Jocko Podcast - 264: PAY ATTENTION. You're Competing All The Time. MCDP 1-4: Competing, with Dave Berke

Episode Date: January 13, 2021

0:00:00 - Opening0:05:00 - MCDP 1-4: Competing1:52:19 - Final Thoughts and Take-Aways.2:00:08 - How to stay on THE PATH.2:17:35 - Closing GratitudeSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 264 with Echo Charles and me, Jocco Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. And also joining us tonight is Dave Burke. Good evening, Dave. Good evening. So why is Dave Burke joining us? Well, there could be a multitude of reasons.

But one of my favorite reasons is when the Marine Corps releases a new doctrinal publication, which they just did. It came out on December 16th, 2020. And as soon as it came out, I sent Dave. a text and said hey there's a new pub out and he texted me back tell me when we're recording a podcast on it so here we are now you're gonna see as we dive into this that if you know the way broadly you see it in all things and there was a subcontext of this manual that came to my mind almost as soon as I started

reading it but I couldn't quite put my finger on it And it took me about 10 pages deep before I realized what this thing was floating around in my head. And what I was seeing underneath the surface, which this publication, Marine Corps Docturnal Publication, One TAC 4, the title of it is, competing. But there's something just underneath the surface of competing that I saw throughout. And I saw it almost immediately, but it took me a little long. than I would have liked to identify, which is a bummer, but it happened. So what was I seeing underneath competing?

What I was seeing was influencing. And as soon as I identified that correlation, I kept seeing it. And we'll share it with you today. Not just the aspects of competing with others, but how this continuum of competition reflects the continuum of influence. And of course, if you better understand both of them,

you will be able to do both of these things better. You'll not only get better at competing against your enemy or against your rival, but you'll also become better at leading, leading the teammates you have inside your own organization. So with that, let's get to it. The Marine Corps Doctrional Publication one tack for competing.

And it starts off with a forward. And in the forward, it says this, Western conceptions of the international struggle among nations and other political actors often use binary

war or peace labels to describe it. The actual truth is more complicated. So out of the gate, we're already getting somewhere. Out of the gate, we have to recognize that you can be competing

with someone, but you're not at war with them. and there's an infinite degree of gray area in there. And guess what? Right out of the gate. That's what struck me right out of the gate. Guess what? When you're influencing someone,

there's a whole degree of levels of pressure that you can exert to go from influencing. Because let's face it, if I put a gun to your head, is that influence? Yes. Yes, it is. So influence and competing very, very similar. Continuing on, actors on the world stage are always trying to create a relative advantage for themselves and for their group. Sometimes this maneuvering leads to violence.

But the use of violence to achieve goals is more often the exception than the rule. Now, here's where this again, if I'm trying to influence Echo Charles, there's levels of influence. Could one of those levels be a double-leg takedown and ground and pound? Yes, it could. How often does that happen? I mean, how often do people physically fight? Not very often. When you think of all the human interactions that we have,

where we're trying to influence each other or trying to compete with each other. See, it's a weird thing, though, because on the one side you've got competition, on the other side you've got influence, and the continuum of how you apply these pressures are all over the place. So it continues on.

Instead, most actors use other means in their competitive interactions, right, to achieve their goals. So we're not looking to go to war. The competition continuum encompasses all of these efforts, including the use of violence. Okay. So there you go.

Continues on. And by the way, this idea of competitive interactions and influence interactions, this is what's happening. This is what is happening, right? When we're interacting, so many of the interactions that we have with people are either competitive or their influence. We're constantly trying to get someone to do something, get someone to come on our side, get someone to give us the support that we need, get them to move in this direction.

That's what people are doing. Continuing on, there are several reasons for explaining the competition continuum to Marines. The first is to make them aware that from recruitment to retirement, they are. an integral part of the nation's strategic competition with other actors. Marines are always competing even when they are not fighting in combat. So this is something to think about as a person. As a leader, as a leader, you're always influencing. Even when you're not standing up in front of the troops giving a speech about where you're going or what the strategic, even then, even when you're sitting down to each chow, guess what you're doing? You're influencing.

You're competing. This is always happening. Then it rolls into this. When you understand those things, it says next, understanding unleashes creativity. The Marine Corps coming at you with unleashing creativity. Right? When you go to art school,

do you think they say, well, listen, the goal of this art school is to get you to unleash your creativity? No, the Marine Corps will say that. And isn't it interesting? We're two paragraphs in, and we're talking about the creative aspects of competition, and then hand in hand with that, the creative aspects of influence. Carrying on. Once Marines understand the nature and form of competition, their innovative spirit will lead

to the development of new kinds of competitive advantages. Finally, this publication expands the discussion on how and where Marines fit into the continuum and where to look for their natural partners in competition. By design, this is a small book with a construction that parallels Marine Corps Docturnal Publication One, Warfighting, which is one of the first publications we covered on this podcast. It is not intended as a reference manual, but it is designed to be read from cover to cover. This publication does not contain specific techniques or procedures we should adopt. Rather, it provides broad guidance in the form of concepts with illustrations intended to stimulate thinking

and encourage additional learning. It requires judgment in application. This is the way I like to learn. This is the way I like to teach. And the really easy thing to talk about is Jiu-Jitsu, right? You want to be able to teach you. The advantage of this broad position is this. The thing you need to do when you're in this situation broadly

is when this underhook, whatever the thing is. And that's what this book is. It's not like, hey, here's, in this situation, it's not formulaic. Continuing on, we live in a time of renewed great power competition in the era of exponential, technological, and social change. Marines enjoy a rich heritage of advancing our nation's interest in these kinds of struggles. As we look to the future, we must ensure today's and tomorrow's Marines do the same. Like maneuver warfare. And just that statement followed by anything kind of warm.

my heart like maneuver warfare competing is a way of thinking it's a way of thinking and man Dave I kind of went berserk on like decentralized command as a way of thinking not too long ago right I mean I went on EF online I would spent two or three days of the of the sessions talking about decentralized command as a way of thinking and it's so interesting how much that changes your perspective about something when you think of it not in a linear way like oh this is what you're going to do but this is the entire way of thinking it's like saying oh when you fight someone you can get them to the ground and you can grapple with them instead of punching them that's just a whole new way of thinking you don't even know one

single move about it but you know this idea that you can then utilize we must understand the importance of strategic competition and the essential role Marines play in it for our nation. I missed this line. It says we all need to read, study, and debate this publication with our fellow Marines. You chimed in on that one, didn't you, Dave? Yeah. What do you like about that?

I like the explanation of this. I went through the same thing initially when I was kind of looking at this. There was parts of it that I was thinking it was going to be like war fighting. but it had this kind of intellectual, this thought process thing, this idea that what he's saying, the guy in charge of the Marine Corps, you need to go out there and debate this

and think about this, and he's using words like creativity and intellect. Those are not the words you would normally think of when you think of the Marine Corps, creativity, intellectual, and debate. Those are just not the things you'd think of, and those are things he's saying that you need to do. And what I really like about it is we think of the Marine Corps,

we think of the military in general, and then we think of the Marine Corps, of course of being this hierarchy that is just as strict as you can imagine. And here's a document and General David H. Berger to commandant of the Marine Corps is saying the purpose of this document is to make you debate. Not to just obey what it says, but to make you debate. We want you to think. And that's a beautiful thing.

So there we are. We are now done with the forward. Let's get into what the book actually says. is. The nature of competition, chapter one. Total war and perfect peace rarely exist in practice. Instead, they are the extremes between which exist the relations among most political groups. This range includes routine economic competition, more or less permanent political or ideological tension, and occasional crisis among groups.

So what's that? That's from war fighting, the Marine Corps manual. number one. And by the way, these things that we're talking about, tensions, competition, not violent competition, but just competition. Where do those things exist? They exist. Sure, they exist between countries, but guess where else they exist? They exist between companies, and guess where else they exist? Between departments inside of companies, and guess where they exist? Between people inside of departments, inside of companies. Inside your family, there's competition going on.

These words from the Marine Corps' warfighting philosophy frame the idea of competition for Marines. They also serve as a springboard for Marines to think about how they can contribute to winning the nation's competitions, including the ones taking place below the threshold of violence, which, by the way, is 99.999% of competitions. Violence is rare. And when we get into influence, look, it's almost cheesy for me to talk about influence of like, well, I could put, if I put a gun to your head or I beat you with a baseball bat to get you to do what I want you to do, right? That's, that's a rare form of influence that doesn't happen all the time. But there's a threat, there is a threshold of violence.

And I think as we talk about it, and I haven't fully, I haven't fully hashed out these ideas in my head. But there's a transition time when it when you're influencing. There's a transition time when you go from indirect to direct form of influencing. There's a transition that you cross. And it's not quite a threshold of violence, but there's a there's a transition that takes place. And I think we'll find some comparisons to it in here. But I think about that all the time. How much at what point do you go from indirect to direct?

And it's funny, we, we had somebody on EF online the other day. and this type of question came up. But what I was explaining was the the escalation of counseling, right? And you start off by saying, hey, bro, are you good? You know, are you okay? And then it goes to like, hey, this is a problem. And they goes, hey, I'm going to write you up. And then you get written up.

And then you fire somebody if you have to. And I'm sitting there talking. I go, you know how many times in my life I made it past the lowest level of escalation of counseling? The times that I said, hey Dave, it doesn't look like the gear was ready in time. And Dave was like, sorry, we, we lay, blah, blah, blah. And it never happens again. That's 97%.

There's another 2% where it was like, hey, bro, that's the second time we almost missed our movement because the gear wasn't ready. Do you need help? No, I got it. And it never happens again. That's another 2%. Now we're at 99%. There's another point whatever percent where I actually had to write somebody up and there's 0.0 whatever. where I had to take, you know, action to fire somebody or get rid of them.

The same thing as you go through this escalation of war. You should be able to get people to do what you want them to do through non-war without breaking the threshold of violence. Continuing on, competition happens constantly in many forms amongst nations of the world and diplomatic, informational, military, and economic arenas. Rivals often challenge each other. in one of them while they cooperate in a different one. Oh, that's good to know, isn't it? Isn't it good to know that we can be competing in one thing

and cooperating in something else simultaneously? Competitors include a wide range of political actors, from nation states to groups organized around a single cause. While the discussion below will often refer to state versus state rivalries, in most cases the ideas apply equally to challenges with non-state actors, competition in various forms among various different actors is the norm in international relations. So that's great that they're talking about international relations. And we're talking about these.

I keep throwing all these percentages out today. Is that a good thing? I don't think it's a good thing. It's a little questionable. Is anyone going to be able to check me on my 97% facts? No. All right. Well, I'm going to estimate that a vast majority of people that are listening to this podcast

are not engaged. at a policy level with interstate rivalries. So what's important to recognize is that everything that we're talking about doesn't only apply to this country versus that country. It applies everywhere. Continuing on, the Marine Corps participates in the competitions of the United States in many ways. Foremost among them is to fight and win our nation's battles and be ready to do so at all times. And then it says this, war itself is a special kind of competition.

which is a classic line, right? To say that war itself is a special kind of competition, we salute the Marine Corps for that statement because it certainly is a special type of competition. How it fits in the overall continuum will be explored in detail. The very existence of the Marine Corps is a competitive act.

As it signals to potential rivals that there are vital interests, our nations will go to war to protect, and that those of a maritime nature are important enough that we have invested in a dedicated naval expeditionary force to protect them. So that's a big statement. And one thing that I love about this entire manual,

is this entire manual written by the Marine Corps. And I just want you to pay attention to this. And you kind of have to know what's going on between all the different services. You've got the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard. And all of them are in competition at all times. And not just, hey, our planes are better than yours, and our pilots are better.

No, not that competent. They're competing for money. For money. And so, I hate to do this to Marine Corps because I do love the Marine Corps, but there are so many maneuvers in this book that if you read it, you go, well, we better take care of the Marine Corps. We better give them a little edge. That's one of those lines right there.

Vital interest in our nation. Just in case you care about the ocean, you might want a Marine Corps. You might want a Marine Corps. They get that in there. But what's interesting about this is the very existence of the Marine Corps is a competitive act. So how many things do you do or have or say that just being there is a competitive act go? To your point, I mean, look, I think it's cool. The Marine Corps wrote this. I'm stoked that it's a Marine Corps pub. I was a Marine. But just like what you said, you could

change the words Marine Corps. You could put any word you want in there, the existence of the military. You just made a connection to family, this idea of competition. So when I was looking at this at first, not knowing what to expect, the connection that I was making of when they're talking about competing. The first thing is competition doesn't have to be a bad thing. That word shouldn't mean, oh, that means conflict and we're fighting. That isn't what it means. And it doesn't have to be about two nations going to war.

It doesn't even have to be about the Marine Corps. And the fact that Marine Corps wrote it is cool. That's not the point. And something else that you've been talking about a lot lately, and I've been, I've been stealing it, you've been talking a lot about a line. And when there's conflict in an organization, we see this at companies we work with all the time. What you need to do is find alignment. And the thing I was just thinking in that first couple of sentences is competition.

The more aligned you and I are, the healthier the competition is, meaning the less likely the outcome is going to be some sort of conflict or a fight. If we're aligned, really aligned, we might be competing all the time just to make each other better, just to do a better job for our clients, whatever it is. And the likelihood of you and I competing, and we might be competing every day, the likelihood of you and I competing turning it into a conflict is almost zero. Now, if we are highly misaligned, misaligned, then that competition has the potential of the outcome being much different. But competition by itself, where it applies and what it means, five minutes into what you're talking family. So there's a connection here that is way deeper than at first couple of sentences at face values. I'm looking, oh, the Marine Corps pub on competition is going to be cool.

there's a lot more to it. It doesn't have to be about the Marine Corps as you're listening to it either. Yeah, one of the notes that I took down early on it, where I started talking about 99%, the note that I took down when I was reading it for the first time

was 99% of the time you don't have to resort to violence because you can find alignment. Because as long as you can find, and you've heard me say that on EF online. If you can find alignment, well then we can, we can, work together. If you and I are aligned, if you and I are not aligned on 48 different things

that are lower level things, but we're aligned at the most important thing, we're good. We're good. And the example of that what I bring up with companies is, hey, you know, Jocko and Dave can't get along. Oh, okay. Well, they can't get along about what. Well, Dave wants to invest in that. Jock wants to invest in that. Dave wants to move here. Jock wants to move there. Okay, so they can't get along. Okay, well, let's ask this question. Do Dave and Jocko who work at the same company. Do they want the company to make money? Yes. Do they want to be able to serve their customers? Yes. If we can get aligned on those things, then the rest of it is just figuring out the details. And if you do what you were just talking about, the more you think in decentralized

command, the more you think in commanders intent, the more you think strategically, the less you care about those details. You go, oh, wait. Oh, you want the same thing? Dude, go do whatever you want. Let me know how I can help. Because then I think, oh, none of those details matter. at all because you want what I want. And if I can just check my ego and go, oh, oh, you know what? Dude, yeah, go do that. Can I back you up? Give me a call if I can help you.

The competition part or the conflict part goes away. And it allows you to accomplish so many more things if you think in decentralized command rather than just the action of, oh, well, I'm a leader. I have to push some decisions down to my next layer down. That's the actions of decentralized command. You were talking about thinking a decentralized command. That's what lets you not worry about all those details. Yeah.

And by the way, if I want Dave to be at point A and I know that Dave knows to go to point A, I don't care how he gets there. But what's important is that allows me to look forward, to look to the next point, to look to point B or C or D. Because I'm not worried about how Dave's going to get there. He's going to get there. And if he needs some help, he knows to call me. Cool. No factor.

The capabilities, the Marine Corps. Corps generates in preparation for battle are also competitive as these capabilities are what deter a potential rival from selecting a course of action above the threshold of violence so what they're saying there what the United States Marine Corps is saying there is even if you want peace more than anything else you better have a Marine Corps you better have a Marine Corps to deter provincial potential rival from selecting a course of action that's violent if you want peace you better have a Marine Corps are they going to be mad at me for deciphering all this go easy God bless them. The Marine Corps, however, does not win our nation's competitions alone.

In fact, the Marine Corps is most likely to support or contribute to advancing U.S. interests as a part of a much larger competitive strategy. The Marine Corps can do a great deal to help the United States compete successfully, but it will do so as part of a larger national effort. That extends well beyond military instruments of national power. So the Marine Corps has to cover and move with all the other elements of the military. We're team players. Yeah, not just the military, but the State Department and the economy and everything else.

The Marine Corps, despite looking up for themselves a little bit with this man, well, they are team players. From recruitment to retirement, Marines have the potential to help the nation compete successfully in many ways. It starts with the right mindset, one that recognizes Marine Corps' top priorities to win battles. While also recognizing that war and warfare are segments of a larger spectrum known as the competition continuum. Marines need to be clear-eyed about this spectrum. Even when the Marines are not at war, in one of its many forms, in one of its many forms, they are still in a state of competition.

While demonstrating the ability to fight and win wars is crucial for deterrence, a successful foreign policy will avoid wars, especially against great power rivals whenever possible. Great. Competition continuum. This whole thing, it escalates. Competition is a fundamental aspect of international relations

as state and non-state actors seek to protect and advance their own interests they continually compete for the advantage. Okay, so that's what everyone is doing. Am I paranoid? I might be. I might be. I might be a little bit paranoid.

People are competing. People are maneuvering. And that's what we're doing, right? That's what that other company is doing. That's what that other department is doing. That's what that other country is doing. They're maneuvering. What are they doing that for?

They're doing it to further their own interest. Now, going back to the idea of alignment, this also falls into agendas, right? Because if Dave is trying to make some maneuver inside of our company and I'm trying to make some maneuver inside of our company, as long as those maneuvers still get us to the point we want to go to, I don't care. We're good with it. We're good with it. We're fine. So people trying to advance their own interests most of the time is fine.

as long as they're not undercutting the strategic goals that we have. They're always competing. They're always making that little move. Some people a little bit more obvious than others. And here's what you got to watch out for. What you got to watch out for is when people have an agenda that helps them, but it doesn't move you in your strategic direction. That's what you're watching out for.

What you're watching out for is when Dave and his department, hey, it's great. When Dave and his department are trying to get money so they can get more fun so they can hire more people so they can grow so they can get bigger production and they can move us toward the strategic goal of growing our business. That's all good. Dave is literally competing to get more money for his department so he can grow his department which will help him create more income so our whole business moves for it.

That's great. But there's a chance that Dave wants to, you know, set up a, he wants to set up an office and happens to be 0.2 miles down the road from his house. happens to me in a building that he owns, happens to want to charge a certain amount of rent. We don't need anything in that area, but he's doing it for himself. That's what we got to watch out for.

And I'll tell you, when you're making those maneuvers for yourself, everybody sees it. You think you're smart, you think you're getting away with it, you think no one notices, you think, oh, you know, I do own the building,

but it's really a great spot. Nobody believes you. Nobody believes you. So don't do. it don't do things for yourself interests that undermine and that there aren't aligned with the strategic goal whenever I get somebody that I can't figure out quite why they're doing what they're doing well Dave what do you mean why would explain to me why you want this building there again why you want to put an office there well I'm telling you there's a really a good

market and Dave we're already in that market we can control with this other area yeah but it's a you know I think it'd be really good for the company okay well tell me it would be good Well, you know, we could we could have some offices there. I don't know. I understand what you want to do. Why is it good? So when I can't when I can't understand Why it is you want to do something there's a chance I need to say wait a second is Dave doing this for some reason some agenda that is not for the good of the organization? Is he competing? Against what we're doing? Because that's a problem. And I'll see you do it every single time. And so will everybody else. It's so obvious, man.

It's so obvious. Nations and other political actors pursue their interests constantly and in a variety of ways. Competition results when the interest of one political group interact in some way with another group. These interactions take place in a dynamic environment. Each move an actor makes towards fulfilling an interest changes that ecosystem. Any interaction of interests changes the situation as well. So what does that mean? We've got to track that Oudaloup.

Right? Because every move you make or every move your competitor makes, makes everything a little bit different. Competitions are often labeled as zero sum or positive sum. Zero sum rivalry means that if one group achieves its goal, then the rival group cannot achieve its own. A good example of zero sum competition is when two nations struggle over the ownership of an island.

In most cases, only one of them can physically control it at a time. positive sum means that more than one group can make progress towards fulfilling interests or achieving goals at the same time. For example, two nations may compete economically, but both may see their gross domestic product increase simultaneously. That's what I think we commonly refer to as a win-win situation, which I love, which I love. I prefer. We don't want to do zero sum.

We want to say, oh, I don't want to do something to Dave's divinity. that shuts his division down. I want him to win and I want us, I'm me to win. It's fine. It's positive. Why is it positive? Why is it positive? It's positive because I'm not just thinking tactically.

I'm thinking strategically. And if what I do right now is burn Dave and burn his efforts to the ground, what is Dave going to do? In two years, in five years, or in 10 years, he's coming back. Now, are there times when you have to do scorch earth policy? Yes, there are. Most of the time, you don't have to. Most of the time, it's better to build than destroy.

Competition manifests itself in several ways, such as when one actor attempts to impose its will on the other. Another way is when one actor acts to frustrate another's plans, preventing them from achieving their goals. Think of when these little things happen to you. Think of when you feel that someone like, wait a second, why is Echo, wait, why is this another roadblock? Why hasn't he done this little task yet?

What's going on? Well, guess what? Sabotage is what's going on. Trying to frustrate the goals. Both of these mainly apply to zero-sum struggles. In a positive sum example, two economic rivals will try to best each other, like when they try to increase their market share in a particular industry at the expense of their rival while both of their economies grow.

So that's fine. Competition, especially at the nation-state level, is complex. and it is systemic. For example, auto manufacturers in the United States compete with rival companies. Isn't this interesting, Dave, as often as we talk to businesses? And I've often, well, I've not often, but I've talked about this before. What came first? The military learning from industry or industry learning from the military, because it goes back

and forth. It's like a continuous cycle. So here we are in the Marine Corps manual that they just released. And what do they use for an example? Not a war example. They use a business example. The Marine Corps uses a business example. For example, auto manufacturers in the United States compete with rival companies in the European Union and Japan, but this does not mean the U.S. government is also in direct competition with these governments, even though the auto manufacturers are based in their respective territories.

Indirectly, the auto manufacturers may lobby their governments, asking them to take actions that favor their company in the global competition for auto sales. The individual actors are intertwined and interact with each other in many. different ways. The details of this brief example are less important than it is for Marines to understand. So there's an example, but here's what you've got to understand. Strategic competition among international political actors is multi-layered and networked. Each competitor consists of many parts that interact in complex ways. As we see from these examples, competition and cooperation can coexist, and competition does not need to lead to conflict. To There's all so many factors at play.

And that's on a national level, but there's so many factors at play in the way you talk to someone else, the way you treat somebody else, and the facial expressions that you make. Now we get into the continuum. When I was at Trayette, training people. I would start off by giving them a problem

and then a little bit of space to work through that problem, then another problem, and then a little bit of space to work through, and physical space. Like, okay, there's a problem that's going to happen before you get to the tar. Then there's going to be a problem on target. Then there's going to be a problem as you leave the target. Then there's going to be a problem as you're at your extract point and so they're separated by time and space. So I remember Telling the leadership of this one task, you know, I said now I go that did you did a pretty good job

But what you're going to see happen now is I am going to compress the time space continuum that these problems occur Meaning they're going to occur at the same time in the same location and that causes problems. So the continue that we're talking about here this is no perfect model to use there is no perfect model to use in explaining the competition continuum the many feedback loops it contains make it very complex so models will omit some details however the models are useful because they help explain specific concepts and assist Marines in building their own visualization of the continuum so they have this basically a line on the one on the one far side is pure piece the other

their far side is total war. So it starts with pure peace. Then it goes to economic competition, classic diplomacy and geopolitics. So that's sort of like, hey, we're at peace, but oh, wait, we're not quite at peace anymore. Now we're moving to economic competition, maybe some classic diplomacy, some geopolitics.

And then you get into this area called political warfare. At the far end of economic competition is political warfare, meaning I'm putting tariffs on you. So now we're getting more aggressive. Then you get to this area called the gray zone, which is now maybe it's sanctions and now we're being really aggressive. Then you get to a hybrid war and then you get to the threat of violence and then you get to use of violence. There's a threshold. And once you get past the threshold of violence, you can go further right, which is conventional war.

Okay, we're going to go to war. We're going to have your tanks against my tanks and your airplanes against my plants. And then we get to total war, which is. whatever it takes to survive and win. No mercy of any kind. So that's a linear model of this. There's also a circular model that they have. And by the way, you can get this manual.

You can just go on the Google, you know, one tack four competing. And you'll find it. And you can download it and print it. What's up? What's an example of total war versus conventional war? Like which war was like a total war? The closest I would say we got is World War II. to total war.

To total war. But we were still, let's face it, we were still following the Geneva Convention. Right. But imagine if things were so bad that you just were just killed, just outright, just kill, destroy and chemical weapons

and just total war. I mean, in World War II, you know, we drop the atom bomb. That's freaking, that's just total war, right? You're killing everyone. Yeah. We firebombed Dresden.

250,000 civilians or 250,000 people, many civilians dead of an entire city destroyed, go Google Dresden before and after. I mean, it's not quite as shocking as Hiroshima Nagasaki before and after, but it's complete and utter devastation. It's as much devastation as we could possibly cause with the weapons we had at hand. Is there like a scenario where like one side is that total war? and the other side is like, hey, we're going to keep this kind of conventional. I mean, it kind of seems like, right? Like certain, we'll say groups, whether it be nations, whatever, have a certain philosophy. I would say that, yeah.

I mean, I think we'd, I don't know if we could get to where someone was at total war. I mean, I think the Japanese were pretty close. I think the Nazis were pretty close to total war. They would do whatever they, you know, they do whatever they could. But even, even, yeah, they, even they had. limits you know but I mean let's face it they were close they were close I mean Japan was doing their best to develop chemical and biological weapons that they could use that they were on that path and would if they had gotten them you think

they would have done it eh ha I'm gonna say affirmative so they might have been a total war you know you can see maybe look at some of these some of these non-state actors right I mean ISIS was ISIS at total They don't have they didn't have the capabilities or the means, but if they had the opportunity to just Kill indiscriminately kill as many people as they possibly could would they? Yeah, probably. Yeah, that's what I mean so like yeah, these groups like yeah, they don't have the physical capability, but that was their approach like that they in their mind in their Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the next thing was talking about a circular model circular model shows conflict above violence threshold and competition below it and they kind of go through these. One of the things it brings up here,

one of the actors could be deterred. So you might think you're going towards war, but then you get deterred. The threat of violence could have been sufficient. Leverage and other rivals decided, you know what? I don't want none of this. Tension recedes.

Negotiations of some kind may have succeeded, bringing the actors back from the threshold of violence. These are all things that think about a, for you as a bouncer, right? Think about as you approach a level of, like there's a threshold of violence where someone's taking a swing. Think about all the little things

that could happen that could de-escalate that. You know, maybe it's negotiation, hey, look, man, you just need to get out of here. Maybe it's, hey, we're calling the cops. How often does that one work? Pretty often, right? Yeah, there's a, when you, whatever, you go through this training.

And that's part of it, that whole thing, that escalation of force, right? And there's, like, many thresholds. You know, like first it's like straight up friendly. And the better. Are we going to get roadhouse quotes in here? Oh, yeah. Well, in roadhouse, they do kind of go over it a little bit.

That's what I'm saying. That's the starting the trading you went to, man. I'm having some like real positive flashbacks about or images of you and and what's his name? Bodie. Boathe. Oh, Bote's from point break. Yeah, which I respect by the way. So yeah.

Well, in a way, yeah. Because, okay, so Dalton, that wasn't really a training. That was more of a lecture. And that was a very specific philosophy, which was a very specific philosophy, which school. I dig it. Also, there's different philosophies in the I would say so, yes. In the continuum of violence.

It's where sponsors go, yes. Spectrum of the continuum. Yeah, fully. But each level has like a little threshold, like I said. But yes, the most prominent one is like, yeah. And it's kind of the same thing. It reflects that total war kind of situation where, you know, like let's go to that end part of the spectrum, right?

You go, like, total war is like, we don't have time for the police to cover. We got to act because this person is violent towards us or whatever. And then it's a straight up fight where you can expect like laws to be broken within that fight kind of thing. And then there's like one before where it's like, okay, we got to like put our hands on him. We got to whether it be restrained them or whatever. But we're not trying to be violent towards this person. We have to use what they used to call it the minimum force necessary.

I use that term all the time. Yeah. Minimum force required or minimum force necessary. Yeah, I mean, I think a more appropriate term would be, you know, we'll say an appropriate amount of force. Okay. You know, because the minimum, I don't know, there's just a lot of wiggle room for some stuff to not go right for us, you know, for the good guys. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, but that's like the conventional war kind of scenario, you know.

And by the way, you're telling the police that the minimum force was, the minimum force required was what was used. Yes. Even though you may have used the appropriate. for us. So there's maybe a little linguistics jujistu jihitsu happening because we want to, you know, we don't want to see echo Charles locked up

back in the day. No, you don't. But, I mean, it could be argued that they're the same thing, you know, where it's like an appropriate amount of force, meaning like you're not abusing this guy, no matter how much he's verbally, whatever, whatever, or whatever, drunk or whatever.

But yeah, it's, but there is that convention, those rules like, yeah, put your hands on them, use force, knock them out. if you have to, you know, you, like, you can do these kind of things, but you can't be just, like, violating all kinds of, you know, situation. Because it's not total war. It's not total war. There's a line in here.

It says there are many possibilities on how rivals can turn away from the violence threshold and return to steady state competition. And I made a note here for myself that crossing that line is almost always attacked. move a tactical meaning it is an immediate it's solving this immediate problem but it is seldom a strategic move because think about it when if you're in the street and you get into a fight you want to do everything you can to avoid that fight and if you have to engage in that fight it's almost guaranteed to be a tactical win and a strategic loss now you got to go to jail now you got to pay this guy money now you got to get arrested now you got cuts on

your hands you got all these little problems and it will have been infinitely better to have just said, you know what, this guy's not worth it or whatever, you walk away. From a leadership perspective, it is almost always, almost always, if you cross, if you cross the line and there's some gap, but indirect, when you go from indirect influence to direct, it's almost always a tag, it might be a tact to win. It's going to be a strategic loss. So the minute I say, you know what, Dave, I'm not talking about this anymore. Here's what you're going to do. That's almost guaranteed to be a tactical win because you're going to go and execute whatever I told you to do.

But guess what? Strategically, I just took a step back. I took a strategic hit. I'm not saying I can't recover from it, but strategically it's a negative. So we have to be careful of that. It says here we also see that sometimes the threshold is crossed for a short time only to jump back down into a state of competition below the violence threshold. That's great. Just as described above, note that deterrence is not the only thing that causes a movement in this model.

A competitor could also move below the violence threshold again if he achieves its goals, negotiated a bargain. A thoughtful review of this model shows it as many uses. So always look to not cross that threshold into violence or into direct orders if you're in a leadership position. You use direct orders. You use your rank to influence bad. However, make no mistake that the above models simply offer us different views to consider, and this is the circulator and the linear model, they offer different views on how to consider as we study strategic competition. All of the terms we use, including conflict, competition, violence, and even war are part of an organic whole. All of these terms reside on a single continuum that describes the relationship between and among states in international relations.

But it's not just states. I just have to remind you this. It's different divisions inside your company. It's different personalities inside your team. There's all these levels on this continuum. These political actors use activities at various points in the continuum to advance their interests and also to set conditions to make it easier for them to achieve their interest in the future. This behavior is like a judo competition.

When a competitor constantly tries to put the opponent off balance, sometimes through the application of violence, sometimes by moving a position of advantage, or moving to a position of advantage. War itself is an integral part of this continuum. So that's judo, right? Every move is not war. Every move is a setup. They're a little setup here, and then you're looking for that. He's po. Here is some of the work of the State Department's George F. Kenan following World War II. Kenan was the author of the famous long telegram that described the nature of the Soviet Union and alerted decision makers to the emerging Cold War and the need for the U.S. government

to organize itself for political warfare. And here's what he wrote. Political warfare is the logical application of Klaus Schwitz doctrine in a time of peace. In broadest definition, political warfare is the employment of, of all means of a nation's command, at a nation's command short of war, to achieve its national objectives. That's George Kennan, that's what he wrote.

And it says, these opening word to Kenan's paper were directed to the National Security Council. The paper advocated for both overt and covert means to compete internationally short of using violence. In the Cold War struggle that was just beginning, Kennan stated that the United States was handicapped by a belief, and this is why I had to include this part.

Because this is a mistake that we make as people. Kenan stated that the United States was handicapped by a belief that there was, that there is a basic difference between war and peace. To view war as a sort of sporting contest outside the political context. So in America, we just look like you're either at war or you're not.

He's like, no, you're competing all the time. His work to help decision makers understand ideas like political warfare, which then helped the United States build the capability successful to compete in the Cold War. Yeah, you're going to need more than tanks and planes if you're going to win. Yeah, and there's a whole thing that's happening. And it's happening. It's happening all the time.

Yeah, it's happening all the time. So when you're in a leadership position, guess what? There is an infinite number of things that you need to be ready to do and doing to lead besides war, is shut up and do what I told you to do. Kennan's diagnosis of the competition significantly shaped the way it unfolded across the whole of the United States government in the decades that followed. This highlights two important points for Marines. The first is the importance of accurately identifying the nature of the competition one faces.

Imagine that. Accurately identifying the nature of competition one faces. You know, Dave caught me on the end of a call with a client. And I was like, we need to be at war. And I guess I always refer to my clients as we. You know, whenever I'm talking to one of our clients, it's we. It's us. Totally.

Like, we are at war with you. I said, we got to go to war with them, but we don't want them to know it. So that means there's not going to be any overt action. It's all going to be covert. Here's some methodology that we can do that. We went through some of these ways that we could go to war without going to war. Ways that we could compete without going to war. That way it is understood.

The way that is understood will affect the choices made in how to pursue the competition. An accurate appreciation will increase the chances for success. Marines have an important but supporting role in strategic competition. This shapes the way we approach our competitive efforts. So now we get into this section. Did you have something on that? I'm just thinking, you know, making the connection to the conversations we have with our clients or even just in any leadership role. How often does my ego let me jump to the conclusion?

If you're doing something different than what I'm doing, that's a problem. And I've got to attack it like it's a problem. And I got to treat you like now we're competitors as opposed to, hey, you know what? I need to, what is it? I need to accurately identify the nature of this situation, which means I got to look at it and go, oh, hang on. Why is Jocko making this move? Why is he doing that? And if I can figure that out, if there actually is the situation that you're at the same company,

more often than not, there's going to be a positive reason for that. I just got to figure that out. Or I can just say, oh, that's not what I would have done. Let's fight. And then we can compete with each other and go at each other. And the ability, the need to be able to strategically understand what is really going on and how often your ego gets in the way go, oh, well, that's a problem. Janko's doing this.

That's a problem. And now we're fighting. Now we're competing and now we're going at each other. Instead of me just taking a little step back and go, hey, hey, help. This movie just made the help me understand that. Oh yeah, I did this for these couple reasons. Oh, okay, good to go. So we're actually not competing here.

We're on the same page. That is a, when we talk about people ask us questions all the time about, I'm having this problem, this person, that person, it almost always comes back to, well, what is it that's really going on? And you talk about climbing up the ladder of alignment. Can you just find where what he's doing, what you're doing, actually achieve the same end? Or at least are heading in the same direction. Yeah, something that it's not automatically immediately a person.

problem that you got to now go to war over. Next section, and again, my salute to the Marine Corps for just even having this thought, war is a special kind of competition. That's the name of this section. Our war fighting philosophy informs us that war is a violent clash of interest between or among organized groups characterized by the use of military force. War is fundamentally an interactive social process. Hold on.

I've been studying war for a long time. I've never really thought of it as a fundamentally interactive social process, but I guess we'll go with it. Its essence is a violent struggle between two hostile, independent, and irreconcilable wills, each trying to impose itself on the other. That I agree with. That, to me, is not really an interactive social process. That's a freaking scrap. War. So what am I missing there?

I guess what I'm missing there is that there is this aspect that you need to have two elements that are that are interacting to have this to have a war take place I mean it takes two to tango right I guess I'm just picturing who of the six authors that got locked in a room to write this pub which who who is the guy that got that held onto that line who was like no no no no Really? I'm telling you. It's an interactive social process and the other five are like fine Dude, dude, just put it in there or whatever dude. Yeah. Wait, did Colonel Pogue get his get his Pause on this thing? I don't know. Well, who knows? Maybe they'll revise it. Maybe someone will explain it to me because because you can tell look, when you read these Marine Corps field manuals They're so well written. They're so clean. They don't leave things in there that aren't there in there for a reason. That's why I question myself here. I don't know what I'm missing

but at a minimum, it's a strange way to describe war as an interactive social process. But we'll go with it. War's character can take many forms from using military force to simply restore order during disaster relief operations to completely overturning the existing order within a society. War resides on the competition continuum above the threshold of violence. From a military perspective, we also call the points along this. scale above the threshold, various forms of armed conflict. There are many descriptors of the form that war takes, such as insurgency, hybrid, conventional. When we think of competition and war, the main points are to acknowledge that war is a political

act that uses violence to achieve its aims, but is also part of a spectrum of other competitive acts that do not use violence. Okay. So war isn't just what's happening on the battlefield. It's everything else as well. In the circular model of competition, conflict feeds back into competition. War sets the conditions for the character of the competition that follows it. War is like a violent move in a judo contest.

Its use can put a competitor into an advantageous position relative to the opponent. Okay. Those things are pretty straightforward. Obviously, I had a judo player in the room, one of the six people that wrote this thing. Competition contains Competition contains many of the same attributes as war. Ambiguity. Ambiguity, sorry.

Ambiguity. Competition contains many of the same attributes as war. Isn't that interesting? Ambiguity, just like in war, ambiguity seems to be everywhere we turn in competition. And I just did kind of win off on EF online about the fact that we don't know what's going to happen.

There's ambiguity and everything, and yet people will, people will just dig in. And Dave says, hey, we should attack from the West. And I say, no, we should attack from the North. We don't know where the enemy is. Why am I so hostile towards Dave? Because he wants to attack from the West and I want to attack from the North. I have no idea where the enemy is going to be. Why am I digging in on that?

Because I'm an idiot and I'll let my ego run it. As noted, two groups may try to best each other in one area while they cooperate in another, which can make the nature of the relationship between them unclear. The differences among rivals often clouds the pictures as well. If the interests of two groups collide but the interests of the first group are vital, while those of the second group are a lower priority, there will be a mismatch between how the two groups view the competition. First thing about the difference is cloud the picture for sure,

and that's why we always want to understand what someone else's perspective is because otherwise we're looking at two different things and we can't comprehend how to come to some kind of a solution. And then this is an interesting one. And it's something you need to pay attention to as a leader. You know, someone comes to you and says, hey, we really want to do this. And to you, you're like, ah, it's a point zero, zero,

it's a rounding error on our bottom line. Whatever. We don't need to do that. But man, for whatever group that is, that might be the highest priority thing they've got and you're just throwing it away. So pay attention to what the priorities are and what priorities seem to you might be different.

And not just the priorities, the importance. How do you say that word? Importance, he said it correctly. Okay, the importance of the way somebody feels the level of some element is. I think something super important in Echo doesn't think it's a big deal. we're going to have a hard time communicating and coming to a good resolution that makes sense to both of us.

If he can understand, oh, this is really important to Jockle because of these things. Okay, got it. Dave, Dave comes to me. It's critical that we get this office building up in this area. Why is that so important to Dave? Oh, because Dave lives two blocks away. Oh, cool. Got it.

At least I understand that. But it could be that Dave has some big project that he's a company that's going to come on board and blah, blah, blah. Then you could have a really important reason. And if I don't understand that or see that, we're not going to be able to connect and figure things out. You talk about that with kids all the time. When kids will come to you with a problem, it'll sound like the end of the world.

You're looking at them like, dude, this is no big deal. But actually to them, it's a huge deal. And the connection you can actually make is just understanding, oh, I got it. This is a big deal to you. Let me understand a little bit better. No big deal.

We can sort it out. But you make that connection, even at that level all the time. At that level, they say, this is the end of the world for me. And in your mind, like, you're not going to remember this in two months. Yeah.

You know, it's weird as we talk about kids. That includes people that are 32 years old. That includes people that are 27 years old, right? When your world's falling apart, you have to understand how important things are to people. And that's what this is talking about. What's a rounding error? It seemed like a small thing, but what is that? Around the end.

That's like, let's say, let's say Echo Charles was making $400 million a year. And as they calculate all the money, there's $200,000. And they're like, oh, whatever. Like, it's just a little rounding here. It's a little tiny bit of money in the big scheme of things. All right. So if you came to me, you're like, hey, I really want to, you know, I really want some more money for this.

And I'm like, whatever, it's a rounding year. We're not doing that. And you're mad. But it's something that was very important to you. Right. Or important. My team's entire annual budget, $200, grant. And my entire six-month project is on this.

You're like, whatever. I can't even count that low. And you just dismiss it like it's useless and I'm over here thinking, bro, this is my whole thing. And you just don't be that guy. Don't care. Sometimes the scale of two rivals are so different it leads to ambiguity. For example, it took many years of the 1990s for the United States to conclude it wasn't a struggle with Al Qaeda, even as the competition bounced above and below the threshold of violence. Rivals often use or create ambiguity to cloak their actions.

they do this intentionally to obscure their aims until it's too late for their competitors to react effectively. They want to use ambiguous acts to cause indecision, confusion, and hesitation. That is going on all the time with people that you work with, with your wife, with your husband.

You know, it's like, oh, where are you going? I'm just going to head out. Like there's all these little ambiguous responses that happened And then the next thing you know you look up and it's like wait a second Where do we get this new car from? Oh, I thought you said when you needed it I didn't say anything about that

I told you I was heading out Yeah, I told you I was heading out So and I must say Ambiguous acts are good to recognize They're also good to utilize in you know Put that in your toolbox. And if you're a leader, too, you see those words indecision, confusion, hesitation. If you're a leader, those are problems.

Those are not good things for you. And you or your people are dealing with those. You got to, those are the things you have to address and fix and clarify. I suppose it's like, okay. And then things start to get away from you and people are operating. They don't know what's going on. I like it when I catch somebody. we're going to catch somebody

trying to throw some ambiguity at me and big word and blah blah blah and figures and blah and then also you just let him do it and then right when I let them do it I usually I usually give them like a like I give them enough time

maybe even maybe even another two three four minutes maybe even seven minutes of discussion about something else but you ever see me on like when I'm doing a Zoom meeting and I was have a pad right next to me. You know, I'll be writing something down and I'll be right, you know, whatever. I'll write down a note about what Dave said.

And then when he ambiguously threw in there and then seven minutes later, he thinks he's clean. Right. Yeah. He thinks he's got away with it. And I go, hey, when you said earlier, what did you mean by this? And it's such a good thing to give them a little bit of time because then it catches them off guard.

And they're not ready for it. If you ask them immediately, they're ready to. maneuver some more. If you catch him with it, and it's fun. That's funny. You mentioned that because I noticed that early on, long time ago, years ago. And one of the things,

I remember concluding that you were like that. Not so much that you liked it, but that, like, that was a thing. If you throw some ambiguous stuff at you, like, you're going to be like, okay, and then cut right through it and ask, like a direct question. And one of the situations,

this is a long time ago, there was a guy, a guy came into the gym. And just, you know, he's a visitor. He's like, hey, you know, I've been training. You know, I'm a jujitsu guy and I've been this. And you know how a lot of, like, visitors might say that kind of stuff. You know, like, it's almost comparable with the guy who says, I got 500 street fights.

You know, like that behavior is comparable to that. And he'd like, yeah, you know, I'm, you know, I forget what he said. But he was real ambiguous about his training, but he implied that he had a lot. And I remember thinking, like, oh, this guy, what he said still leaves a huge question mark of how experience this person is then you were just looking at me. You go, what belt are you in Jiu-Jitsu? Because he mentioned the Jiu-Jitsu, right? And he let him talk and he finished his whole spiel about his, you know, experience.

You were like, straight up dead, dead pan. What belt are you in Jiu-Jitsu? And he was like, oh, well, I don't have a belt or whatever. Walk away. Damn. And you did it like a couple other times. Yeah. Which is no offense to people that don't have a belt

because there's people that don't have any belt in Jiu-Jitsu and they're awesome but there must have been other characteristics about this guy that yeah yeah it totally is whack it totally wasn't about that it wasn't about what belt he was it was about he was being ambiguous with his training and he mentioned jiu-jitsu that he had training in jiu-jitsu so you wanted to maybe get a little bit of clarification but it was real direct I was like oh damn gave him those three minutes of talking to think he got through with that that he was a jihitsu guy sure yeah yeah some actors appear ambiguous because they have internal division

multiple internal centers of power or both this includes national governments reflecting the internal political competition taking place within them these actors often do not speak with a single voice from the outside their intentions can appear confusing or conflicting this this happens in every organization you know you get the answer from mom gives a different answer than dad well and it's confusing just as war fighting states uncertainty is a per oh the this whole section is called uncertainty. Uncertainty is a pervasive trait of war. It is also a pervasive trait of competition. We make estimates of our competitors' designs and act accordingly. Now,

what's been funny about this is I talked to a lot of clients about this. What you have to do and what the Marine Corps is talking about right there is take a guess. And no one wants to hear that. Even the Marine Corps didn't want to use that. They say make estimates of our competitors. designs and act accordingly. What does that mean? It means take a guess at what you're going to do. Take a guess at what they're going to do and then take a guess at what you should do afterwards.

Uncertainty in international relations cannot be eliminated. It is nonlinear, meaning that a small amount of uncertainty can have a large effect on the situation. Dealing with it means one is also dealing with risk. Often a competitor's goal is to use ambiguity to inject uncertainty, uncertainty into a situation, so the rival will hesitate to act. act using it to take incremental steps toward their ultimate goal. This approach is known as gradualism

or salami slicing. It's interesting that the Marine Court decided to throw salami slicing into which I've never, have you ever heard that term before? No. Haco Charles. No, not in this context. In any context. I mean, other than making a sandwich. Yeah, okay. Then no. Yeah. So we get this approach known as gradualism or salami slicing, which is each step taken is by itself. so small it does not cause a significant reaction from the opposing group eventually the sum of small steps will result in reaching the goal actors now what's important about this is look there's two things that you should we should be learning from every one of these techniques that we hear one is what do we need to look out for and one is what can we utilize right so

yes we want to use gradualism like yeah echo doesn't really notice that I'm doing this. It's adding a little bit every day, you know, this little thing. I'm making this little adjustment. Next thing, you know, Echo looks up and things totally changed and there's, he didn't even notice it happening. Boiling the frog, right? The water, the, the, the, the, the, the frog doesn't notice that the water's getting

hotter. So we want to know to utilize that as an, as a technique, as a strategy. We also need to know to look out for it. And Echo's making these little adjustments. And I go, hey, Echo, that's four days in a row. You did this. What are you trying to do? What are you trying to get?

Trying to make happen. What's going on? Bro. So salami slicing is literally another expression like boiling the frog. Like seeing a little bit at a time. Actors also make use of ambiguity and uncertainty to cause enough hesitation so they can reach their goal while their competitor tries to make sense of the situation. Love that. Love that.

It's almost interesting that the Marine Corps doesn't talk about we need to utilize. these things. And it's also very interesting how two times in this one paragraph they talk about hesitation. There's hesitation. hesitation kills. hesitation is is waiting and reacting instead of making things happen and just using these techniques to get people to hesitate. Just get them to hesitate a little bit. Good move. We like that move. There's also as I as I listen to this I it's it's crazy how similar this is to so many things that you have said just on the podcast counts of times if you just kind of change the view of this is uncertainty with your opponent that if you change the lens a little bit that just in leadership in general in any situation

even with your own team I think it says something like what was the quote you have to take a guess they had some fancy word for that guess what you don't know the future so should we make some big massive move 50 no why don't we just and you talk about incremental decision making because we actually don't know what's going on. I guess that's what salami slicing is. It allows you to react to what's going on. And even how the way you talk about that from a leadership perspective, it's not a big stretch to go from this description

of the Marine Corps and a competitor to just you in a leadership role. You don't have a crystal ball. You don't know the future. Don't fall in love with your plan. Just take steps, just salami slicing steps in a row, and you will actually get to where you need to be with so much less conflict than if you say, we have to take this giant move all the way to the end right now, go.

Yeah. And you're a, what is it? You're a degree off. And by the end, you're 100 degrees off. Yeah. My reputation for being a decisive leader, and I cheated. I cheat. I'm super decisive, but I cheat because I only make little tiny decisions, but no one knows that.

They're just like, wow, he made the decision quick. It's like, oh, yeah, because it's a little tiny decision with almost no risk, but we're going to do it immediately. And then we're going to get feedback, and then we're going to figure out what to do next. And I'll make that decision quickly as well. So I'm going to make decisions. very quickly, but they're little decisions, and I'm going to make them rapidly, and that's how I'm going to beat you.

I guess Jocko's a salami slicer, according to the record. By the time the competitor figures it out, the goal is achieved, which is called fate accompli, something already done. Little thing here called boundary stretching. Boundary or threshold stretching occurs when an actor uses measures short of war to force movement or change in the nature of a boundary

to gain greater regional influence, access, and control. Oh, man. Man, as a leader, you're always dealing with pushing that boundary on you. Right? They're just, sorry, it was a little bit late, yeah. Echo trolls. That's a little bit, right?

A little boundary stretch. Maybe if two minutes is okay, maybe three minutes are good to go. What's funny is that's absolutely true. With being late. I come from a long line of late people. We all know that. But, yeah, like if I was one minute late,

And I didn't hear about it. Like, okay, cool. One minute is kind of the standard. It's more subconscious, but it's like when you're running like one minute late, whatever, the next time you don't feel that stress at all. You're like, oh, I was one minute late before, nothing. So no problem, right? Then you're like a minute, half, two minutes, three minutes.

And then you kind of like probe, you know, you're kind of like, wait, am I going to hear about it? No. Oh, that's no problem. And obviously there's a pretty solid threshold of lateness that I can kind of exist in, you know? And then when you get the 10 minutes, 20 minutes late, then you start here by you say, okay, I know. Now I know what the boundaries are.

Sir, exactly right. Habitual line stepper. That might be a different thing, but, yeah. By boundary, we mean the limit of, a limit of some kind that if crossed, would normally trigger a significant reaction. But before the boundary stretching events occur, most people would assume crossing a red line would cause a violent response of some kind. The goal of the actor using boundary stretching is to achieve their goals in such a way that a response is not triggered.

Or if a response happens, it does not result in a state of war between the two actors. When this happens, we often see a new limit established. The boundary has been stretched. You've got to be careful to say. Hey, in a leadership position, you're going to have people doing this. This is 24-7 from your troops. They're stretching those boundaries. And what you have to do is you have to be consistent.

You have to be consistent. You can't And look, I'm not saying it's like, no slack, you do nothing, no way you're one minute late, no, but if you If you let that line stepping become habitual, it will develop into a problem So you and with a way that you this is what's good First of all, you don't draw lines in the sand Which I got asked a question about this the other day like how often? What do you draw a line in the sand? It's very very seldom Very seldom do I draw a line in the sand. Across this line, you know?

You do not, right? We're not doing that. Now, is there a border to things that if you cross, you're going to be like, it's going to be a real problem, but that's a real significant thing. So here's what. We're talking about minimum force required. Minimum force required is good. It's a good way to keep the boundary stretching in check. So if you're, if look, the punishment for being late is, you know, your pay.

is docked for a week and you're one minute late do I necessarily need to dock your pay no but can I just let it go no I give you a appropriate response hey echo you you know what the punishment is for being late right because you were a minute late today and look that's a one week no pay you know that right yeah I know okay I'll just making sure because I mean time is time and I know you come from a long line of people that are late but sometime we got we got to take ownership of that we got to be on time so when people start to stretch the boundaries you push them back you push them back in there not with violence of action but with the subtlest form of leadership and the minimum force that you can to get them back in it where

they know that they cross the line and that it's not okay yeah so actually let me ask you this okay so my who called my boss super whatever when I did hear about it he would I see what he was trying to do I think he was trying to do that right the minimum but he'd almost like giggle about it yeah like oh you're late and I'm thinking back on my feelings about it where it caused me to not take it seriously because like we were both laughing at it kind of like so more force was required yeah he didn't maybe like a twist of like just don't giggle about it just be like hey I agree with no game not a huge deal

You remember a guy, I think it was at the muster. He's like, you know, I'm a funny guy. I like to joke around a lot. And, you know, I like to crack jokes. I've always been kind of the class clown kind of guy. And, you know, sometimes it seems like my people aren't taking me seriously. And I was like, bro, okay, do we need to go on with this? Or are we just going to stop making jokes when it's not appropriate?

How's that sound? So, yes, it's not appropriate. If you're trying to, now listen. Hey, what about when I joke with you if you're late? like bro what's up right it's like I'm gonna be honest it's the same thing same thing the thing is I'm not really late yeah I know that's a bad example everyone thinks you everyone thinks you're everyone thinks you're late now because I talk someone smack to you yeah like I have people on EF on my what about when it goes late yeah well actually and I had to say this the other day I'm like

actually I was like what do with echo and he's late all the time and I go actually he's not late all the time just kidding it's a joke yeah so guess what does that tell you you you're sitting here saying all the jokes don't really affect me they do affect you and they affect you perfectly because you're not late because you know that little bit of ribbing is just enough to let you know we don't we're not late around here right we're not late for the podcast yeah and that's and that's not to mention that you and dave burke good deal dave have effectively and successfully by the way cultivated an atmosphere of uh late being a for real bad thing because on coi late it's not necessarily a bad thing i'm not saying it's a good thing but i'm saying it's not

under most, you know, a lot of circumstances like this bad thing to be late. It's sort of like we got other things going on and we all kind of know that. Let's just say the culture isn't cultivated the way it is here. We'll say that. In this particular room. Yes, exactly. Right. It says it's cultivated in a way where a lot of us make psychological, mental, physical

adjustments that may accommodate these things to, you know, when they do happen. On a slightly more serious note, if I can ruin this for a second. There's actually another reason why when you were talking about escalation of counseling, why the first part of, hey, are you okay? Hey, what's going on? There's another reason why that is, especially if that is actually a thing you actually meet, that it's not like some game you're playing. You're like, hey, bro, it better be something. Yeah, it has to be. It's not even if you're, no, if you don't mean, hey, bro, are you okay? You relate.

Is everything all right? If you don't mean that, you're just doing a little manipulation. No, you're not, you're not a good leader. Exactly. And that first step of that, which is rather than go right to the, hey, you broke the rules, here's the paper you got to sign because you bought it over the rules. It's partially my way of saying, hey, I'm paying attention to this. This is important to me. But it's my way of letting you know this is important not because I want you to be on time, but because I want to know what's going on with you.

You now know, hey, Dave's paying attention to this stuff. And so by me saying, hey, echo, man, everything cool at home, isn't the mental jiu-jitsu of don't ever be late. It's actually, you realize, like, this guy actually is paying attention. of my life and cares about my life in a positive way that if I got to get to step three you don't ever want you don't want that to happen you don't want to put me in that spot because you know I care about you I'm like hey man what's going on if I got to get the level three and you're now signing paperwork I mean come on bro like what's going on here and the starting with that accomplishes a lot and just exactly what you're saying was my point is if you actually care and paying attention to

that that other person sees that oh dude Dave's Dave's got my best interest in mind, not like he cares about the one minute. It's not even about that. It's, there's other pieces of that in the escalation of the counseling of me paying attention to what's going on in your world. Because chances are, if we're on the same page, you being late, there actually probably is something going on in your world or else you wouldn't be late. That's so true. Look, so this might be, no, I think this is a good example. So when I lived in Honolulu, I ran a, technically I ran a yellow light, but it was one of those like I pushed it. You know, the kind of like, I had way, it was probably more appropriate to stop than run.

You know, you just want to. Anyway, so I do that, get pulled over. Cops looking at me. Of course, he explains it to me. I'm trying to play it off. Like, no, no, it was yellow all good? He's like, but he, that's how he acted, the way you're talking, Dave, where he'd be like, hey, he didn't give me a ticket either, but he gave me a little warning, but it was like,

he cared, you know? So he was like, hey, he's like, I get it, you know? You want to stop at the red light. I get it, whatever. He's like, but man, like, I don't want to have to give you a ticket, you know, for running red lights. And I for sure don't want any accidents happening. And, you know, I don't want to be in that spot to have to do that to you, you know, as far as the ticket goes. But that's how he was talking to me.

And I remember thinking, bro, you're so right. I'm so sorry. You know, I will never do it again for us, you know? Like, it's really was that feeling that I got from the guy. He let me go, he could have gave me a ticket straight up. And I would have been, hey, man, I'm sorry. I'll never do it again. Like, that's the way he talked to me.

If he gave you a ticket, you would have been angry. Maybe, like, you might have been, I'm going to run RedLont's on purpose. Yeah. If he had a bad attitude or an attitude that, let's say, I didn't like, then, yeah, for sure. But his attitude was the thing that won me over. Of course, not getting a ticket is a thing for sure. But the way he talked to me, it made me, like, we'll say, it compelled compliance in a very nice way. Jack.

Case in point. Yep. Perfect example. Fluidity. Next section. Fluidity disorder complexity. While interest usually remain stable for long periods of time, okay, that's important, right? Normally, we focus on the same thing for a long period of time.

The ways and means groups used to reach them change constantly. The efforts by groups to try different approaches produces fluidity while each action changes the environment as well. Once again, this is Udoloup. Right. We got to add every action you take changes the situation. Actors see the new structure and adapt to it. Changes that often increase the level this changes that often increase the level of disorder.

So every little move you make creates a change and then you adapt to that. It creates another change. This is constantly happening. We change the system whenever we interact with it often in unpredictable ways. That's the way it goes. These factors and their constant change create a great deal of complexity in the environment. This complexity is also systemic and therefore nonlinear, as small changes in one aspect of competition can cause big impacts in other areas.

Because change is a constant and actors continually adapt to changes in an effort to achieve competitive advantages, complexity runs throughout the competition continuum. And I read all that so I could read that. this. I read all of that so I could read this. Marines must learn to thrive in this environment. And I read that in order to say this, instead of trying to create order in the vain hope of avoiding complexity. So all the, there's, look, things are going to change. The adaptions you make to change is going to cause even more change. Change is going to happen randomly. It's going to be complex. It's nonlinear. All these things are changing. And you have to

learn how to thrive in that environment. Instead of saying, no, wait, keep it the way it was. Just keep things the way they work. Keep on that same path. We can't change. We can't change. That's a vain hope. The human dimension.

In case all that didn't cause enough chaos, there's the human dimension. As the nation's force in readiness, once again, the Marine Corps, just making sure everybody knows, as the nation's force in readiness, Marines will often find themselves involved in competitions that are cool. close to the threshold of violence. The threat of violence, this section is, the threat of violence acts on the human brain in much the same way as experiencing actual violence acts on it.

The two are not synonymous because actually experiencing violence is clearly more coercive than the threat of it. Yet, we must be aware of how the threat of violence affects human decision making because even its threat can cause, a physical and emotional response in people. This increases the potential for misjudgment, overreaction, and other mistakes.

It could also be a... It could also be a source of competitive advantage for those who can control their emotions in the heat of the moment so they can make sound decisions. Boom. What? What? This is what's interesting here. Okay, obviously you got what's on the surface, which the face of it is, listen.

the threat of violence can make people freak out. Violence will definitely make, or can definitely make people freak out. So you've got to realize that the threat of violence can make people freak out. Actual violence can make people freak out. Here's what's interesting when you throw the influence continuum over this. Me barking the order at Dave, you know what, Dave, shut up and do what I told you to do, that creates an emotional response from you. and it's not a good one.

Taking away someone's control over their destiny, taking away their ownership from them, imposing your will onto someone, creates an emotional reaction in many cases. And by the way, if I work for Dave and Dave imposes his will on me and I allow it to make me mad, I'm being weak. It's causing an emotional response to me.

I need to be like, okay, you know what, Dave is just he can't he doesn't have a good plan and he's forcing this plan on top of me. Okay, got it. I'm going to go to the best I can with it. That's the right attitude to have. Just like if someone's trying to get violent with me, if I freak out and get emotional, that's a problem. You look confused, Echo Charles. No, sir.

It makes sense to me. Okay. Detach from your emotions. Now we get into this. A nation's culture and its effect on how people think, also affects the choices they make. For example, some cultures promote holistic thinking while others value a more analytical thought process.

Some value action, which can create an implicit bias toward regularly choosing the most aggressive course of action. The list of potential cultural influences is a long one. Thus, culture will have an impact on many aspects of competition, including decision-making and how information is perceived. understanding the human dimension of competition is an area needing constant study by Marines. So, hey, Marines, and hey, everyone else in the world, you better understand human beings and

human nature. That's what you need to do. Now, you know what I love about this. Think about this. Team leaders, CEOs, business people of the world, think about this. If a nation's culture affects how you think and the choices you make, guess what's going on inside your business if you haven't developed the culture that you want to drive people to make the decisions that you want them to make you're letting

that fly out the window you're leaving it up to chance to what Dave thinks Dave should do I don't want Dave to think about what Dave should do I want Dave to think oh yeah you know what I know that in this company we take care of our clients okay got it when the client calls up and has a complaint or want something or needs something Dave doesn't go hey you know what I'm off the clock right now sorry can't help you no Dave goes hey what do you need how can I help you we're here we're here to help that's what we do so if you run an organization or you're part of an

organization that culture if you don't focus on that culture you are wasting your time you're wasting your efforts and I think wasting is the wrong word you're hurting your efficiency is what you're doing and look we talked about this on the debrief podcast the and I talked about it a bunch on the F online the highest form of decentralized command is culture. If you have, if everyone in the organization understands what the culture is, they can make decisions all day long. They can make 99.9% of decisions based on just knowing what the culture is.

And when people don't understand the culture inside your organization, that's when they do the stuff that makes you go, what the hell was Dave thinking? What was Dave thinking? What was that frontline cash register individual thinking when they did that? What was that, whatever, you name it. What was that frontline person thinking, how the hell did they do that? That's crazy. It's because you haven't built the culture that guides their actions.

Invest in your culture. Build it. Make it part of everything that you do. And you know what? Had to answer this question day on EF Online. And somebody asked me like, oh, how do you doing a good job? I'm not doing a good job of building culture. What stories are you telling?

What stories are you telling to the team? That's where culture comes from, by the way. That's where it comes from, is the stories that fuel the culture. Stories fuel the culture of your organization. And if you want people, if you want to develop a culture, you got to have the stories to back it up. That's what the Marine Corps does in such an outstanding way. I got this thing I'm going to cover on the podcast. I think it's a it's a it's a field manual or maybe it's just a some issued thing it's called

it's called the squad leader makes a difference volume one so you want to talk about how you develop a culture well hey you know what it would be nice if our squad leaders really stepped up and made things happen oh cool I'm going to write a book it's called the squad leader makes a difference. I'm going to highlight historical, factual things that took place where the squad leader saved the division, saved the battalion, saved the effort, saved the mission. The squad leader did it. We're going to tell everybody in the Marine Corps that that's what happened. And guess what that new squad leader is going to think? He's going to think, I'm going to make a difference. I'm important, my decision, and this is the truth. So that's what the Marine Corps does. They do it, they do it just in such

an impeccable way. And really good companies do that well. Really good companies. They tell that story inside the company so everybody knows what that company is. They get that culture. So if you want to build culture, you better invest in telling the story.

Capturing the story, telling the story. That's what you need to do. A squad leader makes a difference. I might have to do that one. It's such a cool. Such a perfect example. of how you build culture. You tell mythical.

They're not mythical, they're historical. Next, the art, science, and dynamic of competition. The art, science, and dynamic of competition. The Marine Corps, as part of the joint force, plays an essential role in securing national aims and conditions sometimes regarded as outside the military sphere. Competition below the threshold of armed conflict

and often the lengthy consolidation of gains that inevitably follows war. To play this role successfully, Marines need the ability to see and understand the competitive forces in the environment, understand what tools are available to them, and be able to envision how they can contribute to a campaign of competition.

The Marines have to understand how they're going to contribute to a campaign of competition. That takes place through this entire, entire continuum. And then the next sentence is, creativity or art is necessary to imagine different ways and means for Marines to contribute to reaching these aims. Again, what's the focus in the United States Marine Corps? Apparently, creativity and art, constructing a set of steps along a timeline to help reach them,

along with the necessary feedback loops to improve performance over time, are abilities that align with the science of competition. In many ways, this is nothing new. And then they break it down. It comes down to sizing up your opponent with a critical eye and then coming up with a creative solution that allows you to achieve your goal despite the opponent's resistance. Marines have done this for ages. And I think ages is a strong word. I don't, I don't, I don't, I, we have to, I didn't look it up.

But the definition of ages to me means longer than how old is the Marine Corps? 240 years. Yeah. 245 years. 245 years. Ages seems a little bit bigger. But you know what? The Marines is going to put that in your head.

You know why? They're telling a story. They're developing the culture that as long as time has existed, Marines have used art and creativity to figure out how to size up their opponent and crush them. Yeah. And you want to be in on that? You want to be part of that? Yeah.

I'm in. I mean, this is this whole, there's so many things inside here. So crazy. I was thinking of just the idea of, of, of, as I, leader of the power of culture. I mean, you could look at on this very tiny little selfish level of the stronger that culture is, if you're in a leadership, the more free time you have, the more things will happen without you having to get involved in those things. And that free time, obviously, is not so you can do nothing. It's so you can think about other more long range,

more strategic things. And then they're telling these guys carrying a rifle or flying an airplane, that's not enough. That's not what you're doing. And that seemingly insignificant little micro task of one of hundreds of thousands of Marines. You just, the squad leader, the squad leader is a corporal. It's a corporal rifleman with, with a couple other corporals working for him. I mean, on paper it seems so small and so insignificant. But it's not, it's huge. And as a leader, do you want people at that level in an organization thinking the entire weight

of the organization rests in their shoulders? Yes, because that's what guides them to make those decisions, so you don't have to do it. it's it's there's so much in there man and and it echoes so many of the things that you talk about and it's just a very slight variation of this competition with other other armies but it's all the same thing as a leader it's the exact same thing and that's why I started off in the opening of this podcast by saying that if you know the way broadly you see it in all things so good man the nature of these campaigns will require Marines to get comfortable asking for authorities to use tools in new domains like cyber or support to public diplomacy.

These campaigns combined cooperation and competition with other dime instruments of power, including armed conflict, if necessary, to achieve and sustain strategic objective. DIM, and I don't even know if people say that the way is D-I-M-E, it means diplomatic, information, military, and economic. So we have to be able to work in all those domains. Diplomatic, information, military, that's the obvious one in the economic. We're playing a role in all those things. The evolution of competition.

Next section. International competition is never static. It constantly evolves. In fact, it is co-evolutionary because as one actor develops a competitive tool, other actors adapt to it by trying to either counter it or develop another tool that displaces it. This co-evolution is seen clearly when technology changes. And once again, guess what they use here for an example? Did they use a military battle?

Do they use, no, they don't use that. They use Henry Ford. Henry Ford's invention of the assembly line caused dramatic efforts to adapt among other automakers. In today's world, firms increasingly try to automate their assembly lines in an effort to stay ahead in the competitive marketplace. In much the same way, the choices political actors make in developing new concepts and technology to support them are competitive act. They develop them because they seek an advantage over a particular rival or rivals. So look, the battlefield changes all the time. The market changes all the time.

Your competitors are doing things to adapt to that. do things to adapt to what their adaptations are. This is what does it say? Never static. It's never static. I used to tell the young seals out in the field during training exercises. Big firefight would break out with paintball and all of a sudden it would go quiet. And the tendency was, oh, cool.

They're not shooting at us. We can rest. And I'd go over and whisper in the leader's ear and I'd say, hey, when you're not getting shot it means the enemy is maneuvering on you never static what can you do how can you improve your position right now The speed of this evolution usually rests on the rate of technological change because new technologies create opportunities to develop concepts new concepts or new concepts may stimulate the development of new technology in some cases though new concepts emerge when mature technologies are combined with new organizations and new operating methods. As militaries wrestle with the questions of how to build and keep an edge over their potential opponents, they juggle factors like switching costs, which is how much money and effort

does it take to make a change? That's a good term. Switching costs. So how much money is going to take us to make a change and how much effort is it going to take? That's a switching cost. The cost curve will I spend more or less than my opponent? How long can I sustain that? this level of spending, the level of spending that this change requires. That's a cost curve. And then opportunity costs, which I think most people know, if I put, and this is the Marine Corps explaining it, if I put effort into this change, then I will not be able to do something else instead. So we always have to weigh the opportunity cost. If I focus on this thing over here, that means I'm not focusing on something over here. What's that, what's that going to mean?

Marines know that in combat, sometimes we fight to gain information about the enemy. Once we obtain this information, we then inject it into our plans so that we can increase the effectiveness of our operation. So we're constantly out trying to figure out what the enemy is doing, trying to gain information on them. Once we gain information, we injected into our plans so we can be more effective. The same dynamic exists in competition. Clearly, we gain information as we compete with a rival and must use this to our advantage. Here's what I think we got to remember about this. Sometimes we're gaining information, well, oftentimes a great way to gain information is to proactively probe for it.

You know, what's what's echoes base like? I'll try a little sweep. Oh, you've got some good base. Oh, but he exposes his arms sometimes. Oh, that's good to know. Little information. I tried a little something to learn some information. We're constantly doing that.

Warfighting teaches that, and that's the book, Warfighting teaches that we should try to get inside. the enemy's thought processes and see the enemy as they see themselves. That's why. That's why Colonel David Hackworth had his troopers read Mao say tongue to figure out what they were thinking. How are they going to fight this war? He explains Mao explains how to fight the guerrilla war. Why would you not be studying that?

Why would you not be trying to get inside the enemy's head? This holds equally for getting inside our competitors thought processes. So we should be doing the same thing. And not just about war. What are you thinking? And this goes back to this one, that one, I've been, it's funny how everything ties together. It's because Darrell and I did an unraveling podcast.

And the title of a podcast is, What's Your Story? And just about how we create stories in our heads. And they're very malleable. You can be very easily influenced. And you go through, it's almost like a survival mechanism to create a story inside your head so that you can comprehend the world. And we do that.

And there's all kinds of psychological experiments that we talk about on that particular podcast that proves that you'll just kind of make things up. Like if there's not a good explanation, you'll be like, well, hey, that's what happened. And you'll believe it. And so we're doing that all the time. We're doing that. We're telling ourselves little stories. So it's important.

And I've been saying this on EF online as well. It's one thing for me to try and understand Dave's perspective. Well, you know, Dave's in that division over here. And they've got this as a priority. So his perspective must be this. That's great. That's a great thing to do. Please understand people's perspective.

Let's go deeper, though. What I really want to do is I want to know what's Dave's story. What? Where does he come from? What's his background? How long has he been here? Who's he worked for? Who's he got on his team?

What's his family doing? What's his family situation? What's his financial situation? Where is he at? What is his story? You ever, like you're with your buddy? And, you know, Echo and I are hanging out. And then Dave comes over and Echo's never met Echo before.

And, hey, Dave, what's it going? Boom. And then Dave leaves. And Echo goes, what's that guy's story? You see what I'm saying? Yeah, definitely. We want to know what people's Stories are and if we can understand what someone's story is then we can better predict what they're going to do not just their perspective

Look their perspective will be part of the story you can understand their story you understand their perspective now I can do a much better job of predicting not with 100% accuracy But with more accuracy so I can make a better guess Better anticipation of what their move is going to be So we are always trying to get inside our competitors thought process Trying to know what their story is Powerful tool and then we get into this conclusion Competition is the normal state of the relationship between Political actors in international relations

Right and obviously it's not just that It's between human beings there's competition happening Echo you were just talking about that thing where you like you like when I see someone Kind of sizing them up like like you like you You've talked about this in Jiu-Jitsu, where you say, basically if someone that's an equivalent kind of height, weight, age scenario as you, what's your thoughts? You're sizing them up, right? Sizing them up, sure.

There's competition, but we don't even know this person. This person may not even train, they might not even care, but you're looking at them like, you're in the game. You said that real, like, in passing, they're like, they might not even care. My hypothesis is that they do. do care in one way or another. A physical situational evaluation takes place when you meet someone within that realm of whatever, you know, some kind of thing.

Not to say you want to beat them up, not to say you want to fight with them, not to say you want to whatever. I'm just saying that evaluation process is a real thing. And it happens, I think, most of the time. Again, if a guy is so far out of the scope of like your, we'll see your orbit, right, we'll call it, for lack of better term. like your age, your size, if it's a jiu-jitsu situation, whatever, then, yeah, it kind of, it kind of doesn't happen that much, but yes, I still believe that. Dave, when you were in the United States Marine Corps,

and you met someone that was also a fighter pilot, what's the thought process? I mean, totally, man, for sure. Hey, how can you, how can you, how can you, And what's the pecking order if we haven't got to dog fight against each other? How's that work? I mean, you know, at the most basic level is what's that guy fly? You know, and you can in your mind.

And, wait, wait, meaning, oh, is this guy fly at F-18? It's like I fly hornets. He fly Harriers. You know, and I'm not defending this train of thought, but you will draw some conclusions in your mind and backtrack. You'll create his story for him in your own head. like, oh, jocco flies this. Okay, well, this happened, this happened, this happened.

And you'll trace it back to him when he's five and got him all figured out. Because you're sizing him up a little bit. And you'll, you'll create. And the more similar the scenario is, the more, I guess the more friction could be there in your mind. I'm like, oh, this guy, interesting. Okay, this could be, this could be a thing. We might, you know, we might have to figure this out, you know, up in the air.

So just the way you described it, I mean, it's, it's very similar. Do you figure it out in the air? I mean, that's the easiest way to do it. Can you, I mean, is it like, because one thing that's great about Jiu-Sit-Soo, oh, I'm sizing this guy up. Yeah. Hey, want to roll?

We're about to find out. We're about to find out. Yeah. Can you do that? You can. But you can see it in a whole, you can see, how does this guy brief? How does this guy get along, you know,

when he first shows up at a squadron? How does he do other types of flying? There's a bunch of different ways. It doesn't just have to be you and one other person in a dog fight, but especially at Top Gun, what's cool is he. you get to do that a lot. And that's probably the most fun way to just,

I don't know what I say settle it. Cause this, you know, that sounds pretty crazy, but you, you can create, you can resolve a lot of things by doing that. We'll say it helps establish the hierarchy. It absolutely does. And, and if that's, if that's all you go on, then you're gonna create problems by doing that,

but there is a hierarchy. There is a hierarchy in there. And it is always better to be towards the top of that hierarchy. That's a better place to be. than at the bottom of it. How often is a guy a freaking awesome pilot

and just a turd leader? Not very often. It happens. It can't happen, but most of the time. Usually there's a correlation. And as a matter of fact, I'd rather have a guy who's an awesome leader is a great person to be around,

a great teacher, and it's kind of a top third than a dude who's just really good at flying an airplane and he sucks at everything else. And so, you know, the hierarchy is not just, who won in that particular fight.

There's a whole bunch of things. But it's, I think it's the same. Very similar. Yeah. And the hierarchy is not just that, but let's face it. Right. Yeah. I mean, the culture, the hierarchy of a culture is kind of like, people understand it,

even though it might not be able to be, like, 100% tangible. You know, you kind of, like, in Jujza, I'm sure it's like that as well in flying and all other activities. I always like telling these stories, though, because I know Jaka's over there thinking, I don't like to rely on machines. And he's in the whole, they're like, whatever, it's a machine. Don't care. Oh, your machine can beat my machine.

Cool. Well, the other thing that's also from a leadership perspective is you've got to recognize that inside your team, when you've got 12 people working for you, there's competition going on between those two people. And the little subtle preferences or statements or comments that you make impact that competition and can create animosity where you should be as a leader trying to unify your team. So pay attention to that competition. Look and there's times where we want to seed and fuel competition, right? Oh yeah. Echo versus, hey, who's a better shot? You are you or Dave and so I'm better?

Okay, let's see. And now we're creating some stress so that we get better training. It's great. So we want to fuel that. But we don't want to have a negative impact. We don't want to take away from the team by fueling competition. Competition just like anything else. Guess what?

There's a dichotomy. You can go too far with competition. Now we got the team attacking each other. But if we don't have any competition, now the team's not staying sharp. Yeah. And we see this all the time. I mean, I think in my mind, like the simplest example is when we work with companies and we talk about their sales departments. There's absolute competition among sales.

And do we want that? Yeah, absolutely. I want sales teams pushing each other. And so the connection from this publication about, you know, competing, the recognition, like you said, that exists everywhere. And what a good leader does is actually harness that so everybody. benefits and wins from that is critical. And if you don't think that's going on as a leader, if you're like, oh, no, no, we're all just harmonious.

We're all just fully aligned on the same page all the time. And there's no competition here. You're missing a whole bunch of those dynamics. There's a lot of power on that. And if you're not paying attention to it, that can spiral out of control. And you get this, you get this friction at the point that people on the same team are actually sabotaging each other.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, I'm not giving Dave my lead because I'm not turning this over. I'm not going to give him the back brief on what that client's like because I don't want him to get another mark on the board. Yep. So once again, conclusion. Competition is the normal state of the relationships between political actors in international relations. It occurs as the interests of these actors come into conflict as they try and advance them in the world. Right. Everyone's working on their own little gig. Oftentimes, two political actors will compete in one area and cooperate in another. Thus, there is a competition continuum that extends from relatively benign efforts to advance interest to the violent efforts that include war. War then is a special kind of competition. They just can't get away from that statement.

One that sets the conditions for the mostly nonviolent struggle that always follows the end of armed conflict. Like war, and again, this is all just the conclusion. Like war, by the way, this is the conclusion of chapter one. Like war, competition is characterized by ambiguity, uncertainty, fluidity, disorder, and complexity. Rivals will try to use these attributes to obscure their aims and achieve their advantages over opponents.

Competitors naturally apply creativity and science to develop advantages as well, which causes the form of competition to constantly evolve. The history of competition is also a history of change. Marines and the Marine Corps have an important but supporting role in the nation's competitions. The activities of Marines take place all along the continuum, including on both sides of the violence threshold. The competition continuum is. therefore something Marines must understand. And that continuum, if you take that idea of this

continuum and you also then overlay the idea of leading and the idea of influence, there's also a continuum. I sort of talk about it, the escalation of counseling. It's a very similar thing. The escalation of counseling is, how much influence? What are you doing to influence? How are you doing this? How are you making this happen? At what point do you cross the threshold from indirect to direct, minimizing the amount of time that you spend on the direct influence, the coercion, the forcefulness.

That's not what we're looking to do. Very important stuff to think about. And with that, I mean, I figured we could make it through two chapters, but I don't even want to jump into the next chapter because we'll be in here for another three hours. So with that. we will we will pick up the rest of this I guess on the next on the next one and you know I I got asked a question the other day is on a F online and the question was basically how do I

train the leadership principles you know the leadership principles how do I train those leadership principles person's asking how do I get better at these leadership principles if I'm working all the time in a leadership position in other words I'm leading how do I have time to train how do I have time to get better and And I answered the question. I said, listen, here's the answer. And I'm not going to get it exact, but there's two components to it. One of them is being intentional about what you're going to do, right?

Paying attention and intention. Those are the two words I use. Paying attention and then having intention. You need to pay attention to what's going on around you because there's no better way to train leadership than leading. But it only works if you pay a lot. attention to it and then the intention part comes from I said listen you're going into a meeting you're going to counsel someone you're going to meet with your supervisor or you're going to meet with

a subordinate or you're going to present or whatever you're going to do from a leadership perspective take three minutes before three minutes hey I know we're all press for time you can take three minutes take three minutes and figure out what is your intention from a leadership perspective going into this meeting write them down like what are you going to to do in this meeting. Hey, I'm going to meet with Dave and it's a subject that we disagree on. Dave wants to meet with me about some. This is what I'm going to do. I'm going to detach. I'm going to listen. I'm going to find some common ground. And I'm going to ask for some time to think about his perspective. That's what I'm going to do. Write that down. Takes three minutes,

three minutes to figure out what a good course of action is. Then you go. Then you go to the meeting. So that's your training. Your initial part of the training is intention. What do you intend to do. Boom. Then you go to the meeting. So that's that's the intention part. Now how do you now you got to pay attention to how you actually did you got to detach a little bit when you get done with the meeting. How did you do? Did you get emotional? Did you talk more than you listened? Which by the way to me if I have a meeting where I talk more than I listen is probably it was a bad meeting. Did I lose my temper? Did I tell Dave there's no way we're doing it your way right? Is that where I went and you got to be honest with yourself and then you got to make adjustments and that's how

you're going to improve and that's why one of the reasons that I'm saying this is that these manuals they can be so helpful to us and for us because we they can they can they can tell us what it is we should be doing so we can actually do it and and this is a subject I talked about on EF online today I heard this interview with Gary Kasparov, who's a 20-year chess champion, and he was talking about chess, and he got asked about Magnus Carlson, who's this young, well, he was 19 when he won the world champion and became the best in the world, and total dominant prodigy in the game. And the guy basically said, you know, well, kind of who's better? And he didn't come right out and say it, but it was implied. and Gary Kasparov understood the implication. And there was a couple things that he said.

One thing that he said that was interesting. He said, basically he said, I'm too old to compete, which is interesting. Because you think about maybe in jiu-jitsu you can get too old to compete, but chess, you should get better. But he talked about the physical fitness aspect of even playing chess and how sharp your mind is and that tied into how sharp your body is. And if you're younger, you have an advantage, which was very, I didn't expect that at all. But more important, he said that Magnus, even though he's been playing chess for much shorter time, he's only 30 years old and Kasparov is 57, he's been playing chess for way less time. But Magnus has been able to learn everything that Kasparov has done throughout his whole career because they take, when a chess game happens, they document every single move and they put it in a book and you can read that book and you can know exactly what the move was, what the outcome was. And so Magnus got to study those.

He got to study those things. He got lifted up on the shoulders of Kasparov. So how could Kasparov compete? Because it wasn't, Magnus just didn't just get to study Kasparov. He got to study all the masters of all time. And Kasparov, who dominated for 20 freaking straight years. And I was talking about this with you, Dave, the other day. I'm like, hey, Dave, I'm reading a book right now.

And this guy's giving information about leadership. And he's given information about leadership that I thought I kind of figured out. And I had to figure out for myself. And he's giving information. And the book was published in 1973. And I never got to stand on the shoulders of that giant to learn that lesson. Why? Because I didn't approach it with the right attitude.

So these books, these documents, whether historical documents, whether it's a first person account of what happen in battle and what that leader did, we have to understand that we can take those things and we can learn from them. We can literally take moves just like moves on a chessboard and we can be a better leader because we understand how things occurred in the past. We get to study leadership. We get to study human nature. We get to study interactions between people when they fight, when they go to war, when they lead, when they influence, when they compete. And that paying attention and having intention and recognizing that everything you see is an opportunity for you to learn and take and put that in your playbook and make you better and we miss that opportunity all the time because we're not paying attention and we don't have the right intention dude i mean there's so there's so much there and i think my favorite part about even just this first chapter because I had a tiny suspicion like we're never going to get through this.

How easy it was to connect all those comments, all the things they're saying to so many other areas, so many other places in life. And you started it. And that's saying when you know the way broadly, you see it in all things, as much as that you say that, it's so true. It's such an important. So just hearing that and and you come out of the gate and in three minutes you're talking about parenting and kids and family on a on a manual about you know total war competition between nation states and inside that is all these these these these these pieces of leadership of of human nature and Yeah, I probably should just I can stop at this point because there I get so fired up thinking about how much is in there and then I think I think, then I think I look back on my 40 coming up, 40 something, 49 years.

Like, man, how much have I missed? How many opportunities have been out there to not see these things in other places? So there's so much in there. Yeah. Chapter one, making us better. Echo Charles, speaking of getting better, what suggestions do you have for us? Well, to be honest, You covered it or a big part of it, I say, to be honest with you.

But sure, I can add maybe, hopefully. Hopefully I can add a little something. You did mention physical fitness in chess, which was interesting. That is interesting. You burn 3x the number of calories you would normally burn in a day. So if you had a day of just normal activity. or you did a chess tournament chest tournament

3x the number of calories heart rate goes up breathing goes up tense muscles yeah I wonder why I wonder what like just the stress of the company stress of the company

thinking yeah yeah I was wondering how much it was just brain power getting used I don't know the answer to that huh dang and it's like you know you mentioned muscles tensing up but but okay Yeah, yeah. Okay.

But, you know, okay. We really can't just throw out. That that's the significant, you know, like, all right, we'll go do a Metcon for how long is the chess match you'd say? I don't know, tournament. Depends what type of chess match it is. Yeah. Different types.

So if you get, okay. There's blitz chess. Yeah. Then there's just some kind of timed chest and then there's speed chest. Yeah. I don't know if it's called speed chest. Yeah. Okay.

All right. Well, let's think scientifically then. Okay. You got one booth, I don't know, booth of two guys playing chess. This is going to last two hours. You got another booth, a guy doing your everyday run-of-the-mill Metcon for two hours. Well, the Metcon guys obviously burn it a lot more hours. The Metcon guy's going to burn literally all his calories before the check.

So I'm just saying the muscle tense thing may not be that as much of a thing. We'll say. All right. Speaking of physical fitness. I'm not recommending chess as your new physical workout. It's not what I'm doing here. Okay. Yeah, that seems correct for sure.

Nonetheless, as far as fitness goes, look, it's not to say that chess is like not a way to get better because it's straight up is. But as far as physical fitness goes, maybe not. But physical fitness is. Not the best avenue. Yeah. Many other avenues, Jiu-Jitsu, that's one of them. Just general workouts, right? Workouts, you know, there's all kinds of workouts, whatever.

nonetheless you do have to work out, I think. I concur. Dave Burke. Same. Concur. All right. Well, we're working out. Every once in a while, we might have issues that concern us.

Joint issues. Lower back issues, depending on who you are. A shoulder issue. Elbow issues, as the case may or may not be. But we don't want to worry about this kind of issue. So we got some supplementation for a lot of stuff, really. But as far as joints and stuff, we got joint warfare. We got super cruel oil

We also have vitamin D for immune I don't even want to say issues I want to say your whole immune situation Really to prevent issues Check this out Here's I got a uh uh wait I got some good news for everybody Look there's plenty of bad news out there in the world right now

I understand right I got some good news for everybody Here's the good news All these different type of supplements that you're talking about Things that I take every single day. Joint warfare, I take every single day. Cryl take every single day. Discipline take every single day. Vitamin D3 take every

single day. Cold War take every single day. Every single day I take this stuff. Check this out. Mulk. Yes, I can't say I take it every day, but I take it six days, no, five days out of seven. Maybe six days out of seven. I have a lot of milk. Any of these items that you want,

if you want to get them, You can get them from origin, main.com. And when you get them, if you subscribe to them, meaning if you just get a subscription for joint warfare, you get a subscription for kill oil, you will get free shipping. Yeah, look, we, because, listen, there's people out there, rightfully so,

that don't necessarily want to support some of the companies that sell our products. For whatever reason. But some of those companies have free shipping, which makes it real, you know, you can save a lot of money. Gotcha. So in order to take care of everyone, if you want to subscribe to this stuff, any of it, if you subscribe to one thing, you'll get free shipping on whatever you order. So come, subscribe. I also give like 10% off if you subscribe.

So subscription, what I'm saying is, If you want this stuff and you take it all the time, like I do, like Echo does. Dave, what do you take every day? The list is the list. I'm probably like, I'm probably maybe four or five mulks a week. I'm over the threshold on discipline go. So whatever, eight out of seven, if that's a math problem. And then the only thing I will say is that Cold War has kind of moved to the top of my

Like I never forget Cold War ever. And I'm probably beneficial benefit because I have a subscription. I get it. I don't even think about it. I don't run out. But look, man, lately that's been on. That's, I don't ever miss it. Ever.

So if you want to support, you a very good way to support that one. Support the whole situation. Support the whole situation. Subscribe. Get free shipping. Save money 10%. We're here to hook it up. You're supporting yourself, by the way.

Yeah. And you're supporting yourself. You're supporting yourself. That's kind of the original tagline, wasn't it? Echo Charles. Yes, sir. Support yourself. I still, as you support us.

You can also get the stuff at Vitamin Shop. You can also get the stuff at Wawa. Well, you can get discipline go at Wawa. And by the way, you can get it. They're infusing it into every Wawa on the East Coast as we speak right now. That's not in every store yet. But yeah, look, January 4th, they started infusing it. January 4th, 2020 is the day that everyone will remember.

21 2021 sorry January 4th 2021 is the day that Wawa started to infuse discipline go into all their stores so appreciate the support at Wawa appreciate the support from Wawa yeah yeah it's uh yeah that's a good situation where let's let's face it sometimes we don't want to order online seems crazy well sometimes we're driving exactly It's late. That's what I'm saying. We're tired. I want my discipline go between right now and when I get home. That's what I want it.

And currently there's none at my house. You can't order that. Ordering it from origin main.com, subscription or not is not going to help you in that particular moment. It doesn't work that way. You need a Wawa. Yes, sir. You do.

So yeah, discipline go. Boom. There's also discipline the powder and the capsule. Yep. If that's your preferred method. You know, the cans are kind of a, a thing, let's face it. So I'm kind of doing those a lot.

But discipline go to the powder, that's a daily for me as well. Especially, yeah, if I'm working out, 100% guarantee you. That's the thing. It's on. So yes, these things will help us in our developmental journey on this path to stay in the game.

Yeah, even on the path. The path. It'll make you better, as it were. Also, origin, main, speaking to origin, main.com This far as dot com goes. Uh, jujiz stuff on there. Some good American made stuff, by the way, 100% American made.

Do you use the stuff, American denim and boots. Jeans. Yeah. You might want to get a pair of American made jeans. Yeah. Made here. Where's the, oh, but you think, oh, but where's the cotton from? Oh, the cottons from here.

Wait, where was it woven? Oh, it's woven here. Oh, who died? Oh, it's died here in America. Wait, what about the thread? Well, that's American. Yeah. What about the rivets?

Certainly it must be, oh, those rivets are from America. Yeah. What about the buttons? The buttons? Yeah. Where do we get those? Oh, we got them in America. Okay.

And then who took all that stuff and put it together into something you can cover your legs with? Cover your legs. Yeah. Guess where that happened in America. Dig it. Yep, from top to bottom. Support the podcast. Support yourself.

And. Support America. America. It's true. Also, speaking of support, Jocko has a store. It's called Jocko Store. So you go to jocco store.com.

This is where you can get your discipline. Equals, freedom, shirts, hoodies, hats, all that stuff. So represent on the path. You want to get these things. Jocco store.com. We have a subscription thing too. Working on the name.

It's like a T-shirt club. Oh, no, I got the name. Someone from a supporter. And I think, well, I have a candidate for the name that I think is good to go. All right. All right. I'll disclose it right now. Disclose it.

And you tell me. I have one too. Yeah. I'll leave it in your, okay, you tell me your first. Jocco layers. Okay. Don't like it. Appreciate it.

Get it. I like it. Okay. Okay. Here's, what about this? The shirt locker. Oh, bought and sold. You're good.

All right. So officially, the jococon. The Jaco shirt locker. So now you can, yeah, there you go. Yeah, okay. All right. To be honest, I was expecting. It's better than T-shirt Club.

All right. T-shirt Club's fine. Shirt Locker, okay, approved, approved straight up. Okay, shirt locker. Kind of the same deal. Free shipping, you know, subscription. You know, it's a different approach, really. It's not so you don't run out of shirts.

It's not that. It's just, you know, it's a T-shirt locker. Anyway, check that out. It's cool. A little bit different designs for us that are, you know, in the game. Nonetheless, jocco-sdorf.com,

good spot. Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast. And also on top of this podcast, you can join us in the Jocko Underground. jocco underground. We have an alternative podcast.

It's a podcast with amplifying information to this podcast. Sort of some behind-the-scenes stuff, some Q&A stuff, some things that didn't quite fit the mold of jocco podcast. I don't want the jocco podcast to stay what it is. Yeah. Someone puts in their headphones.

I want them to get what they expect. I want to deliver that product, that information. So, however, art and creativity. What do we learn from the Marine Corps? You can't just keep doing the same thing. So I like to get a little bit artistic and creative. Want to do some different things. So now we have a way to do that.

it's jocco underground.com and yeah and there's look there's censorship things happening right now we want to at least be ready in case something crazy happens we also don't want to take on sponsors because we don't want to start off every podcast by saying welcome to jaco podcast this podcast is brought I don't want to do that and I also don't want to in the middle of the podcast talking about the Korean War

and some firefight and be like, and this podcast was, no, we're not doing that. So if you want to help out, if you want to join the jaco underground, jocco underground. Jocco underground. dot com go there. It costs $8.18 a month,

which is a number that has. Layers. And, bro, I didn't even know how many layers that number has. There's so many layers. There's so many layers. We're getting layers on layers. So if you want to support, that's one way to do it.

That way we make sure we can keep this podcast up and running. matter what happens if you hey look and if you if you can't afford that if you're tight on money that's okay we we still want to have you in the game with us email assistance at jocco underground.com and and we'll have you taken care of but if you can afford to support that's awesome to eight dollars and eighteen cents a month also we have the jocco unraveling podcast which is me and Dale Darryl Cooper we have the grounded and the warrior kid podcast which I am severely

went on. It's lingering in the winds. My daughter, my youngest daughter today was harassing me about the Warrior Kid podcast. That's where it starts to hurt. She lives with Uncle Jake and she wants that podcast. So I apologize. I got one more book due January 31st.

A book like that you're writing? Straight up. And so when that book is done, we're going to make this happen. Make it happen. So, yeah, subscribe to those as well. We got a YouTube channel if you want to see Echo's videos. And more important than seeing Echo's videos, it's important to understand who the assistant director is on many of those videos,

and that's me. So if you like the videos, it's probably because the assistant assistant directing was strong. If you don't like them, it's probably one I wasn't working on. And Echo screwed it up. I'm over here doing the best I can. Anyway, thank you for that, by the way. Also, psychological warfare.

It's an MP3 album, tracks of Jocco letting you know hey don't skip this workout right because you know when you want to skip the workout Dave doesn't know why because he doesn't work out he's disciplined he's disciplined right he's getting it done is that factually true my wife will not I will not hear the end of it I will not hear the end of it so I have some motivation just to not put up with the harassment we need to make an album with your wife yeah I want to say well your wife is the psychological warfare the worst day in Brooke household is when I don't work out and she does.

There's enough motivation there to make sure that doesn't happen very often. Perfect. And that's kind of like a little example. You know what I like about that is like, hey, it doesn't matter. You worked from four o'clock in the morning until whenever. It's like, oh, it didn't work out today, did you? Doesn't care. Skipped it.

Doesn't care about that. Well, for those of us who do entertain the notion of skipping and workout, you know, fudging on the diet, all that kind stuff, who's in psychological, warfare and it'll get you through it 100% like a little spot get it you know amazon wherever you buy mp3s that's where you can get it also flipside canvas dot com dakota mire he's making all kinds of cool stuff for you to hang on your wall we got a bunch of books about face by hackworth i wrote the forward to the new version of that leadership strategy and tactics field manual we got the code the evaluation of protocols we got discipline equals freedom field manual brand new

version we got way of the warrior kid for field manual how the kids like in that dave Dude, the book was awesome. It was immediately supplanted all the other ones and now it's just in the cycle. My son, he's just super stoked on that one. Outstanding to hear. Also, Way of the Warrior Kid 1, 2, and 3. Mike in the Dragon's extreme ownership

and the dichotomy of leadership. We got Eschelon Front. You heard us, when Dave and I are talking about, oh, a client or talking to one of our clients, that's because we have a leadership consulting company and we solve problems through leadership. Go to Eschlonfront.com for D.C. details there. And we have EF Online. You also heard us refer to that a bunch today. It's leadership

training online. There's question and answer sessions. There's actual courses you can take about leadership that cover these subjects really granular in detail. So check out EFonline.com if you want. We got the muster in 2021. Look, that is a shifting target right now. Go to extreme ownership.com. If you want to come to a muster, it's our, it's our leadership event. We have EF. Overwatch, where we have executive leadership for your company. Go to EFoverwatch.com. And if you want to help service members, if you want to help active duty and retired families, members, Gold Star families, check out Mark Lee's mom, mom and Lee. She's got a charity organization. If you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to America's Mighty

Warriors.org. And if you didn't quite get enough of my annoying anecdotes, or you need more of Echo's labyrinthing lectures, or more of Dave's devoted diatribes. You can find us on the interwebs, on Twitter, on Instagram, which Echo will only and strictly refer to as the gram. And on Facebook, Dave is at David R. Burke, Echo is at Equitralz, and I am at Jocko Willink. And to all the military folks out there, and all the branches of service, the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Coast Guard. And yes, a little extra credit to the Marine Corps today. Thank you all for continually competing with forces of darkness and evil in the world.

And thanks also to police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, Border Patrol, Secret Service, and all first responders, thank you for keeping us safe when we call on you in our worst moments. And to everyone else out there, you are competing all the time. Know that. Pay attention to it. Pay attention to it so you can learn and you can get better and you can be better and you can make the things in your world a little bit better.

A little bit better for you and for the people around you. And you do that by going out there every single day. and getting after it. And until next time, this is Dave, and Echo and Jocko. Out.