Jocko Podcast - 246: The Only Real Failure is Giving Up. With JP Dinnell

Episode Date: September 9, 2020

0:00:00 - Opening 0:12:06 - Failure and Success. Keep Striving. W JP Dinnell. 3:32:51 - How to stay on THE PATH. 4:07:04 - Closing Gratitude.  Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 246 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. I was doing what I was doing. I was getting after it, working. It had been five years since I had retired from the Navy. And in that five years, I had been working hard. And listen, I'm not the guy that sent me.

Happy Birthday texts. Meet you for dinner on a Tuesday night. That's not that that's just not I don't know. That's just not really my personality. Now look, if you want dinner and you come to my house at any time, the grill is on. We'll cook steaks, obviously. No factor. But when I'm in the zone, I start doing my mission.

I get focused on that. That's what I do. And I'm not saying that this is a good way to be. I actually don't think it's a good way to be. I think I get a little target fixation in life and I'm not really great at maintaining contact with people. And the fact that I was in the teams my whole life didn't really help because all my friends were team guys

and so they didn't need any kind of consistent communication either. One guy that I went through buds with, went through basic seal training with in my class, then I went to Team 1 with him and then we did three deployments together three platoon workups, three deployments together then we went in a training cell together and this whole time we were roommates

the entire time and then I left for the East Coast and I didn't say one word to him for two years zero and then I got back and we both ended up a Team 7 and like nothing happened like high five and all good and we just picked up and no factor

and that's just like I said it's I know it's not great but that's just the way my personality is and that being said my friends also know that if they call me I'll answer the phone and if they need something I will make it happen and I don't care if I haven't heard from you for a year or for two years or for six years if you're my friend I'm ready to rock and roll but most people don't actually like to ask me for help most people don't like to ask for help anyways, and they definitely don't want to ask me for help because they don't want me to see that they aren't doing well or they've made a mistake or they put

themselves in some kind of bad position. So most of the time I don't get those calls. Now, one of the people that I did keep in touch with was Seth Stone, the Delta Patoon commander, mostly through text, you know, because he got stationed, you know, he got stationed out of California, so he was in different places. And so mostly text, sometimes email, occasional phone call, but 95% of time text. And, and just totally good to go. Two words, you know, one word, little inside jokes. Maybe if something cool happened, maybe a picture of the waves if they were good, maybe a picture of a new board. He would ask me things.

He would ask me questions, blunt questions about things, and I would give him blunt answers, and then he would execute, and he would tell me what's going on. And like I said, these would be in texts and short texts. I would get a text from him in some foreign country, and it would say, you know, Norway. period. And then there'd be another text that would say, girls, period. That would be it.

And I knew exactly what was happening. And if he needed anything, obviously he'd hit me up, and I'd give him whatever he needed. So one time he sent me a text, and it said something like, JP needs help, can you take care of him?

And that might not seem that big of a deal of a text, but I knew that. There was more to it than just that. I knew what that text actually meant. Because I knew that JP wouldn't ever ask for help. He wouldn't ask me for it anyways. Too much pride. Is that a thing?

Yeah, it's a thing. So I knew JP wouldn't ask. And I knew that Seth wouldn't ask me either. He wouldn't want to burden me with anything. But Seth obviously knew that there was something going on for him to send me that text. And JP was his guy. JP had been Seth's point man and his lead sniper and he'd done operation after operation after operation with Seth in Ramadi and JP was always out front and JP was always in danger and JP was always holding the line and JP was also like my brother. It was kind of like my little brother.

I mean, I was a decade older than him. Actually more than that, I think. He was 22 years old when I met him in 23 when I sent him into battle. And I had no problems with that whatsoever because that's what he was meant to do. But at this point, when I got this text, JP was in the civilian world. He'd gotten out of the Navy. And because he was in the civilian world and Seth was still in the Navy and Seth was working and traveling and wrapped up and all that stuff, Seth couldn't provide any help, at least the amount of help that he wanted to provide.

So that's why Seth hit me up. And I had been trading some techs with JP occasionally. You know, there's a fight would happen or, you know, we'd talk about UFC or, well, just, just basic stuff. I knew that he was working in a couple different various places, bouncing around a little bit, trying to figure things out. But a young JP was meant to go to war, so it was no surprise that things might not be as perfect as they could be as he tried to play the role of a civilian in the civilian world. So when Seth asked me to take care of JP, it was only because Seth couldn't do it himself. We'll throw the word brotherhood around. But this is what it means.

means 100% commitment anytime, anywhere, forever. So when Seth asked me to help JP, I responded to Seth's text with one word, Roger. And Seth wrote back, thank you. And that was it. So I started to escalate the idea that had been floating around of getting JP to come work at Eshlam Front. because what I actually knew or what I figured out when I started thinking through this,

that it wasn't really help that J.P. needed, at least not in the traditional sense of the word. What J.P. needed was a mission. So he ended up coming on the podcast exactly 200 episodes ago, episode 46 in October of 2016. And if you haven't listened to that episode, you can go back and listen to it right now just to hear the background of J.P.'s experience in younger life and in the teams and in T.U. Bruiser. But at that time, when he was on the podcast,

he needed a mission. So he was actually out. When he came on the podcast, he had come out to observe the first echelon front muster. And that was the beginning of his second career. It was the beginning of his new mission. He was the first instructor. We brought on board at Eschelon Front, and he has been here ever since.

And the last time he came on, maybe you can tell a little bit when you listen to that podcast, but his life was not in the best place. He was off the path. But he's in a totally different place now. A much better place. And part of the reason for that is because of our friend, Seth. who was always looking to take care of his guys and who passed the word to me to get engaged. And Seth isn't here anymore, but JP is.

And JP is here tonight to fill us in on the rest of this story, this backstory, and the lessons that he's learned on this journey and how he's climbed out of that place that maybe was an ideal into where he's at now. JP welcome back man thank you for having me back I had no idea set I ever text you that a while ago I was asking you questions I was trying to figure out I was saying hey remember when Seth drove visited you I was trying to figure out when I was trying to put together the dates so that I could figure out how what I did but I actually didn't want to tell you

I didn't want to tell you that that's what had happened. Got it. But I was asking you, like, when did you, and when did you come to the mustard? And when did Seth see you? I was trying to put together the dates because I have the old texts, but I have your and me, our texts, I have back until a long time, whatever Seth's phone number changed in 2017. So I only have, like, I don't know, I don't have the full history, at least not on, I couldn't find it. Okay.

But yeah, that's what happened. You sent me a text that was like, JP needs help. Can you take care of him? And I just wrote back, Roger. That's awesome. And you know, you and I, like I said, and as I went through our text,

and, you know, I don't know where, but all of a sudden I was like, okay, if I get JP to come to the monster, he's going to see what's going on. And then he can, like, hook a carabiner into this thing and let's go rock and roll. Well, it was also, at that time, I was also reaching out to you consistently.

And I remember specifically, I said, hey, I know the mentor doesn't seek out the mentee. That's why I'm hitting you up. Is there anything I can help with? Because you and I were talking one time. You're like, oh, I just did a gig. And I'm like, wait, where was that? And you told me, I'm like, I was 35 minutes from my house. And I remember we were just texting about that.

You're like, I had no idea. sorry like I don't even know where I'm going until like the day before according to my calendar that's how busy and I'll be honest at first I was when you said that I'm like yeah I remember you tell me you like later on you like like two years later you're like I didn't believe you and then it was happening to you but I get it now because I'm like wait what city am I going to next oh okay yeah and yeah there's what last year I believe I don't I can't remember what month it was but Yeah, I spent five nights at home, like with all the FTXs and musters and everything else like that and engagements. I was like, oh, yeah, I get that.

But yeah, that was when I was texting you just, hey, what can I do to help? Is there anything you need help with? And there was a from for me, I just thought you were like, hey, man, if you ever need anything, I thought it was one of those. Well, I didn't, I didn't understand. I didn't read into it. I should have been like, okay, you know, J.P's texts to me. four times in the last two months saying, hey, if you ever need anything, let me know.

I'm an idiot. And I should have been like, oh, okay, I need to talk to JP. Instead, I was like, hey, we're all good right now or something. Well, I could have been a little more aggressive and to the point and clear with my communication and said, because my thought was, okay, I've done sales for a couple of years when I got out. I was doing well. I left that to start my own consulting company. I left doing that very emotional.

You know, I didn't really plan out what I was going to be doing. And so, you know, there was just a gap in work and stuff like that. And I, in my mind, I was like, well, I can sell. I know what they're doing. Like, it works. I was like, maybe they need somebody to help with sales or anything. I was just, I wanted just to do anything I could just to try to help and be back working for you again and Lief. And, you know, I just, I didn't want to be too aggressive and too pushy.

Check this out. Echo Charles. Yes, sir. Have you ever seen a movie called The Sixth Sense? Yes, sir. J.P., have you seen it? Yes. You know how, like, in the end, you all of a sudden, the whole picture becomes clear of what happened?

Yeah, yeah. That's basically what happened with me was when I got that text from Seth, all of a sudden, like, all the dots connected. And I said to myself, oh, that's what's going on. That's what these texts are. I'm an idiot. Yeah, I mean, because during that time, I was helping build up, I was helping a guy build up his training facility in Alabama. It's an awesome facility that they have down there.

Things didn't work out between us because of my lack of proper communication with him. You know, I dropped the ball on that. And so then I was solely doing my own thing. I was teaching, shooting. I was siding in people's hunting rifles for, I was just doing anything I could for extra money like doing construction repairing fences in the neighborhood for the landlord to help like go towards my rent and you know and then I got the call um to from a team guy buddy of ours Kevin Kemp and he was like hey what are you doing the summer I'm like at the time I'm like what's

wide open right now I have nothing let me check my schedule um and he said hey um would you want to be on Transformers 5 as an extra playing a Navy SEAL and I said something back to him like pretty smart ass he's like no I'm being serious Michael Bay is looking for younger looking team guys I'm like awesome what do you need for me so I sent over the info you know I sent what do you need back for me didn't hear anything I was still helping out somebody else with their training company kind of building that up and then I was down in Alabama again so I'm back down in Alabama with another guy and I get the call from Harry's wife Harry's an old team guy

He's been in the movie industry for a long time. And she's like, hey, Michael Bay, loves your pictures, loves your stuff. Can you be on a plane tomorrow? I'm like, hold on. Let me check. Because in their world, everything runs around them. I'm like, I have a family. I have commitments.

And so I talk to the guy. I'm like, hey, here's the opportunity I have. Like, are you good with it? And he was like, dude, that's a great opportunity. Go ahead. I'm like, okay. So we finish our little business dinner down there. it's a six-hour drive back to Mississippi.

I call Amanda. I explain to her and she's like, that's amazing, yes. So I drive all the way back, pack out everything. They're like, oh, you're going up to, you know, Detroit, Michigan area. They're like, that's where they're filming outside of there. You know, don't know how long you're going to be up here. So it's just total open-ended, don't know how long you're going to be up here, went up there. We ended up going to the UK, filmed over in the UK as well.

You know, it was a really cool experience getting to, just see that aspect of it and um which it was cool what year was that this was 2016 this is a summer of 2016 um and got it you know and it's funny like i got a text from one of my buddies um michael the other day when you know the sour apple sniper came out he's like hey man i'm super proud of you he's like four years ago you were trying to figure out possibilities of getting paid from Paramount Pictures sooner because their pay is super slow. They don't care. Like they don't like, oh, you'll get your pay when you get your pay.

And a lot of the guys, not just me, we're just like, hey, man, we left other stuff that paid on time to come do this. And now we're not getting paid on time. Like, we kind of need our money. And he's like, four years ago, you're trying to figure out how to actually get paid in a timely manner. And now you have your own signature flavor energy drink with Jocco. And he's like, that's amazing. And so it's just, it's crazy to see the last four years what has, what has progressed. So did the filming.

And then I was looking at doing some contracting. There's some security work up in the Dakotas on the pipelines I was going to go do. I had opportunity to go do some security and some long range shooting instruction overseas. And that one, that one paid $1,000 a day for 70 days. And I'm like, this was the one that we had to discuss. Yes. This was the one that was a big choice. Yeah.

That was, I get the, I get the thumbs up on that one. So the, the, the, the muster was going to take place in October, I think. Yes. And, you know, I said, hey, this is, I've actually looked at the text yesterday. You know, I said, hey, we're doing an event, October 14th and 15th to whatever it was. It would be cool if you could come out and see what we're doing. And you had just gotten this offer to go overseas for a thousand bucks a day, for 70 days.

It makes 70 grand. 70 grand when we had, we didn't even, I mean total between checking and savings, we didn't even have a couple hundred dollars at the time. You know, I'd put my family in a really bad position. And I remember talking to you about that

and the guy Michael I'm talking about, I called him for advice as well. After, and I called Amanda when I had talked to you, I talked to him. I was trying to get a grasp for the situation before I, called Amanda so I could actually have like a legitimate conversation with her and kind of talk

through the opportunities and you know it was it was awesome she just kind of let me talk and I already knew the answer I knew what I needed to do and she did too and you know she told me she's like you know what the answer is she's like you know jocco and life will never steer you wrong you know the opportunity with jacquille life is is unlike anything else that you've had and the fact that they're giving you this opportunity, like you need to take advantage of it. I said, I agree 100%.

I just, I guess I needed to hear from her because it's easy. If I was single, that's a no brainer. But when you have a wife and three kids that can be affected by your decisions, and I had obviously made some decisions, I put them in hard positions. I mean,

there was times where we were using gift cards that we'd gotten from Christmas and birthdays and everything to go eat dinner. Like, okay, we're a little tight of money. Guess what? Hey, kids, you guys want to talk about?

Bell? Cool. Yeah, because we have a $25 gift card to Taco Bell. We can go get $15 with the food as a family and then have 10 more for another day. And it was going over to the in-laws and eating with them a lot. And, you know, it's just, just hard positions I didn't want to put my kids in. But then I'm getting this $1,000 a day in front of me. I had another buddy, Steve Arion, who is, I was teaching long-range shooting with. He has an awesome consulting and shooting company, Grey Fox Industries. He's always been really good to me. And he kind of knew I was in that needed work. And so he always would be like, hey, I'm offering you this first

before I give it to the other instructors that I have. And at the same time, I was already committed to teach shooting with him in Texas and then I was going to be headed for that overseas gig. And so when I decided and I called you and you're like, cool, you know, just let me know when you book your flight, I'll get you connected with Jamie. And I called Steve. I said, hey, you know, here's the opportunity I have.

He goes, I can get another instructor to cover down. You know, but he was tied on his, his funds as well. He's like, hey, I'm not going to be able to pay you your travel day, you know, because I don't have to pay for another instructor. I'm like, I don't care, man. Like the fact that you're cool with me leaving halfway through this course, dude, thank you so much. Like this means a lot to me.

And so I was already out in Texas. I'd already driven out there. and so I looked through all my old airline accounts that I, because when I traveled a lot doing sales, I had points added up. I'm like, oh, I can,

I'll be able to get from Texas, from Lovefield to San Diego. I have points to at least get me there. And I was trying to figure out how I was going to get a flight back because we didn't have the money. And so we figured out, and I finally, I get the flights booked.

And I remember when I sent you that, you're like, awesome, you connect me to Jamie. And you had mentioned, like, yeah, maybe you can crash in my house.

You can stay with me here and I was trying to figure out where I was going to stay. But in my mind, my concern was, well, I can't rent a car and we're not going to have enough money to Uber. I'm not going to have enough money to Uber anywhere. So I'm like thinking, okay, hey. And then as we got closer to the event, like Jamie got a hold of me and she's like, hey, we have a room here for you at the hotel where the event's going to be. And I was so thankful. I'm like, well, I don't need an Uber any. I was like, I can at least Uber from the airport to the hotel.

I remember I even looked at it. Like I'm like, I can just walk. I can walk there. Like from the airport to that hotel is not a big deal. And so I just, it just worked out to where I was able to make it out there. And we were going to do whatever we had to get me out there for that opportunity. Yeah. And you camouflage to basically all this from me.

The conversations that we had, I thought, you know, you're making a decision. You know, you said, hey, I got this opportunity to go overseas and make this much a day. I didn't know that I remember saying to you look hey that's a kind of a that's that's a great deal you know and if if you need to go do that you know we can hook up later or whatever I didn't know that you were in the dire straits that you were in because you didn't tell me because because I'm a grown man that put myself in that position it was nobody else's fault other than mine yeah and yeah it's one of those things so when I bring like someone on board you know I don't I don't want to pull the wool over your your eyes and another thing I told you was hey if you come to echelon front you may have 50 gigs next year and you may have one yeah I don't know I we know it's we're going into the market I don't know you know no one is gonna know who you are no one's gonna you understand who you are and we'll have you on the podcast and people will get a little bit familiar with you but I don't know what that means I don't know what that means

I don't know what it's gonna what it's gonna get you so I don't know yeah and you were super transparent and honest, and you said, nobody knows who J.P. Donnell is. They are requesting Lafabeban and Jocco. Like, that's when they reach out to Ashlawn Front for speaking, that's who they want. But, yeah, and then you said the rest, and I was like, yeah, I understand 100%. And the other thing that you said that I'll always remember, and, you know, it's a little fear of loss you put in there, but you weren't doing it on purpose. You're just being honest, and this was a very realistic possibility. he said, I don't know when the next time we would be able to link up. Like in regards to like, I don't know when I'll be able to get you out to the next event

for you to see what we're doing. And like for me, that was, that was, I mean, not terrifying, but for me, that was, it put me on edge because. Made you feel like a now or never situation? Absolutely. It was we have, I have to do this. And, you know, Amanda understood that 100%. I understood it.

My buddy, Steve. He understood it. as well. I mean, he was super supportive of it. I mean, he even offered, he's like, man, is there anything I could do to help you get out there? It's just a great guy. And I just, I knew the opportunity that I had and I wasn't going to. I mean, what's going to happen? What, what worse of a situation am I going to be in? I use all my airline points. I use up the little money I had in my PayPal account for Uber because I had, you know, with me teaching shooting, some people had bought the never settle shirts that I had at the time. Not a lot of

people were buying them, but some people would buy them and they'd buy it through PayPal. So that money I never even transferred to my bank account because that was like a extra savings savings that was out of sight out of mind that I was able to use. That was your Uber account. That was my Uber account. It's so great. I can't believe it's, again, it's a six cents thing for me right now, even right now because I paid you to come to the muster because like you helped you ran PT and everything.

Right. Well, you paid me after we got done recording episode 46 and we were standing outside of the office and you hand me a check and I'm like, I open up and I'm like, what is it? And I pushed it back towards you. I said no. And you actually got pretty upset and you said something to me and you pushed it back towards me. And I was like, okay.

What do you mean? Said something. What did he say? Of course we want to know what he said. Fuck you. And hand me back the check. What you didn't know is we had $17 in our bank account total between checking and savings. And the check that you gave me, that I was like, I mean, yeah, I mean, that was.

But see, that's why I said six cents, because when I gave you that check and you looked at it, it looked like I just gave you a check for a million dollars. and you felt like the look on your face was it was actually as if it was a million dollars and I was giving it to you and your look was this is amazing but I can't accept this right and that's the look that you had on your face I couldn't I couldn't I couldn't but when Jocko says that to you and pushes it back and he legitimately looked like angry with me I'm like oh I've never seen Jock angry before yeah and so I mean even getting up to when we recorded episode 46, I'm thankful that Brady was in town.

And Brady, you know, Lanter, who's been a trooper from day one with you guys, was there at the muster, and he had asked, I believe you, if he could come and just sit to listen.

And he paid for the Uber as we're headed up there. I was going to pay for it, but I was like, oh, you know, and he paid for it up there. And I was like, okay. And then you dropped us off

at the hotel on the way back. I'm like, oh, goodness. But that's so crazy. It's such a, it's crazy. And you know, I've talked about this before. Like, when you're in a leadership position, right?

And this is me talking because I know that this happens. No one wants to tell me that they're tired. No one wants to tell me that they don't want to do another mission. No one wants to tell me that stuff. And hardly anyone ever does, you know? And no one wants to tell me that, hey, man, I'm really hurting for money right now. What can we do to make this work? No.

Instead, you're just like, hey, kids, you're eating ramen. Well, you know, I mean, I shared it on episode 46. You know, my family, there was times that we were really tight on money, like really tight. And there's times that Amanda grew up. They were really tight on money. Like my father-in-law and my father, like I told you before many times, to the hardest working men I know. I've shared the stories of my dad, you know, growing up, him working construction, and he would be coughing up blood because he had pneumonia.

He was super sick. It was in the wintertime. And he still would go out and frame houses, poor concrete, do brick and block work, roof a house, whatever work you need to do for 10, 12, 14 hour days so that we could get paid. So that he could provide for our family. My father-in-law, same way. He have always two to three jobs at a time. He would come home from work.

he would spend some time with Amanda and her mom Debbie and her brother Nick and then he would go do some night shift somewhere he'd come home get a couple hours of sleep and then he'd go do his I mean he was always working and I knew that from times with with Amanda and my my understanding is you know I put myself in the situation I can work out of it now thinking back four years later could I have gone about in a different way? Absolutely. You know, it's like the missions that we would do. You can always look at the mission that you do. And even though you come out of a mission with success, you look at it and you're like, hey, you know what? If we would have done this, it would have been a little more effective. Hey, if we would have done this, maybe those guys wouldn't have been wounded.

My thing is, I put myself in that situation. I had already read extreme ownership. And extreme ownership is like we shared on the last podcast, what regained the marriage for a man and I, we were divorced and we were able to get our marriage and our family back together, I knew that I had put myself in that situation. It wasn't anybody else's fault. And at the time, like before I read Extreme Ownership, like when things had fallen apart with some other guys with their contracting companies or the training companies that I was helping out and helping build up, that crept back into me of that blame. And I got mad at them and I was upset and frustrated with them.

And then I read Extreme Ownership. I'm like, well, no. Actually, I could have been more proactive. I could have had better communication. I could have done so many more things that would have ensured that I had success with these other business relationships. And I just, I needed to work out of it.

Now, was my ego involved? For sure. I mean, because I don't know if anybody, it doesn't, man or woman, that wants to go to somebody that they respect, some of that they worked with, a friend, a family member, and say, hey, you know, we're hurting financially. Nobody wants to go do that.

What I should have done, like you just said, is been a little more transparent and said, what can we do to work through this? Like, yeah, and that's the thing that sucks as I look back because, you know, I gave you this check, which was, you know, it was cool. It was a good, it was, it was, it was some money. Yes. But that's not, that didn't get you out of the hole. And I didn't know how big the whole.

I didn't know what your full city. I didn't know you didn't have money yet. I just didn't know that. I thought, hey, you know, he's got, I knew you were doing other stuff. I knew you were teaching, shooting, whatever. I knew you had some other things going on. And I thought, you know, hey, cool.

We'll slowly, you know, we'll start getting you some gigs. Once you're on the podcast, that'll come out. People start asking about it. We'll get you on the roster. We'll take you to some gigs. You can sit there in the back. You can do some Q&A. And we'll get you, you know, we'll get you ramped up over the next three,

four months. No big deal. That's what I'm thinking. Yeah. I'm thinking no big deal. We'll get you ramped up over the next three or four months. And, you know, my attitude in life and that attitude reflects very deeply into the way that I run businesses is you eat what you kill. And so if you come and work for me and you think, well, I'm just going to give you money because you showed up.

No. Now I'm not actually going to do that. If you come and work with me and you start producing results, cool. We split up the results and we go forward and everyone's happy. So what I'm saying is you show up at Eshlam Front to start working. You're not getting any money until you start working. Yes. And that took time.

And what I didn't realize is you weren't out of that hole yet. And so that puts you for a few more months. Again, this is all me looking back, six cents. Now I go, oh, that's what was going on. But it was not, it was not, oh, welcome to Eschon Front. Now everything's good. No, and the way that it happened was, was perfect, though. And I am fully on board with what you just said.

And I think, I think if everybody operated that way, society would be a lot better. I truly believe that because it takes away from that sense of entitlement. And people think that because they're a part of a team that they get to reap the rewards. And it's like, no, like if you are putting out, if you are working, if you're hunting, then you're going to eat. And I knew that. And you told me, you and Leif both told me, hey, we are going to give you as much work as you want. If it's there, you are the one that needs to tell us like, hey, I need, I need a break. And I remember laughing when you guys said that.

I'm like, yeah, that's, okay, that's, that's going to be a great problem to have. And so I come back from San Diego, the muster is great, met a lot of amazing, troopers at that very first muster. You know, I learned so much at the muster. And that was when, that was my, I am all in, this is what I want to be doing. Like you said, I needed that new mission. And I've talked about this at multiple musters about finding a new mission because a lot of people without that mission, they're lost.

And when we're lost, very rarely are you going to actually make any sort of progress. If you're truly lost, you'll make zero progress. If you kind of start to figure out where you're at, then you can start to get some progress. It's like if you're doing land navigation and you don't have a compass and you're out there and all you have is a topographical map. You're completely lost. You have no idea what's going on. So it's a middle of the night. It's really hard to see terrain features in the middle of the night if you're out in the middle of no more.

You might be able to see a little bit with the moon and the stars. And if you're really good at being able to rain that read the terrain, then you might be able to figure out where you're out. that map. What you actually need is the ability to look around and gain some situational awareness. Yeah. And what you actually need beyond that is you need to have a goal of where you're trying to go to because otherwise you can look at that map all day and sit there because it doesn't matter. You need a map. You need a compass. Yeah, but you need to pick a point on that map and say, okay, this is where I'm trying to get to. 100%. And this isn't, by the way, we say this all the time to veterans, hey, you need a new mission when you get out of the military, but it's not

just veterans. It's people that graduate from college, people that get laid off from a job, people that leave, you know, their family splits up and all of a sudden they're by themselves. All those situations are situations where you got to look up and say, okay, what's my new mission? What am I going to do? And if you don't do it, you're sitting out in the middle of the woods without a map, without a compass and without a, without a destination that you're trying to get to. Absolutely. And so once I figure it out, okay, this was my new mission. This is this is what I wanted to be doing. It changed my mindset because I was at the time where I was just surviving. I was just trying to survive for my family, trying to like just I, one thing I know

is I know I'm smart. I know I'm not super intelligent like a lot of like the people I work around with these days. Like my brother and my sister, very extremely intelligent. But I know I can work hard. And so that's what all I was doing was just working, working, working hard, which is great. There's nothing wrong with hard work. I just wasn't being smart with my hard work. So I wasn't getting like the momentum and the success that I needed to put my family in a different situation because there was no clear mission. Like I had no why. Like, well, let me kind of go back on that.

My why was providing for my family. That was clear. But in order for that why to provide the results and yield. the success that I wanted, man, I really, I wasn't going to be able to do that until I had figured out what that new mission was going to be. And I thought it was going to be starting Never Settle Consulting because I wanted to be teaching, shooting tactics and combatants to law enforcement and military to help them out. Like my heart was big for law enforcement because I saw the lack of training that they had. And that's where I really wanted to do.

What I screwed up was, is I didn't come up with a good plan. All the things that I knew to do in military, all the things that I knew to do as a point man, as a sniper, like with planning and, you know, just making sure I can execute the highest level. I wasn't doing that as a civilian, so I was failing. And then when I saw what you guys are doing and saw how I could have a, just a seat at the table and the ability to contribute and to provide impact and service. And, you know, I've always understood servant leadership. You know, growing up in the church, My parents always explained it to me. I saw it firsthand from family members and then I saw it firsthand Working directly for Seth. Seth was an amazing leader that served his men. He he was always about the men

He was always about the mission. He was it was everybody else but himself. He always took care of everybody else and when I saw What you guys were doing here at Ashlawn Front at the very beginning That's what I saw like I saw that again. I saw that fulfillment of something that was very similar to what we had in the SEAL teams. And I wanted to be a part of it. That's all I want. Yeah. And going back to the analogy of land navigation, you can be a hard worker and you can go

and up and down those hills with your rucksack. But if you don't know where you're going, all you're doing is sweating a lot and doing a lot of work, but you're not actually making any progress in any direction. And that's not good. And I'm sure, you know, I'm sure we talked about this, but from the get-go, at, at Eschon Front, almost immediately we were working with not just companies, but we were working with law enforcement. We were working with military units. So I know that was, you said, you, you saw that we were already executing what, you know, what you actually really wanted to do. And then you saw, which the, what a great introduction coming to the muster. And you saw that not only does this apply to law enforcement and the military, but it also applies to every business out there.

everyone in leadership position. You know, starting my own thing was, it was good. I'm glad I did it. I learned, like I learned some very valuable lessons. Um, but for, for me to have the opportunity to be a part of what you, you and Lafer were doing, it was a good opportunity for me to also learn to check my ego because I had a lot of people like, man, you need to be doing your own thing. You need to be doing your own business. You know, you write your own book. You need, you know, it's all about me doing my own thing. And I just, I would be very polite to people that say that, sometimes I would be a little irritated because I'm super defensive of you and Laf and my boys. You know, I've always been like that. And I know they didn't mean it the wrong way. And I finally

would just tell people, I'm like, I don't care that it's not my company. What this company is doing is what matters. Like, this is what matters. This is what I want to be a part of this. It doesn't need to be my consulting company. That means nothing. Like, and I know I'm a part of this as it grows. And that was at the very beginning. Like I was, you know, there was this, you need to be doing your own thing from other, you know, people that didn't really know me very well or didn't know you guys very well. Uh, because when I came back from us recording the podcast, I went straight back to what I was doing, teaching shooting, siding in hunting rifles, um, doing construction, whatever I could do to, to make some ends meet. And, um, I remember I was, I got a miss call from

Jamie and I called her back. I was out at my buddy's property. Um, um, He's such a good guy. He would always let me have, his, his family had 107 acres down, down south of us where we lived in Mississippi. He's a, you know, former service member, you know, he was wounded overseas. He was a cop up in the Memphis area. Then he was working for his family's business. So him and I, we would go shooting all the time. Mike Gaines, great guy.

He was a sniper and he was like, yeah, I zigged when I should have zagged. I got shot. That just always makes light of the situation that he's in. And he was another guy that really helped me out because he knew kind of the situation I was in. I was trying to make ends for my family. He would let me set up shooting courses and siding hunting rifles down at his family's farm for nothing because I was like, hey man, I was like, we can split the cost.

I can pay you guys. He's like, man, my dad just likes having you around down here. And I'm like, okay, you know, his dad. And so I would always offer to pay. And he just always was like, nope, nope, nope, nope. And he, so he really helped me out. And I remember I was down there and I was, um, I got a miss call. And I called Jamie after I was, you know, sighting in this rifle.

And she's like, hey, it's super last minute. I was talking with, um, you know, he has an event with, um, Los Angeles County fire. Uh, it's a full day workshop. Would you be able to make out to San Diego? I said, um, yeah, I went. And she's like, we'd have to get you on a plane tomorrow. Okay. Can I call my wife really quick?

She said, absolutely. And she's like, and, and, It's not a paid gig, but it's a good opportunity for email to just go see what Jocko's doing. And, you know, kind of get you in the game. I'm like, yeah, okay. I don't care. And she's like, but we're going to book your travel. I'm like, oh, cool, awesome.

I was going to be kind of book my own flight out there. I was like, and this is in October. So we recorded in September, right? Yeah. The muster was in September. I forget. No, October. No, I think the muster was in October.

So this is legitimately the next week. This is the next week. Right on. Okay. And so, okay. And so I was all fired up. I called Amanda. She was like, okay, cool.

Yeah, no, no factor. And I remember I was so excited because, you know, Jamie was like, hey, it's last minute flight. The seats are kind of crappy. I'm like, it's okay. And I flew from Memphis to Atlanta and then Atlanta to San Diego. Get some. Yeah, and both flights, I'm middle seat back in economy.

And I'm just, I just have a huge smile on my face. Like, I could care less, you know, and I just had the mindset of like, I was just so happy that I was getting to do this. It's the same mindset that I had going through buds. And in training and in combat was, I get to do this. I would always try to remind myself, like, I get to do this. And the fact that I was flying out to San Diego, I was ecstatic. I'm like, man, I would have drove out there.

You're like, Jamie would have said, hey, we need you by here. I'm like, all right, it's going to take me 28 hours. Let's go get some. And so I fly there in the hotel. you come pick me up the next day we go up we do the event we're driving back down and i was just i was smoked i was just smoked from just the day the travel i didn't sleep um at all that night in the hotel um i was having a lot of headaches and and just issues so anytime i go out and i do a couple days of shooting at the time i would get really sick i'd get headaches i would throw up just being around

the concussion of just the rifles and shooting a lot of the time i'd get a lot of i'd get headaches i would throw up just being around the concussion of just the rifles and shooting a lot. And I remember we got done with it. We were driving back down. And I had two Never Saddle shirts. I gave you one to give to Echo. And I gave them to you. And I said, hey, if there's anything I can help you guys out with Eschua on front,

I'm like, if there's any gigs, I was like, I just want you to know, like, I'm all in. Like, anything I can do, I was like, I can't keep doing what I'm doing right now. I was like, and I remember you said, well, like, is there anything like, the VA, like, you were, like, concerned because you knew, like, I was having some issues with my brain and just my ability to focus and headaches and sleeping and stuff like that. And I remember that was, like, kind of the first time I kind of was vulnerable with you and shared with you, like, I can't keep doing what I'm doing. Like, if I could do something with you, like, this is what I want to do.

And you're like, hey, Roger that, which I respected because you've always since day one, you and Laif have always erred on the side of not over-promising anything. Like, just being very transparent and almost underselling stuff, like just completely underselling stuff, which I've always respected. I've always loved that. And that's one of the things when we were growing the field training exercise team, the experiential leadership training that we run echelon front, I've done that with the team. Like, I did that with Cody. I did that with Cowie. I was very blunt and say, hey, this can all go away tomorrow. We could have no training tomorrow.

Like, you need to understand that. Nothing is guaranteed. Even when we do the training, it's still not guaranteed until we get paid by the client. And that was what you and Laif had always told me from day one. Laif and I had a lot of conversations about that as well at the beginning. He just wanted to make sure there was no, I guess, false expectations on my end. And I respect that. And I love that.

And so I go back to San Diego the next day. I'm sorry, I go back to Mississippi the next day. And then I get a call from, from Jamie again. And she said, hey, Laif's doing an event in Fort Worth. You know, would you be able to join? And again, it's like, absolutely, yes. And I told him like, hey, anything that I can join, Jochua and Laf, like, I'm available. Just if you can just give me more than that, like a next day travel heads up, like, we're good to go.

And, you know, she was, she's been so. amazing from the get-go and so helpful. And I've learned, I mean, I could do a whole podcast on what I've learned working with Jamie Cochran because she's just an amazing human, amazing member of the team. And I've learned a lot from her over the last four years. And so she's like, okay, here's the dates. You know, I'm going to book your flight and everything else like that. And hey, you're going to meet up with Laif.

And I remember she said, well, you can like wait to link up with Laif or meet up at the hotel. you guys can get like car service together and again it was that like man I don't I don't have the money for car service or an Uber from DFW to Fort Worth is like this at the it's funny because I live there now and I'm like I thought this is a big long trip and everything and I remember she's like yeah well just get you know it's easier if I just get car service for you I was like yes awesome and so I linked up with Laif we went out to dinner that night and then we were at the hotel and I just thought it was so awesome. He's like, hey, let's rehearse everything for tomorrow.

Even though I wasn't helping present, I was just going to watch him present and then he was going to pull me up for Q&A. But he wanted to rehearse everything with me and I thought that was great. And, you know, I brought a suit out there because they said, hey, do you have a suit? I said, yeah, I was doing sales at a financial company. I have some suits. And so I brought a suit out there. and, you know, watch Laif, and I recorded it on my phone. You know, I did the audio record, a little voice recording thing on your phone of him,

of him giving the keynote. He had given me the keynote deck. I put on my computer, and so we were just kind of like rehearsing, talking through it together. He pulled me up on stage. We did Q&A. And, you know, I just remember I was so excited to be up on the stage in front of all these people with Laif.

I'm wearing a suit. And, yeah. It just, it was just, I felt like I was making some progress from my situation. Even though like financially there had been no difference. Like I was starting to see the change in my mind, in my mindset, like my attitude, the way I was thinking of things. And I remember this guy asked a question, he said, hey, what's the best counter sniper rifle? What's the best rifle to counter another sniper? And what do you think my answer is?

My answer is, well, 300 win back. because I played some cat and mouse games with some enemy snipers, and it didn't work out well for them. And I'm just going back to straight like that. And Leif goes, actually, and I answer and I'm like, you know, cool, because they wanted to hear about what type of rifle that I shot. And Leif goes, actually, the best weapon to counter an enemy sniper is an M1 Abram tank. And he goes, those soldiers came to our aid every single time we needed it.

If we were having issues with enemy fighters, we'd call in for tank support. They would come in and they would handle that. And that was like a major aha moment for me of this isn't about what we did in task unit bruiser. It's about what we did as Americans fighting together, soldiers, Marines and sailors working together. And I remember, like I wasn't embarrassed that he corrected me, but it was a noted. This is not about what I did as a sniper.

I felt embarrassed that I gave that answer about what I did. And it was just, it was a very humbling moment. And then, so we get done with the event. And I just, I remember sitting there just watching people line up to like take pictures of life and him sign the books. And I was like, man, this is so cool. I'm like, hey, you guys need me to take pictures? I'm really good at taking pictures.

And so don't worry, I'm coming for your echo. I'm really good of taking pictures these days. And, and so we do that event. we go and we grab some we grab some food go back to the airport and um we said our goodbyes and he gave me a he gives me a check I'm like what is this for and he's like no this is for work and you know this is what we did today this is a percentage of it and you know it's like that's that's how it works like you do events like you get a percentage he goes obviously jocco and I are going to get paid much more than you are I laughed I'm like oh you think but he's like hey you know

He's like, you did solid with the Q&A, and I appreciate you being here. And he goes, anytime we can do stuff with another instructor, it's always going to be better than just someone by themselves. I look at the check, and I'm like, this is awkward. Like, I just didn't feel like I deserved that. And I told him that. He's like, no, he's like, your time is valuable. And that was another really important thing that I learned was he said,

your time is valuable. And that's when I started to, again, really start to value who I was and my time and what it's worth. Because for a while, I didn't value my time. I didn't. And I think now, like people that, now I get some of it's fun, like, oh, Black Friday specials, like the camp overnight to, like, get the TV that they're saving $50 on. Like people are like, oh, but I saved. I'm like, but you spent 23 hours.

hours sleeping on a curb outside of Best Buy to save $50? Like that's what your time is worth. That's what, you know, and so I remember when he said, your time is valuable. That was, I needed to hear that. I knew that, but I just, I needed to hear that from somebody that I really looked up to. Leif and I went through SQT together. I've always looked up to him as a leader. I know how intelligent.

He's brilliant. He's very smart, right? Him and Seth were those leaders in SQT and Andrew Paul as well. They're all like super smart. I'm like, cool, got my high school diploma. But I just have always looked up to Laif and I know Laif also doesn't BS. Laif isn't going to say something that he doesn't believe or think is true. And so when he said, your time is valuable, I said, yeah, on the inside, I'm like, okay, it is, it is valuable.

And so I'm sitting at the airport, I'm sitting at the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport and flying back to Mississippi. And this guy's like looking at me. And I'm always scanning like we always are and I'm always looking around and like, he's just looking at me. I'm like a smile, kind of give a head nod. And I'm still, and so,

like he gets up and I'm like, I'm going to keep my eye on him. And I see him on his phone, and he's like, looking at me, he's on his phone, and he comes up. And at this point,

he's got a big smile. I'm like, okay, not a threat. And the other thing, I'm like, man, I don't want to do this at the airport because then I'm never going to be able to fly again.

If I have to defend myself in the airport, it's probably going to be bad. And the guy has big old smile. He's like, hey, are you, are you JP to know? I said, yes, sir. He's like, man, I thought so. He's like, I was just watching you on Jocko podcast. His name is Stan.

Super nice guy. I'm like, oh, that's great. And so we connect. He's like, man, I'd love to get you. He's like, are you part of Eschalon front now? I said, yes, sir. And he said, awesome, man. He's like, maybe I can get you to come out and talk with our company.

I'm like, yeah, we can absolutely do that. I'm just like, yes, come on. You want to do it tomorrow? Where are you guys located? And we changed my flight. Yeah. Well, he was flying back to Mississippi with me. Oh, we're good.

Yeah, we're good. He's down in Tupelo. And so we fly back and, you know, I talked to him a little bit after the flight. And then we kind of cut out. And it was, again, back to the same thing. Go home, change out, working construction. And then at the time, my buddy, Jared White, he had already built me at this an amazing rifle. It's an ARSR platform.

and it's probably one of the best air platform guns I've ever shot. He is amazing at what he does. And he's like, hey man, he's like, I have a long-range rifle I want to give to you as a gift. I was like, what? He's like, yeah. I was like, okay. And so I come up and I go, I meet up with him. He's outside the Nashville area.

Dial it, like, confirm the dope on this gun. I mean, it is amazing. It's the same gun that I shot in the Go Time series for Origin and Jock Fuel. And so I confirm the dope on it, go out to 300, confirm, go to 500, like dial in the dope he says that I should be having. And there's these five targets and I shoot from left to right. And it's getting smaller each target as you're going down. I'm like, boom, ding, boom, ding, like working my way. Last one, like I pause because I see the wind kind of picking up a little bit.

And it wasn't just a win like in front of the target, but like I'm like looking at the wind the whole way down there. So I just hold off to the right edge of the target. Boom, dink, center mass. And he's like, man, that's nice. And the guy next to this guy gets pissed on. He's like, I've been trying to shoot that target for two months, and I have never hit it. It was a two and a half inch target at 500 yards.

And I'm boom, dead center. That is a half minute of angle gun that he built for me. I mean, it is. And this is, we're shooting factory off the shelf ammo that you can buy it from anywhere, or 6.5 Creedmoor. Beautiful weapon. So I'm like, man, this is amazing. So we shoot a little bit more.

Well, he doesn't tell the guy, like my background. And the guy was like, let's see you first time shooting this gun. I'm like, yeah, you just, you know. And so we hang out. We go grab some food. I'm like, man, can I get you some, like, can we get lunch or whatever? He's like, yes, we go grab some food. And I'm, again, super tight.

But I'm like, man, like, he just built me this amazing. I can at least buy him lunch. And I'm like, try and calculate gas money to get back and everything as well. And I know he's always done construction. And he was talking about some jobs. And I said, hey, if you ever need help with any of your jobs, I would love to work with you. I love construction. I love working with my hands.

I was like, and I could use the work if you need it. And he's like, okay, yeah, man, I appreciate it. And like I drive back. And I think I followed up with them. I said, man, thanks again. This gun is amazing. This is like ridiculous. I was like, I owe you big time.

He's like, no, man, you don't owe me anything. He's like, I just really appreciate your service. And he's like, it's, you know, you deserve to have a, he's like, you're a badass sniper that should have a badass sniper rifle. I'm like, well, I'm not a badass sniper, but I appreciate the badass sniper rifle. And he hits me up and he's like, hey, you know, do you still want to work construction with me? He was like, I could do something.

We could do something on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. I said, yeah, absolutely. And so we start that and tour. And this is, I'm still like, I'm doing my brief, like every day. I am rehearsing my echelon front keynote legitimately, at this time, four to six hours a day. Like Amanda, like I would be in my office. I would pick different locations in our house. And in Mississippi, when we got back together, we were in a two-bedroom house that was, I mean,

this probably the square footage of this podcast recording room and the locker room next to us. That was about the size of the whole house. Two bedrooms, you know, we had no kitchen. because that's, I mean, we had a kitchen. We had no dining room area because that's where my office was. We would eat in the living room on TV trays. Like, you know, that was where we'd have our family dinner. Like, we didn't actually sit at a table unless we went over to our in-laws.

And so I would be practicing my keynote four to six hours a day, legitimately like going through it, listening to Laf's keynote, clicking along, like making it my own, kind of doing some tweaks, talking with you and Laif here and there. And then this opportunity for me to start working with my buddy Jared, I said, yeah, absolutely. So I would wake up at three in the morning on Wednesday and I would drive up to Nashville from South Haven, Mississippi, where we lived. Well, there's like a three, three and a half hour drive. Well, guess what?

That was three repetitions through the keynote. So I would be driving. I'd have my laptop at an angle. So I'd put my backpack in front of the passenger seat. I put my laptop at an angle and I had the clicker. And while I was driving, I would listen. I was playing Laif audio of the keynote while I was clicking through and watching the slides as I'm driving and just kind of listening and getting like the flow down. And I would do that and I would I would get up there.

I would work construction with him. And then he had a bed up in his attic that I would crash in. And so I crashed there. We'd get done with the day. I'd do another like two hours of rehearsing. I would wake up a few hours early. I would do a few hours of rehearsing in the morning, go work construction with him. And I would do this Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. And Friday I would drive back. And then I would spend some time with Amanda of the kids. Well, my buddy Lee opened up a Marco's pizza in South Haven. We used to work at the financial company together. He invested it in the franchise. And so of course, Amanda and I were supporting him. We're there. We're like, oh, this is awesome. The kids were like, like this piece is really good. I'm like, yeah, this is awesome. I'm like, hey, Lee, this is great. I'm super proud of you.

This is awesome. I said, hey, if you ever need help, like with drivers, let me know. He's like, oh, man, you don't want to be doing that. I'm like, no, it's fine. I was like, if you ever need help, just let me know. Like, I would love to help you out. And he kind of like, we went back and forth. And I finally was like, hey, if you need some help with a driver,

I would like to be a delivery driver for you. He's like, oh, hey, man. Yeah, I could. actually, I could actually use a good, reliable, like, driver. That would be great. And I'm like, okay, cool. Man, I had like the absolute probably nicest vehicle of any delivery driver at the time. It was my 2015 Toyota Tundra that was lifted. And like, I mean, it was awesome. So I would do the construction with Jared, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, doing the rehearsals in the morning, rehearsals in the evening. When I drive back on Friday, it was another three hours of doing the

rehearsals through the keynote. I would see Amanda and the kids. She would usually be over at her parents at this time. I would go back home. I would take a quick shower. I would throw on my polo, throw my Marco's pizza hat. I would go in, I'd clock in, and I would deliver pizzas until midnight. And then after midnight, most drivers would leave. And I was like, hey, I can help close out the store. Because I needed that extra hour of minimum wage, because that extra 625, was, I was like, I will take anything and everything I can at this moment. And so I would, that's what I would do. I would deliver pizzas on the weekend.

And then I would be, I would come home from delivering pizzas around 1.30, 2ish in the morning by time we got done cleaning up the kitchen. And I would get online and see if anybody ordered any never settle t-shirts. And because we had talked about on the podcast, there's a good amount of orders that started to come through. And so I would fulfill orders until three or four in the month. morning and I would crawl into bed with the man of the kids and she would wake me up like when the kids would get up she would get me a cup of coffee and I would that's why I would spend some

time with them on Saturday and Sunday we go to church and I would you know do the same thing in the evenings and yeah I was doing construction my landlord had some fences that he needed to repair it on some of his rental so I would go do that and I would exchange him rent instead of paying rent I remember one time I and this is at the very beginning. And Jamie's like, hey, you have a gig that's going to be in March. You know, the client wants to do a pre-event call with you. I'm like, okay, awesome. And so I was sitting, I stopped fixing fences at this person's house. I went and sat in the car and I did my pre-event call with the client, got done with it, took all my notes, took a picture of it, emailed it to myself. So I could have like an email copy, the photocopy, at the digital copy of the notes of

my phone. I had everything. And went back and finished repairing these fences so I could exchange rent for a couple months with the landlord. And yeah, I was doing everything, everything I could. And then you or Jamie reached out and said, hey, Jocko is going to be doing a thing in Nashville. How far away is that from you? I said, well, I'm going to be right up there. I'm actually helping a buddy. And so I reached out to my buddy and Jared and I said, hey, you know, I'm I believe it was like, hey, next week, do you mind if I take a day off? Like, could I miss out on Thursday? And he said, yeah, absolutely what's going on?

I said, well, Jocco's doing an event. I'm going to be, yeah, I need to go with him. And he said, yeah, dude, he's a big fan of yours, listens to the podcast. And he was like, yeah, anything you need, let me know. And so I was working construction with him, got done with my day, came, met up with you at the hotel. We did our rehearsals, which were awesome seeing you do the rest, rehearsals and then you were trying to like have me do rehearsals and I was just the whole big brother effect like I couldn't even like talk in front of Jocko in the room I just yeah it was too much so we go do the event and I remember I thought I was going to be early and I text you and I said hey um headed that way where do you want to meet like I'm thinking I'm cool I'll be a little early and you said I'm sitting in the front at one of the front tables already I'm like okay

Jocko gets there really early. And so I remember that was the major lesson for me from that little interaction was anytime you're doing something with a client, it's about an hour ahead of time. And you explained to me the reason why is because you have to go through all the different, you know, you want to make sure that everything's loaded properly. And I didn't know that you'd been down there that early. I'm like, okay. So I go, I sit, the same thing.

I record your keynote. and it was on the dot to the hour. Like hour hit right as you were doing, your closing like thank you slide. I was like, that's impressive. And you knew it, and you knew it. And so you come off stage and the guy goes up on stage. He's like, man, must be a Navy Sealed thing.

60 minutes on the dot and everyone's like, ah, like just, you know, applauding and, you know, it was really cool. And I remember you said, you're like, man, when you hit that mark, when you hit the mark within a minute, it's like you coming down on a free fall jump and you hit the X on the drop zone. You're like, it feels so good. You just hit that. And I was like, okay, timing. You know, I just, I'm taking all these like notes as I'm interacting with you and Lief and listening. And I'm like, okay, timing.

Like that's obviously very important for what we're doing. And so I, we go to a breakout. And they wanted you to do another little breakout training. And I asked you, I'm like, well, what are you going to do? You're like, I'm just going to open up and talk. I'm like, oh, okay. And you're like, but I have slides in case nobody is talking and interacting that I can talk through that will get engagement. And if not, then I'm just going to give another brief on some other things that I think is important for their business.

So that right there is a primary plan, secondary and tertiary. Yep, 100%. And these are all the things that I'm like in my mind, like relating back to. military. And it was cool because I was seeing like the change in my mindset. Like I could feel it. I was excited. I was engaged. I felt like I was planning operations like we did in Ramadi. I felt like it was just I was having that sense of fulfillment again. And that's what a lot of people struggle with. And you and I have talked about this a lot. And I know Leif and I have talked about this a lot. Veterans and first responders and law enforcement officers and firefighters and

EMS, they struggle when they don't have that sense of purpose anymore. And if you want to take it outside, like you said, it's humans in general. Look at college athletes, right? They think they're going to go to the professionals. And then they don't. And what do they do? It's like one or the other. They either thrive in a civilian world and they find a job with a purpose and they can do all that drive and all the hard work ethics that they had to bring them to that high level college athlete level or they just everything falls apart and there is like they're like Napoleon dynamite's uncle who's talking about like hey if coach would have put me in we would have won it's like okay cool yeah probably not dude and so I just remember this this change in my mindset starting to happen when I was just

surrounded again and I was thinking of like this is what I need to be doing and so I I do that day with you and you brought me up to interact and provide you know some research responses and answers to different questions that were coming about. And I remember I felt really comfortable up there. Like I wasn't nervous. Like when I was sitting in the hotel room with you, like just trying to go through the slides, I was, uh, uh, you know, I was, it was horrible. I wish we would have like video footage of some of that because that would be awesome.

I wish we had that too because, um, and now this is like the big joke at echelon front that everybody when they have to brief me sucks. Yeah. And it's a disaster. And it's like, They freak out and then everyone's awesome. And actually, you know, when you spoke at the muster for the first time,

we went through the rehearsal and it was just a total disaster. And you, and see, I had worked with you at trade at. And so I'd seen you brief a ton and I knew what you're going to do. But you walked out of the room and Laif is like, bro. He's like, dude, I don't know. And I go, he'll knock this thing out. He's going to crush this thing. I go, he just freaks out in front of me.

And he's like, Roger that. And we'll see. I said, you know, we'll do it. The other thing that sucks about this whole thing is, you know, you are going through, like, again, I just have to point this out because it's such a good leadership lesson to learn for me and for everybody. You're going through like these real struggles of driving all this way, working construction, delivering freaking pizza. You're doing all that, and I don't know it. I think you're teaching, like, you know, you're in Mississippi. I'm in California.

Look, you, you, you, you, do you teach you. shooting. I know you. And people pay you to teach shooting. I'm like, okay, cool. You know, he's going to do that. I'm not even, it's not even entering my mind that you have a freaking pizza hat on and you're delivering pizza. That's not even entering my mind. You never said a word about it. And I didn't, I didn't dig enough to be like, hey, bro, how is this working? How is everything going? You know, and that's totally my fault for not understanding and not doing enough research and not having a good enough relationship with you where you'd be like, bro, you know what? I'm going to have trouble paying rent this month.

Like, if I would have known that, I would have been like, oh, cool. No, actually, you're going to have no trouble paying month rent ever again. Here, watch this. Game over. Done. And yeah, so that sucks. And the weird thing is I'm trying to think like what puts you into this mindset. And then what I realize what puts you into this mindset is there's a lot of people that

they read extreme ownership. or they come to the muster or they listen to the podcast. And what they think is, yeah, you know, I wish that person would have ownership and I wish this person would act that way. And they start thinking about how everyone else should take ownership. And so in this process where I would love for you to say to me, hey, Jocko, I need a little bit of like to make ends meet and give me a stable base right now. Can you help me out?

Where I would love to say that. I would love to have had you say that to me. what you're thinking is this is my fault and I'm going to fix it. And it was 100% my fault. 100%. And I was on the path of fixing it because of good opportunities that I had from my buddy Jared, my buddy Steve, you know, that I was teaching shooting, you know, I was doing construction, Lee allowing me to come deliver pizzas.

Like these were great opportunities that I had. And I was in my landlord willing to trade. Oh, you want to you want to replace some fensual? and do some maintenance on on some of the properties like to trade out rent okay like these were opportunities that were they're actually helping and then fulfilling online t-shirt orders these are all things that were making ends meet that I'm like I don't think if I would have come to you and said hey I'm how and you're like hey don't worry about this I don't think that would have made the situation better honestly I don't because I don't think that makes any

situation better for anybody. It's you have to grind. You have to work through these things. And if you allowed yourself to get in a situation, you have to get yourself out of the situation. You absolutely have to get yourself out of situation. Now, I understand what you're saying from a leadership standpoint. I get that 100%. But this was something that I had to get myself out of. Because it doesn't mean. You can't achieve success for somebody else. They have to do it themselves. They have to actually want to do it themselves. Yeah. And, you know, You know, what I don't want to do is make people think, hey, JP sucked it up and I'm going to suck it up too. And as I was just thinking through this, look, you were in a really bad spot, but you actually, your head was still above water, right?

It was tough. You were treading water hard. But if it got to a point, I would hope that if it got to a point where, you know, you were going to be homeless or whatever, you would have been like, hey, Jay, Jaco. here's what's going on, man. And I would have been like, hey, Roger that. And you would probably said, listen, I need a loan. I need money right now and I'll pay you back or whatever. But right now this is where I'm at.

And so maybe it's the fact that as low as you got, you didn't quite get to a point where you were drowning. And as long as you weren't drowning, you're like, hey, I'm going to figure this out. Yes, I still, I'm telling you, I still wouldn't have come to you and ask for that. because I don't think that's the right answer. I put in actually a thing at Lowe's to do loss prevention, right? And I guess I wasn't qualified enough because I didn't get the job at Lowe's to do loss prevention.

And I knew, you know what? The other thing I could have done that I actually had talked to Amanda about was like, hey, once you and the kids go to sleep, I can go restock the shelves at Walmart. I can go do that for four or five hours every single night. Get a couple, you know, I could get enough sleep throughout the day to me. make those things happen. And these were legitimate conversations that we had that I could do. The other thing is, you know, I was looking to get back into the military for a while. That's one of the times I actually called you. Actually, I sent you a tweet and I said,

hey, give me a call. And you're like, why didn't you just text me? I said, well, because I know if you saw that, you'd give me a call and people would say, why is he saying give me a call? And they would, I was trying to like sway some social media followers to come see what I was doing. But I was actually trying to get back And this is before all this was trying to get back in the military for a while There's an I had enough options I had there's there's there's plenty of options for me to go out there I'm saying you didn't act you weren't actually drowning no you know nobody but but what I'm saying is if if there's someone listening right now that's like drowning then you ask

Then you have to ask for help and you know what man I have had friends mutual friends of ours people that we know People that you don't know that I you know whatever I've had plenty of friends that have come to me, been like, hey man, this is what's going on. And I need some help. And I've been like, Roger. You know, that's what I talked about when I opened this up. Like, I've had plenty of people come to me and say, this is what's going on. I need help. And I've said, Roger that. What do you need? I mean, dude, I had Seth. Seth was, Seth was freaking buying a house. And he was like, hey, I'm whatever, $38,000 short. And then I also need money in my bank account to show that I have the reserves and I was like cool come pick up a check like done no no questions asked

not not like what's the payment plan it's like no done done deal yeah done deal no factor and you know that I think that's that I just want to make sure people aren't thinking like hey just don't ever come ask for help if you're if you're treading water and you're above water and you can still make some progress awesome yes I totally agree figure it out but if you're going to drown you need you need to put your hand up and you need to ask for help that's what you need to do that's what your friends are there for yeah no i i i understand what you're saying and i definitely could have reached out i didn't feel that i needed you like you said i wasn't drowning and i have no problem doing whatever i have to do to make ends me and i will like i mean there was one time just in

the neighborhood like I just had the idea and so what I did is I asked people if they wanted their addresses spray painted on the curve in front of their mailbox so it was easy to identify and I went around doing that and yeah I mean I get the get the template do the white paint down let it kind of dry put the template over it spray paint their address that was easy boom quick cash would go around I would do that sometime how much would you charge for that $25 check yeah go doing enough of those. You know,

you're okay. But, you know, what does it take 15 minutes? Maybe. Yeah. So you're talking 100 bucks an hour? Maybe. Yeah,

maybe 15. Now, the first couple of times it was, I was like, I need an actual process for this. And so that was, you know, at the very beginning,

like you said, you didn't know. And then Jamie says, hey, December 15th, December 14th, you're going to have your first gig. You're going to be doing a keynote.

It's 100 and 10. people. It's a their company, it's a safety stand down. And I was like, okay, cool. And it's going to be in an auditorium. And so I was, I was excited about that, but, you know, a little nervous. Like, okay, what am I going to be doing for this first time? And I was, again, practicing my keynote at this time, about six to seven, sometimes eight hours a day. Any free moment I had. If I had a free hour, I was doing it. I was doing like the keynote, just listening to your audio,

listening to Lath's audio. I'd go back and forth between the two audios. I had my brief put together and then I started to make it my own. Right. And I remember the first time that I had to, it was over Skype,

I was going to give the presentation to you in Lief. Amanda was like, okay, her and the kids were going to be gone. I stacked up all this stuff in my living room to where the computer would be eye level. took everything off the walls behind me,

had my clicker, had everything. And we did the keynote. I did it for you guys. I was like right at the hour mark. So I was like excited that I had hit that time. And then we did Q&A. And I remember it would, I was proud of myself when when Leif said,

JP, you've obviously done a good amount of prep for this. That was a good job. Now let's do some mock Q&A. And like that was. was the feedback that I got from you guys because I had I don't even know how many hours of this presentation I had worked through I mean I was going to say Leif was thinking you did like three hours of practice but you did three thousand close to it you know I mean I mean hundreds of hours legitimately of of just planning and and just going through it and just making sure that I knew and I would

I would make it to where like even like if I didn't I wanted to be able to do it to where I if I couldn't see the advanced slide. Like I would practice different ways where the computer was behind me like representing the screen and I would I would do that and I would get into my little rhythm of like, hey, as you can see to make sure I was still on the right slide, practice using reflections off of like pictures or mirrors or stuff to see where I was at on stuff behind me. Just try to put myself in bad situations so that I could go through it. And then I did that first keynote. I was in Denver Colorado and you know it was awesome this is in December December 14 so it was October November December so that those were like you struggling through and then finally here comes your first gig get

my first gig I remember when I got there like I took a picture of all the lineup because there's their safety stand down thing and so they had all these other speakers there and every other one of them was like doctor, doctor, PhD, Dr. like all this list and then JP to know

form an ABC. But like, what is JP? What's a JP? What does JP? What does JP stand for? Yeah, what does JP stand for? And I remember I sent you that picture

to you and Leif and your response was something on the lungs of better get used to that. And it was just awesome, you know? And then so I go down there. There's a break before I talk. I get my computer set up.

I have my water, have like everything kind of like set up for me. About halfway through the audio, like the sound goes out in this place. Microphone goes out. I'm like, okay. Well, it was an auditorium, so I'm like, cool. Just project. Well, I just remember, like, everyone, like, being on their phones while I'm talking.

And I was like, oh, my gosh. Like, this, I suck. Like, I suck. And then it clicked. They would get on their phones every time I'd click the next slide so that they could take notes. Remember, like, people are using their phones. They're using technology. People are taking pictures.

They're typing in the notes. And then when they'd done, they would put their phone away. And it was just that moment of like fear. And then it like I was able to put it together. Got done. Give the keynote. Went and had lunch with a buddy. The company requested like, hey, if he can hang out, we'd like to have, like have dinner.

So I went back, met up with them. And then the next day I flew back. And yeah, had nothing for December. the rest of December and then my next gig was in was in January and so I was going down to Key West Florida I'm like this is awesome so go down there um fly down to Key West or fly down to one of the airports and then it was like an hour and a half Uber ride down to where I was going to be at went to the event was kind of doing my research like wanted to find the room that we're going to be talking in and I used my credit card to Jimmy open the door because there was like, you know, an older, like,

hotel in Key West Florida, like easy to break into everything there. So I use my credit card, get in, and I go into, like, check out the room that I'm going to be speaking in. There's nothing set up at all. And I'm thinking, well, we start at like 7 a.m. And so I text, the point of contact them, and I said, hey, there's, like, there's nothing set up in the room here. And the response was like, I thought, you.

you were bringing everything. And so there's some major miscommunication there. And I said, well, no, I brought my computer and the adapters and the clicker. Everything else is supposed to be on you guys. And the guy was super nice. He was like, oh, he had been, he was at dinner with the group. They had all been drinking. And so he comes and I kind of showed him in the room.

He's like, so what do we need? I'm like, we need a screen, a projector. a power source. And so we went down to the front desk and was talking somebody. Well, it's like, we're like 11 o'clock at this point in time. And so we kind of told him like, hey, this is what we need. And they're like, well, we can't do anything. We start at seven.

And the guy said like, hey, we've rented out this many rooms for this many days. Like, this needs to happen. And the front desk lady was like, okay, let me see what I can do. Went and found this guy that could help us out. And we got everything set up that night. And that was for me, it was like this confirmation of why it's important to do. your recon and why you should take the extra time, go check out the situation, gain as much situational awareness as you can before you go into an environment. And I'm glad that I did

because if we would have done it the next morning, nothing would have been set up. And so everything got set up. I'm doing a half-day workshop. And it was like my second gig, I'm doing a half-day workshop solo. And I just remember like trying to talk with you in life. I'm like, how do you guys do workshops? Like, what am I doing? You guys gave me the template. We talked through it. And, and, I just And major lesson learned of a failure on my part is make sure your watch sinks with the new time zone. Because I'm like, oh, I'm on time. I'm good to go. Well, you go from Mississippi to Florida.

There's an hour difference. And I went over 47 minutes over my time that I was supposed to have. And I remember one of the guys like, hey, you're going to be getting done soon? I'm like, yeah, you know, we've got like 20 minutes. I'll be wrapping it up. He goes, you're supposed to be done 40 minutes ago. I was like, what? And I'm like, my watch didn't change time zones.

That's 100% my fault for not sinking that. I'm like, okay, give me, give me one minute. And so I go, I changed like my PowerPoint slides around. I just go straight to the closing. And I just, you know, talk. They were super cool. They were good with it. They were loving it.

But, you know, it's a corporate retreat for them. So they had other stuff that they're supposed to be going through. And I just, I addressed the group and I said, hey, you know what? I completely failed on the time. Like, this is what happened. You know, hey, here's a recap of the day. We kind of talked through everything and I closed it out and it was good to go.

And, you know, so going out and I said, hey, you know, do you have confirmation of the car service that? So he's like, oh, no, we don't. And I'm like, hmm, okay. So I tried to call Lynn and Jamie to see and they weren't available. And so I was like, oh, man. I'm like, that's going to be a really expensive Uber. I don't know if I have it. And so I got the Uber and it was like, it was like a $130 Uber to get back.

And I had like $140 in that PayPal account. And it was like, okay, cool. Go back. Well, when I'm flying back, it's Amanda and I's anniversary. And it was snowing in Mississippi when I get back. And so we spend a little bit of time together. And I shoot Leah text. I'm like, hey, do you need?

a driver tonight. My truck is four-wheel drive. He said, isn't it your anniversary? I said, do you need a driver? He said, when can he be here? And so I told Amanda, and I said, hey, do you care if I, I know it's our anniversary, but we need the money. I'm going to go deliver pizza. She's like, okay. I was fully supportive of it. And so that was a super humbling moment where you go from- I need to give Amanda more hugs next time I see her, because she should be hating me right now going, yo, JP could have made this money overseas.

We would be sitting right now. I can't believe this guys. No. I'm going to give her a big old hug next time I see her and say her, tell her thank you for putting up with me. Because dang. Yeah. So I might get to the conversation that we had very short.

Like you, Amanda and I had a conversation. Like I think it was the same month. So we're in, this is the beginning of January. And so, um, you know, I go and I change out and you know, she goes over to her parents to hang out and I started delivering

pizzas, you know, and he put a, he put a social media post. He said, hey, it was a picture of his truck and my truck in front of Marco's pizza. He said, you shouldn't be driving, but we can. Let us, something along those lines. And we were, I mean, I was delivering pizzas until 1 a.m. I mean, we were nonstop delivering pizzas. And I was doing that for the tip money. You know, we need that extra tip and I would make you know about $300 in tips you know I just I'd make good tip money I was super polite and you know friendly to people but it was just I remember I was going up to this one house to deliver and it's this beautiful house in Mississippi big old house and it was you know very wealthy family and I go up there and it was just this like I recognized like where I was still at

Because I was still on this, like, I'm J.P. Denele with Eschelon Front. I was just in a nice suit in Key West Florida, giving a leadership speech. You know, I gave this workshop. But you know what? They don't know that. Nobody knows who I am because I'm wearing a Marco's Pizza Polo and a hat delivering their pizza. And I just remember thinking like, man, I really need to make this work with Eschalon Front. Like, I really need to make sure I'm doing what I need to do.

just like make it work like hey I'm available for work like do you have opportunity like let me know what I need but I need to make it work like I need to be in the game I need to be leveling up and it was just and that's just kind of where it was at and so I don't I don't I had one other event that month in January and that was out in Philadelphia and that was again a great company learned a lot with them. It was a half-day workshop. Made sure my phone was synced and my watch was synced with the time zones and the schedule went well and, you know, I flew back and I don't think I really had anything in February. And so I was still the same thing. Like I'm delivering pizzas. I'm doing construction. I'm doing whatever I can. And during this time frame, um, has some opportunities to

help teach shooting. So I'm doing that as well. And, um, you know, March rolls around. And that's what I hear. I hear a few years. You'd be like, hey, I'm going to go out and teach you. I'm all awesome, man. Sounds like everything's going awesome. Yeah, me too. Just an idiot.

That's exactly what I thought. I was like, oh, man, that's kind of a cool deal. Yeah, absolutely. So I go, you know, I'm teaching, I'm helping teach shooting on my birthday for a training company that was near the Memphis area. And, you know, just, hey, I think I had like a few events, I think in March with Eschelon Front, a little bit in April. It was like one or two gigs, right?

Well, this thing that I did in December and January, none of those paid, I didn't get paid for those until like April or May because, well, you don't get paid until I Shlongfranc gets paid. And that's a principle and a concept that I know. Like, why would they pay me if they haven't gotten paid? I, you know, I remember Laif like making sure I understood that. He's like, you're going to be,

and I'm like, yeah, I'm good with that. Like, I came from sales in a financial industry where that's what we did. We actually helped people get paid before they got paid. And so I understood it and I was good with it. I was doing all this other work. And I remember one time I sent you a picture of I was working construction with Jared and it was eight degrees outside. Like I took a screenshot of the temp and the, and of me doing this brick,

we were doing some block work on this really nice house. And you said, make sure you save that because you're not going to be in that situation next year. And I saved it. And I saved that like that picture. and so I was doing what I could and I met this I met these brothers at a shooting course that I did and they're like hey if you ever do like your own like we'd love to do is like in like just some specific specialized training with you and I'm like okay cool and they followed up with me they're like hey let me know if you have anything and I felt weird like doing my own thing considering

I was helping my buddies do their thing that was kind of customized and I let my buddy know And he's like, dude, if people are asking you to do stuff, like, and if you're doing it through your company, like, whatever, that's fine. And so I put together this really high-end shooting experience where it was a day of pistol, a day of rifle, and a day of long-range shooting. And it was at this really nice house in Mississippi on 700 acres in this beautiful, huge house. Like there was a lake in front of the house, like the sun rose. So, I mean, it was an amazing experience. And that was the first, like, high-end type of thing that I did. And, man, it made a difference, right?

And there's, you know, another company that, you know, asked me to kind of do like a shooting day with their company for some team building. And, like, it was the same situation where I was like, man, I don't know how I'm going to make rent. And it was a complete God thing because the guy hit me up. He said, hey, I have a check for you. I want to make sure this gets paid to you before we do the training. I was like, okay, where are you at? I can meet you.

And I remember I drove to go meet with him and I looked at the bank. And I'm like, cool, I'm going to go straight to that bank and cash it there. And I remember the bank was like, oh, there's going to be like a $50 cashing fee. I'm like, $50 a cat? I'm like, that's ridiculous. And I'm like, you know, so I was kind of like talking through. I was like, hey, I'm a small business. Like, this is like part of my business.

And he's like, oh, wave it this time. I'm like, thank you. You know, I was like, man, you're taking $50. Come on. It was, you know, small, it was a small little community bank in Mississippi. But anyways, or Tennessee. And so we get through all that time. And it's just, you know, making ends meet.

A man in the kids are being so supportive. And we had a conversation with you. I remember we dropped off the kids at school. And we were talking and we were driving in my tundra. and we're headed to the gym, and we're just kind of having this conversation where you told him, you're like, hey, when this picks up for JP,

he's going to miss a lot of stuff. He goes, and you need to understand that he's probably not going to be there for their preschool graduation. He's probably not going to be there for the kindergarten graduation. He's going to miss some birthdays. He's going to miss some anniversaries.

But if you guys are willing to just, like, grow with us right now, he's like it's going to be a solid three to five years before any of us really take a break if that's what you want and I'm just like nod my head like while you're talking so at this point I'm guessing that I started to see some kind of trajectory with the demand signal for you yes started to see like hey okay this is because I knew where I was at which was mayhem yes and the more mayhem I have the more mayhem everyone else has yes you know there's a little lag time behind it but that's the way it works.

Yeah, this was, so this was right before that I, this is right before I spoke at Muster Zero Zero Two, which was May of, of 2017. And so there wasn't that crazy demand for me, but you knew it was going to be there because if people were requesting Jocco and Laif and that they can't afford Joccoe and Lave, they get JCP to know. And, um, and you saw that kind of starting to happen and you just kind of set the expectations. And Amanda was like, I have no problem with this. And you're like, okay, I just, you know, we want to make sure.

And then this is about the time that you guys brought on Dave Burke. Good deal, Dave. Good deal, Dave. And we did our first event together in April. Oh, I want to say April 26th or 27th, somewhere in that time frame. We did our first event together. And it was cool because when we met up, it was like, it was weird. We just gave each other like this big, like this bro hug.

And I was like, hey, man, it's like good to meet you. and actually be working with you. And he was like me, just beyond excited for the opportunity. And that night, we sat and we went through the brief together. We rehearsed it a couple of times. The next day, we woke up early. We knocked out a workout. We rehearsed the brief, you know, a couple of times and of what we're going to be doing.

And it was funny because the client was like, oh, how long have you guys been working with each other? And Dave and I kind of laugh. Like, you know, on and off, you know, since 2006, mostly off. Like we do, you know, but the client, you know, just was happy to have Dave and I for this event. And we did this full day workshop and it was awesome. And for me, what I learned from that event with Dave was just humility of, of Dave being this super high-ranking Marine Corps officer with the pedigree background that he had for what he did in the military, the Marine Corps as a top gun pilot. that, you know, just, I mean, he's a good deal day for a reason. And for him to be asking me,

like, my ideas and hey, what do you think? And how do you want to run this? And what's your thoughts on this? Hey, you've been doing it a little bit longer than me. And I'm just like, in my mind, I'm like, well, yeah, I've been here a couple months longer than you, but it's not like I've been flooded with work, brother. Like I'm just, but he just showed just complete humility and for us to be able to work together and, you know, just just cover a move for you. other. It was awesome. We read off of each other like we had been working together for a decade plus. It was really cool. And, you know, just us knocking out the workout together in the morning and then us just doing the workshop and then us heading out. It was, it was really cool. And then

it was just, to me, it meant a lot that, you know, Dave could have come in. You know, he's, he got all of his degrees and his educational background and everything he did in the Marine Corps and, you know, the business degrees and anything. He could have come in and be like, hey, this is what we're going to be doing. Like, hey, I had to talk with Drac on Leif. And I would have been like, Roger that, sir. Like, check. Like, I know my place.

I'm good with this. But it was the exact opposite, which that's what good leaders do. And I just, I knew that he exemplified everything that you and Laif had talked about from day one. And that's why I was like, okay, this is this is a guy that I'll do anything with. I'll do anything for him. Like, the fact that I get to work with him, I'm fired up. And then muster zero two happened. And Dave and I both spoke.

And I was like, dang, that guy can talk. Like his Oudaloo brief was incredible. And we just, we bonded at that at that muster and just being able to see you and Laif grow from the first muster to the second master. I was like, oh, wow, that's, it's impressive. It was just, it was just getting evolving and getting better and more powerful and dynamic. And at that point, that was when I was going to start getting more work. And it was after I spoke with that muster, that's when things really started a book and get busy. And it was a busy year, 2017, you know, muster zero zero three happened.

And yeah, it was really cool to kind of see that growth and progression happen. and it was just turning and burning. Yep. Anything and everything. I remember Jamie would say, hey, I've got a gig. They don't have the budget for what we're charging for you, and I'd say yes.

And she's like, well, and I'm like, yeah. And it got to the point where Jamie would call him, but hey, you know, she's like, I already know what your answer is going to be, but I just want, I'm like, yes, book it, good. Hey, this is a free event, but it could open up other opportunities. Book it. Like, I didn't care. I literally,

Anything and everything I was saying yes to because that's how you should be. In my opinion, like if you're JP to know with that opportunity in front of you, who in the hell do you think you are to be picky about anything? I didn't care. And there was still this delay in pay, right? There's still, you know, from the events and everything else like that. But like I knew where we were going. That vision was very clear. That's another six cents.

when I look back on it, I remember having a conversation with you and you're like, hey, I wanted to talk to you about the way that we're getting paid. It seems like we should maybe do it. And you had this whole like pitch to me about, you know, you could get advanced from the client. You get this whole pitch to me about basically what it boiled down to is how you, how the instructors could get paid faster, which is only two instructors. And I was just kind of like, I was like, bro, like looking back, I see what you were trying to say. You needed money now. I was just looking at you going, bro, who cares?

You'll get paid, you know, whatever. You'll get that money then, whatever. To me, I go, JP, I don't even know, I don't even know when I got paid for whatever. And I remember you telling me that. And I'm on the inside, you said that. And I remember on the inside going, oh, that's a nice situation to be in. I'm not in that situation.

Yeah. And it's funny because now it's like, oh, I definitely remember telling you like, hey, I don't even know when I got paid for what. Doesn't even, I don't even, don't even recognize it. And you were like, Roger. You know, there's probably a little bit of an indication to me, but I knew it couldn't have been that far off. You know, I must have been looking at it going, yeah, he's going to be here in a very short period of time. Yeah.

And again, just bad leadership on my part. No, not at all. No, that's, it was just now, again, if my communication would have been a little more clear with you. If I would have said, Jocko, hey, the reason why I'm talking about us being able to do this is because boom, boom, boom. but your reason and lace reason was very valid. Like for you to do that, you're giving up a percentage of your pay for that advance.

And the company didn't need it. You guys didn't need it. And you knew in the very near future was not going to be an issue. Well, it's going to be no factor. Yeah. So that's 2017. This is all happening.

Yeah. That makes sense to me. Like how you, especially with your personality, but even like without necessarily your specific personality, Like you don't want to like as a team member enthusiastic new team member and you have that like kind of attitude or whatever like non in you know how you have entitled attitudes you have the exact opposite yours your attitude and it's kind of extreme but even if it's not that extreme I understand that you come and you don't want to be you don't want to start presenting burdens to like the team like oh my my financial like hey let's do this because of my personal financial situation you know yeah and it was ideal. is to where if it made sense to them, we would execute on it.

But I, like, I know Laf and Jocka well enough to where if I present something to them, and if they see the value and if it makes sense, they'll do it. If they don't see the value and if it doesn't make sense to the company, then why would they do that? And I understood that. So, I didn't care either way. It was like, hey, if we did this, it would be beneficial. If we don't do it, whatever.

Like, we'll be good to go. I'll be okay. Yeah. And you know how like, especially if, like, ideally, you want to be the team player that's like the easiest to work with. And then, of course, the one that executes and does a good job for sure. But what if, like, what if you're a team member that you executed well? You did your job 100% and you excelled in it and you're really valuable. But every time you did a job, you'd sort of complain about it for like three, four minutes before you did it.

And then you'd do it, but you'd just complain about it. You'd always sort of have that, you know? Just for example, I'm not saying you'd. never do that obviously but let's just say for example where someone like you and I think it's normal to be like man I don't want to bring that burden to this team that I respect so much so I'm going to like work so hard to keep it from them it's like you know the idea that okay my financial situation is not jacco's problem it's not and in fact I don't even want him worrying about that so I'm going to in a way I'm going to hide it from him a little bit you know I'm going to keep it

from him and I'm just all I'm going to present to jocco as far as his perception is me doing a good job 100% that's it. Well, and it's also the mindset that it's nobody else's responsibility to fix my situation other than myself. Yeah. And it is nobody's responsibility. Yeah. Now, if I'm a contributing member of a team that they value, guess what?

I get paid accordingly. I know that, right? And one of the things I've always tried to be is like, hey, you should be working so hard and provide so much value to a team that if they, team and I've told this to a lot of companies we've done workshops with during Q&A the last well what about this and this and if I can tie this answer into it I think it's important for people to hear and understand it's like you want to be that person on the team tour if your company has to start cutting back every time they see your name on the list they're like nope it needs

to be bumped up a little bit nope it needs to be bumped up a little bit and that's just kind of like the mindset I've always tried to have of just being that contributing member of a team and knock him. At the end of the day, also, this is nothing for me to complain about because I also know that my worst day is somebody's dream. I mean, have you, I'm sure this probably happened to you on a few of your deployments. I know it's happened to Mike Sorrelia. I've asked him about it.

It happened online. Have you ever had somebody where they tried to give you their kids for you to take off target or take out of wherever you're at, like try to give you the kids? Think about that. I mean, and I know how you are with kids. Yes, sir. And this will probably make you emotional. Like it does me when I talk about this is on my deployments, everyone, and it's only three.

So it's not like a lot. And I'm not like Mike Sorrelli where like like actual G.I. Joe Rambo hero, right? The 11 combat deployments. Is where you would have a family try to give their kids to you. Like they're asking you to take that. That never happened to me. Oh, they didn't? No.

Where they were trying to like saying, hey, can you please take the kids with you? Yeah, I've had them like trying to protect the kids, you know, like get the kids over here. Okay. I never had anyone trying to say, hey, take, take the kids and keep them safe away from us totally. Yes. Can you take them back to base with you? Can you take them back to base with you? You got to think about that.

Like I'm, we're all parents in here. I mean, I would never trust a stranger with my kids. I mean, there's some family members I have. I'm like, no, we're good. You don't need to watch the kids. Like, I'm very protective of my kids. And to think that there are people that live in a situation, they live in an environment that's so bad that they know that their kid could have a better life if they were to come back to America with us. And obviously, that's not a reality.

We can't just take kids back to the United States with us to provide safety and security. But it's just something that I've always kind of thought about is my worst day is somebody's dream. Like the things that we complain about, people would love to have those problems. And so that was just another reminder that I have to myself, like, hey, like your life's not bad, man. You live in America. You have a house. You have a vehicle. Yeah, you're struggling to make ends meet.

But guess what? You're the jackass to put yourself in that situation. Get yourself out of it. Yeah. And that's obviously a good attitude to have for sure, especially if it comes as naturally as it seems like it does with you. I mean, I don't think that comes as naturally for maybe the typical person, even though, yes, I think a lot of us do remind ourselves. You know, that kind of stuff, and it does help a lot. Well, yeah, and I guess it's unfair because I have the advantage of seeing what I've seen on deployments.

And both my parents worked their butts off. They never, I never, we never heard our parents complaining about the work that they had to do. There's times where my mom would, would wake us up at like four in the morning because she had to go teach step aerobics at 5 a.m. And so she would wake up all the kids. And my dad was leaving to go do construction all day. So you can't leave the kids at home. So she would wake us up, she'd get us ready for school, knowing that we're going to go back to sleep.

We would go to the gym, the fitness center or the club, whatever she was working at. We would sleep in daycare or sleep in the office while she would teach her classes. She would then get us up, feed us some breakfast, drop us off at school and go back and work, pick us up from school. We'd hang out at the club or the fitness center or wherever she was working at, doing our schoolwork there until she got done teaching. Then we'd go home. She'd make dinner for our family.

And by that time, my dad would be coming home. And it was just, you can make excuses or you can make things happen. You can't do both. That's what I've always loved that saying. I always try to share that with people is because I think too many people are comfortable with making excuses. And like I said, my mindset was starting to shift and change working with you in life. I mean, and now I'm working with Dave Burke and you and I are seeing each other.

Like when we did that field training exercise out in New Jersey, with Leif and I did that with that company. And it was just, you know, being around people that have a different driven mindset, it's going to change. Like, you have to change your mindset if you're going to try to keep up. And again, I know how smart Jocko is. I know how smart Laf is. I know how smart Dave is. Like I, I had to work.

I had to work to keep a seat at the table. And I also know not everybody deserves a seat at the table. Yeah. Do you think Jocko? That there, I mean, obviously good attitude to have, just generally speaking, but with the extreme version of that, I think JP, you could. The thing is, I don't know, and I don't see that this has happened, but it seems like you might run the risk a little bit of, okay, let's say, here's an analogy. So let's say we're all running up a hill, right? And at the top of the hill is the goal, and we all have our sacks of marbles, we'll say, right?

And Jocco's legs are really like way stronger than ours, we'll say. Allegedly. Allegedly. Yeah. For this analogy, we'll say that's the case. But we all have the same amount of marbles, you know. But when we reach the goal, we're all there equally or whatever, you know, fulfillment, whatever that is. And let's say you're falling behind a little bit.

Like maybe your legs aren't as strong as mine in Jockel's, whatever. You're falling behind. And Jocco's like, hey, like you're good or whatever. And you're like, refuse. because he can grab like half your marbles and still be rolling faster than us. Literally he can be doing that, especially for the last 20 meters or whatever.

But you're like, no, no, these are my marbles. I have to carry them. But it's like, hey, wait, but if I carry them just for a little bit, I can help us all out and we can all be where we want to be quicker, is what I'm saying? So, Jocko, do you think that we run the risk

given that analogy? Yes, so here's... We kind of already answered this, but you're bringing a good point into it. So the answer for the original thing, as an individual human in JP's world, he didn't get to a point

where he was going to drop the marlboros and fall down the hill. He didn't get there as an individual, so he never reached a point where he had to say, you know, I need help or whatever. That's part one. Part two is what you, this is where it starts

to sway the answer a little bit. Now we're supposed to work together as a team. Right. So if J.P. is hurting the team, it's the same. If J.P.

gets to a point where he's going to not make it himself, he's got to speak up. If you're hurting a team and you think that's a bad thing, well, guess what? Then you need to speak up. So yes. If J.P. would have said, if J.P. would have said, you know, hey, I can't make it to the gig because I got to deliver pizzas. We would have been like, hey, hold on a second.

Dude, what are you talking about? You got to deliver. We need you at this gig. And he would have said, yeah, but I don't have enough money. And I would have said, oh, okay, bro. Well, let's figure this out. Let's talk. So he didn't reach a point where, look, 100% of the time when it was JP's go time, he was ready to rock and roll.

Like, okay, that's cool. Yep, yep, here you are. Yep, you're here to do your job. If I would have said, hey, JP, can you come out of this gig? I'm going to be at. And he's like, well, I can't because I've got to do, you know, I've got pizzas to deliver. I got a work on this construction site. I always said, wait, why do you have to do that?

And he said, well, I actually, you know, I'm not quite there at Eslam front yet and I need a little bit more money. And I said, oh, okay, cool. Give me some of those marbles. Or let me give you some of mine, you know, to get you to where you need to be. So yes, it can happen.

And there's, you know, you see this in a, what the example that you're giving is an actual, an actual thing that can happen in a seal platoon. You know, if you've got a bunch of guys and you got someone that's, can't carry their weight, you, and now the platoon is not, going to make it. Right.

So you say, hey, give me the radio, you know, to the radio man. Hey, I've carried the radio men's radio before. You're like, hey, the radio man's got an extra 20 pounds. Give me that radio. Let me carry this thing until we get the next rally point or we get to the next, you know, the next waypoint that we're going to and see if you feel better. And if you do, you can take the weight back. If not, I was on a patrol one time.

I had, this is just a training operation, but I had the radio and I had an M60 from the radio men and one of the 60 gunners. I mean, that's, they were hurting. And yet, I didn't, like, that's the way it is. And you could see we were going to lag. We weren't going to make to where we need to be. So, all right, give me the radio. Come on the radio for a little while.

And now a sudden look at the 60 gunner. Dude, you want me to carry that thing for a little bit? Yeah, here, take my P-shooter. Let's switch it out. So, yes, you are correct. But JP never got to either one of those thresholds. And I will say the criticism you could have of JP is on a personal level is his threshold too, too low, I guess is the word, too low where he thinks it's okay to get to this

really low point when, you know, maybe his, maybe in his mind, maybe in your mind, J.P.'s threshold is too low. But guess what? You're not, it's not your, it's not your life. Right. It's J.P's life. And I'm telling you, if J.P. got to a point where he was saying, and this is what I was trying to make clear earlier, if you, not just J.P, if anyone gets to a point where you can no longer keep your head above water, man. And I don't care if it's financial. I don't care if it's psychological. I don't care if it's emotional.

I don't care for its relationship. If you get into a situation where you can't keep your head above water, you have to have the humility and the courage to ask for help. That's what you have to do. Otherwise, you drown. Yeah. And you have that weird gray area, though, with that, with this. So you got, the analogy is kind of easier to explain it where, okay, so when I, when you say, you say, oh, we might fail to get to the, whether it be the rally point or to get to our objective without me helping, you know, some people, whatever.

But what if they asked for help earlier? They didn't necessarily, they weren't about to drown, but they were kind of holding things up. You were going to get there, maybe a little late or maybe kind of on time. But if you, if they would ask for help earlier, you would have got there. early way more advantageous positions. You know what I'm saying? So there's like a gray area where it's like, yeah, you're drowning. That's like kind of do or die situation.

We're no choice. But there's that little gray area where it's like, man, to optimize, like just ask for a little bit of help. And you might be able to optimize. Not to say that's always going to be a situation. But then exactly what you said, you kind of got to wrestle with someone like you would, you wouldn't be like you would take it as a personal failure. Like I shouldn't, I shouldn't.

And this is a good thing, by the way. I shouldn't have to ask for any help ever unless I'm about to drown. Otherwise, it's not their problem kind of thing. And that, this reminds me of, you know, when we're in Ramadi and I was, you know, one of our lead snipers. And I wasn't clear on our rules of engagement. We had gotten the rules of engagement brief. You know, our leadership had done a good job. We, you know, we were fired up to be doing what we were doing.

But. and it was clear but what was not clear to me was when you're actually in that situation because there is some gray zones there there is some like once you're in a situation it kind of

changes like how you can interpret something and I know and our leadership had always made it very clear and I just knew that if you shoot somebody that was not an enemy combatant fighter

that was not within the rules of engagement, you're going to be going to jail, right? Like, I'm going to be going to Leavenworth to make big rocks to medium rocks, to make medium rocks to small rocks. Like, that's not going to be good. Like, you can't just shoot people without them having a weapon

or doing a hostile act or something that's within your rules of engagement. And so we were setting up an Overwatch and I was a lead sniper and I'm scanning my area. And I knew where the soldiers were going to be. I knew where the Marines were going to be.

We had some seals on the ground as well with them. And like I knew their location. I was aware of it. I had my map. I did my map study. I knew what I was checking. And, and I remember seeing this,

we called him MAMS, military age male, that started to creep into his activities were within the rules of engagement. It wasn't like this blatant, like right away type of thing. But what he was doing was, They was like, oh, okay, that's within those rules of engagement.

But because he didn't start doing it right away, there's confusion on my end. Like I was kind of like, and I remember I was at my SR 25 and which was our sniper rifle that I had. It was a 7662 caliber sniper rifle magazine held 20 rounds. So in an urban environment, it's a great sniper rifle to have because I can shoot it semi-auto if I have to. There's a few times in the streets. We got into, you know, you get into a gunfight.

you can take multiple shots, shots, you know, before you move. And it was, you know, it was a great, great gun. I love that gun. And I remember I was watching, I was watching this guy and I was like kind of scanning the other area to see if there's other activity that was going on. And, you know, I dial in on this guy. I manipulate my, my safety from safe to fire, put my finger on the trigger. And I just was watching the crosshairs on his chest.

And as I'm pulling out the slack. And it was hot. And I just remember, like, I just had sweat dripping down my face. Like, I could taste, like, the salt in my sweat. And there was, like, this, like, just dust that was all over us just from just on the Ford operating base and, you know, patrolling through the streets on the rooftops. And, you know, it was kind of like making this little cake, like, mud mixture on you. It's just the whole thing was gross.

And I remember, like, I actually, like, licked my lips to, like, get the sweat off. And I, I tasted that dirt. And, you know, I'm just, and I'm getting ready to take the shot on this guy. And then I stopped. And so, like, I take my finger off the trigger, slack comes out. I manipulate the gun to safe. I crawl over to Seth. And I said, hey, this is what's going on, right?

And I tell him what was going on. And it was like the first time Seth, like I ever kind of saw a disappointment. in his face towards me. You could tell you he's frustrated. And he's like, absolutely take that shot. And so I crawl back over to my gun on the rooftop. I get on my gun. I get on a glass and that dude is gone.

An enemy combatant fighter that was well within the rules of engagement for me to engage. And I didn't take the shot. I let Seth down. I let those soldiers down. I let those Marines down because I don't know what that guy went and did because he's gone, right? And when I've shared this story before,

I always joke and I said, I just pray that a tank ran him over, right? But that was a really bad feeling for myself because I didn't do my job. I wasn't able to do my job because I failed to ask the right questions. I failed to get clarification. And the reason why I said that reminds me of this story is like what we're talking about is that situation that I was in is I failed to share the situation with Jocco and Laif of just say, hey, here's my situation.

I don't need help, but I want you to be aware of what I'm working through in case something seems off with me. If something doesn't make sense, right? Like I failed to share that situation because of my ego. and I failed to ask better questions about the rules of engagement. I failed to ask better questions of the situation that we were in in combat because I assumed I had all the information. I assumed that I knew enough. I assumed that my leadership had given me all the information.

And when it came down for me to actually do my job, I wasn't able to do my job because I didn't properly prepare myself. I didn't ask the right questions. And, you know, that's just one of those things that it was a very humbling lesson. And it bothered me because, I mean, you know, those soldiers and Marines always had our back. And Seth always had our back. And I failed every one of them. Like, I completely failed them.

And I remember when we came back from that mission, Seth and I sat down and we talked about it. and I got clarification from him. And the really cool part about it is Seth took that opportunity for him to understand that he should have been asking better questions of the guys. Like he should have been getting a better readback and having better communication with us. And, you know, I'm not saying the rest of the deployment went perfect. And, you know, there was no other small little hiccups here and there. But I can tell you the communication was a lot better.

There is a lot more clarifying questions that were asked on both parts. And you have to be able to detach and assess the situations that you're in and actually look at it from a different perspective to see the different types of questions that you should be asking to gain more awareness for your ability to do your job. And that's one of those situations where that was like freaking early as, you know, very early. early in the deployment. Yes. And, you know, I ended up very soon thereafter making it, you know, I got the whole rules of engagement because the rules of engagement, this big complex thing. And it was, you know, enemy combatant in this, potential hostility, all these things,

all these legal terms that clearly were too much for someone to be sitting on there a gun making a decision like that. especially someone that's freaking 20 just turned 23 years old first time in that kind of combat and and you know so what I ended up telling everyone eventually and this is all feedback like you know Seth would tell me like hey here's what happened I'm like okay so obviously I did a bad job of getting the word out so people understand what's going on because you know so it ended up being, hey, if you, when you're out there and you have to pull the trigger, make sure that the person you're killing is bad. That's the rules of engagement. You make sure that that person you're

going to kill is bad. And here's why, because the day that one of our snipers or one of our machine gunners shoots and kills a local neighborhood doctor or a local neighborhood teacher or a local neighborhood and mom, we are going to get shut down. And why is it bad? And why is it We get shut down because if we get shut down we can't do what we're supposed to do and that means that these soldiers and Marines that are out there every single day They won't have us over watching what they're doing and we know what will happen then and so that becomes the rules of engagement and and this goes back to something I've been talking about I talked about an EF online yesterday as a matter of fact If you understand if you have that deep understanding then you can make all kinds of decisions based on that you can make all kinds of decisions based on that you can make all kinds of decisions based on your values, on your culture, in this particular case, if you truly understand

what the rules of engagement, and if your boss, Jocko explains them in a way that you can actually understand them, then you can make just about every single decision you need to make, 99.9, sure, there might be some outlying situation that you just need clarification on, but that should be so rare.

It should be so rare that something like that unfolds. And yeah, those are the lessons that you learn and that we learned. And like you said, does that mean all of a sudden every other call in terms of rules of engagement was perfected from there on out? No, it wasn't because there's gray areas. And even the idea of like, hey, if you shoot the wrong person,

you're going to prison, like that's actually not true. And, you know, civilians will get killed in combat unintentionally. And if you, if mistakes like that are gonna happen and that doesn't mean your chain of command is gonna hang you out to dry and you're gonna get sent to prison. No, if you're following the rules of engagement, there can be people that do things that bring them within the rules of engagement. And it's something that I learned from the first of the 506 is good, shoot, bad result. Like almost as soon as we got there, they had one of those cases

when we got to Craigador. They had a case that was one of their, I don't even know if it was a sniper or if it was just a rifleman, took a shot. And it turns out that the person that they, the person that was killed, there was a decent chance that they were not an insurgent. Of course there's a chance that they were an insurgent, but it wasn't a cut and dry case. So what it turns out to be and the way it gets reported is, hey, this was a good shot. It was well within the rules of engagement, but we cannot confirm that this individual is bad. Therefore, we're putting it as a good shot with a bad result. These are the kind of things that, again, they translate into the business world Because all the time in the business world, you've got someone that's on the front lines that doesn't understand the culture, doesn't understand the rules, doesn't understand the strategic mission of the company, and they're making a decision. If they don't understand those things, they can make the wrong decision all day long. All day long, they can make the wrong decision. So we as leaders have to make sure that the people on the front lines that we communicate in a simple, clear, concise manner so that they do understand the rules of engagement. They do understand the strategic mission. They do understand that what you do at a tactical level can have a.

a negative impact on a strategic level. Say look at the police right now. Yeah. Police are in that exact situation. If there's a police officer, they can, they can do something on the front lines. And it can have a, we're seeing it, right? We've seen it now over and over again in the last several months. Something that a front line officer does has a negative strategic impact, not just on law and

enforcement on the entire country. And if people don't understand that on the front lines, that plays into their decision-making process in a negative way. You know, and that the thought process of, you know, and you've always ingrained into it since day one of what we started the workup is your individual actions can affect this whole task unit. And I remember that talk that you had with me, You had the whole talk with the task unit, and then you had an individual conversation with me.

And you told me, hey, JP, I need you to put JP in big bold letters on your helmet. And I know we talked about this in the other podcast. And you told me the reason why is I want you to, I want to always know where you're at. I need you, you know, you to be my go-to guy. And that was very empowering, right? It was a very empowering conversation that you had with me. You told me like, hey, I need you to be, I need you to step up and be a little more aggressive. I'm like, okay.

I thought I was pretty aggressive, but dang, all right. But you explained like, I need, like, just getting stuff done. Like, I need you to, you know, help Seth out. I need you to help, you know, just this task unit. And it was the other part that was extremely powerful with that conversation is you told me, and, you know, Seth was very clear with this and we worked through this a lot is you're going to have a lot on your plate as a, as a sniper, as appointment, as a machine gunner when we deploy. You're young, right? And at the time, I had just turned 22.

And then before we deployed, the month before we deployed, I turned 23. And it was so important that you and Seth as leaders made sure that I knew how important my job was, how important my individual roles were, and that my individual actions could have a negative impact on the task unit. And that if I did something wrong overseas, that we could all get shut down. And I've, that's always just been in my mind. And now have I always adhered to that and made great decisions? No, you know, I've made decisions that, you know, have been bad. I've been arrested. I've, you know, I've gotten in trouble in the military.

You know, I've got, you know, allowed my marriage to fall apart. But it's still always been there that's kept, you know, just me reminded like, hey, your individual actions matter. And that's one of the things I've always tried to remind myself of the opportunity that I've had with you and Laf here at Echelon Front is I need every one of my actions needs to impact the team for the greater good. And you know, Amanda and I would always have this little joke like, hey, everything's a test. Like everything is a test with Jockel and Laif. Like, hey, you don't know. Like, hey, maybe, you know, just the event, something happened with the event. Like, hey, maybe they had a part of that just to see how you would do.

Obviously, we know that's not the fact, but it was just to allow us and allow myself to not, you know, fall to complacency. You know, I've talked about this in the muster and we've all taught, you know, complacency gets people killed. And complacency is something that we have to actually go to war with every single day because it creeps in. That alarm clock goes off. The complacency is going to creep in. It is going to creep in in your professional life, your personal life, your relationship with your wife or your husband, your significant. other, your, you know, your kids, complacency is always trying to creep in. And just as a reminder to myself over the last four years was my individual actions are going to affect the team.

And how they affect the team is, that's a choice that I, that I am, that I'm making. Yeah, there's a, there's a whole sort of, yeah, I wrote about leadership strategy and tactics. I wrote about the fact that, hey, I would tell the point, man, hey, you're the most important. person in the platoon because you're the one that knows where we're going and I tell the the the I would tell Seth hey you're the most important guy here I tell the radium you're the most important person guy here because you're the one that's going to call for help if we need it the manifestation of that is me looking at you and saying hey put jp on your helmet because I want to know where you are in case I need to have something

happen that I can get you if you think about that from a cycle logical perspective that is the physical manifestation of saying hey you're the most important person in this platoon yep to tell someone hey and you know I would tell the people it'd be like hey stick by me you know I'd always tell I would always tell like radio men's or JTAC I'd be like hey stick by me because I'm going to need you you know it was always that it's a it's a it's a I don't want to call it a trick but it's a little bit of a trick it's a little bit of a trick to Hey man, I need to know where you all are all the time because then what you realize is exactly what you just said and obviously it worked because what you realize is my individual actions have a impact on everyone here. What I

individually do and this is one of those weird dichotomies because a team is a bunch of people right? What's a team made up of? A bunch of individuals and And what happens is when those individuals, when good people, when good team players, what's what you know, I got this before, what's a team? A team is a bunch of people that are putting the team above themselves. And part of that is realizing that my actions as a team member impact the people on the left and running me. They impact the whole team. And if I don't perform the way I'm supposed to, I'm not just letting myself down. I'm letting everyone down. And that's what a good team player, a good. good team player doesn't want to let down the rest of the team. So that that dichotomy between, between, hey, we're a group and we're a team and saying, hey, this individual, you matter to the outcome of what's going to happen here. And Leif pointed this out to me that when I would debrief platoons, and I might hammer the platoon on this and hammer the platoon on that, but I would always say, you know, hey, Fred, the way you took that, your fire, you're the fire team leader back there?

He's yes, sir. Hey, the way you maneuvered on the enemy from the back, that made a huge difference. And by the way, who is that supporting element with him? Oh, that was me. All right. Fred or Jim, that was awesome. The way you two figured that out and worked together, that's the kind of thing we need to see. That's cover move.

That's what got you guys out of there. And so signaling out these individuals makes people think, you know what? Man, I matter to this team. and that's absolutely huge and it goes against the idea of like all yeah we're all together we are we are all together 100% but guess what what I do

matters yes and I remember I did that with Mikey I remember I told Mikey I'm like hey if I'm carrying a sniper rifle when we're patrolling I need you by my side

because if I'm walking point and if I wasn't carrying, because, you know, if I was walking point and I wasn't going to be acting as a sniper or if we weren't going to go do a sniper overwatch, I carried the machine gun. I carried the Mark 46. I had a ridiculous amount of ammo on me and I was good to go. But I knew that if I was walking point with my SR 25 or the 300 win mag, guess what? I needed Mikey because he was carrying the machine gun. And I knew that I needed him by my side. And I remember telling him that, you know, Mikey's answer is like, I got you homes.

And he was there. He was always by me. You know, the only time that he wasn't ever right next to me was when we knew that we were patrolling through some areas that were heavily IED. And it was everyone is going to walk in the same steps that I walked in. And he would be far enough away to where if I stepped on an IED, it wasn't going to kill Mikey. And we're just, there's a couple times that we had to take those routes in where, It was everybody was on the same path, same step. Like you stepped here, they're going to step there type of a deal to get to the buildings that we're doing overwatches.

And I remember there was one time that we patrolled this route in that we were told like it is heavily IED. I mean, we were going super slow and methodical and we get to the target. Seth called in the route and the vehicles that came in hit multiple IEDs along that same route that we were on. And it was pure grace of God guiding our steps that we didn't hit one of those. We didn't step on any of those. And it was that principle of what you just said of like, I need to know where you're at. And I knew how important that was. And I'm not naive.

I know I wasn't the only go-to guy that Jocco had. I know I wasn't the most important member of the task unit. I knew that I was an important member of the task unit, but I wasn't the most important member of the task unit. I just knew that. And I, you know, we're on that deployment, you know, we were in a situation that we were in a building. And it was just a weird situation. I remember, you know, when we were getting close to this building, it just had this weird feeling.

There wasn't a lot of movement. There wasn't a lot of activity like there normally would be in the city at night when we got close to this area. And I remember we, we go into the courtyard and it was completely empty. There was like almost nothing in there. which was not common for the houses there. And we get into the building and it was completely empty on the inside as well. And so we're doing the slow methodical scans. And we knew that at the time they were starting to booby trap houses and rigging houses to blow because they're like, oh, cool, they're going to come use this house.

We'll just rig that house to blow. Let them all get set up in there. And then they're going to clack off the house. And we're going through this building. And it was just that just super eerie feeling because it was. empty. And yeah, I mean, it's just, you know, that's going to be a bad thing. And we clear the first deck, just we go up to the second deck, we clear through it, we go up to the rooftop. It's completely empty. We check the surrounding buildings and make sure they're not, we're not getting

ambushed or anything else like that. And we just, we're all set up in our different positions. We had guys up on the rooftop, you know, the badger that I talked about before. He was up there, you know, Mikey was up there. Another one of our machine gunners are, up there. They had the Carl Gustav rocket up there. We had a bunch of law rockets up there. Myself, a couple of the other snipers were in different rooms down on that second deck. We had guys down in the courtyard. And I remember the call to prayer happens. Sun's starting to come up. And normally there's some activity. There's no activity in our area. And we just knew. We're like, all right. Like we know that we're going to be getting into a big one. And, you know, and then that first

little pop shot happens. You know, they're shooting up at the building, and then they're kind of getting dialed in, and they're starting to hit the outside walls, and we're trying to figure out where they're coming from, and we kind of start to see, okay, hey, okay, there's some enemy fighters, like, that's where they're shooting at, and we're engaging them, and I remember Seth was in the room with myself and another guy, and, you know, he's just kind of asking me what I have going on, and I'm showing them, and, like, I engage these two guys while he's in the room, and, you know, he's, you know, he's just, He's just laughing that, just contagious laugh that Seth has.

He's like, that was awesome. And, you know, he crawls out of the room and he goes to the other room to get the report and he's going up to the rooftop. And then, like, a round comes into my room. Like, it hits the back wall and it was just so loud. A large caliber room, round. You're in the room about the size of this podcast room. It's all, like, like, concrete and marble, right?

And so it just, it's just super loud and concussed. and the guys up on the roof top they see where it comes from and you just hear rocket out they shoot the call Gustav and I just remember I'm in the room and you just see the rocket come from above and just like

and just goes into the window of where those enemy fighters were and it detonates inside that and you just see the like the roof go just like this wave right just boom and just all the guys are like yeah I just I found some videos of it

and it's just awesome I'm like the guys are just like cheering and everything and, you know, we're engaged in multiple enemy fighters. And that was the first time that I had actually had an enemy fighter use a kid as a shield. And I just remember just the way that felt when you're looking through your crosshairs and there's somebody holding a kid in front of them because there's so much of a coward and they're trying to attack you and they're maneuvering

to try to move to a position and they grab some kid that's crying and clawing at them and screaming because they're taken from their family and I just Matt, I'll never shake that feeling because you know that kid is ruined. How does that kid ever have a normal life

when they were being used as a human shield? And there was times that we took shots and those kids were fine, you know? You know, the kids were not harmed, obviously. And there's times that you just knew that you couldn't take that shot because any error, anything, you know, you can't, you know, you couldn't do that. You can't, obviously, you would never do that. And, you know, we were in it for a while that day. And guys are kind of giving their, like, hey, update on their ammo.

And we're starting to run low. And I remember we tried to get some support to our position and they weren't able to because they had. had troops in contact. There's a bunch of coordinated attacks that were kind of going on in that region. And, you know, we make the call, hey, we're going to have to collapse security. We're going to head back to one of these cops, kind of get resupplied, readdress the situation. And so we make that call. And as that happens, a round comes through the window that I'm in and it hits the metal grating in front of me. And I catch a little fragment in my face and the round hits the wall. And I'm on my back right away.

Like I'm on my back laying down trying to get out of that window sill. And I just remember like my face felt really warm. And I was like touching my face to see if I've been shot. And it was like a little bit of blood on my fingers. And I was able to. I'm like, oh, okay, that's nothing. I probably cut myself shaving worse than that. It was just enough.

And so I'm down and there's machine gun fire that's coming down in that window that I'm in. Another one of the guys who's like out in the hallway. And he's like crawls. And just like trying to get out of there. And I remember like I'm up against the window as close as I can to try to eliminate like the angle that they could be shooting in from another rooftop or or a window out there. And like I get my periscope out. And I'm like trying to like look out the window and I kind of see what's going on. And I look at my rifle and had a hard malfunction on the SR 25.

Like I'm just I'm going to have to take this apart to actually fix this. I'm like, oh, this is not a good situation to be in. And I'm in my own little world. Like, I'm trying to figure out there's steady shots coming into the room that I'm in. And it's definitely an enemy sniper. And then you'll have a little bit of machine gun fire that's coming in. It's a spraying the building. Some of the rounds actually come into the room.

And I'm like trying to figure out like, okay, I need to get out of the room. Like I'm trying to time it. I'm like, well, if I, maybe if I get on my stomach, I can get it like a sprinting. position. I can like jump and like slide out. Like I need to be able to get out. Like whoever, like they've got, they've got me pinned down. Like they've got their bead. Well done. Tick mark on your side for now. Like like I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to get out of the situation. And then I hear a very familiar sound that usually brings a lot of comfort to me. And it was Mikey and one of the other machine gunners just blah, blah, blah, blah,

like they're singing off each other, and then you hear all the other guys shooting. So there's a gunfight going on. However, that gunfight's not in front of the courtyard. They were down the alleyway. They had left me. I instantly realized that I had been left behind on that target.

And I knew that I had to get out of the room and I need to figure out how I was going to get a hold of them and get situated. What I didn't recognize and realize that I was hearing nothing over my radio. because at the time, my radio for whatever reason was like on my back. And when I would gotten onto my back and was sliding up against the window, I had shut it off or reprogrammed it or whatever. Change the channel. It'd done something, right?

And so I ended up making my way out of the room and make my way downstairs. I have my pistol. All I have my SIG-226 because my rifle is is a hard malfunction. This building is still being shot at. Like the enemy fighters know where we're at. The guys had left. I make my way down in the courtyard and I'm trying to figure out, okay, hey, how do I get a hold of the guys?

I have to get to my radio. But in order for me to get to my radio, that means I actually have to take my gear off. And I'm in the courtyard by myself. So I get myself into the corner. I can hear like people moving around on the other buildings in the other courtyards. You can hear them talking. You can hear them shooting at the building. These guys are down the alleyway shooting.

So I get my radio out. I keep the radio. I'm like, hey, guys, this is JP. You left me behind on target. I might have added in a few other keywords in there, right? And so I hear, and now I hear the gunfire over the radio. And it's, I know what's happening. It's Seth keyed up to respond to me as he's like looking around for me.

And it's an incident, Roger that, we're headed back your way. and so the badger is making the calls like get them back to me they get close to me and i'm talking with him on the radio and i said hey i'm coming out on the south side of the alleyway lay down cover fire on the north side so mike the other machine gunner they you know another big dude like mike carried the the mark 48 they just you know who i'm talking about just an amazing operator uh they they get side by side and they're just like pa pa blah blah just like see seeing it off of each other. And I remember, like, I poke out my head.

I look, I look at them, and I'm just hauling ass to get linked back up with them. And as I'm running up, like, I have my pistol in my hand because, and I'm like holding onto my rifle. And they're just like the look. And I remember looking at Mikey. And I was just like trying to, like the whole thing I'm still trying to process, right? It's, you know, that's why people say the fog of war is a real thing. And I remember looking at Mikey and I'm wondering like, who.

were you walking next to? Like I was the point man, bro. And then I look at the guy that screwed up the headcount. And I'm like, how do you, like, there wasn't that many of us. Like, how do you screw this up, man? And then I like looking at Seth and I'm just like the same thing. Like, like who were you like who was leading you guys out of this? And it's just this whole thing. I just remember like I was like pissed off. Obviously, we take a courtyard. I fix my rifle. We make our way back. We debrief the mission. We kind of figure out what happened. And I remember the guy that screwed up the head count came up and he like, he gives me this hug. And I love this guy.

We've always been very close. And he gives me out. He's like, bro, like, I am so sorry. I'm like, man, that wasn't your fault. Like, you know, but he was just like super apologetic of it. And Mikey, Mikey came up and we were talking. He's like, bro. He's like, if I would have been with you, that wouldn't have happened, man.

Like, this is, this is my fault, man. I'm sorry. And, you know, Seth takes ownership of it as well, you know, and I'm talking through it. I'm like, guys, this is my fault. You know, so, like, we're all, like, kind of figuring out. But it was just, I remember just the look on Mikey's face of he felt like he had failed me because he wasn't by me. And I would say, hey, man, I need you by my side.

Because if I'm a sniper, I need a machine gunner for multiple reasons. And I just remember, like, and after that, like, you know, we got our gear squared away. Like, why was a radio on my back? I shouldn't have had my radio back there. I should have been able, you know, there's all these things that were obviously, it was, it was my fault. At the end of the day, it was 100% my fault. But I just, as you were sharing that story about like the psychological side to what you did with the helmet,

it was the same thing that I did with Mikey when I was like, hey, I need you by my side. And there's going to be times that team members screw up. They forget what they need to be doing. They fall, you know, there's other priorities that come about. Dude, we had a loss. Guys were running out of ammo. We shot every rocket that we brought with us. Guys were throwing grenades, you know, like from the rooftop all the way over to the other courtyard where there's people at.

And I mean, so, I mean, we were, there was a lot of stuff going on. And I just remember just how much that affected Mikey. And we talked through it and, you know, just making sure like, hey, we're good. We're on the same page. And, you know, there's a lot of unique situations during that deployment, you know, And it's just important that people know their roles and how they affect the team. You got to admit when Jocco's like, hey, write this JP in the back of your helmet. You got to admit you're looking around.

You're like, hey, he didn't ask no one else to write their names on the back of their helmet. I'm kind of the man right now. I mean, I still have that helmet. See? Yeah. Oh, yeah. You know what's cool when you're talking about, hey, you go back to debrief that thing. And Seth says it's his fault. and the head count guy says it's his fault.

Mikey says it's his fault. You say it's your fault. And some people might look at that and go, well, you know, well, I guess is that extreme ownership? Everyone's just taking ownership and what really happens. This is what I like to call overlapping fields of ownership. Yes. And what it means is you have multiple people looking at the same problem

and we're all going to figure out how to solve it. Because guess what? You take a situation like that. if you were to get out a surgeon's knife and start to carve away who was responsible, well, there's a bunch of people that had to make mistakes for that to occur. And if every, you know,

if Mikey would have said, wait, where's JP? That's it. Doesn't happen. If you would have said, wait, why in our hearing and if you had your radio in the right spot,

you would have heard calls that they're leaving. If the head count guy would have freaking counted correctly, that problem would have been solved. If Seth would have looked at, at the freaking headcount guy, are you sure we're good? Like, you know, like all these things. When everyone takes ownership of the problem, look, not everyone's going to, you know, you get freaking your bell rung by a, by an RPG hitting a building.

You might not be counting freaking great, even if you're only count the six. Yeah. Right. And like, I knew our SOPs for when we clap security, you know, and I was in my own little world solving my problems of being pinned down by an enemy sniper, not trying to put my head up trying to figure out how I'm going to get out of the room. But if I legitimately would have just disconnected for a split second and detached and said, oh, we just made the call to collapse security.

It's been about 30 seconds. Guess what the guys are doing. They're collapsing security. I could have just yelled like, hey, I'm in this room. I need cover fire. Like I could have done or said something to eliminate all that confusion. Right. And so what you end up with is instead of having a single point of failure, you have multiple, you have overlapping fields and redundancy to get problem solves.

And that's what you want. That's what you want on a team. And the funny thing is when you go to the opposite of that, if you come back and you start pointing your finger at the headcount, I go, why did you get a good headcount? You know what he's going to do? He's going to say, because I didn't have any cover fire when I stepped out of the building. Yeah. And then you know, and he points is at the A-dub and says, why weren't you give me a cover fire? And he goes, well, I wasn't giving you cover fire because we didn't have enough time to reload our weapons because you made the calls too fast. And then Seth says, you know, Seth, why did you make the call?

You told us to, that we were going to break out, but you gave us only 15 seconds. How am I supposed to do a reload? And then Seth says, why aren't you training when we're back here so that you can do a faster reload? And what do we have? Instead of extreme ownership overlapping, we've got no one. No one's responsible for what happened And therefore we don't fix the freaking problem And what you're saying is like people say

Oh is this extreme ownership When you say it's my fault that's not taking ownership Extreme ownership is owning the problems and the solution It's my fault and I'm moving my radio to here Yes and it's my fault which means hey I'm gonna start getting the head counts just inside the door Instead of outside the door and it's hey when I break when I call breakouts We're gonna I'm gonna give everyone a solid minute and when I say say break out, that means change ammo, get ready to rock and roll.

Like all those little things, that's what we are all going to do to win. You'd think that this was, it's weird. And you can see how each one of those people in this particular situation, you could see how if you let your ego get in the way, you don't take ownership. You instead blame other people. Freaking horrible. So those are the kind of lessons that, you know, We learned on the battlefield and they're so obvious when you're on the battlefield the consequences are so high

I mean you think about the consequences of you being left behind You know it's a it's one of those miracles that you were able to link back up and there's That's one of the things that you always have to do you know we call those lessons that They were a cheap lesson right the price that could have been paid to learn that lesson could have been dead J.P But got away with it got away with it by the grace of God and you still come back the the team looks at itself and says what can we do better and it's you know being able to take these lessons and that I think that's why in the in the business world people relate to them because they are high stakes situations and

sometimes in the business world the consequences they're not as high and the feedback isn't as immediate in the business world. You know, if you make a mistake in the business world, maybe it, you know, takes three months before your profits start to fall and you can kind of identify what the problem was and it was a leadership mistake here and there. And now we can start to adjust those things. In combat, it's like, no, I made a mistake right now and I'm paying for it right now. And so it makes the lessons, it makes the lessons very obvious. It's just a, it's, these, these battlefield metaphors is why I think people relate to what we talk about. about not because they want to be, you know, soldiers, not because they want to be in war,

but because they want to learn the lessons. And it's a powerful way to learn them when you see them through the examples of combat. So at this point in 2017, you're kind of getting on step. Yes. Yeah, I was, I was on step with. the workload. You know, it started, like I said, after May, it really started to pick up.

And there's always a delay in what we do. Like, hey, there's a, Jamie back, hey, you got a bunch of gigs coming to where. I'm like, cool. She's like, it's not until like November, December, January next year. I'm like, okay, cool. Like, I'm super happy where it should be like, hey, I have one that's in three weeks.

I'm like, yes, book it, right? Like, it was just, it was unique. It was a unique situation that we're in. You know, we had the, we had Musker Zero, zero, three, down in Austin, Texas. And that was, it was awesome. Like that was a great muster learned a lot and you know I learned about my limitations and I remember I was just going going going going because I had all the other stuff I was still doing and then in it wasn't until June that I stopped doing all the other things. So I was doing everything with echelon front. I was doing all the shooting. I was doing the construction. I was delivering the pizzas. I was doing the never settle apparel. I was doing all this. I had buddies that were. back in Mississippi that were fighting,

so I would wake up and I would train with them in the morning. My buddy, Jesse James Wallace, Teddy Holder, Zach Underwall, all these guys that had fights that were coming up. I was like, yeah, let's train. I'll train in the morning. My buddy Dylan that was helping me out with stuff, like it was trying to get him on the path because he wanted, you know, to be able to go in the military and law enforcement.

And so I would just was doing a lot, a lot, a lot, which is good. Because I would see your workload. I would see Lace workload, and I knew what I needed to be doing. And I've never been afraid of hard work. Like, hard work's a great thing. I mean, look at, like, you know my dad, you know my family? Like, they're all about working hard. And it's all I also knew in the military as well.

I'm not saying I'm the hardest worker. I'm not saying that's the smartest work. I just, I enjoy hard work. I have, I love it. And so I just was working hard, working hard, working hard, working hard. And the valuable lesson I learned at muster zero zero three, was I need to be comfortable with my limitations and be who I am. I was trying to be Jocco and Leif because that's all I thought I needed to do.

I thought if I was like Jocco and Laif, that's what would, that's where I would achieve success. That's how I'd fit in on the team. Instead of focusing on being the best version of who I am, being who God created. Like God created me a certain way. I have a certain personality. you know, I am made the way I am made for a reason. Just like you're made the way you are for a reason.

You've been able to figure out exactly what makes you the most effective. And you capitalized on that. Just like Laif has, just like Dave has, just like all the other members of the echelon front, Timar have or they're learning to do, right? And so at that point, I was running myself into the ground. And I remember one time I gave the analogy to some. somebody, I said, and this is so foolish on myself at the time, this just shows like immaturity in the, in the business sense of,

I give the analogy and I thought this was like a, like a sense of honor, right? I said, I'm burning the candle at both ends and there's a flame torch over the middle. Like I'm just literally just burning at both ends and I'm torching the middle of the candle. I'm just doing everything. And it was super humbling because we're at the muster. I spoke on that first day. You know, PT, we do the muster, and we're doing our rehearsals that night.

And I remember, like, Jan and Jamie were like, JP, are you okay? I'm like, yeah, I'm good. And Leif was like, you good? I'm like, I'm just, I'm beat. I'm exhausted. And he's like, okay. So we do our stuff. And you guys were signing certificates and books.

And so I was staying up there. And finally, like, Jamie's like, go get some rest. I'm like, okay. So I go to my room. room, black out the room, set my alarm, call, wake up call, set the alarm on my watch, set the alarms on my phone. And, you know, learn from you in life, it's like, you should always also travel with a battery powered alarm clock.

In case the power goes out, everything's dead, like you can at least wake up to that. Have that across the room. I mean, I think I had like five or seven, like alarm set. And I wake up to the phone and I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I. trying to figure out what's going on because the room is pitch black and I hear Laif, he's like, hey, it's Laif, are you okay? And at first I thought it was like a dream. And then I kind of like, I sat up in the bed and I realized I was like, yeah, what's up?

He's like, or just want to make sure you're okay? Like, yeah, I'm good. And I looked at the clock. And as I look at the clock and processed the time, he says, hey, do you think you can make it downstairs in 10 minutes so that we can do. some recording before the muster starts. I was like, yes, sir. And I hung up the phone and it was like 740.

And PT had taken place at 445 with the whole group. And PT before that, that we normally do had taken part at like 345 or 4 or whatever time it was because we PT before the group PT's and then group PT. And I missed out on all that. And I was supposed to be running a section and everything. And I remember life wasn't like, he wasn't like screaming at me over the phone or anything else like that. And he just, you know, made sure I was okay. He's like, hey, can you make it down here?

I'm like, yeah. And I just remember I had all my stuff lined up. I always have my stuff ready for the next day. I'm not going to, you know, because I know what could happen. And so I remember I'm like jumping in the shower. And I am so mad at myself. Like I am so upset with myself and disappointed. And I said, well, you just screwed up the best thing you ever had.

Because I'm like, this jocco is going to fire me. I didn't know. Like, you know, because I also understand there is no slack with what we do. It's been made very clear like, hey, we don't miss events. We don't drink on the road with clients. We don't do. Like, there's a list of things that we just don't do. And me missing a morning PT at the muster is something that we don't do.

And so I go down there. and, you know, I'm doing the recording with Joel, and he was like, hey, man, I miss you this morning. I'm like, little dig from Joel. Yeah. But he was, you know, I was like, and I saw Echo and Echo was like, hey, man, you good? I'm like, yeah, a little shop for Echo Charles. The Hawaiian coming in hot. I'm like, you good.

Dreading. I'm dreading seeing you in life. And like, you come around and you just have this big smile on your face and you're laughing, like, laughing right now. You're like, you good? I'm like, yes, sir. I was like, I don't know what happened. I was like, I'm, he's like, oh, good. You just want to make sure you're good.

He's like, and then you told me, like, and then Laif comes up, and he has this big smile. He's like, you're good to go? I'm like, yes, sir. And you guys are laughing. You're like, we were, Jocko was joking about how we should just let you sleep until you woke up and just to see, like, what you would do. And I remember just the thought of that was like, I don't know what I, if I would have just kept sleeping and then woken up at like whenever, I don't know.

Three o'clock in the afternoon. Yeah, three o'clock in the afternoon. Come down for the closing of the muster. I probably would have just gone straight to the airport. I'm like, here's my two week notice. It's been real. Thanks, guys. No, I don't, I don't know what I would have done.

I'm really glad you guys didn't do that because I would have been devastating. And I just remember, I had to like recognize like, you know what? You need to find a little more balance. And, you know, it's, it's embarrassing. That's, that's, that's a humbling experience. when you need to understand that you're at your capacity because most people don't want to admit that. And, you know, Seth was so dialed in with us that he knew our capacities as individuals. And that, to me, is just a sign of a great leader. And you and Laf have always

been able to do that with the guys that you guys work with. And you guys understand. You guys understood what happened. You know, you, you know, and we, we had a conversation. And as, as I'm sitting here joking and we're laughing and you guys are laughing, there was also this like, hey, like, we need to know, like, are you good? Is everything okay? Like, why did this happen type of the thing? Like, because this can't happen on the road, you know, you can't be missing an event.

You know, and so kind of pushed through that. And then I had like five weeks off. Like, I had nothing booked. And so, man, like, at this time, we're traveling a lot, a lot of rental cars had a bunch of credits. And so we rented an SUV and we just traveled. And we hit 13 states and we made ourselves our way out to California. Just spent some time with my grandmother.

And then we worked our way down to Southern California. I had an event Jeff McGreevy put on. It was a big individual ticket sale event for me to do a full day of training. It was like a really cool thing that he's like, hey, you know, we want the proceeds to be able to go towards this, this foundation that we have for the police officers in this region. And, you know, we discounted our price at Eschelon Front to, you know, for us to be able to do that so they could have as much, they could go to this foundation as possible. And it was cool because my man and the kids were able to come and they were able to see it and watch it. And I'll post it probably the next week or two, but I took a picture.

When they're there, all three of the kids were taking notes. and you know I mean my daughters were born in 2012 this is 2017 so the girls were five right they're about five and a half years old and they're writing down the economy of leadership when I was doing that slide and they're like writing down all the different things on it and it was it was really cool to see that and that event that Jeff put on it was awesome was very fulfilling and I was that's when I was starting to kind of just things were clicking a little bit more and I was gaining more confidence in myself because I was I always, unfortunately, even though I tend to be a very confident person in most aspects of my life, when it came to speaking, I was super insecure because I grew up with a speech impediment. I was in speech therapy all throughout school. I stutter. I mix up my words. I'm sure some people will hear it on the podcast.

Like, oh, yeah, he said that instead of this. Like, Lace giving me real-time feedback. We've been at an event. We'll have a break. He's like, hey, that word doesn't exist that you keep saying. And I'm like, oh, check. Okay. Like, I'll make sure that I don't say that.

There's other things that, you know, he's been great on coaching me on like, hey, like, make sure you're not saying this and doing this this way. But I always had that insecurity and, you know, just working through it and seeing the impact that we were delivering at Eschelon Front, it was a very clear realization to myself that this isn't about me. And it brought me back to when I was on the stage with Laif. and he corrected my answer for the best, you know, anti-snipers. It was a tank, right?

And again, there was that realization like, oh, this isn't about what I did as a sniper. It's not about what we did. And I was really starting to fully understand how much of an impact the echelon front was having. It was when I saw, like, people driving six hours just to meet you in life. Like, they couldn't afford the muster, but they would drive. just to come see you guys, just to get their picture and say, you guys restored our marriage and people that have your guys as signatures tattooed on their forearms, they have good tattooed on their forearms and discipline equals freedom. And just, I was really seeing like, wow, this is so

much bigger than I thought it could be. And I started to allow some doubt to creep in and saying, I don't know if you deserve to be a part of this anymore because I was seeing how big it was. And, you know, Dave is just crushing it. And you guys are doing it. doing great things and just just it's incredible and that was it was you know another god thing is like that is about the time you know set and i were really starting to communicate a lot like he sent me pictures of him out going doing stuff or you know some videos and you know and you know i remember when him him telling me he sent me a message and he said hey i'm really proud of you he said jaco told me how well you're doing he's like i'm really proud of everything that jaco

and life and you're doing you're doing awesome and i you know i still have those messages saved and i just it was it was again it was something that i needed right it was i think that we all need and we all need you know people in your life that are going to pour into you they're going to feed you you know feed into you and and help you know with that confidence and and that's what you guys have here at this gym. That's what you guys have in Jiu-Jitsu. That's what we had in the SEAL teams. That's what we have at Eshulon front. And it was just Seth being Seth, Seth, Seth being that servant leader, that serving others. Like, I'm not in the military. I haven't been in at this point. I haven't been in for, you know, four and a half years. Like, he's doing his thing. He's, and he's still

taking the time to reach out and say, hey, man, I just want to let you know that I'm proud of you. and for me for a while i really when i got out i tried to push myself away from all the guys because i had a guilt for getting out of the military not being in the sealed teams the the guilt of me not being on that rooftop when mikey jumped on the grenade is something i think about every single day because again mikey was one of my new guys that was the overwatch that it was supposed to be on and i didn't i wasn't there and there's other buddies that had been killed and me not being in situations that I felt like I should have been. And so for a long time, I just pushed everybody away.

I wouldn't respond to people. And I would make things up in my mind in regards to like, well, we're not even that close anyways. Or he doesn't even like me or, you know, like he's pissed off at me about something. I was legitimately making stuff up in my mind so that I would feel better for pushing people away. And I tried to do that with Seth for a long time because I just had this immense amount of guilt. And, you know, I doubted myself and I doubted him. I doubted Jocko. And I doubted everybody that I had worked for when Mikey was killed.

And I held on to that for a long time. And Seth continued to just knock on the door. You know, he just continued to reach out and continue to. rebuild those relationships and things were really good and Seth and I were talking and communicating and you know he did a cross-country trip on his on his motorcycle and he came through and we're able to link up and it was just it was great and then September 2017 Laif Babin's calling me look down and it's a picture of Laif and I in our rash guards when we were training in it in New Jersey right you're teaching

Laif and I jujitsu. Oh, yeah. Was that New York? New York, yeah, for that FTX. And it's just a great picture. I always makes me smile and so Leif's calling me. I answer the phone. I'm all excited.

I'm like, hey, what's up, boss? He says, hey, JP. And it was that, hey, JP call that I'd gotten a handful of other times. I just, I knew something had happened and he informed me that Seth had passed away. and I couldn't process it. It didn't make sense to me because that morning I was messaging with Seth. And the last thing I had said to Seth was hit me up when you're done. And so I was waiting to have a response from Seth.

And Laif tells me what happened. And the kids are coming up and they're trying to talk to me. I'm trying to like push them away and say, hey, hold on. I'm on the phone for work. Just give me a second. and I get off the phone with Laif, and I remember just like looking at the kids, and I call Amanda, I said, hey, can your parents come pick up the kids because she was working at her business at the time.

She had a business that she had opened up, and I said, hey, Seth, Seth just passed away. And she was trying to process it as well, and it just didn't make sense to her. And she said, yeah, I'll have my parents come over, and her parents come over. and I just remember I was like, like I got the kids ready. It was like I was a coward. I sat in the kitchen as they grabbed the kids. I didn't even meet them at the door. Because I didn't know what to do.

I couldn't process that Seth had actually passed away. I was talking to him that morning. Seth was my big brother. He was, you know, we went through SKT together. We checked in the skill teams together. And he always had my back. I just couldn't fathom my brother passing away. The way I looked at Seths is the way that my little brother looks at me.

You know, I've always had my brother, Corey's back, and I always will, and Corey's always had mine. That's the way Southwest of me, and I just couldn't process it. I literally just sat in the kitchen as they came into the house, and they grabbed the kids, and my father-in-law, Jeff said, I'm very sorry for your loss. And they grabbed the kids, and they left. And my mother-in-law looked at me and she was, you know, sad and she didn't really know what to say either.

So he left and I tried to call Jocko and because I just knew what Seth meant to him. That was his best friend. And I just, I was so worried about Jock. And I couldn't get a hold of them, understandably so. And I called Jamie and I said, hey, Seth Stone just passed away. I just want to give you the heads up. you're going to need to clear everything from Jocko's calendar for a while. I don't know what's going on.

I don't know the process. I don't know anything, but I just want to give you a heads up. And she was just like, this is horrible. She's like, I'm so sorry. And I said,

I just, I want to give you the heads up because I don't know when you'll hear it from Jocco, but it's something that you need to know. And then I just, I started the phone tree of calling guys and everybody in our platoon, just trying to find numbers and get a hold of guys. and trying to process it through and different guys just trying to understand it

and, you know, it was, yeah, it was, you know, a big blow, obviously, to everybody that knew Seth. You know, and it was weird because all of us had this open period on our calendars at that time. Maybe I'm superstitious, but every time I see a, I'll look at all of our calendars and I'm always like making sure that there's never like a gap that's open for all of our calendars.

Because I know that doesn't make sense to people when you say God has a plan and our days are numbered. But I believe in that. And Seth, Seth's last day was already planned. And God knew when that was going to happen. And I know it's hard to understand and process that because the world was a best thing. better place with Seth and he impacted so many lives and he made such an amazing difference and it doesn't it doesn't seem sense for him to be gone but god knew what was going to happen and the fact that we all had that block open to be able to do our events and and make everything that we needed

to do with the with the funeral and the different services was was unique you know and And, you know, came back to San Diego and, you know, last time I was in my uniform was for that. And I was still within that window of being able to wear my uniform. And, you know, it was a powerful event seeing all the guys. And, you know, I was standing watch over Seth at the funeral home. and guys had different, you know, different watchers or standover. And the command was, they had all these guys that were from Steel Team through that were rogered up to stand watch over him.

And myself and a bunch of the other guys were like, no, we're going to stand watch over Seth. That's like, this is what we need to be doing. And the command was awesome. These new guys were super fired up and squared away and very professional. And they understand who Seth was and the impact that he had. And we were watching over the guys. And I remember I was at the funeral home. And I was standing there in my uniform and the family members are coming in.

And you're standing there at attention. And, you know, people were saying, hey, thank you. I appreciate you being here. And, you know, they're coming in. And you just see the pain and, you know, the sorrow on their faces. And you see it in their body as they're walking up. And, you know, family members that are getting close and they pause because they don't want to actually walk inside that building. and I remember seeing Leif there,

and I remember seeing Jocko walking up with his family. And they came to the outside, and they were talking and seeing each other, and there's like the bro hugs and like the half hugs with family members and full hugs. And I'm just standing there. And I remember as they were getting ready to walk in, they did what everybody else. did is there's that pause because they knew once they walked in it made it real and just like jocco has always done his head up chest out takes a breath walks inside with his family life does the same thing

they go inside and i'm just standing outside and everyone has their time in there they pay their respects and then everyone leaves and it was Leif, I think it was Leif that pulled me in and it was just the three of us. We're paying our final respects to Seth. His casco was open. He's in his uniform. And Leif placed some patches in there. I took the bracelet that was off my wrist that had Mark's name and Mikey's name and Ryan Job's name on there. and a handful of other guys that were on there

and I took it off and I placed it inside the casket. I remember just like touching Seth's arm and just being real and you know just said a quick little prayer and stepped back and Jock went forward and he presented Seth with his black belt and there was some surf wax that was placed in there as well and it was completely silent. And

Jocko comes back and we're kind of standing there and we just all kind of have our heads down but we're kind of looking at each other and we're kind of looking at Seth and Jocko breaks his silence and he just says a very simple but powerful statement.

He says, we will not fail. We will not fail Seth. We will not fail the guys. And that was it. It was a very powerful statement that I have thought about every single day since we laid Seth the rest. Seth never failed us. And that's what Jocko, he went on to say as well as that Seth, he said, Seth never failed us.

We will not fail them. Then it was back to business as normal. And it just reminded me of the teams. It's obviously a horrible situation to lose somebody, but we still have a mission that we have to achieve. We still have to push forward. And that's exactly what our brothers would want us to do. We cannot fail them.

Yeah, just to make sure everyone kind of knows that when JP says, you know, well, then we moved on, just make sure that everybody knows that you just don't get to move on. I mean, you have to, but it doesn't feel like, oh, okay, we can move on now. And I know I've unfortunately had to speak about what you do when you lose someone and what it feels like. And there's a reason why I've been able to talk about that. An unfortunate reason is because I've lost a lot of friends. and seen people lose friends and seen the situation unfold,

not just from my own personal experience, but from watching other people go through it. And you don't, you move on, you have to, but don't think that you are going to be everything normal in a week, on a month, or in a year. and that's just not the way you just don't get to do that and you don't I don't want to do that

I don't think anything ever goes back to normal no because the normal is when they are with us and that's not a reality anymore and that is something that we all had to learn to deal with and work through and you know when you're saying like hey I just want to be clear when JV said to move on and you don't it's not like you move on like that

It never happened and you forget. Like when we came back from Ramadi, you know, you come back from that deployment from Ramadi. And what do you come back from? Like, we've talked to, like, every company we talk to, we always ask, like, hey, what do you come back from a deployment like that with? There's a lot of anger. There's a lot of frustration.

There's darkness. There's guilt. There's all those things. But if that's all you focus on, where does it get you? It gets you nowhere. It gives you absolutely nowhere in life. And the conversation that you had with Leifah and I, about us not failing them is something that I hope everybody can just truly understand

and realize that, hey, you can live your life in a way to honor them. And maybe it's not to honor our brothers. Maybe it's not to honor anybody in the military. But there's somebody in your life, somebody has sacrificed something so that you can at least be in the situation that you're in. And you can live your life to honor them. You can live your life one or two ways. You can allow it to fall apart or you can build it up and you can move forward with your mission to achieve your mission.

And that's what a lot of veterans struggle with is understanding how can you even have a mission. You've experienced all this loss. You've experienced all this devastation. How do you actually find a new mission? How do you find a new way? How do you stay on the path? How do you even get back on the path? And the loss of Seth was obviously devastating to everybody that knew him.

You know, I choose to remember his laugh. I choose to remember that smile, how he would come up. And he would just like, he would always like, like, slap me on the back and kind of grab my trap and just like, he just got a little shake. And you're just like, he's such a strong, powerful guy. When he did that, you're like, okay. You know, but, you know, and he was. he always was taking care of people.

And I think if we can try to live our lives similar to that and just try to be like Seth and Mikey and Mark and Ryan and all the other guys that we've lost. And I just really believe that if people can understand the situations that they're in and how good that they have it and to be thankful for the opportunities that they have, they'll achieve what they want in our life. And for me, that's, I think a big learning point that I had over these last four years

was just maintaining the gratitude mindset that I had of just being thankful for the opportunities. And, you know, that's why we moved to Texas. It was because I knew that if I was centrally located, it would be the best thing for a echelon front for travel. And just of being able to interact with the many clients. as possible. And it was either going to be centrally located in Texas or San Diego here with you, right? So Laif was in Texas. You were in San Diego. I knew Dallas Fort Worth was an amazing airport. It was going to be good for travel. And so that's why we moved. We moved from Mississippi to be

to be centrally located for what we perceived was the best for echelon front because I was so grateful for this opportunity. And I wanted to make the absolute best. of what we had. And then as a company's grown, you know, went from just being a instructor and a speaker to we had the opportunity after muster zero zero four in San Diego when we're like kind of defining, okay, roles and responsibilities as a company's growing, you know, and you guys, you know, made me the director of our experiential leadership training program, all the hands-on scenario-based leadership training that we do. And, you know, this was another big opportunity that I had. I said, you know, and I understood the potential. And I,

understand how important it was with the company. And just to be able to grow a department within Eschleon Front was, it's been amazing. It's been a great learning experience for myself and, you know, making sure that as we're growing the company, you know, brought on Cody. He's been helping run. He was the operations manager for all the field training exercises that we run. And he's a, you know, former Marine. He's super squared away. Came out to one of the first big FTXs that we're doing. We had a group of super squared away guys there. And, you know, he really stepped up and took ownership of the team or the scenarios of the training, understood it. And, you know, he was also in a position to where we could provide him like, hey, here's the opportunity we have.

We'd love to have you come on full board with the team. You know, and so throughout 2018, we're growing out the FTX program, speaking, traveling a bunch, 2019. Same thing, like crazy busy, a bunch of FTXs, seeing the growth of the team. You know, Dave growing up, growing out the leadership development alignment programs and just the partnerships with all the different companies that we had. It was, you know, it's just been crazy to see the transition. And, you know, obviously us talking about Seth is the heavy, deep topic, but it's part of these last four years. And, you know, the last four years has been.

an amazing opportunity that I am forever thankful and grateful to you and Laif for giving me. And you and Laf always say it and I believe it. And it's, we're only getting started. And the impact that the book, Extreme Ownership and the economy of leadership that you and Laif wrote, to see the impact, to see it changing people's life. lives. I mean, there's been people that have lost 100 plus pounds. There's been people that have regained their marriages. There's been companies that came and reached out to you in Leif and said, hey, this is our last ditch effort. If we don't fix something, we're going out of business.

And to see them be able to apply the principles, the laws of combat, the mindset of victory, to understand the different dichotomies that we all experience as individuals and as leaders, to see them apply those things and see them to turn around their personal and professional lives it's just been incredible. And knowing where we will be going with, you know, EF online to see that grow and develop into what it is right now. I mean, the value in Echlon Front material is just, it's hard to figure that out. I mean, just because you were talking about on one of the sessions the other day, it's like, hey, we didn't know what at the beginning. And the market kind of dictates that for us, and we understand the demand.

But to see the value that people are getting from EF Online is absolutely incredible. And to see the LDAPs that Dave has created and Overwatch and everything that Mike Turelli's been doing over there. And to see the impact of placing veterans and how it ties back to EF on front. And, you know, EF Battlefield that, you know, Steve and Jason or Mike just created and just, man, I was a little sad that I wasn't there. I mean, I understood that I didn't need to be there. I could tell you were getting all jealous and felt like you were messing out. You're like, hey, how was it? And actually, Dave was the same way.

And both of you guys were like, oh, how was it? You know, like, and you were hoping that I was going to say, oh, it's fine. And I was like, it was awesome. No, I was never hoping. You guys know I don't throw that. You guys know I don't throw that around easily. Yeah. When I, because the EF Battlefield is awesome.

It's awesome. It's amazing. And yeah, I could tell both you guys are like, oh, how was it? And I'm not saying you were hoping it was bad, but it hurt when I said it was freaking awesome. Dave re-asked me the question immediately. He goes, he goes, oh, he goes, how is the EF battlefield? And I go, it was freaking awesome. And he goes, EF Battlefield?

Like he re-asked me the question to make sure that he was actually hearing it. He was, you know, I mean, he's super stoked and he's going to be, I mean, everyone's going to be stoked when you go do it. Yeah, it was like the, you know, the field training exercises when you have. and Life came out and saw what it progressed into and what we were doing up in Michigan with our large client up there. Like for you and Laif both to be like, this is awesome.

Just to see the impact. And now like, I mean, just to, it's crazy to see what's happened over the last four years. I mean, we haven't even talked about just, you know, what we've been able to do with origin and Jocko Fuel. I mean, it's ridiculous. I have a sour apple sniper discipline go drink

sitting in front of me with my, signature on the side. I mean, the Go Time series that they did, that little mini documentary on me, I mean, that has 2.2 million views on YouTube organically. Like,

that's all organic. And just, it's crazy. I guess talking my buddy Michael and a few other people, you know, two of my best friends in Texas, Stephen Little and Dane,

you know, and Dane's helped out with FTXs and he's out, brought, came out to the musters. And, you know, just my really close friends understanding,

like, what's been happening. and what's going on. And it's just incredible. I mean, to see the situation where four years ago, we had no money. And now, like, as we're looking to buy a house, we're in a situation that it's pure comfort.

It's a completely different scenario. I mean, the coronavirus hit. Not once have I ever been in a stressed situation over finances. When this all hit, I gave you an update of my staff. status and you're like, okay, I feel good to go. And I let Laif know, and it was, you know how I am with my finances. I'm very private.

I don't like people knowing what I make. I just, I'm not like that. I've never been like that. I don't like the people on social media that are like bragging about like, I made this much money last month. Who cares? Like, okay, cool, great. I'm not like that.

But I knew that I had to give you guys that situation update of like, hey, you know what? Everything. And Laif, since day one, he's been amazing. working with me on, hey, investments, savings, just making sure that I knew I was being taken care of being studious with my money. And Amanda and I have been very studious with our savings and just our lifestyle, it's not crazy.

And we're in the situation tour. When all this hit, I told you, I was like, I can have no income for the next year and not have to change our lifestyle. Now, would I do that? No, of course I'm going to change my lifestyle. I'm going to be a little more free. fruitful and you know we're going to be a little more you know tedious over here and but you know we've

been able to tie that we've been able to to give to different charities and different foundations and you know I mean it's it's been nice to be able to be in the situation that we're in and it just comes down to I mean what you've always talked about is discipline equals freedom and Laif has always taken the time to work with me on that you've had in-depth conversations with me on this I mean I know a couple of times I've called and we get done with a call and I look at him like that was an hour and a half call. I'm like, man, I'm really glad Jocco doesn't charge me his hourly rate because homie couldn't afford that one. But, you know, it just, it's incredible, you know, and I'm always super thankful of all the blessings that God's have given me. But I also understand that you have to work for stuff.

You have to work. And I saw the opportunity and I knew that I had to go all in. I had to go all in with you guys. And by me going all in being 100% committed to what you guys had built in respecting that, and like Dave and I, we've always talked with the other instructors. Any new instructors were like, hey, this is jocco and lace company that they've built. We are a part of it, but everything we do has to honor and respect what they've built. And we understand how important that is.

And just have that mindset and to see that Cody and, Cali on the FTX team, they have that same mindset. When Cody will call me about different stuff for an FTX, and my default answer, or my default answer to his question is, and he knows this, but he's always, he's just making sure we're aligned with stuff because there's certain things. He knows like, hey, he has to let me know. There's certain things. He just, hey, FY, this is what I did.

I'm like, cool, good, good to go. Is the answer is, what will deliver the absolute best training to our client? and whatever that is within reason, that's what we do. We always take care of the client. We always make sure the client has the absolute best training, the absolute best experience no matter what. That's what we will always do. We don't cut conners.

We will always do what's best for the client. If that means that, you know, training is going to run long and we're going to catch a flight the next day and we've been gone for two weeks, no factor. We're not flying home early. We don't cut training early so we can get on a flight to get back home. You know, we will spend time. You know, we will always take care of the client.

And it's awesome to see what we're getting ready to launch with the individual FTX program. And, you know, this is an opportunity to where, let's say a company, they're not large enough to have a full field training exercise. They just can't afford it. They can't bring, you know, they don't have enough people to do it. well, what they can do is they can send a few of their leaders to this individual FTX. Or let's say it's an individual like Echo and Echo's like, hey, it's just me. Like we see people come to the muster. They just come by themselves because they want to have more hands on of the train.

They've read the book, it's some dad that wants to be a better dad, right? We've met people that are like, hey, we just want to be better parents. That's why we came to the muster. I'm like, that's awesome. They can sign up for the individual FTX. and it's going to be, you know, there's different tiers to it, but it's going to be the one tier that we know that we're absolutely launching is that it's going to be two days of field training exercises.

And, you know, it's going to be a small group, 30 or less people within that group, and it's going to be two full days of field training exercises where we're putting them in stressful situations. It's all scenario-based. They're going to all rotate through different positions of leadership and we're going to give them intel, and they're going to take that intel, and they're going to plan their mission.

And their mission is going to be a capture kill mission, or they're going to go do a presence patrol through a different area. It's the same scenarios and same training, well, not same, very similar, to the same type of training that we ran in the SEAL teams. And each of these scenarios are going to be driven to enforce the leadership principles that we teach at Echelon Front,

the laws of combat, the mindset of victory, the different dichotomies that you experience, that you experience as a leader, you're going to feel it real time and training. And that's what we saw was so impactful in the SEAL teams was actual hands-on training. When you can feel that stress, we can feel that pressure, when you have to make a decision. And people are going to see voids of leadership. And they're going to see why it's important to step up and make a call, even when you're not in that position of leadership.

You're going to see decentralized command working and decentralized command not working. You're going to feel your communication not being effective. and you're going to come back and you're you know you're going to you know be frustrated and talk through different stuff and like layf was talking the other day on eF online we we we we we if and I were laughing at one the FTX is because the OIC goes squad one on the left squad one on the right and everyone was like it's like nobody was moving no he was doing anything like and I remember one of the squad leaders like you just said squad one on the left squad one on the right like what what do you want and they're like they're getting all frustrated or they'll make a call out and

they're like, the enemy's over there. And I'll always be like, over there, over there, over there. Like kind of like, just kind of like, like, hey, what cardinal direction is the enemy coming from? They're like, uh, they're on the right side of the building. I'm like, you're right. My right are two different directions. Are a hundred degrees out right now.

And they're like, uh, west side. And so people actually understand that they're not very good at communicating in stressful situations. And with the companies that we've done it for, I mean, I remember we've, we've, We've been in there. I don't remember if you're that, the one in Michigan where one of the corporate leaders was saying, you know what, I need to do a better job communicating with the union workers out in the field. I recognized that my communication sucks, and I have failed to build a relationship. And then one of the union leaders steps up and goes, hey, that's actually our fault,

because I could have come and built a relation. And you're just seeing, like, we're a company where at the beginning and when we were working with them, union and corporate hated each other. They were like screaming at each other in the classroom before we started training. I was like, and blaming each other. It was insane.

The amount of blame was crazy. And then you see that culture start to shift and change from these field training exercises because it's very humbling because everybody out there says, oh, I've got this. And they're planning the mission and they're just going to be, they think they're going to come in and impress us with this amazing. Everybody thinks their general George Patton. Yes.

Until the laser thing starts beeping on their shoulder and they realize what's up. I always say, you know, that the training that we ran at trade at was the best leadership laboratory. I actually have changed this statement. I used to say it was one of the best leadership laboratories in the world. I actually think that it was the best leadership laboratory in the world ever. And because, and not just the best leadership laboratory, but also the best leadership instruct. Because when you're in those situations, you learn them. And it's it's they they smack you in the face and you either address them or you get smacked again.

And when you get smacked with them, it's so obvious what you did wrong. Here's that. Hey, listen to that listen to the recording of what you were just saying. Squad one on the left, squad one on the right. Listen to that recording. Now, do you think you were detached when you were doing that? Do you think you were getting emotional a little bit? Do you think you had a step back?

No. So that's what it feels like. And that's why, you know, getting this FTCS program off the ground, it's just a phenomenal way to drive these lessons home in the same way that they got driven home to us. And if it seems, this is the kind of cool thing, you might think, well, how the heck are we supposed to, you know, you work at a financial company or you work at an insurance company or you work at a construction company? We don't know anything about tactics. How are we going to go, you know, do a mission on a presence patrol through a street? It's you spend a few hours learning these basic principles so basic just and there's nothing. It's common sense, right?

It's common sense. It's also the laws of combat. Covered move. Keep things simple. Prioritize next you, decentralized command. That's what you're going to learn. And then you learn how to apply it very quickly. And when you make mistakes, believe me, those those mistakes that you make are the best ways to learn that you're ever going to get.

So it's awesome. And then the, the EF battlefield. you get to, you're automatically, basically what happens in EF Battlefield, you're watching the mistakes, but you can see the mistakes made by the leaders and what they did well, what they did wrong, and you're kind of detached from it. So you again, you get to see these things firsthand and you get to stand where that leader stood and see what that leader saw in that particular situation. And those are all powerful.

That's why we call it experiential learning, because you are experiencing what a leader experiences and that's the best possible way to learn. Yeah, it's another very proud moment of mind of just being a part of this team, being able to see that program grow, see the growth and development of Cody, of Cowie, you know, both of those guys have really stepped up. They're doing amazing things. You know, and the other echelon front instructors that come out and help out on the FTXs and just seeing everybody being able to work together and just delivering the best training ever. And I, we're a little biased, but I'll tell you what.

I mean, that's not, but that's not just us saying. This is what our clients have said. This is, I mean, the feedback that we get constantly from, from people all the time. And just, when you see the culture of a huge company, drastically shift in change and they're saying hey this is because of the field training program like I remember working with one company where there was just the racial division was was very unfortunate and it was very real and I remember seeing it in in one of the headquarters that we were visiting and working with and seeing that change after FTXs where they're working

together and they're understanding how important their roles and responsibilities are each other and just see them starting to intermingle and talk with each other and just see those where it was to where it's at now. It was just was incredible. And it was so powerful. You know, these will be available in the very near future. If somebody goes to echelonfront.com. Oh, the individual FTCS. Yes. The individual FTAX. Just to explain that to everybody. In the past, what we've done is if you want, you got to bring your company. You got to bring a company of people. So you got to bring 20, or 40 or 100 people and we run this FTCX program. It's sort of like the muster.

That's what we used to just do consulting for companies. And I realized the shortfall was we were cutting out, you know, if you had three people at a company, you can't bring an echelon front to do leadership training. I said, let's bring everyone together that wants to do this training into one big group and we'll do a training for them. That's the muster. That's the same thing with the individual FTCs. You know, whether you bring two or three people from your team, four or five people from

your team or you just come by yourself either any of those scenarios it's like okay now we're going to learn we're to learn these leadership lessons at a at a deep level at a granular level that's going to be that's going to be burned onto your soul and it's awesome and the cool thing is like these the first ones these are the pilot program that people are going to be able to you know be a part of it's like being a part of like muster zero zero one like those are plank owners and people are going to be able to be plank owners of the individual FTXs. You know, we were talking last night, you know, at your dinner table about the two different tiers that we know that we're going to definitely do.

And one, like I said, it's just the two full days of training. And it's just going to be run after run after run after run after run. I mean, it's just going to be, you're going to have so many runs like somebody's going to say, hey, I'm going to have to sit this one out. And somebody's listening. Oh, yeah, right. And I guarantee you it's going to happen because it's just the amount of scenarios that we're going to throw is it's going to be incredible. And the actual learning fundamentals that

you're going to gain from those two days is there's nothing out there like it right now. There's nothing out there. And then the next tier, it's going to be a little bit longer. It'll be three days. You know, it'll be with that group of 30 or less. And, you know, there will be one day of, you know, there can be like roundtable discussions, getting to know the unique differences of the different businesses that talking through. the different problems that people are going through and actually diving deep into their principles and addressing them with the group

and having all the different individuals that are there actually contributing to like the leadership principles that we talk about and solve because as you've seen from EF Online I mean you look at the chat I mean people are solving problems for each other people ask a question and there's 20 responses and so

that's what that next tier is going to be like is where they're going to come in we're going to have that you know have the group dinner morning PT's day of runs dinner, morning PT, day of runs, and then like a kind of like a final like recapping everything of roundtable. And that might be, that might be a three, three and a half day type of situation. But for the individual program, you know, people go to echelonfront.com. We'll have the information up there by time this podcast is out.

You know, it's just stand by. It's going to be awesome. Stand by to come and get some. Yes. Speaking of getting some, I think we've been going. for three and a half hours here. So, bro, thanks for coming back on. I wanted to say this.

The reason, I guess maybe it's pretty obvious because people are like, what are you having JP back on? I'm like, oh, as soon as we can get together. And there you have it. You look at his schedule, you look at my schedule, and guess when we're getting together.

Oh, it only took four years. There was a couple opportunities we had where like at the muster, we could have, I think at one muster we were trying to pull it off, and then like we'd be at the muster and it'd be zero sleep and just total mayhem, especially at the earlier musters

when we weren't as squared away as we should have been on the back end and we just need to tighten things up, we need to learn, and that's what we did. But yeah, so that's why it took so long, but freaking thanks for coming back on. And we'll try not, let's at least aim for, dude, I didn't even want to say 346.

That's like two years away. No, we won't let that happen. Yeah, dude, awesome to have you back on. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Charles. Yes.

What questions do you have? Lots of lessons there. Lots of lessons learned from JP. Lots of lessons learned about how to get better, how to get back on the path. Got any suggestions for us? Oh, yeah. So more suggestions. So being on the path, I guess, or whatever.

Back one year JP we just made it through the whole podcast And we didn't talk about Jiu-Jitsu That's kind of crazy I can bring it up I know actually I'm just saying I'm like wow Well I just said it's been three and a half hours

And all of a sudden we're about to add another two hours Freaking talking about Jiu-Jitsu Remember at the muster when you slept in Or whatever What was the what was the diagnosis there You're just like what sleep deprived Freaking exhausted He's wicked tired

WikiTi-tied. Yeah, that's the only diagnosis. But wasn't it kind of refreshing that, like, because I'd done that before, I'm not going to say when, whatever, but let's just say that's happened to me where it's like, oh, shoot, you look at the clock, you're like, man, I missed, like a bunch of stuff. So then you got to sort of reenter the situation. Oh, it sucks. So that anticipation is like, it's kind of nerve-wracking to say the least. So then in your case, you got to re-enter with Jock-Lave, not to mention everybody else sort of waiting for you, sort of. All right. So I know you're mad at yourself, of course. J.P.'s mad at himself about everything.

But how much of a refreshing scenario was it that like they were kind of laughing and smiling? It changed everything. Totally does, right? Completely changed everything. Yeah, man. It's like it's the worst because like what if what if like they didn't say anything? They just like, okay, J.P.'s back. But then you kind of sense just a little bit of, you know, like they're like. they're a little bit short with you or something like that. It's like, that's like an added double triple torture right there.

Like you can't do that. It's like, that's not even going to help you, you know? But if they could. So I'm sensing or I'm at least getting this indication. I know. That you feel some level of guilt about being late.

Is that factual? Because I'm not, I'm not seeing that, bro. No. Well, if you're talking about today, my one minute late, bro.

A minute 45. I was early, bro. That's early for me. I'm from Kauai. One minute late, you know, it's not bad. The early bird gets the worm. So all good.

I'm on a podcast. You said you come from a long line of people that are late people. Yeah. I mean, you did 23 and me. Your DNA came up late. Yes, it was very clear. The late marker on that one is. Anyway, what I'm not laid on is my re-entry to the,

Jocco fuel discipline, uh, freaking, routine. Mm-hmm. You're in the game. In the game. Bro, why are we even talking about this?

Okay, so we're talking about, uh, joint warfare, krill oil, discipline. That's all cool. Joint warfare,

krill oil, vitamin D, maybe some cold water. That's good, right? We talk about that all the time. We've got JP here. Oh, we'll get to JP.

He happens to have a sour apple. Signature. It's your drink. But, okay, so, but the joint warfare thing, and here's the thing. Like, you know, we take it every day. I do. I don't know about you. I take it every day or whatever.

And like I said, I said before where it's like always on my mind, right? So I kind of explore, like, why is this always on my mind? And you came up with a phrase or a line or whatever you call it. The beatings are the darkness. The gains are the light. Okay. I thought that was pretty. You didn't know the one who said that.

Interesting. Anyway, so the point is, this is why, because when you're young and JP, you're looking to fit, strong, fit. You know, usually a good sign in life when you're looking and feeling strong and fit. But, you know, when you're young, you're like, okay, you know, my big muscles, my big muscles. As you gain maturity, you figure out, like, the underlying foundations of things are usually proved to be more important. And the underlying foundations of gains is skeletal and tissue strength. Strength and stability, exactly right. I got your back.

Yeah, you're completely correct. Totally taken care of you. So, yeah, when you take those beatings and you want to get those, that recovery that gains, your joints are one of the many things that take beatings. Do you spell gains with a Z? No, sir. Are you sure? I'm positive, yes. And me and P.P., do you spell gains?

with a Z. No. Negative. I was talking to Pete. I kind of think I'd spell gains with a Z. Okay. But maybe that's just my own little sort of, you know, gains. Yeah.

I don't know. Yeah, no, I was talking to Pete or maybe both of them, Brian. And we're talking about the word gains. It's like, I see. Oh, is that word itself a violation? No. Or is it only for the Z on the end? The Z.

Yeah, exactly right. Yeah, the Z. It's funny that the Z on the end of gains is a real thing, right? Yeah, just like Z in the end of a lot of other words, like boys, me and my boys. And you put a Z. It's like, bro, don't do that. But you can say me and my boys. Like, that's not a violation if it's like, you know.

I just don't understand why people go out of their way to misspell words. Yeah, brats. It's interesting for sure. Maybe like individual expression, you know. Either way. Nonetheless, yeah. Okay. So take these things.

Take these things. things keep yourself in the game that's important bro what what good is it if you're like muscles are super strong but your joints can't hold it's like having a nice house with no freaking foundation agreed bro or framing metaphor received anyway so back to the back to the sour apple sniper okay jp so why did we um choose sour app a sour apple um it was just a flavor of that I've always enjoyed as a kid. Like I really liked the sour apple flavors of different candy and stuff I would eat as a kid. The Jolly Ranchers, those, those, one of the, like, caramel, like, there's, like, sour green apple with a caramel.

Like, yeah, I just, I've always really liked it. And, but honestly, it was, you know, I, I talked to Brian because, you know, we came out with Dakota Myers flavor, Dach Savage, which is legit. It's really good. And, you know, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, you know, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, you know, Brian is the same way that, that you guys are about business is he's not going to, like, commit or say something ahead of it. He's just more of reserved on it. And I, I kind of talked to him about, like, what about, like, you know, different, like, signature flavor, like, you know, kind of like one for me or other people.

Would you guys be open to it? And he's like, well, we kind of got to see how these flavors do. We just want to see if there's even a demand and how it goes. and obviously what, you know, the projection of what he's been doing, you know, Pete and Brian both with origin and Jokka fuel and you guys, the growth is just, it's incredible to see it and be a part of it. And so, you know, just kind of let it be with that conversation, talk to Pete about it a little bit. And, you know, they had asked, like, what would you think for the flavor and the name? And I gave them a name and a flavor. And they're like, okay, I dig that.

kind of didn't go anywhere and then it was in you know January I kind of brought it up again to Brian and I said you know I was like you know I'm thinking about what if it was like sour apple sniper I was trying to come up with a name that would be unique so fully can't fully you sour apple sniper that's what you said it that yes yes and uh because the other name that I come up with was it worked well and I still like it it's a good flavor it's a good name. What? Your other name?

There's another idea. What was it? Well, we could talk about it offline. Well, someone might steal it. Somebody like that. It's that good. Oh, okay. All right.

And so came out with Sauerabre. And Brian was like, okay, I like the name. But he's like, you know, sour, apple. I don't know how that will do. It was like flavor and a drink. And I said, okay. Well, yeah, I was like, that makes sense. And we were kind of talking through it.

And it was just, I was like, hey, I'm not trying to be the good idea fairy. Like, I don't want to just be like coming to you. with all these like, hey, I have another good idea and it's expect you to execute it. I'm like, I want to help. Let me know what I can do. Like, if there's an idea and then just, you know, kept conversations about it.

And then it just became a reality where, you know, Brian, like, reached out to me and was like, hey, you know, thinking about this and we're going to start working on your flavor. I was like, oh, okay, cool. And I think Brian, Brian got excited about it when some of the manufacturers came back to him, like, oh, that's a great idea. And like, there was a couple different companies that were wanting to kind of like

bid for being able to do it, I guess, or wanted to be a part of it. And then we got the first couple rounds of flavors. And it was like, okay, this is good. But let's make this tweak and a couple different tweaks. And then Jocko gave me the feedback. He's like, yeah, actually, I really like it. That's actually good. Kids give the feedback.

And then, yeah, and then just kind of tweaked it from there. And then they're able to execute. Obviously, there's some delays with, you know, the whole coronavirus thing. and across the nation. But, I mean, it came out, you know, Jock Palmer came out, and there was a legit flavor. And, you know, I was like a really good flavor. And I was like, oh, man, sour apple sniper's coming after that.

Like, I was nervous. Yeah. But, yeah, I'm really super happy with the flavor. I mean, the amount of support has been incredible. Like, the amount of people, like, sending me messages, like, hey, I just ordered six cases or, hey, I just ordered, you know, four pack to try out. And then they'll order the four pack to try.

out they try it and then they're that same week ordering a case and um you know i think it's should be available on amazon soon vitamin shop should be getting theirs soon in the game as well they have the other flavors um but i mean there's been like the gym i train at you know peak performance was where i do jiu jitsu and then next to it my buddy has a a gym called 360 fitness where amanda and i will train and he does personal training there as well he's been working with amanda and then he's been doing personal training with Aden, helping with, you know, some coordination stuff and stuff. And like he just ordered a large order. He ordered 40 cases and he's getting the fridge in there.

And so there's, you're seeing a lot of businesses now also that I've been connecting with, with Jock Fuel and of like ordering the fridges. And like another, like my buddy, their business, they ordered 48 cases. And then, you know, later that week ordered more. And there's, it's just the. progression of growth is just crazy to see what people are doing, the support for just all the jaco flavors. I mean, all the flavors are great. You know, that's the thing is, you know, of course, I want the sour apple snipers to continue to sell and do well, but at the end of the

day, they're all, they're all feeding each other. I said, I would like, but I'm saying at the end of the day, they're all feeding each other. You know what's crazy about this whole story? What? There's two right now, and there's more common. But there's two signature flavors, you and Dakota. Yeah. Have you ever wondered about why that is? No. Well, I guess, maybe.

The, like the, the seed of this idea maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Had was the seed this original idea of making an energy drink is from From from you and Dakota as individuals, but more you and Dakota's you and Dakota as people as an as a group of people so let's let's let's let's let's face it you used to freaking drink energy drinks that are absolutely horrible for you. And you would drink, how many a day?

It was bad? Five to seven. Five to seven. That's freaking awful. Dakota's same thing. And so as, and you know, I used to drink them when I would need like, oh, I need some caffeine because I'm on a long drive and it's late at night. Okay, I'm going to drink this. And then what happens?

The next, you know, once I crashed from that, from the sugar, the insulin, you feel like crap. but but as I thought about like hey because part of my mind is I don't want to contribute to that like I don't want to make something that's going to do that to people but then immediately but what am I going to do with my friends you and you and Dakota you and you and Dakota I mean it's just you guys are sort of the archetype of the energy drink drinker right hey I didn't get much sleep but I want to get after it boom boom boom boom That's what it is. So I don't want to contribute to poisoning my friends and people like my friends.

So I'm not going to do that. But wait a second. What if we can actually make something that is legitimately good for you? That's why when it was like, okay, we need to, well, we want, I think that whole idea of a signature thing, it's like, you know what? There's two guys that should have a signature freaking energy. you drink that's good for them and then uh that's where we're at um that's that's awesome yeah and i got a message from one of my buddies you know obviously um most people that listen the podcast probably know this because you follow jaco you follow jocco you follow origin you

follow jocco fuel pete brian all them as well is you know we just brought on bryce mitchell as a sponsor yeah pro team member right you know thug nasty yeah he's got a big fight coming up yeah he just hit top 15 uh for his rankings as well in the u s and, you know, his manager, Matt, it's a great guy, and he's, I've always had a good relationship with him and Bryce, and I used to sponsor Bryce when I had never settled in peril, and I did what I could back then, you know, which wasn't much, but, you know, us being able to bring him on board the team is, is awesome. He's a great fit, but his manager, like, hit me up. He's like, dude, that sour apple sniper is ridiculous. He's like, I got my, put it on, put it on ice,

it got super cold. He's like, I'm going to get my, my, I'm going to get my, wife off of drinking the other energy drinks because she's a nurse and she what does she do same thing you know boom goes in i said hey let your wife know the flavor isn't going to make sense to her at the beginning because she's so used to like all this other sugar and junk and everything else like that because that's a lot of people say like well the flavor is a little different but then they'll drink a few of them like oh this is really good i like it you know because you have to understand like you don't drink a lot of sugar you never have yeah most people that do like now you're actually drinking that's something that's all natural, it has no sugar, it's good for you.

Like, that's crazy. And so he's, my purpose of saying all that is he's super thankful that he's going to now be able to get his wife off of the other energy drinks. She's going to be able to have a part of this. And Bryce is like all about this. Like he's sending me text messages. He's putting it and he's like, man, this is my go-to. This is my new go-to.

It's really, you know, the other thing that, my jocco fuel in origin have been doing is growing their sponsored team members, like, you know, working with the called the pro team, right? Just different members that are going to reflect, are going to be a good reflection of origin and Jocko Fuel and what that means. And Brian and them have been working hard. They're releasing an ambassador program. So there are people that if they want to represent origin and Jocco Fuel,

they can actually apply to do that and be a brand ambassador for the two best companies that are out there right now. And so it's just, it's crazy that I am a part of all this. It's just a little bit of it. It just blows me away. Amanda and I, you know, my wife, Amanda and I were talking last night about it, and I was just, it's just crazy just to see it, you know. And I know we're going to close it out like you guys normally do,

but, you know, I have to take a moment to thank Amanda and Aden and Cora and Nola just for their dedication to me, to just always have my back. You know, Amanda's through thick and thin. I'm not an easy person to live with. I'm not an easy person to be married with to work with. I have a lot of, you know, demons that I work through. And, you know, she knows that and sees that. And she'll be like, you just need to go to the gym, all right?

Or, hey, go sit in the sauna or go to do some jiu-jitsu because she knows, you know, all the guys that I work with and do jiu-jitsu over at Peak. And Justin and Zach over at 360 Fitness, like, they're there to support me. And they support my family. It's unlike anything I've ever seen, you know, and they their loyalty and it's incredible. And so it's why I was like lacking in, you know, that's what I was missing out on again and just to have that. But it's all driven from Amanda and my family. And, you know, when the drink came out, you know, Amanda, you know, we got it. And she was like, oh, this is awesome.

You know, it was really cool. And she like comes up and she gives me a hug and she like puts her hand on my chest. And she's like just looking up at me. She's like, hey, I'm really proud of you. Like, I am really proud of everything that you've worked for. It's been a road. She's like, it's been a, it's been a, you know, it's been a, what would she say exactly? It was not a rough road, but it's, you know, something along the journey, right?

And I just, I was just soaking it in because, I mean, we've had some dark times between the two of us. And just to know that in the last four years, we went from where we're at. All the struggles, everything up and down to where, you know, we just received like cases of sour apple sniper with my signature on it and just all the crazy thing that's coming of it. And the, just the relationships with origin and Jocko Fuel. I mean, I know you're very thankful for that partnership. But to, like, when we really look into like who Pete is and who Amanda Roberts is and who Brian Littlefield is and everyone associated with those companies,

they are some of the best people that I know, legitimately some of the best people I know. And what they're doing here in America, what you guys are doing, Echo and Jocko with them in America, it gives me a sense of pride to be like, hey, this is another mission that I can at least maybe help a little bit.

I can contribute a little bit, you know? And so I'm just so thankful just for all these opportunities. It's unreal. And, you know, what I'm thankful as well is, this is a platform for me to be able to give back and serve and serve more people. And that's, you know, something we can get into on another podcast of just some of the stuff that we have on in the horizon of different foundations to be able to help out and be able to work

alongside, you know, Mama Lee with America's Mideon Warriors. She, her foundation probably legitimately saved my life because in March I got super sick. We don't know what was going on. You remember I was pissing blood for two weeks straight. my body was shutting down. We don't know why. I had kidney failure, adrenal gland failure, and just a bunch of other stuff that was going on.

I was throwing up. My head was killing me. I was getting those headaches again. Blurred vision. I was losing, like, the ability, like, to talk sometimes. Like, I couldn't find my words. I couldn't focus. And, you know, coronavirus hit.

and Debbie Lee, Mama Lee, reached out to me, and she says, hey, I got you approved for HBot treatments, the hyperbaric oxygen treatments. You have the time. Let's get you in there. And I was doing those treatments. And it was a realization to me of how hard Mama Lee is working to serve others. And I have this opportunity to be able to try to help and give back.

And, you know, there's good, like America's Maya Warriors that are doing so much for people that most people don't know about. And, you know, I did all those treatments and it was incredible the difference that it made for my body. Like a complete 180, like able to work out again. Like I blocked out in the middle of a workout and passed out. And I mean, it was it was bad. Like we're still not sure what would happen. And yeah.

And then now a few months later, I'm able to work out and train hard again and actually get back into training jujitsu and, you know, actually working out. I'm just trying to get back on that bath again. And it's, you know, just all the clean supplements from jocco fuel and origin is just everything. It's just made a huge difference. That's crazy. Yeah. So you're doing those curls on the internet. Yeah, dog.

Varying levels of emotional response from you all now. I didn't take a film of the last one I hit, but I will for you this week. I know you will. 155 for three. Okay. All right. All right. Okay.

So you're doing well. Was that preacher? Was that preacher curl? No. Okay. Straight marble curl, man. All right. Preacher curls.

Yeah, yeah. Legit for sure. So, yes. Speaking of curls, mulk, right? You need that protein. That's probably why you can curl that much. You're on that mulk train. Anyway, protein.

in the form of a dessert. Boo-ya. Don't forget about that. Yeah, that is to sum up the Jocko Fuel Supplementation line. Oh, wait, no. Jock white tea. Can't forget about that.

Jockey. Mulk. All good. You can get it at vitamin shop. You can get it at origin, Mane.com. You can also get Jiu-Jitsu stuff there. You can get geese.

You can get a rash guard. You can get, so that's good. You're covered. kind of for jiu-jitsu, but you're not really covered for the street if you only have a ghee. That's true. So that's why you have to have origin jeans, which you can wear on the street. You can kind of wear them on the mats of justice as well if they're Delta jeans because they're flexible. Okay, so you get jeans, you can get boots, you can get t-shirts, you can get rash guards, geese, hats, hoodies, all that stuff.

Made in America. And by the way, JP, when you're like, oh, it's, it feels good to be a part of that. That's what everybody feels. Like when you, when you're, when you're, when you put on an origin t-shirt, when you put on an origin hoodie, when you put on an origin pair of jeans, you're part of what we are doing. Bringing manufacturing back to America. And that's awesome. Yes, sir. Origin mane.

Dot com. Also, Jocko has a store. It's called Jocco store. It's called Jocco store. So this is, if you want to represent while we are on the path, that we are on factually, we too have rash guards. A little bit more indicative of the path directly. See what I'm saying? Also made.

Oh, yeah. By origin. Yes. So we do have origin rash cards manufactured in America, made in America. Designed by not Pete Roberts. But in America. But in America. But yes, designed in America.

maybe by Equit Charles in terms of visual impact Sure So there's two different types of people in the world Right some people look at the Pete Robert stuff And they go hey I like that Some people might think they want something A little bit more on the Jocco store side

Yes Like with the Indicative of the path Yes sir That's where yes so yes jocco store also T-shirts on there Discipline equals freedom good You gotta represent these things

Get after it Some hats on there some hoodies on there some shorts on there shorts are in Shorts are straight up in board shorts I like it boom that's cool I don't have mine yet Yeah, that's true you know some of us are sort of in the game some of us are you know you're you're the you're the what do you call it you're the second guy What do you call it one like the first people the primary people get their stuff you know you're right you're first was it a first responder? No it's not a first responder? It's like that early adapter boom That's you yeah I'm over here in the rear without the gear

Your early Early followers or something like this Either way you'll get yours We'll get ours These are all good things Jocco store.com If you like something on there

Get something Don't forget to subscribe To this podcast Don't forget also That we have some other podcasts We've got Jock Unravelling with Daryl Cooper We've got grounded

We've got Warrior Kid podcast We've got a YouTube channel Where Echo allegedly puts effort into making videos The top ropes over here, my God. And in no time, any time that the video is long, you can expect to see no effects. No effects.

But if the video is short, you can see an overload of effects. You can be the judge. You can leave comments. If you think Echo put an appropriate amount of explosions in a video, you can say appropriate. Yes. If you think he did not, you can. put lacking those are your two choices just to put in the comments either appropriate or lacking yeah I think if you look at a long video you're probably

gonna put lacking since there's zero no but that's appropriate seems saying zero is appropriate a lot of people don't feel that way a lot of people wouldn't mind a little visual stimulation but whatever noted you're over there on your own program also got an album called psychological warfare which is an album where I talk about some things if you're maybe heading down the wrong path maybe you're about to make a bad decision don't do it press play on your MP3 player on your phone device device of whatever kind that's putting music putting things putting sounds into your ears go ahead hit psychological warfare overcome that weakness no factor

push through it I pretty look guaranteed guaranteed that you'll after the fact be appreciative of psychological warfare you're going into psychological warfare you want to win yes you want to win that battle yeah when you win that when you win battle guaranteed you're gonna feel better you're not gonna look back and say damn I really wish I would have had that don't it it's zero chance of that happening there's zero chance that you look back and say I wish I wouldn't have listened to psychological warfare and skip the workout no you get done with the workout you're like yes yeah I won the battle yeah there's literally no circumstance where you're like

dang I'm so happy I slacked off like you know yeah happy so stoked I slacked off who good thing I slacked off you know it's under no circumstances you're right 100% you might want a visual representation of these things you can get that from flipside canvassad canvas.com Dakota Meyer that's his company he's keeping it real also got some books the code the evaluation of protocol leadership strategy and tactics field manual all the answers are in that book by the way all these answers all the questions that I get asked their answers are always in there oh oh blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah page 47 what about this page 98 what about that What about what I do when my boss does this page 114

Way the Warrior kid one two and three Mikey and the dragons Teach a little kid to overcome fear can you imagine Superpower you have when you're a little kid and you realize you don't need to be afraid Yeah, give him that power give him Mikey and the dragons Discipline equals freedom field manual How to get after and then of course extreme ownership and the dichotomy of leadership the foundational principles Written by myself and my brother Laif Babin.

We also have an leadership consultancy. We talked about it today. If you want help with your leadership, go to echelonfront.com. And that's how you can get us in the game with you. EF Online. That is the online training. JP talked about it today. I talked about it, I think a little bit today,

but we've been referring to back to it a lot because we're getting a lot of good questions. Problem solving leadership situations being handled. It's us live. If you want to ask JP a question, if you actually want to ask JP to Nell a question, do you have to travel to Texas to do that? No, you can go to EF online on a Wednesday. And J.P. will there and you can make, hey, I got a question for JP.

If you want to ask me a question, do you have to come to California to do that? No, you don't. You can go to EF online. You can ask me a question. What if it's a complicated question? Cool. bring it. What if it's a question that's too long for Twitter?

Great. You're not on Twitter. You're sitting in a Zoom meeting. You got some good answers on there. Yeah. I must add. That's what we do. So go to eFonline.com if you want to engage with us there.

We also have the muster. Two of them this year have been canceled. Orlando and Phoenix. The next one is in Dallas, December 3rd and 4th. A lot of people that were going to, either Orlando or Phoenix are now coming to Dallas. We're probably going to have to do some kind of social distancing. That means less seats available.

So if you want to come, go to Extreme Ownership.com and enroll. We have EF. Overwatch, executive leadership. What you need inside your organization. Why not get someone that has the principles that we talked about today in their mind and can apply them, someone from the military, someone with experience. someone with experience in leadership positions that can come to your organization and help move you in the right direction. Go to eFoverwatch.com. I always talk about America's mighty warriors.org.

It's what JP just talked about. I always say that Mama Lee's mission has become to help service members. There's a service member. JP, how does she help by providing medical treatment to heal up military members that have made sense? sacrifices. So if you want to get involved or you want to donate, go to America's mighty warriors.org, help veterans. And if you have too much time on your hands, and you want to hear just a few more of my monotonous monologues. Or if you want to hear more just a little bit more of Echo Charles's riotous ramblings. You can find us on the

and webs on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. Echoes at Echo Charles. I am at Jocco Willink. And J-P is at J-P. Denele-L-L-L-L-Ns, 2-Ns, 2-Ls, on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook. Echo Charles, any closing thoughts? Nope, I have no closing thoughts.

Good to see J-P again. You guys well. J-P, anything else? Thank you. To you in life. for the opportunity that you've given my family. Like Dave Burke and I have talked many times, his family knows where all this comes from.

My kids are well aware of everything that Uncle Laif and Uncle Jocko has given them. And, you know, again, thank you to Amanda for her support. It is the ultimate cover move. I could not do what I do with you guys if it wasn't for her support. So she is, she's my queen. she used everything.

I don't treat her as good as I should and I need to do a better job at that and understand that I could not have the opportunity that I have with you guys if it was not for her and the kids supporting everything that I do. And I don't want you and lay for anybody on the team to ever think that I take this for granted

that I feel like I deserve more than I should get. I am thankful to be here. I'm thankful for my seat at the table and I will always be with you guys until the end. Well, first of all, as far as Amanda goes, I'm thinking maybe Amanda Mango is on the horizon, get her a little signature drink. And I'm not going to open up a debate with you right now

in terms of thanking me. And I've probably told you this at least probably five times, no more than that in certain situations that you don't ever have to thank me for anything. I thank you for what you did for me, for what you did for Task Unit Bruiser, for what you did for the teams, for what you did to the country, and for our country. So you never have to thank me. I thank you. And to all the other military personnel out there on those forgotten barricades who protect our way of life in the world, thanks to all of you and to the police and law enforcement and

firefighters and paramedics and EMTs and dispatchers and correctional officers and border patrol and secret service and all the other first responders thanks to all of you for standing up to serve even when you're under attack from all sides and to everyone else out there no one said that the path is going to be easy and it's not that's the way life is and you're going to go through some low spots and you might be running low on ammo and you you might even feel like keep fighting keep fighting keep striving keep going and don't give up because the only real failure is actually giving up and if you don't give up you will not fail them and until next time this is JP and Echo and Jocko.