Jocko Podcast - 164: Psychological Attributes For Winning. "Psychology For The Fighting Man"

Episode Date: February 13, 2019

0:00:00 - Opening: "And We Go On" 0:11:00 - "Psychology For The Fighting Man" 2:19:08 - Final thoughts and take-aways. 2:25:00 - Support: How to stay on THE PATH. 2:47:01 - Closing Gratitude.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 164 with Echo Charles and me, Jocco Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. I crept ahead a few feet and raised carefully to look over the bank. Crack! A rifle was thrust up and fired only inches from Hale's head. The bullets split his scalp and the concussion broke his eardrums. Blood streamed over his face, blinding him, and I helped get him back to Stewart.

Then I pitched a second bomb, close in. Meanwhile, McIntyre had not halted. He had rushed on and Sambro and I half raised as we hurried after him. A machine gun blazed at us from a spot on the right and we dove into the mud, crash, slam. The Stokes gun was at work, but its shells dropped short, falling almost in our path. We rose again as the maxim stopped firing. Then a flaming white-hot instant, oblivion. When I recovered consciousness, my head was splitting with pain, and a terrible nausea had seized my stomach.

The stoke shell had dropped beside me, throwing me bodily into the mud, and Sambro was stunned as well. He was lying in the slime and feeling his limbs certain that he was wounded. All around us was a frightful clamor of guns and bombs and rifle shots. I heard McIntyre's voice shouting, five rounds rapid. Then it stopped, but my nose was bleeding, and I was too dizzy to see. stand. We crawled towards the sound, then halted. There was a great plunging in the murk, and two dim figures came toward us puffing and blowing, tugging at something. They were Germans, big men, and a machine gun and tripod. They placed it just in front of us, and one man yanked at a long

cartridge belt. I pulled the pin from my last bomb and heaved the missile a count of two. It burst just beneath the tripod. One man went down like a huge tree. The other's struggled a moment before he stilled. We went by them, making sure the gun was ruined, and a new-made crater found a man of A-company with his wrist almost severed. We bandaged him quickly and sent him back, and were rising to go on when Clark came stumbling through the mud and yelled at us, come on, give them.

His shout was cut off. He pitched dead in front of us. A man scurried by with a stretcher, and we went over to the bank where we could see men moving. It was Lewis Gunner, and he said McIntyre had been shot through the stomach and was dying. They got him on the old stretcher, but he went on to the short bank in front and found old Bill, Mickey, and Johnson crouched there shooting at a German gun with that streaked sparks not more than 30 yards away. Sambrough had bombs with him, and he and I hurled them. The burst seemed right on the gun, and it was silenced.

I stared at the other men on the bank. They were all dead. Melville and Ira and Jennings lying there together, rifle in hand, all shot through the head by one sweep of the German gun. Old Bill had seen it and stayed thereafter trying to pot the gunner himself. The fourth dead man was poor old Sam. At rest at last. We looked around and found. found all the rest of the party had gone, but another fit of sickness seized me and I could not

move for a long time. Sambrough stayed with me. We did not go back. We had to crawl a distance to avoid the machine gun fire, but the main fighting had shifted over to the left. A light vapor was stealing over the ground, making it harder to see, and I stumbled over a body as we found the road bank. It was the professor, riddled with bullets, dead. He was covered with mud had lost his steel helmet, had evidently got lost in the darkness, and there he lay, after years of study and culture, with glassy eyes and face upturned to the sky, a smashed cog of the war machine, with not a hope of burial accepting by a chance shell, and the mist thickened and rolled suddenly over him. Night found us still crouched in our cover, and I got up

and went around the shell holes until I found old Bill and Johnson. They told me that a relief was due and that there had been no orders. Then a corporal from another platoon came and called to us to follow him. We were to go back to Epras. The 16th battalion was relieving us. We went and met the incoming man by our old trench where we're joined by the remainder of the company and heard that Big Glenn had been killed, that Izzy died gloriously in the fighting at the Graff House.

All that long dragged back was a hidey. nightmare the track was worse than when we had come and in the shelling was incessant we moved with infinite slowness and every step a struggle a tearing physical effort and a vast noise was all thundering rolling clamor that dulled our thinking mercifully some smothering some of our agonized impressions of that night before the November rains were chilling us freezing us. Our feet were always soggy and we were almost despondent. All that time we had been out. We had talked but little. Each man seemed busy with his own thoughts, disinclined to speak to one

another. There had been too many of our friends killed, the men we had been with for months. I found that McLeod and farmer had died in the mud. Egglestone had been wounded and placed on a stretcher and then he and his bearers were all blown to fragments by a big shell and poor old Flynn had been killed we seemed to move in a daze to do things as if we were automaton's when it grew dark we moved again to form a new line the hun spotted us and started shelling while machine gunfire raked the ground up him and i were together as we started digging i saw a body just in front of us, a big man with his equipment over his great coat. Catch hold of that stiff, I said to Upham.

Pull him back here and we'll use him for part of our parapet. He stared at me. Don't, he yelled. Don't touch him. I seized the corpse myself, rolling it over into place, and up him sprang from where he had been, spading and commenced a new hole over to the right. A salvo of shells came and exploded, whizzing frown. fragments were all around me but I was not touched up him fell and was dead when I reached him

There was a strange cry further on it was the sergeant major who should have gone to the depot the old original He insisted in coming in for one more trip and his jaw had been carried away by shrapnel He died before morning two other men were down Johnson and Baron both wounded The shelling continued all that night and the next day. We had dug deep V-shaped pits connecting some of them, and there we crouched, gray faces under muddy helmets, red-rimmed eyes, staring, dazed, wondering, our brains numbed beyond thinking by the incessant explosions. One of the new men pitched down between our shelter and the next one.

He was pierced in a dozen places and one arm had been sheared from his body by shrapnel. Mickey sat beside me shuddering, half stunned, staring, unseeing, his limbs twitching convulsively at each concussion. And that right there is a couple of pages worth of reading of the book. And we go on written by a guy by the name of Will Bird, who was a Canadian soldier that fought in World War I. And like I said, that's just a couple of pages from the book, but the pages go on and on and on just like that war did. And you experience like the amount of people killed around him, wounded around him. It's horrific and it's hard to Even fathom

What that did to these men before During and after Combat physically and mentally and psychologically And the physical part These are things that you can see you can see those wounds you can understand them but the psychological part is perhaps a physical part is perhaps a lot of You can see those wounds you can understand them but the psychological part is perhaps perhaps the hardest to understand. Now, I say that this podcast is about human nature.

And the reason it is and the reason that I focus on human nature is because, in my opinion, in order to lead people, you have to understand people. You have to understand what their nature is. You have to understand human nature. And a lot of human nature boils down to psychology. and I recently got a recommendation from a trooper out on the interwebs who recommended a book called Psychology for the Fighting Man. And this is a book that was first printed in 1943. And the book is, it's an incredible book, it's filled with an immense amount of very useful information.

and it's written as almost like a mental guide to the American military men that are getting ready to go fight the Germans and the Japanese in World War II. Obviously, 1943. That's when it's written. This is right in the middle of World War II. And even though the book is 75 years old, the information that's in it, the knowledge that is contained inside of it can still be utilized today in. any leadership situation. And in fact, this book is so dense with information that I'm actually going to split it into two separate podcasts so that we can go into some more detail

and not end up with a 14-hour podcast. So let's kick it off. Going into this book, as I said, the title of book is Psychology for the Fighting Man. And the subtitle is What You Should Know About Yourself, and others. It kicks off part one, a psychology and combat. When the British 8th Army pursued the retreating Axis forces from Egypt through Libya,

they found a long route, great quantities of abandoned equipment. Some tanks and guns in perfect condition and gasoline for the tanks and ammunition for the guns. The physical material of a large axis force was there, but it was useless to the access. there were no men left to operate it. You keep hearing it said that men cannot fight without weapons, but it is just true that weapons cannot fight without men. An army is men. Not any men at all, for a crowd of men may only be a mob,

but trained and equipped men. What sort of equipment do men of an army need? Planes, tanks, guns, and jeeps, mortars, grenades, rifles, and bayonets, camouflage and mess kits. Above all, food and water. Everything that the ordinance and quartermaster can supply, but that is not all. No, the men need morale. They need courage.

They must have confidence in each other and the belief in ultimate victory. Who is the quartermaster who can issue stocks of courage and confidence? Yet these are essential weapons. So we're starting off with the great point. Where do you get your courage issued? Not from the quartermaster, not from the supply guy. No, it's got to come from somewhere else. And it is just as important part of winning a war as tanks, planes, bullets, and bombs going on.

And the army must have leaders too, plenty of them. COs and NCOs. Who supplies them? Besides leaders, it must have all sorts of special abilities and skills. Mechanical ability in particular is needed in this new mechanized war. Ability to drive trucks, pilot ability, mathematical ability, cooking ability, clerk skills, lots and lots of abilities. You can't fight a war without them.

The Army needs efficiency too. And efficiency means not only effective organization. There is also basic efficiency of the individual man. His strength and health, his resistance to hardship and fatigue, his alertness even when fatigued and despite freezing cold or exhausting heat. Toughness of body is a weapon indispensable to victory. This book is so straightforward. It's just so straightforward. And it doesn't pull any punches.

It's one of the best things about this. And you can tell it's written. And it's directed for like the front line grunt trooper. That's who it's directed at. And not just the infantry guy, but anybody in the army doing any job. And it's refreshing to read something that's as straightforward as this book is going on. The army has a perpetual problem of psychological logistics, a problem of the supply of motives and emotions, of aptitudes and abilities, of habits and wisdom. How does it get this mental material to the right places at the right time?

That is what this book is about. So again, it's looking at the psychological aspect of warfare and saying, how do you deliver these necessary supplies? We need courage, right? We need abilities. We need emotions. We need aptitudes. We need the right habits.

How do you deliver those? Back to the book. If the army cannot find a man with needed ability, an effort is made to find one with an aptitude for being trained in that ability. and then it trains them all, in part by teaching them the rules and the techniques, in part by giving them practice. No troops are ready to go into combat until their training period is over, and even then they are still green troops. The training is still going on in combat until finally the men are seasoned troops have learned how to meet the unexpected emergencies of war and have acquired that competence and confidence that is the basis of their courage.

It is this human material that determines more than any other one thing whether an army will win or lose. Guns and chow are essential too, but given equally of supply, victory goes to the better troops, troops composed of men who know their jobs and do them willingly and well, men with initiative to act by themselves, the trained troops which make up the seasoned army. There are, moreover, fundamental differences between people that affect their ways of fighting and their abilities to fight. These differences are not, however, due to blood as the Nazis teach, but mostly due to training, tradition, home life, and other things that have a powerful effect on the character of men.

War is waged best by choosing methods of warfare best adapted to the nature of our own people, and opposed to the natures of the enemy peoples. American men have no particular love for killing. For the most part, they hate killing. They think it is wrong, sinful, ordinarily punishable by death. They do not look upon death as a beautiful and glorious experience, and most of them do not consider the military life as a suitable life work. War to American men is a dirty, disagreeable business

to be gotten over as soon as possible so that we as a nation can get along with what we were happily engrossed in inventing, producing, growing, making life more useful and satisfying. Americans can stand

a long, hard pull. They look forward, not back. They are slow to accept war, will not go all out until they are attacked, or are sure their ideals are in grave danger. But once they have started, they do not stop or spare themselves until the goal of victory seems to them to be secure.

Perhaps in 1919, they made a mistake about having already made the world safe for democracy, but they would not have stopped had they not thought themselves safe, nor will they stop now. they are not demoralized by temporary adversity or single defeats. So some good info right there, clearly trying to set the mental attitude of the American, young American soldiers that are reading this. We can stand the long, hard pool. If you mess with us, we're going to finish it. We're not demoralized by temporary adversity or single defeats.

doesn't matter. You want a battle? Right on. Watch this. We'll be back. Continuing on, it has been said that war is inevitable, that men are so made that they just have to fight. That is true if you mean they have to be aggressive, that they need to have power and to use it, that they are forever wanting to change things that are hard to change so as that they can get on with better living. But the fact is that they do not have to fight each other. and not many Americans agree with Hitler in thinking fighting other nations a good thing for any nation, even when the ugly business ends in victory. There are other things than men and nations to fight.

Men can fight calamity and disaster, flood, fire, and famine with anger and zest, and even fight nature to prevent disasters happening. They fight disease, having for a century been waging, effect. war upon it with innumerable conquests which history now records they fight for freedom freedom to worship as they wish freedom to think and speak as they please freedom from want and poverty freedom from fear that's the American and democratic philosophy the reason why America is now at war every American ought to understand this to know why a nation that wants peace has to go to war because nobody likes murder you have to kill the murderers

you cannot get along without police and this war is a policing job it's a large-scale job because it is a total war so clearly this book is is answering a lot of questions for an 18-year-old kid that's heading out to war and maybe doesn't fully understand why or what's happening and here it is just laying it out look these people are bad we're good they need we're the police of the world

which sometimes in in today's time people take that as a negative like we can't be the world police but here he's straight up this is straight up saying yes we are the world police there's bad guys we're going to go put them down

and it's interesting too nobody likes murder you have to kill murderers that's the way it's got to be again you know these days we get so desensitized by media right by movies and video games and music talking about killing and like that's just that's the way we grow up but in these days you had to kind of convince people that hey this is the way it's going to go down you're going to go kill people and that's okay Total war is just what its name implies.

War on all fronts with all possible weapons. There's the home front as well as all the battle fronts. There are also the military front, the economic front, and the psychological front. Military, economic, and psychological warfare make up total war. The Germans had that big idea first, but the Americans can fight the devil with his own fire and a hotter one and are doing it. The three kinds of warfare are all related. A military success may also be an economic victory if it results in the capture of great quantities of enemy material or blocks important supply routes to the enemy nation. Or it can be a psychological victory if it lowers enemy morale, helps to make soldiers expect defeat, leads the enemy people to be ready to submit.

What I like about this idea of total war is when you apply it to other parts of your life, right? If you apply it to business and how you can't just focus on one aspect of business. You can't just focus on, hey, we're going to go out and create something new. Guess what? We got to create something new. We got to sell it. We got to figure out the way to get the cost to produce down. We got to figure out how we're going to beat our competitors.

We've got to figure out how we're going to spread. You've got to figure out all these things, total war in business. in life, total war, right? How do you win? Your life is a war, right? Your life is a war. You're fighting against all these things that are happening and you're fighting to win.

You're fighting to be healthy. You're fighting to be financially stable. You're fighting to take care of your family in the best possible way. It's total war. And all these things, you have to fight all these fronts at the same time all the time.

That's why you can't sleep at night because it's total war in life. Yeah, that's so true It's like you can be Like winning certain battles in life You know like you can have a great job making great money But don't exercise and be poor health You know or opposite or what

There's so many like just different battles you know Yeah absolutely and you have to be paying attention to those You have to pay attention to all the fronts Yeah And there's a lot of times where people get folks focused on one front and it just doesn't it doesn't help and even even like inside of a business you'll get a business where they just focus on one thing and they'll miss that they're getting flanked yeah big time yeah a lot of those times and this goes in life obviously that's what how I'm thinking

of it but yeah and in companies right where I say they focus so much on one thing and then a lot of times is because that thing is like has a big payoff you know like you get it seems like dang I'm getting ahead huge times especially like at like at home Where let me just put in just a few more hours of work, right, a week for a month, too much, three months. And dang, that paycheck comes in and you do so well for the company. You go to work. You're the hero kind of thing. And you're like, dang, I'm getting ahead big time.

But like something else will kind of falter, which won't show itself right away, you know. Then when you like how you say get flanked, you're like, dang, my health, just flank. You got to get focused on all fronts. Continuing on, an economic success of our own can lead to a military defeat of the enemy if it rollo. of him of essential supplies it can become a psychological victory if it disheartens him and makes him him readier to give in on the other hand of course a military victory is useless if it leads to a psychological defeat the Japanese may have done a great may have done great military damage at Pearl Harbor but it resulted in net loss to them because the effect of uniting the

Americans in anger real defeats other than death are psychological in the end. That's pretty powerful. Real defeats other than death itself are just psychological, right? So they're just psychological. The enemy gives up surrenders. You have to kill the enemy or make him surrender. There isn't any other kind of victory.

If he is fanatical, you may just have to kill him. Americans would rather just get him to surrender. So this is something that's so important to remember. is that if you get beat, it's psychological. If you're still alive, it's just a psychological defeat. You just need to reframe it. And how are you going to come back and win next time? Psychological warfare is the newest arm in war.

It is directed at opinion, belief, confidence, courage, and the will to fight. It is both defensive and offensive, for it tries to build up morale in our people and troops and to break down the morale of the enemy. The chief weapon of psychological warfare is propaganda. The radio and the press are used to bolster on the home front. The enemy is reached by newspapers and leaflets drop from airplanes and by shortwave radio. Propaganda, in spite of what many people think, is not necessarily dishonest.

Truth is often the best propaganda, especially when it is fed to persons who are starving for it. The most effective propaganda must be founded on fact, must start from some important event that actually happened and is known to be true, then the propagandist interprets the event, much as a good lawyer interprets evidence in favor of his client, or as the honest advertiser makes a claim for his product. This is another very important part when you're in a leadership position. How much of being a leader is making sure that the propaganda gets out there? Have you ever heard this expression when someone says,

you know, you're not really good at telling your story? Have you ever heard that before? Like a company, they're out there trying to do great things, and they are. They're working hard and they're having some success, but nobody knows it. And when I work with companies, there's sometimes the companies, no one even inside the companies knows about the successes that they're having. They're failing to even spread the word within their own company. And so they think they're getting, you know, crushed by the competitors because they're not,

because the competitors, guess what the competitors great at? propaganda. Every time the competitor signs a new client, they put out a big LinkedIn post, right? They put in a big social media blast. Hey, we're just the sign. It's great to welcome aboard our newest client. Meanwhile, you know, a company is not doing that. And so everyone inside the company doesn't know that we're signing all these new clients.

So this idea of propaganda is very important in warfare and in leadership and in business. Yeah. And at the same time, you might have heard about this. Probably have, you know how? I think it was Facebook, maybe Instagram, I forget. But they did like some study where it like it actually was linked to people getting depressed because of that.

And it's this concept that you just said. Where, you know, people, this is nothing new where people, they'll post just their highlights of their life. Oh, yeah, yeah. And then like me as just a normal person, I'm looking at everyone else's highlights of their life thinking, dang, I don't live that kind of life. I'm not traveling to Thailand and, you know, all these places. And maybe I do, but that was like once last year.

And this, you know, it seemed so it kind of, that it's like propaganda. Maybe on purpose sometimes. Maybe not. But it's like, yeah, it's like the perception, you know, where you have, you know, you know your life. And it's like the highlights are like one out of a thousand. And meanwhile, everyone else seemingly is one out of one. Yeah. It's just all highlights.

There just happened to another sushi restaurant tonight. Yeah. With a bunch of girls. Oh, yeah. And a Lamborghini. Yeah. Lamborghini, all that stuff, man. And it's like everyone.

Yeah. Except me. Yeah. So it's kind of that feeling. I'll echo Charles. He's not. Whatever, bro. I'm not going to fall for it.

I'm not going to fall for it. Yeah. No, it's true. It's true. And that stuff does, it does build up. It does. And that's like propaganda in your own life. Now, believe me, I'm not recommending that you do good propaganda on your

Instagram to show your positive life. No. No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying, don't. Leave the hype. Military psychology. Psychological warfare is not, however, the only way which psychology contributes to success in combat. There are hundreds of others, and soldiers and officers need to know what psychologists know

and what psychological methods can find out. For instance, soldiers need to understand men in order to understand themselves and their comrades. And officers must learn how to interpret and influence the conduct of those for whom they are responsible. So this is exactly what I say all the time. If you want to be a good leader, you got to understand people. The soldier must know about human needs, motives, and emotions, about fear when it comes, what to do about it, about anger, when it is useful, when it makes trouble, about zest, which is the core of good morale in a unit, about anxiety and the sense of insecurity, about indignation against the enemy and irritation against comrades, about the relation of food and of sex. military life. He should know also of the relation of all these things to morale and thus learn how to avoid bad morale and to build up good morale. Clearly, and this is not just true for combat,

this is true for life. Every soldier ought to understand further the problems of the mental adjustment of men first to the army later to combat. Why men feel insecure? What makes for courage? the signs of approaching breakdown, how to prevent breakdown and what to do about it when it happens. The selection and training of leaders for the army has become one of the most important problems in the psychology of war. Not enough is known about it, but what is known to some should be known to all. The good leader is the man who builds up morale. How does he do it? What kind of man must he be? If he is a poor leader, can he become a better one? there are mobs and panics to be understood too. Civilian mobs and panics may be the concern of the

soldier when the populace gets mixed up with the fighting or when the enemy's home front begins to break. Panics may, moreover, occur in well-disciplined troops if all the conditions for panic are present. What are these conditions? Why are seasoned troops panicked less than green troops? The army place each man with his talents where he will be used to his best advantage, but each individual must know how to get the most out of his talents. The primitive fact of combat is that man pushes when he encounters an obstacle to the achievement of his desire, pushes more if blocked, gets angry if still thwarted, and then fights. but to this fighting he eventually brings all of the knowledge and skill that has made him supreme

among the animals he fights by learning how to use his eyes at night and learning how to arrange a system that will let him hear inside of an airplane he fights by selecting good leaders and good truck drivers he fights by understanding human nature in order to build up good morale that will overcome fear He fights by saying the right thing in the right way to the right people at the right time. And sometimes that is propaganda. He uses every resource of science and intelligence, including psychology. He has to for this is total war. I love thinking about that.

Every aspect of your life is to be prepared for total war. Which by the way, you're in. You know, you might not be in combat at this moment in time, but you're fighting. You're fighting all the time. And you have to bring every asset, every resource that you have available. You have to bring it to fight because this is total war. Now, the book goes into some pretty big sections right here. One of them is a weapon or sight as a weapon and then hearing as a tool.

And it literally talks about how to see better. things you can do to make your night vision better, how to preserve your night vision, how to see sharp, just all those kind of things. He talks about camouflage and stuff, real tactical stuff. And then it talks about hearing and what you need to hear and how you can adjust your hearing and how to listen sharply. And I'm going to go, I'm not going to talk about the site piece, but I'm going to talk about the noise. There's just some interesting points about noise. Loud sounds, especially when they are sudden and strange, are natural causes of fear. Many sounds are terrifying.

A sudden loud noise, like the discharge of a pistol, will make anyone blink and jump. It will start a limb. This is true even of well-trained men who pride themselves on their familiarity with firearms. It is an instantaneous response that may be all over before the eye can see it. It shows up, however, in slow-motion pictures. seasoned troops get so that they don't appear to pay any particular attention to the din of battle. Even horses will stand still under the rising roar of a diving bomber will only toss ahead impatiently. The experienced soldier, on the other hand, needs first to become adapted to the noises of war.

He must be exposed to them in training as much as possible. After the noises become familiar, its loudness will not affect. him so greatly in combat. Control over noise makes it less fearful. You don't mind the noise of gunfire so much as you are the one who is doing the shooting. So talking about getting people used to the loud noises that you're going to come up against. And this is something that we used to do. I don't even know if guys do it anymore because it's probably not that smart,

but we used to do immediate action drills with no ear protection in. So we'd get used to shooting guns and having all that just massively loud noise. We wouldn't do it every time, but we would do several runs with no ear protection. This is back in the day. Now, in current times, guys have these nice headsets that have noise. They're noise-canceling headsets, so they're actually pretty awesome. So it's not that big of a deal anymore. But back in the day, they wanted to make sure, hey, you've got to realize how loud this is going to be if you get in a firefight.

If you get in your first firefight, you've never had an M-60 machine gun two feet away from your ear getting crazy. laying down a hundred round belts, it'll be a shock to your system. So that's what, and not to mention, they're hucking, you know, grenade simulators at you and artillery simulator. So there's explosions going off because that's what, that's what they're trying to do, get you used to that scenario. Men subjected to the excessive noises of war over a long period sometimes build up an oversensitiveness to any sort of loud, sharp report.

They are in the state of a man with a hangover. The bang of a door will make them jump. A loud shout is painful. The noise of a truck exhaust is frightening. In the hospitals where men are convalescing from bad cases of these war nerves, the dropping of a pan will startle a ward full of sleeping men so violently that the jerk will bring them out of their sleep and even out of their beds and onto the floor. But this state of nerves, the linked in their minds with the noise and produced by the noise,

is due mainly to more disturbing things that have become associated with the noise. Noise is just as loud and originally just as distressing as the noises of war if they are only just a part of everyday work or fun are tolerated. Men become used to the din of a boiler factory

or a pneumatic drill. It may deafen them, but it does not demoralize them. So that's pretty obvious, right? What's making these noises horrible to use because every time a bomb goes off, you see your friends get blown up and killed and you're afraid that the same thing's going to happen to you. Whereas a pneumatic drill, it's just making a bunch of noise, so you're not that worried about it.

This was, again, there's a lot of real basic information. You can imagine this book being issued to frontline troops, but I had to call this one out here to. Sooner or later, most soldiers have the experience of getting lost in heavy woods or jungle just possibly get lost a few yards, just a few yards off the trail. It gives a man a peculiar, helpless feeling. You are so accustomed all your life to knowing where you are and who you are and about what time it is that the feeling of not knowing one of these things comes as a great shock. And then it goes on a little further. It says, a compass is a big help. And I was like, yeah, yes it is.

Indeed. There's another real captain obvious. It is best to have a map in your pocket when you get lost. If you can't have one, then you ought to see one before you get into strange country. So that's real obvious, too. The more a soldier knows about maps, the better equipped he is for combat duty. His training in how to read them and what to look for on them. If he keeps practicing, it should enable him to find himself if he ever gets lost

at any terrain he knows from map. And the reason I called that part out is think about all the situations that you get in where you have the opportunity to gather some intelligence before you go into them. You know, if you're going for a job interview, what can you know about that company? If you're going to meet with a client you've never met with before, how much information can you have? These days, you can Google someone, you get all kinds of information. You go to their LinkedIn account. You can find out where they went to school and what sport they played or whatever.

You go to their Facebook page. You go to their, you pull up articles that were written about them, and there's all kinds of intelligence you can gather. There's no reason to go into a meeting blind anymore without knowing the terrain that you're getting into without understanding the culture that you're going into. There's no reason for it. Next, work in the army is much more than just shouldering a rifle and doing long foot marches. Soldiers work at several hundred different kinds of fighting jobs and at even more kinds of jobs, some directly related to combat and some not, which can be filled with men already trained for them or men who have the necessary aptitude for learning. one of the jobs quickly. All leaders have the responsibility

for seeing that the right man gets the right job and when mistakes are made, that misfits are transferred. And this thing is where this book gets pretty politically incorrect. It's basically saying, look, some people can't do this jobs. Some people aren't fit for these jobs and some people aren't fit for these other jobs.

Continuing on, thousands know how to drive a tractor, how to repair an ignition system. Others can weld castings, repair watches, other timing instruments or road transits, keep accounts, carve carcasses of beef, develop photographs. The army needs many men who can do these things. The British found that out in the first World War. At first, they neglected to save their specialists. They sent to the front professional men, engineers, and men in skilled trades. Many were killed in the early months of the war. Later,

the need for them in special posts behind the line became acute. So, yeah, this is all about forming up an army of civilians that have skills and saying, oh, you've been a truck driver for whatever, for six years in the civilian sector, guess what you're going to do for us? You're going to drive a truck. Oh, you're a butcher. Guess what? We need butchers.

And right on down the line. And you can imagine World War I, probably them being very short-sighted on how long that war was going to last. They're like, oh, oh, you're a mechanic. Cool. We're just going to send you the front with everyone else. And you're going to die like everyone else. And you look up in six months or a year and they don't have the necessary support logistically to carry on the war.

How soldiers differ. Men differ just as much in ability to learn different sorts of duties as they do in size of feet, in height, or in weight. some are as much as three times as able as others. I like that. Hey, some people are just three times more capable than you. That's the way it is. Most, of course, are just about average. Some men cannot learn a three-figure telephone number by hearing it once.

Some can learn as many as nine figures. The average is around six or seven. Have you ever heard that before? Have you ever heard that the reason our numbers are seven digits long? is because that's about the average that a human can memorize. Dang, no, I haven't. And that's very interesting. I heard that.

Could that possibly be not bro science, but urban myth? Yeah, could it be urban legend? It could be. It's true. I like it. I think it's awesome, actually. Well, you have your doctorate in bro science. I'm working on, yes, yes.

Did you do your undergrad in urban legend? back to the book some men starting from scratch can learn in eight weeks to receive and send radio code at 16 words per minute it takes others 22 weeks some men used to handling certain types of machinery can learn to handle certain kinds of weapons much faster than others so the problem is to understand and measure aptitude aptitude is potential skill the capacity for learning to do something quickly and accurately when given the chance to learn. Both speed and accuracy are important in learning. A soldier needs to learn rapidly but also to be accurate at what he's learned. And men differ from one to another in both ways.

For one thing, men differ greatly in the speed with which they learned. Some aviation cadets can solo after four hours of instruction. Others are not allowed to solo even after 14 hours. Here the quick learners are urgently needed. Slow learners tie up the training planes too long. Besides quick learning might mean a shorter war. Yet the army cannot do without the slow learners. Manpower is needed.

And there are many military jobs which require other qualities than speed of learning, jobs which the slow learners will prefer to have. Men also differ in speed and accuracy of reaction. The average driver requires from one half to three quarters of a second to put on the brakes after the stoplight goes red. Yet some can apply the brakes in three-tenths of a second. Others use up to a whole second. These are important differences for riflemen and machine gunners

as well as for truck drivers. Every tenth of a second, counts in battle. You ever see that thing when they were, um, they were doing like the speed test for Connor McGregor? And he was the, he was the fastest athlete they had tested.

Speed like reaction kind of speed? Like reaction time. Like when you see something, you touch a button or whatever, you know, whenever they have these little tests set up. Yeah. And apparently McGregor was the fastest athlete

that they had tested. Dang. That's crazy. Yeah, it is crazy. Yeah. It is crazy because you know some of these baseball players and I guess I think I think that would be the do you think that would be the fastest hand-eye coordination?

Yeah I mean yeah on the top of my head seems like it I mean because those balls come quick yeah yeah there's a test you can do when we're kids how they do it you know in science class you hold one guy holds a ruler no no no real science you know they you get a ruler oh yeah and then you drop it one yeah the teacher holds it and then you put it he puts it on your finger you know between your fingers right at the At the zero mark. He dropped it and how quick you can.

How far do your fingers have to be opened? I don't know. Because it seems like that could be an advantage. A little bit, yeah. So my grandfather used to do this, it was called the dollar drop. Okay. And he would fold the dollar lengthwise only to make it kind of aerodynamic. Yeah, yeah.

And if you could catch the dollar, you could keep it. Okay. Yeah. It sounds pretty easy, doesn't it? Yes, sir, it does. Some people can't catch that dollar. Yeah, so you'd think if you're, you know, how you're saying, you just said how far your fingers.

The thing is for the experiment, as long as you designate kind of that, you know, or even eyeball it, you know, it might be a millimeter difference. But, you know,

usually it's like, but there's always those people that are looking for that edge, right? Tighten up a little bit. Because I'm thinking I would be figuring out how, because I used to do that with a dollar drop, right?

I'd get my fingers here. Yes, that makes sense. You know, the dollar drop has more stakes for sure. But even though you're, And so it pulls out that fiber. You were really the guy in science class who wanted to win, though, even though it wasn't a competition.

Of course it's a competition. There you go. So, and I don't know, I'm pretty sure that that stuff can be trained as well. And that's one thing that, you know, when you're bringing your kids up, you bring them up and you make them play multiple different sports. You don't focus them too young because they become, they don't develop the, you know, they don't develop the, broader athletic skills. Yeah, that makes sense. So you're supposed to get them involved in a bunch of different sports.

And those kids will end up, even if you took one kid and you say, oh, you're just going to do 100% football this whole life and you took another kid and you did multiple sports and but you did like a little bit more of a focus on football. The chances are the kid that did multiple sports but focused on football is going to do better than the kid that just did football from what I understand. I'm sure there's some bro science people out there that will, uh, object to my statement. It makes sense.

You know, where you brought more broadly athletic. Yeah, like you can, and I'd imagine you'd be able to learn quicker too because your body is used to move in different ways rather than just the one way. Because what are you going to do

with things are a little bit different out on the football field, right? There's little situations that can unfold. And if you're athletically adapting to various situations, you're going to be better off. Yeah, that's true. Going on. Men differ also.

in the speed and accuracy of perceiving. One clerk can check in five minutes a company roster that takes another man 20 minutes. Some men can see a white target in the dark at 400 yards away. To others, it is invisible at 200 yards. Range finders differ in their ability to tell the distances of different objects. When the job is seeing, you must choose the best seers. So that's interesting because you could have someone that has bad reactions, but they can see really well. And if you ever read and I'm sure at some point we'll do Chuck Yeager's book on here. Matter of fact, Chuck Yeager's on Twitter. I don't know if you know that, but Chuck Yeager's on Twitter and I've gone back and forth a couple times people have said come on the podcast, but in his podcast or his book

Yeager, he just had incredible vision. Like he'd be flying in formation and he could see the enemy way before anyone else could see the enemy. He'd be like up, bogeys at four o'clock, boom, we go. And because his eyesight was. was apparently just amazing. And that used to be a big deal for fighter pilots. I think it's less of a big deal now because you got radar and all that. So it's not as big of a deal as it used to be just your eyes against the enemy's eyes. The book, there is, however, much more to a good soldier than speed and accuracy with which he learns acts and perceives.

Every man has interests, likes, and dislikes. These determine in part what he will do well and how fast he will improve. A man's interests, for instance, usually determine what he will do with what he learns. Mere exposure to training never made a skilled soldier. It is the interested man who remembers and profits by his training and is ready to apply it to new situations. Right? So true. So true. How true.

It's just so true. So true. We don't. And what I think is really important about this from a business perspective is what they're basically saying is put the right people in the right jobs. That's the overall concept. To put the right people in the right jobs. That's what you need to do.

If you've got someone that might not be super talented, but they're very interested, they're probably the better hire than someone that's just got a bunch of talent, but doesn't care. In fact, I'll go ahead and say they straight. up are the better higher. Yeah. Yeah. And then they'll,

they'll wind up learning like so quick and your specific thing. You know, you're specific. They're into it. Yeah. If someone that's not into it, that's bad. Oh,

like someone who has like a major like degree and, you know, his resume is huge. Beyond the degree, but like, hey, I'm really into whatever it is that you're doing. Like, for instance,

you like making videos, you're into it, right? Sure. If you didn't like making them, if you got no, enjoyment from it, think of how horrible it would be trying to get you to do it. I mean, it's pretty hard to get you to do a video right now and you actually like doing it.

Yeah. Or, you know, like politics, right? You know how like some people they like politics? Some people don't. So you get someone who likes politics and the news comes on, they're going to be all up in there, learning everything what's going on like today, you know, then someone who's not, they're like, all the news is on. Let me watch.

Yeah. Well, that's an interesting. I thought you were going to say that people that are into politics. Because I actually, that's one case where I would disagree. Because a lot of times people that really like politics, you don't want them in politics because they're just political machines, right? You want a normal person. Oh, yeah.

You're not just a normal everyday. You don't want the person that's like, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to be president. I'm going to be in charge. Like that person, you don't want to be president. Yeah, yeah. You're not the person that's like, look, I don't really want to do this. Yeah.

And I think, yeah, that's different than what I meant. Because someone that's all hungry for the political life. They're an arrogant person that thinks that they should be in charge of anything. It's like, no. Yeah, I meant like on TV. Like so like me, if I watch, I don't know. Okay. So, well, that's kind of a good example because I'm interested in Hawaii.

Oh, yeah, yeah. So, you know, I'm going to like, but like, okay, so on, so I make videos, right? I do some visual effects, whatever. There's a YouTube channel called Video Copilot. it. Right. So all it's, it's mainly just tutorials on how to do stuff. That's all it is, really. So when that, like if a new video comes out or something, man, I'm all up in there, all up in it. But you don't care. Bro, you're going to watch that thing and you're going to, you're not even going to click on it, not even close.

No. Unless I was like, I wonder if I want to take Echo's job. Yeah. Or, okay. So case in point, I'm not interested. Right. So I could barely even get through one of those videos before I'd be like, no, I'm going to go over here and do burpees. Yeah, exactly. So you're going to click on that video. If I say, hey, Jock, click on this video. This will make, you know, you're brought in your horizon.

I don't know, whatever. Click on this video. And just watch the whole thing. Watch it five times, actually. Bro, when you're done watching it five times, about everything went over your head. Yeah, don't care. Great.

You don't even care. So advice from this book is put people that are interested in the job, truly inherently interested, and they're going to do a better work, even than maybe someone that's more talented. than they are to the book. Other personal differences besides interests and likes and dislikes are important, especially for some military tasks. One may feel,

one man may feel completely at ease in the transparent cage in which a bombardier must sit. While another, ordinarily dexterous, is so upset in the exposed position that the pupils of his eyes dilate, his fingers fumble, and he cannot manipulate the bomb. sight properly. So there you go. You got a guy that's probably a better,

maybe he has quicker reaction times, but he's just scared to be inside the turret. Yeah, yeah. Two equally wise officers may not be equally good leaders. One is at ease with his men, talking with them freely, getting their slant on matters of importance

and giving his orders and directions readily. The other, although he wants his men to like him, and respond alertly and willingly to him as a leader, cannot bring himself to feel free and confident with them and open up with them in a way to gain their confidence and liking in turn. The first is, of course, the better leader. So there you go. That's like straight up, hey, this person,

if you're more comfortable talking to your troops, they're going to sense that, and you're going to be better than someone that's not comfortable talking to the troops. Indeed, leadership is the quality that the, Army most needs. All advancement brings with it responsibility and responsibility for the conduct of others requires leadership. That's interesting because what's interesting about that is that is, and it goes into this later on talking about the, we probably won't cover until the next podcast on this book, but talking about the, you know, are leaders born or made? and this is clearly leaning a little bit towards born, clearly,

which I agree with. I think leaders are born and made. Yeah. And it feels like a lot of times when people use the expression, are they born? Whether it be leaders, whether it be whatever, you know, he's a natural, whatever. I get the expression and I understand and agree, of course, but technically, like if you say, if a leader is made or born, born meaning like he wasn't. trained at a very specific point to be a leader.

He brought to the training or to the position just a bunch of like talent or whatever. But he probably learned that through like his life, what he was exposed to, what he was put through. True. But there are certain aptitudes that people have and those play an impact. So if you have somebody that's really articulate, they're going to make a better leader than someone that's not articulate. But even someone who's articulate, they learn that through sort of life.

There's no. but some of it. Maybe they have like a shorter tongue or something. Because it has to be genetic is what I'm saying. I don't know if there's an articulate gene. There is an articulate gene for sure. Well, it's not a gene. It's your brain.

How much capacity do you have to process words quickly and assemble them together into sentences and put them out into a comprehensible statement? How can you do that? How well can you do that? Yeah, but you're not born knowing how to talk. I guess, yeah, it is like a processor. Yeah, you have what, yeah, that's it.

Like a little processor. What size processor do you have in your, in your brain? Do you got the old 486? No, but. Or you got the new Pentium, whatever. No, I don't know. It's probably like 10 years old now, isn't it? Pentium.

No, it's like an I-7 or I-9. I have no idea. Anyway, but no, because there's articulate people who don't talk fast or don't. Yeah, no, yeah, yeah, you're able to assemble their, okay, here's another one. And this one's, and I've talked about. about these before but the ability to look at complex problems and simplify them sure some of that is learned some people just are born with it some people learn it in the streets yeah I think my my I'm drawing back on my bro science background

and I do think I believe I'm under I believe it all it's a belief that you get it from like life like you're in some of it most of it but I guarantee you if you take someone that had a twin brother and you one of them would be more apt at some things than the other one there's got to be some things that you are better at than your brother naturally and some things that your brother's better at than you I don't know of any but I mean put it this way all the differences that we have I feel like I can map it back to why because just being second born I was born a little bit smaller too not looking at me like a bigger I'm like, I don't want to be bigger.

Especially people would compare too. You know, like growing up with a twin brother, they always compare. They're like, oh, he's a little bit taller than you right there. Oh, there's the little skinny one. Yes, or whatever. Oh, yeah. They ain't saying that no more, are they, boy? No.

Anyway, the point is, I'm not saying, I'm not saying your, I think you were probably right, of course. But I think it's mostly learned. Bro, people have a certain genetic confidence. Cognitive capacity without question. Yeah. That's not even debatable. Yes, I would not debate. So what we're talking about is the ability to take that cognitive capacity and steer it towards the articulation of language.

If you have more cognitive capacity, you'll be able to articulate language better. And there's probably little modules inside the brain that are genetic that have even more capacity for the grabbing and assembling of linguistics. patterns together where they flow off the tongue rapidly and sensibly and there's got to be part of your brain that's better at that just genetically now of course if you spend a lot of time in that arena you will get better at it over time but there's got to be some just like you have x amount of fast twitch muscle and echo charles like how hard did you work at your vertical job Did you guys test that in football? Yes. Okay, what was the highest vertical jump you ever had? 39 and a half inches. That's pretty good, right?

Is there or were there people on your team that worked harder than you if not harder that never got to 39 and a half inches? Probably yes, actually yes, because I didn't really work. Exactly. I knew this was a loaded question. So yes sir. So someone there was someone on your team that they were They worked and they trained and they were doing jump squats and Bulgarian lunges and split squats. And they were just trying to get that vertical jump up. They were wearing, remember those shoes with like the toes on them? Yeah.

Get them hops. Want to get them hops. So this guy had all those things. And you know what he got to? 32 inches. Right? And he was bummed. Yeah.

But that's what I'm saying. Yes. He has a certain genetic capability. There's physical capabilities that are genetic. and there's some mental capabilities that are genetic, and both of them have a max capacity, and that dude with the toe shoes for vertical jump improvement, that wore him all some.

There was a kid one time. He lived across the street from me. He was young. This is when I was probably 25. I was back in the day. But this kid trained all summer long with those shoes, and what he wanted to do was dunk in basketball. Yeah.

And he did it. You know, he did it eventually. But he worked hard. There are some people that don't even have to work hard and they can dunk on basketball. They just got it. Yeah, man. Yeah, man, my friend Cake Nuts, who I mentioned.

Can cake nuts? No, we're talking about some different attribute now. He always had like kind of like big, it's called big muscle bellies, like the part of your muscle. Anyway, he had kind of big muscle genetic. He was a thinner guy, but, and he was always cut. So even into adulthood, he wouldn't have to watch his diet. You know, meanwhile, if you're like a normal person, if you watch your diet like a lot, then you can get that cut.

You can get there. Oh, yeah, totally can. But cake nuts, he's just cruising. He's just cut shred abs, you know? And then he like lifts a bunch of weights over the summer. What's a workout? I gave him, by the way. And he lifts a bunch of, he comes back and he's just huge.

Still cut, by the way. So it's like, dang. But, you know, he just has it like that. There you go. Genetic differences. And that's what they're talking about in this book. And I think sometimes people's attitude nowadays is like, well, you know, you can do whatever you want. Well, no, actually, you should find out what's good for you.

Yeah. That's what you should look for. Yeah. Like I was a radio man. You know, it's like a radio man. Why? Because I was like smart, but I was big enough to carry a radio, right? If the small guys in the seal platoon, they become the point man because you don't have to carry any extra weight generally.

You're so right. Like, so right. And consider like major industry. And we'll just say sports, right? Where it's like, it's pretty clear. When you win, you win. When you lose, you lose. Sports, right?

So get the established sports. With very, very few exceptions is going to be the case. You're going to get like, okay, football because there's a bunch of positions that do very different things. The tight end, he's going to be a certain build, generally. For sure. The quarterback, he's going to be a certain build. And receiver, he's going to be a certain build.

The center and the line, certain builds. Like you grab a guy from a line, guard, right? One of the guys in the line. You put him on defense as like a cornerback or something. Who needs literally opposite attributes? You know, you do that. See what happens. Oh, no, no, no.

Just train him. Train him for 10 years. No. Negative. Probably make him better, but you don't make him successful. Exactly, right. So it's like,

it's such a clear example, just because there's more on the line with that, you know? So if you're a youngster, you should look at your attributes and see, number one, where your attributes fit and then what your interests are. Sometimes people get, they're super interested,

And so they just try for it anyways, you know? And that's cool. Yeah. That's cool. There's some people that would get really good at a sport, but they're still not good enough to go pro because they don't have the genetic gifts that are needed. Yeah, and that's why it's so prevalent and such a like big deal when you do find the like the super rare guy where it's like, hey, he's not really genetically gifted, but he works so hard that he made it to the pros. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And typically that's like a guy in basketball who's like not tall, not fast.

Yeah. You know, like that kind of guy. Yeah, but he was pretty fast, though. And he could jump. Well, but he's small. Yes. You know what's interesting? I was talking to Dallas, who's the coach of the goals, the San Diego goals hockey team.

But a few years ago, not very long, the hockey had become all these big giant guys. You know, six four, six five, two hundred. 160 pounds these big monster guys and that's where everyone had started going in that direction all the teams are getting bigger and big because these guys are massive they could hit hard and And then recently it started going back again to guys that were smaller and quicker and could move faster So that's an interesting evolution Yeah, but you can look at it you could have looked at it you know four years ago or whatever it was I don't really know But 10 years ago whatever when if you were 511 you're like oh man I'm not big enough to play pro hockey but some kids were like you know what I'm 511 and be fast I'm more than everyone okay cool and they made it

and now they're in the game yeah makes sense yeah I'm not as familiar with like the necessities of being a good hockey player or or team as far as the physical attributes but like football I use that big that example because the jobs of each position are so different I mean not each position but like the differences between you know like a cornerback wide receiver and then the difference between that and like a line man. Oh yeah, yeah. Totally different. Yeah. So like basketball is different. Even though they,

they have different positions where everyone has sort of generally speaking. Of course, it's the exception. But everyone's going to be tall. No one's going to be like slow. If you're like slow, it's like that's a big kind of deal, you know,

so everyone's a little bit more uniform. Yeah. Hockey seems the same way. Yeah. More uniform. Hockey's more uniform. Seal platoon is not uniform. Yeah.

Because you got a big 60 gunner. Yeah. Big gunner. Yeah, that makes sense. But you know what? Not all pig gunners are big. Yeah. Because you can just be a tough 162-pound pig gunner.

Just can grind it out. Point man's usually a little bit smaller. But that's, but when you get to a SEAL team, guys look at you, you're like, oh, you're, you're 5-7, you're 114 pounds. You're going to be a point, man. That's the way it's going to work. Most of the time. Sometimes you get in a platoon and they're like, we already got a point, man, dude. You're going to carry a pig.

here you go, buck up and start doing some squats, boy. All right. Personality. It takes more than brains to make a good soldier. It takes guts. It takes endurance. It takes a willingness to do hard work. It takes a keen interest in doing the job well.

Psychologists wish they could give the army right now a method of measuring these important personality assets. Tests that would be as accurate and reliable. as a test for measuring the ability to do arithmetic or aptitude for learning radio code. They can't. Some tests have been tried. Many have been found useless. Few are promising. You know what's interesting.

I just thought of this. I went to communication school, the seal communication school, and we had to learn Morris Code. And there was probably 20 guys in my comms course. and we all had to learn Morse code. And this was very clear that some people were better at it than others. Because you had to, and we didn't have to send very fast, but we had to be able to receive. Oh, yeah.

Like a certain amount of groups. It's called a group. It's five letters in a group. And they would just come out you, and you did, and you had to be able to receive and write down what the letters were. Yeah. With no mistakes.

But what's interesting is we all showed up. No one knew any Morse code when we showed up. and there was a complete bell curve when we got done. Some guys were really good at it naturally. Some guys were horrible at it and it took every ounce of mental power for them to figure out

and get to be able to pass the test. And I had a crazy guy that was teaching the comm school and someone would be like, hey, Chief, why do we have to learn Morris Code since no one uses it anymore? He'd say, in the event of a nuclear holocaust,

Morris Code is the only thing that's gonna be punching through the ionosphere. And of course, I was 18 years old and I was like, oh dude, that's right. Right on. My interest was piqued. I was like, hey, in event of a nuclear holocaust, I'm gonna be on the HF radio hammering out Morris Code to the troops, let him know what's up.

Well, that makes sense too. Stupid I was. Wait, what do you mean? So what? You don't agree with that now? Dude, if there's a nuclear holocaust, I wouldn't be alive. Well, what if you're dead? But you, you know, what if you're like one of the only survivors or survivors like me?

But so, man, that's interesting that where you'd have to, I mean, that small little thing that you just said, where you have to, it's less about putting it out. It's more about receiving. Because Morris code, you don't communicate necessarily. No, no, no. You just got to pick it up when it comes. Here's the reasoning behind it. If you want to send Morris Code, you can send it whatever pace you want because the people are just going to sit there and take letters that you're sending, right? They're not saying hurry up.

Right. So you can send it whatever pace you want. but receiving, you got to be ready. And I forget what the minimum standard. I want to say it was 20 groups a minute or something like that. To pass. To be passing. And I forget, I forget.

But we weren't as good as like a regular Navy guy who would just be, I don't even know what, but they were way faster. We were like knuckle draggers compared to them. They're like a language. We had to learn it every day. And you had to do it every day until you tested out. And some people tested out in a few weeks. Some people didn't test out until the last days.

Dang. That's crazy. Code. Do you still know Morse code? Not really. What if it came in at like, beep? No, I would need to brush up on it. I would need to brush up on it, which I need to do because if there is a nuclear

Holocaust, I want to be ready to get comms out, HF comms. Yeah, and receive them, of course, you know. Yeah. Check. But it's such a clear example of, and the guys, it wasn't like on that bell curve of guys that were good and bad. It wasn't like everyone that was a good seal was up at the top and the guys that weren't good at Morris Code were bad seals. No, it was like some of the guys were awesome guys and they sucked at Morris Code.

And some guys were marginal guys, but they were great at Morris Code. And there's a perfect example. Like, what do you do with that guy? Well, put him into, make him a radio man, you know? Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, cake nuts. When he was going through, I think it was buds.

No, no, no, it was after buds. He kept saying like, man, actually my other friend Jeremy was telling me that, oh, yeah, he's good at, like, pretty much everything. He's just really good at stuff except for picking locks. Yeah. He was like struggling with like picking locks, which is kind of a random thing to struggle with. Picking locks is a difficult thing. And it's more like playing a musical instrument that it is like doing a technical skill where you do A, B, C, and you get D. No. Picking locks is like you've got a feel for it.

A little art, man. You got to feel for it. And I've been with guys, I was okay at picking locks. The guy that I learned from was he could walk up and put the, you know, walk up to a doorknob and stand not facing it and just stand there and just pick the lock open in seconds. It's pretty incredible. Kind of like on that movie The Italian Job, you ever watched that? No. Yeah, it's a good one.

So this girl, she was like the safe cracker, right? You know, they're like a den of thieves. They're this group of thieves. So she was the safe cracker. Guess what her dad was? A lot of sick cracker. You know, so it was like a genetic thing. They were good.

You know, so the dad passed it on to the, you know, it's like genetic. Some people, that's out, you know. Yeah. Maybe. There's a learned behavior as well that she learned from the old man. All right. Going on. Back to the book.

One trouble is that a man's personal, this is important. One trouble is that a man's personality changes in different situations. For instance, the man who is brave as a lion in the test room at a reception center may not be so brave when he gets into combat. The man who is able to make quick decisions wisely when things are quiet may go to pieces when he is distracted by machine gunfire and do something that result in his own death or the death of others. And difficult situations may have the reverse effects on some men. Men who have never distinguished themselves in training camp may become fired with new spirit when the going gets tough. astounding themselves and other men with what they can do in extreme emergency. So that's obviously important too.

So even though you know someone, you don't even know them. You don't know what you're going to get. You might have somebody that freaks out when things go sideways. Next section, training makes the soldier. When men entered the army, they are told the importance in the fighting areas of taking cover from enemy fire in slit trenches. This point is emphasized in books, lectures, training films, demonstrations and exhibits. By the time the soldier reaches the battle zone, he has learned that he should take cover in a slit trench whenever he stops. That is one kind of learning. In one way, it is the most useful kind. With knowledge of how things should be done and why they are important, a soldier is equipped to act in new situations, and there is nothing that produces so many new situations as combat. But this kind of learning, unfortunately, does not always result in action. A soldier may know perfectly

well that he should dig a trench. He may have learned it from demonstrations exactly how to go digging it. Yet, when the enemy planes come overhead, he may, in his excitement, forget that what he was learned. In such emergencies, he is more likely to act from habit than from reasoning and sense. Habit formation is a further stage of learning. It depends on practice, experience, and repetition. No action ever becomes automatic by learning in words how to perform it, but without actually practicing it. But by repetition, the operation of a machine or a rifle gets itself reduced to habits so that it becomes almost entirely mechanical like walking. You do not have to think about putting your left foot forward after planning your right foot ahead. That is because you have walked so

much you could do, you could not get that way merely from listening to lectures on how to walk. If during maneuvers, a soldier practices taking cover instantly whenever he sees or hears an air attack warning or plane coming close, if he always throws himself flat when he first hears the sudden whistle of a shell or the singing of bullets past his ears, these actions soon become second nature to him. The particular warning sites and sounds become fixed as signals for immediate actions. In a real emergency, the soldier does not have to stop and think about what he should do. He just does it.

Straightforward, that's why we roll in jujitsu. That's why, look, drilling is important. I get it. You got to learn the move, but you got to roll. Yeah. And one could argue that drilling, it serves the same purpose just in a more like specific kind of way. It does. It does. You got to do both.

Yeah. Yeah. Now, if you drill correctly, but what you can't do is sit there and get shown to move. Right, right. You got to do the move. Yeah. And I used to do that too when we'd have guys going through CQC training. And a lot of times, you know, instructor might want to hear himself talk a lot and explain things.

Because, you know, it's a pump to the ego when you get up there and you show people what's what. You show how I did it. You did it like this. So, you know, you get an instructor that wants to hear himself talk. And meanwhile, they sit there and talk for 20 minutes. The seal platoon could have done three more runs through the killhouse in 20 minutes. So I'll tell you what. Say what you got to say.

Say it quick and let the boys go pull that trigger because that's how we get good. By doing. Back to the book, this sort of learning of minor importance in high school or college is basic in the Army. That is why drill is so important, why discipline is so essential. In war games, the soldier gets conditioned to all sights and sounds of battle. In early training, it may be possible to simulate realistically the noises of shells, dive bombers, and bursting bombs by recordings reproduced by loud speakers. In advanced training, a soldier may be taught to lie flat on the ground while real bullets strike within a few feet, close enough to cause sand to fall on the back of his neck.

He knows he is safe as so long as he lies still, but if you get up and run, he will be killed. That is good training for combat. A real bullet forms much better habits than a lecture about a bullet. Such thoroughly drilled habits enable the soldier to act when there is no time for thought. They ensure that he will act correctly and mechanically, even when his mind is confused and thinking is almost impossible.

But knowledge of the science of warfare and practice in solving novel military problems are important too because they enable the soldier to act wisely in the thousands of unexpected emergencies that arise in battle. Habit is safer than thought for standardized acts, but it won't work for brand new problems. That is why we would train our guys in brand new problems all the time. That way you get a protocol for how to handle both. brand new problems. You start to understand what you're going to do. Oh, I don't know what's happening.

What am I going to do is step back. I'm going to look around. I'm going to assess the situation. I'm going to come up with some possible solutions. I'm going to think about what the outcomes of those solutions are, what the risks are, and then I'm going to make a decision. We're going to move forward in that direction. Yeah.

Because like confronting or dealing with new problems or uncharted situations or whatever, the skill of dealing with that is like another skill in and of itself. Like I think you're saying this like last hour Yeah protocol and people are asking about protocol Protocol for handling new problems Like what do you do and eventually you get good at Because obviously the first thing is you do is you detach Yeah, you have to take a step back

You have to turn around and look around physically look around So detach look around make an assessment come up with possible solutions Think about what the outcomes of those solutions might be And then pick the one that has the best possible outcome Yeah Yeah and that's pretty straightforward than like trained level 10 training yeah perfect training on situation a B C D E F G H IJ K L M NL P yeah and Q because you but you're gonna get hit with Z yeah when Z hits it's like

dang can and then you totally shut down I just got a message from a guy that was in a police officer was in a big firefight with some of his guys and he was literally said said I was like thinking to myself I'll get covered move here's what we're gonna do prioritize and execute he was going through he's like it was pretty awesome pretty to hear that to hear a guy say yep I could hear your voice saying cover move put down cover fire right now it's going down yeah when it's happening they were in a 21-minute firefight which is a long long that's a long firefight for especially for police officers back to the book drill for combat changes the recruit squad into an

efficient fighting machine training can convert an unorganized civilian group into an organized unit with deadly power military confident competence moreover strips war of its most repulsive and paralyzing horrors and knowledge takes from the enemy his most potent and effective weapon surprise drill combat training practice and discipline combined with the experience in war are things that make america's combat troops into seasoned troops so even taking away the ability for the enemy to surprise you it's like we talked about before if you if you If you try a move on me in Jiu-Jitsu, and I've never seen it before,

there's a chance it's going to work. There's the best possible chance it's going to work. As soon as I know what that move is, then the chances of it working are a lot less. A lot less. Significantly less. Yeah. Yeah, that's why role playing is so important.

Well, in the business world, yeah, role plays is very important because we can come at you with different things that a subordinate it's going to save you. Yeah. Or even up the chain of command. I had to go brief my boss on something that we were pretty sure he didn't like. And I was like, okay, I go, you be the boss.

You come at me with all the negatives about the plan I've come up with. And then we do that. So then when I go in, I've already seen these. I've already seen it. Even one time. Like I said, one time makes an incredible difference. Back to the book, and we need speed. Democracies always have to hurry up at the last minute.

The enemy is always facing us, ready, trained, and there isn't much time. We must take advantage of every possible shortcut toward the goal of creating seasoned troops, troops armed with adequate training. The first shortcut is an understanding of the few facts about how learning takes place. The most important requirement of learning is incentive. Men marching to drill reluctantly can no more be taught swiftly and efficiently than a Jeep can be taught to run on an empty tank. People need incentive. But fortunately for the Army's instructors,

there is a powerful motive furnished by the situation itself. No false incentives need be thought up and provided. The enemy has attacked us. We are at war. And no man wants to go out and face that enemy unprepared. No American wants to see American soldiers killed needlessly in unmatched battle. No one wants to see our armies defeated and the Gestapo policing New York City. Success itself is a reward.

to the soldier. It makes him proud. This is when they start, I forgot to say that I'm skipping chunks of this book, but this is where he's talking about how to the incentives that a soldier can have. His commander may commend him, but it is usually enough if he sees that his CEO has noticed that he has done a good job. Good morale depends on such rewards, such awards by his officers and approval from his own comrades. In general, reward is much more effective for learning than is punishment.

This is good. Punishment excites resentment and tends to make the soldier anxious not to comply if he can get away with carelessness or disobedience. If you could remember that right there, this podcast is worthwhile. If you remember the fact that as a leader,

if you're constantly punishing people, what you're doing is making them resentful, encouraging them to not comply and rebel against you, and try and get away with carelessness and disobedience. Think about your kids too. Right? Because we do that with the kids.

You better do what I told you. And they're trying to skate around you. Reward keeps his attention on the business in hand. Punishment tends to shift his attention from the task to his own troubles. The best kind of reward because it is most effective in learning is the glow of satisfaction that a man has when he knows he has done something correctly and well. It has clicked. The most effective punishment is the surge of disqualification. is the surge of disgust that comes when he knows he's missed the target.

That sounds always good to have a reminder because it's natural to like, I mean, with your kids or whatever. When they do something wrong, because that'll stick out more in your mind, you know? If they do something right, especially if it's not for the first time, it's like, oh, yeah, that's how you're supposed to do it right kind of thing. So it doesn't stick out as much in your mind. You forget to commend them. Yeah, like encouragement, reward kind of thing.

like it's more powerful, but then in your mind as kind of the teacher or whatever, when they fail to miss the mark, you know, especially if they do it like if they're having a hard time with something, you know, you know, like to learn stuff, you got to do it over. So then they're having a hard time, I don't know, swimming, potty training, I don't know, whatever, when they don't miss the mark yet. So it comes with frustration sometimes, can't do that, can't show that kind of thing. But even though it's like the most readily available like reaction, you know, when they fail. So yeah, to be reminded of it helps, I think. Yeah, it's an important point. Next,

this is why the army has been right to reduce greatly the emphasis on close order drill in recent years. In the light of modern knowledge and in the view of modern conditions of warfare, this drill conflicts with the methods which must be used in battle. So close imagery drill is, or close order drill is when, you know, you see Marines are army, they're like handing the rifle back real force and everything's all, it's like parade type stuff. That's what close order drill is. And they used to do more of it and now he's saying that they do less. Back to the book, in the drill of the early basic training, the whole emphasis on teaching

is on teaching the soldier to respond to spoken commands. Yet when he goes into combat, spoken, spoken commands become impossible. The human voice is silent in the din of battle. If commands are given at all, they must be given in the form of a nudge, a kick or an arm and hand signal. In drill, the soldier also forms the habit of acting shoulder to shoulder with other men. He comes to rely on being in a group on doing what the other men do when they do it. Yet in combat, such close order work would be suicidal.

Men are on their own. Men are then on their own or in twos or threes. They must keep at a distance from each other, both to do much of their fighting skillfully and to avoid making crowded targets for the enemy's bombs, shells, or bullets. This means that in advanced training, men must learn new habits which conflict some respects of the old. That's not good. The basic rule of learning is this. Do it right from the beginning.

Because if you form wrong habits, you must unlearn them before you can learn what is right. The rule to follow is never prepare for combat by learning to act on a signal that cannot be given after combat has started. and then it talks about how to increase the speed of training. Here's some things to do to increase the speed of training. Number one, do things right the first time. Number two, keep constant checks that you know immediately whether you are doing right or making a mistake. That's a good one.

That's why I like shooting steel so much. Have you ever shot steel before? No. As soon as you pull the trigger and the shot goes, you know if you hit it or not. Yeah. And so it's completely gratifying. Make no unnecessary motions.

If you flourish your hands or putter around with your tools, like it or not, these profitless motions will become habit too. So I want to do everything as clean as you can. Do things in the same order and in the same way. Stick to this rule as far as possible. Avoid unnecessary links in the chains of your learning. This was interesting in it. I'm not going to read it because it went on about learning Morris Code

and how you can put these multiple different things. steps in to learn it when in fact you could just say that noise means this letter you don't have to translate it to the little things in your mind or the sounds in your mind the did did dash dot the dot dot dash dash dash or whatever you don't need to translate that in your mind that sound means this letter and you can get there quickly right right right like a language well it is language really yeah yeah yeah yeah like when you're fluent in a language you don't think in english anymore Or whatever you don't, I've rarely got, I've maybe gotten to that a little with a few parts of Espanel. Yeah.

When I was in college, but I never carried down a conversation without translating what I was hearing, which is completely lame. Yeah. You know, it's clunky for sure. Yeah. But, you know, that's part of the process, I would think. Yeah. Yeah. Number six, aim at first for smoothness of performance rather than speed.

Number seven, be sure to understand what you are trying to do, what final objective you are aiming at. That's important. People should really, whoever you're training needs to understand what they're trying to do. I found this in early jujitsu. There was a lot of lacking in this where you didn't understand that getting the underhooks was a thing.

You just understood, like for this particular move, you put your arm here. I didn't understand it was a whole thing. It would have been better to be like, Hey, you're always looking for the underhawks. Yeah, makes sense. That's actually what Dean taught me. Totally.

He is the one that taught me that too. Yeah. And this is when he was a blue belt. Yeah. Interesting. Number eight, learn series of actions rather than single moves. That's good for jiu-jitsu as well.

You don't just want to learn one. You want to learn how all those three, four, five moves tie together and how you set up the counters. and how the counter leads to another trap. Nine, keep on practicing. Ten, overlearn. Number 11, relax. Interestingly enough, tell people to relax and relax harder.

Book ways have been worked out to help cut down the time required to master a subject to read and understand a book or assignment to solve a problem or to memorize a rule or formula. The man in the army, This is about studying. And I was like, I don't know if I'm going to put this in there. But then all, you know, people are students.

People had a new job. They've got to learn something. And this is the most cold-blooded way to talk about learning. The man in the army should not allow noise or other distractions or interruptions to put them off his work. Working under such difficult circumstances is direct training for actual fighting conditions. Oh, so there's some annoying things going on when you're trying to, you know, read a book. Cool. Learn to ignore them.

In the field, the most vital and difficult decisions must be made in the midst of the most violent distractions and under all sorts of physical and mental strains. The officer had to wait until he could be free of noise or disturbance before he could work out a problem or make a decision would be useless in the army. If he's used to it, a certain amount of noise and confusion may actually stimulate the army man to do better thinking. if it's convenient, a definite time of the day should be assigned for study. The mind can be trained to be ready for work at a certain hour, so this happens as much the same way as you begin thinking about food or some other set time. For the same reason, it might be desirable to have a certain place set aside for study, even if it is just your bunk in a noisy barracks or tent.

Then the act of sitting down in that place will immediately form habit, put you in the proper frame of mind for mental work. If you are lucky enough to have a desk or a corner for your study, don't spoil its value by using it for relaxation or loafing. But even if they are insistently disturbing, insistently disturbing, it is nearly always possible to ignore distractions and get down to the business at hand. The mind is an excellent sieve net.

You can read the newspapers and never see the advertisements. You would hear as strange footsteps across the room, yet never noticed the loud ticking of a clock on your own table. The telegrapher can sleep through the long, continuous sounding of his instrument, yet wake at once his own call when his own call comes in with the right dots and dashes. In the same way, it is possible to make yourself deaf and blind to all sorts of sights and sounds except those directly concerned with the problem being studied. Do you get annoyed when you're trying to do work?

Do you listen to music when you're doing work? on the work but yes interesting at first it is fatiguing to shut out distractions you know what I'm like I was just as I was asking a quite this is what I'm like if I let something start to bother me then it just bothers me a ton and and for some reason if I just don't let it bother me then it's fine like my my wife's in the other room with you know my youngest daughter and they're playing a game and they're making noise and having conversations about it and whatever.

If I'm in the wrong mindset, if I don't do what this book is telling me to do, which is just, you just shut it out. Like a, like a legit dude is supposed to do. Oh, there's some noise over there, whatever. Just lock it up. Yep. Otherwise, it's what? Weakness. Otherwise, it's major weakness. What about like snoring?

Like, you know, you ever like a roommate or what, but, you know, guys who snoring up? I have, we have a mutual friend that when we used to go to fights, we'd stay in one room and the snoring would be pretty crazy. But I would normally sleep right through it. Yeah. Yeah. If I know what's happening, it's weird.

Like my crying kids, when they were babies, they would wake up my wife and my wife, and I would sleep right through it. But if there's a noise outside the house or whatever, I'm awake and she sleeps right through it. It's like the perfect combination. I think the what the girl, the mother and the crying child, I think that's a genetic. thing I think where like a crying baby's like you know did you like a genetic thing did you learn that in pro science the halls of bro science oh hey does that make sense yes it does and is there part of me because you know when when we had small children my wife didn't work I did so

that was her roles and response my roles and responsibility were go to the you know do my job during the day and whenever I was in the Navy her roles and responsibilities were to take care of those kids. Yeah. So she there's probably a huge part of that where I'm maybe in the beginning when the first baby was crying and I was like, oh, what's that? And then eventually I just said, oh, she's got it. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. She got it handled. Yeah. Going back to the book, at first, it is fatiguing to shut out distractions. You actually make your muscles tense in your effort to attend a business. Later you get so that things that distract you no longer worry you. You know, it's when I'm on an airplane, you ever have a screaming baby on an airplane.

Yeah, no factor to me. Yeah, I mean, it's like no factor whatsoever. I'm like about whatever. Yeah, we talked about this while we were on there. Oh, okay. You brought it up too. I was like, oh, yeah, that's screaming. Is that bothering you?

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Doesn't bother me at all. Still later, they help and find that you miss them if they disappear, like the man who is startled when his clock stopped ticking or the radio. At first, it prevents you from studying, but if you keep it on continuously, you may get it so you cannot study without it. Having set the stage as well as possible for most effective study the next, important preparation is to develop absorbing interest in the material to be mastered. It is not necessary to resort to self-delivered mental pep talks.

Enthusiasm grows naturally out of the realization that a study is important in reaching a desirable goal, that it will satisfy your curiosity and will give you a chance to exercise some special talent. Isn't that funny how that could very well be a self-pept talk? That those words right there, you know, you could use it. True. The chief aid to learning, however, is understanding. When something makes sense, when it all fits in with what you already know, that it is easily filed away in the ready reference system of your memory

where it can be recalled later at need. Learning without understanding is hard. You probably learned the multiplication tables that way. Learning with understanding may require no effort at all. So try to understand. See relationships. If chapter 8 depends on chapter 2, then you are uncertain about chapter 2. Turn back.

See the dependence. Work it out for yourself rather than read it again. If you learn a new scientific fact, see whether you can find instances of it in your own experience. And then when you think you know it, when you think you know what you have studied, say it all over to yourself in your own words. That tests understanding. Sometimes it gets clear for the first time as you're, explain it to yourself. And if you can't get it said to your own satisfaction, then chances

are you really do not understand it. And what you don't understand, you won't remember. That's good information right there for the students of the world, which everyone should be. This is other good information, solving problems. The method of bird's eye view first applies to rapid problems solving as well. Haste too often tempts people to plunge into working out the first part of a problem or the easy parts before the entire problem is clearly in mind. This may result in a false start and needless work. Read the whole problem through first. Use care in setting the problem down.

If you are new at this particular sort of problem, don't try to take shortcuts in this. A little extra time used on formulating the problem in your mind or on paper can save a great deal of time in finding the solution. The next step is to rapidly review all possible methods of solving the problem until you find the one that seems right. Then try that. If that fails to work, try another. That's the way you work with a mechanical puzzle. You should use the same method on a technical problem. And this is the same exact thing that I was saying about how to solve like a complex tactical scenario.

You take a step back. You look at what the problem is. You make sure you understand the whole problem. You just don't say, oh, we're getting shot out from over there. We're going to change everything and focus on that because you're getting flanked. Yeah. Or you're getting some recon by fire over there. So you take a step back, you analyze the situation, you make sure you understand it to the best of your possibility.

And then you start saying, okay, what are my options? Once you figure out what your options are, you quickly assess what would the results of those options be. What's the upside? What's the downside? And then you pick one of them, you go. So funny. That exact thing, not as complex, but that exact thing played itself out in my life very recently. So I got a trampoline, right?

You know, one of those big ones for your kids. And you got to put it together. Yeah. Someone didn't look at the whole instructions. Well, I do this thing that they said. I forget how it said the words they used in the book right there that you just said. But basically I looked at it. I didn't understand the whole thing.

I didn't read the whole answer. I looked at it. I was like, oh, I understand. I see the problem I'm dealing with here. So I did it. How'd that work out for you? Bro, three separate times I went. You know how like at a certain point you got to make sure you got to do something?

It's like that kind. So I had to make sure that the springs were aligned in a certain way for a reason that's going to come up later. Yeah, that you didn't know. So I'm like, I get it. I'm smart. I put on all the spring. The whole thing, everything. It took like an hour, just over an hour to do it.

So I keep going, I keep going, keep going. Now it's time to put up like the, you know, the little barriers. So your kids don't fly off the trampoline. But the springs are not aligned with the hooks there. So I can't put up the barriers. Yeah, it's a bummer, isn't it? It's a freaking bummer. Yeah, and it happened again with another thing later.

Actually, it happened four times, but the fourth thing was just the little basketball hoop. And I was like, it's not worth it. So I never put on the basketball hoop. But yeah, man, if I were to read the whole thing. Read the whole dang thing. And I wouldn't have run. It would have saved me like three hours. Back to the book.

When you are stumped, it may be because you have taken the wrong approach to the problem. It's easy to get into a rut in thinking. It is hard to shake yourself loose from one point of view and see a completely new one. This stuff is so simply stated that it's, you underestimate the power of what's being said right here. Yeah. This stuff is lifesavers. You tend to keep going back and repeating this same old kind of attack that has always failed. It's like feeling in the same, it's like, it's like, it's like feeling in the same pocket six times, six times when you've lost your cigarettes and cannot find them. Especially is it hard to try new methods when you, it's like, it's like feeling in the same pocket six times,

when you are tired or nervous over your failure to get the right answer. At such times, it is best to close your book and work on something else or to do something outdoors with fresh air or even if you can afford the time, take a nap. When you come back to your problem, the new approach may come to you in a flash

and from then on the work may go quickly and smoothly. Yeah. I have to actually, that's one of those things. I'm pretty instinctive on a lot of things that I do in terms of things that I talk about and the way I actually apply them in my life, I'm pretty good at most of them. Most of them I'm not even, I don't have to consciously,

I can kind of look back and go, oh, yeah, I see what I did and I'm pretty stoked on it. I can do that, especially in jiu-jitsu, I can get in a rut and be like, oh, I'm just going to do this right here and it should work because I've done it before and it's going to work this time. And I'll have to constantly be like,

oh, you're beating your head against the wall. Don't do it anymore. Yeah. And I'll have to do a different. approach. Yeah. But I mean, that's very, it's kind of demonstrates you humility because you've always, like every time we roll in. Actually, when I see you rolling with other like really good guys, it seems like you adapt and make little changes way quicker than most people. And for dang sure, way quicker than me. I feel like I'm all that. Like what you just said, I feel like that's just

100% me. Yeah, yeah. No, what I'm saying, but I'm sure I'm okay at it. I mean, I know I'm okay at it. But even me, At this point, I'll be like, oh, he's not going to put his arm there. You've tried it three times in a row. It's not working. You need to do something else. Yeah, you can recognize it. I recognize when I'm beating my head up against the wall.

Yeah. And that's not a good feeling. And it's, but the great feeling is as soon as you do something different, generally, you may not get total success, but you won't get the same outcome because the outcome is failing. Yeah. Which we don't like. No, we do. How to make learning stick.

The two basic principles of learning. anything, our interest and participation. It is not true that repetition alone is the basis of learning something well. A man who repeats an act again and again with his mind only half of what he is doing, his mind only half on what he is doing may indeed learn it, but he will learn it neither quickly nor well. Fortunately, doing a thing and practicing it usually reinforce a man's interest so that there is really only one important principle interest at the bottom of learning. Active participation is secured by practice. Lectures are used only when preliminary explanation at some length is needed or when men cannot be put

through the work itself. You're not only told how to fire a rifle. You are helped actually to do the firing. And you work out of doors in the way that you will later work in combat. You do under instruction what later on you are going to have to do in combat yourself. So you've got to do these things. Interest is secured in a variety of ways. A variety of ways.

Number one, the personality of the instructor is important. It should be a dynamic and forceful person who appreciates the fact that learning takes time and that some men are slower than others. He must stimulate his men to want to learn. Two, instruction must finally become individual. There must be close contact between some instructor and every soldier. Three, the relation of the learning to the problems of combat must always be stressed. Four, although non-essentials are omitted in army teaching,

it is important that the soldier should understand the basic principles of what he is doing. If he is learning how to use a machine, then he should know how the machine. Gene works. Critical. Number five, the soldier must also have full knowledge of the purpose of what he learns, of why he needs to know it. Only with such knowledge can his interest be at the highest. And only with such knowledge is he able to adapt what he has learned to different circumstances

that arise in combat. So we've got to know why. And it also says here that all army commanders are leaders and teachers. So if you're a leader, you are a teacher. Talking a little bit here about efficiency and training, the simplest kind of learning is to learn by trial and error, but this isn't the best, the most efficient way. It weighs too much time,

and so the army never uses it except in solving original problems where one method after another may be tried, or at least imagined. So trial and error is never the best. Here's a good one. In battle, a leader can give orders, but only brief ones sometimes by signal. The soldier receiving such an order must also see the battle situation right around him in deciding how to best carry out that order. Next, how to speed up training.

Will to learn. A soldier's common sense tells him that he must learn how to fight before he meets the enemy. Number two, interest. Number three, discipline. Soldiers are trained to realize the serious importance of the things they are taught how much these things will mean in combat later on. Number four, individual instruction. Number five, experience of success.

Army instructors try their best to see that each man does a thing right the first time, even by holding his hand and putting it through the correct movements if necessary. Number six, elimination of non-essentials. You're only supposed to be learning things that you actually need to know. Number seven, all around attack. Every possible way of reaching the soldier's student mind is utilized. And then this instruction is immediately put to use in action on the drop. Soldiers learn by doing so.

As far as possible, instruction has kept practical. and concrete. If an instructor puts too much emphasis on training men in the particular details of doing a job, the soldier fails to get a clear understanding of the result aimed at it. Although men in training men in many different army jobs, adequate attention must be paid to the detailed steps to be taken to reach the final objective, the aim itself must also be made entirely clear to the soldier. This is cool. When I train little kids in jiu-jitsu,

I'll be like, you just got to get around their legs. Yeah. And you tell them that, and they'll figure out how to do it. And then when they get stumped, you teach them some actual technique. Otherwise, he's apt to become confused in battle if the situation changes, and he cannot follow the steps in exactly the way he was taught in training. Efficiency in the army. Every ounce of the soldier's energy should be concentrated on the defeat of the enemy.

whenever he wastes his strength on any sort of activity that does not contribute to that one end it is an effect a casualty nowhere is efficiency more important than in combat there every man must work at the very peak of his powers his eyes must see better than the enemy's eyes his ears must hear better he must think better on this victory depends weary weariness tired hands or eyes or nervous system, anything that reduces the soldier's efficiency at a critical moment in combat may cost him his life. It may cost the army a position and advance a battle. The enemy usually refuses to recognize the end of a workday. Nature often provides the only lighting. Bomb holes ensure ventilation. When a soldier gets into actual combat, what he is called upon to do seems to have no

similarity at all to anything he had ever done in a civilian job. There is no routine in battle, no standardization, no monotonous repetition. Each moment is a challenging new experience calling for new decisions and fresh insight. It is hard to see where the combat soldier can get any help at all from what he has learned about efficiency in a factory far from the battle zone. That is why a soldier in training must learn from the start to cut out useless and roundabout movements that take needless time seconds count and a soldier's energy counts too he can't afford to get worn down before his job is done he must keep his speed and accuracy up to top-notch performance any blundering combat may be fatal there he may not be able to miss and aim again he may never have another

chance now we get into this last little section that we're going to cover today it's about fatigue but sleep that other enemy fatigue is a fifth column enemy that is always ready to infiltrate and attack no man can stick at a job

for long periods through the day and night and continue at top-notch performance especially if his job involves using a great deal of strength keeping alert and making accurate split-second decisions so you allegedly need rest

I posted the other day sleep is the enemy And people get so it's a song by Danko Jones And it's a great song Sure But and you know I kind of do feel that way You know because it's pretty easy just to fold to sleep And you can spend all day and bed

I know you don't see it that way But I kind of do No man Sleep is the enemy just like food is the enemy Yeah if you start abusing it and making you know like Good point man Good point Just how long

Men can work and continue to do do their best depends upon a great many different things. It depends first upon the man. It depends also on the type of work. It depends upon the conditions of the work, upon the food eaten, upon rest obtained during the job, upon worry and excitement, and finally upon the necessity for action. A man can run fast and long if death or the devil is behind him. He can fight hard for unbelievable lengths of time if there can be no retreat or a victory is in sight. Most hazardous is the fatigue which comes from spurts of extreme effort, the greatest of which a man is capable. Such supreme effort seldom, if ever, occurs in any job on the home front.

It does occur in sport. It does occur in battle. Spurred by the necessity to extraordinary violence a man may actually put out so much effort that. burns up his body fuel at a rate eight times more than the normal rate. I have no idea where they got these numbers. Eight times more. That's a pretty accurate. This, he cannot keep up more than a few minutes at a time. Otherwise, the sugar in his blood will fail, will fall to a critically low level.

His heart will fail, his collapse or even death will follow. What do you think, bro science right there? Well, I mean, then you make a good point where you... I don't know where you got these... I don't know where you got those numbers from. Well, we do know people get rabdo. Yes, and... But you get rabdo, you don't like fail on the moment, right?

Your heart doesn't fail. Yeah, well, it's... I would... The first thing I thought of is, like, in Jujit's or MMA, where you get the, like, the adrenaline dump, right? Because you're so, like... I mean, it's through adrenaline, but, like, it's these external circumstances. It's like, you're on the stage.

You know, you're... Usually it's in a competition. It's not necessarily in training. So you're on the stage. So it's win, it's do or die. Yeah. On stage. Everyone's watching, do or die.

It's not do or die. But these guys are, this is a combat. That's do or die. Yes. I was just thinking like if this is true, like when a guy gets gassed in the UFC and he just can't go on. But then what if somebody came in there with a machete and was like run? Yeah.

What do you think the guy would do? Yeah, you'd run. You'd run, right? Yeah. But that's like another level. of stress. That's what that's do or die. Yes, that's do or die.

So you're throwing do or die out there on the UFC or whatever, and that's not accurate. No, sir, it's not. It's very inaccurate. But as an example, it feels like that's, you know, like they're so, but they're using like probably eight times the energy, you know, because they're so pumped up because of they're on stage and stuff, the nerves and all that stuff. So it's like that. You know, it's another weird one when someone gases or whatever, and then they end up winning

and then they get that other surge from winning. And they're running around. Yeah, you're like, where was that a couple of ten seconds ago? Why didn't you put that effort out, bro? I know, yeah. So that proves, I wrote about this in the field manual. Like, sometimes you got to use emotion and sometimes you got to use logic. But sometimes you've got to let that emotion come out.

Yeah. So, but the thing is, like, that does sound funny and look funny. If a guy, like, seems to be sort of gassing, then right, literally the second he wins, he's running with his hands in there, by the way. When, you know, but all that is, that's not like a, like, like, you. like maybe a slack or thererson, nothing like that. That's like just the stress. And winning is like, I don't know if I'd call it a stress,

but I guess this is what I heard is bro signs. I heard this from people. I didn't read this in any official thing. But you get like this boost of like hormones, like testosterone and all these crazy hormones when you win a fight. So maybe it's that. So it's like, man, it's not like it's controllable. You have to actually be confronted with a stimulus of winning

for you to get that boost, you know? just like you're confronted with the stimulus of the crowd to get that overdrive scenario. We're using eight times the energy. Back to the book. Yet such fatigue does not always make you inefficient if you have strong enough need or desire for action. I like that right there. Yeah, that's that machete scenario that you just introduced. Sometimes I wonder if I'm like perpetually in a state of like war in my brain.

Because sometimes I can't sleep at all. that yeah and because I want to get up I'm not like that all the time I mean I do there's there's definitely days where I sleep really soundly yeah but a lot of times it's like no it's not happening because I got stuff I got to do or a war over here on my end over here I understand yes mental work and emotional strain are also fatiguing but the man who gets tired from mental work or the strain of responsibility and worry has additional problem he may not consume the sugar in his blood as does the man engaged in a violent physical work or combat his blood therefore gets out of balance This is bro science coming at and the rest of sleep may not readily restore it's actually weird because it's bro science, but it makes sense

Yeah, it's all bro science kind of makes sense. That's why it's bro science, right? It is good for the man who has been under this sort of strain to get some sort of physical exercise a swift game of tennis A long walk or a turn at chopping wood A second effect of fatigue is the tired feeling. I think that's funny. This is nature's natural protection against over fatigue. When a man feels tired, it becomes increasingly difficult for him to go on with his job. He is more and more eager for rest and sleep, less and less able to spur himself on to go another mile. The best antidote for this feeling of tiredness is high morale and the example of other men.

It is the man working alone who has the hardest job in combating his own desire to lie down and sleep. But the most important effect of fatigue is the effect it has on work. When a man is tired, he doesn't. He cannot do his very best. The amount of work he is able to do falls off and the quality of his work suffers too. He does not see it as well, does not hear as well, nor is he so alert. His movements may become clumsy and bungling. loss of loss and efficiency strange as it may seem is not always related to feelings of fatigue.

A man may feel very tired when he has not been working particularly hard, but is merely bored or uninterested, uninterested in his work, or when the ventilation is so bad that he gets dopey. This is important, I think. On the other hand, a man really close to exhaustion may be so excited by his work that he's unable to rest and does not feel tired at all. Oh, yeah. So consider this and probably think about this. A lot for some reason.

Yeah, it is you. That's what I think. And consider this like in jiu-jitsu, right? Like right now, if I were to talk enough smack to you right now, like no matter how you feel, you'd be tired, you could be in one hour sleep, you could be doing all this stuff like before and whatever. You could be terrified. I talk enough smack and I challenge you to roll outside. You'll probably do it. Yeah, there's no probably.

Yeah. It's on. But if I say, okay, after this, go like run on a treadmill. It's easier. It's easier. Yeah, yeah. output well I guess I kind of walked into that anyway it's debatably easier to run on a treadmill but man you ever ran it have you ever run a treadmill like like I've run a treadmill probably 10 times in my whole life yeah so and

you know I used to get into the trip but man if when you get when that boredom hits you bro you're like I can't run one more step on this damn thing even though I could easily go train or now with like a bunch of good guys, you know. Yeah. So it's like it's that exact thing. When you get bored, like just the littleest bit of fatigue is going to jam you up big time. But even if you're really fatigued and you're doing something fun, bro, you'll go. Oh yeah, for sure.

That's why jihitsu is such good exercise because it's fun. So true. Men differ considerably in the rate at which they get tired on the same job. They differ even more in their rates of recovery after work is over. There's almost no general rule as to what will happen except that recovery is. is very rapid at first and slows down as the resting state is approached. The fact means, however,

that a lot of good can be got out of short rest and that many short rests are better than one long one. That makes sense to me. Taking a little power nap. Students learn best if they did not do all learning at once. Do not try and cram up before examinations, but study a little and then quit for a while for a day or two. In industry, efficiency is highest

when rest pauses are arranged at frequent intervals. I agree with that. Although sometimes I just through stuff. So it does not pay to overwork workers or soldiers. Some fatigue is unavoidable and much fatigue must be undergone in the process

of toughening a soldier. But chronic fatigue is not to be found along the shortest road to victory. So don't get tired. Now it gets real specific on sleep. You can stay up all night and keep awake. And I was surprised how accurate this reflects me. I think you'll find it accurate as well. You can stay up all night and keep awake,

provided you are active, provided you keep using some muscles, at least the speaking muscles. You can march all night, play poker all night, fight all night, and talk all night. You will likely, you will be likely to get terribly sleepy somewhere between 0,300 and 0600. Unless you are doing something exciting or intensely interesting, but you can get through that provided you're active. So like this would happen a lot. You go out on a patrol and you patrol all night to get to a position and then it's now three o'clock in the morning

and that's when you get tired. Four o'clock in the morning you haven't gone about it. That's when you get tired. Then this happens. Do you actually continue on? That does not mean however that you can read or study all night using few muscles other than those of your eyes. If you have to study all night you may need to read out loud or stand up to read. by the time because basically, and that's totally true, right? If you have work to do and you're up working, it's fine. But if you're, I'm going to read this book in the next 10 hours and you're falling asleep.

Yeah, and that's one of the reasons why if you, like, let's say you have a normal scheduled job like a 9-25 and then you want to work out or go Jiu-Jitza or something after work, don't go home. Because when you go home, you sit down on the couch for a second or even if you just like, you know, just talk to your. your wife or whatever, it's like, like, rather than going straight to the gym and you're going, you know. That might be the best advice you've ever given. Seriously. Like if you want to train, don't go home. Go to the gym.

Yeah. That's very good advice. Then it goes on and it says by breakfast time, you will be getting less sleepy. This is totally true. If you stay up and once the sun's coming up, you can get through the next day pretty well. You may feel tired, especially you've been awake, especially you've been marching or walking to keep. keep awake, you won't feel fresh, you'll feel uncomfortable, but other people will not notice

anything wrong with you. Unless you sit down to relax with nothing important or interesting to do, then very likely you'll doze off. If you have a job that requires accurate movements or accurate thinking, you'll probably make no more mistakes than you usually do. So that's saying, hey, if you stay up for 24 hours, you'll still be good to go, whole next day. Which I know you've done done this at the muster or close to it, right? Where you've done like an hour's sleep, two hours sleep? Yeah, I've done it before. Maybe for one day? Yeah. And like second day you kind of hit the rag reel.

Yeah. Big time. Yeah. The second night you won't want to stay up, but you may have to. Another march may be necessary. The enemy may attack. And it's the second night. And the second night is like the first, but more difficult.

It's harder to keep active under your own power. Yet you can. If your officers are the enemy furnished the motivation. You don't want to keep your mind on any topic very long. Your thoughts and ideas will trail off into irrelevancies. If you can possibly get a chance, chance to relax, you will, and then you'll go to sleep. You ought not to be on sentry duty, but you may keep awake by walking, or if you go off into inattentive days while you continue walking.

By this time, you are probably getting quite irritable. Little things provoke you, and you may talk some nonsense. Your anger does not last, though, you'd rather go to sleep. The day after the second sleepless night is better than the preceding sleepless night, but you'll be irritable, rambling, and illogical in speech, thought, and inattentive, more than usually sensitive to pain. Your eyes hit. You may begin to see double. You can't sit down to read.

Your handwriting becomes bad and pencil may drop from your hand. You may even begin to have hallucinations, imagining events that do not really happen as if you've begun to dream while you are still awake. You can still be spurred to your full mental powers in manual dexterity if this stimulus is strong enough. If your commander demands your attention, if a shell comes over, but the, you can't effect of these things doesn't last as long as it would normally. Pretty soon you are back to where you were with the most important thing in your world is to need the need to shut your eyes and

go to sleep. Wounded soldiers coming out of combat after many days and nights of continuous fighting may be so terribly in need of sleep that even the severe pain of wounds does not keep them from going sound to sleep as soon as they are allowed to lie down. Anesthetics can be dispensed with. So there you go. There's your there's your second day. and now you're in your second day, a second full day without sleep. How long can you go without sleep? You can manage a third night without sleep

and maybe a fourth, with all the symptoms getting worse, with attention harder and harder to command, with more activity necessary to keep you awake. A psychologist once kept himself awake for four whole days, spurred only on by scientific motive for seeing what would happen next. With doses of a stimulant,

benzodrine, which is like an an anphetamine, which I had to look up to help. He may actually, he actually kept himself awake for eight whole days and seven nights. There was a man once who believed that sleep was a bad habit, which ought to and could be overcome. He was given a watchman's clock on which to record every 10 minutes the fact that he was awake. He stayed awake almost continuously for nine and a half days, missing only 31 out of 1,380 recordings of the 10-minute intervals.

Of course, he got some other catnaps during the 10-minute intervals. As time were on, he became dazed. He could keep appointments at the wrong time or in the wrong place or both. He got so he could, so that he was not always sure where he was. At the end of the time, he was beginning to have hallucinations and delusions of persecution and had become so cantankerous that the experiment had to be stopped. He just turned into... She just got so angry.

It just had to shut it down. Like, it wasn't like he was going to die. He was just real mad at everyone. They're like, well, we can't take this anymore. So that's pretty accurate. Going back to the book, Sleep soon restores the sleepy man or animal. The men who stay awake for two or three days

are generally in pretty good shape after a 12-hour sleep and show no effects at all after two or three normal nights. That's totally true. You can get yourself back to normal real quick. Yeah. The whole trouble and sleeplessness is with attention and thus higher levels of the brain which are necessary for attention. The soldier who loses sleep is becoming inefficient because he can no longer keep his mind on the job on any job except the one job of getting relaxation, closed eyes and sleep. He can be stimulated into attention by activity, by authoritative command, by danger, but the effect of the spur lasts less and less.

as time, less and less time as he gets sleepier. When spurred, he can do almost any simple task as about as well as usual, unless it is a task that requires attention, alertness, and judgment. Then he begins to fail. Being frustrated by not being allowed to sleep, he becomes irritable, belligerent, and perhaps even unmanageable. His morale goes down. He's no longer a good comrade, but his recovery will be rapid. Give him sleep, which is all he wants, and pretty soon he'll be back his old competent friendly alert self that's all right in an emergency but ordinarily soldiers should have enough sleep they need to be alert whether for study or combat whether driving a truck in america or firing an anti-tank gun in africa or europe enough regular sleep from taps to first call

should be the rule except when the enemy decrees otherwise there is no rule about the amount of sleep that young adults must have. Some get cranky and irritable when cut down from seven hours a night to five. Others do not. The unit with high morale can do with less sleep, but sleepy men tend to have low morale. These two forces work against each other.

There are also no rigid rules about the details of sleep, no rules that apply to everyone alike. So, and actually it's interesting because I'm here right now on a very minimal amount of sleep. I had a meet, I had a fly to D.C. I had a meeting in D.C. It went late. And when I got done with the meeting, got back to my hotel at midnight. I had to prep this podcast. I was on West Coast time. So I was like, well, it's only 10 o'clock or whatever, 9 o'clock. So I just stayed awake. My car pickup was at 3. I probably slept 3. 40 minutes and then well but then I did sleep on the plane flying back from the east coast out to here

I got at least probably three hours of sleep they're uncomfortable you know just not is that even sleep we don't know what does that count as yeah and not try not don't have much sleep right now you do pretty good yeah it doesn't matter when people you know when people people people go you can't perform I don't I don't know and people free out and say you cannot there's no way you can perform as well when you're sleepy if you don't have enough sleep it's like bro i get it hey i'm not anti-sleep if you need to sleep man sleep as much as you can sleep as much as you can sleep eight hours a day sleep 10 hours a day i don't care i'm not against you i don't hold it against you but there's two things number one if you have a

lot of things that you need to do and you spend a lot of time in bed the things that you need to do what can happen. So you may need to get out of bed and get things to happen. Number two, I don't even, I have a horrible feeling if I sleep a lot. Yeah. Not just, okay, I feel bad because I missed on doing some stuff that I probably needed to do. Also, I don't feel more rested. Oh, yeah.

Okay. I don't feel more rested if I sleep eight hours. I feel sometimes worse. Huh. So, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And he essentially said, everyone's different. Yes. Like there's no. 100% so. Man, I'm the complete opposite. I feel way more rested.

Even seven hours, I'm good. Six hours is I'm fine. Six hours, two days in a row. I'm not, that's when those symptoms start to creep in. Seven hours every single day,

fine. Eight hours. I feel like a boost. Like I'm a, yeah. Nine hours. I don't know if I could go nine hours more than one or two nights in a row.

Like just physically, I just freak up or whatever. But oh, I could do the nine hours. And I'd be like solid, solid. Yeah. I'll have to try something out. I'll have to try it out and see if I feel more solid.

But you, for you, you know, like you said, people say, hey, you, you, there's no way you can perform at your, at your highest if you're like sleep deprived or whatever, whatever. I would imagine just like how, you know, how they say in here that everyone's different. Like your optimum versus your suboptimum might be like super small, you know, where. where you feel little teeny tiny effects, but your output or the results of your output or whatever are pretty similar. They're almost pretty much unnoticeable,

even though technically you could have done a little bit better with more sleep kind of thing. But, you know, just like, and then opposed to me where, man, I go five hours of sleep. The difference between six hours of sleep and five hours of sleep for me is like, I feel like a completely different person. Like there was, yeah, oh, yeah, man.

There's one time, it was like, I remember because I was talking to Laif. So it was the time when Laif was in town. I got like very hardly any hours of sleep. And I remember talking to him and thinking, bro, Lee think I thinks I'm stupid or not. Just because I didn't even really make sense. I mean, I don't know if he noticed it, but I noticed it.

But then, yeah, if I got like six or seven or whatever, it's cool. Well, for everyone that freaks out, I'm not saying don't sleep, sleep a bunch, sleep all you want. That's fine. you don't sound very confident or you don't sound very like well it's probably because I don't because you only got three hours of sleep

well yeah you're irritable you're irritable right now I think it's because I get that you should sleep but I think people take advantage of it real quick that makes sense they start they start just getting into the you know hey I'm just going to sleep all the time it's like when someone says dark chocolate's good for you

you know what I'm saying? And then they eat a whole dark chocolate cake. Yeah, yeah. And then it's like, well, does that include dark chocolate cakes? Does that include dark chocolate triple fudge ice cream? Because the dark chocolate is good for you. So I'm in the game. So sleep is good for me.

So I'm not getting out of bed. Yeah. So, but whatever. I encourage people to sleep. And I, it's not, the other thing is that's crazy is it's not like I don't sleep. I sleep. I sleep almost every day. You know?

You know what I mean? That's good. Like almost every day I sleep. No, I sleep just about every day. I go to bed at 10, 10, 30, 11, 11, 30, somewhere in there. I wake up at 4.30, maybe 420, maybe 432. But that's a lot of sleep. You know, that's between 5 and 6 hours every day.

Yeah, I mean, I guess for your standard. So people freaking out. Yeah. So no reason. Well, you know, I mean, for people who are sleep deprived and they do have differences, which very, we'll say. This much I do know. I do know this for a fact. When I have less sleep, I'm more emotional.

Oh, yeah. And you know what? I actually, it actually is helpful for me. Oh, dang. Yeah. Like, I like to be sleep deprived somewhat. I don't say, I like to sleep a little bit less because it's more, it makes more, it makes my life a little bit more on end. Which I like actually what's funny is you said that one time when you're like I like a little bit of sleep depth

Just a little bit that was weird when you told me I was like I see what you're saying because it kind of It's almost like a comfort thing right like if you're too comfortable like you might be more like inclined to relax Almost kind of idea Even though I mean I can't really get down with it because the more Rested I am the more happier I'm gonna feel and you like you say emotional and in the book it said irritable right Or something that I think it's the same thing I'm with you, I'm with you, man. Iritable, like, the kind of, like, I'm irritable with, like, stuff not even, like, inanimate stuff, you know, like the, my phone isn't connecting to my Bluetooth and my car quick enough.

I'm like, what the hell's wrong with this thing in my head, you know, that kind of stuff even? But then if I'm rested, Brad, no factor. Maybe it won't work at all. I don't care. See, I like that little bit of edge because part of it is because things like that never bother me. So, oh, whatever, my phone didn't connect with it. Yeah. So you're kind of dead inside.

Yeah. I'd rather bring it back to life a little bit with a little bit of anger. Iridability. Make it good. Anyways, that, so that's where I want to stop for this podcast about this book. And on the next book, and actually this is like the warm up. And I think the second half of the book is even better. It's when it gets into the morale.

It's when it gets into leadership. It's when it gets into the psychological warfare, offense and defense. And so we'll pick that up on the next podcast. I want to do one more little passage from this book here. It's a shorter passage, but it's just, again, just a reminder of what war is. Going back to, and we go on. Here we go. We found the platoon and hardly recognized it.

The sergeant was there and McDonald, but the rest were strangers. They told me that the 73rd of the 4th Division had been so cut up that they had been withdrawn and the 85th Nova Scotia Highlanders had taken their place. The remnant of the 73rd had been divided between us and the 13th. I got McDonald to one side and asked questions. It was far worse than I thought. The 42nd had gone straight through to their objective despite the sleety, snow and mud and confusion had driven back all opposition and seized their objective.

But on their left, the fourth division had been held up, and a flanking fire had taken a heavy toll. Freddy was gone. He had predicted truly. A big shell had landed beside him, killing him, and burying him. Charlie had fallen in the first rush, riddled with bullets. Joe, the ex-policeman, had fought through to the objective and had been killed by a sniper on the flank. One shell had wiped out Stevenson, Thoreau, and Roy as they grouped by a captured gun. McMillan had been shot in the stomach and had died after waiting hours in a trench. Billy, the complainer, had fallen as he had charged a machine gun, keeping on until he was almost. within reach of the gunners little Gilroy had been killed and Westcott smaley had been wounded

Huggy the sergeant had been defied and had been wounded at the same time and had been taken away together big Herman was missing they located his body a month later that morning he had shaken hands with Freddie said goodbye to him and then we had when he had got going had run amok. He was found almost at the bottom of the ridge near a battery position with eight dead Germans about him, four of them killed

by bayonet. In the other platoons, besides Tommy, Slim and Joe had survived, and Ira and Sam and Big Glenn and Eddie and Mickey and Jerry. They sat in the dugout that night after a hard day of rebuilding roads

each man's suffering from bodily fatigue and crawling with vermin and the clammy chill of mud-caped clothing their faces brooding enigmatic even mickey's curiously odd only their eyes moving they would not talk about the fighting and seemed utterly worn six months ago we had marched eagerly bravely our tin hats askew and with a cheeky retort for every comment hiding whatever secret apprehensions we had not knowing the heavy ominous silence that follows the burst of big shells and the cries of the wounded not knowing what it is to scrape a hasty grave at night and there bury a man who has worked with you and slept with you since you enlisted is hell it's a physical and it is a psychological

hell and the more we know about it the more we should understand that war is to be avoided as much as humanly possible. But it also teaches us how strong we as human beings can be what we can overcome. It teaches us the importance of training, the importance of preparation, the importance of will, not only the will to win in war, carry on and to win in life. All I've got tonight. So, echo Charles, speaking of winning. I know we are sort of trying to be on the path of winning mentally, physically, psychologically, in life and on the mats.

Sort of the thing we're doing here, the move. And I know you have some recommendations for that. Yes. Might be helpful. Yes. They will be helpful. Factually. Nice, nice.

What do you got? I have. Well, we're on the path, right? We got that. Wait, war, life is war. We're at full, what is it? Full war, war, war. All out war.

Yeah, all out war. All out war. Now, total war. Total war. That's what we're looking at. Yes, total war. So within that total war, there's little battles, right? I think people are not going to like that.

What? Life is war. But it's so true. Yeah. I mean, it, I mean, if you start looking at your life like it's war, it's going to make you better. Yeah. If you look at every day as a war on multiple fronts that you have to fight where victory is the only choice, you're going to have a better life. Actually, yeah, it's really good.

Even for someone who, look, I get it. The word war might trigger some people. I get it. Just like the word fight might trigger some people. But you could say life is a fight. It's always a fight. Not against people. My suspicion is the amount of people listening to this podcast that are triggered by the word to war or fight is zero.

Yes, I agree with you. That's my suspicion. Yeah. I could be wrong, but they're severely triggered at this point if that's where they're at. Since the only thing we talk about is fighting in war. Yes, I think you're right. I believe you're right. Just making sure.

So within the all out war, there's little battles, right? And in those battles, one of those battles is the juzitsu. When you do the juzits, you're going to need a guy and a rash guard. Just to begin. That's what I think so. Actually, technically, you could wear basketball shorts on a tank top. You could. Not recommended.

Not recommended. Especially the basketball shorts. Yeah. They will be pulled down. Pulled down, pulled up, caught on people's toes sometimes. Just not a good plan. Not as good as like, yeah. Maybe some board shorts because they don't as far as yeah

Nonetheless this is where you can get these things from origin origin main.com. That's where you go Get a rash guard get a geat best key in the world factually by the way Also happens to be made in America are they the best because they're made in America? Maybe maybe not But those are two separate attributes. Oh yeah best skis in the world many different options are also rash guards like I said also joggers Yeah. Like I said before. But yeah, a lot of clothes apparel, we'll say.

What you're missing is jeans. Yes. There are genes. Yeah. Wait, can we get jeans now? We should be getting jeans now. I know I have origin jeans. I know I'm in a little bit of a preferred scenario.

Yes. I know people. Yeah. So I was going to say, wait, if we can all get jeans now, that's interesting because I didn't get in jeans. Yeah. Well, the genes are being made at this time. Yeah. So they're available, we'll say.

American denim, American made. Best genes ever, obviously. Obviously. And, yeah, check them out. Yeah, orgeney.com. Also, supplements. Best kind of supplements. So I've come to the conclusion, the harsh conclusion.

That exercise, generally speaking, is probably the best thing you can do for yourself. agree generally speaking i'm not saying there's no exceptions i'm not saying that yeah and you're not saying that throw everything else into the dumpster correct yes so when when it comes to supplements okay so what is what's the best kind of supplements to take then if we understand that exercise is the best thing you can do for yourself what kind of supplements is it like muscle building supplements or is it this is what i'm asking myself as i'm driving because i drive something or is it the kind of supplement that allows you to stay able to exercise at full capacity longer? Probably those, right?

I know what you think. Yeah. Those ones. You like the joint warfare, acrylic oil. Yes, sir. You like the discipline. Right. And I say this because it's not self-intuitive.

It's not just intuitive. You think supplements get my body bigger or whatever, stronger. But what if you do want to get more yoked, let's say? How about you get some of that mulk? Like you said, we don't throw everything else into the dumpster. I'm just saying this is, you know, simply, yes. When I go on the road and I eat eating whatever. And when I go on the road, I go on a trip, I eat, I usually eat really good because I go out to a steak restaurants and I get rib-eyes.

Yes, sir. And no matter what, when I come home, I want to have milk. Yeah, because I have that mint, chocolate chip milk. Because it's like a dessert. It's a dessert. It is a dessert. It is a dessert. Without the guilt.

Without the crap. Yeah. That, yes. It's literally good for you. Yeah. How can you get a dessert that's actually good for you? I'll tell you how. You go to origin, mane.com.

You get milk. And if you've got kids, instead of feeding kids junk, that's horrible for them, you get them some warrior kid milk. You will have kids that want to drink something that's awesome for them. Yep. It's a meal, by the way. They will be stoked. So get your kids some warrior kid milk tasty.

People have been asking about with a strawberry. adult milk is coming out. I told B little do not mess this up. I'm like B little the strawberry kids milk is epic. It's epic. Yeah. I said if you mess up and the adult

strawberry milk isn't epic, we're going to have an issue. That's a problem. So B. Little's on the case. Yeah. Well, he's on the case. Yeah, man, it's true. Also, Jocko is the store. It's called Jocco's store. So go to jocco store.com

This is where you can get shirts, hoodies, rash guards. More rash guards, all representative of this path that we're on. And we're on the path. Certainly.

And we're going to stay on the path. We're going to stay on the path until the path ends. And guess what? The little answer to that little riddle. The path doesn't end. The path doesn't end. So, but if you want to represent jocco store.com,

got some new stuff on there, by the way. What? A little new design of the hoodies, you know? Some people really like that one. Nonetheless, hey, look, go check it out if you like something. Truckers hats. Truckers hats. Bees.

Stickers? There's some, yeah, but there's bumper stickers on there. There's patches on there. There's more. I just designed a new rash guard. It's not like totally new, but it's a new rash card. Okay. Sent it to Pete.

We're getting it done. It should be there, you know, within the week. Also, I know, wait, do you talk a lot of trash to me about lightweight hoodies? Yeah. We're going to do a lightweight hoodie, 100%. It's in the pipe. Okay Jocco unapproved

But when you see it, it's going to be approved Anyway, if you like something, get something If I was going to wear a light Wait hoodie I would just wear a t-shirt, bro Yeah, I did it But some of us, you know, we like that There's like this little intermediary Situation where it's not hot

It's cold, but it's not cold, cold, cold You know like when the wind sort of blows consistently and you're like, you know, I could Only by the grace of decentralized command that this is happening. Yes. Because despite what you're saying to me,

a medium or whatever you said, a lightweight hoodie makes no logical sense to me as a human. Well, you know, that's one of the many differences between me and you. And I think that there are a lot of people out there who support me on this decision, which is why.

We will track and see if anyone buys lightweight hoodies. Going to the numbers. Okay, I understand. Also, there's women stuff on that. We will present them to the people. Yeah. Cool. Well, there it is.

Yeah. Anyway, jocco store.com. There's some women's stuff on there. There's cool stuff. If you like something, get some. It's a good way to represent for sure. Also, Jocko white tea. If you want a deadlift 8,000 pounds, if you're not already, okay, this is the reason, or one of the reasons, unless you're already a tea drinker.

Even if you're not a tea drinker because that wasn't a tea drinker and I drink Jocko white tea. So I am a tea drinker technically. This is the original. This is like the first thing. What? How am I going to make something? think I'm going to make this tea. Oh, the yes, the tea is the OG product.

The first thing is the OG product. Yeah. I had some on the way over here. Yeah. You know what's funny, man. If you kind of. Because I was a little bit chilly. I wanted some warm tea.

I could have used a little lightweight audio. Whatever, bro. Anyway, it's interesting how all these products is all stuff that you use. So you're like, you're like walking, not walking, but you're just sort of existing. You're like, hmm, instead of like, you know, getting this stuff, let me just make. So it. And it turns out that, like, you make all your own stuff. Well, the thing is, if you're going to, I'm picky.

That's my problem. I'm picky about what I like and what I don't like. Yeah, picky, and so, yeah, well, I'm straightforward, but I'm picky. I want this specific thing a specific way. And you can't buy what I want or you couldn't. You couldn't buy what I want. Now you can. This is what I want.

It makes sense. It's just like everything. Like Victory, MMA, and Fitness, our gym. Why is that? Why does it exist? Because we want it to have the way we want things to be. You can't just, you can't go to someone else's gym

and expect it to be the way you want it. Yeah. You can't buy some supplement off the shelf and expect it to taste the way you want it to taste. It's going to taste the way some random person in some other area wanted it to taste. And they don't know what tastes good.

Well, and they're going to take, once they figure they're just trying to make the maximum on profit margins so they're putting filler in it, whatever. Yeah, that makes sense. Totally makes sense. If you're going to make something,

then if you have to use something, why not make it the way you want it? Origin genes, by the way. Same thing. The way I want them to be made. The way Pete likes a made. Yeah. You know?

In America. So anyways, yeah, that's how we end up doing this stuff. Cool. Boom. Yeah. Good. I'm glad you did, by the way. Oh, and. Some people we joked about subscribing to the podcast. I saw some comments that people didn't, hadn't subscribed to the podcast until the last show. This dude was like, I listened to 163 episodes and I never subscribed to the podcast until you said and joked about who would listen to 163 episodes and not subscribe to the podcast.

And he said, that was me. So there might be one other person out there that. that hasn't subscribed to the podcast or hasn't subscribed to the YouTube channel or hasn't subscribed to the Warrior Kid podcast. So if you haven't subscribed to those things, do so. Wait, what do you mean you stand corrected?

You're the one that always says like there might be someone that's, and I didn't believe you. I think, I don't know if I'd ever say it for subscribing, but it was, well? Yes. No, I always said or feel that it seems obvious to subscribe but subscribe and I always thought that that was dumb yeah and I thought to myself who could listen to this podcast over and over again and not subscribe to it but

that rubbed off on me and I started to feel that way in fact because right now I'm trying to search my feelings and I do feel that way like yeah you just why are you telling people subscribe so we don't need to say this anymore but now what I'm saying is we got reports back from the field of people that didn't subscribe yet 162 podcast deep huh and now we're 164 podcast if you have subscribed to the podcast Subscribe to the podcast if you check out the YouTube channel By the way the YouTube channel ECHO's videos are on there He's real proud of him

What are you talking about? I He's real proud of him he puts little things exploding Some people think it's too much Well I'm not gonna argue it that one Sometimes they're right in there It's a dichotomy you gotta balance the dichotomy No no effects too many effects Yeah, well, there's varying levels of appropriateness with effects, we'll say.

So at some point, I want you to purposely make a video that's completely, you take whatever I've said on this podcast that's over the top anyways and then just make the most over the top video. That is a good idea. I remember one time I said, don't sleep, eat steak, train hurt or something like that. That's what the video should be. It should be about that. Just guys with broken legs crawling out on the mat with a steak. and out of their mouth, you know, like that kind of thing. Over the top.

Everything exploding. Fire. Because a lot of times your explosions don't have fire. A lot of times they're just smoking more. More like smoking dust. Yeah. You keep it dark. Yeah, there are less explosions more just like disdryant, like various levels of destruction.

So what it's going for. So check that out. Check out the Warrior Kid Soap at Irish Oaks Ranch.com. Young Aiden making a warrior kid's soap. check out psychological warfare little kid bits of information to help you

overcome momentary weakness I'll tell you how to do it it's not real complicated but it is effective check Amazon music is where you can get it and iTunes or if you buy MP3s

that's what's called psychological warfare that's a good one very much also you want to subscribe to the Warrior Kid podcast I said that I'm glad you're emphasizing it, though. Well, yeah, I thought you didn't say that. Okay.

I think I missed it. Emphasize. Nonetheless, yeah, yeah, it's a good one. That's a good one for you and the kids, both of you guys, because they're good lessons, but they're super basic. Just like this. Just like this book, man. Very much so.

Also, on it. Onit.com, go there. Slash jocco. Onet.com slash jroth. This is where you can get kettlebells, add to your home gym, add to your capability, rings add to that capability I just got some the storm trooper

one Star Wars straight up huh bro don't hate on that they're they're dope nonetheless a lot of good stuff on there good fitness stuff when you think of stormtroopers do you actually think of like

badass yeah okay because I always think of them as just things that get shot all the time and that is true that is true but are they humans yeah they're people

they're troopers actually I think they're clones of human of people so that's why they're just fodder. They just get killed by laser beams all the time. In the movie, yes, but when you see a Storm Trooper kettlebell, it's pretty cool. Okay. And there's a Darth Vader one, too. There's an Ironman one, and there's the Boba Fett guy, or Django Fett. Or both of them, I don't know. They wear the same helmet, so nonetheless. Are they related? Their one is where the clone came from, if I'm not mistaken. I don't know. I might have got my Star Wars mythology mixed up, but nonetheless, they

our kettlebells now on it makes them and they're dope. A lot of cool stuff on there. Onet.com slash jocco. We got Mikey and the Dragons book that's available right now for every kid that you know. Get a Mikey in the Dragons weigh the warrior kid

and weigh the warrior kid two Mark's mission. Those are books to show your kid how to be on the path. And now we have coming Warrior Kid 3 which now has a subtitle And the subtitle is where there's a will.

So he has to dig deep in this book. He learns a little bit about digging deep. He also learns a little bit about humility. He learns about ego for the first time. His ego starts getting involved. So check out those books that I will let you know when Warrior Kid 3 is available for pre-order, which we're going to be a little bit more efficient

this time when we do pre-order so we don't get into the Mikey and the Dragon situation where people have to wait a little extra time to get the book when it comes out. So, book three, I'll let you know when that's ready. The field manual, discipline equals freedom, field manual available right now. I was with a buddy of mine that's a in the finance world and has, you know, one of those, I guess it would be a stereotypical office of the finance, the investment banker.

So you know what I'm talking about? Everything's all clean and white New York City type thing. Yeah, sure. And he showed me a picture in there as you walk in this beautiful, clean office entryway. It's not even an office. It's like a thing.

A for a year. Yeah, one of those. And there's a white table. It is a big white table. You know, it's probably eight by eight. There's one book by itself. The field manual. And he says,

and he says his front office girl the other day said, everyone that comes in looks at that book and says, what is this? Where does come from? Where did you get this? Every single person makes a comment. So that's the field manual.

Discipline equals freedom field manual. Get it for anyone that needs to be a little help being on the path. And you know who needs helping on the path? Everybody. Extreme ownership. First book I wrote with my brother Laif Babin, Leadership lessons from the battlefield. And then we wrote the dichotomy of leadership,

which gives some guidance on how to be more balanced as a leader. because if you get out of balance as a leader and you go extreme in one direction or the other in a multitude of various dichotomies, you will rip your team apart, which is not good. So dichotomy leadership, get that one. We also got Aschalon Front,

which is our leadership consultancy, and that's what we do is we solve problems through leadership. It's me. It's Leif Babin, J.P. DeNell, Dave Burke, Flynn Cochran, Mike Sorrelli, Mike Baimuk, go to Aiselonfront.com. If you want us to come and work with your, company, get your leadership aligned, and get your entire organization on the path to victory.

Hit us up. We have the muster, which is our leadership event. 2019, we're doing May 23rd and 24th in Chicago. We're doing September 19th and 20th in Denver, and we're doing December 4th and 5th in Sydney, Australia. Are you going to Australia with us? Yes. Okay. So that's what's happening.

Every event that we've done has sold out. And when I say sold out, I mean we're personal friends of mine are saying, hey, hey, it's a little late, but can you just, I just need three seats. You know, for me and my girlfriend and my buddy, we're going to go. And I'm like, actually, no, I can't. There's no more seats and the fire code will not allow any more human beings in there. So these all are going to sell out. There'll be no alibis. Like, well, in the military, it's called safe rounds or alibis, meaning like I got an extra round.

Hey, just one more. But no, it's not going to happen. And don't get mad. If that does happen, you know, oh, jockey, yeah, no. Can't help you. We have to talk to that fire, Marshall. So if you want to come, sign up early, extreme ownership.com. I'll tell you what, the Australia one is going to be, it's going to sell out quick.

Because I think there's 450 seats. That is not a lot. When I did a book signing up in Brizzy, up in Brisbane, there was a ton of people there. That flew to Brisbane to hang out for five minutes, you know, get a book signed. So that one in Sydney is going to be sold out quick. So jump on there. If you want to come down, if you're a trooper in the game, come to the muster extreme ownership.com. EF online.

now active what is it it's interactive leadership training online it actually put you into scenarios that you have to figure out that you have to make decisions combat scenarios business scenarios role playing scenarios dealing with people it's it's awesome training it will really ingrain the principles of extreme ownership the laws of combat the dichotomy leadership, it'll ingrain them into you. It'll make you a better leader. That is eFonline.com. Whether you're a company that wants to use it as enterprise service or you're just an

individual that wants to get in the game deeper, go to eFonline.com. And we also have EF Overwatch where we're taking proven combat leaders from special operations and combat aviation communities and we're putting them into businesses that need experienced proven leaders. Go to EFoverwatch.com. If you're on either side of that calculation, whether you're a vet that

needs work or whether you're a company that needs leaders, let us know. EFoverwatch.com. And if you want to talk to us or you want to share a good book with us, like somebody shared the psychology for the fighting man with me on the

inner webs. That's where we can be found on Twitter, on Instagram. and on Facebook Echo is at Echo Charles and I am at Jocko Willink. And of course, thanks to all of those who serve our military personnel,

police and law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, correctional officers, border patrol, all first responders, all of you that put on a uniform and protect us from evil in the world. We can only do what we do because you do what you do so thank you and to everyone else out there that is listening

Remember to train hard do your best to prepare stay in the fight and even though you might not feel like it sometimes you can drive on You can push through you can deal with unimaginable imaginable adversity as long as you keep getting up every day moving forward and getting after it So until next time, this is Echo and Jocko