Jocko Podcast - 157: When to Play The Game, When to Break The Rules. Ultimatums. Making Co-workers' Shape Up. Coping with Loss.

Episode Date: December 26, 2018

0:00:00 - Opening 0:09:48 - How to "play the game" but also break rules when needed. 0:22:00 - How to get better with taking smack talk among friends. 0:30:44 - Dealing with ultimatums. 0:38:18 - Dealing with family not being disciplined when you are. 0:50:08 - Expressing yourself vs. Normal Face. 0:57:15 - How to show co-workers they should have UNMITIGATED DISCIPLINE IN ALL THINGS. 1:09:24 - Seeking council with others while leading. 1:22:25 - How to deal with getting overwhelmed as a leader. 1:29:58 - How to deal with the loss of a child. 1:51:43 - Support: How to Stay On The Path. 2:10:29 - Closing Gratitude.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 157 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. I was in a seal platoon serving as the assistant platoon commander in the late 90s. You know what that means? Yes. No war going on. That's what it means.

So we were training. We were training hard. And this platoon that I was in at the time, we were going through urban training. Urban combat training and we were pretty far along in the training and we were Starting to get our our sim unition which is like fake bullets or simunition and paintball wars on Force on force training and we were doing Like multi-day operations So almost like a scenario like you've got a full scenario going on like there's bad guys in the city

Yeah, yeah, you know it's the concrete city the fake city, the fake city and with concrete buildings that are pretty much just the shells of buildings. And we're going against op-for seals. We call them op-four. That stands for opposing force. So the opposing force, there are other seals who are role players pretending to be bad guys. They know our tactics. They know our techniques.

They know our procedures. And on this particular day, they had captured one of our seals from our platoon, the bad guys, the role players. Was that part of the scenario or just? They made it part of the scenario. So whatever they did, they caused confusion, they caused mayhem, they end up with one of our guys. Good, okay, just on their own, though, that wasn't part of the overall training. Well, it is, you know, when I was running training, we always did that too. So it's just a longstanding kind of, hey, if you can capture one of the seals.

Gotcha. Yeah, yeah. You know, it's like never leave a man behind? Right. Let's get him to leave a man behind. Right, we'll see about that one now. So at this point, like I said, they had captured, and I don't remember exactly, but they'd captured one of our guys. And they had him in a building.

And it was a pretty big building, like a pretty big, but rectangular type building. Five stories, maybe. Maybe it's four stories. But anyways, they had them. They didn't have him in the top floor, but they had him in like the floor below the top floor. So he's on the third floor or the fourth floor, I forget. But they have the guy in there. And remember, this is not, there's no power in the city.

And the city is out in the middle of nowhere. It's a fake city. So you can hear everything, right? Kind, you can pretty much hear what's going on. So they have our guy and they're like torturing him, mock torturing him. And of course they're up there to him like scream. You know, scream louder. And he's yelling.

And you know that they're feeding him what to yell to try and get us all riled up. They're, he's screaming, they're going to kill me. They're going to violate me. He's screaming. So they're having a good time with it. And so our standard operating, procedures like oh you know what okay so there's a building needs to be cleared we go and we clear the whole building we start on the ground floor we clear every room then we go up to the next

one we clear every room we go up the next one that means that there's not going to be any bad guys that get get into your train there's not going to be any bad guys in between your force which can cause a blue on blue so when you're going to clear every room that means you're going to move down these hallways and you're going to go from the bottom of the top and that's just kind of the plan right sort of normal and like I said we knew where they were so we immediately we go okay we got to come up the plan we are we got to save our guy yeah we're all fired up and as we were we're doing this you know the the standard plan come up like okay we'll go in this east door we'll clear the first floor in the second but we won't get to

you know and as I'm sitting there kind of listening to this I I just said hey no let's do this instead let's just sneak up to the building because you can get to the building behind other buildings you could find a little sneaky way to get there I'm like let's Sneak him in the dead space Dead space is areas where the enemy can't see you or where you can't see the enemy it's just areas where there's no Line of sight. I said let's let's go and there was external stairs like a fire escape on the outside of one I said let's go straight to the to the floor he's on We won't clear any of the other floors we won't clear any of the rooms we'll just go right in the hall go directly to where he's at

And that was the plan so we did it and um Yeah, and the thing was, it was, it was, we weren't, that was kind of a new idea, right? Like, hey, let's do, I'm not, dude, believe me, I'm not saying I'm the first guy that ever thought this. I'm not. I'm just saying our mindset at that moment was, hey, this is what we're being trained to do, we'll do what we're trying to do. So for anyone that's listening, for any of my team guy brothers that are like, you didn't think I'm not saying I thought of it. I'm saying at that moment in time, we were focused on doing it one way. And I said, hell, let's do something a little bit different.

And, and then once I said it, everyone's like, yeah, yeah, because there was like, like, everyone knew that was the right answer right but you just had to have that different look at it for a moment and so we did it we went to the external stair when we went up really quiet there's the other thing we were like we're not going to say because you know you're in a room you call it clear and you say next room and all this other stuff we weren't going to say anything we're just going to stay quiet so we went all the way up the stairs really quietly we walk in and we can hear him hear him yelling out the window like oh but you better get him quick and all this stuff and then we go into the room silently and shoot all the opt for in the back.

We killed them all and we saved our hostage. And there was one, there was one seal cadre who we gave the, and I'm not going to give his actual nickname, but his nickname was along the lines of simi-jimmy. Because simunition was, simunition of what we used. And Simi-Jimmy was really good at being a bad guy.

And so, and he would laugh at us. You know, we'd be moving through a building and you could hear him like, If he shot you in the neck, can he be aiming for your neck or your nuts? Like he was going to get something. He was having a good time with it. And that's what you want. You know, you want your guys to go hard.

So Simmy Jimmy, but we got this moment with Simmy Jimmy. We shot him in the back. And they were, you know, they were stoked. You know, they could see even though they want to win and they want to beat us, but they're still stoked. He wasn't cackling. He was, you know, he was stoked on it. And so they died. We saved a guy.

So my point in this is that sometimes you have to do things. that the enemy is not going to expect, that people aren't going to expect, that your competitor's not going to expect. The hard part about doing that, it isn't actually doing the thing that they don't expect, right? It's, because like I said,

other, this is not, what I, what I said to do wasn't this, you know, miraculous eureka moment of tactical genius. It wasn't that. This was a, anyone that would have taken a step back

would have said, like that's a good call. Let's do that instead. But we're all wrapped up in that situation. And so you want to learn how to do that. You want to learn how to, and again, it's about detaching, but a couple of things that will help you with that. One is don't be the person that's planning everything. Don't be the person. And it's hard, especially we talk about extreme ownership. Like, and everyone wants to be a leader and they want to step up. Don't try not to be the guy that comes up with every plan. Literally try not to be that guy. Now, are there times when you're a lower member where you want to like step up and come up the plan?

Yeah, I'm talking about when you're in an actual leadership position. When you're a junior and you're trying to learn and you're trying to bring forth ideas, yeah, man, come up with some plans, you know, shoot that idea up because you're throwing out good ideas that are going to get bounced off the boss. But when you're the guy that's in charge, try not to be the guy that plans everything. Try not to be the guy that makes every single call. Let the subordinates plan or let the superiors plan. Let other people come up with plans. Now, are there situations where, like, there's, you've got to make calls. Of course there are.

There's a dichotomy, right? But in that particular situation, I didn't feel the need that I had to be the guy that came up with the plan. Like, let other people do that. And, you know, if someone else had come up with that standard plan and it was, and I hadn't, like, detached, I would have been like, okay, cool, that's what we're doing. We're going forward, you know. But you have to allow other people to come up with plans. The other thing is recognize that the way that you know of doing something might not fit. You might not know everything.

It's a good thing to always think to yourself, you might not know everything. Right? That's a good idea to have in your mind. Or is that what I know might not work. That's something else. What I know might not work. That's another really smart thing to constantly replay in your head. what I know might not work.

That's it. Then, you know, so that means you've got to have an open mind. And then you got to remember, of course, that rules, sometimes you have to break rules. You have to be very judicious. When you decide you're going to break rules, and there's some principles that you cannot violate without massive reason,

without a massively heavy reason and a way to mitigate the risks of breaking whatever those fundamental rules are, like cover move. Cover move you should never violate cover move ever Except for when it just makes sense that you need to violate it So that and that story right there kind of leads into the first question of Q&A which we haven't had Q&A in a while And the first question is

Well go ahead first question first question You recently said Hackworth was a rule follower of his career but in about face the book he always talks about how he went against his command his rules how do you play the game but also act like hackworth yeah and so this is a classic example of the dichotomy of leadership with regard to obeying rules and and Hackworth absolutely obeyed the rules and he obeyed them to the to the extreme sometimes if you remember in the book he he he worked in situation Where they were like the strictest in garrison so like not in combat just in garrison

He would everything's perfect uniform if you remember when general Mukiyama was on And we talked to we talked to him about meeting hack for the first time And you know I was kind of like what was he like? And he was like oh he was High and tight hair cut totally squared away that's following the rules to a T And the other thing that he played he definitely played the game Hackworth played the game. He developed with, he developed relationships with people that were senior to him,

people that were influential. SLA Marshall, who he went on tour with, if you remember through Vietnam. And SLA Marshall, he didn't really even respect, but SLA Marshall had such big influence that he said, hey, you know what,

I've got to become bros with this guy. He played the game because Marshall had influence. And he even took some hits. You know, took a little, frag for SLA Marshall. But at the same time, if his troops weren't getting the right treatment that they needed, he would do what he needed to do. He would break rules and take care of them if he had to.

And at the same time, he would follow the rules to a T. if you remember when he took over the battalion in Vietnam, the hopeless and wanted to turn him into the hardcore, he brought all their crap into the middle of the thing and said, we're going to fly it out of here. No more radios, no more guitars, none of this other stuff. You're getting it out. So that's like following the rules to a T.

But at the same time, if he needed to like steal food for them or stakes something to get a lot, he would do that stuff. So he's constantly balancing that economy. Another thing he did is he took these administrative jobs that he hated in order to rise through the ranks in order to become, to get places to develop relationships. So we could have more influence. He was assigned to the Pentagon. He, he, in the book, he talks about the Pentagon being, working in the Pentagon being a claustrophobic hole, no more than 20 by 20 feet with 15 other people in it. And he talks about, he said, you'd say your paper, your inbox would be filled when you showed up

and you'd immediately, the phone would be ringing, you'd be talking to people all over the world. All the people in Vietnam, they're calling you at their time zone. And so he didn't like this job. But guess what? Got the highest possible evaluations when he left. Why? Because he played the game. And he built these relationships with all these kernels and all these generals and all these people that it influenced.

There's Glover Johns and Pearson and countless others by doing what he needed to do. And then when he needed to, he broke the rules. And sometimes he went a little too far with breaking the rules. And when he got out, when they kind of drew. drove him out after he did the big interview where he said, hey, we're not going to win. They went and drilled down into his camps and looked at the things that he had going on there, said, oh, you're allowing this to happen. You're allowing this to happen.

So he left himself a little bit vulnerable by breaking the rules a little bit too much. So a rule to learn from that is like, don't do things that people can hold over you. And for me, the things that people can hold over for you are things where you can't stand up and say, yes, that's what I did. Yes, that's what I did. Hey, my guys hadn't had a good meal in four weeks. They've been in the field for three of those weeks. And when they came out, guess what?

I figured out a way to get some steak. And I took it from the rear and I had it flown up using our helicopters. And I had a, yep, that's what I did. And if you want to drop the hammer on me for that, got it. Now if you do that, that's cool. But there's some things where you break the rules where maybe you wouldn't be. able to stand up tall and proud and say this is what I did and this is why I did it. So you don't be careful that you don't do things that will allow people to hold things over your head.

And for me, things that are things like that are things that you can't stand up with your chest out and say, this is what I did and this is why I do. I know it wasn't within the regulations. This is what I did. This is why I do it. And if I get fired because of that, understood. Check. Now Here's where you get a little Here's where we can We can Question hack

For sure Let me ask you this If hack would have Because okay so he didn't play the game At the end he didn't play the game He went on an interview and said hey we're not going to win the war Not the way we're fighting We're not going to win the war

Within a few weeks he was driven out of the army He didn't play the game at that moment Right So let me ask you this, if he would have played the game, just a little bit, just said, look, we need to change our strategy for, you know what I mean? If he would have just changed. And then he would have stayed in.

And then he would have perhaps gotten a promotion and got perhaps gotten to a position where he actually had influence over the way the war was being fought. If he had done that, would he have been better off? Would he have been able to better help the situation? Because I don't know. once they drove him out it's not like that interview well I don't know we'd have to check the check the historical sort of results of that interview it certainly started to sway public opinion and maybe that you know maybe in his mind hey I need to tell everyone what's going on so

we can get out of here right right so maybe maybe that was the intention maybe that was the result maybe that helped shut down the war eventually but maybe if he would have played continue to play the game, he could have gotten to a position where he had more, even more influence and could have changed the way the war was being fought. I don't know. I'm sure we could have a long debate about that, but that's as a leader something that you are going to have to weigh out all the time. And there's situations where, and actually breaking news today, General Mattis just put in his resignation for being secretary of defense. So is that's, we're going to have to talk about that when I get a little more information on it.

Is that him saying, look, it's going to be better for me to make this statement by leaving? Or would he have been better off staying there where he can at least still have a massive amount of influence because he's the secretary of defense? We'll have to drill down on that one. That's a, that's a good question. both those are good questions and the bottom line is if you haven't read about face read it and learn from a guy named Colonel David Hackworth next question next question so the answer that question was sort of another question kind of a question you got asked yourself yes and that's a question and I've talked about

this where if I tell you echo hey echo I want you to do this mission I want you do this way take your platoon and go do it and you disagree with what I'm telling you And you just say, hey, boss, I don't want to do it that way. And I said, hey, you shut up and do what I told you to do. And you go, you know what? You can fire me, but I'm not doing it. I go, okay, fine. You're fired.

And I get knucklehead over here, who's a yes, man, it comes in. And I tell him to go do the mission the way I told him to do it. And he goes and doesn't get to everyone killed. Would it have been better off if you said, okay, boss, I get it. I'll do it your way. Here's some things I'd really like to not do. And you go, no, I said, no, shut up. And then you take your guys, you mitigate everything that you can.

Actually, there's an example of this in Band of Brothers where major winners is being told, hey, send a reconnaissance element across the river again tonight. And he doesn't want to do it. The war's almost over. They had taken some casualties, I think, the night before when they did the same type of operation. And he just says, got it, boss. And then the guys go and they pretend to go out, but they really just sit in the basement of a building on their side of the river. And then later on, they say, yep, we went.

We came back. We didn't find anything. Okay, cool. There's a perfect example. Imagine if major winners, Dick Winners was like, we're not doing it. And now you get an ego contest with the colonel who's like, oh, yes, you are. No, we're not. Okay, fine.

You're fired. Let me get knucklehead over here. Who's going to do what I told him to do? Who's a totally yes, man? And now we take that risk and guys get killed. So who is it? There's a, Dick Winters played the game. He played the game so he could still have that influence in power.

and still protect his guys. Yeah. You can get complex, yeah. It's very, that's why leadership is hard. Yes. It's weird, though, because when you say it's complex, when you say leadership is hard, at the same time, like, you,

if you're a principled human being and you have principles and you know what's right and you're doing the right thing for the right reason, the decisions are actually usually a little easier. Clear, yeah. Clearer, yeah, they might not be easy, but they're clearer. Like, I know what I'm supposed to do here.

Yeah. I got it. Yeah. I'm going to figure this one out. Yeah. And this, I think applies to most scenarios where, like if you think of the big picture,

where if you're like, hey, I'm going to consider myself after everything's going to be said and done. You know, it kind of goes along with what you said like, oh, can you stand up?

Can you stand up? If you consider, okay, look back, you're going to, because there's going to come a point where you're going to look back on this. and you're going to feel the way you're going to feel right now.

But later on, how are you going to feel about like how you handled it? You know, what decision you made and how you made it. It's a good thing to tell kids too. Yeah. Like, would you, if you're at a party or you're wherever and something's going on, would you be proud to stand up and be, hey, here was the situation? Yeah. And this is what I did and this is why I did it.

If you can't, maybe you should really reconsider what your actions are going to be. No, man. Because a lot of the time shoots, especially, as a kid as an adult too a lot of the time it's like they're literally the opposite decision you know like especially if it's one of those like go along with the crowd kind of scenarios you know where it's like oh yeah it's easy to go longer and when your kids especially when it involves drinking and stuff sometimes there's there's really no consequence you know whatever you did

something dumb no one gets hurt or dies or nothing like that but every once in while there is but so it's like it makes it harder because you don't like when you go do something I don't know go jump off a bridge I don't know something drinking drive or whatever and no one dies or knowing nothing big happens, it sort of reinforces that maybe it might be okay. You know, you maybe be able to slide with this behavior a little bit, you know? Yeah. But at the end of the day, you know, yeah, if you can clearly see that big picture where in the future,

you're going to be looking back on how you handled it. Yeah. Here's another thing, same concept. I used to tell, I told my guys was you just might as well act like CNN is recording what you're doing and it's going to be on CNN. Right? So if you want to act like an idiot, guess what? it's going to be on scene on because someone's got a camera somewhere around there.

And you might as well be saying that today as a kid, as a teenager. Yeah. You might as well be saying, yep, this is the next viral video. This is my 15 minutes of fame is going to be me doing whatever I'm doing right here. Yeah. So got to watch out for that. Learn from hack. Learn from hack.

Next question. Jocko, I struggle with receiving banter from other guys. Bantor. Okay. I'm naturally a sensitive gut, which lends myself to take normal smack talk from other guys personally. I'm trying to get after it. I wake up early. I work out. I eat healthy.

Work pretty hard. But still seem to have some deep-seated insecurities, which flare up when guys give me stick. I have some bloody good mates. And I want to get to the point where I can take smack talk for what it is and even give a bit of stick back to the guys. What can I do to help this? Here's one thing that you can try

to get into your brain. And this is one of those things that's hard to get into your brain. And it's even harder to actually get it in your brain and functionally use this thought. Here's the thought. The more...

Okay, if you're paranoid about something, if you're insecure about something, the more you let things bother you, the more insecure you will appear. Let me say it again. The more you let things bother you, the more insecure you're going to appear. And the worse, whatever that thing that you're worried about, whatever that thing that makes you feel insecure, the worst it's going to appear to everyone else. So if you got a big nose and you're embarrassed because you've got a big nose and every time someone says something about your big nose, you get mad and you get offended, that big nose grows even bigger.

gross so think about that if there's something that bothers you and you let it be known and you let it bother you the worse it's going to get and and also think about this another thing that will help these are things I'm trying to help help uh sort of smooth the edges of insecurity here's another one people even though you think even though you think they are and it's kind of egotistical to think this but we all do it people aren't sitting around and thinking about you and your weaknesses. They're not sitting around and thinking about you and your weaknesses.

They're not. Like, that's your ego telling you that. So, don't sit there and think everyone's looking at your big nose all the time. They don't care. They got their other problems. They got their own life going on. They don't care about your big nose.

No, they don't. You know what makes them care about it? When they know if they say something to you, it bothers you? Oh, yeah. That's the first thing they're going to think when they see you again. Like, oh, here comes.

A good time. Some fun. And here's another thing. If you want to kind of mitigate that, man, do it do it. Mark does in Way of the Warrior Kid. When Uncle Jake says, hey, if you're getting made fun of, he's in a way of the word kid, call him plate face. Saying Mark, oh, you got a round.

This guy, Nathan James has telling Mark, oh, you got a round face. You look like a plate. He calls him plate face. That's his insults him all the time. And it bothers him. Because he's looking in the mirror going, wait, do I look like a plate? Yeah, yeah. Let's it bother him.

And Uncle Jake says, hey, go go make fun of yourself. And he finally gets a chance he does a, they're in a class, and they have to do a self-portrait. And he draws himself as a plate, a plate face. And when the kid that's been making fun of it, he laughs and then guess what? Doesn't make fun of him anymore about it. Because he realizes it doesn't bother.

And they kind of bond a little bit. And they kind of bond a little bit. Which is actually what he's going for in this question. That is. Yeah, yeah. So you got them. And it's, that's why I said, it's hard. to do this because when you're insecure about your big nose or you're insecure about your big ears or whatever and you let people know that or you just think it's in your brain you think if you say something that's gonna even worse they won't get worse yeah might get worse for an uptick for a second right it might you make fun of yourself you know people like oh yeah that's right I didn't notice that you do it yeah it'll kind of no one really cares and that's why in the teams in the teams you never let anyone know that something bothers you or if they know it bothers you you you you know it bothers you you you

You're going to hear about it forever. That's just going to be how. That's just the way it's going to be. And what that means, the polar opposite of that or the flip side of that is it's not fun to harass some. It's not fun to harass someone about something that doesn't bother them. It's not even fun, right? It's not fun. Why would you harass someone when they don't get it, when you don't even get a rise out of them?

It's not fun. You just leave that thing and you look for something else. So poke a little fun at yourself. These guys are going to back off. Because they're bored, if you show no reaction. And like you said, that that kind of self-deprecating humor will form a little bond. Yeah. You can give a little stick back to the guys.

If you start giving stick to guys, be ready to take it back, though. Yeah. They're going to escalate. Yeah. And that's just how, I mean, I grew up with two brothers, one twin brother. And that's like a, like, that's literally the foundation of our relationship. It's just you tease the other guy about. something,

everything. Like he can come in with a new shirt on. That's a sealable to. Yeah. Like everything, oh, we'll be like, oh,

new shirt, oh, you know, like, but it's not even something to tease somewhere about. Do they sell men shirts where you bought that? Yeah, yeah,

whatever. It's literally, that's, it's so bad to the point where one, when, when I got with my current wife, when we started dating or whatever, like,

it's just habit, you know, like even you, like, same thing, you know, like you'll give me crap, I'll give you crap,

whatever. but it's so common that I do it to her. Oh, yeah, yeah. And, you know, at first she's like, oh, like, why are you teasing me so much? Like you're, because I knew her even before we were together. I knew her for years, actually. And he's like, kind of annoying, you know, he's like teases or whatever. And I had to, like, reel it back.

Put yourself in check. Yeah, because that's, because that is so, so much of how guys do it, you know? 100%. And I've told this story before when I got, when I was going to college and it wasn't around team guys all day. I started doing the team guy thing with my wife. And after like three months, yeah, yeah. She's like, hey, I'm not in the teams. So you can be quiet now.

And I was like, wow, she's right. And I didn't even realize it because that's just, you know, all day long. You show up in a, you show up in the platoon space and it's verbal sparring. Yeah. As soon as you walk through the door, somebody's going to say something. They're going to bring it. And what's interesting is how he's like, I want to get to the point where, you know, he can spec or what the thing is, I would agree with this, probably even 110 percent, which

his heart to agree 100% but I feel this way probably stronger than him like you ever been around someone who like you just can't really joke around with like I'm not I'm not the guy who I'll tease someone and try to like to make them you know especially if I don't know

I'm good or whatever but um but if you're around someone who like can't really take it you can't joke around with him it's like man I don't want that guy to be there man I wish he just wasn't you know I'm not mad at him but I just I don't want to hang around with that guy you don't want to be that guy no So even if like especially at first like let's say okay I'm I'm this guy right here

The worst is someone that can dish it out but can't take it yeah but what do you mean yeah that is the worst it's I don't I would The only reason I wouldn't say he's the worst is what's worse than that if he's dishing it out and he can't take it's kind of you get a payoff of teasing the guy I'm saying true it let's say he doesn't dish it out let's say it's just a guy you just can't joke around with it's like man you're making me uncomfortable kind of thing you know but if this guy because you that's a good point if it's yeah Although it is annoying when people can't take it and you make a joke and they get all fired up and they're like actually mad right yeah that's that is annoying that's well that's how you end up with people that aren't really your friends aren't really your friends yes exactly right so but yes yes so you get there man I say get there and at first just and you kind of made it really clear to me how you know when you make a change

or something it's not going to who boom you're off the races with the change going full speed you know what do you say low drag what I'm like it's not going to be like that right it for especially with this kind of stuff if you if you already know you're insecure yeah which is a big step ahead by the way some people they're like I'm not insecure and meanwhile he's admitting it they know it but they just don't admit it yeah so this guy he knows so but you're gonna feel it man when they call you bit you know whatever they're calling you whatever um you're gonna sort of feel it on the inside still but just don't behave you know in a way just be like oh I don't know I don't know what to do there's plenty of things to do but yeah man you do want to get there 100%

yeah check next Next question. Number three, sorry. How do you deal with ultimatums from customers, bosses, et cetera, that are unrealistic due to the nature of the situation and the ultimatum? What I'm going to do with ultimatums is I am going to tell the truth about the situation. To them, but first, I'm going to tell the truth about the situation to myself. because you got to look at the situation and say to yourself, is this truly unattainable?

Like truly unattainable. And sometimes, even though it seems truly unattainable, but then when you actually think about it, you realize, oh, I could attain this. I can make this happen. I'm going to have to sacrifice whatever to make it happen. I'm going to have to, it's going to cost me or the team or the company something in order to make it happen.

Like, oh, you want that done? You want that project done by, you know, the 15th? Cool, we'll get it done. But here's what we're not going to be able to do. Or here's what I'm not going to be able to do. And I'm also going to make sure that I pressure test the ultimatum against me giving the absolute full measure of effort, right? Like, if I go 110%, right?

Not even 100% beyond. You're going to give it everything you can. Is it achievable? Because a lot of times people, it's an ultimate you can't make it. Well, as a member of a team, I want people's attitude to be like, you know what? We're going to do it.

We're going to get it done. No one else will be able to do this, but we're going to do it. Watch. I like saying that sometimes. Watch? Watch. I used to say, watch me work.

Yeah, where I got it from some rally. So then okay, so now you truly, you tell yourself the truth about the situation. You figure out that there's truly under no circumstances that this is possible, then it's my time to tell them the truth, which is like, listen, and I'll get my data together. I'll get my information together. I'll explain to them what, you know, what, why I can't, I'm not going to be able to physically get this done. It's physically not possible. and then you know what the shortfalls are going to be now and once I explain that to them if they're if they're completely unwavering because if you explain everything and you put

your data together and you say look the bottom line is to to to assemble this many pieces by our best two people on the team it takes them an hour each and you want us to assemble 14 of them in three hours it is not possible for us to do that and even if you gave me more people it doesn't matter they know how to do that so it can't be done I need at least whatever six hours with those whatever whatever it is if they're unwilling To to to waiver on the ultimatum at all like no go you need to get it done you need to get done Well then what I'm gonna do okay I'm gonna try my hardest I'm gonna buckle down I'm gonna do my best

I'm gonna see how much how close I can get to achieving the goal I'm gonna have fun I'm gonna go so hard that it's gonna get nuts like we're gonna get it done And then when if we fall short, which we will because I figured out there's no physical humanly possible way to make this happen. Then what I'm going to do is I will go to them and I'll explain the things that I am going to do differently next time in order to meet their goals, right? I'm going to say, listen, you know what? I should have asked you earlier if this was a possible thing and I should have had a backup plan. So here's what I'm putting into place now to make sure this doesn't happen again. Or, hey, I am going to need more manpower so that if we run into this again, I've got the people.

It's my fault for not staffing us up correctly. Or I need to pay more attention to what's happening in the future so that I can have a better aware. I have better awareness of when this type of situation will unfold so I can have my team prepared for it. Or these complexities that happened, I didn't explain to them. I didn't explain them to you well enough. And so if you understood, if I do a better job of making you understand the difficulties of making this happen, hopefully you'll realize that there's more time is needed. So I'm not going to go in there and throw up my arms and see, I told you so.

You were stupid. I was right. Because then that's just sabotage too. Now they don't believe you anyways. Now when you say, we couldn't get it done. See like I told you. I told you we need more time. And they're like, yeah, of course you, you know, you went into it thinking you're going to fail.

Guess what? Self-fulfilling prophecy. trying to Good job. Yeah. Good job. You proved yourself to be right. Loser.

Demoted. And that's what I do. Up and down the chain, by the way. You know, ultimatums can come up and down the chain of command. Hold a line. Do your best. That's what you do. Yeah.

That seems. And tell the truth. It all starts with telling the truth. To yourself. Yeah. And then to your people that you're a customer. Yeah. You know, client.

I want this foundation. poured by such and such a date hey we we will do our best here's the shortfalls you know whatever yeah like that's the way it is yeah and that's a big one yeah like where I kind of learn this from you where it's because you can like to tell you like oh hey I can't this can't be done like you kind of you get to the point in your mind where you're like we both know it can be done but I'm just you know given my current risk and sleep schedule and you know I got this

chill I like to watch at night you know it's like that kind of situation Hawaii 50 out you don't want to miss that one exactly so it it kind of shapes up to be like that you know whereas like for sure we both know and I don't know you know like if there's a boss

who's like just grinding someone into the ground okay that's a whole different scenario but yeah at the end of the day like if you're truthful and it's like hey get this done or you're fired kind of thing and then you start with the truth that you say you'd be like can I get it done and then you really think let's say like you were going to die

I don't know you could get it done a lot of the time I'm not saying I'm not saying all the time of course of course the amount of times in my naval career let's call it when I was in the Navy that guys said to me like we can't do it I can't even remember times like because guys just be looking at me like

damn like I know we got yeah they wouldn't be like well I don't know Jock I'd be like hey look here's what we got to get done on think we can do it and they'd be like yep good because we're about to go get some but yeah and you know obviously a situation some situations are more like more serious you know like you're not gonna I don't know yeah but yeah that telling the truth thing tell the truth yeah I do speak from a position of luxury where I have the truth reflected at me pretty

accurately on a pretty regular basis so I'm not saying it's that easy to Tell the truth, buddy. Just try hard. Try genuine. You got to be genuine, right? Genuinely be like, yes, this is true. About myself. Do it.

Check. Next question. Question from the next podcast. Is your wife disciplined? How do you navigate a potential mismatch between you two? What about when family non-discipline cost you unexpected time and energy taking from your goals? Family non-disciplined. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What? Like my family's not being disciplined. Yeah. Not on board or whatever. Yeah, they're not on board with the program. My wife is, she runs a tight ship and is disciplined in a little bit of a different way than me. Then she's not the same as me. And if that were to cause some kind of a conflict between us, well, then that's my fault for not communicating with her and allowing her to understand my perspective.

and understanding her perspective. So, for instance, what's the situation, right? Oh, my wife wants me, you know, she wants to spend time with me in the morning, whatever, right? What do you wake up early and work out? Before she's awake, you're working out. It's not her fault. It's not her fault.

It's my fault. Well, what about when, oh, I really want to eat dinner with you at night? Okay, cool. I'll eat dinner with you. And I'll stay up later at night so that I can get my work done. and that's fine, you go to bed. That's not my response. That's not your responsibility.

That's my responsibility. It's not your responsibility to mold your life around my whole life, right? That's not the way it is. And by the way, when the family is doing something that is taking away, what does he say, my energy, taking away my energy and taking away my time, then I fix that. problem. And when I say that I fix the problem, I don't mean I fix them. I don't mean that I impose my discipline on them. I might involve some adjustments or some attempts to get adjustments, but I'm not

be just really simple. I don't blame my family when things don't go right. I couldn't work out today because my kid was sick. My daughter spilled the milk and I was like, hey, this is the same. This is just about ownership. Like if you just want to blame your family when you're weak or you make a mistake or you didn't organize or you didn't explain to people correctly, then that's the way it is. I can say this too. Your family is not you.

Your family is not you. They aren't on your program. That's not their, that's not their deal. Hey, if they're on it, great. That's cool. My family's not all on my program. That's not the way it works. Impose?

Oh, that's fun. Where's that get you? Oh, you want to impose your program on everyone in your family? What are they going to do? It's the same thing that happens with any team. If you start imposing your strict discipline on them. Cool. You can get them to do what you want to do at that moment.

Guess what they do as soon as they get the opportunity to rebel against you. They rebel. You get a mutiny. You get a kid that's rebellious beyond the norm. That's doing a thing that's actually going to really reject you. So you got to, don't blame your family. Fix the problem. You know who you have control over?

You have control. You don't have control over your nine-year-old kid. You might think you do, but you don't. You got to make, you don't have control over your wife to just make her, You know, get in the game. Oh, you want to stay on the program. You want to cook, uh, uh, whatever, 14 chicken breasts on a Sunday night. So you got two a day during the week.

Honey, make it happen. No, honey, don't make that happen. If you are a good leader and you explain what your goals are and you get her on board with the program, then yeah, guess what she's doing on Sunday night? Helping you cook some chicken breasts for the week. Yeah, but this is just like anything else, man. This is just like any other leadership situation. You want to blame the team when something's going wrong,

that's not going to get you a solution. You need to take ownership of the problem. You need to get the problem solved. And when I say get the problem solved, this doesn't mean impose your will on the team. That means you need to lead the team. And there's a big difference. So get some.

Yeah. Yeah, I can relate. And by the way, the better, just like anything else, just like Hackworth, the better relationship that you build with your wife and with your kids, guess what? The more flexibility you have. Oh, yeah. The more leeway they give you. The worse relationship you build with your wife and kids, the less flexible and the less

leeway and the less chicken breast you're going to have cook for you. Yeah, it's true. They're not in the game with you. Yeah. So build a relationship. I know that might sound like, like, oh, we're married, so we have a relationship. Not necessarily true. Build a relationship.

Make them understand where you're coming from. Make them understand what the strategic goals are. Make them understand, just like in a leadership situation, make sure they understand how the strategic goals that you're trying to achieve for yourself will then come all the way back down and impact them in a positive way. Because by the way, if you're doing things strategically that are going to help you that are going to screw over the rest of the team or in this case, family, guess what? You're not going to get support for those goals because they're not helping out the team.

If you're doing it for yourself and yourself only, that's problematic. So if you're, hey, I want to work out. I want to get, you know, I want to work out. I want to change Jitsu every day. Okay, well, how do I benefit from that? Yeah. Honey. Okay, well, let me tell you how.

Here's my plan. In six years, you know, I'm a purple belt right now. In six years, I'm going to get my black belt. And when I get my black belt, we're going to open a school. And when I open a school, guess what we're going to do all day? We're going to teach Jiu-Jitsu. We're going to hang out on our gym. We're going to have a good time.

That's a strategic goal. I need you in the game with me right now. That's totally different than I want to train. Yep. I'm a man, yeah. Don't keep me from this. Yeah. Don't keep me from this.

Well, yeah. And that's depending on who you are, obviously. But I would even say that's even, I'm speaking from my own experience. That's even over saying it really. Like, let's say you take jiu-jitsu or working out or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, like to, you know, to do that, but I get, I get the example for sure. No, you're going to say something much more simple.

Yeah, easier, way more. Babe. Just say, hey, this, this part of my life, even if it's new, it's new. I know our family's chaotic. You need my help with the kids and whatever. Be like, but hey, this sort of, this means a lot to me. And it makes me feel good, makes me, you know, a happy person or whatever. Can me and you can we make this work?

You know, can we do it? What do you want for me? You know how you like this other thing? Sure. Yeah. I want to support you doing that. Here's where I need support. You're right.

This thing puts a smile on my face. You want me smiling around here? That's what, and people, I'm sure someone's going to bring up the fact that there were times when I was in the dames and I would come home from work at 7.30 at night. I'd pick up my gym bag. I'd drop off my work bag and I'd just walk. I'd go, hey on, I'm going to train. And there was a few times where she did not want me to go train.

Tears in her eyes. You've got to be kidding me. You've been gone all week. You've been gone for two weeks. You come home at 7.30 and you're going to go train instead of eating dinner with us. I was like, yep. The reason I bring that up, because I know someone's going to bring up, that's not good leadership. That's not me being cool.

That's not me building the relationship. That's me moving in the other direction. Yeah. So that's not what I'm saying to do. But if you come home, hey, look, here's the deal. Here's what's what's going on. Here's why. You know what?

I've got a, I come home from work. I got a lot of stuff in my brain. I'm in a bad mood when I come home. And I don't want to be in a bad mood around you don't want to be a bad mood around the kids I'm gonna go train for an hour when I come back I'm gonna have a smile on my face watch What? boom Yeah, man and and that's actually my wife eventually told me like oh when you don't train You're not nice to be around not that I was intentionally going on you get to train no, but you just have the

You don't you don't have that release. Yeah, yeah. That is a real thing for sure. I mean it's manageable everyone's different I thing obviously but I would you can even say something even more because that's a hard one to to sell sometimes to some people to be like hey all be happier you know then they'll be like well or except for that all be happier mains will be happier yeah and you got it you're right though you got a bar you got to give and take right you got to say okay what do what can I do for you exactly right that's that's what it is be like hey this means a lot to me you know to and usually you know in a relationship like that they care if something means something to your husband and wife or whatever like

that's not nothing that's something you know look if you if the if you're a husband and you say this juicidid means a lot to me therefore you need to sacrifice your whole thing to accommodate it you can't do that but it's not nothing so you just like as a leader you can't have the team sacrifice everything because for you thing yeah exactly right if we do a good job on this mission i'm going to get promoted You know, or hey, if we do a good job with this product, I'm going to make more money. It's more for our bottom line. It's more from my bottom line.

It's more profitability for our shareholders. No one cares. The front line doesn't care about profitability for the shareholders unless they understand how it relates back to them. Yeah. The family doesn't care about you train in jiu-suitzoo unless they realize how it's going to come back to you. So what you do is you tell her, like, hey, just can we make this work?

And actually, whatever, however this gets in the way of us, you know, like whatever, like I want to just in general make that up to you some way you know like what can what can I do for you like I said or what do you want to do something or let's let's do this so we can both kind of have something fun come with me if you want but hey I don't don't just automatically expect your wife to love jiu jitsu like yeah love jiu jitsu unfortunately it goes for everyone even though most it's possible it's possible yeah yeah but I'm saying you know if like how you're saying like make it make you got to accommodate it you know so if you're doing

like a workout. Let's say it's your thing, right? Like I like, don't work out, you know, and that's my thing. Whatever. Jiu-Jitsu, I think, is a different one because working out is like, you can kind to do that whenever, you know? But Jitsu is like, if you don't be, you got to go train with some people. Yeah, yeah, you know. So yeah, man, if, in constant communication too, by the way. Like you, you know, because after a while, it's like, oh, you're going to Jitsu again. And you're like, don't know. The kids kind of need help with the homework. And I'm swam with this other family stuff you know kind of thing but if you're constantly communicating and then she'll tell you hey do you mind not going on this day because of this and you're like hmm okay me going this

specific day is that more important than the help that they need with the homework you know and you can accurately kind of navigate your way through your new situation you know but yeah you got to keep talking on that one because some people they think oh I can go jiu jitina and I don't just say nothing about I'm just rolling out under every circle you know it doesn't work like that sometimes don't don't be like me in that situation don't be like chaco you probably my wife is very understanding. Yeah. So,

that's crazy. Yeah, my wife probably would have murdered me. Rightfully so. Like killed me as a crime. Next question. I would love to hear your thoughts on the dichotomy of honest self-expression versus normal face and or passion versus discipline.

If you aren't caught up on all the podcast, normal face is a game I used to play with my kids where they would have to keep an expressionless face or what I called. the normal face. Good game, by the way. And I would line up my kids and they would have to keep that face. And then if they change their expression anyway, I would hit them in the head with the inside cardboard roll of a thing of wrapping paper.

Or I had eventually made like foam pieces for it because they were a little bit more durable and you could hit really hard and it wouldn't hurt at all. So anyways, I know it sounds like you should call child services on me, but it's fun game to play because as you hit one kid, It makes the other kids laugh and then you end up hitting them all and everyone's laughing and it's fun. So and there's also a pragmatic reason to do it because it teaches people to control their emotions. And there are times, there are many times where you have to learn to control your emotions. And as kids, if you learn to control your emotions, it's going to be beneficial for you in many ways.

But does that mean that you should keep a normal face all the time? Never show emotions. No, it's not like that at all. There's like everything else. There's a dichotomy that you have to balance. If your kid wins a wrestling match, you should be happy and great and smile and yeah, high five, right? That's cool. If you bite into a amazing piece of prime rib that your wife cooked for you, then you should raise your fist to the air and say yes.

My wife, the first time she ever cooked prime rib, she, we didn't know this, but she has a talent. You know she cooks dry chicken, prime rib, she knocks it out of the park. First time she ever cooked prime rib. And I took my, I smelled amazing. I was like, oh, this is, I took my first bite. I looked at her, and I looked up at her,

and I said, I want to redo our vows for marriage. Renew the vows. Yeah, renew the vows. What does it, redo? Renew the vows. So, yes, scenarios like that, yeah, you want to show your motions. And here's something. If your team slacks off and you fail the mission, you fail the task, of course you're

going to own it, but you might, you know, you might want to show a little anger about what happened. So that everyone knows like, oh, he's chockle doesn't normally get mad and he's mad. And so we really did something bad. And, you know, even though you're blaming on yourself, like, I can't believe I'll let this down. You know what I mean? Like you show a little bit of that people go okay So there you're gonna show some most you if you get bad and if you get news that that you know you got a friend that died

We know that's you got to let those emotions out there's all Kinds of situations where emotions are not only acceptable but they're needed and they're required and in fact if You don't have emotions in those situations That's horrible You need to have them not only as a person as a human being you need to let out your emotions on time But as a leader, if you don't show any emotions at all, no one's going to follow you. There's no connection between you and the people on your team. And if you ever, if you just sit there and think about people that you've worked for that didn't show emotions, you have no connection with them.

You don't care about them. You'll leave. You won't go the extra mile to get the job done. So you have to show emotions. But of course, there are many times in life, in the world where showing your emotions are going to have. a negative impact on your situation. You give up the takedown in a jih Tjitsu competition and you show it in your face. That person just thinks I just broke you, right?

You want to show any emotion there? Boss tells you you're getting stuck with the underperforming team. Don't show any emotion, right? Don't, don't, oh man, don't do that. Hey, what about this? There's a good one. Boss is giving you feedback that you don't agree with. roll your eyes

you know what I mean the heavy sigh the clenched teeth as you're trying to listen with this person you don't even respect him he's telling you what's that going to get you

I'm not going to get you anything that showing that negative emotion there you need to keep normal face in that situation your kid's doing something that's annoying is trying to test your patience and they're just trying to piss you off don't let them

keep it in check get told to go to the other line in DMV after you've been waiting for an hour and one don't freak out don't show any emotions got it here's here's another one we already talked about this one your friends are poking fun of you because you missed a shot at the range or you got lost on the land navigation course or whatever get all mad don't get frustrated don't show any emotion

you know they make fun of your haircut they make fun of your accent they make fun of whatever don't show emotions don't freak out that's the other balance Now, there are also times where you might have to force yourself to show some emotion just to get the point across, right? Your kid hasn't listened to you after five or six violations. You might have to show some anger or they do something that's going to get them hurt, right? You've got to show some emotion so that they realize that was real. But flying off the temper and flying off the handle and losing your temper is almost never does you any good. So yeah, you have to be balanced in order to be balanced.

You have to be in control and in order to be in order to be in order to be in. control you have to detach from your emotions so you can control your emotions and not let your emotions control you yeah i think we already talked about this one part before we're like you know like with your kids or whatever and you're you fly off the handle not fly off the handle but you you show emotion you raise your voice and yell at them because this one is important this lesson that i'm teaching you obviously didn't get it before whatever you're thinking you can't do that every single time you know every single lesson like okay oh it was effective when I raised my voice

let me just raise my voice now right logically if that if that is what induces their compliance let me just do that Brad doesn't work that way because after all I like oh Brad's all just dumb noise yeah so yeah you gotta be like normal yeah yeah yeah just be like normal face

normal face normal face everything you know and then like the one time you use it it's like the what do you call it there's this video game I used to play it's like you could just press the button and blow up everybody. Anyway, long story. But yeah, don't use it all the time is what I'm saying.

Just use it like sparingly. Judicious. Yeah, judiciously. Cool. That's a good time. I do know what you're saying. Next question. I'm in college.

And I'm working towards going to OCS after I graduate. I work a food service job. I was trying to teach a 17-year-old at work why she shouldn't have fast cleaning a friar. I said, because. of unmitigated daily discipline in all things. That includes cleaning the friar. She still didn't quite get it. I didn't say to her that I make the friar spotless

because if I can't manage to clean the friar, how can I expect myself to lead people in the military? Ipso facto war. Because I didn't think that, I didn't think that was appropriate to say to that, a 17 year old girl. I try to lead by example, but I'm not sure that is enough.

How can I best explain or show my younger coworkers why they should have unmitigated, daily discipline in all things, when the stakes are only a friar and not lives? Okay. We're kind of in the same vein on some stuff tonight, which is good, right? It's good.

First of all, because unmitigated daily discipline in all things should be, first of foremost, applied to you, not everyone else around you. for you. Let's start with yourself. Imposing discipline on other people is not leadership. It's just an authoritarian person barking orders. So to answer your question, well, first of all, read, if you haven't read the book, the dichotomy of leadership, you might want to check that one out. There's a couple chapters you could focus on. One of them is called resolute but not overbearing. One of them is called disciplined but not rigid. One of them is called hold people accountable, but don't hold their hands.

And this is pretty much why we had to write the dichotomy of leadership, because you're out there, good on you, trying to take extreme ownership. And that's great, but you're not paying attention to the dichotomy of leadership. So let me break it down for you a little bit more clearly. And then you can go read the book as well, which will help you. you say that the stakes are only a clean friar and not lives and you're right lives are not at stake and neither really is the functionality of the friar itself because it doesn't have to be completely spotless and in fact if you're trying to keep it completely spotless it might actually waste time that she could be doing something that's more important like prepping the potatoes or washing her hands

to keep the food sanitary. So you need to think about that, how truly important. Like when you say, when I say, because I say this all the time, and I apologize for throwing you a little bit too far in one direction, unmitigated daily discipline in all things. There's no, there's no departure from that, right? That's what it is. There's no departure for that.

But here's the deal. If you were in the military and you got spun up about little things that don't really matter, you are wasting your leadership capital. And when something actually important, it's what you were just talking about, Echo, when something actually important comes up, your troops aren't even going to listen to you because they don't know what anything,

they don't know what's important and what's not, because you say that everything is important. Like, hey, why do I need to stay on watch? Why do I need to stay awake during watch? That's not any more important to you than whether I have a stain on my shirt because you're freaking out about everything. So how do I know what's what?

Now, here's the deal. You can go too far in the other direction, and you can let people do whatever they want, and they completely lack discipline, and the little things do matter. The little things do matter, but you gotta remember they only matter a little. And if you waste your time and you waste your leadership

and you waste your energy on things that don't matter, things that matter very little, then you won't be able to lead your team when it really counts. What happens is it's a slippery, It's a slope. It's a slippery slope. And if you let something slide, then you let something else slide.

Then you let something outside. Eventually, you've got no discipline. So you have to be careful of that. But at the same time, it's the other direction. What you end up in the other direction, if you impose unmitigated daily discipline in all things, you're going to end up like, here's a movie reference, Echo Charles, Animal House. Sure. Have you seen it? Yeah, I was young, though.

Okay, so you don't remember Niedermeyer, the ROTC guy? That's yelling at everyone. You're worthless and weak. He's like that. He's a guy that's just barking and going crazy, and that's a comical example, but I'll tell you what, you want a real example? A real good example that you can check out. Once again, go and watch the first episode of the Band of Brothers series and check out Captain Sol Bell, the company commander of Easy Company.

He is hardcore and he has he imposes absolute unmitigated discipline in all things on his whole company he holds the line Oh dirty weapon no no liberty for you Pass revoked rust on your knife pass revoked uniform out of uniform creases in your boots or creases in your pants Pass revoked oh that guy's doing it he's doing that unmitigated discipline in all for things and guess what happens to him he gets fired his troops hate him he's worried about things that don't matter dick winters totally squared away worries about things that are important and he and as a individual and if you remember i don't even know if they show this in band of brothers but as an

individual imposing discipline on himself guess what he's doing during the battle to bulge battle the bulge middle the winter snowed in don't have winter gear they're freezing they're dying they're What's winter's doing in the morning? He's up and he's shaving He's getting up and his shaving his battalion commander comes up. He's like bro Are you sure you need to shave? He's okay Just holding them on So that's why we wrote the dichotomy leadership

This stuff is a balance and you have to learn to balance you don't want to end up going and ending up like captain Sobel and I Hope everybody that has that tendency to want to control things and they want to use discipline and they want to use unmitigated daily discipline in all things. You want to use that as your slogan

to beat people down. Go watch the first episode of Band of Brothers and get your act together. Yeah. Yeah, that reminded me of when you were talking about your gym floor. Yeah. You know, I mean, sure, you don't

want the you don't want the bag and your dirty clothes and socks and shoes all over the floor while you work out but it does for a reason yeah same way the whole reason you got to clean the flyers or the friar for a reason you know so you know whatever the reason is i'm not as familiar with friars but i'm sure you didn't work at wendy's like i did i can tell you that the external the external cleanliness of the friar is not a big deal do you want like you said do you want it to be caked with grease where it's a fire hazard no yeah but guess what it's a fun functional item that you're using all day. There's going to be some spots on it.

And if I'm freaking out about that, guess what? I got somebody that's not washing their hands. Or even worse, I got someone that's intentionally sabotaging the food so we get bad reviews. Now we're going out of business. Yeah. Or whatever. Yeah. So it's essentially like, hey, man, identify the use, the optimal use of the friar.

And let's target that is like the right way to clean it kind of thing, you know? And that's sort of it. Like, you don't, you don't have to sweep your gym floor and mop it and make sure. You can see your face in the I'm getting more chalk on that thing in 23 hours Yeah 22 hours right it makes no difference yeah to why I have a gym floor yeah I have the gym floor So I can drop weights and walk that's it kind of thing not so you know I can I don't know be super Discipline waste of my time Mopping it and you know all this stuff because I'm unmitigated daily Discipline and all things you know you have a functionality you have to uphold

Imagine how many hours of my life I would have thrown away if I was mopping cleaning sweet and vacuuming my gym floor every day when I got it would take as long as my workout or take probably a 20 minutes. I guess Yeah, so there's there's what almost two hours a week to a little over two hours a week gone gone You think I got two hours a week? Think about what two hour two hours is like a massive amount of time Yeah, that's a good that two hours is a huge amount of time Unless give that away you own a commercial gym then you want to mop that floor Because it adds to the functionality gym getting me members you're gonna you're gonna you're gonna you're gonna you're gonna you the floor is gonna be clean yep

but guess what here to go to the extreme hey we just clean that floor don't walk on it hey that part of the gym is shut down you know because we just mopped it it's like no yeah you just mopped it we're gonna use it yeah so it's kind at the end of the day it's kind of like what unmitigated daily discipline in all things that what that are functional that are functional for sure that are are are for your Yourself put that on yourself You put that on yourself and here's what here's you really want to take this to the next level? Yes Be disciplined in how you impose

Discipline on people don't just let it run wild Do you have to have discipline in it? That's the way it is Yeah, yeah, it kind of does paint that picture how you're saying Every time I get these questions. It's like I'm so happy we wrote the dichotomy of leadership Because there's the answer yeah, that's the answer yeah that's the answer The answer is this all this is a dichotomy everything is a and people don't want it to be a dichotomy because it's dichotomies are complex. Dicotomies are hard. Dicotomies take It takes skill to learn to balance them. It takes awareness of the situation. It's hard. It's so much easier to say oh, you just impose your discipline and make everyone do what you want to do. You can't do that. You'll end up with a mutiny. My my second platoon

When we had a mutiny, we worked for a guy that made us do everything his way. My way or the highway. Guess what? Didn't work. Mutiny. It was a highway, but not for us for him. Yeah. And not a bad guy.

Wasn't a bad guy? We didn't have bad intentions. But that's where this guy is heading. He's heading to OCS. And if he keeps with that attitude, he's going to end up in those situations. It's beautiful. I'm so glad he asked this question. Because I'm glad he asked this question because,

It's not his fault. He's listening to what I said, and I didn't communicate it well enough. So now he asked a great question, and now he can take a much, much better approach, a much more balanced approach in his leadership. Yeah. Like flying a kite, can't you ever flow a kite?

I have flown a kite, but this has nothing to do with flying a kite. No, no, I shouldn't have said that because I can bring it back on me, aren't you? No, but the fundamental principle, right? You know, well, it depends on what kind of kite. I get it. But you know the kind of with the two handles, the two strings? You know, you got to see what I'm saying? You got to kind of pull one and let one go a little bit.

And then it depends on the wind. You know, it depends on how strong the wind is. And you got to pull. Cool. Let slack out. I'm telling you try fly kite. I just flew on like maybe like, you know, five, six, seven weeks ago. It's good.

Windy day, by the way. Next question. As a leader, do you ever confide in anyone or seek counsel from anyone? Or do you just wrestle with issues within yourself and try to figure things out on your Another really good question and I do both of course. I try and figure out things on my own But here's the little Secret is it a secret? It's not really a secret because I'm about to tell everyone But it's something that I wouldn't really talk about because it's just something I wouldn't think that we do

When I'm figuring things out on my own at the same time I I seek counsel I said it seek counsel from the the trusted teammates that I have or peers or superiors or or subordinates that I trust. But when I counsel them, when I see counsel, when I ask for feedback, while I'm trying to figure out things on my own,

I actually keep those thoughts to myself. In the beginning, right? I let other people tell me what their ideas are first. I wanna hear what they come up with. Because if, and if somebody comes up with a good plan, we're going with it. Like if it's, hey, you know what, that's a pretty good plan, we'll go with that.

because as I've said many times, I prefer to use one of my subordinates plans, one of my subordinates plan over mine. I would rather use my subordinates plan rather than mine, as long as it's tactically sound, because then they believe in their plan, right? And if it's not tactically sound,

yep, I give them a little nudge to make some corrections and still use their plan because I want them to use their solutions and their plans. So that way, like I said, they have ownership of the plan. And when they're coming up with a plan, guess what's going to happen? They're going to get too close to it.

They're going to do what I talked about in that opening story, which is they're going to be at low altitude. They're going to be staring at it right in the face. And I'm going to be allowed to remain detached and remain at altitude. So I have a better perspective of the overall plan than they do. And that ends up making me look like a tactical genius, which is awesome. So I guess this is the secret. This is the trick or whatever.

Don't talk so much. Don't talk so much. Don't feel the need. Don't feel the need. This is something you have to resist as a leader. As a person that wants to be a leader. Laif always says something about people, aspiring leaders, right?

If you're an aspiring leader, don't feel like you're the person that has to always come up with a plan or come up with a solution. Even when you are the leader, don't feel like you're that guy. In fact, it's better to not do that it's better just to to think and to just listen to what people are saying and watch their

plans come out and get shot down and get reformulated and be improved and if you hadn't said anything yet guess what the longer you don't say anything the more people are going to listen when you actually open your mouth so just kind of keep your mouth shut now here's this is a little bit different because we're talking about like a plan right a strategy or something What if it's something political within your team? You know what I mean? Then what do you do? What I do is the same thing.

Like I will think, I will listen, I will discuss things with people and gather intelligence from them. I'll ask them some probing questions. But I'm not going to divulge what my position is because number one, that will influence them. It will make them react. And I don't want to influence anyone or make them react until I'm going to be able to influence them and get them to react and act the way that I want them that's going to benefit the team. So I'm going to ask some questions.

Hey, what do you think about? What do you think is going on with Jimmy? Is he, he seems to be acting? Is he okay? I'll ask you. I'll ask him. I'll ask Mike. I'll ask Bill.

I'll ask Jennifer. I'll find out what's going on a row. Jennifer and Bill. They say something a little bit different. Oh, okay. See, I'm going to gather the political perspectives and listen. I'm going to let things unfold.

I'm going to observe and relax and detach and listen and think and calculate. That's what we're doing. And dichotomy, if something needs to happen and I have to be decisive, I'm going to make a decision. We're going to go with it. I'm going to put it out there. So oddly enough, as a leader, don't talk so much. I know that seems crazy.

The more you talk, the less people listen. Interesting. What about in like everyday stuff? I guess maybe this wouldn't really apply to as a leader, but maybe like as a person. You know how like you, you know,

come fight, you know how I'll have a pro come in and I'll be like, hey, let me get your advice, whatever, about some thing that obviously it didn't feel,

yeah, like appropriate to like just ask all my friends kind of thing, you know? Like, do you ever do that? No. You just mainly think about it yourself. Well, what I would do

is, you know, like I do what I just said I would do. I'd be like, hey man, what's going on with this? You know, now, I guess if you were, see, when you come and ask me something, you're asking me something, you always ask me about something I'm not a part of in any way. Yeah, that's what I mean.

So it's different. So yeah, if it's like that, if it's something, if there's someone that's completely, if there's someone that's completely outside the situation, yeah, I'll say, hey, this is what's going on. You know, this what's going on here. We had this happen. I got this situation. And just, yeah, for sure, I'll do that.

Yes. So that is, that is good. But if it's within the team, then I generally just won't come out and ask like, hey, what do you, you know, I want to change this? Instead, I'll be like, hey, what do you, what would you change about? You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Ask them what they think first. Yeah.

Because you might have to make some adjustment. If I come in and like, echo, we're changing the way we record this thing now. Here's what's happening. Yeah. And you're like, oh, okay. And you're listening. And the first thing you say to me is like, that doesn't make any sense. Yeah.

Now I feel, now I'm an idiot, especially when you say, well, here's why it won't work, Jock. Boom. You lay out three things. Instead, if I was like, hey, man, what would you think about this issue that we're having? What solutions do you think we could do to solve that? Mm-hmm. And all of a sudden, I get to listen to your ideas. And by the way, when you come up with one of those ideas and one of them sounds pretty good to me, guess what we're doing? That one. Now who's got ownership of that idea?

You do? Now who's all fired up to implement it? You do? Yeah. And I didn't waste any leadership. In fact, I gained leadership capital because now you're like, man, Jococco, you trust me, dude. Yeah, it's pretty cool. He's letting me run this. Yeah. Yeah. And as speaking from a person who doesn't necessarily, well, it doesn't seem like I necessarily get that big. of a payoff to have that out to like I'm running this you know like and I don't know for whatever he's in didn't I I never felt like that was a big thing to me to be the guy running it but I don't know maybe it is maybe in my subconscious because I know that you do that to me and I'm that's why it's actually kind of funny because you don't do it in big with big things necessarily you know maybe maybe you will whatever but so most of the time it's just some little tete small thing I'm like oh yeah you know just totally falling not falling for it I get it you know it's a good tactic but now that how

you just fully just illustrate it. And meanwhile, I should know this. I do know this, really, that you do that. Here's the thing. It's not a bad thing. No, I'm not screwing you over. No, it's actually perfect. Yeah, I'm not, I'm actually, I'm actually, I'm actually,

beneficial to you. Yeah. You're actually, actually, actually are running things. Yeah. You know, if I come in and say, hey, we're, you know, hey, what do you think kind of table we should get for the podcast? You know what I mean? What do you think?

What do you think would be the best lighting system? You know? Yeah. Like, I know what I think. That's the, see, that's the thing I don't really divulge is I know what I think. Yeah. And you know what, though, which I know I understand. But by the way, the table thing that I tried with on that one, it didn't work.

Didn't work. Now, I failed a little bit, a little bit. Actually, I failed because I should have put much clearer parameters around the table scenario. Yeah. For those you that don't know what we're talking about, which is no one in the world except for us too. Yes. we had we got a different table for our for our recording studio which is right at this moment being expanded and but when we are still in the small recording studio I forget why we needed a new table just because the other one was too big no we're adding another camera okay we're adding another camera and possible guests so so hey man you know go grab a table and the one the table that I had gotten in the past let's face it it was legit it was legit echo goes and gets a table I don't know if that thing costs $48, but it wasn't worth it.

This thing was wiggly and small and weak. And anyways, that's an example where I didn't do a good job. And it's also an example of occasionally your vision isn't aligned. Like my vision, normally you and I have very aligned vision about something. You know, when it comes to the technical nature of what the podcast. the table we weren't on a lot no no I wouldn't have bought that table ever well I wouldn't have bought that table for like a like a prop to be used in a one scene scenario yeah I don't know what that but well okay so I admit I don't know if I told you this but I'll admit that the thing is you

probably when you got your table you probably went somewhere and was like yeah that's the table you felt it and was like yeah I can imagine in your eyeball I actually ordered it online. But I'd say I have more, even though I know you worked for a moving company, nonetheless, I think I have more, I'm more worldly when it comes to Friday. You might be right. Because there's something wrong. Well, I saw it on Amazon.

I was like, hey, that's a cool table. And that fits the dimension. Yeah. Yeah. When it came in, it's the old story, you know. It's like, oh, it looked good in the picture, you know, kind of thing. that when it shows up, it's like, yeah,

you're like, it looks good in the picture. And it's only $39. Should last, the other table we had was like a thousand bucks. Yeah. All right,

yeah, it wasn't a thousand, it wasn't 39, but. I should, next time I'm going to put a minimum price. Yeah, just to ensure quality.

Yeah, no. So, anyways, yeah, we'll do you. The point is, yes, when you give somebody,

you let it be their idea, you keep your ideas to yourself. I'm not trying to be all secretive. Right. I'm not trying to be all secretive. I'm not trying to be all secret. It's not like, I'm not going to tell this person. Because eventually my idea is if it needs to come out or it comes out.

Hopefully it doesn't come out. Hopefully it never needs to come out because my team comes up with a great plan and I can just be quiet and they can go execute it. That's my goal. Yeah. Occasionally, hey, man. And it's like, hey, man, okay, hey guys. They get so happy. Yes.

It's so rewarding. Yeah. And so you want to give them that gift. And the way you do that is by letting them come up with their own ideas. You just got to make sure that they have worldly experience with furniture. With stuff. That's the situation. All right.

Well, there you go. And I dig it. And because in a way, it's not really even about the idea. It's more about, okay, we need a solution to this problem. I don't care what they. You know, there's a bunch of potential solutions kind of thing. And yeah, you might have one in your head. But you don't want to just start saying, just throwing it around as the, you know,

one. You know? It also, yes, you're right. Also, when you divulge your idea, guess what happens

to everyone else's ideas, especially when you're in a leadership position. When you're in a leadership position and you divulge your idea, everyone kind of gravitates towards that idea as being the best. If you keep your idea to yourself, you let the true growth of ideas develop

and true things come out and people aren't just trying to say like, oh, great idea, Jonco, yeah. Even if they're not like a kiss ass, but you just put an idea in their head

and they can't see it a different way. Yeah. You know? And even if they do, you put them in a position where now they have to shut down your idea. Not a big deal, but it's still an added element that you have to, you know, you've got to kind of put them in as far as that position goes. Yeah. Rather than you, you'll just kind of open up the floor. It's kind of like back in, you know, who has something to say?

Kind of kind of the atmosphere, you know? And we all can, you know, throw around ideas and the best one comes up. There you go. Thanks, Brian. You know, man. We'll get a better table next time. I promise. Next question.

as I get ready to graduate from college. I would appreciate your input on the following question. I've always loved to take part in a variety of projects, and I have ended up in a leadership position in multiple organizations. Be it in the student VC firm, the student body, my professional fraternity, et cetera. In a way, this was natural to me. It's about extreme ownership, right?

I love what I was doing. You shouldn't just slough off that phrase. It's about extreme ownership. Right. Right. Yeah, that's how it should have been said. Okay,

all this stuff is about extreme ownership, right? Can't be that hard, right? Kind of, no, it's like, of course. Of course.

Right. Okay. I loved what I was doing. I had a vision where to take things and I was chosen to lead. So I felt that I was doing the right thing. Recently, though, I've started to feel overwhelmed and feel that my productivity has diminished.

By being in a manageral position, it seems harder to see the direct output of my work. But it's as easy, it's as easy as always to see, what's not working. I don't want to be let go of any projects because I'll still love to make, love to take ownership of them.

No, he says, I don't want to be like go. It says, I don't want to let go of any projects because I still love to take ownership of them. Oh, yes, yes, yes. Okay, love to take ownership. Yeah, I got you.

I'm identifying symptoms. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you like the word ownership. That's like a, like a really. I definitely like the word ownership. And as you also know, I also like another word, and that's dichotomy.

Dicotomy. Dicotomy. And we're going to see in violations. here. All right. Well, either way. This guy, he doesn't want to let go of any projects because I still love to take ownership of them and lead these organizations.

But I think I'm no longer able to handle this much. How do you balance those things? Yeah. So there is a chapter in the dichotomy leadership called Own it all. But that's not the title of chapter. So the title of chapter continues. It's the title of chapter is own it all

comma, but empower other. And it sounds like this individual who's getting after it for sure props getting after it leadership position multiple organizations going hard taking ownership Very cool, but it sounds like he needs to lean more towards decentralized command Because just because you take ownership of things doesn't mean you're supposed to do everything That you take ownership of it doesn't it doesn't actually doesn't work what this what you need individual is you need subordinate leaders inside these multiple organizations that you're in charge of that you trust and you got to let them run with the broad guidance and the mission

the broad guidance of the mission and with your commander's intent that that's how you're going to work this so for instance when I was in charge of training on the West Coast I was responsible for a lot of stuff for land warfare for maritime operations dive operations Air operations, close quarters, combat, urban warfare training, mobility training, heavy weapons, defensive tactics, combat leadership, and every other block. Four guys that are getting ready to deploy to Iraq and Afghanistan. And on top of those tactical things, I'm in charge, I'm actually also in charge of safety and actually also in charge of maintenance and actually also in charge of the administration of the command. That's a lot of stuff to be running, right? I know that Holmes is in charge of, you know, the VC firm and the student body, that's stuff too.

This is a lot of stuff. Could I personally manage and conduct all of those things that I was in charge of? Not even close. Not even close. You talk about feeling overwhelmed. You wouldn't last 15 minutes if you tried to be the person that made every decision in all those different divisions that were inside of the training command. So I couldn't manage and run them all myself, but I had great leaders that I trusted that were going to make things happen. And I gave them the broad guidance of what we were trying to do, what their part of the mission was, the parameters that they were allowed to work within, and then go get some.

And it's the same thing. Task unit commander, I was tasking to commander. Got two platoons. Plus you got a squad of augmentees. plus you got C-Bs and you got an Intel fusion cell and you got interrogators and you got radio communications crew and you got the IT crew and you got you got the whole tactical operation center that you're running and it's the same thing I can't run all that no no human can run all that so what do you do you have subordinate leaders that have the broad guidance they understand what the mission is they understand the commander's intent they go forward and get after it and

they they know the parameters and sometimes they have issues and when they have issues you step in and you give them a hand or sometimes they get a lot of box you've got to put them back in the box but it's the same thing even right now I got echelon front I got the podcast I've got the store got the supplements the apparel the online training coming out we got the tea the real estate the gym we get the list goes on and I can't I can't run all those things but I got people leading those things and running those things and I could do the same thing. It's like, hey, here's the guidance. Here's the mission. Here's the commander's intent. Here's the sanity check on something. Here's the parameters we're trying to move within.

And then go. Go and get some. So if you do well with decentralized command, you can handle a lot. Now, could you possibly bite off more than you can chew? Yeah, you could get involved in so many things that you don't even have time to monitor the situations at all and you don't have time to tell when are getting out of their zone or out of the parameters that they're allowed to work with in or you don't have time to help when if something goes sideways You don't have so so you could get there and that will happen especially quickly if you have failed to Train and mentor and give directions and give guidance to the leaders that you have that are actually on the front lines running things So that's part of it now the other part of it is you can't do any of this If your ego will not allow you to let things go.

I mean, you literally said, I don't want to let go of any projects. I've said this before. If you want to be in charge of everything, you have to be in charge of nothing. Your goals should be in charge of nothing. Only if you're in charge of nothing, can you truly be in charge of everything? Because when you're in charge of every single thing, guess what you can handle? Nothing. Your task saturated.

It doesn't work. So that's what you need to do. Get some good solid leaders, subordinate leaders. Empower them. Train them. Trust them. Make sure they understand where they're going. Make sure they understand what the mission is.

Make sure they understand what the goals are. Make sure they understand what things are outside the box that they need to come and talk to you about. And then let them rock and roll. Boom. Take it. Do one more. My wife and I suffered three weeks of turmoil, which included losing a child.

How do I expedite that moment when we pick up ourselves, pick ourselves up and keep moving forward? Because I am done sulking and we need to move forward. Basically, how to push through. So, I mean, obviously, that's heartbreaking. and I can't even imagine the pain that you are going through in this situation. And it's one of those things. We've talked about this before. The fact is we don't really have a cultural protocol for what to do when we lose a loved one.

And you have to basically make up that protocol. I can't dictate what that protocol is going to be for you. But I can tell you some things from my perspective, from some of the things that I've been through. I can tell you my perspective on loss. And the first thing is that you already know it's going to be. wretched and you're not going to escape it and that pain and this is this is something that i've identified the pain that's going to come it's going to come in waves and at first you won't even notice that

they're waves because all the waves are going to be so close together and they're going to be so continual and they're going to be right on top of each other and the pain and the sadness is going to feel like it's so heavy. It's going to feel like you are drowning in sorrow. Like you're not going to get in the air and like you're not going to be able to escape that sadness. That's what the waves feel like at first. And then at some point there's going to be a little break, just a little break, just a little bit of light in the darkness.

Something is going to make you smile. something is going to make you laugh. Something's going to just show you just a little bit of light. And I don't know when that's going to happen. And then you're going to see that little smile, that little light. And then another wave of pain is going to come back again and it's going to be strong. And you won't have any control over it. You won't be able to say, no, no, I'm in the light now.

Or I'm smiling right now. I'm not going to go back there. No, you're not going to be able to control it. And that's scary. It's scary because we we get used to as adults, hey, we can kind of get control of things and now all of a sudden you're not going to have control. It's going to hit you and you're going to feel it.

But again, like a wave, like a wave in the ocean, that is going to eventually subside again and you'll see a little bit of light and you'll get a little bit of a smile and you'll feel okay for a second. And then guess what? Another wave's going to hit you. It might not be as strong

as that other wave and you might not even notice that it's not as strong but again you can't control your emotions and you'll find yourself this is what I'm talking about factually you're going to be sitting there and all of a sudden you're going to be just crying uncontrollably that wave is going to hit you you're going to go from normal to just crying uncontrollably and being sad that's what's going to happen and again you're in your mind you're going to be thinking I can't control this. It's a wave and you're at the mercy of this ocean of sorrow. But don't let that scare you. Don't let that scare you because I'm telling you that that wave is going to subside again and this is going to go on. It's going to go on and the waves

they will become weaker. And what you need to realize is just because the waves are becoming weaker, This doesn't mean that you love your child less or you miss them less or that you aren't crushed at their passing. It just means that you're starting to be able to deal with it, which is what you're supposed to do. And as the waves get weaker, which they will, they'll also appear less frequently. And again, that's okay. It doesn't mean that you don't think of your child or not. the time it just means that it's being dealt with and while this is happening while you when you can't when you start to when the when the storm waves start to calm a little bit what you can do is you can

row the boat can row the boat well and what I mean by that is start doing something productive to get your mind moving forward I don't know how long this is this this this is you know when you feel a little bit of a break then let's do so a few days go by five days go by three days go by at some point you can't cry anymore okay let's do something productive let's sort out the drawers in the bedroom let's vacuum let's finish a prod let's do something productive and if there's something that distracts you that's fine do it let let let let let there be some calm in the water and also as the as the as the calm calms also you're going to find moments where it's like you can you can have things that are going to

bring on the waves and that's okay to bring on the waves and that's okay to bring on the waves Go look at the pictures write down the memories read the letters read the notes read the emails Remember and then there's that standard service You're gonna do the memorial you're gonna do the burial and when that's over let a little bit of more time go by Give yourself another week of washing around of feeling that sorrow of letting the waves Toss you around in the ocean After another week, what you do is you go and you write a letter. You write a letter to your child and you explain to them.

Explain to them how much they meant to you. Explain to them how heartbroken you are that they are gone and then explain to them why you are going to carry on. Why you are going to keep going with them. your heart why you're not going to dwell in their loss losing them you have learned without a shred of doubt how truly precious life is and that they have taught you the immeasurable value of your own life and your wife's life and your family's life explain to them that you know that you know that you know that they loved you and that you know that they would want more than anything for you to be happy and productive and impactful in the world.

That letter, what you will do to make them proud of how you live your life. And then take that letter and go to their grave and read it to them. It's their soul that you'll see them on the other side. Live your life. And those waves are still going to come. and there's still going to be pain and there's still going to be sorrow of your life

and live it well so echo yeah like something like that um it's like it doesn't always have to be like with you know losing a child they can be losing anyone yeah for sure

so like my wife had a you know she lost someone that she was close to or whatever so even if you're not or if you're in a situation where someone's close to you like lost someone it's good to keep like something like this in mind you know that it's gonna come and go you know because it's easy to be like oh yeah like oh yeah they're over it you know so it's kind of cool now and

then it comes back and you're like wait wait I thought you're over it kind of thing like you can't yep that's a unfortunate lesson I've learned is it's just that yeah and you think it's it's a really great description of of what it feels like. It feels like waves, if you surf or you've been in the ocean and you've been getting hit by waves and like, there's nothing you can do. When that wave hits you, you're gonna do

what that wave wants you to do for a little while. Yeah. And sometimes when it's bad, like you're gonna get hit with wave, wave, wave, wave. You can barely even tell, you come up for breath, you're getting hit again. And that's what it feels like. It feels like. And the other weird thing is you can be,

you can go from one extreme emotion to another in a minute. You can be laughing and that laughter can trigger thoughts that make you sad and you get hit with a wave. And one thing, and I think this is important, is that, you know, you know when I've talked about like the person that's in a turmoil in their heads in a cloud of like a storm cloud and no matter where they look, they just can't see. They don't see that there's a way out. And anyone that's standing on the outside can see like, no, come on, just walk over here. Just get away from that storm cloud. You can do it. But when they're standing in the middle,

they don't even know which way to walk. So they just stand there and they just sit in the storm cloud and they think that they're never going to get out. And it's the initial feeling after loss is like, oh, this isn't going to go away. And what I'm telling you is it's going to. And there's a certain level of guilt of like, wait a second, how can I be not thinking about,

I just didn't think about, you know, this person for five minutes. I'm horrible. It's like, no, you have to process this. And no one wants you to dwell on this. No one. They never want you to forget, but they don't want you to dwell as well. There's a dichotomy in that. And that's why, you know, obviously it's heartbreaking to get that note.

But hopefully, you know, that recognition that those waves are going to subside. eventually. They're still, you're still going to get hit with some of them, but they are and it's okay that you're gonna,

that they're not going to be there. Rough. Yeah, man, for sure. But, you know, when I wrote Mikey and the Dragons, I, I have the,

you know, the king dies. Yeah. The king, you don't know him, but the king is dead. And there's certain people, You know, I figured if, if I actually thought to myself, like, well, do I really want to talk about death? And there's also, there's a couple lines where the dragons want to kill you. You know, the dragons want to kill, right?

There's a couple times we're asking, well, do it. You know, this is a kid's book. But here's the deal. There's little kids that parents dies, that grandparents die. I mean, those, the death is a real. Death is a 100% part of life. And you got to learn, you got to learn how to deal with that. Yeah.

Or else there's going to be a, you know, and I'm not saying you got to dive into it with a little kid. Right. But you have to at least, they have to hear the word. They have to understand that that's a reality. Yeah. So. Yeah.

It's good. My, I had this video. It was like yesterday or the day before that my wife took him. My son, he had a dragon costume on. He's two, by the way. And he's like, oh, I'm going to go kill daddy. I was like, whoa, kill.

Like, where did he even kind of? And it's the reason I bring that out because dragons that are ready to kill, right? Yeah, yeah. That's the line. Mike is in the dragon. Because that's kind of how you feel, you know, even though you don't know as a kid, however old, whatever, you don't know what the magnitude of that is. But you know, like, well, what are you scared of? Whatever.

The unknown sure you're, but you're scared of the monster in the closet. Why are you scared of them? Not because he's going to bore you to death with bad jokes or something. He's going to kill you. That's why you're scared of. of you know kind of thing as even if you're six years old kind of thing so yeah man make makes sense for sure and and even think about you kill a bug right yeah like a little kid they kill a bug they're eating a chicken that chicken was alive and now it's dead you're eating it right the death is

a real thing yeah and you have to you have to you have to deal with it you know and like I said we don't have a great protocol and I know we talked we joked about making a protocol for breaking up with a girlfriend. Yeah, a little bit more lighthearted for sure, but it's something. But I'll tell you what, hey, you talk about lighthearted breaking up with a girlfriend. Think about the tragic situations you've seen unfold from somebody breaking up with their girlfriend or breaking up with their boyfriend. It's horrible. And there should be a protocol.

And there should be a protocol for, hey, lost a loved one. Here's the protocol. Here's what I'm going to do. And you know what? part of that protocol should be you write a letter to that person and you explain what I just said that is a real That that will clear a lot out of you It will bring you in touch with that person again. It'll give you permission from them To to go and do what you're supposed to do you have to

They want that you know they want that Yeah, because I'm like it kind of feels like Hey, I'm going to go, I don't know, I'm going to go Back to school or something like that It's kind of like, whoa, how can you think about going back to school When you're, you know, when you when this just happened kind of thing That's what you feel like, you know Yeah, but yeah on the other side it's kind of like no yeah

That would that's what they would want you to do kind of thing It doesn't feel like that but when you kind of step back and be like way It does kind of feel like that you know if you can see just see fit to see it that way Rough well To those out there, stay strong. Live your life. Cool.

Well, we can talk about origin. You know, it is a rough transition. Bear with me. Well, we're talking about living and living well. Sure. We want to live well. Yeah. We want to move forward.

Yeah. Yeah. So is Jiu-Jitsu part of your life? That's a question. There's no way. There's no good way to do that. I know, I know. I'm just saying, hey, okay.

Look, Origin, look, OriginMane.com. This is where you get your ghee if you still need a ghee or if you want a new ghee. Go ahead, get it from Origin. It's the best. They're the best. And they're made in America.

They're not necessarily the best because they're made in America. You're going for it, aren't you? They're great. No, I'm reminding myself why I really like origin geese. Because I just busted one out the other day. I was, no, I was thinking you're really going for it. You're like, okay. And I was thinking, as you were doing that, I was like,

hey, I'm sitting here telling you. telling people like, hey, sometimes you got to, you know, you got to move on. And we were literally having a hard time moving on until I just simply talking about this, talking about the loss of a loved one. And you're just like, okay, we're going to move on. Well, and you just laughed. No, no, no, no. I'm saying that in a positive way. Right. Like you got to. Yeah. Well, this situation, you know, you got me talk about you jiu-too. I just trained yesterday. So it's like, You know, you kind of get into the mode. I feel good about that one.

It's true. Yes. Which is what Jiu Jitsu does, by the way. Yeah. And that's another thing. It's like, you got to move on. You got to, you're going to go through a rough transition. But like you said, you got to look at your kid and be like, okay, you got to go back to school.

But what about, you know, what about my sister? What about my brother? What about grandma or whatever? Whoever died? Yeah. That's part of life is death. and we got to move on. We're going to go.

And then they're going to reference Echo Charles a rough transition to talking about jujitsu keys. All right. But you see this? I'm smiling. You know what I mean?

It's a positive thing. You're bringing me out. The reason we started doing the long extended support was to kind of decompress. I remember there was some, the first time, I think it might have been,

podcast number 12. No, no, it wasn't. I don't know what podcast it was where I was like, I need to break. Oh, yeah. I just need to like, you need to talk for a little while. Yeah, yeah, I remember that. Stupid and lighthearted.

Uh-huh. Thanks, bro. No, that's a compliment. No, it's not a compliment. Especially not at the time. Did you just talk something, but that was the reason. Yeah. Because there's no way to rough. How do you transition? Yeah.

And the other thing you don't want to do is just close on that note, turn off and leave. Yeah, yeah. That's not cool. Yeah. So there's plenty of people that say thank you. Yeah. For going through the transition and then doing something a little more lighthearted at the end of the podcast.

Yeah. So makes sense. I support that and we carry on with the tradition. The trish. The rough transition. I'm on board. Cool. So back to Jiu-Jitsu.

Make us feel solid, good, solid, you know, train yesterday, thought about origin the whole time. Got after it. Nonetheless, when you, Gie or Rashgard, go to origin, main.com. They got some other cool stuff on there as well. Joggers, if you're into it. T-shirts, if you're into it. Supplements that you need to get into, and this is why. So, krill oil, K joints, krill oil, super.

krill is what it's called joint warfare discipline discipline go discipline go mouk all right discipline go

I'll tell you two minutes no I'll tell you 30 seconds discipline cognitive and physical enhancer drink right I really like it I like the way it makes me feel

I for living one of my jobs is to go out and talk to companies and talk about leadership and get in the game and do podcasts like I'm going to get you know mentally in the game yes but going on

talking to a company where I'm going to be up you know on stage for two hours if I'm pounding some drink beforehand guess what's going to happen you know 48 minutes in

I got to use the restroom I don't like to use the restroom that's a sign of weakness yeah yeah so I talk to Pete Brian I was like hey we need to take what's in discipline and put it in a pill so I could just eat it

Yeah and and and don't have to use the restroom 48 minutes after I start talking to a company That's where discipline go came from and it's awesome Yeah, so and not to mention you don't got to do the whole which I don't mind by the way I do like the ritual but the whole you know you got to put in the water in the mix and the whatever you know all that stuff You're just if you're on the go there you yeah yeah there you go that's why discipline go and and we actually speaking of mixing We are gonna we have a we have discipline in a can coming out Yeah Which you won't have to mix.

You'll just crack it open. Crack it open, man. That's good. And then milk, of course, if you need additional protein, there's a way to get it. Best way to get it. Most pleasurable. The most delicious way to get it. Delicious way to get it in chocolate.

I think a ribbi isn't equally delicious. Although it's different, because I'm telling you, this makes me mad when I'm on the road. And I go get a nice ribeye, and I'm totally happy. but I'm not, I'm not totally happy. I'm really, I'm 96% happy. But I want something, I want a little, at the end, a little, you know, just to kind of close the deal on my palate.

And I want something, tasty. Yeah. What do they call it? Savory. My wife uses that too. No, savory that's like salty, right? Oh, what's, oh, I like something sweet then.

Sweet. Yeah, I have the savory rib eye. And then I want to close the deal with a little bit of, right, a little bit of milk. But don't well if you were like hey I want some additional protein You don't go ribeye because ribby you get additional protein additional whatever else nutrients in there Which is cool But if you just want additional protein

Or isolated we'll say Yeah Boom get the milk plus the sweet Pleasureful The palate and if you got kids And it's hard look we got a problem in America I'll just throw it out there We got kids that are just not eating correct

They're out of shape Yeah so what do you do well what you want to get them something that taste good to eat what it tastes good to eat candy bars yeah what else tastes good to eat ice cream what else tastes good to eat cheetos yeah guess what those are all bad for you

well guess what else tastes good to eat warrior kid mulk oh yeah warrior kid milk mm-hmm to drink would you say would you say eat drink yeah it's to drink but I mean if you mix it thick you got yourself a little chomping on that

It's basically food. Put some coconut shards in there. Right. See? You didn't think about that one. You liked that one. Coconut shards. There you go.

Warrior Kid Moke. Also at origin, main. com, by the way, that's all this stuff. All the stuff is at origin, maine.com. But we do have a store.

We have a store. Jocco store. Jocco store.com. If you want to represent the path where some shirts more indicative directly to the path. jocco store.com. Get after.

Discipline equals freedom. I was at 24 of fitness. I go there to lift sometimes. Maybe once, twice a week. Trainer there in the game. Happens to be in the game. Yeah, found out his name's Justin. By the way, firefighter up in San Bernardino.

Check. He lifts up his train. You know, you have the trainer shirt on. He lifts it up. Get after it. Nice. Puts it down. And he goes, good evening.

Oh. The shirt. Check. Yeah, yeah. There's sometimes people want. to represent in a more covert covert way yeah or he i mean they don't know what i'm saying is defcore oh yeah that's if you want to see a sub uh subtle way mm-hmm this this shirt that i'm wearing right now can only be be can only be p i d positively identified by someone that's

completely in the game yeah that's true yes yeah And you. Yeah. As you wear it, you're like, mm-hmm. I don't know. Yeah, it's a new level. I got the reason to tell anyway what's up. I know what's up.

Yeah. Def-Corps. Check. Also. Plus truckers hats. Yes. Or the other kind of hats. Flex fit.

Oh, yeah. Flex fit. Equal. Don't discriminate against a flex fit. They're equal. Also, hoodies. Some beanies on there. Some women's stuff on there.

It's really good. Yeah. If you want to represent jocco store. some good stuff on there also jocco white tea yeah just having so in the can preferred by me but if you like to seep is it seep or steep I know I laugh steep yeah we're sure about that yes is seep a word seeping like something seeped out like leaking yeah yeah so we're not leaking yeah steep like a steep hill there's yeah multiple meanings same word not the last you like to steep the dry the bags I don't know the terminology but it's good tea bag

in the deal yeah cold hot whatever anyway and you deadlift 8000 pounds yeah it's true I know I just added that as like a little thing but it's a big deal also subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already on iTunes and stitchering Google play and wherever you listen to podcast there's a lot um a lot of options yeah people will email me I don't know how they get a email of their new podcast app. They say, hey, put your podcast on our app. Doesn't that happen automatically? Some, yeah.

Some, apparently, here's the thing I don't know. Evidently not, because they're asking me to do it. And don't forget about the Warrior Kid podcast, of which we just released a couple more, 20 and 21, are live. Hear some questions for Uncle Jake, and hear some stories from Uncle Jake, him explaining how he got his values in life. through stories also got YouTube don't forget about YouTube YouTube is where you can see this video of this podcast and then you can see

cool videos from Echo Charles that he makes on his computer thing and you can check his style and give him feedback if he went too far I think there's there's There's some videos that violate good taste. Well, there's only one, really. Well, it is Christmas. Don't release. No. I'm going to release.

I'm going to repost it. I'm going to remind everyone. Is that still live? Oh, it's life. Been life. In fact, people have been contacting me. Say they appreciate it. Where is that war path?

It's a warpath. Is it called a warpath Christmas video? It's called Warpath. You need to indicate. What's the other one called revised? Maybe. Because then you made a good one. One without Christmas music.

We'll just say one with different, uh, music, some slight variation. Anyway, thanks, bro, for, you know, saying that, nonetheless. That, well, that song is right up there with your podcast table. Table. All right. Noted. Just saying. Just saying.

Anyways. And then there's psychological warfare, which is an album with tracks, and it'll kind of help you get through some rough moments of weakness. More than kind of. Help you a lot, 100% proven. By Echo. Who has moments of weakness? I have moments of weakness for sure. He overcomes them.

Yeah, especially with the stuff you're talking about. I mean, yeah, not so much with the eating donuts thing, but like waking up or getting up, like, you know, that's a, I have a deep history of waking up. If I don't have to wake up for something specific, like, you know how you'll be like, hey, I got to get up because I got to, you know. I can't even remember what it's like to have my eyes open up in the morning and not feel the fire of just like not I'm not talking

I'm not talking like I'm not trying to say I wake up in the morning I have this internal fire I'm talking about the heat from external sources of things I got to do right now yeah yeah so I'm glad to you the connoisseur of comfort echo Charles often wake up and say

hmm yeah so you know all is good Aloha world Well, thanks for helping me. How about that? And skipping workouts, too. Thanks for helping me with that. Not skipping.

Postponing. That's the problem. Postponing workouts. Skipping a workout. No, that's a psycho thing. I'm just going to not do it. If you don't do a workout, it doesn't get postponed. It just got skipped.

No, but no, well, yeah, no, it does get postponed. Because look, if I'm going to do X movement, you know, if I'm going to do that, you know, and I'm going to run. Does it happen the same day? No. Okay. Then you lost it. It's gone. You can't get it back.

Okay. I get it. Actually, you're right. Because look, my workout goes day one, day two, day three, day four, day five. Like, in days, it's by day is what I'm saying. So if I skip, we're going to make a book of your workout. How's that? Yeah. I have, I have all the, I have, I made it a long time ago.

I used to give it to my friends. In the name of the book is going to be how to get jacked with seven A's in the jacked. All right. Who's not going to buy that? Oh, I don't know. Nobody, everyone's going to buy it. Apparently. It's.

the less kettlebell curls back to a barbell curls sandbag curls if you do day two on day three you skip day two for sure you went to day three just because you reformulated the movements on day three doesn't negate the fact that you skipped it's what I'm no skipping work no skipping more you won't do it anymore psychological warfare also speaking of workouts improve vary up your workout with on it stuff go to on it.com slash jockel get for kettlebells it was on the yes day before yesterday no yesterday got some socks and some other cool items. I need a rope, though.

Get one. I will. And if you're getting things, get a book called Mikey and the Dragons. How is it being reviewed in your fam? Reviewed? Yeah, I mean, what's this? Oh, like, is it good?

Yeah. Yeah. Well, my daughter uses lines from Mikey and the Dragon. Yeah. Jamie just sent me a video of her daughter, getting ready to go get a shot. I saw that. Yeah, if I watched that video with my kid and.

My daughter too. We both enjoyed it. Yeah. Talking about she's going to be brave. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Actually, she says, I'm going to be pretty brave. I thought that was pretty cute. No, she goes, I was scared last time, but, but this time I'm going to be brave pretty much.

But she's there. I mean, I forget how old she is, but she's talking about Mikey and the dragons. Like, you can understand this. You can understand how you can overcome your fears. Mikey and the Dragons. Sorry, it was out of stock, but we in stock now, boy. We got plenty of stock. So order one for you, order one for

Be like Sarah and order 10 Be like Andrew Paul and order 20 Yeah I think it was Sarah was making fun of my math The Jocco math is like Oh Andrew's gonna order one Sarah's gonna order one Echo order one when it's really like Oh Sarah's gonna order 10

You wonder why we went out of stock Yeah anyways we are fully in stock now We will not be out of stock again So Mikey and the Dragons get some and weigh the warrior kid both weigh the warrior kid one and two number two is called Mark's mission number three is coming out in the spring

I will get it up for pre-order and believe me I understand now why we pre-order books I kind of made that mistake with Mikey and the Dragons you all please pre-order when I put it up so that I know how many I'm going to print or at least a decent estimate and I'll take Sarah's order and multiply it times 10

I'll set aside 10 for her and 20 for Andrew Paul and everybody else had ordered stacks of those books. So appreciate it. Discipline equals Freedom Field Manual. How to get after it. Yep. New Year's, everyone's on their big, what is it, resolution? Revolution. Both, yes.

Let's do a New Year's revolution. Sure. Yeah. Pose the discipline. Because you can't just say, well, tomorrow I'm going to, you know, on January 1st, I'm going to change them. No. Yeah. Today.

Yeah. Between now and then, I'm going to. Keep slacking or whatever. That's kind of what you're saying. That is what you're saying. That's a long way of slacking too. Yeah. You can just get in the game right now.

Extreme ownership, obviously, reference that a bunch today. And get the dichotomy of leadership so that you don't just get one perspective and forget about the dichotomy. You need the dichotomy in your world as a leader. Eschon front, that's my leadership consultancy. We solve problems through leadership. We will come into your company, assess, and align your team so that they dominate. Go to echelonfront.com for details.

Yes. Also the muster. 2019. Musters, I will say. 2019, Chicago, Denver. And Sydney, Australia. Jocko will be at all of them. Yes, I will.

I will be live and I will be getting it. And they've all sold out. So we're thinking, well, you know, I'll just, I'll wait and see. Yeah. Yeah. Don't wait and see. Didn't work out. We are doing a podcast live.

Live podcast. In New York City. January 9th, I will post the tickets as soon as they're available. If you haven't seen them yet, check my, what is it, social media platforms. There are Instagram. Twitter. Twitter. Facebook.

People. What? So, you set that day. it aside it's a Wednesday night it's in New York City it's in a nice cinema or nice theater theater with it has the red velvet seats right yeah indicative they know sometimes people say like did you ever think you'd be a children's author or they'll say like hey did you ever think you'd be you know speaking to groups and I'm always like well whatever I don't know I like maybe I like writing but if they said hey would you ever think

you're going to be speaking in a Anthony Hall with red velvet seats. I'd say, but I am, and so are you. There you go. Whether you like it or not. So there's that. Here's something new. EF online.

EF online. So I guess I have to explain it a little bit. We have the muster. We have the echelon front where we go and work with companies. At the muster, you travel and you go and it is a pretty high price point. some companies have a lot of people some people have smaller budgets as we recognize some companies asked us hey we want you to train everyone in our company we have 150,000 employees and they're located dispersed around the globe can you get that done for us this is one of those things

where it's like no I can't we can't get to 150,000 people in a you know in a short enough period of time that it has the impact we want to deliver so with all that how do we overcome this barrier we go to technology so we've created online leadership training course it's called EF online it's going to be available through direct consumer if somebody will just want like for instance let's say you can't go to the muster for whatever reason this is a virtual I guess it's a virtual muster yeah or it's it's a it's a sit it's a simulation.

That's like, yeah, that's what it is. The original idea for me was you go to the muster without having to go. Right. You get that information.

You get that interactivity without actually having to go to the muster. So there you go. EF Online. And we made it for individuals. We also have it for Enterprise. So we're now getting it.

We already have it with our clients. They're stoked on it. And so EFonline.com. It's going to be available. to the masses New Year's Day January 1st, 2019. And of course there's

EF Overwatch where we are connecting proven leaders from spec ops and combat aviation to companies in the civilian sector that need combat proven and tested leaders, experienced leaders to come in

into their organization with the principles of extreme ownership, with the principles of the dichotomy, of leadership and helping them lead and win. That's eFoverwatch.com. Whether you're a talent seeker or a career seeker, we are there for you. And if you want to continue communicating with us,

we can be found and we can be communicated with on the interwebs, on Twitter, on Instagram, and on dash pace, boy. Echoes at Echo Charles, and I am at Jocko Willink. thanks to all our folks out there in uniform. That includes, of course, our military that protects us from foreign threats. And here at home, our police and law enforcement,

firefighters, paramedics, and EMTs, correctional officers, border patrol, and all other first responders that keep us safe from evildoers and sometimes they keep us safe from the wrath of nature itself and to everyone else out there. life can be hard and one of the hardest things that life can put you through is death death of

someone you care about and when that happens it is a reminder to all of us that the clock is ticking every day and every day that we have here is precious so when death visits upon your life and tries to rip you apart and and drown you in those waves of sorrow, don't let it. Drive on. Drive on and live on. For those that you have lost and live your life to the utmost by getting out there every day and getting after it.

And until next time, this is Echo and Jocko. Out.