeling and it's incredible that after all this time how powerful that comes through man it was that's all

as you in and this is another thing that you and I were talking about these lessons that exists in history in literature and and it's funny because it's it's it's things that are written by privates it's things that are written by corporals it's things that are written by majors and colonels and generals and it's things that are written by emperors and it's things that are written by conscripts and everything in between and every time I every time I even that right there it's like I get another angle to appreciate and to realize and then you start you know you start I'll cover Bella Wood on this podcast for sure but I mean when you read about Bella Wood at all

it was just savage battle yeah savage battle I mean there's one Medal of Honor for a for a guy that just his buddy didn't have his gas mask So he took off his own gas mask and gave it to him and then died. I mean, it's it's unbelievable. And so you were telling me you kind of opened back up the history books, the war books. Yeah. I used to certainly as a kid and early in my career, I would read military history all the time. I mean, some of it was an assignment. You know, we'd become a lieutenant in the Marine Corps and there's a kind of a reading list that you want to go through. And you do some of it kind of, they call it professional military

education PME. But I used to be really interested in it. And I just kind of do it on my own. A lot of it was aviation centric. But I got away from it. And for the latter half of my career, I didn't do military history at all. It wasn't, it just wasn't something that really captivated

me. And in the last year and a half or so, partially, no, not partially, mostly because of this podcast, I've actually gone back and re-read some of the books. And you and I've talked about a lot of different ones with the old breed, Eugene Sledge. So that was a book I read a long time ago.

And it was incredible book, very powerful. But I went back and reread that book a little while back. And I had stopped thinking and paying attention to the meanings. I was almost paying attention to the chronology in the past. Okay, this has happened here. This is the lesson learned. And this is the movement. It was all kind of very sanitary, and I lost what it meant to hear their stories.

And I used to read them, and I think I just tried to pay attention to what happened and not really learn as much from him or from them. And I've read more in the last year than I had. Honestly, Jack, probably the previous five, if not more. And I'm reading all the time, and once you start sort of digging into that world, there's more books than I could ever read

in my entire life there everywhere and it has renewed the way I how much I read but it's also changed the way I read and it's been a really good experience

for me I've learned a lot in the last year the and this is another thing I talked to you about as we were talking about this subject the other day

and I brought up this quote from Musashi yeah And and the quote is if you know the way broadly, you will see it and everything. And to me, that is what makes, that is what has, I guess, recalibrated reading for me is that when you start seeing all these connections and everything. And part of it, quite frankly, comes from the fact that I wrote a book that is about this subject. And once you go that deep in it, it's like, okay, now I start seeing it everywhere.

And I mean, even kind of all started, it definitely all started with About Face for me. With About Face for me when I was in Iraq and I knew, I knew about Face was a great book. This is on my second, on my first deployment, my book was with the Old Breed, as a matter of fact. That was my book. Yeah. And I thought, okay. But it was so disconnected. It was such a stretch.

I mean my first deployment to Iraq was Absolutely Absolutely nothing like with the old breed other the fact that we were American right? Like the similarities ended there Right? It was nothing like with the old breed nothing You know other than in my mind. Okay. Well, these were horrible things that are happening. You just it was really hard to make that connection I'll tell you what though our deployment to Ramadi The similarities between Ramadi and and about face were in

Incredible not just you know one of the things that hit me right out of the gate is When Hackworth gets to Vietnam and those guys are getting killed and they're getting killed by sniper fire Indirect fire and booby traps right which we now call IEDs for whatever reason and that one section of the book where they've a hundred like a hundred something casualties and they've and they've they've they've contacted the enemy zero times It's an enemy killed zero and I'm thinking to myself this is a nightmare this is a nightmare and that nightmare it shows itself over and over and over again and what's so hard is and i'll tell you where it hit me again it hit me again on on lewis puller when louis puller is rotating between the three different sections and one of them was called

riviera and he's saying every time they go into riviera they take wounded or they take killed And on top of that, they don't ever see the enemy. And I'm thinking to myself, it's maddening, right? It's maddening when you look back and you're detached, which we're detached now. And I don't know if culture's different. I don't know if our culture is different. I don't know if we value human life more. I don't know that.

But when you read it, it's maddening to think about that. And you could see that like hackware. He didn't like that. He didn't like that at all and that was all that was I think maybe it was you that told me when I had Jim Mukuyama on and or a couple people told me they were like you sounded giddy. Yeah and I said well yes, I was giddy and and here I was but it was very interesting to go and talk to Mukiyama because what was interesting to me is you you there's the there's the public persona of some guy that was in the military right right there's the public persona of some guy that was in the military myself included you all of us there's that public persona of oh this is what this guy's perceived as but then there's like okay what about all the people that served with that person what do they really think yeah and what was Hackworth really like and so going to meet MOOC I was very curious now I had Read an interview with him where I knew that he had these very he held him in the highest Yeah, that he was a real deal. It didn't come as a surprise to me, but still it was it was incredible that The perception that I had of Hackworth was accurate. It was accurate and we saw we when you when you heard moot talk about it when he said we called them mr. Infantry I I I I was just thinking to myself is

there anything cooler in the world than to be known throughout the army as Mr. Infantry? Yeah. You said something that that jumped out of me a little bit. You were just talking about, you know, is, is culture different? Is something different? So let me just say this a little bit because, you know, I've even thought a little bit about why do I see things differently than I used to? Why have I evolved in a certain way?

So did I spend 23 years in the Marine Corps? 23 years as a U.S. Marine and a whole bunch of years just wanting to be a Marine. I was in Ramadi for seven months. So if you just kind of do the math, it's just not a lot of time. Everything I think about, every leadership lesson, every, when I hear you talk about a book, when I read a book, when I think all of those things, the frame of reference I have, the thing I think about is those seven months. and had I not had those seven months of, and look, Ramadi obviously was, it was a maddening place, it was crazy. But if I didn't have that, I don't think I would be able to appreciate or understand.

And without that frame of reference, without that understanding of some connection to that, it actually makes it difficult. And I would have never guessed it if I would tell you, hey, I'm going to look back in my 23-year career and all those things. I heard you listen to my bio. It's always strange to hear someone read it out. the the most powerful thing in that was seven months in Romani. That's the thing that outshines all of it because of what you just described

because of that feeling. And I don't know if it's that that culture is different or society is different. We have different values or we value human life differently, but without the frame of reference, it can be hard to capture. But if you start to think of it in a different way, and that's sort of what that quote means.

And I know this is kind of a deep thought, but that's, you see things differently. And you think about things, and you start to see things you didn't even know were there before. And that's why when I went back and read, look, I have read a book, and I read the exact same book again.

And to see and hear and understand things differently at the same time on a book that was, and for me, for me, it was with the old book. That was the book that sort of hit me square. I got to go to Okinaw. I got to walk that ground. And to go, back and reread that book recently and have it seemed so different, that has really stuck with me.

And that was sort of the reason why I got back into reading, some of them the same books and some are different. But there is something about that perspective that changes you. And I would have never guessed that throughout my career, I was wanting to be a pilot. It's all ever really wanted to do that I would sort of define my experience based on those seven months and how that influence everything that I see now. And the weird thing is about Ramadi is when you compare Ramadi to Pelulu, you compare Ramadi to Okinawa, you compare Ramadi to Normandy, you compare Ramadi to those places. And our experience was just, it just pales. It just absolutely pales.

You and I have talked about this a lot. You actually sent me, I think he sent me a text or an email a couple of weeks. ago you're like hey do me a favor um just verify i got this right i wanted just make sure i got your combat experience um in in your first deployment correct and it was that i i was in combat in iraq and i was thinking yeah yeah no you got it all right i i i dropped a bomb that's my that was a legitimate combat that's before that's pre-9-11 yeah pre-9-11 you were one of the few guys with combat combat yeah which meant you had dropped a bomb a bomb a bomb Singular. And the thought wasn't just how ridiculous that sounds,

but I thought, I don't ever want Charlie Plummer, Bill Reeder to hear me say that. Yeah. I don't want them to, I was almost embarrassed. And even, like you said, Ramadi, which for me, which was sort of like the World Series and the Super Bowl, all combined into one, like the most powerful thing.

And with the old breed, since we've been talking about that, you talk about the Battle of Okinawa and what they endured. I mean, it is so humbling. And almost honestly, man, doubt rind a little embarrassing to try to share the same experience. We saw that with Tom Fife and I remember Tom Fyfe was on the podcast

and he was so grateful for he was thanking me for what we had done and what we accomplished and I'm thinking, this is a man that has a purple heart from World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, and he's thanking me for what I did. and you know that's that's a frame of reference that I think is important and and something the podcast does is so extremely well as it gives those guys a chance to share that story that otherwise they wouldn't get a chance to is there a way to get I'm trying to figure out what I was missing right I was trying to I'm trying to figure out what how can you get somebody that's a 18 year old corporal to read a book with the perspective that with the with

right perspective is that possible an 18-year-old Dave Burke it wasn't possible I can tell you that for sure it wasn't and I don't know if that if that's a case but I do know that if you get an 18-year-old Dave Burke agent anybody to to start to read and start to think about it that actually builds over time and that creates some sort of foundation that I think with time of perspective, you can actually reach that, but there's no way at that age. No matter what you said, no matter how articulate you were, no matter how powerful the story was, I don't think you're reaching me.

And I don't mean that to be discouraging, but I think that's a hard lesson. I think, you know, for certainly what I was going through at that time of my life. It's just not going to happen. It's going to, yeah. It's weird, too, because what you're focused on when you're 18 and you're, and you read with the old breed, you're like, I remember my earliest memories of with the old breed are, these guys were ripping people's gold teeth out with pliers. You're thinking, whoa, that's crazy. Like, that's the big, that's, that's probably the big takeaway for my first read

when I was whatever years old. Yep. Of with the old breed. It's, you, you see it for the things that seem not real. And you're like, man, that is incredible and that is awesome. And, I also think that goes that you talked about is a lot of that sort of that feeling of invincibility to when you're young and that like immune to not just the physical risks, not just the potential of getting hurt or getting injured or getting shot or some of those worse things, but the mental and emotional risks that go along with experiencing that. That's a really hard lesson. Now the other side of that is, you know, when I deployed to Ramadi almost

Everybody on my team was a first deployment, brand new, young U.S. Marine. You met Marcus Perez. He came to the muster. You know, he was a young kid. And you walk in there sort of with this kind of this bulletproof approach. And it's not how it is when you leave. It's not the same. And in some ways, like you said, the scale is different than a,

than a Pelaloo or a Guadalcanal or any of those things, you know, that we just talked about. But when it's happening to you, it could be a single round, a single mortar, a single shot, a single wound if it's happening to you, it sort of feels like it's happening to the whole world. It's really impactful. And that's probably why, if I look back in my career, the thing that's the most powerful experience that I had that sort of outshines everything by so much is that time in Ramadi, because I was exposed to things that I never saw as a pilot and never would have seen had I not been on that deployment.

You know what I was, I was thinking, so one of the things, and I remember probably, I don't know if it was 10 or 15 podcasts deep into this podcast, I remember saying during one of the podcasts, and I've said it a few times along the way, I remember saying that these people that I'm talking about in these books, they're not characters. These are people. And I think at some point for me, that transition in my brain happened where I was saying to myself,

these are people. And I think I got a little bit of it in my platoon commander tour because, you know, there was, hey, it was a good, solid deployment. Was there a risk? Sure, there was risk. It wasn't super high risk. I had a great crew of guys.

But, you know, there was stress There was personalities and you start to see that when you read about a guy and you think I kind of know that guy just I just know him a little bit I just know him a little bit and and you start to realize that those people in these books They're real people and I think that for me was a huge leap between Connecting me to the text that I was reading and I'll tell you another thing and straight up Voice What? When I started thinking about reading these things when I started reading these aloud when I

started reading them and hearing them in my own headset like on the podcast that was an impact and and now it's happened it happened with Bill Reader it happened with Jody Middick it happened when these guys come on here and they hear me read what they wrote and it hits them and so that's another part of it too there's an element when you read that's missing there's an element of voice that is just more powerful It's just more powerful and I remember when I read the forgotten Highlander when I read that book I read it on the plane coming back calling a guy over in Scotland a buddy mine who I had done some work with He gave me this book and he was on podcast 11 and he goes hey you got to check out this book

I won't try and do his Scottish accent plus he's a mumbler he's like he go to go to school check out this book me And so he gives me this book and I'm sort of thinking okay you know I just I wasn't sure but I had made enough of a enough of a leap in my brain that when I started reading that book I said to myself wow this is gonna be be a really powerful podcast so I read the book so then when we come this is podcast number 12 when we came when I came in to record it I thought yeah this is gonna be really heavy but when I read it it was like I was getting hit in the head with with a sledgehammer and that's the first podcast that when I got to the end of the book I actually didn't know what to say because what do you say

say what do you say about a guy that what do you say about a guy that that that that put maggots on his flesh to eat away the dead flesh what do you say about that what do you say about that and so that's the first podcast where I said when I got done with it the next time I did a podcast that was heavy like that I knew that I had to get myself somewhere to go I had to give myself some thought about How am I going to make this How does this become something? How do I get out of this hole? Because that's what you're doing.

And so there's a level of that as well when you hear a hardcore history podcast. Great storytelling. But he's reading quotes from people, but it's so much more powerful when you hear it audibly. And people say that about extreme ownership too. People say, oh yeah, I love that book.

And this, I'm going to say, you got to get the audio book because it's lay for. I reading it and you can hear I mean how much is communicated in the tone of voice there's a lot when you said earlier about the the audible piece of that when you finished my first podcast so when I was on this we were talking about this is almost a year and a half ago now you know April I think of last year I guess you finished with a letter that cat wrote to Chris now I didn't know we hadn't discussed that and I didn't know how it was going to finish and you know we spent all that time

you know talking about me and my experiences and things like that I knew that letter very well I have a copy of that letter and I've read that letter several times I had never read that letter out loud to myself I never read a tent business I've shared it you know with Whitney and I've shared that letter hearing you say a letter that I knew almost line by line I know that letter really well made that letter like I'd never heard it before and I remember look it's hard to hear it because I it's Chris and it's hard for me because that's a really impactful thing very emotional thing and that is a that's a crusher for me man I know you understand that but I had never heard it out loud and in there's a book I'm reading now that I have read the preface of the book which is only about three pages

kind of explained I've read it out loud to myself like five times and it it It's something that I overlooked the impact of hearing it as opposed to reading. And I read the book. It's a really cool book. I think essentially a pen. This book's awesome. You should check it out. I read the preface out loud to myself.

And having read it three or four times already hearing it, it was like reading it for the first time. The voice that you give that makes the words become real. Like that person wrote the book is saying out loud and that difference there, it's not subtle. It's huge. It's a huge, huge thing that is one of the great things about when people do it, when they do it on podcasts, and you're putting somebody else's voice into action. Most of the time we're reading books by people that are long gone. And you're telling stories that nobody would ever hear. And even if you read them, it misses something.

And I think the power of that is huge. And it brought me right back to our last podcast, which was you sitting right where you are reading Kat's letter to Chris. And as, like I said, like I had never heard it before. It was it's a totally different level. You know what? Podcasts Was another podcast that that sort of it caught me Was one soldier's war

by Arcady And that part in the end of that podcast where It's again, that was podcast number 18 And he's He's quoting these women Soldiers that were sitting begging for money basically and He's talking about how this guy is saying if I would kill all these he's talking about this this soldier's talking about everyone on the streets in Moscow He says I would kill every one of these people to bring back my brothers

You're reading this going good God That is a powerful powerful powerful book. Did you see him in the news recently? No He faked his own death. Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely Yeah, yes. All these people, we talked about it. They hit me up on social media and I was, oh, man, what a travesty. And, yeah, I was totally bummed out. And then, sure enough, he had faked his own death.

He had even fooled his wife. He didn't tell his wife. That takes a lot of courage. He's a courageous guy already, but to fake your death and not give your wife a heads up about it. That's hardcore. That's problematic. Yeah. And that feeling to, it's one thing to sort of,

have that feeling, but to be willing to express that feeling that I would do that to all of these people, that is, that's a, that's saying a lot, man. I mean, that is deep to, to, I mean, I've had some pretty hardcore thoughts, certainly in my time, like, no, I'm probably not going to share that one. But to put it out there, you know, I mean, that's, that gets to the core of, of just how, how much people feel from those experiences, just how powerful those feelings are. And those guys had no mercy those those Russian soldiers they had no mercy it was that that part we're talking about the sergeants beat the corporals the the captains beat the sergeants the majors beat the captains yeah it's just a nightmare yeah it's just a complete

nightmare it makes you wonder how any of that is is makes any of it remotely functional like how does that system function at all under that setting under that environment how could anybody at the bottom of that hierarchy be willing to go do any of the things they went and did. You know, you're talking about, you know, this thing from Bella Wood, they literally know most of you are going to die. We're going to charge across open fields into machine guns. We use that example at Echonfront as something that you would never do.

And that's what they were doing. I mean, borderline just human waves, if we do it enough, we're going to get 50, 75 yards of terrain out of it. We're going to move the line forward. hundred yards and we're going to send wave after wave after wave to and and guys 11 right like this is borderline a death sentence um what what people are capable of doing and under those environments is is unreal sometimes world war one it just is it's just you know you know what's funny is that I say that about everyone every war so the world we're like

unbelievable and then you you talk about Napoleon and like Nothing like that. And then I read the book on the coldest war or colder than hell. Nothing like that. Like there is there is something that has happened in every one of the stories you've talked about or I think how is that possible? And they all have their own unique thing about them that just seems unreal. I'm going to throw on an orange vest and mark my position in 30 below so you can see me so you know where I am. Because I'm the leader.

Because I'm the leader and you currently. Yeah. Yeah. Unreal. That being said, World War I? No. I don't, I don't know that that. I don't know that that is out there.

The, the complete lack of control that you had as a individual soldier. Yeah. As a, even as a platoon commander, as a company commander, You had no control over your fate. That's what scares me so much about World War I. It wasn't like, hey, Jocko, here's the situation. Here's what we're trying to accomplish. Why don't you go figure out the best way to do it?

And I go, okay, you know what? Cool, I can do this. We can come up with some cool tactics. We can make some stuff happen. It was, hey, tomorrow morning at 0-600, 14,000 of us are going to go at 0-600. And then guess what's going to happen at 0-6-15? Another 14,000.

Yeah. And guess what's going to happen at 0630? Another 14,000. And guess what? A vast majority they were going to be wounded or killed. And that's that. So that, to me, and I'll tell you what, they call that the war to end all wars.

I think if there would have been internet, yeah, photographers, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, that might have been the last one. Right that might have been the last war if you were it's not that if you saw that as a leader because I'm just talking when I think about I think about like you're a general and you're in charge and you organize this big operation and then you you give the execute order and then 22,000 men are killed in the first 24 hours Who does that? Yeah, who does that now? Now And this is a dichotomy because are there situations where people have done operations and are there situations at war that it's like, hey, guess what? We are going to do this mission and we don't have a real good chance of coming back.

And that's the way it is. And it's a strategic piece of the mission. And does that happen? Could that happen? Absolutely. And do people in the military sign up for that? Would I sign up for that? If that was what was required?

Well, yeah, that's what we signed up for. But as a leader like that to be sitting there looking at. 25,000 men and you gained, you know, 75 yards of mud. And, and you know what? You go, okay, that was bad. We're not going to do that again. No, no, no, you know what? You say, you know what? We'll do it harder. Right. We'll do it harder, which is, which is what makes me, it makes that war to me just absolutely sickening. And it's sickening. It is. It absolutely is. And the calculus that goes into that is something that is completely disconnected from the value of human life, completely disconnected of what that impact is, and then you read this letter, and that's

14,000 moms. On that one wave, that one time, that's 14,000 of these letters. And the disconnect of human life, yeah, it's actually kind of hard to fast. You talked about you know, yeah, the high-risk operation, you know, we're going to go in into the worst possible citrus. Yeah. And you know what? We all kind of secretly would say, hey, if that opportunity, I'm going to volunteer for that, you know, the high risk. But as that's just how we do operations all the time. That's just what we do.

Yeah. No. That's, that's actually a nightmare. Yeah. And the other thing with World War. one right like World War II you're looking at Nazis and you're looking at the Imperial Japanese army and you're thinking we've got real bad guys here we got legit bad guys that's that's a factor too right it Germany World War I it's like oh yeah we wanted a

little extra land who's that land for you know what I talk about what you know we We work with companies and I say So okay CEO says I know my front line troops aren't doing what they're supposed to do And it's affecting our bottom line and you know I say oh well you got to explain to them why it's important Right and so the CEO goes down and says hey You guys need to do a better job on the front line so that the company can be more profitable And the frontline people are like we don't care for the company more profitable That doesn't mean that doesn't matter to me yeah I'm making 17 bucks an hour

I'm making $17 an hour, and I got a wife and I got a kid and I got a basketball game tonight, and I got a mortgage and I got a house payment. The company being profitable makes no difference to me whatsoever. Yeah. So imagine now you're World War I and you're going to get an extra 14 miles of land. That's the goal to get 14 miles of land in some country. And it's not for you. It's for like the government. Yeah.

It's absolutely, it's atrocious. Yeah. And when you're sending U.S. Marines across the Atlantic Ocean to get engaged in that war, like to keep Germany from encroaching a little bit too far west. You know, France. Yeah. Let me, yeah. The why doesn't, you know, that doesn't, that doesn't resonate. Have I, have I ever talked about, do, I don't know if I've talked about, have I ever talked about the white flower thing they did in Britain?

the white flower so if you were like a able-bodied young man if you were a military age male yeah and and you weren't wearing a uniform and you weren't like fighting women would come up and give you a white flower it was the mark of shame and the government started that campaign yeah the government started that campaign of hey you see you see someone that's not uniform military age male able-bodied fighting man you go up and give him a white flower he's a coward I'm I'm prepping a book right now for the podcast and actually a couple books but it's a nightmare because what they're doing is they're they're executing British soldiers that have that that that desert or run away or have shell shock yeah they're

just dysfunctional they can't do it anymore and it's it's awful some of the stories these guys are soldiers that have been on the line for a year and they break the break which everyone um dick winners talks about people brave the bravest guys yeah they might break and you got to get them all off the line hackworth same thing you got brave guys sometimes you got to get them off the line world war one we got a British soldier he's been fighting for a year in the trenches he's been getting mortared he's been getting bombed he says I can't do this anymore okay we're gonna shoot you at dawn and they did it Yeah.

That's another thing. It's completely insane. Yeah. We use the analogy a lot. We talk about the Zedissel in front. Like, hey, your folks, when you're pushing your folks too hard, it's like driving a car in the red. You're running this car in the red. You're running them hard.

And if you keep them in the red too long, that car is going to break. An engine is going to break. Now, you can push to the red a little bit. You can kind of throttle up and do that, and then you've got to bring it back. And that's sort of one of the leader's job is sort of pay attention to that. This is the idea of, like, I'm going to run my car in the red until my car explode. and then I'm going to be mad at the car. I'm going to blame the car.

And the disconnect of, and like you said, the disconnect of the impact of the human being that that's what leaders are supposed to do. That's their job. And Dick Winters had that, he talked about the idea of like, hey, when somebody puts their head in their hands, that's a physical, they're literally showing you,

hey, man, I'm breaking right now. And the, willingness to just say go do it again and then get to the point like I can't and go we're done with you we don't have any more use for you anymore yeah um that's hard to comprehend it's hard to comprehend i'm but like i said i'm prepping these books it's awful to read them it's awful to read them some of them are the quotes from the soldiers that were chosen to be the executioners right i mean well what's that what's that i remember i started one podcast off of that was like these soldiers were picked to go this this kid had been in the army for a couple weeks and he had to go

shoot a deser that was this one of his first assignments what the hell yeah so there's some kind of a some some some kind of you know do we value human life more now that's the question I think the answer if you compare today compared to World War one the answer is 100% yes without a doubt 100% yes we do We do in the military. We do everywhere, I think. We absolutely do. You got a nice long history of podcasts that are just sort of soul crushing.

You've hit some real home runs there with some podcasts. You're like, wow, that is hard. But you know what? The reason that we hold human life in greater value now is because of that. It's because of those stories. It's because this letter. I mean, there's that small piece of having to understand that, we are here because of where we came from.

We are here because of what we did and what we endured. And that's not to say we won't go back to do that again. That doesn't mean that we can't end up back in that place. But those stories, that legacy of that just crazy, impossible to understand how you can do that to that many people and just say, that's just how we do business. That's just what we do. We have come a long way and I think we've moved in the right direction. Now, there is a piece that when people go to war, people die. Oh, yeah.

You know, that's, and we can't get to a place or to a point or to a belief in our society where that is not acceptable. That is not something we're willing to have happened in order for us to be successful. That is not okay to get to point that any loss of life or any injury or any sacrifice is not okay. we can't get to that point. So, overshooting that is not good either. I wouldn't use World War I as a benchmark. You know, that's just, it's not even close,

but the reality is, is that that's not just how war is, but that's actually necessary. And as a leader, that's a huge burden. That's a huge burden. And the burden is to balance the responsibility that you have to do everything. To ensure that doesn't happen to your people knowing full well knowing full well That it will and I'll be really dude. I'll be really honest with you

I did not when I went to Iraq I did not really grasp that it might happen to my guys I just didn't and I'm I just didn't give it enough thought that the risk was actually going to end up with me and my guys and that Chris was going to get killed. And I look back on that as a leader and I should have thought about that more. I should have prepared for that more and I should have known what that meant more than I did. And the reality is that anybody in this business that goes to combat in any shape or form has to be prepared for that. and to recognize that that is what happens in combat

and that your job as a leader is to do everything you can to prevent it knowing full well that that is going to happen. That's what happens. How long did it take you once you were on the ground in Ramadi? Not long. So the sledgehammer for me, I mean, I will never forget the day. I'll never forget June 20th, ever.

The sledgehammer for me was, the first day I got there the guy that I was replacing got in a Humvee hit an IED now he he was wounded but he broke both of his legs in a Humvee that I was supposed to take from him

we were supposed to do the turnover that Humvee I ended up obviously not getting that vehicle because it got blown up but it was a major in the Marine Corps and it was like a major aviator in the Marine Corps got blown up by an IED so I got up to speed very quickly. And that place had an ability

to get you to be aware of the reality of it very fast. So I think I got there very fast. Day one, something happened. But the anticipation of that getting there, that was kind of a sledgehammer for me. What about reading reports when you were going in?

So I, we talked about this last time. My best friend was in Ramadi. Neil. Yeah, Neil. Neil was in Ramadi in Third Battalion, Southern Marines. So make no mistake. Jacko, I objectively understood what was going on. I mean, I was aware, I knew I was getting myself into when I asked to go on that fact tour to Ramadi. But the disconnect was what it meant. It's sort of like the same disconnect that we were talking about when you read these books.

Yeah. Like you're reading reports, but you're not there mentally. Well, look, combat for me was dropping a bomb in Iraq. You know, in Afghanistan was a certainly more aggressive experience for me. You know, it was a lot more regular pace. There was certainly some risk involved. But you've talked about the first combat experience on this podcast a lot. We've talked about just the first combat experience as well. I did not really get it until I saw it. And actually, in some ways, you could say I didn't get it until I heard it. You know, the sounds of combat, what it really sounds like to have a bullet go past your head so close to. so you can actually sort of gauge how close it was to your head

and whether it was closer to the guy next to you, three feet away or closer to you, who was the sniper actually looking? I've had those thoughts, I know you have too. So the sights, the sounds of that, it's just, it's hard to replicate. And I've actually been envious, you've talked about the training that you did

for your guys at Task Unit Bruiser and some of the things you did, I didn't do a lot of those things. You know, and I showed up, and look, this is no criticism. I'm not throwing a hit on anybody. This is just the way it was. I got to that unit that I deployed with.

I showed up in October. I did some training. I kind of really joined the unit in earnest in January. And I was in Ramadi in February. We kind of, you sort of laughed at me last time. I shot my rifle in training once. I bezoed. I oriented my sights on my rifle when I got to Ramadi.

You know, and that training range they had just on the outside and made sure my sights were in good shape before I went out on my first patrol the next day. So in a lot of ways, I was just kind of in over my head with what that was. And then on that deployment, it just, yeah, it's crazy. And it happened. So there was, you know, that's the sort of the, the trial by fire story. I mean, that's what it was for me. But I will say this. I got at the speed quickly in the recognition of the reality. And look, people were getting wounded. People were getting killed pretty regularly that you could see like, man, that's That's close. That's real. That's on a street I've been on. That's on a patrol I've done. That's in an opia that I've manned. So I got to that point very quickly. And the lessons that I had grown up with as a leader, the way that I was as a leader, I was able to leverage that. They still worked. Leadership in combat, it's certainly more dynamic. It will certainly strike more fear in you. But the principles don't change.

And I was old enough and mature enough and I had enough under my belt to say, Okay, I need to control this. I need to control how I react in this setting and I need to do what I do. And I need to do the things that I know what I need to do. And I was lucky enough to be able to do that and keep my, you know, my wearerthal and not get overwhelmed by it. And I saw guys get overwhelmed by it here and there. It was a place that could do that to you. But I was able to fall back on leadership principles, how you lead Marines.

Were you, did you think mentally, right? The mental game of being able to detach and be able to take a step back and as a fighter pilot Did you just say oh this is what it's like as a fighter pilot? This is what it's like oh I remember it's like landing on an aircraft carrier I'm gonna be stressed out what I need to overcome that Did you just apply the same mechanisms to all right now I'm gonna be stepping foot on the battlefield and this is how I need to apply the same mentality the same mechanisms I had enough experience of being scared and controlling the fear that comes along with things that are scary that it looked different, it smelled different, it sounded different, but the feeling was exactly the same. Does that make sense?

Yeah. So that's what I was, like I said, that's why it's a softball, because I'm imagining that, you know, even for us, okay, so let's say free fall, like you're going to free fall. Well, you're jumping out of an airplane. And I was, I thought I would be more scared the first time I jumped out of an airplane, but I was actually pretty pumped. So that's not a great example. but there's times in the SEAL teams where you do something in training where you're like, okay, this is a little bit sketch, right? This is a little bit sketch.

And, you know, what do you do? You do the same thing. You know, like, okay, this is what I'm going to do. I've practiced it. I've rehearsed it. I'm going to execute this thing and we're going to make it happen. And you learn how to do that. So when you get in combat, you have a protocol to follow to take that.

If you're good. Now, you know, we see people that they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, you know, have the protocol and they aren't able to apply it to the situation. Yeah. I never really freaked out when I was there. The reality was, oh, this is a lot closer to me than I thought it was going to be. The reality was it hit me harder than I expected. And my preparation wasn't where it needed to be to be ready for it.

But when I got there, I knew that feeling and I felt that several times in my career. And the response to it is it's all the same. And one of the best things about responding to those situations is that as a leader, you're really busy. There's a lot to do. You've got a lot going on, a lot of decisions. You have to make a lot of things you have to be aware of. And that's actually one of the best remedies for all that. And, you know, it's probably really tough for someone really junior in the organization that may feel like he doesn't know what's going on, doesn't have a real sense of those things.

I was never really bored. Yeah. You know what I mean? You didn't have a lot of time. Now, I know the feeling. I've had it. I felt that feeling. And it's like, man, this is a lot different.

I'm in Humvee. I can't see things I'm used to being able to see. My situational awareness is different. How I gather information. All that is different because the environment's different. The feeling is the same and the response is the same. And like I said, I had the luxury, if you want to call it that. I was always busy.

I always had stuff going on. I had always things to do. I never, I didn't just sit there and think, wow, this is terrifying and scary. And I don't know what to do. It's in the aftermath, I'd look back, oh, man, that was, that was crazy. You know, I remember. I have this very vivid memory of doing, we called them,

um, presence patrols. So we take a couple of humvees and cruise around. And in this case, it was, uh, the town, it was called Tamim,

was a little town in, in Ramadi there in the south side and just a nasty place, just not a good place. And a presence patrol is really just, you're just waiting to get shot at. And we would weave in and out of, of the streets and, you know,

the buildings are two, three stories high. And we pulled up to an intersection. We're, we're the second vehicle in this two vehicle patrol. And the vehicle turns in as soon as a vehicle Yeah, two vehicles. Get some.

Yeah, we're number two. Let's get some. The first vehicle makes a right-hand turn. As soon as he turns right, a guy with an RPG, I can see him up, you know, right at my 12 o'clock position, and it goes over the hood of our vehicle, hits the wall. It doesn't detonate, but I think I might have mentioned this before. And I'm just yelling, go, go, go, go, go.

And those are the stories that in the after, when you look back in the afternoon, I'm like, man, that was crazy. But at the time, you don't really spend. a lot of time. Yeah, you're saying, you're, you're like, oh, you want to go to the right. Hey, and you're on the radio. Hey, where's the other vehicle? Hey, this is what you're talking, you're communicating.

You're doing all the things you're supposed to do. So you can look back on those things. And a lot of them to look back on it, like, man, that was out of control. That was nuts. But during those times, even some of those terrifying experiences, I was just too busy to really worry about it. And I was making decisions. And I think as a leader, that's actually good because I don't want to sit there and think

about all these things that are scaring me. I want to just respond to it and just make a decision and do something. And I actually had a lot of time in my career where I was, I got very comfortable making decisions in difficult environments very quickly. That's aviation in a nutshell. And so I think I was able to adapt to that very quickly. And that's part of the reason why I was able to get through that deployment the way that I did. You know, I had some decompression. We talked about that after the fact, but not a lot while I was there.

Did you ever punch out of your aircraft? No. Did you ever reject? No. Is that just luck? Yeah, I mean, some of it's beyond your control, and it's pretty rare. It doesn't happen all that often. Yeah.

But not me. Thank God. Yeah. Check. You know, one of the things you were talking about, you know, will you basically went on a whole comment there about, you know, you got to, you're in a situation. Going back to the original subject here, as a leader, you're in this situation where you're going to take these guys that you care about.

And you're gonna do everything to protect. And regardless of how much you wanna protect them, you're gonna put them in situations where they can get killed. And that, the new book coming out, the first chapter is called the ultimate dichotomy. It's what it's called. It's the ultimate dichotomy.

And there's a reason, because that is the ultimate dichotomy. There's no, that for a leader, as far as I'm concerned, that is the absolute hardest thing that you have to deal with as a leader. The fact that you care about these guys, It's your all you've been taught all you believe all you think all you your your your your morals and your values are all these for these guys that are doing anything for you and you'll do anything for them and you know their families and you know their kids and it's like yeah guess what take all that and now you're going to send them on missions where there is no doubt that they can get wounded or they can get killed. you met Marcos at at the muster we talked about him earlier

and this is a kid that would have done anything for me to this day he would do anything for me this is a kid that loves me I love this kid too and that's that feeling that is very hard to explain

if you haven't gone through it and it's very hard to describe how powerful that is at every single day I threw Marcos in the turret of my Humvee stuck his head up You know, it was an armor Humvee was great But at the end of the day

You know what the Turr Gunner has to do? He's got to get his head up out of the turret And man that 240 golf or 50-Cal Whatever we had on that on any given day And stick his head out of that Humvee Every single day And I thought about that all the time All the time

And it is exactly what you just described This is someone that would have done anything for me. This is someone that I loved and would have done anything for and every day it was get in the turret and let's go.

That's what you do. And you do everything you can and prepare them and everything you can to make sure it doesn't happen and the last thing you tell them is hey get up there, we gotta go. We gotta go do this.

Now, just can you even fathom? Can you even fathom that that happens and you do it for months and you do it for a year? And finally he says, says, you know what, I can't do this anymore. And then you said, you know what? Okay. We're pressing charges against you. You're going to court martial.

We find you guilty. That's insane. And to take it a step further, we're going to get somebody else in my unit to pull the trigger. We're going to get another guy from this unit, from this battalion, this, from this team to follow through with that order. It's not actually, no, I can't comprehend that. I can't understand that. I can't. I can't either.

I mean, like I said, I'm doing a podcast about it in the near future. Yeah. But for the love of God, that's a trajectory. It's, thank God, being in this time period. Yeah. And we could talk about this stuff for days. You've talked about it. Just the last podcast with the Imperial Japanese doing those experiments.

We talked about the dehumanization. And look, obviously it's. It's grotesque, but the dehumanization of your enemy, I understand how that happens. I can understand that. We can get there. Yeah, I can see how people can get there. Yeah, I can see that. And I know the seeds of how that grows.

And I know that feeling. I've had that feeling grows over time of that disdain and that dehumanization that I said, I would never have happened to me. And I felt, and I know that feeling. So my point is that. Well, if you've ever heard me say with our enemy, we didn't really have to dehumanize them. they dehumanized themselves because we saw what they did. We saw the acted.

Yeah. And what they did to the civilians. Yes. Totally. It's absolutely, you dehumanized yourselves. Yeah. And you're going to suffer the consequences of that. Yep.

And so that's a bridge in my mind. I can cross. I understand that. I don't understand how you can get to a point where the value of the human life of your own men is that you just discard them at the end. Like, oh, you're done. Got it. Line them up. And that, to me, is kind of horrifying because I had a small unit.

I don't have a big unit. And I certainly knew my guys pretty well. And maybe when you have a huge unit of a bunch of unnamed people, you don't build strong relationships with it. But at the end of the day, they're wearing your uniform. At the end of the day, they look, sound talk, and are just like you. A lot of them come from the same place as you. And that's really difficult to accept that human beings are capable of doing that. Like I said, when it's your enemy or it's when it's someone that's different, then you at least can comprehend that.

And we've seen that in history, but your own guys, that's a different level. It's a different time period. Yep. So going back to, or not going back to you, but going forward, right, you got out of the Marine Corps. I mean, obviously we covered a little bit of this on the last podcast. We covered about, you know what we did? We kind of read the text last. last time you were on the podcast

of kind of how the transition you got out, you came to an event with Laif and I and we hung out and you were thinking yourself, yeah, this looks like what I want to do. But there's been more to it than that that you've kind of briefed me on

a little bit. Yeah. How much time we got? Yeah, there's a lot more to it. The work that we do is awesome. And I wrote you a letter several months ago now, but I wrote you a letter kind of in some ways, you know, some ways like, hey, thank you for bringing me part of this team. And, and there was, you know, I wanted to express some, some gratitude. And I did that to everybody to have been brought into something that that is really incredible. And, and, and I wanted that to be clear. But

I also wanted to kind of explain what I was going through, um, is, as part of the transition. And what has hit me the hardest is not the things that I expected to happen that have happened. And look, some really good things have happened. This is an awesome company. We do great things. And I get to make an impact and I love being a part of this. And I saw it. So I sort of expected to be able to do that and be a part of that and see the impact of that.

But I didn't give much thought at the time to how it was going to impact me. and what the impact of being a part of this would mean for my growth and for myself. I think we just talked about this earlier today when I get introduced at these events all the time. And they read my bio sometimes and I hear the words of what we're doing and everything and what I've done. And I was at a point that I can look back and very easily think that I could have coasted. I could have said, hey, I did some good work in the Marine Corps. I got a really cool resume. And I've kind of got it figured out.

I don't have that much more to learn. And I'm going to kind of, I'm going to glide. I'm going to kind of just go straight and level for a while. And the biggest part of this transition for me is the recognition that what I have done to this point, what I accomplished as a Marine and the things that I did as a pilot, it doesn't matter. it doesn't matter because if I cash in now and I check in the box and I'm done and I and I coast from now I'll define my life by having coasted for the rest of my life and I wasn't really prepared for having to recognize of how much more there is for me to learn and how much more there is for me to do.

And that has been by far the best and the most humbling part about this. And you got, you know me at this point, you know me well enough that I'm not afraid to admit, you know, things that are kind of hard to admit. I'm not afraid to kind of humble myself. I'm not afraid to say, well, I got that wrong. I didn't see that coming. This transition has been way, way, way more. more than I thought it was going to be.

And in some ways, it's actually put me on my heels a little bit. It's been a reminder that, man, I'm not even close to doing the things that I want to do before I'm done. I'm not even close. And that's a hard feeling sometimes. It's actually, I struggle with that a little bit. Because a lot of the times people around me tell me I've done great things. And I hear that a lot.

And it's great to hear, but I'm not even close, man. And that is something I struggle with every day and I work at every day and I have a lot a lot a lot to do I don't think that you you didn't get to where you were without feeling that right? Yeah, you don't get to you don't get to be You know the all the things that you did in your big bio without saying without without without having in the back of your mind like I need to do more and I need to do better right? Yeah, that's true that that is true but the magnitude of of it it gets bigger over time it doesn't get smaller the magnitude continues to grow

I know what this is this is like when you start jiu jitsu and you're like well you know what you give me a few weeks yeah yeah let me figure this out right like two or three months I'll probably be tapping this guy out yeah and then no two weeks into it you're going oh my god there's a whole another thing here. Yeah, that might be one of the best metaphors for it, you know, that, that, that experience. Look, the jiu-jitsu thing started because on the podcast, I was describing, the last podcast, I was describing flying to you. I was describing dog fighting to you. You're like, dude, that sounds exactly like jiu-jitsu. And that's kind of what sparked my interest was, is there a way to kind of replicate those experiences that I had that I know I can't do in an airplane anymore, but can I, can I replicate that in some other way? And that was what was intriguing to me. And that's, and that,

That was what got me on the path of that. But look, I already said this. I didn't think the magnitude of the panic of, oh, God, I'm running out of time. I have so much more to do was going to get bigger over time. And that is sort of what, like, Jujitsu is. And I, again, I think we've had this conversation. Well, I've made fun of you on this podcast when you weren't here.

Of you be, you know, you sent me a text like, bro. This is horrible. like oh what's what's going on you're like well i i i'm never going to be like really really really really good yeah yeah you know like hey man you're whatever you're 46 years old you know get good you know get good it's all good yeah no certainly um i i think that the the message is and and the lesson for me is is a reminder of of something i did know something i have known throughout my life of that feeling of the clock is running you're on the clock right now you don't know when that clock's going to end but i'm going to tell you right now you're on you're on

it and every second that you're not grinding on that clock you lose it and there's a point where complacency will try to sneak in the complacency will try to crawl up and go dude you've been crushing it look at what you've done and that voice can kind of get loud and it can kind of tell you like dude it's time to kind of turn the corner and coast a little bit kind of kind of glide just a little bit you're good um and i think the best thing that's happened to me is that exposure to Eschon front exposure to the team and exposure to Jiu-jitsu in a way of not like oh, am I going to be some world champion in jr. It's that bro

The more you know the more you learn the less you actually know because learning just means like oh there's more out there So you go from one to two But what's available is a hundred to a thousand and you get to three and a thousand turns into ten thousand and Jiu-jitsu is infinite. And so every time I get to whatever the next step is, the next level, all it really does is just somebody's opening door and go, oh, it's actually bigger.

So it's almost like you're getting worse. You know, if you do the math, like I'm now at level four out of a million. You're like, yesterday there was only four moves I didn't know. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. Today there's 40 moves I don't know. Yeah. And the other thing is from, okay, for our dog fighting in an aircraft, right, it seems like there would be some limitation without a doubt okay we and we haven't we

and I have not had this conversation but I've had those thoughts there absolutely absolutely is a limit there's only so many things that you can do yeah um and that's actually not true yeah you know and in an aircraft you know just just by constraints of time I mean you can't you can't go up and dogfight for four hours a day every now you do that Top Gun for a few years, but the opponents that you have, well, I guess you're going against the other structure. That's as good as you're going to get. Yeah. But Jiu Jitza, you can do that for 20 years. The parallels are undeniable. The parallels, and you saw that right away. You and I talked about that. There's no question. That has been the most intriguing thing for me is that it's,

I'm able to replicate those feelings. But the unlimited nature of how, of what's out there, if I had a guy in a hornet that I was gonna go do BFM with and he was we were gonna do these these maneuvers and he'd be like I like to do this when I'm defensive and it wasn't exactly what he's supposed to do

he was gonna lose every single time I'm like oh you're not gonna do the best method in this situation good I'm gonna savage you Jiu Jitsu is not like that yeah there is no this is what works and everything else is inferior and we have the

geometry, we have the math, we have the science, the physics, and we actually, at Top Gun, through a ton of effort and trying to matter, actually figure out this is what you need to do here. This is how you create the most amount of closure. These are all the things you do to maximize your aircraft. And so if somebody deviates from that, it's just better

for you. That's not true. Yeah. It's not. It's been so broken down and so studied that there's no possibility that someone could come up with something to go, oh, I came up with something new. No. Not happening. Nope, not happening.

And when you're a top gun, when you're a top gun, I would love to somebody to try something new. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go for it. Yeah. Yeah. Do your worst. Come up with your best game plan.

Because I know what you need to do in this situation. And if you don't do that, you're just giving me opportunity. That's what you're doing. And so there is a level of that in jiu-jitsu where, you know, all they're going to put your arms up. There's all that you're going to give up your back. There's all these things that you can't do. But, for instance, Jeffie Glover,

He'll give up his back and then he's rolling away from you or Dean Lister he's the you're getting him in a triangle you think and then you're getting your guard past you're getting smashed. So there's there's times where the things that you don't expect someone to do they do and it's problematic. Yeah and I want to be very careful. I'm I'm so new at this that I almost should not even be telling you what I think I know about this. But the glide path to get from seeing the. inside of an F-18 for the first time to being right at the very apex of that community. Six, seven years? Oh, really? Yeah. About seven years from, I'm going to introduce you to this airplane. You know how to fly, but I'm going to introduce you to a combat aircraft

for the first time in your life. A real combat machine. You're going to get in that thing. I got there in 1998. First time I sat foot in an F-18. I got to top gun into a car. 2000 2002

I left in 2005 So I would say I was kind of at my apex in 2005 Wow So from 98 to 05 That's how long it took me To be at the top of Of that world Am I gonna be

Can you imagine like the best guys And judicious The guys that have been doing it For five to six years Yeah well what you'd have to do Is you do There's some anomalies out there Yeah

There's guys that are incredibly Incredible natural actions And also you'd have to take someone And say okay this is Your job because that was your job. Yeah, that's a big piece. Hey, this is your job and that happens some kids get into Jiu-jitsu and they're like oh I'm gonna sleep on the mat all I'm gonna do is train BJ Pan got his black belt and did well did he win the worlds in For three years? I don't know I don't think so But you know in three years got his back on he was a legit black belt

Someone was asking on social media the other day. Hey is this guy legit? Yeah, he seems to have gotten his black belt Got his black belt from Donna her in a short period of time. Oh, you mean the judo of Olympian silver medalist yeah yeah he might have some skills yeah he might be able to get up there pretty quick Yeah yeah yes for that answer yes that dude is legit you can get your black belt You can get your back black belt pretty quickly if you have a bunch of natural talent Maybe you have some kind of bass wrestling judo something like that and then you make it your job Yeah you can get your you can get really good really fast yeah but yeah basically if your mind is like Addicted to it in one way or another and then you have some prerequisite like you know the

Gio and yeah the yeah the Martinez brothers they had breakdancing did a lot of the same stuff you know and that kind of went along with their style I would go so far as to say this is this is a guess I would go so far as to say that most people that have their black belt in Jiu Jiu Jitsu were in the obsessed mode at some point in their life makes sense I'm that's what I'm gonna say sure I cannot disagree with that right Have you ever known someone that's a black belt that was not at least for a period of Three years was just that's all they thought about I don't know of any know yeah they were just into Jujitsa real hard core Yeah, that's true and then maybe they grow out of a little bit or some whatever yeah some people just keep training Training hard that's how it is One of the things that you did And this is going I hate to cycle back to the podcast again, but I'm gonna do it real quick so I have to had a note about it.

And it's something that you and I have talked about several times. When Tom Fife came on the podcast, Purple Heart, you know, served in World War II, Korea, Vietnam. Purple Heart, World War II, Korea, Vietnam. Battalion commander in World War, or in Vietnam. Company commander in Korea. And I think... Tank platoon commander in World War II.

Tank, platoon, commander in World War II. So, if that's your resume, what's up? I'm sorry. a engineer and yeah that's right yeah and so so there's his resume but it was really interesting so when he came on the podcast and we were talking about you know leadership and stuff like that and he gives this answer of you we were talking around the subject of you know how do you get someone out you know how do you get your people listen to you and he says hey you tell them to do it and they do it and I remember you and I talking

afterwards it was like man that was not a That was not a jaco answer of like, hey, you know, hey, listen, you got to build a relationship with people. You got to get their trust. You got to earn their respect. You got to treat them how you want to be treated. And then if you explain to them why the mission is important and they believe in the mission and they know that you're going to back them up, then they're going to back you up when you need them to do something. Like, I have this whole thing, right? It's this big problem.

It's this big dance you got to go through. as a leader and and I think to myself yeah I've got this figured out and so you guys no I tell people to do it I'm like man that's kind of that's kind of a bummer I'm thinking what I'm gonna tell echo to edit that out right just kidding but then this is the cool part was then he he continued to talk about it and he gave just the most perfect answer the things that everything that we say all the time everything that we talk about in Eshlan front everything that I talk about in this podcast he gave it all yeah Yeah. He really just did it in reverse order of conversations that we have. We explain sometimes

that in really challenging environments, sometimes you got to just say, hey, go make this happen. And you got to have your people say, Roger that, and they go make it happen. You got to be able to do that sometimes. But the only way for that to work in those really demanding, difficult, challenging environments is to go way back before and build all those relationships and create all that trust and do all those things. So when people go, Dave just said, go make this happen. We're going to make a We'll ask questions later. He just went to that part because I almost set it up for that because the question I was asking him was How do you get a guy to jump out of your tank?

Under fire to fix the turd in his mind that's the like there's rounds Hitting the tank Yeah ping ping ping ping ping ping and the tank And the the tank track falls off and someone's got to get out there and fix it and he goes to the junior guy and he's like you got to get out there and fix it And so it was he just did that whole thing in reverse already went to that part and then and I remember thinking like and that's kind of a bummer answer I really wasn't expecting that and I was like you just tell him what to do yeah and then why didn't that work for me yeah uh I might have to change the way yeah so when he started to go and I remember

that feeling of like oh and now he's starting to explain and I looked at you a couple I was like yeah and he did the whole thing and he he he speaks very plain language too and he just sort of distilled it all down is like you have to take care of your people you have to treat your people well and if you do they will do the same for you and if you don't yeah guess what when you say jump out of the tank under fire they're going to say no yeah that was the best part is when he actually came all the way back around and said if you just think you're just going to tell someone to get out of a tank under a fire and they don't believe in what's going on and they don't trust you and you haven't taken care of them they're not going anywhere yeah every time i hear all the

you've had on the podcast. I know the stories are different, but they're all saying the same thing. They're all saying the same thing in their own little nuanced way, their own little experience, but it's always the same thing. And that was of all of them my favorite because I got to know Tom before the podcast and we got to talk quite a bit. And I got to spend time with them before we went live on that recording. So I enjoyed that one the most, but it's everybody's saying the same thing.

Yeah, Mook made a huge point about that, about caring about your people. Yeah. You got to care about your people. Again, these are guys that were leading draftees, Vietnam draftees. And I went off on this at the event we were at the other day. Is there any more hostile workforce in the, okay, maybe not in the history of the world, but this is right up there. You've got guys that have been, because it's, you know, if you're in World War II and you get drafted,

Guess what? The country's behind the war. It's World War II. You're going to be a hero. You're fighting against Nazis or imperial Japanese that are evil humans and you're on board for the big win. We get that. That's what happens.

Korea, like not quite so clear, but guess what? We still even remember World War II, so guess what? We're going to go get in the game. Vietnam, they straight up don't believe in the war. They just straight up don't believe in the war. They're there against their war. Will under threat of prison They show up there and these are the people you're in charge of and this is the answer I give all the time now for when people ask me about

Millennials people are like you know we got millennials and they got a bad attitude Oh really. Oh really the millennials have a bad attitude compare that to a Drafted Vietnam soldier and here's the thing that I realized because and when I pulled that when I started going through hack again about face again and I started reading that I realize that you got to change your perspective as a leader. It's not just, it's not just, hey, because we simplified it. Like, well, if your millennials aren't doing what you want, it's your fault. That's a simplification of it.

Because what you really got to do is you got to shift your mindset a little bit and say, like, wait a second, how do I take advantage of it? That's what Hackworth was doing. Hackworth was saying, wait a second, how do I take advantage of these guys? Guess what? They're going to question me if I do something wrong. They're going to report things that aren't done correctly. They're going to say no if I plan something stupid.

Is that a bad thing? Let me think about it. Actually, no. That's actually not a bad thing. So if you've got a millennial, that's like, hey, if I don't like the leadership here, I'm leaving the company. Guess what? Let's get that person some good leadership. You got a millennial that says, hey, if I don't understand why we're doing what we're doing, I don't care or I'm not going to do it.

Okay, well, let's explain to that person why. So they have a full understanding of what it is we're trying to get done. You shift your your mindset a little bit about the whole deal and you end up in a much better position But it's a perspective shift Yeah you it's the same thing we always say of it's not just take ownership of it So it's if you if you say oh my millennials aren't doing what I need them to do that's my fault That doesn't make them to start doing what you need them to do you actually have to make changes in your leadership style To adapt to this attitude that's coming your way and at the end of the day if you do that you'll have someone that's smart that's motivated that will get on board with the program and we'll do a great job.

Yeah. Just like a draftee. Just like a draftee. And when when we see it in in leaders all the time, they present it like can't lead these people. This is unsolvable problem. It is a problem that the end we're we're going downhill at supersonic speeds. And when you do what you just said and try to change that perspective and then put it in comparison to the story of the draftees, They're almost a little embarrassed like oh Yeah, yeah Yeah, that's one of those answers when I give that answer I I have to soften it a little bit I just can't hit people on baseball bat like hey

These guys were taking I don't I don't throw this in their face of like hey these guys were taking Drafties that didn't even believe in the war and we're gonna get killed Yeah, you're like hey you're asking someone to stay late on a Tuesday night Yeah, that's what you're asking for yeah, they were asking them to patrol for through a mind-ridden jungle. Right. Not to mention, this person is actually interviewed to your company, applied for a job,

wants to be there. Yeah, there's a clear difference in generation. There's something you to think about, but nobody forced this person to join your team. Under threat of prison. Yeah, under threat of prison, yeah. And you see that when the recognition hits, you can see it of like, oh, yeah.

No, you're right. This actually is a very solvable problem. It just takes some work on my point. Yeah, and I mean I that's true with everything. Yeah, we got I mean we obviously we have all kinds of companies out there that we work with now and their Workforces now becoming all Millennials right in their frontline people right now at a company the frontline people are all Millennials and so if you don't figure this out Who who who are you gonna hire? Yeah, who are you gonna hire? I mean it's like being a Vietnam you you were gonna have draftees if you don't figure that out and and that's the other thing is you hear the bad leaders from Vietnam that was that will say all the draftees were horrible I couldn't work with them they were you know they didn't do want to do their job it's like maybe

you should look in the mirror a little bit yeah and that the the the best part about that is when you asked same thing with Tom Fife yeah because he's like that's all that's all we ever had it's almost like I didn't understand the question yeah yeah no that's that was our military back then when I was in when he was in the army it was like I I didn't, I couldn't tell you who was a draftee and who was. And I didn't, I didn't know the difference. They're people. Yeah.

They're human beings. Yeah. And I treated them like that. And so the, just the idea that you would segregate those two, the draftees and the, and the, and the, the volunteer military was immediate indication of what kind of leader you had. Yeah. And these guys were like, I don't, first of I don't understand the question. All we had was draftees at the time. Everybody was being drafted.

And second, didn't matter to me. Yeah. They didn't care. I didn't care. we had a mission to do. I explained him the impact and the importance of the mission. I told them their role in that mission and what would happen if they did or didn't do it.

I cared about them. And we just did it. And that's my favorite part about Tom Five is he's just a plain spoken guy. He doesn't have this really flowery, articulate language. He's like, oh yeah, no, I treated my people really well

and when I asked him to do so, if they did it. That's kind of it. That's a pretty awesome leadership advice. It is. Treat your people really well. And when the time comes that you need to do something, that they need to do something for you? They're going to do it.

They're going to do it. Take care of your people and your people are going to take care of you. Yeah. We said it about your gear and your gear and take your gear. Yeah, same things. Take care of your people. How about we start with that one? And then your people are going to take care of you too.

Yeah. We, I think we forget those lessons sometimes, you know, we're, like, it's human capital. It's like, they're people. They're just people. It's, just treat them like people. Treat them like you treat anybody else. And, you know, some of those fundamental lessons, you know, across leadership, I think, in a lot of ways I was lucky to to see that modeled early in my career. And I think a lot of times

we end up on the path of who we're following on day one and they can take you down the wrong road if you've got the wrong people. But when you see it in other people and they treat you that way and that feeling of, oh, this guy really cares about me. This guy really is invested in me being successful and me having a good, good life and a good career. It's not hard to recognize. I was like, oh, that's how, that's what I should do. Yeah. And the exact opposite is true. And like, when the people, and I have worked for people that I despised.

And I despised because of how they treated me, how they treated other people. And it's very evident. Like, don't be like that. Yeah. It doesn't work. I'll be in a group of leaders, you know, doing, to working with a company. I've done this many times where I'll set it up with, hey, who here has had someone in your life as that was in charge of you? that invested in you and took care of you raise your hand and everyone raises their hand and or

99% of the people raise their hand if not 100% of people raise your hand because that's you know usually we're talking to leaders in a company and so the leaders have made progress somehow and they've made progress because someone at some point taught them and took them under their wing and cared about them and you know so I say who's had someone that cared about them and invested in them and took care of them took care of you and so everyone raised their hand and how that feel and everyone says hey it felt awesome what would you do for that leader I do anything for him why don't you be that leader then why don't you be that leader and take care of those people properly and you'll end up with a team they'll do anything

for you not for selfish reasons because they'll see right through that yep you've got to be doing it for the team when you want the team to do well then they'll do anything for you yeah I think that's a really important lesson for any leader out that for leadership in general is how obvious what you're doing is to other people. And whatever thing you're trying to hide or whatever thing you're trying to cover up or something you're trying to mask, everybody sees right through it. Yeah. Everybody sees right through it.

And, you know, we asked the same question as, okay, what would you want your subordinates to do to you? Come up and say, it's not my fault. I didn't have anything. And this isn't my fault. I couldn't have anything about it. You didn't send me up to win. or would you like someone to walk him and say,

hey boss, I screw this up. There's a couple things I could have done differently. Here's what I learned. And you know what? I'm going to do this next time and I'm going to get this right and I'm going to fix this. And you said those two

are really obvious two different scenarios and you ask you later, what would you like to have from your subordinates? 100% of the people are going to go, I want the guy that comes in and says, hey, it's my fault. I'm going to fix it Arizona. It's super obvious.

And then the very next question is, why aren't you doing that with your boss? Why do you not think that your boss is having the same feeling as you would have with your subordinates. And that recognition of everybody sees exactly what you're doing. That's uncomfortable for people. Yeah.

The uncomfortable part is it's hard for people. I guess we think that if you're my boss, I think you're not as smart as me. And I think, well, he's just going to blame me. When I come in and say it's my fault, you're going to go, yeah, I know. That's why I'm firing you. Yeah. The reality, you know what I mean? It's like, no.

People are smarter than that. And no one wants to hear excuses. Yep. No one wants to hear excuses. Yeah. You know what? Sometimes people screw things up so bad that they're going to get fired. Yeah, I was just going to say that.

And guess what? If you're going to make excuses, guess what? You're still getting fired. Yeah, you're going to take whatever limited chance of maybe salvaging that at the last second of like, hey boss, hang on. Let me just, if you do, you're just guaranteeing the outcome. Yeah, Leif talks about that when he was the XO at a SEAL team. and he says, you know, he'd get a guy that was,

something was going wrong in a platoon, and a guy would come in and say, you know, it's not my fault, my chief's no good, or my, my LPO doesn't know what he's doing. Like, okay, you're fired. Yeah.

And the next guy comes in is to say, I'm not doing a good job as a leader. Here's the things I'm going to change. Like, okay. Keep working on it. Let me know if you have any questions. Let me know if I can help you out. Let's get you the support you need.

Yeah. That's a no brother. That's extreme ownership. Duh. Yeah. Sorry. We would, we would have board sometimes.

for pilots, you know, performance boards. And we would review a lot of material. And a lot of times, you'd have to fire somebody. I mean, don't like doing it, but in aviation, you know, it's a lot of times it's their whole, it's the dream, same thing with the teams. Like, they dreamed about this as a kid, and you know that you are ending their life's dream. Dream crusher.

Yeah, dream crusher. You're going to do that. Not to mention paycheck gone. Yeah. Well, like for officers in the seal teams, a lot of times, or retirement or whatever, it's a bad situation. Yeah, it's massive impact. It's a huge deal to do that.

And you take that very seriously when you're in a position where you're going to be one of the deciding factors in whether that person stays or goes. Anytime you get to that point where you're in like, hey, the best thing is to get rid of this guy. And if you bring him in for that final interview, that final interaction, the guarantee way to seal your fate. The guarantee way to ensure what they've already kind of concluded because that's why they're bringing in in the first place is, to not take any responsibility to not take any ownership. That is 100% guaranteed. Now, it doesn't mean that you might just not be able to, you might not have the technical skills or the capability.

Sometimes you're going to get fired. And sometimes your mistake is so egregious and does so much damage. Yeah. You got to go. You're going to get fired. You're going to get fired. But even then, the best thing you can do, the best thing you can do is to take ownership of all that. And be like, hey, boss, I understand.

I'm sorry. Or you can go the other route and you can start to throw everybody under the bus and you know what this is what's interesting There are some people and I've talked to many of them over the years many of them They don't make that connection Yeah, they literally don't make that connection They don't make the connection they're looking at their boss and they're saying hey This wasn't my fault it was my whoever it was my subordinate leader it was the maintenance guy it was this it was that they literally don't make the connection

that if you're in charge of something or you're responsible for something and it goes wrong you're responsible for it yeah and they cannot make that connection you feel like you you you you I would watch when we would have a bad seal platoon going through my training and I bring in a a a platoon commander or a platoon chief and they would literally like like an assault chief so the guy is in charge of the assault he's in charge of the assault and it's like hey all your men went to the wrong target what happened well it was briefed wrong well it was this well we marked the target wasn't marked correctly the battle maps I mean literally just

you could come up with 20 excuses and you know what they're all they all make sense they're like hey someone made someone put the wrong number on the brief and and everyone heard the wrong number and they looked at their battle And they went to that building okay that's what happened whose fault is it it's not the guy that made the battle map You're in charge of the assault team You're in charge of the assault team This is this is your fault and it would I would sometimes I would just actually I would hardly ever say This was your fault

I would milk I would try and milk it out of them I would be like so well I mean but still like who is in charge of the assault If only we had a guy in charge of that process and they'd say well you know I mean even as you assault chief you know you can't expect it to be confirming that every single guy knows where the target is really okay okay so you're not responsible for getting the men to the target as the you're not responsible for the assault as the assault chief is what I'm here so it's really horrible when you see that someone can't make the connection and what and and this is this is another cool thing like on social media I see this a lot guys will hit me up girls will hit me up

something went wrong with a client I stepped in I took ownership they thanked me problem solved got it squared away I can people are surprised people are surprised that it works people are surprised that it works and again just to make sure everybody knows that alone doesn't work you still have to solve the problem that you cause with the client right right you you you gave them what they needed late or it's gonna be late and now you say it's my fault that doesn't mean that you don't need to get it to a ASAP and make up some corrective matters

and lower the price to do something so that it makes up for the problem. But the worst thing you can say is, well, you didn't specify exactly what you wanted in the order, and therefore we couldn't get you what you wanted on time. Okay, we're never coming back for business again, and we're angry this whole time,

and I'm going to short you money when we pay you in anyways, if I pay you at all. Yeah, let's make it the customers and the client's fault. Let's do that. And it gets back to something you said earlier about the conversation about the millennials is just for a minute, detached, just take a step back real quick, and just put yourself in their position.

What do they want to hear? What do they want to hear? This client that things went sideways, that what they needed from you didn't happen. They didn't get it delivered on time. It didn't work the way it was supposed to work. Or worse, you gave it to something and it created a problem for their customers down the line. What do they want to hear from you right now? You are them go.

And the allergy that should come from hearing an excuse is the allergic reaction to hearing someone tell you it's their fault or it's not it's not their fault it's somebody else's fault a hundred out of a hundred times you should understand and and the point is that it's that's still hard to do it's still hard and that bridge is is hard to cross and reading the book isn't enough it it sets the table it exposed you to it but i think it comes like with everything you you have to get inside it you have to live it. But the thing of it is, is the first time you do it, the first time you do it, because

it works every single time, once someone, once you get to that tipping point, once the domino falls, then it's like magic. Then it's just, things are just happened on their own. And all your people are going, no, no, no, no, this is, this is definitely what we're going to do here. We're going to tell them exactly what we did wrong, how we're going to solve the problem, what we're going to do to fix it, and to make sure it doesn't happen again. And it deescalates.

The client is like, oh, man, I was really hoping we could fight and argue. And you're not letting me do that now because what you're saying is everything I actually really need to hear. And I'm forced to say, okay, let's go solve this problem. And when you see it from the inside out and you start to do it, that tipping point, it happens quick. It just takes a lot of time to get there. And there's so much resistance, that human nature resistance to, oh, there's no way I'm taking the blame for this. I've actually got a bunch of good reasons that I can give you a why it's not really my fault

and I'm gonna kind of sell like Hey boss you know those guys They're not the best guys You know this not the best team Here's a here's a here's a Let's call it a drill or a or a coaching I'll call it that a coaching When the next time you get into a situation

And you write down You take the excuses and the reasons That you come up with Look at them and then figure out how They were how those things were actually your fault and or how you could have prevented them because a lot of times it's like here's here's here's here's one Hey boss we didn't get the mission accomplished because the weather Rolled in and we couldn't launch on the mission That's that's the problem now we all know that we don't control the weather

So when you which are you write the problem down we failed the mission because we didn't control the weather We can't control the weather that's why we failed the mission that's my excuse that's a that's a that's a logical reason there's that's that's that's a that's a legitimate excuse but don't use it what you do is you say what could I have done to have controlled the weather okay I okay okay okay okay wait I can't control the weather what could I have done I could have come up with a contingency plan I could have come up we could have staged in a better place so then you go to the boss and you say look boss here's what happened the weather went south really bad

That was a problem, but it's a problem that I should have done a better job taking care of What I should have done was I should have had a contingency plan I should have staged closer to the target area that I could have taken vehicles instead of helicopters That's my fault from now on I will absolutely have a secondary plan This won't happen again we can't control the weather, but we can control how we plan and how we execute and this won't happen again There you go so you take the most outrageous thing that you know you can't control you figure out a way to control it and you take ownership of that thing and it's going to make your life so much better. And by the way, the next time you have a mission and you plan that contingency

and you actually execute and implement what you said you're going to do, guess what? You will accomplish the mission. There's a whole part of ownership that preempts the problem. If you've got someone that knows, if I know that I can make an excuse, then guess what? I'm not going to set things up properly. If I don't set things up properly more often or more often than the other way I will fail to to execute what I'm supposed to execute If you have an excuse right same same thing with you as an individual human being You as an individual human being if you got some excuses That you can throw out there that you can say I had no control over that

Then you know what you say okay? What are my contingency plans? What could I have planned differently? Let's eliminate those excuses take ownership of your full freaking life. Yeah. And in that situation, too, when you're talking about this example of the weather, and if you as a leader actually accept the excuse like, hey, boss, that storm rolled in and just crushed this. And you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, out of your control, there's no way we could have solved for this problem.

It's unsolvable. What if you just guaranteed will happen every single time the weather rolls in? You set that in stone. It will never be different. The weather will crush you every single time. Or you could go, I don't know. Look at your weather app and go, we got to go six hours early and stage and we're going to walk in.

And it works both ways. And if you accept those excuses, you're now getting like, that's a free pass for here or not. The weather is actually something we can't control. So that is now something that is okay while we fail. Yeah, it's,

I understand that it's hard. I know that feeling. But when you see it get to the other side and you see people doing like, don't do it. So that was sort of like a turning point for me, Because as I as I grew up and I said to myself, you know, well, I understood that I needed to take responsibility for what was happening. But the turning point for me came when I realized that no matter what happened, if I'm the guy in charge, if I'm the guy in charge, we need to get this thing done. That's the way it is.

And when you when you have that thought in your brain, the preparation you do is so much more solid because there's no way out. Yeah. There's no way out. So you got to execute. Yeah. When when leaders see the world like that, when they see it that way, they just work until the problem gets solved. They just do everything they need to do until they find a way to fix the problem, to solve it. And when they don't think like that, they there are outlets, there are off ramps to be like, ah, can't do it, can't do it, can't do it, can't do it. And we used to, we call that the excuse matrix. That's the word you're like oh there comes the excuse matrix. Yeah and and then the other part of this you got to remember is this doesn't mean this doesn't mean that I'm gonna bang my head up against the wall 47 times yeah to accomplish the mission that just like oh guess what part part of this is hey I didn't plan it well I made some mistakes I didn't calculate correctly and now we are not gonna get this done and that's the way it is. I

And so I'm not saying you continue to beat your head against the wall 47 to 47 is the limit Don't do 48 when you've done 48 you've gone too far You're not gonna get through the wall Yeah trust me if you can get through a wall it'll get through by the 47th headbutt After that it's not happening so you gotta take a little you got to look for the alternate route Yeah, so there's a difference there's a difference between we're gonna get this done no matter what and we're gonna get this done no matter what Sometimes you got to back off. Sometimes you got to re-attack.

That's the way it is. Yeah. Sometimes you got to reassess your plan. You got to go a different direction. And when it all costs, doesn't mean I'm going to charge that elevated machine gun desk through open ground. Wave after wave after wave. It means you're going to do something else. It doesn't mean you're going to abandon the attack in that position, but you might actually do it a different way.

And it may be like, my plan sucked. Here's all the things that I learned. about my stupid plan. Anybody got else, and maybe I can get some help. I've seen this before. This is what we did. That's a good idea.

Let's do that plan. And, you know, again, we could talk about this for a long time, but I think that natural tendency to be exposed as, as someone who doesn't know something,

to be exposed as someone who doesn't have all the answers, to be exposed as a leader who doesn't know everything, I'm going to let you in a little secret. Everybody already, knows that. Everybody knows that you don't know everything. And if you try to act like you do, it will make it 10 times worse than just saying, I actually don't know what to do here. Or I made a

mistake here. When you make a mistake, everybody knows it. Your subordinates know it. Your peers know it. Your bosses know it. And the worst thing you can do is to tell them that you didn't. That's why being insecure in your leadership capabilities is a downward spiral. Because the more insecure you, You are the more you try and manipulate and maintain everything and keep everything under your wraps and do everything your way and that's how it is So when you're insecure as a leader and that's another that's another thing that takes a little bit of a leap of faith That's another like progression that I personally made I personally made and I don't I can't remember when but when I was like you know what? It's okay It's okay I'm not gonna be I'm not the best

best in the world and everybody knows that and the more I try to act like that the more obvious that's going to be and the minute you say that the minute you recognize that people are going hmm okay he might not be the best but at least he knows that as opposed to he's not the best and he thinks he is that's a nightmare no one wants to work for that guy and and the the best part about what you just said is that that's something we all had to learn that's something we'll how to figure out at some point in our life. None of us were born like, oh, no, I knew all this at birth. It's from these giant errors that we've made or giant mistakes or these giant

realizations like, I've been doing it wrong. Yeah. And everybody has to figure that out. And that right there, that is one of the most gratifying things about what we do now, is that this gap that we talked about earlier, this little gap between, like, how do you read something? You read something. And then how do you get that thing out of it?

How do you extract that vital piece of information that's in there? How do you do that? How do you tell a kid? It's like when you're a kid and you don't listen to your parents, right? You just, how do you get, how do you close that gap? And what's awesome about what we do now is that we get to close that gap with people. I mean, I see it on a daily basis. On a daily basis with the leaders that we work with, you get to see their eyes open up.

And you go, boom, they get it now. Everything we just talked about, which we had to learn over time and extrapolate from our experiences. And then on top of that, go through horrible situations where we failed as leaders. And we've figured out a way to say, look, here it is. Here's how it works. And to see people's eyes open up and then to see the performance. That's the best to see the performance go through the roof as the leader. And then of course when the leader starts doing well then the leaders start doing well and when all the leaders start doing well

Guess what? Now we have a winning team. Yeah To emphasize what you said That eyes opening that's a literal thing Yeah, like it's not a metaphor You look at them and when you finally get it to click when you when it their eyes actually open up and they sit up straight and they kind of sit back a little bit and There is a moment a physical moment or you recognize that they got it. Yeah. And when you see that and you can actually see that in an audience when you when you're when you're when you're talking to a group like maybe multiple leaders on a team and you're around a conference table and you're interacting and you bring up a particular example that they're dealing with you lay out the different possible scenarios and the one that is obviously the right one and they go. Oh, oh my God.

When they get that that feeling is unbelievable. It's the best part about this is when they get it. But you literally see that happen. Yeah. And that is awesome. And that's that for me so went out my last three years when I was in the teams and I was working running the training for the West Coast SEAL teams and I got to see that I got to see that with these young leaders and just I remember it's it's in my head right I got to tell the story there's a young kid who I know who's an awesome guy and I didn't really know him that well at the time but he was kind of like a pipe hitter in a platoon and there's total mayhem going on total chaos going on and I just like go over to him and like his you know his platoon commander was simulated dead and blah blah blah blah blah and and The tune chief was simulated and LPO wasn't making a call and this total chaos man when I walk over to him I'm like, hey man, and he's like yeah. And I go, hey man, bro, are you gonna do something about this right here? And that was all he needed to hear.

All he needed to hear was like, that guy that was in charge of all this training was telling me like, was asking me a question, he was questioning me and saying, are you gonna do something about this? His eyes opened up and he said, oh hell yes I am. And boom. He stepped up, started making calls, and the whole paradigm in the situation completely changed

because he stepped up and led. And so I got to see that then, and I get to see it now. So that's a cool thing. Yeah, it is. And the stories about my experience at Top Gunner are identical. And when you go out on missions and they suck and you get savage and it's just terrible, guys come back and they're miserable.

losing sucks man it sucks when you have this huge plan you go out there and you get savaged it sucks and then when you go through this whole thing and there's that recognition and they change the way they briefed they change the way they train they change the way they do things with their guys and they go out and they come back and when you dominate

that feeling of coming back from a flight and you just dominated that's a really good feeling and so when they do this and they start winning like you just described you got that team then they start winning dude then then then Then they are thoroughbids. They're running on your own.

Then you get, as a leader, you get to back off and just get to watch them go dominate. That feeling of being successful when you implement these things as a leader, that's the best feeling in the world. And when you see that from your junior subordinates, from your team, and you see them go do that, there is nothing better than that.

Yeah. And then you get to, well, we get to see it. I used to see it in a soup, but then you get to see it start to take hold. Yeah. And but echo you've talked about this where I'm like where you you know what I'm doing Like with you you know what I'm doing you sat here through hundreds of hours of me talking about how I'm gonna treat someone on my team

Yes and you're like you know what I'm doing and it still works And what's cool is when when you know what the person's doing when you know what your your leader's doing and it still works and it still works and Then you go, you know what, I'm going to do it too? And that's how it spreads throughout these organizations. Yeah, because, okay, so let's say, I don't know, I make a mistake or something like that. And you say, hey, it's, you know, I should have done this a little better, right? So it's like obvious. Like, that has never been your job, you know, since whatever, whatever that may be.

Right. So obviously I'm like, I know what you're doing. You're taking extreme ownership, you know, just so we can get the problems. I get it. But to me, what I felt was not what you're doing, but what you're not doing. You're not telling me, hey, what's up with this? You know, hey, why did you make that? You're not attacking me, so I have to be defensive. You know, you're not doing that.

So it's not defensive. I see what you're doing the whole thing. But who cares? I don't have to defend myself, so whatever. I'll be like, okay, all right. And what you want to do is get it done, whatever the thing is. We all want to get it done. That's the thing.

We all want it. Even like with your wife, that's a huge one. So you guys always talking in context of business and the boss and the subordinates, whatever. Same exact thing with your wife. Same thing. Even though it feels like counterintuitive, you know, you're, you had all this stuff to do that you're doing for her, by the way. And you didn't take out the trash. I don't know.

I'm not saying that happened to me. Not saying it didn't happen to me. But you didn't take out the trash. Meanwhile, you did literally from the moment you woke up to that moment. you got, you know, accused or whatever, you did stuff for her, right? You could have done that, hypothetically. You, her saying, hey, you know, you didn't take out the trash. All those feelings in your mind and your heart is to, it's not to be like, you're right,

I should have done that. It's not to say that. It's to say the opposite. Yeah. That's like, I did all this other stuff for you. So, right? To the point where it's overwhelming. overwhelming like I will not and cannot bring myself to say you're right you're right about that but if you can manage to do that

You'd be baffled how easy how good it works It works, yeah, but yeah, it's it's what you're not doing I think like if you know like I see what you're doing I see you're doing there using your little chocolate tricks all this stuff That's not the influential part The influential part is what you're not doing you know It's so funny now because everyone I deal with now every single person that I deal with with on any level on any on any on any depth at all they all know all my little tricks as you called them they all know every every person I'm involved with knows

them all yeah and it's like yeah cool I'll go even one further with this guy he'll go he'll it's almost like he'll double do it to the point where it's a joke insulting you and you think it's funny yet you're still not defend so he'll be like I don't know whatever let's say I didn't press record on the thing forgot we'll just say never done that before may or may not have ever done that before but he'll be like hey you're right you know I should I should have double and triple check that thing you know I mean it's where over there but I still totally could it you know so obvious he's throwing it in your face you know that it's not his fault but he's like going through the motions almost like like kind of condescending you know

but it's so funny because that's the rule kind of thing so it's like he's blaming you but He's not really officially blaming you, and it's this joke. But it still works. That's the thing, you know? It's all just one thing. A little paranoid there. Meanwhile, yeah, the whole recording is trashed, by the way, because it didn't even happen. But, yeah, you're not defensive because it's just, you know, it's like.

Well, and I'll say this, the reason why it works, quote unquote, the reason it works is a reason it works with the people that I deal with in my life or my family to my business partners across the board. The reason that it works is because I'm not doing it. it for me that that's the big difference so if you're out there and you're thinking oh cool I'm gonna learn these tactics so I can I can get further in my life and I can get things out of the world it's like no it's not gonna work out well for you yeah on the surface because I'm gonna tell you what you gotta take that one step

further because guess what if this is the this is the amazing thing if what you're doing is your focus on taking care of the team taking care of your people doing the right thing for the right reasons And you're and you think to yourself so if you're listening this right now going well I really want to I really want to get ahead Yeah and Jocko just said I'm not gonna get ahead If I if I put myself to get ahead then it's not gonna work So this isn't for me here's that here's the dichotomy in this thing and it's a huge dichotomy

If you're there and you're in a leadership position or you're just in a position you're in a relationship whatever and you're doing things for the team you're trying to take care of the others you're putting other people above you in the end you're going to win and you're going to win way bigger than you could if you were clawing and scratching and ripping things and bringing them back to yourself in the end that person that thinks that they're doing the right thing or thinks that they're doing something good for themselves but what they're really doing is taking things from other people That person they might get a couple tactical victories along the way, but in the end the person that puts everyone else first is going to win. They are going to win So it's it's kind of hypocritical because it's like in the one hand it's like no I don't care about myself

I'm not trying to improve I'm not trying to improve my station in life But by doing that you will improve your station in life and you will improve your station in life beyond anything that you could have done if you're going to Was to improve your station in life. You know, it's true. That's good stuff right there. Yes, here it is. Take note of that one. Yeah. You know what? We've been going. We've been going two hours right now.

Any other major topics that you want to bring up tonight? It works especially with your wife Not also with your wife, but especially with your wife. Yeah, and so it should just be habit and that any time she says you didn't do this, it actually, she's right, you didn't. Yeah. And just be like, you're right. I didn't.

Yeah. I have learned that lesson. Yeah. A few times. Yeah. And again, this is going to sound obvious, but it's one of those things you've got to kind of consciously remember, especially if you're with your wife, with someone you're with every day or really,

really often the part. Yeah, you take ownership, you know, you take responsibility. But then you actually do have to actually solve the problem. Yep. Because if you're like, hey, You're right, I didn't take out that trash, you know. I mean, you know, it won't happen again. And then tomorrow, same thing, tomorrow, same thing.

Next week, same thing, same thing. Then you just sort of become the husband that doesn't take out the trash. And it just says, yeah, it's my fault kind of thing. And you become the, hey, that's my bad. Yeah, my boss. My bad, my B, sorry about that. And then that's all you do is say that it's on me. Yeah.

And, yeah, so don't, I mean, obviously, don't be like, no, well, why don't you take out of the trash once in a while. And I think, you know, obviously, don't say that. But you actually do have to take out the trash. You do. Problems get solved. See, I learned that from Jockel. All right. That's a good one. And Dave, obviously, thank you for coming on again.

Thanks for your service in the Marine Corps and for everything you've done for America. It's always an honor to have known you to have worked with you. And it's an honor to be working with you right now. And I actually want to close out this conversation with another letter. And it's also written by that same, that same young, articulate, even poetic Marine Corps machine gunner, Saul Segal, who wrote the letter that opened this podcast.

And this one is written to the cousin of one of his comrades, one of his comrades named James, Trobridge and the cousin did not know what happened to her cousin Corporal Trobridge who had gone missing in World War I and she didn't know what happened to him and so this is another letter written after the end of the war it's dated February 18th 1920 and it reads my dear Miss Trobridge my old sergeant major Clifford has written me and has enclosed a copy of your letter to him in which you request information concerning your cousin corporal james h trobridge it is indeed unfortunate that his family should be left so uncertain concerning his sad end i know that it has been the cause of great concern with you i am sorry too that i had not known of this before for i was the last of his friends to see him alive.

Though Sergeant Clifford wrote me January 16th, I have been out adventuring in the oil fields of northern Texas, and I have only lately ventured back into civilization. Your letter was forwarded to me from my home in a while, and I received it tonight, and am taking this first occasion to answer it. I hope it will clear up Jim's case, and if there's anything I can do in the future,

any service I can perform, any advice I can offer to Jim's folks, I will be at their service at all times. We who have survived this hell on earth count it the least we can do to console the sorrowing mothers and families of our dead comrades in arms. I still remember when I first met Jim. It was in Bella Woods.

On the 13th of June, we were making ready for the attack when replacements arrived to fill up our broken ranks. Jim was assigned to my husband. gun crew and the way he went over the top like the brave soldier he always was and his subsequent actions made me his proud friend and comrade to the day he went west I still remember one night on guard with Jim in the little hole alongside the night held an eerie stillness a night fit for such a hellhole I was deathly tired and though

there was no wire only an empty space between the Germans and us I slept and Jim like the good pal he was kept watch until the officer of the watch came by when he awakened me that I might not be shot for sleeping at my post it was for deeds like that that every man in the company idolized him and I can assure you that Jim Trowbridge name and memory will forever be held in reverence by the survivors of the 23rd company So many men were wounded and left us then came back during the battles that followed Bella Woods to the last phase of the Argon Drive that I must confess ignorance as to whether Jim was or not. You see, Jim was assigned to a crew of his own and a machine gun of his own. And on the battle line, the number one and number 10 gun may be in the same company, yet they are a world apart.

each carries on and knows that the other is carrying on and so the battle is won yet I dimly remembered that Jim was either gassed or wounded in the Champagne drive in which the second division captured Mont Blanc Ridge it began on October 2nd 1918 Jim came back to us before the last phase the Argonne Drive which began on November 1st 1918 through the mud and rain and fog we pushed forward over the top that glorious day the second division leading the whole army we captured every piece of bosh field artillery white hot they were and we sent the German scurrying back and broke their invincible line to bits my company suffered terribly and dead and wounded yet we carried on hungry and tired and facing the everlasting hail of

bullets and shells. We pushed forward for six days, battling steadily. The 6th of November rose dismally. I remember passing Jim by the roadside, and he gave me a cheery hail. Then he followed up the rear. We went forward, and the bosh began shelling us. As the last of the column came up, I heard from them that Jim's crew had rested once again by the roadside.

None of us were strong. We had not eaten in days. A great shell had exploded and had killed and wounded all of Jim's crew. Jim had had a foot torn off by a flying fragment. There was death and destruction all about. I volunteered to help carry a wounded man back to the first aid station. There was Jim lying on the blanketed floor. I knelt down to speak to him.

I marked that his face was our first aid station. already drawn with pain and that he was gray from long exposure and loss of blood he said Saul old pal I'm dying good luck to you old man I tried to cheer him up but to no avail on the battlefield one knows when death approaches that is all I know for a few hours later I was knocked out myself yet I doubt not that Jim went west to home and to mother soon after whether Jim died and was buried in the village a few miles south of sedan in the Ardennes department or whether he survived until he reached a hospital I do not know you can find out by writing the Graves Registration Bureau at Washington

that he is gone I am reasonably sure I would advise his family to harbor no unfounded hopes in his safety it is with deep regret that I ask yours and Jim's mothers pardon for my heartless and brutal description of this story my experiences on the battlefield have caused me to use other than tender words that might sue the broken-hearted mother believe me nevertheless that I grieve with her for her son and my comrade and believe me too that I stand ready to do all in my power to assist her in any possible way. It is hard.

I know. Yet at such a cost has liberty and democracy survived. Except my dear Miss Trowbridge, the assurance of my profound respect. Oh, sincerely. Saul Siegel. So, liberty. and democracy survived at such a cost and so many bore that cost the fighting that Saul Segal writes about was part of the Muse Argonne offensive it was part of the

hundred days offensive that brought the war to an end and while bringing the war to the end it cost the lives of 26,277 Americans and corporal James Trowbridge was one of those Americans he died around the 6th of November 1918 as we know the armistice was signed and the war ended just five days later on November 11th of Liberty and the cost of democracy is immense and I started this podcast we were talking about that quote quote that says when you know the way broadly you see it and everything in that vein I think that if you know the cost broadly if you know the cost of freedom then you see it and you appreciate it in everything in everything

that we have been given precious gift out for tonight I want to uh maybe give us an opportunity to decompress or

sure maybe we could help you talk about how we can take advantage of the freedom that we have yes sir cool we'll do both

okay but uh and support yourself To by the way deeper So first we'll talk about origin. I know a little bit of rough transition because Yeah, that's how so that's that's a that's a letter right there Yeah again 20 what now he's so now he's 22 says 1920. He's 22 years old Dave

Yeah, unreal. Yeah, I tried to figure out what happened to him like what where where he went did he take over? like a big company he must have done something awesome Saul seagall seagull yeah it's s e g e l sigel segal he should have become a writer yeah he should have absolutely become a writer maybe he was yeah you you know you read these letters and again you say this all the time but you kind of can't help but remember especially this can letters that like this actual person it's not just some cool letter you know kind of

It's like this actual person writing this letter to an actual person just like about an actual person Yeah about James Trowbridge Yeah crazy All right well I guess we can talk about origin Made in America I guess there's that there's that so yeah so again origin Yes so they have American made products Good products too like as in the best?

Yeah, I think they're the best, but here's the thing. You know what people are like, yeah, they got the best thing. It's like, it's a matter of opinion. So I can't tell you they're the best, but I can't tell you, I think. Can you not say it's the best key? Yeah, oh, it's the best key. Factually. That's a factually thing.

Yeah, so geese. So, yeah, okay, on the path. We're on the path. Day Burke, you're on the path. Jiu jihis is part of that path. Optional, for sure, optional, but it is part of the path. It's not part of the path. You see what I'm saying?

He might be questioning whether it's, optional yeah I don't know man no because you've heard of people who don't necessarily do jiu jihitsu but they're on the path yeah if you yeah you should try and train jihitsu though is my recommendation it's like strongly recommend Dave recommendation yeah you're nay jiu jitsu it's not a recommendation you need to do it yeah it's weird isn't it it's just it's something unlike anything else I've ever done and it's something you need to do and it's there's a million different reasons to do it and it's Look, Echo.

It's not an option. If you're on the path, you're training. Boom, you heard it here, folks. Dave Burke, putting out word. And by the way, representing the origin T-shirt. Big time. If someone's wondering about the Jizine boy. So, yeah, boom, there you go.

So when you start J-Jitsu, or if you're on the J-Jitsu path already, you need a new ghee. Origin-Gi, best one made in America 100%. Cotton's made in America. They make the cotton into a ghee with other stuff, obviously, because it's, you know, a ghee. They got rash guards and other jiu-jitsu stuff on there as well. OriginMane.com. Joggers. Okay, how you feel about joggers?

Overall, I mean, we've come a long way. Let's face it. How you feel about joggers? Wait, wait. You're talking about me? Are you indicating that I have made some movement towards I'm going to be sporting a pair of joggers? If that's what you're thinking, it's not. There's been no movement.

No movement. No movement. No movement. No movement. Pre-phase one. Pre-phase one. Yep. They're not happening for me.

Would you say anti-joggers? Possibly. Because I've been wearing a lot of... No, I'm not anti. I don't look at people and say, oh, man. Yeah, yeah. I can't believe that guy's wearing joggers. I don't care about it that much.

Right, right. But it's still like, it's a zero. It's not a negative. Yeah, it's just the idea of joggers. Well, I am not... It's just something that I don't get. Yeah, yeah. I dig it, man.

There's a lot of things that, you know, you might not get. Nonetheless, I am not in that boat. Oh, there's a lot of things I don't get, huh? I'm just saying there are things that you kind of, you know, don't get. Right on. Overall, depends on what you mean by a lot. Anyway, joggers.

T-shirts, obviously, Dave Burke representing big-time, hardcore, if you will. Big time. Big time, huge time, actually. Yeah, look at that shirt. It's dope. Anyway, there are... That actually is a legit shirt.

Sweats, as well. You know, sweatsuits. Most comfortable in the world. That's factually. That's like not even matter of opinion. It sounds like it's not, though. Also, supplements. Okay, Dave Burke.

You're on the disc, okay, there's supplements, right? Jockel, super cruel oil. Free joints, Omega-3s, all that. antioxidants in there all kinds of stuff good for your joints legitimately yeah not this you know one a day commercial thing this is for real good for your joints that's that joint warfare good for your joints in a different way but very good for your joints discipline good for your brain good for your muscles called discipline pre-workout pre-cognitive not pre-cognitive but pre-mission we'll call it cognitive enhancing neutrope

Okay, well, you know who's down with the discipline? Dave Burke. I am down with the discipline. When do you take it? I take it usually twice a day. So get up, work out. I'm tracking for a while in about 10, 10, 30. And that's about the time I sit down and I have to, I got to grind at my computer.

And I really don't want to, but I need to. And I got to put my brain into think, I will take discipline and I will crank for a while. And then the other time I do it is typically like post bedtime the kids. And what I'd really like to do is just call it a day. Oh, oh. But I can't. Yeah, I got to, and that's when I'll take it. What about pre-jitsu?

Every time I go train on the drive. I thought he was going to be like, well, no, not really. He's like, no, every time I go train. I was mixing one up at the house today. And he's like, oh, are we going to roll? And I was like, yeah, he goes, can I get something like that? You had three legit scoops there. These are heaping scoops or I think it might end up being four.

And I don't know if you notice this, but I had a pretty small water bottle. Yeah. So I'm, I'm mixing up these supercharged. Yeah, like the concentrate. Concentrate. Yeah, I might as well. I have eaten it before. It doesn't taste good braw, right?

You don't, but I have done it if I had to. But anyway, so that's discipline. I did it. And then you, you take milk. Again, this is good that you're here because I tell everyone it tastes. good to me but I'm only one person you like it too mince your flavor too right okay so here's the thing I got to explain that because you're here Dave Burke you're here you're on the discipline train I dig it I'm on the moat train okay so so what here's the thing I never

was and even like you know even back in the college days a number of episodes ago I would say more than once by the way that I'm like protein powder that's what the kids To make them think they're getting big or whatever, right? That's kind of how I felt about it and I you know Okay, okay. We'll say that but okay, so Pete sent me The vanilla. Oh, it's in a blank Yeah, yeah, because it's not done or coming. Yeah, yeah, so it's kind of like yeah Yeah, so I'm like cool I put it in I was like dang this is pretty good

Yeah, interesting is the vanilla by the way. Yeah, so it's not a good flavor, right? I think even like one of the definitions of vanilla is like it's just Yeah, cool, it's fine. We're not excited about vanilla. Yeah, but it's good. Apparently you were a little bit. I got a little bit excited, so I'm like, hmm, but it could be my bias. You know, it's Pete. You know, thanks, Pete.

You know, you get the big box. You're all excited. It could be, you know, you could be biased results. So I'm like, all right, you know what the test is? Here's the test. I have a one year or two years. He's almost two. Oh, yeah.

So I'm like, all right, let me. So I give it to him. I don't recommend giving them a bunch. I don't know if all the protein, 22 grams of protein, by the way. Yeah two grams of sugar no one gram of sugar Two total carbs two grams of fat by the way Which I mean feel how you want to feel about fat like it's good or whatever but brother this is a for real protein deal

Like you want extra protein they're not gonna give you a bunch of stuff you didn't sign up for anyway So I'm like okay my son's do you have a real problem with things that you don't sign up for I noticed that about you like that's one of your things one of them yeah little bit you don't sign up for something and it comes anyways you don't like that Unless it's a box of good stuff from Pete then you didn't sign up for a much you like it there is that yes so boom I give it to them mix it up milk by the way just to be in the spirit of accuracy boom hit it yeah you liked it so I'm like oh okay but it could be one of those things was that meant or was that vanilla no vanilla yeah so I'm like all right well it could it be anomaly you know how you give like

someone that maybe thought of milk I don't know he'll taste it you know some he's like more more more so I'm trying to get out my phone so I can take a video to send to Pete And he's like, boy, he's kind of tripping. So I'm like, all right, so I finally get the video going and I give it to him. Yeah, he wants it. He wants the milk, two-year-old drinking milk. Now, to say to give it to your two-year-old, I'm saying, as a taste test, that works. And that's vanilla, by the way.

So anyway. Test confirmed. Confirmed. And that's vanilla. So I like the mint chocolate way better. 100%. And peanut butter chocolate is now live at origin,000. Is that official?

That is official. That's official. Yes, all right. That is official. So all my Twitter competition of who's going to get the first peanut butter chocolate, it's on. It's good, because I've had it because we test it, and we went through like three. It didn't, the cool thing is it didn't take that many iterations to get it.

It was like a little bit more chocolate, a little bit more peanut butter. All right, I think it was three iterations, and we were good. I will say this. Send it. Yeah, please. I put like a half a tablespoon of peanut butter in the mint chocolate. By the way, as a test, and boom, I like that too. So, yeah, we're waiting for that.

Anyway, yeah, and don't forget the cruel art and the joint warfare. These are daily things. We need this. Yeah. Take it from me. We need this. So don't run out. Also, good way to support and represent, because representing is a method of support, in my opinion.

Jock was a store. It's called Jocco Store. You can get Jocko Gear Rash guards. Jocker. I guess like more geared towards the game Get after it all that stuff Anyway, yeah rash cards t-shirts discipline equals freedom all these things a lot of stuff concepts conceptually Representing by way of

Apparel you don't like the word apparel no Apparel clothing that those things fashion no Oh okay okay okay okay. Okay, okay, that's the like oh okay got you so anyway Accessories if you will some some hats on there some good stuff some women stuff on there if you want to represent Go to jocco store.com. That's where you get this stuff. Also, you want to subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already. Seems obvious.

I know. And that's on Stitcher, iTunes, Google Play, you know, all these places where they play podcasts. Good way to support. Leave a review. And don't forget about this podcast. Also, there's the Warrior Kid podcast. Yes. So subscribe to the Warrior Kid podcast.

Dave Burke was the first guest on the Warrior Kid podcast, number 16. Which is out at this time if you want to hear him answer questions from children about being a Marine Corps fighter pilot and There's also some stories from Uncle Jake in the most recent three podcasts 14 15 and 16th. There's some stories from Uncle Jake talking about how uncle Jake kind of Established his principles in life. So those are pretty cool and and in addition to the Warrior Kid podcast being available through the various podcast channels is also available on YouTube on a separate channel from the Jockel podcast YouTube channel which has this podcast on it which is pretty cool but it also has the custom

artistic videos I was the enhanced enhanced and wicked cool videos videos and wicked cool videos from Echo Charles with about whatever about whatever yeah and well hey they we did with this event we just actually Dave and I just did an event and they played the warpath video the good one and it was on no this is legit it was on a giant screen with a sick sound system yeah and it was pretty cool you like yeah yeah cool that actually that legitimately does make me feel yeah and a big big crystal clear yeah HD TV something with a whole deal and a forks It is a 4K TV.

It was massive. Probably. Oh. And I was like four feet from it because we were about to walk on stage so I was real close to it. Yeah. Got the full experience. I'm in that video by the way. Yeah, you are.

You do your ninja pose. Yeah. Ninja, Jedi. I don't think ninjas do it. Nonetheless, the YouTube thing, I was thinking about this too. Sometimes like when podcasts come out, not necessarily art, but, you know, other podcasts or whatever. Sometimes they'll put it on YouTube, but they'll just have an image on there. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Just for another source of audio, which is good. This is more than that yeah you got the added dimension where we do it is a video So if you want to see what Dave Burke looks like if you don't know I'm saying If you want to see what jocco looks like if for some reason you don't know boom you can see what he looks like I like that picture somebody posted of what they thought you look like You know what I'm gonna ask that question on the so shh sure I'm gonna say what did you think echo Charles looked like? Oh yeah, yeah that seems like that would you think echo Charles looked like I think he looks exactly the way he does. I was not the least but surprised. Oh, you, you, okay, check.

It's a good deal, Dave Burke. He knows it, man, you heard of here. Actually, wait, did you, but you didn't hear me first. You met me first, right? That was early enough, or did you hear first? No, no. I guess my voice. I don't think.

I heard you long before I met you. Oh, but you knew. Yeah, you can tell you. Yeah, you can tell you. All right. Well, boom, there it is. YouTube. Subscribe if you want, if you want, you know, a good way to support.

Really good. Also, to switch up your workout. Get some kettlebells get some battle ropes Get a jump rope if you don't have one Get some I just got some battle ropes They didn't come in yeah I think it's good for my workout

I got planned oh and I got some rings Boom You'd think I already had rings How much you talk about rings? I did not know you did not have rings Did not have rings Disappoint I had pull a bar You know that kind of but I don't have rings I have rings now

They didn't come in yet they're on the way But anyway you go to on it.com slash jock good stuff on oh sorry slash jaco Not jock. Onet.com slash jocko. They got some good workout stuff on there. A lot of good info too.

That's where I went when I was starting the kettle bar bell routine. Got the info from there. Boom. Good stuff. Get some socks too, by the way. Psychological warfare.

Album, you can get it. Album with tracks, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And here's the deal. Some people, they don't know what that is.

Okay, if you don't know what it is, go to iTunes, go to Google Play, go to MP3. You can get an album with me talking about why you shouldn't be weak for the various reasons. That's it's all we're saying about it.

Other than to say we are working on the new psychological warfare album, however, each time I say that, I should caveat that by saying I have had a lot of other things do. So I am, the work I have done so far on the new psychological warfare album is to begin to consider topics for the next album. I have a small list. It will be rolled out. What do you think? Let's roll that out. A win on us. Oh, yeah, people want smoking.

Asap, really? Yeah, I mean, as far as like what people are doing me. Someone's out there that wants to quit smoking. Yeah, okay. All right, so we're on that. We'll put it out there. The new psychological warfare. We do have a working title, which seems to be sticking pretty well.

All your excuses are lies. Yeah. Psychological warfare, too. That's the one. Hopefully to be better than Jaws 2. But not Terminator 2. But not Terminator 2. I'm just saying Terminator 2 was just as iconic as Terminator 1, in my opinion.

We're good then. Jocka White Tea. You can get it on Amazon. You can get the drive. I tea bags and mix it yourself or you can get it in a can and if you get it no big deal you can deadlift 8,000 pounds weigh the warrior kid books Dave you've read them I've read them multiple times they are on reread in the house you got three kids ages nine seven four and their feedback is feedback is solid the girls love the books

interesting people ask me what about girls are you gonna write a book for girls I did write a book for girls. It's called Way of the Warrior Kid. Yep. Yep. Agreed. Absolutely. Lessons are universal.

Kids love it. My girls love it. Girls started training jujitsu because of the book. That's awesome. Yep. Do they study? Oh, yeah. They study.

Do they eat a little bit more healthy? Look, they're on the path. There's no joke. They're on the path. It's legit. That's awesome. And I actually talk to your kids occasionally. And I see that they are, in fact, on the path.

What about the field manual? They have not read the field manual. I have read the field manual. Feedback. Feedback. Feedback is also legit. It is a prescription. If you need some help on getting and staying on the path, read the field manual.

Have you ever read three pages of the field manual just because? Three pages? Yeah. Have you just been like, you know, you're sitting there and it's on your desk and you're like, you know what? I'm going to read this real quick. Yeah. So the thing about it.

the book is the cover of the book that cover says open this book its cover is awesome man that hard cover is is legit man they asked me like all right when would you like to roll out the soft cover cover I'm like oh never no that is not a soft cover book no it is not no there's an iconic picture they say echo says there's an iconic picture I think he said the photographer that took the picture had a incredible day that day sense no for art okay I didn't say that for the soft cover no no no oh yeah say I don't care what the picture looks like there's no soft covers yeah well it is actually when I said it's an iconic

picture it means less of the notion or the idea that I took a great picture or nothing like this I'm saying that picture that we took in my hallway one random night with my cheap camera became a picture that's kind of representative iconic if you will okay so he's claiming it of you know your whole he's trying to downplay it It could be called iconic. The picture that I took. One random night, no big deal.

Well, you look at where the word kid, the picture on the back of that one, I took down too. But is that iconic? Maybe not. It didn't push me in that direction necessarily, but the one on the cover of Discipline equals freedom, field manual is. The publisher wanted a picture of me

where I looked more approachable. The one in the back? The one of the back cover. Yeah, for sure. There's something about the Warrior Kid book. that you didn't mention though you said you wrote a kid's book that's for boys and girls yeah that's actually a book for adults too yeah not just not just for the adults there are lessons for the adults but that book is a great parenting tool that's a legit

parenting tool that I now get to go is that what Mark would do what would uncle Jake say here and I actually get to parent less now because I just reference the book that's that's no joke man that we're ultimate flank it is it really is it's the ultimate flank because here's the problem kids do not listen to their parents Kids listen to a certain percentage of what their parents say and there's a certain portion of them that is programmed to rebel against you as a parent They're programmed that way and the more you fight it the worse it's gonna get you come in from the flank boom There you go. Yeah, it's true good point. What about Dave? This is your big night What about extreme ownership? Feedback feedback feedback

I have read that book several times. I've listened to it. I referenced the book constantly because of the work that we do. And I get a lot of feedback on that book. That is the book that when you talk about, when you see it broadly, that quote from Musashi, you start to see it everywhere.

That's what that book is. Because once you tip on that and once that gets embedded in your DNA, once you start doing that, you will see that everywhere. And that is what's unique about that book. Yes, sir. The best feedback I've ever gotten on that book

from people we work on to, they say, it just makes sense. Yeah. We have a follow-on to that book coming out. It's called The Dichotomy of Leadership. It's about all those opposing forces you face as a leader. And I talked about the ultimate dichotomy tonight. And so that book comes out, September 25th.

Also, if you need live training, you need a little bit more than the book, you need a little bit more than the podcasts. You can bring us inside your organization. We have a company called Ashlawn Front. That's what Dave was talking about tonight. I was talking about tonight. All the companies that we work with, that's what we're talking about. We solve problems through leadership. Boom.

Me, Laif, J.P., Dave Burke, Flynn Cochran, and now we also have Mike Sorrelli in the house. All right. What about the muster? Musters 6 coming up, San Francisco. This will be my fifth muster. Oh, that's right. You missed the first one. I did. I did not make the first muster. But this muster, like every other muster, is A, going to be awesome. And B, it's going to sell out.

Yeah. Actually, it's going to sell out. It's selling up quick. Yeah. I talked to Jimmy just the other day about it. We are tracking way ahead of where we expected. It's going to sell out soon. You got to get on it. Now, because of the muster, we actually designed something else because we wanted to do something. First of all, the muster's got a pretty high price point. It's pretty expensive.

And it focuses on real broad leadership across the board. But we have had come to all the musters, law enforcement, military, border patrol, firefighters, paramedics, other first responders. We wanted to do something a little bit, a little bit focused on what they do for a living. So we have something called the roll call It is September 21st in Dallas, Texas It's one day leadership seminar for everyone out there in uniform So if you're a police officer if you're a firefighter and we've worked with Police officers and firefighters and we've worked with Border Patrol and we've worked with military units and we still do all of that

But if you want to come and get a one day immersion into the combat leadership principles that we talk about in the book, Extreme Ownership that we talk about on this podcast, come to the roll call, September 21st in Dallas, Texas. And for both the muster and the roll call,

you can register for those at Extreme Ownership.com. On top of all of that, we have something now called Eschonfront Oval Overwatch eFoverwatch.com and Dave you've been involved pretty heavily in us standing that up We are we in our business working with companies We are always running into companies that need what do they need they need good leaders

They need good people and because of our connections to the military all of us having spent extended periods of time in the military and special operation as combat pilots we have connections there and this is a place where we have an opportunity to bring those two things together people that want great leaders and people that are great leaders that need jobs so we're bringing those together whether you're somebody that wants to employ people or whether you're looking to be employed as a spec ops individual or a combat pilot then go to to eFoverwatch.com. Put your information in there

and we will proceed down the line of getting you the best people you can. And I miss anything on EF. Overwatch? No, it's like you said, and the best thing for the transitioning folks, if you're looking for a new mission to find your next mission after you

transition out of the service, this is the place to do it. Come and get some. And if you want to kind of keep carrying on this conversation with us virtually, that is until we see you live either at the muster or at the roll call or at the immersion camp up in Maine then you can find us all on the interwebs on Twitter on Instagram and on dasha face Dave is at David R. Burke B E R K-E because that's the thing I mean you always forget your own thing you're like Dave R Burke yeah David R-Berk

Burke correct yeah Davey you are and you're there you're there on Twitter and on Instagram yep and on that's Facebook people echo is of course echo Charles and I am at joccoe like echo anything else no good to see you again Dave Burke actually you talk about him always texting you about jiu jits and stuff yeah he calls me to think yeah yeah yeah it's great yeah that's how it is man one of those things where you see his name on your phone you can't get happy yeah just for you know you get happy and you like Man, was arm lock question?

Escape at the mount question. Well, all that stuff. Good deal, Dave. Great to see you. Good deal, Dave, Burke. Any closing comments? Dude, thanks for having me back, man. I could do this all day.

I appreciate the chance to talk again. And being a part of this is a big deal for me. Thank you. Yeah, man. Awesome to have you on. And, again, thanks for everything that you've done for me and done for our freedom as a nation. And I'm sure we will do.

this many times again in the future so yeah this is just the beginning my brother right on and everyone else in the military that is out there right now protecting our freedom thank you and to the first responders police law enforcement border patrol firefighters paramedics thanks for keeping us and our families safe and to everyone else that is listening thank you thank you for listening thank you for listening thank you for supporting and thanks for remembering of the heroes that gave their lives so that liberty and democracy can survive and let the names of the fallen forever forever be as unperishable as those glorious

ideals for which they made the ultimate sacrifice And until next time, this is Dave and Echo and Jocko. Out.