Jocko Podcast - 210: Leadership Strategy and Tactics. First Look and Review, Pt.1 with Dave Berke

Episode Date: January 1, 2020

0:00:00 - Opening 0:05:26 - Leadership Strategy and Tactics, by Jocko. Summary Review and Analysis. 2:40:32 - How to stay on THE PATH. 3:03:39 - Closing Gratitude.  Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 210 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. And also joining us tonight is Dave Burke. Good evening, Dave. Good evening. And the last time that Dave was on, we discussed Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication Three, Tack One, Tactics, which starts with a line that reads,

this publication is about winning in combat, which is an outstanding way to start off any publication of any kind. And we actually ended up covering that manual on a series of four podcasts, 187, 188, 189, and 190. And that definitely is an outstanding manual when it comes to winning in combat, for sure. It explains the concepts, it reveals the underlying, philosophies and there are other doctrinal publications from the Marine Corps on operations and on

strategy and on campaigning and there's manuals on intelligence and expeditionary operations and logistics and planning and command and control there's a manual on the Marine rifle squad they got manuals for everything there's even a Marine Corps war fighting publication of three tack 15.1 called machine guns and machine gun gunnery, which is a 406 page manual, by the way, 406 page manual. This is the manual where you learn that quote, this machine gun supports both the offense and defense. It provides the heavy volume of close, accurate and continuous fire support necessary to suppress and destroy enemy fortifications, vehicles, and personnel in support of an attack.

The long-range, close defensive and final protective fires delivered by this gun form an integral part of the unit's defensive fires. So they're going deep. They're going deep on machine guns and machine gun gunnery. Is there a title of any book in the world that has a gun in it more times? I don't know of any. It also shows you exactly how to fire from the bipod with a 240 Gulf. So firing from the bipod, when firing from the bipod, the rear sight is raised, assume

a prone position behind the gun with the right shoulder into the weapon. The right hand grasps the pistol grip and manipulates the trigger. Place the left hand on the comb of the stock, palm down with the cheek resting lightly against the cover and or the left hand. hands exert a firm steady pressure to the rear during aiming and firing unlike the tripod the bipod mount is relatively unstable elbows and upper torso may move a good sight picture must be regained before firing each burst so we're getting detailed there's no there's not much room for interpretation we're getting

the instruction that we need by the way the army also has a manual for machine gunners the FM3 tack 22.6 8 crew served machine gun, which doesn't actually cover the 50-Cal. It's got another manual for that. It doesn't cover the Ma Deuce, but it's still 430 pages long. So they are not playing around. And by the way, we salute all the machine gunners out there for what you do, laying down that suppressive fire. And we understand that manuals get granular and show us how to do a specific job. Now, the military does have leadership manuals as well, and we've covered a bunch of them,

and they are solid in explaining some of the principles of leadership, but I always wanted something that was more granular, more detailed, more specific for leadership, something that explained the actual strategies and tactics to be used when leading people, the little maneuver that you make up and down the chain of command. And so I wrote a book and it's called Leadership Strategy and Tactics Field Manual. And it is released January 14th, 2020. And I wanted to review it for you all right as it comes out to highlight what the book is, how you can use it, and what the book will do for you as a leader.

and since I work with Dave all the time, first in the Battle of Ramadi and now at Eschalon Front and since he's been on the podcast, multiple times, and since he listens to the podcast, and since he was the first person that I gave this book to read,

I figured it made sense to have him on here so he could help me introduce the book to the world. So Dave, thanks for coming on, man. Good to be here, man. You got a couple versions. You got the early versions. I did. I got a couple early versions.

Yeah. I was just, I was, uh, just spilling thoughts on the page like this, this, this, this. And then I started to formulate them into categories and eventually turned them into this. So, leadership strategy and tactics, we're going to go to the book. And I kind of had to do a little bit of an explanation here in the beginning of the book, just to explain sort of what's going on here, who I am, what, well, it goes like this. Who am I to try and teach leaders how to lead? Where did I learn leadership?

Much of my leadership education was luck. I say luck because there were a few fortunate coincidences that gave me the right frame of mind, the right teachers, and the right opportunities to learn. One of the ways I was lucky and that made me focus on leadership was the fact that I wasn't really that naturally talented at anything in particular.

As a little kid, I wasn't the fastest or strongest or smartest. I was never great at shooting a basketball, kicking a soccer ball, or throwing a baseball. I didn't win any races or have a shelf of trophies and ribbons from sports. My report card was never exceptional either. I might have done well in a class if I was interested, but I usually wasn't. And my grades reflected that. I was average across the board. Coming out strong.

Coming out strong. Average across the board. That's where we're at. And this is where it kind of ties in. So even from a young age, I needed to get others with more talent and more skill to do what I needed them to do. I needed to lead. Of course, I didn't think of it as leadership. I just thought I was making things happen and contributing by getting people to work together,

to support one another as we moved toward a common mission. Now, maybe that mission was building a fort in the woods. or planning a mock military assault with squirt guns on another group of friends. And this is real. Like I remember when it was time to build a fort, when it was time to organize an assault on some other group, I'd be like, all right, hey, this is what we need to do. And that's because I knew that little Johnny could run faster than me.

I knew that Billy could scale that wall better than I could. But I could take a step back and say, okay, this is how we should do. It would be the best way to build this sport. This is what we need to do. So whatever the task was, I generally found myself giving direction to people who were stronger, faster, or otherwise more capable than I was. That seemed to be where I could help the most and the one area in which I could perform with a higher level of competency. I also always had a rebellious streak, which I think everyone has. I think, well, I shouldn't say that.

I think many people, because how much of a rebellious streak did Kyle Carpenter have? Like, he didn't have much of a rebellious streak. I mean, he had enough to join the Marine Corps. But when you listen to him, he's like, yeah, he wasn't looking to rebel. He was just on the path from day one. Kind of got it. So maybe it's not every kid. But me, yeah, I had a little rebellious streak.

And maybe it was another way for me to leave a mark. I wouldn't conform to the way other kids acted. I acted differently. Listen to hardcore and heavy metal music and had a hardcore attitude about things. That attitude set me apart from the pack. Once I was on the outside of the normal kids, I was detached from them, so I observed.

Looking in from the outside, I garnered a better understanding of the people I was watching. I saw their emotions, their clicks, and their drama unfold from a detached position I learned. So that's uninteresting. point two that I thought about while I was putting this together. I remember. Okay, so you know you got the kids, movie reference, Echo Charles, Breakfast Club.

Yes, sir. So you got the stereotypical kids, right? The jock. Yeah, wrestler. The rebel guy. Yep, John Bender. The preppy or the popular girl. Yep.

The nerd. The nerd. And then what was the black-haired girl considered? Oh, like a recluse, like a hermit, like an outcast. Artsy, artsy, right? Give me artsy. Artsy girl? Yeah, yeah.

Actually, she was artsy because remember she drew that picture of the snow cabin and then she made her danger to go on it as snowfllex. Yeah, you were correct. Okay, so artsy, jock, princess, popular, nerd, and kind of stereotypical rebel. So at my school, like, yeah, we had all those kids, right? Yeah. And I really wasn't in any of those groups. You know what I'm saying? So I kind of had, I kind of had.

I kind of had friends in each one of those groups, which is kind of weird in its own right. I was friends with some of the popular kids. I was friends with some of the burnouts. I was friends with some of the metalheads. I was friends with some of the prep. Like I was kind of friends. I had a couple friends,

but I wasn't really considered to be in any of those groups, which meant I was actually watching them. You know, even from a young age, I was going, oh, yeah, I see how the burnouts are. I see how their little hierarchy is. You know, which is different. But it allowed me to kind of like look and learn. Strange.

No, man, that makes perfect sense. I mean, I had a similar experience in high school. Look, first, just real quick, that active rebellion, joining the military is an active rebellion. Oh, yeah, it definitely was for me. Kyle Carpenter is such a great dude. He's just a good guy. But anybody that does that is doing something

that's totally counter to what 99% of the world is doing. There's no question about that. Yeah, well, yeah. I mean, his mom was definitely against it, we'll say. And yet, but that's a cool thing about Kyle is like he, he talked them through it, you know. He eventually was like good enough to be like, hey, this is what I really want to do. And he, remember, he went to, he went to college to kind of say, okay, I'll let me try college. And then, you know, he moved in that direction.

I actually, I joined the Navy. I didn't even tell my parents. I just, like, joined. Yeah. And then I told, actually, I, actually. And I noticed when I wrote this, I was like, reading a little section, I said like, oh, I was talking to my dad. And I had already joined the Navy when I told my dad. I was, I said, yeah, hey, by the way, I joined the Navy.

And I think he was just kind of stoked that I was not going to go to jail or just be an idiot for the rest of my life. So, yeah, it's interesting how, as I reflect back, just being on the outside gave me maybe the initial idea. of being detached and looking at things from a different perspective only because I wasn't quite one of those any of those groups Interesting. All right Continuing on joining the Navy was still the best thing I could have done It gave me a blank slate and clear direction No one in the Navy cared that I didn't have the best grades in high school It didn't matter that I wasn't the best athlete no one was concerned about where I was from what my parents did or anything else about my history

They shaved my head gave me a uniform and told me what I needed to do to be successful. Make your bed like this, fold your underwear like that, polish your boondockers until they look like mirrors. If you could follow the rules and do what you were told to do, you'd be put in a leadership position. I did follow the rules, and I did what I was told to do, and it paid off, and I was made a squad leader in boot camp.

What does that mean, tactically? Nothing. But it meant a lot to me at the time. I mean, think about it. A squad leader in Navy boot camp. that that is a very minimal leadership role

but for me at that time it was a role was a leadership were there are three squads I mean I think there was more I think there was like six squads

because we had a big open bay barracks and I think there was three squads on each side because you were basically grouped by your bunk beds yeah and so but yeah you needed a squad leader so I might probably had

I don't know 15 people in my squad And there was another guy who was from New England and he was a wrestler and he was going to be a seal and he ended up being a seal. He's an awesome guy. But he ended up being the master at arms because he had been to college. And you know, so he was and then our, the guy that was the recruit chief petty officer, the RCPO. So like the senior of all of the recruits. this guy was

he had turned down his commission or something like that so he did ROTC for four years the Navy paid for four years of college and he said I don't want to get a commission and they said cool you're going to be an enlisted guy for two years and that's what he did

which which is a really look I don't want to say it's a bad call but that seems like a bad call to me he got his commission or he was ready to get his commission now who knows because everyone in boot camp lies to each other when it comes to like you know you meet all these guys that were I just are there yeah I was just about to be you know got I just got drafted by whatever the the Miami

dolphins but I really wanted to serve so I enlisted in the Navy you're looking at that guy thinking wow what position were you going to play at 117 pounds but yeah so I'm not sure if my RCPO was actually like maybe he got in trouble right you go to four years of college you're supposed to get your commission and you get a DUI or something then They're not going to commission, but you do owe us two years of enlistment. So he was there. He was a squared away guy. I don't remember what happened to him.

The master at arms, who was a total, total stud, great guy, awesome wrestler, wrestling in college. And he was the master at arms. And then I, with no experience, was a squad leader. So my first, my first leadership role. And I was stoked. Dude, totally. That's something. Yeah.

Yeah. Buds was the same way for me. I still wasn't great at any particular skill, not the best runner or swimmer, not great at the obstacle course, but I could do what I was told. I could play the game, and I wasn't going to quit.

Some people say that everyone thinks about quitting during buds. I never did, not for a second. That thought never crossed my mind. Hell week, a five-day block of continuous physical training with almost no sleep whatsoever, and which causes the highest number of people to quit, was actually relaxing for me. because during Hell Week

nothing is timed during all other facets of buds students are constantly on the clock timed runs, swims and obstacle course evolutions take place every day if you miss the time and fail one of them you are on the bubble and if you fail again you're out

that's what it was when I went through it was stressful but during Hell Week nothing was timed you just had to keep going you just had to not quit and for me that was the easy part

pretty straightforward That's a good skill to have. It's like the other thing. Genetically, I don't have to sleep a lot. And that was, I picked a perfect career for that. Like, I'm saying I wasn't good at anything, which is true. Not the best runner. Middle of the pack runner.

Middle the pack swimmer. Middle the pack on the obstacle course. And I didn't really think about the not sleeping thing. But that is something that I had. And I didn't really realize it at that time. But when I got done with Hell Week, I remember my roommates were beat up, you know, and tired. And I remember I slept for, you know, like a solid eight hours or something. And I got up and I was doing eight-count bodybuilders.

And I was like, I'm regular rock and roll. And they were like, yeah. So good times. When I got done with Buzz, I checked into SEAL Team 1. It was fired up as all of us were who were checking into that sacred place. of war heroes and legends the master chief of the command the highest ranking enlisted seal at team one welcome to subboard no one here cares that you made it through buds we all did it doesn't mean anything here you have to prove yourselves and earn your trident so keep your mouth shut your

ears open and don't forget anything and be on time any questions the trident was the gold insignia worn on the uniform which indicates you're a seal to receive our tridents we had to go through a six month probationary period and then go through a written and oral review board with the senior enlisted personnel at the team. We were all nervous about that and the master chief provided no comfort whatsoever. In the early 90s, and again, I'm skipping through chunks of the book just to kind of get to the meat. In the early 90s when I got to SEAL Team 1, the training progression was different from how it is

now. Back then, once on board a team, you were eventually assigned to a SEAL platoon. This is where you would actually learn to be a SEAL. Up until that point, the training wasn't tacking, buds. you don't learn very much about the actual job of being a seal. You learn how to be cold, wet, and tired, and miserable, and not to complain about any of it. But you don't learn any of the job skills

that make you into a professional operator. Those skills were taught to you once you were in a seal platoon. There you learned through a fire hose. There was so much knowledge needed, so many skills to develop, so many tactics to understand, you felt as if you would never know it all. But like the rest of the new guys, I listened and learned every single day.

In my first three platoons, I learned a few key concepts that stuck with me for the rest of my career. And they were also the base upon which I built most of the principles I ended up teaching to the rest of the SEAL teams and eventually to companies, businesses, and organizations around the globe. These are examples of the lucky moments I referred to earlier. I was in the right place at the right time with the right frame of mind to learn what I did. Then I was lucky enough to have other experiences to overlay what I had learned.

and slowly subconsciously begin to formulate a system of leadership that I was then lucky enough to apply on one of the most challenging battlefields in the world, the Battle of Ramadi, in the summer of 2006. When I returned from that deployment, I took over the training for the West Coast SEAL teams where I formalized, codified, and transcribed what I had learned. But the roots of everything I eventually wrote down originated in a very non-traditional but highly effective learning environment. the seal platoon yeah so that's the opening kind of a little a little what is it an excerpts of the opening of the book just to kind of if people have no idea who I am hey this is who I am yeah the biggest takeaway from that because most of the people listening just like me aren't seals and aren't going to be seals the thing that you said that I think is the most important of all that is the thing about frame of mind.

Because what happens in the circumstances and all, you can't control any of those things. But everybody's going to be exposed to some things in their life. And if you have the right frame of mind, you can actually learn from it. You were talking about being in high school. It isn't just that you had different groups of friends. If you're like me, which I think you were,

even in high school, you were looking and saying, I can see the glide path for that group. It's not guaranteed, but if they keep down this road, I could tell in high school where these different groups were likely going to go. Some appealed to me, some did not appeal to me. And even in high school, if you have the right frame of mind, you can actually start to learn the biggest problem with that is

I was an idiot in high school, and I didn't have the right frame of mind. You can't control those lessons, but if you actually have just enough, a tiny bit of willingness to just kind of pay attention what's going on around you, you don't have to be in the SEAL teams to get these same lessons. They're all out there in life, everywhere.

And that would be, people always ask me, if you could go back and do it a little over again, what would you change? I'm like, I usually say nothing. I actually would try to tell young Dave Burke, hit your frame of mind, just pay a little more attention what's going on around you

because it's all out there, even in high school. It's all there, man. I got asked this the other day. I was getting interviewed or something, and I've been asked it before. And it's a similar kind of concept, right? The question was, like, what was the moment

where this all kind of came together? and I kind of wanted to give a dramatic, you know, a dramatic answer, a poignant answer. Oh, I remember. It was a rainy day. And it was like, no, every one of these things is a slow build. And like, you don't even know, you don't have the right frame of mind, right? You don't have the right frame of mind to say, oh, this is what, this is what's happening right now. But you can look back, that's what I'm doing now, is, you know, writing.

that forward, looking back in my life saying, where did I, where did I come to these conclusions? Because at some point, I definitely did. At some point, I recognize these things, but it was a slow, I shouldn't say that at some point. Over time, I got to a point. I arrived at a point. Now, that is true when I, and you've heard me tell the story of taking over the training for the West Coast Steel teams and I went out on that training operation. It was a total disaster. And I went back to my barracks room that night and wrote down the four laws of combat. That's, That's it right there. Like that was what happened.

But when I wrote down the four laws of combat for the first time, I wasn't trying to figure them out. I wasn't trying to see what they were. I knew what they were and I just had to write them down. I had learned them over and over again from a bunch of different people in a bunch of different ways. And so now it was, okay, cool.

How can I explain these to the rest of these guys that are going to be coming through this training where they can take them and implement them quickly? Yeah. So there's, Unfortunately, there's no point now. My curiosity is when someone gets fed this information now, right? When someone that's at the basic school and the Marine Corps listens to the podcast that we did, that series of podcasts and goes, is that, do they get just a hyper move forward?

Because I look at it and think, man, if I would have had this podcast when I was younger, I'd have been a million times in a better position. Is that, do people get a hyper boost, do you think? I bet you some people do. But I still think that you're fighting against some of the human nature that I'm not even convinced that Dave Burke in a time machine that still have the maturity, even being told exactly how this could work in your favor to have the frame of mind to listen to it. there's a but there are undoubtedly some folks I guarantee you that are seeing this and go holy crap without this my life would be different and there's still a whole bunch of people that

you can hit it over the head and then they're not going to absorb it and they have their own timelines but you can see when people get dialed in and in the military I mean those culminating events like you're just talking about you get a couple of them in your career you get maybe two or three if you're lucky some people get one a lot of people don't get any I'm in touch with a pretty good number of guys going through the basis school and social media and whatnot, and they are so much more dialed in than I ever was, so much more dialed in. And I think, you know, that's a combination of things. I started in the P-Syme Marine Corps, and I think it's a different viewpoint.

And they started in war foot at wartime Marine Corps. But those kids seem to be way more dialed in. And they're absorbing this and paying attention to this. You know, even Jason Gardner at some point was saying, I think it was the one who was on the podcast. he was saying like, hey, he started adjusting, he was a master chief. Yeah. And he was adjusting his game. He was listening to the podcast and he was like, yep, here's what's going on.

Here's what's going on. He's like he. And so his mind was open enough. You know, it reminds me, I was, I don't know what age I was, but I wanted to get a new bike. And I was at that age where, you know, I grew up in a small town and if you were going to ride somewhere, it was, you know, it was, it was work, right? It wasn't it wasn't it was more than a three minute bike ride, you know and I think I had saved up whatever 70 bucks or something and I asked my dad Hey, I really need a new bike

Can you can you can you can we split the cost or whatever and he says okay, you know, so cool because what does that mean for him? It means it doesn't have to worry about driving around I mean it's basically I'll leave him alone So I go and you know we go to the bike store and I go to get to get the bike and I'm gonna get a BMX bike and I'm at that age where I could get a 10 speed so that it was that point like I'd never even had speeds before but all of a sudden I'm old enough so I was probably 12 or something where I could get a 10 speed you know with the curve down handlebars yeah and my dad's thinking yeah you know you got a bike three four six miles five miles whatever you're gonna want this 10 speed and of course I'm like no I want

this BMX bike. So we end, he ends up, I mean, you can see, looking back at the conversation, he's just looking at me saying, thinking to himself,

you're an idiot, you're going to want this bike. And I said, no, I definitely want this BMX bikes. I'm going to go off road or whatever. And sure enough, we get the, we get the BMX bike.

And, you know, two days later, after my fourth, you know, six mile bike ride into town, I'm thinking I wanted that TED speed. So,

there's certain this is the problem with life the problem with life is that there's certain lessons yeah that only life can teach you now what I hope is like when you give me that feedback about the basic school like what I hope is you go okay yeah I there's there's some lieutenants going and I get the same thing guys in the teams right now the young JOs in the teams I get army I mean we have all kinds of army guys mean even in Australia that was cool a bunch of army a bunch of army guys that were coming up saying, hey, this is what I'm doing. Thank you.

Yep, learn this, learn that. So I think you can make more rapid progress if you have the right frame of mind going in. Without a doubt. And there's more out there now than there was to be able to figure that out sooner. And there are guys and gals out there, certainly in the military,

doing it way sooner than I did. Yeah, in the SEAL teams, when you get done with a job, like you get done with being an assistant platoon commander and now you're ready to be good at it you're not allowed to do it anymore it's over totally by the time you haven't figured out you're done with it yeah platoon commander hey all right i think i've got this dialed now it's over and it's time to become a tasking new commander by the time you feel good about being a tasking your commander okay you know i'm sorry and i was super lucky again see i talk about luck a lot so i was a prior

Unlisted guy when I was an assistant platoon commander the only person in my Platoon at SEAL Team 2 that had more experience than me was the platoon chief who was another guy from team one that we kind of grew up together in the teams he was he was a little bit more he'd been in the teams a little bit longer than me but not too much longer so we were like the experienced guys when I was a platoon commander same thing like I was my platoon chief had been in for probably an extra six months longer than me but after that it was just a bunch of, you know, basically guys that had been in for six years.

We'd been in for 13 or 14. And then when I was a task unit commander, it was like Tony, Tony Afradi, and he had been in for probably two or three years longer than me, but then after that, it was just people that had been in for, you know, less than half the time and half the amount of experience. So that's luck, you know.

So when I'm doing a task unit commander, now I'm talking about how I was, Developing my skills even as a tasking commander I had been in for 15 years Imagine a normal tasking your commander that's only been in for six years or no I guess they've been in for seven years or eight years That's a normal tasking operator I've been in for 15 I had taught I'd been an instructor at seal team one in the training department

I'd done land warfare trip after land warfare trip I'd done CQB trip after CQB trip I've taught I taught everything and that was when I was a young single guy too I was in the training command to guess what trips I went on all of them all of them all of them Totally. Like, oh, you need someone to go out to the desert? Cool, I'm in. You need someone to go to this new mount facility that we've never taken a platoon cool.

Go, yeah, I'm going. No factor. So that's why I was so lucky because, and this is another thing. When you're an instructor, when you're de facto detached. So now I'm watching these JOs go through. And I'm like, oh, yes, this guy's making all kinds of mistakes here because he's all caught up in it. Whereas I can see everything because I'm watching him and I can connect the dots.

Oh. When you can see everything. Matter of fact, I was talking to Andrew Paul about this. Andrew Paul was going through something as a reserve. Because he's a reservist in the teams. And he was going through some training, but he was observing. And he's like, yeah, I could see everything. And I go, yeah, man, yes, yes, that's it.

That's the mindset you have to have. So that's why, you know, I like to emphasize the fact that I was very lucky. even the frame of mind that I had wasn't because I was advanced beyond the other people it was I got lucky that I had a little bit more I wasn't more senior but I had more time

I had more experience and those experiences early on opened up and put me in the right frame of mind luckily so what I do then in this in this book I go through these first three seal petunes, which are very, there's this kind of, does this happen,

I guess it happens in everything. When you learn something for the first time, this happens in the teams all the time. The way people learn something for the first time is the way they think is correct forever. For sure. And it takes like a beat down to get it out of them.

Dude, unlearning that, yeah, I think it's probably the same everywhere, but certainly in aviation too. When you learn it from somebody else, because first of all, the guy teaching you,

you think is a god, because he's teaching you, You don't know anything about him other than he's the teacher. So he must be better than everybody at this. And when you learn it and you figure it out, that is the answer forever. I had a guy. I had two guys that were like Vietnam era. And one of them was saying to do something some away.

And I knew it was wrong. Which is crazy to think about, right? But what happened was we were doing while I had done two back-to-back, ARG deployments, which is out on a ship with the Marine Corps, with the Navy, we're doing over the beach all the time. Every operation we did was from the ship to the ribs, boats, from the ribs

to Zodiacs, from the Zodiacs across the beach. I mean, I did over and over and ago. I'd done, I did so many over the beach ops. We, and it's over the beach ops are so, did you ever do over the beach ops? Negative. They're so ridiculously, they're so ridiculously hard.

I mean, everything, like, you're going to swim in. So everything is going to be wet. All your radios are going to be. And this is before we had waterproof radio. So everything had to be waterproof properly. Your weapons are going to get trashed. I mean, you're going to be freezing.

It's going to be those waves. It makes everything. I want to give an accurate assessment. I would say that if you compare to like, hey, we're going to take a helicopter to this target and we're going to land and we're going to patrol in, compared to we're going to take boats. We're going to go over the beach and swim. I think it's probably. I would say six times harder.

It's six times harder because of a, wait, maybe four, maybe four to six times harder. It's that much harder. I'm thinking about the preparation that you'd have to do and the worries that you'd have and then where you'd have a problem. Like you're, let's face it, once you're on the ground, you're not going to have a problem. Like, we got this. You're bringing the boats in at night. You're sending swimmer scouts in to go there and signal that the beach, I mean, you're losing

people, bro. It's crazy. And then you're swimming in. There's waves. Your boats can get turned over. Your motors can fail. There's just total. It makes everything so much harder.

So I had this Vietnam guy, Vietnam era guy, that was saying to do something a certain way. And I'm not going to get into the tax. He was saying to do a thing a certain way. And I knew that it was wrong because I had just got done with two Arg-Baloons where I did mission after mission after mission. And I knew that that was not the right thing to do. And the other Vietnam guy said, hey, man, he's wrong. He's wrong.

Just play the game a little bit. And the actual thing that he told me was people don't always remember things right. He was just being merciful about it. He wasn't being a jerk. He was just like, look, people don't always remember things right. So, but the way you learn something in your first person. So this guy probably learned the guy that was, telling us to do something a certain way,

probably learned this from somebody somewhere along the way and just thought it was the right way to do things. And I had learned through actual experience, like, hey, you do this enough times, go over the beach, go to Red Beach at Camp Pendleton in the middle of the winter when there's an eight-foot swell and you're getting cleaned out. You learn, man, you learn what to do.

And you get good at it. And I think that the way people, people learn things for the first time is it leaves a mark on people and it's very hard to change their minds So you got to be careful of that there's probably so is there a bias around that echo Charles Like an official bias for it like the way you learn something for the first time are you always biased towards thinking that's correct Is that an official type of bias not that I can think of okay but it's very possible yeah okay so we have a possible bias Possible bias dude I think that's really hard to undo Really hard to undo.

I saw that all throughout my career in a whole bunch, not just in flying, a whole bunch of different things. People route their heads around that and it's really hard to undo that. Yeah. I saw that all the time and I saw it in myself and as soon as I saw it myself, I recognized, okay, this is just what you learned and what you learned can be wrong. Yeah, I mean, that's the frame of mind we were talking about before. You and I, we talk about all the time as the phrase of question everything. And it's not to question everything to be a jerk about things. It's actually question yourself more than anything is,

do I not actually understand this the way I think I do? Does that guy know something or have seen something or experienced something that maybe I haven't? And the questioning is what it is actually questioning yourself more than anything is what I know actually correct. And I think that's part of the reason why it's so hard to undo that is that people are convinced they understand it. And it's really hard to undo that. The questioning is yourself of is this right? And a lot of people don't have the frame of mind to do that. Yeah.

It's a trap. It is a trap. It's a trap. You got to be careful of it. So getting back to the book here in this part, Section 1, Foundations. This is I go through kind of these first fundamental three platoons where I learned. And the reason I went on this whole tangent about learning things for the first time is because this is where I saw these certain principles for the first time. And again, it wasn't like I saw the principal.

It was like, oh, there it is. I got this. It was like this is where the seed got planted and it started to grow. The first platoon, the first section here is called detach. It was in my first platoon that I learned the power of being able to detach myself from the chaos and mayhem going on, take a step back and see what was actually happening. I was lucky that it happened the way that it did. So I go through the entire evolution of me learning that.

And that is one of those moments where I absolutely. remember it happening. So if the guy would have asked me, hey, when did you learn to detach? Instead of asking me broadly, hey, what? When did all this stuff come together? I couldn't answer that. But when I learned to detach, absolutely remember it on an oil rig, doing training. No one's making a call.

I end up making the call. My second platoon, what I learned in my second platoon, second platoon had a, had a mutiny. And I saw the difference between arrogance and I saw humility and I saw. I saw the stark difference into what following someone that's arrogant was like and following someone that is humble as like. And I ended up with, I started with the most arrogant platoon leader and we had a mutiny and we rebelled against him and he got fired. And then we ended up with the most humble and knowledgeable and squared away platoon commander. And the attitude that we had with the arrogant guy, we would, I don't think we sabotaged on a regular basis. But there was like subcont, like we'd be doing a mission, a training mission that he had forced his plan down our throat.

We didn't want that thing to succeed. We wanted to prove him wrong. And I don't know if that was always a conscious thing. I think most of the time it was subconscious. But no doubt, we didn't want to follow him. And think about how disturbing that is. You're in a SEAL platoon and the platoon commander, there's not one single guy in the entire platoon that actually wants to follow that guy.

And this is the frame of mind thing. I had to trace this back. I didn't say what? I didn't say, we don't like him because he's arrogant. I didn't, I wasn't smart enough to figure that out. I just knew that we didn't like that guy. We don't like that guy. And what made it so clear was when the next.

guy came in to take his place and he's and he's super humble and even then it didn't strike me it wasn't until I actually thought about it from a leadership perspective why did we hate that guy and wouldn't want to fall we no one in a seal platoon wants to follow their leader that's disgusting yeah and then you get another guy same group same seal platoon exact same guys and you get a humble guy that gives ownership and all of a sudden we will do anything for this guy and to make sure that we don't let this guy down. Yeah. But when people get, people going to get the book when they read it, there's more in there

when they're, and I won't give it too much away, but you talk in more details. There's other things about the lessons that in looking back on, you can call those luck too, but you were actually lucky that your boss in that very first story didn't crush you and just destroy and wipe out the opportunity to learn that lesson when you made that call. Because some bosses could have just worn you down and put you into a position, never do it again. You're actually lucky that on that second platoon, that mutiny story, you're actually lucky in some ways that they let you know that, hey, we don't do this. So there's all these other layers of things in there. It isn't just that, hey, we had a bad boss and then we got a good boss.

It's actually that you could, that you had the frame of mind. And we keep saying that over and over again to look back. And you didn't get validated like, oh, yeah, well, you have a problem. Just come to me and I'll take care of it. and these problems go away. Yeah. It was like, no, you go back to work. And so there's other pieces in there too.

I got to cut you off because you go back to the first example. And this is why luck is important. Because the first example is we're on this oil rig and no one's making a decision. I take a step back and I make a call. And to your point, I didn't get crushed. I didn't get told shut up. I didn't get told, hey, new guy, you need to, you need to, you know, shut up and do what you're told to do. The fact that no one did that to me

Made me say oh, okay This is a good thing So that is luck because believe me You have a seal platoon of 16 guys The chance is that there's a browbeater I didn't even know what the word browbeater was That is an actual type of human being right I'm surprised there wasn't one in the breakfast club

A browbeater you know what I mean actually I guess there was What about the principal? What was his name? Echo Charles this is your moment of truth right here Becker Decker No It was John a blank

Bro, I wasn't ready Yeah But he What's a browbeater Is the someone When you give your idea And you just

They just come at you I mean they're just throwing off And they're basically They're just punching you in the face With You know You come and say Hey do you think it'd be good

To start releasing the podcast On Tuesdays That's actually that's One of the dumbest ideas I've ever heard Yeah So you know what Actually you haven't even thought

If you haven't thought through that Because if you would have fought through that, you'd realize that Wednesday is the day when people are waiting for the podcast. We put it out on Tuesday, you know what? Actually, don't come to me with any more ideas that don't make any sense whatsoever. Validate them through common sense before you approach me because it's actually a waste of my time. It's a waste of your time.

It makes you look stupid. That's what a browbeater is. They just bring it. They can real natural, by the way. Well, it's kind of built up over a while. I see. I understand. So you, you, you have a browbeater.

If I would have a browbeater in that first platoon, And actually, there was a couple guys that were borderline browbeaters. Sure. And for whatever reason, probably because it was the right thing at the right moment, they decided not to beat me down. So is that luck?

Yeah, that is luck. Now, the second story, and again, as you mentioned, like the details of these stories, I put a lot of details so people could really learn what I learned. That mutiny we had, the arrogant platoon commanders out of line, takes a swing

that one of the enlisted guys tries to hit one of the enlisted guys we break them up and again I explain this in the book people getting into fight and a seal platoon is no this is not this is not a big deal this is this is a violent

group of dudes that are on all kinds of they got all kinds of testosterone running through their blood like this is a this is a gang you know and okay so it's not that big of a deal but when it's the

Platoon commander that no one likes and that no one respects and that is totally arrogant all of a sudden we turned on him like boom now we had something But even then to your point Dave the commanding officer Wasn't like okay guys thank you for the input. I'll get rid of him he goes you guys this sounds like a mutiny we don't have mutinies in the seal teams or in the Navy Get out of here go do your jobs. It's like okay Like what that was not a good this is not normal and then luckily that commanding officer was smarter enough to actually dig into it further and he relieved the guy got fired he fired him so yeah and that is luck it's luck that the commanding officer number one told us shut up do your job and number two he was smart enough to say you know what I'm gonna get

rid of this guy those are lucky circumstances so that contrast another thing that was lucky if I would have had the horrible platoon commander and then an okay one I may not have noticed. If I would have had an okay platoon commander and then a phenomenal one, I may not have noticed. I went from one end of the spectrum from the worst

platoon commander that I could imagine to the best platoon commander that I could imagine. And it's just like anything else, right? You don't, we need to, as human beings, there needs to be some discrepancy for us to notice it, right?

We need to, there needs to be, Yeah, some contrast. There was a big enough contrast that even my dumbass at whatever, 22 or 23 years old went, oh, I see what's going on. I see what's going on. And that second platoon commander, the good one, that's actually the seed that started in my mind of,

oh, he's an officer. He was enlisted like me. I'm enlisted like he was. Maybe I could become an officer. Just like this weird, because I wouldn't have even imagined that. It wasn't even something that I thought about. I wasn't like, hey, you know, I need to become an officer. Never even crossed my mind because we were, you know, the enlisted, the E5 mafia at SEAL Team 1.

We didn't want to be officers. We didn't like officers, you know? It was that whole attitude. There's so much detail, though, that those details are really important. And the takeaway, so you still have to be looking for that stuff. And you can now. If you can look for that, that contrast is actually out there. And I know you can't cover everything in the podcast,

but those details even in the book, the way you wrote it, each one of those details is something to pay attention to those little things. So when you read this, I mean, you have to read every line and every piece of that because there's a takeaway from each one of those. The contrast is there if you know to look for it. And the biggest problem, certainly for me and I'm sure, is you just don't know to look for it. And luckily those things happen.

with enough contrast for you to recognize or even look back on it. You got to know to look for it. Yeah. And I think, well, what we do now, we don't need to see, we can see little,

little gray area. We can go, oh yeah, here's what's going on here. We don't need to see someone that's a total arrogant person. That's only my way or the highway. We don't need to see all that. We can see someone that's leaning in that direction and say,

hey, you know why you're getting this pushback here? Here's why. It's just a little pushback because you're doing this. And we get to see that easier because we're looking for it. Yeah, but whether I would have seen this out of the gate without that broad contrast, probably not too dumb. So then we get to the third platoon, and this is where, again, I go into a lot of details on the story of what actually happened that you can pick apart. You can say, oh, yeah, that's what that was.

But fundamentally, I did the same thing I did in that first between where I made a call. I made a decision. I was detached. I was doing the right thing. I saw what the call to make, and I made a call. and once I made the call, the platoon commander was like, hey, why did you do that?

And I said, well, and I reviewed in my mind the cocky, arrogant, the ego. My ego was the immediate voice that popped up. You know the Terminator, you know when the Terminator echo? Yes. When he's going to say something,

and he gets an option of multiple responses that flash up in his LED heads-up display. It's you, D. Yeah. What is it? Yeah, this heads up displays, H-U-D. So I get that. When this guy says, why did you make that call?

I get, though, well, because you're too slow to make a call, or you should have been quicker, or you didn't see what was happening, or because I'm detached. And I see, all those little arrogant responses popped up. And thankfully, thankfully, I just jerked the collar on that. Just the chain, crack, and said, well, you're arrogant right now. probably a little bit of that arrogant platoon commander that I had

I felt that little I felt that little I felt his spirit in my brain I smashed it with the good with the humility and I did respond saying well you know I wasn't sure I didn't hear you make a call so

you know I just I made one and then he said well I didn't want to I didn't want to retreat from the target I wanted to push through it and and then I realized that number Number one, being a leader doesn't mean that you have to be making the call every single time. It doesn't mean that at all. In fact, being a good leader means you're supporting what the real leader, the overall leader, the overall leader is wanting to do.

What's good for the TV? That's what you're supposed to do. And it was a good ego check for me. It's not all about me. And so let's always take a step back and make sure, you know, it's cool to detach and see what to do tactically, how about Jocko detach and see what's best for the team and see how you can support your leader and see how you can be a team player? So that was the next important sort of lesson that I learned that stuck with me because how many times throughout

the rest of my career was it, hey, it's this guy's idea or that guy? Oh, it's my idea or the other guy's idea. How many times did that play out? You want to, I cannot count the number of times the your idea versus my idea that happened in infinite number of times. Yeah. Your idea versus my idea. And learning that lesson of, you know what? What's what's the best idea? And what are we really trying to get done? And is the boss, whoever that boss is. Because man, it's so easy, especially when you're young and you're young, you want to do well, you want to perform, you want to be the guy, right? It's so easy that when the opportunity comes for you to be the guy to just jump up and beat your chest and be the guy, and it feels good, that short-term gratification of like

putting your chest out like, yeah, I made that call. And it's such a short-term, term gain and long term strategic loss to do that and that's what I learned when the time I made the call and I actually should have actually should have kept the mouth shut all right so those are the first the first little sections about that and then I get into the laws of combat and the principles of leadership and pretty pretty straightforward like a review you know cover move simple prioritize and execute decentralized command. I'll tell you what, though, as I'm writing that down, it's interesting because now, you know, we've traveled the world.

We've taught these principles over and over again to people and teams and organizations of every imaginable kind. And it's these things apply. The biggest question I get when I'm, when we're working is, how do you apply, they understand what they mean and you can say those words and they can define them and explain them. And the question people always have is how do I apply this? And those three, the stories of those three platoons and then when you kind of, basically you review extreme ownership and dichotomy, you know, briefly, but you kind of just go through the review and where they came from is really what sets the stage for how these, where these fit and how to look for where they fit. I mean, even that story about the platoon commander of whether or not you should have made the call.

I mean, there's the seeds of balance in there, too, is, hey, same situation previous platoon. Actually, that platoon commander did the exact same thing, but for a totally different reason. Oh, my people are all different. And the way I treat this one guy and relate to this one guy doesn't work in every situation. And when you talk about that, too, is when you look at other people's plans, because ego is always the biggest issue with every client we work with. It's always ego is at the top. And the question that to be asked, how important is this plan to that other person? Because if that other person has to do this plan, the worst thing you can do is fight them on the plan, no matter whatever the quality of the plan is.

And even having the humility of saying, hey, in this situation, it isn't even about what is the best plan. It's what's the best way to implement the plan? Because if I prove that I'm right and my plan is better and this guy has to admit to me and acquiesce me, okay, your plan is better, what is the likelihood that guy is going to be totally on board of supporting my plan? It's not going to happen. What is the likelihood that person's looking for you to fall on your face? What's the likelihood they help you fall on your face? That they, even by kind of like you sit on that second platoon, maybe not sabotage, but by just doing nothing. When you actually, what you need them is to do the exact opposite of that, which is totally be in the game.

So even as you read those reviews, those first three to set the stage, and even the review of EO and dichotomy, I don't care how many times you've read those books, read it in this context because it changes in your mind how apply to the world that you care about, which is your world, which doesn't have to be the SEAL teams. It's not what this is about. It's just the backdrop. It's actually where it fits in whatever world that you're in. Not to mention the future, by the way. Like, you know, if you have a better plan, they have a good plan.

You have a better, you have a level 10. This guy is a level 9. And he's like, no, no, no, this plan's good. This plan's good. And you're like, no, no, mine's so much better than yours. And boom, force them to do it. Right? And not only during that plan, they might not do their best, but in the first.

future, you're like the guy who's like, well, you just think your plan is better. So even in the future, he might not have your back as much. Why would you even, why are you even going to put forth that effort, Echo? If when you brought me a plan, that was a level nine. Yeah, good plan. A good plan. And I was like, no, mine's a level 10. We're not using your plan. How much effort are you going to put in next time to come up with a good plan? Yeah. I mean, that's, we'll just say let, potentially less. I'll tell you that. And I mean, you want to talk about this is real world application. I mean, this is you and I work together you know you come up with plans for things sometimes yeah yeah and and unless the plan is egregious I'm sitting back over here going okay that's the way

you want to set the stuff up cool like okay sounds good you want to you want to show up at 959 for a 10 o'clock for a 10 o'clock you know scenario but even with that if it's you and me I go hey 10 o'clock you know 959 all good if if it's you me and and let's say we're having a guest on and I'll be hey man guest and I know you know what that means that means you're not letting me down it means we're looking bad we don't look bad you know so all good yep but I'm not I'm not I'm not saying hey there's a guest you better be here by 930 all set up I just tell you what's up and you know what to do yeah it's true Communication.

Yes. Understanding. Understanding the intent. Yeah. Dave Burke, maybe he doesn't fully qualify as a full guest anymore in your mind. He's like a hybrid, like a guest friend. He was not quite enough to get here at 930, but a solid 950.

Yeah, well, the space that I was here at 959, but you do, the point remains, yes, yes, 100%. Yeah. Check. Check. I mean, this is, you know, and same with like at Ashonelon. We're doing all kinds of things at Eschelon Front. All kinds of things. I actually talked about this in the Mustern Australia.

Really the most I've talked, really, I mean, not a ton, but several times I used in his example that at, you know, the Eschalon Front muster, there's a lot of moving parts. There's a lot of things happening. There's video, audio visual stuff happening. There's kits being made to hand out to people. out to people, there's PT going on, there's so much, there's registration happening, there's check-in, there's handout of stuff, there's organizing of table, there's all this, there's just, just huge logistical things that are happening.

How much do I know of what's going on? Next to none, next to none. And Jamie, who runs the muster, like she knows, she knows what the intent is. And if she feels like there's a little, oh, I'm not 100% on this one. I'm not sure. She'll be like, hey, Jocko, should we do this or this? And I'll be like, well, what do you think? And she says, well, I think it'd be smoothness like this.

Cool. Makes sense. But as far as me actually directing anything, it's very, very seldom. Am I saying, no, we need to do it this way? Occasionally we will. Occasionally, we will. Occasionally, I'll say, no, that's not a good plan. And we're not going to do it that way.

And when, and as you see, when I say that, people go, cool. Yeah. Very seldom does someone want to get in a debate with me about something that I'm firm on. I'm firm so seldom. That's because you hardly ever do it. Yeah. I'm firm so seldom that when I am, people go, there's something that we're not seeing here. So, so yeah, it's the going back to this, the just review of extreme ownership,

the review of the dichotomy of leadership. important because just like when you read the manual about machine gunning, cool, it talks about the purpose of the machine gun, right? And that's why I specifically read those two sections from the Marine Corps. One of them is this is the purpose of the machine gun. This is the principle of what a machine gun does. The next one is how you actually do that. That's how it applies.

This is how you shoot that weapon from a bipod. Here's where you put the shoulder. Here's where you put the weapon on your shoulder. You apply pressure. That's what I'm talking about here. So we got the principles and I have to cover them here, but then how do we get into you know actually putting that shooting that weapon from the bipod? How do we actually fire these principles? How do we execute them?

All right, next section and again, I know we didn't coordinate about which sections to talk about and there's a ton of sections. I just try to I just kind of was going through going, this one this one will be good, but skipping here. This This one is called the power of relationships. The power of relationships, and this is one of those things, one of those things you hear all the time, right? Relationships are important. Let me tell you how important they are.

99.9% of the things that I did in my entire military career were based on relationships and not based on chain of command. 99.9%. I'm not, I can't remember what the other 0.1% is. I'm sure it's in there somewhere. 99.9% of the things that I did in my military career were based on relationships. So that goes when I'm talking about being the commander of task unit bruiser and we have an operation and Laif is going to be the assault force commander or the ground force commander

on an operation. I'm not saying, hey, Laif, here's how you're going to do it. I'm saying, hey, Laif, here's what we got. What do you think? and we together have a relationship. We formulate a plan or he forms a, formulates a plan and comes to me and says, hey, this is what I want to do.

And I go, yeah, it looks good. Right down to when my boss would say, hey, Jocko, here's what I want you to do. I'd say, okay, boss, let me interpret that. Does this make sense? Is this what you really want? Is this, can I turn this on this direction and move a little bit more in the opposite way

so I can achieve this result instead? All that is based on relationships. So developing these relationships is the most important thing. 99.9% of what you do should be from the relationships you have. Going back to the book, there is another key element to leading any exceptional team, relationships. Leadership requires relationships. Good relationships with people above you, below you,

and beside you in the chain of command are critical for a strong team. The better the relationships, the more open and effective communication there is. The more communication there is, the stronger the team will be. For example, there are times when a boss is driving forward on a less than ideal path that needs to be redirected. If you have a good relationship with the boss, you can explain tactfully what you see to be errors in their thoughts and ideas. As always, the approach you use to discuss this is important.

Put the onus on yourself as to why the idea doesn't make sense. For example, you know, boss, I really want to support the plan to the best of my ability, but I'm having a hard time understanding how to execute this part of it. Can you explain why you want it done that way so I can get it right? So that right there is how you shoot the weapon from a bipod, right? That is it. Now the conversation is open and you can begin to figure out why the boss's idea is what it is and what you can do to influence that idea.

But before even getting to that point, ask yourself some simple questions. First, how much will be gained by approaching the boss and trying to convince them to change their plan? If the difference is minimal, it's probably not worth investing any time or effort. to it. Next, ask yourself, how much of your concern is just your ego? There is a chance that you see it your way of doing things. There is a chance that you see your way of doing something as smarter or more efficient than what the boss is offered. If that is the case, and you don't truly think there is much to be gained by using your method, let it go. Don't create drama over your ego. Lastly, ask yourself if you will be moving your relationship with your boss forward or

backward by raising this issue. Man, I've been hammering that. Like at the muster, at the muster, I've been saying, hey, every conversation I'm going to have with another person is to improve the relationship. That's like priority number one. Prioritize next year. Priority number one, I'm going to improve our relationship. If I'm going to have a conversation with Dave, our relationship is getting better.

Dave's walking around, walking away from the conversation going, man, I hope I can do good by Jock. As opposed to walking away, shaking his head going, I hope. that guy forgot to take out his garbage Monday morning and he has to wait another week, you know, like just small curses you can put on me Right? You ever had that happen at what you know that's all this yeah, yeah, I know kind of annoying Very annoying. It's not like it's not like a life-threatening thing right we don't like it and it's so Dave walks away from the conversation He doesn't want to he doesn't want to kill me right but he doesn't want me to have clean garbage cans either So when I have a conversation I'm looking to improve the situation

We talk about leadership capital. Flynn and I work, Flynn Cochran and I are working together all the time. We're at the point now that we talk about that concept of leadership capital, not in sort of the theoretical lens. We at the beginning of our training, when we start to work with companies that we're going to do for years, the very first thing we start with after setting the table of all these concepts is leadership capital.

And the question you ask yourself every single time is what I'm going to do, a deposit or is it a withdrawal? And when people think of those terms, this book is called Leadership Strategy and Tactics. Are you thinking strategically in this, even in this conversation that we're having? And the idea of what is the likelihood this is going to advance my relationship? The answer is 99.9% of the time going to be super obvious. It's going to stare you in the face. And if you think strategically, you will almost never make a leadership withdrawal.

You'll almost never have any capital you're taken out of the bank. And then when you said don't create drama over your ego and when your ego gets in the way Almost every single time Even when you get what you want you are taking it you are taking money out of the bank You're depleting your leadership capital until eventually you have none and nobody wants you to win It's amazing That it's so obvious like this is so obvious Yeah and yet people make people absolutely make that mistake time and time again the other thing about

this that's interesting or if you want to take a like another perspective of it is if my goal into go in going into a conversation is to improve my relationship with you does that make me some kind of a some kind of a fake person right oh I'm a fake person because I'm just trying to trick Dave into liking me it's like no actually I want us to win yeah and by the way I you know this goes back to the difference between leadership and manipulation which I talk about in the book so if if my goal is to get you to do something that's going to benefit me? Yeah, that's manipulation, and it's wrong.

If my goal in improving our relationship is so that our team can do better, we can accomplish our mission, and both those things, by the way, benefit you, well, guess what that's called? It's called leadership. So, you know, with that, you know how, because some people on the flip side of that whole spectrum is like, they'll do that, but it's almost like, and I guess it's a question for you. You know like okay you ever watch coming to America remember that that show Eddie Murphy so

It was is where Eddie Murphy's African guy Yeah, yeah, and they're like princes or something yeah yeah yeah yeah I remember he comes in Arsenio Hall was also in that correct? Yes, yeah, he was in there a bunch yes sir So anyways so someone tells him that he's he's like hey you got to get in good with the dad That's how you do it so he's like okay. He's gonna build this relationship Apparently he goes in and he'd like it's like weird you know essentially the point is he forced it he's trying to force it so it didn't work. So in real life, how that looks is like you ever get like, I don't know, your friend's like a real estate agent or something and he's sending you like

handwritten notes like, hey, just wondering how you're doing. You're like, bro, I don't even know you that good. You know, it's like, it's real obvious, the one they try to force a good relationship, you know, and it almost makes you kind of suspicious. I mean, nowadays it does. So it's almost like, it's called a brown noser and people can, yeah, if you're a brown noser, that's, that's a good point. Yeah, but there's a dichotomy with everything. If you go so far that all I'm looking to do is please Dave with this conversation. There's no tension at all. There's no there's nothing just me put being a pushover.

Well, guess what happens with his respect for me? It's respect goes down a little bit. So I'm not talking about you got to be just a brown nose or at all. Yeah, yeah. No, and then there's that's true too, but there's a nut. And the one I was thinking about or the type of person I'm thinking about is like, you can tell that this person you're just trying to build a relationship for me or with me. I don't know why.

I can suspect why maybe you want my business. or maybe you want something. You want something. I know. And that's kind of at the forefront. So I mentioned this later in the book. You know how you just crush that? I'll tell you how you crush it.

When I'm talking to Dave, you know why I'm talking to Dave and you know why I want to build a relationship? Because I care about Dave. The number one thing for, oh, when I'm talking to Dave, Dave knows that, you know what? I care about Dave. If that's the underlying, if that's the underlying principle on which, which, where that I'm doing this is because I care about him, he's going to know that. Subconsciously, subconsciously.

And maybe sometimes you've got to be a little bit more proactive and make sure that, you know, someone understands it. Like, I mean, and it doesn't mean proactive by saying, hey, Dave, I really care about you. That doesn't work. You can't just say it. You got to prove by your actions. You got to show people like, hey, guess what's more important than me? You.

Yeah. So when I'm talking to you and I'm listening to you and I'm taking your advice on board And I'm saying, yeah, you know what, let's go with your plan. I'm doing that because I want you to execute your plan. I want you to learn from your plan. I want to support your plan because I care about you. Yeah, that makes actually that's good right there. That makes sense now.

So it's almost like, actually it is where if I want to build a relationship with Dave, I'm not going to think, okay, let me focus on build. Let me actively build a relationship just out of the blue or out of nothing. It's like, it's more like that's almost in a way, secondary. Well, the primary thing is like, do I need to talk to Dave? Then yeah, I'll talk to Dave. But while I do that, the point is to build a relationship with him. I'm not going to be like, I need to build a relationship with Dave.

Hmm, where's Dave? Let me call him up and start trying to build a relationship with him. Yeah. So you're right. And there's a danger here that you're someone's going to be encouraged to force their impose good relationships on people. Right. So yeah, you got to be careful at. And again, and actually, here's the next line in this book.

You are not building the relationship so you can garner a favor from the boss. No, you were trying to build a relationship. So the boss trusts you and will listen to you so you and the team can more effectively accomplish the mission. Yeah. That's what you're doing. You want to accomplish the mission, which is good for everybody. And then it goes back and says, for these reasons, choose your battle carefully. Because if you remember, this whole paragraph is about like, when do you actually approach the boss?

When is it worth saying to the boss, hey, hey, boss, can you explain this to me? Because I'm not sure that I understand what you want to have happen here. If it's not worth that conversation because it's not going to be that big of a difference, just go with it. You know, just go with it. But what I'm saying is like I could see someone maybe reading this. I could see me reading. Let's face it. I see me reading that and go into, like let's say I had a job.

And I could read that and I'd be like, hey, oh, let me build a relationship with chocolate. And then I'll just roll in kind of out of the blue and be like, hey, because I'm building my relationship so I can garner trust. That's what I'm doing right now. So this is what I'm going to do. Hey, Jacco, did you catch that football game last night? And you're like, what are you talking about? Like you're acting weird. Here's the deal.

If the premise that you go on in on is you want to build a relationship with me for your own benefit, I'm going to see right through that. And so is anybody else. If the premise that you go in is because you care about me and you're wondering if I saw the football game because you know I like football and you want to talk to me about it and you care about me? that's going to shine through. And I'm not going to think this other negative thing. So yes, if you're a person that's walking around and you're going to use the principles in this book to benefit yourself, everyone's going to see through it.

It doesn't work. And what's really cool, and this is all the closing of the book is what we're getting to right now is if you want to, if you want to have a successful run as a leader and you want to rise to the top, the best possible way to do that is to care about your team, care about the mission, take care of them, and that will show through. And eventually you will get to the top.

If you're sitting there thinking, hey, I want to get to the top, so I'm ready to do whatever it takes and step on people or use people, it's so obvious. It's so obvious when someone's playing that game. And you can barely even fake it. You can't barely even fake it. Like, well, look, I'm going to get to the top, but I know I have to be cool with Dave, my boss.

so I'm going to manipulate here. And here's the really sad thing. If you're that person, you think no one can see it. That's kind of everyone can see it. That's kind of the point there where like you got to be careful with that kind of stuff. Where like if I'm trying to build a relationship like brother can see what you're doing, you know, because again, this is part of it. You've got to be careful with it.

Here's how you be careful with it. If you're trying to do this for yourself, it's not going to work. If you're trying to do this because you care about. the team, it's going to work and you're going to win. You personally are going to win if you do this. If you do this because you want to win, you're going to lose. If you do this because you want to take care of those people and you want the team to win and you want them to accomplish the mission so that they can elevate, it will work.

Yeah, yeah. Let's do if I want to win. If you're a young leader right now listening to this conversation and thinking about how you can build a relationship and the power of the relationship with your people, actually those individual, how you interact with that individual person isn't the biggest thing because what those people in your team are doing is watching you. So maybe Jocko comes out and wants to build a relationship with me and, okay, I'm trying to figure it out as the authentic or genuine. What I actually get to do is watch Jock with the other 10 dudes in the team.

And over time, if Jocko is just how he is and he believes in that and that actually he's going to treat everybody the same way. Yeah, yeah. And it's not going to be what he does or says to me that gets me to buy off that he's on board of this. as I'm going to see him in all the other, and everything else that he does. I'm going to come to the conclusion, like, dude, this is legit. That guy, that guy cares about everybody else being successful.

And then those opportunities, look, your people are going to need you at times. And you will have opportunities to build relationships. But the authenticity isn't just, what do I say to echo, to get echo to like me or curry favor with echo. Because actually what you're doing to your leader is you're watching everything they're doing.

And the reason being fake about it doesn't work, Isn't because I just see it with me, is I see you do with everybody else. That's why it's so obvious, because you're out there trying to figure how to play the game with all these 10 different people. And if you're faking it, it's going to be completely obvious not because of how you and I interact. So the thing that actually has to start with, if you've now put in charge of a team or a leader, go back and read that second platoon commander from Jocko's second platoon. He didn't walk and go, I'm honored to lead you, to count you as people that work for me on my team. He just said, I'm happy to be part of this, and I'm happy to help make this team win.

That's it. You don't need to elevate the stature. Everybody knows who the bosses. The chain of command is understood. Everybody's got that hierarchy. What you actually need to do is look for ways to break down those barriers and just have them recognize all this guy cares about is us winning. That's all he cares about.

And by behavior after behavior, after behavior, eventually, you either doing it or you're not. And if you're doing it, people are going to get on board. If you're not, you're going to fail no matter what you do. And people are going to see that a mile away. Well, yeah, smell it on you. This continues on. It is obvious that building a trustworthy relationship with your superiors is important.

But how do you do that? One of the simplest ways is obvious but often gets overlooked. That is performance. Your boss expects you to complete certain tasks. So complete them. Do them on time, on budget, and with as little drama as possible. Get the mission done. This includes doing things you might not be 100% in agreement with.

I did this throughout my career and it always served me well. Boss wants me to fill out some extra paperwork. Cool, I'll do it. Boss needs me to cover a shift for someone else on the team. I've got it. Boss needs me to help clean up some administrative mess that got spilled. I'm on it. Boss has a nasty, low reward mission that needs executing.

I'm all over it. With each one of those problems, I am the solution. With each problem I solve, the level of trust with the boss goes up. And I will continue on that path. I won't complain or try and shift bad jobs onto someone else or even look for some kind of praise. I will simply put my head down and do the work. Over time, my boss will know that I am the person who can make things happen. And more important, I gain clout with the boss.

This is the opposite of the subordinate who complains and objects or always thinks he has a better way to do things. He loses influence with the boss every time he opens his mouth. Any objection from that subordinate is seen by the boss as another typical excuse. the more you talk, the less people listen. On the other hand, when I do what needs to be done, the boss trusts that I can make things happen. The boss also knows that if I do raise an objection, it is likely to be founded on solid facts that should be considered. Since I get things done and don't constantly voice my objections, the boss actually listens.

I always utilize this strategy with my senior leadership and it worked well. I would simply make things happen as often as I could. Now, here's where this is going to, I'm going to preemptively shut down your next comment, Echo Charles. Because I know I can already see from this conversation where your heads at. So listen to this. And this is where I kind of feel like I make my money. Sure.

Right here. This is the next level. Okay. But how does that appear from the perspectives of your subordinates? Because now everyone's looking at you going to just do whatever the boss says. For instance, if I recognize that there are some flaws in my boss's plan, then my subordinates certainly recognize the same thing. What do I tell them?

How do I preserve their respect if they think I can't see the errors the boss is making? The answer is simple. I tell them the truth. I say, hey, team, I know there might be some better ways to skin this cat, but at this point, effort to change the plan would take almost the same effort that it will to just get this job done. So we are just going to do it. And let me tell you what else we're doing by getting this done. We are building trust with the boss.

Every one of these little tasks from him that we crush allows him to trust us more and more. And that gives us the ability to get listened to. So when something comes up that really doesn't make sense, he will listen. That is why we are going to execute this plan to the. absolute best of our ability there you go extra charge your next question just got preemptively answered no more questions you're welcome that's the part see that's the part where people get worried and that's the answer yeah people get worried who are what the guy's gonna think of yeah oh yeah yeah and especially when

you and then when you say like we're gonna build trust with the boss it's like man that's like I have no argument to that like when I'm saying I don't want to build trust with the boss you know unless you're just some like anti team member you know and no one's no one's that really and well we don't want to be that but yeah that's um yeah that's good you're welcome uh i skipped to this section now called play the game you have to play the game to be more specific you have to play the long game yes sir no one wants to hear this especially from me people don't want to hear about building relationships they want me to say you achieve victory through blunt force trauma.

If someone gets in your way, go through them. Any political situation that is not turning out how you wanted it can be solved with a battle axe. And this was a little thing that was a problem in the teams for me. So if somebody knew me from like the periphery, from like the outside looking in, kind of saw tasking a bruiser or saw my platoon or saw me at trade at,

they would kind of get this idea like, oh, okay, you know, this is this, You know, that's how jocco cut rolls. And sometimes those guys would never get to see the rest of the picture, which would not work out well. And this is something that Lave talked about. You know, Laif would see guys that he'd go, yeah, they're trying to get their jocco on.

And they understand, they understand the, what is it, the front facing jaco, right? The front facing jocco. They don't understand the backside and what's going on behind in the rear facing. That type of hyper-aggressive, take-no-prisers mentality is certainly simple and straightforward, which is often the kind of leadership advice that people expect from me and what they want to hear. Because that attitude is so simple and straightforward, it hardly seems it could fail. And often that attitude doesn't fail, at least not at first.

A heavy-handed and hostile approach usually works for a little while. You may be able to bludgeon people into doing what you want them to do for a day or two, maybe a week, maybe even a solid few months. Perhaps you can force a couple projects to completion through ruthless and aggressive offense. But those successes will be short-lived. As you trash relationships, burn bridges, and leave scorched earth in your wake, you will soon look up and realize you are done. you have destroyed everything for short-term gain. You have nothing left. That last part is so important.

The chain of command actually works, and you can utilize the chain of command all you want, and you can get things done. I can just force the outcome. I can. If I am in charge of you by rank or position or title, I can force that. The lesson that needs to take away,

that will work until it doesn't. And then the results are catastrophic. They're not like, a little setback or maybe I got to come up another way. When you go down that path, when you finally hit the end, and you will, maybe six months, maybe a couple of years. Some guys get by for a while. They do.

They get by longer than we want them to. But when you get to the end and it stops working, then you're in catastrophe. Then it's complete disaster. And there's no recovery from that. So if you're going down that road, there is no easy end to that. As opposed to, hey, you know, I work through a wish and maybe hit a brick wall and things don't work out. I got to take a little bit of step back and things don't work out.

the other approach, that frontal assault approach when it ends, and I saw it throughout my career, I watched guys hit their limit. Some guys would be in a matter of weeks in their first new position, enlisted Marines for the first time. Sometimes it happened to guys when they were squaging commanders. I mean, they made it a long way,

longer than they should have. But eventually they hit the wall. Well, there's a reason for that. And as soon as you were talking about this, I was thinking in the military, as I said earlier, you get that job for long enough. to just barely start to learn it and then you're on to another job.

Yeah. So what happens is it happens a lot in the military too often. A guy's just a guy that leads by blunt force trauma and he gets done with his. You're talking about it in the book. There's like, rest of the guys in the squadron are willing to take the abuse. I don't care if my boss is a jerk. I'm actually going to be successful anyway and you got a bunch of core guys in the squadron that have no problem enduring that.

This guy sucks, but I don't care because I want to win. We're going to be successful. they actually benefit from that. And he's gone in 24 months. Right. So this is what happens, and we see this as well. You have a person that was in the military that rose through the ranks and did a good job on paper, but was abusive and blunt force trauma and beat down people on his rise up,

retires from the military, gets out of the military, and then all of a sudden gets a job in a civilian sector and doesn't last. Because as soon as he tries that, people are going, wait a day. a second you think you're gonna be here for the next 10 years I'm not good putting up with this no one in the chain of command's putting up with this and then and then you know what they say well you know when I was in the military it was so much easier the people are better they all have they have a million little excuses that they tie into it everyone's got this common goal everyone's already been screened everyone's got they got that million little things

they respect the chain of command it's like no actually you're a bad leader you're a bad leader being in the military and even getting promoted through the military does not by any stretch mean that you're a good leader at all. No, no guarantee. And this is the type of person who gets done with a platoon. They get a good fit rep. This is another scary thing about this is sometimes up the chain of command. These people look great from the people that are above them. Their boss loves them. Their boss is like, hey, they got everything done. You know, he was aggressive, really liked him. You go into that platoon and you guys, you realize or go into that unit. And everyone goes, we hate that guy.

Yeah. But we're going to endure. And we still, and we are going to endure him. He's only going to be here for 18 months or 24 months. And by the way, we still care about our job and we still have pride in our unit. So we're going to make him look as good as we can. But we hate him. Yeah.

But we know we can outlast him. Yeah. We're over here playing the long game. Don't care. I hate him. Fine. I'll hate him. But what I actually really want is in the long run.

All my Marines are all the people in my team. I want them to be successful. So I'll play that game. And you know what? If he gets promoted looks good. the only thing that will stop me from playing the game working for a boss that I hate and bro I have work for bosses that I hate

the only thing that's going to stop me from doing that me too by the way yeah the only thing that stops me doing is my own ego that's the only thing that keeps me going you know what this guy sucks and you know what I'm putting a stop to it right now the only thing that that forced me down that road is my own ego just keep it in check you were playing the long game and you might get not you might not get that

satisfaction of seeing him fall. You might not get that. But if you are playing the long game so you and your people are successful, it won't matter. It won't matter. And it may take longer than you want, but it will not matter in the end. If you are indeed playing the strategic game. And so there's someone that's listening right now going, well, oh, I'm going to let my boss abuse my people. It's like, no, no, no, actually not at all. However, and I, there's a whole sections in this book that cover this oh if if I got someone that's abusing my people or is doing something and ethical unsafe yeah maybe it is time for a mutiny but and we'll get into that how you make that decision of when it's time to actually draw

line in the sand we'll talk about that going back to this section is you know talking about the the person that just uses blunt force trauma and I say don't do that instead you have to play the game that means I try to support my boss and perform my duties to the best of my ability in playing the game, I'm building up trust with the boss, I'm building a relationship. Why is it so important to build a relationship with my boss? Is it so I can get promoted? Is it so I can get assigned easier tasks?

No, I am trying to build the relationship, not for my own personal gain. I'm trying to build a relationship with my boss so we can better accomplish the mission. And playing the game doesn't only go up the chain of command. It goes down the chain of command too. When you are the boss and your subordinates come to you objecting to something you say, listen and ask for alternatives. And when they give you a decent one, say yes. And utilize their alternative.

Even if their alternative doesn't seem quite as effective or efficient as your methodology, let them do it. This builds trust and relationship with the people below you in the chain of command. As often as you can listen and say yes. That's a nugget of beautiful advice. That's so many people don't follow. As often as you can, listen. to your people and say yes to what they are saying to you as often as you can. That's how you empower people.

Yeah. That's how you build trust with that. That's how you build a relationship with them. There are no 10 out of 10 plans. They don't exist. Dave Burke, at the height of his career at Top Gun, never had a perfect plan. There is no such thing as a perfect plan. And your idea is not perfect, no matter how experience you are and how smart you are.

Now, their plan might be an eight and yours might be a 9.9. But the deciding factor isn't the quality of the plan. The deciding factor is the person's willingness to be successful when that plan has a problem. So if somebody has a plan that's just barely good enough, but they really want to do it, say yes. Because what they're going to do is going to hit a wall and they're going to try to find a way to get over or around or through that wall. That's what they're going to do.

Your plans are not perfect. Neither are theirs. So just go with their plan as often as you can. Continuing on eventually when a subordinate from the team comes to you with an idea that doesn't make sense you can say no and they won't begrudge you for it. You simply explain the issues with their idea and why you weren't going to do it that way and they will be okay with it. They will accept your direction without feeling that you don't listen and they will move

forward with full commitment to accomplish the mission. I was getting there, but this is the little section on when is mutiny in order. And we just touched on this and I give some good background on it. And then I say, as we try and work to get our boss to support what we're saying, right, we make that effort. And I explain how to do that. And then we get to a point where I say, okay, but even that doesn't always work. Sometimes a boss digs in and will not change their mind. Is it time for a mutiny?

Is it time to draw a line in the sand? You could tell your boss, absolutely not. I will not do this your way. It might be time to say that. but it also might not be. There are many variables to assess. And I talk about some of those variables, but then I jump to, I'm going to jump to here. Here are some possible outcomes when the subordinate refuses to comply.

So this is when you decide, you know what, my boss came up with this plan or my boss wants to do something and I will not do it. Here's some things that can happen. One, the leader recognizes that the subordinate is extremely concerned about the plan, so concerned they are putting their career at stake and risking possible punitive action. Because the plan is actually really bad. This is the best possible outcome the leader awakened by the refusal of his or her subordinate to execute a plan Reconsider's the options and decides to execute a different way now the subordinate should rejoin the team throw their support behind the new plan and go help the team execute So there's like the the flowery outcome you know Dave orders me to do something I say Dave I refuse to do this this is an unsound plan and I will not execute and Dave goes wow wow this must be a bad

plan let me reassess okay Jocko explain it to me one more time okay let's come up with a new plan and then I say thanks Dave and we're good that's the that's the best case scenario here's a possibility number two the leader digs in even deeper and will not change the plan since the subordinates refused to participate the leader fires that subordinate and puts a new leader in place who has been handpicked for unquestioning obedience. For the boss, the problem is solved. But the team will absolutely suffer since now the voice of reason has been replaced by one of the boss's yes men.

It will be the boss's plan and that is it. No one will have any choice or control. This is a horrible situation. To avoid it, consider the fact that since the boss is refusing to listen to suggestions about the plan, it is probable that the boss has a big ego and is likely to put a yes man in to execute his or her vision without resistance. If this is a possible outcome, it must be weighed carefully. So when you're dealing with someone that's like, I'm not listening to your plan, as soon as you

draw the line, they're not like, oh, well, chances are they're not now all of a sudden ready to shift their mindset. And what are the attributes of a leader that comes up with a plan that's utterly catastrophic without vetting it through anybody and tells everybody this is the plan? Super humble team player that's on board for the big one. And is that the type of leader you're dealing with here? Yeah. It's bad.

Continuing on, if a subordinate draws a line in the sand and refuses to execute a plan or outright quits the position as protest, they instantly remove all influence of any kind over the boss. So while the subordinate has made a very loud and clear statement, once that statement has been made, there's nothing else they can do. They are no longer a factor in the outcome.

And that's one of the questions I have about, David Hackworth's decision to be interviewed and state in an interview that if we didn't change the way we were fighting the war in Vietnam, we were going to lose. When he did that, when he kind of drew a line in the sand, he was out of the army very quickly and out of command and that was that, which means he lost influence. And let's face it, he would have been a general. Who knows how high he would have gone, but he would have been a division commander, you know, I mean, eventually.

and then maybe he could have influenced and moved the war in the right direction. But instead, he drew a line in the sand and he lost all of his influence. So now, let's put ourselves in David Hackworth's shoes, right? We love soldiers. We love the army.

We love our men. And our men, we see men in the army, in the Marine Corps throughout grunts being killed. in Vietnam and it breaks your heart every single time and then he gets control of his own battalion and he starts to save their lives and they start to win But no one else is doing it and And with his heart being broken over and over again he can't take it anymore says you know what? I'm drawn a line and said

Can I see how that could happen? Oh absolutely So This is one of the things that you have to weigh and think about as a leader the last one if the subordinate tries every possible method to convince the boss that the plan is wrong and sees no way of changing the boss's mind, then perhaps the better option is for the subordinate to make one last statement of concern and then proceed to lead the team in the execution of the plan to the best of their ability. This way the subordinate leader can at least do their utmost to mitigate the negative impacts of the poor plan. Note the harmful results so they can be explained clearly to the boss and continue to play the long game in building relationships. with the boss so they can convince the boss there is a better way to execute going forward.

The inherent risk is this. In this, of course, is that, as Napoleon said, the subordinate is still culpable for the outcome. This is Band of Brothers. Band of Brothers, Dick Winters. They get ordered to do recont. The war is all but over. They get order to do recon across the river. They go do the recon across the river.

They have a guy get wounded. They have a guy get killed. They come back. the next night his boss says do another recon and he says boss not a good idea we didn't learn anything last night however we did lose a guy and another guy wounded and it could be even worse I recommend we don't do it nope do the recon boss uh not a good plan do the recon and what does dick winters do dick winter says got it boss cool tells his guys all right we're doing a recon tonight of this basement over in this building and uh bring some wine

So that's a classic example. Was that the right thing to do? Yes. Yes. Now if he would have quit and said, no, I refuse to do this. That lieutenant colonel would have said, cool. Okay, later, Dick Winters. I got this next guy.

He'll take a recon over there tonight. Doesn't matter. So sometimes, and you know, I heard this about seal platoons in Vietnam as well, getting tasked with doing a patrol or an ambush in an area that was really bad that they didn't feel like was going to be a fruitful ambush and get order to do it. And they're like, hey, Roger that, Roger that boss.

Cool. Patrol out the gate, go 200 meters into the jungle, set up a perimeter, sit there for six hours, come back, say, yep, we didn't see anything. So is that ideal? No. But what are you going to do? This is, these are the things you have to consider

as a leader. I had in the military all the time happens now all the time is people, is that phrase falling on your sword. And I think most people understand that. I don't think it's just military. It's just the idea of when are you going to hold your ground and when are you going to be willing to fall on your sword for whatever this idea, this position that you think you have.

And what you have to recognize, I think is two things is when you do that, it's catastrophic for you. That's what the saying means. It's catastrophic for you. But the other part is that that comment that Napoleon comment was it doesn't that's not a free pass for you The outcome is still yours and it won't make you feel better and it won't give you a sense of accomplishment if you fall in your sword and your team still ends up losing or something catastrophic happens just to say well I I held my ground and I told the boss we're not doing it You get removed you get a countermanded or or worse you get fired or something really the outcome is still yours And again, the piece that drives people more often to do that is your ego convincing yourself that what I'm being asked to do is catastrophic.

There are times that's actually true. Sometimes you get orders that are wrong. They will be catastrophic. And that story, you know, the Dick, the Dick Winter story there, but when they lost that guy, the real question was this is a waste. This is a wasted life. This was something we shouldn't have done because it had no real benefit. that is catastrophic. But more often than not,

when we get asked to do things that we think are wrong, if we can actually detach a little bit and think, okay, what is the worst outcome of this? Is it really catastrophic? Is it really worth falling under your short? Or if you stay in position, can you exert enough control

that you are the reason why it is not catastrophic? That you are the one that prevents the potential catastrophe from happening. And the answer to that is almost never, is it actually kind of, almost never. And even if it is the most influential thing you have to prevent the catastrophe is your leadership. And that's hard, I think, for a lot of people, because falling under sword has this, it's like a cliche that people almost want to do.

Well, you get to be the martyr. Yeah, you're the martyr. And also, how often are you failing as a leader to articulate the issues well enough with your boss that they actually understand? And so instead of trying to formulate a better argument for your boss to understand what you're trying to say, you just say, well, he doesn't get it. I'm going to follow my sword. I mean, how often, you know, why is it so rare that it's catastrophic? Because how often is a boss getting told that there's going to be a catastrophic outcome? Hey, boss, I think if we open this building, if we get a lease on this building, we try and we try and set up shop there, I think we're going to lose a lot of money and we're going to burn a bunch of our employees.

and it's going to be a complete and utter catastrophe. And the boss is like, hey, I still like it. Go. Right? Or in the military. Hey, boss, I am very concerned that we are going to take heavy casualties and there will be no gain. And the boss goes, no, I like it.

Go ahead. I've never even had a boss do anything even close to those things. Now, could it be, hey, I want you guys to approach the target from here. well boss I don't agree with that well I'm telling you to do it okay well how catastrophic is that guess what I'm gonna do I'm gonna get on site

I'm gonna get boss you know hey past the pro word that that that avenue of approach was blocked and we're now approaching from where I planned to prop but I wouldn't say that but I'd say now we're gonna have to approach from a different direction sorry did you say pro word past the pro word pro word

yeah they're just words they're like code words and they and it's not like they're a secret but you might want to tell the upper chain of command that we have passed through phase line red and we are now approaching the target building and instead of saying all that you just say you know Chevrolet and they go cool yep they got the pro word the reality is that that first scenario with this this boss wants the catastrophe it the reality is is that it almost never happens. And the likelihood that it's happening to you is almost zero. I'm not saying

it's zero, it's not zero, but it can't happen. It can't happen. And in those cases, you may have to fall on your sword and say, I refuse to do this. That's right. That second scenario happens all the time, all the time. And actually, that's the one that you should be planning for to how to manage that all the time, which is that, man, this is actually not a good plan. And you know what? I'm in the ideal position to mitigate all the risk associated with it and I'm going to do exactly that. Hey boss, we're going to accomplish that mission. Let's go make that happen. And then do like you said all those things. What you should be planning for is is that second scenario because that's going to happen throughout your career all the time. Scenario number one, almost never.

Don't think it ever happened to me. And I would say it's a pretty good statement because I think I would remember it if it did. I'm going to think about this though. I'm going to think about if it ever, if I ever got ordered to do something that I was in complete and utter disagreement with. Especially something that's not in training. I've had some pretty bad training plans. Yeah, but those are training. But those are training plans. So whatever.

In my real, you know, real combat situations, I would have to put some thought into even what I think even comes even close to that. What even was close. Yeah. All right. Well, did some, this. And I just took that thought one step further. Did I sometimes hear some crazy plans coming down the chain of command?

Yeah. And then I would say, hey, boss is crazy for the following reason. The boss is it. Oh, cool. Thanks for pointing that out. Don't do it. Pretty straightforward. I didn't, you know, boom.

All right. Skipping forward to another section here. The section is called subordinate your ego, which is a good phrase. Powerful phrase. And I actually go through a pretty detailed example of when I had to subordinate my own ego. and how that helped solve this certain problem. And I end up kind of going into an explanation of what the ego is, how it's playing out granularly.

Here we go. Back to the book. Ego is like reactive armor. The harder you push against it, the more it pushes back. Do I get some good credit for that one? The tankers out there ought to appreciate that. Yes. And that is so true.

Yes. Someone that's got an ego, like you might not even notice until you brush up against it, then all of a sudden it reacts. Continues on, if I had confronted the CEO, and that goes back to the story, if I had confronted the CEO about his attitude

and told him he had a big ego, he would have dug in even deeper. So I did the opposite. I disarmed his ego by subduing my own. Now, this is why I wanted to bring this up today. You might be afraid that if you subordinate your ego, you will get trampled. But that normally doesn't happen

because subordinating your ego is actually the ultimate form of self-confidence. And I think that line right there is one of the lines when I was writing this book. I just took a screenshot of it and texted it to you, Dave. I was like, that line right there. Because subordinating your ego

is actually the ultimate form of self-confidence. That level of confidence earns respect. earns respect. So while the initial thought or feeling might be that you back down, you've actually shown that you have the strength and confidence to give the other person credit and they will recognize and respect that confidence either consciously or subconsciously. They feel it. They feel it.

Echo Charles, when you're getting ready to roll jujitsu and you have never rolled with this person before and you lock up with them, you know. Right? You can feel it. And now whether you want to admit it or not, you know. And that's what this does. When someone says, hey, you know what? Go ahead and run with that.

And Dave might think, well, that's right. That's right. I'm going to run with it because my plan is better. And in the back of his mind, he thinks, man. Like when someone says, oh, you want to start a cross side? That's basically what you're saying. That's basically what you're saying. You want to start in a dominant position?

Go ahead. It's fine. It's fine with me. I'm so confident in my jiu-jitsu that you can basically start anywhere. You can start in a totally dominant position. and I'm going to be fine. When you subdue your ego, when you subordinate your ego,

that person, now you might be thinking, oh, yeah, I'm going to start on the mouth and I'm going to kill you. And you think that, right? And you feel powerful. But in the back of your mind,

you're thinking, oh, yeah, maybe subconsciously you're thinking, wow, this person is confident. This person knows that they're going to win. And so that's the same thing that happens here. Hey, you know what? Why don't you take,

don't you go ahead and run with this? And you, yeah, that's right. I won. And in the back of your mind, you think, Man, Jacco doesn't even really, he doesn't even care where this ends up. The word subordinate is such a good word because when you tell me able to check your ego, it's like, okay, I can check my ego. But if you're the type of person that reads the word subordinate and it bothers you, yeah, you are the person that's being spoken to right now.

Because your ego says, I am not going to support it because it's submissive or it has this feeling of, that's why that word is actually so good because most of. us don't want to do that. They don't like, I don't like that word subordinate. I don't want to subordinate. I don't want to be submissive or passive. That word is awesome because if you feel yourself right now, reading that and going, I don't like that, read this again and again and because it's actually what you need to do. And check this out.

If you're reading this and you're going, I don't want to subordinate my ego because I'm powerful, then read the next part, which says if you're truly powerful, you got no problem doing it. I don't, guess what? You know what? I don't need to be the star of the show Because I'm just gonna be over here and it's gonna be fine you guys can you can you can you can You can pay attention to the other guys that's cool I'll be over here just and I'm good with that I don't need to say anything

I don't need to start in the best position I'm good I'm confident been doing this game for a long time we're good It continues on so after I say either They will recognize and respect that confidence either consciously or subconsciously It says and that is the true to put your ego in check, to subordinate your ego, you must have incredible confidence. If you find you cannot put your ego in check

because you're afraid it might make you look weak, then guess what? You are weak. Don't be weak, subordinate your ego, build relationships, and win the long game. That's a pretty important chapter in this book. That's huge. I mean, that gets to the core of what infects almost everything we do.

There almost isn't a problem in the world that exists in your life that isn't connected to your ego. And that is the lesson for that. And the amazing thing about that is that not only are you strong if you could do that, you just start winning everywhere. You just start winning everywhere in life. You just start winning when you do that. When you look around and go, oh, no factor, go for it, do that. You win. Life gets so much better when you're able to do that.

Just let it go. And the supreme confidence, this is the weird part. This is what people don't understand. The supreme confidence that that exudes when you go, oh, you want to take lead on this? Cool, go for it. Cool. Yeah.

What can I do to help? Yeah. What can I do to support you? Sounds like you got this handled. What can I do to help? The supreme confidence that that exudes is, is kind of like when someone gets in your head on the map, right? Yes.

When they go, cool, you can start wherever you want, bro. I'll tell you an even more powerful moment. Smaller, it's seemingly smaller, but it's way more powerful when you think about it. So let's say me and you're rolling, right? And then you, let's say I get a good position

on you, right? And then we sort of drift, let's say get mount, whatever, great position on you. And we sort of, we're scrambling, whatever, I still got mount, and then we kind of drift out of bounds, right? Or we run into somebody or whatever,

where we got to kind of stand up, You know, get out of the jujitsu position, stand up and walk to a clear part on the mat. And then so, because that'll happen sometimes. And the person in the bad position will just sort of clap your hand like you're starting all over. Oh, yeah. That's even, yeah. You see them saying? You know, they'll be like, oh, we're going to be.

I was going to be. Like, you're mounted, but I got my elbow already in. So it's going to be okay. But that's a little bit more sneaky. Yeah. I mean, it's probably just as sneaky, but just in a different way. It's a different thing in a little bit of it. Well, they're both, they're both going to send the same message.

Yeah. I'm scared. But this. Exactly. Right. I'm not confident. Yeah, exactly. Right.

So let's go one step further. So let's say we roll. I get into a good position on you. We go back to the center of the thing. You slap my hand and you get into like the neutral position, right? And it's like a little dance. You know, someone's going to lead this and lead that, right? So you slap my hand, we get into a neutral position.

The confident guy would just be like, cool. We're in a neutral position. Yeah. Cool. And we just keep rolling. Oh, yeah. The uncomfort. Wait, wait.

I had my out. I didn't mount, no, let's go back to mount, you see what I'm saying? Even though he'd still be justified, but the supremely confident, man, that's it fly. Oh, cool, yeah, you start to. I'll tell you why don't you mount me? Don't say anything. Just be like, whatever is what we're doing. I don't even, I don't need attention to let you know that that's how supremely confident I am.

You see what I'm saying? Like, I'm so confident. I'd have to add mount, I'll let it slide, you know. No factor. Just do it, whatever. Be that guy. Be that guy. 100%.

All right, moving on to this next section. Core tenants. The first one is called be capable and ask for help. A leader must know and understand the jobs, skills, and equipment used by the people below him or her in the chain of command. This isn't to say a leader needs to be an expert in everything. That is impossible. Platoon commander does not know as much about shooting as his snipers do. He can't understand the various radios as well as his radio man does.

He will not know the details of voicemember. roots to and from a target like the point man will on a construction site the foreman won't be able to operate the equipment with the same efficiency as those who operate that equipment all day long he won't be able to lay block as well as the masons or tie rebar like an iron worker in the manufacturing business a plant manager might not be able to run each machine or handle every task on the line but in these cases the leader must at least be familiar with what goes on below him in the chain of command what should a leader do if he doesn't know or understand a skill or job that plays a role in the accomplishment of the mission. Simple.

Ask. That's right. Go and ask. And not just for an explanation. Ask to learn and actually do. Sight in that sniper weapon. Program that radio. Lay some block. Run that piece of equipment for a little while. Get familiar and then actually practice the task. Unfortunately, most people avoid this process because they fear they will look stupid. They think they're suburb. They think they're subordinates will lose respect for them but the opposite is true this is another area where ego can be a real impediment to success some leaders feel it is a weakness for at to ask for help that couldn't be further from the truth subordinates will actually respect the leader more if they come and try to learn and perform the

task what subordinates don't respect is a leader who tries to appear to know everything I know this from experience when I was a junior ranking seal I was always impressed by a boss who would come and truly show interest in what we were doing on front lines. I was even more impressed if they asked questions and wanted to really understand my perspective. And I would be completely impressed if the leader physically tried to do what I was doing. Programmer radio, shoot an advanced weapon system, or build a demolition charge. If you need help with something, ask for it. Subordinates understand that their leaders might not know everything. Put your ego in check and ask for help. You will do a better job and you will gain respect from

your team. Stepping down and learning frontline skills also shows your humility. It proves you aren't above what the frontline troops are doing, and it shows you know their job is hard. Seems like common sense. It does seem like common sense. And I see that very rarely in certain leaders in the private sector. And I think it's exactly what you said. There's this fear of looking dumb. When I had my first real job in the Marine Corps, I had a who's called Power Line, I had 38 Marines.

It's a big position for a lieutenant. It's a young officer, I had 38 Marines, and their job was to essentially service the engines of the aircraft and make sure the jets were good to take off and land. It was a huge responsibility. And there was a qualification to get that. And when I took over that job, I got that qualification,

which was not really what I was designed to do, but I wanted to do it to learn. So I learned all the things that I needed to know. And I got this designation, this qualification, to be able to do this launch and recovery thing. Is that normally an enlisted guy's job? It is. It is an enlisted guy's job.

But I wanted, it was my first job, I wanted to know what, I wanted to know what they were doing. And guess what? We had 24 plane captains in the squadron. I was the worst one by far. I was terrible at it. And I didn't have a ton of experience, a ton of history. But not just what I learned from doing it, but the connection I made with those guys that I was just willing to do that. And it isn't like some gesture of, hey, I want to spend, it, to actually learn what's going on in their world.

It made me so much smarter because I understood what the problems with the, they were dealing with, getting down with your folks, if you're gonna do it just to kind of put on a good show and put a good, don't waste your time. But if you're actually willing to go down there and look stupid, their respect for you will go, because most people aren't wanna do it, it will go off the charts.

And it seems so obviously such common sense and it's this actually easy thing to do. It is counterintuitive. Even though it seems common sense from us looking at it right now, it's super counterintuitive because you think, well, I don't really know how to do the job, so I'm gonna hide from it.

So that way they won't know. And I don't look bad. Had to throw this in there. One of the most important tenets of leadership I adhere to as a leader is the idea of extreme ownership. The idea of extreme ownership has struck a chord with people. And it has been incredibly effective in helping those in all kinds of leadership positions, leading all kinds of teams in all kinds of industries, businesses, and professions.

Leaders found that when they took ownership of everything in their world, they saw other members of their teams both up and down the chain of command taking ownership as well. When people take ownership with their jobs and their mission, the job gets done and the mission gets accomplished. When there are problems and people take ownership of those problems, the problems get solved. While extreme ownership might seem like a fairly simple concept to understand, it can be difficult to fully comprehend what it really means. What it really means is that the leader is responsible for everything, absolutely everything.

This can be hard to fully understand because there are times when a subordinate does something that the boss feels they cannot control and cannot possibly be responsible for. A subordinate might make a mistake or take an action that is completely unexpected. How can that be the leader's fault? I like to use the example of a young machine gunner in a seal platoon to exemplify how a leader truly is responsible for everything that happens. A seal machine gun plays a key role in a seal platoon. As the name implies, he carries a machine gun,

a heavy belt-fed weapon capable of firing over 700 rounds per minute. The machine gun's ability to lay down such men's. massive firepower makes it critical to a seal platoon or squad because it is the main weapon that puts down suppressive fire on the enemy. It keeps the enemy's heads down, allowing the rest of the seals to maneuver. The machine gun provides the main source of cover in the fundamental tactic of cover and move, the first law of combat. Of course, the machine gun doesn't operate itself.

It's worthless without the machine gunner. The machine gunner carries the weapon in its ammunition, maintains the weapon, loads, it fires the weapon. Those are the mechanics of the job, but a machine gunner, must also be aware of how to best employ his weapon. He must understand how to get in good position from which to best engage the enemy and provide cover for his team.

He must also understand the terrain he is in and see how it can be used to his advantage and to the advantage of the platoon and how the enemy can also use the terrain to their advantage if allowed to do so. The machine gunner must also understand his field of fire. Field of fire is the area of the battlefield a seal is responsible for.

whether a street, hallway, valley, or cardinal direction. In that area, he must locate, locate, and engage the enemy. But field of fire is equally important in its limitations. Outside one's field of fire, there might be innocent civilians, other friendly forces, or perhaps even your own seals. Bluntly stated, staying within your field of fire prevents you from shooting your own people. So the machine gunner can have a lot on his mind. But because his job is to shoot, there generally isn't much leadership required from him.

Machine gunners are almost always part of a small fire team of four to six people, which is led by a fire team leader. With the lack of leadership opportunities being a machine gunner is a job that is generally held by relatively inexperienced new guys who are in their first or maybe second platoons. Because of the size of the machine gun, it is also often referred to as the pig, which makes the machine gunner a pig gunner. Also because of the size of the pig gun, it usually requires a seal who is slightly larger to carry it. While it is not always true, it is common for new guys to be assigned as pig gunners if they are large-framed, strong individuals. There is also an ongoing stereotypical joke in the seal teams that pig gunners, being big, strong new guys, aren't the sharpest tools in the shed. Any new guy that does something dumb will be told he will make a good pig gunner. When a briefing is completed, it would not be uncommon for the platoon chief to ask, do you pig gunners understand?

This is why the stereotypical pig gunner makes the perfect example of extreme ownership, because the stereotypical pig gunner is going to make mistakes, and they are a very easy target for blame. I heard it on a fairly regular basis from young seal leaders on training operations that I ran. The young leaders didn't fully understand their roles and the concept of extreme ownership. The training operations I ran were very complex and stressful, combat and stressful combat simulations. We had a large budget for training and we utilized it to replicate the chaos and mayhem of combat to the best of our ability.

We hired Hollywood set designers to make our training areas look like cities in Iraq or Afghanistan. We use role players to mimic the actions of both enemy combatants and friendly civilians. We simulated weapons with paintball or other high-end paint marking rounds or with multi-million dollar laser tags system. This simulated combat zone not only taught tactics, it was the ultimate, leadership laboratory and this is where I would see young seal leaders reveal that they didn't understand what extreme ownership really meant let's say your pig gunner let's say a young pig gunner shot his weapon in the wrong direction outside his field of fire when I would ask the pig gunner's

leader what had gone wrong it was very easy for him to say well the pig gunner made a mistake he shot in the wrong direction whose fault is that I would ask well the gunner aimed the weapon he pulled the trigger it is his fault would be the reply. Actually, I would explain it's your fault. How can it be my fault? He's the one that shot the weapon. The young leader would object. This was a pretty common response, but it was wrong. You see, if the pig gunner makes a mistake, it means he hasn't been trained properly. The leader is responsible for training the gunner. If the gunner shoots in the wrong direction, it means he hadn't been briefed so he fully understands his field of fire. The leader is responsible for briefing the gunner.

And yes, it could also mean the pig gunner is completely incompetent in understanding his task and knowing his field of fire. If that is the case, is the leader's responsibility to identify that shortfall and either train the gunner so he does understand, remove the gunner from his position and place him into a job he is capable of, or as a last resort, fire the gunner from the team if he cannot do his job properly. So regardless of the reason the gunner failed, it is the leader's fault. A leader is responsible for everything a person on his or her team does. I even felt like this when one of my guys would get in trouble off base. If one of the seals who worked for me went out in town and drank too much and got into a fight, I always thought, where did I mess up? How did I fail to make that individual realize the consequences of his actions?

Why didn't I know he was headed for trouble and keep him from going out? taking extreme ownership means that leaders are responsible for every action the people on their team make it is as simple as that you might wonder why I had to put that section in there

but we hear this all the time it's not really my fault I mean I get it oh yeah of course I'm responsible but hey no the marketing department I know it's my

They release something that should have been released. You know, it's my fault, but I'm going to fire that person. It means everything. And then we get into this preemptive ownership. When a leader knows they cannot blame anyone or anything else, they will implement what I call preemptive ownership. They will take ownership of things to prevent problems from unfolding in the first place. The leader who knows he can't blame his machine gunner,

when the machine gunner makes a mistake is going to take preemptive ownership and focus on training that machine gunner and ensuring he understands the plan and his part in it. The leader who knows bad weather is no excuse not to execute a mission will take preemptive ownership to ensure there are layers of contingency plans in the event the weather takes a bad turn. The same is true for any team. If the leader knows there truly are no excuses, then he or she will make every conceivable effort to prepare. Ownership isn't just about taking responsibility when mistakes happen. The highest

form of extreme ownership takes place preemptively before mistakes occur. So don't just take extreme ownership after the fact. Take preemptive ownership to mitigate problems before they even happen. Some people don't make that connection. Extreme ownership is not only in the past tense. It actually is the present tense and future tense. Yeah, there's also a reason why this is in the strategy section of this, is that this is sort of the highest level of the mindset of if you really believe everything is your fault, if you really believe that, not with a little caveat or like, well, in this case, if you can take the butt out of it and it's just my fault, period, if you actually have that

frame of mind, genuinely, and you actually truly believe that, this idea of preemptive ownership is actually really easy. Because you just start to look for things well in advance of what pitfalls are going to come. And doing this isn't as hard as it might sound. The barrier isn't taking preemptive ownership. The barrier is actually believing that there are no little exceptions to where it's actually not your fault. That's the piece that's hard for folks.

It's hard everywhere. It's hard in the military. It's hard on the private sector. It's hard in families. But when you see the ones that do it, this thing that you just talked about, people are doing it all the time. The ones that truly are there, that's all they're doing is looking for those places ahead of time. And those people, ironically, are the most successful.

Their plans are the ones that achieve the highest amount of success because they're way out in front of all those potential pitfalls. You've got to throw a dash of, you got to throw a dash of long game strategy into this. Because if what I do is, okay, there's no excuses. Dave, you're running this mission. Um, cool. I'm going to direct and I'm going to, I'm going to micro manage you to the point where I promise there'll be no mistakes. Okay. I now, this is why you got to throw some long game in there, some strategic vision.

That's why it's in the strategy section. Because if that's what I do, what have you learned? You haven't learned. You haven't figured out how to plan on your own. You haven't figured out how to execute the operation on your own. So even though you're responsible for everything, which you absolutely are, that doesn't mean that you do everything. And by the way, you can't do everything. You don't have no time or the cognitive capacity to handle and make every decision.

You can't do it. So taking extreme ownership of everything doesn't mean doing everything yourself and micromanaging and making every decision at all. That's a short term. And like we said earlier, that's like a brute force thing. It can work for a little while. Like I could be like, okay, Dave, oh, you're going to talk to a company. Cool. I'm going to go with you.

I'm going to write your brief for you. I'm going to sit in the back row and make adjustments. You talk okay cool I can do that one time but what about Mike Sorrelli who's out there? What about Andrew Paul am I gonna do it for everyone? What about Flynn? What about let am I gonna sit there and didn't know can't do it's impossible to do so yeah, I'm responsible for what we're saying I'm responsible for our mission, but I gotta make sure that the training is happening that the knowledge is there and then you gotta take a step back Speaking of which I'm jumping to this section called leading from the rear one of the most common mantra that leaders here is lead from the front. And it makes sense. After all, some critical things happen when leaders lead from the front.

When a leader leads from the front, he or she is setting the example showing exactly what to do and how to do it. This model can be critical during fear-inducing moments. There are many examples in combat where the situation is dire and it is leadership from the front

that changes the outcome. Perhaps there is some open terrain to cross. Maybe there is an enemy sniper waiting and take a shot. Maybe there is a room with enemy fighters behind the door that needs be entered. Any of these scenarios can cause people to become fearful and freeze. Who wants to risk death? But any of these situations can grow infinitely worse if no action at all is taken.

Most types of combat examples prove that someone needs to act. More often than that, that someone is the leader. When no one else has the courage to take action, the leader has to lead from the front. The leader has to charge across the open terrain, maneuver in the enemy's sniper's line of fire or breach the door to engage enemy fighters. If the leader doesn't take action, no one will. The troops will freeze. The enemy will seize the initiative. Get the upper hand and win.

It is not only combat situations where leaders need to lead from the front. In any situation that is stagnated because of fear or apprehension, a leader stepping up and taking action is a solid solution. The same is true of terribly arduous tasks. People tend to shy away from suffering. They will procrastinate and avoid getting started. But when the leader jumps in and starts attacking the job, others will jump in and get started as well. A leader must also lead from the front when it comes to setting a good example, treating people with respect, taking care of one another, and being professional at all times.

If the leaders lead in this manner, others will follow. Examples like these prove there are plenty of times when a leader must lead from the front. But there are also times when a leader must lead from the rear or perhaps from the middle. So, plenty of times where a leader has to lead from the front. has to lead from the front. That absolutely makes sense. I've seen it. I've done it. It happens. But back to the book, when I served as a seal assault force commander, I always tried to avoid being one of the first six to eight people to potentially, to enter a potentially hostile building during an assault. I did this because the first six to eight people would be clearing rooms, perhaps

getting in gunfights, and at a minimum, detaining potentially resistant prisoners. In short, the first six to eight people would be heavily engaged in dynamic fluid situations that required their full attention. If those first assulters got into a firefight and were immersed in trying to stay alive and eliminate the enemy, who would call for supporting assets? If they were overwhelmed by a large number of detainees, who would call for reinforcements? If possible enemy personnel were seen departing the building, who would notify the external security elements that this was happening?

In any of those cases, while the assault team was dealing with the immediate tactical problem someone else had to lead in those situations it was in those situations it was on me to lead my job was not to clear rooms engage targets or grapple with detainees my job was to detach assess all the dynamics of the situation and get my men the support they needed so when I approached a building if I happened to end up as one of the people toward the front of the assault team I would step back high port my weapon and let some of the other seals go in front of me as soon as my seal saw me do that they immediately knew what was happening and would move past me toward the target.

The momentum would not be broken, but is not only on the battlefield where a leader has to be cautious about leading from too far to the front. Planning is another time. It is important to consider where to lead from. Instead of the leader coming up with the plan, the preferred method is to let the team members come up with the plan. Let it be their idea. When the leader allows the team members to come up with the plan, those members have already bought into it. There is no need. to convince them of it of course if the planning process gets bogged down or different members of the team can't agree on a course of action it might be necessary for the leader to step in and provide guidance or even make a decision

on which course of action to use so and it just closes this out but it is all almost always preferred for the leader to lead from the rear to allow the troops to take lead on the plan and to take ownership of it the best idea is often come from the people on the team who are closest to the problem those are the folks on the front line don't inhibit them instead allow them the freedom and authority to create and execute new plans and ideas they have the knowledge give them the power don't feel the need to always lead from the front take a step back and let your team lead yeah it's you know Dave you've been working with me long

enough that you probably seen me how long how long we've been working together now three years three years you probably see me I'm gonna guess seven seven times in three years, you know, have something going on and me say, all right, here's what we're doing. Z, what do you think? Is that a good assessment? Yeah, seven or less. Seven or less.

Seven or less. And this is a lot of things. A lot of things. A lot of, I mean, hundreds and hundreds of decisions. Yes. That get made at echelon front. And seven times, it's been contentious enough or bogged down enough where it's like, okay, now we're not actually making progress and nothing.

happening and it's like okay guys here's what we're doing and you know it's the same thing that when I was on a ground force commander an assault force commander I wasn't going to say anything because the guys knew what to do and then occasionally they didn't know what to do and when I talked people listened it's that I think more than than it being contentious or bogged down it's actually the few times where like you know what damn I don't know what to do here and that little vacuum that gets created is when you step in, typically. Not when, you know, it's not like me and Flynn are arguing or Laif and I are arm wrestling over something.

You're going to come in and adjudicate it. It's actually when you see, oh, you know what? There's a place that these guys, Dave isn't actually know what to do here. Progress is not being made. That's right. We're not moving in the direct. And I'm going to step in and do that for him or for the team or whatnot. And then, you know, typically the after conversation is, hey, there's some things I could have

explained or there's a way that I could have set you up to be more successful. in that situation. But the comment of it's almost always preferred to lead from the rear, that is met with heavy resistance. We use a version of that. I explain that to the key, you know, when we work in a lot of companies, a lot of times we're working with really senior leaders. C-suite, you know, executive, CEOs, high level in the organization.

They don't like the idea of not leading from the front. And what they typically complain about the most is that they don't have enough time. too many things and it's always that they can't get everything done that they want to get done and it's for that reason alone is that they're in charge of everything which is why they don't have time

and why their teams are underperforming or why they're struggling and why they need that help but that comment of don't you know that's preferred a lot of times to not be in the front is there's kind of that immediate reaction I don't like the way that sounds

you have to explain what that means yeah because you get told that all the time All the, I mean, how common is the freight? Lead from the front, lead from the front. Day one, Marine Corps training, lead from the front. Day one, especially in officer training. Like, that is it from the beginning. And, you know, we are, you know, complimented on, you know, this iron mic.

He's out in front. He's got his arm up. He's pointed with a weapon. It's the follow me, you know, mantra and mindset that's all throughout military training. And just like you described, that doesn't mean that you don't have to set up and do that. But when you're actually supposed to do that is when there's a vacuum and a void. That's what you go, hey, I have to get out in front of this. That happens if your people are well trained and resourced.

That doesn't actually happen very often. It actually happens about seven times every three years. It's kind of the rate that you should be thinking that you need to be out front. Because the rest of the time, if you're actually doing your job, those vacuum is voids aren't there. Now, if you're adjudicating conflict, those might be some other things, but it's really the vacuums of decisions where your people like, you know what, boss? I got to be honest with you. I don't know what to do here or you see or feel that is where you need to get to. get out front, that doesn't happen all that often.

Yeah, which also means, as you said earlier, the minute I have to go, okay, here's where we need to go, I'm 20 seconds later, I'm thinking to myself, okay, I'm not doing a good job of explaining the intent here. That's right. And the team doesn't understand the strategy. Yeah, this is, this is on me. And I need to make that more clear, which usually that whatever situation unfolded is a real opportunity to say, hey, look, this is what we need to do.

and here's why. So the next time we see this, we know what to do. And if you've cultivated all these other things that we've been talking about that you wrote about here, those times that you as the leader step in, your team doesn't resent it. And they're not annoyed or frustrated with you. They're thankful and they're glad. So the explanation is way easy. It's a huge deposit.

And you don't have to worry about doing those things because nobody pushes back on it. They're actually relieved. Man, I was hitting a brick wall here. And that's actually what I needed. as opposed to he's in my business and telling me what to do, which is the exact opposite of what you're talking about here, which actually happens. If you think you need to be in front all the time,

what you're doing more often than not, 93% of the time, you're stepping on people's soos and you're hurting them in the long run, rather than letting them be successful. Yeah, we can cover it. I got a whole section on there on when to step up and lead. Like, when do you actually have to fill that leadership vacuum?

How do you do it? And this is another one of those things that, as I reflected upon, I was like, yeah, here's what I'm so, obvious to me but never really articulated it because never really had the never really got asked that got asked that pointed of a question never got asked how do you you know how do you shoot that weapon where do you put your hand where do you put your shoulder on that 240 golf when you're engaging from a bipot I never got asked wait when is it yeah everyone just sees you do it and they just think okay well I kind of get that but no you need to write that stuff down yeah

for sure this is a section that that you were talking about earlier today The section is called don't care. And it's a form of detachment. And people know about it because of the idea of negotiations, you know, the ability to walk away from negotiations. Oh, you don't want to lower your price? Cool. Yeah. I don't care.

Yeah. But it's something that you can use as a leader. If you drill down, going to the book, if you drill down on things you care about, you will find that many of them are rooted in ego. Even the simplest examples. So like when you're a leader, not caring is a powerful tool. You want to utilize your plan instead of mine? Cool. I don't care.

You want me to do some crappy job for you that others find a meeting? Fine. I don't care. Oh, you want me to give someone else the opportunity to lead a project? Awesome. I don't care. And then I'll give them a bunch of support. That's what it is.

And then once again, this kind of ties back into this idea of, this supreme level of confidence, which is when you can put your ego in check, when you can subordinate your ego, it's because you're so, you have confidence. Yeah, and not caring when you're supremely confident is different than not caring. Yes, it's totally different.

Yeah, yeah. Those are two, those are like clickbait titles, aren't they? Don't care and lead from the rear. Yeah. Those are clickbait titles. I just realized. Maybe I'll have to make, Echo, can you make a couple of videos with those?

Don't care and lead from the, rear. There you go. Clickbait. But to your point, even though they sound clickbait, and they almost, I mean, can you imagine going in the Marine Corps and being like, okay, lead from the rear and don't care. That's the opposite of everything that you would literally leader. Yeah. So, and not to mention, we talked for already 20 minutes today about the fundamental thing that you're doing as leaders caring about your people. So yeah, you have to read and fully understand what we're talking about here. Yes. In that section, you got to read all those details,

the idea of when you say, I don't care about you asking me to do a demeaning task, it means I'll do anything. I don't care what it is, because I'm here to help the team win, not the passive aggressive, I don't care, and not caring.

It was fun, the last muster in Australia. There was a lot of this going on, and it was cool because, you rewind three or four monsters ago, and all of a sudden, someone's saying, I want my slide here.

Or hey, I want to use this font. Or, you know, I need this much time to cover this topic. And this time, it was just, hey, how much time do you need to cover that? I don't care. I remember there was some conversation. And I think Jamie was like, hold on. She was doing the calculation for how much time each person gets for each slot. And she's like, wait, Chaco, this thing that I gave you 45 minutes, can you cover it?

It actually turns out to be only 20 minutes. And I was like, cool, don't care. Like it literally doesn't matter. Yeah. You want me? I'll talk about the subject for 20 or 45. It's fine. And oh, wait.

Someone else wants to cover that topic. Cool. I don't care. Let's do it. Whatever you want to do. Yeah. Or it'd be easier for these guys that they did it this way, but it can affect you a little bit. Cool.

I don't care. Yeah. Whatever. Is it easier for them? Do it. No factor. Don't care. Yeah.

That is a great attitude to have. Great attitude to have. Man, it makes your life easy. I mean, think about if you impose that or not impose it. But if you utilize that with your wife, right? Gotta be careful though. Well, yeah, yeah, you need. And there's also that there's also trapping.

We're getting real specific in the domestic scenarios unfolding. This will make my wife mad. What do you want for dinner? Don't care. That actually, my wife doesn't like that. You know, so what do I want for dinner? Well, steak, girl, let's go to a steakhouse. That's cool.

And then she can, she can lead by negation, right? No, I don't want steak. Cool. Let's go get something else, right? Yeah. Yeah, well, it seems like don't care saying that or being like that is different if someone really wants an actual answer from you. Yeah, there's got to be a better way to phrase it in a domestic scenario. So I think the way you phrase it in a domestic scenario is right here.

That sounds good. Yeah. Think about that. Technically not the same as I don't care. I know what I'm doing it. Mentally, you're there. You're there. Same attitude.

Mentally it's the same thing. Hey, do you want to watch this rom-com tonight? I don't care what we watch as long as I'm with you. Yeah, that's good. But I know what I'm going to say is better? That's good. That sounds good. Yeah, yeah.

That sounds good. My wife might not buy it on the rom-com. I'm pretty sure she knows what you're saying. So let's go domestic scenario. I'm going to say that's good. No, that sounds good. Because, hey, do you want to go out to the foo-foo new Italian restaurant? Sounds good.

Just think of that right there. Look, you might not even eat because you're not going to go out. You're not going to go out and say, hey, I want to get a, can you just inject me with diabetes right now with a plate of pasta? You're not thinking that. But you know what? What is it worth? Because the reality is, order the chicken parmesan and don't eat the pasta. What?

Borderline, but we're still good. We're still in there. We're still like maintaining. Yeah. Well, again, is this hitting close to home right now, man? Again, I don't, because technically it fundamentally goes against pretty much anything, well, in my situation that my wife even lives for. Like the whole idea, I don't care. You got to care.

That's what I'm saying. That's why sounds good. Yeah. That sounds good. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's correct. But it's the same attitude, but you keep that, you know, you keep that under wraps, Echo Charles.

Yes, sir. Just, hey, that sounds good. Hey, do you, what is she? Oh, yeah. Doesn't your wife likes to watch reality television from time to time right so when she says hey hon Real Housewives of Orange County seven is on my man Do you want to watch it? That sounds good. Yeah, there you go well see you never ask Play the game a little bit yeah. Yeah, okay cool good good tips for sure check

Next section know what is important and what isn't one of the things that distinguishes a black belt and jujitsu from a white belt is the black belt's understanding of what is important and what isn't a black belt sees past Insignificant movements ignores trivial actions and focuses on what actually matters a good commander on the battlefield does the same thing The commander can tell when the enemy is shooting when the enemy shooting is merely reconnaissance by fire a good commander understands when the enemy movement is just deploy a good commander ignores things that will not have an impact on the battle like the Black Belt and the battlefield commander, any good leader must be able to do the same thing, discriminate between what is important and what is not. For a leader in any situation, changes are everywhere, both external and internal.

External changes can occur in the environment, the behavior of the enemy, the market, the weather, or the timing of a scenario. Internal changes can be emotions of individuals, relationship dynamics, or the morale of the team. Change is the reality of life. Almost everything is in constant state of flux. and it is a crucial part of the leader's job to figure out which changes are important and which changes are mere distractions. This is not always easy to do.

I see leaders get caught up in all the time in things that do not matter. They waste their time and energy on meaningless events or minor problems that will not impact the overall results they are trying to achieve. A black belt and jujitsu is a master of energy conservation. Not one movement is wasted defending against attacks that do not matter. Leaders must do the same thing. Try to give a little insight on how to. to actually do this, a good leader detaches and elevates above the tactical situation where

they can see what really matters. Before they dive into a problem, they ask themselves questions. How will this problem impact the team's strategic goals? Can it cause mission failure? Is it worth my time and effort to engage in? How bad can it get if I leave it alone? The answers to such questions should make it obvious to a leader if a problem requires their involvement. A good rule to follow is that the leader should err on the side of not getting involved in problems. The goal is always to allow problems to get solved at the lowest level. When subordinates are solving low-level problems, it allows the leader to focus on more important strategic issues. So there you go. And of course, there's a dichotomy with that because

if you become too detached and you don't pay attention to any of the problems, you can have some issues. Yeah. The next section is called principles. And again, we're getting more and more granular, like as each section goes by, talk about who's the most important team member in a team. Yeah, just we've said it already, but just kind of revisiting, this is all under strategy. These are all the frame of minds.

There's all the, the mindsets you as a leader should have for all these things. This isn't prescriptive in every single situation. there is a dichotomy with everything, and there are circumstances which will drive you to be heavily involved in things. But it's the mindset of how do I want to view my role as a leader as it applies? That's the strategic part of this and why it fits in there. And that's why if you don't know and you're looking for a place to bias, bias in that direction doesn't mean 100% of the time. That isn't the answer all the time. And this isn't the tactical solution of what's going on.

It's how you should perceive your role as a leader and what your bias should be. And then the tactical situation might change and you might need to get more or less involved and do a whole bunch of different things and that certainly comes later But that mindset and we kept saying frame of mind from the beginning is crucial to understanding why this sits in the book the way it does Even shooting a 240 goal for the bipod There are times when you are going to whatever You are going to get that thing off the bipod and shoot you there's things that you're going to do You have to understand that this what the strategy is and then yes, absolutely right. You have to use your brain.

Yeah. Fortunately, the more you understand the strategies and the more tactics you know and understand, the more effectively you can use your brain to overcome some of these scenarios that unfold in the real world. Yeah. The lower down in the organization, the more tactical the behaviors of those people are. And to the point that sometimes you might have a machine gunner that really doesn't understand much of the big picture at all. But when you have the times to go down there, after they've made some tactical decision, especially if it's a good tactical decision,

and you can explain, hey, what you did made a huge impact upstream in the organization. You made a massive help, support for the larger strategic goal when you can make the connection for them and they recognize how what they're doing, this tiny little task that seems almost menial or small actually contributes to the big picture, how powerful that is to be able to continue to be more and more and more detached that they continue to do things without your help because they know what they're doing and how it affects the connection between their tactics and the strategy. Your ability to explain that makes huge headway with them. So we get into section three and again talk about the most important team member.

Talk about span of control so people understand what the best way is to do that. Talk about taking care of your people with discipline. Discipline is the best way to take care of your people from day one as a leader in the military. you are told over and over again you have to take care of your people. But some leaders get confused about what that means. They think taking care of your people means making sure they are comfortable and happy, coddling them, giving them as much time off as possible and not pushing them hard. This is wrong.

In fact, the opposite is true. In the SEAL teams, if you really care about your people, you won't coddle them at all. You will push them hard. You will train them hard. You will make sure they understand the tactics of war and the weapons and radio as they will operate. you will ensure they are in top physical condition and prepared for the mental and emotional stress of combat. You'll do everything in your power to prepare them for combat

so you can give them the highest probability that they and the rest of the team return from the battlefield. If you really care about your people, you want them to go home to their families. The best way to make that happen is through hard training that comes from discipline. The same thing is true in business. While lives might not be on the line

if you really want to take care of your people, you need to push them. You need to make sure they understand their jobs. You need to drive them toward their goals. If they fail professionally, they fail to achieve their financial goals and they cannot take care of their families or provide for them the way they want to. So when you are a leader, the best thing you can do is push them toward their goals. And of course, this drive has to be balanced. And then the reason I kind of had to put that in there because I wanted to go a little bit

deeper on imposed discipline. because I say over and over again that discipline shouldn't be imposed on people. And it usually has a bad outcome or at least has a negative taste. It leaves a negative taste in people's mouths when you impose discipline on them. So going back to the book, optimal discipline in a team is not imposed by the leader. It is chosen by the team itself. Optimal discipline is self-discipline. But teams do not always have self-discipline.

They may not understand the rewards that come with it. When that happens, it may be necessary for a certain level of discipline to be carefully applied and imposed so the team understands the benefits. And I kind of go through how you do that. How do you impose that discipline without leaving a bad taste in everyone's mouth? Good methodology. It's also a good way. This kind of leads into the next topic, which is pride. Because pride is a powerful force.

When people have pride, it can change an organization. Going back to the book, if there is pride, the team polices itself. The team will not allow substandard performance. Anyone who slacks off is corrected, not by the leadership, but by the team itself. That is the power of pride. What then of a team that lacks pride? Perhaps it doesn't have a storied history. Perhaps it doesn't have a history of victory to hold high.

What then? It is one of the most critical tasks as a leader to instill pride in your team. How do you do that? How can you build the morale of troops and create the strong bonds of pride that result in an attitude where everyone on the team gives more than what is required? Because that's the truth right there, right? You have a team that has pride. They're given more and they're self-policing. You have a team that doesn't have pride?

They're given the minimum. The minimum. The self-policing part of that is so powerful when you don't need to impose any correction on your team simply because they care enough to do it themselves. Yep. Yep. As I've talked about on this podcast before, the amount of times that I had to talk to a guy in tasking a bruiser because they were late is zero, right? Was guys late? Yeah.

But it never made it to me. Right. They were getting tightened up on the front lines, right? Oh, a guy doesn't. his gear squared away? Cool. You think I was down there counseling that person? No, they were getting tightened up.

Old school. They were not gonna make that mistake again. Why? Pride. So how do you get, how do you establish pride? Back to the book, the answer is simple. You give them the opportunity to earn it. Pride does not develop simply by telling team members that they are great or by hanging up banners.

All the banners and signs and flags mean nothing. If they aren't earned to build pride within a team, you have to put the members in situations that require, Unity, strength, and perseverance to get through. You have to push them in training to a point where they are truly tested. And in that, they will develop pride in what they have accomplished. Skipping forward to another section here, it's called yes men. As a leader, you should not want to be surrounded by yes men.

People who agree with everything you say. As a subordinate, you should not be a yes man. So this is like the counter to the whole initial part of this conversation talking about, Hey boss, yes, I got this. Yep, boss, I got that. Yep, you want me to do that extra paperwork. Yep, you want to cover there. Yeah, that's totally true.

And here we go in the other direction. As a subordinate, you should not be a yes man. You should speak up when something doesn't make sense. This concept sometimes worries leaders. Because essentially, what I am saying here is that subordinates should always be pushing back against their leaders, always asking their leaders why things are being done a certain way and always offering up information and recommendations from their perspective on the front line. That scares some leaders.

Some leaders would rather just have their subordinates do exactly what they are told to do. But that is a bad idea. So I get this all the time. That makes people nervous. But the problem is when you're surrounded by yes men, it's your brain against the world and your brain is not strong enough. you're going to make bad plans, bad decisions, and if all you have is a bunch of people that say, yes, boss, you're right.

You're going to end up in a bad situation. Yeah, and leaders who aren't surrounded by yes men, who are surrounded by people who are willing to push back, worst case scenario for them is things don't go well. They regroup, they come up with it to solve the problem, they move forward. They might have some back and forth, but it's not catastrophic.

If you're surrounded by yes men, when you finally fail, again, it's going to be catastrophic. because there'll be nobody there left to help figure out what it is that you need to do. So their recognition, too, is a leader that if you actually really care about winning, which a lot of times drives the ego, the worst way to do it is surround yourself by ESPN. Because when you fail, you'll fail catastrophically. And you don't have that in organizations where people push back, which is that's the fear. Like, I don't want people pushing back against my plans because I think I might look dumb.

Actually, you do because what you really want to do is be successful. And that catastrophic failure is what you see with companies and teams where everybody just, whatever you want boss, whatever you say boss, you know, in a way that's not constructive, but just whatever they want to hear to just kind of move past it, the failures they see is when companies, they lose everything.

Do not surround yourself with the S-Men. And that means don't be one. Now this doesn't mean that you form bad relationships with your boss. And I actually, in the book, like, explain how to do that. What does this sound like? So you'll have the ability

to speak properly and not develop an end. antagonistic relationship with your boss. Get that in the book. You know, one more little section here for this part of the book, for the strategy part. The exception to no bad teams, only bad leaders. In extreme ownership, we wrote that there were no bad teams, only bad leaders. We were not the first people to make this claim.

Napoleon said there were no bad regiments, only bad colonels. And U.S. Army Colonel David Hackworth said in his book about face, that there were no bad units, only bad officers. Yet there are still people who feel that a bad team is a legitimate excuse for bad performance. This is simply not true. There are no situations and no exceptions where a subordinate is ultimately responsible for the performance of a team. It is always the leader's fault. And, hey, imagine what I went through to write that sentence.

That's a bold sentence. There are no situations and no exceptions where a subordinate is ultimately responsible for the performance of a team. It is always the leader's fault. Believe me, I have racked my brain. Hopefully, maybe someone will come up with an example where that's wrong. I haven't figured one out yet. Going on. That being said, there is an exception to the rule that there are no bad teams, only bad leaders.

The exception is that it is possible to have a good team that delivers outstanding performance despite a bad leader. How does that happen if leadership is the most important thing? in the success or failure of a team. It happens when there are subordinates in the team who lead, regardless of their rank. They are tactful individuals who know how to lead

despite not having been given official authority. And this is what you've been talking about a bit today, Dave, already, which is, look, you can have a bad leader and the team is good, and they want to get the job done, and they believe in the mission, and they will win despite bad leadership. Despite bad leadership.

All right. we're approaching we're approaching three hours I think right now and we just finished so that that good place to take a break and we will get back so we finished the strategy part of leadership strategy and tactics and on the next podcast

we will cover part two leadership tactics um in the meantime I guess if you like listening to us I'm going to be talking some more at some live events around the country. Cool.

Does that sound like a tour? Yes. Classic. It's a classic example of what not to do. What did I do? I said, hey, we're not a rock band. We're not going on tour. And guess what I'm doing now?

Going on tour. Kind of. Doing some live gigs. January 6th in D.C. January 11th in Austin. January 16th in New York, January 20th in LA, January 27th in Seattle, and January 28th in SF. Some of the gigs are already sold out.

Go to joccolive.com. If you want to come and get engaged, it's called Decisive Engagement. That's the name of the event. The tour. Decisive engagement. Yeah, the events, the tour. It's the Decisive Engagement Tour.

Tour. Yeah, straight out. So I will be talking. I will be answering questions, meeting with you, looking forward to it, getting to those cities and hanging out with y'all. And what else? We talked a bunch about leadership today.

Yeah. What about leading ourselves? Is there anything, you know, what can we do to lead ourselves? We can do many things. A lot of, not a lot, but some jiu-jitsu references. Yeah. In the old leadership strategy.

Once again, amazing, how Jiu-Jitsu is a thread that runs through everything. Jiu-Jitsu is life. So participate in life, right? So yes, you're joining Jiu-Jitsu. We're doing Jiu-Jitsu. Still people every day.

Daily, semi-daily, twice daily, sometimes people saying, hey, I am either thinking about it or I just joined. So when you join, you're going to need a ghee. This is less of a question, by the way, because we all know this. So we're going to get an origin geek,

get it from origin, maine.com. rash cards as well for no ghee there you go boom jujitsu that's one thing is wearing jeans a way to get better I will say this if you're wearing jeans

that a allow you complete freedom of movement right that's one thing we tried to do to the enemy in a war we try and limit their freedom of movement yes and jiu jih Tzu by the way the jih Tijitsu we try and limit our opponents freedom of movement So why would you actually voluntarily put on a garment that restricts your freedom of movement?

You don't want to do that. That's why getting origin jeans, which have stretch in them. Sure. You know you can't tell from looking at them. It's not like you look at them and you go, oh, those are kind of some high fashion thing. No, they look like a pair of work jeans. But guess what? You're fully mobile.

You're not pinned down. It's like fashions. No. When you're wearing them, you don't. You know, I'm just saying you kind of can smell some fashion on them. Depends on who's wearing them. Me. Okay, yeah.

But you kind of stink of fashion. When my lovely wife is giving me a thorough evaluation of my aesthetic value at any given time while wearing these origin jeans, the fashion element is prevalent. Well, good. So I'm glad you like that. But to answer your question, because I wasn't. talking about fashion I was talking about function functionally yes we're good to go this is a positive thing this is a positive thing in your life on top of that why not

doing some why not do something where you are actually helping the country that you live in become a better place yeah that's true why would you not do that why would you not support the very country that provides you with the freedom to move so you get a pair of jeans that give you the freedom to move and then and then you support the nation that provides you with that freedom to move the freedom to do jih Tzu. I'm going to come to Echo's defense just a little bit here. Thank you. Because you guys both know, I can't give away my source, but I might already have those

genes you're talking about with that little stretch, little mobility. They all have that little mobility stretch. Yeah, there's a, I got a little advanced. You got Delta 68's? Yes. Okay. Check. Sorry.

That's cool. I got it. I don't. So Dave does. I got it. All right. And you guys both know, I don't do jeans. I do shorts and basically 99% of the time.

I gave the caveat was, well, if I ever got a pair of jeans I ever wanted to wear, maybe I'd wear jeans. Well, they showed up. I put them on my wife, who I don't know the last, I honestly do not know the last time she's seen me wear a pair of jeans. It is years. She said, dang, those look good.

That was the first thing she said. So I understand where you're coming from. Now, I didn't wear them for the fashion, but the first words out of her mouth were, those look good. Undeniable fashion, undeniable. I mean, not that it's like... Is there a difference between they look sharp and fashion?

Yeah, you got triggered by the fashion word. Yeah, I did. Sorry, bro. Sorry. Hey, actually, that's saying a lot. Dave Burke came shooting at the gun range with me. Straight up shorts, flip-flops. So I can confirm that whole notion that he does not wear jeans and shorts

and flip-flops are his main, what do you see? Modus mode situation. Unless, yes, that is true about the genes. I don't have the Delta 68. You should be getting them soon. They're in production. Actually, they're live right now by the time this podcast come out. Well, that's interesting.

I'm just saying Dave has them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what you should do? Build better relationships with people. Because apparently someone's winning over there. I know, man. Build good relationships. And he's not doing it.

He's not doing it so he can get jeans. That happens to be a byproduct. Yeah. Yes, look at this guy. We're talking about Delta 68 genes are the lightweight jeans. There's regular genes, which is like when I go to Montana, I wear the regular jeans. When I am in Southern California or the more temperate regions of America, and actually most of the time, it's the Delta 68 lightweight genes. Right.

It's good. I look forward to that. Brian. Pete. Wait, wait, wait, that would be Pete. Yes, that would be Pete. Well, both of you guys. Just side note.

Or somebody else. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A real player would know the people in the front of the front of eyes. And for you, Echo, just as you're looking, projecting down the road of your relationship building. Yes.

When things show up unrequested or unsolicited, that means you're winning. You got to go out and ask for them and say, get these to me. You're not winning as much as when like, wow, thank you very much for this. Yeah. You know, what's interesting is, I mean, what's interesting is when is the last time you just shipped a nice little box? of you know jocco podcast t-shirts out to Pete yeah that's true see what I'm saying yes he's looking at you like well you know yeah we don't even have a relationship really no quid pro quo here yeah all right there you go hey these are

all good tips hey I'm learning check you ever you ever find people when people say hey I'm I'm learning you know like almost like it's like almost like a cop out for their bad behavior I'm still learning I haven't really thought about but I just kind of felt that Shit, I felt it too, man. Anyway, genes are they are awesome, regardless of my relationship or lack thereof with Pete and Brian and everyone at origin.

Speaking of supplementation, we also have supplementation at origin. And actually, speaking of triggered, Dave Burke, Mr. You know, hey, try and keep it clean and professional in one of the outtakes was describing how much he liked strawberry milk and he dropped an F-mom.

Yeah. I mean like a full flesh with authority and passion. Well, for the people who know me and how almost never I say that word certainly public setting, that just indicates how much I still like strawberry. Yeah. Man. And you only mix it with milk, strawberry milk, and shake it up and you're good. That's it.

I hear all these stories of all these concoctions. Everybody's doing it's milk and milk in a cup and you just and it's like every time the F bomb just let's your jam because I made one the other day and this was a there's a little violation here whatever I'm gonna I'm coming clean to the world So I had you ever eat dinner and you're like you know what not only Was it not satisfying in volume? It was also unsatisfying in taste right? And I'm not gonna call out the person that executed this thing that I'm married to, but it was not the deal. So I got done and I had like not just a craving for more food, but tasty food. Yeah, yeah.

So I made this milk. I made, I said this worded milk, peanut butter, milk. Mulk, peanut butter milk, two scoops of peanut butter and then two scoops of vanilla ice cream. This thing was ridiculous. It was so good that I shared, which is just a whole other thing. I said to my son, I said, hey, I got to try this. Oh, that, okay.

And then he, because normally, if it's just really, really good, this is all mine. I made it. I paid for it. I created it. It's mine, right? You want, you, hey, go get, go mix one. This was so good.

I said, no, I want to give this away. You got to share it. You got to try this. Yeah, makes sense. And you know what he said when he drank it? Oh, my God. But you shifted to a little bit of short term there. A little short term shirt with the ice cream, man.

The ice cream. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Just a little bit. Not too much, though. That's kind of the good thing. I think, well, I think what it was was you just, you get that caloric deficit. Oh, yeah.

So you're just thinking, man, that dinner just didn't have enough. So I'm getting crazy. So yeah, we've got supplements. Molk. Sounds like a justification. But yeah, man, also a jaco white tea. Mm-hmm. You know, in the event of you wanting something light, you know,

if you're in a caloric deficit, this might not help you in that regard. Might not. Yeah, but it might give you a little kicker. It'll give you a kicker. There's some caffeine in it. Yes, sir. And will you feel like a food snob and start looking down on the people when you get done drinking at jocco white tea because it's certified organic?

Will you start looking down your nose a little bit at people? Potentially, yes. And say, oh, that looks like an interesting snack you're having. It doesn't look very organic to me. But it is true nonetheless, yes. Also, Jocko has a store. It's called Jocko Store. This is where you can get shirts representative of the path,

directly representative, by the way. Discipline equals freedom. The one I'm currently wearing. Good deal, Dave. Good deal, Dave. Good deal. Repping. representing big time anyway there's a lot of good stuff on mom does your mom have a

good deal Dave shirt totally I was good she have seven of them she has two mom's fired up she's like oh yeah I am representing we gotta make a shirt we gotta make a good deal Dave just for her that's just got your face on it so she could just be stoked my mom sent me a screen capture the other day she got some sort of thing apparently Facebook tracks this but when you comment more than other people you get a notification that you're a top fan yeah she is one of your Top fans. She got notified that she's a jaco top fan screen capture that sent me this that says Arlene is a jaco top fan She's in the game dude. She is 100% in the game. That is awesome. We need a we need a good deal Dave's shirt with

And speaking of which factually so when's the new top gun come out? Summer of 2020. Oh man. Okay. Well, we'll do what's the bet we need to do a Like a fight recap of it right a breakdown of it. Yeah, so we'll we'll we'll we'll we'll we'll we'll do a we'll We'll do that. And what's the, what do you think that? When will it be out on like, Netflix where we can like actually watch it as it's doing it and comment on it

without violating the, you know, the copyright laws or whatever? Actually, no, you can do it whenever. It's long, I don't know if it's in the theater.

No, we need to be able to watch it on a computer. Right, right. So we can sit right here. It's called commentary. Fair use. You can,

if you're doing commentary on something or, yeah, it's free. You can do it. Yeah. So we're going to absolutely do that. 100% we're gonna sit in here you're gonna go line by line you're gonna explain stuff I'm gonna ask you stupid questions Oh yeah yeah I'll be all up in yeah are you pumped for it that's a good I am totally

You're so pumped for it absolutely wait so were you I forget if I asked you this were you really into top gun the the OG Bro that's why that's his entire life right I mean the movie though you mean you mean when I was 14 and I stopped top top gun did I think it was cool? No well no I'm asking like more than that Yes like was that year jam for that was yes yeah 100% because I knew one of my good friends from when I was little Eric Masters still pilot too by the way Air Force Top Gun now was his jam I don't care what house it's in the VCR doesn't matter what service you're in Air Force Navy Marine Corps if you watch top gun That's why you want to be a pilot Naval Aviator that's right

Yeah, yeah it was good it's kind of interesting Dave was on the podcast before and we we talked to that entire thing Yeah, I know, I know, and just kind of F-1 YI, the trajectory of Dave's entire life is kind of fundamentally rooted in the movie Top Gun. But I appreciate the question. It's cool. I'm saying, hey, man. You know, I'm trying. I'm trying to build the relationship.

And Laif Babin is Navy Seals. He saw Navy Seals and was super fired up for Navy Seals. Yeah. Well, I used to watch Roadhouse a lot. So I guess maybe. That's how you became about. It's kind of the same deal. See what I'm saying?

That's good. I like it, maybe, maybe not. I don't know. Did you kind of see yourself a little Patrick Swayzee vibe? Dalton, bro. Dalton, I mean? In a way, but they always, here's the ongoing thing about Dalton. They always tell them, oh, I thought you'd be bigger, so I couldn't relay.

My whole thing was not to be the guy who they thought would be bigger. So what I'm saying? Anyway, check. Nonetheless. Yeah, Jocco store. Yeah, represent. Go there, jocco store.com. If you like something.

Yeah. Get something Also subscribe To the podcast if you haven't already Is this important? Maybe maybe not But it is we'll say useful Useful See in the game right? Right

Reviews of the podcast That's a good way to give us feedback Yes sir On the podcast so you can write Hey I think the support section should be much longer I don't think I hear you talking enough about Origin jeans I need way more info.

Yeah, yeah, you're right. That's a lot. So if you want to add that to the commentary, go leave a review. Do it. Go leave a review. And don't forget we have other podcasts. We got a podcast called The Grounded Podcast,

which Dave Burke has been on. It's not what people expect, apparently. Is it about Jiu Jitsu? Kind of. Is Jiu Jitsu about life? Very much. So what is it about then? About everything.

About life? Relaxed version. Like you're going to get relaxed fit jeans if your genes were, um, constrictive. I think those skinny jeans. Yeah. Well, you can get relaxed fit. Right. This is the relaxed fit podcast.

Oh, John Jocko podcast is skinny jeans and grounded is relaxed fit. I thought that's what you're saying. No, not at all. Are you sure? Is that what you're saying? That's what you're saying. Most certainly not. We're on by some kind of thing.

Jocko podcast is the, is the fatigue. is the uniform. All right? Back off. You almost caught me right there. Nicely done. And we also have the Warrior Kid podcast. We got four new episodes are out.

So check that out. And then there's Warrior Soap, Irish Oaks Ranch.com, Warrior Kid Soap, Aiden, on a farm. And you know what he learned on a farm? He learned that he needed to make soap so that he could stay clean. Yeah, it's good. Anyway, YouTube. If you want to know what Dave Burke looks like, we have a YouTube channel video version of this podcast.

And yes, there are excerpts just in case you don't want to, you know, necessarily. I don't want to say if you don't want to sit through the three, four, sometimes five, sometimes five and a half hours of, you know, whatever we're talking about. I'm not saying that. I'm saying sometimes, you know, maybe we've got other stuff to do that day. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. So maybe you can watch some excerpts on YouTube. channel is what I'm saying.

Also, you can get psychological warfare, which is an album, which will help you through moments of weakness. Also, you can get flipsidecanvus.com, Dakota Meyer from podcast 115. He has a company where an American company, American made, graphic representations of the path and other cool looking stuff. So you can check that out. Got some books. We've been reviewing.

Leadership Strategy and Tactics Field Manual. Dave Burke was one of the first people. Actually, I think you might have been the first person to read some semblance of it. I can see by your reactions today. It's approved. Approved. And then there's the Way of the Warrior Kid series.

Way of the Warrior Kid won, two, and three. Those are all. You know what? You can get your kids on the path right now. You can point them on the path. You're not going to impose discipline. You don't even have to. It will work for you.

Get your kids, get your nephew, your niece, some random kid down the street. Get those kids, the warrior kid books. It's the feedback that I get of the impact that it's having is beyond comprehension. It's awesome. And you can help a kid. You can help a kid so much. Get them those books. If you got a little little kid, get a Mikey and the Dragons.

So that when the entire world is something to be afraid of, learn how to overcome fear and then we got extreme ownership and the dichotomy of leadership which are the books that I wrote with my brother Lafagbin about leadership some of the principles that we talked about today these are the fundamental versions of those the discipline equals freedom field manual for the adult that needs to be on the path that needs the reminder get that and then there's Eschalon Front which is our leadership consultancy where we Take all these things that we talk about and we align leaders inside of organizations to work together and win.

Go to echelonfront.com for details on that. EF online. What about EF online, Dave? One of the most common questions we get with those companies we're working with is what do we do when we're not with them? How do we continue to do this? It's really the question is how do we get reps? Leadership is a skill. It requires reps.

reps after reps and one of the best ways is EF online because you can get all the reps you want with you and your team. EFonline.com. It is online training which sounds weak. I need to come up with a better name for it, right? But it is not weak when you do it. I thought it was going to be weak when we first came up with the idea. It was like, okay, well, we'll just kind of suffer through some weak technology and

no, it's not. It's totally legit. It's interactive. You actually have to answer questions. You have to actually make decisions. So eFonline.com. We got the muster leadership seminars, events, conventions that the entire echelon front team executes. Go to extreme ownership.

Ownership.com for details. Muster 2020, this is where we're going to be. We are going to be in Orlando. We are going to be in Dallas. and we are going to be in Phoenix, Arizona. So if you want to come to one of those musters, that's what we're doing. There's only three a year.

We're not going to go to whatever random town you live in. You're going to have to come to us because we're not a rock band and we're not on tour. I am going on a tour. Yes, you are. And then we have EF Overwatch and EF Legion. Dave, EF Overwatch and EF Legion. What do you think?

Dude, what Mike Sorrelli is doing with that And I told you about a common question we get. The other common question is, hey, I want more people in my organization that are going to be on the path and in the game. What can I do to do that? And if you're in the military looking for a way to do something that contributes every bit as much as it did in uniform, there's a way to do that. There are companies out there that need people like you right now. They need you. And for the companies that don't know where those people are, they actually all intersect in the same place.

They intersect right there at what Mike's really built with with Overwatch and Legion is where those people are to connect the people that need them and people where they want to be. It is unreal how much that is exploding in recognition, how important that is, man. It's awesome. And we're doing some things with the EF Legion to EF Legion. If you're a vet or you're in right now and you think you're ever going to have some other kind of job or you're ever going to get out of the military, which you are, I hate to tell you. Go to EFlegin.com right now and get yourself enrolled in the system. We're offering, we're going to be offering webinars on how to like make that transition. You're going to have, you're going to be able to, other companies are going to be able to look at you as a candidate.

They're going to be able to see you. And you're going to be able to see what they're looking for. So, go to EFlegin.com for that. So legit. And if you still want to hear from us after however many hours we've been talking, then we are all, available on the interwebs on Twitter, on Instagram, and on that face. Dave is at David R. Burke, Echo is at Echo Charles, and I am at Jocko Willink. And to all those military folks out there that are holding the line currently.

And when I say currently, I mean right now, right this moment in time, there are folks out there holding the line and protecting freedom and democracy for us. So to all of you right now, thank you for what you're doing. Same thing here at home. We got police and law enforcement and firefighters and paramedics and EMTs and dispatchers and correctional officers and Border Patrol and Secret Service and all those first responders. Same thing. Holding the line.

Protecting us here on the home front. And last thing to everybody, this is a book about leadership. And guess what? Everyone is a leader. You're leading your team. You're leading your family. You're leading your friends. That's what you're doing.

So pay attention to what you're doing. Get the right frame of mind. And then take that frame of mind and go. go out there and get after it. And until next time, this is Dave Burke and Echo and Jocko. Out.