Jocko Podcast - 175: How to DOMINATE in Leadership. Lessons and Guidelines From Bernard 'Monty' Montgomery

Episode Date: May 1, 2019

0:00:00 - Opening 0:12:43 - Military Leadership. A transcript, by Bernard 'Monty' Montgomery. 1:48:46 - Closing Thoughts and Take-aways. 1:59:59 - Support: How to Stay on THE PATH. 2:28:15 - Closing Gratitude.  Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 175 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. 23 October, 1942, 8th Army. Personal message from the Army Commander. When I assumed command of the 8th Army, I said that the mandate was to destroy Rommel and his army and that it would be done as soon as we are ready. We are ready now

The battle which is about to begin Will be one of the decisive battles of history It will be the turning point of the war The eyes of the whole world will be on us Watching anxiously which way the battle will swing We can give them their answer at once It will swing our way We have first-class equipment

good tanks, good anti-tank guns, plenty of artillery and plenty of ammunition, and we are backed up by the finest air striking force in the world. All that is necessary is that each one of us, every officer and man should enter this battle with a determination to see it through, to fight and to kill, and finally to win. if we all do this there can be only one result together we will hit the enemy for six right out of north africa the sooner we win this battle which will be the turning point of the war the sooner we shall all get back home to our families therefore let every officer and man enter the battle with a stout heart and the determination to do his duty as long as he has breath in his body. And let no man surrender so long as he is unwounded and can fight.

Let us all pray that the Lord mighty in battle will give us victory. B. L. Montgomery, Lieutenant General, 8th Army. And that is a note written on the eve of the Battle of Alameen. which ended up being the turning point of the war in North Africa and general Bernard Montgomery commonly referred to as Monty defeated the desert fox Rommel one of the most respected generals in all of history really and Monty was a actually a controversial figure and I think he got more controversial the more famous he got he fought in World War I he was a soldier he was gravely wounded by a sniper in the

battle of the praise he was shot in the lung he was in such bad shape that they actually dug a grave for him but somehow he pulled through he recovered he served the rest of the war as a staff officer and he was actually very critical of the of the tactics and of the strategy and of the willingness of the leadership to accept such horrific and heinous levels of casualties so he was critical of that and after the war was over he served he stayed in the army he served in Palestine he served in India and then in 1939 of course there was more war and he was in command of the third division he went to France and he was actually pretty worried about going to France he didn't feel super confident about it and he

returned home with the rest of the British forces that were driven off the continent from Dunkirk and you know there they were able to refit to be able to go out and re-engage and he headed to Africa next and the 8th Army was pretty beat down at that point when he showed up though he turned around their morale and made them believe that they could win and and won the first major land victory of the war in the second battle of El Alamein. From there, he helped the invasion of Sicily and Italy, and then he commanded all forces, all ground forces.

On D-Day, he commanded all the ground forces. So that was obviously a massive operation. He planned and led Operation Market Garden, which was the invasion of the low countries, We've covered some of those battles on this podcast because it was not good. It didn't go well. And he was kind of the guy pushing that, but he was able to redeem himself from that during the Battle of Bulge, which we've also covered on this podcast. So, you know, he had ups and downs, but mostly ups.

So what was the controversy or what's this kind of tainted image of him? First of all, some people saw him as being arrogant. and some of the people that saw him as being arrogant were Americans, Americans like Patton and Bradley. And I mean, let's face it, if you're talking about for sure Patton, we're not talking about a guy with a small ego. So you can imagine that when you have a clash of egos, that can be, you know, you can get some professional jealousy and whatnot.

Even Sir Winston Churchill said that Monty was, and this is a good quote, in defeat, unbeatable, in victory, unbearable. So there's another, an anecdote about him, where he was asked to name three great generals. And he said the other two would be Alexander the Great and Napoleon, meaning he's just on top of the list. So he may have had, it may have been a little bit egotistical. And I think from what I've read about him, he lacked,

lacked tact and later on in life he was kind of controversial as well he was very critical of American tactics in Vietnam he said that America had no clear-cut objective in Vietnam

which you know I'm critical of the tactics in Vietnam I think it's pretty safe to say that there should have been a more clear-cut objective that obviously made some of our military leadership in America angry I don't know if I would argue again those statements he he oddly enough spoke positively about the Chinese communist government when he was older he he publicly supported apartheid in South Africa

so these are more things that people sort of sort of tainted his image but besides all that he is still known as a as a as a as a tactician and there's plenty of support from his troops and his men that that loved him and were ready to follow him anywhere and there are some people that say Even that he acted arrogant it was almost like a show That he put on to kind of unify his troops that this was Monty this was the great guy and we're just we got to look what Monty did you know So there's that he wrote a lot he spoke he wrote well. He's got some great Some documents that he put out and I want one at one he's got a ton that he put out one of them I'm gonna read it's a very it's a very interesting piece and

and so he wrote this after Germany had surrendered and the British occupation forces were in place in Germany so you've got the Brits there in Germany occupying the country you've got the German civilians who have been defeated in war and here we go to this message that he wrote 10 June 1945, Germany, personal message from the Commander-in-Chief to the population of the British area in Germany. You have wondered, no doubt, why our soldiers do not smile when you wave your hands or say good morning in the streets or play with the children. It is because our soldiers are obeying orders. You do not like it, nor do our soldiers. We are naturally friendly and forgiving people.

But the orders were necessary, and I will tell you why. In the last war of 1914, which your rulers began, your army was defeated. Your generals surrendered, and the Peace Treaty of Versailles, your rulers admitted that the guilt of beginning the war was Germany's. But the surrender was made in France. The war never came to your country. Your cities were not damaged, like the cities of France and Belgium, and your armies marched home in good order. Then your rulers began to spread the story that your armies were never really defeated. And later, they denied the war guilt clauses of the peace treaty.

They told you that Germany was neither guilty nor defeated. and because the war had not come to your country, many of you believed it. And you cheered when your rulers began another war. Again, after years of waste and slaughter and misery, your armies have been defeated. This time, the Allies were determined that you should learn your lesson, not only that you have been defeated, which you must know by now, but that you, your name, were again guilty of beginning the war. For if that is not made clear to you and your children,

you may again allow yourselves to be deceived by your rulers and led into another war. During the war, your rulers would not let you know what the world was thinking of you. Many of you seemed to think that when our soldiers arrived, you could be friends with them at once, as if nothing much had happened. But too much has happened for that.

Our soldiers have seen their comrades shot down, their homes and ruins, their wives and children hungry. They have seen terrible things in many countries where your rulers took the war. For those things, you will say you are not responsible. It was your rulers. But they were done by the German nation. Every nation is responsible for its rulers. And while they were successful, you cheered and laughed. That is why our soldiers do not smile at you. This we have ordered.

This we have done to save yourselves, to save your children, to save the world from another war. It will not always be so. For we are Christian forgiving people, and we like to smile and be friendly. Our object is to destroy the evil of the Nazi system. It is too soon to be sure. that this has been done. You are to read this to your children if they are old enough

and see that they understand. Tell them why it is that the British soldier does not smile. B.L. Montgomery, field marshal. Commander-in-chief, British area. So, obviously, that message was produced in German and in English and spread out amongst the population. I thought that was a pretty awesome outlook.

And he also spoke and wrote a fair amount about leadership. And I think when you look at his writing and his speeches, you can see some of his peculiarities, some of his personality shines through sometimes. And I want to take a look at some of that, some of the things that he wrote and the first piece is called military leadership. And it's actually from a speech that he gave at the University of St. Andrews 15 November, 1945. It's like a transcript, or maybe it's his notes.

I'm not sure which. But it's written as if he was reading it. So here we go. Let's go to this book, Military Leadership. I've come here to Tade to talk to you about military leadership, a subject such as this must in normal times seem somewhat remote from this quiet gray-walled city by the sea. Today I have to try and equate the definition of military leadership as I see it to the lessons of the past and to the experience of the present.

I propose to limit myself in this talk to higher leadership, the command of armies or a group of armies, and not to consider the quality of leadership at lower levels. What I say about higher leadership may well have certain application to leadership of a brigade or a company or a section of men. There are, however, certain differences in leadership at lower levels, and I do not propose to take up your time by discussing these today. Now, you'll see as he goes into this, he covers up. He's talking about that all the time. I'm not sure even why he did that, but he talks about the entire chain of command throughout this speech. Military leadership is a subject which has always interested me. And during this war, I have had some

opportunity to put my ideas to the test. I have found that if you aspire to lead soldiers, you must take a close study of human nature. For that is the raw material with which a commander has to achieve his end. If you neglect the human factor as a leader, you will fail. The personal relationship between a commander and his soldiers is and always has been one of the most potent single factors in making for success in war if a commander has the complete confidence and trust of his men there is nothing he cannot do nothing if a commander loses the confidence of his men he cannot succeed that's a bold statement right there that's a bold statement right there And something that I talk about all the time.

And there's two words that I use interchangeably. I should use them more interchangeably more often. I talk about relationships a lot. And the word that I should use intermixed with that, 50% of the time is trust. Because to me, trust in relationships is kind of the same thing. If you don't have trust, you don't have a relationship. If you don't have a relationship, then you don't have trust. But they do have different meanings, right?

So it's important to me to establish that and the reason that I bring that up is because if you're in a leadership position and you're breaking the trust that you have with your men, that is going to be a real problem. So you could say, well, you don't have a good relationship with them, but you could not have a good relationship with someone and they could still trust you. You could not have a good relationship with someone and you hadn't broken their trust. It's going to be hard if you break their trust to have a good relationship with them. But the key factor here is trust and confidence of the men. Back to the book. Now let us consider on what a man's power to lead others is based. It is necessary first to define what is meant by leadership.

And this is where this gets a little interesting. I suggest to you as the definition of the word leadership, the will to dominate together with the character which inspires confidence. The measure of a man's ability to lead, I think is twofold. So the first part of the definition of leadership in his mind is the will to dominate, which is which is strong. And you're going to see where he kind of counters that. And he talks about he talks about decentralized community.

He talks about everything that I believe in. But, you know, I don't talk about, hey, as a leader, it's first and foremost that you have the will to dominate other humans, right? That's not, in fact, I think that's a kind of a negative quality. but that being said if you have someone that doesn't mind not winning not dominating well then guess what they're not going to put forth any effort they're not going to make things happen like force of will I talk about that all the time you you have to impose you have to have the force of will to make things happen sometimes you just have to make things happen they're not going to happen by themselves anything that's anything that's going to come that's good in life it's not going to

happen by itself just not going to wake up and it's there like a like an easter egg that's not happening no you got to go out and you got to make it happen yeah okay maybe you get an easter egg when you're six years old but once you're 26 years old there's no easter eggs coming to you you got to make them correct back to the book first it lies in his will to dominate the men and events which surround him the will to drive himself and his men to the limit of their powers for a specific purpose and the refusal to allow anything to divert him from his aim Again, you're gonna see where that sounds so strong it sounds unbalanced right? It sounds it sounds like he's outside the dichotomy of leadership He's going too far in one direction. Yeah, yeah, yeah, being extreme like nothing you're gonna refuse to allow anything to divert you

Okay, so what was that mean the men you get everyone killed that's what they did in World War I? He didn't like that But you're gonna see where he balances out these statements later Second, it lies in the strength of his character Whether good or evil to inspire others to place their complete trust and confidence in him and his ability to lead them with success and to enthuse his men for the task in hand. This ability of a man to inspire confidence in others and to create enthusiasm is a spiritual quality. But it is well to remember that this quality need not necessarily be for good.

The evil leader has equally the ability to inspire. confidence in others and in history the evil leader has often at any rate temporarily prevailed and he counters that at the end too there have been many with differing with different types of characters character who have inspired men to follow them I propose to choose three great captains of the past and examine briefly why these men were leaders and how they led their men and how as leaders they succeeded or fails so he's going to go into a little case study a couple pages here I will first consider Moses. He was already old when he was called to lead the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt.

His task was an immense one. He had first to inspire his people to cast off the yoke of the Egyptians. This was no easy matter. Israel had been living for about 400 years as slaves of the Egyptians. They had lived in the Nile Delta a bad climate and one which tends to sap up energy and initiative. But they lived where food was plentious, while all around were deserts which could barely support life. Moses must have had to overcome the most tremendous initial inertia to persuade Israel to launch out into those deserts with all the risks of famine, disease, and the necessity to fight. His power to inspire and dominate his fellow men must have been of a very high order.

Now, see, that's where I just, I don't look at that as domination of your fellow man. You're I look I see the inspiring part, but I'm not looking at hey, we're looking to dominate I see his angle, right? I see I see where he's I see where he's coming from, but and maybe that word, you know, words change words morph morph over time maybe that word dominate that he's using maybe it maybe it had less of a sting to it then you know 50 years ago possibly had a little less thing 70 years words change. Yeah. Words change over time.

But that's what he's saying. But things were kind of hardcore too, right? Back then, you know, like long time ago, there were just things in general were a little bit more blunt. Yeah. So maybe there's that factor. I'm sure they were pretty blunt. And even this time, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. I don't know, though. I'm not 100% sure. I'm not 100% sure if he means the word dominate the way we think. of it the way I think of it apparently not I mean it seems like there's a little bit more to it I guess well when he count and you'll hear him counter I guess that's what maybe makes me think maybe he means it a little bit less severe yeah maybe because he starts to talk about the the balance of this dichotomy because let's face it

hey okay let me ask you this question here this is gonna make it real easy if I was a type of person that was like hey I'm looking to dominate you come with me into the desert where we're going to have to live where there's we're getting away from the Nile river and we're going out to this barren area where there's not a lot of food and I'm going to have a domineering personality and I'm going to be all over you every day how enticing is that not very not very now if I was inspiring and I said listen to echo we're going to get out there we're going to train we're going to come back we're going to get our revenge it's going to take some time but we're going to make it like that that's

different right yeah yeah so yeah you know what now that I'm thinking about dominate like what's the root word of dominant you know what it could be yeah I should have studied the etymology before we got on this podcast I apologize you know what it could be though picture when you have a good leader that dominates the room right right right yeah yeah you know echo came in for the meeting he just dominated the room he did great right that's a positive thing yeah so maybe he means it that way unfortunately he talks about dominating the will of right he talks about dominating the men and events that surround him.

I don't know, actually he doesn't talk about dominating the will. So maybe that's what they mean. Maybe he means just like this dominating presence. Yeah. All right, going back to the book. Without a doubt, Moses realized that when he led Israel out of Egypt, they were useless as a fighting people. They'd been slaves for some 400 years.

He therefore set to work to train them for the task and to forge the weapon, which would conquer Canaan. It's interesting. He talks about the training of armies as forging weapons. Like you're forging this weapon. I think that's a pretty cool analogy. I believe that Moses intentionally kept Israel for 40 years in the desert for two generations in order to breed and train a fighting race capable of undertaking the task of conquest,

which lay at hand. And in that 40 years, he taught them gradually how to fight and conquer. He took meticulous care over their training. And it is most interesting to note his refusal ever to risk any failures into action. This is interesting. And he brings this up quite a bit. So Moses didn't take any risk where he thought he might fail. We read of him soon after leaving Egypt, asking if he might lead Israel through the country of another people.

On being refused permission, he marches round by another way. But later, when the same situation arises, when Israel is better trained to fight, he leads his people. straight through the middle of that country and destroys his enemy utterly he was a good judge of what Israel was capable of doing and what Israel was not capable of doing and as a result he had an unbroken record of military successes he had the wisdom and the insight into human nature to realize that the best way for a leader to gain confidence of his soldiers is to give them victories if a commander gives his soldiers victories they will follow him anywhere but Moses was not permitted to see the few

fruits of his own work he sinned by claiming as his own powers which did not belong to him and for this sin of presumption he was forced to hand over to Joshua the final conquest of Canaan for which he had so well trained the children of Israel so there he wraps up on on Moses I think that and he kind of refers back to this point later in the in this book is the fact that you got to be you got to you got a you got to push for victory right you got to push for victory and this is it's almost like risk aversion right which I'm not a fan of and you can't be risk of averse but you got to be calculated back to the book and then the next section he is going to talk about Cromwell he just refers

to him as Cromwell Oliver Cromwell who was an an English statesman, but he was a soldier. This is like in the 1600, 1620s. He was a hardcore Puritan, and he organized military forces in the, when the Civil War broke out 1642, he was the deputy commander of the new model army. He defeated the main royalist force

in 1645 and then he commanded campaigns in Ireland and Scotland in the 1650s he was he was kind of over the top I guess you might say in some ways he I mean beyond that he he he massed had there's an Irish massacre you know and that spiraled into a war for hundreds of years and and ultimately as a politician once he kind of got done with the war part He became a politician and he really didn't do a great job. So that's just some kind of highlights of Oliver Cromwell. But here we go back to the book. I next proposed to consider Cromwell another leader who went to wage war only when he was over middle age. He was over 40 when the civil war broke out. He started the civil war in command of a troop of 60 men and then commanded of that

troop he fought at Edge Hill there in spite of the parliamentary superiority. and men and guns and a fervently held cause he saw the failure of his own side to seize the victory and and he saw them escape defeat only because of the folly of their opponents this gave him much cause for thought superiority in men and equipment was clearly valueless unless something further was added this is a part that I kind of got fired up for what was needed also so besides guns good superiority in men superiority equipment what was needed also was the leader who would forge the weapon out of the enthusiastic material available and would then lead it with vigor and determination determination to achieve his military end so once again we're talking about what leader can take this what leader can forge a weapon from men he saw to the nature of the weapon required and how it could be for

So he started to understand the men as a weapon and how you could forge this weapon properly and he set himself to task to the task of building a force after his own principles Based on a high fighting spirit spirit good discipline and a sound knowledge of tactics It was to be a force which would have have complete confidence in him as their commander So this guy saw this situation where he was They almost got crushed. The parliamentary forces were so disorganized that they couldn't even take advantage of it. And he saw, okay, this is my opportunity. And those are great lessons.

So love it when you learn a lesson that you didn't really have to pay for. It happens sometimes. It happens in MMA sometimes. Where a guy wins a fight because something, you get lucky in the end and you get, we've got the W, but we also got to learn a great lesson. It happened in combat all the time. You come back off an operation, you're like, man, if we would have gotten hit at this particular moment, We had security was down. We were not paying attention. We didn't have this flank covered and

By the grace of God we didn't get contacted from that area, but we can't let that happen again So sometimes you learn a lesson even though you didn't have to pay for it and that's what it sounds like happened here Back to the book. He said about his task full we are told of a furious zeal a fire in his belly which compelled him Which compelled others to follow him. He had complete confidence in his ability to gain success in war He saw the way in which he had to train his men to fight and the few essentials which would ensure success provided his men had the right fighting spirit. Edge Hill was fought in October 1642 with Cromwell as a captain of a troop of horse 60 strong. By January 1644, he was a lieutenant general, second in command of Manchester's army of the eastern counties, the leading cavalry commander on the part of the part of. parliamentary side and the one outstanding commander in the parliamentary army.

So he made a rapid transition. Now he gets into this. Cromwell was not a likable man. He was quick-tempered, believed in rigid discipline and constant training, and he drove his men hard. But he believed with a blinding certainty in the righteousness of his cause. He enthused his soldiers with its righteousness. and he was convinced of his own ability to succeed to achieve success in battle.

This is one of those things where, you know, when you hear that people, that Monty was a little bit, like, lacked, tact, this is one of those things where I think, well, did he read this? You know, did he read about Cromwell and study Cromwell and say, well, look, no one liked Cromwell? That's okay. You can tell me a good leader. You don't have to be liked. In fact, Leif will tell this story. There was a guy that was was Leif was teaching a class to young seals and there was a seal officer that would come in and say you shouldn't be liked if you're in charge. And Leif's you know, would sit in the back of the room and think to himself, geez, this is not good because that's not true.

Yeah. That's not true. Now, it's probably true that what the guy was trying to say is listen, you're not always going to be popular for you. Your goal should not be to be liked. Yeah. Which I agree with. But to say, look, you're going to be hated by your troops. That's just the way it is.

That's wrong. If you're hated by your troops, you're probably doing something wrong. Yeah. Yeah. And to say that if you're essentially what the guy that Leif is talking about, if he's saying if you're liked by your troops, you're doing something wrong. Kind of thing. Yeah, that's true too.

It's what it feels like. Yeah. So I understand that thought as well. like hey everyone loves me I must be doing a good job it's like no actually if everyone just thinks you're their buddy that's a problem so that this may have been what this officer was trying to teach to the to the young officers that life was in charge of instructing yeah I'm sure he tried to was trying to say the right thing but perhaps he wasn't articulating it a hundred percent in the

most clear way where the guy because just tell you're not gonna be liked where you're an officer not true not True and not good. If I have, if I look at a seal platoon and the seal platoon doesn't like their officer, that's not a positive sign. Yeah. That does not mean that guy's a good leader. Yeah.

Now, it's also not a good sign. If, oh, the seal platoon, everyone loves him, that doesn't mean that's a good, good platoon either. Yeah. So you can be loved, but you're not doing a good job. You can be hated and you can be no good job, but you're probably not going to be able to pull off doing a good. When guys don't like you, they're not going to put forth any real effort to,

yeah, to make you look good is basically what they're doing. Yeah. Yeah, and at the end of the day, it obviously seems like it's just not that cut and dry. No, no, no. No. Back to the book. And he did achieve success. He had no failures.

And if a commander has a righteous cause and gives his soldier's success, he will gain the complete confidence of his men. And then there is nothing he cannot do. But the power, which his prowess in the field had won for him, led Cromwell to, to seize the reins of government for himself. He became impatient with the inefficiency methods, inefficiency of the parliamentary government of those days, and he compared it unfavorably with his own ability as a soldier to give immediate decision

and to see it take shape at once in action. So he took over the government and he wanted things to move real quick. But unfortunately, but as in battle, he had done. been sure of the correct course of action. So in the political field, he was on many occasions uncertain and perplexed. During the period in which he ruled England, he tried out five different systems of government and all failed. And at the end, he was governing alone and much more

absolutely than ever Charles had attempted to rule. Internally, he taxed the people more highly and he disregarded Parliament more brazenly than Charles had ever done. And he interfered with the personal liberty more to honestly in ireland also his harsh and cruel policy left a lasting hatred which the centuries have not quenched but his rule was not wholly unproductive he made the fighting so he did accomplish one thing he made the fighting services the finest in the world and he gained for england a voice in the affairs of europe such as england had never had before so he was not a good governmental leader many of his triumphs abroad were transient It's an unsubstantial and much that he attempted at home disappeared when he died.

But his work for the Navy and its initial steps toward the creation of an empire planted a foundation from which much has grown. So he had a good impact on the military, but his governmental, his governmental leading abilities weren't all that strong. The third great captain, I suppose, I propose to consider is Napoleon. a leader driven by selfish and evil ambition. That's interesting. And not like the other two in pursuit of a great ideal. Unlike the other two, he was a soldier by profession, trained from his youth in the profession of arms.

Even as a very young boy in a military academy, he was clearly a leader. He wished to dominate, and he did dominate his fellow men. There it is. That one sounds a little stronger. That sounds a little bit more like what I think of dominate. Again, unlike the other two, he rose at a very early age to a high and independent command.

At the age of 26, he took command of the army of Italy and army inferior numbers and equipment to its opponents and semi-muteness from lack of pay. Yet, within a year with this inferior weapon, which he reforged to his liking, he fought brilliantly, a brilliantly successful campaign in northern Italy and imposed peace on his enemy. I like that imposed peace on his enemies From the moment of his arrival with his army He dominated his troops both generals and soldiers and inspired them with confidence in his ability to give them success Of that ability he himself had never any doubt and in his own self-confidence Lay much of his power to inspire confidence in others Behind this dominating self-confidence however lay Napoleon's

ability to see in any military problem the few essentials on which success would depend. He had the great power to simplify any problem and to see what details were important and which were unimportant. There you go. That's prioritize and execute and it's simple both in one big rule, right? You've got to know what's important. You've got to prioritize the important things and you've got to keep everything simple. I got an email from Sarah Armstrong.

Sure. Talking about podcast 174, trying to be a 5-0. Trying to be a 5-0 in all categories. And she basically emailed me and said, hey, heads up. I used to try and be a 5-0 in every category, even in categories that didn't matter.

So that's, you know, give people heads up. And I was like, well, yeah, I mean, I've talked about that. I talk about it with clients all the time, but I talk about it on the podcast as well. When specifically, I talked about it saying, I don't know if you remember this example. I said a black belt in jiu-jitsu, like they don't care. You're grabbing their sleeve and you're getting all crazy. They don't care. That doesn't matter.

Yeah. If you're a white belt, someone grabs your sleeve, you're freaking out. Yeah. But if you're a black belt, it's like, okay. If you're a good leader and there's some, some issue that guys are complaining about, it's no factor. You don't care? Mm-hmm. And then there's some issues that come up and you go, okay, that's important.

I need to address that. So this is what he had the ability to do. What is essential and what is not? Yeah. Yeah. And that can be kind of a tricky one because, you know, some things are super small, super small. But at the end of the day, they might be kind of important. Yes.

You know, like you can sort of predict. You're like, hey, that's small. Sure. For sure. But, hey, I could see that like continuing and growing, you know. For sure. And sometimes all you have to do is monitor it to make sure it doesn't grow. Yeah.

Sometimes you have to put it in check for sure. Sometimes you have to destroy something, remove it, kill it. Sometimes you can't worry about it because it's not important. So you've got to figure which one of those out. Like if your employee, say you're a boss, your employee comes in one minute late. Let's say it comes in on time every single time. He has to get there at six. He gets there at six on the dot every single day.

And then like one week on Monday. comes in at 601. Is that a big problem? One day? No, it's not a problem. You might want to throw a little something out of it. Right, it's something. It's not nothing, yeah.

There's a little something. You might even want to say something like along this, it's probably what I'd say. See what happens when you cut it so close every day. You're already a little, you missed it by a minute, bro. Exactly. Right? Just throw a little, just let them know you're watching.

Yeah. Just like I said like some things, they're teeny, but they're worth. Am I going to give a dude a written counseling because they were one minute late? No. Right. Because now the guy's looking for a different job somewhere because he doesn't want to work for me. Yeah, yeah.

You spazz out on him. But at the same time, he's at 601. He's like, cool. Sixth or four. Next day he comes in at six o'clock, we'll say next day. Then the next Monday he comes in at 602. Oh, two, no. It's just one more minute, right?

Got to put it in check. Yes, sir. Just a little something. Same like some things. They seem small, but you take a broader view. You're like, hey. It's kind of important. Yeah, yeah.

This goes back to the troops shaving and the Soviet troops stopping shaving. This is it. This is the slippery slope of a lack of discipline. Slippery slip. Yeah. But I can tell you this. If you're focused only on these little things, you might miss the big picture, which was Sarah's point.

Yes. And I responded and I said, hey, I totally agreed with her, talked about some of the black belt thing and then the boss thing. And then I was like, and by the way. way because this is something I've talked about the floor in my garage gym is not clean it it gets a 2.0 on cleanliness out of what five out of five okay maybe even gets a one I think one man yeah maybe gets a two one no it's not bad however however it gets like a a 1.5 because it's not it's not it doesn't have actual dirt on it right it's just got it's just got

chalk and sweat stains. Dried up. Utility. Not neglect, but, you know. And I said, it would take 20 minutes to a half an hour

each day to keep that thing at a 5.0 inspection ready level. Because what you've got to get in there is space, basically got to power wash that thing daily. That's where you're at. So I'm not power washing that thing daily. Why don't it, why is it, why is it not clean?

Not important. Do I have, I actually have a vacuum in my garage that I hit it with. Sometimes I hit it every two, three days. That's a lot different than breaking out, than pulling the mats out, power washing them in the alley

and then bringing them back in. That's not even a half an hour. That's like a, that's a serious evolution. Yeah. That's a serious evolution. So is it worth being a 5.0 in mat cleanliness garage gym? The answer is no.

The answer is no. It's not worth it. You need to lower that on the priority scale. Now, do I have big chunks of dirt and dog hair piled up and debris? No. It's completely debris free. Yep. But there are some sweat stains on it.

There has been, there are the remnants of getting after it. Sure. Right? Which is kind of conducive can be. The way it is. Yeah. So what's the standard then, generally speaking, not just an application to your garage. gym floor to like everything.

It's like little things. I mean just a basic little little framework to establish. It depends on the thing. Yeah. So but what is so you can go so you go fundamentally then. So what is it like if it if it gets in the way even if this much even if this little millimeter gets in the way of the overall objective then it's relevant important? Well no then we just have to frame it so that we're not with we we frame it as a waste of time like how much effort are you going to put into that? Right. No. If it's not, if it doesn't get in the way.

If it, no, no. If it gets in the way, then I'm putting too much time. If it gets in the way of my strategic goal, it's, I'm putting too much time into it. Oh, okay. If solving this particular problem gets in the way. Yes, yes. Okay. But I meant the existing of a small little problem.

If it gets in the way, if it gets in the way, then it's a problem. Right. Yeah. So if it does, like the guy coming in late, right? Let's say on my garage floor. There was chunks of rocks underneath the mats and they made it uneven and it was like slightly hazardous for me to be moving around on it and it interrupted and my weights rolled around. That'd be a problem. Yes. It's it's affecting my strategic goal. Yes. Those mats are getting picked up. The rocks are getting moved. The floor is getting leveled and then we're good to go. Yeah. On the on this levelness my mats get a five-o. Yeah. perfectly flat yeah they're good to go yes sir there do not interfere at all but they got some getting after it stains on them yep there it is okay going back to the book having grasped the

essentials of the problem and having inspired his soldiers with confidence in himself and with high morale he knew he could not fail Napoleon however was always as much a politician as a soldier. He had a great love of intrigue and of diplomatic bargaining, and his contempt for his fellow men, and his passion to dominate them and events led him to aspire to greater things. From the time he became First Consul, political rather than military factors influenced his decisions, and his failure to reconcile his political aspirations with what was militarily possible finally led him to the disasters of Moscow and the peninsula, from which no recovery was possible.

He started playing that political game. Started making his military decisions based on what he wanted to happen politically. Now, what did these three men, Moses Cromwell and Napoleon, have in common, without which they would have not achieved success? The most outstanding similarity was that they dominated their fellow men they were all supremely confident that they could and would do what they set out to do it was quite simple to them quite easy and success was absolutely certain this certainty gave them each the power to inspire others to follow blindly and to the limit of their strength and this

inspiration and power to enthuse others immeasurably increased the power of their forces to achieve whatever was to them. That's called confidence right there. That's what that is. Pure confidence. Isn't it, interesting when you see someone that's ultra confident and like not, no, they're not even overflowing into ego, but they're just really, really confident. And, and people follow them. People will, will be like, okay, I'm on board. This, this, this person's in the game. They believe it. I believe, I believe it too. Yeah. You know, I've seen situations where people are so confident that people are following them even though they're wrong. You know, you get you, you get that occasionally with a with a seal

platoon. You get some experienced guy that was super confident and he actually wasn't that good or didn't really understand tactics too well. And he's to know this what we're doing. Yeah, you know, so I've done this a million times. That's it's all by the way, that's a red flag. When somebody, when somebody counts on their number of times or their experience, that's the way we've always done it. I've done this a million times. That's a red flag the reason that they're using those statements is because they don't have an actual answer so one of the new guys says hey hey boss I'm not really sure why we'd why are we assaulting you know through the target from this area over here wouldn't

it make more sense to do and he goes I look I've done this a million times is how we're doing it you just think yourself so you don't have an actual answer you don't have an answer as to why you're just you're just throwing that out there that's the easiest thing for you to do so if you ever find yourself saying because this is how we've always done it or look I've been doing this for 28 years. Yeah, yeah. And you don't have a good answer.

You're wrong. That could work against you, to be honest with you. Yeah, I've been doing this for 28 years. And then like that day the person figures out like a way better way to doing it. You're like, dang, bro, you've been wasting your time for 28 years? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it could definitely work out bad.

It could work out bad because you're not listening to anyone else. You're not taking input. And then you end up making a bad decision. From what did these men get their supreme confidence in their ability to achieve their purpose in battle. I think they got it from their ability to see their problem in its simplest form. Amen. I totally agree with that. To see the few essentials necessary to the successful solution of the problem and to see how those few essentials could be achieved. This is why. So I'm always talking about qualities of leadership, the ability to simplify. I'm sure you've heard me say this a thousand

times. If you have the ability to simplify things, that's a great asset to have and not everyone has it or not everyone has the same level of it. Some people are good at it. Some people are good at it. Some people not so much. Some people just straight up complicate things. Oh, yeah. Once they grasped the essentials of the problem, they never lost sight of them

and never allowed a massive detail to submerge what was essential to success. Boom. Don't get caught up in the little details of things. Don't let those things drown out what the real situation is. For all military problems, are in essence simple, but the ability to simplify and to select out of the massive detail those things and only those things that are important is not always so easy.

So each of these men had the power to dominate other men's spirits to inspire their enthusiasm and to convince them of their own ability to achieve what was asked of them. This moving of men's spirits, this power to enthuse could only be done. and was only done by their personal contact with their men. All my three examples were in close and frequent contact with their troops. They were well known, familiarly known to them, and took frequent opportunities of talking to their men. So again, this is where that, the thing I spoke of earlier,

where it's like he kind of comes back on, hey, you've got to be this dominating person, but he's talking about you got to get out there and talk to your troops. You've got to be really truly personally known to them. Napoleon and Cromwell, certainly and very possibly Moses too, were known to their men by nicknames and used this familiarity to help their purpose. At the same time, each of these leaders knew well what the soldier was thinking and what he wanted most, and they made always careful study of the human factor. Now, it's interesting because, you know, Monty, he's known as Monty. Everybody called him Monty. Yeah.

And that's his nickname. and that breeds a little familiarity. And like I stole naming a unit, renaming a unit when you took it over, I stole that from David Hackworth. I wonder if Crom, I wonder if Monty stole this nickname idea and kind of gave himself that nickname, right?

What if Hackworth took him from Monty? Well, no, Hackworth. Well, actually, I guess Hackworth, everyone just called Hack, Hack, Hack. Hey, everyone called me, Jocko. Like, everyone. It's funny. Someone said, everyone in the chain of command,

The people below me in the chain of command called me Jocko, and the people above me in the chain of command called me Jock. Everyone called me Jocko. So that was kind of cool, but it was just like coincidence. I don't even know why. But Hackworth, he didn't really, I don't think Hackworth gave himself a nickname. Yeah.

And let's face it, Hackworth other than Hackworth. And as General Mukuyama told us, he had the best nickname of all time, Mr. Infantry. That is the coolest nickname ever. Is Hack considered a nickname? I think so. If it's short for your, you know. I think it is, yeah.

Yeah. Because there are certain names that have an official shortening of it, you know, like Richard and Rick or, you know, Jonathan and John. Robert and Bob. Yes, exactly. William and Bill and Bill. Okay. So.

But hack is not an official. Right. It's unofficial. So it's sort of, it goes into the realm of actual nickname. Yeah. Not just shortening of the name. Yeah. Yeah.

That's the. But I think, We can research this. It's not coming to me off the top of my head, but I'm pretty sure everyone called hack, hack. Yeah. Like up and down the chain of command. Yeah. Although his soldiers back in the day probably called him, sir.

That's more normal from Vietnam. Dang, how do you engineer a nickname, though, for yourself? No, you can't do that. Well, you can't give your nickname to yourself. No, but you can, I'm sure, there has to be a way to sort of engineer the environment. Well, you could say, hey, I'm hack, how's it going? Yeah, but isn't that, I mean, if it would have to be established before, that if you just start like if I just start saying hey I'm dragging no way if you

if you checked into a military unit or you you you know one knew you and you're like hey what's up I'm I'm dragon boy yeah but that would be no that wouldn't work no if you said hey my name is you know frag mob or whatever you just made up you know your nickname all guys call me that yeah one at once I'm I hooked a grenade and it rolled back and you know yeah but what if that's not true though you know like that would mean if look if you hooked a grenade you in a thing and someone called you frag mom from then on, then boom, someone gave you that nickname.

But you can't huck a grenade. It does whatever it is that doesn't be like, you know what? I should be called. You know, you can't really do that. No, you're not allowed to nickname yourself. No. So even if you introduce yourself, if no one knows you, introduce yourself, okay, I'm Dragon Boy,

but I just gave that name to myself today. And but, and they find, sure, they'll call you Dragon Boy. Yeah. But if one person finds out, oh, you just gave yourself that nickname. Oh, yeah. They're going to give you a different nickname. Oh, yeah. Oh, you're somebody else.

Yes, sir. Real quick. So how do you do it, though? No, you don't. You don't. You just got to let it. That's what I think is important. What's important here is that the familiarity isn't a lie.

The familiarity is real. Yes. That's the difference. I know how you do it. It's not 100% you. It's more allowing nicknames to be. You know how like, you know, some people, their name. I don't know, just for example, hypothetical example.

Like, let's say it's like, hey, my name's, um, Jonathan. Mm-hmm. And then, you know, in a casual conversation, oh, hey, John, what's up, John? And then they'll be like, hey, it's like, no disrespect or nothing, but it's Jonathan. Like, they prefer the whole thing. Maybe, well, John's more of an official one. But like if Hackworth would have said, hey, it's Hackworth.

It's not Hack. Then he probably wouldn't have had the name Hack. That's true. So when someone bust out a nickname for you, you just got to let it fly. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you in the teams, when they bust out a nickname for you, if you protest it, it's going to stick even more. So you could essentially, in theory,

fake protest. protest exactly right but they'd see right through that no right you're gonna be like oh you like it called that fine yeah we're gonna give you different nickname now jaggass you gotta be quick you gotta be sneaky with it I guess all right okay back to the book if a leader neglects the human factor he will fail no man can lead others if he does not know what they are thinking and feeling so again we got Monty here who kind of talks like he's all aloof and everything, but he knows you got to know your people

and you got to understand people. And then he goes on a little shift here. No leader, however great, can long continue unless he wins victories. Without victories in battle, all else is useless. To what then is success in battle do? In his great study of Marlborough, Mr. Winston Churchill says very truly.

And so here's a little quote from Winston Churchill, This is interesting. He's talking about the Duke of Marlborough, who was another guy in the 1600s that fought in the war of Spanish succession. This guy never lost a battle, apparently. And interesting, he was the Duke of Marlboro, but his actual name was John Churchill. And he is actually, I want to say the great, great, maybe great grandfather of Winston Churchill. So this is Winston Churchill's bloodline.

Sure. And this is what Winston Churchill says about his great, great, however many great grandfathers. And I think that's right. The success of a commander does not arise from following rules or models. It doesn't come from following rules or models. It consists in an absolutely new comprehension of the dominant facts of the situation at a time and all the forces at work. Every great operation of war is unique. What is wanted is a profound appreciation of the actual event.

There is no sure road to disaster than to imitate the plans of bygone heroes and to fit them to novel situations. So there you go. This ability to absolutely comprehend this new situation and to not try and force, not try and force a rule or a model to work for you in a certain situation. Back to the book, this indeed is true. For in no war, foreign war, no two situations are ever the same and each situation must be tackled as a wholly new problem to which there will likely be a wholly new answer. You need only to look at the beginning of this war and to and to the trust put in the Maginot line. Here indeed was there a failure to appreciate the new and change technique which had risen and one which rendered such fortifications in themselves

wholly useless. To win victories, certain qualities are necessary, and I will mention four which were possessed in greater or less by all the great captains of history. These are the knowledge of the technique of making war. So that's interesting because Churchill just said, look, it's not using this previous knowledge. You've got to be able to apply it. But at the same time, guess what? You've got to have the knowledge of the technique of making war.

Next, the ability to see clearly the few essentials that are important to success. Next, courage and mental robustness. And lastly, a well-balanced judgment. He kind of goes through these in a little bit more detail. Now, the manner in which war is waged varies from age to age and with the advent of each new weapon. It is a constantly changing, constantly evolving thing. He who aspires to high command in war must thoroughly understand the main principles which will dictate the manner in which the battle of his age will be fought

He also must be constantly on the watch for new ideas or weapons which will affect those principles The speed of change in military science during time of peace is often slow and many have consequently allowed themselves to be lulled into false sense of security Which has been rudely shattered on the outbreak of war So guess what? You gotta have a open in mind and you got to pay attention the knowledge of how to make war also implies the ability to train troops every great commander has himself had to forge his weapon for the task in front of him Moses led the people of Israel for 40 years in the desert teaching them how to fight

and he forged the weapon to conquer canaan so also cromwell and napoleon they forged their own weapon for the specific task in hand improvising and inventing as they went along so as to develop new tactics to deal with the new problems with which in their day they were faced so you've got to study war you've got to understand how to train your troops continuing on no man can be a great military leader unless he has the ability to cut through overlying difficulties and to see clearly the few essentials in any problem which with which he is faced in any problem there are never more than a few essentials which are vital to that problem.

That's a pretty bold statement. And it's also pretty true. You get these big problems. Guess what? There's only a few things that are truly essential. Now, as you solve the first couple essential ones, there's going to be the next essential problem. This is prioritized and execute.

Yeah. And it's kind of simple too right. And simple. Yes, like they're both wrapped together in this thought. These must be grasped out of the massive details and must never be lost sight of. If in battle a commander loses sight of the few essentials that matter, he will suffer defeat. So when you're getting distracted by these other things, you're going to end up losing.

But to see the essentials clearly, he must not himself get too immersed in detail. Every great commander has had a chief of staff whose main task was the mastery of detail, thus leaving his master free to tackle essentials of the problem together with those deeds. And only those details which were vital to that problem. Boom. That's it. You cannot get in the weeds. You cannot micromanage. You cannot look at a plan all day and expect that you're going to see something that your troops didn't see who are doing the planning. You need to step back. You need to elevate yourself for though there is much detail in which the for though there is much detail with which a commander cannot and must not bother himself is interesting to note that every great commander has always concerned himself with certain of the details of his problems. Napoleon and Wellington are two good cases in point. No man can rise to a high command who is not the quality of courage.

The highest form of personal courage is required rather in the leader at the lower level who has to plunge into the turmoil of the battlefield. So yeah, if you're in the frontline troops, you need even more courage. The leader at the higher levels has to develop his quality of, of courage into a mental robustness which can withstand the mental stress and strain with which he will be assailed he must at all times he must be able at all times to take a dispassionate view of the good and bad fortune which will assail him read that one again he must be able at all times to take a dispassionate view of the good and bad

fortune which will assail him so good things are gonna happen good things are gonna happen don't get all excited when some you'll get all excited you got to be dispassion you got to detach you can't let your emotion start getting crazy you have to detach he must not allow himself to be distracted by events or to be let astray from his main purpose by some glittering prize he must at all times maintain an unbiased view of the situation and in battle he must be able to judge the true value of the mass of good and bad tidings, which will flow upon him.

Stay detached, stay level-headed, good and bad. Is that kind of like one, like, you know, how you get the husband or the boyfriend or whatever that, like, you know, does something bad. I don't know. Flirts with a girl or something like that. Girl-girlfriend's all mad. And then so the guy goes and buys her, like, a necklace, you know, to say sorry. It's kind of like that, right?

Where don't get all caught up in the glittery stuff because, you know, no, that's not what this is like This is like this. Echo's saving up to buy a house Yeah, and he's saving up and he's like okay. I saved you know 800 bucks last month. I'm gonna save 1200 bucks this month. I'm gonna save 900 bucks this month and all of a sudden you see a A new car with rims and and has rims and you can get it you can lease it And all you need to lease it is You know $4,000

Yeah And you're like, you know what? I'm gonna go get that That's the shiny new thing They just took you off your main goal Yeah, yes It has nothing to do with flirting girlfriends Well, buy a necklace

It's bro Well, I think yours is a better example For sure I think so Yours wasn't even an example You missed the point Okay Yeah

I'm trying to think of where it would be Oh yeah I mean So if you're gonna talk like a girl that was saving for a house. And then she saw a cool necklace. That would have been a good example. But the flirting girl with the distraction from the boyfriend, no.

That's a whole thing situation. Here's how I would try to connect the dots on that one. You know, the girl's like, hey, her mission is to evaluate whether or not this is the good boyfriend, straight up. And then so the boyfriend, he does some stuff that's fundamentally bad. Cheats on her. I don't know, whatever. And then, you know, so she's sort of on that mission. She's sort of making the evaluation.

and then boom, she gets distracted by the sparkly necklace, boom, she goes back to him, blah, blah, blah. So I'm saying? No. Still bad. Not quite, not quite, bro. I mean, good, good effort. Good effort.

Moving on. Every battle resolves itself into a tussle between the wills of the two opposing commanders. Unless he is mentally robust, a commander will not be able to force his will on his opponent. It is well for a commander to remember that no battle, Was ever lost until the commander thought it so. No battle was ever lost until the commander thought it so a commander must have a well-balanced judgment I'm getting to a balance of the dichotomies here both on the battle situation and in his dealings with his subordinates

This is straight up dichotomy of leadership. He must see okay now he must see the battle situation As constantly shifting interplay of forces and he must instinctively know when to be wrapped and when to be cautious boom be balanced he must weigh up the situation both at the moment and as it may develop in the future and he must so fight his battle that the enemy's reactions cannot upset his plan and although he is trying to force his will on his opponent a commander must know when discretion is the better part of valor his desire to dominate his opponent must not outweigh his judgment of the actual possibilities of the situation. Yes, you've got to be aggressive, but you can't be foolhardy. That's what we're saying here. This is the dichotomy of leadership.

His judgment must always be well balanced. And if it is so, and if he has good information on which to base it, he can so force the battle his way that the enemy will be forced to conform. He will, in fact, have rested the initiative from the enemy. In his dealings with his subordinates, he will also require good judgment and sound knowledge of human nature. He must choose his subordinates well. Those with whom he is in frequent contact. His senior generals must know personally and well. He must be able to judge when to drive and when to persuade, when to be stern, when to give praise.

For all men are different and each requires handling in a different way. So right there he just talked about the dichotomy leadership, right? When to drive and when to persuade. When to be stern, when to give praise. Gotta balance those dichotomies. The three leaders whom I have considered succeeded so long as they kept in their mind their clear military purpose and were not deflected from it by any other considerations. But there is always the danger that other and especially political considerations will be forced,

will force the hand of the soldier and lead to some action which is militarily unwise. Many battles have been fought for political and not for military reasons, and these have been the graveyard of many a soldier's reputation. The soldier is the servant of the statesman and is therefore bound to be subject to political pressure. He must be strong enough to resist such pressure whenever it conflicts with his clear military purpose. few statesmen will force the hand of the soldier if the soldier very bluntly says if I fight as you wish me to fight I shall lose the battle if I fight in my own way and in my own time I shall win the battle so there you go that's what you got to do you got to call it like you see it but the soldier must be prepared to be very blunt and he must be prepared to stake his whole

reputation on success have given adequate resources and a free hand And he also must be prepared to be very firm and to refuse to be forced to do something which he considers is not capable of being done. So there you have it. If you don't think something can be done, it's your moral obligation to say no. And of course, you have to weigh that with the fact that if you don't do it, someone melts might and they might cause even more damage. So you have to weigh that conundrum. Back to the book. In history, the military leader has frequently been tempted and has frequently succumbed to the temptation to aspire to political leadership.

The whole training and experience of the soldier makes him less rather than more fitted to be a politician. So this is an interesting contrast. The soldier is trained to take direct action down certain well-defined lines and has in his hand a military machine which responds immediately and with precision. to his touch the politician is trained in subtlety in debate in weighing up the conflicting interests of his supporters and usually has to compromise the governmental machine is much less precise and exact than the military and is not as rapid in action even in highly skilled political hands now in war if commander compromises on essentials he fails furthermore the time factor forces the commander in

field to adopt the best expedient in the time available, which is usually short. The politician, on the other hand, is seldom forced to give an immediate decision. Rather, he delays in order to find out the right and accurate answer, and he avoids any temporary expedient. One seizes time by the forelock and adopts the best expedient. The other procrastinates in order to ensure that what he does is exactly right. Now, I think this gets taken to the extreme in both cases because you actually, even as a military leader, you want to weigh and make sure you're, you want to wait long enough to make sure you're making a good decision. And I think in the political world, they go to the extreme of they're just going to never make a decision, never going to make a change.

Therefore, a leader who is primarily a soldier when he meddles with politics loses his clear and simple military purpose. He no longer sees the essentials. He is at sea in a political world. We read that Cromwell in politics was muddled and perplexed, working slowly and deviously to a policy, which he did not clearly see. And again, that he was confused and distracted. So though he kept the political power in his own hands during his lifetime, much of what he built fell to pieces the moment he died.

So also Napoleon. As long as his military purpose was uppermost in his mind, he succeeded. but when political considerations dominated his policy, the desire to impose his will on Europe led him to undertake military operations, which it was beyond his power to achieve. The qualities required by a soldier and by a politician are, in fact, almost at opposite polls, and only a few men in history have possessed both kinds of qualities.

There have not been many soldiers who have made good politicians, nor many politicians who have made great souls. now the only thing I'll say is that being in the military is very political and you even in this time I'm not gonna make any distinction that oh it's more political now it's not the old move old books about World War II there's all kinds of politics politics going on inside the chain of command so I'm not sure why he I'm not sure why he he sees that great distinction between you know there being no but like there's no political

things, no political games being played in the military, there certainly is, certainly is. And there always has been. And there always will be. It's a group of people. And a group of people are going to do the little political maneuvers. They're going to look out for themselves. They're going to try and make this happen. You know, they're going to have an agenda.

You've got to learn how to negotiate those politics, whether you're in the military or whether you're in the civilian sector. It doesn't matter. Before we leave the past, it is, I think, interesting to note that great. military leaders have on the whole been few there have been many generals of good average ability but few who were really great in the study of those who are great it is interesting to note two things first it required a war to produce them second that a number of them prove their greatness after a very short

apprenticeship this suggests that the art of war at any rate in the past though less so now is a relatively Simple art and that the qualities which make a great commander are inherent rather than acquired Interesting. He's a little bit more saying hey, you kind of born with it The character and more especially the will to dominate and lead his fellow man is given to few But given that power to lead the ability to gain success in war can be acquired so you can get better at it A man may cultivate the qualities of a great leader provided that he has inherent him in sufficient degree the character and the will to dominate but unless he has

those inherent characteristics he will never become a great leader however long he studies the art or the craft of war it is one of the phenomena of military history that events invariably produce the man age has little or nothing to do with it the opportunity may come sooner to some later to others Napoleon was 27 when he conquered northern Italy wolf was 34 when he captured to Quebec At the other end of the scale, Marlboro was 52 when he first rose to a high and independent command. And Abercrombie conducted a short but brilliant campaign in Egypt at the age of 68, at the end of a long lifetime. In the careers of great generals, there has always been this aspect of chance.

Opportunity comes at different ages and in different circumstances. Some have been luckier than others. Some perhaps never had the opportunity to prove their ability. So that's where he wraps up so much for the lessons of history. Today, the problems of military leadership are much the same as they always have been. I propose to tell you now some of the things that have guided me in leading armies which have been entrusted to my command. I would say first that a leader must very clearly know what he wants himself. He must see his objective clearly and must go all out for it.

He must let everyone else know what he wants and what are the basic fundamentals of his policy. He must in fact give firm guidance and a clear lead. It will be necessary for him to create what I call atmosphere. And in that atmosphere, his subordinate commanders and troops will live and work. To do this, he will have to take a very firm grip on his military machine from the top. Only in this way will his force acquire balance and cohesion. so develop its full fighting potential. History has many examples of a lack of grip being taken by a commander with the result

that he failed to develop the power of which his force was capable and so met disaster. So this is Monty. You've got to take that firm grip. And again, it's very strange because he comes off so strong like that. But here we go. He's going to counter it right here. Having laid down the basic fundamentals of his policy. A commander must place complete trust in his subordinates and must give them freedom to carry out that policy within the framework

Which he has laid down so this is decentralized command He must be prepared to decentralize and to trust his subordinates to use their own initiative on all matters of detail Everyone listen to that Don't worry about the details the commander himself must stand back from the detail so he can see clear clearly the essentials of his problem and make sure that the correct action is being taken on those essentials. If ever a commander allows himself to become too greatly immersed in the unimportant details of any problem, he will fail to see the essentials clearly.

Detached, take a step back. Elevate yourself. It is obvious that he must be a good judge of men and a good chooser of subordinates. He must also have the drive to get things done. No commander will long remain in the first. rank unless he achieves success. The biggest single factor for making success in war is morale. A high morale is based on discipline, self-respect, and the confidence of the soldier in his commanders and in his weapons. It is a pearl of very great price and without it no success in battle will be

achieved. A high morale is in fact a measure of the confidence of troops of their commander. That's an Interesting point. Right? How do you have high morale? It's a measurement of how confident the troops are. So when the troops are confident or the employees are confident in the boss, morale is high. When they're not confident, morale is low. And by the way, with low morale, you're not winning.

Continuing on, there is no book of rules which will help a commander to gain the complete trust and confidence of his men. Each commander will adopt his own methods and say the ones best suited to his own personality. Suffice it to say that he must be known, must be known personally to them, and that success in battle will produce quick results. All soldiers will follow a successful general. No commander, however, will gain the confidence of his troops unless he is known and well known to them. They must often see him and, if possible, hear him speak.

A commander should take every opportunity of talking to his officers and men. It will repay him according to his worth. Got to get out there and talk to the troops. There are other fractures, also which have a big effect on morale. The home front and the battle on the front nowadays are, as never before, very closely linked. So you've got to keep that morale up. You've got to make sure everything's going good on the home front. Imagine what it's linked like now.

I mean, this is, he's talking about World War II. World War II. Hey, we're very closely linked because I can write a letter that's going to get to my wife nine weeks from now. Right now, we got brothers on Facebook Live. Nightly. Continuing on, just as success is a great stimulus to morale, so nothing lowers morale so quickly is failure. Therefore, there must be no failures. Great and lasting harm can be done to morale by undertaking operations for which the troops

concerned are not ready or trained and which they are likely to end in failure. I have therefore made it a rule to limit the scope of any operation to what can be achieved successfully. So again, this sounds super risk averse and that's that is. Hey, I'm not going to do anything that I don't know we can achieve it. Then again, how often do you want to be rolling the dice, why not say, you know what? Well, let's give it another month. Let's train a little bit more. What do we have to do this right now? You know? And I certainly think that there's times when you have to take risk and you're going to do some things that maybe you don't know if you can get away with. And there can be times where you're forced into that position as well. Like you're being attacked

and hey, we can, I'm not sure if a flank is going to work, but we can either sit here and get attacked and get flanked by them or we can go and flank ourselves. Like, let's go make this happen. So I think We need to make sure we don't take that comment to the extreme because that can be a bit much, but consider it, consider it deeply. And I think probably the reason why this is probably one of those points where, you know, he said in the beginning of this, he made the premise that, um, that, hey, this is a, this is, this is for army command, right? Or at least divisional command. We're talking you're in charge of 10,000 people. or more. So what he's saying, maybe,

I guess it becomes more acceptable of a rule, you don't want to risk 10,000, you don't want to risk an entire army or an entire division on something that you may or may not be successful at, right? Maybe we need to reassess. If we're not sure we can make this happen, maybe we need to reassess if we're going to go forward or not.

Another thing that today has a big effect on morale is the standard of medical care, which soldiers, can expect so you got that and then we get to a commander must make a very close study of human nature the raw material with which he has to deal are men and it is important to remember that all men are different what a commander makes of the human material at his disposal will depend entirely on himself i have found that every division which has fought under my command has added different characteristics Each division was good at a different type of battle, and it is vital that the commander should gauge what type of battle is best at and make sure that each division is at the right point when required.

So even in the quote uniformity of the military, they have differences. They're human beings and those differences are reflected through whole units. The difference between divisions is based partly on the individuality of the commander of the division. and partly on the type of men of whom the division is composed. I found, for instance, that some divisions were outstandingly good at the breakthrough attack, but were not so good at the deliberate set piece affair. Some divisions were best at night, some by day. For a solid killing match, certain types of men were better than others, and so on.

Each division develops an individuality of its own, which I consider a high commander must study. I was in the airport and I ran into a dude from South Africa who was in the game kind of big time and He was talking about he says yes and I can't do it on their accent, but he was saying that he had he worked Construction he was a construction guy and he had a crew and he gave his crew a name and I should have asked him what the name of the crew was but I didn't But I'm sure they gave him he gave him some kind of name and he was like he was just so pumped and he goes yeah I read it in Hackworth too and then I I did it because you did it and he goes it really worked mate who's all fired up because you can change the personality of

something you can change the the personality of a unit like that you can do it it works in the same way all generals differ and must be selected for the job in hand no two jobs no two problems are ever the same and the character of the job must be matched to that of the commander selected to undertake it one of the most important functions of a commander in ward is to make sure that he has the right man and the right place to tackle the job in hand so think about that when you're in charge of a team when you're in charge of a business one of the most important things that you do is put the right people in the right job some people are sensitive to that you know so when I'm like hey

Hey, Bill, I'm not giving you this op. I'm giving it to Echo. And Bill gets mad and frustrated. He thinks Echo doesn't deserve it. Man, we got to have a good enough relationship and trust that when I say, hey, Bill, this is an op's not for you. I'm giving it to Echo. And he goes, okay, cool.

Let me know what's coming down the pipe. Let me know what I can get ready for. Let me know how I can support. Yeah. Yeah, that, remember the movie Major League? Charlie Sheen, come on. Yeah. I remember the movie.

I don't think I ever sat through that whole movie. Oh, actually, you know what? I think I asked you that before. Yeah. I think you said the same thing. So there's this part where, okay, so Charlie Sheen, right? He got his glasses. He, oh, yeah, that's what we were talking about last time.

So last time, as far as Major League goes, the movie Major League. So Charlie Sheen, he had all this crazy power and speed in his fastball. But no control. No control. Then they find out whatever he can't see that good. They give him some glasses. Boom, he brings it all together. They start winning all this stuff, right?

So he's starting. The other guy who was starting before him, his name's Harris, older guy. But, you know, basically the more consistent, like he's consistent. He's not like legit like Charlie Sheen, but he's consistent, you know. So they're about to play the, fast forward. They're about to play the Yankees, right? In the big game or the series. It's like this big deal.

And, you know, so the general manager, Lou, calls Charlie Sheen. What was his name in the movie, Charlie Sheen? Doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Anyway, it calls Charlie Sheen to the back of the bus. And he's like, hey, I'm going to start Harris against the Yankees. He just has a better reputation against them and, you know, more experience, whatever. And then Charlie Sheen was like, oh, yeah, you know, whatever's best for the team.

And he left. And that was sort of it. So he was good with it. No, well, the movie goes on and he's not good with it. He expressed himself like he was good with it. And he said the right things. But later on he goes on like, goes drinking by himself or something. Then he winds up hooking up with like one of his teammates' wife.

But that's a whole other story though. We don't care about. Yeah, we don't actually care about any of this, but we definitely don't care about that part. Rick Vaughn, that's his name, Wild Thing, Rick Vaughn. There you go. But same deal, though, right? You got to get the right guys. Yes.

And of course, you nailed it. Yeah. Nailed it, bro. Eventually, Harris, you know, he does okay, you know, and then they bring out Rick Vaughn to to close out the game and whatever to win. So there you go. Boom. Win, win.

Back to the book. Back to the book. If a commander thinks that all men are the same, and he treats the mass of human material accordingly, he will fail. The soldiers of today have different standards and require more enlightened handling than the soldiers of bygone days. This is again where he starts to, you realize that this guy, even though he tries to come across all hard,

he's actually very thoughtful about understanding humans back to the book they will no longer follow blindly and unquestionably to an unknown end today therefore a commander must ensure that his troops always know what they are being asked to do and how that fits in with the larger plan i have always in other words they got to know why they're doing what they're doing i have always insisted that before a battle, the essentials of the plan are known right through the chain of command and finally down to the rank and file. The troops must know how a commander is going to fight the battle and what part they are going to play in it.

This must be explained to them by word of mouth, for that counts far more than the written word. And then when the battle has been won and the troops see that the battle has gone as the commander said it would, their confidence in the high command will be very great. This confidence is beyond price. The problem with that statement is it puts pressure on you to stick to a plan. Just get like that that makes you think, oh, I'm just going to stick with it. Yeah.

Because I want everyone to think that it went the way I wanted it to go. No, don't just stick with a plan. If it's not working, it's not working. Shift. A commander must watch carefully his own morale. A battle is a contest between the will of two opposing commanders. The one whose heart fails when the, issue hangs in the balance will lose the battle.

A commander, in fact, must throughout radiate confidence in his plan and operations, even though inwardly he may not be too sure of the outcome. It's one of those other things, you know? People talk about transparency. Sure. Right? Transparency. Guess what?

And it's like, oh, yeah, there's a book. There's all kinds of book about transparency. like oh you got to be fully transparent with everyone it's like no actually sometimes if I'm a little more nervous about what we're doing and I start to show that everyone's going to be nervous about what we're doing yeah man and bad scene yeah they can and sometimes too where like like how you mentioned before like some people can't take the truth you know like so like if there's certain shifts going to be made or certain like rules going to be implemented or whatever yeah you know like hey, we're going to

demote this, or we're going to move this person out of this department because he's just, he's, he stinks or something. Like he has B-O and he's irritating everybody, you know, kind of thing. Okay. It's okay. And he'll be, he'll just do just as good of work down here.

Yeah, you know, in the basement, where he's by himself. Exactly right, you know. And it's like, hey, and then we're going to shift you over here. And he's going to be like, cool. Like, why, though? Like, I'm down to do it, but why? Do you be transparent?

Maybe, maybe not, but you run the risk is what I'm saying. The good thing to do would be like, hey man, hey, bro, let me ask you some. If I had a bugger hanging on my nose, would you want, would you, if you had a bugger hanging out of your nose, would you want me to tell you? Everyone says, yeah, of course. Cool, you stink. Actually, you smell bad. That's good. Hey, what about stinky geese on the mat?

Yeah. Right? Somebody's got to let him know. Bro. You got to wash that thing. You might need a new ghee. Yeah. You know?

Some people, they have this old ratty ghee. The smell is embedded in those things. I had geese like that. Yeah. Where it's like you wash it and then you wash it and you take it out, you put it on for four minutes. And you go, oh, yeah, I got to throw this thing away. This thing stanks. Yeah.

Huh. Yeah. That's true. That would be a better way to do it. That way. But you can't say, hey, why don't you move to the beginner class? Go drill in the corner by yourself. Go work with you. the grappling dummy over there.

It's like, no, that's not cool. You need to tell a brother. Hey, man. You stink it. You need to wash your ghee. You'll wash your ghee. Immediately. Yeah.

So this is one of those things where if you need to talk to it, right? Even in that situation, you do need to tell the truth. Yeah. You know, you do need to say, hey, listen, man, I don't know what's up with your hygiene. Okay. But it needs some work. All right. So what if the company is taking this massive?

financial hit and layoffs are coming straight up you lay off one guy you left two guys do you be transparent like hey guys we're taking a massive hit we're laying off a bunch of people well yeah in that in that case you have to say hey listen this what's going on this is where we're at and we're going to do our best and the best way we can do this is by buckling down hard and working hard but right now it's going to be tight going to go through a tight quarter right now We had to let go to guys. We're going to try and maintain what we got, but I can't promise you anything, right?

You've got to be, yes, yes, I'm going to be truthful. Maybe it is better to be transparent. Most of the time it is. Most of the time it is. What we do? It's in this situation, what we're talking about is if you lack confidence in what you're doing,

and you start to reveal that to people. Start letting it chill. Yeah, yeah, got you. Then that's not good. And, you know, there's time. Now, let's say, let's say echo, let's say I didn't think you were cognitively capable of doing a job at the next level. I might not necessarily tell you that because that's something that you can't necessarily change. You can't go home, take a shower and get smarter.

Right? It doesn't. It doesn't work that way. No, sir, it doesn't. You can't put on a deodorant and now you're smarter. That doesn't work. It's smelling bad is not, is not necessarily a bad problem. Because it's something that can be fixed. But if you if you aren't smart enough, well, then we have a we have a situation

You can't really mean you can study you can work, but you're not going to get smarter Yeah. Right. So it might not be a great idea for me to say well, you know, I decided not to you know you're not getting from I promoted Billy because you're you're dumb. Yeah, he's just a lot smart. Yeah, you here's the deal man just straight up you're not that smart, right? So I couldn't put you in charge of anything because because you're not smart now Now, that's different than me saying, hey, listen, man, six months ago, if I was like, hey, listen, man, you need to start paying attention. Because what you're doing right now, if you're going to move up, you've got to really know. It's going to take you some extra study. And look, I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed. And I know I have to work hard at making this stuff happen. Do you look at your, do you look at your manuals at all?

Have you been studying your manuals? You need to, like, dig into your manuals and really know this stuff. If you think you're going to get promoted, you're not going to get promoted unless you know this stuff like the back of your hand you need to get in the game so if we've already been through that whole thing and you actually got out the manuals and you tried and you didn't make anything happen well guess what hey man it's just not that many opportunities at this next level and by the way I think there's another kind of course of career course that I have thinking for you you know so let's talk about that you know what I'm saying yeah fully something that some that requires

large biceps I think it's going to be your area of expertise Thanks Check In order that he may keep clear of unimportant details and thus have time for the quiet Thought and reflection a higher commander must work through a chief of staff and thus avoid having to deal separately with the heads of all branches So far as I'm aware the British Army is the only army which was which does not Adopt the chief of staff system in my own experience is quite possible to is quite important possible to exercise high command successfully in war without it I have adopted the chief of staff

system myself throughout this war and could not have succeeded otherwise so you got to have someone that's going to handle things for you little things you know I was talked about the um the senior enlisted guy in a a platoon chief or in a task unit or in a platoon or a company and army company the senior enlisted guy I always said was the action arm of the commander so when you need something done, I don't have time to go do it myself. And if I go do it myself, when I've lost the bigger picture. But if I have something critical, you've got this senior enlisted individual that has the most tactical experience, has the most authority, the most respects, when you say, hey, chief, that building over there hasn't been cleared yet. I don't know what's going on.

Go clear that thing. And he'll say, Roger, that, or the platoon sergeant or the company first sergeant. Those guys should have the experience and the tactical expertise and then be utilized. as the action arm that can make things happen. Now, that's not exactly what a chief of staff is. It's actually quite different, but it's similar in the fact that you can't get sucked into the weeds. And if you're the commander of a division and you're in the weeds all the time,

you can't see what's happening. And it's the same thing in a business. If the CEO of the business is running the business daily, he's not looking up and out. He's looking down and in, and that's not going to allow him to make, foresee what's coming down the pipe in the future. And that's pretty much what it says here.

No officer whose daily life is spent at the consideration of details or who has not time for quiet thought and reflection can make a sound plan of battle or conduct large-scale operations. The wise commander is the one who uses a chief of staff who sees very few papers or letters himself and who sees that the majority of reports that are made to him are verbal and short. Only in this way giving himself plenty of time for quiet thought and reflection

will he be will he keep himself mentally fresh and capable of producing the sound plan of operations which will defeat his enemy for the plan of operations must always be made by the commander and he must not be for and must not be forced upon him by his staff by his by his circumstances or by the enemy that's pretty important why are you allowing the circumstances or the enemy to dictate how you're going to do things that's not a good call a commander must decide how he will fight the battle Before it begins. He must decide how he will use the military effort at his disposal to force the battle to swing the way he wishes it to go. To be able to do this, his dispositions must be so balanced that he can ignore enemy reactions and continue with his own plan until he is certain of success.

He has got to strive to read the mind of his opponent to anticipate have enemy reactions to his own moves and to take quick steps to prevent any enemy interference with his own plan. Again, this is a little bit sketchy to me because now we're talking about, hey, I'm just driving forward with my plan no matter what. I don't like that attitude. I want to be flexible. I'm going to try and stick to my plan, but I'm going to be flexible. This is one where, you know, man, I don't even know. This is one of those things where sometimes I would get guys that would, there'd be a little change. They'd come up with a plan.

They'd spend all this time planning for a mission, and there'd be a little change. maybe they're getting ready to go out and some imagery comes in and it shows something a little bit different or maybe they get some intel it's a little bit different and they decide they're gonna they've already planned,

they've already rehearsed, they already know what they're doing everyone's kind of walked through and they decide they're going to change their whole plan because of some little thing and I would say man don't change your whole plan

you want to make a little adjustment you want to take a little fire team and have them make an adjustment take a squad make them do something that's okay don't try and rearrange your whole plan you've already rehearsing You have to un-rehearse you know how hard that is you have to unprogram your team

That is really hard to do yeah so sometimes and I used to this is actually one of those things that that slowly I don't really talk about very often because But I used to used to be in the the combat leadership brief I used to give you used to say don't fall for six percent advantage over the enemy And what I meant by that was and I used to draw a target up on the on the on the on the dry erase board and I'd say okay you're going to take down this target so you come up with a plan how do you always want to do it's all we set up an L and base maneuver okay cool you're getting ready to go out and do this and you find out that there's an outhouse over the berm over here and there's a chance two o'clock in the morning that the guy could be in that outhouse what do you want

to do and some guys would completely change their whole plan completely changed their whole plan Meanwhile, we're launching in two minutes or eight minutes or 20 minutes. They've planned this. They've rehearsed it. Everyone knows what their job was. The whole team came up with a plan together. I mean, it's really in their brains. And now they see this little detail because there's a chance that at three o'clock in the morning when you hit this target

that the guy that you're looking for is in the outhouse. So we're going to change our whole plan to make up for this tiny percentage chance that this guy's even in the outhouse. Not a good call. Can you break off a fire team? that's going to maneuver to a position where they can at least keep an eye on the outhouse, that's fine. But don't change your whole damn plan

based on this little 6% chance that the enemy might do something you didn't expect. Or no, the enemy, that something is very unlikely of happening. It's not that you didn't expect it. Things that you don't expect, that's why you have contingency plans. Which is like, hey, when we fly in,

if we see any other outbuildings that we missed on the imagery, we have a fire team designated to go and get eyes on those things from the high ground. Oh, okay, cool. That's a contingency plan. That works. Going back to the commander here,

he has got always to be a very clear thinker and must aim to be always one move ahead of his opponent. I actually prefer to be about five moves out of my opponent. To do this, he must simplify the problem. Whenever a problem arises, he must think out the few points which will form the framework of the solution. The few things that will really matter.

So long as the solution to the problem is based on those few things that really matter the solution will be on the right lines Solid Solid You have like this this this pathway and as long in the path at the end of the pathway is what you want to achieve As long as you're doing things that are on the pathway You're getting there When you start doing things that are off the pathway We get a problem sometimes you got to look at your your subordinates and say hey, is that even on the path in the direction that we're heading? Because it doesn't seem like it to me

a commander must at all times exercise personal command that is to say he must give must see and give full verbal orders or instructions to his subordinate generals on how the battle is to be fought operational command in the field must be direct and personal no written order can ever be the equivalent of a direct verbal command interesting and i've my standard is i do both I do both. I say, hey, Echo, here's what we're doing. Hey, do you understand this? Do you got any questions? Cool. And I send you a message that says, hey, echo, this is what we talked about. This is what you're doing, making sure you understand.

So if I can, I'm going to do both. If you can only do one, yes, verbal is better. Most of the time. A commander must therefore understand how to give verbal orders to his subordinates. No two generals are the same. Each will require different treatment. Each will react differently by exercising personal command a commander can exert a far greater and more exact influence on the battle and the confidence which will grow up between the commander and his generals will be of great value The whole chain of command can thus and only thus be built into a united team whose strength is based on mutual confidence and understanding

Relationships that's all relationships is what he's talking about right there when the whole army is built into one great team united in working all out for a common purpose the result is terrific success in war is due to good teamwork by all members of the fighting forces and to the correct use which is made of all members by the team of the team by the commander and his staff but failure in war is always due to one of two causes to faulty command or to bad staff work and sometimes do both I can think of no instance where the failure has been due to a failure of the fighting man the British fighting man will always do what is asked of him but you must make sure that he understands what he is asked to do and also that it is within his capacity to do it if you're team is not doing what it is you want them to do the first person you should check is yourself

if you're giving people complex orders that they don't understand there's no possible way they can execute those plans and here's how he closes this out finally i do not believe that today a commander can inspire great armies or single units or even individual men and lead them to achieve great victories unless he has a proper sense of religious truth and he must be prepared to acknowledge it and to lead his troops in the light of that truth. He must always keep his finger on the spiritual pulse of his army. And he must be very sure that the spiritual purpose which inspires them is right and true, and it's clearly expounded to one and all.

Unless he does this, he can expect no lasting success. So you've got to believe in what you're doing. All leadership, I believe, is based on the spiritual quality, the power to inspire others to follow. And this spiritual quality may be for good or may be for evil. In many cases, this quality has been devoted toward personal ends and was partly or wholly evil. And whenever this was so, in the end, it failed.

leadership which is evil while it may temporarily succeed always carries within it the seeds of its own destruction that's a that's a that's a solid one leadership which is evil while it may temporarily succeed always carries within it the seeds of its own destruction and that is a theory that I fully believe in and I mean I believe in it on that level, on that high consequence level. But I also believe it on a on a much less dramatic level. And this is something that you deal with every day. And that's this.

The leader that is looking out for himself, the leader that puts himself above his team. That leader is eventually going to fail. Even though they may temporarily succeed. Same thing. They may temporarily succeed. But eventually. they are going to fail.

That's what's going to happen. And I will tell you something else that is true. And that is the opposite of that. And that is if you are doing the right things for the right things, for the right reasons, then you may temporarily fail. But you will have the seeds for victory. The seeds for victory. And the reason that I say seeds is very specific.

there's a reason why I'm saying that is because seeds are not guaranteed to grow. Just because you have good intention doesn't mean that you're going to win. It doesn't mean that you're going to achieve victory. It means you have the seeds for victory. Because once you plant those seeds, you have to water them and you have to nourish them and you have to protect them from birds and from squirrels and from vermin. And you have to work. You have to plant those seeds and then you have to make those seeds grow.

And if you do that, continue to do that, then you move forward and you're doing it for the right reasons. In the end, you are going to win. And, you know, that middle section of this, Monty went pretty deep. We're talking about morale, and he has a whole other section here that I've got on morale, but I think we're going to save that for a number. another podcast since we're already two hours deep until then echo Charles if we want to keep our morale high if we want to nourish the seeds sure and we want to do the right things

for the right reason always so that we can win yes dominate are we doing we're kind of look at a dumb thing we're looking to dominate possibly looking to dominate we're not looking to dominate man no but you You got to be able to, we'll probably come, we'll revisit that word. Yeah. We'll do the full study of that word.

Yeah. And dig deep. At a minimum, it means, hey, we're gonna dominate. This guy dominates the room in a positive way.

Yeah. At the extreme, it's like this guy just has a dominant personality. Yeah. The problem is, how often do you see the person with a dominant personality

that rubs everyone the wrong way? Happens all the time. Dominant. Like domineering. Yeah. This guy's got a dominator. No one, don't want them on the team.

Yeah. Because you can't get a word in edgewise. That's why I question the use of this word. Yeah. Now, that being said, and I can see this. Uh-huh. I can see this. Just because someone has the will to dominate and it's strong,

doesn't mean that they sit there and rub everyone the wrong way. Because if they really had the will to dominate, what they would do is back off and allow others to step up and allow others to step up. and allow others to have their say and allow others to try and lead and to actually lead. If they were really going to play the game, they might have the strongest will to dominate,

but they don't act that way because they realize that that's counterproductive to actually dominating. Yeah. You look like you're confused. I mean, yeah. I mean, I don't know so much that I'm confused, but I think that if,

I feel like there's just a there's a more general broad use or meaning for that word. That's what I think. So I think you're right. That being said, it could also be if you have somebody that has a strong, incredibly powerful will to dominate, but they realize that that is abrasive and it is not the best way to actually win in a situation. They will modulate and they will tamper that. will to dominate so that it best serves the accomplishment of the mission and therefore best serves their domination.

Yeah. And I dig it. You know, it just does feel at this point right now it feels like that might be kind of a reach. It's like that thing that I talked about at the muster of what is what is leadership. And I talk about how like leadership is winning at all costs. And there's been some people that say, well, I don't know if winning at all costs seems like a bad attitude.

But the whole, because you put a clip like that for an advertisement for the muster, in a little muster clip. Sure. You put me going, leadership is winning at all cost, right? And there was something that commented on our, on the echelon front, Extreme Ownership Facebook private group that, you know, I don't know if I like this. It seems a little bit, that doesn't seem like a good attitude.

and you know, I replied that, hey, you have to hear the whole thing. That's only, that's only a few seconds. Because what it goes on to say is, if you really want to win, then you'll compromise.

Then you'll make exceptions. Then you'll build relationships and you'll take a backstep and you'll put your, you will subordinate your ego. Yeah. That's the biggest thing that I got from it. You will subordinate your ego

because you will put the mission above your own. personal will to dominate. Yeah. You'll, you'll subordinate your will to dominate so that you can actually win in the long term, in the long game.

Yeah. And it's important to remember if you heard you hear the whole speech or whatever, or the whole segment we'll say. Yeah. Is that, yeah, you talk like a lot about, um, where like there's like battles and then there's the overall victory and like

there's all this stuff. Yeah. And then sure, there's the dramatic parts when you're like, Like nothing's going to get in my way. Yeah, I'm going to win at all costs. But, yeah, like you sacrifice so much where, okay, so when you say win at all cost, it kind of this is what it sounds like if you just hear that line and nothing's going to get in my mind.

It sounds like even at the cost of like half my men or something like that. Not only that, but in the corporate world, it's like I'll just step on anyone I need to win. Right. I'll send bad product out to the consumers and I don't care if they get hurt or I don't care if it's, I don't care of whatever. I'm just going to win. I'm here. Like that. That's what people think when they're.

Yeah. So in that guy's defense, it sounds like that. But again, the whole speech, really, I mean, really one of the main, actually the takeaway, if not anything, is like winning. What is winning? Like, you know, if I lose half my men, did you really win? I think you actually say that exact thing. You're like, no. That's not a victory. Well, not with that because it's not a victory, but also how can you carry on with your mission? You can't your mission incapable now. Yeah. I'm actually putting, I'm actually putting that. I'm going to write that down, capture. that and I'm going to redo it for EF online. What? That part? That part. Yeah. You know, so that way people can understand what winning at all costs, what the means, what I'm talking about. Yeah. So we'll put that on EF online. If anybody wants to check that out. Yeah. If you don't know what that is, EF online is interactive leadership training from my company, Echelon Front, where we travel the world. teaching companies, businesses, organizations about leadership. In the course of doing that, we eventually got to a point where, A, we couldn't service all the people

that wanted our service. And B, some of the companies that we could service, we couldn't service all their employees because they have 50,000 employees and they want to have everyone get trained by Escalon Front. So talking to Laif during a board meeting, are you? Surfboard meeting? Yes. So Laif and I were surfing now. I said, brother, we need to figure out a way to scale this stuff.

Sure. And we, you know, I said, let's look at doing something online. And Leif was initially like, which makes sense, by the way. Yeah, for sure. No, and I wanted to explore it. I wasn't like all in out of the gate, but I was feeling pretty good about it. Because I'd seen some stuff. Laif really hadn't seen anything.

You know, he'd basically seen, well, you used to get trained online in the Navy. Yeah. Like for some, just the most ridiculous. sort of things they send you some online training course about if you get a DUI this is you know check this box if you think you're going to be in trouble you know they're just really not the best training and that's kind of what Laif had in mind yeah but eventually we decided to take a look at it once we looked at it it it's like oh man there's the capability is unbelievable to do interactive training and all that stuff so we invested in it we did it and now we've got this thing and we're using it

primarily, we're using it primarily for our, for our enterprise clients. So when National Front is working with a company, and they go, well, what are we going to do with our other 14,000 employees? How are we going to train them? Well, here you go. Now, now that's what they're doing. They're training through that great feedback. And, you know, the decision was, well, you know, there's not everyone is in a big company. And so maybe some of the smaller companies or just individuals. Because, because sometimes, you know, look at Sometimes people come to the muster and they're paying their own way to come to the muster obviously and Their company's not supporting it, but they want to improve. So that's why they're there at the muster

Well, it's the same thing with the EF online some sometimes you might just do it on your own because you want to become a better leader Why not get the experience of the echelon front team the the principles in practice you get to try them. So that's that's what it is so anyways where we add modules every month like new training and so I'm gonna put the what is leadership and the winning at all costs thing on there so people can listen to what that's really about and what it really means yeah yeah that broader views important in my opinion also what's important in my opinion is the ghee you get for jiu jih Tzu when you're doing jiu jitsu yes here's the thing when you start jiu jiu jit and you put on a key you don't have any basis for comparison you're not going to understand how

important that is. Do you want to put on a straight jacket when you take a drive or on the block? No. Correct. Sometimes you have to, but neither do I. And that's what it'll feel like if you buy one of these other geese. Yeah. Sometimes anyway. So the ghee you get is origin. You get an origin gey, many selections on there. Yeah. To fit who you are. And, And also there's jeans on there. Yes, there is. Yeah. Did I say origin jeans?

Made in America. American denim. American denim. And they are live. Well, you need to order a pair then. All right. Maybe I will. Get some.

Okay. Oh, right. There you go. Yeah, they're live. They are awesome. Highest quality possible. Every detail. Go if you want to find out what, because the jeans there, right now, the price point is

hundred and twenty four bucks that's a lot of money for a pair of jeans I understand that if you buy two pairs it's 99 bucks each here's the deal if you want to know why they cost that much going on to origin BJJ Facebook and watch Pete's video where he breaks down the details in the jeans you can see the whole thing why every little detail is covered denim pockets belt every little thing is done Perfectly to the next level and so they're more expensive they're also more expensive because we're just kicking it off Once we get once we keep building them will get more efficient. So yeah eventually the price is gonna come down if you can't afford them right now I meant school that's cool. That's cool. I get it do jeans have the whole situation of the first a dish

Well they are technically right now you can get first the first edition. Yeah, but that would be like a first batch Of them for run what do you call? First a dish is is live right now. Yeah go first a dish Bray, you ever seen those like designer jeans that cost like $300 how they're made? This is where you see people that are scraping them with rocks and stuff. Yeah, no, well, no, no, no. It's worse. It's worse than that. So they get like regular jeans or whatever and it's a certain color and just denim from wherever.

And they, you know, this factory in, I forget where. But, you know, a factory in. A factory in China. Yeah, I think it's China. Or in Pakistan or in India. And there's a, you know, these little kids that are nine years old. exposed to chemicals. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, the one I saw, the one I saw on a little bit, it was more tame than that. But nonetheless, they were like super like they're like $300 jeans or two things or something like this. And they go and the way they're made them like, how is that even worth $300? Like they cut the jeans like normal and it's like denim, you know, whatever. And then they do them like and they put like this steam on them and then they send it to the next person. Yeah.

The next station in the factory. The next station has this like, it's almost like. like a fishing line on a, what do you call, like a wheel, like a spinner. Oh, to make it look abused or whatever? Yes, exactly. Right. So it goes, and it spins on the jeans, and it makes it look a certain level of abused. Yeah.

Or weathered, what do you call it, distressed? Distressed. And then it goes to the next little station. And this person at the station is just doing every single one. Same thing, you know, next station, the next station has like a little, another thing to help it kind of do it. The next station fold it. And so I watched that thing with Pete in my point.

Yeah. And I'm like, oh man, that makes sense. This all makes sense. Like, this is deep, you know, this is good. Made me want to get one, obviously. But I thought back to that factory, and I'm thinking, man, how is that worth like $300 or whatever for that thing? It was such a throwaway process, like, when you see it and feel it. So I dig it, man.

They dig it. And they are made in America, by the way. Yeah, for sure. They're made in America. They're made in Maine. They're the cottons from America has died in America. It's woven in America And yeah

The price point is is more expensive than what you're gonna pay And hey you know I don't want you to go out and spend your last dollar on this pair of origin jeans No man But if you want to help out And you want the best they are the best possible genes you get if you want them then cool That'd be cool Yep But don't need to freak out

I'm not freaking out on my end We're trying to make good We're trying to make good quality products and our real mission is long-term mission to bring manufacturing back to America. We want these, we want to get these jeans down to a price point. How do we do that? Increase the volume. Make more of them. There'll be economies of scale.

We'll be able to lower the prices for sure. Absolutely. You know what? We talked to some gene people, denim people. They wanted us to charge $300 for these jeans. Yeah. Because they're like, well, you know, these are. Wait, what do they say they were?

Premium. Yeah, premium jeans, but there was another word too. Anyways, you know, there's people that pay that kind of money for jeans. I'm not one of them. Yeah, no. You know? I mean, yeah. But anyways.

Either way, well, the good news about the whole situation, including Made in America, they do have other stuff. So, and, man, I haven't talked about these shorts. So, and I don't know if you notice what I wear all the time. Yes. But the only thing I wear is these shorts, only one. Yeah. Straight up.

I mean, unless it's like, you know, to train or something like this. like just around is only the origin shorts. I've heard of the shark fan or whatever. Yeah. I have like six fairies of them. It's like the same thing. So I'm sure it's like, you know, if you go through your routine, like people at the store, they're like,

brother, this guy wears the same shorts every day, but well, one of them has a green logo. The other one has a black logo. Either way, these are literally the best shorts in the, like, ever made that I've put on. Straight up. Yes. So you can get those. Echo Charlie.

There you go. That's made in America. Oh, big time. Man. That's for real, though. Yeah. Well, you also said that about their joggers. Well, you know, those are the most comfortable for sure. And, well, and you know what?

Did I show you when I tried on joggers? You told me about it. So ridiculous. Yeah, the whole idea sounds ridiculous. You don't have a jogger, what do you call, physique? Yeah. What do you need to do? What's a jogger physique?

More like skinny knees or whatnot? I, I, I, I, don't know that I can put my finger on what exactly a jogger physique is, but I can tell you that I don't have it. Yes, sir. I confirm that. Yes. So don't worry about the joggers if you're jocco, but if anyone else, those joggers are factually

the most comfortable jogger sweat situation, clothes in existence. Currently, currently. You got some supplements too. Joint warfare, krill oil, discipline. Discipline go. We were on a Skype. Or a, yeah, this business Skype call today. Sure.

And Jason Gardner was on. And you know, you can, you have a little video. My little video? I don't know, which one? No, little video like Skype. Skype, you know what Skype is? It's video comp, video teleconferencing. Yeah, okay, I know what you mean.

Jason Gardner's like, like, pulls out his bottle of discipline go and opens it up and like takes one. And, you know, Jason's super animated. Yes. You know, and he gets this big wired smile on his face. because he took a couple hits of the discipline go. Anyways, so we got that if you need to get in the zone. We also have milk, mint milk, peanut butter milk, vanilla gorilla, the darkness chocolate, and now live strawberry.

Strawberry Slayer, Mol. Strawberry Slayer, oh, yeah, boy. All right, all right. So let me tell you, get that strawberry. Just straight up, get that strawberry. That thing is a dessert. Dessert dang okay so we like I don't know how well it's it's the the kids the warrior kid milk Which strawberry is awesome the chocolate's good the strawberries awesome the chocolate's good too

The strawberries awesome and I think I just was telling Brian like no hey man I don't care just put a bigger scoop in or whatever just Re duplicate it but you know he's like no it's got more protein it's adults blah blah blah And somehow he made it it's actually it's actually better or at least as good It might be better. Dang, that's saying a lot. It's so good, dude. It's so good. It's ridiculous.

It's a straight up dessert. It tastes like a milkshake, straight up if you mix it with milk, which is what I mix it with. It tastes like a strawberry milkshake. It tastes better than a strawberry milkshake. So if it's so good, it's ridiculous. Okay, you got a blind taste test.

You got all the protein that you need. Here you go. And then you have blind taste test. Right? You got to imagine because you know the difference. I get it. So you have a cop. Yeah, of warrior kid milk, strawberry, adult.

We'll just say milk, yeah. Strawberry. Mm-hmm. Right. Which one are you going to choose? Which one are you, you, you, you, you. I think I'm going to go for the adult. I thought you were going to throw a, a hog and daws strawberry shake in there.

Oh, yeah. But here's the deal. I'm not picking the hog andaws. It's too much. It's too much. It's too much. Yeah, that's kind of why I didn't say it. And it's not even, it's not even too much in a good way.

It's too much in a bad way. Right. It's like you don't want to drink it. The strawberry milk, you're like, just pounding it. Yeah. It's dessert. Actually feeling good about things.

Yeah. Interesting. All right. Well, I'm going to try that one because I have not. Actually, wait, I think he might as. He should have put some in the mail. Yeah. It just came out.

I have not tried it yet, but I will report back 100%. Jocka white tea as well. Yes. Don't forget about that. Yeah. It'll get you an 8,000 pound deadlift, which is no big deal to some people. To me, it's kind of a big deal. And it's organic, by the way.

So, you know. Yeah, 100% organic. Certified. Check. Also, yes, we have a store. Jocko has a store. So I made a video. It was fun about it, nothing like super in depth.

But, you know, I got all our friends, training partners and, you know, our people. Who you got? Noah. Noah. Oliver. Noah's got good arm locks. Yeah. He's actually been like, I mean, on top of Greg McIntyre, he's been kind of my main training

partner recently the past few months. months yeah the main he so him yes no Oliver Greg McIntyre Greg Tray is in there we got Nadine Nadine Belgian Nadine Tim Ford did I say Greg McIntyre he's all up in there yeah oh you got Dave Burke good deal day yeah good deal days in there Jamie's in there Jamie yeah yeah and then the kids should can we say who's kids there? There's some kids in there. We'll just say there's some kids in there, yes.

They're not my kids. They're not my kids. They're not my kids. They're warrior kids. We know. They're a worried kids 100,000 percent. Yeah, so yeah, they're in there. Tim's there. Anyway, the point is, they're just a cool, fun video. Jocko store, you want you want something to get, or if you like something, get something.

Nonetheless, jocco store.com is where you can get the shirts that say Discipline Equal Freedom, if you want to represent in the wild on the path. How's it? this when I was um this was a while ago so my my I had an extra shirt later on it was a size medium for that's what you were see what's funny is I knew you can say that I knew you're going to say something like that anyway I'm taking pictures for this you know you got to

take pictures for the products right for the store and for whatever reason the size medium that's the best looking size I guess for pictures I don't know nonetheless take the picture of it but I have it laying around right so my wife is like oh this is the extra shirt and you can I give it to like one of my friends or whatever. And I wasn't, I had no use for the shirt at this point. And I said no. Because I don't know if their friend is like going to represent. You know, I don't know if the friend is on the path.

Yeah. What if their friend's not on the path and they're wearing that shirt? That's, you know, it's different. There's more to it. That's what it feels like. You see what I'm saying? True story. Nonetheless, when you are on the path and you want to represent in the wild,

just go to jocco store.com. I was at the Joe Rogan show. Sure. The 420. Yeah, the 420 in San Diego. I was with Peter Attia. Yeah. And we were with a bunch of other dudes.

Sure. And Peter Atia was reminding me that on Twitter, somebody had said, hey, Jock, I wasn't in the SEAL teams, but I want to show support to the SEALs. Is it cool if I wear like a Navy SEALs trident on my hat? or t-shirt and my response was i was in the seal teams for 20 years and i don't wear a seal team hat or t-shirt well so wait so does that mean yes or no that means no yeah hell no right because okay so it's coincidentally me and good deal dave burke were talking about the exact same thing so i

forget how we end up talking about it but i was like hey what's the what's the what's this because he gave me me his uniform. I was doing something with it for video wise. And so I don't know, for whatever reason we ended up talking about, but like what can you wear? Like what can you not wear? What's off limits? Yeah. You know, on this thing? And he told me is like, you know, some stuff. But I don't know. So he had to sort of explain it to me. And that's essentially the scenario he painted. He was like, you know how like the Navy SEALs like they have the Trident. Yeah. Like you can't just put on a Trident. You know, like if you're to, not that you bring the Trident here, but let's say for whatever reason you brought I can't just grab it and like kind of put it on even as like for fun.

No it's like brother that's kind of off limits. You know you can't and then so you made the comparison to jiu jitsu belts too like if I grabbed your black belt and put it on granted you're kind of my friend. I could never you wouldn't even put on the black belt. Let's say I wasn't let's say I wasn't even a white belt let's say I was like even like a purple belt and my instructor who I wasn't necessarily personal friends with but that was happening to be my instructor I can't put that belt on what if he was what if you forgot your belt he was injured and he was on the sidelines and he's like oh just wear mine yeah would you wear it he would never do that but and what's funny is Dave Burke brought that

exact scenario up different colors though so yeah good question what someone's like hey just wear mine it's a blue belt he said he's in the guy he was training with I think it was a blue belt that he was training with he was like hey I have an extra one you don't have a belt you need a belt to you know to train and stuff like that gives them his blue belt Dave Burke said out of a recent For the guy's like you know suggestion he wore it but he did not feel good about it at all and I think I think that's kind of the deal where if some higher belt gives you you know what I used to give guys it like in the Dames if they started training I'd give him a a piece of one inch two tubular nylon green. Yeah

Which is just like to tie their belt do you remember Cameron? He's the Navy SEAL right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, cam. Yeah, cam. Yeah, cam. Good Jiu jitza. Yeah, yeah, good wrestler and strong. Yes. You know he came to my is the guy that you Do you know Cameron came to my house and tamed the beast? You know what that is with kettlebell? Tame the beast, you get the 48 kilogram kettlebell. Yes. Which you don't have one that big. Yes, I do.

Wait 48 is, but I have a nice. So I have one. But before I had those, he ordered one. And he was like in between houses at the time. So he ordered and had it sent to my house. He gets it. He comes to my house. First time he's ever picked up a 48 kilogram,

106 pound kettlebell. And there's a thing called. taming the beast which is you do a press with that kettlebell you do a pistol with that kettlebell and then you do a pull-up with that kettlebell the first time he ever did it he did it he did it right in front of me did it right like no warm-up just boom just did it yeah and that's saying a lot because he's not a large like I'm bigger than he he's like what one-95 yeah maybe not even maybe 190 yeah I might give him like one nonetheless yeah super super good guy saying a lot

nonetheless the point I bring him up is because the first time he ever trained geek because I trained with him before yeah and I was like oh this guy's probably at the time this is years ago I was like you're a purple belt I was a purple belt so I was like this guy's probably like a purple belt too so you know whatever I train with him one day he comes in in the geet so I'm like oh shoot you know that little party is like kind of like oh yeah you know let me confirm we know what but he has a piece of that green that dark green around and here's a thing it doesn't just stand out because it's like it's kind of dark or whatever but you see new guy come you know because he's sort of you know when you come and train for the first time in Ghee and some

class it's kind of like most of those people they kind of go down yeah exactly right but this guy's a new guy I knew who he was so I was like looking at I'm like okay that's obviously a military piece of equipment it's not a belt it was funny the looks on everyone's face though like this like They're kind of looking at each other. Like, can you do that? You know? It's crazy. Has the whole world gone crazy.

It's really funny. But that's how rigid the belt situation is, though. That's why you can't just grab a guy's belt. And as I know people, not specific people, but it would stand to reason, put it that way. It would stand to reason that even as a joke, if I grabbed like. You know what's funny? As a joke, I've been like, here, just wear mine. Like some people, you know, I've just been like giving people my black belt.

Like, oh, you know, like a blue. like a blue belt or a purple like here you just wear mine and I give it to me like like awkwardly awkwardly make them do it but that's how that's the dynamics of that you know before I really knew Jeff Glover yeah he came down here and did a seminar and he's like hey I don't have a belt and I was like yeah you can use mine and I was really I was actually worried yeah I've only had one belt yeah I've only had one belt my whole time like one black belt and I was worried I was like dang I mean not that I thought he was going to like steal it but I just was afraid, oh, you know, he's going to throw, you know, he'll put in his bag and next thing,

you know, it's in Santa Barbara and the next thing, you know, I'll never see my belt again, my special belt. Yeah, I was there for that day when he did it. Because I wasn't here, though. I wasn't here. That was the bar I was here and I had to go. Yeah. And so I didn't get to, but he hung it back up, Jeffrey Glover.

Yeah. Took care of his brother. I took a picture of him that day. Oh, really? We'll have to see if he's wearing my belt. He is wearing your belt in the picture and he's doing this and that picture ended up being used for a bunch of different stuff. Really?

Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's kind of cool then. My belt made it kind of famous with Jeffie. If you notice, like, the belt is a little bit long. It's funny. Oh, yeah, because I'm thicker than he is. Yeah, well, you have like an A, what, you know, the belt comes. A3, yeah.

And he's probably, he's an A1 for sure because he's 155. Yep, there it is. So don't do that. Don't worry. There was a guy. There was a guy at SEAL Team 2, who was just an incredibly well-respected guy in the days. And he had, I think he had two sons, and he was giving him like a, like a, like a hat, like a seal team two hat or something that had a trident on it.

Or he had an old one that he was giving to his son's like, hey, I'm not going to wear this and he's too old. And he made them cut the trident off of it if they wanted to wear it. I was like, yes. I dig it. And there's all those kinds of things, you know, like if even on a little super lower level, like, you know, if you made it through some little thing, like a, I don't know, like one of these Spartan races or something that you only get this shirt or hat if you did it.

Yeah. You know, and even then there's a little, I mean, it's, it's way more loose for sure. But, you know, like your wife puts it on or something. You're like, you know, do that. Yeah, man. I know my daughter, I know my daughter to represent that state, state wrestling championships. Those kids up there, they're buying those shirts and sweat shirts I got read about. What if you came home and your wife had your trident on?

Why would my wife have my dad? Just because she's trying to represent. Well, just take it from her. You see. No, actually, there's a thing where, there's a thing where, like, a seal will give his wife like a little necklace where they tried it on it. Yeah. Okay. You know, that's sort of there.

Why? So she doesn't take his? No, I don't think she'd be trying to take his, but I think it's just, you know, a little appreciation. Yeah, fully. But, no, but no, my, uh. Her wife knows what's up. Yeah, no, my wife doesn't have one of those. Yeah.

I know she doesn't make sense. So that's kind of how it is, right? Yeah. With the shirts from Jocko's store. Kind of. I mean, not to that level. But I put it this way If I see someone wearing

Representing, I know that they're representing. I know they're on the path right there. They're not just some guy who Person or whatever that's not on the path. It doesn't seem like that. Oh, they're definitely in the game. Yeah, for sure. Yeah They're definitely in the game. That's what it feels like. Sure. Boom. So there you go. Also Subscribe to the podcast. If you haven't already, I know seems obvious but apparently it's not as obvious from what I gather. Nonetheless, subscribe if you haven't already. Yeah.

And by the way, if you get a piece of gear, it supports the podcast. Is that important? Well, is it important? Hmm, it depends on what you mean by important. So yes. Yeah. I mean, it's important to let people know that the one additional bonus of representing is you're actually helping out the podcast support. We're going to get a new table, by the way.

Oh, yeah. Which has been ordered. Yeah, this is a little wiggles a lot. It's ridiculous. Yeah. Echo Charles's table. This is one of those things where like an apt punishment would be

you had to bring this to your house and use it as your dining room table for a year. Oh my gosh. No, yeah. Yeah. Why would you even think this is a good table? You know, the picture looked nice. Check.

All right, so we're going to get a new table. If you buy a T-shirt, we can get a new table that's not going to fall down and all that. But we appreciate that support too. And when you're subscribing to podcast, check out the Warrior Kid podcast. The Warrior Kid podcast. Is aimed at kids, but I promise you that Uncle Jake has lessons for everyone and also we have a kid a warrior kid named Aiden and he's making soap here in California

Irish Oaks Ranch.com if you want to get some some soap some jaco soap so that you can stay clean The guy he has a new one to trooper soap or so yeah different has a rope on it Soap and a rope piece of 550 cord by the way Layers for sure yeah yeah that's some good stuff by the way also YouTube we do have a YouTube channel if you're interested in the video version of this podcast you want to see what this table looks like week table it looks okay actually you can't see it yeah nonetheless you can see how wiggly all the books yeah table on the microphone yeah nonetheless if you're interested in the

video version of this podcast that's where you can find it also some excerpts on there if you don't want to watch the whole podcast at once you know some excerpts on there little lessons that you may have found important you can kind of Visit those also got psychological warfare Everyone that asked for an alarm clock with my voice on it Telling them to wake up or whatever Let's get the psychological warfare soundtrack The psychological warfare album on iTunes or Google player mp3 platforms and there's a bunch of things on there for me telling you

The right thing to do and why you should do the right thing So check that also check out flipside canvas my brother Dakota Meyer is making art Is that the right word? Yes, it is He's making art and putting art on canvases and vinyl posters that you can hang up and you can remind yourself the discipline equals freedom. You can remind yourself that all your excuses are lies. Yeah. Well, that's really good because a lot of people were, and we have posters for sure on, you know, the store. But this is a little bit, it's like one, maybe like three or four levels better than, you know, a poster.

Posters are cool, man. Like, of course, you hang in your gym, whatever. This is like. level. Yeah, it's like a level or yeah, multiple levels of. Flipside canvas.com. Flipside canvas.com. And also support Dakota Meyer for crying

out loud. Yeah, big time. Also, on it, on it.com slash jocko. This is where you can get fitness gear, kettlebells. I recently posted a picture of my newest kettlebell stormtrooper, which I saw that picture.

Yeah, it was a good picture. On it posted it as like a picture on their thing. You made it big. Oh, huge time. Made my day, big time. Kind of the guy now all of a second. No. No.

But, you know, nonetheless it happened. But, yeah, you can get, you know, kettlebells on there, some rope, some battle ropes. They got some good, like, immunity supplements, too. That's the one I actually have been religiously taking this Shroom Tech immune. Check. But you've got to take that one, especially if you're doing travel. Nonetheless, a lot of good, good stuff on there on it.com slash jocco. Have a little book coming out.

called Way the Warrior Kid, three, where there's a will. It is available for pre-order right now. If you want to help me and you want the book, please pre-order it so that I know how many to print. I failed miserably when it came to Mikey and the Dragons. Mikey and the Dragons, I didn't make enough. I ended up having a scramble to make more. I apologize.

We got them to everyone by Christmas, but it was not smooth. It was a little bit of a nightmare. Total failure on my part. This time, Weigh the Warrior Kid 3, where there's a will. Check out that book. Pre-order it now. It's coming out May 28th, by the way. So we're almost there.

But I can make more quickly, quickly enough to have them ready for you if you pre-ordered. Anyways, also, they weigh the Warrior Kid and Mark's Mission. Those are the first two books in that series. Mikey and the Dragons. Best book ever for little kids in the history of ever. That's confirmed, by the way. And the field manual, the discipline equals freedom field manual, that's a book about how to get after it,

no matter where you are in your life. It's a great place to start or to keep you, to start on the path or to keep you on the path. The audio version of that is on iTunes, Amazon Music, Google Play. Extreme Ownership. First book I wrote with my brother Laif Babin. The Dicotomy of Leadership. Second book I wrote with my brother Laif Babin.

Eschelon Front, that's our leadership consultancy. We solve problems. through leadership. That's what we do. Go to echelonfront.com. The muster. May 23rd and 24th. Sold out.

Done. That's in Chicago. September 19th and 20th in Denver. That one is going to sell out. So is Sydney, December 4th and 5th. If you want to come to the muster, Extreme Ownership.com, that's where the details are.

They're all going to sell out. All of them have sold out and all of them will sell out. So if you want to come, get on there and get registered. EF online, I already talked about that. The EF Overwatch is where we take leaders from special operations, from combat aviation, and we place them into companies that need leadership inside their organization. So you don't always want to hire someone just because they've been working in some industry for a long time.

Hire someone that has leadership capability and then get them up to speed on the industry. These guys are proven combat leaders. They can step up and take you to the place you need EFoverwatch.com. And if you want to cruise with us, hardcore, by the way, hardcore cruising, which is my recommended level of cruising from time to time, rest between sets. We're on the interwebs. Twitter, Instagram, and on Facebook. You thought I was going to do it like you, didn't you?

Anyway, I'm at Echo Charles, and Jocko's at Jocko Willink on all of them. And thanks to all our military folks out there that are on. the front lines of freedom standing watch and thanks to police and law enforcement firefighters paramedics EMTs dispatchers correctional officers border patrol secret service and all first responders who maintain vigilance 24 hours a day 365 days a year to keep us safe here at home and to everyone else out there remember some of those lessons from field Marshall Montgomery.

Remember to cut the overlying difficulties and see the essentials of what you need to do. And then take a dispassionate view of good things and bad things that are going to assail you and use your force of will to keep getting after it. And until next time, this is Echo. and jaco out