Jocko Podcast - 410: Rules Can Aid The Wise, But They Are Snares For The Fool. Navy Principles of War.

Episode Date: November 1, 2023

>Join Jocko Underground<An examination of Navy Principles of War lecture by Vice Admiral David F. Emerson, 1963.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 410 with Echo Charles and me, Jocco Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. Vice Admiral David F. Emerson was born in September of 1926. He enlisted in the Navy, 1944, where he served in the Pacific Theater. Then after the war, in 1946, he was appointed as a midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy, graduated in 1950, and became a naval aviator. He once again went to war this time as a pilot in the Korean conflict and After the Korean War stayed in the Navy kept flying went into combat a third time during the Vietnam War

So that's three wars during his career he was awarded the Navy distinguished service medal two legions of merit with the combat distinguishing device Meritorious service medal and the combat action ribbon in between wars he held a bunch of different jobs in the Navy's commanding officer educated along the way awarded a master of arts in government and graduated from the naval war college had a wife and three daughters I did some research research about this guy couldn't find a ton I wanted to find out what he did as an enlisted guy in World War II find out what his job was couldn't find it but I did find and this is what got me on the trail of him I'd I had read a document a long time ago from a lecture that he gave in 1963 about the principles of war.

And he gave it at the Naval War College to the command and staff department. And the notes of this lecture, I think back in the day when they'd give a lecture, they would have the notes and like it was part of their plan to publish them. Maybe it's like, you know how you can, some podcast they have,

you can order the notes or you can pay for the notes or something like that? I think that they, used to kind of do that with lectures. So I got the notes. They're out there from this lecture. And I think it's a good examination. Of course, not only the principles of war, but the principles of life and the principles of human nature. So let's check out this right here. The principles of war, a lecture delivered at the Naval War College to the command and staff department on October 1st, 1963 by Lieutenant Commander David F. Emerson, U.S. Navy. He starts off. My subject this morning

is the principles of war. And I'd like to begin by categorizing war as a science and as an art. Let us define science as a body of systemized knowledge and art as skill in the application of knowledge to the accomplishment of a concrete purpose. And he goes on to say, however, I should caution you that any systemized body of knowledge of war must progress some way before it can be characterized as a science. So he's saying, look, they're calling it a science. It's not a science. He's like, it's got to get a long way before they can really call it a science.

Indeed, it has been said that the science of war is so obscure and imperfect that its sole foundations and support are prejudice confirmed by ignorance. I thought that was a great way of explaining the science of war. It's like your own personal prejudice is about what you think confirmed by your own ignorance. Like that's a great way to describe what the science of war is. You know, when I got, when I pick up a document to read, you know, I'm kind of looking for something that draws me in.

You know what I mean? Something that says, oh, this person has a, has a thought, a way of thinking that I'm interested in. I just don't want to hear somebody spiel a bunch of facts. I got to hear some angle. So when I read that, and you know, a lot of times, if I can't find something in two pages, we're not getting through it. It's getting deleted from the scenario.

So he has this prejudice confirmed by ignorance. So he goes on to talk about how do you acquire this knowledge? You can do it through the study of history or you can do it through case studies. And he says about studying history. In studying history, we have to be careful of a few things. Obviously, we must be sure that the facts we study are correct, and this is not always so easy. Second, we must be wary of the prejudice of writers. No man ever made himself look bad in his memoirs, for instance.

Third, we must be careful in passing judgment. It's one thing to study a battle or campaign in the quiet of the war college, free from pressures. With all, at least most of the facts. of the situation in our possession. And it's quite another thing to make a decision in combat. So this is another thing I said, oh, this guy's got some,

this guy's got some deeper understanding. Because, look, dude, you can sit there in war college and say that was a bad decision. You weren't in the field getting your ass shot up. You're sitting in an air-conditioned office space flipping through your textbook.

Come on. With a lunch break. With a lunch break. And he actually has in parentheses, particularly the pressure of time. He says free from pressure, and it says, particularly the pressure of time.

So like, what's the biggest pressure? Time. Yeah. What's the number one thing that I think about in the leadership loop that I wrote about leadership strategy and tactics field manual? Number one thing? Time.

The number one I'm thinking about. It's the first thing I think about. Yeah. And then he says, finally, we should all remember that any man in a position to become a great failure has gotten to that position only through many successes. Good point. I had a buddy of mine

He was a basketball player And he lost the state championship He had the free throw Like he had whatever A 1-1 free throw And they were down by 1 And he was about to just win this game And he missed it

And it was his senior year And so they didn't went to the state championship And I kind of said Dude did you like I mean how bad did that crush you? And he goes well you know I scored a lot of points. You know, he basically is saying what this guy's saying.

Like, hey, man, you know, I was in that position for a reason. Yeah. So I get it. Fast forward a little bit. And you can find this thing online. You just look up for the PDF or something. You can find if you want to read the whole thing. I'm not reading the whole thing.

Wait, so what's the message there behind it? The message there is like, oh, you look at this person that made a bad decision. You kind of remember that they made a bunch of good decisions to get to a point where they made one bad decision. Right. Right. And like it mattered. Do you mean kind of a thing? Well, it's just saying like the guy's 99 to 1, right?

Some combat leader, they got, they made good decisions 99 times in a row. Yeah. As a second lieutenant, as a first lieutenant, as a captain, going up to major lieutenant colonel. Yeah. Now he's a general. He's made a whole bunch of, you know, he's made some small, but to make a great, massive mistake, you had to get in that position. And it took a lot of good decisions to get there.

You can't just throw a guy out because he made a bad call. Yeah. So it's almost like the opposite of that is like, hey, if you make a mistake, if it ends up being a big one, you can't be in a position to make any kind of big mistake if you haven't achieved that position. You made a bunch of good, good. And look, can we find people that are just idiots, of course, generally speaking. If a guy's in a senior leadership position, especially like World War II, World War II, they fired generals. Like if they screwed or fired colonels, like, oh, you're not doing a good job, they just fire them. They don't do that anymore.

It's hard to get fired in the military now. They take care of you. They don't take care of the troops. They take care of the freaking guy that should be getting fired. So I'm going to fast forward a little bit. Now, down to the principles of war. First of all, what are principles? In the natural sciences, a principle is a statement of cause and effect or of the relationship between cause and effect.

and is true under all conditions. A principle of war, on the other hand, is something different. It is an abstract noun or phrase which epitomizes an idea. So there's a big difference between a principle of science and a principle of war. Principles of war epitomize ideas,

but do not give precise statements of cause and effect. Second, they are catch words. Here we have to watch ourselves, because the human tendency to use catchwords or rules may lull us away from thinking. Some good advice we're getting right there, right? Oh, here's the rule. Follow the rule. And that's your road move, just to do what the rule says.

Maybe you need to question that. Need to teach my wife. My wife's a habitual rule follower. I mean, you know, if there's a sign on a beach or something that says don't go past this mark or what, I mean, just random. There's no one on the beach. It's a sign from 1972. You know, there's footprints everywhere. Yeah.

We can't go past. What are you talking about? It says we can't go past. What are you talking about? There's people over there, by the way. There's other people that we just watch them walk by. So she's a habitual rule follower. Why is that?

I don't know. I don't know. Some people have a more rebellious streak. I'm on the other end of the spectrum. Yeah, that makes sense to me. I'm not quite, you know, some people that just do stuff just because it's against the rules? Yeah, yeah. It's different.

Because that just seems that can get ignorant. Right. But my wife's a habitual rule follower. I got to like pressure her. Right. You know when a light turns yellow? Yeah. Like when you're driving.

Yeah. Right. Punch it. You know what I mean? Like that's like it says accelerate. Yeah. Now my wife is like yellow light means all stop. What about like unwritten rules like here?

And I'm asking for a reason, but the let's say there's a right turn traffic time, right? And there's a right turn coming up maybe half a mile. But the lane for the right turn is backed up, backed up. Is she falling in right in the back of the line? I'm going right to the front. Kick it on my blinker with aggression. Yeah, yeah. And they'd be like, you know, whatever handle that, you know.

Now listen, there's a move where that's like you're not just breaking the rules, but now you're like being an asshole, right? There's a thing that you can do driving. Yeah. Where that's probably not the best example. Well, the reason I ask for that example is because, because you're absolutely right about that. If you're just an asshole, you're like, who cares about, like,

the road is here for me and you guys are just in my way. That's an asshole approach to driving. Hold on. Yes. Let me say this. Sometimes the reason there's a long line is because people don't know that there's two lanes open or they're, like they're causing problems. Right.

You know, this is where I drive every day or something like this, like going on the five north from Seaworld Drive. Sure. That's a situation, bro. It's a situation. And I go to the right lane of the light. And then when that light turns green, I punch it and I get over to the left so I can make the left onto the five north. This is a guarantee.

People just don't know that. So this is the left going back. It's backed up past the two lights prior. Yeah. People just don't know. Yeah. And by the way, to get on the highway is two lanes. There's two lanes to get on the highway.

Yeah. And they're not filled up. Yeah. Because people don't know. Yeah. So that's a rule break. Yeah. But my wife is like, no.

Wait, but is that really breaking the water? rules. And I kind of broke her on that one. Like she, she's all about it now. She's getting. Yeah, you're just in the know.

Because a big part of driving, even lines in general, like standing in line when you're standing there. A lot of that is just, hey, I'm just following the crowd. A lot of it. Yes.

But unless you're like how you are in the know, if you're in the no, no, no, there's like at the airport, whatever. That's another one where it's like, bro, there's another line right there.

So three people in there. Meanwhile, you're standing here with 50, you know, kind of a thing. That's different. That's different. that's different I won't like cut flagrantly cut in the line with someone if there's like one line at the cash register yeah

and that's it I'm not going to cut mine but if the line goes around the corner and then it splits into two lines and like people aren't seeing that I might go up there and be like oh there's two lines and I'll get in one of them okay to make some stuff happen okay so this is why I ask because I'm wondering about your wife now what level is she at because I think there's some function to all of this So what level is she at? Okay, so here's the, here's the example, real quick. So I'm going to the pumpkin patch with my kids. So if anyone knows.

Is this recent? Yep. Not last night, night before. So if anyone knows about this part and is part of this, I'm sorry. But this is the way it's going down. Yeah, it's not the first time. It's a system. I'm not an aggressive driver and I'm not an asshole driver at all, at all, at all, at all.

In fact, the opposite. But at this particular time, I know, because we go to this pumpkin patch more than, more or less every year. They have a cool tour. It's fun for the kids. Whatever. So we're going there and this turn off the 52, maybe the 67, I think, maybe turn off to where the pumpkin patch is during this time. Because it's at night, like late, early evening traffic time.

And this right turn is like backed up to like on the freeway backed up, like backed up, like backed up. Like backed up. So it's either you suck it up, jump in line. But it's the kind where the right turn lane is the one that's backed up. There's only one lane. straight up. So you got to go in line. Otherwise, if you skip it,

even if you miss the back of the line and you kind of drive past it, you missed it because there's a whole line there. So you either got to cut in front of somebody or miss the turn, right? So that's the, and I know this from years of going there. And I know it's backed up.

So I make the conscious decision to be like, hey, we don't want to stand driving this lane, in line, the traffic line. I'm just going to go right up to the front and just hand,

handle the repercussions at that time. Okay, so we can edit this out of the podcast. Because if my wife hears you saying that right there, you're gonna have issues. She's not gonna like me anymore. No. Well, okay, so that's why I'm asking like, okay, what if, because look, I'm not-

Now, if there was two lanes, which is entirely, entirely possible that there's, it's actually a two-lane exit. Right. But people know they're supposed to get off and so they're half a mile prior, there's in the right lane. Right, right. That's different. That's different.

I'm down with that. Cutting in like what you're talking about, really, it's, I'm not I'm not super down with that right so this is why I asked because I'm not down for that pretty much ever like I'm like hey man just follow rules like everybody else is why this whole system works because we all follow rules or whatever um but every once and while can any exception be made that's a question that I'm that I'm asking around parking time for the Charles crew hey you know overseas you know in America when there's like you're going from two lanes into one lane yeah emerge just automatic alternate in America

in other countries, they just honk and cut. Yeah. They just honk and cut. Like, they're not letting you in. You got to be willing to sacrifice your bumper and your fender. Yeah. Yeah. Other country driving flows, the flow of driving is different.

Yeah. It's different. We still go to TJ all the time, Tijuana. And bro, sometimes there's like no lines. Oh, they don't care. And they're just flying through him. Like, bro, and the taxi driver, he's just calm. He's just rolling right through freaking traffic,

cutting through this car, that car. Yeah, it's different. That's what I'm saying, though. That kind of backs up what I'm saying, where it's like, hey, this is a system. You know, the less people follow rules, the more jammed up the whole system gets. So that system running smoothly kind of depends on everyone following these rules, even if they're kind of unwritten. And we allow for some fudge factor, you know, like a guy missed, let's say I honestly miss, like the first time I encountered that line. I missed it on accident.

Oh my gosh. I'm so sorry. I'm waving to the guy. My wife wouldn't be mad at you for the rest of your life if you did that. Yeah, that's what I did the first time. If you flagrantly just cut people? Because I know that's a system, so I kind of pre-plan for it. I'm going to act cool.

I'm going to be like, hey, sorry, you know, whatever, and just deal with the fallout, which is nothing, by the way. You know, the person gets mad for 10 seconds and that's it. We're off to the pumpkin patches. God, everyone doesn't think like you, bro. I know. I know. You're right.

I agree with that. The Downfall society starts with Echo Charles is. But you know what you are? You're doing like little conniving driving. It's not even road rage. It's just like little sneaking around. Yeah, it's, I don't feel like conniving. because generally just like these leaders that you're talking about,

to get into that position where I can kind of justify it to myself, I have this long history of uninterrupted, just etiquette driving. Okay, so you feel like you get a pass. A little bit once a year on the pumpkin path. That's what it feels like. Have you noticed for real if you're late for whatever reason? You probably don't care if you're late for anything. That is much, no.

But if I happen to be late or running late, Yeah. Every car is slow. Every stoplight turns red. Like, everything sucks. So what do you do? I don't. Your behavior stays the same. No, I leave early.

But let's say you're, look, one in the trillion times that you're heading somewhere, you're kind of late and obviously the cars are slow and all this stuff. What do you do? Nothing. Suck it up. I literally, I literally think to myself, this is my fault and you have to deal with the consequences. That's all there is to it. You're a good man.

All right. Moving on. You remember such saying as Red Sky at night, Sailor's Delight. This means a lot to some of us, but do you think any meteorologist makes his predictions by stepping out the door and looking at the color of the sky? Again, it's just like a catchphrase thing. He's trying to remind you that. A third characteristic of the principles of war is that they are assumptions, and they are rather abstract assumptions at that. Fourth, the principles of war are neither sacred nor immutable.

Anyone who ever wrote a list of principles of war says that his list is it Just from the fact that the lists have changed so much brings this viewpoint into question as you will see when I show you some of the lists of principles of war and how much they can vary There's a whole idea like this is a Navy dude There's a whole theme in this talk Basically that the Navy is like look you can't just put rules out there Like you can have some ideas, some principles, maybe guidelines, but that's about it. That's kind of the Navy attitude, and we'll get to that. Going on further, there are some dangers of using the principles of war.

The first danger is that they rest on assumptions, on the assumption that all wars are alike, both as to cause, objects, and methods. Well, there you go. That's kind of crazy, right? A second great danger, and this is probably the greatest danger, is that they lead to an a priori reasoning. A priori reasoning deduces consequences from principles assumed as self-evident and is derived independently of factual observation. Obviously, however, your first principle must be correct. Basically, they say like, oh, you're going to do this thing based on this principle. but the principle that you're basing it on,

which you assume it's self-evident. You assume it's obvious, but it's actually just someone else's idea. You know what I mean? That's kind of messed up. So be careful of that. And then he says, another danger of using these principles of war

is that they tend to lead to oversimplification. This is because they are catch words. It's easy to oversimplify. It's easy to say, I've got mass, I've got security, I shall therefore win without seriously considering the situation. Without really knowing what the situation is, you may think you have these things, but you haven't fought it out. So beware of oversimplification. You ever heard the MMA math like A beats A beats B, B beats C, C, B, C, A.

You see a lot of this in MMA because there's a whole slew of variables. that you just don't know what's going to happen. You just don't know. And if I bet on the UFC over the years, I don't bet on the UFC, very rare. I should say very rarely, because occasionally I'll still be like, yo.

But there's a couple times where I have bet, not specifically on the UFC, but on MMA in general, where I thought I was just like putting money in the bank. Putting money in the bank, dude, and then just lost. and been, you know, totally, I'm talking like guys that I had trained with, guys that I had insider info.

Can you get arrested for that? No, that's like Wall Street. Insider info, because, you know, back in the day, in MMA, we all knew each other. Like, we were probably two degrees of separation from any UFC fighter. Seriously, back in the 90s, probably two, maybe three degrees of separation. We had Brazilian connections. We had American connections. We had wrestling connections.

So we had Somba, we had all kinds of connections. So we were like two, three people away from just about every fighter that there was. And I'm sure we could go down the list and I could be proven wrong. But it certainly seemed like a lot of fighters we were connected to. I mean, whole camps that we knew people from. Until you got a whole camp that you know everybody in that camp and you get second word and this guy's injured. He's got a bad this. He's good at this.

That guy can't. Like, you'd find that stuff out. And a couple times I found that stuff out. I thought I was like, oh man, I got the insider. In fact, I don't have any good insider stories where I thought, oh, I got the insider information. I'm going to bet and I won. Never ever. That has not happened to me.

I've had insider information and lost total upsets. Yeah. Totally like didn't see it coming. It's kind of like seal training kind of, right? Very, very similar. Very similar. You just don't know. Yeah, so that's the way it is.

You have these principles, but you can't put 100% faith in them, because there's other things out there. Like the dude's just got an iron chin. Yeah. Or the dude's got crazy strength or he's got wicked flexibility or he's got a torn, you know, uh, uh, groin muscle. You know what I mean? Like that kind of thing. Yeah.

Kind of have an impact. Yes. Oh, then you find out he's got a, you can find out he's got a torn groin muscle, but then you also find out he's like a physical mutant that doesn't care about pain. Yeah. You didn't know that part. So you bet against him. He doesn't care.

Yeah. All right. Next up. Another danger is that war cannot be fought mechanically by a book of rules. Here is a quote about the enemies of a great general. Napoleon's opponents moved their men on the chessboard according to the rules which they took for immutable principles. And the game went on so long as their antagonists were also guided by them. But when the adversary appeared who only awaited the development of their own,

methodical movements to play his own secret profound and decisive game all the quality of chances disappeared and the only variety in the result was the mode of defeat so here's the rules this is like what happened with MMA you know like oh you're you know boxer versus boxer that's the fight then it was boxer versus hoist gracy what's that guy's name Jimers art Jimerson right yeah one boxing glove on. And he's, I think in the interviews, he's like, well, how is this guy even going to touch me? Yeah. I'm going to jab him.

Like, I'm fast. And that guy, I think that guy was a ranked boxer, by the way. And no one just ever changed levels, grabbed your legs and took you to the ground. Yeah. That's what we're talking about. So thinking that you're just going to follow the rules, no, goes on to say the key word here, and we all, and we have all noticed it, immutable. I don't believe that a principle of war can be. to be immutable. Immutability leads to inflexibility. Here's a quote from Admiral C.R. Brown.

Adherence to one principle frequently demands a violation of another. Any leader who adheres inflexibly to one set of commandments is inviting disastrous defeat from a resourceful opponent. Notice that's an Admiral. It's a Navy guy that's saying that. Now there is yet another danger. This is that the principles of war can lead to a blindness to the real situation. They tend to lead people into preconceived ideas about what the situation is by blindly following the principles of war rather than into considering what the situation actually is. And this has happened frequently. Oh, yeah.

This is when you, you know, look. Look, pattern recognition is great. It really helps you. But if you start overlaying the pattern onto the situation and kind of making the marks of what you see, not what's actually happening, that's an issue. That's a big issue. Going on, however, there are some values to the principles of war. I don't want you to think that they're all wrong. The first value is that they help to get us thinking.

about war. If we think about the principles of war, not merely repeat them or memorize them, but think about them, this is good. We are thinking about war. If we are continually testing them, seeing if they do apply, testing to see whether or not a principle applies in a historical situation, then we are thinking about war and we are thinking about the situation. So there are some benefits. And it's nice to have a framework to look and say like, oh yeah, they should be doing this, but you can see they're a little bit outside of it. Instead of saying, oh, they're doing that, that's what they're doing. The principles of war have one other value.

They may help to keep us on the right track, perhaps. They at least help to keep us from getting off track. Okay. So that's good. Good information. And then he's, I'm going to fast forward a bit. He starts getting into some of the examples of the principles of war around the world. the first one that he starts with is Sun Su.

We've covered Sun Su on this podcast. He talks about Sun Su having 13 principles of war. He's like, I couldn't find him. And he goes through the 13, there's 13 chapters. But he says, laying plans, laying plans is not a principle of war. Classification of terrain is not a principle of war. The Army on the march is not a principle of war. The use of spies is not a principle of war.

What he does come up with is the five essentials for victory. And these are some of the popular ones that, You always hear quoted from Sun Su. He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight. That's accurate. He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces. Very accurate. He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all ranks.

Watch out America. He will win who prepare. Heard himself waits to take the enemy unprepared. And then the last one, he will win who has military capacity and is not interfered with by the sovereign. Meaning don't micromanage me, civilian dudes. You want me to win. I'll win.

I'll tell you when we're done. I don't need you, I don't need you, President Johnson calling over to Vietnam, telling us what targets to strike. We don't need you to do that. You want us to win, we'll win. otherwise back off so there's sunsuit the next one he talks about is klaus wits and you know we haven't covered clauswitz on on the podcast and i i guess i'm biased against klaus fits to be honest with you why uh b h ladle heart you know i'm more about that i'm more about about that indirect approach

i'm more about that b h ladle heart and and the other reason i think in the beginning it was because it's so common, so popular? I was like, yeah, everybody kind of knows this. We should probably do it at some point. I'm not that biased against him. There's always lessons to learn, right? Sure. So here's Klausowitz's four rules.

No, you know, no major disagreements here. Use our entire forces with the utmost energy. Okay. Concentrate our power as much as possible against the section where the chief blows are to be delivered and incur disadvantages elsewhere. It's concentration of power. Which, by the way, is prioritized next year. Never waste time.

Surprise through swiftness. And follow up our successes with utmost energy. And he goes on to say, now at this point, I would like to digress a little bit. In Colonel Langston's lecture, you were told that Klauswitz said that war was an extension of politics by other means. This may well be true.

But I would like to point out that Sir Walter Rolwold, said that war is the failure of politics. I must say a little bit more accurate, right? Now you get these freaking idiots in the government and they're ready to press the war button like in, you know, 30 seconds. They're like, oh, we have a disagreement with somebody.

Let's attack them. These are what the idiots do. Yeah, right. It's kind of defeats the purpose, right? Kind of a thing. Yeah, well, I'm sure there's a lot of reasons why they make that move. Number one, they make that move because they're not having any kids that are going to war. Yeah, but like how you say, like politics is.

Also, they own a bunch of freaking military, you know, defense companies. Yeah, defeats a purpose. Like, if you're here, if your job is, if you just said political, the reasons politics exist is so you don't have to go to work. War, right? So, hey, look, and even on a person to person level, like, hey, let's, let's diplomatically resolve this, you know, so we don't have to fight. Now, if me, if my diplomatic approach is to fight, bro, kind of defeats the purpose of having a diplomatic purpose. 100%. You're saying? So, yeah, man. So essentially, we've got to expect more out of these politic type people, politicians. You think? Yeah. Yeah. They're terrible. Terrible. All right. So there's, there you had Klaus Fitz.

Now we get into British Army. And look, I'm just, I'm not reading this guy's whole speech. I'm just reading some sections of it. British Army principles, JFC Foller in 1912, put these principles, or put the British Army Field Service Regulations book in 1920. They put these principles in there. These are also the basis for the U.S. Army's list of principles. But here's the British Army Army principles of war.

Selection and maintenance of aims, which by, By the way, that's a long way of saying objective. So the selection and maintenance of aim, so know what you're going to do. So pick out your aim, what's your objective is, and then keep going towards the same thing. Next one is offensive action. Cool. Be on offense. Next one is administration, which in America we call that logistics.

Cooperation. Cooperation, that's covered move, by the way. concentration of forces to prioritize next to you economy of effort prioritize next year flexibility yes great thing to have surprise yes great thing to have security yes great thing to have maintenance of morale so there's the british next come the u.s army principles there are nine of them and he says if you rearrange this list you can form an acronym for remembering the army principles of war this an acronym this acronym is moss comes if you want to remember principles of war is a good way, perhaps,

but I'm not so sure you should memorize lists of principles. This guy's got more of an open mind. You know what I'm saying? It's strange that some people have an open mind naturally and some people have a closed mind naturally. I mean, you can hear Jordan Peterson talk about this, right? It's one of the

components, the big five components of psychology. So, and you know, you meet people like this all the time. You meet people on all over the spectrum, right? Yeah. So here's the U.S. Army principles of war, and we've covered these before. Objective, and that's again the same as aim.

Like make sure you know what your objective is. Offensive, mass, economy of force, maneuver, unity of command, security, surprise, simplicity. And we're going to get into some details. If you're wondering, like, what are these things all mean? We'll get into it. Next, we have the U.S. Air Force principles of war. The Air Force takes a little bit of a different stand. General Muir S. Fairchild, who is the first commanding general of the Air University,

refused to allow blind acceptance of any principles of war. He later became vice chief of the Air staff. And this position still maintained that we can't have principles as official doctrines, which would be followed blindly. He desired no blind acceptance. He insisted that each principle has to be restudied constantly in terms of the situation. So he has a more open mind. Here's the U.S. Air Force principles of war.

Objective, offensive, cooperation, concentration, economy, surprise, security, mobility, simplicity. And now we get into the U.S. Navy. And remember, the guy that's writing this is at the time a lieutenant commander. He eventually becomes an admiral. He says the U.S. Navy didn't have a list of principles of war until fairly recently. And this is written in 1963. In fact, as recently as 1953, there was no official doctrine nor official publications. which propagated a list of U.S. Navy principles of war.

In 1953, apparently under the pressure of unification, Admiral R. L. Connolly, who is president of the Naval War College, wrote a list of principles which he published in the Naval Institute Proceedings. That's a magazine. In his article, he said that, under unification, it seemed as if we were going to have a list of principles of war and submitted a suggested list. Now there are quite a few reasons why navies have never accepted lists of principles of war. For instance, here's a quote from a British general written a few months after Gallipoli, in which the British tried to get around the stalemate of the Western Front by applying sea power and going to the flanks. He said, sea power and command of the sea are colossal assets.

Yet sea power is also a great seducer from the principles of war, meaning you think you don't need to use. them if you got like some big sea power the army and the Navy approach of the principles of war or sorry the army and Navy approached the principles of war differently this is what the army says about the principles of war quote the principles of war are fundamental truths governing the prosecution of war their proper proper application is essential to the exercise of command and to successful conduct of military operations these principles are interrelated and dependent on the circumstances may tend to reinforce one another or to be in conflict.

Consequently, the degree of application of any specific principle will vary with the situation. So they do recognize that there's a dichotomy with some of these things. There's decisions that you have to make, but they do call them fundamental truths that govern the prosecution of war. Those are strong words. Here's what the Navy says. Quote, principles of war were first formulated in an era. when the movements of forces and logistic support were operations much more simple

than they are in the 20th century. They were intended originally as a guide to conduct land warfare. The principles described briefly in this appendix do not agree with any standard list either in number or titles. Rather, they represent observations relating to principles of war

which appear to be applicable in some degree to naval warfare. So he's like basically like, yeah, In sometimes there might be a possibility that this could have an impact. They are not listed in any particular order since relative importance will vary according to the nature of a given situation. These principles, which are somewhat interdependent, are suggested as general guides, useful for study rather than as immutable doctrine or as infallible laws guaranteed to produce definite results. since war is not a precise science, there is no standard formula

for translating any set of principles into action. Interpretation and adaptation must necessarily be made against the background of past successes or failures in war and in the light of the evolutionary nature of technology, naval doctrine, and national policy. And this is what I find pretty shocking to this day is people think they know what's going to happen in a war. You think they know what's going to happen?

happen and you don't know what's going to happen there's factors just like an m-ma fight there's factors you cannot comprehend there's things that you don't understand and because of that you're gonna have to make some decisions and when you make those decisions those are gonna further impact the variables that you're facing so on paper you know who wins you know on paper who wins this guy or this guy oh well it's gonna be this guy he's got well you can't say that and by By the way, that's an MMA. And while MMA has less rules than boxing,

MMA has infinitely more rules than war. War has no rules, virtually no rules. I mean, the number of rules in war is tiny. So there's so many things that can happen. And by the way, guess what you can do? Break rules. What are you going to do? Like if you're in a MMA fight

and you pull out a knife and stab something, somebody in the neck, you're going to get arrested, you're going to jail, the fights over. That's different. If you're in war and you're fighting another country and you decide you're gonna use a chemical weapon and you kill, what are they gonna do? You're already at war.

Yeah. Yeah. And I thought about that too, where you know how like certain countries have certain rules for the way they do war and like all this stuff, right? But at the end of the day, doesn't, just like how you said, the rules don't matter and they're really for real, in real,

life do not matter and this is why because if we you know we're trying to win this war and then you know I have this rogue element that does some some you know inhumane stuff and some some stuff that that breaks the law the laws of war all the damage that they do to the enemy no matter how illegal still counts and it counts towards your war effort yeah in mMA don't like if you bring bus out a knife stab them put it back no one saw it till them Ooh, they played the replay. Oh, your win does not count. Doesn't count.

You're disqualifying fact. You lose automatic. In real war, it doesn't work like that. The damage you do counts. And the retaliation is going to count too. Oh, that's all part of the gig. That was the rogue element over there. You're like, yeah, that rogue element's part of your gig.

So watch this. Yep. It all counts. So we. And when I say we, I mean America looks at these situations on paper all the time. They're like, yo, here's what's going to happen. Yeah. And it's, oh.

Oh, well, what about you know, that'll never happen again. I don't never happen again. You know, I was explaining when you go to see the Vietnam War Memorial. Have you been there? So it's a big giant V-shaped wall. But when the beginning of the wall, when you start, so you walk, you walk along the wall and it's got all the names, the black man, all the names are carved in it. Well, when you walk as you get to it, you start like it's a little sidewalk. And there's a little wall and it's probably like, I don't know, six inches tall.

And it's got like whatever, four names. And you keep walking. And so it doesn't seem like that big of a deal. And then you keep walking towards the angle, like the vortex of the V. And as you walk, it gets taller and taller and taller. So finally, when you get to the main, you know, to where the two legs of the V meet, it's over your head. And it's covered with names.

and this is what happens with America and wars. It starts off with like, oh, there's, you know, we sent some, we deployed some forces and we got to, they're not going to be engaged in combat, they're just advisors, we're just doing some logistical support. That's what's always saying. I heard this on the news the other day. They're like, this is not a combat deployment. It's just 2,000 soldiers are going over into the vicinity. They're not going to be actually in combat. You're like, oh, okay, I've heard this before.

And then you look up and all of a sudden you're embroiled in another giant war. That's what happened in Vietnam. So that's, and we get lulled into it. And by the way, the whole thing of like, well, they actually attacked our guys. Well, our guys were there. That's why they got attacked. They weren't there. They weren't there.

They weren't attacked. But who, you know, what politician is like, well, if they get attacked, we'll send more. And by the way, I own, you know, I own a decent amount of stock in these various military industrial companies. and they make bullets. And when we shoot bullets, those guys got to make more bullets. It's the way it works.

Is it all like that? No, it's not all like that, but does that way? I mean, think if you own a company, right? Think if you own a company, you're a nice guy, Echo Charles. Echo Charles is a pretty nice guy. And think if you made hamburgers.

And you were at the, you're at the fair. You're at the fair, and you're selling hamburgers. And all of a sudden, there was like the other burger place, they had like a little fire. Now it wasn't getting into your line. And you had a fire extinguisher, you know? You may or may not.

Decide I'm going to help them put their fire out. Yeah, fully. Now listen, you're a nice guy. You'd probably be like, oh, hey, here's a fire extinguisherstinger. But let's say that other hamburger stand was like where you couldn't really see him. and you didn't know them. And instead of just selling burgers for like, you know, you're going to make an extra 700 bucks that day,

what if you were going to make 700 billion? Or sorry, let's say 700 million. It's a lot. Yeah. You know? Yeah, fully. Dude, you might even be like, hey, let's put some matches over in that. You know, you see what I'm saying?

It's a lot of money people are starting to deal with. Brough, I know, knew this lady, and she was part owner of a satellite cell phone provider service. They sold the cell phones and they sold plans with the cell. These satellite phones, they work anywhere, right? Under all circumstances, kind of a thing. And I heard this freaking chick say for, you know, in regards to like sales, like we need to boost our sales, all this stuff. She's like, shoot, you know what we need? Another natural disaster.

That's what we need. She literally said that out loud. I'm telling you, man. It's that mindset. Was she an evil person? Well, you know. You know what I'm saying? I mean, but she's a woman.

She had like a wife. She had a husband. Yeah. Kids. I'm sure she has. But she wants some new Mercedes. Yeah. And she's like, oh, we can make the neck of quarters.

If we just have a nice little hurricane, we need those sat phones. Those cell towers get knocked out. So imagine if you could kind of like steer things. Yeah. That's spooky because that's a lot of things. Yeah. Because that's what the things. thing is you got to remember there's like a this isn't like someone goes look I want to start a war

they don't do that but but their reaction to like oh there's turmoil the reaction instead of being like hey maybe we should just like and in fact it's like there's turmoil they could say hey that's not really our business that's not you know we should kind of stay out of their what they've got going on instead they go you know we should help them it's actually that what they say right yeah we should help them well how should we help them well I mean let's at least give them the supplies that they need. Well, what supplies do they need? They need bullets.

Don't you make bullets? Well, yeah. I know. I mean, I do, but that's not what I'm saying. We should help them just on the spirit. Okay. So you can't argue with that. Now, again, when you look at the world and you go, hey, there's places that need help, right?

But a classic example was Rwanda. When the Rwanda massacre took place, and I was off the coast on a ship with a seal platoon, that massacre was happening. And we definitely could have gone in there and stopped it. We could have saved, I mean, 800,000 people got killed. We could have saved, let's say we saved 1,000 people, right? We didn't go in. Why didn't we go in?

Because Somalia had just happened. Black Hawk Down had just happened. And they're like, hey, we're not sending you guys in there. A couple elements, Marine Corps went in there with a couple elements to, like, do a little bit of relief. And they came right back out. So we had like a bad memory. America had a bad memory. And, you know, they're like, eh, don't really need to, you know.

know. We don't really need none of that right now. So we're just kind of whole what we got. But then you fast forward 10 years. You have the same situation. Someone's like, hey, man, we could help those people out. I bet you, you know, if that would have happened, I think that was like 1994, I think it was 1994, the Rwanda.

And Blackhawked down and happened in 93. So I bet you if it was like 97, a few more years, I bet we would have gone in, I'd done something to help them. But we didn't. So there's all these little factors when people are making decisions and one of those factors a little bit in the back of their head Maybe look some of them are sure evil. They're just like let's go to war and I'll make more money Yeah, some of them are just like well, you know, it is the right thing to do it's defend their you know whatever cause and we we can help and there's turmoil and we should at least make sure you know like that's what we do There's little something in the back of their head

Mm-hmm making that decision. Yeah, that money piece is like hard to ignore as being a fact you know in an individual's decision-making oh yeah like if some conflict they said I'm like remember blood day ever watch the movie blood diamond where he was like he was he was explaining it or whatever he's like so they're not they're not starting wars from money but they find themselves in a situation where it pays to keep it going you know so it's like one of those things so it's like i don't have to actively do anything but at the same time i don't have to or i don't want to actively do anything to stop it because it kind of pays to keep it going kind of a thing like man how hard is it to ignore that as a factor it's it's the same thing with like you know like pharmaceuticals and stuff like if

you have like type 2 diabetes medication or something you know and they say this all the time where it's like hey they don't want you to be healthy they'd want you to come back for the you know for that's a great example do you really want that person to go in a keto like start working out because you can reverse that i i'm not a medical doctor but I know people reverse type 2 diabetes by going on a strict like ketogenic diet and we're starting to work out an exercise and they go they become no longer type 2 diabetic yeah that happens does the does the insulin dealer want that happen no hell no so they're like when you're leaving the doctor they're like hey here's a cookie yeah let's roll here's a cookie and another another prescription for for insulin isn't it weird that how when you leave The doctor as a kid even they give you a lollipop.

It's crazy, right? Like something that'll literally make you less healthy. As you leave the doctor, they give it to you when you leave. Dang. That goes deep, man. All right. So that's what are you going with here? Yeah, the first principle of war should be avoided.

Yeah, Bruce Lee, right? The art of fighting without fighting? Art of fighting without fighting. But these guys are idiots. So their first principle of war is also one. that gets left out all the time. Objective. So these are the U.S. Navy principles of war.

Objective, morale, simplicity, control, offensive, exploitation, mobility, concentration, economy, surprise, security, and readiness. And we're going to jump into those a little bit deeper, but for comparison, he says, Let's take a look at the Russian principles of war. And here they are, and I wasn't going to cover these, but you'll see why I had to. Russian principles of war. Advance and consolidation. Offensive.

Combined arms. Concentration. Economy of force. Meneuve and initiative. Surprise and deception. Adequate reserves, morale, and annihilation. So there you go. They have a principle of war that's called annihilation.

That should make everybody, you know, say, oh, I don't know. Like Paul Harris, remember the MMA fighter Paul Harris? Paul Harris, yeah. Because he would annihilate people's knees with a heel hook. Yeah. Am I wrong? No, you're not wrong. Dude, he got kicked out of the UFC forever because he didn't let go of heel hooks.

He had a principle of annihilation. Like, I'm going to get you. I'm going to hurt you. Yeah. So a lot of guys are like, dude, I want to fight this guy. Yeah. So I bet that you see the principles of war is annihilation. People look at Russia like, dude, I don't know if we need to get into this.

I don't know if I want that beef. Yeah, that's true. All right, so now they go into the little bit deeper dive. The first one is objective. Here's what Admiral Brown says about the objective. The objective is unquestionably the most important of all principles of war. It is a connecting link, which alone can impart coherence to war. Without the objective, all other principles are pointless.

It gives the commander the what. The other principles are guides in the how. So this is a really good thing to think about in your life. You need to know where you're going. You need to know what your unified strategic goal is. You've got to figure out where you're going. In your team, you got to figure out what is. I was just, I had a board meeting yesterday with one of the companies I'm on the board of.

and we were having a great conversation and all of a sudden I realized that we're like this the whole conversation was splintering in a couple different directions and I said hold on a second what what is the objective and you're like what I said what

why would you make that decision why would you make this decision why would you make that decision what is the ultimate goal what is our overall objective and I like wasn't with to know the whiteboard and put like a thing at the top of the like what is it We're trying to get done.

What do you guys want to do? And then they put it out there. It's like, okay, now we can start to see how these different decisions will lead to this objective. If we don't know what the objective is, we really can't make any decisions. So great thing to think about in everything that you're trying to do in your life.

And I like what the Brits say, right? It's the aim and the maintenance. Because people get sidetracked, right? They're like, oh, I wanna achieve this goal, but then they get distracted. They try and achieve something else. and they try to see something else. They just, you need to figure out what your objective is

and then try and maintain it. Now, I will say this. Sometimes you've got to adjust your goal. This is what to be it to the heart. You know, like, sometimes your objective needs to change. You look around and be like, oh, this isn't working. I'm going to try something else. That's okay too.

But you need to be conscious of it. That's the main thing. People go into a zombie-like slumber maneuvering through the world without knowing where they're actually going. If you need to change where you're going, that's fine. But you need to be aware of that. The next principle we will take up is the principle of morale.

We all have our own idea of what morale is. I'll give you the definition. Morale is the general spirit or state of mind of an individual or a group of individuals as reflected in behavior under various conditions. Important to keep morale up. Doesn't really talk about in this speech how to do it. That's on the commanders, I guess, but you might want to get some wins.

You might want to give ownership. It's a bunch of ways you can help out with morale. Little wins. Little wins go a long way. Little wins go a long way. That hurts when you're in a wrestling tournament. Well, it's good, depending on who you are. But if you're the number one seed,

guess who your first match is against? The number 64 seed. You're just going to go murk somebody. Like the number one seed in a wrestling tournament against the number 64, like in a high school tournament, the number 64 seed doesn't know what he's doing. Yeah. He's going to get marked.

I wonder why they do that like that. They basically carve out easier paths for the people that are highly seated. Because in track, if you're like in the finals, they base it on kind of like that. That system's slightly different, but it's more or less the same. Where if you're seated like number one, you get your first choice of lane. Oh, there you go. Yeah. So I mean less of a factor because track, the lane is less a factor than who your first

matches. It's a big deal. But what about those like college track tournaments when there's a bunch of, you have to do multiple races to get through and they do that in the Olympics too, right? You got to win multiple races to get to the final finals. Yeah, yeah. But it's not, so I wonder if they rack and stack that thing too.

Yeah. So if you, and it depends on the thing. I don't know how they do it in Olympics, but if they do it like how we did it, they go whoever had the best time. So let's say it's 100 meter dash, right? Well, that's a ranking, right?

Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's how they see. So, yeah, yeah, you get the best time you get in the next your next heat you get number one pick of your lane same deal on the on the semifinal saving deal on the final so if you had the best time check check number one check so what i was going to say about that is those little wins you have good morale going into the finals yeah other other people got smashed the morale's going down so people quit wrestling they're like i'm done with this pays to be a winner i guess to be a winner you ever heard that

thing about if you put like uh they put two rats in a tube and you know that you're not you put two rats in a And they have to fight each other. And like the one that wins has like a 70% chance or I don't know what the number is, but a massive percent more chance of winning. You see that with little kids. Yeah, fully. Like in jiu-jitsu tournaments.

That kid wins, they get all amped. Grimped. Next principle is simplicity. Simplicity is clarity. We need simplicity in plans, strategy, weapons, and command. One man should serve one master. The nature of simplicity is relative. Relative, however, what is simple for a well-trained force may be very complex for a poorly trained force.

We should avoid oversimplification at the expense of accuracy, completeness, and flexibility. There is such a thing as being too simple. So this is why we wrote the book The Dicotomy of Leadership. This is one of those ones where when I first wrote down the Four Laws of Combat Leadership that you can read about in any of my books. I made those up from what I experienced. I didn't dive into history and look through to see. Otherwise, I would have maybe been driven by some of these things that we're reading right now. Simple was my own.

Now, I had heard Keep It Simple Stupid in the SEAL team. It's like, there's a cover move. I'd heard it. And so I'm not saying I made these things up. When I wrote them down, what was going to be important, I, after like a few months, I was like, damn, I'm teaching this stuff. to everyone like I need to make sure that these are good principles I know they work for what we're doing and sure enough simplicity is on every one of these lists it's always almost

always on a principles of wars keep things simple so that's a fact next up the fourth principle is that of control in the US Navy control which replaces cooperation coordination and command found in other lists of the principles of war is composed of four elements command and organization in which the chain of command responsible is thoroughly defined, efficient communications to serve command, training and indoctrination, and professionally competent leadership. So that's what they mean by control. They're talking about communication. They're talking about having a good clear chain of command.

They're making sure that everyone understands. They're making sure that these go well trained. That's a lot of things to be covered by command. Next principle is the principle of the offensive. The offensive is the act of seeking to obtain control not previously held. Navy doctrine states that victory can never be won by passive defense. Only sustained offensive action brings success. Check.

I'll tell you, it's a lot easier to defend than it is to attack in a lot of cases, but none of these things are immutable. Yeah, we want to be on the offense. Are there times we're being on defense works better? Yep. No doubt about it. I mean Look at Muhammad Ali

Doing that rope-a-dope on defense for seven rounds And this will crack You know you know what I'm saying? He's wearing you out So there are times when this is the opposite Most of the time I want to keep my opponent guessing Most of the time Some of the time I want to see what they're got

You're going to make adjustments Again it's important to be aware of these things If you're not thinking about these things then you might be doing something like a zombie, right? You're going through and you're doing what you're doing without thinking and being aware of what's happening. That's a problem. Going through the motions is a problem

when it comes to leading a team. Like, oh, this is just where we're going. No, where are we going? And is this the best way to get there? The sixth principle is exploitation. Exploitation is following up success. It is closely allied to the principle. of offensive and to the principle of surprise and it's closely associated with momentum also

plans and operation must be flexible enough to take advantage of local successes or situations or to follow up and actually just FYI the the part of this speech that I'm not reading he's given he gives historical cases in this particular case he says an example of failure to follow this principle is the failure of Union General Mead after Gettysburg he defeated Lee at Gettysburg but he didn't follow up some modern historians say that he never had a chance to follow up but the point is that he never seriously tried to he left gettysburg much too late to chase lee so there you go and i just came back from gettysburg and bro asking general mead and the union forces to go and chase after they just had this complete and utter bloodbath it's asking a lot there bro uh mobility

is the next principle. Mobility implies rapidity plus flexibility plus endurance. Don't confuse mobility with speed because mobility has also the element of endurance. Endurance is achieved through logistical support. For the Navy, mobility replaces maneuver, which is essentially a tactical term, and movement, which is essentially a strategic term and includes endurance. Got to be able to move. I agree with this one.

Got to be able to move. your mind, your brain. You've got to be able to see things from a different perspective. You have to be able to maneuver your way of thinking. The eighth principle is concentration. Concentration implies superior force

at the defensive point, or sorry, concentration implies superior force at the decisive point at the proper time. Incidentally, you'll notice the word implies. We can't say equals because these aren't principles of natural science and we can't say that

there is any mathematical proportion to be found in these principles. Concentration is used in the Navy instead of mass or superiority because of its connotation of decisiveness in time and space. This is also concentration is, this is prioritized and execute

because you have a lot of things going on in the battlefield and you got to like, okay, this is the thing we need to focus on. This is where we need to put our forces. That's what concentration is. And it also includes economy because I can't spread a bunch of plus I need to use what I can. Now for the right thing, right reasons. Economy is the next principle.

Economy implies an economical use of forces and a judicious expenditure of resources in order to achieve maximum efforts. What that means is that we can't be strong everywhere. We must be strong in some places, but we can't be strong in all places. Again, prioritize and execute. The 10th principle is certain. Surprise. Surprise is confrontation of the enemy with force he is not prepared to meet. Fair enough. Klauschwitz was enamored of surprise. And of course, many battles have been won through its use. But surprise can be intoxicating. One may get so wrapped up in the contemplation of what his surprise will do to the enemy that he will be surprised himself in the meantime. Isn't interesting you can think of every one of these things works in jiu-jitsu? You know what I mean?

Like economy, like saving your energy. Surprise, obvious. Surprise can be achieved through originality, audacity, speed, secrecy, concealment, or deception. All those work in jiu-jitsu, by the way. And don't forget that the principle of exploitation is closely allied to the principle of surprise. Be prepared to follow up. Sure enough. The next principle is security.

Security implies anticipating unproductive loss resulting from enemy action. This is one of the weirdest. This is the one that I was kind of like, okay, so I'm going to read that again. Security implies anticipating unproductive loss resulting from any action. So you don't want the enemy to do things that jacks you up. Cool. Security gives us freedom of action, but we can't be secure everywhere. We have to use forces economically, and it is well to remember that sometimes security can be achieved.

better by offensive measures than by defensive measures. Yeah, I don't know. I think there's that one's a lot of stuff to think about on that one. Or let me rephrase that. A lot of stuff covers security. Maybe it's just too obvious. Yeah. I mean,

I guess the idea of keeping things and yourself safe, like that's security, you know? So it's like, hey, don't do some, you know what, and it said this basically, like sometimes a good offense or a good defense is. is a good offense. Yeah. So keeping yourself safe isn't, this is like a big political argument too, right? Where it's like,

hey, keeping yourself safe isn't, you know, locking up all the doors and hopefully no one will get you. It's to be, have the capability to actively keep yourself safe

kind of a thing. Proactively patrol your neighborhood. Yeah. So safety is the idea of safety, yeah, that's what you do, whatever, but safety is,

safety is just the idea of being safe. You don't always, to keep yourself overall safe doesn't necessarily mean defense. So I'm saying, I guess that's what, give me a jih Tjitsu example of security. I guess it would be like keep your elbows in. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, and you do this too, like, you know, if someone gets mount on you, if I get mount on you, you're the, the different, keeping yourself safe while you're in mount is like there's a lot of different approaches to that depending on what they're doing, you know? So if I'm there,

have established position, all the stuff trying to go for your arms, you're going to keep your elbows and you're going to have that defensive safety. But if you want to stay in mount, if you don't want to stay in mount for 10 minutes, you better start doing something else, kind of a thing. So there's different approaches to, quote, unquote, safety, or in this case, security is what he's saying.

That's what I got from it. There you go. We'll take it. Napoleon had this to say about security. A great captain ought to say to himself several times a day, if the enemy appears in front on my right or on my left, how shall I act?

If he finds himself in want of answers, he's ill-prepared. I used to literally tell guys this. Like, you're out on patrol. Every step you take, you should be like, oh, if we get attacked over there, I see a ravine over there we can get into. Oh, we can get the high ground right over there. If we get hit right here,

if we get hit from the left, I can do this. You should be thinking about that stuff all the time, just contingency planning in your head. Yeah. As a leader out on patrol, and as everybody out on patrol. Yeah, so even if you're talking about the idea of safety or security,

okay safety. It's like body armor, for example, and I'm going off of what you guys have been saying for years. Body armor, it's like heavy. Actually, this might have been Jody Minic. I'm not sure. Anyway, body armor. It's like, okay, it's way heavier or a bunch of bullets, actually. This one's better, right?

Where you have too many bullets. That kind of limits your mobility, limits your endurance, all this stuff. So you're more mobile with less bullets. But at the same time, the more bullets you have, the more you can shoot people. So it's like that balance, like depending on what you're doing. You know, but either way, the idea of security or safety has to factor into your decision-making kind of a thing. It's not something that you're just not going to think about is what I'm saying. So that's why it seems like, why it seems like he included it in there.

And those are great examples because, you know, when they talk about the dichotomy, that's a great dichotomy. Do we want to have firepower and longevity, endurance, or do we want to be able to move? because you can get so heavy dude it's hard to move but you can also run out of bullets don't want to be running out of bullets but you don't want to not be able to move so what are we going to do

and find that balance got to analyze what that mission consists of that's how we're making decisions here all right the last principle is readiness there are five types of readiness command readiness

intelligence readiness personnel readiness plans readiness and logistics readiness. Command readiness requires an adequate organization and trained staff and leaders. Fair enough. Intelligence readiness implies

an intelligent structure in being organized and functioning before hostilities commence and maintained afterward. Yeah, you need to be able to gather and tell. Personnel readiness

comprises in part training programs and personnel replacement plans. Plans readiness implies the availability of plans for anticipated operations finally logistics readiness means that we have logistics support ready we know how we're going to employ it and we have tested our plans for logistic feasibility well i mean you know what

again that's kind of like you better be thinking about that stuff i guess i guess that's why it's in here it's a principal because you you better be thinking about these things because if you're not you're going to get jacked yeah now he goes we're getting towards the end of this now now what have I told you in this lecture? I hope I got these points across. First, that the principles of war are not a substitute for logical analysis, common sense, broad professional judgment, and good leadership. Okay, so everyone listen to that. Second, that you can't fight wars by a book of rules and that reliance on the principles or on just one of them can get you into trouble. Both Napoleon and Hitler observed every one of the principles of war and their invasions of Russia.

Obviously, they both did not achieve their goals. A British general said, referring to the principles of war, by themselves, they will not help a soldier to solve a problem of war any more than a knowledge of the principles of painting will. without steady practice and natural aptitude enable an artist to paint a picture. That's a great, a great way of laying this out. You know, you can watch a YouTube video

on how to paint something. You can watch it on how to do a free throw. You can watch on how to play a guitar chord, G chord, C chord. You can get on that ukulele. You can look at a YouTube, but you can watch it. You can watch it 50 times. 50 times on how to do this court.

You still got it, you won't be able to do it at first. You're going to have to try it and you're going to have to drill it. And that's the way life is. You've got to try things. You've got to work at them. That's the way gymnastics is too, by the way. So if you watch a YouTube video of a girl doing a double pump, triple flip kick, twist, stick the landing and she walks you through it hey this is all they did right you run you dump you twist

here and do all that stuff can't just jump on the mat and do that stuff masterclass has some of that kind of stuff what's like they're teaching you sports on masterclass oh for and you're going to get tips but hey if you watch serena williams yeah teaching you how to serve yeah in tennis on masterclass yeah it's different you're not ready for wimbledon no no no you know what I'm saying now let's And if you play and you watch her and you get your points, you're like, okay, I could do that. Same thing with my masterclass. Like you watch that thing. You can get points.

But if you think you're going to roll out of that and be like, okay, I'm good to go now. No, no, no. Same thing. You've got to actually go and interact with people. And you've got to keep them in mind. I've been telling people a lot. Like if I'm learning to be a leader, if I'm a new leader and I'm going to meet with Echo Charles and you're my subordinate. And I haven't been on a lot of these one-on-one meetings.

I'm gonna actually make some preparatory notes for myself. Like, don't get, you know, echoes a real emotional guy. He's kind of a hot head. Don't get drawn into that. Make sure my ego stays in check, but still make sure I cover some of the shortfalls he has. Boom.

Now I'm gonna go in there and I'm gonna try and get through this. And when I get done, I'm like, dude, I totally got emotional. I got defensive. I didn't finish my lit. Like you gotta write stuff down and you gotta make efforts when you actually do it. Leadership, you practice that. It's so obvious.

It's so obvious like in the SEAL teams, when a guy's a new leader, they, they can't see what's happening. When you're experienced leader, you're just looking around like, oh, yeah, that's what's happening. Yeah. It's so. Yeah, it's like just the way it is. Those role plays are so valuable in that way where you ever did, you ever took in a, like

a course or a class or watched a YouTube instructional of something that you've already done a bunch of times? And so it's essentially you have knowledge through experience only on something. And then you see a YouTube video explaining it on, quote unquote, on paper, you know, and you learn it way quicker because you know. Yeah, you get better at it way quicker is what I'm saying, because you know the experience part of it already. And then they just basically align all your pieces to be like, okay, this is kind of correct form or whatever. And you already have the experience that you can, you know, like anything, like this whole manual, really, it's like this framework that you can just start. with and be like, hey, if you just followed this framework, you'd be pretty solid.

It's a good place to start. Exactly right. And you can, the more experience you have, the more knowledge you have, the better, quote, unquote, you get at this, the more you can start to deviate from that framework when you see fit, right? That's essentially how it goes. Oh, yeah. And how effective you can be, no matter how much you deviate or don't deviate, it determines

how good you are. I think that's been huge in Jiu-Jitsu. Yeah, because back in the day, look, you could watch a video. But do you had no basis? You had no framework. Now, and we've talked about this on the underground podcast when people's like, hey, I live in such and such a place. The closest school is an hour away.

What should I do? I can only go there once a week. What should I do? Yep, go there once a week. And then get a buddy and do YouTube videos or go to BJJ Fanatics or go to one of these online training things. Because you have the foundation, just like a little framework, you can actually build on it.

I mean, when Dean Lister teaches, well, be good like if Dean Lister is going to teach how to break open someone's grip in an arm lock if you are if it's your day three of jih Tujitsu you're not going to understand anything that just happened yeah and in the exact same class a blue belt will be like oh this is awesome I'll be able to use this and a purple belt will use that in his next role for real live yeah roll it right in roll it right in there yeah fully and that's it and that's that's one of the many reasons why you just is such a good example of this life learning process and a lot of other stuff.

Yes. Because you know how it feels to be in that position. So now you can more accurately assess how this new knowledge is going to roll in in practice. You know, and that's really what it's all about at the end of the day, no matter how much you learned or didn't learn. Or no matter how much you learned on paper, through video. And by experience, it's how are you going to perform in, you know, in the experience and the performance.

And look, you will be better. Like watching, like I said, Serena Williams, if you're a tennis player, Now, if you've never played tennis before, it's probably not going to be hugely beneficial. But if you're a tennis player and she starts saying, hey, make sure on your forehand you do this, you're like, oh, okay, I could probably do that. Or on this approach shot, do this.

Or you're backing. Like, she can give you legitimate pointers if you have some sort of framework. Now look, she could probably give you some strategy that you could understand pretty easily, whether you played or not, right? She could be like, oh, in this situation, you should do something like this.

And same thing with these videos. Nowadays like back in the day was kind of a it was actually not remember kind of it was a joke back in the day to be like oh that guy learned Jiu-jitsu on video Yeah it was a joke and now people like oh yeah I learned this from whatever Gordon Ryan's instructional online courses he's in there with the shin to shin yeah So I met Gordon Ryan a few weeks ago he's in he's a big dude large dude yeah he's big super super nice super cool but I was like yeah he's a big dude yeah uh Joe Moss sure was like hey you you gotta do a you gotta do a uh he's been Joe Moss is trying to get uh he's like you could you dude you should do a match against Gordon Ryan I'm like Joe dude I'm like hey bro how about me and Gordon Ryan go bowling yeah yeah

that'll be a solid match yeah yeah but people learn directly from Video now because they have a fundamental framework back in the day in the 90s no one had framework the framework Wasn't even there. Yeah, other than maybe you watched the UFC, but even they didn't really understand it. Yeah, and there's some people that have a knack for it Some people have a knack to just learn and create like Dean Lisch Yeah, he can create things. That's the next level Yeah, create things from what exists already Yeah, that that framework and in the being in the experience kind of scenario like you just said this goes to I don't know

And I say this about like pretty much it. Even plumbing is like this where it's like, okay, you have the diagram and you get, okay, this is the move you got to make in this quote unquote diagram. If you don't have any experience in it, like you don't even know how it feels to be in that position. Like all these external things that are not part of this demonstration or part of this lesson, all the external things that exist when you're in the situation like aren't there. So your mind can't like attach it. It's almost like you can't attach the lesson to anything.

There's no scaffolding. There's no framework to attach it to. It's just an arbitrary lesson. There's no context. That's like also like with history. Like Daryl Cooper, he can take little things because they're in this context that he has in his mind from reading all these books over all this time.

So when he learns a new fact, it fits right into a spot. Exactly right. And you can tell to every once in all because he'll be like, you know, it's not like you're comparing them to the Mayans, you know,

and their whole thing. And you're like, what do you mean their whole thing? I don't know anything about that right there. Like you're over here saying it like it's like common knowledge, but he has that framework already established so obvious. You know, in his mind.

Context. Yeah. Yeah. So those are things to think about. Whatever you are trying to do, you have to try and do it. You can't, whether it's leadership, whether it's playing guitar or ukulele or jujitsu, you can take away some knowledge from observing and from reading and from listening, but you've got to go do it.

Otherwise, you're not going to get anywhere. And then he goes on to say, and this is actually how he closes this out. He goes on to say, every critic knows the principles of painting, but very few of them can paint. There's no substitute for facing each situation and dealing with it as it actually is, rather than as you would like to see it in terms of the principles of war. So important.

It's so important to have the framework and then like erase it and look at the real problem, right? It's so important to have the framework, You know this happens in fights? Somebody will have a game plan and something will happen that will disrupt the game plan and And you're they lose because they had their framework already in mind and they don't adapt I remember Dean was in a fight and I was cornering him and Do you know Dean's half guard like half guard come up on a single right?

And this was late in his career and that was one of his moves and he's he's like really hard to stop when he does that But you can stop him, especially if you know what he's doing, especially if you anticipate it, especially if you'd sat down with your coaches and figured out a good way to stop it and then tested it a bunch. So Dean is in this fight, and he's in his most, one of his most dominant positions, bottom half guard. He's going to come up on a single, he's going to get by whatever.

And the dude has a, he's stopping it. I forget what he's doing. I'll go back and watch the video. He's like doing something with his hip or he's putting his hand on something. He was stopping him. And I was like, Dean, the guy has it. He has your half guard. What is it?

He has it pegged. I was telling him, go full guard, and he didn't win the fight, unfortunately. But the guy had pegged his half guard, and Dean, which was surprising. I think Dean had been so effective with us for so many years that when it got stopped, it was like he just couldn't, he didn't like making it. And look, it's a fight. He's getting punched in the head. There's about time limit.

If he would have gone one more round, maybe you'd be like, okay, cool. But those are the things you've got to watch out for. You've got to watch out for preconceived notions of what you think things are going to be and how you think they're going to go down. So really, this is why I've been talking so much lately about having an open mind. Because my idea that my half guard is great and I can come up on a single with just about anybody, that's a preconceived notion. And it closes my mind to believe that. I have to open my mind. Once somebody stops it twice, the mind should be fully open.

Like, okay, this guy has a, he has me pegged. I'm going to adapt. I'm going to change. So having an open mind to see things, as the book says, deal with it as it actually is rather than as you would like it to be. That is a life mode of operating that will help you infinitely. As opposed to, I think things are a certain way. Therefore, in my mind, they are that way.

They're not. And then it says, finally, if there is a real principle of war, it is the principle of the objective. The objective means more than all the rest. And this is, again, already talked about it, but this is like going through life without actually knowing what your objective is. Without actually knowing where you're going, you're not going to get there. So you have to, above all else, know what it is that you are trying to accomplish. And he closes out this speech with this line. He says, if there's anything I can leave you with, it is this.

Rules can aid the wise, but they are snares for the fool. Got to know when to break the rules. You got to know. This is something Dean says a lot. You got to know the rules. You've got to know the rules. And you've got to be competent and proficient with the rules. And then you can break them.

And you've got to know when to break them. So lots of good stuff in here. here um these fundamental rules sure their principles for war but if you think about them and you put them front of mind they can guide your journey the rules can guide your journey but don't let them snare you got to keep an open mind you know I've been saying open mind lately you know what I used to say and I used to say it a lot on this podcast free your mind remember those days yes I don't know why I think because keeping free your mind I don't think was translating to people the way I wanted it to,

open your mind seems to, people seem to understand what I mean more than when I say free your mind. Like free your mind, people think, oh, just, just be wild, basically. Free your mind, I sound like a hippie, right? A little bit, yeah.

Even open your mind sounds like a little hippie-ish. No, I don't think so, but yeah, yeah, I can see that. Okay, well, it's slightly hippish. It's related, you know. Cool. You know what? Have an open mind. You never met a hippie that was like,

oh yeah, you know, I'm a very close-minded person. Oh, yeah, the idea is, hippies embrace that idea for sure. So it's a little hippie-ish. So freer mind is even more hippie-ish. Yeah, free your mind is hippie-ish. Yes, that's a hippie flavor for sure. Okay.

So I like the way free your mind sounds better. And to me, it means exactly, in my mind it means exactly what I think. But as I would tell that to people, you know, I'd be like talking to someone that's in a leadership position, I'd like, do you gotta free your mind. And they kind of like, I go, eventually I start saying, oh, you got to open your mind.

And it seemed to, it seemed to translate and be more understandable to people. Yeah. To open your mind up because they understand the opposite of open is closed. Yeah. The opposite of free is what? Trapped. Trapped. So that doesn't quite convey what the idea is.

Yeah. I don't want you to untrap your mind because that means your mind is stuck in what you open your mind. So you can see different possibilities. Yeah. So closed mind seems like closed off. Totally. Kind of a thing. Free or an open means like you're open to new.

Exactly. More info. Now you're more capable kind of a feel. But free and like whatever trapped or free your mind is like, hey, think about everything. Like just for the sake of thinking almost, you know, kind of a thing. It's not about letting things into your mind. It's more about like letting things out maybe. I don't know.

Like your thoughts out kind of a thing that's so it's like opposite almost in a way The feel so that's what it is you you've got to open your mind you got to free your mind Otherwise you don't make adjustments and you don't make adaptations like like this book like you won't you won't get there and in fact I'll say this You can't even get married to your objective and I I mentioned that like you have to have an open mind that your objective might change your objective In your business, in your team, in your family, your objective might change. It might go up, it might go down,

it might go left, it might go right. Like there's businesses, people have a business, they're like, we wanna be able to do this. And then all of a sudden, they realize, that's an unrealistic, or that's gonna take too long, or that's gonna cost too much, and they adjust their objective. So you gotta realize that your objective might change,

but you've gotta make sure that you understand that you are going somewhere. What is the objective that? If your objective moves, fine, Move it and then know what it is and move towards it. So that's what we got. This is going to, these laws can certainly help you. These principles can certainly help you think through your issues,

help you see more hopefully and hopefully help you to win whatever war you might be fighting right now. And echo, if we are going to war, we're going to need some fuel. It's true. What do you think? We're going to need some fuel. Now, you've been a, I noticed. from the I've heard I've heard stories of heard things that sure you're up in your hydrate situation word on the street and that's the word on the streets that I'm so so are you

doing a hydrate after every workout during workouts no before actually before yeah and sometimes after but more mostly before so okay after you say yes but I've been out of jitza for like two weeks almost already oh you got the injury got the tendinitis or something yeah and the inside my elbow it's kind of bad It was kind of bad to get better though. Nonetheless, that aside, hydrate, and I told you this, morning mix. Every morning, no compromise, every single morning. Hydrate, obviously mixed in water with creatine.

That's the morning mix. That's the morning one. Oh, yeah. It doesn't matter what flavor, the blue and the green one, whatever. You like both those ones? I like them both equally. So that's the morning minute. But if I'm doing the workout right when I get up, which is part, you know, sometimes part of the gig, not always, but sometimes if I'm doing the workout, first thing in the morning, like you kind.

I'll add the pre-workout in there. Are you going full scoop pre-workout? Not yet. Half scoop? Like half-ish, a little bit more than half, but yeah. Getting the pump. Heck you. Big time.

All right. So you want to get this stuff. Go to joccofuel.com. Get yourself some hydrate. Get yourself some greens. Greens do not have to taste like dirt. They can actually taste good. Yeah.

We got energy drink that's actually good for you. Yeah. Which is totally unique. Yeah. There's no one else can be like, oh, our energy drink is literally good for you. Yeah. Well, you know, I think the whole idea of energy drink has always been, and I think we've all just kind of grown to accept it or just reject energy drinks altogether.

But the thing that we've all kind of accepted is like, hey, this is just a short-term fix. There's a straight off. So, yeah. Yeah. And that's just part of the gig. That's what we're doing, you know. And that's why people are like addicted to energy drinks. They're like, oh, I'm addicted.

I know it's bad. Whatever, you know. Because it's not a thing that's good for everyone knows that you know what kind of thing because all the poison the preservatives the freaking other chemicals in there We don't know we don't have that probably have that problem no downside No downside so joccofuel.com gets yourself some mulk What do you now? You are apparently Convinced that banana

Ready to drink milk is the best one ever made It's currently in the front running of my favorite yes the chocolate's good but chocolate no no what you said to me Earlier today when you were literally drinking one you said this is this is the best ready to drink protein of all time of all the one on your list yes and it happened to be a banana yes but also it could be any of them uh banana and chocolate the vanilla i don't go that that hard way only it's not part of my delivery that's why vanilla for me is melted ice cream yeah which everybody likes yeah but you know i would rather melted chocolate ice cream to be honest and you're a little bit of a connoisseur of ready to drink protein yeah that okay so that how the

conversation went if i remember correctly i just mentioned it was it was basically it was basically basically me just expressing myself and expressing my feelings out loud, which sometimes I'm not very I'm against that. I'm like from time to time it happens. Nonetheless, it did happen. This is what I said, it's what I expressed. I know about ready to drink protein. I'm no straf since I've been lifted since ready to drink protein has been a thing.

Even available, even before it was a thing. Available, but I've been down with it like, you know, because you just buy it. It's not like a soda or something. You buy the milkshake, protein, whatever. You know, you trade off for something. some taste, whatever. So I know I'm familiar, but it's like one of those things where it's like, I know it's not going to taste all that good, but hey, protein, right?

All good. But this one, I don't really go to the store and just buy them all the time before this one. Every once in a while, I will just if I need the macro. So before it was like a substitute scenario or an in extremist situation. We're going catabolic. I need some protein. Yeah, exactly right. But now you're proactively.

Yes. And the point of what I said, was even if I didn't know you at all. That's what I said. If I didn't know you at all, I would still buy this one all the time just for the sake of like the whole, what, the everything that it offers. You can get this stuff at jacofield.com, boy, you get at Wawa. By the way, the, the, the, the, the, the, the Moke is going into Wawa.

We've been, you know, we've been fighting a war in Wawa. There's a lot of people that, a lot of other companies, they don't want you to have that healthy option. But so we're, Wawa, vitamin shop. Vitamin Shop's got the whole everything you need. GnC, military commissaries, Afees. I was just out of Air Force Base the other day. Checking it out.

We got it. We're live. Wait, so Moke wasn't in Wawa? Moke was not in Wawa. Huh. Well, we don't know. It's going in now. Yeah, going in now.

That's cool. Hanifer, dash stores in Maryland, Wakeford, Shop right, H.E.B. Down in Tejas. Tejas. What's up, Tejas? They're just getting after that H.E.B. You better, you better give respect to H.

in Texas like you you will you if you downplay or dis H.E.B. in Texas first of all there's no reason to but if you did if you were just wild you're gonna get you're gonna get punched up full so when you dis H.E.B. you diss H.E.B. you diss yourself in Texas yeah when you dis H.E.B. in Texas you're gonna probably get talked to like sternly then Meyer up in the Midwest Harris Teeter lifetime fitness shields and look, Small gyms people people are getting it in there we're getting all kinds of requests because people in the gym if you want a gym if you want a jihitsu gym if you want a crossfit gym You own a powerlifting gym you own a fitness gym of any kind You want to help your clients be better. So email JfSales at joccofu'll.com. You can hook that up. Don't forget about origin USA

We got American made clothing boots jeans t-shirts the whole nine yards Jiu-jitsu gear by the way. We talked about Jih T-Jitsu a lot today. Why because the jih T-Jitsu reflect life in many different ways and if you can get good at Jiu-jit-to you will be better at life we got workout gear there too as well and hunt gear and then of course we got jocco store.com which echo made up the name mr. original yes well not 100% original but yes they're creative oh yeah well discipline equals freedom as far as that goes represent where do you get it jaco store so it all kind of fits together so dude I just checked the mail and somebody gave me a discipline equals freedom death core freaking

guitar pedal. Like so when you play electric guitar you can put effects on the guitar and it's done through pedals and there's a whole cult around different pedals. Yeah. Well, a guy just sent me a sick one that he handmade. I'll show it to you. Oh, that's pretty cool. Yeah.

Yeah, that's crazy. So when the album comes out, I'll probably use that pedal. Well, this way, we don't have pedals, but we do have other things. I kind of do. Yeah, I got a pedal. Not on the stores, what I'm saying. But on the last. you know if maybe it could be a thing I'm kind of here to see what it looks like but yes

as far as hats and hoodies shirts that's a big one shirts we wear shirts pretty much every day so let's say you are into t-shirts we have a subscription scenario you can get a new design every month called the shirt locker that's on jaco store so yeah subscribe to that um some soap on there that's the thing i haven't really been talking about so you got wear your kid soap jaco soap deaf discipline equals freedom soap this is all natural stuff what about the killer soap killer soap that's the that's the strong

anti-bacterial one I think it has the it's got the charcoal and I think it's got the tea tree yes I think they all have tea tree or they all have tea tree oil killer soap is GTG yeah because it has the what do you call the scrubber stuff in it I don't know what that's called it's like it has

like an exfoliant like property I think that's the charcoal yeah yeah but that's a good one Anyway, there's a lot of cool stuff on there. The new thing to Chris. Not big on the skin pair pap over here. Don't act like you don't know. You know.

But here's the thing. Christmas is coming out. Oh, yeah, that's right. I added a Christmas inspired item, socks. Discipline equals freedom socks. Look. Bro, represent. So here's the thing with socks.

As a kid, nobody cares about socks. You know, when you get socks for Christmas, you're like, oh, socks. It's like one of those joke things. Like, ooh, I got socks that sucks, right? I got a lot of socks for Christmas. Bro, as a grown adult, I'm kind of fired up to get socks, especially if they're cool ones. And these are cool ones.

So, yeah, and I'm not, you know, you can buy them for someone else if you want, or you get your wife on the horn and be like, hey, they got some socks. Just saying, Christmas is coming up. Just saying. Just saying. Also, there's gift cards on there, too. If you can't decide, boom, get the gift card. You know you're good to go later. Check you out of that one.

That's true, I'm here to tell you. I like it. Also, you probably need some stuff. Look, you can have that RTD milk. Good. That's good dessert. What's the main course? Main course, Colorado Craftbeef.com or primalbeef.com.

Look, it's just next level. That's what we're doing. So check those out. You need some steak for your fridge, for your dinner. You want to do the Sean Glass methodology. I think he's doing two, like, state, what is it, the cast iron pan? And he said, I think he said 2, 2, 2, 2, 2. No, 2, 2, 2.

So like 4 minutes per side. Yeah. My wife, habitual rule follower, by the way. Yes. She's not doing his protocol. What? She's doing 3, 3, 2, 2. No cover.

Yeah. So I recently, because you said the 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 4 collective minutes on each side. But it was without the cover. I usually do the cover, 2 and 2, done with the cover. cover on it. Perfect sticks every single time. But I did your protocol because maybe there's something I'm missing. Maybe it's another element.

So I did that. Open mind. I like it. Yeah. Same though. Same result. Like just as good. It didn't matter.

I could not taste the difference and I do eat a lot of sticks for sure. All right. So there you go. Primalbeef.com or Colorado craftbeef.com. Subscribe to the podcast. Don't forget about jocco underground.com. We're about to record one of those right now. A little alternative podcasts.

We'll answer your questions. We give you some guidance on life that might not be a little adjacent. It's a little bit, it's more adjacent to this podcast. But it's also a platform that we control so that the tech overlords can't control us.

We can do our own thing. If you want to support that, it's $8.18 a month. If you can't afford it, it's no big deal. Just email assistance at jocco underground.com. We want you there. YouTube, subscribe to that. Psychological warfare. Get some of that.

Flipside canvas Dakota Meyer making cool stuff to hang on your wall and then you got a bunch of books. I've written a bunch of books Get the books if you want a little bit of a Doctrine and guidance around these leadership principles get those books also you got kids get them the warrior kid books Come on just get your kids and the neighbors kids You'll have better neighbors your kids the neighbors will be better. They'll be better human beings. I'll be thankful So there you go bunch of books. Eschla on front we Solve problems through leadership we just got back from the muster sold out down in Dallas, Texas. Then we went to Battlefield up in Gettysburg.

Just awesome events, learning leadership. Everything we do sells out. So if you want to come to one of these events, go to echelonfront.com for details. And we also have an entire leadership consultancy. We've got incredible instructors from a bunch of different backgrounds. And we teach these principles that can solve the problems inside your company or your business or organization. So go to Escalonfront.com if you need help in those categories. We also have an online training academy called Extreme Ownership Academy, Extreme Ownership.com. Again, look, are you going to learn to play tennis by watching Masterclass from Venus William? You might not learn to play, but you can definitely pick up some hints that are going to improve your game.

And that's a physical sport. So can you do that? Will you learn? If you go check out my master class, you're going to learn some stuff? Yes, you will. but you're going to need to go back to the gym. You go back to the gym, go to extreme ownership.com and you can really get granular

on learning about leadership. And the leadership is going to apply not just if you're a business person, not just if you're a CEO, if you're a dad, if you're a mom, if you're a friend, if you're running a little league team,

it's going to help you run everything in your life and make it better. So there you go, Extremeownership.com. Also, if you want to help service members active and retire, you want to help their families, gold star families. Check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. She's got a charity organization.

If you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to America's Mighty Warriors.org. Don't forget about heroes and horses.org. Micah Fink currently out there in probably just a light dusting of snow in the Montana mountains. He's out there barefoot and a loin cloth and he's dragging a bear that he's going to Eat for dinner, feed his family. Heroes and Horses.org. He takes veterans and first responders up into the wilderness so they can get lost and get found.

And also Jimmy May has got an organization called Beyond the Brotherhood.org. Checked out as well. And if you want to connect with us, we're on the inner webs. Echoes at Echo Charles. I'm at Jocko Willink. And we're both anti-algorhythm.

Don't let that monster freaking grab you. That's what it's, That's what it's trying to do. Little brainwashing tool you got in your pocket to suck your brain away. Just be careful of it. Thanks to all service members who are in harm's way right now. The world is a volatile place. It's a hostile place.

We know that our military members are out there on the front lines standing by. So thanks for what you do. Stay alert and stay alive. And also thanks to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, secret service, all first responders. I know there is a lot going on in the world right now. There is heightened risk. So the same goes to you all.

Thanks for what you do. Stay alert and stay alive. And to everyone else out there, the principle that you could find on most of these lists, once again, was the objective. You have to know your objective. You have to know what it is. You have to know where you're going. because if you don't know your aim, how are you going to get there?

What are you going to do to get there? So know your objective. Write it down. Know your aim. Know your unified strategic goal of your organization and know what you're trying to do as an objective for yourself. Keep it front of mind. Keep it front of mind.

And then fight to get closer to it every day by going out there. and getting after it. And until next time, this is Echo and Jocko.