Jocko Podcast - 256: An Hour Lost Today is an Hour Lost Forever. Time is Running Out.Guidelines for the Leader and Commander Pt.6

Episode Date: November 18, 2020

The final installment of "Guidelines for the Leader and Commander" by Gen Bruce ClarkeSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 256 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. And joining us once again is Dave Burke. Good evening, Dave. Good evening. And tonight we are going to wrap the final installment on guidelines for the leader and commander by General Bruce Clark. This is the subject of podcasts, plural, 251, 252, 253, 254.

255 and now finally 256 so much to learn taking the lessons that were passed on to Colonel David Hackworth who served in Korea Vietnam wrote the book about face taught me many leadership lessons well he learned those lessons from this book written by General Bruce Clark who served in Korea World War II World War I who led many soldiers trained even more including one that he didn't even know about Me and we are trying to pass those lessons on so for the final installment Let's get back to the book guidelines for the leader and commander chapter 11 Physical conditioning there you go echo Charles I'm sure your interest just got peaked

Here we go I would like to pass on to you for such implementation as may be practicable within your several commands and within your various types of headquarters and units some thoughts on the problem of physical exercise, physical condition, and physical training. This is a complex subject. Its success depends on the program. Each commander works out to fit his needs and facilities and then enthusiastically and energetically pushes. While many of our units and individuals are in fine physical shape, this is not universally

true in many commands. I believe it can be made more nearly universally true by a more general concept as to its importance and to a consideration of the implementation of practical steps that can be taken in this field without materially interfering with our other activities? What grade are you giving General Clark for simplicity on that whole opening? I'm not getting him a good grade. Luckily, you're going to see he redeems himself in the end of this book with some real simple, clear, concise.

So he thinks that, you know, the simple statement is people should be working out. I believe strongly that good physical condition is one of the evidences of a spree in a unit as well as of morale in an individual. So it helps both your team and you as a person. Now, here's where we have a serious beef. Serious beef. Probably one of the most serious beefs ever for me with General Clark. This topic is called calisthenics at end of day. echo you're probably going to want to throw down with this one you're going to throw in with him

on one occasion i visited a unit and observed calisthenics being conducted during the first period of the morning this was being done in the normal way by a junior sergeant conducting the exercises with the senior non-commissioned officers and officers standing around to supervise and monitor possibly the ones who needed the exercise the most were the ones observing that's a good one right You don't want to be that guy You don't want to be that guy That's standing there with Small arms telling people they need to do more pull-ups, right?

You don't want to find yourself in that situation Do you echo? No, sir, I do not. But then he says this, I do not think calisthenics Or other physical training exercise In the first hour of the day is good. Of course, as we know,

I definitely think that working out in the first hour of the day is good. If they are done strenuously, enough to be of any value so that the men work up perspiration, the men then wear the same wet clothes throughout the day or until such clothing dries on them. Similarly, if men perform exercise or requiring them to sit on the ground or lie on the ground, they start off the day with dirty and maybe wet clothing. Now, for me, General Clark, all due respect, I think we can just take a shower and change clothes when we're done working out. I think we can overcome that

in the modern era. Yeah, I got to admit that kind of surprised me as being the first reason that he's talking about. Why not to work out first thing in the morning? Yeah, because we could just, we could just shower. Seems easy to solve that problem. I will say this, though. I think he's coming from a time period where they didn't have this full, like this was only an idea that was just coming to fruition, right?

So it wasn't a thing yet. Yeah. It wasn't a thing to work out. So people didn't have workout clothes. People didn't have workout shoes. People didn't have workout shoes. You know these people didn't have a workout bag. They didn't have your the little freaking Reebok bag or whatever that echo Charles takes the 24 hour of fitness

Get your curls on. So they didn't have that back then so he's thinking yeah you show up to work and the first thing we're gonna do is build up a sweat now we're gonna be in wet clothes all day. All right, we'll give you people cut you some slack And then he says I believe it is far more reasonable to devote the last hour in the afternoon to physical exercising and physical training so so that the men can go from it to the showers and get into other clothing for supper and the evening. This is the time when the mind is tired and training requiring mental attention is least effective. Okay, so that's, okay, so, all right, so we're just gonna jump past, like,

all the whole thing about the when you're working out. Because I think it's just, I think we're beyond that now in the modern era. Yeah. I don't think we're, I think we can work out whenever it makes the most sense, not based on our sweat and clothing. I think can we put that can we set that one aside I agree yes we can so now this is interesting This is the time when the mind is tired in training requiring mental attention is least effective

Doesn't it take a certain level of mental effort to do a hard workout? Don't don't you think is Dave? Yes I wonder if he's thinking like intellectual effort right? I get that and I get that too like for instance This might sound stupid. When I'm going to, when I'm going to, let's say it's late at night and I'm like tired and I've got some more reading to do, I'll read until I'm just going to fall asleep. And then I'll get up and brush my teeth, whatever, take my supplements, as Echo likes to say. So I'll do my little evening routine, floss every day. And then I'll have like, you know, I stood up so now I can read a little bit longer.

I can go a little bit longer. And then I go to sleep. So when you do something, I guess that what I'm saying is you get bored. So maybe this is a good plan. Hey, it's the end of the day. You're kind of tired. You don't feel like focusing on this. What do you call it, Dave?

Intellectual work. Yeah. Yeah. You don't, you've spent your intellectual energy, but you can still just go jack some steel, possibly. Okay. I don't agree Think that that's the case for some of us That like no man

When you're mentally Exhausted I mean sure there are some circumstances But as a general sort of way An approach to working out I don't know man I don't know if I can get there quite yet Okay But we'll see what you have You want to be mentally fresh for your workout

Yes Okay All right back to the book In two divisions and in a brigade In which I served everyone stopped activities at 4 o'clock on two days a week. With the exception of the necessary duty officers, guards and everyone from the commanding general, everyone from the commanding general on down took physical exercises.

This physical exercising consisted of activities that provided a real workout. None of this echo Charles stuff. Real workout. Certain well-organized, selected games were allowed, provided that everyone played, organized calisthenics were allowed, but the bulk of the units engaged in a four-mile trot and fast walk to be completed in 50 minutes. Yeah, so bro, we're talking 12-minute miles or whatever. We're not, this is not a challenge.

And here's what, as I thought through this, it started to make a little bit more sense. Combat boots with proper socks worn by all personnel in order to get the men used to and prevent damage to their feet, right? Above the top of the boots, everyone was permitted to prescribe their own uniform within the realm of decency. This gave men a feeling of freedom which added to the relaxation and benefit of exercise. Okay, so that's cool. I do not think this lack of uniformity hurt the discipline of the unit.

It was not a show. Men traveled the previously laid out four-mile courses as individuals being checked at the start and finish to record their times in order to motivate the slow ones by following. So this is just, you know, he just kind of prescribes this weird like four-mile walk that everyone's going to go on, which tells me earlier when I said that working out wasn't really like a thing yet. Yeah. It wasn't. Yeah. Because if they're thinking 50 minutes and four miles.

But the only thing I can say about that also is if you're talking about a whole division or a whole brigade of people, like these are not all frontline soldiers, obviously. These are administrative people and whatever, the general himself. So, yeah, I don't know. By following the course as individuals instead of a formation, no one exercised so strenuously as to do himself damage regardless of his physical condition or age. Care should be taken and starting such a program to work into it reasonably so as not to increase the sick call rate. I think if you imagine like a corporation, like a giant corporation, a division-sized corporation with whatever 10 or 15,000 people in it and they were going to start a physical. training program, this might be an okay program. You got 50 minutes. You got to go out. You got to move four miles, go for a walk, whatever. I think that's, I think that's almost the perspective that he's

coming from. I don't know, though, because didn't he just say a real workout? Yeah, and there should be sweating. I mean, I'm not sweating after a, after 12 minute miles for four miles. And I swear a lot, as you know. Well, let's just be thankful that we are where we are, where we've learned so much about physical training. Which has changed a lot. I mean, did you see that picture I post? The other day of, I was, like, yelling at one of my friends back in the day, and he's doing cable crossovers.

I couldn't tell what he was doing. Crazy. He was doing just cable crossovers. Yeah, hell yeah. Hardcore. Scalpting the chest. Building the, what, the lower pecks. Leave it to you to try to yell at him while he's doing that exercise, too.

Sound like you doing deadlicks or something like that. I think we were just messing around, actually. Physical exercise program. The Secretary of the Army has written to commanders about the tendency to move troops from barracks to work and from barracks to training areas by vehicle instead of marching them when it is practical to march. He pointed out that is very important that the troops retain the ability to march and especially was, and this was especially important in mechanized and motorized armor units. So that's a great point.

when you have the opportunity to march instead of riding a vehicle, you should march instead of riding a vehicle. That's one thing that's cool about buds. In buds, you run to breakfast and back, you run to lunch and back, you run to dinner and back. It's a mile there, it's a mile back. So you're doing six miles a day before anything. Like before the day, before you get credit for anything,

you ran six miles. Yeah. As a pilot, do you, because I was watching some videos of some pilots, you know, that I came across. And do you guys, like, kind of have to stay in physical condition just to endure, like, flying a plane, essentially? I mean, the physical fitness standards are universal across the Marine Corps and all the same. There is a unique level of fitness that is associated with flying, and it kind of comes and goes with how much flying you're doing. But there's not like a separate type of aviation fitness other than there are things about aviation,

that will fatigue you that you won't get fatigued doing other things, and that's true for other things as well. But like the PT in the Marine Corps, they don't care what your job is. Absolutely. Can you train for the, like let's say you did a disassociated tour and you weren't flying for 18 months and now you knew you were going back to a squadron you're going to be fine? Is there any exercises that you could do to get ready for flying? You can't train for G tolerance, which is like the big thing.

So that's like it's a perishable thing. You know, there's, there's, you know, aerobic and anaerobic. There's certain muscles that are good to be strengthened. But if you haven't flown, it's the Gs that will, that you cannot train for. You can't replicate those Gs and you can't train for those Gs. At all? Well, I mean, okay, let me challenge you. Now, you can train for the technique and you can strengthen the muscles to do that,

but you can't replicate the actual feeling of the G's. But that being said, if you take someone that's in really good shape versus someone that's not really good shape. The person that's in really good shape is going to do better. Maybe. Okay. I mean, you have to use your muscles. Yeah, you do, but like larger muscles don't, don't mean better G tolerance. But what about just conditioning? Yeah, yeah, no.

Absolutely. Yes. A better conditioned person is going to be able to endure all things being equal, be able to endure the rigors of flying more than the other person. That doesn't mean he's going to have a higher G tolerance. Did I ever tell you about my buddy, when my platoons all went backseat in the F-18s? So we went through the whatever training you go through so you can get called to go to the backseat.

So we all go through. Well, he showed up late. And so he missed the whole briefing on how to, what is it called, how to push the blood to your brain. He missed all that. And then he missed whatever. And then he showed up.

I think he was out. I think he was drinking the night before. And so there's a little cover and move. And like we snuck him back into the class and put his name on the roster. And it's all good. Well, then he showed, we get up to Fallon and he didn't know what to do. He just got in the plane. He's like, cool.

I know what, you know, whatever. And he passed out the entire time. You know, he would just like wake up and then just pass out again because he didn't know to put the blood to his head. He didn't know to do that. So he's just passing out. And they had video of it. Does that make sense that they had video of it? Totally.

He was just, he was just flopping around in the cockpit. And we were laughing and he's like, I had no idea. And he just didn't remember anything. He was just passing out. Yep. Bro, can you get like hurt like that? Like, if you're passed out on limp and can't your neck? Because you know that video that you play at the muster of that die in the, what do you call those?

Centrofuge. Yeah. And he passes out. And it's like, bro, he's still getting smashed from the force. Yeah. I don't think there's any real risk of permanent injury from doing that. It's more just being humiliated. Yeah.

Yeah, actually that's what I was that's what I meant like do you guys train do you guys have a specific like training routine for that Because man, you don't really realize that I mean maybe do maybe don't you know but when you see guys flying planes and doing all that stuff You don't really understand like what you're going through physically in there, you know right? Is there an ideal physical build for fighter pilot? I don't think so man. I mean just like with every Marine there's all shapes and sizes. I mean my my body type is drastically different than others and if you were going to be an f18 pilot or let's say an f35 pilot yeah you were going to design an f35 pilot human yeah how tall would that human be six foot how much how much would they weigh 190 pounds so that's it does like so there is an ideal that's because if he's six four he's cramped in the cockpit if he's six if he's five five he can't reach the pedals or whatever

right i mean there's issues There are legitimate anthropometric issues that is a true. You get measured all these odd measurements like ankle or like elbow to wrist, like ankle to knee. There's all sorts of physical measurements. The window is pretty broad. And even for me to say six foot 190, I'm just talking about like a lean, strong guy.

Does that mean a 5 foot six, 125 pound person can't be a good pound? No, they totally absolutely can. Absolutely can. Would that person maybe struggle? little bit with like looking over their shoulder yeah they would their body type is if you're six four and you're banging your head against the canopy which guys in my squadron guys whose call signs were stretched because they were so tall at the end of the day I don't think any would come back and say I'm better because of my build or my height

so even that answer is like the window is broad enough to say that anybody and there's pilots out there that are plenty of good pilots out there that aren't six foot 190 is there is there a cutoff height or minimum technically yeah I think it's pretty small I think it's it's it's very short like 5-1, 5-2, you know, you can accommodate someone that short. And I think I've known guys that are 6-5-6-6-6-6-fighters. So they get, there's a big window in there. Do they call them pedals? They do. They call them pedals. Now, they're adjustable. So the image of not being able to reach the pedals is more funny than anything. But I'll tell you what, as a taller guy, you know,

a taller dude, and, you know, when you get into an airplane that somebody else has flown and they're on the shorter side, you get in your knee. It's like being in the back seat of a car, and you immediately have to push those pedals all the way back because the dude in front of you was way shorter than you. So it's adjustable like a Cadillac. It is. The adjustment is not too far away from the cockpit temperature adjuster.

Oh, that's right. So you know you can adjust that little temperature. Jack. All right, going on. I do not wish to discourage anyone who gets exercise from golf, tennis, bowling, hunting, fishing, gardening, walking, skiing, etc. In fact, I encourage such activities during off time. When spring arrives in long daylight hours of the year with us, it's good time to start physical training program.

He goes on. A commander should have no objection to the closing of any headquarters at 4 o'clock two days a week in order to devote this time to physical exercising. Nor should he object to the stopping of other activities in most TOE units at 4 o'clock two afternoons a week for this purpose. So he's talking about you should always train two days a week, which once again, I mean, in the Marine Corps, you guys do PT every single day, right? Well, not aviation units all the time. Yeah. I mean, when I was with the ground units, there was every single day, and there was a time allocated to that.

The squadrons that I was in, I was in, didn't do five-day-a-week PT. Huh. I thought that was pretty standard in the whole military. Well, that's what he's saying. He's saying only two days a week. Yeah. I mean, I think what he's saying is interesting, because you mentioned the comment,

this guy was steeped in World War I. This is a guy saying, you need to prioritize time for PT. Now, I mean, two days a week, now looking back as, you know, reflecting on that, but he was probably a pioneer saying, hey, commanders, shut your unit down to go work out. Yeah.

And you should do that. Like, that's okay as opposed to, hey, we've got to get this paperwork going or this whatever other thing going on is. So he might have been out in front of the curve for all I know for the for the era that he was in saying it's okay from the general down of the private is it shut down normal ops to go to unit p. No absolutely I you're 100 I believe you're 100% right he was the guy that was spearheading

working out look you got to get out there two days a week he doesn't even say minimum right because that would be sort of like hey minimum two days a week he's just saying two days a week look you got to get out there um in connection with this physical exercise program I think we might well give thought to delaying the evening meal on Monday through Friday in order to give the men more time to get cleaned up, showered, and dress so they will not feel the urge to rush right to work, well, right from work to supper. This was, this, the reason I wanted to read the section is this would have advantages other than physical conditioning.

By serving the evening meal in the enlisted messes as early as we do, we leave the soldier with over six hours of time after supper before he is scheduled to be in bed. to do things that sometimes lead to trouble. More exercise in a later meal hour in the afternoon would tend to reduce free time in the evening and would absorb energies and would encourage the men to go to bed earlier. It has been found to be an overall advantage

to serve the heavy meal at night instead of at noon on duty days. I believe we give enough time off to our food service people so they can live with these changes in the feeding program. Oh, it's so classic. Alcohol. I've written before chapter three about the intemperate use of alcohol and the end of the desirability of cutting down on the quantity of consumption of alcohol. One of the reasons

for this is to help improve the physical condition of our officers and men. Obesity, I would like to say a word about personnel being overweight. While there are not very many such personnel in most commands, there are some who are eating more than their physical activity burns up. The commander should bring this to the attention of such individuals with a view to more exercising or less eating or both. Other problems, and this is the last section, other problems, this is just a broad statement. This is this, this is actually something that echo that you used to say all the time on this podcast. Other problems, I believe that such a program as I suggested will automatically help to solve the problem in those units

which have one of men in Garrison changing out of fatigues for evening social activities, it should help reduce other unfavorable statistics as well. You used to say on this podcast all the time, echo that the most universally helpful thing that a person can do is exercise. It will help you in all aspects of whatever you're doing, which is a good point. And what he's saying is, hey, if you exercise, every problem that you have is going to be improved. there you go so echo was the pioneer on that one there's something you said i was thinking about in my my contrast between aviation my time in a fighter squadron versus my time in anglico which is kind

of the biggest contract contrast is and i don't know how it is elsewhere but the infantry or the ground units when i was with them have a kind of pretty regimented like their day is it's kind of a typical workday whereas a fighter squadron operates 24 hours a day so they're they are running in shifts the whole time so it's a kind of a pretty regimented like their day is a kind of a typical workday whereas a fighter squadron whole time. So standard work week is there's always a third or a half of the unit there from Sunday night till Friday afternoon. So that cycle is a little, I was kind of thinking in my head of just the, the, the, getting the whole unit together in a squadron almost never happens. You're at best you're going to have like even when you're doing your workup, you run in that.

Workup is workup is probably even worse because workups, you know, the flying schedule shifts around a bunch to get all these different qualls. But you, I would say routinely, the best you're ever going to get is half your squadron there at any given time most of the time now it's not always like that but I would say 90% of a typical fighter squadron cycle is you have two or three shifts and you'll never have more than half your squadron there at any given time well before the war in the 90s at the team we used to PT as a team five days a week yeah as a team maybe one day would be what they called the individual PT which guys would legitimately individual PT they'd go do whatever you know do jitzu or whatever they were going to do.

But the other days it was like, oh, Monday's a run, Tuesdays a swim, Wednesday's individual PT, Thursday's O-course, Friday's Monster Mash. That was kind of a typical schedule at the, in the day, back in the group. What's the Monster Match? Monster Mash is just O-course, boat paddle, just come up with some crazy sort of various, what would you call it? I don't know what you, it'd be like one of those, you ever see those TV, physical competitions where they're doing all these options. Like you'd run the obstacle course, then you would do berm runs, but you would be in a little team. So it would just be some kind of, I don't know, we called it a monster match. Like American Ninja Warrior?

Yeah, like American Ninja Warrior, but as teams. Gotcha. And is the platoon back in, this is obviously pre-war, but back in, was the platoon kind of together all the time? Yeah, so the platoon was together, but the team wasn't. So there'd be two platoons out in the desert. There'd be one platoon out of the desert. There'd be one platoon up at Fallon. There'd be another platoon in the jungle somewhere.

But there'd still be three platoons back at the team and all the support people from the team. So the platoon is like that was the element that at the lowest level, like they were together. You didn't really break up platoons very often. Not very often. That's cool. You're going through your work up together. But you've got to remember, a seal platoon is small. Right.

A seal platoon is only 16 guys. Sometimes in the past, we bumped them up to 18. Sometimes we've even bumped them up to 21, depending on manning and personnel and mission. but the general seal platoon, 16 people. And post-war, did that become the task unit was together for the most part? Yes. It almost like elevate up at the... Yes.

Then they all of a sudden they made the task unit, which is two platoons together with a headquarters unit over it. And they had the idea. It took them a while to like actually make it happen. So there was some good vision on behalf of Naval Special Warfare commanders to say, actually, you know what, we should probably put a bigger unit together. Because 16 guys is very limiting, right? What can you do with 16 guys?

I mean, if you man up vehicles with 16 guys, you man up, whatever, you man up three vehicles. Now there's six people in those vehicles. Driver, gunner, driver, gunner, driver, driver, gunner. You put the rest of the guys in there. That gives you 10 assaulters. What can you take down with 10 assultors? The answer is not very many. So went into a task unit mode with now you had two platoons, plus you had headquarters,

and then you get attachments of EOD and maybe you get some kind of a radio man to help you out. So all of a sudden, you know, you got 35 or 40 guys going out the door. So it turns into a better situation. It was a really good call. I remember one of the first things,

I was in a platoon. I was in an ARG platoon, which meant we were going out on a ship and we had to do hydrographic reconnaissance, which is old school lead line and slate. Lead line and slate, meaning you had a lead line, You had a piece of rope with a piece of lead on the bottom,

and you tied little knots every six feet for fathoms, and you would go and swim in a line and dip that lead line and see how deep the water was, and then you'd dive for obstacles before the Marines came in. This is World War II, straight up, UDT, underwater demolition team stuff. Well, when you're in the ARG platoon, you actually did that a lot because you were supporting Marine Corps landings. So we had a 16-man politician.

tuned. And I did an arc like that with 16 guys, and it was really hard because you have a, you have a boat party of guys, and then you have like a radio man. So there's two or three guys that aren't in the water and somebody's staying with the boat. So there's another two guys that are not in the water. So all of a sudden you've got, you've only got seven guys to do the recon or nine guys to do the recon or whatever. So that's, that's not good. So I remember writing a point paper. I was like an E4 and I wrote a point paper to my. And I wrote a point paper to my commanding officer that the ARG platoons should have four more personnel in the platoon. And I think we actually got like, they gave us like two more guys.

Pretty cool. Young. I mean, who did I think I was such a, it's pretty funny. I look back at that now. Standard naval letter format when I'm sending it to your. I know I tried. Yeah. I know I tried.

But the cool thing was, you know, my commanding officer at the time was like, yeah, you know, that makes sense. Hey, well, we can't give you four, but we can give you four, but we can give you two. Make it an 18 man platoon. We had an 18 man platoon. I'm pretty sure. I can't even remember.

You know what's weird is I can't even remember what, yeah. I can't remember if he gave us two more people. Maybe he gave us one more. I think he gave us at least one more person because I think I know exactly who it was. But anyways. All right. So there's the physical conditioning thing.

The next section is called Chapter 12. the creating of superior units. Four basic principles. I have found that there are four basic principles which apply to the problem of creating army units which are considered superior. First, the superior unit must be created from the ordinary run of personnel.

How awesome is that? You're going to make a superior unit. But anybody that's ever served in the military He knows that you're going to get what you get. And yet we all know that there's units that are freaking awesome and there's units that are horrible. And both the awesome units and the horrible units have run-of-the-mill people in them.

They come from the same pool of soldiers in this case. It's all the same people. You don't get to pick your little team of your superstar athletes in this case. And it's the same thing in business, right? It's the same thing in business. You get businesses that are in the, the same market and one of them is crushing and the other one's not. Well, why is that? Why is that?

You're both getting to hire from the same group of human beings in the country, whatever country you're in. So the superior unit must be created from the ordinary run of personnel. Second, classified according to ability, the men in a unit fall naturally into three groupings, upper, middle, and lower. The excellence of a unit depends upon the ability of the ability of the commander to bring the men of the lower group to a degree of proficiency, which makes them an asset to his unit team. So we're going to get into some stuff where I'm, I'm not sure about. I'm not sure about.

And this is one of them. And he talks about a little bit more. I mean, he talks about your focus being making the people that are, he's basically saying you've got really good people, middle people and bad people. He's saying the focus is like, make the bad people better. Make the bad people a plus for the unit. I don't necessarily agree with that. I agree with that should be a focus, a singular focus.

I don't think it should be the full. I would rather take my people that are up the top and make them totally awesome and make my people that are in the middle, like really, really good. I'm not going to focus my efforts on the turds. The reason I didn't say anything when you read that because I had that little like,

is I'm going to listen what General Clark has to say before I get done it but that on its face that when you said that my first thing thing was was okay I don't think that's right but obviously he's going to say something about it

but we get this question in business all the time is the leaders will devote all their attention to their bottom performers like almost all of their attention it's like why would you invest all of your time in your least productive people why wouldn't you invest most of your time in your most productive people. Again, you don't ignore those people,

but if you're devoting, and again, he's going to say something, I'm sure. Yeah, but when you said that, I had that reaction of, huh.

Well, it's like if you, let's say on a level of one to five, you're a five and echoes a one. One being the worst, five being the best. Of course. So if I take my efforts

and I'm able to, I'm able to double your power, I can turn you. into a 10, I can only turn echo into a two. Exponentially positive returns on Dave Burke. Yeah. Kind of not on that. All right.

All right. Next. Third, all men to does, this is such an interesting one. Third, all men desire to do what is wanted of them. All men desire to do what is wanted of them. Okay. So that's, that's the first part. So let's, let's, let's,

absorb that. And then he goes on to just take some ownership here. When they do not, it is because they have not been adequately motivated and instructed. So have you ever had anybody in your squadron that straight up just didn't want to do what was wanted of them? You know, I would say yes in the sense that, yeah, there are people that I've had in my units that fit that bill. and we did something about that. His point, I understand his point though. And the idea that I'm going to write that person off as unwilling to do it,

to me it was more of like how much of my time, how much energy am I going to devote to try to find the way that gets you to where you need to be? So while I don't disagree with that comment, yeah, I've had people in my, in my sphere multiple times throughout my career that simply didn't get where they needed to be. And could you say, hey, that's the fault of the leader? Yes, 100%. But the leader also still has to make a little measurement of,

am I going to devote 100% of my time to getting that guy from a one to a two? We're going to go, hey, man, this investment in you right now is going to take away from all its other stuff and I'm going to cut you loose. Yeah. And by the way, what's 10 times zero if the person's is zero? Well, now you, so listen, I think all men is an overstatement. I think you could throw a percentage on there that's upwards of 97%. Yeah.

97% that want to do what they want to do a good job. They want to do a good job. And to his point, as a leader, your default should be is they're not the problem. Your default to be is the percentage is so high that you might as well just go in the assumption that the problem isn't with them. So that 97% is, I think, actually correct, not all. but I think his point too is like, hey, if you're in charge of people and they're not, they're not up to standards, you need to spend most of your time figuring out what you're doing wrong. Yeah. Most people don't need to be fired.

They need to be led to think we wrote that in extreme ownership or in dichotomy of leadership. I think it's in dichotomy of leadership. Most people don't need to be fired. They need to be led. Most people. Yeah. All people? Nope. You're going to get.

And you know when you see this and I don't, well, you didn't get to see this because you were an officer and you went through OCS. When you go through like Navy boot camp, you see some people that don't want to be there They do not want to be there. They're there for 15 minutes like this ain't for me and they're gonna do whatever they got to do to get they don't want to do what is wanted of them They don't yeah they want out Fourth the best unit in an organization is always the one which is excellent or better in all things If you agree with these precepts let us analyze and apply them to the basic problem with a commander who is striving for a superior unit. Application to the units.

Applications of the principles to the unit. The problems of polishing ordinary units until they emerge as superior are primarily the problems of raising individual performance and capabilities to a superior level. The many truly outstanding units which have been produced in our army give ample evidence that these problems can be solved. Based on the fact that their percentile scores on the AFQT, which is like the ASVV, which is the, it's the basic intelligence test that you take when you're coming in the military

as an list of a guy. Do you take it to become an officer? The Azvath? Yeah, yeah. No, I took the Azab. Yes, absolutely. Okay. So you take like a basic test.

It's sort of an SAT, an ACT type test. Totally. How smart are you is basically what it is? And then he ranks it out into three groups. And it's the upper third, the middle third, the lower third. But he's got this little thing in here. And he's got the scores listed.

and I'm not going to go into those, but the upper third is 11% and 34. So the upper, the top two groups combined make up 45%. So 45% of people are in the, are in the 65% and higher of that testing. 43% are in the middle. So you're almost done. And then the last 12% is people that are in not the lowest group, but the second the lowest group. So if you get between zero and nine on the on the asvab and these aren't this is, this is actually the AFQT, which is the old as vab. So the scores won't correlate to what we know about

since we didn't take the asab in 19, or we didn't take the ASQT in 1958. So what he's saying is you're going to get mostly people that are either in the middle group or in the higher group, which is great. Now I'm sure that there's some people that are think, well, that's the difference, you know, I'm in the civilian world and we get these people. They're, they're, they're, not no when you start talking about people that are in the lowest scoring brackets of the of the as vab like they they can't get in the military but they're also not going to be applying for a job with that's going to take some some high level cognitive abilities they're just not going to be there so i've got a very interesting book that i'm going to cover on the podcast and and it's it's

really it's I've been reading it for a while. I've actually actually showed it to you several months ago because I've been stewing on it but it's during the Vietnam War they they needed people. Yeah. They needed people to be in the military. They needed people to be in the military to go to Vietnam and so they started to lower the standards and the main standard that they lowered was the IQ level or I don't know if you want to call it the IQ level, but that's basically what's It's the intellectual level, the, the intelligence level. And they started getting these, these people in the military that were just, they just didn't have the mental capacity to do really any job. Even, and, you know, you think about in the military, there's some pretty, there's some pretty, there's some jobs that don't take a lot of intellectual horsepower, right?

I mean, you need people that are going to clean the toilets, you know, you got, you got some, You know, you got a people that are going to, and look, these are what we, this is what I did when I got in the military, right? When I got the SEAL teams, I was cleaning toilets. But then you're going to move up and you're going to move on. But at some place you need some people that are going to have some pretty fundamentally non-high cognitive skill requirement jobs. Well, they started letting people in that this didn't have the capability. It's a really sad. And these guys, a lot of these guys went to Vietnam.

They had, obviously, they had a higher casualty rate. They had to hire, more of them got killed because they just didn't, they just didn't understand things. And the guy that wrote this book that I'm reading, he's talking about going through boot camp. And he basically gets paired up with one of these guys. And all the drill instructors knew it. They called him like McNamara's morons. That's what they'd call these guys when they'd come in. And he got assigned one of these guys basically to help get him through boot camp.

And one of the most, like one of the opening scenes is they're telling him, hey, you know, write, write your address on this postcard and write a message to your family. And not only did he not know how to write, but he didn't even know what his address was. He didn't even know what his, what street he lived on. It didn't, he didn't know. They had to teach him how to tie his shoes. And they had to teach him how to tie his shoes, not just, hey, this is how you do it. No, like, they had to teach him for extended periods of time how to tie his shoes. So these are people that are really in a car, really, you know, in a low intellectual level.

And we brought, I think it was about 100,000 of them into the military, which is just, just horrible. Just horrible. So my point in saying all that is we're talking about, you know, in the civilian sector, you're not getting that. person either to apply for your job in accounting, right? So don't think to yourself, well, you know, my accounting department, my guys, my people are, they're not smart either. No, we're not talking about that. We're not talking about that. So he goes on to say that those in the upper groupings are the best educated and quickest to learn, can be well motivated, but need to be challenged to develop their full potential. The middle groupings are average run of American youth. They

are easily controlled, take well the discipline, learn easily, respond to good leadership, but are usually capable of more, and they must be pushed. The lower groupings are the ones that need special attention. Again, this is where you and I are kind of like, hmm, the lower groupings are the ones who need special attention. The disciplinary problem in this group is higher than average. I agree with that. The individuals require special motivation instruction.

I agree with that. Their attitude constitutes a special. Barometer of the esprit core of the unit this group contains also many of the misfits who if they cannot be assimilated Assimulated must be eliminated so It's interesting that that he's calling for like special attention on this lower group And then he says in a single squad crew go I was just I'm thinking in my mind as I'm hearing you talk about this just things that I've heard you say on this podcast things we've talked about on your podcast podcast. And I'm trying to kind of consider what's in general Clark's head as I'm hearing this. Obviously, I'm trying to put myself in his position. You know, we've talked about this before,

and I think the way you said it was anybody on your team has the potential to undo your entire plan. You know, and so I'm trying to make this connection in my head of the things he's talking about why you devote so much effort to these people. And I'm just trying to place him head why he's saying it the way he's saying it, which there is, if they're on your team and you keep them on your team, these aren't people you get rid of, but they're on your team and they are underperformers, a low performance, they still have the potential of undoing your plan. And so I'm trying to piece the things that he's thinking almost in, I don't know what he's going to say, but I do understand that.

You know, the flip side of that, the other thing I've been thinking about, we work with companies that some of the companies who work with how this philosophy is, hey, we're going to pay more. and we're going to track a higher higher bar, a higher average level, because we are a higher paying organizations. And, you know, there's a bunch of economic theory behind that. And their belief is that they're going to attract better talent. And you know what they end up with? The exact same problems as all other organizations.

They still have a bell curve. They still have underperformers. And this is something you said, too, is even in the SEAL teams and people create this image on their mind of what a SEAL is and they're, you know, they're superhuman. And how many times have you said, no, they're people. people. The exact same thing at Top Gun where people place these guys on a pedestal as if they're somehow all of them uniquely capable. And we had a bottom 12% at Top Gun too. We had underperformers at Top Gun just like everywhere else. So for me to think about it, if you're in a leadership role,

the takeaway from this is that what is required for all this is your leadership more than anything. Now, I do want to hear his thoughts on that, but you're underpresent. Performance can still undo your plan. And there's no like free pass of, hey, we just have a better screening process. We weed out those people. Well, we know that that's not true. Those problems exist in the same bell curve in every organization. Yeah.

And the other thing that affects the bell curve is the bar that everyone has to be staying above. So the bottom 12% at TopCon, they're the bottom 12% at Top Gun. They may be the top tier of some other organization. somewhere, but at Top Gun, they're the bottom 12%. And they're making the same kind of mistakes relative to their job. It's the same thing in the SEAL team's like, oh, yeah, the SEAL teams, they have a, we have a bottom part of the bell curve. Now, those people might be really good if they had some other job somewhere.

You know, in Task Unit Bruser, we had to get rid of one guy. It was a great guy. He was a hard worker. He just didn't quite have the capacity to get the job done. I guarantee he went to his next unit in the Navy and was the best sailor they had. I can, I can, I can guarantee that because he was a hard worker.

He wanted to do a good job. He just didn't quite have that decision making process. And maybe I shouldn't have said the best sailor, but he's going to be a really good guy, a really good guy. And, and so, but the bar is, is higher for what you're being required to do, right? This is what you're, like a top gun.

you're being required to fly this jet at these at these G's and make these decisions and maneuver and remember what's happening and debrief and communicate and pay attention to nine different things at the same thing you're required to do all that stuff and the people that are barely able to do it they're the bottom of the bell curve you put them you know driving an uber and they're going to be the best freaking uber driver you know in well at least in the top let's say the top five percent of Uber driver because I've had some damn good Uber drivers before. So, so yes, that bell curve exists everywhere. You're not going to get away from it and you do have to lead.

And I agree with your point why General Clark might be saying, hey, you've got to pay attention to that bottom 12% because no one in the top 88% is going to, well, there's a much less. There's much less chance of them torpedoing your whole mission, right? Those knuckleheads, they're holding the freaking trigger to the torpedo, and they could fire that thing off at any moment, so you've got to pay attention to them. That might be the genesis of his focus on these individuals. Is that probably where the, what's the saying? You're only as strong as your weakest link kind of philosophy, right? Yep, yep.

Maybe that's where it came from. It's from that, definitely from that concept, that broad concept. He goes on here. A single squad crew or section will probably contain men of all three groupings. Certainly they will appear in any platoon or company. This presents a practical problem in the handling and instructing of men in perfecting the teamwork of the squad crew section or platoon. The leader can afford to adopt only one approach to handling his men. He must assume that they all want to do.

what he wants done. When any number do not respond to this assumption, the fault is more probably his than theirs. So his assumption is everyone wants, that's a great assumption to make. The assumption, and that's what I like about this assumption that all men want to do what has wanted them to do,

what we want them to do. That's a great assumption to make because that means when they don't, it's our fault. And that's exactly what he's saying. He's taking full ownership. And then he says, this is like almost word for word for something that I brief almost on a daily base at the company's,

If they don't respond, he should check his procedures, instructions, and subordinate leaders to determine where in lies the trouble. When only one or two individuals are involved, punitive action or elimination may be indicated. So if you've got a platoon or a company, you've got a company of 150 people and everyone gets it except for two guys, okay. Well, maybe I need to check those two guys and maybe I need to get rid of them. But if you've got whatever, 20 people that don't understand what they're supposed to be doing, guess what? it's on you. We arrive now at the fourth precept. The best unit in the organization is always the one which is excellent or better at all things, which is based upon the premise that no unit commander has enough time to make his unit superior in all things at all times. How therefore should he spread

his efforts? It's obvious that his unit must be proficient in marksmanship, communication, supply administration, tactics, physical fitness, techniques, maintenance, etc., etc., etc. If his unit is not proficient in any one of these things, his team is not sound and will fail him when the test comes. How then must he manage? So we got all these things and you obviously can't be, and he's making a difference or making a break between superior, which means you're awesome at this thing and being good at it. First, he should avoid putting too much stress on any one thing so as to over-emphasize it in order to make a show of it. If he practices this method, he will do so at the expense of other important things. This is a common error. So you're not, you shouldn't be

the master of anything. You should be the jack of all trades. Second, he must stress adequately all of the many facets of the training job. Even though he is not an expert in each, he must direct a subordinate to be an expert and the commander must then supervise and check his subordinates work. The latter is important. So you're not going to be an expert at. The leader, not going to be the expert. You got some nugs under you that are going to be the expert in that thing. Next section is called motivation. Woveen into the entire pattern are the threads of motivation.

This motivation is manifestly important because it comes from a spree, enthusiasm, morale, effort, competition, and accomplishment. The people in each of the top, middle, and lower groupings need to be motivated in different ways and in varying degrees, which is a little different than when he said earlier, says the leader can only afford to adopt one approach when handling his men. little dichotomy. You got different people. They're going to get motivated in different ways. In encouraging students to learn, we motivate them by one or more of the following.

One, show a need. Two, develop an interest. Both those are explaining why. Right? This is why this is important. That's what the need is. Here's how you get someone to develop an interest and something. You explain to them how it's going to help them.

Maintain the interest. That's also explaining why. And then he's got some other things encouraging early success, giving recognition and credit, using competition, giving rewards, awarding punishments. These same things may be used to incite a body of men or military unit into action. Undoubtedly, every commander sometime during his career after being assigned a difficult task has soon thereafter considered how he would present this task to his subordinates, how he would appeal them to get the job done.

In short, on what he would base his efforts to motivate them, tackle the job with the will necessary to attain the goal sought. He will probably use many factors to motivate his unit. Some of them may be specifically mentioned and some may be implied. For instance, except as a last resort, he would not mention punishment in the case of failure. His men would know him well enough to know that he would not stand for failure. The real art in motivating a group of men to accomplish a common mission is to reach each man in such a way that all men in the unit are incited to the extent of their

several capabilities of course the kind of mission to be performed by the men will be will determine the motivating factors used but there is one element that must be kept in mind and that is that no amount of motivation will incite a man to undertake zealously that which he knows is manifestly beyond his capabilities so big chunk about motivation there And you know, I was talking, I can't remember as a client or if it was EF online the other day. But, you know, when you get told the proverbial,

you know, you get tasked with something that doesn't make any sense. And the boss just says, yo, shut up and have your team do it. And what do you do? How do you handle that? What do you say to the troops? And I'm like, I will find a reason why all day long, that is awesome. You know, I will go, and I'm not going to lie to him.

I'm going to say, hey, listen, Boss just told us this is how we're doing it and you know what we're going to do we're going to knock this thing out of the park that way I'm going to build some trust with the boss he's going to realize that we can get the job done when he realized that we can get the job done he's going to start to listen me once he starts to listen to me I'm going to get this changed so right now we're going to crush this thing and the guys go yes or I'm going to say hey look no one else is able to do this we're the only people that can get this done the boss knows it we know it so we're going to knock this thing out of the park Like, I'm going to figure out a reason. There's got to be a reason why that makes sense to do this thing. And believe me, if I can't find a reason that we're getting told to do something that makes no sense whatsoever is going to get people unnecessarily wounded or killed or it's unethical or it's immoral or it's illegal, that's what's going on. Otherwise, I can figure out a reason.

And I'm talking about a good, I'm not talking about making something up to trick people. I'm talking about I will figure out a good freaking reason to go forward and make this happen. And that's what you need to do as a boss. That's why the why is so important. It talks about awards. In the Army, we use freely a system of awards and prizes in order to motivate men. Too often, these go to the men in the top of the upper group. They provide no incentive for improvement to those in the lower group and little for those in the middle group.

because the men know that the award is beyond their ability to achieve. These prizes make good articles for the unit papers, but their overall effect on the unit is negligible. It is well to recognize the outstanding men, and we do this through proficiency pay and promotion. However, our system awards must go beyond this recognition of individuals. This is a great point. You know, so often we're sitting there rewarding the people that are kind of doing well.

who actually probably don't need any additional motivation. Look, should we recognize them? Absolutely. But what are we doing for the middle group and even the lower group to make sure that they're feeling like they're moving forward in a positive way? Yeah, you know when you're like in elementary school and you'd have like the award for most improved? That's like kind of alleviates that issue, right, a little bit.

Because usually it's like someone in the middle, maybe even the bottom. A lot of the times where you still get that cool like trophy or award. whatever because you improve so much is that a little backhanded smack though I guess you could you rack up some most improved I've gotten it before you know I don't think it is though I don't think it's a backhanded thing because it's true like you know when you get like you know MVP of the football game it's always the same guy the quarterback whatever the guy and you know obviously depends on the team but it's that guy that's that he's already training by the way and he's already

talented and gifted and he's working hard and he's focused. Yeah. And the award, the guys in the middle, you do run that risk big time. Or it's like the guys in the middle is like, oh, yeah, well, I don't even have an expectation of the award, you know. But if you get, if you get most improved, bro, you can get most improved. That's good. You know, especially if everyone respects it because everyone typically does respect that if

you're improving. I had, there's something called a Navy Achievement Medal. Did you ever get Navy Achievement Medal? So Navy Achievement Medal is like, you know, it's sort of like it's a it's a strong pat on the back, we'll say and you know, you might get one when something happens, you know, you're a young enlisted guy. I think I had six Navy Achievement medals, which is totally ridiculous. I would get those things all the time from like, what's it for the like? Oh, I would run a communications course when I, these are all from the 90s. It'd be like, you know, Petty Officer Willink ran an outstanding, you know, communications course.

He organized, led, and developed the blah, blah, blah, blah. Nam stoner used to like laugh every time I put my my dress uniform on because I had five Navy Achievement medals like the big rack of stars across my Navy across my nams get some yeah but I feel like I feel like I was kind of that guy like I was working hard and they were just giving me awards and I was like cool whatever I don't care I didn't care at all yeah I wasn't like hey check out my nams yeah well then okay then I guess if you kind of go into it I mean in all kinds of environments right there's all kinds of different awards like that that are that are you can get without being the top like producer

whatever like you got okay you got most improved then you got like hardest worker or something like that you know how you know did you ever get that one no okay I was not even close as far as like expectations of metal that was that was one I never really but the but you get those how many nams do you have Dave one what did you get a damn I got an end of tour name dang so was this when you were like an instant or a second lieutenant or whatever. Yeah, first tour in a squadron. So as you were thinking, I was laughing because, you know,

when you're talking about even the way you're saying Nam, like anybody in the Navy in the Marine Corps knows like the name is like this thing, this Navy achievement medal is like. And I racked up five of those things, bro. But, you know, something that's actually cool that you said is there's a couple different ways to view, like the award system in the military can be a little questionable. There's people who can kind of peel that back and go, Man, is that legit or not?

We had two different categories of the same award. We had what we called an end-do tour award, which went, okay, you know, Peteyaschral Willink has been with us for three years. He's leaving the squad or the unit or whatever, and he's going, and we want to recognize his body of work. It's kind of like a participation award. It doesn't have a ton of meaning other than you survived or three years. We want to thank you on your way out.

There was something else we called was an impact nam, or we had a term called a strive-by nam. Oh, we called him a spot name. Yeah, same thing. It was called the spot. Just the same. It's the same thing. I was racking up spot dams like it was going out of style.

There's no way to make this serious. There's five nams. But the point behind that is like you can take a middle of the road dude. Middle road guy who's not your all-star quarterback, not your top-tier guy. And he's over there doing some good work. So maybe that was me, dude. Yeah, maybe. I don't know.

Five's a bit ridiculous. I don't have five of anything. But there is a way. way to, when you, when you recognize somebody for their work, it's a heck of a lot better to recognize it for something they're doing when we call the impact or the spot as opposed to, well, you've been with us for five years, you get a watch. Like, that's our thing. So here's your, you've been here for five years as opposed to, hey, that thing, you did that specific thing. If you could recognize people for that, in this leadership little system you're trying to create

is it's really good to recognize people for the work that they do when they do. do it as opposed to, well, we just sort of have this process that by these wickets or these little checkpoints you get recognition, which over time sort of undermines the value of it. And, and again, five's a, well, that's a lot, dude. But the NAM is not, I mean, you're talking about straight up essentially a participation trophy. Like, oh, you've been here five years. My NAM was a participation award.

I was leaving. Captains got NAMs. I don't care if you were the number one captain or the number 12 captain. When you left, you got an AM. And the number one guy didn't go, well, I actually earned this one. And the number 12 guy didn't think, well, this is garbage. It had no real meaning. The impact, what did you call it?

Spotnam. I think it was called the SPOT. That's a lot more legitimacy to that than, hey, thanks for being here. You got to look on your face, bro, like you're all fired up from my names. Here's the thing. But that's a perfect point right there. Because if a spot nam and a regular participation trophy NAM is this. same sort of thing, then it's like, oh, wait, you got to differentiate those two.

Because if you're over here saying, you got five. There is a differentiation on the NAM that is you can get a V, which is when it becomes a combat award. So a NAM with a combat V or a combat distinguishing device is what they call it. So it has a V on it. And that's a legit award. And a lot of guys in Tasking a Bruiser got NAMs with V's. And those nams with Vs that the guys got in Tasking a Bruiser were hard.

They weren't like, oh, you're just going to, you, there was some gunfire near, but no, like these guys were in 18 fire fights and they got a nam with a V. And, you know, some of the guys in task unit bruiser, some of Stoner's guys, they got the R-com, which the Army commendation medal with a V. That was a huge deal because those things are tough to get. The Marine Corps does not give out those things. And that came from the Army recognizing what you were doing, which added that, which added to that as well. There's a couple things in the military have a little bit of sanctity. The V, whether it's a NAM, a comm, whatever it is, the V that has, there's me, you can't just get a V. You got to earn that combat distinguishing device.

The other one in the Marine Corps that, it shouldn't say the Marine Corps, Navy in the Marine Corps, is what we call the car, the combat action ribbon. They don't like to just, you don't just, that's not a participation award. You got to earn that car. Yeah, and the CIB in the Army, which is the combat infantry badge, which means you've been in combat. Yes. Yeah. And that's what that's what Hackworth called out, uh, the Admiral for, Admiral Borda for wearing a combat V on his nam.

It was actually, I think it was, it was a nam with a V on it. And he and Hackworth said, this guy was in Vietnam, but he wasn't, he was on a ship. He wasn't in direct combat with the, and Admiral Borda killed himself. Yeah. Over this drama over it. That's crazy. Now that I'm, you know, we're sitting here laughing. You're like, oh, this, we can't ever get.

serious again all we have to do is talk about Admiral Borda and and and Colonel Hackworth calling him out for wearing a combat V and he kills himself in the Navy yard back to your five nams. If some of those were like for some solid work you did on this little thing that you thought maybe wasn't that huge of a deal but you did some good work and people saw what you did and you're like hey hey look you didn't save the world but you did really good with that little whatever you did that's different than a participation trophy type situation. All fired up. I was stoked, you know, I was trying to work hard,

trying to do a good job, and people were giving me cool recognition, and I appreciated it. I'm just saying when you fast forward it from 1995 to like 2009, and we're back from Ramadi, and I'm putting my dress uniform on, and Stoner sees me,

and we're laughing because I have five nams, which is really, it's also especially ridiculous because I was an officer, And it's like an officer, if you were an officer, you got five. I mean, Dave Burke, you know, who was in the Marine Corps for 24 years, had one NAM. And there I was walking around with five. That's kind of, it's just something funny about it.

Yeah, it is. So to the officers and chiefs that gave me recognition as a young enlisted guy, I appreciate it. It meant a lot to me. But over time, it did become a little bit funny and a little bit ridiculous that I was walking around with five Nams. I'm going to have to now post a picture. I don't think I have any of this stuff anymore. but I realize that I'm probably coming off as NAM obsessed at this point. You are a little bit.

But, or should I say, and. I'm going to write you up for one. So you ever got employee the month at, you know, your job? I was in the military, my whole life, but I never had a job. No, you worked at Wendy's. Oh, yeah, I was never employee the month at Wendy's. Okay, but isn't that the same thing? Employee the month?

I would rather get a NAM than employee the month at Wendy's. But it's the same thing. It's just not in the military, so I'm saying. It's a similar thing. NAMs were harder to get than employee the month. There was no guarantee that a NAM was being issued. Right. They got to choose somebody.

But still, same deal as far as like the structure. You see what I'm saying? Where it's like you're getting awarded for something you did, even though in your mind it might not be that big of a deal. But as an individual like process, it's kind of a thing. It's something. It's just not nothing, you see. We'll go with it.

We'll go with it. All right, back to the book. Summary and conclusion, the job of those of us who are privileged to command to create superior units from the run of the, from the ordinary run of manpower made available to us. This manpower falls into upper middle and lower groups about equal and strength that have different capabilities, present different problems, and need to be handled differently. All of the men in a unit must be assumed to desire to do what is wanted. And when they do not, they have not been properly handled and instructed. And I would add the word lead there. The best and most reliable unit is usually the one that is excellent in all things,

even though it might not be superior in any way. So that's the difference. He breaks out the hierarchy of adjectives, the highest adjective being superior, and then below that is excellent, and excellent is better to be at excellent at everything than superior in one thing. Throughout the whole job runs the problem of motivation. This problem is not solved unless steps are made to motivate the unit, carefully thought out and applied in such a way that their effect is felt by all men in the unit

Finally excellence of the unit is measured by the extent to which those of the lower third of the unit are developed to play their part of the unit team You know still not a hundred percent on board with that one As far as I'm concerned motivation is about understanding why you're doing what you're doing and giving people ownership You want to motivate people? Tell them why they're doing what they're doing and let them take ownership of it and run with it I feel like motivation like kind of all there's like short term and long term and you know how like I was thinking of something very specific at the time where you know people get mad when they get angry at something it motivates them like super hardcore but only short term and then if somebody someone's the opposite

if someone's really happy or I don't know thankful or whatever that like keeps them sort of motivated long term that's good I would agree with that unless they have like some sort of weird underlying fear of something that might you know sustain them long term I don't know Yeah, you could get into some details, but I think a broad statement that like some kind of an anger would be more of a short term motivation. And a happiness, a satisfaction, a gratification would be more of a long term. I would agree with that. Seems like that. I would tend to agree with that.

All right. Now we're going to get into, man, I thought those were kind of like, hey, we'll just burn through some of those chapters. I'm sorry because I wanted to get to this chapter, which is called chapter 13. mission type orders, the problem of control. In World War II, those who served in armored divisions and probably in other units as well learned that mission type orders were a requirement if the most was to be obtained from a command. Since then, we have had, and mission type, so what mission types orders are just in a nutshell is you tell somebody what needs to happen and you let them go figure how to do it. It's very, it's the basis of decentralized command. Since then, we've had to consider

the control of operations in the fluidity and unpredictability of nuclear battle. As battle becomes more complex and unpredictable, responsibilities must be more and more decentralized. Thus, mission-type orders often will be used at all echelons of command and probably will be the rule at the division and higher levels. This will require all commanders to exercise initiative, resourcefulness, and imagination. operating with relative freedom of action. And this is what's weird.

You know, he oscillates between these sort of like, everyone should be, you know, how do we control the men? And he literally says in that earlier chapter, the middle group is easier to control. And now he's saying, hey, you need to let them go and operate. And it's really scary. I thought he was going to start talking about nuclear war. When you think about nuclear war,

I think centralized control. I want 17 people to make. sure that that is the right move before that freaking fire button gets hit and those two keys get simultaneously turned. But he's like, no, decentralized command. That's pretty scary to me. In our tactical forces, we have built in organizational flexibility. We must recognize this and capitalize it in our orders.

To get maximum combat power, we must have plans flexible enough to meet rapidly changing situations. But careful planning is not enough. This must be coupled with the readiness to change and adapt to situations as they are, not as they are expected to be. Awesome. What's interesting about that is he says, we need to make plans flexible enough to meet rapidly changing situations. And he says, but careful planning is not enough. When I think of careful planning, I think, oh, this guy is going to sit there and plan every detail. I don't think of somebody that's thinking, hey, we're going to come up with a very flexible plan. A flexible plan to me is not careful planning. It's not careful planning. I think, careful planning.

I guess I might be reading too much into that. But I always felt like I cheated all the time because I came up with flexible plans for things. Yeah. Yeah, it seems like a carefully plan or a plan, plan carefully is like you carefully plan for like contingencies. Yeah, I guess carefully plan doesn't necessarily mean to be, doesn't need to be overly detailed. In fact, carefully plan could be like, hey, we want to be careful that we don't put too much detail in here. And then, yes, being able to adapt to situations as they are, not as they were expected to be. That's a critical way to operate.

To train commanders and staff officers for operations in war where mission type orders will be widely used, it is necessary that tactical courses in our schools teach the use of such orders and that we widely employ mission type orders in our peacetime operations. I love that. So when you're going to give people assignments to clean up the building, you don't say you mop and you scrub and you clean and you go, no, you say, hey, I want the building clean. This is what time it needs to be done by and you let them go execute it. Boom. Decentralized command mission type order. And think about that.

I just kind of blew that off, but that's a real thing. Like if you don't train people and you don't live like this, then you won't get good at it. You have to actually live like this. This has to be your way of life. If the way that you run your day-to-day operations is micromanagement, how can you expect anybody to do anything other than be micromanaged when you get into a bad situation, to get into a combat situation?

You said something really solid on EF Online that I was exposed to when you're like, hey, when you're in a meeting or you're having a meeting or something, and everyone's there with their pen and paper waiting for you to say something to write stuff down and then when you start talking and then they start writing stuff down or whatever. It's a bad sign. Yeah, it's a bad sign, but it feels good.

It feels good. No one can do anything unless big jockey rolls in. I'm a man with the big ego and the plan. You're really a horrible leader if they're all sitting there waiting. Yeah. We've got two or three questions. We already know what we're doing.

We know where we're going. Yeah. We're good. Oh, this is beautiful. Scope of a mission type order. Basically a mission type order needs to cover only three important things. One, it should clearly state what the commander issuing the order wants to have accomplished. That's number one.

This is what you need to accomplish. Number two, it should point out the limiting or control factors that must be observed for coordinating factors. So, okay, you can't go across this area. You can't fly over this region. You can't enter into this zone. Here's the limitations. And then finally, it should delineate the resources made available to the subordinate commander and the support which he can't expect or count on from sources outside of his command.

That's all you need to know. Tell me what to do. Tell me what the limitations are and tell me what resources I have. Other than that, leave me alone. I'm going to go make it happen. That might be the clearest definition. of a mission type order I've ever read in my life. That's all you need. I got asked one time I was in my first deployment to Iraq and my boss is like what information do you need and how much time do you need to launch on a mission?

And I was like I need to know what where the location of the target the frequencies of the friendly forces and I need 15 minutes and we'll go. Yes. Confidence in subordinate commanders. There is a strong reluctance at every headquarters to relinquish the authority to direct the details of an operation. This reluctance is clearly seen in the embellishments added to an order as it threads its way down to company level. Careful judgment must be made at every echelon of command in stating the limiting and controlling factors of a mission type order. Confidence must be placed in judgment and ability of the subordinate commander. Too often what starts off as a broad mission-type order at the high echelon ends up with

volumes of minute, detailed, and restricting instructions specifying how to get the job done when it finally gets down to company level. Many officers hearing this may think they would like to have a command functioning under such a system, meaning I would love it if people would just do exactly what I told them to do, but you don't want that. Others who may say they would like to work under such a system really are disturbed by thoughts of it. There are some officers who require something in writing before they will take significant action. A mission type order requires the subordinate commander and his staff to make basic decisions and plans based upon a careful analysis of the situation. If the basic decisions or plans are not successful, there is no paper foxhole into which they can crawl. Mission type orders require initiative, promptness, and resourcefulness, which are not all. always forthcoming. Problems in service schools based upon such orders bring forth a variety

of solutions which are difficult for the faculty to grade. Sometimes looms as a very important problem. What do you got? Dude, that, there is so much there. You even gave this example of just cleaning the building. Just that little example of cleaning the building. The worst thing I can do as a leader is to tell you how to do that. Because the minute I tell you how, you know what you're going to do? Exactly what I told you. And I'm going to say this, this, this, and this. What are the chances I get it all as a leader? Zero, right?

So what you're actually going to do is what I told you to do. But I'm going to miss a couple things. And actually the outcome is not going to be what I want. Then I as a leader, I'm going to go out and inspect him. Like, hey, you didn't do this. You didn't do that. And what happens is I trust you less. So I'm going to micromanage you even more,

which means you have even less initiative the next time. And the connection from how to initiative. and what I wrote down was how, by me telling you how to do what I want you to do, and I'm not saying like teaching you how to do something. I'm telling you how I want it done. That's the how you're talking about. Of course I want to teach you how to do a task or a job. I need to train you.

He's talking about this is how I want you to do this task, which is totally different. That is the exact opposite of initiative. Because if I tell you how to do it, you're going to do exactly how I told you to do it. And then the things that I've missed, the things that I as a commander don't know because I'm farther away from the problem than you are, I'm going to trust you less because the outcome is going to be the wrong one. I'm going to micromanage more. I'm going to undermine your initiative even more.

And then when you're out there doing it on your own and I actually can't get to you, which is the connection from the training to the real world, which is why you have to live this all the time. That's when teams and organizations fail because I'm not going to be there to solve all these problems for you. But I've bred this in you the entire time because I'm always telling you how I want you to do it. And you're like, cool. I'll do exactly how you told me to do it.

And I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to do that. You don't even know about this over here. I'm just not even touching that because you didn't tell me about that at all. But if you go to the exact opposite, which was, hey, however you want to get this done, that's all good. What we need to get it done is by 1600 on Wednesday because what happens at 1700 on Wednesday is this, this and this and impacts all that. Go make it happen. All of that is your initiative to go make that happen.

Just the connection between me telling you how I want it done versus your initiative and the inverse relationship between those two and how often we see that done wrong. bro that's so true like you ever you're drive with a micromanager like direction giver you know like you know driving with you you're just like whatever take this year whatever kind of thing

and that's a good move even if I make wrong turns whatever you know you'll help or whatever occasionally you know and you'll help whatever but you get in you ever drive with somebody who's like hey don't be in this lane this lane it's like too slow or whatever and it's like okay make this turn it's got you know like a micromanager what do you call them

front seat drive back seat driver or whatever that kind of person. Yep. Let's say it's your significant other. I'm not saying it's my significant other. For a friend. I'm not saying hypothetically. Hypothetically, yes.

Someone who you drive with a lot is what I'm saying. So and every time it's like, hey, you know, we're going to go this route. Hey, get out of this lane. Go in this lane. Okay, take this turn. You know, okay, it's coming every, you know, like really kind of micromanaging your driving situation. After a while, you kind of get used to that. Yeah.

And now, and now all of a sudden, you're not paying attention. They go, wait a time. You're supposed to take that turn. You're like, why didn't you tell me? Yeah, it's a weird subconscious almost. Why don't you tell me,

Sarah, Charles? It's a subconscious almost dependence now. For sure. That's a hundred percent what it is. Yeah. That's the initiative comment that I'm, the connection to do is like, I'm going to take no initiative because I'm,

you've been trained. Yeah. To just wait to be told what to do. Exactly right. So just like how you're saying where now, if let's say, I'm dependent on you to give me directions. You don't, you know, the leader, whatever, he doesn't always get it right or whatever.

I make the wrong call or you don't give me direction. We'll say you don't give me direction. I take no action, and then, of course, it's done wrong. Now you trust me less, and now, and around and around we go, you know? And I micromanage you more, and I stifle even more of your initiative. Even more. Exactly right. You know what's crazy about this, and Dave, you and I were talking about this before we pressed record.

is like, I basically think in commander's intent. Like I think the way my mind works, I think in end states. And everything else to me is just sort of this, almost like an annoyance of reality. And I'm so far, like when I want to do something, I'm so there that everything else is just sort of going to fall into place

and I'm not even thinking about it. You know, whether it's like when I'm starting to write a book, like I know what that book is. I know the end state and know what it looks like. And now I just have to get those words out of my system when we're going to launch something. It's like, I already know what's going to happen. Even if you think about something as stupid as this podcast of me being like, Echo, can you make a podcast? And you're like, well, let me go figure it out.

You figure it out. I'm like, I don't even care nothing. I care zero. You show up with what, you could have shown up with a freaking, a tape recorder. And I would have been like, okay, is that what we're doing? Sounds good. All right. We're good.

Because I know what, I know where this is going to go. I know where we're going. And so however we're going to get there, it's like an annoyance to me. And it's an it's an annoyance of reality because of where my mind is what I'm thinking about where we're going. And that's a positive thing for a couple reasons. Number one, if you're working for me, if you're making stuff happen, you're good to go. I mean, you can just, you make stuff happen, we're good. We're good.

We're totally good. I'm never going to bother you. Never going to bother you. So that's rad. and then also the I'm not getting caught up in these details which means that step that I take

is going to be a big one it's going to be a big step it's not going to be a little and I'm not going to take half measures yeah we're going the distance so I'm thinking and acting and kind of living in like a commander's intent

kind of way yeah it's not kind of for those of us that are inside that sphere the byproduct of you is a leader thinking in outcomes and end states. If that's how you're thinking and leading your people, the natural reaction to the people around you is to fill in all those things to make sure that happens.

And if you can take it a step further, if you can take it a step further as a leader and also be comfortable with the other side of it, which is a phrase that you use all the time, which I love, which is you got to expect those things to happen. Then it's no factor if exactly how you have this picture in your mind. You got a little detour, a little roadblock little problem here? Yeah, those things are going to happen. And we can solve those things too, using the exact same approach, which is, if you have

that attitude as a leader, when your people run into problems, they're not going to be panic-stricken about what is the boss going to think. Because he's going to say, hey, I expect those things happen. Those things are going to happen. And I'm going to end up solving that as well. And so if you can connect the idea of thinking in end states around your people and also letting your people know, you're not going to fly off the handle and jump right in there start to micromanage them when get these little hiccups, these little deviations, because you

actually in your mind, Jocko, haven't thought about all the things that happen between here and here. You don't really care what's going on in here. Cool, you go off the, cool. I expect those things to happen. But the minute you lay that all out, like all these 30 steps to get there and one doesn't go right and then you're involved in that, what that does to stifle your people makes it so much harder for them to get to your end state. So just combine the two of thinking in those end states and then letting your people. people solve those things along the way and not overreacting to the problems that occur as you're

getting there because things are messy. Those little things are messy. But by the way, if you're thinking about all those things in between, you don't even, you're not even going to think about a bigger picture. You're going to be thinking like, hey, we need to move to this next ridgeline. You're not thinking about where you're going to end up in two days on this operation or we're going to end up strategically in three months. You're like, you're not even thinking about that. You're thinking about, wait a second, there's an obstacle right in front of us. What are we going to do? Totally. And meanwhile, I'm like, I don't care.

I literally don't care. There's 19 different ways to solve that problem. Pick one of them to roll with it. And oh, you, oh, it didn't work and you got to try again. Cool. Whatever. I'm still over here. And guess where I'm looking off in the distance.

So we're good. That's a good point. And maybe, I don't know, maybe in my experience, which is nothing. But in my experience, it's, like, underappreciated or whatever, like not flying off the handle when things go wrong. Like, if you, if you, like, you. Like, you know, you're like, hey, but it's true though. Like, you know, people have this misconception of you.

Like, oh, what if Draco gets mad at you for making this or doing that? The reality is you don't really get mad at mistakes, you know? Like, you might tease me a little bit of whatever. But, yeah, like, you don't get mad. But what that does is, and when I was listening to you, Dave, say that and stuff, it made me remember, yeah, that's true. Like, I don't have a fear of making the wrong move if we both know where we're sort of going, you know.

And guess what? That means you can move. Exactly. That means you can make two, three, four, seven moves. Yeah. You can make seven moves. And you never had to talk to me. And six of them were right.

Nine of them were right. Eleven out of 12 were right. There was one wrong one. It set you back a half a move. And then you pressed forward and it was no factor. If I was concerned that Jocko was going to get mad at me for, I don't know, what if I make the wrong decision on this? Like, should we do this or should I do this or should I not do this or whatever?

I'd be like trying to call them all the time. Yeah, like, it would work way worse. Yeah, somebody quoted you on Twitter. It was like a great way to not waste your people's time is to not make the every, not make sure that you're the one that's making all the decisions for. Not make them reliant on you to make those decisions. That's a great way to not waste their time.

Yes. And the beauty of that is that they're going to get you to where you want to go faster. For sure. I think you're right about that. For sure. All right. So this is how they close out the section.

This is, once again, this is such, There's a dichotomy with General Clark, and this is part of that dichotomy right now. And he's talked about it before. The channel of suggestion. I have said many times that a commander has two channels within which to operate. He has the channel of command, barking orders, and the channel of suggestion. I believe that a good commander who has subordinates who are trained and have the confidence to use mission type orders can operate almost. exclusively using the channel of suggestion, reserving the channel of command for use only when

he wants to give special emphasis to an order to relieve someone or to take disciplinary action. That's the only time he's talking. Other than that, it's like, well, how do you want to do? What do you think we should do? The only time he's going to bark orders is when he's going to fire someone, which is what relieve means, by the way, in the military, relieve someone means you're firing them. Or to give disciplinary actions. Every other time, almost exclusively, its channel of suggestion.

You just made the leap by saying it was in my head as when I'm hearing suggestion. I'm not even hearing suggestion. I'm hearing questions. Hey, what do you think? How do you think? Which isn't even what is saying in word because suggesting means like, hey, maybe we should do this. You're taking it a step further, which is how do you think we should do this? And then the flip side of too is that the hammer of, you know, as a commander, you have that hammer.

You can drop that hammer. I can fire somebody. I can relieve somebody. I could reduce their rank. I could take their pay. There was a lot of authority in command. How often do you want to pull out that hammer? Man.

The more, you know. Well, you just pulled out the big, the big hammer, right? What about the little hammer? The little hammer is even worse. The little hammer of like, actually, Dave, we need to do it this way. Smack. Little you know actually Dave I don't like your idea smack and meanwhile you're getting all dinged up and now you don't want to make any moves anymore The suggestion is is is is actually question how should we do this? Yeah

Channel of suggestion Here's the final little section and this is I briefed you earlier Dave I said there's gonna be something I'm gonna read that you're gonna say yes So this is that section Further the mission of the higher headquarters. I went to Leavenworth and the people think 11th they think of going to prison because there is a military prison there, but there's also the war college. I went to Leavenworth over 20 years ago, so it is difficult for me to remember all the things which I must have learned then at the command and general staff college. The one thing that I have never forgotten and which has stood me in good stead was the teaching

of General McNair, then commandant when he stated, quote, when you receive an order or a directive from your next higher commander, do everything you can and in the best way you can to further the mission which he wants to accomplish. End quote. An officer who follows his advice and uses it to interpret his instructions will find that he can act wisely, promptly and aggressively with confidence. He will have no problem in operating in an environment with mission type orders. So when your boss tells you to do that.

something, freaking do it and do it to the best your ability. Leadership strategy and tactics. I always have to go to this page, but it's the things that says how to succeed as a new leader. Page 157 and then on page 158, it says, lastly, get the job done. Get the job done. That's what you're supposed to do. And that's what he's talking about. When you get told to do something, do it.

People talk to me on how do I build a good relationship with my boss. with my boss, do the job and do it well. Kick ass. Give your boss credit. You'll start building a good relationship with him. Chapter 14. Organization for performing tasks on the company and small unit level. The purpose of this chapter set forth the concept of which I've found from experience

improves training, uses time devoted to training more efficiently and increases responsibility, prestige, and morale of the non-commission officer leader and platoon leader. Organizational use. organizational units or teams even for work details and I'm not going to read this section but what he says we're using this example today of cleaning the building what he's saying is when you clean the building do it as a platoon yeah so use mission type orders and then do it as a platoon and and that just helps them get used to how operating together what people are like what it's like for that leader when that leader what what how that leader relates to the

troops how the troops relate back to the leader you train how you operate You work how you train and then there's the last section in this part is let the leader lead his men Which is the same thing under the detailed procedure of performing necessary unit tasks all training teams are represented at all Scheduled training this may make a good showing in their training accomplished records but does not necessarily mean that they have actually received as teams the training that is shown on record However maintaining unit integrity while performing daily tasks will also enhance real benefits which we derive from our team training. So every day, you should live, you should operate the way you are going to live and operate. Chapter 15, wasting soldiers time, the value of time. We Americans have always been conscious

of the value of time. Benjamin Franklin expressed this by saying that time is money. In our country, the efficiency expert who comes in to examine ways of doing things to eliminate wasted motion is highly paid for his services. He commands that high price because he is a saver of time. In the Army, we speak of resources in terms of the three M's, men, money, and materials. To these three, we must add time. However, there is a distinct difference between time and the other three resources. If we do not use our money or materials today, they are available to me.

Tomorrow. To a lesser degree, this is also true of men. It is not at all true of time for time is a highly perishable commodity. An hour lost today is lost forever. Echo Charles. It's true. I feel like he's training a lot of soldiers today on certain things. It costs several thousand dollars a year to maintain each soldier in the army. I consider that it is probably a cost of five dollars per hour per man for the soldiers training time. That is available to the company commander. Thus, when the commander wastes an hour of his company's time, he may be wasting as much as $1,000. We would not want to be embarrassed

if some agency became interested in investigating this in the field. That's an interesting way to think about it. Think about companies, 150 men. But think about your company. Think about your business. Think about your team. You've got people sitting and you weren't prepared for the meeting or the meeting starts late or whatever.

Whatever it is. you think about what you're throwing away, you're wasting people's time. We are engaged in a contest with the communists in which there is no silver medal, in which no silver medal will be awarded for second place. I'm certain that it is unnecessary for me to dwell on the importance of the role of the U.S. Army in this contest. Our mission is to be combat ready. To my way of thinking, combat readiness has no upper limit.

A unit is never 100% combat ready, because there is always room for improvement in the development of military skills, reaction time, marksmanship, and the like. Combat readiness is a goal toward which we are constantly moving, but which we should never feel we have wholly achieved. Our progress will depend on our use of the resources, which I mentioned previously.

I want to stress the importance of using time wisely. And then he goes through a bunch of how we waste time. Time is wasted in administration and paperwork. and red tape. And he says this, you should consider it unforgivable. You should consider it unforgivable to remove a man from a scheduled formal period of instruction or practical work to take care of administrative matters. You cannot requisition a replacement for a lost hour of training.

He also says here, we waste time when we overcommit our units. or perhaps I should say we do not make the best use of our time. That's something we got to pay attention to on an individual level. You over-schedule yourself and you actually end up wasting time. The same wastage is presented on the individual level when the strength of a unit is filtered away to participate in contests of non-military skills to paint rocks or plant flower beds in a likeness of the unit's insignia. That's a shot.

There you go around military paces in America. There's some painted rocks out there people. There's some white painted rocks that are lining some roads and I'm gonna tell you some privates painted those rocks. They probably got in trouble It's a little bit of a punitive measure. Oh like punish. Yeah It is training activities themselves which have the greatest potential for wasting a soldier's time. This comes about mainly because of inadequate planning lack of foresight and lack of preparedness soldiers expect to be well trained. They feel shortchanged if they're not. If you're in charge of training people, which if you're in a leadership, you are position, you are in charge of training people and you're wasting your time. You are completely wrong.

Here's another section I got to read. Were the instructions clear? There is no end of time wasted when one who is to perform a mission or job is not fully and clearly instructed. The instructions are misunderstood. The end result is not what was desired. It must be done over. In fact, if things go wrong, the leader, in fact, when things go wrong, the leader should

check first to see if his instructions were not the cause. It is said that General Grant assigned his adjutant the mentally slowest officer he could find. Grant read his orders to his adjutant. And if the adjutant could not understand, Grant rewarded his orders until he could. Ask yourself, are your instructions and orders so clear that every man underlined every. He doesn't underline much in here. Every man in your unit can understand them. When you issue orders, you are instructing someone.

Remember that as an instructor, you only teach when someone learns. I always tell that story about the lowest common denominator, right? It's matter of fact, it's in, I think it's in dichotomy. Well, hey, Laif and Seth, I'm telling them, hey, I want you to brief to the lowest common denominator in the platoon. Whoever you think is going to have the hardest time, brief to your machine gunners. Your new guy machine gunners, I want them to fully understand the plan. I mean, that is the entire Second Law of Combat brief, almost verbatim that he just described about the plan that's understandable, the way you communicated, and then to the lowest common denominator. And then to me, in my mind, that actually comes back to the comment he made earlier,

which was the effort you got to expend for your lowest people in the, you know, the bottom of your folks for them to understand it, that comedy made before by devoting time to that, that's the time he's talking about. So it takes his adjutant who he considers to be of the lowest intellectual level, you know, his bottom third guy. And I'll spend as much time as I need until that guy gets it. And if he gets it, we should be good. We are good to go.

And so even pulling that together, that comment made, I mean, that is, that is simple right there. So good. Do you fully, this is the last section here, do you fully utilize your soldiers time? I am not optimistic as to believe that we can eliminate wasting of time as we have yellow fever. But we can improve our performance in this regard. We can control this problem by the exercise of sound leadership techniques, among which are planning good job management, issuance of clear instructions, and thorough follow-up. The most valuable resource available to a commander in the army is the soldier's time.

As leaders, we must use this resource to the best advantage. I know of no better reputation for an officer or non-commissioned officer to have with his men than that he is a good manager and does not waste his soldiers' time. If he has that reputation, he will probably not waste his men's lives in battle either. That's powerful because I've been doing a lot of talking about leadership capital on F online. In fact, I've been going kind of berserk talking about leadership capital on EF online. And I've been talking about how to build leadership capital, how to lose leadership capital. And this is one that I haven't mentioned yet. And it's probably one, it's probably

a little bit of a blind spot to me because I am a freak when it comes to time and wasting time. And so it's one of those things where I wouldn't, it's so important to me that I've never, I've never, you know, walked into a meeting two hours late to have a bunch of people waiting around for me to show up. Like that, that hasn't, that's not happening. but if you want to expend leadership capital unnecessarily and lots of it make people wait around for you make them waste time the phrase being late is unacceptable the reason it's unacceptable is it because it wastes people's time you could be the best pilot in the squadron and if you waste people's time you're going to lose leadership capital.

You could be an average pilot. And if your reputation is that you don't waste people's time, they don't care if you're an average pilot. You actually, your leadership capital is directly correlated to how you treat them and how you respect them and how you respect their time. Time wasted was always the, it was always the most frustrating and the most obvious thing that would happen. And I think I've said this on the podcast before.

Everybody who's had their time wasted by someone else knows exactly what that feels like. You can think about it right now, sitting around in the auditorium, sitting around, whatever this, that time of yours that's being wasted because of somebody else. I don't care how good that somebody else is at their job, their task, or anything else. If they are a time waster, you are losing leadership capital. Let me ask you this about being late. Oh, man. Here we go.

Talk to me. I need your opinion. What if it's, let's say, a Halloween party? and they're like, hey, Halloween party, you know, there's going to be, I don't know, 100 people. It's a lot of people. This is a fashionably late scenario you're getting to? Or what have you, you know. So there's 100 people invited or whatever, 100 plus because bring who you want.

It's not like a guest list. You're not invited. It's not that. It's just we're having a party, whatever. And starts at, I don't know. Speaking of wasting time, how long is this going to take? It starts at 5, we'll say, you know, 5 p.m. Okay.

It goes all night. I don't know. Whatever. And you're like, all right. And you get there at 6.30. Other people are there, but you get there at 6.30. Is that wasting people saying? Is that bad as far as being late?

If I send you an invitation to my Halloween party and I say the party starts at 5 and goes till midnight, I don't care when you show up. If I say, Echo, be there by 7 and you show up at 7.30, is there a different? between those two? I think so, yes. Yeah. But yeah, so my question is more about that first scenario, whatever. Like if it's like, hey, the party starts at five. Yeah, I was going to say the party starts with or without you.

Yes, yes, yes. So I'm not super concerned about you. Yeah. Nobody's sitting around waiting for you to get there. Exactly. Contrarily, the podcast starts when you're here. So when you're not here, the podcast doesn't start. You're the ones with the SD memory cards that go in the little machines over there.

Sure. So when you're not here. Here at three o'clock, the party's not starting. We're waiting. I understand. You're talking like it's for real. I was here at 258. What up?

You made it in. Well, I was legit today. As much hassle I give you about Hawaiian time and being late, you're not late very often. No, sir. Do you play with fire? Yes, sir.

Yeah, every day. And technically a lot of times there's a minute, maybe, maybe if you were one of those people, if you set your watch like five minutes fast, You'd probably be on time all the time. Yeah, if I believe it or if I didn't know, I said the what. Yeah, I've done that before too. Well, you know how I used to tell you like, oh, I come from a long line of late people.

I remember what I were saying? Bro, my dad was like that. Somebody cracked up because I said like you got your DNA. You said you got your 23 in me. I said it came back late. You got little jeans. Yes, sir. But, and you know, you kind of look into it like, why am I late or whatever?

So because I would go to work late when I used to work at the cloud. I would be there late. I was there late one minute, two minutes, five minutes sometimes, probably more time than I was on time, probably, for real. I'm not finding this hard to believe. It doesn't seem like a stretch. And the thing is technically you are right. Like I'm wasting people's time,

especially if people depend on me to get there at that time, you know. I'm not getting paid. You know, it's the kind you got to clock in. So you're not getting paid if you're not there. So it's not that. It's like if people are depending on you to be. be there. But is there like a briefing to start the night? No, negative. It's all independent, like clock in and you're there. I mean, it would piss me off, you know? I view as an unreliable

person. Yeah. That I put no, I put no value in as a human. Damn. And I did it. But so I analyze, like, why am I like, why am I like that? Because even if I'm like, I need to be late less, you know, it just wouldn't change. Why am I like? You should change the statement I need to be late Less to I'm not going to be late. Yeah, but draw a little bit of a harder line in the sand. I understand and you're right. My little broginio. The thing is you're,

you're right, but when I, when I really be truthful, it's because I don't care about what's going on there, you know? Like, why am I going to prepare, like take 30 minutes to prepare this and prepare that for something

that I don't have to be there at that. I have to be there at a certain time. So of course, I'm running the risk. In fact, if I would have my way, I would never be late at all, but I would never be,

early at all either for things I don't care about you know like like that I had one time in my life when I was going to college at and it was really hard to get parking and eventually I figured out a system but I had a seal buddy that he was going to college too and we would study together and we are but we were both on time all the time for everything and eventually we made a deal where we gave ourselves like a waiver to be five minutes or eight minutes late because if you were going to be there at 2 o'clock, in order to be there at 2 o'clock, you had to show up at 1

and drive around. And so we were just like, you know what? Hey, if you're 5 minutes late, 10 minutes late, it doesn't matter. Like, I don't care. I don't want you being here an hour early so that you're not one minute late. Yeah.

So we made a little packed and just said, hey, bro, I'll be there between 1 and 115. Boom, all good. And I'd try and get there in 1. And maybe I'd get there at 108. Maybe he'd get there at 1,12, for whatever. Eventually, I figured out

I would just put, my bike in the back of the car and just park at the top of the hill and just bike no factor yeah see now you're thinking figure out to solve these problems so on the flip side and this is all in the spirit of getting down to the whole late thing because I agree with you at the end of the day and if you think if you really be honest like I'm not late really you know anymore back in my day you're real I was late yeah what are you trying to think of when I was late no you were late a little bit in the beginning but then but then like it didn't I probably remember remember you being late three times total yeah and this is not in not including a four

minute grace period which sometimes I think you do just to just to you know what do you mean grace period you know like sometimes if you're supposed to be here at one you're here at 104 yeah four minutes late it's possible yeah the late times I'll tell you hey I'm late because of this specific reason and whatever but that's already but nonetheless like that is I agree with you where you're wasting other people's time people are waiting for you like Like that's, it's, it's kind of inexcusable in a way. But if you show up 15 minutes early, aren't you wasting your own time a little bit? No, because what are you going to do when you get there?

You're going to prep. Yeah, well, that depends. I guess. It depends on who you are, I guess. Sun Tzu told us 2,500 years ago that the one that shows up the battlefield first wins. Yeah, you know, as far as battlefields go for sure. But certain circumstances. If you're there, let's say, okay, yeah, I'm going to meet you for brunch.

You know what's in my bag right now? Oh, I can practice. The next book I'm reading on the podcast. When I show up here early, if there's no one here, cool. I get to read. I get to get ahead. Oh, yeah. Okay, so that's a good point.

Okay. Yes. Question answered because, yeah, if you show up fit and you got to be thinking, I guess, at the end of the day. So if you show up 15 minutes early, you're not wasting your time because you can still choose what to do. You're not forced to wait around. for anyone. You're not waiting. Yeah.

You should be proactively making something happen. Yeah, and you have that option. I mean, technically, I guess if you're waiting for someone, you have that option, but they're putting you in that position rather than you making the decision,

putting yourself in that position, potentially. I understand? I understand. Back to the book, Chapter 16. So I was super fired up when I read this chapter, title,

and then to be honest with you, I got a little less fired up when I got into it. Because the chapter is, will you wait for it or will you go get it? And I was like, oh, damn, this is the chapter I've been waiting for. But what he's talking about is information. I'm still fired up for gathering information. And are you going to wait for information to come to you?

Are you going to go get it? I'm still fired up about it, but I'm not as fired up as I was. It's just like, we're just going to make things happen. But he goes in here, there's more than one school of thought concerning how a commander can acquire reliable information. One school contends that the commander should analyze reports that come to him from his subordinate units and staff. The other advocates that the commander should go see for himself. Yet another endorses a combination of these methods.

As a commander from company to army group and an observer of others holding such positions in three wars, that's got to feel a little bit cool to write. I have come to certain conclusions myself. Moreover, since my retirement from the Army, I have worked as a consultant to research organizations making studies of command control and communication problems for the Army. The result of this active and retired experience might be helpful to students and practitioners

who would like to excel in the art and techniques of commandership and generalship. And then he goes here, looking back, it seems to me more than ever that my best information on both our own forces, and the enemies was obtained by visiting or observing subordinate commanders. So there you go. I guess he's saying go get it.

This is done either by Jeep or fixed wing airplane borrowed from the artillery, small radios. He goes on. He says this. As a corps commander in Korea with five divisions on the line, I often left my headquarters by chopper after morning staff briefing and I visited the five division headquarters in turn from left to right. The divisions knew when I was coming. The division commanders were told that they need not wait for me and that I would talk to the chiefs of staff. Over a cup of coffee, we discussed the latest situations. Then we discussed the problems which

had been presented by them on a previous day. Then I noted what they wanted my core headquarters to do to help them. So that's all good. He's gathering information. And then he says, I told them the situation of the 8th Army and of the I Corps as I knew it. So not only is he out there receiving information, he is telling them what is going on. So and he ends up saying that he did that. And it's funny, I was, I was reading this and he says, generally the next day I repeated this as a result. I was not only the Corps commander, but the Corps Commander liaison officer. And to a large extent, the Corps communicator with the lower units.

And I put in parentheses when I was reading this, it was a static war because at this point, In Korea, you know, it was it was almost trench warfare like they weren't moving. And then what's interesting, fast-word, little bit says, this was in a static situation, but such command techniques are not unusable in mobile warfare. So get out there, get that information. He's got this section in here. History is full of instances where the commander being at the critical point, at the critical time, turn the tide of battle to victory, or conversely, the commander not being on scene, his force,

was defeated. Few such examples have been related so dramatically as in the poem Sheridan's ride by Thomas Buchanan Reed. So we're talking Civil War. We're talking General Philip Sheridan, Union General, who was 5 foot 5. We were talking about height a little bit earlier. Well, he was known as Little Phil, also known as Fighting Phil and the Battle of Cedar Creek, October 19th, 1864 is when this went down. One will recall that early in the morning. Sheraton was at Winchester, Virginia, 20 miles away from his command, when news of a new battle arrived. He mounted his horse and took off at full speed for the field of combat. Reade's stirring verse traces Sheridan's progress through five stanzas, giving equal

credit to both him and his horse. The six stanza shows what happens when the commander arrives at the critical point of battle and at a critical time. Quote, the first the general saw were the groups of stragglers and then the retreating troops. What was done, what to do? A glance told him both. Then striking his spurs with a terrible oath. He dashed down the line mid a storm of hazazaz,

which I had to look up. That's an old form of hooray. So the people started and the wave of retreat checked its course there because the sight of the master compelled it to pause. So there you go. The commander shows up on the battlefield and he turns this retreat into an advance and they ended up kind of smashing the Confederates in that battle. It is inconceivable that the same result could have been attained on an automated battlefield, nor could Sheridan have been brought, could have,

nor could Sheridan have brought order out of chaos while seated before a display panel 20 miles away. You need to get there. Need to get there. And then he talks about why commanders should be forward. He talks about the, like, computer stuff. And again, he's right in this.

This originally came out, I think, in 1963. And then this version was 1973. So he's talking about computers. So God only knows what that consisted of in 1973, like a mobile command computer. We need to get a, I need to do some research on that one. And he says, these are fine until disorderly and confusing conditions that occur so often in battle materialize. They do not realize the roles of judgment. So he's talking about all these computations and these things that they set up.

And he's saying, those are cool. and everything's cool. But then once the mayhem happens, they do not realize the roles of the judgment and experience factors which must be used in handling tactical battle reports. Inevitably, these lead to a working principle such as, and so here's what the commanders are using to judge their information when they're using computer-based data. Discount by 50% all very favorable or unfavorable operational reports, which come into your headquarters from your subordinate units, and then question.

the remainder. So it's basically like this just junk. It's just junk. And then he talks about the helicopter and using that to stay forward, which is effective as well. He's got this whole chapter, ADP in war, will it work? It's automatic data processing. So we're not going to cover much of this. And he sets up this sort of hypothetical situation where he starts asking a bunch of questions about how well this ADP, how well it's going to work to use ADP during war. And a lot of this, you know, he's literally talking about like, are there going to be power sources available?

So it's really kind of nitty, gritty stuff. But then he says, I would not be honest with you if I did not point out that commanders at all echelons are apprehensive of the tendency to use ADP to facilitate. centralization of command and control. I can foresee disastrous effects from indiscriminate, from indiscriminate centralization or over centralization and loss of flexibility in modern fluid war. Why is that?

Because now all of a sudden, the leader can track everything that everyone's doing. Hey, like Dave's in his aircraft and he's like, wait a second, go a little bit further to the right, go a little bit further to the left. We know exactly where you are. Wait, don't drop the bomb yet. Okay, drop it now. And we're trying to micromanage. Will ADP cause the commander to be more command post bound and thus reduce his ability to be at critical points at critical times?

Let me see. I'll turn it up being a yes. With its increased speed and capacity for information, will ADP in the hands of staff officers or of higher headquarters, tend to encourage them to put increased burden of reporting on lower echelons who are often busily engaged in the vital conduct of battle? How crazy is that, Dave? It's nuts picturing what I saw, you know, from the talk and the command center, you know, picturing this being 19, what was 76, we said. Yes, the answer to that question is yes, it will. Yeah, so that's what happened to the military.

All of a sudden, we have the ability to get information, so we're going to require the information. We're going to want more of it. And you're going to demand it at a time that is totally incompatible with when they should be giving you the information. They want to know what's going on. Yeah, right now. Well, the reason you don't know what's going on is I'm in the middle of doing something right now. I got a little situation I'm trying to handle. Yeah.

Yeah. So that's how he explains the whole ADP thing. Chapter 18, making progress and improving a military organization. It is the aim of anyone who is privileged to command a company battalion brigade or division to leave in it as, to leave it in much better shape than he found it. And to be sure his superiors recognize that fact. And he goes through this little pluses mess. method, which he's gone through before in one of the earlier podcasts, which you're going to make little incremental changes to get better.

He goes over this section about protecting your image as a commander. A word about headlines, most commanders who have sought headlines to establish their image. And I'm using those, he's putting those in quotes. In the minds of their men and their superiors have sooner or later have been plagued by unfavorable headlines. Produce a superior, well-rounded, and solid unit, and your image as a commander will be secure,

as will your military future. And then this is the last thing that we are going to cover, I think. Oh, no, it's not yet. Not quite a year of that. Yeah, it is. All right, so chapter 19, techniques of troop orientation and informed education.

One of the most important duties of a commander is to keep his troops informed and oriented. This is done in many different ways with varying degrees of effect. A technique I found very effective was to inform and orient by posters and personal visits. So he's talking about posters, literally posters that you hang on the wall. And this is why when you were talking about simplicity earlier, Dave, this is kind of knocking out of the park.

And when I said earlier on this podcast, when I was giving him a grade of a D minus for his simplicity of language in his opening, he makes up for it here with these posters. In 1956, I took command of the 7th U.S. Army in Europe at a time when the relationship of the troops with their German neighbors was at a low ebb due to a number of things. I think this is also when Hackworth was working for him. After studying the situation, I concluded that the transition from an army of occupation to the status of a guest army in a host nation had not been accomplished. So there's the wrong culture. There's the wrong culture. from occupation status to like host,

to a guest to a host nation. This is in Germany. So we went in there, we're occupying force. These were our enemies. And now all of a sudden we're saying, all right, that's not the deal anymore. Now they're the host nation and we're the guest. So can you imagine trying to shift that culture?

That's a tough culture shift. I set out to bring about this transition, not only for the soldiers, but for the dependents and U.S. civilian employees in Germany. And so he comes up with this poster. that the poster is called soldier. And the poster just has this picture of a soldier who looks badass. And it says, soldier, this is why you're in Germany.

And it's got bullet points. To play your part on the NATO team to help maintain peace by being constantly combat ready, to be a good neighbor to our German neighbors to fight if necessary for the rights of free men in the world. Simplicity score? Dave, what are you giving him? That's a significant improvement over the... He's getting the most improved award.

Big time. Most improved award. So very obvious. So that's what he did. He made this poster. And then he did these visits. He did these visits where he would take the troops and send them to check out what was happening at the Berlin Wall.

So it's another way to make people understand why. And not only would he send the troops, but if he could send the dependents there as well. So they understood why. You go see the Berlin Wall. And then he made, and this is the last thing we're going to cover. Again, he's making this so simple and so clear. So along with that campaign to get people to see the wall,

to understand what the purpose of being there was, to understand why we were there. He made this poster. There's a couple pictures of the wall. And it says, why? And it says, have you ever wondered? Why must the communists build walls and fences to keep people from fleeing the land where they were born? Why must they charge their fences with electricity which can kill people who try to escape?

Why armed guards along these walls and fences? Fences shoot and kill their own people who try to escape from their homes. Why despite these walls and fences and guns have over four million people left their homes, property and friends and risked their lives to escape in the past 15 years? Why the communists surround themselves with walls and fences when history shows that this has has often been the first step in the self-destruction of an empire. And then he says, why were these effective? These posters and Operation Luxey, which was actually traveling to the Berlin Wall,

were effective because they used the most efficient techniques of informing and orienting the soldier and of having his commander tell him in basic and simple terms about situations which are close to him and affect or could affect him personally. He gets it across as simply as possible. So there you go. That wraps up our review of guidelines for the leader and commander. I have initiated the publication through Jocko publishing of this book. We are reaching out to try and figure out what needs to happen there.

But it's underway. Bozac has it for action. so we'll get it out, we'll get it published. I'm sure that we will continue to refer to it. There's so many good lessons here. Even that last lesson, that these posters were effective because they used the most simple terms

to explain to the soldiers why they were doing what they're doing. Something that I've been talking about for 20 years, explaining people why they're doing what they're doing. and that is such an off that's such a such a response we use all the time at eslam front all the time my people aren't doing this my people my people can my people don't want to get on board with that tell them why they're doing what they're doing explain it to them in terms that they can understand that's what he did that's what he's telling us to do telling us to

be more effective telling us to be more efficient telling us to not waste time telling us to be in good physical condition and to strive always remember what he said you're never a hundred percent combat effective you never get there you always have to strive to be better so thank you general Clark for that echo Charles mr speaking of getting better mm-hmm or at least always trying to get better striving to get better yes do we have any recommendations on you know making that happen yes we do Dave we do I just saw Dave look at his watch.

Yep. He was just looking at his watch thinking, all right? I know I have work to do. You know what's funny? You know what? I know Dave has work to do. I know I have work to do. I know there's one person.

I'm not saying they don't have work to do, but they might have less work to do. They might have a less of a stringent timeline to follow. Well, you did say might because, you know, you never do know. Okay. All right. All right. Okay. So getting better.

All the work I have to do. I'll tell you part of the work I have to do is inform my people, our people. All right. Let's do it. On how to get through or should I say move forward on this path? We're all on. Boom. We're working out.

We're taking jiu-jitsu if we can. We're reading. We're surrounding ourselves with good people. It's a sliding scale. I understand. Nonetheless, these are things we're trying to do on this path. supplementation. Don't worry. Jocko has fuel. It's called Jocko fuel. Supplementation for your whole body all the way up to your brain. The last cell in your brain. Anyway, what we got?

Joint warfare. We got joint warfare. I told you my wife has an injury. Not anymore. Feeding her joint warfare. She's on her feet. All good. That's what I'm talking about. Oh yeah, every day. So joint warfare, super krill oil. These are all for your joints, free bones, keep yourself in the game. Don't even have to worry about them anymore. You take this stuff. Also, we have discipline, which is for your brain, ish. It's not just for your brain is what I'm saying. True. It's for your body too.

So discipline, discipline go, and then discipline go in the cans. It's all the same family, we'll say. Is that an accurate way to put it? Accurate. Yeah, it's true. Yeah, a little note on discipline go in the cans. So, look, are we at? at war? Yes. I would say yes. I mean, from a business sense, we're at war. We've had, we've been

attacked. We had an act. Let's just say this at a minimum. We've had an act of war against us. Another very large energy drink company has spotted an insurgency happening. They didn't like it. They're trying to maneuver to shut down some of our manufacturing. But, Guess who had contingency planning? Yes, us, but we're at war. So right now, hey, we are in Wawa in Florida. We want to be all over the East Coast in Wawa, and then we want to hit the rest of the stores across the country.

If you're in Florida, go to Wawa, get some go. Try some go. What flavors do you recommend? Dave. All of them. Let me ask you this. Are you, how many, are you, have you drank one flavor enough where you shifted to another flavor? Like, I've done that with milk where I'll go on milk.

I'll go on mint milk for three weeks. Then all of a sudden I'm like, oh, that's strawberry. But right now I'm on that pumpkin. I'm on that smashing pumpkin spice. That stuff is crazy good. So have you, have you gone, do you rotate daily? Are you doing random out of the box? What are you doing?

I try to go random out of the box. or out of the fridge. I try to go random out of the fridge. I have not done that the last seven days. Because you're just straight. Dude, I am straight after burn orange. That's what I'm right now. So my older two daughters kind of speak their own language.

And one of the words that they've been using a lot lately is, if something is very good, then it's a fantasy. And they say it in various funny ways. But then they've shortened it to say, fant. Oh, that's a fant. And so the other day, my middle daughter took a drink of Afterburner Orange, and she said, oh, that's a fant. Like a fanta.

So there you go. Yeah, like an orange fanta, right? Little play on words there. I'm going to have to agree with that one, the orange, the after burner orange. Yeah, that's kind of the number one right now. It's good. factually. I'm still just

just Jocko Palmer all day. Yeah. And I understand. I've, I will have probably for every four Jocko Palmer, I will have one orange or one Souraproppel sniper. Maybe a Dax Savage.

Even though Dax Savage, people like my wife's, is Dax Savage all day. Yeah. I could see that. Sometimes I just want to get a little like Dakota Meyer mindset. Sure.

Just go get some of that. The Dack Savage. Just the Dack can is legit. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yes, sir. But yes, so, yes, discipline, energy drink essentially. I said it. Yeah.

I said what I said. Energy drink is health energy. It's a health energy drink. It's real energy is what it is. It's real energy. Yeah. So, nonetheless, yes, these are the supplementation elements that we can call upon on this path. Also, Jock, you mentioned milk.

So you got all these different flavor. of milk protein in the form of a dessert. He just made it the smashing pumpkin. I'm with it. I'm with the smashing pumpkin. Oh, yeah. What about... Kid approved to, by the way.

Oh, yeah. Kids are all over that. It was declared a full fantasy in my house. Full fantasy. Is that the... My daughter's declared a smashing pumpkin, a full fantasy. Full fantasy. Okay. I'm gonna kind of remember that, see if it sticks.

Well, actually, I don't know if I want to do that. Nonetheless, it does sound cool when you say that your daughters say it, but you can't start bringing that. I can tell you that I won't start calling things like, oh, that move in UFC was a full fantasy. Yes, thank you. It's not really going to flow.

No, probably not. So speaking of full fantasy. Oh, that was cool. Yeah, stick with cool. Speaking of cool and full fantasy, Joccoa, T is also out there. Another light, refreshing element

that we haven't spent that much time talking about, but that's fine. It's still out there and it's still going strong. Of course. You can get that in a can as well. Right. You can get all this stuff at OriginMain.com. You can get it at Vitamin Shop nationwide. You can get it at Wawa, Florida.

This is what, what is it right now? It's November. Hopefully we'll get that whole East Coast taking. Now look, when I posted that we were in Wawa the other day, everyone's all fired up and like, okay, what about 7-11? What about AMP? And look, well, that's the goal. Like I said, Florida's a little bit of a battleground state.

Yeah, sure. So we hope, you know, when you're hoping, But people in Florida will get after it. Yeah, fully. Wait, is Jocko-Wa-T and Wawa? No, just the discipline. Just the discipline. Yep.

Yeah. Okay. Well, there you go. Boom. Also at origin-main.com, you can get this stuff. Also at origin-main. com, you can get other stuff. Jiu-Jitsu stuff, geese, rash guards,

some various, you know, whether it be workout clothes, clothing, shirts. But on top of that, American-made denim jeans. Also. Did you get new deltas? No, not yet. Okay. Did you get new deltas? Yeah

So the new deltas They're freaking legit And yeah They're just The old deltas I thought were the best thing That you could put on your legs But now the new deltas

Which if you're ordering deltas now They're the new deltas And they're freaking the best thing ever And they're what? They're kind of like stretchy-ish I mean obviously they're not stretched They do have They do have

Stretch to them that way when you throw that full fantasy roundhouse kick. Yes, my fantasy. You're good. You're not ripping your pants. Yeah, that's good for sure. Okay, well, there you have it. Full fantasy stuff.

Yeah, jeans, boots, all American-made stuff. This is a big deal. And I think we all know that and we all know why. Also, we have our own store. Yeah, I said it. I said what I said. All right, it's still Jocco's store. So that thing, what you just said, I said what I said.

You know that's kind of a thing too, right? From, yeah, I don't know. Okay, well, that's another thing that my daughters are saying. Okay. My older daughters. I like that one. I think it's very fun. They'll be like, I said what I said.

There is this joke, like, you know, the memes online. There's this joke that it was like, I forget even the joke, but it was really funny. And since then, I started to incorporate it. I appreciate memes. Oh, yeah. I appreciate memes and I even appreciate people that have, you know, like a hat that says veteran of the meme wars and they have they've awarded, they've been awarded whatever awards you get for the meme. Maybe they got a nam with five, five nams, spot nams. So, yeah, the memes are good.

Yes, I agree. But somehow I don't, the memes don't flow to me. It's always my son that shows me memes. Yeah. I don't know what the hell he subscribes to on. The gram, as you call it. But he shows me some memes that are funny. Yeah.

They're really funny. Yeah. Whoever's making it. They're smart people. Like, you know how you can do? Some jokes are like, brother, that's like not even a,

it's like a cheap joke that's not funny. And then some are like, you got to be, whoever thought of that made that joke up is like a smart, funny person. Right. You know, like there's some impressive stuff on there for real.

Like I, I inadvertently, well, or advertently, whatever, subscribe to like a bunch of, It's really good. It's really good.

And yeah, full grown man fully memes all day. But yes, I said what I said. It's our store. Okay. It's still called Jocko store. So anyway,

yes, Jock Store. That's where you can represent with clothing, T-shirts, hoodies, Discipline equals freedom. Good. All this stuff.

Here's the thing. I said this last week. I'm saying it again. It's a big deal. We have a T-shirt club. Okay, so this is what the T-shirt club kind of is.

It's like, okay, look. The T-shirt Club is echo coming up with a lot of different T-shirts and me saying, dude, we can't make a million different T-shirts because how are we going to keep a million different T-shirts in stock? Yeah. And how many and all that stuff. Yeah. And then you come up with a big creative idea.

Yes. Well, you know, I guess it depends. You had the end state in mind. Yeah. Right? You figured our way to see. solve that problem. Well, I think it's good because also on top of that, which, um, yes, that's true. But on top of it, it's like sometimes, like, even you'll be like, hey, put this on a t-shirt

or I'll be like, oh, you know, like suggesting like a t-shirt. And it's a good, it's fun, it's a fun, good idea. Or cool. Or cool. Because let's face it, you come up with ideas for t-shirts that are fun and I come up with ideas for t-shirts that are cool. Oh, yeah. Super cool. Extra Okay. Are you denying about that? No, no, no, no, no. All good. It's true. It's 100% true, actually. But we can't just start, like you said, just throwing these shirts on, like, or whatever. But the idea of, you know, so these ideas for shirts, they, they're doable. Also, people. The people always say, can you make this t-shirt? Can you make that t-shirt? That'd be a cool t-shirt. Yeah. And there's some that I'm like, that are shirts that we talk about. And then someone would be, hey, you should do the shirt. But like, yeah, we just talked about that kind of thing, you know? So it's like all these ideas, hey, we'll throw. Throw it in one month. We'll have it.

You know, you can have it. And it just goes on and on. It's good. A little subscription situation. Anyway, it's a good T-shirt club. A real fun. Okay, so because you're kind of just giving me a look when I said I come up with cool T-shirt ideas, I'm going to say one that will be available through the T-shirt.

What is it? Subscription. Sure, Chuck. Yeah. So, here's one. A podcast number 53. There's one part. This is the chosen reservoir.

We're talking about the book, colder than hell. And there's one point where the Marines are fighting for their lives. And they're assaulting down a hill. And there's a guy, the guy that's writing the book is writing what he's seeing. And he sees these guys getting up and charging. And one of the Marines is not holding a gun.

He's holding a freaking axe. And he's charging. at the Chinese communists and assaults their position. And so that's what I want to put it on a T-shirt. A silhouette somehow of a crazy picture where you can tell that there is a Marine with an axe running down, assaulting a communist position, and all it's going to say is on that

is like Colder Than Hell podcast 53. That's it. You know, I want that T-shirt. Yeah, I agree that is actually Dave? Impressively awesome. That's a cool shirt. You should make that.

I agree. So anyway, yes. So, you know, stuff like that. Anyway, check it out if you want. That's on jocco store.com as well. Also, subscribe to the podcast. If you haven't already.

You don't, I mean, I don't know. Don't subscribe. Subscribe, right? That's a thing. It'd be cool if you subscribe. Yeah, that way you're listening to it. Yeah. So you're so we're making them.

Yeah. We're probably making them faster and you can listen to them, which is interesting. Awesome. Yeah. Yes, you are because you have, we have, jaco podcast. Yep. The unraveling podcast. Well, that's on a different thread now, by the way.

We moved it off to a different thread. Yeah. They were like, hey, you haven't unloaded an unraveling or whatever. Even though you said you did, here's a thing. It's a different thread. So you've got to look for it or whatever. So it's called the unraveling. It's actually called the Jocko unraveling podcast.

So search for Jocko unraveling and you'll find it. It's Daryl Cooper and me talking about me. I've been listening to them They're freaking legit. It's awesome. So check that one out. We also have the grounded podcast which we haven't recorded one in months You know because we've been on quarantine so we haven't had oh wait We haven't recorded ground grounded podcasts. So we'll knock on those and I know I owe warrior kid And I got warrior kid four coming out so we'll get some warrior kid ones done as well. We got a YouTube channel if you want to see echoes videos that he's super proud of where he makes a bunch of stuff blow up and whatever.

Or with airplanes. Whichever. Yeah, it's good. Also, the video version of this podcast, by the way. If you want to see what good deal, Dave Burke looks like. Yeah. Yeah. Nonetheless, yes, YouTube channel.

Good. You can subscribe to that. Yeah, subscribe to that one as well. Did you say we're like official or whatever on there? Official, yeah, we're, oh, yeah, yeah, they're like verified. Yeah. So, yeah, that's how you can tell that that's the, The real one.

So it's just Jocko podcast. Yeah, Jock podcast YouTube channel. All good. Boom. Also, psychological warfare. Debrief podcast? Did we say it? Oh, yeah, no, we didn't.

Okay, yes. Debrief podcast, Jocko and Dave Burke. Jocker's reading my notes. Yeah, well, I can see, you know, I see you write something. I'm like, oh, wait a second. We got another podcast, but it comes out on this thread. We haven't broken it out yet onto another thread. I don't know if we will.

Maybe, maybe not. We'll see what happens. But anyways, it's really, it's us talking about what we do at Eschalon front working with clients. And it's just all, it's like 100% leadership, right? It's a leadership injection directly into your veins. There's no, there's no books to be read. They're shorter, they're like half an hour, 45 minutes.

Yeah. Would you call it like a case analysis kind of situation? Some of them are case analysis. Some are just lessons learned. Oh yeah. Feel, you know what it's like, it's like some of those books that I've covered, actually I've been covered them recently, those direct reports from combat from World War II.

They're like, this is an interview. We want to get this information to the troops as quickly as possible. That's what the debrief. It's a freaking debrief. It's Dave and I debriefing what we do on a daily basis to help companies and help leaders lead their companies. So that's the debrief podcast is. Also, psychological warfare. It's an album with tracks, Zocco, getting, helping you pass your moments of weakness,

in whatever capacity that you might run into moments of weakness. Flipside Canvas, Dakota Myers company, making cool stuff to hang on your walls that will keep you on the path, written a bunch of books, and got a bunch of books. We got a book called About Face. I wrote the forward for that. It's by Hackworth, this whole series of whatever we just did, six podcasts about guidelines for the leader and commander. I found that through About Face, which is my favorite book, which I wrote the forward to.

So you can check that out. Leadership Strategy and Tactics Field Manual. We got the code, the evaluation, the protocols. We got the new edition of the Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual. This is the Christmas New Year's gift book. This is what your people want. Wrong? Am I right?

You're correct. I'm correct. A bunch of new material in there. It's like something like 40 new pages in there. And if someone you know wants to get on the path, back on the path, needs to get on the path. If you want to stay on the path, get them that new version of the Discipline equals Freedom Field Manual. Got way of the warrior kid for Field Manual coming out. How the kids like it.

Dave. My kids are so stoked on that. That's one little section that they really like. Oh, right on. Right on. That's good. There's, let's just say there's layers in the book. Layers.

We'll say that there's layers. So, Way the Warrior Kid Forefield Manual. Young Mark meets a kid, like last day of school. The kid wants to be a warrior kid, but he's leaving. He hasn't said anything because he's shy. He comes up and says, oh, Mark, I really wanted to hang out with you and your friends and be a warrior kid. you, but I'm leaving, I'm moving. And so Mark goes home, last day of school. Now Uncle Jake's there. And he says, oh, you know, I met this kid. He wanted to be a warrior kid, but I can't help him.

And Uncle Jake, of course, says, yes, you can. You got to write him a field manual. What's that? It's instructions on how to be a warrior kid. So that's what the book is. Way the Warrior Kid for. Field Manual. Don't forget about Warrior Kid, Way the Warrior Kid, One, Two, and Three. Don't forget about Mikey and the Dragons. And of course, don't forget about extreme ownership and the dichotomy of leadership. Don't forget that I have a consulting company. Leadership consultancy, we solve problems through leadership. Whatever problems you have in your organization, it's a leadership problem. And what we do is we solve those problems through leadership. Go to ashlinefront.com for details. Go to EF online. If you want to ask me a question, if you want to ask Dave a question,

live, we will be sitting there answering your questions. If you want to go deeper on the materials that we talk about. We have video courses on there. So check out eFonline.com. We only have one muster in 2020. It's in Dallas, Texas, December 3rd and 4th. Go to extreme ownership.com for details. This is our leadership conference where we get granular, where we interact, where we explain these principles so you can take them and make your business and your life better. We have EF EFoverwatch.com, if you need executive leadership inside your company, you need middle management inside your company, you want people that understand the principles that we talk about here. Go to EFoverwatch.com.

And if you want to help service members, if you want to help active duty people, you want to help retired people, you want to help their families, you want to help Gold Star families around the world, then check out Mark Lee's mom's charity organization. Mama Lee, she has an organization called America's Mighty Warriors.org. You can check that out if you want to donate. or if you want to get involved. And if you, let's say you want more pain. You just want more pain, we can deliver.

You can get more of my distressing diatribes. You can get more of Echo's misplaced monologues, and obviously you can get some more of Dave's concentrated confabulations. You can find us on the interwebs on Twitter, on Instagram, which Echo will only refer to as the Graham. And on that face, Dave is at David R. Burke, Echo is at Echo Charles, and I am at Jock-Willink.

And thanks to General Bruce Clark and Colonel David Hackworth for passing these lessons on to us. And for your service to this great nation and to everyone out there in uniform, thank you for standing the watch and for keeping us safe and also to police and law enforcement

and firefighters and paramedics and EMTs and dispatchers and correctional officers and Border Patrol and Secret Service. Thanks to all of you for standing the watch here at home. And everyone else out there, remember this one thing from General Bruce C. Clark. An hour lost today is an hour lost forever. Don't waste time.

It is running out. And with that, until next time, this is Dave and Echo and Jocko. Out.