Jocko Podcast - 165: Govern Your Emotions But Know Your Nature. Psychology For The Fighting Man (Pt.2)

Episode Date: February 20, 2019

0:00:00 - Opening 0:12:08 - Psychology Of The Fighting Man Pt. 2 2:17:09 - Final Thoughts and Take-aways. 2:28:18 - How to stay on THE PATH: Support. 2:58:37 - Closing Gratitude.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 165 with Echo Charles and me Jocco Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. I've said that war is the ultimate teacher. And I think it's also true to say that war is the ultimate revealer. It reveals a side of people that would not normally be allowed to, come out because in war there's so much happening there's so much pressure there's so much emotion and it's all so intense and I saw people change and I don't want to make this overly dramatic

and in most cases I'm not talking about some big dramatic transformation that a person goes through but I am talking about changes and the changes were often visible visible things that would be out of character for someone they'd start acting a different way sometimes negative and sometimes positive there might be someone whose temper gets quick starts to flare up there might be someone that becomes more understanding more forgiving Some people were happier in combat. And some were just absolutely stressed to the core. And when I look back now, it becomes very clear that there were some, I'll call them, oscillations in my own attitude.

there were some times when I had to reel myself in I definitely try and stay professional at all times that's kind of what I do I try to play the game I try not to get emotional that's just how I try and roll but I could feel it sometimes starting to come apart a little bit and I would have to breathe mentally mentally breathe consciously pull the pieces back together so I don't lose my temper I don't lose my composure I and I and I know that that's a good quality. It's one that I saw other leaders enact and I thought that that was a positive quality and it's one that I tried to emulate and I got pretty good at emulating that quality. But sometimes on deployment, I really had to focus on that. I had to focus on keeping my composure.

I had to focus on not getting emotional. I had to detach and tell myself to settle down and keep it together, and it's not easy to do. And some people have a hard time doing that, and they get short-fused and they lose their temper at the drop of a hat once they're under the stress of sustained combat. Others will not do that.

Others will go numb, and they'll just kind of turn off. and I tried to stay balanced, not to completely turn off my emotions, but at the same time, not get emotional. But I had to think about that. I had to consciously think about that. And there were other things that I noticed about myself, especially when I look back. One thing I noticed is that the little things, they really didn't matter anymore. They lost things of little and important.

importance pretty much lost all importance if no one was dead and no one was wounded then things were gonna be okay that's how it was for me and some people go in the opposite direction they start to lose their mind over little meaningless things and what they're doing when they lash out in those situations is there that's how they're letting out the seething all-encompassing stress that they're feeling another thing I noticed is that I'm normally very tactful when I communicate with people up and down the chain of command. And it's pretty natural for me. I've been doing it for so long.

I'm thinking about what I'm saying. I'm making sure I'm saying the right things and that they're being understood correctly. I understand the importance of communicating from a leadership perspective. But during combat deployments, I can tell you, I had to think a little bit more. put a little bit more thought into what I was saying because the urge I was fighting against often was this urge just to be offensively blunt, just blunt and really even condescending or sarcastic or patronizing or snide or mocking or cutting because there is some level of madness in war. There just is. I mean, let's face it, you're going to go out and you're trying

to kill people and they're trying to kill you and your friends are trying to kill their friends and their friends are trying to kill your friends. That's not normal. That's, if you take that out of context, that's just madness. And that madness in war, it can creep into your head and then very easily it can creep out of your mouth if you let it. And these were all these types of things. They happen to me. They happen to everyone. I think I had a pretty good handle on it.

And some people handle it better. Some people handle it worse. The combat situations I was in, there's people that have gone through infinitely harder combat scenarios for all of mankind, from the history of mankind. everyone in these situations is going to have to react to them in some way. Everyone's going to be impacted by that madness of war.

And like I said, they're going to react in different ways, depending on who they are, depending on their background, depending on their personality. But the war itself is going to reveal. It's going to reveal strengths and weaknesses. It's going to reveal fears and regrets. reveal ego and selflessness and when we see death when we face death when our friends and our comrades are wounded and maimed and killed that has an effect you might think how hard do i have to pull in on the reins of my own fury and hatred and murderous thoughts when young man after young man is sent home

in a flag-draped coffin. I can tell you I had to pull in those rains hard. I wasn't alone. I was surrounded by men with the same vengeful thoughts. But those thoughts have to be tempered and they have to be controlled or else everything falls apart. Get revealed because of war.

War reveals things about us that otherwise might slip by. Thoughts that we might not even know are a part of us. It reveals who we are and thereby reveals human nature itself. It reveals our psychology. You can imagine that understanding all these different actions and reactions from your subordinate leaders, from your commanders, from your troops, from yourself. There's no way to effectively lead without some understanding of all these people and their nature,

people that you must work with in order to accomplish the mission in order to win. While that is crystal clear in war, it applies to every undertaking, applies to everything that you try and do knowing the people you work with understanding the people you work with knowing and understanding your enemy knowing and understanding yourself and understanding psychology and human nature and that as an individual as a leader and we spent the last podcast talking about the first part of a book called Psychology for the Fighting Man, What You Should Know About Yourself and Others. It's a very straightforward book.

Written in 1942, right as World War II was kicking off. And on the last podcast, we covered the early sections in the book about things like putting the right people in the right job. about the importance of training about the best ways to teach and learn how to become more efficient and today we're going to dive into the second half of the same book which gets into some incredibly insightful and some incredibly revealing topics so let's kicking off with this section it's actually not the this isn't actually the second half of the book this is probably the last third of the book that we're going to getting into and starts off with this section that's about morale here we go morale depends on the incentives to human action on men's motives on their emotions and how they react to their emotions it can be developed in a military unit by the control of those psychological conditions which determine men's desires and conduct and affect their attitudes

toward one another and toward the great undertaking of winning a war And then it rolls in to talk about incentives. Some of these are pretty obvious, starting off with hunger. Hunger is a mess call most sure to be heard. Pain is an alert, seldom missed. The most primitive incentives for action, which man shares with other animals, are his bodily needs. Hunger, thirst, sex. The need for rest when he is tired.

The need for activity when rested. the desire to escape from pain, extreme heat, extreme cold, and other intolerable conditions. It might be possible to control men or animals by the use of these incentives. You might make a man go hungry until his work is done and then let him eat as a reward. You might make a man fight by lashing him and then letting up on him as a reward for fighting. But that isn't the way our army works. whenever possible it supplies enough food and rest to its soldiers and makes other provisions for their comfort so that they stay in good spirits and can do their work well. But in areas, but in fighting areas, it's not always possible to provide these physical comforts.

When food or water is short, when the weather is too hot or too cold, when it becomes impossible to bathe and shave, when bombs and shells drive sleep away and fatigue makes a man, makes effort a torture. Problems of combat morale arise. And then some other incentive is required beyond their animal need to keep men going, to make them determined to keep fighting unto death. When the primitive needs are no longer enough, it is the social incentives which help a fighting man do his utmost. There are many social needs. Here are some of them.

So interesting way to kick it off. And those are so obvious. We all know those things. We all know that we, if we're hungry, we all know if we try and escape from pain. We all know we try and find comfort if there's discomfort. I know you especially know that. Sure.

A little bit. But when those things, you can't always provide those things. And it's, you know what's really interesting. We're talking about, it's just words, right? It's just words in a book. Talking about to make them determined to keep on fighting unto death.

Just words in a book right now. But if you think about, this is World War II, we're getting ready to go and hundreds of thousands of men are going to go and fight into the death. And these primitive needs aren't going to be enough to drive them.

So here's some social needs that people have. Number one, desire for social approval, admiration, recognition, and appreciation. Two, desire for security, safety, escape from danger, and disapproval, or fears of all kinds. Number three, the desire for power, mastery, domination, superiority, and self-assertion. Number four, desire for adventure, new experience, freedom, escape from futility, humdrum. Number five, desire for personal response, companionship, friendship, love.

Number six, desire to help and protect others, especially the weak and helpless such as children. Number seven, desire for a successful achievement, completeness, effectiveness, the desire to do a good job. Number eight, desire to destroy interference with other desires, aggression, and rage. That's a that's a it's when you hear when I'm reading that list I think of little people that I've known and you know what was driving them Yeah I remember thinking this So you think of You think of the military as a group of people even I do it's a group you think of oh it's an army It's a battalion. It's a brigade. It's a company you think of it as a as a unit that's working together

But what I will tell you is these desires right here are so important for the conduct of warfare Because when you get down to a battalion level a company level a platoon level There's individual human beings that are driving that thing forward and if you didn't have a leader in charge or It doesn't necessarily have to be the platoon leader, but if you didn't have a platoon sergeant if you didn't have someone in that organization that was going to drive this thing forward, it wouldn't go anywhere. When we'd do operations overseas and we'd work with the conventional forces overseas,

there was a guy that was making these things happen, that was driven by these types of things. Whether some guy wanted to shine and get noticed and he's going to take his platoon out, or whether he realized, hey, the best thing I can do for survivability is to get aggressive and go take the fight to the enemy. All these things you can see where they come into play.

And you see the same thing in civilian organizations. When you see what's driving me. You ever hear the question of like a rich person, whatever that means, but how much is enough? There's very few people that become financially successful that go, okay, you know what, I'm good. Yeah. Okay.

I've got two houses, three houses. I've got a bunch of really nice cars. I've got a bunch of money in the bank. I'm good. Yeah. I'm fine. I'm done. That doesn't happen very often.

The folks that they achieve there and then they look up and go, wait, I can do some more. And whether that's, you know, just completing a job, like it says, the desire to do a good job or the desire to help other people. people, hey, the more money I get, the more I can give to other people. Like, these things are real and they really drive. And so when you see a organization gets stagnant, you've got to look and say to yourself, how can we fuel this desire? How can we allow this mission to answer some of these desires? Going back to the book, when a military leader calls a man by name and gives him a simple

word of commendation for some task well-performed, he's appealing to at least two or three natural incentives. Calling a man by name shows personal interest which almost every soldier likes. The commendation is social approval. If the soldier has been feeling insecure, not quite sure of things, then perhaps his sense of security is established by the event of his leader's approval. He also has assurance that he has accomplished a job well done. Think about that. All it is, And I've talked about that a bunch on here where I say, you know, sometimes leaders don't realize how powerful it is to say, hey, Echo, really good work on that last video. People don't realize, hey, Echo, really good job holding security last night on that position. And I've said it's powerful.

Now it's here's why. Here's some of the things that that feeds that person. These desires that they want satisfied get fed when a leader steps down and gives a commendation like that. Back to the book, social approval is a strong motive in human affairs, and in general, praise is much more effective than blame. Commendation can get results when ballings out fail. By ballings out, they mean yelling at people. Reproof tends to leave resentment. This is so smart.

Blame is often, however, effective when used in private and in moderation against a man whose quality of performance is high, for he will work hard to avoid such criticism. I've always I I had the luxury of oftentimes working with people where if they mess something up You know if they got in trouble whatever you didn't need I didn't need to do anything Yeah I could I could just basically say I heard what happened and that was enough like they were just never They were never gonna stop until they corrected that in my eyes Yeah Yeah, I could see that Yeah

A man wants to count to amount to something to feel that he that he is worth while and appreciated promotion citations and distinctions of all kinds help serve this purpose Fear of the disapprovals of others or some other form of punishment works as an An incentive but is not as good as a steady thing Troops coerced into action by a snapping Martinette become anxious disgruntled jittery There is a loss in morale in initiative in judgment even in skill men do better in groups, whether fighting or working. And one thing that's interesting, and we're going to get to,

there's a section in this part of the book called leadership, and there's a definite dichotomy, and you can hear it here, starting to talk about how it, sometimes it leans towards the stereotypical military idea of like, if I tell you what to do, you do it. But every time it leans towards that, it counters it. It counters it and says, look, if people don't respect you,

you look if you're not under people don't understand why they're doing what they're doing like it it always comes back to the true leadership even though it brushes up and it converses about some of the stereotypical military leadership it it certainly every time counters them with real true leadership back to the book a soldier's desire to do a good job his sense of workmanship is helped whenever he can be allowed to understand the nature of the whole undertaking which he is contributing to which he is contributing. A successful leader never signs tasks blindly when he can reveal their larger purpose. By allowing his men to see the significance of their own smaller jobs, he dignifies the lesser tasks by relating them to the large one.

This is always make sure your people understand why they're doing what they're doing. That's what it is. A successful leader never assigns tasks blindly. He wants to make sure that the subordinates understand the nature of the whole undertaking to which he's contributing. This stuff is so important. Continuing on, morale is the capacity to stay on the job, especially a long, hard job with determination and zest. It is the opposite of apathy. Morale needs good health, physical and mental, unless the body is well and vigorous. it is pretty hard to endure hardship and keep up enthusiasm.

Fatigue and illness, sap mental vigor, and moral strength. The body does influence the mind. You ever hear that? The body does influence the mind. Yet there is more to morale than that. Men can carry on with strong determination, sometimes even with zest through injury, disease, and physical privation. for that sort of morale, a man needs self-confidence and conviction.

He needs to feel sure of himself and emotionally secure. While there are no simple rules for obtaining this sense of security and confidence when the world is blowing up around your ears, some of the conditions that bring it are known. It helps to have grown up in a home where there was no quarreling or jealousy. It helps to have friends and to be working or fighting. in a group. It is essential for the job to seem important, for it can be related to some of the incentives to human action. A thoughtful man may need to see the job in its larger relations, to fit into a philosophy of life, to make it a means of satisfying his own code of what is good

and desirable. He may need to take a long-range view that extends beyond his own lifetime, and perhaps into another world. All incentives to human action are potential morale builders. There is a back and forth relation between work and morale. Not only does morale make soldiers work and fight, working and fighting, keep up their morale. Somebody in the last podcast, somebody on Twitter just hammered out quotes from this book. And I was reading them, rereading them, because I'm reading this whole book, and I'm just rereading these quotes. And there's so many awesome quotes in this book. you could just make a book of quotes from just this book.

That's one of them though, right? Not only does morale make soldiers work and fight, working and fighting keep up their morale. It's 100% true, especially in times of emotional stress, as in battle does a man need to be doing things. As for work alone, men are not naturally lazy. People like to work.

Enforced idleness as a cruel punishment. It has been shown again, and again that persons with useful jobs to do in air raids are unlikely to be afraid of bombs. They are busy and the morale is good. They carry on because they have important and useful work to do. Actually, they feel secure. Even in an air raid, which is a strange place to feel secure. It is the same with a trained soldier in the midst of combat. That stuff is brilliance right there. That's brilliance. That's why you have standard operating procedures. That's why you have an immediate action. drills when when you get attacked by the enemy everyone knows what their job is supposed to be

doesn't even allow them time to be scared i i have one parachute failure where i pulled my reserve parachute and i got to the ground and people oh you know because all my buddies that i was jumping with at the time we were all kind of the same level yeah except for maybe one guy that had a ton of jumps but all my friends all my platoon mates were all bro you pulled your reserve and I was like yeah yeah and they were like bro was it sketchy and

I was you know I said I thought about it and said no I did what we trained to do you know arch look grab look grab whole pull check check I did what the procedure says to do that's what I was thinking about that's what I was focused on that's what I did so if I didn't have a protocol to follow

it's like my parents you're going to fail. I'm going to die in 12 seconds or whatever it is. Like you're dead in 12 seconds if something good doesn't happen real quick. Yeah, brother. It's not even 12 seconds because you're at 2,000 feet and you're falling. Yeah. It's not very much time. You're going to be dead pretty quick is what I'm saying. Yeah. And I didn't even think about it. And I got to the ground and it wasn't it's like my adrenaline didn't even move. Right. Because you're doing what you're supposed to do. Yeah. Like you, man, and you and obviously we're thinking about it. not in the situation.

So yeah, it's all scary. I mean, you pull one shoot, it doesn't work. And I'm saying outside of the procedure, you know, I'm saying the facts of the reality of the situation. You pull one shoot, it doesn't work. Proof that parachutes don't work to you right there and then there. Proof. Oh, if you want to start digging a fear hole,

you can dig one real deep right now. That's what I'm talking about, though. And then now, guess how many shoots you only have left? One. You already witnessed first. Man, one shoot failing. So far on this parachute jump, you're 100% fail rate. 100%.

Yep. And you only got one more chance. Yeah, within 10 seconds or whatever, you know? So really, your brain is like, yeah, this is it, you know? If you think of it that way. But yeah, if your mind is occupied with, okay, procedure, procedure, and then you just do, do, do, do. And then it's like, you don't have time to be scared about anything unless there, you know, if the second one fails, then it's different, obviously.

But, you know, you, you, yeah, you're. mind doesn't have room to start making all these these fearful assessments you know action taking action is a real positive thing in so many situations when you start be feeling fear you got to do something you got to step up and do something that's like you know in in like a jiu jitzy tournament or whatever like a competition situation um and i would imagine it'd be like this if you're talking publicly or whatever. Before you do it, like, okay, before one, I used to compete a lot in judiths, before I'm like, oh my gosh, like you're anxious and you just like, the feeling beforehand is like way different than when, right when he says start. When it says start,

you don't, you're not even nervous anymore. Yeah, which you do every day anyway, kind of thing. And because you know what to do and that's what your mind is on. You're not feeling like, even though you don't even know this guy. You never even seen this guy before. So you don't know what mystery this guy holds, you know? I'm just enough. That's kind of what you're thinking before you go on, you know. But once you, yeah, for sure. Hesitation is the moment that you have to overcome for fear. Yeah.

And action will help you do that. Back to the book. If an officer wants to assess the morale of his own unit, there are at least two things for him to do. He can listen. Men will talk when permitted or encouraged to, and they will sometimes speak freely. When they do, they give their leader information

that will enable him to answer these questions. Do the troops feel like they are being well-trained, well-led? Do they think their weapons are adequate? Do they want to try and get the enemy? Are they proud of their unit? Do they have suggestions for its improvement? Do they think they get fair treatment, fair chances for advancement? Are they worrying about anything back home?

Or what about what will happen when the war is over? From the answers to questions like these, an officer can usually estimate accurately the morale of his unit. He can also study the behavior of his men. are they ready to volunteer for special duty? Are there frequent violations of discipline? How many are AWOL? How many in the guardhouse? What is the rate of venereal disease?

How do they receive bad rumors? Are there many fights and are the fights based on religious or racial differences? Morale building is the primary task of leadership. Actually, it says a primary task. Morale building is a primary task of leadership. The leader, any leader trying to improve the morale of his unit will find these rules helpful. So, one of the main things you have to do as a leader is keep morale up. No doubt about that.

If your morale falls apart inside of a team, you're in a bad situation. And here's some things to help you improve morale. One, make each man feel he is needed by his unit that his job is important. 2. Never let a man forget that he is a soldier and that a soldier of the United States Army is an important and respected person. 3. Make it very clear that the unit has its own important function in winning the war. 4. Encourage the expression of pride in achievements of the unit. 5. Give commendation and encouragement when it can sincerely and appropriately be given for fair appreciation. usually works better than condemnation.

Six, never belittle or humiliate a man in front of others except when a military emergency, as in battle, may require quick correction. When rebuke is necessary, do it in private and make it clear that it is the act that is punished, not the man. Seven, keep idleness at a minimum, but make recreation possible. A little dichotomy you have to balance there. Train each man in every useful task and action that actual combat will require and teach him that these habits will reduce his fear when combat comes as well as make him a trained and able fighter.

Nine, let men work together in groups whenever possible because the social relation increases effectiveness and 10. Let the soldier on isolated duty feel that he is an indispensable man, not a forgotten one. Great advice there How often And this is something I've talked about I always The way I used to say this is I would say I want every person in my platoon

Think that their job is the most important job In the seal platoon right? I want the point man to think hey point man If you don't know where you're going everyone's lost You got the most important job And the platoon commander hey this is your patrol You're the guy in charge you're got the most important job And the radio man Hey, radio man

If Something goes sideways out there It's you with your ability to communicate with air assets and Other support elements that are gonna save everyone You're the most important guy And then the medic hey if someone gets shot you're the guy It's like I go right on down the line Yeah

Everyone thinks and what's what's I'm not I'm not lying to them I'm actually telling them the truth I'm actually telling the truth in critical situations, someone in that platoon is going to be the most important person. It's not the same all the time. I'm telling them the truth. The truth is if you're the radio men and you're getting overwhelming enemy fire and that radio men can reach out and drop bombs on the enemy, he's the most important guy in the platoon without question. If you're trying to get to an extract point who's going to get your platoon out of there, then the point man is the one that knows where he's going and no one else knows. That point man's the most important person. When you're in a machine gun fight, when you're in a gun fight, It's the machine gunners that are to lay down fire and allow you to cover and move and close with and destroy the enemy. It's the machine gunners most important. You take away the machine guns and a seal platoon.

You've got a real problem on your hands. So I'm not lying to anyone. I'm telling them the truth. The truth is you have the most important job in this platoon. That's the truth. And when people hear that, man, it's important to him. Oh, yeah. And he goes back, the book goes back again, making sure that everyone understands how important.

what the what the unit is doing to the strategic victory and talking about pride and unit expression that the the we were overseas and like army units would have their battle streamers that they bring from they bring historical documents and hang them up in the wall and they're in their in their makeshift op center from world war two they're hanging them up poster or paper clipings from world war two and they're hanging them up this is our unit this is what we've done we are upholding tradition we have pride in what we do it's awesome yeah it's a real thing yeah next little section is about zest zest is the fabric from which morale is made zest vigor of spirit love of life coupled with a

willingness and eagerness to risk life itself in a good undertaking a spirit of high adventure that turns a difficult mission into a rare chance to show the stuff of which men are made. This is the weapon that makes a military unit unbeatable. Think of a mission as a rare chance to show the stuff of which men are made. Highly motivated. Zest depends first upon physical fitness.

It demands a sharp appetite that will make a soldier eat plentifully and digest his food. It requires physical exercise that brings plenty of oxygen into the lungs and plenty of red blood circulating to the brain and back to the hands and legs. If a man is to meet the sunrise with any sort of spirit for the new day, he must have slept at night sound and undisturbed by anxious dreams within him or by vermin in his bed. Fatigue can quickly reduce a fighting spirit.

The symptoms of mental fatigue, whether in the air or on the ground, are a staleness, a lack of interest in the job to be done, lack of enthusiasm, a heaviness of limbs, eyelids, even of the will that makes it well-nigh impossible to drag through the day's duties. And with it, shortness of temper, irritability, and the blues. All leaders have to be constantly on guard against this insidious spiritual fifth columnists among their men and among themselves. Regardless of how invaluable the man, when fatigue is made at this attack on his fitness, he must have relief. He must be required to sleep,

to take respite from responsibility, to get away from the strain he has been under. Otherwise, the price is a psychological casualty. And the more important demand, the greater the cost to the army. Make sure your people are getting some rest as much as you can. And again, this book counters these things all the time

by saying, hey, there's sometimes where you're not going to, you people aren't going to be able to rest. That's the way it is. So then what you have to do is you have to understand You have to understand that. That's what this book is about. You have to understand now what are the risks involved? Now we've got a unit that is severely fatigued and battle-worn.

What are the risks? They're not going to be able to fight as well as they did when they were fresh. If you don't know that, perhaps you send them in the front line to another battle. If you know it, you take another group that was in the rear and you send them in the front line. You let the guys that are fatigued be the reserves. That's why you have to know and understand these things. Back to the book. Excessive physical discomfort can always.

eventually deaden all zest for life and for battle men can fight with their socks stiff with dirt or frozen to their feet with hands so swollen and cracked that they can barely pull a trigger they have fought when the baths are unknown and shaves are almost as scarce when marching must be done through seas of mud and clothing never dries and when the eyes are cut and lungs are choked with never settling clouds of dust and sand men have fought and are fighting under such conditions But it takes an unquenchable spirit to keep it zest when things are like this. Whole armies have shown this spirit, but such conditions prolonged, dead and zest in the end,

and therefore must be relieved whenever possible. When a man has his first encounter with the immediate threat of death, when he must kill and see men killed, when he must steal himself to hear the unheeded cries of the mortally wounded and endure the stench of battle, a man may become sick in his very vitals. He may lose interest in his food, and yet this will be no sign of squeamishness. The toughest of leathernecks may feel intensely the inward revolting and horror the battlefield can provoke.

The defenses against these physical and mental foes of the spirit are faith in good leaders, a loyalty to them and to comrades, and a shoulder-to-shoulder feeling of solidarity. with the other men of the outfit. I can go anywhere and stand anything my captain and the rest of my outfit can. Got to set that good example. Fear, ally, or traitor.

The first battle, the first experience of having an enemy machine gun aimed at you, the first time an airplane swoops low to lay its deadly eggs in your particular patch of ground. That is an experience anticipated by the young soldier with mingled dread and eagerness. He is eager by that time to get at the enemy. He has learned a great deal about the science of war and wants to use this knowledge to wipe out the enemy and gain victory. But he always wonders. Every man does just how he will behave when the time comes.

He doesn't feel like a hero. If he is honest, completely honest with himself, he knows he will be scared, terrified. The experienced soldier who has been through all this the first time and many other times has found out for certain that every man going into battle is scared. His hands tremble, his throat is dry, he must swallow constantly because his heart is in his mouth. He does idiotic things like looking at his watch every few seconds or examining his rifle a hundred times to be sure it is loaded. The soldier green to battle may think he is the only one

so disturbed, but it is true of all the veteran as well. And it is true of the enemy. Germans and Japs get just as scared as Americans and British. The bad moments do not come during actual combat, however, but in the time of tense waiting just before. As you just talked about, Echo, as soon as the frightened man is able to go into action to do something effective against the enemy, especially if it involves a violent physical action,

his fright is apt to be dispelled or forgotten because he is too busy fighting to remember it. And this is great propaganda to talk about. Because what they're basically, they're giving this book to young soldiers that are getting ready to go and fight. And what they're telling him is, look, you're going to be scared. Everyone's scared. It's fine.

So that way they don't get scared and freak out because they're scared. Because they're scared, yeah. Airplane pilots who had distinguished themselves in action against the Japanese said, when asked whether they were scared during those moments of acute. peril. Why, I don't know. There was too much to do. We didn't have time to think. Most were scared at first, wrote a member of a torpedoed ship. Sure we were. But when the torpedo hit us, we forgot all about it. There wasn't much time and then there was much work to do. It's another thing when you, and it's going to go into this, but when you're a leader and

things are going bad, give people something to do, right? Give them a direction. Give them an order say look all right this is what we're going to do right now I don't know about that but here's what we're going to do we're going to move all these chairs and get him into this you know whatever you figure out something to do and do it encounters with the enemy are most terrifying when they are unfamiliar the soldier becomes used to gunfire to explosions and to the sight and order of death sorry as the soldier becomes used to gunfire explosions and the site of odor sight and order of death he gradually acquires the power to meet these things more stoically he does not actually lose his fear but learns to ignore it

to keep his attention mainly on the business of combat and if he has in his trained hands a good weapon which he knows will put the enemy out of action this gives him a feeling of confidence a sense of power that in large measure outweighs his fear he knows it will soon be the other fellow's turn to be scared fear when experienced is intensely uncomfortable and seems often to be incapacitating if The period of fright is prolonged, a man may feel that his nerves are all shot by it. For fear is disintegrating, demoralizing.

It shatters morale. The soldier may be rooted to the spot paralyzed or immobilized by fear. Nevertheless, such awful moments before an attack when each second seems an hour may actually be useful to any soldier. They may really add to his efficiency. for fear is the body's preparation for action. The heart pounds faster, blood pumping more rapidly to the arms and legs and brain where oxygen is needed.

The lungs do their part by quickened breathing. Blood pressure goes up. Adrenaline, which is nature's own shot in the arm, is poured liberally into the bloodstream. Subtle changes in body chemistry automatically affected by powerful emotion served to protect the soldier in action in ways he would never think of if he had to plan them. himself. His blood clots more readily. He loses temporarily sense of fatigue, even though he may have been dog tired. It is sometimes difficult for a tense, frightened soldier to get started into combat. To begin the action will relieve his fear. That part is taken care of by army training

and discipline. Months of training have taught the soldier to respond from habit to definite battle orders, even though in battle commands often cannot be given as in training. It has become second nature to him to carry out his own job as a member of the fighting team. So there you go. This is also important when you know what's going to happen, it allows you to not be scared that you're scared, right? So all of a sudden, your breathing starts going faster and you feel the adrenaline going through your system.

If you don't know what's happening, then it might catch you off guard. But if you know what's happening, well, cool. That's my adrenaline. You know when you feel adrenaline actually go through your system? Like, let's say you're driving and somebody pulls out in front of you, almost crashed into it. And you can feel the adrenaline go down your arms and your legs. You felt that before? Oh, yeah.

So if you don't have any idea what that is and it happens, it might scare you a little bit. Once you know what it is, you're kind of good with it. Yeah. It's like you, it's how people, I mean, I don't know if, I don't know the actual process. But you know how like, yeah, when you tense up before you do something, right? And you feel your heart like beating all fast and stuff like that. If you know, okay, you know, I'm getting excited because of this, you know, event that's big in my mind or whatever. But if you're like, if you don't know or you're like, well, I'm losing it.

I feel like I'm losing it. right now you know like if you're I don't know yeah you know if you're about to go skydiving or something different for you obviously but the normal person before they jump out of an airplane you know yeah oh my gosh I'm losing it I can't and that's what's a lot of the military training that you go through is to get yourself can hey when you when you start fast road roping out of a helicopter when you're repelling off of a off of the side of a cliff or out of a window in an urban environment or you're parachuting static line parachute free fall parachute all these things that you do, when you first start doing them, there's like an adrenaline rush, but you just

get used to it. And so then by the time you're getting shot at, you're like, oh yeah, I know what this is. I'm good. I can carry on. Yeah. Back to the book. No matter how distracted your mind may be by unfamiliar and terrifying sights and smells and sounds, you act from sheer force of habit. in fact it is habits which take care of a man if he is too frightened to think clearly like the habit of diving for cover when bombs come down then presently you are in action you are fighting you are at last using your force against the foe no more are you a depressed frightened soul fear is forgotten provided you are well trained it's good to teach people the how to respond in certain situations like even you know when he comes to the self-defense hey, if you get attacked, here's what happens, here's what you do. When they just have that plan, that's worth a lot. Just having a plan is worth a lot. Somebody grabs you here, this is your reaction.

Somebody grabs you there, this is your reaction. You know, those things, if you see them out of context, like if you watch a Gracie self-defense video, out of context, you'll say, well, it's going to be hard for that particular movie. If you go watch like a McDojo self-defense, then you go, that's just, obviously, that's never going to work. But even you watch a Gracie self-defense thing out of context, you don't understand it. You might be like, oh, I don't know how that's going to work.

But it's a plan that you're going to take action. And it is an effective plan, by the way. It's not like it's not a good plan. But the fact that you are going to immediately take action, you're going to respond to the event immediately. It's going to put you in a totally different place and a much, much infinitely better place than I just got, you know, someone just grabbed me by the, head or by the arm and I have no idea what to do. Yeah. That's a bad situation.

Then that fear is going to rise. If you have a reaction, boom, you go in action. Yeah. And then he talks about like training, right? You know, the well-trained person. It's like you're just so, because training is just like repetition, right? All these different scenarios. So you're so used to it.

It's like nothing new. You're so like used to this stimulus or whatever. Okay, remember when you're in elementary school, they do a fire drill. every whatever. You just calmly stand up and walk out in a single file line. You know, it's like, it's kind of boring in a way.

But, I mean, we never had a fire in my elementary school, but I'm imagining that if the, once you heard, it was a certain, it was a specific bell that went on. Instead of the regular bell, it would go ding, ding, ding, ding. It was obviously a fire drill, you know,

when you heard the bell. So it was so ingrained in, well, in me anyway, I'm sure everyone else felt the same way as a kid. When you heard that, you were like, oh, you just sort of automatically like a zombie stand up and line up. Like, you know, it was almost like, yeah, it was like so automatic. So I'm assuming that like if a fire actually happened, your instinct would be to do what you've been doing.

Just do it. Yeah, normally. You wouldn't run and scatter and be all crazy or whatever. You just because you're so quote unquote trained just to do it, you know? Completely. I guarantee if you look back in the history of. school fires at some point there was a school fire before they did that training and everyone panicked and freaked out and people died yeah or maybe people didn't die but people said oh that could have gone bad and so then oh guess what you do you rehearse it you trained this bell mean stand up

moving this direction go out this door assemble in the recess area for headcount yeah in fact i remember in college someone pulled the fire alarm it was it ended up to be a prank but everyone sort of thought that oh this building is on fire right now really it was in the middle of the night I don't think I've ever believed a fire alarm in my whole life. And I'm trying to think if, no, wait, I've been in one situation where there was a legit fire, but I was like completely, everyone just thought I was super cool and calm, but I was actually just didn't believe it. And then finally, I was, well, yeah, we need to get out of here.

Yeah. But, yeah, most fire, because you think about, I've experienced a lot of fire alarms and there's a very low percentage. of them that were real fires. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, well, I mean,

I guess that's an added element, though. Like if you're trained, but you never think it'll ever, ever happen, I would think that'd be a little bit different because almost like you run the risk of when it actually does happen

and you smell smoke or see the smoke or see the flames or whatever, that might introduce an added element that you weren't expecting, you know? Yeah. So that might jam you up. But,

nonetheless, I think like when you go through, I remember there was a fire, but it was like way in a different building and it was just procedure, everyone, evacuate, you know, kind of thing. And we found out it was just later or whatever. So, yeah, I don't think I ever had the stimulus of the fire, but in college or whatever,

when I did think that it was on fire, I didn't hear it or, I mean, I didn't smell it or see it or nothing like that. We thought it was legit on fire. We all thought, obviously we're in no threat. Yeah, because if there's no fire around, you then you think you've got time to get out. Yeah.

Right. But it was still the same. Like no one was panicking. I don't recommend that, but I'm just saying there's no, there's no, like what we're talking about here, there's no incentive to run. Yeah. Because it's just the alarm and you follow the procedure. Yeah.

Well, yeah. And then if you, let's say you're just lining up in a single file line calmly because you're supposed to do it calmly. Meanwhile, the guy behind you is like choking and getting this. shirt's on fire. Brought, you're going to run. Straight up. I might try and help him, actually.

Give him the old stop, drop and roll. Stop drop and roll. That's old school, yeah. Trying to help him out. I'm not going to running for my bro that's on fire. Good point. All right. It goes into some specifics here.

How to fight fear. One, action dispels fear. Do something. The time is suspense when men are all ready for action but are waiting for the signal to start. fear is at its height. If the period of waiting is prolonged, perhaps delay until a weather changes, the time should be occupied with preparation for action. Fight fear with necessary or manufactured work when expecting combat when waiting for enemy

bombers to return. Manufactured work. Like, hey, you're going to make something up for people to do. Yeah. Seems busy. Seems, yeah. And it's not hard. In combat, there's always something to get ready, right?

So it's not hard to say, all right, what we're going to do is we're going to set up a couple other bunkers. Let's fill some sandbacks. Cool. We're all working. There's always a reason. It doesn't even have to be manufactured. It can be real. Two, physical contact with friends helps.

Men should, if at all possible, stay within sight of in time of peril, but not bunched up enough to become a bomb target. Just the presence of another man not far off when no word is spoken minimizes fear. Three, roll calls help. Men in peril should be reminded that they are not alone. for knowledge is power over fear. Surprise is the most important element in battle. Thus, men should be constantly kept informed of the dangers they may meet. That one could be a little,

that's a little bit of a tricky one because sometimes people would get a little freaked out when they would hear about what the enemy can do. You know what I'm saying? Like, I'll tell you one thing, when we were in Ramadi, there was a lot of IDs, a lot of ideas. A lot of IEDs. And if someone would come to visit us, and they wanted to come on an operation with us,

we would give like the slightly longer IED brief so that they understood the threat. It wasn't always helpful for them psychologically. You could see as the brief went on, you could see I would watch the reactions on people's faces and you could see them start getting really concerned. Yeah. Because it's just, you know, my EOD

guy standing. Here's the bomb, you know, from this is what it did to this vehicle yesterday. This is what it did to the vehicle day before. Here's what it looked like. Here's one that they found. Here's one that they did. And it was just, you know, slideshow of bombs. Yeah.

In the city that you're about to go into, which is not a big city. It's two miles, three miles across. It's not like we're going and there's a small chance. And by the way, there's seven to ten IEDs detonated a day on Route Michigan, one road going across from Raleigh. So it was when you tell. hell when people would come to Ramadi and they'd get that brief, it would always be sort of an interesting look on their face.

I would see people tapping their toe, shaking their leg, you know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? It's like a nervous thing. I would watch for that and I'd see people just getting all nervous because, hey, it's a real thing. I mean, I get it. But the guys from T. T.U. Bruiser were kind of adjusted to it.

You know, they were adjusted to it. Back to the book. Control of action helps. To be afraid does not mean that a man must act afraid. Ah, this one's so good. To be afraid does not mean that a man must act afraid. Fear is contagious when it is expressed in action. If a man goes to pieces and becomes panicky,

he must be removed from the sight of other men if that is at all possible. It is each man's responsibility to control the signs of his own fear if he can so as to spare the others. If he can manage to act as though he were calm, he may actually become more calm. At any rate, the opposite is true. Giving into fear tends to increase it. There you go. It's straightforward.

Don't be shaking your leg during the brief. You know what I'm saying? Don't show that you're scared because that gets contagious and other people will start feeling like your friend. You got to act like no factor. whatever you think they can blow me up bring it yeah bring it you can't be panicking and freaking out and each man is responsible to keep themselves in check keep their fear in check and just because you're afraid doesn't mean you get to act like it yeah is that kind of like when your kids get older you well you when your kids get older you have to have that conversation

with them you know i have that conversation you don't get to act like you're scared you don't even get to act like you're mad. That's why we play normal face. You don't get to act like that. You think you're going to get hit in the head with this thing? Cool. Deal with it. Deal with it on the inside. You know, like when you're young, young, and they fall down, right? Your kid, your son,

daughter, whatever. They fall down. Best thing you can do. Right. Laugh at them. Or, yes. And it's funny because there's that. That was awesome. Yeah, that's a, that's one that idea. But there's that split second when they fall, they're stung. They're shocked and they look at you with like how am I supposed to act right now? Exactly right. So if you're like, oh my God, run up to them.

Oh my gosh, are you okay? I think they can start crying every time. That noise that you just made is my wife is the absolute greatest at this noise. She can make a grown person make you think that you should start crying and freak out. Oh, yeah. Because she just gives the. Yeah. Cause for alarm.

Yeah. She causes so much alarm. Yeah. I've been married to her for over 20 years. Yeah. And we'll be driving. Oh. Just, just, you're not, we're not talking like a rainstorm on the highway going 60 miles an hour.

We're talking just cruising just through like a normal area. And I'll just be, you know, relaxed thinking, paying attention. All of a sudden. and you know what she'll say at the end of it? She'll go, look at that car over there. It's got such a cool. And I'm thinking,

darling, can you not? I've been telling her not to do this, but it's an instinct that she has. Yeah. It's an instinct that my wife has to make this. And it's, and now,

you know, my son doing his driving, like he got his license so he can drive. And he came home the other day. He's like, man. He said, dad, I'm driving with mom and it's kind of scary. And I'm like, why?

What did she do? I was thinking she was driving. He goes, no, I was driving. But I drove by like a road. And she was, and he got all tense, yeah. Oh, yeah, can't do it. Don't act scared.

Don't do it. For some reason, my wife's, that's an emotional noise that she makes. It's not fear. It's like excitement. It's everything. Sometimes it's like, I see something cute. You know, just something that stands up.

What does that even mean? I see some, why would you do this? If you see something cute, why would you go, don't do that noise. That's a wrong noise. That noise means I'm about to get embraced for impact. That's what that noise means. Noise means I'm about to get T-boned.

Yeah. And I have a split second to accelerate out of the kill zone. Yeah. That's what that noise means. It doesn't mean, look at that cat. Stop it, woman, please. Yeah. And I don't know if that's a wife thing or what, because my wife is the same thing, same way.

And it actually is exactly what this book said, where you can't, like, act scared because it'll cause others to act scared, essentially, right? Induce panic, whatever. Which, because that's what it did. That's what your life did to you. That's what my wife does to me when she's like, like, on the computer and she's like, oh, then I'm like looking around. Like, oh, what's happening? We're being attacked. Clearly, we're all about to die in the next 15 seconds.

you just made that noise. Exactly, right. And that's kind of what goes off for a split second. I wonder, because I should have been able to deprogram myself. And I have a little, I have a little bit, but it's not full. It's not a full deprogram. When I hear it, I still think imminent threat is within 14 seconds of impact. Yeah.

If not three seconds. Well, yeah. Especially when it's out of nowhere like that. Oh, it's totally out of nowhere. It's, you know. We're just driving. It's a sunny day. Everything's, so bad.

Don't make that. noise unless you're unless you see a person with a machete and it's in the striking position don't make that noise because that's what I think I think I think Freddie Kruger's with behind me with the with a ready to take my head off. No I don't think he'd have a battle act no he had them weird fingers yeah yeah the nice on the fingers but yeah dang that's yeah good advice 100% you can't I don't know how much you can train yourself with that though that's a I don't know I think that's a I think that's a genetic programmed noise that heightens your reaction and prepares you for combat situations. Yeah, because there's like...

For some reason, it's warped into this thing where it can also be triggered to make that noise by a cute cat on the stuff, you know, whatever. Yeah. Or like maybe she forgot something, you know? Oh, yeah, that's another one. I forgot to tell you. Like, you know, our friends or having a baby or something like this, you know. No, it won't even be that. It'll be like, I forgot to tell you, I got Billy coming over to work on, you know, the yard sprinkler.

Yeah. Okay, cool. Thanks. Now that my adrenaline is through the roof. I'm glad that's going to happen. Yo. Check. Back to the book.

There's another kind of fear that must be endured for days and weeks, perhaps months or years. If men are besieged, cut off from help, deprived of inadequate, deprived of inadequate, deprived of, of adequate defense, then the ever-present peril from the enemy may be aggravated by the greater peril of disease, famine, exposure, and there may be little chance for action. Men in the present war have endured primitive sorts of hardships that would seem to be beyond human endurance in baton, on Corregador, alone on a rubber life raft for five weeks in blistering sun and drenching storm without food without shelter without water without any aid but their own unquenchable spirit their fortitude and their faith this means terror mixed with despair the misery cannot be

relieved it can only be endured then they must maintain sanity courage and life itself by their ingenuity in originating occupations for hands and minds that were relieved the tension and and seem to reduce the hazards. And this is the kind of stuff that Captain Plum talked about, just figuring out stuff to do. Like just we're gonna figure out stuff to do. Whether it's, whether it's make, teach yourself calligraphy by making an ear waxed, a, a, a, a, uh, etcha sketch.

Thing. Or whatever. I mean, these guys, those guys figured out things to do. Back to the book in such trying times and intense moments, A laugh can be a lifesaver. An army officer relating experience of the World War, that's the First World War, tells of a time when badly frightened,

untrained soldiers of that war had taken refuge in a roadside ditch against an unforeseen horror. The fire of American guns turned on them by mistake. Panic sent the blood pounding into my head and emptied my stomach of courage. It was bad enough to be shot at by the Boche, but there was no sense in being killed by friendly troops.

My men looked wild and fingered their triggers, ready to return fire of our other battalion. Something had to be done and done quick, and Captain Wass did it unintentionally, but he still did it. Jackson, he yelled. Yes, Captain, where are you? Right here, across the road. Stand up so I can see you.

Captain, Jackson shouted above the crackling roar of machine gun bullets. If you want to see me, you stand up. American humor can lick anything. Smothered chuckles ran down. the line orders were given and listened to men wriggled backwards out of the zone of fire the first to reach the trees dashed down the line of the third battalion shutting off the guns so you're going to hear jokes like that and it is helpful continuing the soldier who deliberately chooses to be blown up in order to wipe out an enemy tank or machine gun nest that would have otherwise caused the

lives of his friends as ideals has indeed all it takes to make a soldier the commander of a ship who coolly sends away the last lifeboat and goes down with his vessel rather than abandon it while some of his men are helplessly imprisoned in one of its compartments is afraid but governed by something more powerful than fear That's a good statement isn't it governed by something more powerful than fear what kind of governance do you have over your own emotions? That's a good question You may call this force idealism conscience religion philosophy tradition code or even habit or you may be a modern and call it ideology. Psychologists sometimes call it the triumph of the social over the selfish instincts. They recognize this force as the most potent weapon an army can possess. Men fighting for their homes and armed with this spirit can stand their ground and win against tremendous opposing

forces. Next section, why men fight? Lower animals fight from a variety of causes. Some fight because as beasts of prey, they live by killing and devouring. Animals may fight their own. kind in a tussle over a mate. They fight to defend their young, their homes, or their own lives. Some are aggressive and go about seeking what they may devour. Others fight as a last resort when they are cornered. Men, being two-legged animals, may fight for any or all of these reasons. But because they have minds capable of being moved by abstract ideas such as honor, glory, freedom, sympathy, justice, and patriotism, men also fight for what they believe to be right. greater than fear of injury and death, Napoleon said, is the fear of shame.

Before a drafted man throws himself wholeheartedly into his work as a soldier, before the civilian makes up his mind to enlist in the army. He is stirred in influence by one or perhaps many of the following forces. He may be carried away by. This is, did Jesus laying out why people are in the army? And this is important to understand if you're a leader of a bunch of people in the army. You got to understand how they ended up there. So if you're in charge of a company,

you've got to understand how people ended up in a position where they're working for you. Why are they there? How did they end up there? He breaks it down for people that join the army. One, he may be carried away by mass suggestion. An infectious martial spirit spreads through the community, roused by government officials, speakers or writers,

flags are waving, bands are playing, drums are beating, and crowds are cheering. Boom. Two, he may become involved in a wave of war hysteria. Like the fervor of martial spirit, war hate is infectious. Men rush to arms at news of the enemy's evil designs or brutalities of a treacherous assault or intended invasion. Three, he may be urged on by a strong spirit of adventure. Four, the ambitious self-centered man, especially perhaps if he has been unable to achieve success in civilian life,

may see war as an opportunity to gain personal glory and power. Five, he may be driven by his own combativeness. Some men delight in fighting for its own sake. Some may even be killers at heart. Because murders outlawed in civilian life and because in many circles even taking a poke at a man or cursing him freely as frowned upon, some combative men may find their first thrill of release in an attack on the enemy. Six, he may be unconsciously trying to relieve a grouch by violence that is considered legitimate. The man who has spent a lifetime enduring, unending series of disappointments, failures, and obstacles, and who is damned up in himself.

Ever-mounting grievances and resentment may be able to turn all that ill will against the enemy. Seven, he may have joined the army as he would apply for a job. Think about the stark difference between those couple there. We've got one person that just wants to fight people or one person that feels like they've been a failure and everything, and just kind of has an opportunity to take that grudge out against the world. Right? I'm a murderer at heart. And then you got another guy that, hey, I joined because this is, hey, seems like a good job.

They can just pay my GI bill or whatever. Eight, he may have been driven into Army life by regard for public opinion. He may feel keenly the way his friends, especially the girls, regard a military uniform and a fighting man. He may hate the thought of being considered a slacker. Nine, it may be his desire to maintain his own self-esteem that moves him. He may have to end his secret shame at the thought that others are doing the fighting for him. Ten, his action may be based on a feeling of on on on on oneness with the nation and on faith in the nation's leaders.

11, he might be acting out of his faith in democracy. 12, he might be compelled by his spirit of sacrifice. all these reasons why men join the army why they accept training in many cases why they keep unwillingly willingly when they go on overseas to a fighting front yet by the motives by then the motives usually change or some of them do and here are the chief reasons why a man fights at the front so there's a little difference here so this is why they joined and now it's why they're fighting and this is something you hear about this kind of it's a kind of a cliche thing you know he's fighting for the guy who's left and to his right this is this we're

going to go into it a little bit because that that is what it is and it's true 13 in a unit with good morale he fights out of loyalty to his comrades in his unit boom there it is this is important though 14 or he may fight because he is lead men at the front face danger and are often uncertain what to do about it this is especially true in a unit with uncertainty morale. It's like I said earlier. Like sometimes the leaders, if you got a good leader that's going to make things happen,

you're going to make things happen. This is a good one. 15. Finally, a man may fight because there's literally nothing else to do. And of course, everyone uses the word literally now. Literally everybody. And if you take it,

if you remove that from your brain to make literally mean what it's supposed to mean, think about the sentence. Finally, A man may fight because there's literally nothing else to do. He and his comrades are in the war and at the front in battle. No one stops to figure out why he should escape from a burning house. So with fighting.

So yeah, there's some people like, oh yeah, guess what? You have two choices. Fight or die. Yeah. And you're going to fight. Yeah. How men meet defeat. The way a man stands up.

to a blow partly of course depends on how heavy the blow when a man is faced with a very difficult problem or a series of them with any sort of obstacle or frustration when things become too difficult there are three sorts of things he can do he can work at it harder attacking the problem from new angles with increasing vigor he can get mad and attempt to destroy the obstacle or himself or something else and three he can give up in despair and run away in apathy the first way is the way of learning right when what seems that could good plan is hit upon and has tried if this fails there's a signal for more thinking when a good working plan is finally evolved success is achieved and the man is learned so that's the best thing to do

right you try different solutions all this activity is healthy unless the individual oh there's a little balance there's a little dichotomy here all this activity is healthy unless the individual becomes so engrossed with a single problem so obsessed by it that he fails to eat or sleep or pay attention to other necessary problems. Can't get target fixation. Getting mad over disappointments or failures is generally not profitable. It's particularly hard on the innocent bystander

because of the way men have of shifting their grouch from the original obstacle to other persons or things. The man who fails to get a promotion he has been working and longing for doesn't take a poke at the officer who refused to recommend him, much as he would like to have it out with him, and said he's likely to kick his buddy in the pants

so much as he raises, if he so much as raises an eyebrow. Leaders too may take it out on unoffending men who then wonder what's eaten him. Aggression may also be turned inward onto the self. Many a man goes about kicking himself, usually figuratively, but sometimes in real self-punishment, such as banging the head or punching or kicking a hard object until the flesh is bruised.

Of course, the extreme of self-punishment for disastrous failure or frustration is suicide, but mostly suicide is just giving up. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. This adage may be used to maintain courage, but the process is actually governed by natural law. The number of times a man will attempt to accomplish a certain job or to reach a certain objective is governed in one direction by the importance of that particular success and in the other direction by the effort and pain involved in trying when the successful achievement means less than the individual than the freedom from the strain of trying

to attain it any man will abandon the struggle giving up is nature's way of protecting the organism against too much pain so that's my Don't once you've banged your head against the wall 44 times That's enough that you're not gonna get through it on the 45th or the 46th or the 47th try You need to find a different way it goes on giving up May mean defeat, but it does not always mean surrender in most situation what is given up is some particular way of reaching the goal rather than a complete abandon of the objective. This sort of defeat results in thinking, in fresh striving, in eventual progress.

A man who has been unable to get a commission in the Army may enlist earn his stripes and later reach an officer candidate school. Another kind of giving up results in compromise. The original objective is abandoned, but another more easily achieved is substituted. And this stuff is, these are the things that people get the impression that, well, from me, oh, you just never give up. Like, never compromise.

Yeah. It sounds really cool to say that. Yeah. There was an old, there's an old t-shirt back in the day. Sure. It was for H&K rifles. Yeah. And it said in a world of compromise, some don't.

And it had a picture of like an entry team going into a building. And of course, you hear that and you think that's right. No compromise ever But here's the problem No compromise means If you don't win every single time You will get defeated and destroyed

Because you're not gonna win and the problem that is You're not gonna win every time You're not gonna win every argument that you have You're not gonna win every idea that you put forth Isn't gonna be the idea that gets selected And what you end up being is a person That can't work with anyone else Yeah

Or you end up a person that has one chance at charging machine gun nest and you go straight forward up the hill towards the machine gun nest and guess what? Everyone dies. Yeah. You didn't achieve the mission and everyone is dead.

Now if you would have said, you know what? We tried. We lost two guys. We backed up. Now we're in covered position and we're waiting for some reinforcements. And when the reinforcement show up,

here's the plan. We're going to put down covering fire and we're going to maneuver around to the flank or we're going to get a heavy weapon in here and we're going to shoot a bazooka at this thing. Whatever. So this one in the book where it says Give up

It's not giving up It's more like giving up on a certain thing He says giving up does not always mean surrender Yeah So surrender is like I give up on the whole mission Yes essentially Giving up is like giving up Like just basically stop

Doing something that's not working kind of thing Right Yeah We had this question on the podcast is When is it okay to quit Yes To define this exact Yeah, the definition.

And I had the conversation with a guy that we both know who was making a great effort in a business. The business was not being successful the way he had envisioned it. And it was costing him a lot of money. It was costing him time. He was putting all his efforts into it. And he literally asked me, hey, man, if I shift to something else, is that great. quitting. And I said, it's quitting, but it's not surrendering. And I actually said, what is your goal? And his goal was not to be successful in that particular business. His goal was to

spend time with his family and set up a safe financial situation for them. And he kind of got his wires crossed on thinking that this business that he had started was the mission. Wasn't the mission. The mission was taking care of his family. family and spending time with his family. And he was actually failing to do either. So sometimes you have to, sometimes you have to make those adjustments. You have to quit.

Just because you quit one plan doesn't mean you surrender. Yeah. In fact, I would get mad at young seals. When they would come up with their plan, they'd use the plan to go hit a training target. The plan would start to fail and they wouldn't adapt. They wouldn't change.

They'd stick with their plan. I'm not a quitter. We're going to keep going. Oh, really? Okay, cool. We'll kill everyone that you have. You can do buddy carries the rest of the night out here in the desert. I got all night. So it's essentially, when it comes down to it, it's almost like an issue with the language.

Because like quitting, giving up, like these are things that we're kind of trained to think are bad. These are bad things to quit and give up. So all you have, I mean, and given what he's talking, you know, like nowadays, I've heard people use the word pivot. Like the guy you're talking about with a business. Right? Got pivot. Yeah, I got a pivot. It's like, pivot, quit, give up.

I mean, I'd rather use the word pivot because it sounds like, hey, I'm still on the, on the mission, on the path. I'm just taking a different direction, you know. You know, we'd have to come up with a legitimate, what never quit, which is what we're actually taught in the SEAL teams. But then when you say, never quit, that means never surrender. That's what they mean. And what it really means is never lose sight of accomplishing and doing what

takes to accomplish your long-term strategic goals. That's what it really means, but that doesn't sound as cool as never quit. Yeah. But then, and then give up, same thing. Give up means like this is too much for me or I'm not willing to work hard through it or whatever. That's what it feels like it means. But in this book, it doesn't mean that. I mean, here's a little dichotomy for me that kind of hurts.

And I know I think it's pretty much ego talking, but I, when I hear pivot, I always think, oh, things aren't going so well. Exactly. You got to give it up on that thing, aren't you? You know what that's the same. So that's kind of a negative connotation, which is not good. I'm criticizing myself for even having those thoughts because you do have to pivot in business. You do have to pivot in combat.

You can't be like, oh, here's what we were trying to do and it wasn't working. So we're just going to do it harder. No, you actually have to say, hey, this isn't working and we're going to make some adjustments. We're going to pivot. Yeah. And I think that's what that word was sort of introduced to that whole space to mean because of all these different. But then here's the thing, though, on the flip side. that some guys they'll give up

they'll straight up give up because it's too much work and be like I'm going to take a new direction in life I'm going to pivot towards more of the more personal stuff some more personal things meanwhile they surrendered their whole mission because it was too much work for them

you know or it didn't come as easier quickly or whatever we're going to pivot hard if we need to be sure check next ability to accept defeat in such ways is no fault of character. In fact, a man who can take it and still do his best without bitterness is highly regarded in the army and in civilian life.

But there are other ways of meeting defeat or disappointment that are destructive and may result in psychological casualty. The familiar sour grapes reaction is what happens in a man who has set his heart so firmly on a particular achievement that he can't give it up and face the fact so he belittles or runs down the very job he wants so much to have he says pilots are all crazy or fools and the whole flying game is a jip you we have to talk to good deal dave burke about that one good deal no because and that that definitely happens you know you get someone that's trying to achieve you don't even care about a black belt yeah there's not even that big of a deal yeah cool don't get one

Because apparently you're not. Sour grapes. Sour grapes. You know where that expression comes from? I do not. Yeah, so I didn't either until I was well into adulthood. So it's like an old, what do you call them? A little fable.

I don't know. What is it when it's like a story that didn't really happen, but it was like, so. A famous. Super short. So this fox was hungry. I saw some grapes up on the vines, right? And so the fox was like, dang, they're pretty high. So it's all good.

I'm going to jump up. me eat those grapes because I'm hungry jumps up misses the grape he can't jump high enough so he's like all right he comes back and he's like you know I just got to jump higher that's all so he jumps even higher still can't still can't get him tries again still can't get him again still can't get him finally gives up doesn't pivot gives up and while he's leaving he says these grapes were probably sour anyway there it is there to go don't like like that continuing more likely to occur is a sort of symbolic running away through feigned illness or physical defect a man faced with failure to pass an examination for a promotion

or he has longed for may suddenly announce that he is colorblind or night blind or has some other previously undiscovered defect that would prevent a success or he may become actually ill and be honestly unaware of the connection between sudden sickness and frustration this is a feigned physical defect is a big one for people that don't make it through some kind of military training program. So what is that? That's like, we're like, well, what happened? Oh, I rub my leg. Right.

And maybe they didn't. Or wait, so are they blaming something that actually is occurring or are they just sort of making it up? Famed physical effect. Hey, I couldn't do this because my leg was hurt. That's why I didn't make it through the program because I got this. I got that. Yeah. Okay.

And the other thing that they make is sometimes people actually get sick, but it's because they're, you know, the mind-body connection. Huh. It's crazy. Back to the book. Each man, no matter how strong mentally and physically has his limits beyond which the strongest will cannot drive him. The wise man learns his own tolerances and cautiously retreats, if possible, to a more defended position when hazards and obstacles he is in danger of are to. Great. It's amazing that they so clearly understood this.

This is 1942 or something like that. And they're saying, look, they're saying the exact same thing. That's a big revelation to say, pivot. They're saying the same thing. Rage. A two-edged weapon. A group of tanks stands in a field, silent, motionless, and dead. Suddenly switches are thrown.

Motors start, and they become alive. Noise bursts from their exhaust. and they roar to attack. A gun is inert and dead until a high explosive powder is set off in its chambers. A bomb without nitroglycerin is a dud. All weapons are mere useless pieces of metal

until the release of energy brings them to life. Man, too, as a weapon of war, must have energy released to galvanize him into acting, fighting soldier. And the high explosive that sets off a man's fighting power is emotion. There are certain things that a man can do

in an automatic way without the fire of emotional energy, but these things would win no wars. Without fear and without rage, he could not even defend himself of the enemy or aiming at him and about to fire. Slap a man's face and he will become enraged, drop a bomb beside him, and he may become terrified.

But although the two feelings may seem different to may seem to the man very different inwardly the changes that take place in his body are similar his heart beats faster his blood pressure rises

his blood is shifted from internal organs to the muscles his digestion stop stops sugar and his blood increases his hands tremble his voice quivers the body wastes in the bladder or bowels may be expelled he becomes alert and ready for instant action whether all this

extreme preparation for action by the body is a good thing for the soldier or whether it will eventually or whether it will actually endanger's life. This depends on the circumstances. In primitive hand-to-hand combat, when the last ounce of energy of which the body is capable must be summoned instantly for one tremendous spurt of running to get away from peril or for one outburst of physical strength to down the foe, rage or fear will pour into blood the adrenaline necessary to rouse that vital energy.

If immediate vigorous action is impossible, however, and if life depends instead upon the cool-headed use of skill, self-control, and discipline, then violent emotion can put the soldier in mortal peril. So this one thing can kill you or save you. Yeah, there's an interesting differentiation there where it's like, Hey, if the task kind of requires like skill and stuff, bro, you got to control that. You got to, you know, you can't be doing it. But if it's like, hey, if you sometimes, because it's face it, man, in life and whatever,

sometimes it just, bro, you just got to power through some stuff every once in a while. So you've no doubt about it. You know, so. And actually you're the one. You said how I'll put quite eloquently. What is it? Sometimes. Sometimes you have to use your logic and sometimes you have to use emotion.

Yeah. Yeah. When your logic fails. It's in the disqual, it's in the, it's in a, is it. the field manual. Sometimes if your if your logic fails, like if you can't think of a good reason why should I do another set or why should I go compete in this thing, you have to let your emotions get a little get in the game. Yeah. And then sometimes your emotions get shut down. Yeah. Because you think this is just stupid. This doesn't make sense. Yeah. Yeah. Well, then you got to

let your emotions go. What do you mean? It doesn't make sense because you're being weak. You don't like that. That's bad. Actually, the logic one, a lot of times is, is, well, it's more dynamic, I'd say, because you can have full, well, I don't know about you, but I can have full conversations in my head, and the working out one was a big one where I'm like, think about how you'll feel

after, that's going to be the benefit, you know, but then at the same time I'd be like, hey, wait, but you could easily rest right now. Yeah, you can get recovered. You know, so it's like, you're one of those guys that has a huge, huge surplus of standing by things that are like, look, you know, the most important part of working out is rest.

You don't grow. You don't get stronger when you're working out. You actually get stronger when you're resting. Yep, when you recover. You got that little voice. You got that one little monkey on your shoulder that's whispering those things. Yeah, but now I got you who in like the big monkey. Yeah, you've been bigger one because and I got this from you essentially where it's like, okay, I can, this is kind of the conversations going on in on my heads.

Typically. So yes, I can be like, yeah, the recovery, that's how you, you know, get the gains, whatever. That's on one side. Then the other side is like, wait, but you want to train a whole. There's way more to working out than just getting bigger and stronger. There's more to it. There's mental exercise. There's mental toughness exercises in there.

There's doing, you know, discipline, all these things. Oh, yeah. And they're more, like, they're longer lasting, like things to develop. You know, like when you develop them, they apply to more things. So I can easily be like, hey, I don't feel like it today. That's my body telling me I should rest today. Yeah. I really don't feel like it physically.

And that is true. It's probably true. But what else is true is if I can train myself to power through these sorts of situations, even though they're true, that's going to serve me way better in life. So if I develop that skill. Yeah. So I'm like, dang. So now I got two monkeys like that like that.

some of that stuff to my youngest daughter, my youngest daughter about how competition, competition is good. And the reason competition is good is because life is a competition. It is a straight up competition. And if you're not good at competing, if you don't get comfortable with competing, that's going to be a problem when it comes time to compete,

which you will have to do. You're not going to get through life without competing for things, for whatever. It doesn't happen. You're going to have to compete for a job. You're going to have to compete for, you know, to meet someone to be to be your wife or husband. There's a competition going on for that. They're just not like down for the cause out of the gate.

No. You've got to fight off other humans. Yeah. To get what you want. Yeah. Whether it's a spouse, whether it's a job, whether it's a promotion, whether it's a part in the school play. There's other people that are going to be trying. I was telling my little doctor.

this you think they're just going to step aside when you show up oh yeah you want the lead role yep you got it's a competition and you must destroy the competition and the way you do that is you compete you compete in different things a lot you push yourself and you figure out what it takes to step up yeah like wrestling a lot wrestling puts a lot of pressure on kids and it is straight competition mono e mono or in the case of my daughter what is that female womano versus womano it is straight competition

you against another human being one of you is going to win one of you is going to lose 100% of the time that's what's going to happen and it's all on you yeah so that's really good for

for people it's good for kids yeah well do you just do competition same thing and then you just get you can just say any kind of competition yeah you know yeah it's like a well a dichotomy too you know

in the spirit of accuracy. It's kind of like life. Not to get too deep here, but life is half competition, half collaboration. So it could be different. It could be 60, 40 and whatever year. It could be 100% competition for me

and a bunch of collaboration for you. But, but here's the thing where, yeah, you get people who lean too far towards competition. They start to alienate people and they can't, you know, maintain relationships like all these problems.

They're playing the short game. Short game, yes. And the collaboration thing is. If they're playing the long game, that's not a factor. Yeah. Because they're realizing, oh, I'm going to win in the long game. So this short game is a sacrifice. No problem.

Oh, yeah. Because I want to, you know, I'm not going to do something that's going to create an antagonistic relationship with these people that I'm going to count on in the future. So guess what? We're going to take a little hit right now. We're going to make compromises because you're focused on the long game. Because ultimately. it is a competition. Yeah.

Well, it is a competition, sure. Not everything's a competition. A lot of it is a collaboration, but within, I mean, most times we collaborate to compete. Yeah. You see what I'm saying? So it is. It's like a little balance, like a little dance you're doing with collaboration competition. That's why I think, anyway, I don't know, but from what I can view or see, observe, that, yeah, if you lean too much towards competition, you jam yourself up.

And if you lean too much. much towards collaboration. There is a dichotomy. You jam yourself up too. It's like you can't succeed. It's like you can't get out of like your little cloud. Yeah, it should be balanced. And if you are competing on things, because there's people that compete on things that don't matter.

Yeah, that don't matter. And then while or they compete when they should be collaborating. Yeah, that's true too. Or they're afraid to compete so they don't compete at all. So there's all kinds of problems. But yes, I, what am I? I'm speaking a little. bit simplified for my daughter because what my daughter, what I want my kids to realize

is that there is competition and that they're part of it. Whether they want to be or not, that's the point that I'm trying to make. And so when I talk to my daughter about something and she gives me a kind of a shoulder shrug about something, when it's not a shoulder shrug situation, then you aren't understanding that things are a competition and life is a competition. And you know what? It is hard to say. It's it's very extreme to say everything in life or life in general or life as a whole is a competition. That's a real extreme statement. And I can see, I totally agree with your point. And you are correct that that can result in then a bad, a bad attitude. And it really, not even just a bad attitude, a bad life. I mean, you can end up,

like you said, you can alienate everyone and you can end up alone and your computer. And you know, I got, I beat that person. I beat that person. And now you're just, you've lost, that's the thing is you, you've lost a whole section of your competition, which is developing relationships with other human beings that you can then count upon in your times of need or that you can provide for. It's like, all, you've ruined everything. So, but what I'm saying is even that right there, if you think about it in terms of what

I just said, you lost. Mm-hmm. So ultimately to win the competition, you have to be aware of it. You have to compete. Competing, this is probably the crux of what we're trying to say. Competing doesn't always mean smashing the other person. Yeah. Competing doesn't always mean that.

Sometimes competing means actually letting the other person win. Yeah. Competing sometimes means let it get compromising. because I'm going to win the long game. I'm playing the long game over here. And you're playing around with the short game. You beat me, hey, good job. I'm going to applaud you.

I mean, golf clap. Yeah, man, it's true. Because at the end, you know, you can collaborate all you want. But if you have, like, you put it, the long game, which is a really, really effective way to look at it, by the way, with everything. But if you can be collaborating and be, you know, the best team player in the whole wide world, But your goal, your goal is for your team. You're the team player.

It's for your team to win, whatever you're doing. And win, I mean, it's, here's the thing where I think people get emotionally jammed up when they hear like, everything's a competition and that shouldn't be like that or whatever. To win in life, win, mean they think that like, I win, you lose kind of thing. Yeah, that's part of it. You know, but really when it comes out, even like just genetically, right? You know how you say, you know, finding a maid or reproducing whatever. It's like you're it's like survival of the fittest right Darwinism kind of thing like organisms compete for mate compete for this. So it's kind of like that's how it is, you know?

It's not like I'm a person, you're a person. I'm going to win and defeat you and you're the loser. It's not that that thing. It's like basically you want to be successful. And for most situations for you to be successful, you have to kind of you have to beat someone out of them being successful. And in order to be successful, you also have to play the game. You also have to play the game by the rules. Yeah.

Because otherwise you end up ostracized or in jail, right? Because you could say, I'm going to win. I'm going to make the most money. So what do you know, I'm going to steal it from people. I'm going to do immoral things in order to get there. That would be everything is a competition attitude, but it's the wrong attitude. Because you're not going to win in the end. You're going to lose.

You're going to be in jail. So you lost. But if you. if you realize that it is a competition and you have to play the other rules and you have to win the game and winning the game means that you are successful in a place where you can help other people

and you've got what you need and that's what we're looking for. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely dichotomy with that one. Speaking of dichotomies, going back to the book, it is possible, it is as possible to be literally blinded by rage as it is to be paralyzed by fear. A prize fighter knows that he,

can win against a stronger and more skilled opponent if he can rouse his opponent to violent anger in which he strikes wildly and fails to use his science we see that all the time you've got to maintain your composure in a fight on the mats even on the mats of justice for the jiu jihitsu oh yeah big time you know what you know what movie was like the the epitome of that was a few good men remember at the end oh when he was like when he made him admit to it yeah he that's exactly what he did man totally took him out of the game got him all riled up made him it's bad man it was good you can't handle the truth that's right that was a speech though by the way he but he let the rage and the emotion cause a problem for him

he chammed him up he could have just he didn't have to do anything no he could he just kept his mouth should be like yeah whatever yeah didn't do it Tom Cruise and Tom Cruise he played the game really well new to the attack his emotions you know isn't it funny that if you understand psychology and human nature you can actually play it on someone and bring their own demise based on something that they're gonna do for themselves yeah it's crazy that's why it's important to understand human nature back to the book the main purpose behind all the long routine of military training and the preconditioning of troops to simulate battle conditions to drill into soldiers fighting

habits so deeply ingrained, so intimately second nature, that they will persist in the face of the most overwhelming provocations to rage or panic. Long practice in shooting coolly at a target without undue excitement, without blood lust makes it possible for the soldier to shoot calmly as at his target when his very life and the safety of his pals are at stake. His hand must not tremble then his keen eye and steady nerve must not waver. Fortunately, men in civilized society have been trained since early childhood to control and discipline their natural impulses. For the normal adult, it is entirely possible for intelligence to remain in command of

his behavior and for even recently acquired habits to be retained in opposition to the instinctive impulses to run or drop his rifle and flail out with his fists. There are many degrees of anger, however. And although the violently enraged individual may be at the mercy of the enemy, a milder form of resentment of injustice and calm determination to avenge cruelty, can serve to fill men with a fighting spirit that knows no defeat. The difference between this cool anger and rage is like the difference between tempered steel and molten iron. Oh, that's a good one.

Like the difference between a raging torrent that destroys blindly and the harnessed power of a Niagara that can be directed intelligently to wipe out the enemy. Such deep and controlled anger is not to be roused artificially by any group before any group of men. It is the automatic result of an unpardonable offense. It rises like an unquenchable fire when a man's house is attacked, when his wife or children are abused, when his own native land is invaded. Such anger can be used not only for actual killing of the enemy, but also to provide the energy needed for work behind the lines. A soldier who is determined to defeat the enemy will do anything that he feels contributes to wiping out the foe,

whether it is changing the tires on a truck or unloading shells from a packing case or policing barracks in his training camp. He will fight at his job. He will do that job well and will use his own initiative to volunteer for extra duty to think up ways of doing his job more quickly and more efficiently. Anger is infectious and can spread from one person to another through personal contact. Just to see the flushed face and tense expression of a wrathy person may be enough to stir anger in others.

The sound of anger in a raised voice or the sight of angry behavior is even more catching. Anger spreads most readily when the beholder is sympathizing. When he's able to put himself in the angry man's shoes when the person who is injured is one of us for this reason the rouse Anger of a people is much greater and more moving than the sum of the individual angers within the group They reinforce one another Anger shared controlled and directed to the single purpose of destroying the enemy is a powerful force for survival and for victory Anger is a gift Is that a rage against the machine?

It is indeed. Bringing out quotes. It goes on, hatred of the enemy makes sense. The army is organized throughout for one single purpose,

fighting. Soldiers must be fighting men with a fighting spirit. But some of acts of aggression by soldiers are useless to the war effort and actually dangerous to the Army. When competition, here we go, when competition between companies or regiments turns into bitter rivalry, when soldiers in town for a Saturday night pick corals with each other or with the

townspeople, when race prejudices are permitted to develop within a camp or when officers stooped professional jealousy, the harmful results can be as bad as those dealt out by the enemy. This is when Laif and I always say the enemy is outside the wire. Yeah. This, all those things are fighting inside the wire. Yeah. Fighting against ourselves. Such conditions make rifts in the solidarity essential to the fighting morale.

They cause a deterioration of discipline, produce a state of anxiety and insecurity among the troops. And worst of all, they actually drain off in ineffective petty squabbles, the fighting energy, every ounce of which is needed to bring victory. The thoughtful leader, knowing that no group or nation can live. long survive if it is torn by internal strife or dissension with its allies is seriously disturbed by any tendency toward personal or factional friction within his command. He well knows that victory can only come if the whole group puts all its efforts into a unified cooperative battle against a common enemy. You always end up with these little factions, right? And you have to try and prevent that.

You got to watch out for those because they sneak up on you. It happens in any organization though. People start to relate to each other and then they pick a little common enemy even inside the wire. It's like us against them. Yeah, that's true, huh? Because in picking a common enemy, even on a social level, whatever, that

that like promotes cohesion within a group. Like apparently, from what I read, is like gossip, right? There's a purpose for gossip. Like if people gossip, it makes them like bond. It's weird. Yeah, yeah, no. And actually this book talks about rumors.

Yeah. And we're going to talk about that. What are the fruitful, ripe terrain for rumors to grow, for gossip to grow? Yeah. But the act of doing it with each other. And that's part of the reason. Part of the reason is if you and I need something to connect on, well, we'll just make fun of this guy or we'll talk smack about this guy.

And we kind of bond, right? Right. If you hate this guy and I hate this guy, bro. Yeah. We're in the game. So you, so, and you know, this says, and you say that you should, you should try to prevent those, you know, little, like, what do you clicks or whatever, right? To kind of. Is there, do you think there's benefit to them actually for me?

There is benefit to them. Maybe just on a low level, like a minor. I'm not a low level. There are benefits, but it has to be balanced. Because guess what? I'm the task unit commander of task unit bruiser. I have Charlie and Delta platoon. I want Charlie and Delta Patoon to be competitive against each other so that they're pushing to try and become

Try and make each other or try to try and become their best so they can talk smack to the other guys We beat you in this thing. We beat you in that thing. Okay, cool. That's positive. I want that to happen. What I don't want is Delta Paltoon figures out a good standard operating procedure and doesn't share it with Charlie Patoon because we want to keep outperforming them on this drill or vice versa. That's what we don't want to have happen. So you've got to balance these dichotomies. Yes. And you want to have these little competitive groups. And inside, guess what? Inside of Charlie Platoon, there's squad one and squad two.

They should compete with each other. And inside squad one and squad two, inside squad one, you've got fire team one and fire team two. They're competing against each other. And then inside that fire team, you've got two swim pairs. And they're competing with each other. So you want to establish that healthy competition. But what you want to make sure is that it doesn't cross the boundary.

into sabotage. Right. Yeah. So it's like it has to remain at all times. Has to, the little mini competitions or competitive situations have to remain within the boundary of the team goal. Like he can never cross over that, right?

Like it has to be, it all has to support the team goal. Right? Whatever that means. Yes. We can't ever be taking away from the fact that we have a unified mission to execute and achieve.

We can never let anything undermine that goal, ever. And that right there, we throw around this term putting the mission first, right? Like, oh, you got to put the mission first. Like, we throw that around. But if you think that through to its ultimate end, it is the most powerful force that you can have from a leadership perspective, from the way that you operate and the decisions that you make. Because you look at some decision that needs to get made. And if you truly ask yourself the question, okay, how will this,

will this move us towards our objective in a positive way? If it will, okay, we're moving in the right direction. Sounds like a good idea. If it's not doing that, it's the wrong decision to make. And so it comes time to fire someone. you're firing this person because they talk back to you and they were they got a bad attitude okay so then you ask yourself okay what is this due to our mission our ability to execute our mission right well the guy's a turd and he doesn't know his job well and he's been slacking off

okay and no one likes him guess what he's getting fired but okay wait a second i don't like him i don't like him because he rubs me the wrong way i don't like him because he's got a big ego which means he's brushing up against my big ego, which is making me hold it against him. And by the way, he's come up with a couple ideas that were better than mine, and I resent him for that. And by the way, he asked some questions during my last brief that were really hard for me to answer.

He kind of put me on the spot, right? All these things. And so I rack those things up, and I start, and now I put together my little click. I start saying, hey, you know, he does this and he did this on this op. And all of a sudden, I got a reason. Yeah. And now I need to ask myself, okay,

am I furthering the mission? if I get rid of who's going to replace him. He has experience. Who's going to replace that experience? He's another body. Who's going to replace that other body? And so if you make your decisions based on what's good for the team. By the way, what's good for the team is what's good for the mission.

You have a team to accomplish the mission. If your team is dysfunctional, you're not going to accomplish the mission. If your team is destroyed or part of your team is lost, you can't accomplish the mission. So if you really truly look is what I'm doing accomplishing. What about your family, right? Your family mission is to provide for your family and take care of your family. When you start looking at things from that standpoint, hey, I really want to get this new car. Yeah.

Right? I really like this new car. Sure. Okay, we know that that's an emotional decision. Buying cars for most people is an emotional decision, myself included. Americans, it's not even just Americans, people love cars. I don't know if it's because the advertising thing, but cars represent freedom.

You have the ability to travel hundreds and thousands of miles on your own accord. And maybe you just need to travel to the grocery market, but still the car gives you freedom. And then the car in a deeper level is a reflection of you. Yeah, your identity. It's your, yeah, this is, it's literally something that you get inside. side of. And when people look

at it, they're looking at the metal and steel version of you in your own mind. Yes. So it can be hard to drive a 1997 Dodge Grand Caravan with a duct tape on the window. Sure. It can be hard.

The fires, the fires in San Diego in 2003, were you here for those? Yes. They poured ash everywhere. So that ruined a lot of paint if the cars were sitting outside. So my 1997 Dodge Grand Caravan had all peeled paint look like just just horrible peeled paint there's like a dark red but then there was these flakes of clear stuff all over it falling off so if you looked at that car and I saw that car as a

reflection of me was pretty pretty low reflection you know nothing against my my brothers out there that are driving the many vans props you got the family you But you make that your priority. Because what I could have done back in the day was say, you know what? I really want to get whatever. Yeah. The Ford F. 350, Super Duty, Dooley, extended king cab. Yeah.

You know what I'm saying? Oak trim. That's me. I want to look like that on the outside. Yeah. So then what is my decision making, bro? Do I need that vehicle? I live in San Diego, by the way.

Mm-hmm. I live in San Diego. What do I do with my vehicle? I drive to work. I drive home. I take my kids to the Jitzu tournaments. That's what I do with my vehicle. Do I need an F350 super duty duly extended cab diesel 7.3 power stroke engine. Do I need that? I don't know. Kind of. No, I don't. So what is the mission? What is the mission? First of all, we know that when I buy a car, it's going down in value. If I buy a piece of property, I buy a house, I buy a home. that's going to go up and value over time.

Sure, it might go up and down a little bit, but over time it's going to go up and value. Over time, my kids can have that in 30 years. They don't want that forward in 30 years. That thing's barely even running in 30 years. So what is my mission? My mission is to provide for the family, protect the family, take care of the family,

set them up for success in the future. What do I need to drive? I need to drive a Dodge Caravan. Yeah. That's what I need to drive. I understand. So, if you frame things correctly about what your broad mission is, you're going to do better off. You're going to make better decisions as a leader.

Yeah. That's the way it's going to be. Oh. And by the way, speaking of leaders, here we go back to the book, the most serious of all causes for an epidemic of dissension is the bad. leader when as sometimes happens in any organization like an army men have placed over them a man they do not trust one who loves to show his authority and throw his rank around or an unreasonable Martinette the whole outfit will be filled with resentment since it is impossible to show this antagonism to the officer who is at

fault the troops go around with chips on their shoulders daring each other to knock them off the only way to wipe out such an infection of dissension is to track down and remove the cause if men believe they have a grievance even if the complaint is unjustified they should be permitted to tell their troubles to someone in authority if an officer gives them a patient hearing investigates conditions with a fair and open mind and explains his findings to the men, they will usually be satisfied, even in cases where it is impossible to do much to correct the objectionable state of affairs.

This is such good advice. Guess what? When you're in a leadership position, you're going to have people that are going to complain about things that are going to see problems. And what you should do in those situations is listen. Listen to what the team has to say. Listen to what that individual has to say.

Yeah. Get feedback. That's what you should. do. Back to the book, just telling their troubles to a willing listener serves to get the air cleared. And in cases where men make constructive suggestions for correcting conditions, they will take in the organization a pride that they never had before. So, you guy tells you to do something or ask you do something and give suggestions, use it and give them credit. These are reasons why, for many years in our army, any officer or soldier has been free to tell a grievance.

to the Inspector General sent periodically to each place where there are troops. Inspector General's like an internal affairs type situation. But you shouldn't need to resort to that. If you're a good commander and a good leader, when the internal affairs people show up, they get told, hey, everything's awesome.

They have no grievances to put out there because they already told you. And then you gave them an answer. And then people say, what if I can't answer the grievances? Well, then will you figure out what the answer is? if my subordinate comes to me and says, hey, this is, we're not getting the right food out here.

Well, I don't just say, well, sorry. No, I say, okay, let me see what I can do about it. Hey, this is what's going on. By the way, there's a lack of flights heading in this direction. The supply trains are getting blown up by IEDs. We have an alternate plan for food. We're going to try and make it happen in a couple months. But right now we kind of got what we got.

And now what do you say? Screw you? No, you go, okay, I understand. We're at war for crying out loud. I understand I'm not going to get steak dinner every night. It's not happening. Even though we might want it, we're not going to get it. So hear out those grievances.

Some people get concerned that if you start taking grievances from people, then it turns into a bitch session. You heard this word, this term before. for the bitch session. I'm actually, in general, not scared of bitch sessions. I'm not scared of them. Because if you ask me a good question, or you ask me a question, I should have an answer for it.

I'm the leader. If you're in my platoon and you have a question for me, I should be able to answer it. If you have a bitch, I should be able to give you a reason why that is occurring and why we either can move forward with some kind of a corrective measure or why we cannot because the following limitations that were under. So I'm not really scared of bitch sessions unfolding. Have I seen them become unproductive? Absolutely.

I especially see them become unproductive when we start to like lose the conversation. And if the leader, if you ask me a question and I say because. Yeah. You know, if you say, hey, why can't we get better food? and I say because then you say because of what and I say because I said so

now we're going to have a problem now this bitch session just became unproductive if you say hey Jock you know we've been here for two months why can't we get some better food? I'm like you know what right now I don't even know

because I agree with you the food is pretty bad and I like food and so let me take a note here I'm going to write down I'm sending up the chain of command we can figure out A what's going on

why we don't have good food and B, if there's a way we can possibly start making this happening. I hear you. Bitch is now subdued, right? The complaint has been subdued because I gave you a legitimate answer. I didn't even give you a solution by any stretch. I just gave you an answer. I just took your information and heard what you had to say, which is legitimate. I've seen people where they send up a complaint and they get subdued, but they,

then the leader doesn't follow up on the complaint. Like I don't follow up and actually go up the chain of command and say, why aren't we getting better food? That's going to be a problem. Next session, it's, hey, you said you were going to do something. What's the answer? And I say, well, I, uh, butt, bit, bit. Now you're mad.

Yeah. Rightfully so. Yeah. And that's really it. That's really that what tells the tale because like, okay, so a bitch session, right? That'll, I mean, along with complaints, come what I think is more important than like the complaint or the issue that's complained about more important is the motivation to complain so let's say the food is

junk right if I think if I'm mad about that if that bothers me whether it be because I think the food should literally be better it should be better right now yeah I don't know why it's bad right now but I think it should be in that makes that bothers me at the very least that produces a motivation to complain but if the food can be just as bad. But if I have an explanation, I have no motivation to complain because I'm not mad at that. It's understandable. So a bitch session will develop when those feeling, those motivations to complain are maintained or escalated. So like if you're like saying, why? Because because I said so, I'm still mad. Totally. And I'm even a little bit more mad because the way you said that to me. So that's when those bitch bitch sessions will come. Or if you get a couple of people making the same complaint.

and then another couple of people like, you know, kind of refuting it or something like that. Where anywhere where there's emotions kind of... And one key factor that you brought up is the building up, right? If you're constantly communicating with your people, then the bitch sessions don't build up. It's when you decide, when you lock yourself in your own vacuum and you don't listen to what anyone has to say. And then once every six months, you go, hey, guys, we're going to have a Q&A. If you guys have any questions for me, you guys can come in a, you guys, Can you ask me your questions.

Well, these guys have been brewing up questions for the last six months. They got some questions. They got some questions, boy, and they're going to hit you with them hard. So if you want to prevent the bitch session from getting out of control, guess what? Communicate with your people more often. It'll take that question about why is the food so bad? By the time it's six months deep and that guy's been eating crappy food for six months, there's almost no solution that you can provide that's going to be good for him.

And by the way, you wasted six months of trying to find a solution. So that's just wrong. So you're already starting off in a really negative situation. So communicate with your people a lot. Don't be afraid. People say, what if they ask me a question I don't know the answer to? Cool. You say, hey, let me write this down.

Let me run this up the Chicanicamand and find out what's going all with that because I don't know the answer. What if they ask me a question that I don't like the answer to, right? I don't like what I've been told. Wait, you as the leader you mean? I'm as the leader and someone says, you know, I get told, hey, you're not getting food because we prioritized one of the other platoons. And they're getting all the steak, which, by the way, would never happen. But if they did that and then I, and then someone says, hey, why are we getting this bad food? And I go, well, it's because they gave it to the other platoon.

You know, I wouldn't say, I would answer the question truthfully, which is like, listen, this is what's going on right now. For some reason, they gave the other platoon all the steak. believe me we have no greater champion for stake in this platoon than me I am personally flying to see the boss and I'm going to figure out what's going on we will get steak you know what I mean as opposed to just being mad or not wanting to give the answer or trying to hide it I don't know what's going on I don't know why we're not getting steak you know why you're not getting steak tell everyone yeah don't the more open you are and of course there's a dichotomy to this too because we can go too far in telling the truth we can tell people the truth about things that they

don't need to know about, right? Yeah. So you do have to be careful about that. You have to be careful. You have to be judicious in telling the truth. You have to make sure that it makes sense in accomplishing the long-term mission. If I tell everyone that we're not getting food because we got cut off and we're out here on our own and we're, we have about three days worth of food and water and by the way,

we're not going to live and we're all going to die. Yeah. So we should be happy with this. That's not going to help my mission. Now, I could turn that into something that says, listen, well, here's what's going on right now. We're caught off. And here's the mission that we're going to undertake to make this happen. It's probably not a great example.

But I think we all understand that there's times if you screw up a video, if you put a video together for me and it's got the worst Christmas music to the video. Another terrible example, probably. I don't just drop the hammer on you and say you suck at editing, even though I kind of think that. that at the moment. Instead I say, hey, I like what you put together. You know, maybe can you explain why you did this music selection? Because for me, it's a little bit different than what I would expect. Sure. Yeah.

Thank you for that. Check. Going back to the book, incidentally, but most important, I keep adding emphasis to things that are literally not in this book. So what that actually says is incidentally but importantly.

It doesn't say most important. I added that. There's a second time I've done I've taken something to the next level, even though, just on my own accord. Hey, you're feeling it, man. You're feeling it. So what it says is, incidentally, in parentheses, but importantly, this method of dealing with dissatisfaction cheats the fifth columnist and saboteur who may lurk in the camp. It is much safer for the army that men should pour their gripes into the ears of an officer

than that they should spill them in a beer joint in town or in any other place where, outsiders can listen. Another method of handling dissension and overt aggression is by punishment. This is the chosen method of dictatorships and autocratic organizations generally. The method is commonly used even in America and most children have to learn that when they feel aggressive, punishment is not that far away. So another thing you can do when somebody asks, you know, a question? Hey, Jocco, can you? you tell us why we're not getting any stake i'll tell you why we're not getting stake because you haven't worked hard enough guess what you're doing tonight kp duty or whatever you know like

when i punish you for asking a question that's like what autocrats do dictators do that back to the book sometimes the soldiers troubles cannot be attribute attributed to any one person they are due to the conditions of war or of army life an ambitious and energetic man may find himself so wound up in red tape that he cannot do a good job. An organization may be all set to go forward to an objective, but is hindered by failure of supplies, by shortages, by weather. No one is to blame, which I kind of disagree with that statement, because you're in charge of that. If you're in charge of that, then guess what? You should have figured out how to get the supplies there in time. You should have figured out a contingency plan for the weather. But what they're talking about is sometimes things

go wrong and continuing on, this natural need for someone to blame and punish when things go wrong, responsible for much race and religious prejudice, is also the cause for most quarrels that grow up between allies and between one branch of the service and another. So when you have these inner service rivalries, it's because there's no one else to blame, when you have organizations where the, the production guys, the sales guys are, selling stuff and the builders of the stuff, the engineers that design the stuff aren't getting it to them in time. When they're getting it to them in time, that's fine, but just the market is down.

And they start hating on each other when they should be focusing on how to adjust to the market adaptations that need to be made or the market adjustments that need to be made. Instead, they're going at each other's throats. Why? Because they're looking for someone to blame. Don't look for someone to blame. figure out what the problem is and solve it. Back to the book,

an occasional individual in any large group appears to contradict all the rules about how aggression was built up. He will turn nasty when he's, this is a really interesting psychological profile. So I'm going to read this again. An occasional individual in any large group appears to contradict all the rules

about how aggression was built up. He will turn nasty when he is treated with kindness and becomes very docile under punishment or frustration. He is excessively polite and cooperative as long as he is kept in a subordinate position, but when he is put in command of other men, he becomes tyrannical and overbearing.

Such peculiar behavior is often the result of too severe punishment of self-assertion or aggressiveness in childhood. This man is carrying around his own grouches and resentments bottled up inside him. He is deeply anxious to punish and hurt other people, but as long as he is faced with a threat of punishment himself, he retains his childhood fear of showing his feelings.

As soon as other people treat him decently and no longer appear like a threat to him than his meanness lashes out. People who have this curious reversal of normal reaction to other people's kindness or aggressiveness often like to boast that they are tough or hard and that they respect a man who will stand up to them.

This boast is an explanation that fools many people, even including the explainer himself. Actually, the respect they claim to feel is nothing but an unconscious fear, a secret fear that the rebellious subordinate will punish them. Such men make poor leaders. They make their subordinates angry and uncooperative. They work best when alone. And this continues on. The good leader is not afraid of criticism from his subordinates.

Amen, I guess, is what I would say to that. A good leader is not afraid of criticism from his subordinates. He will encourage it as a constructive and cooperative way of eliminating causes for resentment and dissension. And he will use it himself in dealing with his subordinates. But the criticism should be constructive and directed at some true cause of the difficulty, not some imagined evil or some harmless and defenseless person of the group. It should not be a means of passing the buck. here's some rules for critics to keep in mind

so when you want to start throwing darts at the old man one stick to things that can be corrected don't criticize dead issues or unalterable situations you ever notice some people just get stuck they get stuck on something and they'll just never let it go hey that happened three months ago I get it was a bad decision we would if I could go back in time I'd do it a different way I didn't

That's the call that got made. Here's the adjustments we've made from what we learned, and here's where we're going forward. Are you good with that? Yeah, but I'm just saying it was. Two, be specific. Keep to concrete issues. Say what. Three, limit the issue.

Don't blame the brass hats or the men in general. Say who? That's a good one. A lot of times we just like to blame them, right? They did it. Yeah. Suggest practical solutions to problems. Don't arouse emotion without suggesting what to do about it.

Say how. Five, stick to facts. Don't swallow rumors, especially Axis-inspired rumors. Six, criticize leaders or men for their acts and policies, not for their personalities. Seven, put blame where it belongs. don't find scapegoats. I was going to ask, why is, I wonder why it's so like appealing,

for lack of a better term, to blame other people. Because I mean, I guess when you think about it, it feels like, if I don't have to blame myself, that's a safety thing, right? So we'll start there. And then sure, someone will blame other things

that are not people like, I don't know, the weather or the, you know, whatever. but it's like it's almost like it seems more satisfying to blame other people because I don't know maybe because they would feel satisfying because it takes the blame off of you yeah but even even more than like blaming the weather right weather is like it's almost like it's it's more satisfying because if I can blame someone else because someone else has the capability of actively trying to get in the way of my success so it's almost like this is what it feels like I don't know I'm just wondering. Yeah, because I don't feel good about blaming anything or anybody or anyone. Yeah, so it could because, yeah, because you're really in touch with like, you know, that part of things. But I'm just saying just by nature, because it has to be a natural thing, right? It has to be like a natural reaction to something. I would think, you know, and different people have it worse than others. I would say that that's a, that's a reaction that's not too natural. And it's a reaction that you have to nourish and

raise correctly in yourself because when a little kid spills the mill, when you walk into the kitchen and your daughter's sitting there and the milk is spilled over, she says, you say, what happened? She says, the milk spilled.

She's blaming the milk, an inanimate object. Right. Already. And she's four years old, five years old, right? I'm the same way. Everyone starts off that way. It's a blow to our ego to to take the blame for things. We don't like to do it.

So it's not like it's something you have to mature into. It's something you have to figure out over time. And the more you figure it out, the better off you're going to be. And I was talking with Dave Burke about this. Good deal, Dave. Yeah.

And he was like really fired up one day. And the fire was coming. I forget even what, you know, how we got on this topic. Actually, I do think we were talking about a client that we have at Eschelon Front. And he was trying to explain to them that everything, like trying to explain to the boss, the CEO, everything, everything is your fault. Everything. And the guy's like, no, no, I get it.

But. No, no, no, no, no. Everything. No, no, no, I get it. No, no, I'm all about extreme ownership. I get it, man. That's a great book. And, you know, I'm definitely taking ownership of what's going on here.

But, and there's always a but. But the market, but the guys that I hired, but the person that I partnered with, but the person I bought the company from, but it goes on and on. But the real estate that we leased, it just goes on and on. And guess what?

If none of those are your problem, none of those are your fault. Guess what? You're never going to fix any. of them. So the idea that this stuff is a hundred percent your fault 100 percent

your fault that's going on in your team that's that it's hard to get that through your brain, anyone's brain. Yeah, it's weird. Like you ever, you know, when you're a kid or something or whether you witness someone else do this or you do it where it's like let's say

you lost something, right? And sometimes the first reaction, who took my whatever? What do you mean who took it? That's a seal curse. So the seal curse, if you lose something, as soon as you say, hey, you took my, or hey, somebody stole my, as soon as those words come out of your mouth, it's going to appear in front of you. You can actually do it like to find something that you've lost, just blame someone. And you'll find it immediately. Yeah. That's probably my earliest memory in the seal teams of don't blame people. Is that right there? Because if you, you can't find your Seckymar life jacket or

whatever. Yeah. Somebody took my Sechymar. Oh, there it is. There's the Willing The J.K.O. stencils on that one. Right over there, it was it was underneath another one. Yeah. But yes, that's something that we all do. But it's like a natural thing to think because, okay, so I have these, these slippers at home. Do you mean flip flops? No, that's the thing. They're Nike. Because in Hawaii, we call flip-lops. Slippers, yes, exactly. But these are slippers, slippers, like you can just fly in and out of, like when you're walking and whatever. And so flip-flops, like, let's say you're wearing flip-flops are thong. slippers, right? That's what flip-lops are. So they're not that because if you're wearing socks, which I have been recently, because it's kind of chilly. But... So I'll wear socks. So you can't just

slide in and out of flip-flops with socks on. Not that good. You know, if I'm going to take out the trash or something like this. So anyway, I have these slippers are real comfortable to. They're like just regular Nike, like, slippers, whatever. So when I can't find them, for a moment, you know, there's literally like

six or seven places that are far away from each other, by the way, in my house, that six, seven places that they could be. The struggle is real. Echo Charles. My slippers are located far distances. Somewhere. Yeah. Inside my own house. Yeah. They're really far apart. Okay. So the point is, I look in place number one. They're not there. Place number two. They're not there. I automatically go, my wife took me wearing my slippers or someone grabbed my slippers. You know, that's like the thing. Even more so than the, you know, the four or five other places that I could have easily, you know, so that's why I think it's a natural thing. It is a natural thing.

Yes, you are correct. To blame some money. I've been saying that for the whole time, you and I have been doing this podcast. It's a natural thing to blame someone else. Yeah. That's why this idea of extreme ownership, of actually taking ownership of the problems that you have is very important. Yeah.

And it's hard to enact. It's not comfortable. There's no one. And even when people read the book and they listen to every podcast and they talk about it with their troops, even then it's very easy to slide into an excuse and you blame someone or something else. And the problem with those excuses are they don't ever solve themselves. They don't fix themselves. You can control you. So take control over everything. Take ownership of everything so you can make them the way that they should be. What's the dichotomy in this? That's why we wrote dichotomy

Because some people took that and said okay, well, I'm just going to do everything myself. Yeah, yeah. I'm just, oh, chocolate and hold everything. So now I'm going to, but you know what? Echo, send me a script for the video you're making right now. I want to review it, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Send me a, what's it called when you like draw the pictures?

Send me a storyboard for your next video. Ownership. No, that's not what I'm talking about. There's a balance. Yeah. So this question, you have to keep it. You have to keep it balance. So this question.

You might not really care about the answer. So is it easier to blame another person or just something else? Like something that's not a person. Okay. This is your original point. Yeah. And to me, the point is, I feel equally horrible.

I actually feel more horrible blaming another person. You seem to feel better about blaming another person. No, no, no, no. I feel worse. I feel bad. I'm with you. Okay. Whether you believe you not,

a breath, blaming like something other than yourself, it does feel really, really whack. Yes. Really whack. But and that's kind of the rule now. I think after like four to six months of like dealing with you and this stuff, it's like it became like a rule subconsciously or whatever.

So easy to identify when other people do it too. Yes. Well, I was. Yeah. And you feel it in yourself even if you have the thought. Like you feel it. But so I was thinking, wondering. And I guess it doesn't matter, right?

Because the rule is the rule. but is it easier to blame a person because it's more comforting? It's easier to blame a thing because then it's free. There's no guilt involved. The weather was bad. That's why we failed. The weather doesn't get mad at you because you, whereas I'm like, hey, echo screwed up and drop the ball.

That's why we failed. You are going to be mad at me. The weather's not going to, hey, you got a flat tire. That's why I'm late. You should have left earlier. No, no, no, no, no. You're like, that's blaming. That's me taking ownership.

Yeah. You know? But it's easy. But wouldn't it be more comforting to be like, case someone flat like let's say you you walked out to your car and your tire was flat it'd be more comforting if someone was actively trying to get in your way because it seems more like okay that's why I got defeated by this situation because someone was actively I don't think to me saying hey I walked out yeah there was a nail in my thing yeah you might take that one step but

somebody left a nail yeah I'm saying though I mean I wouldn't I don't think I would maybe I would I don't know why you're you're sweating this distinction don't blame other people or other things That's what you do. You don't blame other people at other things. I'm reveling in the understanding. Don't revel in it. Just do, huh? Take action.

Yeah, yeah. You're right. You're right. And you know what? We're going to wrap for today. We haven't even covered the major, one of the main reasons why I'm covering this book, we haven't even got to yet.

So if we haven't even gotten to it yet, I don't want to jump into it right now because we're, It's good this is a book where I'm highlighting entire pages Entire pages. I'm just so I want to have time to discuss this properly and We will not have time to discuss the rest of this properly today So one thing we do have hopefully time to discuss properly

It's questionable because I know someone said the other day I said on the podcast, hey all we need to do is you know just wrap this up and they looked at their podcast player and there was 47 minutes left. So it took you 47 minutes. I'm blaming you. I know I heard it. I know I am at least partially guilty for lengthy lengthy sections of the podcast because what I can't refrain from doing is making a little

comment that spurns you to talk about Hawaii 5-0, other important topics. Or whatever. Yeah. So we'll continue with this book next week right now. If you want to compete. Sure. In life, look, I'm not saying you've got to look at life as one big competition, win or lose.

But I'm saying you should at least consider that that's kind of happening whether you want it to be happening or not. In that view. in that view you want to get on a path a path of victory a path of discipline a path of winning and I know you have some things that might help us in there yes sir I do echo Charles so it is one of these so if you like the way you live your life right you're it's like you're preparing for a battle metaphorically or whatever right so sure you're not competing with me or with whatever in in every single little thing, right?

In fact, you're a big part of what you do is collaborate with me. True, good point. Collaborate with other people. But that's so we can win. So we can win, exactly right. And in addition to that, if you wake up just one moment

and you're in the comedy, the heated competition of whatever, you're going to be more prepared to win. Yes. Cool. If you put yourself in stressful situations, you'll be more prepared when the real stress comes. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. So let's say jiu-jitsu, for example. Good, stressful situation you can put yourself right into. Yeah, so on a daily basis. And think about this too, where, you know, the whole collaboration and competition balance goes. Okay, me and you were competing in jiu-jitsu with each other when we train, right? Or and we're competing with ourselves because you're using me to just get better in general. So sure.

There's a part of it that's like you're trying to defeat me, whatever. But the main part is you're trying to defeat how, you know, the gut yourself. Yes. Be, you know, a month ago or a day ago, whatever. Yes. Trying to get better. Right. And to do that, you have to collaborate with me who's going to provide that stress.

Yeah. On you. See? So it's always like, I think there's always an overarching competition. That's what's called the long game. Yeah. That's life. Yeah.

With varying levels of. Outcomes lots of little competitions along the way some of them are important some of them are some of them you got to surrender Yeah because it's gonna propel you further in the long game some of them will feel like they should be a competition when they should be a collaboration They should be okay Anyway back to Jiu Jitsu. Okay We're doing Jiu Jitsu we're all doing Jiu Jitsu if you're not then just do Jiu Jiu Jitsu you have to you essentially have to To know the path broadly one thing that's good about Jiu Jitsu Jiu-Jitsu is, it is also, I talked about combat and war being a revealer. Jiu-Jitsu is revealing

too. It reveals things about yourself. It reveals things about human nature. Reveals things about your ego. It reveals things about your temper. It reveals a lot of things. And it reveals those things about other people. And you start to be able to sense and understand other people better because you see

their reactions. You see how they respond. You see how they get things. or don't get through trying situations. Yeah, it's really interesting. And so there's some really good benefits beyond the fact that you will get a good workout, beyond the fact that you will truly learn to defend yourself in bad situations. You will also learn about life.

Yes. You will learn about people and you will learn about yourself. Yes, sir. So go down to your local Jiu-Jitsu Academy and tell me you want to train some. of the jihitsu that's kind of abstract though though what you said what's true all you know you'll learn about like not abstract sorry it's not even general no no no okay yeah you're right you're right it's general though here's here's something specific what if i told you i've learned more about life yeah and people and myself from jiu jitsu then i have learned about self-defense from jiu jitsu yeah

and i i don't know what that might not be specifically true because i don't think i've learned a lot But you learned so much about actually fighting. That's kind of what I just said. Not really. It could be for others, though. There's a lot. Yeah. But I don't want to exaggerate and lie.

Well, here's why we, well, here's why I started in whether, I mean, I think you started before this event. So, okay. So there's this family. They said, hey, we developed this martial art, you know, whatever. Is there a reason you're not saying the Gracie family? Yeah, well, I was going to develop it into it. story but yes so the grace family they developed their martial art they were like hey this is our fighting style a real fighting now so let's this is what we're gonna do we're

gonna invite everyone from all around the world with whatever fighting style no matter how big no matter how small the guy is whatever fighting style we're gonna invite everybody to come come like fight no time limit no rules no nothing just everyone's gonna fight see who's fighting style is the best right sounds like an old school like movie or something yeah but it's true yeah straight up happened 999 3 Three, right? Yeah, Colorado. So they come and hoist Gracie, who's 165 pounds.

No, he's not 165 pounds. At the time he was 185. I don't think so. I think he was like 162 or three actually. We'll check with hoist. Yeah. You'll see one, two, three, one, two, four. Have you rolled with hoist before?

No. He's not small, bro. Yeah, he's tall. He's tall. But he's thinner, yeah. He's thin er, but he's not, like, skinny. and he wasn't skinny back then. He must have to wait at least 180.

I'm going to give him 180. We'll talk to Hoyse and get confirmation. We'll talk to some of our people. I think 160. Yeah, anyway. If he was 160, I would have to check the scales. Yeah. Well, nonetheless.

Now, have you ever heard that the reason Hoyce was fighting and not Hickson is because Hoyce was smaller and slender and looked less imposing? Yeah. Than Hickson. Yeah. Who did look imposing. Right. Yeah.

And that was kind of an added. Who looked more imposing? Who looked more imposing? Hicks and Gracie or Ken Shamrock. Ken Shamrock looked real imposing. Oh, yeah. That's why it was so shocking when Hoyce at 160 pounds apparently tapped him out. Yeah.

So the story, the facts go. This is what happened. You can watch them all the old videos. So they called it the ultimate fighting challenge is what they called it. The UFC. Sure. So Hoyce Gracie surprisingly beats up everyone. This wasn't the kind of like you have one fight in one night.

This is like four fights. If you win, you go on. You know, no time limit, by the way. Full contact fighting. Headbutt, like, whatever. Yeah. Kick in the groin, whatever. Anyway, Hoyt's crazy beats everybody, including Ken Shamrock, who's like, what?

He was like 220. He was at least 22nd. Shoot, fighting wrestling, like just a badass guy. He went for a footlock. He went for a footlock. Which is crazy. And Hoyce got on top. Yeah.

And hoist knew to defend it. That's even crazier. You got on top and choked him out. And then guys like who, I don't think people talking enough about this guy, Pat Smith. The name is Patrick Smith. It's a beast. Bare knuckle kickboxing champions like 250 and O. That's what it said on the video.

Just a tough, badass guy. He was beating guys up real bad. In fact, he beat this ninja guy up on UFC 2. Yeah. That I was like, as a kid watching, I was like, dang, that's like, this is brutal, man. This is like scary, brutal. And nowadays, that's nothing. You know, you watch the UFC, no, it's nothing.

But nonetheless it was brutal then. And Hoyst Gracie beat him up. And Hoyst Gracie beat him up. He didn't do a submission hold on him. He just had him in mouth. Oh, yeah. And punched, he tapped due to strike, you know. Anyway, so the point is Hoyce Gracie with Gracie jujitsu,

which is Brazilian jiu-jitsu. It's interchangeable nowadays. Beat up everyone. Proving that it's like the ultimate fighting style. Yeah. So that's why, that's the number one reason. I think most people go into Jitsu. That's definitely a good reason.

I think, well, I would say this. That's the number one reason in 1993, 1994, 1994, 1995, why people win in Jitsu. I think Jiu-Jitsu now is, I think Jiu-Zitsu as a whole is more popular. You can get J-Jitsu from anywhere. I mean, at wrestling tournaments, there's all kinds of kids that they walk around with J-Jitsu T-shirts on. They didn't, they weren't even, they weren't even,

they were, they're 12 years old. old. Yeah. And now it's... They don't remember 1993. Think about something that happened, whatever, 20 years before you were you born? Seventy-seven. Think of something that happened in 1957. I can't think of one single thing. And that's what I'm saying. That's when the first UFC happened to these kids 20 years before they were born. Yeah. They don't remember it. It's not even a thing. But what they do remember is like, oh, some kid down the street knows how to fight. He choked me. I want to learn that. Yeah, well, if they're watching ultimate fight, fight night last night or the other night or whatever and they saw crone gracey yes choke out the guy

in ufc yes in the first round yes someone's going to join jizzi because that anyway that is true yes that was true a beautiful display of jiu jitsu very from crone gregory yeah and that always feels good because it's a reminder because it's easy like now because everyone knows jiu jiu jitsu you know varying levels or whatever in ufc but when you get a guy who's like so good at jiu jiu jitsu every once in a while like he'll and Damien Maya would do this too where they'd remind everyone like how powerful if you're just really good at jiu-jitsu and and the other guy doesn't quite have those elements or whatever is you know who reminds me of that. Dean Lister.

He reminds me of that a lot. Yeah. For sure. Nonetheless, we're doing jiu-jitsu and we need a ghee. What ghee do we get? We get origin geese made America. Yeah. From the scottin all the way up to the ghee made in America for jiu-jitsu.

Not many other are martial arts as well just for jiu-jitsu. Specifically not Ikeedo They're not made for Ikeed oh no they're made for Jiu-Jitsu Made America they're they're the best geese Straight up. Get oh yeah, there's not even any question about that one origin main.com That's what I also got rash guards Rash guards if you need rash guards for your no-gee situations. They got t-shirts Sweatshirts jeans

Pete just sent me a picture of jeans coming off the rack. They're in production at this time genes. So be ready to get genes. Also supplements from origin labs. Best kind of supplements, the kind that maintain your joints, joint warfare. I incurred a hip injury. Yeah. The other day.

It was really bad that night. So I don't overdose. Can you overdose on joint warfare? I'm not sure. I haven't tried. So I add just one pill. What? How many do you take a night?

Three. Okay. I take three. a day. Okay, I take three in the morning and free at night. Okay, so I went two and two. Okay. And I'm like, I'm just going to do this or whatever. And it is surprised. The difference between night one of the injury and night two of the injury was surprising given how the injury felt. There you go.

So this is, yeah, so joint warfare. And these are the, now I think these are the most important kind of supplements there is. I think I agree with you. Joint warfare, krill oil, discipline, and discipline go. When you need a little bit of Need to get up on step is what we call it in the teams Well, and what that means is you're in a little Zodiac boat And the Zodiac boat going across the water with a 55 horsepower engine If you're out on the west coast on the east coast they use a smaller engine on the west coast You use a big 55 horsepower engine because you're out in the Pacific and the waves are freaking huge

But the it reaches a point where it kind of the boats like trying to push and then it gets on the, it's like in the water and then it gets kind of on the surface of the water. And all of a sudden it goes, and then you're going fast. You're on step. We're called getting on step. I don't know where that comes from. But in a zodiac. So it's like the perfect zone where it can catch the water.

It catches the water. But no drag. Yes, it's the minimum amount of drag for the boat. And that's what I feel like when I take discipline, go. Yeah. Let's say I'm going to meet with some. I take like you know in a meeting I'm gonna be working with a company take some discipline go get the mind firing correctly That's that don't forget about mouk

Additional protein additional protein additional protein a delicious way or you can call it additional protein or you can just call it dessert Straight up yesterday. I had three scoops of warrior kid strawberry milk and I was just sitting there drinking it and being happy about the whole world. Guilt free. Guilt. But can you, can a beverage

make you happy to be alive? Yes. Warrior Kid Strawberry Molk can make you can make you happy to just be in the world and just be looking

and be sipping on it and having a whole a whole big cup and you're just, every sip is, you're not even, what's the word? You're not even rationing yourself

at all. It's just blat sipping. Just. Free form just as much as you can put in your mouth, like just beautiful strawberry milk. Yeah. And I'm really getting crazy now where I'm, I'm really scatterbrained. I'm like peanut butter milk.

Oh, right. With the flavors. Yeah. So anyways, that's that. Very good. All that stuff is at origin, main.com. Also, Jocko is a store. It's called Jocco Store.

And that's where you can be on the path for sure. be on the path requirement. But if you want to represent while on the path, go to jocco store.com. Got some cool shirts on there. More rash guards. Yep. More representative of the path specifically.

Some hoodies on there. Some hats. Yeah. Truckers hats specifically or flex fit. Whatever you like, bro. Both. However you want to represent. And here's the thing.

Look, I don't know if I'm going to put zip up hoodies on there. I don't know. I think so. that might not be your thing. They better be so thick. Maybe they'll be thick. That the whole world stops and says, if I was in somewhere cold, I would wear that.

That's what the whole world will say. Because actually that makes sense. If you go ultra thick with the zip up, and the reason you want zip up is because you got other clothes on. It's an awkward taking it on and off overhead. That's why you got the zip. Because it's a real heavy duty. I prefer the zip, light or heavy.

Yeah. But you prefer the pullover, as you indicated. I like the pullover if we're talking about, you know, medium weight. Yeah. But if we're going on ultra heavyweight, which no one has showed me ultra heavyweight. I want to see ultra heavyweight. I want something that actually is hard to pick up kind of. Physically heavy.

All right. Well, I think, nonetheless, I think I'm going to go with some zip up stuff for Jocko store. That's what I think. I don't know. brainstorm. As you brainstorm that, let me see the samples and let me talk to the producers of the fabric. So I can make sure that it is the heaviest and most durable and warmest fabric. All right.

I will. I promise. All right. There it is. Again, it's at jocco store.com. Go on there. Do you like something? Get something.

Good way to represent while you're on the path. Also, Jock white tea. If you are a tea drinker or not a tea drinker. still drink jocco white tea for various reasons so I gave some of this to my neighbor we're doing some things you know and she goes oh my gosh yes you know like it was the one in the can so my wife gave her three of them and she's like oh my gosh thank you so much this is so good and it's so hard to find tea in a can that certified organic yeah like that was the front running thing for so I'm like looking at her like

understanding that she has no idea that she can like deadlift 8,000 pounds now or you know like all these other added benefits but nonetheless it really demonstrated how vast the benefits yeah you know and appealing it's kind of a weird perspective to have on life when you when you rate certified organic over a guaranteed of deadlift of 8,000 pounds I know clinically you know it's crazy a little bit strange but nonetheless after you know, a little bit of thought, I understand because, you know, there's a nice lady that lives next door, and, you know, I dug it. Either way. But one of the added benefits was brought to the surface, and I liked it. Jack. Speaking of benefits, subscribe to the podcast, which

we were going to stop saying until people noted that they didn't subscribe to the podcast until Echo actually said it on podcast 164, or no, 163. And someone's like, I listened to 163 podcast and hadn't subscribed. So, subscribe to the podcast or Echo will keep telling you too.

And don't forget about the Warrior Kid podcast. Lagging. Lagging on the Warrior Kid podcast. And I got told by young Alana. You know Alana? Sure. I got told by Alana's dad. She said she's like, he said she has memorized the first whatever it is 21 podcast.

Okay. It's good. And I said, I looked at her and I said, I'm sorry. I'll make more. And she said, it's okay. But she didn't mean it. I don't think she meant it. I think she was kind of like just being nice.

She's a nice girl. I don't think she wanted to say, yeah, you should make some more podcasts. Because the first 21 are getting worn out. Warrior Kid Podcast, a good podcast for kids to learn a really solid lessons about life. Don't forget about the Warrior Kid Soap, Irish Oaks Ranch.com, where Aiden, who's a warrior kid, is making soap. Got his own business. He's 13 years old. He's got his own business.

He's got product moving. He's shipping stuff. He's got credit card. What is that thing called? The credit card system Oh, like the point of sale deal. He's got a shop point of sale system running. You're 13 years old. Got a point of sale system running. Got a point of sale system running. Got production. Got manufacturing happening. Hey, it's soap. Is it an iPhone? No. But you know what? What were you doing at 13 years old? You weren't, you didn't have a manufacturing line set up. I don't think. So if you want to support a kid a kid. a warrior kid that's getting after at irishoaks ranch.com and get yourself some soap so that you can stay clean you know youtube videos yes if you like watching youtube videos that's not good you probably don't need to watch youtube videos they're distracting they take up a bunch of time if you do feel the need you might as well watch this youtube video of this podcast or the smaller excerpts of this podcast that are clipped out.

Or you can even watch Echo's legit videos, which are videos that Echo has modified with CGI, straight up. Yeah, computer generated graphics. That's what Echo is good at. That's his thing. Sure. He's good at that and he's good at curls.

Well, Not as good as I was before. Yeah. So subscribe to the YouTube channel, and then you can watch all these videos. Psychological Warfare. Don't forget about that. Echo is just showing me a funny thing on the gram.

The gram. Instagram of a girl that was lip-sinking a psychological warfare video. And I have to say, it was awesome. I'm going to try and find it and put it out there so everyone can see this girl is super fired up And good at lip syncing. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it was like spot on.

Spot on. Like if you didn't know you or her, like you'd be like, bro, this girl's voice is weird. You know, because she has your voice with it because it looks really good. Yeah, she did a good job with that. Psychological warfare. Little assistance getting through moments of weakness in your day. I'll tell you what to do. I'll tell you why you should do it.

And then you'll go do it. Psychological warfare, iTunes, Google Play, MP3 platforms. Check it out. give some. Also, for legit fitness gear, while you're still with developing your home gym, which we always are, I still am, this is where you get your stuff. Go to on it.com slash chalk. A lot of good stuff on there. I just got a stormtrooper.

Oh, wait, I told you this last time. Okay, so I made a mistake. So stormtroopers are not clones. Stormtroopers are like. Individual humans. Yeah, that they raise from kids or whatever. Clones are the clones from the Clone War who came from Bobo Fett or Django Fet, one of them.

Once again, bro, you're out of my league. Yeah, well, I was talking out of my... I got scolded by my brother and various people for not knowing my showers. I'm sure Jade Charles jumped on you like you just... He was literally listening to it in my presence. I didn't know he was listening to it. He paused and he's like, bra!

And I'm like, you know, one of these, you know, kind of your wife's like, it was like that kind. Yeah. And I was like, yeah? And he's like, Stormtroppers aren't. And he was mad. Nonetheless, I still got the Stormtrooper kettlebell,

which has nothing to do with any clones. It's just dope. And it's a kettlebell, which is good for, you know, you're working out and stuff. Anyway, I got it from Onet. That's where they have the best kettlebells,

the best stuff. Go on there, get something from there. It's really good stuff. Onet.com slash jaco. We also have some books. What kind of books? Well, books for reading,

I guess, you might say. Mikey and the Dragons How do you like Mikey and the Dragons? Outstanding. How often do you read it? So it's not on any kind of rotation, but I've read it three times to the children, yeah.

And did they support? Yeah. So you know what's funny? They not only do they like reading it, they like watching the video, which, and I'm working on the whole book video. So when I work on it or whatever, I'm not always uninterrupted.

We'll say that. So they'll see me working on that. Then I get constant interruption because they want to watch it. They want to see it. But, I mean, I dig it because it is fun. Yeah. It's a really good book. Mike and the Dragon's little lessons for kids in that book.

It's probably meant for a little bit younger ages than the other kids' books. I've written Way of the Warrior Kid and Way of the Warrior Kid to Mark's mission. And now we have Way of the Warrior Kid three. I'm trying to get that up for pre-order on Amazon. The subtitle is where there's a will. And some challenges presented to Mark in this latest book. Thankfully, Uncle Jake is around to guide him and show him the path. Also, we got Discipline equals Freedom Field Manual.

Explains all the people that ask what you work out, what did you eat, what time did you sleep. All those questions are all in there. And then all the questions that are, how do you, how do you get out of bed? How do you, when you want to procrastinate? What do you do when you're tired? What do when you're angry? What do you do when you're afraid?

All those questions, put all those questions in one big book. It's called the Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual. And it's a book that you can give to someone and they will be happy. Sure. And they will not, they will get more from the book than just a good read. They'll get a little shift in their perspective in life. And they might even hopefully get themselves heading down what we like to call the path. The path of discipline.

I think you were right about that when you say that it's like the book that you sort of wish you had. Oh, for sure. Like when you, I would say maybe not when I was like a teenager because I don't think I would have the capacity. We're ready for it. Yeah, to accept, you know, this kind of. But like young adulthood, maybe like 23, 23-ish. Yeah. That would be like, man.

And what's crazy is I've got people that are 54. Yeah. One of the coolest things was I met a woman at the muster. She was like 55 years old. And she was all excited. She saw me. And she's like, hey. And I was like, hey.

And we were working out. And we got done with the workout. Oh, you're sorry in the gym or something. No, no, no, no. In the PT. Yes, yes, yes. And she says to me, she says, you know why I'm here? And I always said, actually, I have no idea why you're here or how you got here.

And she was in Costco or Walmart or Target and saw the discipline equals freedom field manual. And she just looked at it and said, I'm buying this. I don't even know what it is. I'm buying it. Got home, opened up Reddit. Next day gets up 4.30 in the morning and starts working out. Like that's what we're talking about. From zero, this is a person that doesn't know anything about me.

me about the podcast, about any of the other books, just that one book picks it up and says, I'm just going to get this. And she was fired up. She lost weight. She's just crushing things. So that's a good book to get for yourself. It's a book that I read keeps me on the path.

And if you want the audio version, it's on iTunes, Amazon, music, Google Play, other MP3 platforms. There's obviously extreme ownership first book I wrote with my brother Laif Babin. It's about leadership. It's about the leadership principles we learned in combat and how you can apply them. And then I talked about dichotomy leadership today because sometimes we can take any principle and we can go too far in one direction or another. That can cause major derailment of your organization, your team, your life. So read the dichotomy of leadership so you can know and understand and recognize the pitfall.

of going too far in one direction or the other on top of those two books we got a little company called echelon front it's a leadership consultancy and what we do is we solve your problems through leadership that's what we do whatever problems you're having in your organization those problems are a leadership problem no matter what those problems are they're a leadership problem that's what they are and if you want to get those problems fixed go to ashlonfront dot com and will be in touch. Also the muster,

which is a leadership conference, 2019. We got May 23rd and 24th in Chicago. We got September 19th and 20th in Denver. We got December 4th and 5th in Sydney. All of our shows we've ever done have sold out. These are going to sell out to if you want to come to them. Go to Extreme Ownership.com and work it out.

EF Online. Just launched EF Online in January. If you can't come to the muster, if you are living in a situation where you can't come to the muster, you can't afford the muster, but you really want to get the information from the muster, awesome. You liked extreme ownership and you want to get more out of it? Awesome. You like listening to the podcast and you want to dig a little deeper. Awesome.

All those situations is why we made something called EF Online. Had a company 18 months ago Guy said hey I want you to train everyone in my organization I said yeah do it no problem and then I was like wait a second How many people do you have 87,000 globally? Guess what I was like okay let me Let me let me get back to you because I humanly physically could not do that So I had to think about how we're gonna scale this thing we talked to lay from like Let's go let's go digital

and it's a little scary because in the Navy we did like the digital training sometimes online HR type training and it was all lame and so I was nervous about it but once once we saw the new technology which exists which is awesome that's what we did so we spent the last year putting it together it's interactive you do role plays you put yourself in combat situations as a leader you put yourself in business situations as a leader you got frequently asked questions you got all kinds of Choose your own adventure scenarios that unfold and you get the briefings and explanations and details around the Principles of Combat Leadership. It's all in there. So if you want to check that out, it's at eFonline.com. EFonline.com and also we have EF.Overwatch where we are finally taking Combat Proven leaders from Special Operations and Combat Aviation and we're putting them into companies that need leaders that understand the principles that we talk about in the books and on this podcast. So eFoverwatch.com is where you go.

If you are either someone that's looking for talent or someone that's looking for a change of careers after you're done with your military career, we're waiting for you there. And if you want to talk to Echo and I more, if three hours wasn't enough, if you need to tell us something else or you want to tell us something else or you want to ask us something else that's cool we are on the interwebs we are on twitter we are on instagram and we are on that thing echo is at echo charles and i am at jocco willink and of course thanks to everyone that is out there in uniform holding the line our military personnel police and law enforcement firefighters paramedics emtsts correctional officers border patrols all you first-res

responders, thanks for everything that you do to keep our safety and security intact. And to everyone else that's out there listening, remember what this book said. And that's remember that real defeats other than death itself are psychological in nature. And that the important contests in life itself are psychological in nature. So know who you are dealing with. Know who you can count on. Know your enemy and what his strength and weaknesses are. And most important, know yourself.

Know your own nature. So you can avoid the pitfalls that we are all susceptible to. Know yourself so you can stand up in any situation and keep getting after it. no matter what. So until next time, this is Echo and Jocko. Out.