Jocko Podcast - 345: Life is All Based On The Decisions That YOU Make. So Live a Good One.

Episode Date: August 3, 2022

Think about the impact that all of your decisions make in your whole life. Have a protocol, and lead a better life.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocco podcast number 345 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. So just got back from an event at Eschelon Front, that we call the council. And what is? We have a small group of about 20 liters. We do it out in a very remote location in northeast Washington State. And it's an opportunity to really get in,

depth with some leadership tools with some high-level leaders that are running in most cases very large organizations and when I was up there I just wanted to share some of what I talked about while I was there and actually one specific idea that I first conceptualized at the council last year 2021 so in 2021 I went up there and essentially what happened was it was a pretty interesting dynamic I get up there and we're sitting down it's a small group there's like 15 or 20 people there and Leif was telling a story about us being overseas or us going through training and he kind of told a story where I came in at some point and made like a leadership decision and boom it helped solve whatever the scenario was and then Andrew Paul was up there

and Andrew Paul told a story that was something was going on and then I came in and kind of made some decision and and then layf told another one and so for whatever reason they both told a couple stories each that were illustrating some leadership point and the in the stories they it made me look like this decisive good leader which is cool great and you know but of course you know we're all telling stories about each other but a couple of the leaders that were there after this one session they approach me and they said something along the lines of, you know, you just

have such great natural leadership instincts. And of course my ego is immediately like, oh, hell, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, of course. And then, you know, so we had a quick conversation and they just said, oh, it's so cool to hear these stories where you have these leadership instincts.

And I said, yeah, you know, it's pretty cool. I'm pretty cool, you know, kind of that ego idiocy. And then as I thought about it, and we were on a break, and as I thought about it, there's actually a break at the end of the day. As I thought about, I thought, well, that's actually not cool at all, because if my leadership is just some natural instinct, then that implies that it's something that I can't teach you, right? I can't teach you. I can't teach you something that is only instinctive. So as I thought about it, I also realized not only is that bad, but I also realized that there

was plenty of times in my life where, especially when I was younger and I didn't have much experience as a leader where I didn't make good decisions or I didn't even realize I needed to make a decision. And so as I'm sitting there thinking about this during this break, I realized that I had learned to lead and I had developed. knowledge and developed kind of a process that was so embedded in my brain that it seemed like instinct and when these guys hear the story it seems like instinct But it's not instinct it's it's more of a process and So I sat in my room and

I went through and just sort of wrote down the the process that I use the things that I think about when I'm making a decision and I And I and since then I've implemented that and teach it at a shalom front and I And I've added a couple things to it since that time frame. And we basically call it the extreme ownership leadership loop. And the reason is because extreme ownership, the book that Laf and I wrote, kind of that term just kind of encompasses the broad principles that we try and operate by. And there's a reason that I use the term loop. The reason I use the term loop is clearly taken from the Uda loop, Observe, Orient decided. act and when you are making a decision you can utilize that loop observe or

you decide and act and what that means is real quick brief on that first of all you observe means you look around and see what's happening then you orient you see where you are in that in what you have observed then you decide what you should do and then you act on it and once you've acted you go back to looking around and see how your actions impacted what's happening. And then you orient yourself inside this new picture. And then you decide what you should do now. And then you act again.

And you just keep running this loop. And every time you take an action, it's going to change the situation a little bit. And then you have to observe that feedback, orient yourself with that new feedback. And then you make another decision. And this becomes a little loop that you run over and over again. And it comes from flying jets in combat. and dog fights. And it's a way that you win.

And the way that you win is by making decisions and observing and orient yourself, deciding what you can do and acting faster than the other person can do it. And if you can do that, you'll win. And this also applies in jiu-jitsu, obviously. So that's a loop that you need to run when it comes to making decisions.

And this is a similar process to apply in this in this leadership decision loop that I think through when I'm trying to make a decision and again it a lot of times it seems like it's just some instinct but there's there's a thought process behind it and listen the Oudaloup for the most part the Oudaloup I view it as more of a tactical decision in a physical realm again Against an enemy or a competitor. It's it's sort of a an interaction between you and someone else in a physical and in usually in a physical domain Whether it's fighter whether it's tactical maneuver on the battlefield. That's why it's so applicable to Combat because in combat you're going against another person. So there's as you as you as you decide an act that's going to cause a reaction that you have to then calculate into your new observations into your new orientation and so the udaloupe really is about it takes place in the physical realm for the most part this this loop that I'm talking about this this EO this extreme ownership

leadership loop it's usually I shouldn't say usually not about physical decisions it's but it's it's equally applicable to conceptual ideas or conceptual plans or and this is important about human interaction that's not physical it's it's more the conflict of ideas so one loop is in my mind more of something that takes place in the physical realm this EO leadership loop takes place more in the conceptual realm does that does that make sense yeah fully like us in a social verbal all that you know right and what this loop does is it provides a checklist or a framework of things to consider while making a decision and listen when you first hear

this there's a bunch of them a bunch of things to think about and what's weird is I had been doing this for so long that it seemed to other people and really to me as instinct and it wasn't until I said wait a second, is this really instinct or is this something I learned? Well, I know I used to not have it. Therefore, it can't be instinct. I must have learned it. What exactly am I thinking? What am I considering when I'm out there trying to make a decision in a leadership situation? So let's talk through some of these things. And there's a whole bunch of dynamics going on here. And I don't want to simplify this to a point where you go, oh, this is just a checklist. Here's the 19 or 14 or whatever

number of things. And you just follow this checklist because each one of these things is a, conceptual item. There's a big difference between a conceptual idea and a physical thing because a physical thing is in this position. It has this mass, it has this weight, it has this, this

takes up this place in the world. An idea, a concept, a plan by its very nature is fluid. So all these things, for the most part, are somewhat fluid.

Now there's something about the first thing that I think about when I'm making some kind of a decision that's actually not fluid at all and that's why it's number one And that is time That's the number one thing I think about the first thing that I consider when I'm making decision is time Because and the reason is because this is the one thing that's not fluid it it is it is it is and you can't stop it can't stop it You know talking to? Carrie Helton sure you know him K dog. K dog, that's right.

He was talking about Marine Corps boot camp, and he had a good little hint for anybody that's going through something tough. And the thing that he thought about was these drill instructors, they might be all powerful in Marine Corps boot camp. They are all powerful near godlike figures. But guess what? They can't stop the clock. And no one can stop the clock.

And I, you, us, we, we have no influence over time. We do have influence over actions, clearly, but we don't have influence over time. That clock is going to keep going. Look, you can, you can get ahead of it by working hard, by thinking ahead. And that's why it's the first thing that I think about. But you can't stop it, no matter what.

That's why I can't stand being late. That's why when going to the airport, I'm going to show up early. I look not crazy early, but I'm going to show up early enough that nothing is going to make me panic. Nothing is going to make me agitated. The TSA dudes taking this time? Cool. I got time. And you ever notice when you're late for something, everything goes against you?

Yeah, yeah. Right? It feels like it happens to. If you're on time. Green lights. Yeah. If you're late, red lights. Not like that, but weird red lights.

Right? Anomalous. How long is a red light when you're late? That thing is forever. Yeah, that's true. But the weird thing is, it's the same. It's just that you're different. Yeah.

Your mentality's different. I tell you that story about the other day, speaking of, like, mentality. So, what was it, REI? You know, RRII? The store? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, sports store.

It's good. So I'm an R.E. And I got a sprinter. Sure. Vehicle. It's a good vehicle for sure. Four-wheel drive sprinter. No big deal.

And I get it. Okay. So do you know that sprinters are a thing? Do you know that? I know that now, yes. Yeah. They're a thing. My wife told me that when she saw yours.

Yep. And not only are they a thing. There's also a big negative perception of them. Because they're expensive. And people like drive them around. and they're into people that might have sprinters might be into sort of outdoors type sports and a lot of times people that are outdoors type sports aren't don't have a ton of money right so hey look at rock climbing right rock climbing

camp for Yosemite the their actual name for themselves is dirt bags hey we don't have money we live in a little freaking Toyota Corolla we sleep in a tent like that's what they're doing so you get those kind of people you get surf bums yep right we and I've talked about the fact that bums yeah is a lifestyle and there's a bunch of surf bombs jiu jitsu bums rock climbing bums ski bums so there's a bunch of bums right well all of those lifestylesles can also include people that might drive spritters the boozy the boozy of the group the boozy people right so I'm a bougie person I guess because I got a sprinter yes and guess what I like to surf, I like to ski, I go to Yosemite, right? So I do those things. So I'm at REI to pick up a bicycle.

Sure. And as I'm pulling out, I'm leaving. And by the way, I'm in no rush whatsoever. Time is on my side. I'm listening to an audio book. I'm totally chill. I don't have to be. It was I, I think we weren't recording that day. I had done like a couple calls in the morning for Eschelon Front. I was in no rush just just kind of enjoying like I was working in the morning and I was it was like a nice little a little mini vacation to be honest We drive it to RIA you know go to RIEI get up there. You get to look around see some cool gear So I'm that's my mindset Just cruising it and by the way it's midday. This isn't a weekend this is like on a Tuesday or something There's no there's no there's no there's no there's no panicking little no one's even in there it's it's like it's after

I'll tell you how clear this was it's after like the lunch time rush on Tuesday. Complete chill. So as I'm pulling out, I won't try to explain the whole thing, but there's like a three-way intersection in the parking lot. And I'm, so I back out my sprinter.

And there's another truck that I'm now head to head with. He wants to go right to get out. I want to go left to get out. And in comes a little Volkswagen van again synchro. So what this is, this is a four-wheel drive

Volkswagen van. Very rare. Very cool. Like one of the coolest, it's a very, I won't say it's one of the coolest vehicles in the world, but it's definitely in my top.

That's a cool vehicle. They're super rare. So synchro, that's a four-wheel drive van. Oh yeah, a little Volkswagen van. Yeah, I love vans.

So, which is why I have a sprinter. Yes, sir. So I see this van and I'm kind of like, oh dude, that's a sick, you know, four-wheel drive synchro van. It's super rare. They're hard to get. And the truck wants to go right.

He goes right. I'm like, cool. You know, that guy's being cool. Or I give him like the little hand wave, right? He'll because I'm super chill. By the way, I'm looking at this cool synchro. So I give the guy a hand wave in the truck. I'm like, hey, man, go ahead.

So he pulls out. And then I think that the, The synchral wants to make a right. So I look at him, I give him the hand wave. Just like, hey man, come on. Yeah. And I was, you know, the next hand signal would have been thumbs up. I might have even, I may have even rolled down the window and said like, sweet ride.

Yeah. That's a sweet ride, man. Respect props. Yeah. I give him the hand signal. Like, yeah, go ahead, man. You can make the right turn and then I'll get out after you. You know, you get head of the line privileges.

Yeah. You go first. And guess what he does? He starts freaking, you know, of course, behind a windstachine. I can't hear what he's saying. It starts going crazy on me. Like, like, he's yelling. And what he was basically saying was he wanted me to move

because the parking space I had just pulled out of, he had pulled into. And by the way, there was multiple parking spaces. There was no factor. But man, he was mad. And he was like getting all hostile and like doing this to me. And I was just like,

and of course, what I did is, smiled at him and waved at him anyways I didn't give him props for his synchro so if you're listening nice synchro bro and I hope your synchro and the fact that you have a cool vehicle like that I hope that it soothes your soul a little bit because he's an older dude too he was at least my age he wasn't a spring chicken and there's no reason for him to be stressed out on a Tuesday at at 1300 or 1330 in the afternoon at REI no reason man no reason so in his mind whatever was happening for the time factor was a problem for me it was no factor

but you can't get that stuff back you can't adjust time so we have to stay ahead of time so when I'm making a decision the first thing that I'm going to assess is how much time do I have here's another thing how fast are things changing that's a time factor you have to look at okay I see things are changed but how fast are they changing because if they're changing rapidly I might have to decide quicker If they're changing slowly, maybe I can take a little bit more time. Are there things that I can do to buy myself more time? I know I said we can't control time, but you can't do things that can earn you some time

back. Maybe there's an iterative step that I can take that will slow things down a little bit on my side. Again, I can stop the clock, but I can slow them down. So that's what I'm going to do. I don't have any control over time. and I'm going to think about that. I'm going to consider it.

The number one element in my calculus is time. And here's something else that I realize. Some human beings have a better sense of time than others. This is just a thing. Some human beings are more aware of time than others. There are people that are late habitually. Right? Yes.

Do we know this? Actually, somebody at the council asked me like, Hey, how do you do with Echo being late all the time? And I had to give them the information that you're actually not. I think you've only been literally late once or twice for recording the podcast. Yeah. Yeah, it's once or twice. Now, do you cut it down to literally 32 seconds?

And actually, if we included when you are maybe like 45 seconds late, we might have to add to that number. But there's no time. There's a very small number of actual violations. Yeah, yeah. I think so. But there are some people that are late all the time. There are people that think that things are going to take five minutes and they take 20, and that's how they see time. And so they're late all the time.

So if you're one of those people, and this is going to be a constant theme, if you're one of those people and you know that you don't understand time and you don't pay attention to time, the worst you are with time, if you're a person that's habitually late, this should not only be the number one thing in your decision. making it should be number one and it should be printed in bold large font so that you make sure that you get it now listen I'm actually good with time yeah in fact sometimes I'm even too good with time and I'll tell you exactly what I mean by that sometimes if I think let's say uh let's say we were going to record the podcast at 10 o'clock and I was like okay in order to record the podcast I gotta leave at 9.30. That gives me a half an hour to get here. It only takes 15 minutes to get here, tops,

unless something wild happens, or I hit every single red light or something. So I might be like, oh, I need to take out the garbage right now, but that's gonna take me an extra two minutes, and there's a 0.001% chance that I hit every red light, and now that two minutes that it took me to take out the garbage, Now I'm late, so I didn't take out the garbage.

So sometimes I have to consciously say, yes, I can fit this in. Yes, I can get that done. And that is a good thing to do. But I'm almost never late. I would say never, but of course I'm sure there's been some time in the last 50 years where I was late for something. But I'm almost never late. And probably, and what I think is, that's because of this. loop that I run in my head, I always think about time first. And that. So the reason I'm never late

is because I think about this all the time. So know yourself. And if you're a person that constantly underestimates how much time it'll take to do something, know yourself. Understand your own bias. And this is actually one of the things to loop is understanding your own biases. This is where you've got to run that and make sure that you're going to have enough time to do something. Check? Yeah, fully. And regardless of my record of not being late very much here I am one of those people that I underestimate how did you put it underestimate how much time I have how much time yeah overestimate how much time you have underestimate how much time something

is going to take yes interestingly if we were to talk about how often you were late for jiu jitsu that's a big number yeah that's a big number the majority yeah yeah it was weird actually in the beginning when I when I was coming up I was never late But, and I think you're the one who said this to me kind of bluntly a long time ago, where you said something like, oh, it's because you don't think it's important or something like this. But, and I realized it's true, even though most of the time I wouldn't admit that, admit that to the person that I'm late with or whatever, the entity, whatever. When I worked in the nightclub, I was late most of the time. And I'm not saying, like, you know, I was supposed to be there at six and I was there at like 630. It wasn't that.

It was like in 601, 603. How about 608? 608 from time. You know, as you get up past five minutes late, it was less. But it not being important for like that was literally the case. And not to say my job wasn't important. I'm not saying that. I'm saying the fact of me being ahead of time or before six o'clock, that wasn't important to me.

If I was one, two, three, four, five minutes late, that was fine with me for this reason now that I analyze it. because I could be doing more important things than in that five minutes, you know, or in that one minute or in that two minutes kind of a thing, kind of a thought ahead of my head. And now more important things, taking a nap, you know, taking watching stuff that. The way I saw it was, and this is me totally analyzing it mentally.

This wasn't in my mind the whole time. Like, oh, yeah, this TV show is way more important. important than me getting it. It wasn't like that. It was just as it turns out that like, dang, why would I essentially go to where I have to be kind of a thing when I want to do this and I don't have to be there. I don't have to be there at 6.59 or 559. One of my seal buddies when I was going to college, there was another seal that was going to college as well. And we actually made a deal because in order to in order to be on time for something you because of parking at this particular cause and eventually I figured out that I would just throw my bicycle my bike in the back of my van and just whip you know whip the bike out and bike to all the class park park way away from campus and just jump on my bike and drive

or ride the bike but when we would be studying together and we'd be like hey we'll study it you know I'll meet you at nine o'clock to study we did this a few times And then eventually, and, you know, he was like a guy like me married with kids. So we didn't want to, if we didn't have to be at campus, we didn't want to be there. Not to mention jiu-jitsu, not to mention surfing. So there's a bunch of other things we'd all rather be doing. So we made a deal. I was like, hey, I'll see you around nine.

And he was like, yeah, because that way, if you rolled up and it took you an extra four minutes to find parking, you weren't like, dude. Because the only way to ensure you weren't going to be four minutes. was to be a half an hour early. You see what I'm saying? The only way to do it cost you 26 minutes of life in order to ensure that you weren't gonna be four minutes late. And so we were like, hey, listen, around nine. And we actually had the conversation

because both of us squared away like, hey, being late is the worst thing in the world. And we made an agreement, a gentleman's agreement that in this particular scenario, you had, you had slack. And when you got there, you got there. It wasn't going to be 20 minutes late. But it was going to be four minutes.

It was going to be six minutes. It might be three minutes. So we had that little gentleman's agreement. So the target is nine. Yeah. Target is nine and I'll be there. And if you're not there, I know 100% why. It's because you weren't going to leave 26 minutes earlier to be there on time.

Because it didn't make sense because I'd rather he was with his kids or he was surfing or he was doing jiu-jitsu. Actually, he did juts. but I knew he was doing something that was more important than sitting and waiting for me to show up to prove that we could both be on time. Yeah. So that's interesting how you say, or that's an interesting concept because that's essentially the agreement I made with my work. They didn't make that agreement, but I did too where it's like, hey, I'm not going to give up because it was the same kind of scenario where you have to look for parking. Sure, you could pay for parking, but not what. I got to pay extra to be at work kind of a thing.

And I'm not saying that's good or bad. I'm not saying that that should be the case or shouldn't be the case. I'm just saying that's what I thought at the time. So that was the agreement in Echoes Hab. Yes, sir, exactly right. So, you know, downtown San Diego, 6 o'clock PM, especially on those Thursday, Friday, Saturday scenarios, it's like, that's hard to find parking, or it can be anyway.

So, yeah, so I'd be like, okay, I'm going to go at my opportune time, my best time in my mind. And, hey, if I'm struggling finding parking, I'm struggling finding parking, you know, that's... In your mind, it was no factor. The gentleman's... agreement. Because you would have had leave legitimately probably a half an hour early to ensure 100% that you were going to be on time. Yeah, probably a little bit more exactly right. Like to

ensure, like the kind of, no, you got to be here before six or whatever kind of thing to ensure. Yeah, it's like half an hour. It's like, bro, it's not even in my mind. It's not even fair. How about this? How about this? We'll, we'll decide a reasonable amount of time I have to leave the house. How about that? And if parking is abnormally scarce or traffic, that's it. We're to pay that price together. How about that? The traffic thing is weird too because that's an excuse

that people use like, oh, yeah, I really hit traffic. And if you live in California, you're like, bro. Yeah, yeah, you gotta calculate for that. Come on. Yeah, yep, I agree. It's kind of not a valid excuse.

Unless, let's say you and I work in office every single day and we make that agreement. Like, hey, our goal is 9 o'clock, but I understand. I don't want you to leave an hour early to make sure you get here at that time. And I go, hey man, you leave your house, like you said, you leave your house before this time?

I knew that there's going to be some, there could be some variables. Yeah. And especially if they're like the variables really vary because like the traffic thing in, I don't know about your roots, you know, in San Diego, whatever, but as far as the routine goes, very loose routine that I have, it's, I know when the traffic is going to be,

you know, it's pretty pretty, You know, you got your anomalous accident or some hold up on the road every once in a great, great, great while. But so it is, I, to me anyway, I think that factoring the traffic is is a fair thing. Like you got to, you got to, hey, if it takes 15 more minutes on this Tuesday after rush hour. Yeah. Versus Sunday morning or whatever, then that's part of the agreement. You got to, you got to factor that in. But Sunday morning, let's say Sunday morning.

every time we're recording and then or whatever we're doing and then no traffic. And then one day there's like traffic because there's some event at the beach or something. I do expect a little bit of, what do you call? Liway. Leeway. Okay. Kind of. I guess.

So that is time. First thing you got to be thinking about. Causes stress. Get ahead of it. The next thing, and this should really come as no surprise, the next thing is. that I think about are the four laws of combat leadership, cover and move, simple, prioritize, and execute and decentralized command.

But I think about them in a very particular way. So if I'm making a decision, the first thing I'm going to think about is cover and move. The number one thing is, am I supporting my teammates? Does this help the team? Am I putting my team first? So I want you to think about that.

The first thing I think about is time, because I have no control about it. The second thing I do is make sure that I am not putting myself ahead of the team and I'm not making a decision that's going to leave anyone else on the team in the lurch. Right. And this will immediately vector you in the correct direction. Because any time that you as a human are making a decision and it's based on benefiting you, there's a really good chance that that's a bad call.

And from a leadership perspective, there's a huge. chance as a matter of fact I'm going to go ahead and say that's a bad call the the military term is supporting distance so echo if I'm working with you if my fire team or my squad or my platoon is supporting your fire team your squad your platoon I have to stay within a distance where I am able to support you that means usually my weapons can cover where you may be attacked from. And my communications can speak to you directly. And generally speaking, in an infantry scenario,

I want to be where I can actually see you. I can actually put on my night vision or at least pull out my binoculars and see where you are. I got him. I know exactly where he is. The minute that we're out of that supporting distance, there's gonna be a problem.

So from a like a tactical perspective, that's a great thing to think about. But from a leadership perspective, cover and move is am I being supportive of the rest of my team? And if you're not, it's gonna be a problem. Now here's a couple things to watch out for it. Some people have a tendency to look out for themselves.

And some people, If they have that tendency, one of the worst things about that tendencies, that tendency is they don't think anyone else can see it. And I'm telling you right now, when people are getting screwed, they see it. And in whatever subtle way, whatever maneuver you're doing that you think no one else can see that you're leaving people, everyone can see it. They can see it. A thousand percent. They can see what's going on. So if you think you might be a person, and this goes back to what are your own personal

balance, biases, if you are a person that goes through life that kind of looks out for yourself, this is where you need to index in the right direction appropriately to make up the fact that you're a little bit of a person that takes care of yourself. So just watch out for that. And the way you watch out for that is by when you're making a decision, this is the second thing you ask yourself, am I making this decision and it's only going to benefit me? And more important, am I supporting my teammates with this decision that I'm going to make? And if you're not, reconsider. The next one is keeping things simple. How complicated is this decision or how much

complexity will this decision add to our situation? What and that's really a great way to think about it will this decision take our current situation and simplify it if it's going to do that that's very very helpful. If this decision is going to make things more complex, this is usually not a good decision. So the minute you say, oh, we just need to get some more people down here into the mix and all you think to yourself, wait a second, that's actually going to make things more complicated. Reconsider. Again, you can still, you can, hey, any one of these things that I'm saying right now,

there are situations where you have to still push through it. It's when you're not thinking about it. It's not when you're not being intentional about your decision, that's when you're going to have a problem. Most important, when you don't even recognize, a lot of times people are making things more complex. They don't even know it because they're not considering things that I'm talking about. Sometimes they're screwing people over. they're not even thinking about it. Look, there's sometimes where I'm screwing over Echo with my decision,

but I don't, you know what, I just don't think he's going to notice or I don't care. Sometimes I'm doing it, and I just, I don't even recognize the fact that, oh, I didn't realize Echo was going to get left out in the cold. One time, freaking Leif Babin, we were staying in a hotel at the muster, and we had like, I had a room, he had a room, and they were joined by like a, a, you, unit room or whatever like a like a what's that word common area yeah a common area but actually my the entrance to my room was through the common area and then so to get into my room you'd go through the common area and then I'd go into my room layf had he could go into the common area and then to

his room or he could go through the hallway so we went to PT and and I forget how it happened but he locked the common area door. So, and then we got split up when I came back, I didn't have the key to his room. You know that little, you know, like the key, the mechanical lock on a door. He had swung that thing shut. So we were laughing.

He was actually trying to help me out, but he locked me out of my room. Gotcha. Which was awesome. Sure. Awesome. He didn't know. He didn't know that he didn't know that we were all both going to leave

through his room. So anyways, my point is sometimes you're doing things and you don't understand the secondary effects. So that's one of the benefits of having a checklist because the minute you say, oh, wait a second, the Jocko might actually have to come back in and I won't be with him. So therefore I should open the door from the inside. Cool. Got it. Done.

Sometimes I say, oh, I want to do this thing. Oh, but am I really covering for Echo? No, I'm not. I got to help them out. Okay, so this, one of the uses of running this loop and going through this checklist is you make sure you're not doing something that doesn't make sense that you didn't, that you weren't aware of. So make sure that you are covering for the rest of your team. Make sure you are putting the team first when you make a decision. Next one, simple.

Well, I already covered simple, making sure things aren't complicated. The next one is prioritize and execute. Does this decision that I'm about to make match the priorities that we should be focused on? That's a that's that's step number one. Hey, wait a second. I'm about to go in this direction. Does that even help us getting where we want to go? Then you kind of have to dig a little bit deeper. Are the priorities that I'm focused on right now? Are they even correct? Because sometimes what you're focused on right now changes and you have to adapt. If you and I are rolling and I'm trying to defend an arm lock, you're trying to arm lock me and all of a sudden you get my neck. Guess what the priority is? Priority is my neck. Protect. your neck right so priorities are going to change and so you have to make sure when you make a decision that you're supporting the right priority or you're supporting the priority that you have designated and you also have to double check that the

priority that you're focused on is the right one or the priorities plural that you're focused on are the right ones plural and then once again you got to check your own tendencies because some people have a tendency to get distracted and if you're a person that has tendency to get distracted, then you need to double down on making sure you focus on the right priorities. Some people have a tendency to try and accomplish too much. They have the tendency to be like, those people might usually have also a bad relationship with time

where they think they can do more than they have time for. And then they also say, I can do that, I can do that, I can do that. Even though I have a good relationship with time, Sometimes I do try and bite off more than I can chew, but not very often. Most of the time I don't do that most of the time I could actually take the garbage out before I go to Jiu-Jitsu But I don't want to be two minutes late so therefore I'm gonna take the garbage out later I should have taken it out I should have rolled the dice that there's a point zero zero one percent that I'm a minute and 28 seconds late So know what your tendencies there's people that have a tendency to shift priorities too often

Similar to being distracted, right? But they're like, no, we need to focus on this. And then three days later, no, we need to focus on this. And then three days later, no, we need to focus on this. That actually happens. And of course, there's some people that get fixated on a priority that may or may not matter as time goes on. So that can happen as well. So when you are making a decision, check your priority list.

and make sure that your decision supports the priority and then also double check that the priority you're focused on or priorities that you are focused on are the right ones. Pretty straightforward. Decentralized command. Here's a really good rule of thumb if you're in a leadership position. The decision that I'm about to make,

can I decentralize and delegate the action? So as soon as, I'm thinking of doing something I think to myself oh can I turn this over to someone else so hey we got to get that building cleared yes we're gonna clear that building hey Leif grab your squad grab your platoon grab your team go get that building clear can I turn it over to someone else hey Echo we need to come up with some cool graphics for this event that we're gonna do can I turn that over to you I I want to know if I can because my goal is to not be focused on doing things myself.

Because the minute that I'm doing something myself, I can't look up and I can't look out, which is going to impair my ability to lead. This also allows me to be aware. And again, so much of this is awareness. It allows me to be aware that sometimes there's something that I do have to do. And I've got to say, hey, echo, I've got to go do this thing, cover me. Or hey, Echo, I'm going to be going and executing on this thing. Watch my back.

Or look up and out while I'm doing this. So these are all things that, again, it's okay to make those decisions as long as you're aware of it. But the minute I go, hey, I'm going to go execute this thing and I don't tell you to look out. Now we get flanked. We're looking hopefully with decentralized command. We're hoping.

And the goal is that we are only doing things that only we can do. I only want to do things that only I can do Everything else I want to have someone else on the team do it That's the goal And by the way the things that only I can do I eventually want to train someone else to be able to do those things How do you balance the Okay remember you know that your story

It was your story about Somebody came to you was like you know I need this advice whatever and you said Put them in charge something they put and then that person put them in charge of something that was really undesirable like cleaning cleaning toilets at seal team two on the second deck you know yeah that was the mission someone was tasked with in order to give them more responsibility right and it didn't help the situation it made them more mad so so how do you find the balance because kind of in a way that kind of in a matter of speaking translates over to what you're

talking about now where it's like hey can I delegate this can I delegate this which a lot a lot of times depending on the project of delegation it can empower someone it can help the whole group because they can do this while you're doing quote unquote more important things or whatever. How do you balance like what you delegate them to do with something important or whatever versus something that because you know something is neat to be done but no one really wants to do it kind of a thing. Hey, if something sucks, I'm going to get in there and do it someone.

This is the picking up brass story. Yeah. Because picking up brass, it's real easy to say, you know what, guys, I got to go back to meet with the commanding officer. I'm going to go back and prep a brief. So I'll be back in the air condition office, back in San Francisco. back in San Diego while you guys are out here in 120 degree hit, you picking up brass.

Really easy to say that. So decisions like that, I'm going to be very cautious and I'm going to weigh my leadership capital, which we'll get to. Because look, does this mean if the commanding officer's like, hey, I need a brief tomorrow? I'm like, sorry, sir, I'm picking up brass. No, it doesn't mean that.

But I better prioritize building relationship with the troops, making sure they understand that I don't mind getting my hands dirty. Don't mind getting my knees freaking cut up. Don't mind having blisters on my hands from picking up hot brass out of the desert. That's what I'm going to do. So there's some variables that we have to weigh into. And that's also why good deals, give them away. You know, hey, someone's got to go ashore early and spend an extra four days in wherever,

this nice vacation area of Thailand. It's like, oh, I'm on, no, I'm gonna go on the ad bonnet. And it's like, no, no, hey, Echo, you got it. Take these guys. Make sure we have, you know, the stuff that we need for the training in Thailand. And you're like, awesome, right? Yeah. So that's how I weigh it out.

Just, just, I have to, I have to, I have to assess the suck meter. Yeah. And if you're a person that always sees the suck meter high and runs the other way, everybody knows it. Yeah. So don't do it. So it's kind of a little balancing that game within the game kind of a thing. 100%.

Yeah, because if you just be rigid or this is what it seems like anyway, if you just be rigid to the, hey, I'm always going to delegate. And then it's when it comes to, you know, I'm going to, oh, trash needs to be taken out. Yeah. I got an extra three minutes or whatever now, but not or no, I'm sticking to the rule. Delegate, delegate, you know, kind of a thing. No. Things that suck. Try not to delegate.

And look, that could also mean if you're the first. Paltoon commander, guess what you're doing all day? Cleaning the toilets, picking up brass. You could assign yourself every task that kind of sucks. And we don't want to do that. So we have to put that into the calculus. We don't just delegate things that suck. In fact, you know, Laif tells a story.

We were going through our dive portion of training. And diving kind of sucks. You know, it's cold, wet, miserable, long, boring. and some people think and so a lot of guys given the opportunity they have meetings to attend during time. They have

whatever reports to write. And Laif and Seth, you know, they were kind of like surprises. Here I am. Got my wetsuit on, got my fins out, we're ready to go dive. Ready to go spend four hours turtle backing around San Diego Bay and making three hours on bag

in the darkness, you know, bored out of your mind. But that's what you do. Yeah. So that's one of those things where if it sucks, use caution while delegating. Make sense? Fully, yeah.

It's the, yeah, it's the kind of more of the approach to it, right? Where it's like you gotta understand the overall picture of what you, what are you doing here, you know, and why are you doing it kind of a thing? So if you have more important things to do, you delegate these things, they're all important because they're all pieces of the puzzle. Right.

But yeah, there's another like, Like I said, game kind of going on where you want to be looking out for everyone in that little additional way, you know, and you're going to sacrifice little parts of kind of yourself. Yeah, yeah. To kind of do it. So we kind of got the four laws of combat covered. The next thing I'm going to think about, and this is a big one, is making sure that our ego is not driving this decision, which you would be shocked and disliked. made at the number of decisions that are driven by ego. Driven by ego.

They're almost 100% in some cases driven by ego. Am I making this decision based on my ego? Am I imposing it as punishment, subconscious punishment on someone who questioned me? Am I forcing this to prove to echo that my point? plan was the better plan. So you have to be extremely cautious of that. And the thing that we have to be careful of is that our ego can absolutely, not even. Your ego is going to lie to you. That's what our ego does. Our ego is going to lie to us. And so my and if it's tricky too, your ego's smart. Your ego's, it's like the devil. You ever seen the movie The Exorcist? Yes. So in the movie The Exorcist, The devil knows the things to say to the priest that's going to, like, get him. And your ego is equally smart as the devil.

And it knows, my ego's like, hey, hey, Jock. This, hey, I know I get extreme ownership. I buy into extreme ownership 100%. But this time is actually really is Echo's fault. Echoes plants really not as good as yours. I get it. I know you want to be humble, but hey, if you're humble now,

it's actually going to cost you in the long. That's the way your ego talks to you. It's like a little savage in there, just manipulating. So you've got to be very careful of that. The other thing that happens is, if your ego's running the decision, have you listened to anybody else?

Have you listened to other people with an open mind? Do you have an open mind? So be careful of that because sometimes we're listening but we're not hearing and then a good little sanity check am I doing this? Am I using this decision? Am I driving this decision with my rank with my position even with my experience and let me explain what that sounds like the idea of driving it sounds good right it sounds good for me to say hey I'm more experienced that's why I'm making this decision but that's the equivalent as, dude, I've been doing this for 20 years.

You need to shut up and listen to me. Any of those things. If the main driver of your decision and the way you're convincing people is through experience or through rank or through position or authority, you already lost. Let me say you lost,

but you need to reconsider what's happening because if I can't articulate to you, echo Charles, why I made this decision without saying, because I outrank you or because I'm in charge of this or because I have because I've done this type of thing 20 times. If I have to go there, that means I'm not really, I can't articulate why we're going with my plan. And that's a problem. And the problem most likely is my ego. So use caution

on that. And right tied up next to that is emotion. Am I making an emotional decision? I mean, what a smart little thing to check on. And if you check on it, you're going to realize that it's a bad move. People make emotional decisions all the time. And by the way, they almost never turn out good. Am I mad? Am I frustrated? Am I vengeful?

Am I fearful? Am I guilty? Guilt is an emotion. that'll make you do something that you know you shouldn't do. Fear is an emotion that'll make you do something that you shouldn't do. Frustration. I'm getting frustrated. You don't want, just go ahead and do it, right?

These are horrible things. So check with yourself and make sure that your emotions are not driving the decision. Now, listen, here's the other thing. Here's the dichotomy is your emotions do still have to be part of the calculus. They got to be part of the calculus. You've got to calculate your own emotions to get the answer. You've got to calculate the emotions of the team to get the answer. Because if the team is all mad about doing this thing and I say, you know what though?

Logically, we should do it. All right, guys, this is the logical answer. Go do it. And all, all it does is make everyone matter. First of all, are you going to execute well? Are you going to do a good job? Are you trustworthy while you're out there and you're mad? What did it do to my leadership capitalism?

All these problems is going to cause. All these problems is going to cause. So I have to put emotions into the calculus, but it can't be the overwhelming driver of my decision-making. It has to be a component, but it should be a small component in most cases. Meaning, if I know that making some decision is going to make the entire team totally irate, I need to wait it a little bit more because the emotion is stronger. But you have to calculate it. And if you're not aware of it, if you're not paying attention to it, then it's not going to,

it's not going to work out the way you want it to. It's going to actually cause bad decisions. Next one. Perspective. Perspective. People throw this around. People throw this around. Make sure you know what other people's perspectives is.

But they only throw it around when they think about it. But a lot of times we get locked into our perspective and that's bad. I want to see as many different perspectives on a subject, on a topic, on an idea that I can. I want to know my peers' perspectives. I want to know my subordinates' perspectives. I want to know my superior's perspectives. I want to know my competitors or my enemy's perspective. What are they actually seeing right now?

The more angles I see of a target or of a problem, the more the better I can understand it. and the better I can understand it, the better off I'm going to be. We have this thing when you do a reconnaissance of a target, a building, or a compound. When you do it, what you try and do is you try and move around the entire perimeter over a period of time. You try and see it from every different possible angle. If you don't see something from every possible angle, there's something that you're missing. And that thing that you're missing could be a critical component of the target or of the problem. So by asking your subordinates, hey, what does this look like to you?

By asking your peers like, hey, what do you see here? By asking your boss, hey, what does it look like from your perspective? By doing that, it's going to give you a better understanding of the target, of the problem, of the issue, and then you can better formulate a plan. And by the way, my default mode is to take, when someone else says, hey, Jocko, I see a solution, my default mode is to try and utilize their solution, try and utilize their plan, try and utilize their idea. That's my default mode. Now, if there's a leadership vacuum, and I wrote about this in leadership strategy tactics, field manual, if there's a vacuum, no one's making a decision, sure, I'm going to step in. I'm going to give you some little hints here.

when there's a leadership vacuum, I'm going to let that leadership vacuum develop it a little bit extra, just a little bit extra. I'm going to let that void, let the presence of that silence, of that non-direction, of that lack of leadership. I'm going to let it sit there for an extra second, two seconds.

Why am I doing that? Because I want everyone to know that there's a leadership void. And it doesn't take long. It takes a second, takes two seconds, three seconds. And all of a sudden, everyone goes, oh, and when everyone knows there's a leadership void, Everyone is primed to execute. Everyone is ready to receive orders.

So if there's a leadership void, I'm going to make sure everyone can feel it. By the way, those extra two, three seconds, I'm actually confirming the plan in my head that I've formulated. So now my plan is going to be two or three seconds further developed and better. And then I make the call. And yes, I'm going to make a small call, an iterative decision. And if someone else happens to make a call at the same time, guess what I'm going to do? I'm going to support their call. Because that's my default mode.

My default mode is to support someone else's call because that is the easiest way to move forward with a plan. The easiest way to move forward with a plan isn't with Echo has a plan and I have a plan to try and convince Echo that my plan is better. The easiest way, the quickest way to move is to say, Echo, sounds good. I'm on board what do you want me to do how can I support unless Echo's plan is freaking you know horrible actually let me rephrase that in a more distinct way unless Echo's plan is unviable it's an unviable plan that will not work if it's a minimally viable plan if it's you know if it it'll get the job done you have a minimally viable plan and I have a viable plan so that means mine might be a

little bit better but now I have to convince you of that after explain why and by the way when I say I'm gonna support your plan I can probably bring some additional viability to your plan that can make your plan better than mine was in the first place so that's what I'm gonna do that's the easiest way to do it now what do we need to think about here is we need to think about the fact that we almost all here's a bias that almost all of us have the same bias which is my idea is the best idea that's that's that's our general consideration as humans that my idea is the best idea

So know that you have that bias. I actually go hard against that bias and quite frankly Sometimes I go too hard against that bias sometimes someone's got a plan. I'm like eh And it might not it might be minimally really minimally viable And I'll be like you know what we'll go with it Sometimes I do that a little bit too much So I know that why do you think you do that? I just want to be supportive Don't want to be an imposing tyrant on the team and someone and generally I'm like Thinking myself well you know my plan's good but you know we can probably make a close plan worth

I would rather do it like why I'll tell you why I literally believe what I'm saying right now It's usually easier for me just to support your plan than it is for me to convince you of this other plan and explain it to you I can uptake your plan pretty quick I get it cool let's go execute that thing I'm supporting you let's run with it Yeah and then I'm detached from your plan so I can see a little bit more when it's my My plan, all of a sudden, I got to manage that whole thing, and I'm staring right into it. And I don't know how good you are at being detached and trying to adjust things. You might not be as good as me. So you know what?

I'm going to let you, detachment is a harder skill than the planning and execution. Or it's a rarer skill. If I tell you to go and execute something, there's a good chance you'll be able to do it. If I tell you, hey, I'm going to go execute, you detach and sit on the outside and try and give me some. broad guidance about how I can do better. That's a harder job. Because most people, most of the time you'll be like,

I'm starting to execute my plan. You're going to jump in there with me. You're going to start doing it too. So that's why I sort of overindex on allowing, on providing support or allowing people to do things that maybe I don't 100% agree with. Right? I mean, you've done some stuff where I've been like,

well, that didn't seem to be the best idea, was it? And we can look back. post-mortem. Is this a Christmas music thing? Christmas music, that's a good one, right? You know?

Some things happen, you're like, well, that's not good. That's not what we were looking for at all. Didn't you say you didn't even know that was a Christmas song? Yeah, that's correct. Bray. I know. I don't know.

Sorry. I do now, though. So, you know. You got to watch out for that one. So, that's the deal. It's perspective. You have to actually pull yourself back and try and see

other people's perspectives and the best way to do that is by talking them, asking them good questions about what they see. You're not going to be a freaking, uh, uh, what's the word? A psychic that I can see what Echo sees. I don't go into a meditative state and get in going to your brain. No, I go, hey Echo, what does that look like to you? This is not, this isn't freaking, this isn't freaking, uh, remote viewing. This isn't remote viewing. This isn't remote viewing. What's the deal with remote view? You think it's true? I don't know. They had big programs. with it in the military. There's a movie about it.

Yeah. I mean, I don't, if it is true, I don't know how it works at all. It doesn't seem. Could be your guys are really good at guessing. Maybe, you know. Well, a lot of the, what do you call, like the psychic, you know, mediums and mind readers and stuff, that's as it turns out from what I understand what it is. It's like, it's like guessing, but it's like guessing about like, they react to cues with

you, like how you respond. So it's like, I'm seeing red. And then if they do something, they're like, okay, red is something. You know, do you know a person name and they go real basic names first? Because I'm feeling a John or a gym. Yeah. You know, like that would be even even broader. It's like, do you know anyone that's, do you know one that's experienced trouble in their life right now?

And if I see you like, oh, then I'm like, wait, are they sick? You know what I mean? And at the same time, my mind is awake. Do I? Then I search for everyone in my whole. It's like whether it's significant or not, you kind of make it significant. So it's like a dance going on. Maybe we'll have a remote viewer on the program.

Because the military had like a remote viewer group. People that that's what they did, sit in a room and go into a meditative state and look for, you know, missile launch pads. Yeah. I guess the argument for and against it in a matter of speaking is kind of the same thing where it's like your brain is so complex and we, you know, there's a lot of stuff about your brain and all this stuff that we don't know. So it's possible. but at the same time it's kind of like, all right, well, I don't see how your eyes can like see something that they don't see and it's your brain. You know, like it doesn't make sense. Given what we do know, it doesn't make sense.

Eddie Bravo has a podcast now and it's called Look Into It. I think it's called Look Into It, which is a freaking great name. And this makes me think, you know, maybe we need to get Eddie Bravo to look into it and see what's up. See what's up with remote viewing. Because he's looking into a bunch of stuff. Oh, yeah. You know why it's called Look Into It? I think it's because of what I just said.

Is there another reason? Yeah, well, that's a thing that there was a, um, oh, was it a meme, kind of, that he, he was on a podcast, I forget which one it was,

but it was one, you know, one of Joe Rogan's podcast, he was on there, and then they got into this heated, like, argument about, you know,

one of the things that Eddie Bravo really kind of purports, maybe, wasn't UFOs, what was it? I don't know, 9-11, maybe, I don't know,

I forget what it was, but he kept saying, you just haven't looked into it. You just haven't looked into it. You know what I mean? That was kind of his defense to a lot of things. But he said it so many times that like it became a thing. Well, it's a great name for his podcast because that's what he's doing is out there looking into it.

The weird thing about looking into things these days is you can kind of find what you want to find. Whatever you want. Yeah, that's true. There's all kinds of things to find what you want. Yeah. To find. We have this trampoline. Like, you know.

Oh, yeah. And okay, so we have this trampoline. It's called a rebounder. It's like essentially like a regular little trampoline, but it's like, I don't know, more robust. I don't know, whatever. How big is it? Like the regular size ones, like this table, maybe a little bigger. That's not a regular size.

So when I think trampoline, I think of something that you, that is like 15 feet across. Yeah, yeah. Like a leg breaker. Yeah, yeah. But this thing is like one of those fitness trampolines where you jump on it. Yeah, exactly right. But it's the one where it's like, there's no noise. It's called a rebounder, if I'm not mistaken.

So anyway, one of the claims. is that, oh, yeah, it does something to your lymph system. Okay. Like it, like does something to it. Elevates it somehow. Yeah. You know, the pressure and it, and here's the thing. That could be 100% true.

It could be. Look into it. Yeah, you look into it. So I go and look into it. And, you know, my wife, she's like saying, yeah, my dad told me in and he has one. And let's face it, the kids jump on it. It's fun. That's my main kind of catalyst or whatever.

You didn't even have to look into that. Yep. Lymph or no lymph systems. It's fun. The kids freaking love it and whatever. It's good for your legs too, obviously. But I'm like, if I'm going to talk trash, which I do just jokingly because I don't, I don't know if it helps your lymph system or not.

If I'm going to talk trash, I should at least look into it. So I looked into it. And sure enough, it says, yeah, it does this, your limp system. But then just like what you're eluding to where you kind of got to consider the source, you know. And then, oh, what I'm going to spend my day looking into this five website? that said this now I got to determine the credit bill so it's like hard you know yeah there's all kinds of crick because you can make a website that has oh click here for the supporting documentation but you also wrote the supporting documentation right right so even when

you're looking into it you're not looking in the right place yeah it's true man holy cow what's what what a platform is Eddie bravos do you know what it's on a platform I don't know if it's on an open platform oh I don't know I have to look into it actually So there you go Perspective You got to look into some other people's perspectives And and figure out What the whole target

What the whole problem looks like So there you go perspective Spend some time put that on your checklist The perspective you have by the way is not the whole thing And there's a good chance that your perspective is actually wrong right Hey I don't see any enemy on this target All you need to do is go 90 degrees in the other direction you can see a bunch of enemy sitting behind a building.

Hey, make your bias that your perspective is probably a little bit off, maybe even make your bias that you're wrong. That what you see is not the whole picture, that what you see is actually a bad picture. That's what I think of my perspective. I think, you know what, this is what I see. And I know my gut instinct is like, I know I'm not seeing everything. And there's more to the picture. And I need to figure out what that is.

Make that part of your checklist. Next thing is mission. So is the decision that you're about to make, does it support the mission that you're actually trying to execute on? And not actually more important than that, does it support your overall strategic mission? And this causes all kinds of, there's a term out there.

Have you heard of a mission creep? Yeah. Yeah. It's a pretty common term now. This is because people don't run this leadership loop in their brain and they don't ask themselves, hold on a second, what's our mission? What's our overall mission? And is this in support of it? If I make this decision, it's going to help us reach our strategic goals.

All kinds of people make that mistake. And we can't allow for that. So what you do is you just run a quick check and say, hold on. Does this support the tactical mission that we're trying to execute? Does this support the strategic mission that we're trying to achieve? And if it doesn't, you know it's a bad decision. Next one, leadership capital. And this is one that I recently added to this list.

And the reason that I added to the list is because at some point I was having a discussion with somebody. And I realized, actually, let me rephrase this. I was making a decision. And I realized that the main thing that I was calculating was how much this was going to cost me from a leadership capital perspective. And so first of all, what is leadership capital? Leadership capital is the fact that you can only get people to do so much. As a leader, you can only get people to do so much. There's a, there's a, there's a, when you ask somebody to do something, it costs.

It costs you, leadership capital. And if they don't want to do it, it costs more. And if they want to do it, then it costs less. And if they do it on their own, accord. that it's very cheap, maybe even free. And if you let them do what they want, you're kind of collecting some leadership capital. So just the very, any interaction that I have with Echo Charles,

if I say, hey, get this done. Hey, hey, do this. Hey, make a video about this. That cost me leadership capital. Costs me leadership capital. Especially if you don't want to do it. It has costing me even more leaders. Now look, look, I might have some leadership.

capital with you and you're like all right fine I'll do it if you want to do it if I'm like hey make a video with robots exploding you're like oh hell yeah right it didn't cost me very much now if I say to you man I wish we had more videos with robots exploding you were like dude I'm gonna make a sick one that's very cheap you're still working so maybe it costs me a little something but if I say hey man I have no idea what to do what do you think we should do when you're like, we need to make a video with robots exploding. I go, that's awesome. I actually gain some leadership capital.

So everything, when people are interacting with each other, there's going to be leadership capital spent. We, and by the way, every interaction that I have with you, never mind just a tasking, but when we interact with each other, there's leadership capital being exchanged. And we as people always think we have more leadership capital. Then we do.

Here's a couple of things that will throw you for loop. You think rank gives you a bunch of leadership capital? It doesn't. It doesn't. Rank, it gives you a little tiny bit because, hey, man, you know, obviously I'm in this position and you haven't been here as long as me and I've done this stuff before. So there's an element of leadership capital that comes with rank. But it's not as much as we think.

Actually, when I give ownership to someone, when I say, hey, Echo, you, go ahead and run this project the way you want you you seem to you seem to have a good grasp on you that actually earns me leadership capital so giving ownership earns leadership capital listening to someone as simple as that might sound gives me leadership capital when you come to me and say I want to talk to you about something I go oh I get out my notebook and I say hey to tell me what you got you're saying I have this idea of doing this and I'm writing it down that gives me leadership capital you could do like a little whether it be fresh on front

or whatever, you could do like a fun little quiz, right? And it's like leadership capital quiz. Like is this spending it or earning it, right? And you could do a little thing. You could probably go pretty deep with that. You can go real deep. I've covered that in the academy, how to earn leadership capital. Yeah.

And what costs leadership capital? So you definitely, that's good. We could do it on here at some point as well. It's surprising how much listening to people gives you leadership capital. And usually when I talk about the opposite of that is when people go, oh, yeah, he's right. Because listen, if you start telling me something, I cut you off.

Right? You might not realize the weight of when you're telling me something and I listen to you. You might not, it's like a subconscious, you'd be subconsciously giving me leadership capital. Yeah, yeah. But when I cut you off and you're trying to express something to me and I just cut you off and I'm like, yeah,

hey, look, let's get to the topic of the day. Yeah, you're just, that cost me a lot of leadership capital. Just like any, man, that's just do with respect. You know what you were talking about earlier? A crappy job? If we got something, if we got to go pick up brass and I'm out there doing it with you, leadership capital goes up. If I'm in the air conditioning place, leadership capital goes down.

So there's all these things that are going on. Bro, it gets kind of tricky too, though. And maybe it's my little pea brain mind going too deep into it. Maybe it's not. But like, let's say you, okay, you know your story, right? The patches, right? So we'll say you let something slide, right? You let something slide.

Sometimes that can, under certain circumstances that can gain you, may have you gain leadership capital, but under other circumstances, you can lose it. It's the same action. You let something slide. Yeah, but it's like, oh, you got to understand. That's why we wrote the dichotomy of leadership. Yeah, that's why a quiz would be great.

And that's why leadership is tricky. Yeah. It's tricky because you got to, you got to assess that. And that's why I'm talking about this, this leadership loop. Because so often, people aren't actually just checking them. And I was like, wait a second, I wonder how bad echo actually wants to do this. I wonder what this is costing me. Yeah.

The reason that it weighs so heavily for me, first of all, it's because leadership capital is the currency of when If you want to win, you got to have a bunch of leadership capital built up and I put so much weight on leadership capital Because it's this is interesting thing to think about most of the time One idea it's only a little bit better than some other idea Right very rarely are you and I working it at a company or in a military unit or in a military unit or or part of a team, and your idea is so radically different from mine that I'm willing to, that I even need to think about, hey,

is that a good decision or not? Usually your idea is pretty good. You're like, in your mind, you're like, hey, I wanna explode Star Wars robots and I think you should explode Terminator. Terminator robots, right? Are those two things, worth arguing about.

No, no. Are they worth it? They're not. I think one thing, you think another thing, but the things that we're thinking are very closely related. So therefore, what trumps the idea, because the ideas are so close, what trumps the idea is leadership capital. We have a common goal.

We have a common capability. We have common experiences. And we're going to come up with pretty similar plans because we're both coming from the same place. Therefore, your plan is. probably going to be viable and because your plan is viable because what I say you want Star Wars? Terminator. Okay, because you want Terminator robots and I want Star Wars robots,

they're both viable but because they're both viable I make the expenditure of leadership capital a very heavy weighted element of my decision because the decision between Star Wars robots or Terminator robot isn't gonna make that much of a difference. Now are there people that freaking digger? about what robot needs to die. Hell yeah, there are, and they're idiots for doing it. I don't care. I don't care.

And the reason I don't care is because building leadership capital is the strategic move. That's the strategic move because if we're spending leadership capital all the time, we won't have any left or even worse, we'll end up in debt. And that's not going to end well. Because, by the way, when I don't have any leadership capital with you and I ask you to do something, you're not going to do it. If I have a ton of leadership capital and I need you to do something and there's no time to talk about it and you don't believe in it, but I need to get it done, I can actually spend some of that leadership capital and we can move forward. So that's what I'm going to do.

When I'm making a decision as to whether or not to go left or right or use Terminator robots or Star Wars robots, I'm going to put a huge amount of weight on how much leadership. capital this is going to cost me and see and weigh whether this is whether this is the right move or not most of the time it's not most of the time it's not leadership capital is more valuable than any other elements in the world leadership capital it's everything that's It's wrapped up in leadership capital. Trust, integrity, vision, unity. There's all these things that are wrapped up in it. That's what makes it so valuable.

It's like this thing that has so much power. And yet people throw it away. People don't even realize how valuable is. I'll just throw it away on this that or the other thing. Like hey, Akko, you just need to get this done. Boom, I just spent freaking however many units worth of leadership capital. Dude, you just need to be quiet and get this done.

Boom, I just throw it. money away yeah hey hey jocco I got a good a hey look I don't need to hear your ideas right now we need to move forward okay cool that just cost me it's like everything we do people just throw it away like it's nothing they break they break out the freaking they go into debt they go into then they end up bankrupt leadership you ever met someone that has no leadership capital left yes I have yeah like you work for someone that's an asshole you work for someone that doesn't listen anybody else they have no leadership capital yeah and and and and maybe they can make some things happen

early on because they have the authority or they have the experience or they have the position that and that they can actually make a little bit of progress then the leadership capital's gone and everything just falls apart yeah and that's like a back and i said this before so don't need to go too deep into it but that you know how like you have an old boss that you used to work for and he was just a dick or whatever and he don't work there anymore you work at a better job now you know and then maybe you see that old boss somewhere the way you feel about him you can see his leadership capital is at zero at that point at zero so that's what i'm going to do i'm going to consider leadership capital and it's going to weigh very heavily.

And by the way, the reason I didn't put this on the list originally, because it was so it was so integral to the way I think I didn't even see it there. You know what I mean? It was just one of those things. It was almost like, if I was to put down, what do you need every day? Echo, you'd be like, hey, I need a good workout. I need to get a good steak. I want to roll a jiu-jitsu.

And I bet what about oxygen? What about air? You'd be like, well, yeah, obviously. Leadership capital for me was like breathing air. It was that integral to my day. I didn't see it was there. Yeah. So,

yeah, now that you bring it up, though, it's like, it's not like air, right? Because it's so like people don't. Oh,

no, actually wrong. It is like air. Oh, it is, but they're ignoring it. So it's like that. Well, it is,

but people don't realize how valuable until they can't breathe. So they don't even realize it's there. And they're, they're like just wasting it and it doesn't matter.

It'll always be there. No, it's not. You get choked out. That's what happens. Tell me you're not concerned about air when you get that guillotine choke sunk on you. I am concerned about air at that point. Real concern.

Yes. So be careful. Tell me if you think this is an example of being in touch with leadership capital. So as you know, we have this dog now, small dog. Never wanted a dog. I didn't want a dog. What's your dog's name? Maya.

It's a small little wee. What do you call it? Yorkie? I don't know what you call because I don't have the dog. Come on, bro. You know what it's got. Anyway, one of these little small dogs. Whatever.

Whatever. It's cute. Whatever. I never wanted the dog dog. But why are we're going to add another thing to the like simple life? All the kids want dogs. My wife, maybe, maybe she wanted the dog. Maybe not.

But she hears it from the kids every day. Oh my gosh. Every time the kids see a dog. And there's people in our neighborhood with cool little dogs and stuff. And they're nice dogs. And so they're great examples of dogs all around, constantly being reminded how they don't have a dog. Right.

So finally I'm like, hey, all right. I kind of went through this loop a little bit in a small way where I'm like, hey. You know, like, You know, like, you know, like, exactly right. So I'm like,

all right. Now, this would be actually an interesting thing for us to do is go through your decision to get a dog and, and assess your leadership loop on this thing, right?

I mean, you know, time, well, you do have plenty of time to make this decision. So you didn't like rush one week and be like, okay, we need to get a dog now. No,

you took time to consider it. Two years, by the way. So there you go. Yeah. Cover move. You were like, hey, if we don't get a dog,

is that putting me first? Yes, it is. And so you kind of made that decision. Like, okay, got to put the team first. Simple. This is one of those things. We're like, well, this is going to actually make things more complex. So you had to put that into the calculus, right?

Prioritize and execute. Well, is it one of our priorities? Well, we saw some family unity being created. And so that was a positive thing. So the priority kind of stepped up a little bit because we want the family to be tight. Yeah. And there's other elements in that too because, you know, like, okay, so my daughter's nine. So getting a small dog too

This is like a small It's not like some big Great Dane Where it's like more responsibility Whatever it's a small little dog Minimal Arguably responsibility Comparatively speaking And you have a pet

That it actually is Responsibility for the kid Obviously being supported by us Of course you know But you gets to learn A little bit of that responsibility Sacrifice You know and stuff like that

So it was a net pot As far as priorities go And the developmental elements Of a kid Let's face it Like Is it a little bit unreasonable for a kid to have a childhood pet?

Is that unreasonable? No, no. It's good. And as you just mentioned, there's lessons to be learned. Exactly right. Which goes into decentralized command. You know that is this something you can decentralize?

So what did you go? Oh, we're going to get this dog and then I'm going to have to walk it. I'm going to have to feed it up. No, you were probably like, hey, I'm not cleaning up dog shit, right? I'm not going to be the one that feeds it every other. So you knew you could decentralize some of this stuff. So that is additionally positive here. it wasn't your ego that was getting in the way a little bit?

Because, hey, check it out. Let's face it. The dog is going to take a little attention away from Echo Charles. Just a little bit, right? And plus, you might have been like, hey, this is my house. Yeah. Right? You could get into that mode.

And that is. I'm not saying you did, but it could be a factor. It did a little bit. Maybe not necessarily in that particular way. Like, it was my house and I make, it wasn't that. It was more about like, oh, yeah, everyone wants this dog. But what about what I want? It was like that.

And I was like, brother, that's kind of whack. You don't want to realize that. Good. Okay. Emotion. You had to at least check the emotion that you were having and that everyone else was having. Because if you don't, you weighed in how happy everyone was going to be.

And that countered how like somewhat frustrated you were going to be. You actually went through this and thought to yourself, you know what? Them being super happy outweighs me being a little bit aggravated. So you put, you did the calculus of the emotion. made the right call mission does this help our mission as a family again helps bring the family together there's lessons to be learned we have something to talk about we have a what's that a common affection towards this thing yep even though this thing is

small and weak and doesn't really protect us from anything which is okay but it gets it gets the kids outside even more right you know all this stuff leadership cat so this is where we get to so now you got to a point where is leadership capital you were and how did you calculate that on the dog purchase. Which in a small way, it went back to measuring the emotions and comparing them, but it was essentially that.

Like people, everyone knew that I didn't want a dog. In fact, they've been knowing it for two years. I'm not the kind of person, whatever that, that's like, no,

you know, like I don't complain about that and stuff, but everyone knew that I was not really into it at all. When we got it, I didn't be like, yeah, I wasn't into it, but I did it anyway for you guys.

None of that kind of stuff. I was just kind of like, I was like, hey, if that's what we're doing, let's do it. And I'm so actually, I will clean up after it. Okay.

Not as a priority. Yeah. But I'm down for the support, 100%. So when it was time to get the dog or whatever, I was like, I basically got on board. And I figured, and I guess in terms of leadership cap, I wasn't thinking of it in terms of leadership capital, but I wasn't thinking of it in terms of like, hey, what would like, what's the right thing to do here? And something that would, if I get on board in a positive way, in a conducive way, that's going to be better off for everybody. So that's just what I did.

But kind of maybe, how should I say inadvertently or whatever, just not thinking of it, I'm sure that did. Because people know that I didn't want the dog. But meanwhile, I have a good attitude about it. I'm still cleaning up. And let's face it, this is the classic tale, right? Where the dad doesn't want the dog, then the dad ends up being the best friend of the dog kind of a thing, you know? We're not quite there yet.

But I have embraced the dog on a personal level. Teeny, tiny dog. Check. So I feel like if they even notice, who knows? They're little kids. Yeah. You know, I guarantee you got some leadership capital out of this.

Guaranteed. Yeah. And that's good. That's good. Because over time, also, you got to think how much am I spending leadership capital when this is the one thing they want and I'm not getting it for them? Yeah. That could be a problem.

And I shouldn't even say, like, it probably wouldn't actually be that big of a problem. And the reason it's not that big of a problem because it's a huge ask, right? It's a huge ask. A dog is a big deal, man. You can't just be getting a dog on a whim. You should go through this checklist before you go and invest in a dog or pick up a dog from the dog pound or whatever you're going to do. Here's what I do have in mind consciously in regards to leadership capital.

If I complain about that dog or about having the dog, not even necessarily about the dog. Because you can complain about it. Like, freak the dog's barking, you know, whatever. But if I complain about having the dog, that is like, to me, it feels like I'm like spending so much of that leadership capital because it's like, I never wanted that dog, you know, making everyone feel guilty or something like this. Never. It's against the straight up morals.

Yeah. That's so strict, I think that really is. So leadership capital, put that in the calculus. It's more valuable than the air that you breathe from a leadership perspective. Now, the next thing is as, and I've mentioned this a bunch already, but as I'm judging or assessing all these aspects of a decision, I am going to the whole time pay attention to my own bias. You know, do I tend to think that I have too much leadership capital?

Because there's people that are like that. They think, oh, hey, man, don't worry. I'm jocco, man. People are just going to, no. Do I underestimate the amount of leadership capital that I have? First of all, that's rare, and it's usually not true. But those are things that I am going to do. I am going to constantly be assessing my own bias.

So you might want to throw onto your leadership loop bias assessment to make sure that you're not making a mistake because of the biases that you have. Or you can put that into each one of these topics, ego, emotion, mission, leadership capital. You can put bias into each one of those subcategories to say, you know what, I know I'm always let my ego get in the way. Or maybe you're saying the other opposite side,

you know, I'm never confident enough with my decisions. On time, right? What's your bias? Do you think everything takes five minutes when it really takes a half an hour? Calculate that bias. And then the last thing I'm going to say here is something that I like to think about.

Am I looking at the symptoms or am I looking at the root cause? Because a lot of times the solution that's right in front of your face is actually a solution to a symptom. And we see this like 2D solution that's right in front of us. And it's usually obvious.

And here's what's tricky. It's usually right. Usually the first, you know, if Echo's doing something or if we got to come up with a plan and I come up with a quick plan to solve a problem, usually that first plan that we both see is a solution. And it will work. But there's a good chance that we're both reacting to a symptom

and not to the disease. So I like to just check myself and say, is what I'm looking at the symptom, or is it the actual root cause of the problem? And is the solution that's being proposed or the plan I'm coming up with? Is it a 2D solution for something that's right in front of me or is it a 3D that will actually get us a long-term solution?

So that's what I'm going to look at. Now, here's what messes us up in this loop and it's pretty similar to what can mess you up in the Oudaloupe. Number one is you can get stuck in any one of these areas. Just like you get stuck in the OOO Loop. In the OO Loop, you can get stuck observing. You're just looking around, looking around, trying to see what you see. You're trying to get every angle and you get stuck there.

You get stuck looking around and you get shot down. Maybe you get stuck orienting yourself. You're like, wait, hold on, where are they? Where am I? Hold on. Let me see exactly where I am in. You get shot down. Maybe you get stuck in the decision mode. Wait, should I go left, should I go right?

Should I go right? I don't know. There's advantage. It's going left. There's a badger's going right. You get shot down. Or act. You just, you won't take action.

You don't do the action. You get shot down. So if you get stuck in any of these as well, same thing. If you get stuck thinking about any of these things and you let it become the focus, I want to make sure my ego is not a problem. And that's what you focus on. You don't consider time. You don't consider emotion.

You don't consider the mission. So you can't get stuck on any of these things. you can't get stuck you have to let the the loop continue to flow and you know what you're going to figure out you're going to figure out that there's some things that you're good at in this loop

and there's some things that you're bad at in this loop maybe your ego is not a problem but you have a problem with time maybe your emotion isn't a problem but you always get distracted by different missions maybe you cover and move really well

but you don't realize that you expend leadership capital on stuff that doesn't matter. So you want to continually observe these things and you want to over-index on the things that you know you are weak at. So that's the number one way that we get messed up when we're making decisions.

The number two things we ignore the feedback that we're getting, which is such a disaster. It's such a disaster to ignore the feedback that we're getting. And, you know, the point I made earlier about Echo Charles, and how my ego is going to lie to me. Your ego is lying 100% of the time. Let me just say that. My ego is saying, you know, actually, in this case,

Chalko, look, I know I get it, but this kid, echo, he really is the problem. That, and when I ignore that, the fact that, I, sorry, not that I ignore it, but I let my ego convince me that, you know what, this time, just this one time, my ego is right. It's not. Or just this one time, hey, this is an emotional decision.

It's the right thing to do. You know, Jocko said you need to put emotions into calculus and I'm pissed so we're going to do it. No. We ignore feedback. And of course, this comes from a lack of humility. When you're being told something, even in your own head, but you ignore it. Like, you know, I know Echo might kind of get screwed by this decision, but, you know, he's not going to notice. Boom.

You're just lying to yourself. You're ignoring the feedback. And that's going to cost you. And so in order to do that, this comes back to a fundamental. a fundamental skill of leadership that I wrote about leadership strategy and tactics and that is the ability to take a step back and detach That's the only way you're gonna see this stuff you can't detachment is a superpower and the reason that detachment is a superpower is because the solution to the problem is not in the problem The solution to the problem will not be found inside the problem you got to step outside the problem in order to see the solution Don't get wrapped up in the problem itself

instead take a step back, run through this loop so you can make better decisions. And what is an important thing to recognize? You might be thinking like, oh, well, I'm not, you know, the CEO of some big company and I don't even need to make a bunch of decisions. Guess what? Life is a series of decisions all day, every day. That's what life is. Everything that you do is a decision.

It's almost like the binary decision, which I wrote about in Discipline equals Freedom's Manual. Everything that you do is a decision. They're not always necessarily binary, but when you live life, you're making decisions. Everything you do is a decision. So because everything you do is a decision, once you realize that, you should attach and you should have a protocol for making decisions. Because then your decisions will be better. And you should have the humility to realize. When you aren't making good decisions and when you get that feedback and realize, oh, I got to make some different decisions now.

And then you make adjustments and you make better decisions and you move on. And what's beautiful about this is it means that if everything in your life is based on the decisions you're making, guess what? You have a lot of control over your life based on the decisions that you make. So make good decisions. it's going to make you a better person it's going to make you a better leader it's going to give you a better life there you go echo Charles

speaking of good decisions I know there's some ways that people could decide to support themselves a little bit better it's true and they could support this podcast while they're doing it it's true they could support America while they're doing it very true yeah which is kind of a big deal yeah especially considering

how tenuous the world is right now world's a tenuous place sure there's other elements out there making a move Yeah. You know, got China making a move. They're out there making a move. They're trying to take,

the rush is out there. They're making a move. Yeah. People are stepping up. Moves are being made. Moves are being made? And are we going to sit back? Now, does this mean you need to pick up a rifle and go to war?

No, but I'll tell you what you can do. You can support America. Mm-hmm. I know a good way to do that. Yeah. Me too. Well, it starts with ourselves, right?

I think a lot of the time where you talk about good decisions where, Look, other people not making decisions for you unless you're letting them. But you want to make good decisions for yourself, right? I would imagine. So it starts with yourself. We're taking care of ourselves physically, mentally, deciding to. That's what we're doing. It's true.

Yep. Yep. So we're working out, of course. 100%. We're reading. You know that? Yes, we are. We should be.

At the very least listening. Wait, are you reading? I'm reading here and there. Bro, I don't know about this. Wait a second here. What do you read it? Well, there was,

okay, so there's a book. Because you can't reference Mind Games, which you read nine years ago. Yeah, probably, and that's,

I think that may be the only book you've ever referenced since I've known you. Oh, no, no, I've read,

play books. Okay, what do we got? What's on the docket? Echo Charles. Most of the than I'm going to tell you what's currently on the docket because they're tough to,

you know, but wait a second, bro. You can be honest. We're telling each other of the truth. This is like leadership, you know, uh,

If you're not going to tell me like, oh, no, right now I'm not reading anything, because it's summertime and I was in Hawaii. And so we're not reading anything unless you are. Yes. So what are we reading right now? Nothing or this book. So it depends because that's a spectrum. You should own this 100% right now.

Otherwise, it's not going to look. Here's a hundred percent truth on the matter. So I have Kindle books and audiobooks like, you know, some are halfway done. Some are all done. Some are whatever. So when. how much time has to be elapsed between the last time I was into one of these books actually like reading it or listening to it to now how much time has to pass before I'm technically not

reading let's just say a week okay we might not be reading but all right that being said that's kind of a bummer that means that the books that you're reading or even listening to must not be that captivating. Or, well, yeah, I mean, I guess in a manner of speaking, technically, yeah, but that doesn't mean that they're not captivating. That might mean that other things that I'm doing are competing with life. And life is, life is captivating, which is a good thing. Yes, sir.

Right. I never thought of that comeback. You know, some people are, I'm reading three books a week. Be like, oh, that's cool. I'm actually living. Yeah. Right? That could be a little bit of a dichotomy.

Could be, yes. And obviously, that's going to depend because reading three books a week. One, we don't know how fast they read or listen or whatever or what they're doing, you know. What if they're going on miles, runs, we're doing the same thing? You know, it's kind of a, you know, so it can be awesome. It can be kind of what you're alluding to where it's like, cool. What if I'm flexing, though? That's fine.

Oh, wait, flexing with the, I'm reading. That's just a flex. Like, like, uh, fourth book I've read this month. Right, right. Just to sort of brag. Just flexing. Like, yeah. Well, you know, there are many variations of flexing.

Because it'd be an interesting. reflex would be like I don't have time to read books Yeah or that could be an excuse It could be an excuse Yeah so it just depends It's a dichotomy Okay so where is Echo Charles

The last book that I finished The last book that I finished Which was recently I don't know whatever a few months Actually I read it twice So was the four agreements Recommended by Jason Gardner Yeah that's a good one

And you guys I heard you guys talking about it And you seemed both You were both concurred that it was good Yeah, and a lot of times that that type of book and I mean this type that type of book in this particular particular way is it's real like Like it has a lot of spiritual like terms, you know, but and you know usually spiritual terms are real like They land on different people in different ways. I'm not tracking spiritual term. I.e. What's a spiritual term? Like You know, calling things black magic or because he'll use that term a lot. Yeah, but he's using he's using those terms because I I heard you guys talking I think I might have even been talking to you a little bit about it or Jason those are just like an analogy like this type of attitude is black magic that's negative yes so I took it in that way okay like it's not like he was saying his literal black man at magic yeah and everyone's in a while it kind of felt like that but either way I never took it as that like to me that's not the useful part of it the useful part is many other things but anytime they say something like black magic I know what he's saying I know what you mean I think I do anyway

I believe I do. So I just, I put it that way. Okay. Took it in that way. But yeah. So that being said, the spiritual parts, even with those spiritual parts or whatever, like what he was saying with all the four agreements is like very, it was really, it's a good one. It's a good one.

And a lot of it might not come as like a surprise. Like, oh, man, I totally didn't know that. But just like a lot of books about like ways to think and regard yourself and the world and stuff, it's like, oh, okay, that makes sense. Or that's a good reminder. You know, it's kind of like what we just covered. There's a lot of people that are like, oh, of course you should consider

if you're screwing over your buddy. Yep. And it seems obvious, but there's times that people do this aware, unaware. And I think the big warning there is like, you think no one notices everyone else. So yeah, some things can be, actually, I think when something seems obvious,

usually that's affirming to like, this is got to be, this is pretty true. Because I know I felt this way, and now I'm seeing this guy felt this way. And now I, you know, so it becomes like a thing. Yeah. And sometimes it just puts certain things, certain elements into perspective that you might not have realized how important they are or how prevalent they are in day to day, you know, stuff.

Awareness. Yeah. When you're aware of things, you become, just awareness is a huge step up in understanding and reacting properly. Oh, yeah. And interacting properly with the world. Like the idea that you actually brought up a few times today, the idea that, like, like, you actually brought up a few times today. the idea that like people notice like what like what I see what you're doing or I see whether it be your intention or one they're getting screwed over whatever like the idea that people can see

what's going on that I think that's one of the many things that's like it helps to understand how big of a thing that is like you know how it's like yeah sometimes they'll notice sometimes they notice oh yeah people know it like you know how and I've said this before I got it from Sam Harris where it's like name when you name drop someone it's like I want to sees you name dropping and it's not even like a noble thing you mean when you talk about i got this from sam harris after we hung out this one day you know it was awesome but but that's like you know one of the many examples of sure maybe somebody caught it but you know i'm sure it was effective when i did but everyone noticed the same way you'll notice when someone else does it you know it's kind of one of those

things but um and there's a lot of things like that you know so yeah that i think that book overall was a lot of that. But some stuff was like, oh, that is a good way to look at things. Yeah. And sometimes when somebody's written something out and they've explained it, it clarifies it for you. It increases your understanding and the better understanding you have, then the more you can interact with that properly,

you can utilize that as a tool. Yeah. That's good stuff. So, yeah, we want to read. On varying levels. Yeah. Because I'm reading one book a week over here, flex. Amen.

That's good. If you read one book a week, that's good, man. Yeah. It's hard to say that that's bad. Yeah. I don't actually know if I, there was a while I was reading one book every week when we were doing the podcast. And it was like almost all books. And then it seemed like we went a little, a bunch of people were coming on for interviews.

So that was a little bit more interview-centric. So, but I, this I can say, there is no period of time of more than two days where I haven't read something. Oh, damn. Yeah. So that's kind of where I'm at. But that's not a flex, bro, because guess what?

Maybe I should be, you know, surfing or getting in fights at REI. Sure. Hell yeah, parking lot of situations. But we are working out every day. You know a Joel Tudor. Yeah. Of course. Joel Tudor, he, if you don't know, he's a surfer and a jiu-jitsu guy and an awesome guy.

But he like posted something, something about like basically kook surfers. Like, you know, surfer starter kit, Malibu surfer starter kit. In one of the pictures, it was like a sprinter. I responded to this post. I was like, hey, bro, I got a sprinter. Yeah. So, sorry, Joel. Sorry, Joel, I got a sprinter.

There, people. Well, so it's kind of a confirmation, really, in a small way. Oh. Just called me a kook, huh? That's messed up. I was up on the horses and I asked the guys, the actual cowboys. I said, hey, in surfing, if you're a, If you don't know how to surf, but you have a surfboard and you're paddling out, but you have no idea what you're doing, then you're a kook.

I said, what's that called on horseback riding? And because that's me, because I don't know how to ride a horse. And they said, it's a dude. Huh. So there's a thing called a dude ranch, which is basically for city slickers to go out and like be a cowboy for a little while. I didn't know that. And so if you're one of those people, then you are a dude. That's weird.

I've heard of dude ranch There was another word that they told me as well But I can't remember it Yeah It's funny But I was one of those I am one of those on a horse Your dude

Yeah That's funny There was a show called Hey dude And it was about a dude ranch And it was I think it was on like Nickelodeon too Or something

Back in the day Well hey man Learned something new every day See sometimes you don't even have to read You just come listen to Jocco being a dude And Cooke or whatever you're being over there But we are working out every day

Yes. Yes. Like currently working out. You can make that claim. You don't have to, you don't have to sort of put, put explanations around that claim. Bro, your face was so guilty when you said you read.

I was like, please don't lie. Well, I was trying to do the calculus because that's a legitimate question. Because like if you say, oh, I'm working out, right? But you haven't worked out in two weeks.

You're like, bro, you're not working out. You're currently not working out, actually. But if it's been like two days, that's like, okay, You could have just been coming off a rest weekend or something like this and you're still on the program. I'm saying? Or working out. So with reading, how is that?

I never thought about it. So look, if I read last night before I went to bed or something, easy, right? I know the answer. Oh, I'm reading this last night. I was reading this. But let's face it. It's been three weeks. So that was the guilt.

And three weeks is kind of a gift, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to agree with you. It's kind of a gift. Yeah. I'm giving you the opportunity. to tell the truth wait wait what do you mean three weeks is it get I'm saying me

saying oh you you were reading three weeks ago you were reading oh yeah me it's kind of me being not generous yeah technically I don't know I've never done the math and the technical you know evaluation but if you compare it to working out I know I know you're not good if you compare it to working out then no I'm not reading currently not reading but here's the thing too though did you already lift today no no this afternoon squats today by the way okay um either the mental prep going. Yeah, a little bit.

But here's the thing about reading versus working out. You can pick up a book for like 10 minutes. You can read three pages. Working out, if I go do one, two sets of curls, is that a workout? I know it's BTN. I know, I know. BTN is better than nothing. Which is a non-philosophy in my opinion.

Oh, dang. That's just my opinion. How about this? We'll use that philosophy very sparingly. How about that? All right. But you see what I'm saying, though. Yes.

You can read. a short amount and it still is providing legitimate benefits and progress. Yeah. Whereas two sets of curls. While it is BTN, if you believe in that philosophy, which Echo doesn't, I would say, it truly is BTN. It is better than nothing. Yeah. But if I go two sets of girls and then now I say, you know what?

That's going to be my workout routine. After about two months, it's kind of like an N. Nothing. In matter of speaking. So, okay, look, we got to the bottom of it. Thank you, Jocko, for your input. We're hopefully reading. We're hopefully working out.

We're hopefully improving ourselves so we can deal with the world in a better way to make better decisions. Right. All right. So get some jacofuel. Joccofuel.com. Get yourself some. Get yourself some. Hey, this is, this is, of all the things we're going to say about Jocko fuel, the flavors of the discipline go drinks have been radically upgraded.

They were based on my taste buds before. My taste buds are not normal. My taste buds weren't appropriate to judge the taste of a drink for the world. I had to run that through the leadership decision loop and say, wait, my perspective on this is not correct. Other people have a more, a better palate for the job. And we also want something that's more universally loved. We redid all the flavors. All the flavors are now awesome.

You may have had one flavor that you really liked before, and you might have had two that you just like, these are gross. Weren't down for you. Now you will at least like all the flavors. And there will be three and maybe five of them that you love. Yeah, I would say that's probably true. Totally redid them all. They taste delicious.

If you tried them when they were based on my palate, I apologize. I'm taking owner. of the fact that I had a very sensitive palate to sweetness and a little bit of sweetness tasted like sugar cane in my mouth and that wasn't the truth besides this you just drink water though pretty much for that's what I'm saying that's why my palate was so jacked and now and recently I got on the water train so the only thing that I drink is water every once in a while I'll have like a moke shake actually I have that more but even now every Everything is way sweeter.

Everything. If you just drink water. Before I have an occasional gatorade here, maybe so, you know, the kids got some orange juice. Well, that's a good example, too. Mango, I didn't like your mango flavor of Discipline Go. Mango Mayhem. And now it tastes really good. It's still not my favorite of the group, but I will definitely enjoy drinking it.

So we're good. Yeah, I feel like we're good too. So there you go. Get out here and get your. some of that. Also, we got the hunt gear coming. OriginUSA.com. Get yourself some American-made

hunt gear. And listen, that's just what we have to do in the world right now. Like I said, there's people that are stepping up, people that are not good, and they're stepping up and they're trying to take over. And you don't need to necessarily pick up a rifle to go to war, but right now

it's an economic war. And if you pick up some Origin USA gear, it's going to help us win the war so we don't have to fight a war. That's the goal. Let's be economically strong. So go to origin USA.com, get a ghee because you should be training

just in case the war does come. Get some hunt gear. Just in case the war does come, you can hunt the enemy. But in the meantime, you can hunt deer, elk, whatever else it is you want to hunt. Get yourself some of that. Also, we have a store.

Don't we have a store? We do. Okay. What's that all? about it's called Jocco store you want to represent well like we're you know improving ourselves making good decisions you want to represent discipline equals freedom which is kind of the overarching kind of thing for this whole thing more discipline you are the more freedom you are anyway you want to represent we got some

cool shirts and hats and hoodies and one not some merch but it's better than just merch though by the way a lot of thought and effort and careful meticulous consideration has been put into all these elements you should you put that into every package that you send out. Just let everybody know that careful time consideration has been put into this. Oh, yeah. But and it's true. There are many people.

When I say many, I mean for countless people that have said these like this called the shirts and stuff like, it's my favorite shirt. What's up with a new shirt that you have on right now? This is called the standard issue. Yeah. This one equals freedom standard issue. So it's a new one.

And there's it there's multiple color. Ways. Color ways. Yeah. You might recognize the, you know, the colors and what they represent. But if you don't, that's fine. There's not a layer there. Yes, sir.

People need to figure out what the layers mean. Yep. Simple, but maybe not easy. Kind of a thing. I actually didn't figure out. You guys told me. I may have figured out. If I would have maybe seen them all at the same time and done a consideration, I might

have figured it out. But I didn't, I didn't figure out. But also, I looked at him for like three seconds. I was like, do tell me. Well, when you looked at the one, you were like, that's what that is. And then all you had to do is apply that same thinking to all of them. You'd be like I see what's going on here but yeah, but either way layers there for sure, but if you don't if you don't know layers doesn't even matter You just choose the color that you like or the colors and then if you do understand the layers and it kind of matters too

Yes, sir doesn't matter if you don't get them, but if you get them it kind of does matter Yeah, it does face it because if you listen you know This is the way I see it this one is kind of like this little what we call it standard issue It's kind of like the main one we're positioning as kind of the main discipline equals freedom the standard if you you have this one you're you're that's the standard you have the standard issue yeah like if you don't have it like are you even in the game or what i'm not saying you're not but you see what's there's a question you don't have the standard issue is what i'm saying all right there you go so yeah drgo store dot com we also have the short locker don't forget about that subscription one shirt a new

shirt one a month there new different designs a little bit more creative i would say um those are pretty good ones coming out yeah you give me a brief on the one that's coming out. I'll say it's, it's affirmative. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's good. Is that next? When is that?

How far out is that? So August, September. September. Oh, that's a good one for September. All right, awesome. Subscribe to the podcast. You know that. Jockenderground.com.

We've been putting some out there. If you want to get some questions to us, we'll respond to those directly. And it's also giving us the ability to have our own platform to make sure that whenever we get banned from this one, which could happen at any time. Or they might just say, from now on when you listen to this podcast we're going to insert our own advertisements in here so we don't like that that's where we made jocco underground.com so if you want to go

subscribe to that uh youtube channel if you want to see awesome assistant directing from me you can check out that and i'll get you covered down thanks thanks psychological warfare on mp3 flipside canvass com to codemeyer i've written a bunch of books about leadership check them out Only Cry for the Living by Holly, Holly McKay. That's Jockle Publishing. She wrote that book. She risked her life to go write that book. So she's been on the podcast.

The book is insane to read and it will teach you about the world and about evil in the world. So check that out. We also have Eshlamfront, Leadership Consultancy. Eshlamfront.com. If you want me to come and talk to your company, let us know. Eschlamfront.com. If you need help, we can help you. If you want to go to any events that I've been talking about, things like the muster, things like the council, things like EF Battlefield, just come and check those.

The next EF Battlefield is sold out, but it's that little big horn looking to that, looking forward to that. I think the next muster is in Atlanta, Hotlanta, October 12th, the 14th. We sell out everything. So if you want to come, get there quick. And also we have the online training academy. I mentioned that a couple times today. teaching people how to lead in their life. And a lot of times people think,

oh, I don't need to learn how to lead. I'm only in charge of three people. Or I don't need to know how to lead because I'm not even in charge of anyone. Guess what? You are in charge of someone. You're making decisions all the time. You have a family.

You have peers that you need to lead. You have to lead your boss. I know that seems crazy. So go to extreme ownership.com if you want to get in on that online training. Part of the reason we built that is to make it more accessible to more people. That's the mission of Eschlam Front to pass on the leadership lessons we learned.

And the Eschlam Front team can't get to everybody. But now we can. Extreme Leadership.com. Go and check it out. And if you want to help service members active and retired, you want to help their families. You want to help Gold Star families. Check out Mark Lee's mom. Mom and Lee.

She's got an incredible charity organization where she provides most of the most of the Most of what she does, she does a bunch of things. I would say that the best thing that she does, well, I don't say the best thing. How can I say this? One of the most impactful things that she does, and she does a lot of impactful things, that she provides medical help for veterans

that is not provided for by the veterans administration. So hyperbaric chamber is one of the primary things. She does take someone that's having issues, and pay for them to go to a location where they have a hyperbaric chamber, put them on the right nutrition, give them the right vitamins, get their health squared away for 30 days. Everything's paid for. 30 days of recovery from the impact of combat and trauma. That's one of the things that she does. So that's at America's mighty warriors.org. So check that one out.

And then of course, I was talking about being on a horse today, and I'm a dude, meaning I'm not skilled. But you can, when you're out there in the wilderness and you're interacting with an animal and you're in the open air, it's a very positive thing for your mental and physical health. So, Micah Fink, he has this thing called Heroes and Horses at heroes and horses. He takes veterans into the wilderness for 41 days and it's horseback.

It's camping. It's staying out on the trail and guys are coming back renewed and reanimated for life. So check out Heroes and Horses.org. He's been on the podcast. I'm sure we'll get him back on here again at some point, but he's got a great charity as does Mom Elise. So check those things out if you want to support. And if you want to check in with us, we're on social media, on Twitter, on the Graham, on Facebook.

Echoes that, echo Charles. I'm at Jocka Willink. Listen, and if you're going to go on there, all I'm saying is be careful. Because there's an algorithm that's looking to grab you by the throat. Don't let it. Be ready for it. Don't let it run your life. Get off your phone.

And, of course, to all those military folks out there in the world that are making decisions every day that provide us freedom and security, thank you for what you do. And also thanks to police and law enforcement and firefighters and paramedics and EMTs and dispatchers and correctional officers and border patrol and secret service and all the first responders. Thank you for protecting our freedom and security here at home. And everyone else out there, life is all decisions. And everything you do is based on decisions that you make. So think about the process.

And think about the amount of control that these decisions give you over your own life. And think about the impact that these decisions have in your life. So don't just let them happen. Make them happen. Make them happen by being aware of your decisions. And make them happen by having a protocol so you make the right decisions to do the right things. So you can be a better leader, a better person. and lead a better life.

And until next time, this is Echo and Jocko. Out.