Jocko Podcast - 309: There's Always Room for Improvement. There's Always More To Learn. With JP Dinnell

Episode Date: November 24, 2021

0:00:00 - Opening0:01:31 - JP Dinnell. Always more to learn.1:51:58 - How to stay on THE PATH.2:34:01 - Closing Gratitude.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 309 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, E. Good evening. Also, joining us tonight, J.P. Denele. Good evening, J.P. Good evening. So I got very lucky in my career, very lucky in my career, and was able to learn a lot from being in the military. And a lot of what the military taught me, I was able to learn because I was able to teach.

I was you get put in positions in the military where you're teaching Which is an awesome way to learn and it starts in the SEAL team starts really young by the first time you go overseas You're going to be teaching you're going to be teaching some host nation personnel Marksmanship or map encompass or whatever and so you're just kind of learning how to teach But then where I really realized the power of teaching and learning at the same time was when I was in training cell at SEAL Team 1 when I got into training cell at SEAL Team 1. So I had done three deployments, three workups, three deployments, and I went to training cell at SEAL Team 1.

And when I got to say training cell at SEAL Team 1, I was single, no kids, no cares, volunteered for every trip that there was, which means I got to teach everything. I taught every subject that you could teach. I taught land warfare, CQB, what we used to call CQB. When did that change to CQC? Was it always CQC for you? They would switch up between CQB and CQC in SQT, and I believe my first platoon.

It was CQC. Yeah, they were really trying to hard, like, hey, it's now CQC. And guys were like, okay. We had a new guy, a freaking, same. My second platoon, we had this awesome guy. And he had to write up, like the new guys had to write up their bullet points for their evaluations.

And he wrote, completed C-Q-B training. But he had it C-cubed, like three to the power of three. C-Q-B-C-B. Yeah, C-C-C-C-B. And he was totally serious. Like, he thought that's what it was called.

So maybe that's why they had to switch to eventually the C-Q-C to make up for the homes. But look, I got to teach that. I got to teach Mao. or at least go on Mount trips, Marops, OTB. I taught a diving course. I taught a freaking awesome diving course, and this is back in the day when the diving course

was five weeks long, and you'd take off your rig and climb through pipes up into the piers and stuff and then go do something, then come back and put your rig back on. Speck recon, taught spec recon. So I got to teach everything. I was very, very lucky,

and that's where I felt like I really started to learn. and what allows you to be able to learn so much is you're detached. You are detached. You're not part of the platoon. You're watching the platoon, so you are detached. And that's when you, if you pay attention,

if you pay attention, you realize that you can see so much because you're detached. And that really brought it home for me. And it's what I wrote about in leadership strategy and tactics. I kind of figured that out on an oil rig, my first platoon about how to detach.

But then when I realized, as an instructor, oh, you can see everything, everything, everything, when you're in an elevated position or when you take a step back. So that was awesome. And then from there I got picked up for the officer program, assistant platoon commander, platoon commander, task unit commander,

went through more workups, more deployments, continued to learn, assemble thoughts in my head about how to do things, about how to run missions, about how to lead. And those workups, and those deployments solidified a lot of ideas in my head about combat leadership.

And the more I learned as I was teaching the guys in my platoons about stuff. And then the Battle of Romadi obviously put those theories to the ultimate test. And, you know, we're able to utilize those principles for victory. But I'll tell you what, it wasn't until I got home, took over Naval Special Warfare Group and trade at. That's when the leadership principles that we talk about all the time, that's when they got really crystallized. Because at that time, in that place, in my opinion, I think that was the best leadership laboratory and instructional facility that has ever existed in the world. And look, I know that is a crazy, crazy, big statement to make.

It's accurate. But what we were able to do at that time, look, we had a huge budget. The war was in full swing because of our deployment and because of our combat experience in task unit brouser being in sustained urban combat, man, I was given like the widest possible boundaries to push the envelope and do whatever we. kind of wanted to do and that's what we ended up with and look the training that we went through when we were in TASking a Bruiser the train the the cadre that put us through training was also awesome it was not like it was not like this revolutionary change but we took it

we did take it even further we took and and even that training you know when when I had roger hayden on we came back from vietnam we still do stuff so it's I'm not sitting here saying that that this training at that time was better than anything else And it's because of us. No, what I'm saying is that the training that you get to do is awesome. And when we were in that lucky moment in time, because of the way the freaking planets aligned, it just was epic. It was epic. So what we end up with is this.

We have multiple arenas, multiple arenas of leadership challenges to test and train leadership capability. They're all different arenas you can go to. The two that I'm going to talk about the most because they probably had the most power was the land warfare arena. And then the Mount or South arena. And this is another thing that they changed at some point. It used to be Mount when I was younger, which was military operations urban terrain. And then it got changed to South, which is special operations urban combat. But whatever you want to call it, these two arenas that we were allowed to run these training missions.

and we had the opportunity to put platoon after platoon, after platoon, after platoon through complex, dynamic, reactive, intense, realistic, high-pressure scenarios where the difference between success and failure came down to one thing and one thing only. It only came down to one thing, and that was leadership. That was leadership. It was 100% leadership. If a platoon or a task unit was successful, it was because of leadership. And if the platoon or task unit failed, it was because of leadership.

Because there's some constants. There's some variables and some constants. The constants are, look, you're going to be in a stressful situation. It's going to be a complex mission. It's going to be a opposing force. So the bad guys are going to be highly capable. They're also going to be tightly controlled most of the time, sometimes. Sometimes my brothers would get a little out of hand,

but most of the time it's tightly controlled. And then you have a platoon or two platoons of seals. Now, some people might think, well, you know, there's going to be a variation in the seal platoons. And that is accurate. There is going to be some level of variation of the skills in a seal platoon. But overall, the variation of the troops, of the 14 or 16 shooters in that platoon overall,

when you combine them all together, you're going to have some smart guys, you're going to have some dumb guys, you're going to have some old guys, you're going to have some new guys, you're going to have some aggressive guys, you're going to have some passive guys. You're going to have all these different guys.

You're big guys, small guys. You're going to have all these different guys. And you take them all together and you mix them up, and that platoon is going to fall within the margin of error of a normal seal platoon. That's what's going to happen. Seals come in all different shapes and sizes.

and that's just the net outcome that you get when you put them all together is a seal platoon and they're all kind of pretty much the same thing look there's a variance like I said there's a variance but they're not there's not one platoon that's filled with idiots it just doesn't exist there's not one platoon that's filled with told everyone's a stud it doesn't exist occasionally we get these stacked platoons occasionally and sometimes they'd implode and sometimes they do good because again You got the mixture. But what would happen when a stack platoon just depends on how good the leader was. If the leader could contain those egos, that platoon could be great.

If he couldn't, it would fall apart. So because the platoon is kind of the same functional thing within a margin of error, the only difference between success and failure ends up being the platoon, the platoon leadership. and it doesn't really even matter where that platoon leadership is coming from. It doesn't really even matter. It probably took me one month to figure this out. It took me one month before I didn't care who the leader was. I didn't care if it was the chief.

I didn't care if it was the platoon commander. I didn't care if it was the leading petty officer of the platoon. I didn't care if it was an E5, three E5s that were just awesome and they could make shit happen. That's enough leadership on a platoon that they can win all day. So you talk about when you were running trading, it took a month to really not care where that leadership came from or when you were in your first platoon. I would say, no, when I took over a trade at, I was watching. And at first I thought, hey, here's the job for the, oh, I see.

Here's the job for the platoon chief. Here's the job for the assistant platoon commander. Here's the job for the LPL. Hey, these are the roles and responsible. I wrote those roles and responsibilities out and gave them to people and issued them to people. And they were like, okay, this is cool. But then you'd realize you'd have a platoon chief that didn't know what he was doing. Or you'd have an OIC that didn't know what he was doing.

And so he couldn't handle that job, whatever that job was. Yes. But if you had a horrible platoon chief, but the LPO was a badass, wouldn't really matter. That guy would just cover for him and make it happen. And maybe the chief is good at admin. And so he's kind of, look, man, I'll take care of the paperwork over here. You've got to do your thing. I mean, it's not like Laif Babin was relying heavily on Tony Afradi to handle

the paperwork for Laf right? I bet you Tony did know how to turn on a computer, right? Because that's not what his skill set was. And it didn't matter one bit. Laif's doing paperwork, his junior officer doing paperwork. Tony's running tactics like Tony should be running tactics. But that can swap. Yes.

That can swap. You can end up with a platoon commander who's just a stud and has a good comprehension of tactics. And a platoon chief that doesn't really get it. He's a good guy, but he's not going to add much from the tactical front. But so that's what it boils down to. I didn't, it took me about a month to go, look, I don't care. As long as we have leaders in here.

Yeah. I'm happy. And so going through this training, the training that we had not only identified who the leaders were and then what their shortfalls were, but most important, it allowed us the opportunity to teach them how to lead. That was the most important thing was that it allowed us the opportunity. to teach them how to lead. And the lessons that you get learned in these dynamic environments when you feel them.

You ever heard that thing, He Who Suffers Remembers? Yes. I think I quite frankly got that in a fortune cookie at some point in my life. I don't want to tell you I got it from Sun Su or Musashi.

I'm pretty sure there's also some Bible verses around that as well. Okay. I didn't get it from any of those. I think I legitimately got him from a fortune cookie. He who saw him. offers remembers and that's kind of what happens you go through this training and it's hard

not so much like oh it's physically hard but all of a sudden you look around and everyone's no one knows what's happening and you go I'm supposed to be in charge of this I'm horrible yeah and you I don't want to make this mistake again and and that's what's incredibly important the one of the key components of this training all of it it was there's three major components to it it was humbling It was humbling and it was humbling. And if you couldn't, if you couldn't, if you approach that training in a humble way,

the guys would just do awesome. And we had freaking studs, just total studs. Legendary seals come through that training. Legendary, badass seals come through that training and totally humble and be like, yep, we screwed that up and just be awesome. And they would turn their platoon around. just kick ass and it would be unbelievable.

And then you'd have other guys come through, whether they had a lot of experience or not or whatever their background was where they didn't have any humility and it would just eat them alive. It would be horrible to watch. And you couldn't really help them. It was painful.

It was painful. But having this training and running this training and seeing the literal transformation of minds to see, you could see, it's a light switch, Sometimes it's a light switch for some guys. Some guys is a little bit more like a dimmer switch that's getting turned on. But to see them go from not understanding how to lead to fully being capable of how to lead was incredible.

And we would see it because in the beginning of, let's say, the field training exercise time of land warfare or of urban training, the first couple days, you know, it's four or five days, maybe six days of training. few days, the platoon is getting annihilated. And as they start to learn the lessons, as they start to implement the lessons, all of a sudden, you fast forward to the last day and the opposing force, the bad guys can't get anything done. They're getting locked down. They're getting shot. They're getting pinned down. They're getting maneuvered on because the leaders learn how to lead. And that's why, you know, eventually we took this training and wanted to duplicate it for the business world. So we could get these same tools to help organizations and help leaders learn to lead, which is the most important skill in the world, bar none. But JP, you ended up taking that.

You ended up coming over here. We'll get into that. But let's talk about when you came home from deployment to Ramadi and you immediately went to Buds. For a short, glorious, and crazy. Do we have to talk about that? No, but just fill us in. It's actually kind of funny. I was talking to a couple young team guys the other day.

And I was explaining to them that when you came home, you went. And they were like asking about you. And I said, you know, when he came home, he went to buds. And they were like, ooh. And I go, oh, it was not hard. It was bad. I mean, it was so bad. It's embarrassing, really, you know, it's embarrassing because we just came back from Ramadi.

And, you know, I'm looking at all these guys going through training, comparing them to Mikey and Mark and Ryan and Kowie and all the guys in our task unit that were injured, right? And that stayed in the fight. I mean, we had multiple guys get wounded on that deployment. That stayed on deployment. And then those Marines and those soldiers that we worked with were some of the bravest. humans we'd ever been alongside. And so I'm, I'm mad that I'm not overseas because I wanted to still be over there. And I got pulled from my platoon. And that was what was the worst part is because I had shoulder surgery, ended up with some temporary nerve damage where I would just drop

something. Well, you can't be in an active platoon when that happens. And so I get pulled from the platoon. What phase did they put you in? Indoc. So before they even start first phase, So, how old were you? Like 23? I was still 23. Dang. Yeah, I remember, yeah. I was 23 when I was at Buds.

No, I'm sorry. I was, I turned 24 and then I went there because I had the surgery and the like to rehab. So it was a little more time passed. I mean, not much. I mean, come back from Ramadi. Yeah. And then, you know, we started the workup. I was, I went to, you know, I was going to school.

We started the work up and had to have surgery issues with the surgery. You know, I was at the, I was still at Team 3 for a while. And, you know, Costone was my task unit commander. And I mean, I was just super fired up. I was so excited to go back. And I think we knew we were going to be going to Sauter City at the time. And so anyway, so I get pulled. I go to Buds.

And I am just an absolute train wreck right there. comparing all these, like I said, all these guys to Mark and Mikey and Ryan and Cowley and like, so. What are you supposed to be doing in the endoc? You're supposed to be just PTing them and kind of like, you're preparing them for first phase. Right. So you're not supposed to be beating the shit out of them.

No. I got, did you comprehend that? Well, when I got pulled aside and they said, hey, JP, this isn't first phase. You're not supposed to have this many guys quit. Yeah, I was. How long did you laugh? It wasn't that long.

It wasn't long. Thank God for the community because, I mean, so like I said. What was your favorite way to torture students? Because I was thinking about this too. So you get this leadership laboratory that we had where what we figured out was what exactly what, where to apply pressure, where to relieve pressure on these leaders to force them to start to understand how to lead. and how, if they didn't understand it, how they were going to break. But I was thinking about it, if you're a buds instructor, what you learn is how to get into people's heads and apply pressure to make them break. Yeah.

Yeah. So one of the, I'll give you two examples of some stuff. Like one, that was probably like the worst that I did that I definitely should not. Is there a statute of limitations on this stuff? Are we cleared? I'm sure. I'm sure. The leadership knew about this eventually.

It was at the end of the day, and they were leaving the pool deck, and all the other instructors had gone. That's a mistake right there. All the instructors, and I was by myself. There was a lot of other stuff that was going on in my life, so I literally had no life outside of this. So I didn't have to go back home. I actually got a room at the barracks, so I didn't even have to leave. I was just sleeping in the barracks there, like just making these students' life absolutely. Hell. I mean, I was, it wasn't cool what I was doing. Like, I know that. I'm very apologetic and I feel really bad now that I'm older and a little more mature.

But one of the times, like I took, like they were trying to leave the pool deck and someone did something stupid. Like, you know, a basic student thing. Like it should have been like 20 pushups or, you know, make them like jump in the pool with their gear and come back out and go. But I was like, nope, I brought them down to the pool deck. Like so you know the observation? Like deck down below. Oh, where you're underwater? Yeah. You're under the pool deck. And underwater. And you can see the pool and it's dark down there and nobody knows you're down there and nobody can hear that you're down there So I brought them down there and closed the gate to the compound to where it looked like everybody was gone and beat them down there for I It was over an hour minimum just like just doing different like flutter kicks like the belly back feet drills where they're just rolling I mean Put your back on your belly back on your back on your belly back feet belly back yeah just all right you guys can't seem to get insie

sink and then just continue going through it. So anyways, that happened. And then another time I was just walking by the barracks and looked in one of the windows of the barracks and it was unlocked. I'm like, oh, cool. Climmed in their window into the room was doing a little inspection,

opened up the fridge and there was like two 18 packs of beer. I was like, okay. So I emptied every beer into the room and then went and found the class OIC, brought the OIC, OIC, there and the kids that were in there were underage oh i was like how do you guys want to handle this like i wasn't going to try to get these kids in trouble for underage drinking because i'm going to be a hypocrite when i went through buzz i was 18 and guess what i would do on the weekends

i would go have some beers with my friends like i know it happens and if you drink under age i know you're not i'm not condemning this but if you're trying to go into the sealed teams and you're going to have a beer underage like for me that's not something that's like oh we can't trust that guy you know, in our, especially in our community. I know it's not right. I'm not saying it's right. Yeah. Well, yeah.

And nowadays it's, oh, nowadays, you're done. Yeah. You're done 100%. And zero tolerance is an actual real thing now. And so there's, I wasn't going to,

I was at least, at least stable enough to know that I'm not going to ruin somebody's career over this. That, that's not fair. Because that happened to my brother. My brother was in a school with a contract to go to Buds. He would have been like, two, no, four buds classes behind me.

And he was training in A school, got injured. And so he got rolled back to where he couldn't class up, had surgery, came back. Most kids in A school, right? They go off base, they have some drinks. He came back. Came back. They had been drinking. Turns out like.

So was he underage? Yeah, he was underage. He was 18 at the time. And he got in trouble. And they were like, who was with you drinking? He's like, it was me. I was the only one drinking. They're like, who was with you?

He wasn't going to say anything. He was going to rat on the guys at all. I didn't know about this until recently until a guy who was in the teams at a different command running training told me. He's like, the reason why I'm still in the Navy and here is because of your brother. I'm like, what? He goes, yeah, your brother covered for all of us. My brother didn't like, was like, nope, it's just me. So my brother ended up getting admin septile of the Navy for underage drinking.

Dang. He lost his contract to go to buds and everything. Yeah. So I knew that happened to Corey and Corey's a freaking stud. He met my brother. He's super smart. Like he's one of the smartest guys I know. He was a physical stud still is and it's just I wasn't going to be.

I wasn't going to do that. So I gave the OIC, AOIC an option and we secured him for the weekend. And it was just uniform inspections about every 90 minutes. And yeah, a crappy thing. I didn't know it until I came to check out musters. zero one with y'all met jamy cochran and she's like yeah you might know my husband he was in the teams and she's like his name's flan i was like i don't know i don't know fun and uh then later on i see him i'm like what's up bro and he like gives him a bro hug and i was like what do you doing here's like

my wife jami she's like you guys know each other and he goes yeah as instructor to know i'm like cochran that's how we knew each other i didn't know and Flynn tells jamie he's like yeah jp's the reason why I missed our wedding. I was like, what? Well, that weekend that I secured him, he was the OIC. He didn't tell me he was supposed to be flying up to Seattle to have a wedding. Him and Jamie got married, but then they were having a big ceremony. Official, whatever. Sorry, they did the official one, but now they're doing a party. Official doing a party for all the family. Well, I secured him that weekend. And so he missed out on that. And I was like, oh, this is great. So this is my first introduction to Jamie five years ago.

and yeah so yeah when I was an instructor at buds I was I was thinking about when I went through buds what some of the instructors used to do and some of those instructors were evil evil yeah that you know the you know about the the red circle right the red circle and dive phase where you'd have to barricrawl with all your gear on until there was blood in a circle from guys like hands and feet getting raw and just crazy stuff like now there's I'd be surprised as some of that stuff still went on Yeah, well, they have other ways. Hey, they have other ways, and there should be other ways to thin the herd and hold that. There's a, that training is freaking hard right now.

Oh, yeah. It's probably harder. I guarantee you it it's probably harder and just in a different way and they're smarter. They're not like, like, I mean, I had an instructor that got in trouble because he would test the sharpness of the knives by cutting people's freaking palms. Right. Like, that's what is happening. That's crazy. Yeah.

He got in trouble for it. we had an instructor that got in trouble because we had to do push-ups on the back of our hands with twin 72s on our backs. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you're just, how, hey, why don't you just hit people's freaking hand with a ball peen hammer just to call it good? One time, I came back to the court. Like I said, I lived on base.

I mean, I had a room. I lived with Derek Benson, who was my homeboy for since, like, we checked in the teams together. And just really, you know, another good team guy from Northern California. had an awesome house. I lived there. But I was so obsessed when I was a buzz instructor. And I saw I was living on base. Like I said, I had the room in the barracks and I was staying there. And I caught a guy at the quarterdeck watch asleep. And I just beat his boots off, man, for like three hours straight. And then I made him call the OIC who lived down in IB. He had to get dressed. He came in. I was like, where's the LPO?

So he calls him. He lives out in town as well. And it was just a beat session until all of them got there. And I explained what happens when guys fall asleep on watch overseas. And I told them about the stories that we'd hear about Marines being murdered because somebody fell asleep when they're in a building, right? Or soldiers that same thing had happened to them. It's the same thing that we would talk about when we were in Ramadi.

We weren't going to let anybody else be in charge of standing watch unless you were a team guy. Because we knew we couldn't. Like we weren't going to let the Iraqi soldiers. Like, hey, you sand watch. Okay. Cool. Just going to fall asleep, like, leaning on his rifle and his toe on the trigger. Like, it's just crazy.

So, yeah, I was, I was wound real tight. What was the straw that broke the camel's back that, or was, did anything specific happen where they're like, all right, we got to get this guy out of here? It was just constant. Like, I didn't. So the problem is. Because I remember, I don't remember specifically. Yeah. They were like, hey, basically, you need to call.

Come get your boy. Yeah, because I was T-A-D over there. I was temporarily assigned duty. I was temporarily assigned duty to the command. So I was getting ready to actually. I was probably going to get in trouble because I didn't, well, the horrible thing is like, I didn't respect the chief that was in charge of the training. He was a piece of shit team guy.

He just didn't represent the teams well in anything with his life, his reputation of the teams. You know, we're instructors at Buds. and he is grossly overweight. And it wasn't because of an injury. There are some guys that have injuries that go there. That's one thing. No, it was his actual lack of discipline. Just it was, I had zero respect for him.

And so he was the one that was like pulling me aside and trying to like, hey, you shouldn't be doing this. And I'm like, you're going harder. Yes. Yeah. I'm like, okay. Yep, Roger that. You know that, that feeling of this is the same. same type of feeling that I would have.

So when we'd be out at Mount or something like this, when I was running it, and I'd see like a guy standing in the middle of the street. And I would get like a knot in my stomach. I would start to sweat. And I would get so, God, so emotional about like, hey, this guy's going to get fucking killed. And I can't imagine, like, here you are, you're having the same feeling, but, oh, this guy's falling asleep on watch. This is a night.

This is, I can't allow this guy in the teams. Like that level of commitment and emotional commitment to wanting to make sure that the guys that are going to make it to the teams are the best freaking guys. And that was me. I was trying to make sure that these guys were ready. And it was a very, it was an emotional thing. It was an emotional thing. Yeah, I was 100%. Like my marriage at the time was falling apart.

And I was okay with that because I was more concerned about the teams. And in hindsight, like, okay, cool, she was a good person. We weren't good together. Like, I'm very thankful that that didn't work out because of my family that I have now. I'm very thankful. But I was so just in the team. Like, that's all that matter was the teams, the teams, the teams. And I, you know, I just, I was, like you just said, I was just emotionally involved and connected all the time.

You know, I saw guys that I put through training. And they'd come back through training later on, like the training we ran. And then I'd see them out in the teams. And I'm always like, hey, man. I'm sorry. They're like, bro, you cared about the teams. Like, we're good with that. And it's funny.

Because the guys I made through training that turned out to be good team guys, it bothered none of them. Not one of those guys ever were like, yeah, that kind of sucked. They were just like, bro, you were in the game. Like, you just came back from. So they understood it. And what you just said is, you know, the leadership thing, right? You're so emotionally invested in getting these guys trained and developed.

And when you took over training, you saw. the void of the leadership training. Our tactics are ridiculous. The amount of money and the high-level training that we have with it comes to all the like the tactical stuff that we do is is awesome. Can we make it better all the time? Yes, we're always trying to make it better. But we actually didn't have any actual leadership development. And it showed in all other areas of the teams. And I know I've talked with you a lot about this is I was very aware that I was young and immature and not going to be a good leader. I knew that. And I wanted, I craved that leadership development and training. And I saw it outside of the military. Like I was reading business books and personal development books because I knew I just

needed that. And the teams didn't have that until you, I always thought it's crazy as you didn't go to like leadership development training until you're in E7, E8, E9. I'm like, they need it as an E3, E4, E5, E6, where there's a large portion of our community is at that rank. And they have a large amount of interaction with other forces out there. They need professional development and leadership development. And it wasn't until you took over trade it that we didn't have that. Yeah, it was really strange the way the teams used to be. And it was all OJT. And you were going to learn, you learned your leadership skills from whoever your chief was, whoever your platoon commander was, you know, your platoon commander is probably going to learn from his chief, but,

which is awesome if you have an awesome chief. And if you don't have an awesome chief, you, you, you, don't and and sometimes you'd get it like a platoon chief coming through our training and you'd have issues and you could pull the thread and see like who he did his LPO for who he you could kind of figure out what his background was because you would just get this string of people that just weren't really the best leaders they were you know people that led through their rank or people that didn't understand tactics and so you end up with you had a very wide variety of a wide span of skills that these leaders had. And there was no one.

There was no one teaching them. All right, here's what you need to do as a leader. So when I put together that freaking leadership brief, it was like, okay, it was, I was very lucky to be able to do that. And that's what, that's what was cool. That was awesome for me. And, you know, it's funny because I never said to like, I never said to Laif or to Seth, like, hey, here's the four laws comment.

I didn't say that to him. I was like, yeah, I was like, hey, dude. Dude, hey, you need to put your machine gunners out if you're going across the road. Or why? You need a cover for them. You need a cover for that. Okay, that's cover the move.

Like, dude, your plan is freaking way crazy, complicated. So those guys got it over time, you know, just through repetitive interactions of saying, dude, what do you do? What are you doing? You're freaking getting shot at. What are you doing? Like, you stoner would be like, Roger. You know, like, no, handle that shit.

And so all those, I had a bunch of things in my head. but when I got to trade at, that's when I was like, oh, I, well, that was a, that was the huge eye-opener for me. I had Laif and Seth and the officers and be able to say like, hey, we're going to do that iteration again. We're going to be here for a month at land warfare. I'm going to get to teach you this little things, make little adjustments. But when I took over trade at, it was like, oh, I'm going to see this platoon for a week here and a week there and a week there. And I need to dump them all this information as quickly as I can in a way that they can understand it. So that's why the very first thing that I went, the very first training evolution I went on,

went back and wrote down those four laws of combat. It goes on one of the things that we talk about and we teach at Eschonfront is when you put somebody in charge of training or in charge of just anything, it changes the way they think. And naturally, so you had been thinking this way for your whole career. Yep. But it wasn't until you were in charge of trade it that you were actually more mindful of, oh, And then you just sat and you thought about it. And it's one of the things that we do, obviously, the field training exercises is everyone gets rotated through different positions of leadership.

But you started really implementing it at Trade It where every or actually, no, I'm sorry, in our task unit where everybody was going to be in charge of something. Oh, yeah. And it was like, hey, Biggles, you're in, you're the task unit commander for this run. What? JP, you're going to be the acting platoon chief. What? But once we were in those positions of leadership, it forced us to think differently.

And then once we had that new thought process, it changed the way we operated going forward. And that's why training is so critical to success. Yeah, I was thinking if you were right or not and you were right because I was thinking if I would have just done another task unit, I would have done the exact same thing. I wouldn't have, I would have trained the guys the same way. and I would have trained the guys through more of an indirect method of like, hey, let's do that again. Oh, you need to make sure you're covering. Hey, that's a little bit calm. I would have done it the same way I did it with Laif and Seth and the rest of the guys.

Like, hey, this is what you're going to learn over the next year. I wouldn't have said, oh, this stuff needed to be distilled down. Here's the way it's going to be. And I need to kind of get this formula that people can utilize immediately. I wouldn't have done that if I hadn't been put in training. So, yeah, you're right. You're right. I think I you know, whatever.

I heard like a little rumor or whatever. I don't know who called me, but someone, you know, basically it was like Colonel Troutman was getting the call. Like you need to come get your boy. You're going to have to give the reference so people understand what you're talking about right now.

Oh, Rambo. Rambo. Colonel Troutman, you know, Rambo's out in the woods, you know, killing civilians, killing friendly civilians.

There are no friendly civilians. But he's out there doing that. And they have to go get, Or Colonel Troutman shows up to get him out and freaking get him back under control. And I got some kind of a call like that. And it's so funny because everybody knew 100% that I was 100% going to absolutely take you, bring you, shield you, and there was going to be no beef about this whatsoever. No one even made like any reference to anything other than this is 100% good to go, Jocko.

you know jp not really fit in here too well come get your boy all good it wasn't like hey this guy no one even no one even would say a negative thing about you they were just saying like hey you you might he might be a little better if he goes back working for you again i'm like check 100% factual i don't know who was i want to say i mean dude that was so long ago but i feel like it was Z. I feel like some, you know, it might have been Bobby.

So Bobby was there. Uh-huh. At Buds? At Indoc, with me. Oh, and he actually pulled me. It was probably him.

So he pulled me aside a few times and I have always had tremendous amount of respect for him. Yeah. Yeah. He's a stud guy I always looked up to him there. A few times like he pulled me aside and I was just like so wound tight. But this shitty chief that was in charge of us just completely like even though Bobby was like kind of reigned me back and I was like okay yeah and then this guy I was like nope got to go

harder until I mean he might have I don't know I don't know but he might have reached out to Z Z got a hold of you either way it was I was probably going to get in trouble and um they were like oh he's TAD he's well where is he a attack oh he's still at team three but he can't go back there Jocko bring him to trade it and I remember when I went there because that day I checked in there I went how to talk with you you introduced you went introduced me to a few guys and it was I was like this is where I need to be and I still I know we'll get into a little bit more I was excited to be there fulfilled to be there but I didn't fully grasp well yeah it took you you still wanted to be overseas shooting people yeah which is a big

gaping hole in your heart when you're not overseas shooting people and instead you're back in America, which is just boring and miserable. And you didn't want to be doing that, whether it was instructing in doc students or at trade at. But yeah, we just had to make a little connection between, you know, you being at trade at. And by the way, making sure our guys are the best trained in the world. Yeah. And that's the conversation we had.

Yep. And then you went right, you went, you went, you went right into Salk. Did you go right into Salk? Yes. Yep. It was Salk in CCC. I was running. I was in both.

And then Salk is when I think I was there for a year and then I became the LPO of Salk. So let's talk a little bit about Salk. And what's interesting, so this is again, this is urban training. We have a few urban training sites that we would use. We would set, they were very realistic, very realistic training. We had set designers come out to design things to make them look like they were, little villages in Iraq or Afghanistan. We would have speakers with noise simulations coming over them.

I remember we had, we set burn it, we set tires on fire. And because I remember the first time I went into Ramadi at night, the Muge had set fires, set tires on fire all the place, totally screwing up your night vision. And I was like, damn, these, these dudes are next level. They're smart. Yep. And I was like, okay.

And sure enough, we would have the fires going. You'd have the noise simulators going, so you hear like urban noises. And then you do, then comes the call to prayer. And it's very realistic. When I would put down my nods, because I'm an instructor, whatever I'm in my instructor mode, when I would put down my nods and start walking, I would 100% feel like I was, I was in Iraq. So the realism is legit. Totally legit.

The interesting thing is that coming into the training, we would tell them exactly what they needed to do to win. And this is what this is what's interesting. So going to CQC, when I go out and watch CQC, you'd have some instructors that would like to talk a lot. And you'd have another instructor that or another group of instructors where they'd do a little bit more action, a little less talk, a little more due. and you take those two groups. Like, they'd be one platoon with a talking instructor and one platoon with an action instructor. And so the talking instructor,

he's sitting there telling stories and talking about this and giving all these details and talking through it again and hey, watch this and watch me do this and let me explain to you this and talk and talk and talk and talk. And then there'd be another guy like, hey, here's the basic, here's the fundamentals. All right, start doing it. And almost, well, it's guaranteed

that the platoon. that started doing it is going to learn it quicker. The platoon that just gets to hear about it, it's not going to, it's not going to land. Now look, you need some level of instruction. Somebody needs to tell you,

like this is what we're doing, this is how we do it. You can't just go blind, obviously. But what's interesting is we would tell the guys, hey, here's what you need to do to win. Cover and move, simple,

prioritize, and execute, decentralized command. You need to do that. If you don't cover and move out here, you're going to get shot up. If you don't have a simple, plan it's going to be insane in we're going to have a bunch of problems you need to prioritize next to you by the way you need to use decentralized command because things

will be happening that not one person can control you need to detach take a step back like we would tell them these things we would tell them but they would understand it but then you got to go and do it you got to go and get put into those situations I mean I'm just writing so much down Like since he started talking, I just want to hit all these points. But what you're just talking about goes along with, I remember when I was at trade at one of my chiefs told me as an instructor. He's like, hey, we have to teach these guys how to think, not what to think.

Because the battlefield is very dynamic. And these guys need to be able to think on their own. And it wasn't until we actually had them out there doing it. It doesn't matter. You can give a scenario all day long. You can tell stories. But until somebody's actually putting their hands on it. it doesn't matter.

I teach shooting on the side. And I can talk about it all day long, but until I have somebody actually loading rounds into a magazine and then locking the slide to the rear and be like, oh, that little button, yeah, that's how you lock the slide to the rear. And I can talk about it all day long, but if they've never done it to watch somebody

fumble over the most basic thing that I think is just the most basic thing ever, but if they never shot before, that's actually a real big deal. Locking the slide to rear, putting a loaded magazine into a gun, releasing the slide, making sure rounds chambered. These are things that you and I do without even thinking.

No thought whatsoever. No thought whatsoever. I can hear the slide go forward and know if a round is chambered or not. Was that magazine seated all the way? Was it not? Did a round actually get chambered? And I've done that before. I'm like, there's nothing in there.

And I checked the magazine. It wasn't fully seated. Check the chain. Yep. No round in there. Because we've done it hundreds of thousands of times. Someone who's never done it, they actually have to do it before they can feel it. And when people feel it, then that's when it comes home.

Like you were saying earlier, like when you make a mistake and you feel that mistake, when the cool thing about the FTX program is I've been able to build a team. And Cody's been on full-time with us for, she's almost over three years now. We just got Carlos Mendez on board full-time. I mean, you know, all these guys that have on the team are studs, you know, Cowie, Danny. And we do what we teach, right? And so now my team is doing all the classes, all the intros in the morning so I can be detached.

I listen, I observe. I come in with my points when I need them. And one of the things Carlos always says that I always said, that Cody always says that you guys always say is, hey, when you make a mistake where it costs you something, you feel that. And you feel that's the power of training is when you can feel a mistake, you'll remember that mistake. There's something when you said you got to do it, right? It's so strange the experience that you can watch people have as they get wrapped up and absorbed and overwhelmed by the mayhem. And this happens when you run your FTXs. When I'm out there, I'll watch people go insane.

They're totally, they're having an out-of-body experience, like an out-of-mind experience. It's crazy to watch. And sometimes they don't even understand it. I remember when we first started getting video cameras and we started videoing training. This was like the first time I would say I videoed training was maybe in the late 1990s. Hey, let's watch our room entries and see what they look like. And occasionally you'd get a guy that would just do something so insane and they wouldn't even understand that they had done it. They wouldn't understand that they had done it.

And you'd have to say, look at the video. Watch what you just did. We'd be like, hey, you backed out of that room. I didn't back out of the room. No way. Okay, watch this. There you are. Literally backing out of the room, right?

You didn't even understand that you did it. Remember, I used to have my little audio voice recorder. So I used to carry a little audio voice recorder, Echo Charles. Yes, sir. And the reason because during these nighttime FTXs, there's all this stuff happening and you can't write notes. So I would just, most of the time, I'd just be saying, oh, they pulled a guy off the flank over there.

That guy's left by himself. That this is going to go bad. I would be making notes to myself and then I'd come back and be like, hey, you guys left that guy out on the flank. That's how he got left behind. So I would make notes myself. But then sometimes I would use it to capture the audio of what was actually occurring of people losing their minds, of people yelling, screaming, giving crazy orders, not under. Like, I would record conversations that were mutually unintelligible between two people, where two people were talking to each other and neither one of them, it may, you could play it. It would be a senseless conversation that made no sense whatsoever.

They're talking about two totally different things. Like one guy's like, we need to get back over there. And the other guy's like, yeah, we do. But one person is talking about back over there behind the building. The other person is talking about back over there across the street. They're talking about two totally different things. And I would record them and then play it back for them. And they'd realize how absorbed and how you get into this mode where your world is shrinking.

You're getting target fixation. you're, it's the opposite of detachment. You're doing the opposite thing. You're just getting fixated on what's right in front of you and it'd be a total disaster. But what's good is when they'd hear that video or they'd hear that audio and you'd see the look on their face like, damn, dude, I suck. I suck. I sounded like an idiot.

I sounded like a complete idiot. And then that would be a way to kind of crack the ego open and crack the mind open. And for them to be like, dude, what are you saying? need to do. Yep, here's what you need to do. Take a step back, man. When this stuff starts getting crazy, when people start yelling, if you're yelling, you're the platoon commander. If you're yelling and screaming, this is not a good indication. So as soon as you start raising your voice, think to yourself, why am I raising my voice right now? What is happening? I'm not saying you never have to raise your voice because sometimes you do. Sometimes you've got to get control of things. But if that's what's

happening, you know something's wrong. So guys would, that's what would, that's what start to kind of get their minds open sometimes where they would start to realize like, oh, I'm not as good as I thought I was. And I just had a freaking out of body experience. And I think I might be an idiot. That's what makes the field training exercise program that we run at echelon front. That's what makes it the most impactful form of training that we have at National on front because you're feeling it. Like you said that late. This isn't just me saying because it's my,

my program, right? It's because it's the truth. Like you actually feel it. You come back from a run and you're humbled and you're sitting there. And the first thing we do is we debrief that run. All right. What was your key takeaways? And we're always very clear.

Remember, we don't care about the tactics. We're not here to teach you tactics. I don't, if you were supposed to come up on the east side, you went to the west side, doesn't matter. What did, what was your takeaway that? applies to business or your personal life. And so people are, like you said, that you just cracked it open.

They feel that. It's humbling. We had a guy, like you're talking about, like people just saying crazy stuff. We've heard this one multiple times. They'll be like, squad one,

line up on the left. Squad two, line up on the left. And people are like, look around. Why? And they're like, why is nobody moving?

They don't realize they said that. We were running one a few weeks ago, up in Michigan. And it's one of our scenarios we're not going to give it out. Anyways, it's a stressful situation, and also, we change something on them. It's a prioritizing execute run.

And the guy's sitting there, and they come up with a plan, and somebody asks a question, he's like, it's the plan that they came up with. We're going to do it. He was quoting as if it was somebody else's plan, but it was his plan that he just came, that he's telling the team to go, but he's so overwhelmed.

And I remember I was watching him, and he, like, just drops the laser tagger to the side, his hands to his side, and takes a step back and looks around and goes, we're going to do their plan. Yep. Oh, I'm writing this one down. Yep.

Have you heard that Jason Gardner story? Jason Gardner, they get done. They're at CQC. They're like out right here in SoCal, just in our little killhouse. They do a run. And they're standing around debriefing. And one of the officers cracks off around

as they're standing there debriefing. It goes between like a guy. guy's legs and the guy looks up and he goes he was decocking it meaning he's talking about himself in the third person as if this is well that's the exact same thing dude like you're when you start referring to what's happening as if it's someone else in a bad way this is not a good side i stole your uh your voice recorder trick for when i got out and i was doing sales and i'd be driving you know i was starting off cold calling and then i'd just go to appointments and I was more efficient on the road, but I would try to hit as many people as a day.

And I'd get done with a run. Well, I had to take notes on the conversation I just had so I could follow up with the right contract and everything else like that. But I also couldn't sit in a parking lot for 15, 20 minutes because I had other client. I had that anxiety that I needed to go, go, go. Well, I was also commission-based only. So I needed to get out there. And so I bought a recorder. And I'd get done with the meeting.

As soon as I walked out of their doors to my rental car, I'd start debriefing my seat. on that meeting as I'm driving in the next one stop and then I would do that and then at the end of the night I would listen to all those notes that I had for each one generate the emails, contracts, whatever, get them sent out and it was, I mean I stole that from you from Trada because it was efficient. I have some of those recordings. I sent a group text with some of those recordings. Some team guy because team guys used to record me debriefing.

Now it wasn't me, it wasn't those things. I do have some of those things too still. Some of the just out in the field like, like hey, what's going on? right now. I have no idea. We're all going to die. So some of the problems that we would throw at the teams, obviously giving them down men was a big one, giving them civilians to deal with, putting them in an IED field. We'd build little simulated IED so things are blowing up. Kind of they would end up with split forces for whatever reason, whether we set up a target where it made sense for them to split forces,

or we would just drive some situation that would make them split their forces, give them target, and then change the target. So they've got like updating intel. So there's a bunch of problems right there, and we haven't even mentioned that there can be an enemy shooting at you, right? So those problems, downman, civilians, IED field, split forces, changing targets. You haven't even encountered the enemy yet, right?

So you know it's going to get wild. And then once we start bringing the enemy on, and that's when you start to get into, you know, barricaded shooters and you're taking massive casualties and hostage situations, you know, we would capture one of the seals. We'd get left behind. We'd capture them.

I mean, I used to give 72-hour liberty if you could get a seal. I'd be like, all right, boys, you bring me back a body. You bring me back a live one. You've got 72-hour liberty. I brought you back a few. And one of the times I actually took the guys, Camis and gear off of them.

Oh, yeah. And then put all the clothes back on and then joined back in with the group and just started murdering everybody from the inside. Got into one of their Humvees, drove off, came back, was just like shooting them with their own 50 cow. And they're like, what is our guy? Because I was wearing the kit and the camis, and I looked like I was one of those guys.

Yep. Yep. And that's the kind of mayhem that would go down. Well, it didn't help when you're like, JP activated. done, I just roll back like a shark. It's like, what can I get away with? Oh, man.

And here's the deal. Like I said before, all those problems, they can be solved. And they can be solved by utilizing the laws of combat leadership. And if a leader didn't step up. And again, I don't care what leader. I don't care if it was an E5. I don't care if it was a new guy. If someone in the platoon didn't step up,

and start to lead everyone would die everyone would die and that was another interesting thing that we could do sometimes is is pull take a platoon guy and be like all right dude you come walk with me on this run and you can watch and you can see how this unfolds and then you give them the ability to detach or sometimes just while some craziness is going on and walk over me like hey dude cammer get off your gun come over here step back with me and look and see what's going on do you see what's going on yes do you know what decision to make now three seconds go you had no idea what to do because you were looking down a corner pulling your trigger and nothing was happening everything was stagnant I pulled you off

that corner someone picked up for security for you now you look around and it's really obvious what you need to do isn't it yes it is so you have to let people see and feel like you were saying feeling the the laws but feeling what it feels like to detach. And then they realize, okay, that needs to be my protocol. That's what I need to focus on. And the improvement and the learning curve will be so fast. Once guys started doing this, like I said,

by the end of the Salk training, by the end of land warfare training, the platoons would be able to crush the instructors most of the time, most of the time. Yeah. Occasionally, we'd have a failing troop and they just couldn't get it together and they would get recycled, reloaded.

Yeah, one of the things I wrote down when you were first talking and then you said it again is, just as a reminder, when I was acting as a role player, my, at the beginning of like them coming out there for that training, I would literally just have on a pair of gator sunglasses. Like, not a mask, nothing else, because I wasn't really worried about being shot up too much. Like I just, I was really confident in my abilities as an individual because when you're moving as an individual, if you're good at what you do, you actually have some advantages. But as the training would progress along, the groups that were really starting to get it, I knew. I was like, oh, this next run is going to be really bad for me. It's like, I have a picture of me. I'll try to find it where one of the runs, I didn't have a, I forgot to grab a ball of clava or full, and I just had my gator sunglasses, and I got shot two to three times in the face with simonition.

And those plastic rounds were like sticking out of my cheek and my, but that's what would happen is when they would use the laws of combat, we couldn't beat them. Even us use them because it's a full platoon. Yeah, yeah. And when you're moving as a fire team, I can't do anything. Unless I'm acting as a sniper from a distance, yeah, I'm going to have that advantage. But even then, if they're using the laws of combat and they understand the situation, then they're going to pin me down.

They're going to maneuver on me. They're going to call in air support. They are going to win when they use the laws of combat. It's the same thing for every aspect of your life. I don't care what your business is. If you decide to use the laws of combat, you will win personally and professionally. And I just remember when guys would be progressing and training, I just knew I'm going to get my ass kicked. And there was times that I got my ass kicked as a role player.

And I loved it because it meant that we were doing our job. 100%. And it meant that those guys were going overseas. And what they were going to do, those enemy fighters, was going to be glorious. was going to be glorious and they were all going to come home. Yep. And that was the purpose. That was our mission.

Yeah. Yeah, it was so rewarding to see them start to step up and see the leader start to lead and see the E5 mafia start to take control of stuff. And then it would just be mayhem, mayhem for the role players. You guys would be doing everything you could, cheat, lie, freaking sneak, bring yourselves back to life, just do everything you could. and they would just kick your ass because like you said,

there's 40 of them and there's maybe six, seven role players and you're just going to get your ass kicked. Oh, well, what if you come against a force that's 40,

you know, shouldn't we train to fight against 40 people? Well, no, we shouldn't because if we're not going to go fight a fair fight, we're not going to fight 40 against 40.

If there's 40 enemy fighters, I'm going to bring 4,000. Yeah, exactly. And we would put them in scenarios like that as well, where what the right call would be to back off,

leave. Oh, this building is so well, defended that you just kept throwing bodies at it and throwing seals at it and they keep getting killed keep getting killed no take a step back go your J-TAC to drop a bomb on that damn thing that's one of my favorite I would say my top favorite run that we do in the field training exercise program is it doesn't matter what they do if they keep pushing forward they're all going to die and it's not until we get done and we's in the scenario and we end it right there and we do a debrief

real time so they can see it and feel it and they're like shit yep and then it's like okay so you have a business you've invested in some marketing campaign the return on investment has been zero what should we do go harder put more money into it okay so we put more money into it what's the return on investment now nothing okay what should we do well it was my plan i think it's a great marketing plan let's put more money into it and we continue to go down that path we don't take a step back we let our ego drive our decision-making process and we realize that everyone dies we lose all of our money all of our marketing money for the year because we got committed to a plan that didn't make sense and so those the

kinds of transfers of knowledge that goes from this this thing that you feel during the FTX into a thing that translates directly to how you're running your business we we call that scenario murder hole. And it was really cool. We did that with a group that we had going. I mean, the amount of diversity of people that come through our field training exercise program is,

is incredible. I mean, we've literally seen every walk of life come through that training. You have guys that are super fired up. I mean, they've got the Jocko haircut. They're wearing the Jock T-shirt when they show up. They're wearing the origin boots,

the origin jeans. I mean, they are in origin belt, like head to toe origin, Jaco fuel. They're like Jocko podcast stuff. I mean, they're like so. They're ready to lead 100%.

Yes, absolutely. And then you have the complete opposite spectrum where it's an individual that you look at them and you're like, okay, they're not, you know, on the path when it comes to their health or working out or, you know, just you could tell that in some of them, they don't want to be there. They're there because their bosses made them come because we do corporate and then individual ones. And I remember we're doing it with this group and they're, these people were, they're too smart. a group of engineers, and we get done with that murder hole scenario. We stop it, and we stop in real time to show them the terrain. And, you know, and this lady, you know, if you were to judge a book by the cover, you're probably like, hey, she hates this.

She doesn't want to be here. Like at the beginning of the day, that was just probably her body language. We get done with this run, and I'm just talking through it. And she goes, can I say something? I'm like, yeah, absolutely. she goes, this represents, and she goes down this path of like something that happened. She goes, we were working on this coding problem. And it should have been like two weeks.

She goes, seven months later. And she goes, this is that. This is what we do all the time because of our egos. We get sucked into projects because of our egos. We need to actually detach and we need to actually understand what our priorities are. She's going through everything, all this. I'm like, this is awesome. That's it.

It was so cool. And she just has this big. mile and she goes, this is the best type of training I've ever been to. And then I was like, all right, you guys ready for lunch? It was like the run right before lunch. We go back and it was for me to sit back as an instructor and, and watch the guys run the training and have my points and I have my points written down. And then for the student going through the training to literally hit all my debrief points. Beautiful. Was incredible because it shows that they're actually taking on board.

what we're telling to them. But the reason why is because the training is humbling. Like, you're going to be humbled in the training. I don't care who you are. You're going to be humbled in that training. And that's what's awesome is because that's when they're learning really starts to happen. Yeah, the first time we tried it,

the first time we tried an FTX with civilians. You know, Laif and I were doing it. This was when Ashlawn Front was basically just Laif and me. And we were, we tried it. And you know, you don't know what the reaction's gonna be. You don't know if people are gonna make those connections, those correlations between leadership on the battlefield and leadership and everything that they're doing.

And it was so awesome. I mean, it was, you know, bunch of stories, that exact same type of story like, oh, this is what we're, this is, you know, ops never support sales. This is the problem, and you're like, oh, you don't cover move for each other. This is exactly right. You guys are never there for us.

And this way, so you get to see these things real time. And as soon as we saw that, that application, and how well it correlated, that was when I was super stoked for you to come over and with the long-term goal of taking over that program, running that program, and growing it. So talk me through, talk us through how, what does that program look like right now?

Not like the broad program, but like let's say I got a company and I hear about this thing and I want to bring my team together. What am I doing? What is my I got 20 people. I got my leadership team. My executive leadership team. What does the program look like?

So it will do like a preliminary call with the client to kind of figure out exactly what they want to do. And, uh, you know, Jack Daniel, he's, he's been doing all those calls and then it's for an FTC. He then does another call with them and me. And Jack's so awesome. He's like, bro, you're so busy. I don't want to put it. I'm like, hey, if it's for an FTCX, put it on my calendar. We're doing a call.

And I just because I really want to understand what the. intent is what are they looking to get out of it because every FTX it's customizable to your industry your problems what you have going on now as you know the principles are universal that's what's beautiful about this and but but we can make things to where they're different than the others to derive home certain points to you and in your team so we do that call and then um you know now because of COVID the virtual world like we used to have real quick example yeah I'll have a company and growing rapidly and the younger leaders aren't stepping up and making things happen. And on a call, they'll be like, look, we need to have better decentralized command. And then it's like, hey,

JP, let's set up some runs to make sure we really drive home the point of how necessary it is for subordinate leadership to step up and lead it. That's the kind of adjustments we're making so we can drive home specific, address specific issues that a company has. Yep, absolutely. So we'll be able to do that. And I put in the notes. And then as we're building out the scenarios, we'll be able to kind of change through all the different scenarios. But, you know, most of the time we do a half day or a full day class ahead of time

to make sure everyone understands the principles. You know, we talk about the Battle of Ramadi, laws of combat, my sister victory, do some application drills. If that's something they want. If they don't, we just do a quick virtual to lead them up to it because the FTX program, you're going to learn the principles real time. So depending on the company's time and or budget, some companies, they don't have two full days where they can take the full team out of the field. That's fine.

Well, we can send over a pre-recorded video that everybody watches or we can do a one hour, two hour, three-hour, virtual session ahead of time to prepare them with the principles. And then we come to them or they come to us. They can come to different locations that we have. The flexibility that we have with this program is incredible. And then the actual FTX is all the hands-on. on application. So we'll show up in the morning, we'll put them into their their squads, we'll sign the leadership positions, we'll give them an intel brief, and then they get a plan their first mission and go out there. And I think, did you skip? Explain how you teach. You give,

you know, Mary, who's never handled a weapon before. Yes, I did skip that. Never been into, never been, never handled a squirt gun before. Yep. And now all of a sudden, you're going to have her clearing rooms. And I know when we first started, actually with you, I had to be like, bro, you're not going to make these guys into seals in two hours. They need to have the basic fundamentals of how to enter a room in a safe way, in a systematic way so they can clear. Well, that alone is a great example of me not asking enough questions from you in life to get like your actual commander's intent on the field training exercise program. Because in my mind, I'm like, cool, I'm going to teach them tactics and we're going to tie in leadership. And it's really important that they do all this stuff. And it's like, no, actually, I don't have to teach them any of this because we're not here for the tactics.

So yes, we start off. We give them a, hey, here's what to expect brief. Like it's in all of our notebooks. We brief them on safety. We brief them on the fact that, hey, you're going to impose more stress upon yourself than is actually needed. Everyone kind of chuckles. I'm like, just you wait and see. And then after the first couple runs, everyone's like, man, I am putting too much.

stress on myself. Weird. It's like we talked about that. And so we run through all this stuff to set the stage so they know what to expect. And then we give them their gear. And so we invested into these high speed laser tag systems. Which, by the way, is what we used in land warfare. We usually don't use those in our urban training, but in land warfare in the seal teams,

we used a high speed laser tag system that this thing is the civilian equivalent to. Yes, it is. It's freaking legit. It's, and that was a complete God thing because when we were, we were, we were, we ran a few FTXs. It was all, it was airsoft. And that's cool because you're getting shot,

but there's a, there's a major safety concern with airsoft. And people were lifting up their masks because they get fogged and like, we're having to stop training. And it took away the, from the purpose of the training, which was leadership.

And as we say all the time, communication is what ties everything together. And they couldn't properly communicate doing airsoft or paintball because the mask. So I reach out to a team guy, buddy. I'm like, hey,

I know you did like, some events for kids and he had laser tags. Like, can you give me that guy's info? So he sends it to me. I look it up and like, oh, these, these aren't what you would think for laser tags. They're pretty legit. It's not looking like a Nerf laser tag thing.

No, it's not like neon green. Which, by the way, props to Nerfs. I know you've heard me talk about this. Those Nerf guns, the Nerf lazy tag guns that I raised my kids with are freaking legit for teaching tactics, by the way, just FYI. Yeah. I mean, if you're teaching your kids that, yes. It wasn't what we needed for the FTX program.

And we had a client that told us, hey, we want to do this. But we cannot do airsoft or paint. We cannot have any safety risk. I'm like, okay. So I reach out, team guy, buddy, gives me the info. I look up 35 minutes from my house from when we just moved there to Texas. And I'm like, okay, thank you, Lord. I go meet the guy.

Guy was a veteran. I explained to him what we're trying to do. And he's like, well, I'm actually changing these systems to where they looked very realistic. And I was like, okay, this is awesome. So we invest into them. And so we have the gear, the sensors. And so what we do is we just, Cody and the guys, they give an awesome class on, hey, here's how you use these taggers. These taggers are tools, just like you have tools that work.

Like you, in order for you to get the job done, your tool has to be used properly. So we explained to them how to use the taggers. And so if we have somebody that's super nervous, I've had people say, I'm not comfortable with guns. And I'm like, that's good. You shouldn't be comfortable around guns unless you have training. That's a good feeling that you have. But once you understand the use of weapons, you shouldn't be scared if you know how to use them properly. And I told this lady, it's like, it's the same thing for these taggers.

One, these taggers can't hurt you. That's why we invest it into them. So even if you accidentally pull the trigger and it's pointed at you or somebody's, face, you won't hurt them. And the lady's like, okay, that's good. She was super well-tight. And rightfully so, she had never been around a weapon or a toy gun at all. And then, which for me, it was a realization of like the things I just take for granted

of just my, what I've been around, just it's not normal for most people. And so that was when we really shifted over to, hey, let's make them feel as comfortable as possible. Like if they're not doing something right, make sure we're not being. They're like, hey, you know, getting on to them like we would, team guys or Marines. Because team guys and Marines are very good at going back to that default of like, hey, you stupid. Like, hey, they've never done this before. So we have all the guys there and they're like helping them put on the sensors and, hey, you want to plug in the sensor.

And we go through a class and we say, hey, these are your SOPs for how to use them throughout the day before, you know, you get your intel, you plan the mission, you brief the mission, you get approval. then you've got to go find the key guy the key guy's going to turn on your guns that key guy is a minimum wage employee that's only job is to turn on your guns every single time we get that brief every company's like oh we got one of those guys

it's just a minimum wage person that affects whether they can go do their job the learning point there is how do you treat that key guy and we've had everything from hey motherfucker you need to get our guns on because we're running late and I was like oh I wonder how

Yeah, that works out for you. Yeah. Excuse my language, all my church friends that are listening. I apologize. But that's like, you were quoting someone. Yeah,

but that's the extreme. Like we will have that. We're like, we go, we give the class and then we let them have fun. Like, all right, hey, shoot the guns.

Like, shoot them as fast as you can. Here's how you reload it. We teach them how to put like a basic patrol. And I always tell them like, hey, guys, these are not tactics. These are the basics.

These are tools, single file, dual column. Here's how you get a head count. And so we give them enough tools to where they can actually go be successful on the first couple runs based off of the level of those first couple runs. Mm-hmm. When you talked about, it's interesting just to point out, you were talking about the amount of stress that gets created. And I just wanted to say that a lot of times people think, oh, well, you know, these are seals.

They must be talking about all this physical stress. But it's actually almost no physical stress. it's all it's all mental stress it's all the confusion the chaos the mayhem and because the physical this isn't a physical evolution no this isn't a physical evolution there's no in fact you don't allow people to sprint or run that that's part of the in brief no running absolutely no running for and for multiple Marines one safety like hey if you run you roll your ankle you hurt yourself you trip fall you hit a tree you're one of these buildings Now you're done and you've taken away from the purpose of the training.

The purpose of the training is for us to work on our leadership skills, for you actually go through the runs. And I always tell the story of like when you're running, trade it, when somebody would do something they're not supposed to, you would say, hey, stop doing the enemy's job. You get arrested out in town.

You can't deploy. You get in a fight. You break your hand. You can't deploy. You can't run training. You can't do whatever. You've done the enemy's job. So I always,

we tell them that to make it real. Like, hey, don't do the competition's job by taking you out of this training. You need to finish this training. People always like, is when you say don't do the competition's job, I love, I love watching people's. The looks on people's faces. Body posture change.

And I mean, we, so to go back to that lady, she didn't even want to touch a tagger. And I'm like, cool. Just, hey, you know what? Here, let's get you a chair. We brought her chair. We had her sit down there. Like, hey, just watch, just watch the class.

By the time we get done with a class, she comes up. She's like, hey, do you have an extra? set up for me and I'm like Cowie will get you taken care of and she goes over Cali gets her sized up runs through like hey you're real quick let's make sure you're good with it and that lady was a rock star yeah well if you think about it from somebody that's

maybe not familiar at all with the military not familiar at all with weapons and they're just intimidated by it and then they sit off to the side and go oh wait a second this is legitimately like they're playing tag but they have teams this is a game that we're about to play and I think I should play this game

and we're not going to get hurt. So that's another thing. We'll work with companies. Well, you know, we got people that aren't in the best physical condition. Can they walk down a hallway? Then they can do this training. And what's interesting, so we're saying all this stuff, look, you can't run, you can't get hurt, you can't shoot. Or you're not going to shoot somebody.

No one's going to get injured. You throw all those things out. It's like, oh, that might be kind of lame, right? And here's the thing. I was just thinking about, like, Chief Shy, freaking police chief. Oh, yeah. When the first time he came through one of these things, totally blown away. FTCS.

Because it's the leadership lessons that you learn. And we got all kinds of vets going through going, God, I wish I would have had this when I was in the military. So believe me, even though it is, even though it is like it's contained and it's presented in a way that is very safe and very professional. Professional and very almost, this is the word I was looking for. I was trying to find the word, benign.

It seems benign. It's like, oh, wait a second. We can't even run and we're just going to be moving around and these are just laser tag guns. It seems super benign. You'd think, oh, this sounds like it's not going to be that big of a deal. And then you go to run number three where people are like, I need someone else over here.

Yeah. We got another. And we have done. Total chaos. Yeah, you're not supposed to run and people are sprinting. People are going crazy. People are losing their minds. People are giving orders that don't make any sense.

All this stuff happens from a benign, laser tag system that's what happens that's what unfolds it's crazy I mean we've actually we had a guy that had

multiple sclerosis to he's like I mean he had like a cane and so we were doing the classes he was sitting in a chair my guys like took care I remember watching how my guys took care of them without me even having to say anything and I shocker got a little emotional watching that

because I was like my guys know it they get it You know what I mean? Like Cody and Cowher were taking care of this guy. And this guy had the biggest smile on his face because he felt, because I know when he showed up, I remember he pulled me aside and was just like, hey, I'm probably not going to be able to do anything.

And you could tell he was upset because he wanted to be a part of it. And then when the guys were taking care of him, like for him saying like, oh, this is cool. It's on. It's on. To the point where our guys were like, cool, all right, he can't keep up the group.

He's not going to be able to walk. We can drive him out to the play field. And so we would drive them out there. The role players would drive them off as a, sniper and he would be put in places and it was awesome because I'm listening to radio and I'm hearing the role players go dang it this guy keeps picking us off and he was a huge part of the training um you know this one lady came through she's like hey I just got done with my chemo you know I'm not going to be able to do too much and we're like okay cool do what you can we have positions

for you you can shadow me and act as the ground force commander and relay information and it was after two runs, she was like, hey, can I get in there and actually have a position of leadership? And I said, absolutely. We changed up the reorg. And it was cool seeing people who showed up with these self-imposed limitations. They came up with these excuses, or lack of a better word, for me, and I'm not to mean this to them in a derogatory term, if they're listening, but they had these excuses as to why they wouldn't be able to perform.

And then when they realized that that was all BS, that that was imposed upon by themselves, nobody else gave them those limitations. They gave them to themselves. And they saw like, oh, actually I can be a part of this. Oh, I can actually lead. Oh, I can actually do this. I can learn. It's incredible. I mean, just the transformation that you see from, we had a lady who was like we, we gave out the leadership.

She comes up. She goes, when you say gave out the leadership. What you mean by that is you assign leadership for different iterations. Yes. Okay, here's who in charge of this. Yes. Each run has a new set of leaders.

So like you're saying, your company of 20 people, everybody's going to go through multiple positions of leadership to where they feel all the different, like stresses. OIC, officer in charge, assistant officer in charge,

squad leaders, fire team leaders, or just a shooter where you're just trying to listen and do the work. It's incredible. And you'll learn something new in each one of those levels and you'll see things differently

from each one of those levels and you'll become a better leader by serving in each one of those levels. Like Denver Witten from Dagan Construction came to FTX 001, and he was like super frustrated. And he's a very motivated, very smart dude, has a very successful construction company out in the Phoenix, Arizona area. And he came out to it, and he was just like, kind of, I remember, I remember watching him and listening to him the comments he would say about the other guys.

And then he got put in a position of leadership. And I think he said it to Laif. I'm pretty positive. He goes, I now know what my team feels. I now know what my team feels. And I've been doing all these same. And it was for him to have that aha moment. And then two weeks later, he hit us up or a week and a half later.

He goes, hey, I need to run an FTX for 50 of my employees. So we did two days of FTX training with a half day classroom on the back end of how do you implement? Strategically, how do we implement all these takeaways? So you see all this. stuff happening real time from all different walks of life. It's, it's ridiculous. So I cut you off. You were talking about a female. Yes. So thank you. Because I was like, where did we go on this one? So we give out the leadership. And she comes up and makes a comment and goes, well, that's a mistake, putting females in charge. And I look at her. And this is from a company where they have a culture where

if you say something offensive, like you're, you get in a lot of trouble. And I looked at her, I'm like, if somebody else said that to you, would you find that appropriate? And she just pauses. She goes, well, I'm just being real right now. I'm like, well, that's actually a lie. Saying that just because of females in charge is going to go bad, I'm like, that's a lie. I was like, I know a lot of badass females that run companies that are kicking ass. I know a lot of badass female leaders in the military that did some phenomenal things.

I'm like, don't. Oh, so she was like serious when she said that? Oh, she was dead serious. She wasn't, she was dead serious. Like, just like, this is going to be horrible, like body posture, like, like, gun down to the side. Like, and I was like, okay. So immediately I'm like, there's something there. Like, there's something deeper there, obviously for her to be like, she was not thrilled and just thought it was going to be bad.

So I talk with Carlos and Cody. Like, we give the intel, pull them aside. I'm like, hey, we just keep an eye on her. We need to, like, pour into her because she thinks it's going to be horrible. Like, we need to make sure she gets the person. Lois and Cody, we're like, yep, got it. Cool. We go do the run.

Obviously, we put a bunch of stress on her. So we wanted her to feel it. Like, we do everybody. It wasn't any different, but we were just very mindful of making sure we were watching. And I, you know, because we've had some people come to their training where they just stop. They're like, hey, I can't do this is too much. I'm like, yes, you can.

Like, come, come over here real quick. Let's talk through it. And they're like, okay. And this one guy was like, that was all on me. I put too much stress. Sorry, I won't let that happen again. Self-imposed stress, man. It was to the point where the guy wanted to stop training.

He tried to physically stop the training. So I want to make sure this didn't happen to this lady. Just FYI, if you feel like you are too stressed, this is a massive red flag that's telling you to detach, take a step back, take a breath. Which is as soon as you said that guy, okay, step back, take a breath. He's like, okay, I can see what's going on. All right, I'm ready to rock and roll. Yeah. And so I really felt like I just, I knew there was something else with this lady.

So we get back from the run. It was hard, but guess what? They accomplished what they're supposed to accomplish. We get done with the run. We're doing the debrief. And it's in one of my notebooks. I remember I wrote down what she said. But the greater point was just the limitation she had.

and I asked her because she said something, her takeaway was, don't limit what you're capable of. And that was like awesome. And I said, expand upon that a little bit. And she goes, well, I just, I didn't think I would be capable of this position. And I said, why? She goes, well, it's, it's a little bit deeper. I'm like, what do you got?

Like, this is the time. Let's talk through it. I said, if you're comfortable, if you're comfortable with it. She goes, well, from my past. I said, okay. And I know I'm like riding a line that this could go really bad. But I also knew as an opportunity that if we could talk through something that she never has to go through again or just is able to let go of something, then our day has been worth it. Like, you know, that's what we're here for is stuff like this because that's going to make her better leader.

If she can let go of these, you know, limitations that she's put on herself, she goes, well, when you come, from another career where your life was threatened. And, you know, your life was actually threatened. She goes, because you weren't doing what you should have done. She was like, I carry that. What was her old job? We didn't ask. I just didn't feel like it was a time.

I should have afterwards just to get a little more like, I guess, information or situation awareness. But, you know, when we talked through it and I said, well, hey, I'm glad that you came to that realization. Like, these are one that's the purpose of the training is for us to fill these things and realize like, hey, these tools work when we use them and all the other stuff that we have in our mind. A lot of it's all BS because it's, that's not the reality. And then we did our end of the day debriefs, like our key takeaway. So we do all the runs. We rotate through different positions.

And then at the very end, it's like, hey, what was your biggest takeaway that you're, going to leave this training with to implement back home. And hers was, you know, same thing. Like, I'm not going to let my pass define me. She goes, today is a fresh start. And I always try to explain that when I'm talking with clients. It's like, that's what you did when you came in and tasking a bruiser. Hey, we're not tasking a bravo. We're tasking a bruiser. All the other stuff doesn't matter. Like, this is who we are and this is what we're going to do. And I like to also tie that in when I'm talking about Ramadi. know when we talk about like hey will you come back from a point when we talk about the cost and the

burden and all that stuff i try to make it very clear when i'm talking with individuals or large groups like we're all going to have those dark times we're all going to have those things from our past that could hold us back if we allow them to but if that's all we focus on like anger frustration darkness guilt doubt all that it gets us nowhere and i know we've talked about this multiple times but what you have to focus is the lessons that you've learned and more importantly what are you going to do going forward? And that's a big thing that we talk about in the field training exercise. It's like, yes, hey, you guys made mistakes. But what are we going to do going forward as a group? If we're not sitting and debriefing and coming up with new standard operating procedures,

we're wasting our time. If we were just to reorg and like, all right, hey, new leadership go, new leadership go, new leadership go. There wouldn't, there would not be that progression that we get if it wasn't for the debriefs. And the debriefs are an awesome opportunity for you to do some self-reflection. And that's what's powerful, is that self-reflection. Yeah, well, what's interesting about that is this training program in situations like this, which I've seen and you've seen, when it goes beyond business application, beyond the combat application, obviously beyond the business application, and it starts to get into people's souls.

and sitting there listening to people debrief, seeing grown men weeping because they realize that they've made mistakes in their lives, seeing women apologizing for behavior that they know they shouldn't have done and it was negatively impactful to their family. Like seeing those deeper, those deeper changes changes. That's always, it's always amazing to see that this stuff applies and gets through,

gets through to people's souls. It does. I mean, one of our larger field training exercise clients, one of their upper executives, you know the company I'm talking about, everyone that we've been interacting with since 2018 running these FTXs, all of those key leaders, they, they don't just know the principles, they actually live their principles. They apply them, they believe in them. And guess what? Every single one of those individuals has grown within the ranks, like multiple tiers of now high-level executive leadership positions. And the individual I'm talking about, he's just been in the game since day one with us, helped us bring the program to them. He sent me a text and I always forward him to you and Laif and Jamie and Dave, just so we're all aware

of like the impact that we're truly delivering. I know we know it and I always give it to my team and I like to if I'm in person with the guys, be like, hey, just so you guys know, this is what you're a part of. And as we grow this, you're going to have more and more and more of this because if we do what we teach and we do it the right way, which we are, you all are going to have teams eventually run in this training. And this is what you need to focus on is the impact that we deliver. Everything else, it's important, but it's the impact that we deliver. That's what you have to, like, strategically, that's what I want you guys thinking about. And he sent this text where one of his executives, that works directly, his direct report

said, that training fed my soul. Thank you. I didn't realize it's what I needed. It's just, it's incredible to see that impact. And I wrote this down. It's one of the things you're talking about is when you were running training, you said literally we could almost do whatever we wanted. So I wrote down wide boundaries, leadership capital, withdrawal, return on investment.

So it reminded me of when we went back and you were running training. And we literally could do whatever we wanted. And the reason why is because the training we produced delivered results. We had guys come back from deployment saying the hard training you guys put us through, kept us alive. It kept us alive. And I remember when I was being an absolute jackass at training, I want to be very clear. I've said this multiple times. I always want to, I know I'm in a unique position working at Eschleon Front. I wasn't this phenomenal leader in the SEAL teams. I wasn't like Seth or Laif or you or Dave. I was in some unique positions and there was times where I was a good

leader, but I also know that I was a jackass and that I was, you know, that I was that guy that my leadership had to deal with. So I do have a unique, there's no one on the team. There's no one at the Eschlam front team that doesn't have that caveat, bro. No one. Just FYI. Yeah, but my, I mean, we want to start pulling apart, you know, yeah, yeah, you know, you want to go.

How deep you want to go. I know, but there's no one. That's why we're here. Yes. And I know, but I also know that because I have that background and perspective, I do at times appeal to a larger base than some of the other instructors because I can relate to all the different levels. And I get that. So I want to be when I'm like talking through this stuff, I want to be, like I don't think I was this phenomenal, like perfect leader in the military. I was a good team guy,

I think. I think I was a good team guy. I believed in the mission. And I remember when you pulled me aside because I was struggling with some personal stuff that was starting to affect me professionally, that's when you told me like, hey, your job is to be the best damn instructor that you can be so that we don't have to put our uniform on to go to another funeral. And I know I've shared that story before multiple times. It was when I realized that it just changed my perspective. And when we started delivering that impact, that's why we were able to do whatever with training. And because the amount of leadership capital that you built within our community by delivering the absolute best training, it allowed us to make large withdrawals.

But if you make a large withdrawal that has a high return, you're actually at a higher level when you come back. It's like basic investing. I'm going to pull $100 out, but it's going to make me $150. Cool. Keep doing that. every time you've ever made a withdrawal in your career, especially in Towsking and Brewzer, and I trade it, the return on that investment was ridiculous. And that's what we try to tell companies like, hey, if you're going to make a withdrawal,

there better be a large investment. There better be a large investment. And the more relationships you have within your team, the more trust, the more trust you have, the more influence, and you can actually go out and do those things. And that's what people see real time in the training. Yeah, I remember you had a situation. There was a safety incident took place and the report came back. If we hadn't just gone through this training, this would have been a complete disaster.

If we hadn't just gone through this FTX training, this is a, let's say a, a company that does dangerous work, you know, dangerous construction type work. They had a safety incident take place and they reported, if we had a safety incident take place and they reported, if we had to, been through this training whatever it was two weeks ago this would have been an unmitigated disaster we were able to get control of it prioritize and execute and Decentralized command we made things happen and got the problem solved much quicker than we would have had we not been through this journey So I've talked with the leadership about that and I asked like hey how can I share this? What can I share? Because I know some of it's sensitive So I'll share what I know we can share There is actually a death on a job site

And it was, we had been running a week of FTX training. And it was on a Friday. It was a beautiful day. And I remember we came back from one of our runs and I was looking around and I could see people's posture changing as they were looking at their phones. And one of the guys comes up to me and he has tears in his eyes and he said, hey, one of our guys just got killed on a job site. And it brought me back to when Seth was like, hey, Mark just got killed.

brought me right back to them. And I remember sitting and I'm going, wow, that's all I could think about is just like, I didn't think I was dealing with this stuff anymore. And so I said, all right, you know, you guys kind of let me know. I'll give you guys some time to kind of think about it. And everyone's kind of like checking and they're talking and there's a few people crying and they're upset. And so I make an announcement to the FTX team and to the client, you know, and I just shared with them. I said, you know, hey, I told you, you guys deal with human life just like we did in the SEAL teams. And you guys have a very dangerous job, but it's a very critical job as well. If you guys don't do what you do, people can suffer.

Like people's lives and businesses can suffer bad. So it's necessary that you guys do your job, but it's very dangerous. And so we go through this whole talk and I said, hey, I know one of you guys have to leave because it's actually your teammate. I said, you guys have hit all the training objectives. And so we can be done. And this would be a good day of training. Or we can do one more run. And we can do it to honor this gentleman that just got killed.

Because I'm telling you right now, leadership is what's going to solve every problem within this organization. If we pulled the thread, there was a leadership failure somewhere that allowed this complacency to creep in and this individual just got killed. because what this guy was doing, he had done thousands of times over his career. It was literally thousands of times. And so we finished the run. We finished the day strong. That was a Friday. We had another week with them that we were supposed to do at the end of that month.

Two days later, we get an email from the leadership saying, hey, we'd like to talk to you guys about, you know, some stuff. So we get on a phone call with them. And they're like, hey, can we do another two to three weeks? worth of training before the end of the year. We're like, I don't know if we can. I think we might have a two-week block open in December, but December in your region is miserable. And they're like, here's a deal. So the reason why is because when the executives showed up on this location where this

individual had been killed, it was a situation they'd never seen before. because there was no pointing of fingers. There's nobody blaming. It wasn't the union blaming corporate, corporate blaming union. There's none of that. When they showed up, everything would have been taken care of. The executive leadership was being told what they needed to go do. Hey, we're already doing this.

You guys need to go do this. Boom, boom, boom, boom. Everything had been taken care of. And there was no blame. There was no arguing. None of that. And then the CEO and some of the other leaders sat down with the union president and some other leaders and was like, hey, how do we make it toward this never happens again?

And a union president said, we go all in with that echelon front leadership training. That's the only thing that's going to keep this from happening again. And the CEO goes, okay, and the executive is right. All right, we'll see what we can do. And that's when they came back to us and said, hey, we want another two to three hundred leaders put through this training. And so we put 400 leaders for that training in 2018, 2019, we're supposed to do a bunch more. And we have continued to have a great working relationship with this client.

But it was a union president that was telling the executives, we need to go all in with this training because he saw first hand. Well, the reason why everything was running so smooth at that fatality was the leaders had gone through our training earlier that week. that same week. And, you know, it was, you know, I've had a few members from that company go, it was a complete godsend that we had your guys' training that week because it was a real, it was a real hard thing for them to handle. And, I mean, they've also explained to us like how their culture has changed. I mean, it's been a drastic, and you know, you know, some of the details of just change.

And it's just, you know, when we talk about complacency and leadership solving people's problems, and we kind of get personal. And we explained them like, hey, that problem is a leadership problem. That is a leadership problem. And you allow complacency to creep in. People get offended at first. They get offended. But then we kind of change the tone.

Like, let's pull the thread. If we pull the thread enough, it goes back to a leadership problem that allowed the complacency. to creep in. Because if we go to war with that complacency and we combat it and we do what we're supposed to do, we mitigate all those things. That's what we talk about being default aggressive. That's what we tell you. Hey, default aggressive isn't a mindset for victory against another human being. Now in combat, yes, but we're not talking about that. We're talking about being default aggressive to improve a relationship, work on your communication, being default aggressive to mitigate safety risks. And if you're not allowing that complacency creep in because of the leadership

that you have, because the culture, culture is the ultimate form of decentralized command. And so if your team knows what they're supposed to be doing, they don't cut the corners. Therefore, we keep our people safe. And it enables, like you're talking about in that scenario, like, hey, I'm not having junior leader step up. They see in the scenarios that we run, there's a void of leadership. guess what we should do. Oh, Johnny, step up. I don't have an arm bed. I'm not a leader.

And I just look and I tilt my head and they're like, Roger that. You know, and it's just, it's amazing. Yeah, it is, you know, all problems are leadership problems. And what does that mean? The beautiful thing about that is that means leadership is the solution.

And that means that we can solve the problems. We can solve these problems. It's liberating. And that is a powerful, powerful thing. Hey, man. I mean, we work with so many different companies. I was about to close it, but I was like, hey, that's one company. And we work with all these different companies.

I know. Tech companies, financial companies, manufacturing companies, construction companies, energy companies, and just every different facet and every different type of group, you know, from the tech world to the financial world. And the lessons are learned and the culture is changed and leadership. rises to the surface to be the solutions, the problems that these companies have. Yeah, I have to show, I have to show love for Groundworks because you talk about a client that's in the game. For sure. I mean, Matt Malone. I call him Mr. Malone. He always gets pissed off at me. He's like, it's Matt. And I'm like,

okay, I have a real, I can't just do that. I have a hard time. I can't, you know, ever since I was a kid, that's the way I was raised. But Matt at Groundworks, I mean, he saw the power of extreme ownership. He read the book and was like, hey, this is, this is what I've been looking for. Came to a muster. Pay for some guys to go to the muster with them. Came back. I was like, hey, we want to engage with you guys. We did a little trial FTX with a bunch of their leaders.

And when they saw that FTX, they're like, okay, we need this. I won't get into all the details of how they run their business and what they're doing. But I can tell you, they are extremely successful, growing, expanding, dominating the marketplace. like dominating. And one of the cool things that they do is every small to me, every company they acquire, their goals are acquiring small to medium companies in their industry. Within 90 days,

they run an FTX. It's legit. And the reason why they do that is to show this new company that they acquired their commitment to them to develop them as leaders, to give them hope, to give them like the tools to lead and be successful. And he says there's no better program out there to implement. to implement the lessons and the principles that we need,

but also to tie in the culture. Yeah. Because it's like, hey, this is how we do things at Groundworks. You're now part of our tribe. Yes, you're still this company,

right? You're whatever that company is. You're still them, but you're also part of our tribe. And it's, I mean, just to see, like,

the goosebumps, like, to see companies that are that committed, to see an individual like Matt, that that's, that is that committed to their company's growth, and development, it's impressed. If I just shared with you, one of the personal examples of that guy that pulled me aside

recently was, I mean, just, it's incredible. Yeah, it's a huge impact. And that's a great example, like you said, of a company that is just taking these leadership principles, been applying them, continuing to applying them, applying them at scale. Yes. Which is awesome. And continuing to see success after success after success, That's another great example of the many companies that we work with that go out there, take these principles, implement them, and dominate.

Yeah, and it shows them one thing that I've written down I wanted to hit is the importance of like the diversity of people's, like different people's ideas and backgrounds. That's one thing I was talking with a company. I'm like the reason I feel one of the reasons why the SEAL teams were so successful is because we have like true diversity of skill sets and thoughts. in how we conduct business. Hey, I can have a platoon full of 18 joccos, and that's going to be an awesome platoon. But he doesn't have all the things that I need. Not as good as a platoon full of 18 different people.

Yes. Not even close. Yes. And I only see things one way, one way. And that's not what we want. I want to have 18 different perspectives. Yes. And that's what people see real time in the FTX program is as everyone's

rotating through different positions of leadership. We actually, We developed this workbook for them so that afterwards they can capture their, their takeaways. And you see the takeaways evolving as the day goes on because there's all these different ideas and thoughts and the diversity of a company that now they say like, oh, so-and-so, like her ideas are awesome. His ideas are awesome.

Let's get them to work together. And at the end of the day, when they start working together, when they start applying the principles, it sucks for my role players. Yeah, well, that's what I was talking to earlier. When we kicked this thing off, I was talking about a seal platoon. And I was like, oh, you got all these different types of people in a seal platoon. And you got some smart guys.

You got some educated guys. You got some uneducated guys. You got some short guys, some tall guys, some slow guys, some fast guys. You got somebody that was born with a silver spoon in their mouth. You got someone that was raised in the ghetto. You got all these different people with all these different perspectives. And that makes that platoon strong. That's what it is.

It's not like you said, 18. Joccos, cool, that's great, but that's not as powerful as 18 individuals that all bring a different perspective, a different mindset, a different viewpoint, and that's what makes a platoon strong is all the differences that people have. You get to see more. You get to see the problem, you get to see a problem from multiple different angles. You know, when we go out in the field and do a reconnaissance of a target, we don't just look at the target from one side.

No. We do a clover leaf around the target. We back out. We go in from another angle. We back out. We go in from another angle. We go all the way around so we can see as many different angles of the problem so that we can figure out how to solve it. So if you have 18 joccos, that's one viewpoint.

If you have 18 individuals, you've got that clover leaf. You get to see as much of that target as you can possibly see. And that's how you're going to solve the problems. I'm smiling because you're saying the clover leaf. I watched Cody do this with a group the other week. they're brief in their plan and you're just kind of sitting there listening and you could tell like it wasn't the right plan and so what him and Carlos do instead of saying hey you should do this they just ask questions yeah hey what if like so i say you have your guys right here and you have your

guys right here and so they're split so that would be split forces right so we want to make sure they know what we're talking about and Carlos just goes if somebody pops up the middle you have to shoot like what would you be able to shoot them and then And it's every single time, like the client who has zero tactical training goes, oh, that's, yeah, we shouldn't do that. We shouldn't split forces. We're like, yeah, that's a good idea. And Cody built this terrain map for the large client that we have that we have all

to work with. He built a actual 3D terrain map of the play fields that we use. And they were going through some stuff. And Cody just grabbed the OIC who was on one side of the table looking at it and brings them around to the other side. It was like, hey, what do you see? And this is not the major, but just the changing of that guy's perception from over here, he saw it in a different way. He goes, yeah, we shouldn't probably go up that way.

And Cody's like, I like you're a plan. Hey, you've been talking about a bunch of our corporate clients, but also, what was it? Last year. Was that last year we started the first FTX individual FTX? Well, this year, March. Okay. So if somebody wants to, like, let's say I'm just Fred and I, this sounds awesome. And I got a small company.

I can't bring an Eschleon front to teach my company because I only got 22 employees. But I got three people. My main, you know, subordinate, my two team leaders, I want to bring them. So we have a program for that too. And how's that work? Yeah. So we have the individual program, the individual FTCX program to where an individual, like you just said, can sign up and come to the training. Or a guy like Denver Wetton who's like, I think I want this, but I'm not sure.

Like, let me go test it out. He came to the training, tested it out. immediate was like I need two days worth of this training. And so we've had the next one. The next one is in April. I want to say April. So it's not the dates aren't locked down yet? No,

I'd have to pull up my calendar. Okay, but we'll go to Ashlandfront.com. Go to go to events, muster, individual one. So FtX zero four. It's going to be in Dallas, Fort Worth. So we're going to be back in Dallas again. In April.

In April. So it's kind of cool. Yes. It's the weather's going to be perfect. Yes. And so it's the last week in April, whatever that Monday Tuesday is. I want to say like 23rd, 24th, something like that. That will be having that one in April. And then we're looking, depending on how that one

sells out, we have some, we already have corporate clients that are like putting locks in our calendar in 2022 for FTXs. I know. So FtX 005 and zero six, we're not sure those dates and locations yet. But right now, and it's going to sell every, the first three sold out, it's going to be in April. So an individual can sign up for it. It's two. It's two. full days of training. So you're getting two full days of those field training exercises. We'll do the check-in, meet and greet on Sunday, give out the pre-mission bags with all their gear. And then on Monday, we start the class. We do overview. We give the classes. And then they're running missions all day. We have a team dinner. And then like kind of open Q&A with you, Laef myself.

And then on Tuesday, full day run of missions. And then we'll do Jiu-Jitsu afterwards as well. Yeah, and an awesome debrief at the end to kind of capture and make sure everyone gets it. Well, freaking right on. Awesome. I'm so glad you came to Eshelmson front and you're taking this thing and running with it. It's just, it's amazing to see the impact on individuals, on companies, on businesses, on teams. It's just how freaking awesome and that we're able to take these lessons and pass them on and people can put them to use to go out there and just do what they're supposed to do in the world.

Yeah, it's awesome. Yeah. Well, thank you for the opportunity once again. Yeah. Echo Charles. Yes, sir. We're over here, you know, we're running FTXs and we're doing jiu-jitsu. We're lifting.

Sure. You know, lifting. Yeah. Learning, leading, right? Seems like we might want to get all the help we could get in some of these departments. What, you know, what we got for? Support. Recommendations.

Well, well, we can talk about a lot of stuff. But, you know, in the physical case. Capability realm. Okay. Yeah, we do appreciate the support when we can get it. Wait, J.P.'s here. Why don't we just talk about Sourapel sniper all day? Well, you know, we could. We could. JP. Okay, let's rewind. You're at trade at with me. How many energy drinks are you drinking a day? What do you think your what do you think your worst like your max energy drinks a day was? And we're talking like the big ones that had 300 milligrams per Oh, that was six to seven, eight. Oh, I know it's not good.

That's bad. No, it's real bad. Yes, sir. It's a freaking disaster. Oh, it was. Absolutely. Yeah. All right.

So you know those means where people are like, this is my body, like with all the checklights, like all the checking check lights on the place. Yeah, that was. That was you. Me, I trade it. Me on the outside doing sales of a financial company. It's been me for a long time. But not anymore.

They do it. Like, how we're talking about the game changes. And you know, like, whatever, say whatever you want about me. I don't have, I could not make something like that and sell it to people.

I couldn't. Yeah. As far as I'm concerned, I might as well be a drug dealer. That is a drug dealer. That is a person that is given freaking crystal methamphetamine to people. And knowing that they're going to get addicted to it, knowing that you're hurting their health,

probably going to kill them. and you don't care because I'm making money. I could not do that from a moral standpoint as a human. Couldn't do it. Zero chance. And yet, I kind of felt like I got to do something because otherwise people are out there, they're visiting the meth dealers, right?

Going to 7-Eleven, there's a meth dealer in there in a freaking icebox. And there's a short-term benefit that you need, that I need sometimes, that echo Charles. needs sometimes hey you need it look it's a long day whatever it's last night I got I I guess I got like three and a half hours of sleep I actually woke up at 430 I was like okay if I'm not feeling it I'm gonna go back to bed I was like I need more sleep I tried to go back to bed I couldn't go back to bed I couldn't go back to sleep so I just got up

worked out and but then I then we're in here I'm tired or I was tired when I showed up then I so what do I need I need I need need something to help get over that fatigue. What do I need? Oh, I'm going to have one of these things. Do I want to go down to do the crack house and buy some rocks? Because that's going to hype me up too, right? It's going to hype me up, right?

That's a terrifying thought. Yeah, it's going to hype me up. But guess what? It's going to kill me. Yes. So we're not doing that. No. So we made something that you can drink that's literally good for you.

Literally. No downside. makes you feel hype is that a good word well approved disapproved is not you know you're shaking your head I sense I'm not there yet we'll say that what would be a better word I was digging deep through the old vocab I like I like fired up that's the traditional one you don't like though I don't know I think I'd prefer hype over fired up hype it is my man JP anything better than that I mean not everyone's gonna fully get this but there's a few times I've cracked these open.

I just tell myself, activate. Yeah, that's true. You want to get it? It brings me back to like Jacco saying JP activate on a radio. There you go. That's it. If you're, if you're,

if you follow me on Instagram, if you ever see you all on a post and I have a hashtag activate, it's for that. It's just, hey, just. Yeah.

So when JP would be the bad guy, one of the bad guys. And the platoons would be like trying to work through a problem or whatever. And they'd just be screwing something up. screwing something up, screwing something up, and they needed to pay the man. I'd just come up on the radio and be like, JP,

activate. And he would come out of a spider hole or a false wall with a Mark 46 of freaking simulation and just lay waste. I remember one of the times I was like waiting for it. I'm not going to say his name because he's still in, but his nickname Manbear Pig. So, which was very fitting for this human being.

Yeah. It was terrifying. And he was like now the new LPO and it's towards my end as I was getting out. And I was just like waiting. I was like, he could tell. He's like, hey, he's like, wait, wait until Jocko gives us a call. And I'm just like a freaking ant, like just like waiting

because I was so hyped up. I mean, I loved what I did. I loved every single day of being in the SEAL teams. And it's the same thing now at Eshlon Front running these field trains. I mean, people are like, man, I don't like, you, I don't get it. Like, how do you keep going? I'm like, because I love, I literally love what I'm doing.

And it was like the same thing. He's like, wait, just wait. Hold. Like, hold. And all of a sudden you're like, JP activate. And he's like, go. Just able to get after it. So if you need to activate.

Activate, I like it. Boom. If you need to activate, freaking crack open one of these and you'll get freaking activated. Kick out that door. Start laying a waste within Mart 46. Yes. The right way.

Belt, yes. No price. You don't pay no price later. No, you just go. We're not doing the freaking Nazi thing putting our guys on on meth Yeah, yeah, yeah, they deal with the devil, you know? Yeah. It's like, oh, what do you need?

Oh, you need that? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then they collect that check afterwards, right here in big trouble sometimes. Big trouble. We don't do that withdrawal. JCP was talking about. That withdrawal, not what we're looking for. No, no, no, no, no, all good.

So yes, Jocko, Discipline go, or are we going with Jocko go? Because it's kind of interchangeable, really. Kind of interchangeable, yeah. That's the energy drink. That's the one that we want. That's the one we want to stick with. Sourapper. sour, apple, sniper. It's a good flavor.

Dude, they're all good flavors. They're all good flavors. And I can tell you personally, the FTX program is run and fueled by the discipline goes because we get them sent to every location ahead of time. Jack Daniel, he's in the game. He takes care of that. I used to do it. He's like, I got it.

I'm like, uh, he's like, J.P. I got we have them at every FTX for our team. For all the prep days ahead of time, all the stuff they're doing. and then also for the client as well. And we have to put it out. We're like, hey, these are healthy, but you don't need to drink one after every single run.

Because they taste so good. We had one guy. I was like watching and I was like, hey, he's like, what's up? I'm like, come here real quick. He's twitching. Well, no, because you literally could drink six of these and be equal to two of those larger drinks from the devil. And so I pull him aside. I'm like, hey, how many?

He's like, I've had one after every run. I'm like, you're drinking water for the rest of the day. I'm like, you're good. It's still like not an unhealthy level. I said, but man, like, you're just, you don't need to be doing that. He's like, they just taste so good. They do. Now I want that.

I was like, I'll let you in a little secret. I know that in the future, they're talking about hopefully having caffeine-free versions. He's like, okay. He was so excited. The guy was in the game. We'll get there. Oh, yeah. And it makes sense.

because the you know how when you drink a different drink or whatever you drink one you're like cool you drink two and you're like okay two's kind of good whether it be the flavor the heaviness of it or whatever doesn't have that and it has electrolytes too so I can dig it he's drinking one after every run yeah just feeling it's awesome it's anyway that's one yes I suggest mango that's my suggestion I was talking to a gentleman at the live you're biased a little bit a little bit biased but hey maybe it's your bias too J P you said I said they're all Good. They are all good. And then you got to throw out the bias. Okay. So one guy he was talking to, he was like, hey, I'm going to, I'm going to try either the orange or the mango.

Yeah, Carol was with me. Do you witness this whole thing? And I said, okay, you're asking me that. Okay, all right. I said, I think if you want to go a little bit more exotic, a little bit more risk, try mango. Yeah. If you want to go to the tried and true, you go orange.

Yeah. I think sourapal sniper is kind of like on the same level as mango as far as that goes. I think, no, I don't think so. You think it's more tried and true? No, I think it's tried and true. The thing with the sour apple is it's the sour's, it's a lot more, it's a lot more sweet than sour. I mean, it's freaking taste good. Yeah. It's sweet.

It's freaking sweet. So orange is sweet. Sour apple definitely sweet. Mango has some exotic to it. It's still sweet. Yeah, sweet. Yeah. So a lot of people, they like, they love, love it.

They think it's like way better. But then some people are just straight up, nut down. Actually, one person. For the mango. Yeah. You mean me? Yes. Yes, you're right.

I don't like mango. That Dax Savage will throw you off because you don't know and then you taste. You're like, oh. Yeah. Why is this so good? Like you're trying to figure it out. And people that love Dr. DeKeta Meyers starting a distribution company. Yeah, as he should.

Yeah. He just decided he's just going to become a distributor of the drinks. Yeah. So he started just rolling into places. And now he's just going on the war path. So I've. Like not at that level. I think so he he was talking to Amanda about it at the Vegas muster And she's like that's that's amazing

Yeah, um you know that's how I got introduced to the new jiu jizzo gym on that is through de deco it's for me Right and at his gym double five and it was setting him up so I have I don't even know how many gyms I have under me as like wholesalers because I can set up them as same things. Yeah, and I found out The Dakota was doing that as well. Yeah, he's doing it like freaking he's gonna Rest restores and stuff. Yeah, dude. He's so awesome. It's freaking sad. So, yes.

So stay in the game with these things. All good. Of course, very exciting stuff. But yes, stay in the game with all this stuff. This is all I've had today. By the way,

I didn't eat breakfast or lunch. I've had one of these at the house. Same here. Yeah, it's good. Two of the pills with it. Just, you know, got to make sure you put that flowing a bottle

for the flight. It's true. Also, don't forget about your joints. You know, you talk about complacency creeping in. Dude, I can't not. Yeah, but sometimes that'll come on slowly where you don't notice.

Then one day you're looking at me like, man, I'm going to feel like I got to warm up just to live my normal life, but you don't want that. No. So you take the joint warfare, the super cruel oil. Just keep everything in line, man, it's good. You'd be happy you did. Also, vitamin D3 and Cold War.

This is for immune immunity. Greens, by the way. Yeah, the greens. You're saying some good stuff about the greens. They're really good. Yeah, but you use a particular case. You did. I thought you were going to go into it.

I thought that was like pre-podcast talk. No, no, no, no, no. All good. Last, let's say you have some cocktails or some wine with your significant other. Sure. So Amanda and I were having some drinks. And, you know, the next day, I'm like, this is exactly why I don't drink. I don't drink for this reason.

Went and grabbed two scoops of the greens, half water, half apple. juice tasted phenomenal felt amazing afterwards back in the greens greens greens greens is kind of a the green's kind of a miracle you can also do it right before bed like so if you have some drinks you know and maybe you shouldn't be it drinking and but you do and one or two scoops of the drink of the greens water right before bed so we got hangover prevention we didn't even know it official we didn't know it but we have it if we're talking about the you know how you feel things real time like when I have the greens I feel really good really good study sample size of one you know

that's where it starts 100% for the for the factual it's true factually also milk don't forget about monk you want to make additional protein yeah let's face it it's hard it's hard to forget about moor you're right but yes that's that's a dessert there's nothing there's nothing there's nothing there's nothing that you just sit there like you'll be into some a random spot and just think man I really want to mold right now that's yeah that's the thing there's no other even steak even steak I won't have a I won't have a craving for a steak as much as I will have a random yes I really want a mook right now yeah yeah that's how tasty have you have you make soothing have you mix the greens with the milk no I have not done that that's bold it's bold think about this vanilla gorilla with

the greens mm getting crazy over here it's really good drinks yeah because if you You know, vanilla protein powder with fruit, right? If you want to make a smoothie, you're going to put some frozen fruit in there. Right. Well, the greens have that fruit flavor, the pineapple and the coconut. So it's really good. Interesting because, yeah, that's kind of how the nature of milk can be. Is you mix some other stuff in there.

Hey, look, I stick with a chocolate. So if I put anything in the chocolate, put a little bit of a frozen banana. And that's sort of it. Extra ripe. Tulsi. Oh, yeah. That's the one right there. But, yeah, especially with the vanilla, you can mix all kinds of stuff.

in there. Yeah. Just enhance it. It's good. You know, Tulsi's done a lot of amazing things in her life. Yes, sir.

And the only thing that you seem to care about is that she told you to put half right bananas in your freaking milk, bro. That girl's a damn veteran. She's a congresswoman. She's a surfer. She's a fighter.

And you're over here talking about rotten bananas going into milk and that's like the deal. Well, let's face it. Tulsi's surfing abilities and, you know, her service and stuff play less of a role in my day-to-day life. Check.

Okay. Point taking. But I'm just saying that frozen banana. Mulk. Face it. It's face it. Kind of a game changer in your household. She didn't do much for you as a, as a representative of Hawaii.

She didn't do much of you as a combat vet going overseas. That didn't help you out. But day to day, she's all up in that mulk, the mulk train. She gives good advice. Hey, you get the drinks. You get the drinks at Wawa on the East Coast. We're going into a bunch of other stores right now. I'll keep you posting on all of that.

You can get everything at vitamin shop Go hook up the vitamin shop And look, you can get all of it At joccofuel.com And if you subscribe, there's no shipping payment Which is a big deal Because look, let's face it, there's other companies out there You might have heard of some of these companies

And they get you on this little thing Where you're getting stuff shipped to your house for free And that can be hard to compete with How do you compete with it? Do a little subscription activity. Help us put down the big boys. But if there is an issue with your order that if you order from joccofuel.com, origin,

main.com, then you reach back out to origin and joccofuel and they fix it. The other ways that you can get it, like if there's an issue with your order, there's an issue with your order. That's it. But jacquil and origin, they're going to resolve that problem.

They're going to take care of it and they're going to make it right. Yeah. Yeah, it's true. Also, you mentioned origin, origin, origin, USA.com. It is origin, maine too, right? It is. all the same gig. This is American-made stuff.

Denim, boots, belts, wallets, whatever else Pete thinks up. There's a heavy hoodie. I hear a great thing. I don't have one, but, you know. That's got to be a bummer. That's got to be a bummer. I understand.

You're over there with rotten bananas. We got heavy hoodies. I just want to know, how did you go to immersion camp and not leave with a heavy hoodie? Yeah, huh? Yeah. I kind of jammed that up, that opportunity. Real slippy over there.

Yeah. I got a cool gig. I got a good geese. You know, so. Yeah. So, everybody that attended a merchant camp.

One of them. Origin, USA. Yep. All made in America. Everything. From the materials themselves. Yep. Oh, by the way,

there's a bunch of people that have been trying to get stuff from overseas and there's a bunch of ships sitting off the coast to California and New York and they can't get their stuff in here. Their supply chain is all jacked up.

Guess what? We got an American supply chain. An American supply chain. Did I just say that? The whole thing? Every single part of that garment that you're wearing, be it jeans, be it boots, be it a freaking rift geese, doesn't matter. That whole supply chain is right here in America.

We're not waiting in the port. We're not paying somebody to have imposed slave labor to build you a freaking pair of jeans and then call them American. No, that's not American. How can a pair of American jeans not be made in America? Answer me that riddle be that echo Charles. It's a hard riddle you can't you can't solve it because it's wrong. It's a lie We're not doing that no origin USA.com Boom also jaco is a store. It's called jaco store

I know nifty name I get it but some good stuff on their discipline equals freedom shirts hats Tootis Jiu jitsu is life. Jiu Jitsu is life. Yeah Got a little jit so there's a jiu jiu jitsu kind of kind of section emerging look at you man I don't I don't condone not doing jiu-jitsu choosing not to. I'm not going to condone it. But some people don't. Some people do. The people who do, now they got a little section of representation on the path,

on the jiu-jitsu path is emerging right now. You know how many people have told me that they've started jiu-jitsu because of the podcast? How many do you think? I don't know. I don't know how many. You know how many people have come up to me and said, hey, I started jiu-jitsu because of the podcast and I really regret it. Zero. That number is zero.

If you are listening to the podcast, if you're living human being, go start training in jihitsu. Just go start training in jih Tjitsu. Start right now. Yeah. Then you can stop. Then you can shop the jit-setsu sex. Yeah. And also think about all the people that said, oh, yeah, I started jih-too.

I wish I would have started sooner. 100%. I'm one of those people, by the way. I am, too. Yeah. wish I was born on the mats of justice. That would have been great. How about that shirt locker?

Dude. Sure locker. Yeah. Okay. You know, you're always excited about your little design. Yes. You try and explain them.

You say they're more creative or they're more layers. You just say weird stuff about it. You don't know how to describe your limited vocabulary trips you up right there. Jammes you up, as you like to say. So I was at Jago Live last night. And I see a guy's walking up to me. mean he's got a shirt that looks freaking legit it's got like a metallic tank writing on the top

and it says discipline and then there's an actual tank with the barrel pointed at the at you as you look at the shirt and as he gets closer it's a comic book cover and I'm on it some cartoon version of me riding a tank and it's a t-shirt so that's the first one that I've said yeah well you know Kind of dope. Not the first one that's been kind of dope. It's the most, it's the most differentiated from your standard Jocko store shirts. It's the most differentiated one. Yeah, it was kind of a curveball stylistically.

It was good though. I think it landed very well. Oh, I did. It says DefCore to the core on the top. Oh, yeah. So I learned something new recently. Somebody was talking about the shirt locker subscription. and I know a good amount of people.

They're like, man, that would be awesome. I just have too many shirts. I got, and I'm like, I get it. Trust me, I get it. Well, recently I heard a common friend of ours. I don't know, put his name on Blast in the podcast, but he was like, I have way too many shirts. I don't need it.

He's like, but I do a shirt locker just to support Echo. And what he does is he gets all these shirts. He wears them for a little bit. And then he just gives them out as gifts to people. And people are like super stoked. about it and so if you have if you're thinking if you're like hey I have too many shirts I don't need the shirt locker get the shirt locker and just get your re-gift on and this guy loves it he goes he gets so much fulfillment out just being

able to give out the shirts to different people or someone's like hey I like that shirt he'd be like cool and he gives it to him there you go there you go see the shirt locker gonna pay you gonna get a cool t-shirt you know pay you and you give it away to your friend because I liked it yeah I don't I mean it depends on your lifestyle. I don't feel like I have too many t-shirts because of the shirt locker

because all of them that come in are in the rotation. Granted, I'm a little bit biased because I probably won't make one that I wouldn't wear. I would hope not. I don't think so. That would be kind of whack.

Yeah. Yeah. That doesn't make sense to do that. Yeah, but you know how some people they'll anticipate, oh yeah, or they get a lot of recommendations for something. And you'd be like, well, it's a good idea.

I don't know if I would necessarily wear that, but it's like, hey, but hey the proof is in the pudding everybody's saying this and it's actually technically I got it I see I see you now it is now hey you're just over there at the whim of the people kind of chasing the glory like oh everyone else likes it so I'm just gonna do it that's where we're at I just figured it out I call it I call it listening to my people that's what I call it should I not listen to him look at you maybe maybe I have all the good ideas I have all the good ideas I don't want to listen to

nobody you're a politician so if there is a demand for V-necks would you go V-neck route then In the words of both you guys, by the way, if there was a demand signal for V-nex, then yeah, I might consider it. Sure. Anyway, shirtlocker is on jocclos store.com. Hey, that's for you. We have some developments in that section, by the way. So if you're a current member, we're going to have some upgrades and some updates for you.

Any moment. Now, joclestar.com. Subscribe to this podcast, wherever you subscribe to a podcast. Check out the unraveling podcast with D.C. Grounded Podcast, Warrior Kid Podcast. I got Jocko Live last night. Kids, children put me on the spot. I have one question for you, Mr. Willink.

Yeah, what's up, son? How can I help you? When is the next Warrior Kid podcast coming out? Because it's been 14 months. Next question from a kid. Hi, Uncle Jake. I'd like to ask you a question. Oh, what's your question?

young man, how can I help you? I was wondering when the next Warrior Kid podcast is coming out. I'm sure those aren't my kids. I'm sorry, man. Also, jocco underground.com. If you want to hear some alternative podcasts, some alternative information. Life advice, by the way. Life advice Q&A.

Hitting a lot of Q&A in there. You can go to jocco underground.com. Now, here's what we've been talking about. Why do we do that? Well, because we don't control the platforms. We don't know what the platforms are going to do. The platforms, big tech. What do we?

Okay, well, whatever. What could possibly I be doing that would make someone say, hey, you know what, we need to pull this guy. We pull the reins in on this jaco guy. I don't know. But I got freaking straight up shadow band. Legit shadow band. Yeah, I was going to text you because on one of your poll,

the video that we did with Travis Mill and stuff. And you posted it. So I'm like, oh, yeah, you know, it's fun to see people's reaction to that kind stuff. And man, it was getting no traction on yours. I was like, bro, this doesn't. And then you had that other one that you were kind of posting like stuff, right? Like the video of your screen.

Yeah, the video that someone sent me of my screen not seeing me. Right. Yep, we got shadow ban. I was like, bro, you got straight up shadow band. Shadow banned. For what? I actually don't know. I actually am not 100% sure.

I have some suspicions. I have some things that I think it could be. Um, yeah, I've spoken out about some situations that are unfolding on Instagram, uh, on podcasts, on my podcasts, on other podcasts. And that's weird though, right? Yeah. Where someone, it makes me so mad. I was in Colorado.

And I told you this right before the master. I was there working with a client. Uh, was out and about, bet this, uh, family. There's like a little kids. Anyway, I started talking to him. I was like, hey, you should check out my boss. He's got these kids for, he's got these books for kids called the Warrior Kid. And then mom was like, I'm a teacher.

This would be a phenomenal. And so the dad was like, well, what's his name? I'm like, Joaqua Willink. He's like, okay. Which, it's funny. Anytime I say your name is somebody doesn't know you, it bothers me. And I'm like, how do you? What are you talking about?

You don't know. And then I have to be like, go, okay, not yet. Everyone doesn't know him yet, but they will. And so I was like, hey, let me see your phone. I was like, you have Instagram. I'm like, open it up. He's like, all right. Because I don't want to do like, hey, look him up later.

They'll forget. So now this is my default is like, hey, open up your phone. Okay. Open up your Instagram. Okay. And I'm like, oh, let me see it real quick. I just take it. And I start typing it.

I'm like, what the heck? He's like, is that him? I'm like, no, that's a meme page about him. He goes, he has a meme page about him. I'm like, oh, yeah. So he started going through. He's like, there's a quote page too. I'm like, oh, yeah.

I had to type your name fully for you to show up. And then I clicked on it. And then I immediately was like, and I was like, hey, you're following him now because I followed you. Gave him back to him. I was like, why would, why is this stuff? I'm like, yeah. Like he's being shadow banned.

It's crazy. So he starts like looking through all your stuff. He's like, why would he be shadow bound? I'm like, because he speaks the truth. It's so freaking crazy. Which is crazy that that's, that's a dangerous thing is to speak the truth these days. It is very, very disturbing.

It is very, very disturbing. And to that degree where they can, where someone in them, Totally just speculating, but they'll hear you say something that they didn't like, like somewhere else and then be like, let me go to his Instagram and Shadowbound. It really makes me start to think about all the level of interconnectivity between some of these elements out there. And it's because it is very strange. Now look, could it be like, oh, I was, you know, someone mentioned me or something. There's some fault.

And they got an algorithm that runs. And it's like, oh, yeah, this guy, boom. and he got and then they went and like yeah we shouldn't have we shouldn't have done that now because apparently I think I might be on shadow band right now I think so I think yeah I'm not sure I went on on Sarah's phone and looked for you and you popped right up okay but I think she's following she follows him yeah so that's yeah well hey because of all this what what JP I was gonna say you it's just even more confirmation that you know you're doing the right thing we're doing the right thing dogs don't bark at parked cars

True. You know. So. Because of this, we, and we figured this out, was it, a year ago, we started jocco underground.com because I knew we needed contingency plan in case things went sideways. We could get taken off of every platform. That could happen. And so if you want to support us, go to jocco underground.com.

It's $8.18 a month that allows us to have this platform that if things go sideways, we will be standing by in the underground to do what we got to do. If you can't afford it, it's all good. We still want you on the team. Email assistance at jocco underground.com. And for like a reward or an appreciation, we do another little podcast and talk about some alternative subjects. And you know what? You know what I'll do is I'll on that, I will do one about why I think I got shadow banned.

I'll give all the details because I'm pretty confident. I have, I'm pretty sure I know why. Interesting. Throw this out of here. I don't need to sleep tonight. We can do it tonight if you want. Who is to go? YouTube channel.

Subscribe to that. Official. Yep. It's official. Whatever. You can see what JP looks like. You can see his Jiu-Jit to his life t-shirt. You can see my t-shirt.

I only wear the same t-shirt. Same lot. Yeah. That's kind of what I do. Origin USA has a cool YouTube channel as well. We have a psychological warfare. I made a little album. You can listen to it.

If you have a moment of weakness, you can overcome. that moment of weakness flipside canvas speaking of Dakota Meyer not only does he have a distribution company he also has flipside canvas you can hang cool stuff on your wall Dakota Meyer freaking one of my heroes got a bunch of books final spin jp jp. dinell come on jp. dinell you read you got on the plane and you read final spin how'd that work out for you hobie okay this is what I love about you yeah people don't understand Just end this.

A little behind the scenes, JP and I, we can both, we are both, we can both, we can both get emotional at certain things. Yeah.

And it's funny to watch each other get emotional and we make fun of each other for getting emotional, laugh at each other. Literally I was at the last muster. I'm sitting backstage watching J.P.

Get choked up and I'm laughing. And I'm just preparing. Yeah. And yeah, he's just preparing. So I'm like, okay. So anyways, as soon as he goes, walked into a day, he said, yeah, I read the book on the plane. And I saw the look at his face.

I was like, oh, it hit him. It hit him because it's a rough book to read emotionally. Yeah. It's an emotional roller coaster. It's awesome. So we got the copy of the final spin at the muster. So we're leaving Vegas. Amanda, Amanda had a copy.

I ordered 10, like when they first came out. And I knew, so I had some coming. And so I stole it from her. Like I took a picture, put on Instagram. She's like, give me my book back. I'm like, let me read it for a little bit. She's like, okay. So I started reading.

I was like, oh, my gosh, this is legit. She, like, takes a book back. She, she finished. She's reading on the flight. And then I'm gone for FTXs. Come back. The books are there. I grab it.

And I read it in two or three days. I just, I could not put it down. And I didn't want to read it at night because I knew, like, when I was read it at night, I was not going to sleep because I was just like, no, one more chapter. One more, one more. And today, you know, flying out here, I'm finishing up my packing and I grab it. And it irritated me because I knew I was going to finish it before I took off. But I needed to finish the book.

But I was like, oh, I'm going to finish it. I'm just carrying another book for a week on the road again. And I have my other book that I'm going to be reading or finishing it off. But yeah, it was awesome. Like I was just like sitting there and I'm very front of the plane. Everyone's coming on board. and I have tears rolling down my face as I'm like reading the book. I'm like,

you got to be kidding me. Now, if anybody knows me well, it's not a surprise. Like, you know, I'm an emotional person. You know,

one of my real close friends, he's one of my black, or is one of my black people still Matt Waltman. And he just knows. He's like, bro, he's like, I know when you're going to get emotional.

If he listens to a podcast, him on, he's like, yep, and then I'll get emotional. Just if you know me well, you know that I'm an emotional person. And I,

he used to bother me. I don't care anymore because I'm like, well, Yeah, it's a way God designed me. It's part of who I am. But yeah, final spin. That was awesome. Sitting on the plane, tears rolling down my face.

I'm like, you got to be kidding me. Because I think, and I'd like to talk to more people about it, but I truly think every human that reads that book will be able to relate to all of the characters. I don't care what your background is. 100%. I don't care what your background is. You are going to find a relationship to every human. one of the characters.

Everyone. Like the store manager, I wanted to beat that guy up because I've had some of those bosses in the past, right? Artie, man, that kid, you know? Just everything, you know,

and just what the main character did for his brother. Yeah, it's just a phenomenal book. I truly, I would put a large amount of money down and say if you read the book, you'll be able to relate to everyone of those characters and I'm not going to give it away.

Yeah, I don't know. Because it's ridiculous. But I will say like just that style, that style that you wrote, I'm looking forward to more books in that. And if not, then you're the biggest jerk ever. Put that out there and then not have more books coming down the pipeline. Check. Right on. Appreciate it. That book is called Final Spin. It's an emotional roller coaster. You don't, you don't even expect it really at some points and all of a sudden you're like wait wait what why am i getting choked up right now yeah so i wanted to say this quote earlier and i didn't find the right time but i think it ties into this book like the principle of the book you said this at one of the

last ft x is ftx zero two that we had in san diego and i wrote it down and i know i shared at the muster part of my talk but you said when you transition from loving winning to loving your team winning more than you winning yourself, you transition into a true leader. And that's sacrifice. If when you're willing to put the team above yourself, the mission above yourself,

that's when you become a true leader. And you ask this question, and we ask it now at all the FTXs, what do you think makes a good team guy? And everybody, all the answers are great. They're just not the right answer. it's when you put the team first and the mission first. That's what makes you a good team guy.

And that's not just for the SEAL teams. Company XYZ, when you and your employees put the team first and the mission first, that's what makes you a good leader. And you don't have to have a title to be a leader. We've said this, your title doesn't make you a leader. Your ability to influence those around you to do the right thing, to believe in themselves, to believe in the mission, that's what makes you a leader. And I love this quote.

I've written it in all of my notebooks that I have just as a reminder as well as discipline is rooted in the truth that we tell ourselves that you told me. And I just, it reminds me. I think that's also why I got emotional reading that book is because he was willing to do what he did for his brother. And that's what good leaders do. Like they are willing to put the team and the mission above themselves. at all costs. Now, what he did in the book is obviously part of the book, but the base of that

is he, it wasn't about him. It was not about him. And when we look at the good companies that we work with, the leaders that care more about the team than themselves, I remember I called you, I sat and had dinner with Denver before we ran the FTX. And I, he was sitting there and he was emotional and he was talking about how much he loves and cares about his team and it was real you know and we've worked with companies where you knew they were kind of full of it they're kind of put on the game I mean he he pulled out like index card that he had notes on for our talk and just the the level of impact that the training had on him and how much he cared about his team I remember I text you and life afterwards and I called you because just the burden of that and you're like hey bro you're going to

deliver the training that he needs and that's all i was like check roger that and it just it's cool just when you see leaders truly care about their team and they put the mission first what they're able to accomplish that's it man um final spin a lot of those themes in there one of my friends texted me and said this is a great piece of american literature And I said, thanks, man. Appreciate it. It's a bold statement, right? Bold statement.

Final spin. Leadership strategy and tactics. Field manual. The code the discipline, the evaluation, the protocol. Discipline equals freedom field manual. Way of the Warrior Kid, one, two, three, and four. Best books ever, apparently. That's what a lot of people are thinking.

Adults, children, cross the board. Mikey and the Dragons. Come on. Come on about face by Hackworth, extreme ownership and the dichotomy of leadership that I wrote with my brother, Lafabin. We also have, what we're talking about, a bunch today. If you, if you are interested in the FTX or any of the consultancy that we do, go to Eslamfront.com. You can also find out where we're doing the next muster, which is Dallas, Texas, March 24th and 25th. We also have an online training program, Extreme Ownership Academy.

We are on there all the time. We got courses that you can take. We got live interaction that you can do. can come ask us questions. There's so much benefit. It's a leadership gym. You don't get good at leadership by reading one book. It doesn't happen.

Just like you don't get good at Jiu-Jitsu by going to one class. You've got to make it part of your life. Go to Extreme Ownership.com to make leadership part of your life. And if you want to help service members, active and retired their families, Gold Star families, check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. She's got a charity organization. She is really helping out veterans, just giving them treatments. You've had those treatments.

Yeah. Hyperbaric chamber. Game changer. It was an absolute game changer. My body was in a medical state that the doctors literally were like, we don't know what's going on. I'll tell you what's going on. You were drinking nine monsters a day for three years.

Yeah, more like 10 years straight. It was, I was having, well, I was having kidney and adrenal gland failure. And we just, like, when you're going to doctors and they're like, hey, we don't know, this is what we know what we know what to do. We don't know how to stop. We don't know what was causing it. And then COVID hit and I hit up Mama Lee because she was like, hey, you need to get in these treatments for your TBIs.

And I'm like, okay, yeah, because, you know, I had real bad tinnitus and, you know, just issues with just remembering stuff and headaches and stuff like that and problem sleeping. And she had just been trying to get me into the treatment. Well, I couldn't because I couldn't commit to the treatments that I had to do because of how busy we were. Well, COVID hit and I was able to do it. And I did all the treatments. All those issues were gone. Like they're gone and they haven't come back.

And I know of other team guys that had masses growing in their head, pituitary gland, like cancerous types of masses that they didn't really know what was going on, go and get the treatments and they're gone. Yeah. Like just it's incredible what those treatments do. And actually to the point that one of our clients at Eschalon Front, that's a part of Dave LDAP program that we did an FTX for, one of the guys is like, hey, what's a good charity that we can donate to?

And I told them America's Mighty Warriors, this is what they're doing. Well, one of these team members was so motivated because I told him what happened to me. Other members, like Cowie, who's on our team, like he went and got those treatments. He said it's been a game changer, night and day. And everybody I've listened to it, it's not just for team guys. We're talking just any service member that has problems. We're getting them in there. Well, this member of the client that we work with ran up the chain of command, and now their company is doing a thing

where they produce trailers, like heavy haul trailers for the trucking industry. They designed a America's Mighty Warrior trailer where it has a logo on the trailer, on the back, everything, and they're donating, I'm not going to say the amount, but for every trailer, they're donating a large amount to the foundation, and their goal is they want to be able to pay for, I want to say it was like five or seven treatments through. Amazing. It's incredible. And she's only able to do this through companies and individuals that donate.

Yeah. It's insane. If you ever wonder what happens with money that you donate to a charity and if it's effective, this is 100%. This is what's happening. Medical treatments that are game changers for veterans. So that is America, America's mighty warriors.org. This is Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee.

That's where you can go to help out with that. if you want any more of my tedious tirades or you need any more of Echo's perplexed ponderings or you want some more of JP's hyped up hypothesis and you can find us on the interwebs on Twitter on the Graham Facebook JP is at JPE Dinell Echo is at Equit Charles I am at Jocco Willink echo any closing thoughts Good to see JP in person again. Always good to be here. JP, anything to close it out?

No, I said what I wanted to say. Right on. All right. Well, speaking of military personnel, to all the military personnel out there around the world, staring evil in the eyes in order to keep us safe, thank you for doing what you do. And to our police and law enforcement,

firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, Border Patrol, Secret Service, and all first responders. Thank you for protecting us from evil here at home. And everyone else out there, remember, there's always more to learn. There's always new information to absorb. You can always hone your skills. You can always improve your technique.

You can always increase your knowledge. And you can always, always get better, always. because if you close your mind and your ego says that you already know it at all, well then guess what? You won't learn. You won't improve. And ultimately, you won't get better and you won't win. So put your ego and check.

Go out there. Keep learning. Keep getting better. And yes, keep getting after it. And until next time, this is J.P. And Echo and Jocco. Out.