Jocko Podcast - 308: You Don't Even Know How Closed Your Mind Is. On The Psychology of Military Incompetence Pt.6

Episode Date: November 17, 2021

0:00:00 - Opening2:54:16 - On The Psychology of Military Incompetence1:54:43 - How to stay on THE PATH.2:20:07 - Closing Gratitude.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number three, oh, eight with Echo Charles and me, Jockle willing. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. So tonight, at long last, we are going to wrap up what has ended up being a six-part series. I got a little out of control, didn't I? Well. I kind of got a little out of control on this one. Well, how not to do it cannot be overstated.

How not to do it cannot be overstated. Explain that. It means like if they're a little. tips how not to do something. Let's face it, the value is what it called infinite. It's infinite. Check. Good point.

The book is called on the psychology of military incompetence. We started on 303, podcast 303, 304, 305, 306, 307. That's a lot of podcasts. This is the winner. Most number of podcasts on a single book. If you haven't listened to those, you can go back. I actually will say this in preparing this one. If you haven't listened to those, you don't even have to go back.

You can listen to this one. There might be a couple references, but they're not super, you'll be able to get through them. And this section that we're about to cover kind of starts with the crux of the book. But again, when I started reading this book a couple years ago, it was a couple, maybe it was a year ago, maybe it was a couple years ago.

Actually, I forget when I got this book, but I knew it was gonna take a while. I don't know it was gonna take this long. But here we are. I apologize for taking so long. Like you said, though, there's when you understand how not to do something and you understand what the pitfalls are and the mistakes you can make and the traps, these things are all traps. They're all traps. And when you start to be able to see the traps, it helps a person a lot.

It doesn't make them not going to the traps. That's the whole point. That's one of the whole points of this book is people know that this is a trap and they walk right into it. They just can't even help themselves. Like remember the whole name dropping thing that he talked about? I forget which one it was, but name dropping, everybody knows it looks whack and they still do it. They can't control themselves. Well, let me rephrase that.

An arrogant, egotistical person that's nervous about how they look, they're going to name drop even though they know it looks back, even though they'll point at someone else and say, oh, listen to Kerry, name dropping over there. They'll do that and then they'll name drop. Yeah. They'll go, hey, see you. Carrie was name dropping over here. Did you see him name dropping me? I was talking to Joe Rogan the other day. You know what I'm saying?

That's how whack people are. That's how we get stuck in lame situations. Yeah. So the crux of this book is actually the chapter we're going to start with right now. Dave Burke couldn't make it, by the way. Good deal, too. Working, busy. The chapter here is called Authoritative.

And this is kind of the crux and this is this is what we need to watch out for Well, this is this is what we need to watch out for it this authoritarian Mindset look do you need to watch out for it as a nation? Yes, you better Especially as things start getting imposed on your on your life Because that slides into authoritarianism and that's that's a slippery slope and I know you that you're gonna bring up the slippery slope fallacy I see it in your eyes Well again And I'll say that I said it before

There is such thing as a slippery slope And there is such thing as a slippery slope fallacy They're not like one doesn't You know They both exist They both exist exactly right So authoritarianism In our minds

We have to watch out for it In our teams As leaders we have to watch out for it And yes as human beings Living in whatever country you live in You need to watch out for that authoritarianism because it's a thing that once it starts to take hold the authoritarian It snowballs yeah like I get a little bit of control authoritarian people when they get a little bit of control

They want more control and then they get a little bit more they want even more and they don't stop And it's a it's a it's a psychopathology that they have that they can't contain it So here we go authoritarianism in discussing military organizations It was suggested that a symbiotic relationship exists between certain characteristics of armed services and the private needs of the individual members. So what that's saying is when you go in the military, there's certain needs that certain people have, certain psychological needs that people have, that going in the military satisfies those needs.

For instance, here's an example of where this is a bad thing. I like to rule over people. I know if I become an officer in the military, I'll be able to rule over those privates. So it sort of It satisfies that to me So there's a nice relationship I have I want to be an authoritarian This puts me in an authoritarian position

I love it Is this true of all military people? No, it's not Continuing on emphasis was laid upon the central role In this relationship of anxiety That insidious motivator of such Of much human behavior In the military mind it was pointed out

Anxiety has many sources Fear of death and mutilation, fear of suppression, fear of failure and social disapproval, fear of public disgrace, and underlying all that fear of total disorder, which is inseparable product of unleashing normally tabooed instinctual forces. So if you're a person that doesn't like disorder, you look at the military and go, that looks pretty good. You got to go to bed at a certain time. All these people will listen to me. We get to follow orders. They're going to tell me what to do. going to listen to when I tell them what to do.

That's, you're, if you don't like disorder, that's a great place to be. Until what happens? The layer of total disorder on planet Earth opens its jaws and that is combat. So now you're a person that doesn't like disorder and for your job at the moment of truth, you are thrust into the jaws of the highest level of disorder in the world. That is combat. And that's why this is that's what this book is about this psychology of military incompetence is because people that like order and join the military because they like order and then their actual job Look part of their job is marching around a parade field and inspecting uniforms and keeping everything squirt away. That's great

But when that when that homie shows up and shit's getting crazy, they lose their minds So when you're looking when you're judging and you're thinking I wonder if that bad guy be a good military officer they're highly disciplined they're highly disciplined they they follow orders they're authoritarian they seem like they be great you need to remember what's that person going to do when things get wild and they're going to get wild continuing on finally it was suggested and you can see where this whole book that little that that that crux that's why I said this is the crux of the book that crux right there is why this is so fascinating to me because I've seen this throughout my career.

People that were squared away, people that were highly disciplined, people that were loved for things to be in order. And when things weren't going right or things were getting wild, they'd lose their minds. And by the way, if they never got put into a situation where things got wild, they get promoted, by the way. They're getting promoted because they're the most ordered. They kept the tightest rains on their troops. Back to the book.

Finally, it was suggested that a special predisposition toward these several. sorts of anxiety may be present in some people as a result of their early childhood. Again, this is where, and somebody pointed this out to me on one of the YouTube comments, the word I was looking for was psycho babble. Psycho babble. Because, again, this guy was a psychologist, so he ties all this stuff into weird Freudian freaking childhood experiences, and I can't back any of that up. I don't know about any of that.

What I do know is this. People have different personalities. Where those personalities came from, I don't really know, and I actually don't care. You show up to a seal team. Your personality is that, whatever your personality is. And that's great. That's fine. I don't care where it came from.

If you're hyper-ordered and you can't stand it when things get wild, you're not going to be a good seal officer or a good seal leader. If you're totally rebellious and you can't fall into line ever, well, that's too far in the other direction. And now you can't control anything. You can't control yourself. So we want to find somebody that's balance. That dichotomy, but whether it comes from early childhood and the way you were potty trained and all this kind of cycle babble

I don't know. I don't know we'll have to ask Jordan B Peterson name drop about that one Yes sir Such people may well be drawn towards military organizations because the latter have of necessity Perfected devices like bullshit and discipline and hierarchical Command structures and rigid conventions which not only allow aggression without anxiety but also reduce anxiety that may have originated much earlier period of life. Okay. Again,

a little bit psychoanalysis too much for me. It's sort of, it's a bummer because, as I've said many times, Jordan Peterson made me start to, like, think maybe psychology was sort of a real thing. This is kind of draw me back in the direction. Sorry,

psychologist. Somebody went, I was reading YouTube notes, no comments. And somebody was telling me that, you know, much of what Freud said was actually right, but he's just been so

like hammered by his reputation because he was a cocaine fiend. And now we kind of dis disperse or dispatch everything that he said. So maybe I was a little hard on him. I don't know. As far as I'm concerned, if you're doing a lot of cocaine like that

and you're prescribing it to a bunch of people and you're lying about who's getting cured, I kind of take a lot of what you said and throw it out the window. Yeah, well, what's the, There's a, there's a, that's a bias too, right? A cocaine addiction. Yes, that's my bias.

I'm biased against people that are addicted to cocaine. No, it's not, sorry, it's not a bias. It's a logical fallacy. I don't know if you're committing this logical fallacy, but it's, um, it's the, I forget what it is. But the example is like, oh, why would you listen to Fred? Fred doesn't even have a job. So it's kind of like, it's like, I think I am committing that. It's almost like, I'm kind of like, why would you listen to Freud?

I know. Freud's addicted to cocaine. Yeah. Hey, look, I'm not saying you're making the bad, bad decision or nothing like that. I'm saying from a logical standpoint, it's technically a fallacy. It's like, okay, that means if you do cocaine, everything else you say is incorrect. Okay. Is that what that means?

From a logical standpoint. You're right. Okay. Well, I'll concede that. Well, that's what I am conceding. Freud was right part of the time. Give Freud his problem. On some of the stuff.

As he was snored in cocaine. In light of all this, it is encouraging to encounter a substantial body of research which not only provides support for the thesis, but also fills in many of the gaps. It is that on the authoritarian personality. And then they get into this massive section about the authoritarian personality, which I'm not covered in the whole thing because I've already spent six freaking podcasts on this book, which is all good. But I'm going to do a little bit of it. For the impetus behind the study of authoritarianism, we have to thank the founders and proponent. proponents of the Third Reich. They, it who was presented to the world, a phenomenon, the like of which has never been seen

before. Since the systematic bureaucratized murder of six million Jews to the inquiring mind, anti-Semitism on this scale would seem to demand at the very least some explanation for a group of researchers at Frankfurt and later at Berkeley, California, the fact that human prejudice could assume such monstrous proportion suggested the possibility of a particular personality type being implicated in the perpetration of these dark events so basically he's saying look the Nazis were psycho where did their personality come from what type of people had that personality and then he goes into a Nazi psychologist whose name was jinch something like that jench i don't know sorry they're you Nazi bastard from mispronouncing your name.

So he broke it down and there was S-types, which S-types at the high end could have something called synesthesia. Have you ever heard of synesthesia before? Synesthesia. This is a very interesting story. So synesthesia. Seth Stone, he could memorize any number immediately. So if he met like a female in a bar,

he would say what's your number and they would say it and he would immediately know it and then he was really good at weird math problems and and he could memorize dates and one day we were talking because it was it was enough it was noticeable enough how good he was at it that you think to yourself there's something a little different that's really weird how he could memorize this stuff so he said to me one day he goes you know this is kind of weird, but when I see numbers, I don't see a number. I see a color. And it has like a texture to it. Yeah. And I was like, okay, bro. If we were to the military, I think you were maybe on some LSD or whatever. So I said, what do you mean? He says, well, for me, and he, then he described the

colors of each, the colors and textures of each number. Yeah. So, So the only ones I remember was that zero was like hollow. He said, he said zero was hollow. It's not, it's like it's not there. One was white. And the other one I remember is seven was yellow. And the reason I remember that one is because I have two sevens in my phone number. And the first time I asked him what my, I said say my phone number in colors.

And he was like, you know, yellow, yellow, hollow. But yellow, yellow. And yellow and I have two sevens. And I said, what's, I go, is seven yellow? He goes, yeah. So it was just weird. He had no idea why this was the situation. That's crazy.

So one day I'm in a bookstore and this is, you know, kind of, a day when you wouldn't just go on a website to buy your books. I'm in a bookstore and I see numbers on a cover of a book and they're all colored and textured. And I was, that's weird. And I walk over and I pick it up and I start looking through it. And it says, oh, this book is about a person that had synesthesia. And so I look it up. Cineshesia is a thing where you have multiple modes of interpreting information.

So, for instance, numbers have colors. They can have, letters can have colors. So that's the way, that's the way Seth thought. Yeah. And so for this Nazi, Janch, that was kind of the far end of this kind of wild creative thing.

This kind of wild creative person. Here it says to have subjective experiences in one modality when receiving stimulation in another. This is the kind of wildest brain that you can get. And so this Nazi guy, this is the S type. These are people that are S types. It doesn't mean they necessarily have synesthesia,

but they're leaning in that. that direction and this quote has the liberal in his views eccentric behavior also weak effeminate and prone to heretical belief that people are largely shaped by their environment and education again this is from a Nazi psychologist which if we're not listening to Freud we're certainly not listening to this Nazi dude so but he's he's breaking it down into two types the S type and then the other type is the J type and according to this guy the J type the J type were, quote, good types that would make good Nazis

amongst their sterling qualities were purity in perception and the sure knowledge that human behavior is determined by blood, soil, and national tradition. Hence, freaking Nazis. The J type, so the Nazi type would be a he man, hard and tough, a man you could rely on. These qualities would, he said,

have been handed down by a long, line of North German ancestors. So this is what the Nazi says and it's just it's kind of funny because well Sestone was about as hard of a bastard as you could ever know and certainly a he manned individual as well and a warrior big freaking Viking warrior texted his mom

the other day I was like yeah thanks for letting me hang out with that freaking savage Viking kid of yours um so now we go to the Berkeley study. So we just did the Nazi study who got these two different types. The S type, which is sort of a liberal, sort of effeminate type,

and then the J type, which is more of the conservative, hardcore type. Then the American researchers, later, going back to the book, also found two contrasting personality types, and these were very like those described by change. Needless to say,

they evaluated them rather differently. The one that corresponded to the J type, they called the author. authoritarian personality such a person was anti-Semitic rigid intolerative ambiguity Again think about this if you're intolerant of ambiguity think of how you're in a performing combat you're gonna be great in the military in the in the in the in the in the rear of the military because you're you're you don't like ambiguity as soon as you're in combat you don't exactly know what's happening You got to make a decision you're gonna hate it

So intolerant of ambiguity and hostile to people or groups racially different from himself. By the same token, the polar opposite to this type, Ginch, contemptible anti-type was individualistic, tolerant, democratic, unprejudiced, and egalitarian. So you've got these two different personalities. The Nazis called the bad one good,

and the Berkeley people called the good one bad. So you get, however you want to break that down. their test provided measures of anti-Semitism, ethnocentrism, political and economic conservatism, and implicit anti-democratic trends or potentiality for fascism, which they called the F scale. Like, what is your potential of becoming a fascist? This, much of which is based on by actual utterances by the Nazis,

measured in individuals' predisposition towards. So this is what the F type, if you have a tendency where you could become a fascist, conventionalism i.e. rigid adherence to conventional middle class values. Authoritarian submission. A submissive uncritical attitude toward the idealized moral authorities of the group which he identifies himself. And that's what's kind of crazy, right?

You would think that authoritarian's would be, you'd be hard to control. But if you're part of their, if they're part of that group, they're in the game. Yeah. You know, So that's why the young officer in the military that he's totally down.

He's saluting with utmost vigor because he's part of that system. And he just he's on board. He's submissive to the system. Authoritarian aggression, i.e. a tendency to be on the lookout for and to condemn, reject and punish people who violate conventional values. It's kind of weird how there's like right now you've got Antifa who's supposed to be sort of like the wild anti-fastist who's actually totally on board with what I'm saying right now as they're they're off the charts on the F scale yeah so like this I don't know if this F scale would

reflect this specifically or or accurately but essentially you have like two two sides right one one is real conventional right they're probably probably I don't know but they're probably going to ignore exceptions you know the value of exceptions and nuance and all this stuff right they're going to tend to ignore it right then you have the other side who probably Probably overvalue nuance and exceptions. Kind of like, hey, if there's these exceptions, oh, that must be just as equal as the rule. Because, you know, you kind of look at the individual, you know.

So that, that Antifa analogy is absolutely correct. They're doing the exact same thing. They're just reversed it. Yeah, you got to, you got to kind of, I don't know, back in the day, it seems like everyone was way more just in the middle. Well, balance is what we've, what we lose. And what you want, even on these two things. Do you want to be a fascist?

No, but do you want to be crazy uncontrollable? No, you want to be balanced. Yeah, and even just valuing like the group and then on the other hand, valuing the individual. It's like you got to value both of those things. You got to value both those things. Yeah, 100%.

Next one. Anti-interception, i.e. Opposition to the subjective, the imaginative, and the tender-minded. superstition and stereotype power and toughness preoccupation with the dominant submission strong weak leader follower dimension identification with power figures over emphasis on conventional attributes of the ego exaggeration exaggerated exaggerated assertion of strength and

toughness so how much of that is important like you know that's putting you out there on that F scale a little bit I'm starting to drift man start to drift Destructiveness and cynicism. Generalized hostility, vilification of the human. So, you know, obviously, a lot of this was focused around, hey, the Nazis and where the Nazis came from. Part of that F thing is they can look at humans

and be like, whatever, they don't matter. Projectivity, the belief that wild and dangerous things go on in the world, the projection outwards of unconscious, emotional impulses, puritanical, an exaggerated, with sexual goings on. So you got these two personality types. Another little note here. These torturous machinations of the authority,

of the authoritarian mind ramify yet further. Because he has to deny his own shortcomings, he dare not look inward. He is fearful of insight and strenuously avoids questioning his own motives. Again, This is when people are, they're not real confident with themselves, so they project and look at everyone else. Similarly, the authoritarian personality is intolerant of ambivalence and ambiguity.

We already hit that. Just as he cannot harbor negative and positive feelings for the same person, but must dichotomize reality into loved people versus hated people. So that's a very, that's restating what you said. because someone, what should you be able to do? You should be able to look at Echo and be like, you know what? I like that Echo's, you know, he's pretty nice, but also he can get a little bit lazy sometimes. But overall, you know, we're good. Kind of cryptic, I guess.

Messages, whatever. Not so creepy. Right? But for me to say, Echo's nice, but freaking, he's lazy. I can't stand him, right? And then you can start looking from one individual to look to a whole group of people, as you said. And I start looking at a group of people. and just saying, well, that group of people is bad.

Did I just do that with Antifa? I just kind of, sorry. You implied it. I implied, yeah. Sorry, Antifa. I need to be a little bit more open-minded to your individuals. Yeah, they're one of those groups that they're current public-facing persona. Not that hot.

Yeah. There's another nine-year research that took place, published a decade after the Berkeley research. and this is something that I've been focused on a lot. And it's the open and closed mind centered on the problem of an individual's capacity to absorb fresh information. Humanity, it seems, varies considerably in this respect. And God, that is.

So this guy, his name is Rokic, Rockich, something like this. And he did the study. He started breaking down. The open and the closed mind. Some people have open minds. Some people have closed minds. And I actually think that this is even kind of, it trumps the F.

What was it the F scale? The F scale. I think this trumps the F scale. How much can someone's mind open? How much can it close? And I've been talking a lot about this from a leadership perspective because it is, to me, what we have to fight all the time. Our minds are constantly trying to close and be defensive and take care of themselves

and not allow any other ideas in. And what we have to do as people and as leaders is constantly pull your mind open, constantly accept other people's ideas. It doesn't mean you have to think that they're right, but you have to listen to them and assess them in an honest way. And what we have been doing a lot of as a society is just closing our minds to everyone else's ideas. And we don't want to hear what their perspective is because we think we're right. And if you do that as a leader, you know, you come to me with a viewpoint on my plan and I don't open my mind to your viewpoint. I'm wrong.

Yeah. It goes on here. Humanity, it seems, varies considerably in this respect that the one extreme are open minds ready and willing to entertain new facts. even if they are incompatible with their previously held attitudes and beliefs. That's what we want. You got to open your mind and go, hey, you know what? I wouldn't really expect to see those numbers or get that feedback, but there it is. And I need to put that in my calculus.

The other end of the scale are closed minds, which, as their name suggests, resolutely resist taking in anything that conflicts with their preconceptions and treasured beliefs. Not very surprisingly, the possession of a closed mind turned down. out to be yet another aspect of the authoritarian personality. Is that? Okay, so you can always make it like an analogy to weightlifting for some reason. Maybe you can, but I'm open to it. Let's hear what you got, homie?

But like I wonder if that's like a lazy is, you know how like by nature like the human body and brain is kind of late? For lack of better term, it's lazy. It's conserving like energy all the time, you know? Like so even like lifting weights, when you lift weights, your body's response to lifting weights is just a lazy laziness mechanism. And so your body is basically saying, oh, shoot, that was kind of hard. What do we got to do at home in the body to make a little bit easier next time?

And then it adapts and gets bigger and stronger, whatever. So it's kind of like a weird, like I said, laziness, lack of better term, mechanism. So like when you have a closed mind, it's kind of like, hey, I already learned that. Like don't give me some more stuff I got to learn kind of thing. So then it's easier. Like, because it's all mental. It's not physical. So you just kind of resist against it.

And you can see where this ties. into everything that I have talked about from a leadership perspective for my entire life, which is humility. Because if you're humble, your mind is open. If you're arrogant, your mind is closed. You think you know everything. You don't need to hear anything else. You're not going to make any adaptations.

Yeah. When you see that little system, it kind of makes sense. It makes so much sense. Right. Especially go back to the weightlifting. Like you give your body some workout. The next day, brother, you get that doms. Right.

You don't like that stuff. Like I remember when I was little, I'd do some push up. right, thinking I'm more cool or whatever, do something. The next day I'm like, so I didn't know about DOMs that much. And, bro, that's a terrible feeling. So it's like, bro, I'm not doing that anymore. Or at the very least, in the inside of my body, my body's like, hey, we got to do something easier or make it so it's easier next time that happens.

So from a mental standpoint, it makes sense where, bro, that, what do you call it? The fucking, you called, you talked about it last, the cognitive dissonance or whatever. That is DOMs for your mind, essentially. Or maybe the precursor to DOM. I don't know. It's one of those things. I'm just saying it makes sense because that hurts. You know, when you get that new stuff. I don't want that new stuff.

I'm good with this old stuff. Closed mind. He says here, before leaving this section on authoritarianism, there are several other research findings which are pertinent to our present thesis. One of these shows the relationship between conformity, authoritarianism, and the tendency to yield to group pressures. An extreme example of this pattern is the phenomenon of the participation in a lynch mob. where the naturally conformist individual happily yields to group pressure for the perpetration of a criminally aggressive act,

which, though wholly at variance with the ethos of the wider society, accords with his own narrow self-interest. So again, it's counterintuitive to think that someone that's authoritarian is going to be more apt to go with the group. another finding concerns the effect of authoritarianism upon problem solving in a group situation. And you know, I love this one because, again, I'm thinking of it from a military perspective. And you start thinking, now you got this authoritarian in command. How are they at problem solving? Well, let's go to the book. From their research, W. Hathorn and his colleagues concluded this, that equalitarian subjects,

i.e. those low on authoritarianism were apparently more effective. in dealing with a task and problem than were authoritarian. So that open mind is way better for problems solving. Seems obvious, but this was reflected in higher ratings of effective intelligence, leadership, and goal striving on the sorts of leaders who emerged in the group situation. They had this to say, emergent leaders in the low F groups were more sensitive to others, more effective leaders, more prone to making suggestions for action subject to group sanction, and less likely to give direct orders to others. This is insane how much this matches everything I've been talking about.

A conclusion incidentally, which accords with the observation that authoritarian is less able to appreciate the effect they have upon others and may well think themselves more liked and popular than they really are. I'm chuckling as I think of my military career and people that thought that they were super popular and everyone hated them. Even people attracted to a career in an authoritarian organization, i.e. the military, have been found to prefer leaders who score low on test of authoritarianism, presumably because authoritarian are less sensitive to the needs of other.

So even when you're a, when you're kind of authoritarian yourself and you joined the military, when you get asked about what type of leader you like, guess what? You actually like less authoritarian leaders because they listen, they treat you with respect, their minds are open. So this is the best way to lead across the board.

You know skyscrapers here in San Diego, California, I'm sure it's like this ever. I'm not an engineer. You know that. But from what I understand, okay, so think of a tall building, right? It's tall. So that thing better be strong, right, to hold itself up. But tall buildings aren't made rigidly.

They're made with a little bit of flimsiness on purpose to absorb like movement. The various movements and vibrations that may or may not come about. So it's essentially the same thing. On the surface, you think, oh, yeah, authoritarianism, that's the way you can't destroy it. You can't break it or nothing like that. but probably that's not how it works. If you're too rigid, bright,

you're just going to crumble when the wiggles start coming, when the earthquake starts coming, you know? Again, this is why humility is the most important aspect or characteristic for a leader. Because when you're humble, you're able to move a little bit.

You're able to take on new ideas. You're able to sway when the earthquake comes and make adjustments. You're not just crumbling and falling down. Yes, sir. It cannot be stressed too strongly that in talking about authoritarianism, we have been discussing people towards one end of a continuum.

This is important because this is a dichotomy. This guy couldn't quite put that. He couldn't grasp that concept like your boy right here. Yes, sir. Because you got to balance that dichotomy, but here's what he says. Between this and the other can be found people with all shades of opinion on the various attitudes measured. The general point is this. When discussing authoritarianism, no value judgment is intended.

Few would dispute that in moderation. many of the traits which make up the authoritarian personality have value in society. Civilization requires that there be some repression of sex and aggression, some exercise of discipline, and a modicum of conformity and ordinaliness. So there's aspects of that personality, which are good, and that's true in the military.

In fact, the military got a little bit extra, you know, because you've got to be a little bit more conformist because you've got to get the, you know, you've got to be on board. But it attracts people that are too much. Yeah. A little bit fast forward here in other respects however the likelihood of above average levels of authoritarianism in military personnel may well contribute toward incompetence particularly when the authoritarian has reached a level of command where flexibility and an open mind are

Mandatory for success to be more specific the personality traits of authoritarianism and the associated characteristics of the closed mind and obsessive character may contribute to incompetence in the following ways one, since authoritarians have been found to be more dishonest, more irresponsible, more untrustworthy, more socially conforming, more suspicious than non-authoritarians, they are unlikely to make successful social leaders. Authoritarians will be less likely to understand enemy intentions. I never thought of that before. Actually, here's something new for Jocko. If you're authoritarian, you're less likely to understand what the enemy's doing because you can't. even understand their perspective. Yeah.

And to act upon information regarding such intentions as conflict with the beliefs and preconceptions, which the commander might hold. That makes sense. So, okay, forgive me for all the analogies, by the way. What do you got this time? You're talking about this stuff. Yeah. Okay.

So now this time is cameras. Oh, for two. Or photo, whatever. Not even. I'm two for two. Though they were accurate. These lessons are everywhere. Perception is different amongst people.

All right. Well, consider a camera, right? Or a photograph or whatever, right? You have high resolution, low resolution, kind of a situation. So the authoritarianism seems like a low resolution scenario. Way more black and white. Way more like, oh, yeah, like freaking either. It's this way.

And if it's not this way, then it's obviously the other way. But you get a high-res photo. It's like, oh, that's not, that's, oh, that's just black. Obviously, no, no, no, no, just look closer. It's kind of gray. It's actually pretty dark gray. And then even within that gray, there's darker and lighter shades of gray. Or you see.

Or what colors? Yeah, what have you. This one might be orange. This one might be salmon. Which is a color, by the way. Egg shell. Egg shell. With Ramalian type.

What's that from? African cycle. No, no, but see what I'm saying, though. Where you get a low-res situation. Yeah, like they don't get it. They don't know. And then you said, they don't know what the enemy's thinking. Yeah, because they see black.

But the enemy's not on black. They're over here on 38% gray. Yeah, exactly. Right. So yeah, that's just the way it's working. So you've got to be, well, I'm not saying you got to be. I'm just saying it might be as the book is demonstrating more a fish effective. To have a more nuanced perception of what's happened. Some high-res. Check. In 1954, American research showed that people with a high score on tests of authoritarianism had greater difficulty than non-authoritarians in recognizing threatening messages when these were presented visually. A year later, another study confirmed this finding with threatening words that were heard instead of seen.

So someone that's authoritarian, they don't even, they just don't comprehend the world accurately. That is now your metaphor just became more ample in that right there. Yeah. They can't see as well. They can't see as clear. They can't see the nuance. They can't see the message. Yeah.

Three, the inability to sacrifice cherished traditions and accept technical innovations, the history of the machine gun, the tank, and the aeroplane contains striking as evidence of this disability. In war, an ounce of calculation is worth a ton of intuition. It also saves many lives. Number four, the underestimation of enemy ability. Number five, and he's got whole sections about each one. That's where you've got to buy the book. Number five, an emphasis upon the importance of blind obedience and loyalty at the expense of a number five. at the expense of initiative and innovation

at lower levels of command. So that's just, if you lose that. So if you're in charge of a company of soldiers and your focus is on getting them to be blindly obedient because you're an authoritarian, it's bad. And you're doing it at the expense of having decentralized command. Watch out for that. Got to beware.

Number six, the protection of the reputations of senior commanders and punishment of those in the lower military hierarchy if they voice any opinion however valuable in itself implies criticism of those higher up so they don't want to hear any pushback on anything which is again a stark contrast to what I encourage all the time up and down the chain of command I want push back from my team my team isn't pushing back actually I'm nervous now I think I've got blind obedience which I don't want number three number seven closely related to the foregoing effects of authoritarianism is an individual's propensity to blame others for their own shortcomings.

This is the opposite of extreme ownership. So the opposite of extreme ownership is authoritarian and blaming other people. Wouldn't it suck if I was reading this book like right now and it just wasn't working? It's all not mashing up. All my theories were wrong. Number eight, the close relationship. between authoritarianism and obsessive traits has also played a significant part in military incompetence. This is a matter which we discussed earlier. Suffice it to say that the worst excesses of bull and the clinging to an acrastic ritual have played a not inconsiderable part in holding back the military machine.

So when you are hyper obsessed OCD on little things that don't matter, this is not going to help. You'll help you number nine. There's one trade of the authoritarian personality which at first sight may seem to have nothing to do With military incompetence of belief in supernatural forces The contrary is in fact the case as a general issue since military decision should not be based upon a proper weighing up of facts The introduction of metaphysical variables into decision making necessarily contributes noise Which decreases the probability of decisions being correct correct concern with what the star or the star foretell or hopes and occasionally fears of the divine intervention constitute prejudices which can bias decisions away from realism and towards wishful fantasies that's a weird one to me because you

would think that the people that were anti-authoritarianism would be more kind of superstitious but he's we didn't run through all the examples of get all kinds of examples of that yeah all kinds of examples through that throughout history of people that are authoritarian I mean Hitler is a good example because he was all into the occult and all that and superstitious about stuff. Number 10, one of the least attractive aspects of the authoritarian personality

is his generalized hostility what the Berkeley research is called vilification of the human. This was a trait that, which was manifested to such an extreme degree by members of the Nazi SS, they commit wholesale murder, not just without guilt or shame,

but perhaps most surprisingly without the slightest evidence of revulsion. And then he says, finally there is the fact that authoritarianism, authoritarianism itself so, so damaging to military endeavor will actually predispose an individual towards entering upon the very career wherein his restricted personality can wreak the most havoc. This is what I kind of opened up with saying today.

People that have these tendencies are attracted to the military. And he gives the following case study. Case 19, Cecil or Cecil. Cecil, yeah. I guess Cecile would be a girl's name, wouldn't it? Yes, sir. So Cecil is a male name. Yes, sir.

More of a British name. I've never met an American dude named Cecil. Have you? Yes, sir. Really? Yeah. Okay. I have not.

Just one. Was he from England? No. Black guy? No, black guy. Cecil. Yeah. Okay.

Here we go. Wait, who's Cecil Peoples? Oh, yeah. He's an actor. No, isn't that a UFC guy? Cecil People's? So UFC, like commentator or ref maybe? I think he's a ref.

I'm drawing a blank for some reason. Cecil Peoples, right? Anyway, Cecil people shout out All right I'm if I'm not mistaken he's a referee Early on Get your phone and Google it Seriously

I kind of remember him being Yeah you might be right Might have been a judge Maybe it was a judge Yeah it seemed like he had some weird background And bare knuckle fighting or something And then kind of got early UFC activities going So

Peoples is A There he is black guy I need support. He's a judge. Why we need to support M. I may judge Cecil peoples. Right on.

From what era? What was his background? The era that I was watching USC, which is probably like five years ago and before. So this is the guy that you claimed to know? I knew I worked with a guy at American Movers named Cecil. And then there's Cecil peoples.

All right. Check. So here's Cecil R, who's an obsessive, neurotic, and I wasn't going to read this thing, but I kind of have to, and I'll tell you why, and we get to the end. His IQ is in the bright normal range. Personality testing indicated that he was very dependent on his parents, but that they were seen as being emotionally remote and extremely demanding. In fantasy, he expressed strong feelings of aggression and anger. He seemed most interested in the history of wars and in playing war games. He shot darts with vigor and delight in the therapist playroom and if given a choice would choose war games His parents said he refused to play with other children unless they others did exactly what they told him what he told them to do

Cecil said when he grew up he wanted to be a general So there you go that's the kind of personality we don't want joining the military but that is fired up to join the military next chapter 23 mothers of incompetence we're going kind of heavy not going to go too deep into this chapter because it going a little bit into the psychology world which again I think this some of the psychology is a little bit outdated this is coming from me and I'm those psychologists sounds like a closed mind scenario okay we'll open it up okay good point you caught me I'm busted for the reader not previously versed in the psychology of authoritarianism the preceding chapter may have come as something a surprise at first sight.

The traits of orderliness, tough-mindedness, obedience to authority, punitiveness, and the rest, well, may have seemed the very embodiment of hard-hitting masculinity, ideally suited to the job of being a soldier. That is an epic statement, right? All that's exactly, and that's what so many people think. So many people think that is what we're looking for in the military. Unfortunately, as represented in the authoritarian personality, They are only skin deep a brittle crust of defenses against feelings of weakness and inadequacy the authoritarian Keeps up his spirits by whistling in the dark. He is frightened. He is the frightened child who wears the armor of a giant

His mind is a closed is a door locked and bolted against that which he fears the most himself I didn't get much out of that but what I did get a lot out of what I did get a lot out of is the fact that But when you hear these personality traits, tough-mindedness, obedience to authority, it sounds like that's what you want your people to be. You want to what's what you want your soldier to be. You don't. It's not what you want. It's not what we're looking for. Fast forward a little bit.

Before going on, there's one further point. It concerns the distinction that has been drawn between irrational authoritarianism as dealt with here and so-called rational authoritarianism. So this is just a clarification here. by the latter is meant the readiness to accept and obey the dictates of a rational authority. Cool. So Pete, there's such a thing. He's basically making a distinction here. An irrational antipathy toward all authority is evident in some cases of student militancy

may be just as neurotic as non-adaptive as a predisposition toward irrational authoritarianism. The common denominator of irrational authoritarianism and blancheval authoritarianism and blanche. Anarchy is that both states of mind are compulsive and derive from an underlying ego pathology. In fact, this distinction between rational and irrational authoritarianism has been implied throughout this book. Without the exercise, this is why I had to read this part, without the exercise and acceptance of rational authority, without certain minimal levels of discipline, and even without certain features of bullshit, military organizations would cease to. function this is something I have to talk about sometime with um with clients at Eshlam Front because decentralized command we want to have decentralized command decentralized command decentralized command we want subordinates to be able to make

choices and make decisions and occasionally I'll get a get a group that's going too wild with that and all of a sudden where nothing is centralized anymore and I have to bring up the fact that hey guess what kind of uniform every guy into asking a bruiser war a matching uniform why because we couldn't have some guy that was wearing a pair of blue jeans and a and a sweatshirt out in Ramadi because they would look they wouldn't look the same and therefore they get shot what happens if I run out of bullets guess what I can get bullets from someone else in plume because we're all using the same weapon what about my radio I can use my radio and I can pick up your radio and use it too why because we're using the

same radio so you have to have some level of centralization some level of authoritarianism that we're all going to kind of be on the same page. He says then it is necessary to labor this point because of some of the semantic confusion regarding the term authoritarian. Throughout this book, it refers to irrational authoritarianism. For the so-called rational authoritarianism, we prefer the praise autocratic behavior. The terms are not synonymous, whereas the autocrat exercises tight control and the situation demands that the authoritarian is himself tightly controlled, no matter what the

external situation. Little semantics there. He goes in this next chapter, education of the cult of muscular Christianity. Okay. This is where he starts talking about, you know, the British schools, how these kids were raised in sort of like this musk, what he calls muscular Christianity. Not kids, but some of the kids in this time frame were raised this way. Here's some of the things that are highlighted.

by it. The reasons for this stultifying educational program are no doubt many and various, but to deserve particular consideration. So this is the education program that some of these kids were subjected to. The first resides in the belief that enforced application to unpleasant, boring tasks develops character. And the second, that any truly intellectual exercise by which is meant the cultivation of independent thinking as opposed to wrote learning harms that fine sense of loyalty and obedience which shuts which such schools strive to inculcate to think is to question and to question is to have doubts so you give some examples of how these kids were raised what they did at these schools you know they were playing sports they

were do hazing rituals and memorizing things and it was all I mean this is this is true to this day you know we've got this sort of school system which is meant to teach you to be a good worker. That's what it's meant to do. Meant to teach you to be a good worker. They don't want, that's why they structure things. It's like, hey, some of the stuff that you learn in school has no value whatsoever.

They're just trying to get you to follow the rules, do what they say, get on board with the program, fall in line with the authoritarian rulers. So we got to be careful of that. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes you feel like they, whoever they are, are doing it. on purpose and sometimes you just feel like

I think this is just some curriculum that like no one had the like gusto to just be like hey we're doing an overhaul. Yeah. I think you're right. I think that at some point like right now let's face it if you were to go ground zero and restart your educational system

in America would be totally different than it is right now. Yeah. Well it is slowly changing and I'm not even sure that the way that they're changing is the right direction. I think they're taking advantage of the fact that it might not have been the best and they're changing it to make it worse in some cases. Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah.

I think from a social standpoint, I think they might have went kind of too hard in a certain direction. Kind of crazy sometimes, what kids are learning in school. Disturbing in some cases what kids are learning in school. Yeah. My only point of reference is my elementary schools

that my kids go to. I got the full spectrum from elementary school through college. I got it all. I've seen it all. Do you think, what was I just thinking about just now? And I am not really in support of it.

Yeah. Oh, okay. Do you think, I don't know the answer to this, but I just, I do kind of consider the other side of this. You know how you just said the school kind of is structured to provide or to develop good workers, right? Aren't most people workers anyway? Not necessarily. No, no. You want to know something.

What I think is messed up now is I think a lot of times the school right now is to develop people to to college and feed the academic growth of colleges. Yeah, but even that, hey, we're just trying to get you to get, oh, you know, it'd be good for you to get a degree in freaking basket weaving or whatever. And no one needs a degree in that. There's a lot of degrees that you get that you don't need. If you want to learn about that stuff, go read about it. Don't pay $200,000 and go into debt to learn about something that has no, it doesn't give

you a skill set. That always felt like a social problem to me. It felt like I don't freaking know when I was a kid Not not a kid but when I was when I joined the military I already I used to use a term I don't know if it's ever called on or I don't know if I've ever heard it but educational inflation Because when I was a kid if you dropped out of high school you could still get a job and have a normal life Then as I got to high school it was hey listen you got to finish high school if you don't finish high school You can't get a job blah blah blah

Then it was that I joined the military thank God I joined the military, but as I joined the military, it was, hey, you know, you need to really get your, whatever, what's a two-year degree? Your associate. You need to get your associates, get some, you know, good some. And then it became bachelors, and now you've got kids that are going to get in their masters and then they're doctorate. Right. They spend, they spend, they're 33 years old, 35 years old, 29 years old, before they're even getting a job. Yeah.

And they racked up. I mean, this is all now. It's all common. Like everyone's racking up three four hundred thousand dollars two hundred thousand three hundred thousand dollars worth of debt and the skill set that they got in whatever degree they got it gets them a 29,000 of no no probably not probably a 38,000 a year job as a whatever in a whatever right it's whereas if you would have gone to if you would have dropped out of high school and become an apprentice welder right now you'd be making a hundred and twenty eight grand a year yeah because you're a hard worker and by the way if you're smart you start you know you get you figure out that

welding thing and you buy a a couple welding a couple welding machines and you're like you know what I can get two guys I can apprentice them I can teach them boom you can grow you can make stuff happen meanwhile the person that has $38,000 a year job they actually have no skill set yeah so I think a lot of the educational system right now is a feeder program for the college system which is going to charge people money and this is sort of like the housing crash too so the housing crash came because the government was loaning money or backing up loans to people that aren't going to be able to afford it that was that was what one of the causes one of the primary causing of the housing crash right now the government backs up these loans that these people get and so they're

allowed to get loans for 200 300,000 dollars and they don't realize it they should but they don't realize that hey you know how long it takes to pay off a $300,000 loan, which is by the way is the only loan that you can't go bankrupt from. It's going to and you're making $39,000 a year. And by the way, my daughter just graduated college in the spring. And a really good college and her friends are making $39,000 a year, $42,000 a year. Like they're not making a lot of money. So I think a lot of the what used to feed the workers now feeds into this into this educational nightmare of college debt and loans and all that. That's what's kind of nice about what we're doing at origin because at origin you don't need a college education.

You can go get a job and get a skill and have a career. Right. And we got people that have careers now that have learned a skill. That's a highly valuable skill and they don't have any debt because they didn't go and study basket weaving for four years at $42,000 a year. Basket weaving always gets a bad rap. It almost seems like... Actually, basket weaving would be a better skill than some of the degrees that people are getting.

I would say that that's probably true. You could sell baskets. Yeah. But didn't... You're right. We need to stop harassing basket weavers. It's almost... But it feels, bro, I don't know.

I'm not an economist or nothing like this. You know that. Mm-hmm. It kind of seems like there's certain times and then the education is kind of like trying to facilitate those times, right? Then you have people running the education. And then the times change and then the education just follows up with the change, but just way, way too late. Like might even be 50 to 70 years late. Oh, yeah.

And then things. So now think about it. Consider that. So now it changes from like just straight up factory workers to, you know, a little bit more advanced work. types, right? So now it's like, okay, really the change that should have been made long time ago is for you to be influenced to go to college, get a higher education, right? Because you have higher level jobs. Generally speaking, you know, lower level jobs are always going to exist and all this stuff. But just generally speaking, it's just general. So boom, now everyone should be going to college long time ago. They should be doing that. They want to get a degree that creates way more opportunities. Back then, there's not all these crazy degrees. Like now there's plenty of degrees. When I went to college, like they started doing this program called liberal freaking freaking. studies, right? Which in concept, concept, it's good. The concept is good. But, bro, all you got to do is get your little degree approved and you can just study whatever you want, essentially, and be like, yeah, my degree is in this. As long as the title was approved, you can get it. It's called liberal

studies, but it's, and then you have a title for it. Again, you start doing it just for the sake of getting a degree. Bro, when you get out of college, you know, you could be jammed up. That's what I just said, right. Exactly right. And that's the later part of it. it but so now you have and when I say it's a social thing or it feels like a social thing it's kind of like people are still stuck in that little zone that's like it is beneficial to go to college because there was a point in that zone they think they think that oh oh what are you doing I'm going to go to college because that's the tradition put me on the path yeah and they don't realize that it's not the path that's not the reality right now so much has changed and then you

have all these people who like back in the day you said people can drop out high school and get a job because yeah you can drop out of high school because all you have to do is know how to read and do basic arithmetic and get a job somewhere, like at a factory or at a, you know, one of the jobs that were freaking prevalent in the, for those times. As times change, you need a little bit more education now for these jobs. True and on true. There are always exceptions. Guess what?

I mean, there, there is massive jobs that are, you know, carpentry, concrete, plumber, electrician, auto mechanic, driver. Like, there's all these jobs that you definitely do not need a college education to have. You do not need it. Oh, yeah. And those are awesome jobs. And those people go out and build America. But to your point,

are you talking about right now, though? I'm talking about right now. Those jobs fully exist. But here's, to your point, a lot of people would say, okay, hey,

what should I do with my life? And the first nine things that come up on their list are go to college, go to college, go to college, go to college. Whereas when I wasn't high school, maybe the first thing would be to go to college, but the second thing was like become an apprentice electrician.

You know, like I took electricity in high school. And you're saying that was kind of the social kind of influence. I think that was way more normal to there wasn't, there wasn't the mandatory track to college. And I think nowadays, almost every kid is being told go to college, go to college, go to college, instead of saying, hey, you can go and become an apprentice electrician and that's a freaking great job and you can have a great life and you can contribute to society in a massive way doing something you enjoy because look when I was in high school I didn't want to be looking at books right I wanted I would much rather be an electrician much rather be an electrician

yeah and and yeah I think the zone where okay basically break it into to these two things where the social influence like hey you should go to college or you should whatever or it's okay not to go to college you can just get a job here whatever this is that passes and changes through time. The social, to me, the social part is lagging, like, way behind the reality of it. That's what I'm saying. Yes. So there was a little zone where it was the best to go to college if you had that opportunity.

That was the zone. And right now, socially the influence is still in that zone. They're still saying it's starting to change, though. You start to hear people being like, hey, college is a waste of money. Influential people saying that stuff, yes. But I think it's still there. The reality on the streets is, bro, college is for a hands. handful of people and that's it.

Yeah. I want to say, yeah, there's people out there that are actually hiring. They're not looking for college degrees. And I'm talking like I think Peter Thiel's one of them. And he's out there saying, we'll test. I don't know if they got a testing program, but they're saying we just want smart people. It doesn't matter whether you went to college or not. That's freaking legit. And here's how you know.

Here's how you can kind of, it's kind of like a finger on the pole. Like this is how you can kind of tell that people are still in the zone of like college is a good thing. You can be like, oh yeah, that guy, he has a dude. degree from from Harvard it's like a total appeal appeal to authority the college being the authority by the way you don't even have to say what he has a degree from yeah you can say he has a degree from Harvard and that automatically I'm not saying that's it but I'm just saying that in and of itself is a point like a positive thing yeah yeah yeah are you right we get past this zone they'll be like

so what's it in what's he doing what's one is I actually hear that right now I'm starting to I and people that I know for sure sure are starting to hear like, oh, that person has their MBA or whatever. Yeah, whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we're already getting there. It's not getting there, but we're moving in that direction. I hear those comments.

Check. Back to education here. Finally, and perhaps the most fatal of all the private schools' ethic of honor and fair play so admirable in itself leads to disastrous results when mistakenly imputed to those like Hitler who play the game by different center rule. So these kids were told, hey, you got to follow the rules and this we play with honor. And then Hitler's like, oh, really? Watch this.

This particular weakness of military endeavor continued to feature in many subsequent campaigns. Indeed, is no exaggeration to say that an absence of adequate reconnaissance, the refusal to believe intelligence reports, and a general horror of spying have tended to keep our armies wrapped in cocoons of catastrophic ignorance. this fatal preference for honorable ignorance rather than useful knowledge gleaned by devious means was not confined to soldiers in the field but as an attitude of mind permeated the highest levels of all military intelligence so another thing these is what these kids got educated to do they got educated to live with honor that means we're not going to sneak around we're not going to cheat you know i had to watch out for that you know sometimes you get the like well iEDs for cowards

like okay we get it that's for cowards but guess what for cowards iEDs roadside ballads booby traps got it you know that that's a coward yeah yeah sure it is guess what we have to contend with it just because it's cowardly doesn't mean it's going to go in it doesn't mean it doesn't produce dead bodies and main bodies is it cowardly yes it is how do we counter it until you put some sniper overwatches on some roads and shwack some people that's how you counter it like a reformed because enormously successful burglar

who self-righteously puts down his jemmy to take up proselytizing on the evils of crime we took to repudiating these very traits push cleverness ruthlessness and sheer naked aggression that had put us where we are the reason that so what he's saying is you like a criminal that sort of makes it and like all of a sudden puts down his

thieving tools and starts saying you know thieving is bad and should live a righteous way but he's forgetting about how he got there And the point he's making here is we can have a tendency to do that like hey In war if you got to be brutal we're we're on top because we were brutal We're on top because we spied and you know broke shit and killed people that's what got us here And we can't now sit up here's like well that's all wrong Right, right

You got to be careful about that Yeah Now we get to part three of this book well interestingly enough you want to hear what quote it starts off there's no bad regiments only bad officers we've heard napoleon say it we've heard hackworth say it we've heard echelon front say we we know that quote is an extreme ownership well it's we use a different quote no bad teams only bad leaders is what we said did we steal it yes we stole it from hackworth who'd hackworth steal it from field marshal lord slim who is

in World War I, World War II, wounded three times. And guess what? He stole it from Napoleon. So we're stealing it. We're using it. Can't steal what's free, okay? We're attributing. Also, too much of history is written

as though men had no feelings, no childhood, no bodily senses. Which is something that I have tried with all my might. with this podcast to make sure that history is written and it's clear that these men had feelings had bodily senses had childhoods and beyond that had hopes and dreams for the future a lot of history's not written like that section here called the worst and the best so now what he does is

he starts pointing out some and this is why I can start moving a little bit faster I told you before we even started recording like hey there's a big chunk of the book we're going to I'm going to cover in one podcast because he starts going into a lot of details and it's worth reading. You have to get the book if you want to read all these things. But he starts pointing out the worst and the best of some of these military leaders. He said this about Hitler or John Strausson said this about Hitler. In a war from which so much human error had been eliminated by technological advances alone, human error was still the principal factor in determining a war's outcome.

Hitler, slip knot. A little bit about Hitler. Hitler's particular brand of military incompetence is precisely what one would expect. He showed a total unconcern for the physical and psychological welfare of his men and his armies. And, man, when we covered Stalingrad, remember when he covered Stalingrad on this podcast? Actually, a book called Stalingrad, written by a Nazi soldier, and they were listening on the radio as they were surrounded. and they were listening to Hitler talk about praising their dying to the last man. That's like insane.

Number two, this imperviousness to human suffering, which resulted in such enormous wastage of his own forces, was a contributory factor in his stubborn refusal to ever relinquish gained ground. Three, from his extreme ethnocentrism, came another well-known form of military incompetence. which results from a gross underestimation of the enemy and in particular of the ability of civilian populations to withstand the effect to war.

Yep. Thinking that your Nazi soldiers are just superior and then you come up against the Russian civilians and they're like, what? Won't play? And thinking that they're just going to fold. Thinking that the Russians are just the Russian civilian populace and even their red army,

which is, you know, bade up of, you know, pepest. soldiers they're gonna fold under the might of the of the Nazis. You might want to check yourself homie while many of four and while many of Hitler's decisions were military disastrous his underlying ego weakness and fear of criticism eventually in several other traits which are undesirable to say the least in a military senior commander he promoted his aides and advisors for their sycifancy rather than their ability just promoting He refused to accept believer even to listen to unpalatable intelligence and when things got went really wrong He was first to find scapegoats the opposite of extreme ownership

Promoting people because they kissed your ass not listening to Intel that's coming in this is having a closed mind being an idiot Like his henchman Himmler even Hitler could on occasion show that over control of aggression that procrastination which has in cat incapacitated some other authoritarian military commanders perhaps his most disastrous decision of the war was when he halted the German advance before Dunkirk thus allowing the British to escape finally on on April 22nd 1945 Hitler failed as a military commander in a way that he had never failed before in abdicating responsibility he betrayed his command and if you're abandoned leadership and duty like so yeah he quit he's the ultimate quitter D Oard Diord drop on request on April

22nd 1945 and then a few days later on April 30th killed himself. He could also commit enormous blunders and these when they occurred seem less a product of stupidity than of his total sustained, all-pervasive authoritarian. So that's an important point. Hitler made all these mistakes and did all this dumb shit, but he wasn't dumb.

What was driving that? What was driving that? His ego. Yeah, his ego, his psychopathy, his authoritarian nature, all those things. Not stupid. So you can be really smart. and do really dumb things because you're authoritarian,

because your ego is out of control, et cetera. Some good examples. General Sir James Wolfe, he was bitterly and unfastly opposed to what he called the spirit-breaking tactics of harsh punishment and drill. Was quite prepared to disobey orders if these conflicted with what he knew was right.

He's just going through like, these are the opposite of authoritarian personalities. This guy, Sir James Wolfe, I'm going to burn through some of these. At the risk of making himself, Unpopular he forced his officers to attend to the welfare of their men to visit their living quarters have regard for their health and generally get to know them as fellow human beings Wellington next guy he highlights here Wellington did not evince signs of emotional restriction did not remain unmoved by human suffering Did not seek popularity was unimpressed by bull and did not seek scapegoats for his military setbacks this is a good leader

He spurned the decorations of authority, large staffs, sentries, gold braids. So he didn't want to be all dressed up. Wellington's self-confidence is also reflected in his refusal to make scapegoats of others. Thus of the Burgos fiasco, he said, I see that a disposition already exists to blame the government for the failure of the siege of Burgos. It was entirely my own act. Thankfully, he didn't put that into a book and call it extreme ownership. otherwise I would have been kind of out of luck because that's what he did right here's the bad

situation that unfolded during the siege and he took ownership of it didn't blame anybody as usual after a battle his mood was set by the losses not the glory on the morning after the siege another wellington showed himself to his deeply astonished staff he visited the dead and on seeing so many of his finest men destroyed, he broke down and wept. That's not authoritarian. Finally, he displayed an open, an open mind to new ideas, quick to innovate and see advantages in the progress of technology. He was remarkably laissez-faire regarding the dress of his soldiers. Thirdly, he did not commit that cardinal error of so many military incompetence, underestimation of the enemy. He took infinite pains in military planning, left nothing to chance, select.

officers for their efficiency always did recon so you can see what he's getting out here Shaka the Zulu king of his generalship it has been written Shaka's particular genius lay in his meticulous personal attention to detail and sheer hard work if at all possible he always insisted on inspecting everything himself in every one of his critical battles he insisted on personal reconnoitering the ground and the disposition of enemy forces he invariably checked all reports by procuring collateral evidence Shaka could also be

humane. He talks about Shaka actually being pretty brutal to his men, which I don't, I was a little bit thinking well, why are you trying to give this guy as this great example? Those who hesitated to follow his example in painful initiation were instantly clubbed to death. Seems a little authoritarian to me, bro.

Dixon, where are you at? I mean, we're cutting some slack here. So here's the deal. Another example of his flexibility and refusal to dominate it by tradition was Shaka's banning of sandals for his fighting men by making them run barefoot a considerable and by no means popular break with tradition he invested his army of the speed of movement far in excess of that achieved by his enemies the displeasure he incurred through this innovation was hardly reduced by an order to his warriors that they should harden their feet on the parade ground strewn with thorns those who hesitated to follow in his example in this painful tradition were instantly clubbed to death seems the world of being a little authority There's a authoritarian there, bro. But then it says that Shaka could also be humane as well as Punitive in caring for his army to ensure that his fighting men were kept warm well rested and well fed and orderly was provided for every three soldiers under his command

No battle was fought without adequate supplies of food water and bark dressings being assembled at strategic points beforehand It can be summed up as autocratic totally non authoritarian high in achievement motivation and yet capable of great warmth and sympathy according to Ritter this guy wrote about him he was highly emotional and sentimental behind a facade of iron clout iron self-discipline the fact that he was the finest composer of songs the leading dancer and wittiest punster suggests an artist who would naturally have a highly strong nature and more sensitive than the common run of the Nungi race so there's Shaka Napoleon the evidence suggests that though he was ambitious ruthless devious unscrupi

grandiose despotic machiavellian dictatorial and autocratic he was not authoritarian again this is where he's getting some semantics here that's kind of like m'nopolion could be the reverse of extra punitive the fault he argued lay not so much with the men as with himself so he when things were didn't go the way he wanted he often said it was his fault cool I think he's stretching man on a poland um because I think it's a It's a scale, right? And Napoleon, I think, had an open mind when it came to combat, you know, but I think he was an egomaniac. I mean, we have a free, what's that?

A Napoleon complex, right? Like, you're all little and trying to be big. Stern and imperious to, in his business hours, Napoleon was all ease and sunshine to his intimates. They admired his pleasant wit, his unaffected gait, he's rich and brilliant handing of moral and political themes. So you're trying to make him out to be a little less authoritarian than he was, in my opinion. But some of these guys, even the guy's Shaka Zulu, he was, maybe he was authoritarian in certain ways. That's what I just said. It's a scale, right?

And super, whatever, in other ways. And it kind of fine, chaka balance. Yeah. So, like, back to Shaka, he would be not, what is the one, what's the opposite of authoritarian, authoritarian, liberal, whatever? Anti-authoritarian. Yeah, he was anti. Except when it came to those feet, man. Those feet got to, you know, like, you.

You got to, like how you guys say, you got to hold the line on some stuff. You know, those radios, you got to know how to program your radios. True. But the patches, let that slide a little bit. So Shaka was like that with a lot of stuff. So me and Shaka kind of keeping it real. Kind of keeping it real, you know. But that's how right.

That's the dichotomy. Yeah. That's the dichotomy. And I think that's, he's trying to point out some of that dichotomy. I think he's leaning to try and show these good leaders as being less authoritarian. Yeah. Because Napoleon, I mean, sure, you know, Hitler. Napoleon, these guys like, yeah, they lost

and they lost huge and they were bad. But they did some effective stuff. Oh, yeah. Well, Napoleon won a lot. And Hitler won a lot too, man. That's what I'm saying. I mean, Blitzkrag kicking it off, took over giant swaths of Europe.

Napoleon did the same thing. So there was definitely some, they did some shit that they won. It was effective. Yeah. And by the way, there's other people. that were totally authoritarian that did authoritarian shit and law and and and also won the crimean war right with the brits the brits were doing the dumbest most horrible authoritarian ego driven moves

and getting guys killed by the bushel and yet they still were able to win um this is a little bit more about napoleon finally like many of the other commanders on our list napoleon was without that vanity This, like, struck me, bro. Without that vanity, which betokens a weak ego, was notoriously careless about his dress, had a wide range of intellectual interest, and promoted his subordinates on the basis of their efficiency. Okay, so that's cool.

Makes sense. Nor did he display the debilitating over-control of aggression, which is on occasion's paralyzed warlike behavior of less successful commanders. Nelson. Nelson did not display a compulsive concern with orderlyness of his dress. was anxious to give pleasure to everyone about him,

distinguishing each turn by some act of kindness and chiefly those who seem to require it the most. Nelson seems like he's just a really good guy. Any residual doubts one might have regarding Nelson's freedom from the crippling effects of weak ego should be resolved by considering his most famous characteristic disobedience. Possessing boundless moral courage, he was himself prepared to disobey if he thought it to the advantage of his country.

And often he was right. Nelson was in fact always urging others, even allies, superiors, and officials of the army to disregard their orders if necessary in what he thought was to be the general interest of the cause. This is one of the best quotes on decentralized command I have ever heard in my life. So this is Nelson. Nelson's own view of this matter was uncomplicated. as he said to the Duke of Clarence, to serve my king and to destroy the French, I consider as the great order of all

from which little ones spring. And if one of these little ones militate against it, for who can exactly tell at a distance, I go back and obey the great order and object, end quote. That's a beautiful understanding of decentralized. command here's what we're trying to get done and there's a bunch of different ways you can get it done if I'm telling you to do something but doesn't quite make sense in supporting the strategic goal don't do it do something else so that's a non authoritarian mindset which is good to go T. Lawrence Lawrence of Arabia of his generalship Liddell Hart wrote Lawrence can bear comparison with Marlboro or Napoleon in that vital faculty of generalship the power of grasping instantly the picture of the ground and said of relating the one to the other and the local to the general. Oh, he was able to see what was happening, not just what's happening right there, but see it in the big picture.

He was able to detach, take a step back, look around. I think strategic Liddell Hart considered that Lawrence also showed the same profound, quote, profound understanding of human nature. The same power of commanding affection while commanding energy and the same consummate blend of diplomacy with strategy. Had a cool head. Lodell Hart also considered that Lawrence the most widely read of generals Was more was more steeped in knowledge of war than any other generals of the last war In personality this one read a little bit more because well because of this in personality Lawrence is probably the least authoritarian senior commander of the world is ever known

He was totally without personal ambition Refused promotion honors and awards for himself and deplored the pomp vanities and ritualized bowing and scraping which one associates with the power structure of the hierarchical command systems we like this guy right out of the gate you're like yeah we're down with this guy the fact that he could renounce his name for that of Ross and later Shaw and happily resume his role of a lowly rancor after achieving worldwide fame indicates a degree of self-effacement quite unique amongst military men contrary to a character predisposition of authoritarian individuals,

Lawrence disliked interfering with other men's freedom. You can't impose on other people. You shouldn't impose on other people. You shouldn't mess with their freedom. He disliked giving orders and, in fact, exercised effective command largely through the tendering of advice. Have you ever heard Laf Babin explain how many times I gave him a direct order? Yes, I have heard him

What's the number? Zero. Zero times. That this advice was acted upon suggests that by his personality he achieved a level of leadership rarely attained by military commanders. He himself was prepared to obey foolish orders

but disliked passing these on to others. As Liddell Hart remarks, in war, such orders are often the result in useless sacrifice of men's lives in peace. They often contribute to the sterilization of men's reason. Oh, that's a good one.

You bark orders, you make people do what you want them to do, you're going to sterilize their brain. Lawrence was a great respecter of reason and considered that the possession of knowledge was of primary importance for a military leader. In his opinion, quote, the perfect general would know everything in heaven and earth. And quote, by the same token, this most open-minded of men deplored the closed and vacuous minds of his military compatriots of men who displayed a quote, fundamental crippling in curiousness. So there you got. T.E. Lawrence. We got Slim who this thing kicked off with.

General Slim. Like so many generals when plans have gone wrong. Oh, you've taken a little bit of ownership here. Like so many generals, this is a quote. When so many generals, like so many generals when plans have gone wrong, I could find plenty of excuses, but only one reason, myself. When two courses of action were open to me, I had not chosen as a good commander should the bolder. I had taken counsel of my fears.

There is no evidence here of that telltale defense projection. And even though he had ample opportunity for making scapegoats of those subordinates who had given the advice which ended up failure. So you got another guy, slim. Had he written a book and taken, you know, giving it a cool title like extreme ownership? We'd be in a different spot right now. Taken into account with other traits. His warmth towards his family, his absence of rigidity, his parsimony with the lives of his men, his ability to improvise his popularity with the troops, and relative lack of concern regarding his popularity with his equals,

it should come as no surprise to learn that the chivalrous autocratic and most efficient of generals enjoyed a happy childhood, apparently unmarred by those stresses and strange, which may weaken the ego and stunt the personality. I've been skipping these parts a little bit I guess I'm being a little bit biased But I'm skipping a lot of the psychoanalysis Because you know that and I'm just giving you that little taste of them You want to get some of that You got to kind of get into it here a little bit

And this next section is Exceptions to the Rule Got a little quote here from Rommel One must not judge everyone in the world By his qualities as a soldier Otherwise we should have no civilization That's Rommel to his son Interesting.

Incompetence is not confined to those who were extreme in their ineptitude, but may operate along a line of a continuum of military excellence from worst to the best senior commanders. In military shortcomings of Montgomery, Kitchener, and Hague, and their positions along a dimension of authoritarianism are perfectly correlated. So this is what you were saying earlier. It's not like, oh, this is a, you're either authoritarian or you're not. You could be anywhere on this spectrum. And as we have been discussing, you want to have some level of authoritarianism.

You just don't want too much. It's got to be a balance. But some people can be, oh, they're a little bit in the red. Right, right, right. Some people full green. Maybe some people are too much green. They don't even make it. But I think in the military, people that are far green don't even join the military.

Yeah. We got to remember that people are not even in there. Yeah. So you already have a composite piece. that are a little bit at least in the middle maybe a little bit orange some people leaning in the red but it's a it's a continuum talking about Montgomery and again you got to get if you want the details of this read get the book it's not my purpose to debate Montgomery's greatness suffice it to say that while not

without blemishes he was in the main a highly competent commander and as such needs to be considered in present context does he or does he not support the hypothesis that competence depends upon an absent sense of authoritarianism and its associated traits. So that's what we're really hearing there is that the more authoritarian you are, the worse you're going to be, unless you have zero authoritarianism. And he points out some things that makes him not authoritarianistic.

Here's Montgomery lack those obsessive traits which tend to accompany authoritarianism. He's not particularly mean or particularly obstinate and judging from his own dress and lenient attitude towards that of his troops. He did not harbor any compulsive urge for a bull. In this, as in other matters, his approach was essentially realistic. It seems that whatever else he may be, Montgomery does not evince a well-documented signs of authoritarianism. And yet, even in this case, there remains the undisputable fact that for all his greatness

as a military commander, Montgomery did have serious shortcomings, which could not be attributed to a lack of professional ability. So Montgomery did some jacked up things. And we covered it in one of the earlier podcast. We also covered it on a podcast, not about this book. These lapses were an inability to get along with many of his military colleagues. Like Kitchener, he had a knack of making himself enormously unpopular with his contemporaries and preferred the company of younger and more junior officers.

It was a bad sign I was talking about this on the academy the other day. Extremeownership.com. Somebody who's talking about how they can't get along. If you're not getting along with people, you're doing a bad job. What's wrong with you? Why aren't you getting along with people? You should be getting along with people. It's part of your job.

Build relationships. What's happening with you? Montgomery's second shortcoming was that he sometimes allowed his own desire for personal glory to influence planning. A military plan tainted by an attempt to satisfy the commander's ego is unlikely to be the best plan. An irrelevant factor has been introduced into the calculation. Clearly, that's jacked up. Montgomery's next shortcoming presents something of a paradox. It concerns a matter of communication.

for a man who is adept at simplifying the apparently complex, whose ability to extract the essentials from a host of irrelevant factors was second to none, who could communicate his intentions and issue orders to his subordinates with a lucidity that left no room for misinterpretation, and who could write his memoirs with such a style that puts most generals to shame, it is extraordinary that he should have been almost incapable of explaining himself to those above him in the chain of command. Kind of crazy.

Got a whole big explanation on Montgomery and where some of that stuff came from. Fast forward a little bit to Kitchener. Kitchener, who became Secretary of State in the First World War, had, according to Philip Magnus, two basic attributes, an unparalleled thoroughness and an unparalleled drive. He was an individualist of great conceptions whose hard and selfless nature was capable at times of kindness, sympathy, and even affection. These traits, his excessive drive, Lord Curzon once described. described Kitchener as this molten mass of devouring energy. His individualism and his refusal to conform the originality of his thinking and the occasional flashes of underlying warmth and generosity are hard to reconcile with the notion of authoritarianism.

So he's got Montgomery who has some authoritarianism. Kishner is a little bit more authoritarianism. And as we push through his authoritarianism from Kichner, for all his greatness, Kichner seems to have been a victim of the repressive forces implanted. him as a child, presumably is a marionette of his father. Psychoanalytic's going on. But what were those traits, regardless of where they came from? His aloofness, his unpopularity with many of his fellow officers,

his failure to work as part of a team. And most damaging of all, his latter-day indecisiveness and hesitancy in directing Gallipoli campaign must be ascribed to defects of the personality rather than intellect. And again, it's just interesting to point out that authoritarianism, you'd think that makes people make calls, but it actually freaks them out in these pressure situations

because they don't want to get, they don't handle failure, they don't know what to do, and they just, they don't want to do anything. Back off. Whereas somebody that's a little less authoritarian, is like, okay, you know what?

We've got to make a call. Here, that's what we're doing. Now we get to Hague in trying to answer the question whether the recurring features of military incompetence derived from aspects of the authoritarian personality,

even in a commander who ultimately emerged victorious, one cannot do better than consider the case of Douglas Haig, commander-in-chief of the British armies on the Western Front between 1915 and 1918. Judging from the war of words, which has raged between his detractors and devotees, there was never a more controversial military commander. Here's some quotes.

Haig, Britain's number one war criminal, expected Germans to advance in this attack and at the same time slow, at the same slow pace of his own clumsily, plan results. Another quote, he seemed to be most highly equipped thinker in the British army. That's totally different quote. Another quote, Haig perhaps failed to see that a dead man cannot advance and that to replace him is only to provide another corpse. Here's another quote. It is indeed strange that the man whose stubbornness in the offensive had all but ruined us on the sum

should from August 1918 onwards have become the driving force of the allied armies. That is crazy. You freaking conduct this horrible operation So many people die and you just continue being in charge and directing operations Hague was unimaginative Maybe he was competent according to his lights But these were dim Confidence of divine approval appeared to satisfy him Nothing can excuse the casualties of the Salmon Passiondale

Freaking nightmare So what's up with his personality? Did Hague evince those character traits that are associated with authoritarianism? I He certainly had most of them. For start, he was conservative, conventional, and in his attitude toward the French ethnocentric. His diary and dispatches suggest he was unemotional and totally anti-interceptive, i.e. not one to reflect upon his own motives.

He was manifestly lacking in compassion towards his fellow men. It's just so important as you hear these things, just to think, what do you think a military commander should be like and what should a military commander actually be like? He was a confirmed believer in the direction of events by supernatural powers and reserved to the point of being verbally almost inarticulate. Hague also betrayed that triad of traits, which, according to contemporary research, defines the obsessive character and is correlated with authoritarianism. He was obstinate, orderly, and mean.

about his obstinacy. Little further need to be said. From the beginning to the end, his handling of the third EPRAs betokened an obstinacy of statuesque proportions. This guy would just stubborn never change his mind. We're sticking with the plan. For the second trait in his dress,

habits, and appearance, Hague was immaculate, orderly, and quite probably the cleanest man on the Western front. A contemporary of his at Clifton remembered him particularly for his cleanliness, a remarkable attribute to be recalled of a fellow schoolboy.

And for an example of his love of bull, there is this excerpt from a cavalryman's letter. Quote, he had a personal escort consisting of a full troop of his own regiment. They were easily the smartest thing in France, not a buckle out of place, stripes of gold for the NCOs, silver, great silver skull and crossbones, end quote. Other writers have commented on his meticulous attention to minute detail and his habit of planning each day according to a set. So there you go. And he breaks out basically saying Montgomery, out of those three was the best

and had the least authoritarian nature. Kitchener, a little bit more authoritarian, a little bit worse performance, and then finally you get to Hague, total authoritarian attitude, and, well, the worst example and the worst leader. And now we're getting to the final chapter

of this book, six podcasts. by the way. I went hard in the paint. Retreat, this one's called. Hail, ye, indomitable heroes, hail, despite all of your generals, ye prevail. That's from a Landor who wrote a poem

about the Crimean heroes, and I just was talking about this, right? The Brits won. The Brits and their allies beat the Russian despite their shitty leadership. Clauelswitz, this difficulty in seeing things correctly, which is one of the greatest sources of friction in war, makes things appear quite different from what was expected. Good job, Clauelswitz.

You know what you better learn how to do if you want to see things correctly? You better learn to detach. You better learn to take a step back. You better learn to put your ego in check. You better learn to get control over your emotion so you're not seeing through an egotistical or emotional lens. It is not the intention to leave a comparable impression of generalship. but rather to show that the nature of interspecies,

in that the nature of interspecies aggression predisposes the leaders of armies and navies to certain sorts of error. So he's saying, look, when you start fighting and killing each other, it leads to certain types of error, just in its own right. Then he says, far from diminishing the stature of senior military commanders,

the existence of this predisposition makes the performance of the majority of soldiers and sailors doubly credible. So there's so much natural disaster about to happen that when someone does a good job, you should get double credit. Two gold stars for being able to pull it off when there's all this natural gravity towards chaos, mayhem, destruction, ego, authoritarian personality. Like all that stuff is going on and yet some people's most military people from the bottom to the top do a good job and overcome that So you should get double the credit The theory and this is all kind of a conclusion here the theory advanced in this book starts from the position that by its very nature military incompetence cannot be attributed to the dullness of intellect we've hammered that point home there is it seems a reoccurring pattern to military mishaps which defies any explanation in terms of the bloody fool

theory so these people aren't stupid it is in its stead is tentatively suggested that the syndrome occurs through the enormous difficulties of professionalizing the instinctual activity of intrasteces aggression this professionalism entails the growth of militarism that collection of rules and conventions whereby hostility is controlled and anxiety reduced so you've got this system set up to put command in place, to reduce anxiety, to overcome some natural instincts. That's what the military is set up to do. Not surprisingly, a military career attracts a minority of people with these sort of anxieties within a military organization. Their neurotic needs are gratified.

They, for their part, help to reinforce those very aspects of militarism, which are so congealed to their requirements. in return, as it were, for fitting in so well. They may rise to positions of considerable power once there, however. They become incapacitated by the very characteristics which hastened to their assent. You come in, you're authoritarian, you love it. You come in because you're authoritarian, and you want to fit into that, then you get in there, and you're gratified because that, and you're advanced because you're authoritarian, and if you make it all the way up the chain of command,

the very authoritarian traits that you have are actually a disaster. So this is a horrible thing. And it took me six podcasts to get that out. So much for a theory based on past history. Has it? And he kind of goes like, hey, look, I've showed you all these examples, which this book, 450 pages of this book is examples. But he says so much for this theory based on a past history.

Has it any relevance for the future? Since armies and navies have changed out of all recognition, perhaps the sorts of military. incompetence described in these pages are no longer likely to occur. In fact, the evidence suggests this to be a forlorn hope. So this shit still happens. Some of the same sorts of mistakes occur now as blighted the lives of soldiers 100 years ago. In Vietnam, in three weeks, in 1968, the TED Offensive alone cost the Americans 500 dead in the South Vietnamese 165,000 dead with two million refugees.

Why did it happen? one reason was the inability to respond to unexpected military intelligence. Fast forward a little bit. Any doubts as to whether the three factors of remote control? He goes into a thing explaining how some of the changes that have taken place. One of them is remote control, meaning we now have radios. We can micromanage people out on the battlefield. We make these big swollen staffs and all kinds of weaponry.

Like, has this helped? Now, do we have multiple people on a staff? Maybe they can help sort. through some of these people that are incompetent, or we have the power to see what's happening on the battlefield. Maybe we can make adjustments through remote control. And we've got all these resources and weapons. Maybe that helps.

So here's what he said. Doesn't help. And he says, any doubts to whether these three factors for remote control, swollen staffs and a wealth of resources make for incompetence are removed by the contemplation of Vietnam. In this most ill-conceived and horrible of wars, there was the commander-in-chief, Lyndon Johnson, aided by his advisors, dreaming up policy. and even selecting targets at a nice safe distance of 12,000 miles.

And there was the man on the spot, General Westmoreland, a by no means unintelligent military commander, but bemused by the sheer weight of destructive energy and aggressive notions supplied by his president. Together, the Machiavillian mind of the one, coupled with the traditional military mind of the other, produced a pattern of martial lunacy. so abject and appalling that it eventually did for both of them.

Like the Boer leaders, a half century earlier, earlier, the versatile general Giapp, this is the Vietnamese, North Vietnamese commander, and his commander-in-chief, a little old man with a wispy beard, Hocci men, made a huge professionally trained and over-equipped army of their enemies look utterly ridiculous and their leaders helplessly irate, unfettered by traditional militarism, lacking in excessive brute force and without an obsession with capturing real estate, Ho and Jop, relied on poor men's strategy, surprise, deception, and the ability to melt away. They relied on the fact that Westmoreland would expand, expend his energies swatting wherever they had last been, heard of while they got ready to sting him

somewhere else. Yeah, and it's one of the most fascinating thing, and when we covered General Mous, like little red book, one thing that's so fascinating about this is what the Communists do to win wars is utilize decentralized command and they do it great and then for the way they run their government they decide to make it authoritarian and centralized, which is crazy, which is crazy. And that's exactly what that spells out right there. When we're in battle, decentralized command, make things happen, small units out there acting independently with freedom and then, well, for the government, guess what? We're to lock it all down. You're going to obey, obey, obey. This brings up yet another hazard of modern war, government by committee.

Take the decision to invade Cuba with a group of Cuban exiles. Bay of Pigs. In approving the CIA plan, Kennedy and his advisors made six assumptions. Each was wrong. They assumed that no one would guess the U.S. government was responsible for the invasion. In their contempt for the Cuban Air Force, they assumed it would be annihilated before the invasion began. They assumed that the small invasion force led by unpopular ex-officers from the Batista regime would be more. than a match for Castro's, quote, weak army of 20,000 well-equipped Cuban troops.

They assume that the invasion would touch off a general revolt behind Castro's line. They assumed that even if unsuccessful in their primary objective, the exile forces, the exile force could hole up in Cuba and reinforce anti-Castro guerrillas. That's their plan. Assumption, assumption, assumption, assumption. In the event that each assumption proved a gross, in the event, each assumption proved a gross miscalculation. nothing when his plan. Nobody believed the CIA cover story.

The ship's carrying reserve ammunition for the invasion force failed to arrive. Two were sunk and two fled. By the second day and the invaders were surrounded by Castro's army and by the third day they were either dead or behind bars. Seven months later, the United States recovered what was left of their invasion force for a ransom, priced to Castro of $53 million. Kennedy was stricken. How could I have been so stupid as to let them go ahead?

He asked. As Sorensen wrote, his anguish was double. deepened by the knowledge that the rest of the world was asking the same question Arthur Schlesinger Jr. noted that Kennedy would sometimes refer incredulously to the Bay of Pigs wondering how irrational and responsible government could have become involved and so an ill-starred adventure. Sunday 7th, 1941 had been set aside by Admiral Kimmel, Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Fleet for a friendly game of golf with his colleague General Short. 96 of his ships of the American fleet slept at anchor in the harbor American plane stood a wingtip to wingtip on the tarmac American servicemen were off duty enjoying weekend leave by the end of the day Pearl Harbor with its ships planes and military installations had been reduced to smoking ruins 2000 servicemen have been killed and many more wounded or missing by the end of the day Kimmel was offering to resign later he was court-martialed reprimanded and demoted to a position where he's never again required to make decisions of any consequence Pearl

Harbor like the Bay of Pigs confirmed once again that military incompetence is more often a product of personality characteristics than of intellectual shortcomings. For these American disasters show very clearly that even combined intellects and specialized knowledge of highly intelligent and dedicated men are no proof against decisions so totally unrealistic and subsequently to tax the credulity of even those who had made. them far from diminishing the chances of ineptitude the group actually accentuates the effects of those very traits which may lead to incompetence in individual commanders so you get you get a group together and you'd think that this would kind of cancel

out and I'd say hey echo I don't know if that's a good idea no it actually gets worse it turns into group think the symptoms of this process which Janice terms group think include one an illusion of invulnerability that becomes shared by most members of the group two collective attempts to ignore or rationalize away items of information which might otherwise lead the group to reconsider shaky but cherished assumptions three an unquestioned belief in the group's inherent morality thus enabling members to overlook ethical consequences of their decision Stereotyping the enemy as either too evil for negotiation or too stupid and feeble to be a threat. You can see, you can hear this happening in the room, right?

You can hear the discussions happening. A shared illusion of unanimity in a majority viewpoint augmented by the false assumption that silence means consent. And six, self-appointed mind guards to protect the group from adverse. information that might shatter complacency about the effectiveness and morality of their decisions. So that's what happens when you put a bunch of people that have these tendencies into a group together, it gets worse. And this is the last thing I'm going to read from the book here. Finally, it is worth noting that the personality-determined malaise of groupthink produces once again

those four most frequently occurring symptoms of past military incompetence, wastage of manpower, overconfidence, underestimation of the enemy, and ignoring of intelligence reports. These, it seems, are the enduring hazards of professionalizing violence. And I can tell you these are not only the hazards of professionalizing violence. These are the enduring hazards for us as human beings, as leaders, that we can all fall into. And as you pointed out, this book is a big warning of what not to do. I said it was the last thing I'm going to read, but there's a little, this guy's funny. And I did a bad job of relaying some of this humor.

Here's the afterword of this book. And this is the last thing I'm going to read from this book after six podcasts. Sure. He says, this is so British. He says, lest the reader should have doubted my qualifications to write this book, let me assure him that I have marked authoritarian traits, a weak ego, fear of failure motivation, and no illusions about the fact that I would have made a grossly incompetent general. It takes one to no one.

That was from the author in 1975. It's a little bit of humor. And, you know, he says it takes one to no one, but that's unfortunately not true. It's unfortunately not true. If you think you're incompetent, there's a better chance that you're not incompetent. You can see where I'm going this. If you think you're incompetent, there's a better chance that you're not incompetent. Because if you think you're incompetent, you're actually humble.

And you're thinking, oh, I don't know, I need to listen to what other people have to say. I need to check myself. I need to learn. I need to open my mind and see what other information I can gather because I feel like I might be incompetent. So if you feel, it's kind of when people ask me about the imposter syndrome. What about imposter syndrome? Good. That means you're actually thinking, man, do I even believe need to be?

I always had that. I always felt like, oh, man, if I need to be making decisions, I better do my homework. I better think this through. I better pay attention. So if you think you're incompetent, you probably aren't. But if you've been listening to these six straight podcasts and you've been thinking that this book is about all the incompetent leaders around you, that's a little warning sign. Be careful. Because if you are in that mindset where you think, man, I can't believe how jacked up all these other leaders are, but not you.

Red flag, because chances are this is about you. And look, here's the other red flag. It's a scale, right? You brought that up. It's a, it's a continuum. And so we, all of us, even if you feel like you're pretty competent, you are under threat of being dragged to incompetency. So all these little, this book is just a warning sign after warning sign after warning sign.

And by the way, there's nothing new. There's almost nothing new. There's one thing that I said, that's a new thought to me. I forget what it was. But in these 400 pages and whatever, we just did 12, 15 hours worth of podcast, It's all a rehash. It's a reinforcement of information that I already knew, that we already knew, that we talk about all the time, that we've seen in a bunch of other situations. It's a rehash, but we're all getting, we can all get pulled over there.

We can get pulled towards that authoritarian mindset. And you know why we get pulled towards the authoritarian mindset? We get pulled towards that authoritarian mindset because it seems easier. It seems easier to say, shut up and do what I told you to do. It seems easier to say, you know what, I'm not going to listen to that piece of information. It seems easier to do that. It seems like the right move. It seems easier to say, you know what, the competitor is never going to be able to do what we're doing.

It seems easier, and it's not. So you got to get watched. You got to watch out. You're going to pay attention. You're going to be careful. We all have to be on guard incompetence. Incompetence is out there sort of ready to attack. It's ready to attack.

It's ready to attack. Yes, sir. And if you're not on guard, it'll grab you, it'll pull you down. and you'll be making bad decisions and getting people killed or ruining your business or ruining your marriage or ruining your life

through incompetence. So we have to pay attention. You've got to be careful. We got to stay on the path. Yes, sir. The path? Speaking of what you know, what do you got for us?

How do you advise? We avoid incompetence. Avoid incompetence. Mental incompetence, leadership incompetence, physical incompetence. Well, yeah. We don't want to have to be.

have that. What do you got for? Sackletcha Charles? That was the, what do you call the Dunning Kruger effect, right? That you kind of referred to where it takes one to know and that's not necessarily true. Yeah, that it feels like when you think you know everything, it's like it's easy to know everything when you think there's only like three or four things to know. But then when you start jiu-jitsu and you're like, man, once I know how to stop that arm lock, I'll be good. Kind of be, yeah. Yeah. Because you got arm lock three times by some random blue belt and you're like oh dude

I'm gonna stop that and then you get choked it out you've learned how to stop the choke then you get a heel hooked yeah don't stop that heel hook yeah it just goes on yeah so the guy well actually it does stop after like you get heel hooked arm locked Ezekiel choked freaking then you go oh there's a lot more I don't know what I'm doing yes so it takes a minute to convince you of that

yeah so that's when you kind of when the it's all the Dunning Kruger effect it's essentially like, yeah, when you think you, people who are like so confident, they're the ones that know less than the people who are like not confident at all because they know how much there is not to know. You know, they have a grasp on it or whatever. Yeah. Dave, good deal, Dave.

Said something, I forget his exact words, but I wish I remembered it. It was something like, oh, yeah, when he's talking about Jiu Jitsu, he was like, yeah, it's almost like you get worse. What do you say? It's almost like you get worse over time because yesterday there was only three things I didn't know. Like now, there's like 40 things I don't know kind of thing. And tomorrow there's a thousand things. Yeah, yeah. The day that you start to look, start to feel okay is when you go, oh, there's an infinite number of things I don't know.

Yeah. I just don't know anything. Yeah. I think exactly. Well, so we want to know stuff. Hey, complacency, right? Complacency, that's one of the deals. It's like your whole brain and body, but brain trying to like be lazy for lack of a bad.

for lack of a better term like I said before trying to save energy trying to save work like when you do more work or less work yep see what I'm saying

it's like a Rubik's cube you're are you good at Rubik's cube yeah you are yeah you know the formula yep I know all all the algorithms to get the sides turned up right

that's good well let's say you didn't well actually I'm just kidding Rod I'm not new ruby that kind of surprised me when I was like damn all right

that's like if you said knew how to play the piano. But it is an algorithm that you learn how to do stuff. It's like a little language for sure. A little steps. Yes, yes, exactly right. Like, yeah, it's a little formula for sure. But whether you know the formula or not, I would imagine that, let's say, you got that thing figured out, right?

But then on one side, you got that one freaking different color on the side. Just the one. You know, that's not just one move. That's like, you know, 1,800 moves you got to do. No, not. There's like. Oh, you know the formula. It was like 13 moves.

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, left, left, up, two, too, far. I would imagine it would be like multiples of four for some reason. I don't know why I think that. Could be right. Could be wrong. Here's the deal. Let me ask you this.

What, you know, I was the kid in when Rubik's crew came out, it took me like no less than, you know, 15 minutes to figure out how to break that thing apart and reassemble it in the correct order. Yeah. And then actually, that's smart to do. In a couple. Yeah. It's creative.

Put it this way. Yeah, yeah. That's the thing. Well, you're, yours. might, I'm not saying you were creative because I don't know, but you seem like the type, you didn't do it out of creativity, you did it just out of like brute fucking jaco

this. But when you break that I cannot deny, I use brute jaco is a good thing. Just like, hey, I'm going to solve this problem the most direct way I can't. But if you look at those rubies because you take it all apart. The last

pieces, those center pieces, kind of tell a little bit of a story. You know what I'm saying? They're stuck there. Well, no, I think you can take him out. You could pop them off, but then it's like this little star thing. Yeah, yeah, it would make less sense. Exactly right.

That's what I'm saying. It tells a little story there. So you're like, oh, I see, you know, then maybe, I don't know. I don't know what you'd do to then. Put them back together. Here's another way to do it. All the colors are little stickers. Oh, God.

Yeah. Less brute way of doing it a little bit more sophisticated. It is what I'm saying. I don't know until you got like glue all over your freaking hands. I didn't say it was perfect. I didn't say it was perfect. Either. way that's the frustration you got it all figured out in seconds yeah oh yeah

bro you you ever see those freaking so ruby's cube is what it's nine on each side right bro you ever seen those ones with like freaking like 64 squares on each side or whatever they're nuts they're nuts and guys will do them too in like time laps or whatever nonetheless you see my point no i have no idea what you're where you think you got you think you got things figured out in life right then you get this this one lone idea that kind of jams up your whole way of thinking. Just that one. It's way easier to take off that sticker or maybe just turn it to the side where you can't

see that thing. See what easier. Okay. Save way more energy. But the reality is the correct thing to do is, bro, you got to know that algorithm, the formula. It's going to take some steps and take some more work. But at the end of the day, you're going to have it correct.

That's what I think. Okay. See what I'm saying? Yeah, it's 100%, bro. And that's the way you've got to think in a way. Amazing. See, even your attitude right now is telling me that you're, you might be feeling the effects of the, what do you call it? How'd you put it?

Like slipping off the path. My mind is so close to your freaking metaphors right now. It's ridiculous. Anyway, we're working out. It's squat season. By the way, I heard. Apparently it's squat season. We're back in a squat season.

So we're on the path of staying there. Hey, look, the beginning of squat season, the beginning of any physical related season. if there's any more than squat season. It's going to be painful, especially in the beginning. If you go snowboarding the first day of snowboarding season, that day you're going to have doms. You can be sore. You know, my point is you're going to need some supplementation here and there.

You know, it's no problem. We got some for you. Jocko has some for you. Jocko fuel. That was a long ramp. Let's start with the energy drinks. See, this is not seasonal. This is year-round.

Energy drink. see what I'm saying? But not the tradition, energy drink. This is a healthy energy drink, energy health drink, whatever you want to call it. All upside, no downside. All healthy for you. You'll be healthier after you drink one or two. You know, by the way, there's a new pre-workout.

Yes, sir. Powder formula, which J.P. Dinell did two dry scoops. And did the chaser of the sour apple sniper. Yeah. But I did, I was talking to my daughter today. And she just did her first experience on the new powder. The new go powder. And while I was talking to her, she was on the rower.

Getting that C2, getting that pull on, pulling some chain out. Get that chain out. Yes, sir. And she was saying as she, in between breaths, that I wasn't even going to row today. But I took the go. It freaking hit. And that is a real thing. That's a real thing.

It hits, yeah. So, and I was, and I mentioned this before, offline, where I'm no stranger to the jittery pre-workout powders. Like, I'm, I'm not scared of that kind of stuff. And in fact, you get the jitters or whatever, all that stuff. To me, that's no factor. And in fact, when you're, like, tired and that jitters hit you, I'd rather have jitters and they'd be fired up to work out than not have jitters and not be fired up. Okay.

Right. So I'm like, I'm no, I'm not, I'm not scared of that can't. stuff, right? Are jitters necessary, though? That's the thing. That seems like we've discovered that we don't need them. I didn't even think about that stuff. To me, that's just what the pre-workout was.

Good. I'll take all of it, whatever. Whatever. But it is, and I realize this, because I heard people say, like, oh, yeah, you drink this, like tea. They'd say this about some teas, like, yeah, you're up, but it's like a smooth or whatever. The smoothness or whatever. I'm like, cool, man, smoothness. All good.

Whatever. It just wasn't part of my world until I got the experience. So the pre-workout. took it. I'm like, cool. The thing is I haven't been doing pre-workout for years now. So I took this one. I was like, cool, no jitters. So I'm thinking, hmm, maybe Jockel's just sort of scared of the pre-workout experience. I get it. You know, a little bit more mild. I get it, man. I get it. But when you start warming up, that's when you feel it. Like that when everything starts flowing, it's like it connects your

brain to your freaking body more or something. That's a body experience. No, no, no. An in-body experience. Nonetheless. What I'm saying is what your daughter was talking about, I understand. And it's true. And, yeah, I think it reevaluate, I had to reevaluate my whole standard of the pre-workout because I knew, like, the pre-workouts that I was taking. That's not good.

That's not good for you. Because I'm like, cool, it's working. But, bro, I know I'm jamming myself up my heart. I don't know what I'm jamming up on the inside, but I'm jamming something up. And, yeah, man, now I know the new standard. You see what I'm saying? So you can get that. You can get your super hard workouts with a little extra kick.

Yes, sir. Which might mean you need to protect yourself from a joint perspective a little bit more. Let's go joint warfare. Let's go super krill. Yes, sir. Might as well keep your immunity in check because we're starting to work hard. Getting like a needing recovery. Maybe the immune system's taking a little hit.

We'll get a little boost from some Cold War, some vitamin D3. kind of got you covered. Yeah, you know, when you kind of like go down the list, you kind of like, it's a whole system, really. And it's not the kind of like, I don't want to say useless because I don't want to like put that kind of stigma on other types of supplements. But it's like a whole system to stay very solidly like on the path.

And then you get on them. Because we know we're kind of in squat season, apparently. But then you can be in squat season, which means you might want to get on board the mall. Train yes sir because you're gonna need to he built oh yeah from your activities well yeah squat tivity so I squat tivity squat tivity's hell you I ate two stakes the other day concurrently like why in one mirror in one meal two steaks brown rice because why would you just have one big steak oh they were two medium stakes okay I

don't know that's the size you buy at the store oh yeah okay okay got I mean maybe I could went to the body, you got a butcher, you know, and give me, that didn't happen. How many ounces were you thinking? What's the medium regular one? You know, I have the thin one, the rib-eyes, right? You have the thin rib-yes. Then you have the super, those super fat ones that you get from the guy behind the counter, and then you have the regular medium ones.

Okay, you had two of those. Two of the mediums, yes. Which was a lot. Normally, I just have one. So I'm like, cool, I needed some additional protein. That's why. Came home late, didn't eat all day. I was only having one meal, so I needed to double up on the protein.

had to. It's insane. Brown rice. But I can't be doing that every day. I'm saying, I'm just saying it's not convenient. And also, let's face it,

when you get done, you still, I, even with Los Dose rib-eyes, I can still get done with two rib-eyes, marbled, tasty,

oh, good to go. Marbled to perfection. Yeah, and you can still get done, I can still get done, and want to have dessert. Now, what am I going to have for dessert?

Could I have something that is negates my physical progress. I could. Or I could just have milk. Yeah. That's one more step forward even. Oh, man. So good.

Once it hits the lips, bro. It's so good. It's so good. Thank you, Jocco, for the lips thing. That's from a movie. You should have picked up on that. You not pick up on that? No, bro.

All right that is the imagery of your lips. That's Frank the Tank, man. In what movies is it, K-Doc? Old school. Old school. Yeah. He's talking about beer, like a beer funnel. What is it called?

Beer funnel. Is that right? Beer bong. Beer bong. Yeah, beer bong. It's so good once it hits the lip. That's kind of like mok. It's the same feeling.

It's so good. Once it hits the lips, you just. Yes, sir. Same thing. I understand fully. Yeah. Yeah.

You have a bison ruby. Did I ask you? Oh, yeah. But I think that's the new thing. Get a grass-fed bison ruby smaller. But, bro, it's kind of legit. Well, actually, the thing, you know, over it.

other people's houses right now is actually elk all right that's right that's right yeah out there just you know you you know exactly where it came from just elking it up yep all right good you were there at the moment of truth yeah did it good good yes so in the event of you not having elk in your freezer as the case may be from your hunt as the case maybe or double ribbys at any given moment or bison steak.

Right. You want some additional protein Mulk train all day. You can get all this stuff at jacofuil.com if you subscribe to it. The shipping's free. You can get the drinks out Wawa.

You can get all of it at vitamin shop. We appreciate those stores carrying the stuff because look you might want to roll in there. Roll in there. Roll in a Wawa. Get yourself a hoagie and a go.

I didn't really know what a hoagie was, by the way. Is that an East Coast thing or what? Yes. Yes. There's a whole bunch of names for that particular Subway sandwich. Sub sandwich. Sub sandwich. What, you know what we used to call it where I'm from Grindr.

Have you ever heard that before? It's not ringing the bill. My wife, who's from England, would call it a BAP. BAP. I'm for sure. I've not heard that. Yep. There's some other ones I think we're missing.

Oh, poor boy. Paul boy. Paul boy. I heard that. That's another one. So there's some names out there. All day. Meanwhile.

Also, origin USA. This is American-made stuff. Look, our health is together. We know that already. We're staying on the path. It's not, don't get complacent on the path. We're staying on the path, right? Yeah.

Look, as far as apparel goes, we all wear clothes, hopefully. Well, maybe we wear clothes. We'll say that. Let's just say that. We are wearing clothes. Look, we want some iconic American-made attire, denim jeans, boots some shirts

some other leather wallets belts this kind of stuff what if it was all made in America oh it is or USA by the way but you want that bison steak cool how about the bison boots oh yeah made in America

supple leather have you ever heard me use the term supple before I think I did one one time and it was very uncomfortable yeah I'm going to use it again right now describing some bison boots which are supple there you go you heard it here

but yes but everything made in America from the from the materials the raw materials grown in America everything all the way up to the jeans you wearing

on your hips and so you're good 24 hours a day because you got also because we're training jihitsu you got your jih Tiki you got a rift gai

you're never going to get another kind of ghee again oh yeah so the whole system is accounted for right here you see what I'm just in the game it's true origin USA.com

also jockwa has a store so now you want to go into straight up representing on the path like a choice a conscious choice to represent right is there a psychological yes sir hit that you get when you were a little kid you got new sneakers yes sir running a little bit faster yes sir where on the path we put on a freaking t-shirt that says discipline yep do we go a little bit harder yes we do yes we do and there's a thing that sounds like oh that's uh that's kind of like funny or right it's absolutely true And here's the thing, do an experiment.

A scientific. Wear a shirt or hoodie or whatever says. Discipline equals freedom. Look in the mirror and eat a cookie. See how. I'm not saying you're not going to be able to eat the cookies. I'm not saying that. It's going to be harder for sure.

Way harder, yes. Oh, yeah. So now if you're just in your everyday life, but you're representing, by the chances of you slipping off the path, even for that moment. I actually feel bad we haven't put this word out before because this is important, as you like to say. It is kind of important. It is. Yes, sir. It's true. It's absolutely true. So it just sort of applies. Like if you're just representing in general, in general, it's just that much more efficient way of staying on the path. That's what I'm saying. And let's face it. You see somebody else representing. You're representing this. The cohesion. Now we're even stronger together. Together. Also, the shirt locker. This is a part of Jocko's store. It's a part. Choose to sign up for shirt lock. You get a new shirt every month with. Did you change the work? Creative designs? You said something. Well, now they're actually badass because the new one that's.

just came out is and it's a new it's it's like a new scenario it's a tank there's kettlebells flying off which I noticed yeah you did run into the kettlebells like flying through the air yeah I'm riding this tank sort of in an aggressive hostile kind of way we're in a DefCorp t-shirt t-shirt which I'm wearing right now by the way maybe I just dismounted my tank and showed up here to do this podcast two machine guns two machine guns and the tank is a M1 one Abram's tank, by the way. So, yeah, very good the depiction.

But it looks like a comic book thing. That's what made it because it's kind of a dope thing. Yep, it's true. I commend your work there. Commended. The bad news is that was last month's shirt. Or this past month's shirt. The good news is when you're signed up for short longer,

I don't care if you sign up next year, you can still get that shirt if you want. You have access to that shirt. If you signed up. So boom, no worries. Anyway, yeah, jocco store.com you want to represent? Boom, that's where you can get the stuff to represent. Speaking of subscript.

Subscribe to this podcast. Don't forget about unraveling podcast, grounded podcast, Warrior Kid Podcasts. I got asked by kids at Jocko Live, which, by the way, is Jocko Live in Austin. Saturday night. Austin, Texas, November 20th. So if you want to come to that and ask me questions or hang out

or listen to me talk, come check that out. but also Warrior Kid podcast. We also have Jocko Underground, which, again, we have contingency plans. We were recently, we were recently, shadow band.

Shadow band. Shadow band. Yep, we got shadow band. On Instagram, you know, people going, why did you get shadow bad?

That's the problem. We don't know why. We have some suspicions. We're going to talk about it on the underground. I'm going to explain the reasons why I think the shadow band might have come I've been on shadow banned now apparently. We have information. We do have information.

We've got troopers in, let's just say, we have placement, something we call access and placement. We have people. So we will hopefully not let that happen again. But look, it can happen. And that's why we made Jocco Underground in case mayhem happens.

In case we get locked down. We don't control these platforms that you're listening to this on, we do control jocco underground.com. If you want to help support us, it costs $8.18 a month because we appreciate that support to have that contingency plan set up, we make an extra podcast, Jock Wonderground. We talk about other subjects adjacent to this. The one that's about to come out is actually explaining why I think I got shadow banned and a little behind the information.

So you can check that out if you want. Go to joccoe underground.com. If you can't afford it, we still want, we're still, we're still. still like we're still with us you can't afford that eight dollars and eighteen cents a month just email assistance at jocco underground dot com we'll get you access to it we have a YouTube channel you can subscribe to that subscribe to origin USA YouTube channel for some behind the scenes we got an album called psychological warfare if you need a little help in a moment of weakness and look we could make an album where you have a

moment of weakness and we pre you press the track and it's echo talking about a Cubix cube for 15 minutes with no logical meaning behind it that part's the incorrect very much logic yes but we did we didn't do that maybe we'll do that at some point people that people that have more time to overcome their weakness but if you want to get that code to wherever you get mp3s you can get psychological warfare I am the artist Yep because it says artist's name Jock oh yeah so there you go flipside canvas Dakota Meyer making just awesome some stuff. He started a distribution company, by the way, he's not in, in Texas. I'm investing in his beverage distribution company. He started going out proactively delivering Jocko

Go to various stores. And now he's got people ordering it. Bro, that's an anti-authoritarian is stick. It's freaking Dakota Meyer. He's going to make things happen. He doesn't, whatever. Who's in, what, there's someone in the way? Cool. I just outmaneuvered them. Oh, there's some distribution company that didn't want to make the connection. next oh cool Dakota Meyer just in a truck making it happen I think he signed up 40 stores right now my man well hey hey what's going on oh I'll figure this out make it happen so there you go he's also got he's also selling stuff to hang on your wall flipside canvas dot com going to order something cool there got some books final spin it's out right now it's we don't even know what

it is novel poem we know that it brings tears to J.P. to Nell, J.P. Donnell, crying in the plane. Crying in public. Check that out. Leadership Strategy, Taxes Field Manual. Code evaluation of protocol. Disciplineers Freedom Field Manual.

Way of the Warrior Kid, one, two, three, four. Get the freaking books for your kids or kids as you know. It's sort of, if you have the ability to get those books for some kid that you know and you don't, you are, you're not a good person. You're not a good person. If you know a kid and you don't get them those books, you're not, you're hurting those kids. This is factual.

So whatever. I know I've met some really cool people lately. I met someone down at the monster, jihitsu player. He's like, oh yeah, I carry, I carry away the warrior kid in my bag. Any kid that I meet, they're getting it. He's just helping kids worldwide. So do that. put it in your bag

carried around you see a kid you go hey kid here you go imagine that you can influence the rest of someone's life by doing that so where the warrior kid one two three

micing the dragons apparently the best what age group is that little kids yeah yeah what do you call them little kids like post taught I don't know

I don't know what they're called that age picture book level yeah yep Mike and the Dragons get your kids get kids to overcome fear Hackworth, about face,

wrote the forward to that. What an honor. And then, of course, extreme ownership and the dichotomy of leadership. And we have Eschlam Front, leadership consultancy, myself and my brother Laif Babin. We started that.

Now we got a big bunch of team, a big team of people, and what we do is solve problems through leadership. The solution is leadership. Whatever's going on in your organization, the solution is leadership. Go to Eshlamfront.com for details on that.

You can also check out some of our live events the muster field training exercises eF battlefield next muster's Dallas Texas March 24th and 25th we got jocco live in Austin Saturday night November 20th come and check it out we have online training extreme ownership academy you do not learn any of this stuff overnight you have to train in it just like jiu jitsu just like playing guitar just like shoot in basketball, you need to train continually. Go to Extreme Ownership.com to get your leadership skills honed.

And if you want to help service members active and retired, their families, Gold Star families, Mark Lee's mom, Mama 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 want more of my excruciating explanations or you need more of Echo's convoluted connections to Rubik's cubes well echo is at aqua Charles I am at jocco Willink and to all the troops out there around the world standing watch keeping us safe thank you for your service and sacrifice and to our police and law enforcement firefighters paramedics EMTs dispatchers correctional officers

Border Patrol Secret Service and all first responders thank you for your service here at home to keep us safe and everyone else out there maybe ask that question if you are possibly incompetent and I hope you're not how do you avoid being incompetent number one lesson from this book it's something that we talk about all the time be humble listen don't think you know everything because you don't be humble keep an open mind the thing that traps your mind the thing that traps your mind is your mind so pry it open keep it open and go get after it and until next time this echo and jocco out