Jocko Podcast - 388: Lessons That Go Beyond The Battelfield. With Jamie Cochran, Echelon Front COO.

Episode Date: May 31, 2023

Jamie Cochran joined Leif Babin and Jocko Willink as the first employee at Echelon Front in 2014. She quickly expanded her initial role as Director of Operations and was named Chief Operating Officer in early 2021. After earning her degree in Business Marketing and Communications, Jamie served in leadership positions in several organizations to include Glacier Bay, a boutique hedge fund as the Client Relations Director; San Diego State University as a Programs Director; and Tiffany & Company as a Visual Creative Director. Here at Echelon Front, she leads a diverse team that oversees all business operations and events. Her team also coordinates Echelon Front engagements across the globe, ensuring a world-class client experience. Jamie embraces the mindset of Extreme Ownership and implements it across all aspects of her business and life. As a speaker and Leadership Instructor, she makes the connection between the combat leadership principles of Extreme Ownership and how she implements them in her life as a business leader, woman, mother of three, and wife of a former Navy SEAL.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 388 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. General Mukayama told me that Colonel Hackworth never did things for personal gain. He always did things for the unit and for the soldiers. For the soldiers. That is the underlying theme that permeates about face. And it is the underlying theme that's stuck with.

with me as a leader. But people's strengths are often also their weaknesses. And perhaps doing things for the soldiers was Colonel Hackworth's undoing. In his interview with issues and answers, when Howard Tucker asked him if he'd become too emotionally involved in Vietnam, he responded, one couldn't have spent

the number of years I've spent in Vietnam without becoming emotionally involved. One couldn't see the number of young studs die or be terribly wounded without becoming emotionally involved. I just have seen the American nation spend so much of its wonderful great young men in this country. I've seen our national wealth being drained away. I see the nation being split apart and almost being ripped asunder because of this war. and I am wondering to what end it is all going to lead to. So that's from the forward that I wrote for the book about face by Colonel David Hackworth. And that idea that he instilled in me of caring about his soldiers,

caring about my people first and foremost, that's where he's all about. He dedicated the book to all the doughboys, the ground pounders, the grunts, the American infantrymen, past, present, and especially future. And I wrote in that forward for About Face that the lessons that he learned and passed on in his book I had used in combat and I had passed them on as well. Not only to the seals replacing me, but I passed them on to soldiers and sailors and airmen and Marines at units throughout the country and around the world. But his lessons went beyond that. And I wrote about that in the forward. I continued by saying Hackworth's leadership, philosophies, strategies, and tactics can be applied by any leader at any level in any situation. I have taught your principles to countless civilian leaders in every industry imaginable.

and have seen them applied over and over again with extraordinary outcomes. So the principles that I learned from Hackworth and principles that I learned from my seal forefathers and from other military leaders and that are from the Army and the Marine Corps and principles that I learned from military history, all those lessons, they all originated in combat.

That's where they're from. But we now know, know that they apply everywhere. And we know that because we have seen them applied in every arena. And when we see them applied, as I said, we see them applied with extraordinary results. And one of an incredible example of that is actually within one of my companies, Eshlam Front, my leadership consultancy, where one person has applied the principles of extreme ownership in everything that she does to take care of her soldiers, which is actually her team

at Eslam Front. She uses the principles to pass on incredible knowledge to clients to run our business, which is the premier leadership consultancy in the world. She uses them to raise her family, to run a household to support her children, to support her husband, to take care of her friends, and to grow and create. In short, she uses. these principles to lead. And she is the chief operating officer at Eshlam Front. Her name is Jamie Cochran, and she's here with us tonight to share her perspective and her lessons learned.

Jamie, thanks for joining us. Thank you for having me. I had to start with Hackworth because you take the thread. The thread leads back to Hackworth. the thread of my thoughts lead back to Hackworth. And look, there's, there's other huge influences in there. Delta Charlie's in there.

He's in the thread. Roger Hayden's in the thread. And there's a bunch of people that obviously know, I can't recite them all. But that thread, like I said, all those lessons originated in combat. That's where they come from. And so to see what we've done for the last 12 years

and to see the way these things, are applied and to see the results in every industry, dairy farmers, insurance companies, manufacturing companies, software companies, hardware companies, financial companies, just every industry, energy, construction, every industry, and they put these things to use. And it's always cool to track how they do, but it's really kind of cool to track you and what you've done with these principles. And it's a really good testament to the way these principles apply outside of the battlefield. So let's figure out how you got here.

Let's start at the beginning. Jamie Cochran, where were you born? I was born in Utah, Orham Utah. But when I was three, I moved up to Washington State, just south of Seattle. So that's really what I call home. And what did your mom do? My mom, we actually moved up to Seattle for my mom's job. She worked for the United Steelworkers.

She worked there for 35 years. She was dedicated. Yes. She loved, loved, loved helping people. And she loved her job. She was talk about work ethic. What was her job in the union? She was basically, I mean, back then they called them secretary.

She was basically a secretary, but she ran that place for sure. And she later in her career. You got those genes from her then, huh? 100%. I learned a lot from her. And she, later in her career there, she ended up taking on a program that they had, women in steel. And she took that on and started actually teaching and training and setting up these programs

for women and steel helping them understand that there was leadership opportunities for them. So I learned a lot from her. And then what about your dad? What was he doing? Blue Collar. He worked at an aluminum plant. So he actually worked at a company in my mom's union served. Really harsh work environment.

I worked a lot of graveyard shifts and different kind of shift work growing up. So they were a big team because my dad was, you know, working different shifts. My mom was traveling for work. And so they both work full time. And so they really had to work together as a team. My dad dabbled in some construction, ran his own business for a little while, and then ended up back at like a plant, an aluminum printing plant. And then what about brothers and sisters?

What do you got? I have one brother. He's nine years older than me. We were very close growing up, given our age different. Still very close now. He was a wrestler. So all I wanted to do. All I wanted to do when I was little was just hang out my brother.

Interesting. You know, we'd go to wrestling tournaments. I'd help roll up the mats and then he'd come home and, you know, wrestlers stink. And he would go sit in his room and I would just want to sit next to him and hang out with him and his buddies. I just really idolized him, looked out to him a lot. But girls weren't really wrestling. No.

I mean, there was some, but not like it is now. No. There's like girls wrestling. Yeah. I never saw it growing up. But I was there every weekend. I was watching him wrestle. I mean, he focused in on one thing, different for me, very different for me in a lot of ways,

but he focused in on one thing. And he put all of his time and effort in wrestling. And so I grew up around that community. And then so what were you into since you didn't have the wrestling outlet, which now I'm like kind of bummed out. I'm bummed out in the world that you weren't a freaking wrestler. I would have loved that. We caught up to, we'll get to that later. I was one of those kids that I just needed to do a million things.

When I was really little, I started out in gymnastics, and I got very competitive in gymnastics, and it's where I put all of my effort and energy. But by the time I got to middle school, I just wanted to try it all. So I don't know how my parents kept up with me, but I was in every sport you can imagine. I started, you know, going into plays and singing, and just literally my schedule was constantly packed. I went from one sport to the next, to the next, to the next, all through high school. How old were you started gymnastics? I was three. Okay.

How's little? What level did you make it to? A level 10, but I will caveat. No, I mean, it's changed a lot. So like level 10 back when I was little is not the level 10s you see now. The level tens you see now are freaking beasts. I was not at that level, but I was competitive for my age. And I continued gymnastics through high school.

How many times a week or, yeah, how many times a week did you have to train to gymnastics? A lot. Isn't it like when you get to level, six or seven, you're training every day, right? Yes. I mean, we had sometimes four or five-hour practices on Saturdays. Just training, you know, we would do a round of a workout, and then we would go through our routines,

and then we would go through a round of stretching, and then back to a workout. I mean, it was pretty intense for fifth grade to be that deep immersed in in a sport. And you loved it. I loved it, and then I got to junior high, and I kind of, it wasn't that I didn't like gymnastics anymore. I wasn't burnt out per se.

I just wanted to try new things. And you can't really do that if you're competitive in gymnastics. So I had to adjust a little bit and stop competing competitively for the club that I was at and start just doing that for school so that I could do other sports. Did anyone talk you through that? Or did you just figure that out? I just figured that out. My mom and dad were so supportive.

They never pushed me towards any of this. So me competing in gymnastics was not them being like, you have to do this. And up until that point, they had spent so much money in time. in me doing this sport. And they were always so supportive. My mom's one rule, at least when we got through high school, but we kind of started this when I was little, was that you're not going to come home after school

and just have nothing to do. They both worked, so I needed to have something to keep my time. So when I was younger, that was gymnastics. And then as I got older, it was like you either get a job or you're going to play a sport, but you're not going to come home and just have a bunch of extra time on your hands. So they were good with it.

Did you have competitive gymnastics in your high school? We did, yeah, yeah. That's pretty lucky. Yeah. You must, were you kind of a slayer because you were like a club gymnast? Yeah, we had a couple, a couple other club gymnasts. So we had just a lot of fun. We had this old German, his name was Gunter-Borman, gymnastics coach.

He was super strict, really tough. But he was so, such a great, just such a great coach. And I got to, and my junior and senior take on the captain role and really, really fun opportunities. In your junior and senior year? Was that, was that rare for a junior to be captain? I mean, gymnastics teams are smaller, so not so much. But we had a co-captain role when I was a junior, so there was a senior that was in that place as well. And then when I was a senior, I took on

the captain role again. And then what else were you doing, volleyball? Played volleyball, loved that sport, and I also played softball. Were you good at both those, too? I was good at both those. I was never the best. There was always people on the teams that I played at that were significantly better than I was and put a lot of their time and effort and training but I played I started and I played in both of those sports gymnastics is an awesome base sport because you just get strong flexible your proprioception is is outstanding the discipline that it takes to do it like that's a good sport to kick it off with yeah I always tell you know my kids my daughter didn't do gymnastics but she did wrestling when she was little and I think both of those

sports are such good introductory sports for kids because you learn balance, you learn strength, and it's kind of a gut check. Like wrestling and gymnastics, like those practices are not easy. You are going hard. And there's this level of discipline you learn at such a young age that there's really good base level sports for kids. One thing, I don't know if gymnastics is like this. In wrestling, you're going to lose.

You know what I mean? Like you're going to lose. And I think that's also good for kids. to lose and have it be on you. Because, like, you know, your soccer team loses. You're kind of like, well, you know, Jamie missed the goal, and it's kind of her fault. And Echo didn't do a good job on defense, but I did awesome.

And you can kind of coach yourself through that, rationalize your, but in wrestling. Is it like that in gymnastics? I mean, it must be similar. It is because you compete by yourself. So you're out there by yourself. And so there's two scores. You get your individual score.

I was an all-around gymnast, so I did all four activities. And so I had my own scores that I was, competing against others individually, but then all your scores also go to the team score. So similar to in wrestling, but you're out there by yourself. So if you mess up, you're out there by yourself. You have to finish the routine,

even if you know you've stepped out of line and now you're, you know, there's no shot. You're going to get a good score on this. So it was, yeah, I learned a lot. And people can have mental breakdowns with that kind of thing, too, by the way. I mean, like kids, sports, like step outside the line, everything falls apart.

you got a that's it's so good to go through that stuff um and then you mentioned singing the obviously you've got some pipes on you yeah i auditioned for a play in fifth grade i'd never done anything like that and i auditioned for a play it was a play that are the direct the music director there had written himself it was called journey to echo mountain and i auditioned and i had no idea i've never done anything like this and it was a musical and i got the lead i got the lead i got the lead. Her name was Molly. And I just kind of immersed myself in this new world in fifth grade of I'd never sang before. I'd never had any kind of lessons before. And now I'm, you know, in this play. So what happened with the journey to Echo Mountain what was the play about? It was a, it was a girl

who like didn't have any friends. And her, it was like this fantasy thing where like her favorite little stuff doll became real. And she goes on this journey with him to Echo Mountain to save his friends. It was a very interesting play, but it had all these songs. And so the first night, the opening night, we were prepping in the morning. And I was like, I was coughing and I was having all these like issues. And my mom gave me old cough medicine. She didn't realize it was expired. So now I'm throwing up opening day. First time I'm ever going on stage. And she takes me to the hospital just in the morning because I'm really sick. I found out I have asthma. So I just internally just started a panic about this opening night.

Get the inhaler. Good to go. Rush back. Go on stage. And we ran, I think, another six shows over the next two weeks. And I was in love. I was like, this is so fun. My oldest daughter, I remember she was, they did Annie at the school play.

And she was Annie. And I was thinking, it was like, you know, I was a little bit detached. I was in the Navy. So I show up whatever opening night. And I'm kind of thinking, wow, this is a lot of pressure. And she's in fifth grade or sixth grade maybe. And then she's got to get up on stage and like sing. And the whole, no offense to the other roles.

But basically when you're Annie and Annie, that whole freaking show rests on your shoulders. And he was 10 years old. And I was like, man, that's impressive. That's an impressive thing to be able to do that and step out there and let it rip with the pipes. And so then you kind of got into that scene a little bit. I did. After that, I was like, I love this. Performing is awesome.

And so I joined the choir and I did choir all throughout high school. I started taking vocal lessons. I started going to summer camps where we would go for like a month. And the whole summer camp was just for the sake of putting on a show at the end of that. And we would do musicals and plays every summer. So in the midst of sports, and that's what I meant. I went from one thing to the next to the next. I was also really wrapped up in singing and performing and just wanting to get better and find other ways to explore the performance zone.

Where was this drive? This is a lot. You see kids that are sitting around watching playing video games. And there you are doing nine sports plus starring in the musical in fifth grade. Where's that coming from? I don't know. So part of it I think was my parents. There was kind of two really big themes in my childhood was work ethic.

So my parents always drove home the importance of work ethic. You're going to show up on time. You're not going to miss anything. And you're going to do the job and you're going to do it well. And then honesty was another big theme in my childhood. So I had a good example of watching them. And then I had my brother who really honed in on one thing and loved that one thing. And I just realized, it wasn't anything specific, but I just realized at a certain age, it was probably around fifth or sixth grade, that I didn't want to just do one thing.

I wanted to do it all. And I started to realize that I loved the challenge. I really thrived in like the constant change and the constant challenge of things going on. So I just, I don't know, I just wanted to be in everything. Were you that self-aware in sixth grade that you were like, I really enjoy this challenge? I think so.

I mean, I think I might be an idiot. You know what I mean? I think when I'm in fifth grade, I'm like throwing rocks at trees. Like that's the extent of my forward thinking. I'm thinking. hey, I bet I can hit that beehive with a rock and run away quick enough.

Do you think I can do it? Yeah, I think you can. Let's try. But I think the downside is there's a lot of people, like my brother, that honed in and became really great at one thing. Did he wrestle in college? He did not, he did for like the first year and then he didn't finish college. But he was a great wrestler and he was really good at that sport.

And he put all of his energy and effort into it. And I was a little bit more like, oh, that looks fun, that looks fun. Let me try this. Oh, that looks cool. well, let me do this. And I just always, I couldn't keep my attention. I just wanted to do it all. You know, and that got me in trouble sometimes.

For the most part, I just loved having the constant change going on in my life. And were you, you know, you were the captain of this team. You were the captain of the team. You were the lead in this. Were you always sort of, did you always kind of get elevated to sort of leadership roles as you were growing up? I did. I mean, I did student body government and things of that nature. I like I was I just talked a lot if I'm being honest like so people knew me because I just talked

like I always had straight A's and then when it got to the point of like talking in class I'd always get the two like the lower rating because I just I was just a chatterbox I would spend hours in my room my mom has tapes of me doing interviews with myself and playing different characters like different accents and I'm like and now welcome to the show and I'm like and now welcome to the show I was like, and I would just spend all this time creating and talking. And so I think I just, I was a little bit of just, I think I just was loud. And so people are like, well, okay, let's just put her somewhere just to manage that. And as far as you're going through high school, you're doing all these activities,

do you have, do you start to see kind of a vision for what you want to do with your life as far as career goes? You know, not really. I, I, all I knew in high school was that I loved performing and I love singing. And that I really just liked, again, kind of the chaos of having a, million things going on. And so all I ever thought I wanted to be was I'm going to move to L.A. when I'm 18 and I'm going to go and I'm going to sing. I'm going to write. And I'm just that that was my path in high school at least. And then I quickly, quickly realized that that wasn't actually what I wanted. Well, so, okay, so you have this dream. You graduate from high school and then sort of you go to

college for music, right? And you go to college for singing? Yeah. So none of my, none of my family had ever gone to college. So going to college was a big deal. And my parents always were like, you're going to go to college. Like, you're going to do this. And I always wanted to go to school. I knew that I wanted to go to college. But I didn't really know where to go or like what I wanted to do. So I applied to a bunch of different schools. But my choir teacher at the time, who I really looked up with and looked up to and had a really good relationship, she was the one that was like, I think you should look at Azusa Pacific. And it was a private school, but she knew the music director there. And she's like, I can get you set up with an audition and you could maybe get some money to go to school.

Because my parents had saved money, but not enough to necessarily send me to four years at a private university. So I went an audition and I ended up getting a scholarship there. So I got into other colleges, but because of the scholarship, I chose to go to Azusa Pacific. Do you get to pick the song you're going to sing for your audition? Yes, yeah. I think they gave you. I couldn't remember. I mean, it was probably more classical because that's, you know, what they expected going.

going into like a music program. What kind of music were you listening to in high school? Everything. So it was the one thing that I grew up with my dad who loves music. I mean, he had towers of just CDs back in the day, like, you know, just racks and racks of CDs. And he would listen to literally everything. I mean, everything from like country to Whitney Houston to rap to like my dad had it all.

And so I got exposure to everything. But the one thing that we really bonded over, we still do. We share songs like, I'll send him a song. He'll send me something to be here. was just music that had a story. So I always loved the singer-songwriter. If there's a good story, it didn't so much matter about the rest. If it made you feel something.

Did you ever pick up a get box, a guitar, or anything? No, I never did, and I wish I had. But I think I was too busy. So I could only manage just singing. And I was lucky to have enough people around me that could do the music part. Did you ever get in trouble in high school before you get to college? You know, I didn't.

That's what I was thinking. over there just being perfect. Yeah. I really didn't. I got good grades and we had, our school system had a very interesting, they had like these secret high school students that would go to parties and like basically rat out other athletes.

Yeah. And it was all about the athletic clubs and making sure that the athletes weren't going to these parties. So you had like a 20 minute leeway. And so I had that kind of keeping me from getting into trouble. And honestly, I probably would have gotten into a lot of trouble. except my best friend was like an angel and perfect. And you want to talk about leadership.

She led me in high school. And she was like, nope, you're not doing that. She was also an athlete. And so she was very much in my corner and kept me from making lots of bad decisions. Did you ever figure out who one of the rats was? No. Who takes that job on? Like that's risky.

Yeah, that's a very strange thing. So there was parties, but you kind of would show up and leave? Yeah. I remember one time my parents dropped me off at this house and you could tell, like when they dropped me off, you could tell that this was a party. And my mom's like, okay, and you're going to go to this and just a lot of trust, you know, but they were suspect. And I was like, yeah, no, mom, it's totally fine. Like it's just some friends getting together. And like you can see the house. You're like, this is a raging party. And I went in and I spent like 15 minutes and I was like, all right, I probably shouldn't be here. It's total mayhem.

So I called her and I was like, hey, mom, can you come get me? like, oh my gosh, yes, we're up the street. We'll be right there. She like waited up the road, just hoping I'd make the right decision. So I was friends with all the people that partied, but I just kind of stayed out of that for the most part. I definitely went to some, but I didn't get caught up. Do you think you didn't want to let your parents down? Do you think you didn't want to let your team down? Like this is kind of really positive peer pressure because most kids are getting peer pressure to do negative things. What kind of peer pressure? Was it just like, hey, I don't want to let my parents down? Yep.

My biggest fear growing up, my absolute biggest fear, even to this day was disappointing my mom and dad. Because they were such pillars in my life and like I just highly, highly respected them growing up that I just didn't want to let them down. Like I was so afraid of that. So I made a lot of good choices because I was like, I don't want to have to show up and be like, hey, dad, I screwed up. Are you guys having dinner together together every night? Like, but your dad's work and shifts. Like how is this really tight family unit and this high level of respect? for your parents, how did they formulate that?

I think a couple things. One, my parents are best friends, and they are a true partnership. They carried the load together. And so they just worked together so well. My mom would travel, and my dad would have to take on, like, feeding us every night. And yes, we had dinner most nights at the table. And sometimes it was in the midst of things, but it was like, hey, at 6.30, be home. We're going to have dinner at the table.

And my mom would go out of town, and my dad would do, like, like seven days of different ground beef. Like we're having hamburger helper, then spaghetti, then sloppy, then sloppy joes, then goulash. Like variations of ground beef. But my dad. I haven't heard goulash in a while. That was a big one at my house. You'd get that goulash together, bro.

But he would manage food when my mom was gone. And when he worked shift work, my mom was there. And I think what I'm very, very lucky is that I was a busy kid. I had a lot of stuff going on. And yet I can't remember a time. And it had to have happened that. but I can't remember a time where I didn't have both parents or at least one parent or in the very rare occasion they both couldn't be there. They'd send my brother. They're like, you're going to support.

So I always had someone in the stand there rooting for me that just wanted the best for me. And I think that cultivated like a very, we're an oddly close family. Even now into adulthood, my dad and my brother are best friends and they do so much together. Even now we're very, very close, I think compared to a lot of other families. Yeah, that's, I talk about the fact that I've told so many parents like, hey, listen, your kids are going to get this rebellious streak. They know they got to leave the house. They don't want to do it when they're so close to you. So they're going to do some things to create a little separation.

Just expect this. But you didn't even have that. No, I mean, I hit my rebellious stage in college because I wasn't near them anymore. So I went through that whole stage when I got to college and I was living in L.A. and just trying to figure out who I wanted to be, what I wanted to be. So you don't remember you're a dish song, but you knocked it out of the park.

You get the big scholarship to Azusa. What is it, Azusa Pacific? Azusa Pacific. And now you're leaving your family. Did your mom cry? Did you cry? Did your dad cry? Was it total?

I'm just picturing like just total mental breakdown in the family. We drove from Seattle to California. Oh, they're done. driving you. Hell yeah. They're like, we're driving her. And I like slept the whole time, you know, because I'm young, like whatever. They drove the whole time. They get me set up in my apartment. And my roommates in my first year in this dorm, we lived on campus. It was a small room, three beds, and like a dresser, tiny. I mean, probably the size of this room. And both of them were from Okinawa, Japan. So there was just an interesting dynamic right out the gate. They helped me

move in and they've got to get back. So we go to this parking lot. My dad gets my car the back he had it on a trailer and like gave me a hug and drove off and I remember sitting there in the parking lot by myself like what have I done I am now in Los Angeles by myself and my parents just drove away and in the moment we kept it kind of together but my mom lost it in the car I lost it in the car separate of each other just feeling like what what have I done and so now you got two roommates from Okinawa that's kind of random were they sisters or something They were, they came from the same high school. Okay.

But yes, they were wonderful. They were wonderful roommates. Is that college meant for like performance? Because you're going there, you're going there to major in singing? I went there and my major was vocal performance. So I was a part of the women's choir, which you have to be your first year. And then there's opportunities to move into some of the other choir units. And I was taking primarily music classes.

And at the, I always tell students now, like, just, go do your general education because you don't know what you want to do. And I made the mistake of like... I tell people go join the Marine Corps for four years. And then you forget what you wanted to do. Perfect. But a lot of people make the mistake just like I did where I went and I'm like, okay, I'm a vocal performance major.

I'm going to take all music classes. I'm just going to get deep into music composition and all these different things. And then about six months in, I realized I don't want to do this anymore. Because I realized that I loved singing, but I didn't really necessarily like learning and the components and the teaching and the technical side of it, and that I didn't need any of that to go perform and sing. You just need that microphone. Yeah.

Yep. So you're going through that decision process. Again, you're aware for a young person even when I was, thank God I was in the Navy because God only knows what I would have been doing if I wasn't. But you're now 18, probably 19 years old. You take this, all these music classes and you realize you like singing, but you don't want to learn about sheet music or whatever it is music theory. So then what do you do? You decide you're going to change majors? Yep, I decide. As part of my

general ed, I did take a marketing class and I was, I loved that class. And it started to open my eyes to like, oh, okay, you know what? Maybe there's something I kind of like event planning. I like marketing. I like this other world. I also started to realize that I was not, even with my scholarship, I was not going to be able to afford to stay at Azusa Pacific because we had basically depleted my college saving funds to go to that first year. It was not a cheap school. And so I was realizing that I was going to have to go in significant debt to stay there. So I was like, all right, I'm changing majors. I'm going to move schools. So I moved after the first year and I started summer school classes to try to catch up because I've now changed majors right after I left Azusa and I

went to Cal State, Los Angeles. And I changed to communications and public relations. Where's Cal State, Los Angeles? Kind of east L.A., not far from like Pasadena. Okay. About 15 minutes east of that. And so do you move in an apartment with new people, obviously? Yeah. So really kind of crazy twist of fate.

I showed up and the apartment, the dorm that I was supposed to stay in was a four-bedroom dorm. So eight girls and like this common space. And all seven of the eight, so the other seven, we're on the soccer team together. And then me. So I show up and I go to move in. and they've moved me to a different room. So I went back just to get a new key. And I didn't want to cause drama.

I was like, no, I just need a new key so I can get into this new room that they've shifted me. And it created this whole whirlwind. And she ended up saying, no, I'm going to move you to this other apartment with one of our resident assistants. And so I moved in with this girl named Diana, who ended up becoming my best friend. But she didn't want me moving in with her.

But all of a sudden, I'm now just three girls in a two-bedroom. And it turned out to be a cool twist of fate because it led me to a job where I worked at the college as a resident assistant like the next quarter and just cultivated some friendships I wouldn't have had if I had been in the soccer house. The soccer house. So you get moved into this new place and now you're studying communications and public relations. What does it mean when you study communications? You don't know. I don't know. What job do you get hired into if you study communications?

You get like, I mean, are you a newscaster? No, I didn't take the journalism route. I took the public relations route. So really, you know, it was a component of marketing, but not the marketing degree. It was a little bit more towards, you know, learning how to communicate, how to tell a story, how to, you know, I could have gone and worked at, like, a PR firm. What I loved at the time is I was a resident assistant. And so what I was doing on campus in addition to just the regular duties there was I was planning events. And there's a component of the communications degree that sets you up for that because you have to market and publicize these events.

And it just gave me some exposure. I didn't know what I wanted to be. So I kind of landed there haphazardly and it stuck. And I really loved Cal State because the classes were smaller. So I got to know my teachers more. And I just started to cultivate relationships there that I hadn't a year prior. And you're out of money kind of, so you got to be working. Oh, I was broke.

I was so broke. I remember pulling into a gas station trying to get back to campus and like going up to the counter and being like, I have $3.23 on $1.4. You know, my parents made sure that I had food. So I had the campus meal plan and I had housing. And everything else was up to me. And so I ended up getting a job initially at a restaurant. And I started as a hostess and then worked my way up to various positions there.

and I worked there all through college. What restaurant? McCormick and Schmix. What kind of restaurant is that? Like a fish house. Yeah, like a seafood. They had, yeah. And did you end up as a waitress?

What did you learn from that? A lot, because I started as a hostess, and then I became a waitress, then the cocktail waitress, so I worked in, like, the happy hour. So you just get to meet all sorts of different people. Not only the people that you work with, but the people you're meeting on a day-to-day.

You have to manage emotions, if something, if an order gets wrong, people treat people in the service industry terribly. Others treated me great, but I had to learn a lot how to, like, control my emotions and, like, show up on time. And it was a great job. I loved it.

I was there for a long time. And I had a couple key relationships there that were really important to me in my development as far as, like, being mentors. So you end up, how much do you make a night as a waitress? I think I would, I mean, sometimes, I'd walk out of there with some pretty good cash if it was a busy night because I would work happy hour. I would take extra shifts. Maybe a couple hundred bucks. Yeah. Yeah, some people

become kind of career waitresses sometimes because you can make good money. Well, and this was before like people were doing the guaranteed 20%. Like nowadays, I feel like it's on everything. You know, they didn't have the little key at the bottom that suggested the amount. So sometimes you get totally stiff. And other times, you know, people were really generous. But I, I relied heavily on the cash tips. That was a big part of my income. And then you also were working as an RA, is that right? Yep.

So are you dealing with freaking just mayhem? Mayhem. Just people puking on themselves, just drinking, drugs. It was an interesting leadership lesson because it was, they weren't dorms, it was apartments. So it was almost like just managing apartment complex.

But quarterly we had to do like review, we had to go and like evaluate and do walkthroughs. It was my job to like go in and see how they're living and whether or not they're violating any rules. If I was on duty, then I'd have to go let people in in the middle of the night. You were on duty for like three or four days like around the clock. So people would call you at 2 a.m. And be like, I locked myself out and you have to go get them situated.

So it was a lot of like management and it's your peers too. So parties are happening and you've got to go like kind of shut them down or noise complaints. You became a rat. Totally. I was a pretty cool rat. But yes, I had to go shut some of those things down. And then in addition to that, it was our job to put on events every couple weeks. We do these different events.

What kind of events? We, one of my favorite events there, we started with another friend of mine who was another RA, and we called it the underground. And it was like a show of like poetry and music and like dance. And it was just like this cool. We turned this common area that was, you know, you can think like fluorescent lights kind of whatever. We turned it in this like cool dark underground like club and we just had different performances and artists come and perform. Did you perform? Yes. Singing? I sang yeah. Were you in a band?

I did have a band in college. What was the name of the band? It was just me. Jay Smith. Oh, because your maiden name is Smith? Yeah. But you can't play any instruments. No, but that was like just, no, I had a band. We had a stand-up bass. We had a guitarist. a drummer. We had backup singers. Were you doing covers or you doing? No, my own stuff. Where is it?

Where's the MP3s? Let's go. That was a long time ago. No, we did, I mean, we had some covers, but for the most part, we were writing our own music. And we would just, we would link up on campus and we would just jam. And then over time, we were like, we should do a show. And so we went and played a little show. And then we, we did a couple cool gigs.

It was fun. Did you do any recording? Not with that band. We didn't record any of that stuff. I was also going to a studio in Hollywood and doing some like vocal demoing. So I would help write a song or I would potentially or they would give me a song that was written in and I would demo it so that artists. Like the people that I was working for.

Oh, just like a music company of some kind? Yeah. So I got, I had a couple friends that were in that and so I would go in the studio and I would record a song that they were gonna send off to a real artist, who was already famous, to hear what the song would sound like. So I would demo the song. And then on some cases, I was asked to do like little choruses or things on people's other.

So I was recording, but not for my own stuff, not my own songs. Are you getting paid? Not for that, no. Just doing it for free. Just doing it because. Can we hear your backing vocals on anything on MP3 right now? Not that's like out. I mean, I have them.

But no, you're not on the backing vocals of some. band that we could listen to? I don't think so. I mean, possibly. I mean, I did a lot of like stuff, but this was all like local stuff going on. It wasn't like, you know, some big hit song. Have you saying any jangles that are commercials that we've heard?

No. You know, like Geico or something. You're just in there getting it. That would have been where the money's at, though. So, all right, so this is what you're doing. This was your rebellious phase, was you were like starting the underground as an R.A. No, I'm just saying.

I'm just saying I had some fun in college and maybe realized, was maybe happy when I met my husband and he didn't drink to kind of like shift because it wasn't ever natural to who I was, but it's hard to be in LA in that culture and not get caught up in some of just the chaos and drama of that culture. It's not a great place for young women. And I realize that pretty early. No, not college, the music industry.

Like I was, I wasn't, I had enough of a foot in that world that I really quickly realized, like, I don't think that's the path I want to go down. It's kind of crazy. It is crazy. So you're in college, you get, you go there for three more years. Do you get it done in four years? I did, yeah. I went through, I did summer school every summer to make up for the year of vocal performance classes I took. And I graduated on time.

And then what's next? What happens? I. So what's it now 2006? You graduate from college? Yep. Okay. And my best friend, we ended up getting an apartment in Pasadena and a one bedroom that we shared.

And she was like, hey, I had this idea. She went to school for, she had her master's in education. Brilliant. And she was like, I had this idea, let's go be flight attendants. So we can just travel the world and like just be single. And I was like, awesome. So we, I was like, we're going to do that. Dude, that's the plan.

I like the plan has two sentences. We're going to travel the world and be single. Okay. We were both single at that time and we were like, all right, we're just going to go do this. And so we went, it's actually really hard to become a flight attendant. Like people underestimate that. Not only like the interviewing process, but then the training is significant. And so we ended up becoming, you know, getting the opportunity to go to this training.

And in between when we got the, hey, you know, you're hired and the start of training, I went on the first date now with Flynn, who is now my husband. And so all of a sudden, like this whole, I'm going to be single, kind of took a little pivot. And she found out like right before we went that she was pregnant. So like all of a sudden this travel to world, we're going to be single and just living up our life. Like both of us made this big shift of like, okay, I guess things are going to change. But I went through at the training and became a flight attendant. And how long did you do that for? Six months. The training is about eight weeks. And then, which is it's difficult training.

Like people really don't get it. Like when you go on your next flight, treat those flight attendants with care because they're the parameters in which they have to operate on that is so strict. And so when they're asking you to put your seat up or your tray table, there's reasons and safety protocols for why.

And they've trained to know every piece of the plane for every plane that they could possibly fly. So it's just an interesting dynamic. Hold on. So there's a reason I've got to put my seat up when we're landing. Yes. Can you tell me what that reason is? Yeah. So it's like a two-inch situation, right?

But the research shows takeoff and landing is the most dangerous time on a plane. It's when you're most likely to crash. And if you do crash, what they're trying to do, why you have to put your seats under and your tray tables up is create enough leeways so that if you had to get out and evacuate, you could do that safely without things being in the way and causing trip hazards. I always do it. I kind of like, you know, you talk about waitresses and wage. and flight attendants, like, I always think they've got,

like they're having a bad day. That's the way it always seems to me. Because I know I wouldn't, you know, I've worked in restaurants, and it's a hard job. I've never been a flight attendant, but I can just, you know, you just need to watch one person be a jerk to a flight attendant. And you're like, dude, just leave this person alone.

Please, they get out of control. So I always try and be cool, but I've always wondered why this seat needs to be up two inches. Like, okay, but now we know. I knew it was for that safety protocol, but still. Okay, so you're doing that. So I become a flight attendant. But by the time I became a flight attendant, you have, when you're first, you know, start off, you are at the bottom of the totem pole.

You have no seniority. And so you basically are on call for several days. You don't know where you're going, how long you're going, what you're doing. You don't even know what, I mean, I'm based out of L.A., but there's three different airports we serve for. And so you could just get called to say, hey, we need you doing Burbank. three hours and so forth. And at this time, I'm kind of living in San Diego because we made this one-bedroom apartment, the crash pad, for eight other flight attendants. So you walked into an apartment and there was just mattresses and all eight flight attendants because we couldn't

afford this rent anymore paid in to help cover this rent. So I had the option. Your best friend gets an F for planning. I was stoked on the two-sentence plan. I revoked that. I had like, in my mind, I'm like, I would, I had the option of either going back to the crash pad or driving two hours back to San Diego. So that's what I did. I just, every time I finished, even if it was a 16, 20 hour day, I would take a nap in my car or go shower at the 24th Fitness and then drive back to San Diego. Okay. And then you're, now you're, you got Flynn and Flynn's in the Navy at this point?

Yes. He was in butts. So we got married. No, actually. Yes, he was. I was a flight attendant after we got married. The whole time we were engaged, I was a flight attendant. And he was just in the regular Navy. Okay. And then, but you know he's going to Buds? You find out he's going to Buds? Well, yes. When he first asked me to marry him, he, you know, proposed or whatever in the car. It was basically like, hey, it was basically, hey, I'm supposed to go to Japan and March. And I'd like you to come with me. And I was like, okay. well, what does that mean?

He was like, well, you can't really come with me unless we're married. And I was like, so are you asking me to marry you? He's taking the indirect approach. Yeah, and he's like, yeah, pretty much. He made up for it later. He did a whole thing. But that's basically when I agreed to marry him. And at that point, he had orders to go to Japan where he was going to be deployed for two years.

And that was going to be his last deployment. He was going to get out. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to me, he had submitted a package to butts. He was a little old. He was kind of on that cusp. And so I don't think he took. told me because he just wasn't sure if he'd get in or not, but he had submitted the package to buds and was waiting to hear. And then he found out. So he found out about a month before

we actually got married. And what's going on with a flight attendant? Yeah, so I was just, you know, just running up to LA every couple weeks or every couple days and flying. And I ended up, so I really did love that job, but it was difficult. It was very difficult, expect. kind of commuting back and forth, which I made it harder on myself because I did that. And there was just a lot of lessons. I had some crazy stuff happen on planes. And I had just gotten to the point where I don't know that I was fully into it. Like I was already seeing like there's an end here. And I ended up, I ended up like shortly after we got married, I got fired. I got fired. How come we got fired? Well, they have really strict policy on attendance and tardiness.

Like, three strikes, you're out. And I could give you all the explanations or reasons why I was late three times. I was basically late for three times. The planes went off in time. It was no big issue. But two times I was late, one time I called out. And I could tell you in detail why and all of that might make a ton of sense. But the reality was I did not have any relationships there.

I did not know my supervisor. I couldn't even tell you his or her name. It's not an office where you go into. So if you want to get to know your supervisor, you've got to make an appointment and plan to go to the airport at some point and meet with them. And I didn't have you those relationships. So despite the fact that I was a good flight attendant and I got really good ratings like customer ratings and I had dealt with several major emergencies very well. Despite that fact, I just hit the three strikes and I could give you all the reasons and explanations, but they're just excuses. And the reality is I had no one to really call when it got to that point.

And if I'm being us at that point, I was kind of like, it's okay. I'm kind of ready for something else. Because you already married at this point. Yeah. Okay. So now you get married. And is that when Flynn starts buds? Yeah.

We got married Friday afternoon, evening. We went down to Arizona for a couple days. Scott's, no, I don't know. Not Scottsdale. Sedona. Yeah, Sedona for two days. And then came back and he started buds on Monday. And how was that?

Just a really quick and rapid introduction to the Navy. Did you know anything about the Navy? Nope. I mean, my parents have a lot of, you know, gratitude for our military members. I grew up in a house that really valued our military members, but all I knew about the military, I didn't know anyone personally who served. All I knew about it was like what I learned in history and what I saw on TV. Did you know what a seal was?

No. Did you know what Buds was? Obviously, didn't. Nope. Okay, so he starts buds. So now are you fired at this point? I continued as a flight attendant for like another two months, but it was shortly after, yes.

And then you guys are living here in San Diego. Yeah, and he's going through buds. What does it look like when, what does it look like from the outside when your spouse is going through buds? Yeah. Which is basic skill training if you don't know.

And we were the only ones married. I don't think anyone else was married at that time. So that was a little bit of like a unique scenario anyways. But I had like, I had this vision of like what it was going to be to be like newlywe. and I'm young. Like I was 22, I turned 23 like a week after we got married. So I was young. And I was like, oh, we're going to like travel and we're going to hang out on the weekends.

We're going to go down on the beach. We lived a block from the beach, like a block from the Hotel Dell. And I was like, we're going to spend all this time doing all these fun things and meeting new people. And very quickly I realized we're not doing any of that. That I was lucky if he came home. He wasn't supposed to come home, but we were so close to the base that he came home most even though he was supposed to stay on base. I think I can say that.

He's long out. I don't, I think you actually could go home. It's just that at the, there's probably some nights he wasn't supposed to, but the officers pretty much were allowed to go home. And even married guys were allowed to go home. So it was probably what, what makes it not smart is,

you know, you get done at midnight and you've got to be back there at 4 o'clock in the morning. And so it's, It's going to take you 15 minutes to get off base, you know, 10 minutes to get home, park the car, get upstairs. You just cost yourself 40 minutes there. And then, you know, you got to get up earlier. You got to make sure you're going to be on time.

So you've got to leave extra early. So instead of sleeping four hours, you're sleeping three hours. And so that's probably where it seemed like he shouldn't be coming home. And he was probably like, I shouldn't be coming home. And he probably shouldn't have been coming home. But he did. Well, I remember one morning, he woke up in a panic because Brendan, his best friend going through buds called him and was like, hey, they just like pull this out, get here now. And so he like

threw his stuff out and he rushed out. And he was the OIC. And so like he was supposed to be there. And he like rolled in and act like he was like outside on a phone call and like totally came under the radar. And like they didn't know that he was not on base, but he was supposed to be there. So there might have been times where he was supposed to and he's still kind of. But it was interesting. He would come home and like just sand in the bed constantly. Like he would wake up and like like, like, like startle me like just you know whatever it was he was sleep deprived and he would wake up like in these like massive uh like fits um it just was interesting and then the weekends like we weren't doing any of the stuff i thought we were doing he's definitely not like let's go to the beach yeah no

let's go swimming he don't he wanted nothing to do with getting wet and sandy so we weren't going to the beach um and we ended up spending most of our saturdays in the first couple months painting helmets at his like buddy's house just me and like these three other guys go going through buds painting helmets all day. And that's where you met Brendan? Yeah. Brendan was living with a guy named Rob and we would just go to Brendan's house and barbecue and paint helmets.

Good times. Yeah. This is exactly what you signed up for at 23 years old. Yep. I was on stencil duty. I was very good with the little details. Yeah. So that's where you're starting to understand what's happening.

And then was there any highlights that you remember? What was about hell week? How was he after hell week? It was great. So Brendan's mom had flown in. town and she we like spent a day or two together before uh hell week was over just kind of waiting for them to call and say i made it and you start to feel pretty good after wednesday because i kept thinking like what if he comes home tuesday like how do i respond and then wednesday yeah yeah i'm out

um wednesday passed and we got into like midday thursday and i was like okay i feel pretty good about this but you're i'm nervous for him and brendan's mom was there so we ended up just kind of hanging out in Coronado and then Friday, I don't remember what time it was, but at some point he called and he was like, I made it. And he was like, I just remember he was like,

hey, can you bring us milkshakes? And he was delirious and he sounded like a, like seven-year-old. Like, can you just please bring us milkshakes? I was like, sure. So Brennan's mom and I went and got these chocolate milkshakes and we went to base and we sat in the back of his truck.

And it's Rob, Brendan and Flynn, and then Brendan's mom and me and we're talking, and one guy would be talking, and the other two would be falling asleep. And then the other one would wake up and say something, and then the other guy would start to fall asleep. And very quickly you realize, like, man,

they have been through something crazy. Because Brendan couldn't walk. He had rashes everywhere. And it just, like, you saw it, like, firsthand. It was like, this is crazy. And then obviously they have to leave, and I don't get to see him again for, like, 24 hours until they're medically cleared.

But we did drop off those chocolate milkshakes. And they were stoked. Yeah. And then what about the rest of Buds? Was there any issues? Did he get rolled back or anything? No. Nope.

He did good. He made it through all of that on track. He obviously, you know, he was an officer, so we had to go through the extra training. So we ended up going to a different class than what he went through Buds with. But no, everything ran smoothly. And then he gets done with Buds and he gets orders. Where did you go? Team 1?

Team 1, yeah. And now do you know what's going on? Nope. All I know is that he would be gone for three weeks, home for two days, gone for a week, home for two weeks. You know, and like we obviously talked about what he was doing. But I remember at one point, I was like, hey, do me a favor. Don't tell me you're leaving until like two days before because it would always be this game of like, hey, I'm leaving in a week. And then you come home the next day.

He's like, actually we're leaving tomorrow. Or I'm leaving in three days. Actually, it's two weeks. And it was always changing. And I was like, okay, I'm trying to handle like all the stuff I have going on in the midst of like, when are you going? What are you doing? Where are you coming? When are you going to be home?

And so I was like, just tell me two days before you have to leave. And then tell me like the day before you're coming back. And then that was just our deal. And so what are you doing at this point? So after I got fired, I ended up getting a job at a hedge fund. And they were in downtown San Diego. And they worked off New York hours. So I had to be there at five and they were done at three.

which was awesome in San Diego, because then I had all afternoon. I mean, he wasn't coming home until late anyways, just to myself and kind of do whatever I wanted in San Diego. And I was just basically an overpaid administrative assistant for them. So I liked that job, but it was not very fulfilling, was not challenging at all. And so before I had taken that job, there was this position that came up at San Diego State University that really piqued my interest. but I looked at the job description. I'm like, I wouldn't qualify for this. Like what they wanted, I didn't have.

And so I didn't apply, and I took this job instead. And then a year after I served at the hedge fund, they moved back to New York, and I obviously wasn't going to go with them. So I started looking again, and lo and behold, that position at San Diego State had come up again, which I guess could have been a red flag that someone didn't make it after a year,

but whatever it was, I thought, you know what, there's no better time then at least trying. So I applied for a job at San Diego State. And then you got the job? I did, yeah, to my utter surprise. How come you're so surprised? Because the requirements of what they wanted,

they prefer to master, as they wanted several years of experience. I just didn't think that I qualified. And I submitted my application. I ended up getting a screening call with their HR director and I got off the call and I was like, Flynn, there's no way they're going to hire me. And then I got a call and they were like,

hey, we want you to come in for a panel interview, which I had never done, a group of like nine people sitting around the table, all from various parts on campus, asking me like intricate scenario-based questions, and I'm just sitting there going through this, and I left that interview, and I was like, Flynn, there's no way they're going to hire me. And then two days later, I got a call, and I had an interview with the woman that ended up becoming my,

was going to be my direct supervisor if I got the job. And I got off that call and said, there's no way they're going to hire me. And like a week later, they offered me the position. And this whole time I was pregnant and hiding it because I was afraid that that would impact my potential. Okay. So your integrity just took a hit. Yeah.

I did tell her, I told her in the final interview, I was like, hey, I just have to come clean. But yeah, I was three months pregnant with my oldest. Okay. And so now what's going on? Flynn's now in a workup at a team getting ready to go on deployment. and that's probably when I met him for the first time putting him through those workups when I was working at Trayette.

Matter of fact, that is when I met him for the first time. He still has notes in his notebook says J.K.O. brief, the Jocko brief. And it's the laws of combat, which is awesome. That's rad. So now you take this position. What are you doing in this new position that you're at San Diego State?

I was a programs coordinator, so I was responsible for all of the programming on campus. So the Associated Students at SDSU is a massive, like it's $20 million corporation essentially. They run and operate seven of the facilities on campus. And when I came into the job, they had just passed a year before a fee referendum for the students

where they agreed to give more money to increase the funds for the case, which is the program that I ran, the Culture Arts and Special Events Program. With the intent of you need to offer more programming on campus and we want you to do this spring festival. It has to be a sustainability focus, but we want it to rival like USDA's sun god. And so I came into a position where all of a

sudden I had to hire someone full time that had never been a position, a full-time assistant, two graduate assistants, multiple part-time assistants, student assistants, and advise the student board of 60 students. And it was and an influx of cash, an influx of money with the intent of putting on this big program. So I came in like hot with all these different things to do. And I just loved it. I loved it. You like, you like mayhem. I do a little bit, yes. Well, I went to USDA. Yeah. I don't remember no sun god. Yeah, yeah. Anything going on probably because I was a grown man. What did you guys do to rival sun god? Yeah, you know, that's a hard one because it's like a longstanding history. And ours had to be

sustainability focus. So the first year we run this event, we called it Greenfest. And it was all sustainability focus. It was a week of events leading up to this festival concert. And And so the first year we did it, we did it out just on a walkway. We had like slightly stupid. We did this outdoor stage. Yeah, it was great. Slightly stupid. It was great.

It was a phenomenal concert. But we had like 1,500 students come to that. And everyone's like, this is awesome. And I'm like, we have 40,000 students at this campus. Like, 1500 is lame. So the next year, we brought out LMFAO and we did it at the open air theater. And we had like 35, 4,000 students. And everyone's like high fiving like, this is great.

this is awesome and I'm like this is weak. So the next year we did it at the VA House Arena. We sold out the arena but before the concert we had this big festival with rides and a beer garden and there was all solar powered and all this stuff. Solar powered beer garden. So then we had 9,500 students around 10,000 students and we sold that out and everyone and now I'm like, okay, now we're getting somewhere. And then the last year before I left, we moved it.

T-Pain, we had three music stages. We had two, a main stage, a side stage, and then a DJ dance tent. All rides, we shut down three big parking lots, and we had around 12,000 students, and it was just kind of continued growth. And at some juncture along the way you had your first kid. Yeah, in the, like, six months after I got that job, I hired a full-time assistant, and she had to become the interim coordinator. Well, I took maternity leave, and I worked up until like a week before I had my son.

son and I came back like the second I could I loved my child don't get me wrong but I was like ready to get back and the timing worked out really good because I ended up having him in November and then I was back right before our first Green Fest so all the work that we had done I got to come and actually see it come to fruition so how many how long do you get for maternity leave I took I took exactly three months that's that's the authorization yeah or whatever so you have this first kid meanwhile Flynn's just going on deployment he's just gone all the time doing in the teams. Yeah, when you first check into a team, you're just gone.

Yep. It just, there's no, there's nothing. Yep. Seems like there's enough time to get pregnant again, though. Well, he came back. Yeah, he came back and he's like, I'm ready to have a second child. And like, I feel like, I feel like the universe just does whatever. Like Flynn puts it out in the universe and the universe just provides.

And so he gets back. And I'm like, no, I am finally like in this great state. My job's going good. I've got this kid now. He's two, like one and a half. And I had like finally lost all the weight. I was feeling good. I was strong.

Like I just was so excited to just be that for like the three months he was going to be home. And I finally convinced him like because we're going back and forth. And he's just like, I really think we should. And I'm like, no, we're not. And the whole time I'm arguing with him, I'm pregnant with our second son. So the universe provided. And now, yes, I'm pregnant with our second. All right.

So now that that takes place. You're pregnant again. You're still working the same job. So this is now 2010, right? Yes, yep. This is when, this is when Brendan died. Yep. What did that look like from your perspective?

So Brendan Looney, just a freaking outstanding guy, died in helicopter in Afghanistan. How did you, and this is one of Flynn's best, friends. Yep. How did you hear about it? I was in my office at San Diego State and I had a couple students and some staff in there and we were having this meeting and I had a big glass window or like door and I remember seeing Flynn up at the door and his eyes weren't red. He wasn't crying, but I could immediately tell something was wrong. Was it normal for him to come to the office? Yeah. Very abnormal. So I was like, why is he here and I could just see it on his face? So I excused myself and I

walked outside. And I thought, like, did something happen to his dad? Like, what's going on here? And it took him a second, and then he told me about the helicopter crash. So he had heard about the crash. And he talks about it as like knowing, like knowing Brendan was on that helicopter and not being able to explain why. Obviously not wanting that to be the case, but he basically went into Leif's office. He worked with Leif at that time at Steel Team One. And basically went in. And he went and just was like, tell me it wasn't Brendan. And Leif wasn't able to give him information initially because they hadn't contacted Amy yet.

They were trying to find her, his wife. And so Flynn kind of demanded again, like, tell me it wasn't Brendan. And he could see it on Leif's face. And Leif was like, hey, we haven't been able to contact. Amy, there's nothing you can do right now. But I'll call you as soon as we find her so you can go to the house. So he told me what had happened. and we didn't know what to do.

We were just waiting to try to figure out how to help. So we left and we got lunch. We're just waiting for this phone call. And I remember we went to in and out. He finished his meal. And he goes, okay, I'm done feeling sorry for myself. Let's figure out what we can do for the family. And he just made this shift of like, okay, we're just going to figure out what's next.

Was he part of the notification for Amy? No. So Amy was on a sales call. She was in a sales position, and so she was out on this call, and nobody could find her. And so at this point, they were like, hey, sit tight and we'll call you as soon as we find her. Because we didn't know where she was. And we got that phone call right after he had kind of made that declaration that, like, hey, we're not going to feel sorry for ourselves.

We're going to go just figure out how to help. And we got the call that they had found Amy and that we could now go to the house. So we went to Amy's house about a half an hour after she had been to live. delivered the news. When you were at that time, you know, you got Flynn kind of going on deployment and it's sort of, you know, where were you guys living? Claremont Mesa. So you're living in Claremont Mesa.

You know, you're working. He disappears, but you don't really think about where he's at. Like it seems like it's very easy living in San Diego, California that the war isn't a real thing. 100%. I thought my husband and his teammates were invincible. invincible. I was completely naive to the reality that they may not come home. So when we found out about Brendan, it was devastating. And devastating because it like shattered this really cool veil I

had as to what was going on. And now, you know, I realize they're not invincible. And it was Brendan, like one of the best human beings, one of the best guys I've ever known. And it just seems so unreal. I know I always felt like when the families would go to funerals. Like I can't tell what they're thinking, but you've got to imagine that every single wife, parent, son, daughter is all thinking, this could be my dad, this could be my husband, this could be my son. Like that has to be the thought going through.

And that's why those, you know, like, you know, when I had guys, killed I remember my wife going to these services and I was like oh my gosh this is gonna be you just such a shock to the system and you know what's interesting is I went I have like emails that I'd be sending my wife and my wife you know we're in the middle of the Battle of Vermont guys are getting Army and Marine Corps guys are getting wounded and killed every day and I'm sending my wife emails like oh hey you know how's like literally not one Indication of any kind at all that there's a war going on that there's any danger of any kind

Mikey Monsor same thing you know talked to to his family and They're like yeah he Mikey Monsor who is in a gunfight on a daily basic basis practically the entire deployment was like they're like oh what are you doing over there and he says oh you know we're just training Iraqis We don't do very much. It's boring. He's telling his family. It's boring So that it's I think it's just to to recognize the fact that especially I think in San Diego you know if you're in if you're at Fort Campbell Kentucky like the whole the whole it's such a focus and and the the airborne divisions are huge and everybody's a part of it in

San Diego you know you're in the SEAL teams like you're not everyone's a part of it and there's a bunch of Navy people but they're not gonna be getting killed in combat and so you get very very detached from or like you said like there's a there's a protective screen up that you don't realize when these guys get on a plane they might not come back and yeah I can't imagine how that impacted you your thoughts your family as that happened and as you watched this happen to to Amy I figured out really early because we got to this house and I'm pregnant at this time too. So I've just got a bunch of, you know, heightened emotions anyways. And I walked into that room and I just remember thinking like, I can't do this. Like she had a really good friend and her sister-in-law that was there and they were sitting on the

couch holding her hand. And I had a moment where I could give her a hug and kind of hold her hand. And then very quickly, I was like, I don't have the capacity to do this. And so I went over to the Keko officer and I was like, hey, what can I do to help? Can you just give me some something to do. And he was like, yeah, actually, I need someone to go in the office and find something. He was looking for some paperwork. And so that's really how I manage that entire excursion is looking for things to do. Even when we ended up going out to the family and the funeral, it was like, cool, I'll make the programs. I'll go meet with the people at the church with the family. I'll order dinner. Like, just give me something to do because I can't emotionally handle the weight

of this right now. It was too much at a young age. to manage and I couldn't I can't even fathom if I was feeling that the weight that that Amy was feeling yeah very similar to my sort of standard operating procedure in those times was like okay I need to do work I need to find something to do and that's I don't think a bad thing you know it might not be the healthiest thing in the world but I'll tell you what you got to get through especially when there's the family and you know like you got to support them that's got to become the focus, not your own personal grief for sure. And, you know, and Amy ended up

with Ryan and Heather Kelly write in the book. A knock at the door actually covered it with Ryan on this podcast, Podcast 201, just a very powerful book and incredible to hear their perspective through these terrible, terrible situations. You now have a son named Brayorne. Yeah. So Brendan, Brendan passed in September 2010 and my second, we didn't know if it was a boy or girl. And we were at his funeral and we got in the car and Flynn kind of lost it. And then when he kind of compiled himself, he was like, I just have this instinct that it's a boy, that our child is a boy and I want to name him Brendan. And I want to ask the family. And he was asking for my permission. I was like, yeah, go for it. And so he talked to the family shortly after that and asked if that would be okay and my Brendan was born

in January and it was a boy and we named him Brendan in honor of Brendan Looney absolutely outstanding was was Flynn did Flynn have another deployment to do at this point yes yep he he he my son Brendan was born. He was home for like three days and then he left, but that was a training excursion. And then I think it was like, no, yeah, it was a year later he did another deployment to the Philippines this time.

So you were a little bit more comfortable when he's down there in the Philippines as opposed to being over in the Middle East at the time? Yeah. He had done an deployment to Yemen, which was definitely a little more heightened, you know, because at the time there was a lot of stuff going on the news about Yemen

and some of the dangers there. and I didn't get to talk to him very much when he was in Yemen, hardly at all. So the Philippines was a very different experience because I got to talk to him. I actually flew out there and like he took leave for a week and I hung out. Like that didn't happen on any other deployment

that he had been previously. No. Yeah, and that's the thing is, it doesn't matter where you are. You know, when you're in the military, you're flying in helicopters, you're parachuting, you're diving. Like all these things are, you know,

they're all risky. It's all risky business. We mitigate the risk as much as we can. but things can still happen. So I know there's stress when you're doing that. And then he comes home from that deployment and he, Flynn decides he's going to get out. Yeah, I think it was that deployment. I can't remember.

It all just melts together. It's like six years of just straight chaos. But yeah, he decides he's going to get out. He had always had a dream. I mean, even going into the SEAL teams, he was going to get out of the military. He was going to do one more stint and then get out. He was on a shit prayer to that. He just realized he went to the, he went.

into the military just to get through school and cover school, ROTC program, because he's one of eight and they just didn't have money for college. So he's like, cool, I can go this way and kind of bankroll college. And then he realized that he didn't want his Navy time to be what he had experienced prior to that. It just, now that it was a bad thing at all, he just wanted to do more. He didn't want that to be that his lasting legacy was like, oh, I spent a couple years on a ship and then, you know, pushed off. So he ended up. I think, correct me from wrong, but Flynn was. was like in the Persian Gulf while it was like literally while I was in Ramadi.

Yep. And he's like seeing reports of what's going on and seeing the news. And he just kind of said to himself, I got to I got to try and do that. Yeah. And so he kind of put the package in and went that route. But he always had the desire to go on and do something else when that was over. So he knew he wasn't necessarily going to be a life, especially as an officer. Like you get to a certain point where you don't get to do the things that you love to do.

And he always knew that he had another route he wanted to take. So he ended up applying to a couple of business schools and wanted to go get his master's. So we left San Diego and drove cross country to Boston with our two boys and kind of changed up everything at that point. Then you just ditched your job? Yeah, I was not happy about this move. I wanted to support him, but I was kind of stoked he was getting out of the Navy. That's got to be a little bit of a relief for you. Kind of.

But not really? I mean, yes, yes and no. I mean, you build up such a, it's such a strong community, that there's such a high sense of pride. And I had learned so much that at this point, I was a lot more comfortable in that setting. Not that I wanted him going off to war, and I didn't want the chance of him not coming home,

but there was just a real pride in what we were doing. And now we're leaving. I'm leaving a job I loved that I would have stayed at forever, where I have a, I feel like I have a lot of value. Like I'm valued in this role and I just felt comfortable there. And my kids were set up in a really good situation. They went to the daycare on campus, which was incredible. And I just had really good relationships.

And if I'm being honest, there was probably a little bit of resentment because I had like already, everything that I cared about or I thought I cared about in college, like just made a shift because now we're just focusing on Flynn's going through buds, Flynn's becoming a seal, Flynn's deploying. And so everything was always the second seat to what he was doing. And now once again, we were uprooting our lives and going cross country to support him. And so it was just a transition that I had to make. And it took me a little while.

Coupled with, like, now I go to this prestigious university and people are, like, find out I'm a mom. And then, like, conversation ends. And they're like, oh, cool. And then they want to move on to something more interesting. So now I'm like, I left his career and now I'm like the stay at home mom supporting my husband while he goes through college. And I wasn't super happy with that role. Yeah. It was it was, it took me a couple months to get comfortable there.

That was the attitude you got, huh? Yeah. It was like, yes, especially early on because all the students are just trying to meet the other students. And there's all these things that we do when you get there that they do as part of onboarding and orientation and things like that. There's all these different events and, you know, people would be having a conversation with you and they'd be like, oh, so what do you do? And it was like, oh, well, you know, I was in this, but now I'm home with my kids and they're like, oh, cool. So who are you? And it was like, all of a sudden I'm like, no, like, I do cool stuff too.

Like, I've had a career. Like, it just was difficult. It was a lot of, a lot of ego on my side that I had to manage because I was like struggling. Yeah. I've got to admit I've adopted my son and his buddies will use the term. yo at this point for like for like everything every reaction that they give so I'm I'm in that it's kind of grabbing me so when you tell me that someone's like oh nice to meet you bye yeah I'm like yo so he's going to college and then you're you're living I mean it's

not cheap to live in Boston and no what's his job does he have a job no is he getting GI oh do you even have GI Bill yeah yeah okay so he's got GI Bill yeah yeah ribbon and all that. Yeah. He, we, yeah, we depleted our savings in the two years that we were in Boston. And in, once I got past the initial shock of just this new life. And hating everyone. Yeah, yeah. I loved it. It was such a cool experience because it was the first time that Flynn was home a lot. So now, like, Nico would get on his little bike and he'd ride from our little apartment that was on campus across to where Flynn would have his break in between classes and he'd bring him an energy drink.

Goes weren't out at this time, but he would bring him an energy drink in a book and Flynn would spend his break reading and, you know, drinking this energy drink. And then Nika would ride back. And he would come home for lunch and then go lay down with Brendan and put Brendan down and then go back to class. And so all of a sudden it went from like he's never around ever to he's here a lot. like I see him in the morning, he's coming home at lunch, I see him again in night. But I started to figure out, like I made friends, so that really helped.

And I started to get a little more comfortable with like just having time with my kids that I hadn't had previously. And then in my true nature, I just started finding things I could do. So I started helping with various things on campus. I got into some event planning on campus. Flynn came home with a project and I basically did it. So I just started like, cool, I can still have all this stuff and I'll just find ways to satisfy, like the challenging component that I needed. And as you're, as Flynn's kind of wrapping up there is when Laif came out to talk to Flynn and be like, hey Flynn, you know, we've got this thing going an echelon front. What do you think?

You know, when you graduate from school, maybe you come by and we could see if you want to work with us. And you're like eavesdropping on this conversation or something? No, so Lave came to dinner at our house, but Brendan, I don't know what he had done, but for whatever reason I had to take him to the emergency room. He needed like a stitch or something. Just, you know, boys, two boys. I had my third daughter at that point, too, my third child, my daughter. So I had to leave, so I didn't stay for dinner.

So I, like, said hi to Lief and then I was out with Brennan, like, managing whatever injury he had. And I got home, and Flynn was telling me about their conversation in this company on front in this book and what you guys were doing. And I was like, oh, cool. And he was like, yeah, he was kind of trying to, you know, see if I was interested. But at that point, he had already committed to this other consultancy and, like, had a path. And he was like, you should reach out. Like, I, you'd love what they're doing.

And I was like, I don't know. And I thought about it for about a half an hour. And I was like, you know what? I'm going to. And I sent Laf an email. I think it was that night. And I just said, hey, I had this great conversation with Flynn. And he told me about what you guys are doing.

And I don't know what you're looking for. Or if I even and what you're looking for. what you're looking for. But if there's an opportunity, we're leaving this stint, and I'm kind of looking for my next mission, and I'd love to talk to you about it. What did you think he wanted? I had no idea. No idea. I saw him two weeks later. We were in New York, and we went to brunch with him and his wife, and we had a conversation again at that point. And that's when he kind of told me, hey, I got your email. Like, if I'm being honest, what I need right now is probably like part time, maybe 10 hours,

maybe 20 hours, but it's kind of like admin because I had sent in my resume and like did this whole thing. And we had this conversation and I was like, you know what? I don't know what I want to do. I can go back to higher education, but I'm just kind of looking for something that's that challenge. So if you're open to it, I'd be open for some part time work. and that'll give me some time to kind of figure out

what I really want to do. So I just was stoked about what you guys are building even just without really understanding what it was at the time, I was just excited. So I was willing to kind of take the part-time job to just, you know, see if it worked out. Yeah, and they somehow convinced me to hire you because I never want to hire anybody.

I was adamant. He sent me, he forwarded me an email. What did I say? He forwarded me an email. He was like, this is from, 2014 and it was something along the lines of gosh I wish I could remember the terminology but it was some legal legal description for you and it was like general labor should we oh yes we put her as should this should this description be you know employee or should it be general labor and I just

wrote back two words I wrote back general labor that's it that's a fair description in the early day as a bachelor of ride so that's what you did you came and you started kind of like just doing admin. Because the discussion I had with Laef was like, we could really use someone to help us, you know, book our travel and stuff. It was like, book your own travel. I'm like, I'm booking my own travel.

You can book your own travel. It'll be fine. And, you know, he's just kept at it. And eventually was like, all right, cool. I figured he's not going to be pestering me that much. And, you know, in typical, typical fashion, he was able to articulate good reasons. I wasn't able to articulate reason not.

So eventually you got to say, okay, this might be a better plan than mine, which is my plan was just a BTF on and just keep doing everything ourselves. So he won that and we brought you on as just doing like travel. I don't know what else you were doing. You were doing like travel. I didn't talk to you. I didn't care. I was like, I don't need this support.

Maybe you should pay for this girl life. Maybe that's what you should do. I don't think I talked to you for like the first year. Like even in person, like you were always cordial, you always nice. And you weren't like mean or rude by any means. But there was definitely a little bit of like a, we'll see about this. Like I could feel it. I was like, all right.

But I'd worked a lot with Laif and I was doing like literally some of the most menial, mundane admin tasks. And I took on some other jobs too, some part-time jobs because I was paying for full-time childcare but like working at Echonfront like five or ten hours a week. And so I picked up a job at Tiffany and company. and I was doing some stuff with them that was kind of, like I just had to go monthly and I did a lot of design in their like window displays and things of that nature. So I just was taking on little projects to manage like the full-time cost

of sending my kids to childcare. And I remember Flynn was like, hey, how long are we going to do this? You know? And he was good with it. He was very supportive. But it was a valid question. And I was like, you know what? Just give me six months.

And this point I had been with you guys for like six months. I'm like, just give me six months. And, you know, and then I'll make a decision if they're, haven't progressed or I don't have an opportunity to grow here like we'll we'll make a decision and it wasn't long after that that the book came out and like everything changed yeah and when the book came out that was kind of my I don't know if I I probably met you before that or talked to you before that but it wasn't when the book came out was sort of like the first time I saw your capabilities and I was super stoked because you were because it was like three hours

asleep a night it was you know all day long tight pressure timelines everything had to be organized and I remember you probably don't remember this but I remember we have like the St. Martin's press guy who's a good guy but I was I remember like looking at you like what you tell me and he was kind of like you like you were getting in on his rice bowl because you proved to me pretty quick that you know what's going on and you can handle it you would be making things happen And so that was definitely left a really awesome impression on me the way you handled. We probably did in seven days. We probably did, you know, so many.

Yeah, so many little movements and to the different place and to the radio station and the TV place and to the interview place. And then the dinner thing and just all that stuff going on. And I didn't think about anything. All I did was do what you told me to do, which as you know now, like that's how I roll. Like I'm not looking about what's going on. I'm not getting into the details of this stuff. You tell me where to go, put a mic in my hand, and I'm a rock and roll. That's what I'm going to do, Echo Charles.

So as soon as I realized, oh, she gets it. Like she understands how to make this stuff happen. And like you did exactly what we needed. And so after that, I was super stoked. And then I think you just started to take things. This is sort of the, you know, when I did that intro talking about the principles and how you utilize the principles, what you started doing is taking ownership of things, taking ownership of things that were important, things that you knew you could control and get in order, and that's what

you did. And every time you grabbed, you know, Project A and you had control over it and it worked, and it was like, oh, Project B is over there. Let's take that one and Project C. And I'm like, hey, we got Project D, Jamie. Can you do this too? And you're like, oh, I'm already on it. And so then it was just an escalation. You know, if you, it's such a good lesson learned for people you you literally were hired part-time as to do admin work and you just started taking ownership dominating crushing and the more you crushed and the more you took ownership of the more ownership and responsibility you got the more you did and then you started I don't know how long it was but all of a sudden you looked at us like hey I need help because once the book came out the podcast

came out and then it was it was on like donkey Kong and we started just getting all kinds of work. It was like a month after that, that world win of a trip. And I remember Leif invited me to the book launch and he was like, hey, you should come out with us to New York. And like we started in Vegas.

You has had a gig. And it was your first like book signing and keynote and then we ended up going to New York from there. And you're right. It was a total gut check. And now that you know what you know about me, I loved it. I was like, this is like total chaos.

You're getting like, I remember going to, going back to my room, I stayed it with like a friend. We had no money. Like, Eschon and Front didn't have money back then. I wasn't staying in some posh hotel. I stayed with a friend. And we got back at like one after like all day go.

And I had three hours to basically sleep before I had to get back on the subway and meet you guys. And I, she was in like a New York apartment, so no windows. And I shut the door and I crashed. And when I woke up, I didn't know where I was. Like I was just so tired. But it was like, cool, let's go. And you really started to take a turn. I didn't know what I was intended to do during the book launch.

I was like, all right. Laef asked me to go. There wasn't a lot of guys. and so like, hey, here's what we need you to do. So I just was like, I just need to be ready to answer any questions. I need to understand this schedule so that I could help in whatever was required of me. And that really was my mantra through all of that, that first year and a half before the book came out, was like, I'm just going to find a way to provide value because I don't have a clear understanding

of what exactly I should be doing here. But when I saw a need, I was like, all right, let me just see if I can handle that. and then something would come up, you know, in conversation. I'd be like, well, I could probably do that. Let me try to figure that out. And just that continued over time. And then the book came out and it was like a month later. We started getting calls from people to have you guys out to speak.

And all of a sudden that cadence became significant. And I was like, hey, Leif, I think this part-time gig now needs to be full-time. And it went from like 20 hours a week to like 65 and like nonstop consuming all of my waking hours. And it was maybe eight months or nine months after that. that I finally was like, hey, I'm going to need a little help if we're going to continue doing this. Like I've reached a capacity of things that I could take off the plate. Because early on it was marketing, finance, accounting, budgeting, sales, contracting. I mean, like, the list was endless of like what I was trying to handle.

And I realized at a certain point that I can't do all of this. Yeah, that was awesome. It's an awesome path for anyone to follow, you know, anyone to follow. You didn't have experience in finance, marketing, contracting, all that other stuff. You didn't have any experience in that, but you took it. You'd get help if you needed to call a lawyer or call someone about some contract. You'd get that done. But to take ownership of it and get the job done using whatever means necessary, that's what you did.

And you just started to grow in responsibility. And then you started to grow in your job as well. And we started to grow the company. As we started to grow the company, you know, all the tide rises, all boats ride with the rise with the tide. That was you. And it's a protocol that anybody can fall. I think I, in one muster, I called the Jamie Cochran protocol, like go and start doing

stuff and start making it right. And if you do that, you're going to, it's so obvious when people, you know, we work with so many companies, if you're a, if you're a highly motivated person, that will step in and take responsibility and take ownership and make things happen, you're going to rock and roll. People are going to love having you and they're going to give you that responsibility. Look, if you take responsibility for something and you mess it up, you could find yourself moving in the other direction. Now, if you take responsibility and you mess up and you say, hey, this is the mistake I made. It won't happen again.

Then it's like, okay, cool. Well, let's make sure it doesn't happen again. And we move forward and you can make up for that and go beyond it. But that idea of taking, being humble enough to take a job because, you know, you were, had a pretty prominent job at San Diego State University, and you went from that prominent job to a pretty menial job first at Eshlam Front, and you were humble enough to do that. You didn't complain about it. I actually didn't think I've ever seen you complain anyways to this day.

So you didn't complain about it. You just did it, and you did it well. You know, what's funny is you don't like doing paperwork, do you? Not my thing. Yeah. And like, I didn't know that until like three years ago. Like three years ago, I was like, oh, she doesn't like doing paperwork. She's like me.

I always thought you were like into it. You were one of those people. No, you know, to the point you just made, you can't deny performance. You can't deny it. And to your guys' credit, you guys gave me so much leeway. Like I would say, hey, I was thinking about taking this on. You'd be like, yeah, go for it. Like there was just a lot of autonomy, which I loved.

And really, you guys set me up for failure because I was like, well, I have to make it work at that special product because I can't go back to like the red tape that you get on a college campus. And you want to talk about paperwork. There's a lot of that there. But no, I'm not really one for the details. I can do it. And I did do it in the beginning. You definitely did it.

You have to like hone in the paperwork and the details and those types of things. But where I really love sitting is the brainstorming and the thinking and the solving problems and the big picture. I love that piece of it. But early on at uschon front, there wasn't a lot of capacity for that because we had all these smaller tactical things that had to get done. And then obviously as our team has grown in. nine years, I just keep hiring people that are way better at the details and the paperwork than I am so that they can handle those things. And we got, you know, Jen Tarantino, who's a freaking like warrior when it comes to like the details and the paperwork and the just the logistics,

which enables me to actually do what I like, which is just to think big picture. So we get done with 2015. And 2016 is when we did our first muster, which it was kind of like, what was it, August was when we decided to do it. It was September. Yeah, I think we decided in August and then the event happened in October, I think. Yeah. So it was something like that. It was a short turnaround.

Luckily, you had experienced an event planning. I don't know if you and Leif really wanted to do it. I just remember. Yeah, yeah. I remember a phone call and like we had been talking about it like vaguely. And then finally the three of us were on a call and it was like, hey, we want to do this event. We want to do it in October. We want to do it in San Diego, and we want like 350 people.

Can you make that happen? And I was like, yeah, yeah, I can make that happen. And inside I'm like, I don't know if I can make that happen. This seems like a really tight time frame. But we pulled it together. It turned out awesome. We sold that event out. Yeah.

We had 365 people at that first event. And it felt like we made it. Yeah, that was epic. Yeah. I remember from my perspective, I was like, hey, worst case scenario. 32 people show up at this thing and they're going to have literally the best event they've ever had in their life and they'll be stoked and we'll lose some money but we'll you know we'll figure it out and you're like okay cool fair enough let's rock and roll I was like managing this budget to like

the penny because my biggest fear was like I can't have the first program the first big project they give me be a failure and so I'm like how many tickets do we need to sell that at least it's a wash. I just don't want to go into the red. And I had like this like very detailed budget and I was tracking every single thing. And we had nothing established. We didn't know what the two day agenda was going to look like. We didn't know what kind of auto visual we wanted. There was so many things that came out of that first muster, like the music we play in between sets and walk in and things of that nature. Like merchandise was a new thing for us. We never had any of that. There was just so much in that first muster that is awesome because we've evolved so much. But,

it really set the stage and there's still things that we learned in that first master we implement now that just worked. And that's where I think from a leadership perspective, when you execute things and you're going to take some risk to execute things, sometimes the downside because you executed quickly, the downside because you didn't have maybe things fully planned out, the upside is the lessons that you learned because you can't learn lessons. You can't learn all the lessons unless you execute. so actually executing something and that's one of the things that drove me to execute that thing

was like oh I know if we do this we're going to learn a bunch we're going to learn a bunch we're going to learn how to do it and then it's going to be one step closer to being a lot better whereas just sitting around and brainstorming like well what do you think it'll be like when we do a two day schedule

like no let's make a two day schedule and let's execute this thing and then you figure out hey this was a little too much or do a little bit less of that or a little bit more of that so I think leaning towards executing as long as you can mitigate the risk you know, somewhat, then take a shot, take a crack at it.

That's what we're doing. And that's what we did. And what muster are we on now? We're coming up on muster 17. Muster 17. And to your point, we haven't stopped learning. Like I remember after that muster, there was a ton of lessons learned. And then we did it again and there was more lessons learned.

And we did it again and there was more lessons learned. And even to this last event, muster 16, we debriefed after. And there was like, okay, there's a couple things we can still tweak. There's always little things. Every muster we've added something or done something based on feedback from attendees and observations from the team. So that debrief has been awesome because every event just gets better. Yeah. That being said, the learning curve on the first like three or four musters was insane.

I remember Laif and I were up in New York City, our second muster. It's two o'clock in the morning. We have to get up at three o'clock in the morning to PT and we're signing certificates. And it was just like, yo. Yeah, Leif always brings up that story because there was a bunch of certificates that have been duplicate printed. So he just was like, you guys just want to get done and he's seeing like John seven times. And he's just like, oh my gosh. That was a big one.

I mean, that was the first time we had JP and Dave on stage. So that was a learning curve. I was super sick at that muster, like really sick. We got the day kicked off. And I like went up to the room and took a nap because I was like very sick. And it was that second one was my least favorite. Even though it was the first time with Dave and JP. It was cool.

Yeah. And it was awesome being in New York, kind of. Like there was not, there's a lot of things that are negative about New York, but there was also some awesome things about being in New York City. That was cool. Then you, when did you talk?

Because you ended up eventually, because listen, as I'm watching this, I'm seeing that, you know, we have zero employees, then we have you. Then all of a sudden we have three.

Then all of a sudden we have five. Then all of a sudden we have seven. Then we have you know we're bringing instructors on like this is growing and so what I'm getting to see this whole time is you Utilizing the principles that we sit around and talk about that you had to sit there and listen to it you you had to sit there and read and I saw you utilizing them like and for me there's a there's a You know Alan Belcher jiu jiu jitsu? Yes, m. Yes sir When he fought against tukino you know what tiquino is? Yeah, he was a guy that was a brutal leg locker brutal leg locker and they were fighting in the UFC and Alan Belcher had Dean Lister go down and spend like a month training him for leg locks and everyone was absolutely horrified of Tocino's leg locks. He had hurt people and he was kind of like a little bit crazy where when he would get a heel hook or something he would crank it and hurt people so everyone was kind of scared of him and I'd actually had one of my guys Thomas Draval fought him and got healed

hooked in the first round and like it hurt like injury like the whole nine yards so Alan Belcher is going to fight to quino and he hires Dean Lister Dean Lister goes down and trains him on how to defend leg locks and then I'm watching the fight on UFC and I it was the there's the coolest thing because I'm watching Alan Belcher and I'm like oh he's going to he's doing this right up there's the defense oh yeah and I could see that he was literally taking Dean's principles and just putting him to work and he beat, and he got out of every heel hook attempt.

And he was kind of like being provocative about it. Like, oh, try and heel hook me or try and footlock me. And took him you couldn't get it. And he ended up, Alan Belcher won the fight. It was awesome. But I remember watching going, oh, I know exactly what that is. I see what you're doing there. I see what you're doing Alan Belcher.

Oh, there's the next move. You can see what he was doing. You could see what he had learned. And I got to watch you apply these things. And I'd be like, I know I see exactly what she's doing. Oh, she's using decentralized command over there. Oh, she's got primaritized and execute. And I was watching you do this, you know, for a year, two years, three years.

And at some point, Leif and I are talking like, you know, be kind of cool to get Jamie to get up there and talk about some of these principles from her perspective. And also it'd be cool to get that, you know, someone that's not in the military up there because we have, you know, me, Dave, J.P., Laif, we're all military background. And we're sitting here preaching to people that this stuff works in any environment. Well, it's nice to get someone that's from a different environment, get up there and tell what it's like and how it is from the pure civilian perspective. So eventually, what was it? It was in Australia was the first time you got up on there, right? Yeah, the conversation had come up a couple months before that. And I was like, yeah, yeah, just kind of like, sure, guys.

And we didn't really talk about it again. And then when we were getting ready for Australia, it was the prime opportunity because we weren't taking the entire crew. We were taking a more condensed crew because we're obviously going all the way to Australia and it was expensive. So it got brought up again and I finally was like, all right, like we'll give this a try. And I prepped for my first brief at that muster and I gave my first keynote there. And I was terrified. Why were you terrified? I'd rather get up there and sing a song.

I think it was just like it wasn't necessarily the stage. It wasn't even the audience. It was two things. one, it was my first time, so there's just a lot of pressure. I think I gave that brief like 47 times before I ever went on stage. My parents probably heard it like 12 times because I was like, can I run my brief for you again? And so I just was really practiced and I wanted to make sure I did well. The biggest challenge or the reason why it was so difficult was it wasn't the audience. It wasn't the stage. It was the fact that sitting stage right was you and Laith and Dave and JP and these

people that I highly respected and valued. And I didn't want to let you down. And I didn't want to do a disservice to the content that we teach because I believed in it. And I wholeheartedly wanted to help people understand that these principles apply in every aspect. And I was, I think, a little afraid that I would somehow not do the message justice. Well, you kind of knocked it out of the park, didn't you? I thought you did. The crowd thought you did. You obviously got repeat performances. Now you're a staple. Yeah.

A staple of that. And from there, once you did that, you know, now you're a full-on instructor at Echelon Front. And you had to do a couple things to make that happen. Well, number one, you kept, you know, you went and expanded from like, oh, well, Jamie can do that keynote. And then Jamie can actually do a little bit of a workshop. And then all of a sudden you're doing that stuff. you also had to build a team that could do everything that you were doing that could cover for all that other stuff so that you could go out and do the instructor type stuff.

So you had a, it was a pretty quick though. You did that pretty quickly, that transformation. Yeah. It was like over a year. Well, and we had been slowly building the team at that point anyways. And up until that point, like I got a lot of credit for the musters. People would come out and be like, man, that was awesome. You run a crate event.

And I always wanted to be like, no, no. don't understand. Like there is a team of people that are managing this that are making me look good. And we're just lucky because the people that come to these events make this atmosphere very unique compared to other environments. So like we could be mediocre and the event would still be amazing because people show up and they just are engaged. So there was just, there was already this team dynamic and people on the team that were stepping up and taking over responsibilities to the point where I could even be on stage in Australia. Whereas like four musters prior to that, there's no way I could have done that because I was in the background managing all of that,

that, uh, the responsibilities. And then over time, every muster, I had less and less and less to do. Kind of like echo. Echo shows up, you know, with his camera and then I'll, oh, at the muster. Yeah, he just walks around holding it. He's not actually taking footage. He's actually signing books and and he's, you know, just with the people. But, but over time, that happened with me at the muster. I had less and less to do. Um, and so it opened the pathway for me to actually. think more about what it would be like to be an instructor. And I realized, I realized after that first semester that when people look at you in Leif, they see something that maybe is like they can't achieve. And so what I provided was a different perspective and the recognition that like, hey, I'm not like

these season combat veterans that I work with. I'm just a regular person just trying to become a better mom and trying to implement these principles in my business and how I lead my life. And people saw themselves in me. And so I got over that imposter syndrome of is there, you know, what am I doing trying to teach this message to, you know what? I have some value to add. I have a perspective that I think

could help people. Yeah. And like I said, you put this stuff to work. I mean, you're talking about the muster, the first four musters, you were kind of in the weeds and you had to do stuff. The fifth muster, maybe a little less, the six months. You don't do anything now at the monster. No, I get in my team's way. I'm like, hey, guys. And Jen's like, no, no, no, we got it. And then I'm like, well, what about this? She's like, we got it. And I'm like,

you know what I'll just be over here if you need anything yeah and what that is is that's decentralized command yeah that's making sure that everyone understands what the mission is that's cover move that's everyone understanding what the priorities are like those are the principles being executed the musters are great example I mean I use the muster as an example at the muster because it truly does represent the principles it's really obvious everyone's there everyone's like like the crowd is sitting there and it's like oh all this stuff I didn't do anything I didn't do it all I did was show up they put a microphone on me I'll walk out there and talk That's literally all I have to do there's a v set up there's meals there's PT happening

There's gift bags for everybody there's the run of show and the slide like all the stuff I don't do anything I don't do anything and and now you don't do anything either barely So so when you talk about oh you can just give your perspective that's cool But also you can literally speak to the fact of how these principles work for you. And the other thing that's cool about being an instructor at Eschaton Front is you get to work with other companies. And when you work with other companies, you start to see when they start to implement the

principles, you start to get the feedback from them and they see how it works. And now you have more tools to be able to explain these principles and how they function in different environments. So it's a pretty cool growth for you to go, to make that transition. but it's also a really obvious move. It seems real obvious now. It might not have seemed obvious to you at some point. But like when you got done in Australia,

actually before you even got done, I was like, you know, I watch you operate. I know what you do. I understand that you understand. I know that you deeply understand what it means to take extreme ownership. I know that you fully recognize what it means to cover move. Like these are things that you can, answer any question about. So I think it's an obvious move. I'm glad you're there now.

Oh, yeah, I love it now. I still get nervous and it's still you guys. Because I go speak to companies all the time. I did a keynote yesterday and it's like no factor. It's just get up. You talk about it. I love the stuff. When I'm speaking about it, it's authentic because I've seen it in my own life literally transform the way that I handle challenges and problems. And so I believe it. And so it's very natural and easy. to give a keynote. And then we get to the muster and people are like, why are you so nervous? I'm like, it's you. It's like, it's you guys because it's probably that same sense I talked about earlier with my dad of like, I just didn't want to let him down. I have that same sense of, you know,

significance with the echelon front team. I just don't want to let you guys down or disappoint you by not following through and doing the things that we're supposed to do. So if I'm ever teetering on like not following the principles, it's like I always go right back to it because I'm like, I can't be here as a part of this company and managing this mission or helping to support this mission of helping people learn these principles if I'm not applying them in every single aspect of my life. Yeah, being an echelon front

is a very difficult place to make excuses. It just doesn't work out very well. What do we do? We did Jocco Live, which is another, I threw Jocco Live at you with, how far in advance was that? Right before we left, Australia. It was like December, like maybe November 30th or something, but right before we left for

Australia, you were like, I don't even know how it came about. Somebody had the idea and we're like, all right, we're going to do this, the Jocko Live tour in January. We did six shows. And so we had a month to prepare for that while we were in Australia for basically two weeks doing the muster and then Christmas. And we came back from Christmas and it was like, boom, we went six weeks in a row, Six different shows. We got more Jocko Live coming up, by the way. I haven't even talked about it. I keep forgetting to talk about it.

I'm very bad at advertising. They're close to sold out, so you got to get your tickets now. So what is it? It's Ann Arbor, Michigan. It's Shytown. Yep. It's Boston. And where's the last one?

Philly. And Philly. Yeah. That's right. July 7th and 8th and the 21st, 22nd. Yeah. So if you want to come check out a Jocco Live. It's just me.

Talking. Playing guitar? No, I'm not doing it. We can add that into the second round. That first round was so cool because you, if you don't know what Jackalive is, and I think people,

it's a cool way for people to introduce you to people in their life that may not listen to the podcast. But every show is unique, which I thought was so crazy. You could have easily done the exact same thing at six shows, and no one would have ever noticed. But you, like, based on the city you were in, your intro was different for every single show.

of the core of it was kind of the same, but I just was so fascinated going on tour with you. And I was like, I cannot believe, like, the imagination never stops with you. There's always something different. Like, just when I think I've learned it all, I've heard you talk for nine years, nearly every single day. And then you say something. And I'm like, gosh, damn it. Like, there's another good thing. I got to write this down.

Like, it's crazy. Yeah, the Jockal Live things are awesome. How many people, they're like 1,000, maybe 1,500 people. Yeah. These venues are between 1,000. I was in and I think 1800. I'm not a diva. I'll like hang out.

Someone just sent me a message. Like, hey, is it possible that I could please, you know, meet you at this thing? I'm like, yeah, 100%.

I'm gonna be walking around out front, you know? I'm not like in the green room with cucumbers on my eyes the way Echo Charles is usually. You actually get in trouble at those venues because you hang out beforehand

and they're like panicking because they're like, we have to start the show and people can't get to their seats because Jocco's in the aisle away and I'm like, yeah, yeah,

I got him. And then after the show, show, you know, we'll tell them and I will prep them, hey, we're going to be here for a long time because he's going to meet every single person that wants to meet him that night and take a picture and sign a book. And they're like, well, how long? And I'm like, we could go to 11. There was a couple of shows I think we hit midnight. And the venue's like, oh my gosh, can we get out of here? They're so pissed. But that's who you are. And I think, yeah, people coming to those events are wanting to meet you. That's why they come. So the fact that you stick around

to do it is cool. It was hype for you. too because at the muster you've got audio visual you've got all these people you got these meals got all those things going on at at jocco live I'm like can you get me a table a chair and I'm good and a microphone and so it's it's definitely a different vibe and I'll do Q&A too I do Q&A so if you got questions you're going to ask them you know there so anyways we got Chocco Live coming up you you managed to get that thing together it was all by the way super spreader events because it was just before COVID And it was crazy because we went to like every COVID town.

It was before COVID. Like no one had heard of COVID. But we finished in February, like February 28th or something was the last show. In San Francisco. So we did San Francisco, New York, D.C. Awesome. We went to every place that two weeks later was completely shut down from COVID. We were there hugging, broing out with people, just getting after it.

And so I felt like if there was a patient zero, and it happened to be me, I was like, if they pulled the string on this, I might be the guy. Especially that San Francisco show, because you were sick. Like, you almost lost your voice. And I was like,

I hope we can make it through this show. You think I had Miss Rona? Maybe. I wouldn't have been surprised. But I remember when, like, things started happening at, like, a couple weeks later, it was really closely after.

It was a couple weeks and they were talking about it. And I was like, we were just in San Diego with a thousand people, and you were sick. Oh, yeah. The San Diego show was sick.

You were. Yeah. Yeah. That was our last show. Well, I thought San Francisco was. That's what I meant. I'm sorry, San Francisco. Okay.

Yeah. I still have funny flashbacks when my oldest daughter and I would be arguing about the coronavirus. And we would be in the middle of like a heated argument. My daughter would be like, listen, Dad, the fact of the matter is Miss Rona exists. And I'd be like, yeah, but you can't blame everything on Miss Rona. We would still call it Miss Rona. Yeah. All right.

And then speaking of COVID, that was a wild time. Yep. That was a wild time at Eshlam Front. So Eshlam Front, 99% of our engagements in March of 2020 were live face-to-face going into companies, sitting down, working with them. And then March 15th comes. And I think we had, how many events do we have canceled for March? I think within the first month of like the world shutting down, we had 37. different events that were canceled. Or like they were like, hey, we got to postpone. We got to put this

on hold. Several companies panicked and they were like, we just need to cancel. There was a lot of uncertainty. Millions and millions and millions of dollars worth of revenue. Gone. Gone. And up until that point, we had never explored virtual training. And I think we all had this feeling that like you can't be effective virtually. So we weren't really doing it. And I think we always felt like this sense of like, no, in person is a way to go. And then all of a sudden it was like, well, I guess we can't do that. So what's next? We had explored it.

And the reason we explored it, because we had a base level platform. And the reason we had that was because I had a client and I went to this client and he said, I want you to teach every person in my company. And I think they had 150,000 people globally. Oh, yes. You're talking about the EF online. Yeah. Yeah.

So we had kind of started to do that. We had a platform. But like I said, it was being utilized 1% of the time. And what I was, yes, I totally forgot about EF online at that time because it was still very new in its infancy. But as far as like us going on site with clients, we weren't doing any of that virtually. Everything was like, no, no, being in person is really where you get,

you know, we had all these activities that required discussion and things like that. And there's also a hurdle to get over because clients would be like, what do you mean video? Like, what do you mean? How does that even work? Like, so people didn't want to do it. Yep. People said, no, you fly out here.

You fly to New York. You fly to Chicago. We want to hear you talk. And then that was the awesome thing about COVID was all of a sudden, in two weeks, every single person in the world was doing video teleconferencing, video conferencing, video presentations. And now it was just normal. And that was such a huge hurdle to overcome and open.

people's minds to this is a way to do this and there's actually some things about online training that's better you know for instance if I'm doing an online if I'm doing a presentation and I go and there's 3,000 people in the crowd the people in the back row you know what are they seeing they're there's guess what they're staring at they're staring at the big video monitor anyways but there's no real interaction and then when I'm doing a a presentation of 3,000 people over the over a web Whether it's teams or Zoom or Skype or whatever, I'm looking at them like look, you can't put 3,000 people on the screen, but you those 40 people those 40 little faces, you're getting more feedback from them than you are when you're staring at the bright lights giving a presentation to 3,000 people

So there's some real advantages also doing the Q&A. Look, you can do Q&A live and people can stand, but you don't get any screening of those questions Whereas if you have people submitting questions into a chat room, there's someone that's filtering through those questions figuring out what the best questions are. You're in an awesome place. So there's an actual things about virtual presentations and virtual events that are better. Now, listen, there are some things about live presentations that are better too. You get that human interaction. You get that energy. You get to real-time engagement that's human.

So there's advantages and disadvantages to both, but they're both really super positive. And there's really, they both have some positives, but there's no real like negatives to either one of them. There's no like, hey, this is actually the real downfall of virtual. There's no real downfall. There's no real downfall to live presentations. They both have some higher advantages, but the base level of both those things is outstanding, which is what the world learned from COVID. Well, the benefit for us is that we start, we make.

the quick pivot to virtual. We started doing free, remember we were doing three times a week free sessions and you could just join. Well, I thought you were going to talk about the amount of stuff we did for clients. No,

we started doing that too. We just started doing free stuff because our theory, and you said very early on when I would call you and I'd be like, hey, we had another client, they want to cancel their contract. This was before the world knew

like everything's going to shut down. So there was a lot of fear of like, okay, do I just void this contract? Do I just let it go? Like, do we hold them to term? like I didn't know how you wanted to handle that. And I would call you the first couple times and you'd say, finally you were like, hey, relationships are paramount.

And you gave me that one mantra. And I was like, okay, I can run with that. I understand your intent. I can now make decisions to prioritize our clients. And so very quickly, the whole team started to do that where we shifted to virtual sessions, oftentimes for free. We started just reaching out to our entire list of clients, just checking in and making ourselves available.

I know Dave did a big effort on that. and I actually talked to clients on the phone. They would call with challenges that they were dealing with all through COVID. And we had most of those contracts that were canceled, came back around at some point and we were able to fulfill them. Whether virtually, in fact, we had, I think, seven leadership development and alignment program clients, our big contracts that we do over the course of a long term, our long range training programs. All seven clients pivoted to virtual, and we didn't lose a single one. and we were able to be effective at training them in a virtual setting.

And the benefit to us is over that time, first of all, I got an immense amount of training myself because I got to sit with you guys three times a week and listen to this. And I got to practice because I started doing some of those sessions. But then at the end result for Echelon Front was now we figured out you've got in person and virtual and the real power is kind of when you use both. And you go do an in person and then you do a virtual follow up. Like now we can do more with the client that we couldn't do previously because budgets didn't allow for us to come four different times or get all their people or take their people

offline, we could do a in-person session and then send them to the academy for really amazing courses and continuation, or we could do live virtual sessions that are in deeper dive into what we're teaching, and we could have a lot more impact with our clients. Yeah, it's literally crazy to think about the number of times that I have flown to New York City or flown to Chicago or Orlando. Or flown to Orlando or flown anywhere to give a one-hour presentation. And so it takes me to go to New York. This is like a 48 hour at a minimum to get out there because you can't like leave it to the last minute.

You got to get out early, which means a day early, which means you're flying out early. And then you got to get a hotel and then you're saying the hotel and then you go there and you're going to get one hour from me. So they're pulling me offline for 48 to 72 hours to get a one hour thing. Meanwhile, COVID hits. I'm on a Zoom call and I'm giving the same presentation. and it takes me literally one hour and seven minutes because I'm going to get on early,

make sure everything squared away, give the presentation, answer questions, and we're all good to go. And you're going to do four of those or five of those in a day. Yep. It's like crazy how much it helped our capacity

and helped us by everyone understanding that virtual is a thing. It's a positive thing. There's positive to it. It has the same impact. It has an equally strong impact. There are some, there's something live.

Look, when live events started kicking back off and I was going to live events again, and we're going on live events now, there's a certain level of, look, they get the camaraderie of the team all coming together, you know, when there's 800 people at this company and they're all over the country. And then all of a sudden, they're all in the same room. There's networking and relationship building that happens. And then we're there to help that out. So there's that side of it.

But man, to get those 800 people. people and talk to them six times instead of just once and have them all on a Zoom call at the same time, six times. There is some serious positives to the virtual stuff as well. And that's why COVID turned out to be a positive thing for us. Yeah, we like tripled in size in like the three year span of COVID. It's crazy. Like we were and at the same time doing a lot of free stuff, just prioritizing relationships and yet we were growing. And I think that was, you know, much to your credit of like the quick pivot of like, all right, the world shutting down, we've got to innovate and adapt and figure out another way. And so let's start doing these free

sessions. Let's put a lot more effort and energy into the academy and kind of fortify some virtual options for people. Let's, you know, spend this time building some additional curriculum. And all of a sudden we just, you know, everyone turned and kind of ran, ran quickly. And we started growing as a team. I mean, we tripled in size in that time span. Yeah, I don't know what my, Predilection? What's the word? Prediction? Prediction?

No, that's not it. But anyways, I don't know what my sense was, but I remember saying this to the team, hey, we don't know how long this is going to last. We can try and hold our breath until it's over, but it might not be over and we might run out of air. And so let's just make an adjustment right now, and that's what we did. I mean, we made an adjustment immediately because we didn't go, oh, there's only two weeks to flatten the curve. Okay, we can hold our breath for two weeks. We didn't even do that. We were like, we're changing right now.

We're going to start being proactive. That was definitely a very positive thing to do because we were ahead of the curve. We were ahead of it, which was good. When you look at, let's take that a little bit, but just in general, cover and move. How does it help you? Relationships. I think too often people don't understand the value of what positive relationships can provide you. You can get anything accomplished if you have strong relationships. And it's not

something people spend a lot of time prioritizing or maintaining. You know, we get really comfortable with our kids or our spouse or our friends of just these established relationships. And yet we're not prioritizing, continuing to maintain or build those relationships. And with your teammates, there's nothing more powerful than a team of people that care about you and care about the mission and know that you care about them. So if I'm putting my energy and effort in focusing on the team and prioritizing the team and doing what I can to build relationships and support them, that level of trust is going to be far more valuable than anything else that I could do as far as, hey, I am your boss and this is what we're doing. And so it's just working

together as a team, recognizing that we have one mission and we're all going to work together to accomplish that mission. You know, when we talk about building trust, a lot of times we had asked about building trust and I think what I talked through earlier was you and let's take you and me as an example. I didn't know you. I didn't trust you. I didn't know you. I have no relationship with you, right? I mean, I literally don't know who you are. And oh, you're Flynn Cochran's wife and he was a team one and I know him and he's a good dude. Okay, cool. This is nothing. That gives me zero to go off of. So I meet you and it's like, oh, give a little bit of trust. Yep, you take that you prove you're good to go and by the way

When I give you a little bit of trust I'm actually giving you it in a way that you realize I am actually giving you trust like hey, oh, you're gonna let me do this project by myself or you're gonna let me handle this thing So this is where we talk about that the building of trust it starts small and then it just builds from there and it snowballs It's like an exponent at least for me It's it's pretty exponential And so what did that look like from your perspective? You, early on, you started, and the way that you built that trust was I would call you and say, hey, how do you want me to handle this?

And you would ask that one question over and over and over again, what do you think we should do? And you would ask me that question. And over time, I've realized, okay, I've just got to come prepared with an answer or a plan. And so I would say, hey, here's the problem. Here's what I think we should do. And 98% of the time, you'd say, cool, execute. let me know how I can support. And that built up that confidence and that trust in me. And so you gave me so much trust that over time, there's almost nothing I value more than like the trust I get from

people that I care about. And you gave me so much trust in the beginning. And even when I failed, even when I made mistakes, you took ownership of it or Laf took ownership of it. And I was like, hold on, guys, I made this mistake that that continued to build in that trust to now you've created such a sense of loyalty. I mean, we joke about just that the team has this like real sense of loyalty to you and nothing was more, you know, there was a whole scenario where we got to see this play out where everyone was like coming to your defense because there is this such a strong sense of trust. And that started from the beginning, just little ways in which you just let me run with it and then you let me execute my plans, even though you probably had better ideas on how to solve those

problems, but you would just say execute and you would just give me that trust to go do it. and over time that became something that I highly, highly value is your trust. You know, lately I've been talking a lot about the extreme ownership leadership loop and the last thing that I consider when I'm making a decision is how does this impact my relationship. And that's the last thing I consider, but it's the heaviest weight of what I'm considering. And if I could convey, hopefully I wrote about it from the new version of leadership strategy tactics and hopefully I can convey it strongly enough that if you put the relationships as the

priority it helps so many decisions because just what you're talking about you know you might come to me and say hey jaco i think for jocco live we should hand out these uh small kettlebell key chains right and i might be thinking like well that's an extra expenditure they're just going to get lost they're not going to be high quality may then look that good or whatever maybe Look, I don't even think it's that bad of an idea, but it's like not the priority at all. And so I might think, well, hey, Jamie, I think that's a waste of money or hey, Jamie, I think it's going to, but what is that worth? How does that show you? What does that show you, like, the level of trust in you that you came out with an idea?

You went and sourced the way to make this happen. You put together the budget. Then you came and presented me and said, hey, jock, we got these cool kettlebell keychings that we're going to give out. And I go, no, I don't like that. So what does that, what does that do? All of a sudden, I'm showing you that I don't trust your judgment. And really, what's the worst case scenario? The worst case scenario is people got a cool keychain.

That's like the worst case scenario. But because I don't think it's a good idea, it wasn't my idea. I'm going to shut it down. And what I'm doing is I'm prioritizing my ego. I'm prioritizing my idea. I'm prioritizing my budget over my relationship with you, my trust in you. Now, listen, if you came and say, hey, we're going to give away a real kettlebell. You know a real 24 kilogram kettlebell to every person that shows up at Jockal Live.

It's going to be awesome. And I'd be like, hey, Jamie, like, can you run the numbers on that? Because those are expensive. And they're also hard to ship. And also some people are flying in and they'll have to fly home with it. And I would ask you some questions. And then you'd be like, you know, I ran the numbers on that. We're going to go with a key chain instead, right?

But just asking earnest questions, prioritizing a relationship is such a key component to think through, there's so many decisions that make themselves. There's so many decisions that make themselves if you prioritize the relationship over everything else. Now listen, like I said, if you come to me with an idea that's literally not going to function, then I'm going to have to ask you some earnest questions and hopefully you'll see like, oh, this doesn't make sense. Now, maybe there's something I didn't think. Maybe you're like, hey, no, Jock, don't worry about it.

We got a sponsor. They're giving us all the kettlebells for free. We're getting 10,000 kettlebells. They're for free. They're going to ship them for free. We just got to deal with FedEx. They're going to ship a free because they love Jocko and they love what you say. And so we're good to go.

And I'd be like, wow, awesome. Everyone gets a free kettle bag. Yeah. So if I ask an earnest question and you give me an answer, I'm ready to be like, okay, awesome, let's execute. So prioritizing the relationship, so important. Giving trust away is how you get that trust back. That's covered move. What about simple?

For me, simple in the way that we typically teach it with clients is about communicating effectively, being simple, clear, concise. I think about simple as it relates to the mission and plans. The mission has to be simple. And I think anyone at Eschalonfront understands what our mission is because it's simple, clear, concise, and we can execute towards that mission. And once the mission is simple, I can now focus on the plans and processes and what we need to do to accomplish that mission. And those things need to also be simple. And I think that's what's awesome about working with the team that understands these principles because we're very good at coming up with simplified SOPs, simplifying processes, recognizing when something's too complex

and maybe the team can't execute because they don't understand what's going on. And then ultimately, once you have simple missions, simple plans to execute on that mission, you have to be able to communicate that effectively in a simple, clear, and concise manner. And for me, what I've really learned is that I have to, I have to adjust the way I communicate based on who I'm talking to. That's a component of simple. So the way that I communicate with you versus Laf is different. The way that I may communicate with Jen or with Jack is different based on what I know about them, based on our relationships.

And so that simple component is really that test for me of am I communicating in a way that is effective with this particular individual or team? The instinct that human beings have, generally speaking, to make things more complex is really, a driving force in human nature. And look, I got to see this in the SEAL teams, these guys with these giant brains and their Ivy League education, and they'd come in with their engineering degree. And they would formulate plans that were just completely insane.

And so, yes, keeping things simple and then the way you communicate. And yeah, absolutely. By the way, when I talk to the troops, I'm communicating in a. certain way when I talk to the admiral I'm computing communicating in a different way the content of what I'm saying is not different so I'm not telling the troops like hey this is a stupid thing to do we shouldn't be doing it and then saying the Admiral hey this is brilliant no I'm not doing that I'm saying

the troops hey look I'm not 100% sure why this is going on let me try and find some answers and I'm saying the Admiral hey sir I actually need to find some answers about why we're doing this because it doesn't make sense to me right now I'm gonna come and look at when I'm talking to troops I might drop a couple f bombs whatever we're talking in a different, we're using different communication tools. That's not to say I'm telling two different people two different things. It's not two-faced to communicate in utilizing different methodologies.

And I actually was telling an echo about this a while ago. Like I would talk to the admiral. I would talk to the captain. I would talk to my commanding officer. I would talk to the troops. I would walk out of a platoon meeting where I was talking to them. in their language to go talk to the Admiral, what I would talk to him in his language.

I wasn't saying anything different. I was saying the same thing. It's just in a different language. So that's what we have to learn how to do when it comes to simple communication. You need to communicate to people in their native tongue whenever possible. And you need to not utilize language

that they don't understand that doesn't make sense to them. And by the way, that's up, and down the chain of command. You can talk to, there's things that an admiral or things that a CEO will not understand. There's language that you can use that they will not understand. Just like there's language you can use to the frontline troops that they won't understand.

So you as a leader have to be a, I use this a lot. You have to be a translator of sorts. Because sometimes I'm telling, taking what the admiral said, I'm translating it into what the troops can understand. Sometimes I'm taking what the troops said, I'm translating it into what the admiral can understand. That's what we become.

we become a filter that provides simplicity in language to the audience that we're talking to. So that's a very astute perception you've got there, Jamie. Well, I actually learned that early on with you and Laif because you're both very different. And so I figured out that, one, you were really always busy. And so I wanted you to pick up the phone when I called if I had a question. So I realized very quickly, okay, Jocko, I need to speak in bullet points. And I could do that and you wouldn't be offended. You wouldn't be like, are you okay or is there something wrong?

Like you would just take it. I would just say, hey, A, B, C, and you'd be like, yes, no, yeah, let me think about it. And then we'd end the call. And you weren't short and it wasn't a detriment to our relationship. I just figured out early on that I could talk to you in bullet points and we could just get some stuff done and move on. And if I did that and I've managed that the way I communicate with you based on your schedule, you pick up the phone every time I called. And in fact, now people will get a hold of me to be like, hey, can you get a hold of Jocko?

Because you'll answer my call. And then Laif needs a lot more information. I have to anticipate that when I go in a conversation with Laif, we're going to spend 20 minutes probably talking about my family and what's going on and what I did for the weekend. And just that Southern hospitality, it's just going to be a different conversation. Sometimes, you know, Laif calls and I'll be like, all right, how much time do I have? And can I take this? But even with Laif, like, I will know that I need to come in that conversation. prepared to answer questions he's going to have

and have a little more information for him than I may need for you. But I figured out very early on that if I tried to communicate that way with you, you would be like, hey, I don't have time for this. So I just had to adjust. It's up to you when you're communicating to adjust to the person that you're talking to.

And too often we think it's up to them. Like I'm communicating clearly and then I'm being frustrating because my team's not doing what I asked them to do. And it's like, well, probably because of the way you communicated it. You didn't think about the, the receiving end of that and how it comes across.

Yeah. Prioritize and execute. Detaching from emotion. There's a million things at any given time that I have to manage or that people have to manage. We have these overwhelming place of responsibility. And the only way to recognize the thing that we need to put our focus and effort into is learning how to detach from our emotion because our emotions pull us in and suck us into the chaos of all these things that are happening.

And when we're in that place, we can't see the truth of what needs to get done. So we have to learn how to manage our emotions so that we can take that step back and detach and recognize, okay, this thing right here is gonna have the biggest impact on the mission and then focus of effort on executing on that task. We're not naturally good multitaskers

as people like to think they are. And so we have to be able to detach enough and then focus effort on executing on that thing before we move on to the next. People ask about what's the difference? Can you utilize these principles when you're leading your family? And I'm like, yes, you can. And they say, is there any differences? And I say, there actually is. And the big difference is that when you're dealing with your family, you're going to be much more emotional and it's going to take extra effort and extra discipline to be able to detach and not get emotional. Like that's what it's going to take.

That's the biggest difference. There's other little subtleties, but essentially the principles are the same. The biggest difference is when you're, you know, if Jamie's working for me and she does something really stupid and she's getting us in legal trouble, I can be like, hey, Jamie, you're fired. Like, okay, you know, good luck, carry on. When your kid does something stupid, you're like, oh, you can't fire your kids. You're stuck with them. You can't fire your spouse.

You're stuck with them. So you get more emotional because you're like, you, you're, you're, you're stuck. doing and you plus you care about your kids so much you're like wait if you do if you're doing that thing right now that's gonna that's gonna put you on a bad course and you get emotional and then when you get emotionally make that bad decisions so think about that when you're dealing with the people that are closest to you those are the people that people that you don't care about it's easy to make that's what's what's what you type of leadership question in a chat GPT it's gonna give you a good

answer because it has no emotions it's just like oh the person has been unproductive for three months, they should be fired. Boom, done. Okay, cool. We'll execute on that. But if you take a human being, you're like, oh, this person has been unproductive for three months, but guess what? What's what?

What's, oh, they've got to, their mom's sick. They've got to go to the hospital every day while their mom's going through chemo. Oh, you're just going to fire them because they've been unproductive. Oh, how's it going to work out? What kind of human being are you? So think about that. There's a little bit of emotions involved with the stuff. I always say detached from your emotions, but you're not.

decoupling from your emotions. Emotions have to be part of the calculus. They have to be part of the calculus, even with your team. You know, you have to realize, oh, if I, we just got done with the muster and all of a sudden we get tasked with some big project and Jamie hasn't had one day off.

And I go, hey, Jamie, we've got this project to do tomorrow. I got to recognize that she's going to be mad at me. And I need to put that into calculus. I need to say, hey, Jamie, look, I know you're going to be mad because you just got back off this trip and I know you got some things that you're going to do with your kids. We got this project due. If you can help me with this,

next weekend is going to be a five-day weekend. Can you work with me? And you're like, I got you. Our emotions typically help us identify that there's a problem. Our emotions are really important to helping us recognize, okay, this is a priority. This is a major deal. But we don't make good decisions when we're emotional.

So to your point, you can't decouple the emotions. They typically are an indicator that, hey, there's a problem here we need to solve, but we have to be detached enough to be able to see how we can actually solve this problem. And we can't do that when we're caught up in the emotional state. Yeah. How about that decentralized command?

I think you're, you've gotten to see decentralized command as full force from me. I learned from the best. Yeah. Empower other people to lead. Empower your team to lead to step up and take things on to solve problems, give them as much ownership. in the projects and plans as you possibly can.

And what's really difficult about that is letting go. At least for me, it's letting go. Like, I want to be involved in all those things, especially like you use the muster as an example. The first time I went to the muster and I wasn't doing all the things I had done the muster previous, like you start to get the sense of like, well, wait, what am I here for anymore?

And that's an ego play. But the more that I've let go, the more that I recognize I get to see other people step up into roles and take on responsibility and execute and see them thrive, that that just is way more rewarding than me stepping in and solving the problem and being the one to save the day and do this awesome thing, that it's about the team. And I get to see them just feel valued and contribute to the mission.

And that is so much more powerful than anything else I could offer them. So giving them as much responsibilities as I possibly can and empowering them to make decisions and solve problems and get things done. I have an app on my phone that reports when, no, sorry, it's not an app, it's an email. It's like an automatic email that reports expenditures from my bank, which is our bank, which is. And so this is my, I guess my evidence of decentralized command. I'll just be like, whatever, on a trip or something, I'll pick up my phone. I'll look at it and they'll be like, you just, you just, you just,

wired $842,000 to this account. And I'm always like, oh, okay, cool. And what is I think? Have I upped your limit, your spending limit to a million dollars yet? Yep, you told me I have, I have leeway to spend up to a million dollars before I have to get permission. And I think in the earlier days, I was calling you for like $100 expenditures. I'm like, hey, I got to buy this thing.

It's a hundred bucks. And now I've got up to a million dollars. So, yeah, right? I'm like, Jamie, if you need to spend more, if you need to spend more than a million dollars, Can you let me know what that's about? I just got to get about that one. I think it was like six months ago. It was $7.50.

So I'm really like, I'm really getting there now. We're at a million. Yeah. But that's, you know, like you said, in the beginning,

I'm watching like, hold on. She spent $140 on. You know what I mean? What are you doing? And you're like, well, I had to print out,

you know, copies of the book for, okay. Okay. Okay. So she's actually got good judgment. Oh, hey,

there's a $1, $1,200 charge on here. What's this for? Oh, we had to get this thing for the client. Otherwise, oh, okay. So then it's like over time, I'm looking at your judgment. And by the way, when you're doing that, I'm not like, what the hell did you spend that money?

I may be like, hey, hey, what's this expense for? And so then you realize I'm not jumping down your throat. So you're starting to trust that I'm going to listen to what you have to say. And before you know it, I got Jamie Cochran wiring money $890,000 to some random place. I'm going, what is it? I actually don't even ask anymore. Well, there's a triple effect because you, implemented that with me and over time I got a little more comfortable being able to do those things

and make those decisions and now I see it with Jen and the real trick is just put something in your team that you know is going to I mean Jen stresses over $10 like she can get a deal and say 50 cents on like a product that we're buying in bulk and she's like stoked so she's such a good steward of our money that she has almost unlimited leeway too because I know she's not going to be out there making crazy decisions and you figured out early on that I wasn't going to make crazy decisions and I was actually very conscientious about what we were spending and on what, you know, what it was and how much we were spending that you gave me a lot of freedom in the early days. Yeah, and you got to get comfortable with some level of risk. I mean, I'm sure sometime in the next year, somebody's

going to buy something and I'm going to be like, did we really need to buy it? I'm sure. Like, somebody's going to spend $3,000 on something and you've got to be comfortable with that level of risk. And here's why I'm okay with it. If I wasn't okay with, hey, someone made it, you know, someone bought a $2,800 meal with a client that, you know, okay, cool. That's going to happen. That's going to happen. And the thing is, if I was paranoid about that, we would literally just not do anything. We would just not do anything because can you imagine if you were sending me approvals every time we spent more than $1,000?

Oh my gosh. We'd never get anything done. Nothing would happen. And so it's so, but the financial example is really clear, but it's not just the financial example. like everything that we're doing, there's, there's decisions that are being made, there's things that are being executed that they need to be executed. They need to be executed quickly. And if I was trying to micromanage things, it just, it just would absolutely never work.

We wouldn't be able to do anything. We wouldn't build advanced. Not to mention, I mean, you take that echelon front. You throw Jocko fuel. You throw origin on that. You throw Jocko podcast. You throw Jocko publishing. Like there's a lot of things that are, a lot of decisions that are being made that,

that are being made at the level at the point of friction, which is awesome, which is how things, when people ask me like, how do you do all these things? I'm like, oh, I do all these things cover,

move, simple prioritize, and execute decentralized command. That's what I do. That's how I make it happen. That's how my team makes it happen because we're not going to sit here in micromanage. So those things, again,

can you give decentralized command when you first meet someone and you've never work with them before and you don't understand their judgment? You don't understand how their mind works. That can be a challenge. But once you understand how their mind works, once you built up that trust, you can move forward. And then once you establish culture inside of an organization, then decentralized command can really be utilized. And again, using the muster as an example, the first or whatever, by the time we were like the fourth or fifth muster, everything was now, maybe this is the sixth muster or seventh muster. everything was now just like super smooth and super squared away and you know we would get our

feedback from the from the attendees and they'd be like this is the the most well-run event I've ever been to and what's cool about that is I never like sat you and Jen and your team down and said like this needs to be the most well-run event anyone's ever been to I didn't tell you that you already knew your team already knew So they knew on the front lines when someone says to one of the front line people, like, hey, I'm supposed to be checking in my hotel and my luggage is in the wrong area. What can I, can you guys help me? Their attitude isn't like, well, no, that's your luggage. No, their attitude is like, oh, we want this to be the best thing.

Hey, hold on a second. We've got a driver. They can drive you out to the airport. We can get that luggage picked up. Do you want to go with? So that's the attitude. And when everyone understands what the culture is, everyone understands what the mission is. then decentralized command just works.

Yep. You said once at an executive team meeting, you said, I can only do the things that only I can do. And what you were saying basically is like, you have a lot of things you're managing. I mean, the things on your plate are crazy, and you just mentioned some of those things. And so it was really this permission to the rest of us.

Like, go do everything else that you guys can answer and do and accomplish. Go do it. And come to me for the things that only I can do. And there are certain things that only you can do as the CEO of our company. But everything else, you give us complete trust and authority to go make those decisions. And that trust, once again, is so valuable to everyone on the team that when we go to a muster, you never had to say what the standard was because you set the standard in the way that you operated and managed this company, that we all felt this instinct of this has to be the best thing ever because I don't want to let Josh

go down. I don't want to do a disservice to this message that is a life changer, a game changer. So it started with the precedent you set and the example that you set and then you just gave up the reins and let us run with it. And we felt that sense of I have to do this right because I was I was entrusted in this. We talk about ego a lot. And again, the reason we have to talk about ego a lot is because that's a human instinct that people have. Their instinct is to get to believe their own hype. That's what our instinct is. And especially when you're successful, you think, well, you're damn right. I'm successful. I should be. I'm pretty awesome. And then the next thing you know, you're believing your own hype and that's a problem. You have,

considering, you know, your street A student gymnast, class president, were you class president? I was in, yes, I was class president. I wasn't the, like, for the whole school. Okay. So, but, you know, you've been in like, you've been doing really well. Well, when you came on board, when you came on board, you didn't know we were going to be talking about ego, but you had the instinct to be humble enough to be like, okay, I can do this job. Oh, you want me to answer the phone? You want me to book your flight, Leif? Okay, I'll do it. Right.

You were humble enough to do that. Where did you pick up that sense of humility and how has your, how has your perspective of ego become clarified while you've been an international front? Yeah. Listen, I am actually a very competitive person and I definitely have an ego. 100% it exists. I mean, that's the only reason like why I ever wanted to do all the stuff I wanted to do because there was this ego sense of like, yes, I can do it all and I can be good at it all. But I also had incredible examples in my life of humility.

My mom and dad once again set this heavy tone of like, hey, work ethic and honesty and they were some of the most humble people, if not the most humble people I've been around. And they had very different lives than I did. They had a difficult life growing up. My mom ran away when she was like 15. She put herself in foster care. My dad was poor and just really struggled. And so they propagated that story with our family a lot.

And I understood where they came from. And that was not my experience at all. If anything, kind of the world revolves around me as a young kid. But over time, because of that example, I recognize that the ego pushes you to want to win and want to succeed, and that definitely exists in me. But if I wanted to be successful, I had to get really good at managing and subordinating my ego,

because I learned very early on that that wasn't going to help me build relationships and help me along the path of what I wanted to accomplish. I'm a little bit surprised. Why? Because you're like, you're growing up, right? And you were like, the star of this and the leader of that.

and the captain of this and the world revolved around you the way your parents treated you like everything that you've that you experienced I've known a lot of people that grew up like that and they are not humble I'm just telling you like a lot of people that grow up like that they're not humble they think they're the center of the world from the time they're born and it really hurts them later on in life but for some reason you were able to identify that sense of humility which is you're very I don't know if you're lucky or what maybe like you said I guess you're the way your parents instilled that in you but yeah there's plenty of people that are the star of this the captain of that you know this the seals is filled with guys like this right they were the captain of this they were the they were the they were the quarterback here and

they were the they would do all these things and they were just winning and when they win they just think, oh, I obviously deserve to be worshipped. So, well, let's go ahead and proceed to worship me, everybody. And it hurts, you know, and there's people like this in the, certainly in the business world as well. Like you, you know, you rose up through the ranks in your company. Well, why did you get promoted? Because I'm awesome.

Oh, why did you get selected as the chief operating? Because I'm awesome. Why did you get selected as a CEO? Because I'm awesome. Well, you know, why did you get these investors? I got these investors because I'm awesome. And so that can snowball and get out of control, obviously. So that lesson that your parents taught you, I guess it's your parents.

I think it's a combination of the example that I had, but also like I had all those things. And then I moved to L.A. and very quickly was kind of reminded as a very young girl that I wasn't nearly as good as I thought I was. Like I moved, you know, Little Fish now in a big pond. And I was like, oh, I'm not the best singer. I'm not the best at this. I'm not the best at this. And I just started a little bit of failure, you know, and recognizing, okay, I had a lot of really cool things growing up and I was really good in a lot of things. I wasn't the greatest.

I wasn't the best at anything. But I think it was the combination of my parents' example and then getting a phase of my life where I really started to recognize, like, you know what, I am not nearly as good as I thought I was. And that set me up for success when I started to take on other opportunities and grow in my life because I started being willing to accept that. And it's okay. I don't have to be the best. I just have to work hard.

I just have to perform. And if I do that, I can accomplish anything that I actually want to try to do. And every time I just focused on the work and the work ethic component that my parents taught me, I succeeded and things happened for me. Did you identify that when you were reading extreme ownership for the first time and you see like a chapter. about ego, were you like, oh, I relate to this? Yes. I remember reading it for the first time. And just that first chapter of extreme ownership just blowing my mind.

Like, okay, my parents always really taught me about honesty, but I hadn't really ever thought about it in the way of me making decisions or taking ownership. Like that's a component of honesty, being honest with yourself to say, hey, I screwed this up. And as I did that, I started to realize that, hey, that's a big ego hit to say this, this is my fault or I have to take ownership of this. But the more that I started to dip my foot in that pool, the more I started to realize that it actually was an ego boost because I started to feel a lot more confident to say, yeah, no, I screwed that up. Yeah, let me take ownership of that. To the point now where there's no ego involved, I'll take ownership all day long. If anything, it's like,

you don't want to take ownership, I'll take it. Give it to me. I'll take it all day long because I know that if I do that, I can solve the problem. And so the ego component, which still exists, still want to win. I still am very competitive. I am capable now of subordinating that ego enough to recognize that the ego will get in the way of actually accomplishing the mission and I care more about the mission than my own sense of self. Yeah, it's a wild thing to say that there's people that will literally their ego will kill them. Like they will make decisions and they won't want to back down from their decision and they will like in combat, get people killed or It'll get themselves killed because they didn't want to subordinate their ego.

And it's crazy. So if that can happen in combat, it can happen anywhere. It can certainly happen in your finance company or your manufacturing company. These things happen. Got to watch out for that. Now, on the academy, I was a while ago you and I were having a conversation and it was, I think you were trying to explain to me that from a female perspective, this. stuff doesn't always look the same.

And you and I, I think I made, did I make you, we didn't agree at first? No, it was actually at a muster and we were having some conversation and I think I brought up like, hey, maybe we should do like a women's like breakout session at the muster or we could do something because I was looking at the stats for the muster and we were about like six, seven, eight percent women. And I was like, okay, there's a big disparity here. What if we added a component to the event that was like women only like a panel or something? And we got into this conversation and you kept saying like, no, it's all the same. It's the same. And

in the moment, I wasn't hearing exactly what you were saying. And so I went back to my room and I remember feeling frustrated because I was like, it was the first time I felt this disconnect of like, I don't think I agree with Jaco. Like he doesn't get it. He doesn't understand. This is different for women. He doesn't understand that I am carrying almost the full mental load of like managing our household. I'm managing groceries and dinner and taking kids to school and doctors and appointments and dentists and I'm also managing echelon front and he has no idea what that's actually like and so I remember feeling a little bit of like initial resentment of like it's easy for you to just say it's the same and then we went the next day to the muster and I'm listening and taking notes

and you're talking about the principles and it hit me and I realized what you were saying was not that my experience is different is you know you were you weren't saying that my experience wasn't different than yours you were simply saying that. that the way that you solve those problems was the same. You have to apply the principles of extreme ownership. And that kind of opened my mind to, okay, he's right. My experience might be different. My experience may be more challenging or sometimes feel maybe unfair,

but the way that I solve those problems, it is the exact same that we would teach anyone. And so we started thinking about, okay, how do we get women more on board with being open to this content? because I think there was some barrier with the combat military component. The barrier was my face. Yeah. And they just, you know, we weren't seeing a lot of women.

I mean, and the women who were a part of this movement were some of the coolest women I had ever met. Like, they were in the game. And so we needed to find a way to open the door to, for women to understand that this content was absolutely for them. And that there was some really cool principles out there that could help them solve the problems that they were dealing with. Yeah. And so I think what cracked open my mind, because I was still, you know, you said, well, maybe we should do a breakout for women. And I was totally against that. Because then we're at an event together.

Like, I'm not breaking out people based on anything. Like, you're people. We're all people. But what kind of cracked my mind open a little bit to become open to the idea of, like, you eventually wanted to do an online thing called the Women's Assembly. And what kind of cracked my mind opens was Jiu-Jitsu. Because in Jiu-Jitsu, if you show up, like, at a lot of schools, a lot of academies, they have women's only jiu-jitsu classes. And usually what those women's-only Jiu-Jitsu classes are is a way for women to get into

J-Jitsu so that they understand it. And once they understand J-J-Siu, they're just training in the regular classes. Most of the time, most women make that transition to where they're just training in reg classes. Some of them don't, but most of them do. And so I started to recognize, oh, what Jamie. wants to do is do a women's jiu jitzu class for leadership where people go and they're comfortable and they look there's not too many women that look at my head and say oh yeah identify with that or I can relate to that but they look at you and they think oh yeah this this is a woman she's a mom

she's in business she's got a lot of things going on I can relate to that so just like the jihitsu idea of a women's only class that's the way I looked at in my head is like okay you want to do something for women that's going to make sure make them feel comfortable coming into the jiu jiu jitsu Academy, feel comfortable coming into the Extreme Ownership Academy? Okay, let's go for it. And then eventually, and now you've got a Women's Summit coming. We do. So, hey, look, you've got women comfortable from an online with the assembly that you're doing, but now you're doing in a Women's Summit. Tell me about that. Yeah, so we started the live monthly free sessions for the Women's Assembly two and a half years ago. And we just thought, you know, we'll throw it out

and see if we can get some people to join. And that community started to grow. And we have like 7,000 people that are a part of that assembly committee. We've done free sessions every month for the last two and a half years. And we started to see the impact of the musters because we went from 8% to 12% to 15% to the last muster where we had 22% women. So we started to see the adjustment that we made pay off in like more women coming to events and recognizing that this content was for them. And then as a part of that, we started to get sort of a call to action or a request of, hey, we'd like to do an all women's event. There's also a lot of men in our network that are like, hey, how do I introduce this to my daughter or wife coming from me? It's not a great thing

when you're like, hey, you should really read this book on taking ownership. And so the women's assembly has been written by two meanderthals. And it's been a really cool way to kind of introduce that in a more subtle way. And so we started thinking about doing this live event with women who want to come learn about leadership in business and life. And as a part of that, we're going to obviously teach the principles of extreme ownership, but we're also going to bring in some women who have interesting stories, interesting perspectives to share just some things that are more relevant to women in leadership.

When does it take place? September 14th through 16th in Phoenix. In Phoenix, Arizona. Yep. And it's who is it, who's like, give me an example of, are you going to go over the fundamental principles that we talk about? Do you have anyone else going to speak? Yep. So myself and Corey Mize and Meg Miller from the Eschon Front team, we all are the women leadership instructors at Eschlon Front.

So we are going to focus on introducing and talking through just like you would get at the muster, the core of our content, the foundations of extreme ownership and these principles. And then inserted throughout the session, we have some cool guest. coming to share in their unique perspectives, a lot of which are very closely tied to what we teach as well. So Ryan Mannion, who's been on this podcast before, she's going to come and give a keynote. Debbie Lee, Mama Lee, is coming to talk. And then we've got this wonderful speaker, Latania Sumter, who has now been on the Women's Assembly free sessions twice and just has this incredibly charismatic personality and people are drawn to. And she actually, we brought her back from request.

So we're bringing in a couple different people. We're bringing in a panel of echelon front wives. So we've got Helen Willink locked in to do this, which I thought was going to be. I don't know how you pulled that off, honestly. To her credit, she was like, yes, she didn't even fight me on it. I thought I was going to have to really go to bat for this. But Helen and myself and Iris Gardner, who's amazing. And then Amanda Denault and hopefully Cody's wife page,

we're going to do a panel on sort of the military wives perspective. as like the wives of Eschlon Front, all of whom have been on the home front side of the combat that you guys were serving and just have a unique perspective to answer questions and help women understand how to cultivate some of that emotional independence and talk through these leadership principles

from our perspective, both in the military and now at Eschlon Front. I don't know how you got my wife to say yes to us. Dude, I was preparing for like this indirect approach. I had like the scripted in mind. and I called her and I like laid it out. I'm like, hey, just hear me out. And I go through the plan.

And she was in her lovely, sweet voice was like, yes. She's like, I would do that. And I think she would never come on here. She's made that very clear. I will not come on this podcast. I asked her, I said, listen, if I write down questions and you write answers and I'll read them on the podcast, you don't have to come on, would you do that? And she's like, no.

There's like, what else can I do? Right. There's nothing else I can do. And so, yeah, I was pretty surprised that she, because she's very private person and she doesn't like any limelight and she doesn't like to, you know, do this kind of thing. So, yeah, good job. But people want to hear from her.

I know they do. I want to hear from her. Yeah. And you're such a unique being that people are like, what is his wife like? Which I can attest she is one of the greatest people I know. She's one of the kindest people that I know. And she's a total badass. And you wouldn't know it because she's so humble and so sweet.

But I asked her to come and she agreed. And maybe it was the fact that it was multiple people on stage. She wasn't going to be by herself. And we're just answering questions. And I think she loved the mission of helping women be successful in their lives. And she had a perspective to offer. So she said yes. Yeah.

That's cool too. That's a reason to come just for that. Yeah, for sure. I kind of want to come. But yeah, you know, we also have. three daughters two of which are adult daughters so she probably can connect to to wanting to help out you know young ladies and with their as they as they go through whatever they're going through and and moms you know I mean so I think it's going to be awesome I think everyone who has agreed

to participate so far and we we have more surprises coming but a lot of that was they loved the mission they were like oh I get to go speak to a group of women who are looking for answers to solve problems in their lives in business and in life. And I have an opportunity to not only teach and hopefully inspire them, but be inspired by the atmosphere of this group of people coming together, rallied around this mission of extreme ownership. So I am so excited. I think it's awesome, too, the fact that extreme ownership is clearly, you know, meant initially for people that are in a leadership position basically in the workplace. That's basically what it's for. But Dang, if it doesn't apply to everything in every aspect of your life and the way you're operating and interacting with your family, for sure, the way you're interacting with your community, for sure.

The amount of people that have talked to us, talk to me, talk to you, and explained how they implemented extreme ownership with their husband, with their wife, with their kids, and it's a game changer. You wrote a book that was based on helping, I mean, one section in each chapter is titled, application of business. But I learned really early on, and it was something you said to me because I was dealing with, you know, a phase, my oldest was in a phase, and I was struggling with that, and I was talking to you about just some frustrations, and you were like, hey, these same principles apply. And I reread the book, and when I got to application of business, I just simply was like application to home. And I started to recognize that this book was written for businesses, but it's even more important at home. And we see people crushing it in their business, taking these principles,

applying it, having so much success, and yet they get home and they hit these barriers, they hit these walls. Because as you said earlier, your emotions and your ego is so much more involved that it's more difficult. But the payoff at home is even greater than what you could get at work. And I've seen that with my kids, that when I do the right things, when I apply these principles, I see them model that behavior back. And there's no greater gift I could give my kids than teaching them and helping them understand this idea of ownership and this recognition that I can own all the problems that I'm facing and I can take ownership of solving those problems.

No greater gift. Yeah, when they follow that example, it's incredible. This is a little bit tangential, but it's a little bit on point too. I walked up to my garage gym the other day and I walked in there in my 13 year old daughter She's in there listening to Led Zeppelin and doing squats You know what I mean bruh Let's you know what I mean? Are we in the game? You know does that be you think that I didn't like get a tear in my non-shooting eye when that happened? I was like Yep

You're having a good workout She's like yeah she gave me a high five She's looking jacked. You see what I'm saying? I'm saying So yeah, the other thing, I said this a while ago. I don't know what event we did, but we went to a jih Tzu place afterward. And I said, hey, these principles from jih Tzu apply to your life. And I said, and unfortunately, some people don't take the principles from jih Tzu and apply them to their life. And there's black belts out there that are black belts on the mats and they're white belts in life.

And they make mistakes that you shouldn't make. And it's the same thing what you just said like there's business people that are doing a great job with their team They're doing a great job with their business. They're doing a great job with their clients from applying these principles and then they don't apply them with their wife They don't apply them with their kids and it just goes it's terrible to watch it's absolutely terrible to watch and it's it sounds callous It sounds callous to say well, you know you if you if you treat your kid like your employee Then that's what you should be doing well actually if you taught if you listen to us on how we actually say you should treat your employee, which is you should respect them, you should list to them, you should explain the why, you should allow them to influence. Like all those things that we talk

about, if you treat your kid like that, they're going to be stoked. They're going to be stoked. And so will the people that work for you. And by the way, this is another thing that's, I have to explain to people now is like they'll think there's a difference between the way I treat my boss and the way I treat my peer and the way I treat my subordinate. That I'm, oh, well, if it's your boss, you got to do, treat them this way. Now, listen, we talked about communication. I might communicate, but the way I treat them with respect, the way I listen to them, the way I care about them, up down across the chain of command, it's the same.

And so when you take those principles and you apply them to your children and you apply them to your spouse, like what does it make sense to treat your children the same way as you treat your spouse? Actually, actually, listen to your spouse. Listen to your kids. Allow your spouse to influence you. Allow your kids to influence you. Treat your spouse with respect.

Treat your kids with respect. Now listen, if they're four years old and they're doing something stupid, you can't let them play in the street. I get it. I get it. And by the way, there's some gambles you can take there. There's some risk you can allow for. Lave's got a good story. His daughter didn't want to wear flip flops across the cactus covered grass or whatever.

And he's, you know, he says, hey, put your flip flops on. I don't want to. And he was like, okay. She goes running across the grass Boom she got a feet fill a cactus or whatever they got down there in Tejas But you know he she's gonna get a lesson learned and He's listening to what she has to say and so when he listens She's gonna listen more so yeah these things do work up down across the chain of command at work up down across the chain of command on your pickup

basketball team and up down across the chain of command in your house So utilize them. They're there. We are giving these away. We are giving these away. You can buy the book for 20 bucks. You get all the books for 50 bucks probably. You can listen to the podcast is free.

You can go to the Women's Assembly Online. It's free. You can go to the first responders online. It's free. Like, you can listen to this podcast. It's free. There's all kinds of, we're trying to give this away. I remember it was,

probably second or third podcast that Echo and I were recording. And I had some nugget, some golden nugget of leadership. And I was thinking to myself like, oh, should I share this right now? Because like we have Eschelon Front. And EschonFront people pay money to learn this stuff. And if I'm just giving it away. And I made a consciousness. And I said to myself, you know what?

The best thing I can do is try and get this information to as many people as possible. That's the best thing to do. And that's what I'm going to do. I haven't held back anything, obviously. There's hundreds and hundreds of hours of this stuff. But to get this information out there, that's the goal. And so we're giving it away. The reason we're giving away is because we know it's going to make people's lives better.

And you get to, you get, you're on the receiving end of a lot of the people that message us about how it's helped them. Kids, adults, moms, dads, CEOs, CEOs. line workers. It's everybody. Yeah, you've said this before, and it's one of my favorite quotes of yours, but if you do the right things for the right reasons, you will win in the end. And I think you've always kind of taken that stance of I'm going to give this stuff out because our goal and our mission is to help as many people as possible, understand these principles, learn how to apply it in their lives so that they can see the impact, but not just in their own lives and the lives of the people around them. And one of my favorite things about what I get

to do here, especially earlier on, is I was always always. the first point of contact when people would reach out and say, let me share with you how these principles have changed my life, which we have heard that I couldn't even count the number of times. Someone had said, changed my life. And it was really them recognizing that they could take ownership of their situation, whether it was their health or their addiction or their family or their work or whatever it was that they were trying to solve. People started coming out and sharing these stories and we realized early on okay we have to start using that internally to help propagate our story and we can give this out for free and it's not going to impact our ability

to grow and and build a business because we have people here we have to take care of that if anything it amplified that effort because we had people out there sharing in their message of hey I implement an ownership in my life and here's the outcome of what happened and it changed my life it changed my life and so like I resonated with that when I started getting this feedback, I'm like, yes, I see that. You're totally right. It's a game changer. So, you know, we've said it before, but when you start taking ownership and you really get to the point where ownership is your instinct, everything in your life gets better, every single thing. And maybe not easier. Definitely not easier. I think ownership is hard in a lot of ways,

much more difficult than just taking the easy out of casting, you know, letting someone else be the problem. But it gets better because you can actually solve it. It's harder at first. And then over time, it gets easier and easier and easier. And there's people that talk to us that say that these principles change their lives. And there's also people that talk to us that say these principles saved their lives. I mean, I can't tell you how many people have told me that what we do save their lives. And what I tell them every time, which is the truth, we didn't save your life. I didn't save your life.

The book didn't save your life. The podcast, you did it. You saved your life. You changed your life. You took this information and applied it. That's you. We appreciate the compliment. but that's what it takes.

It is on you. You can read this material. You can study this material. You can listen to this material. You have to take action with this material. Otherwise, if things aren't going to change. So keep that in mind. That is one of the keys.

That is one of the keys to moving forward. Some other keys to moving forward, I think, for you, you, from like a health perspective, You kind of get after it, don't you? I try. I mean, you run marathons, right? Yeah. You got like a CrossFit gym in your house.

Yeah. You do Jiu-Jitsu? Yeah. Can I get a hell? Yeah, please. You're a blue belt and jiu-jitsu. Reluctant blue belt, but yes. You don't get a blue belt unless you're a blue belt.

I know. I know. I've got to put my faith and trust in our instructor, but I still feel every day that I have to earn that. I have not in my mind earn that blue belt. But don't you do well competitively against other blue belts? I mean, yeah. I do fine on the mats. I think for me it's more about consistency.

And Jiu-Jitsu is one of those things that I love it so much. But it's, and it's the only thing in my life that's really just for me. Like I get to show up and I get a moment where my brain turns off and I get to just focus on what's happening. And like, I need to try to survive this. And I love it so much. much, but my journey in jujitsu is very much like a, I wouldn't even call it a roller coaster

because I'm not like, it's like I'm on the bus and I'm going and it's going great and then I get off the bus and I wait. And I go like three, four months sometimes before I get back in the gym. Because if there's one thing when I have, you know, implementing, prioritize and execute, if there's one thing that I need to get off my plate in order to focus on echelon front and my family, which are the two main priorities, it's the easiest thing to put on the back burner. And then what happens is I look at the week and I'm like, well, I can only train once this week. And then I convince myself that like, is it really worth it to go the one time? And then all of a sudden it's been three weeks.

And now I'm dealing with like kind of the ego of like I have to walk back in the gym and tell Gustavo like, hey, I'm back. So I do that a lot. I kind of go in and out. And so when I got my blue belt, I was like, I really feel like I need to be a lot more consistent before you can pass this off to me. And so he did the right thing, though, because it's fueled the sense of like, all right, now I got to earn it. Like, if he's going to give this to me, I want to let him down. I've got to actually show up and earn it. So it might be an ebb and flow.

It might be a long journey before I get to, you know, where I don't even, I don't even know of black belts in like my purview. Like, it'll be a long journey as a blue belt. And it may take me a while to get there. But it's just a matter of just showing up to your point earlier and just like walking through the door. And every time I do it after a stint of being out, I like walk back in and I'm like, what am I doing? Like I miss this so much. It is a, it's such an amazing sport. Every woman should go try a jiu-jitsu class.

Hell yeah. They should. Yeah, I was chuckling the other day because I got a text at 10 o'clock at night that said like, hey, jockel, it's just at this jiu-suit-s class. And the instructor said that if they're just totally, you're in a bad, really bad situation, what I do is survive. What was it? Survive.

and then stabilize and then advance. Okay. Yeah. Survive. I was struggling. Okay. I was struggling with a particular position

and it was five minute rounds just back to back to back. And I was getting my ass handed to me. And I was like, all right. So I went over to one of the black belts, Randy and I was like, hey, I'm really struggling on this position. What advice can you give me?

And he gave me something like tactical to do. And then he was like, listen, I think about jiu-jitsu as survive, defend, advance and you're constantly going back and forth in those things. So you might survive and then you get a chance to now defend the move and then something happens and they make a shift and you have to go back to survival. And I started thinking about it as just life. Like that's how we manage. Sometimes chaotic things are happening and your first instinct is you just have to survive this. Then you get to a safe space. Now you can start to defend and make a position and start, you know,

in jihitsu, shrimping out or doing little movements to try to get yourself in a better position. And then once you've defended properly, you can now advance and actually solve the problem. And I tried it in the next five-minute round, and he was totally right. Like I just kept thinking, hey, survive, protect my neck. Now I've got to defend, hands on the hip, let's do this. And now I've got to advance. I can actually sweep and get into a better position. So it just proved the point that you've always made that the lessons in Jiu-Jitsu apply so well in leadership.

It's so connected. When did you start training? Um, it's probably been four years. Is that when you got to Virginia? No, I started in Seattle at a women's. It was a women's only. See, we had to get you in the door. Yep. And I found a community there and just loved it. And then I started doing the co-ed classes there. And then I moved to Virginia Beach and I called you and I was like, hey, what gym should I go to? And you were like, Gustavo Machado's hands down. So I showed up there and I've been training. I mean, it was COVID. So it was a little bit of a weird time. But I've been training there for three years on and off.

Yeah, well, there you go. Awesome. And that's just a little message for everybody, for everybody. I think so. Even everyone at this table. If a little time goes by and you haven't gotten on the mats of justice, go get back on the mats of justice, right? We all learn that lesson.

We all learn that lesson. You've got to take some licks. I bet you the ego has a lot of victories in jiu-jitsu. Yeah. You know, the ego has defeated more people in jiu-jitsu than anybody else, more than Hicks and Gracie. You know what I'm saying? I do know what you're saying.

Because the ego's like, well, if you go in there today, you know, that guy might be there and he might tap you out because you haven't been trained. Like that happens. Legitimately, people go, people literally have that conversation in their head and they go, I'm not going to train today. I'm just not going to go. And then next week or the next day, you know what they're doing? I'm not going to go today. And it just builds up. You got to just bite the bullet, man.

Yeah. The most comment, I don't know if this is particularly what you meant, but let's say, whether you get a blue belt or whatever. where your belt is, right? Let's say you take a month off or two months off. And then you're like, shoot, if I go back tomorrow, I'm going to be a step behind. And everyone's going to know that I'm not really that good of a blue belt. And then you're like, so I just won't go. Then another month passed, now you're like even one step in your mind mentally, right?

Meanwhile, everyone at class, they don't care. No one cares at all. In fact, they're happy to see you. To be honest, they're like, oh, you're back. Okay, you know, whatever. They want to tap you out. Yeah. But that's always the case, though.

That's the thing. Nothing changed. So that doesn't yet, nothing changed. There's a girl in my gym now, and she, when we first started, we were both white belts at Gustavos, and she was a beast, and I love training with her. She's just such a fun partner because she's tough and she's hard, but she's a good partner. And I started doing what I do, which is I'm in and out, and she just stayed with it. And so I'm watching her on social all the time. She's competing now.

She's dominating. And she's just a force of nature. And she has just been so consistent in the last two and a half years where I've been like going hard for a month and then out for two months. months and no one sees me. And it's total ego because I like look at her and I'm like, man, like we were at the same level two years ago. And now she, I mean, she's a purple belt and she could just, she, she toys with me. You know, I'm surviving the entire round. But every time I show up, she is like, hey girl, what's up? Like, where you been? Like how are you doing? And she gives me, you know, she's just so polite. And it, again, it's just like, it brings me back to, no one cares.

They're just glad you're here. Yeah. That's how egocentric. we all are. We all think when we walk in the gym that everyone's looking at us. Just like, you know, you, oh, I'm going to look stupid if I do this. It's like, no, I'm going to look, from a leadership perspective, like, oh, I'm going to look stupid if I ask a question or if I admit that I don't know how to conduct this project. If I admit that, everyone's going to think, no, people are like, oh, yeah, cool, no big deal. Here's, you know, just. Welcome back. Yeah, yeah, welcome back. No big deal. We move on. And how many marathons have you run? Have you just run one? No. I did. I did. I did. Yeah, I really, I hate, I hate running.

I hate running. So no one should be impressed with me. My first marathon, you know, Flynn did it and he didn't train. I trained hard, like hardcore. And we ran the Marine Corps marathon and it was for Team Brendan. So this is a year after he died. So I'm like, all right, I got to like step my game up. And I train for this thing.

And, you know, Flynn finishes. And I think he finished in like 410 or something without training at all. And he was like disappointed in himself. And he's like, man, this thing is. humbling. Like I had old people beating me. I had like women beating me. And he's like thinking he, you know, it was just a humbling experience. And I'm like, hey, I just finished with the guy that juggled the entire race. Like I don't want to talk about humbling. So I did that first marathon and it was awful. And then somehow I just kept getting trapped. You know, I met Jen Tarantino. She had never

run a marathon. And and I was like, well, okay, I guess we could train for one. And so we started. We started training for one and I ran another one with her and then I started getting my dad involved in running which was just an incredible journey because I asked my dad to run this like tough matter and he's like Jamie I haven't ran a mile in like 40 years and I was like yeah I was like you could do it like we'll just we'll run you know we'll start with a mile and so I go and I pick him up and he's wearing jeans he's wearing jeans to this run and like he's running And my dad's kind of tall and lanky. And he's running and I'm watching him from the side view like, oh my, what is going on?

Because you could tell he doesn't know how to run. Like his, it just was not a good situation. And we ran a mile. He thought he was going to die. And then I showed up two days later. I bought him like legitimate like pants and a running shirt. And we go and we run another mile. And then we run a mile and half and then two miles.

And we just start building up. And we do this tough motor, which was 10 miles, but obstacles every half mile. So you don't have to run. run, you know, in its entirety. And he finishes that. And you could see this sense of like total accomplishment. And so then I was like, hey, what if we did a half marathon? And so we did a half marathon. And the entire race, he's like, don't ask me to do him full. I'm not going to do a full. And then we finished the half and he's watching the full marathoners come across. And he got that little like, hmm. So I waited a month, just enough time to forget how bad the half was. And then we started

training for a full. So we did our first full together. Then we did our first full together. Then we He did a second one together. And then he, I moved to Virginia Beach and he started training with my niece, his granddaughter. So awesome. So he ended up running another marathon with, I ran that one, but I only did the half with them. And he ran another marathon with my niece, his granddaughter. So with everything you've got going on, kids, work, running a company, you still make time to do jihitsu. You make time to stay in shape.

but I think that's just freaking such a mandatory thing to do with life. I get so much more accomplished if I am taking care of myself. And I figured out a long time ago, the best way for me to be disciplined in taking care of myself and doing those things is by helping someone else along the way. So all of the running with my dad, like I would not, I am not that discipline to get up and go train for that marathon on my own.

But I was trying to help my dad accomplish something. And I was getting time with my dad that you don't, really get as an adult. I mean, hours a week running with him. And then even with Jen, like when we started working out and we trained for our first marathon, it was helping her. Like she had never done anything like that. So I think I figured out that in order for me to succeed in my desire to want to continue to be healthy and do these challenging things, I've got to be helping someone else accomplish it because I'm way better when it comes to helping someone else than just trying to do it on my own. And when left to my own devices, I'm actually

not that great. So, so, so. I have to get creative and like create these scenarios where I'm like, hey, let's run a race. And now I'm in charge of helping this other person. And that becomes a motivator for me. It's interesting how it's so much harder to let someone else down than it is to let yourself down. Even like Jordan Peterson has one of those, one of his rules is like treat yourself as if you were someone that you were trying to help. Yeah. Right.

It's that same thing. Like you wouldn't not show up to run with your dad. but it was just you, man, you're in that rack, Jamie Cochran. I'm like, it's raining outside. I think I'll take today off. And my dad is one of those. He's the best training partner because you give him a schedule of like, here's the things we're going to run and here's how many miles and what days.

And he sticks to it. He's crossing every single training run off that schedule. So you're not getting out of the seven mile run or the nine mile run on a Saturday because he's like, what time are we meeting? We got to cross this off. So he's the best training partner to have. Find someone who's like sticks to the plan. Sticking to the plan.

Where are we at? Does that get us up to speed, Jamie Cochran? To today? To today? Are we there? I think we're there. You think we're there? Echo Charles, you got any questions?

Yeah. I'll rewind a little bit back to when you're in L.A. You said the music industry wasn't good for you, for women, for what did you say? For young women, it is a difficult environment to be in. There's just a lot of pressure. There's a lot of scrutiny. There's a lot of self-doubt, a lot of insecurities that you're dealing with. And it's just, you know, women already, you know, you have daughters.

You've probably seen this. And I've tried to explain this to my husband, but there comes a point in, I think I would dare to say, and I know we're not making generalizations here, but I would dare to say most women get to a point in their life where the world has convinced them they're not good enough, they're not pretty enough, they're not smart enough, they're not scared enough. they're not skinny enough. And they have all these fears and insecurities. And they have to work through that. And so that environment amplifies that significantly. And so I just think it's, you know, I have a daughter and I think about her and how do I prepare

her to the best of my ability to manage what the world will someday tell her. And my husband, Flynn is always like, no, no, no, that won't happen with Charlie. I'm like, it will happen with Charlie. And we just need to prepare her for that. got into that environment and realized very quickly that that's where I kind of reconciled with what the world was telling me and that I needed to get out of that in order to maintain my sense of security and comfortability in who I was. Yeah.

That makes sense. Yeah, that goes into the conversations we've had before about ecosystems and you get into an ecosystem where it's just, that's what you think the world is. And that's not, oftentimes that's not very healthy. Whether that ecosystem is the music industry in L.A. Or whether that ecosystem is the dang Ivy League College in Boston or whether that ecosystem is some business that you're in or being in the military.

There's people that, you know, they're in that military ecosystem and they're stuck in it. And they're doing things that don't make sense in their life, but they're trying to preserve their status in that ecosystem. And people, that applies to all of them, music, anything. You get in there and you start judging, yourself against this world and you're doing things that actually don't make sense for you as a

human being, but you're trying to maintain your status inside that ecosystem and it's just absolutely terrible. And it's very difficult. That's what I find very impressive about your story is a lot of these things people don't realize. Like what you just said, you are in an ecosystem that was not healthy. And you as a 20 year old girl said, oh, I can see that this ecosystem is bad. I need to get out of it.

That's a very challenging thing to do. That's a very challenging thing to do. Most people, they get in those ecosystems, they double, triple, and quadruple down inside those ecosystems. That's what normally happens. So another great lesson for life is that's why we talk about detachment. You've got to detach all the way outside of that ecosystem. Because that's what happens.

People detach from where they're at, but they're still inside the ecosystem. And they think, well, I just need to do more. I need to do this even harder. and it just doesn't work out. So be careful of that. Look around the world. Look around the world. And no matter where you are, you're in some kind of ecosystem.

You're in Silicon Valley and you think you need to be in the startup. Or you're in the college and you think you need to do the good internship with the big tech company. Or you're in the AAA baseball and you think you need to do it. Like you can just pick the ecosystem. And if you, if your heart's not there and you're doing it anyways, that's where, that's what hurts. Some people, that's what they're into, which I get. You know, I get it.

But if your heart's not really there and you're doing it for the wrong reasons, it's not going to work out good. So watch out for that. Anything else, I coach, Charles? No, that's it. I'll just say, I think that's what I learned when I was young by doing so many different things. One of the benefits of not honing in on one thing is I never got stuck in any of those ecosystems.

I had exposure to different people, different perspectives. and going from sport to sport and music and plays and different, I just had exposure to so much more. And I can easily sit here at this table and say like, oh, I recognize this and I made a choice. But the reality is in the moment, that wasn't happening. It wasn't as clear. I had a lot of people around me that I could look to and say,

you know what, what do I want for my life? Do I want that or do I want that? So I was lucky because I was at least aware enough to recognize that there were things that I wanted, and I saw what those people were doing. And I was like, all right, I need to go down that path to get to that. So I never got stuck in that ecosystem because of the people around me. But that's easy to do now looking back through this lens of ownership of the mistakes or the

choices that I made. But in the moment, those things were not instinctual. Like it wasn't like I got there and I was like, I need to get out of this. Like, no, I sat there for a while and dabbled in that. And then realized looking up and out, you know what? I don't actually want this. This doesn't like, this isn't who I want to be. So let me look elsewhere.

And I think growing up doing a million things, I was more comfortable saying, let me pivot and try something different. Yeah, which this was a foreshadowing conversation. I asked you three hours ago or whatever, like, wait a second, you were training gymnastics four hours a day, six days a week. That's an ecosystem. And it's a strong ecosystem. And there's people in there that there's people in there. If you ask a 12-year-old gymnast, like what is the ultimate thing to do in human life? they'd be like compete in the Olympics and gymnastics.

And there's a whole pack of them. And so you at age whatever, 13, 14 looked around and said, huh, that's cool, but I actually want to do other things too. Like that's an amazing ability for you to have. And it's a huge lesson learned for anybody that's listening. Jamie, any closing thoughts? I just want to express in this moment an opportunity of gratitude to you for the opportunity to be here at uschle in front.

What we get to do here is like nothing I could have ever imagined. And the journey we just walked through, I'm always so uncomfortable talking about myself. I'd so much rather hone in on the principles and what we teach in these leadership lessons. But the truth is the reason I feel that way is because these things have legitimately changed my perspective and my ability to take on problems and come up with solutions. So if there's anyone out there that's, you know, listening to this podcast or wanting to understand these principles, stop hesitating, stop making those excuses and just start. doing it and you will see your life change ahead of you as far as what you can handle and what

you can manage and what you can solve. Well, I think what's awesome is, you know, my mind being open to the idea that the way you have a women's jiu jitsu class, you need to have a women's assembly. And I've also, I have talked to you about this. Look, there's a 13 year old boy right now, a 16 year old boy and a 14 year old boy. And they can look at Uncle Jake, Way the Warrior kid. They can look at me and be like, oh yeah,

when I grow up, that's what I want to be like. I want to be like that guy. He looks strong. He looks tough. That's what I want to be like. And there's a lot of examples like that. There's a lot of guys out there that would,

that you could take a 13 year old kid and say, hey, you should try and behave like that guy. That guy's setting a pretty good role model. emulate that guy. And I think for girls, And like I said, I have three daughters. I don't know that there's that many out there.

I don't know that there's that many legitimate role models for young women, for young girls to look at and say, oh, that seems like a really good path that that individual went down. And I talked to these, I told you that months ago. I said, you know, I'm looking at my daughters. And I'm like, who are they looking up to? Who are they seeing on? Well, I see who they see. You see it on Instagram. That's where you see it.

You see it on TikTok. You see it on Snapchat. Like that's what they're getting inundated with. And I know that's not healthy. And look, there's plenty of bad examples for young boys as well. But I think for you to be an example for, I mean, for anybody of any age, but also especially for a 13 year old girl right now, a 15 year old girl right now, a 20 year old girl right now that's looking around going, hey, why am I in this ecosystem? Do I want to be a part of this? What can I actually do?

What are my limitations? And I think you're living proof that there really are no limitations. That you can go out, you can take ownership of your life, you can take ownership of your world, and you can make things happen. So thank you for sharing all of that with us. Thanks for sharing those lessons on. Thanks for also, honestly, and maybe not most important, but thanks for your service as a military spouse. The families don't get enough credit. I can guarantee you that your husband, who I know, was less worried when he was on deployment than you were.

Like the families and the spouses are the ones that have to worry. So thanks for your service there. And then at Eshlam Front, I don't know what the numbers are right now, but our growth has been phenomenal. And you are the person with the ore in your hand paddling and making this boat move. So thanks for everything you do for us at Eshlamfront and the lives that are impacted by by these principles and that company. So thank you. Well, thank you for setting the tone. Right on. Echo Charles.

Yes. Speaking of, you know, trying to set the tone, trying to live a good example, what do you think we should be doing? Jamie thinks we should be doing jiu-jitsu. We're going to be doing jiu-jitsu. Well, Jamie thinks we should be doing kind of everything, which I respect. You got to do it all. I respect it. It's true.

Actually, you make a good point, man, because you don't really think about that, like, that ease of, like, if you committed to and how you said gymnastics, right, Junkgo? Or it's like, okay, if you're in gymnastics, you're like, yeah, I'm going to go to the Olympics or whatever, and then you start to get hard and be like, man, I'm not even progressing as fast and all this stuff. And then you kind of consider, okay, if I don't do this, what am I going to do? And if the answer is kind of nothing versus Jamie's over here, well, about, you know, 900,000, 99 other things it's easier to kind of make that make an informed decision you know your next move bro you want to talk about dream killer I went and talked to

eighth grade students the other day and I would you know I was asking boys what do you want to do in your crop 50% of them I would say named some kind of professional athlete football baseball basketball whatever 50% yeah so I took the first one second one by the fifth one I was just turning into not angry but reality check jocco i'm like what's your backup plan do you know what percentage of people actually make it into the NBA it's a tiny number and you look like you're not going to be that tall what's your backup plan i had to and you know what the thing is no one's telling these kids this no one's telling these kids this and by the way how much basketball can you practice

tell me echo charles how much basketball can you practice how many hours a day can you practice i think he caps that um at about 10 10 hours so you got 10 hours, you're going to sleep for eight. That's 18 hours. You've got six hours left over to figure out what your backup plan is going to be. So even if you completely committed 10 hours a day to making it into the MBA, you can still have six hours a day to figure out what your backup plan's going to be. That's what I'm talking about.

So you got to have a backup plan. You have to have a backup plan. You have to have a backup plan. Because you don't know, you do not know what you want to be at eighth grade. I'm sorry. Like there is a very few people, like the Dave Berks of the world that's like, I'm going to be a pilot and go be a pilot. Most of us go the route that I did where I'm like, I know what I want to be. And then very quickly, it was like, actually, let me pivot. And you have to have a backup plan.

And you're right. No one's talking to kids about that now nowadays. It's, I realize that the kids, they don't connect what's happening right now to their future. They don't connect those connections. If they're lucky, their parents are like, hey, get straight A. So you don't really know why, but maybe you're going to get, you know, $2 for every A that you get. And that ends up being $10. And so you can kind of relate to that so you work hard. Most kids aren't like, oh, I know what I'm going to do. We get straight A is that going to be a good college. It's going to be in a program.

I'm going to get a doctorate in this. Like, that's not most kids. And I get it that there's some kids that are out there that are like that. Cool. They're not going to have any issues unless they overcommit to an ecosystem that they can't quite get into because there's people that their goal in life is to get into an Ivy League school. And when they don't get in because it's freaking competitive, they don't know what to do. They break down.

They have problems. But that's what we have to do is you have to bring up. broaden your mind you have to just well one of my friends actually our friend Brian Sargent he his he asked his one of his kids he was telling his kid like you need to study hard you need to get good grades and he's like why do I need to good grades and good grades and he says well what do you want to do and you get older and this his kid says I don't know and he said exactly exactly and when you don't know and you get bad grades you're just closing doors you're just

closing doors on yourself closing doors on your opportunities. So when you can maintain good grades, you can try a bunch of different sports, you can behave well, you can not get in trouble. Like those are the things that are going to open the most amount of doors for you

that you can capitalize on somewhere down the line because as Jamie just pointed out, you don't know what you're going to do, what you want to do when you're in sixth grade or seventh grade or eighth grade or 12th grade sometimes. Or 24. Yeah, I mean, we just talked to another guy who was,

He's at West Point in the engineering program, and he's like, yeah, second year at West Point in the engineering program, I realized I don't want to be an engineer. Like, that's crazy. So there's a 20-year-old individual that's in a military academy that doesn't know what he wants to do. So keep your options open. The way you keep your options open is by working hard. So make that happen. But it's difficult nowadays because there's a trend. now, especially with sports where like you're going to get your kid into the sport at three years old

and that's going to be your only focus. And they're going to go to the competition and the travel team. And they're going to focus so much on that one sport. What happens in high school and they change their mind? Or as an adult, they get injured and they can't do it or they don't make it. And parents put that on their kids. And I learned from my parents example that I'm going to let my kids, they want to, Niko decided six months ago he wanted to try lacrosse. I was like, sure. And he started playing lacrosse and he loves it. Cool. Sounds good.

And he may decide he wants to continue through high school or he may decide he wants to change his mind. But just give him exposure to as much as you can. Yeah, it's going to open up their adaptability as well. And adaptability is such a key component of survival in life. You know, the animals that survive are the ones that are most adaptable. The humans that do the best are the ones that most of adaptable. That's what makes special operations good. So we're good adapting to the situation that's on the ground.

So raise your kids so that they're adaptable, not so that they can do one random thing like, you know, hit a ball with a stick or do a double back hand spring, which actually that has come some. That's actually really good thing to know how to do. It also translates really well to a bunch of different things. But back handsprings? Yeah. Well, I mean, it's just the athletic capability, the explosiveness, the flexibility.

Like there's a lot of positive things that come out of that. And there's positive things that come out of a hit and a ball with a stick too, right? Hand-eye coordination. But let's not make that the sole focus as. you just pointed out let's not make that the sole focus any point zero zero one percent that they have the genetic capability the timing the injury prevention to have every star in the galaxy lineup that they can get to the NBA the NFL or whatever so just be careful I'm my dream killing monologue is complete yes sir but we are

staying physically capable that's what we're doing on all fronts yes yeah You know, you know, longevity sake, capability, say all that stuff. With that, we do need fuel. You need fuel. Clean fuel. You need jaco fuel. Jamie, what are you drinking right now?

Chocolate milk. Chocolate milk. How tasty is that? Tasty. Chocolate milk and orange go. That's a daily for me. That's your daily go-to. When do you have a go?

Usually, for me, I know this is way late in the day for you. It's usually like 1 o'clock for me. When is Academy? It's right. It's right at the start of. Yeah, so I like one or two o'clock. Yeah, I like to have one around the academy. That's pretty normal for me.

Or like if I'm doing a presentation, I like to get that go together. And I'll be honest with you. I don't know if this is cheating. I don't know what the law is about this, but lately I've been having to go on my way to Jiu-Jitsu. That's sort of my thing right now. And I'm starting to feel like it's hyping me up in like a real kind of way. I've seen the videos lately.

You look hyped up. I'm hyped up. And then when do you have a mock? In the morning. Or post-Jiu-Jitsu. Post-Ju-Jitsu. I don't eat breakfast very often. So Molk is like a really quick, easy way to get some fuel in the morning.

What I'm stoked about milk is you can drink it on an empty stomach and not like have your stomach go into a rebellion, which can happen. If you drink like milk, regular milk. Bro, you might get a rebellion on your hands. You might get some reactions that you're not going to like. So we got milk. We got go. JoccoFuel. Jocofuel.

Joccofuel. It's true. Go check it out. Yep. For all elements of capability. Yeah. You run into a roadblock physically. Boom,

Jocco fuel's there. Save the day. Got you covered on. You can get this stuff out. Wawa, bottom right. Because look, one of some pressure from the empires.

You know what bottom right means? Is that the Wawa like placement now? Yeah, yeah. Wawaws are big out where I am. Everyone's complaining about it. And I've asked people, I ask someone, I'm like,

hey, you know, what's up with the Jaco go? And the guy at the front, he's like, everyone keeps asking me that. Like, he doesn't have an answer either, but you got to find them. They're hidden. Yeah, they're usually bottom right. Yeah, the answer is that some of the big beverage empires came in and bought our slots, which, look, they're running a business at Wawa. Good, good for them.

But just know that your people are out there and they want that go. But you put them in Harris-Teter. So anyone on the East Coast, like now I don't have to go to Wawa. I don't have to deal with Wawa anymore. I can go to Harris-Teter and get that. the whole the whole cat. So Harris, Teeter, Wawa, if you can find it,

vitamin shop, G&C, by the way. G&C. Like, that's nationwide. Vitamin shops nationwide. Military commissaries, if you're in the military, Haniford,

dash stores, Wake Fern, shop, right, H.E.B. And Tejas. You people in Tejas, thank you. Thank you.

I know it's Laf and J.P. For sure. They're going hot, but there's no way they could buy as much go and jogger as H.E.B.'s got and is getting and is selling. So everyone down in Texas, thank you for going, getting after it there at H.E.B. We're in Myers. We're in Harris Teeter, as you just pointed out,

Lifetime Fitness. Shields, just went to Shields. We went to Shields. They got the whole line at shields. They're fired up. So also, if you got a gym, if you got a Jiu-Git-A academy and you want to have Jocko Fuel there, you got a little CrossFit box, you got some other kind of fitness scenario going on and you want to sell this stuff go to jf sales at joccofuel.com we'll get you that wholesale account and i'll be honest with you you know you kind of become a little bit of a crack dealer i don't know it's illegal or not but you give someone a can they're good they're back tomorrow they're back their training they're getting stronger they're getting better it's helping your whole scenario so yeah check it out joccofield dot com also origin

usaa.m so origin right all these uh what jeans boots uh rash guards geese all this stuff how How is this helping us? How is this helping America? Are you talking about you want to improve the national security for your country, for your children and your grandchildren? That's what you want to do? You're telling me that you want to actually help us win globally against tyrannical empires. Is that what you're saying?

Yeah. Get yourself a pair of jeans from origin USA.com. Because we're bringing manufacturing back to America right now. And the best hoodies on the market. And the best hoodies out there. Yeah, this is how good the hoodies are. So I use, so I have the OG one, you know, the Heather, like it's rib. It has two holes for me, like pulling it down over the just the years and years.

You know, when you put it on, you pull it down. So it has two holes in here. Dang. Sweaty, I use it only for working out. Okay. So it's not a wear around anywhere else. I'm like that too. I got a hoodie just for working out.

I have two of them. My wife trying to one up me. Takes them and wears them. My workout thing. And, you know, like, you know, let's face it, usually why it's not going to wear the sweatshap. Workout gear yeah, but they're so good it's like it's the most comfortable hoodie in this whole household The best I have one in every color the hood the heavy and the kilo Yeah, yeah, yeah, so all that stuff made in America jeans boots hunt gear we got the the line coming out for training

Have you you haven't got me have you got yours yet? RtX The RTX line oh you tell me you don't have it yet because it's been sent to one of our Operators here that's gonna deliver it to you but it's super good to go like I'm so stoked This is one of the first things I asked people was like hey man we need we need to make like a workout workout Clothing this is what I do every day every day every day work out. That's what I need every day and so we got it It's beautiful so RtX line coming out all made in America a hundred percent so you can actually help your great great great great Grandchildren live in freedom That's what you can do origin USA.com go get it's true also jocca has a store. It's called Jocko store

by the way. So yeah, we're representing on this path. We're doing everything. We're doing Jiu-Jitsu marathons as a case maybe. I'm not doing a marathon. But nonetheless, I am representing on the path. Discipline equals freedom. It's true.

So you have this shirt locker as part of the Jock store. And my dad has been a longtime subscriber. And he wears, it's the only shirts he wears. And he's on a road trip right now to Virginia Beach. And he's two times now on this road trip and stopped. People be like, hey, Jocko, yeah. Like, he just loves it. He's like in the game.

He is repping hard. Yes. Okay. He's representing on the path. On the path. Quite literally. Yeah. Yeah.

Short locker. New shirt every month. Different kind of design. Same path. Same representation. New design. So it's a good one. He's super.

He's super proud of that. He's super proud of that. Echo waits this entire podcast and then like you pass it off and he's like, now's my time. No, you don't even know how right you are. You can see him getting antsy at the end. It's almost my turn. If there's a podcast.

where he doesn't say very much, I have to like brace for it because I know he's going to get in there and just start, I can't stop it, you know. And so he's going to talk, you know, we just got to contend with it.

You started to close this out and you could see him like, his face changed. He started checking his notes. He was like, you know, yeah, getting everything right. He's like, I'm ready. Get in the mental spot there.

I like that. I'm going to help. That's so good observation. It's so right too. I see you over there. straightening your paper. Just getting ready to talk. That's a fair assessment.

I shouldn't contribute to this. I really should have your back on this echo. I'm sorry. You're correct again. Because you two both experience workplace hostilities from me. Yeah. We're going to do a podcast at some point,

just sharing our shared trauma working for you. I know we're on some group text with Essela on front. I don't know what you did. I forget, but I wrote back to the group test. Text to you, trust was broken. No, I can. can tell you what I did. What did you do? It was like a call and I was traveling and I didn't set someone up as the host on Zoom so no one could join the Zoom call. And like I was like,

hey guys, sorry, next time I'll make sure that I add some other people so you guys can get on the Zoom call. And you were like, trust has been broken. I was like. Yeah. Is it that control? Oh yes, I do. And here's the thing. I see where you're doing. That's the thing. See what you're doing? Like he'll go for like the kind of low blow. Not like whole obvious low blow because it'd be too obvious. You know, yeah, the subtle. You know, the Subtle lobelows. Here's what it'll do to me. He'll be like, hey, you want to come to this thing or should I call Carrie?

So it's like, no, I've got to go. I got to go because they can't be like, yeah, like basically count on someone else. You know, it's like that can still. So I see what you're doing. I see what you do. I think up once a month and we just have a support session. We just talk through the abuse. There you go.

Nonetheless, you are correct. I'm right. Hey, look, if people want to hear about the shirt locker, who's going to tell them about the shirt locker? Yeah. You? Speaking of encouragement, he doesn't need any more. I'm not. Just FYI for the people are not,

I'm not appreciative. Subscribe to that. Subscribe to the podcast. Subscribe to Jocko Underground. We do that podcast once a week, generally speaking. We answer questions from you. We also talk about

Jocko podcast adjacent topics. They're very focused on your moving through life in an efficient manner. So check that out. Go to YouTube. Subscribe to our YouTube channel. Jocko podcast, Origin USA, YouTube channel,

Jaco Fuel has a YouTube channel, Eschelon Front has a YouTube channel. So we've got all kinds of YouTube channels. Go subscribe to those things, check them out, good information, psychological warfare. That's been around for a while. Get you through those moments of weakness. Yeah, well, there you go. Flipside canvas, Dakota Meyer, books. I written a bunch of books.

You guys know the gig. Get them if you haven't gotten them yet, especially kids' books. Look, you might be, you. You might be beyond help. You're not, but you might think you are. But I tell you what, the neighbor you have with the two little rug rats running around getting crazy, they could use Uncle Jake in the lives of your children. Oh, yes.

We love Uncle Jake. Yeah, the way of the Warrior Kid is like the best thing you can do for your kids because all the things we teach about extreme ownership are in this book and teaching it in a way that kids can resonate with. Yeah. And for whatever reason, again, Jamie Cochran's the unicorn. that obeyed her parents with like religious zeal. Most kids are not like that.

Most kids are going to be like, oh, I'm not going to listen to my dad. What does my dad possibly know? You know, my son when he was 10 years old and we're doing jujitsu, and I said, hey, you need to move your hips a little further over on that arm lock. And he's like, no, you don't. I'm like, bro, I've been doing jiu-jitsu twice as long as you've been alive. And now you're telling me I don't know how to do an arm lock. but Uncle Jake the kids listen to Uncle Jake all day

and he's putting out some good word let's face it so there you go adults can read Wave the Warrior Kid and learn a bunch Oh I know I love those books yeah the simple straightforward methodology in way of the Warrior Kid is definitely it hits It lands as I go what Charles likes to say so we get how much books check out those books Ashla on front you heard a little bit about it today Jamie Cochran the chief operating officer there. What do we do at Eslam Front?

What do we not do at Eschon Front? We teach leadership. We do a bunch of different things. We do high-level consulting, long-term programs with clients and helping them put together leadership development programs within their company, train the trainer, sustainment efforts. We do one-off like keynotes and workshops and different things that we can come in and help your team understand and get a baseline understanding these principles.

And then obviously we have the events and experiences that we do, the musters, the field training exercises, the battlefield reviews, the council, now the women's assembly. And then we got a bunch of free stuff and a bunch of stuff on the academy. So if you don't have time, you don't have maybe the money to come to one of those events

or to have us come out and do training for your team, you can join the academy. And there's a plethora free courses and then very affordable courses you can take to get really dialed in on learning these principles more effectively. Real quick.

What is a trivia question, echelon front style? What year was the first echelon front video created? Ooh, I know, but I don't know the year. Well, wait, hold on, hold on. Hold on. Hold on, because early in the day, I made videos for Eschelon Front. Okay.

All right. Yeah, I'll pull out my, it's so bad. If you saw it now, you'd be like, what the heck? But I made a video from like very early on. It was like 2014. I went with you guys to Denver, and I took some footage on my phone and I edited it in like some, it was not good. Back in the day, it felt fine. But I mean, our first website I designed and created.

I used Wix. And then you came along and you stepped up our game with video and website. You did a bunch of stuff for us. So I don't remember. So instrumental. I don't remember. I don't remember the first time you made a video, though. First video for Eschlam Front.

Jalco. Yeah. What's your guess? Estimate. I know you remember the video. Yeah, the video. I don't know what the time frame was, but I did a video. I did a leadership training.

I don't even know if actually I don't know if Ashlawn Front existed yet. It might not have existed yet. I did a leadership training video for a company and Echo filmed it. So you do win. It was before. 2010. It was actually me and Sarah, by the way. Remember?

What was she in here? Yes, she was doing, like, help. Was it in this room? On the mats. Justice. What was the video? The video was for a teacher's association. Yeah, I remember.

Okay, but it was the same one. I thought we filmed, I didn't think we, I thought we filmed that in one of these like around here. Nope. On the mats in there before Echelon Front existed. But I revisited that maybe like a year and a half ago and it's all Echelon Front stuff.

Literally like to the language, everything. It was before Echonon Front existed because soon after that he was like, hey, we need a logo that kind of embodies this and like this. And I was like, okay, maybe I'll come up with something. He sends me a sketch made on like Microsoft. I still have that too, by the way. Yeah. I'm going to make a shirt with that logo

I want to wear it. Only I'm gonna wear it. Only me and K Dogg are gonna wear it. What do you mean? This is the OG. No, make that into a Sherlock shirt, dude. People underestimate or don't realize how artistic Jago is. He's actually quite artistic.

I get a lot of little drawings when he's tried to explain something and like he wants to show me and I'm like, oh, that's actually a really good drawing. And by the way, the Escalon front logo? Well, there's a difference here because you're talking about Microsoft draw or whatever stupid ass program I was on trying to do this thing. But if you give me a pen, I'll do okay. be okay okay actually you're right about that there's okay okay actually you're right but here's the deal so we get done we record this video and it's like an hour

long it's a keynote and it's you know what you pointed out earlier the principles that your husband had written down when he heard me talk about combat leadership for the first time and you know it says cover move simple prioritizing yeah it's the same stuff so i was doing this for some uh company and the the audio was off sync it looked like like a bad, a bad dub. And I go, hey, I'm like, hey, Echo, like, my mouth is moving and no words are coming out. And then my mouth isn't moving and words are coming out. It doesn't.

And you know what he told me? He was like, no, no, no, it's fine. He was trying to tell me it was okay. Why were you doing that? Because, okay, well, this is literally what happened. So the thing was, first off, that's my first video that I got paid for ever in my whole life. How much did I pay you? I forget.

50 bucks. I was like, okay. No, we like split it or something like that. Okay. Like the big egg. Yeah, you were, you were looking it up. But it was because the video's so long and I didn't use any like tools or no visual aids, nothing. I just was going by my own eyes.

And you know how you get hypnotized? He was calling out. We were going back and forth for like more than an hour saying, yes, it is. No, it's not. Yes, it is. No, it's not. To the point where he literally came to my house to show me. Do you remember that?

Yeah. You came over. And then we found the one spot when he's like, Hey, and you just got to know. And he's doing this. And he's like, look. And he goes, ch.

Ch. Thus began the, what that caused the introduction of the slate. Yeah. The slate. So, yes, Jocko was correct.

He had to drive all the way to my house. Your first video ever was 2010? For money. Yes. Okay. Paid gig. But didn't you, you did some,

you did some victory. Those are right after. That was after. Yeah. Because those are, you know, he's got outtakes of me, like 50.

16, 17 years ago. Still talking. Still talking. Still talking smack. The funny thing is, I remember that conversation about the timing being off, I was like,

hey, I was kind of questioning myself, but then I'm watching it. I'm like, dude, this is one of those rare situations where the person that you're dealing with is actually just wrong. Like, they're just wrong. It's true.

I was like all hypnotize because you know, like you're doing it for like an hour. I don't know. Had to drive to his house and sit down and show him that it was wrong. How to sing audio.

And I didn't know anything. Anyways, we got the mission done. Mission was accomplished. So that's what we're doing. At Eshalomfront, you can now get trained by us. And what you just mentioned, so we have an online training thing, Extreme Ownership.com. This is the thing.

You may not realize this. If you're walking around right now, or you know people that walk around and they think they're really good at fighting, but they never trained before. And you can go watch a thousand videos of a, blue belt in jujitsu beating up a or tapping out a big giant muscle head guy that doesn't know how to fight so there's some magic in jiu jitzu it's the same thing with this stuff it legitimately is like magic that you can bring into your life right now you don't even know that you don't know it right now you think you'll i know how to interact with my boss i know how to deal

with my subordinates i know how to do that just like that big muscle head thinks he knows how to fight He doesn't know how to fight. And he ends up losing. And looking around, think it was an anomaly. Or thinking it was just because that guy. No, your subordinate isn't reacting the right way. Not because of your subordinate. It's because of you.

Your boss isn't responding correctly to your influence because of you. So if you want to learn these magic tricks of leadership, go to extreme ownership.com. You will then have power. And the cool thing is you take Jiu-Jitsu. Chances are you're not going to get a street fight. But there's a 100% guarantee you're gonna interact with your subordinate your peers and your bosses that's 100% gonna happen So be ready learn the magic and you'll be good to go

Extreme Ownership.com go check it out get a class Learn if you want to help service members active and retired you want to help their families gold star family check out Mark Lee's mom mama Lee she's got an incredible charity organization if you want to donate or want to get involved go to America's mighty warriors org and also heroes and horses.org right now micah fink what's the latest report echo charles it was a mountain lion two mountain lions two mountain lions you know and then one of them lost its head which now belongs to micha think okay so micha fink is at his present mountain camp with the head of one mountain lion on a pike that he killed his bare hands and he's eating the other one at the current time so he's up there helping

Veterans find themselves in nature and find their path. So there you go. If you want to connect with us on the interwebs, Jamie's on the gram, you're on the gram, you're at Jamie Lynn Cochran. You're on LinkedIn at Jamie Cochran. Eshlam Front's on there, by the way, at Eshlam Front. You're not on Twitter, are you? I'm not.

How come I had to go on Twitter and you didn't? I remember your first tweet. Yeah, I know. I just, I don't have enough time to manage social media accounts. And no one's following me for stuff. So we focus on Eschlon Front. Eschlon Front has Twitter and all those other things. So we focus efforts there.

Do you put out Word on Eschlon Front social media? Is that you at any point? I used to be. Now, I don't, yeah. No, the team does that. I get to like oversee a couple of things. The try this instead of this, try this. That was me.

That was fun. So I put those out. I put those out. I mean, with help from the team, we got a lot of responses from the team. So we put those out every Monday, but the team does it all. Do you remember my first tweet?

I do. Did I write my first tweet? I wrote my first tweet. No, no. What happened? No. You, early on, we're like, hey, we don't need social media.

Early on, you were like, hey, I knew what you were doing. Before the book came out, you were not super excited about this idea of going on social media. And I ended up getting with some support from Jenna and Lave to get all,

all your guys' stuff and just keep it on the back burner in case me somebody needed it. And then you did the Tim Ferriss podcast and you called me and you're like, hey, Tim's twittering about me. Or like the way you described it, I was like, that's not accurate. But, and like I need to use it. And so we had these accounts set up

but we hadn't done anything with them. And so I was like, all right, I showed you how to log in and we're on the phone. And I remember being like, no, no, you have to use the hashtag. It's the number sign and I'm like walking you through it, like line by line and you tweet it. And then I call you,

you back. I'm like, hey, it was wrong. You tagged the wrong person. And you're like, okay, hold on. So you delete it and you retweet it. And then I went to bed and I woke up the next day and you had like 200 followers and you had responded to a bunch and I never once again helped you with social media. You just had it locked in. It was like overnight you figured it out. But that first tweet I'd walk you. Yeah. I remember making some kind of mistake and you're like, no. Yeah. Well, because you sent it and then I was looking and I was like, he tagged a wrong person. I tagged like Timothy H. Farras in Kentucky. Yeah.

But I only helped you once and then you had it. And nobody touches your social. I think that's a surprise for a lot of people is that you don't have a team of people running your social media. You post and you maintain control over that. Tim Ferriss told me, he goes, you got to do this Twitter thing. And I was like, I don't really know how to do that stuff. And he goes, don't just get it. And then I'll show you how to do it.

He never showed me anything, Tim, if you listen to this. but he did get he told me like how effective it was for interacting with people and it really is you know it's it is kind of overwhelming now because there's a lot of you know there's a lot of people that will reach out but it is awesome to be able to just talk to somebody in kentucky or in bangladesh or in australia boom there they are you can talk to them it's pretty amazing so we're on there jamie's on instagram if you want to follow jamie on instagram she's also with eschelam front So that's where we're at. Echo and I are also on there.

Echo's at Echo Charles. I'm at Jocko Willink. Just please just watch out for the algorithm. Because it'll get you. And watch out for those fake accounts too. Oh yeah, those bots get you. The bots are crazy. There's like fake Jock accounts that are like Jocko with like no seat.

Like they exist. So you got the verification. Yeah. But I don't have verification on Twitter anymore. Or somebody told me. People are like, where's your blue check mark? And so I got to figure that one out. It seemed like I just saw something the other day.

Elon tweeted that you can have two-hour videos now. Oh, damn. If you're on. So that actually might move me in the direction of paying the money. You know? Because right now the limits are like two minutes or something. And sometimes my videos be longer than that. So then I have to link you over to that.

I don't do that. It's just a pain. So that's it. Anything else? Echo Charles. Negative. Thanks, Jamie, for coming down. Thank you for having me.

Jamie, anything else from you? No. Appreciate the opportunity. Right on. Awesome. Thanks once again. Thanks for joining us. It's awesome.

We really appreciate it. I appreciate you. And I would say you don't know how much I appreciate you, but I actually think you know how much I appreciate you. Because my life depends on you. And I know you know that. Thank you for everything you do for us and also thanks for the military personnel out there tonight and I want to say especially thanks to all the military spouses that are out there who take care of the home front so that your military warrior can take care of us

Thank you you spouses you families you kids You moms and dads of those service members. Thanks for your service and sacrifice tonight and the same thing goes to our Police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, secret service, all first responders. Thanks to you also. And again, thanks to your spouses. Thanks to your spouses. Thanks to your kids who take care of your families so that you can take care of us. And everyone else out there from a leadership perspective, let's remember the underlying core of Colonel David Hackworth's attitude.

as a leader. He never did things for personal gain. He always did things for the unit and for the soldiers, for the soldiers. That's your team. You put the team first that is universal in leadership. And the same way it worked for Hackworth in Korea, the same way it worked for Hackworth in Vietnam,

it's the same way. It works for Jamie, taking care of her team, putting the unit and putting her people first and that is leadership leadership on the battlefield leadership in business leadership with your family leadership in your life put the team first that is how you lead then until next time this is jamie and echo and jocco out