Jocko Podcast - 430: Critical Nuances to Balancing The Dichotomies of Leadership.

Episode Date: March 20, 2024

Official workbook for The Dichotomy of Leadership, by Jocko and Leif Babin. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 430 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening. Good evening. So last podcast, number 429, we covered the companion workbook for extreme ownership, written by Leif Babin and me. And it is used by, really used by leaders and trainers to educate their teams on the principles of extreme ownership. And when we put that out initially, we got incredible feedback.

on it and we still get a ton of feedback about it today we have all kinds of companies that use that book and then we release we did the same thing for the next book that layf and i wrote which is called the dichotomy of leadership and so we have once again another workbook now once again there's some rip-off um substandard workbooks on amazon i guess amazon will just sell whatever yeah like they don't care they're just going to sell it yeah And so there are some rip-offs on there. And we reached out to them and said, hey, this is not authorized. And they said, well, actually, it is authorized.

They're doing their, what is it, fair use of your material. Okay, cool. So it's not illegal, but it's not right. Because people, they buy one of those other workbooks and they're junk. because it's put no effort into them. Yeah. So basically like a fourth grader, no offense to fourth graders,

but a fourth grader puts together their thoughts and copies some stuff and put some pages in there and boom, they sell it for $28 or something. And someone that wants to get a workbook for dichotomy or get a workbook for extreme ownership goes, oh, cool. And it actually says our names on it. That's the really scary thing. Yeah.

It says our names because it says the dichotomy of leadership by Jocco, Willink, and Laf Babin. workbook. So you could make, I mean, we could do that. And you know, people do do that. People do that with Shakespeare, like the Romeo and Juliet workbook. Now that's old enough that it is become, what is it, open source? Public domain.

Public domain. There you go. So ours aren't old enough to be public domain, but it doesn't matter. If someone made a, wrote a book tomorrow, you could take excerpts from that book and comment on them and you have your own book. So that does happen. They're out there. Read the reviews.

Because luckily, our people get the junk versions. Yeah. And they realize that these things are junk. And so they put the one-star reviews. So that's how you can tell. Go to the one-star reviews. But we ended up doing this,

the official companion workbook for the dichotomy of leadership. It says official companion workbook. It's got the echelon front logo on it. It says echelon front. And this is what we're doing. it is a awesome resource. We created it, like I said, the same way we created the last one, after thousands and thousands of hours of training people and coming up with discussion points and being asked questions,

we put these things together so that everyone inside your organization up and down the chain of command can learn and practice and become more skilled at leadership. And remember, that just like working out, you can't just do it once or twice and now you're healthy and now you're strong doesn't work that way you got to keep going to the gym you got to keep working and putting the work in so let's do some work right now the echelon front official companion workbook for the dichotomy of leadership and it kicks off saying the most successful leaders balance their approach there are countless dichotomies that you will face as a leader a dichotomy is a division or contrast between two things that are are represented as being a

opposed. In other words, two opposing forces that pull against each other. Achieving the proper balance in each of the many dichotomies of leadership is the most difficult aspect of leadership. The 12 dichotomies covered in this book only represent a fraction of the numerous, and I like to say infinite dichotomies you will face as a leader, but understanding how to recognize and address these 12 common dichotomies will enable you to better process, analyze, and apply these leadership principles to your battlefield in whatever arena might be, whether leading in combat, business, or life. Remember that and I'm fast-boarding remember that effective leaders do not operate in extremes This is very important and it's such a nice little it's such an easy move if I was to ask you

Hey, I want to teach you how to drive a car and this pedal means go It's real easy go press this button and you're gonna go and he press this pedal down to the ground That's what that's when you tell a little kid like this one means go. What do they do they? They slam it They have to learn the balance. They have to learn the nuance same thing with brakes Hey, this one stops the vehicle, but do you slam on the brakes? No, that causes problems. You ease on the brakes. And then you apply a little bit more to get to come to a full stop.

But if you apply them too fast, you lose control. Same thing with the acceleration. So we're going to go, we're going to be more balanced. They are constantly working to balance their approach by utilizing this workbook to complement the book and online training manuals because we have a whole series on Extreme Ownership.com or online training platform. We've got modules on there that you. You can go and take those as well.

You can begin to recognize the key indicators of out of balance operation and make necessary adjustments to lead efficiency. Now, learn, lead, and win. So here's a little history lesson for Echo Charles. The initial dichotomy that I recognized, the first one that I said, oh, this is a thing. I didn't think of them all at once. I just realized, oh, this is a thing. It was default aggressive. because I would get these young seal leaders

and they would be not aggressive and then I'd go to them and I'd be like dude you're not stepping up you're not making calls you're not getting aggressive you're not solving problems like you gotta get aggressive you gotta go full rage aggression out there and the next iteration they'd go full berser level 12

just rage and run and everyone would die and they would be in the front of the pack dying and these are in training missions and that's the one you called a classic seal classic so over classic seal over correction yep because seals would always do an over correction so you tell them to be more aggressive they go level 12 you tell them hey dude you got to chill out they go to sleep yeah but this was the first one where i i saw i started to see a pattern after like two or three iterations with two or three different platoons where it's like oh

you you have to if you go over aggressive it's a problem If you're not aggressive enough, it's a problem. So what are we looking for? We're looking for balance. And then I realized, oh, micro-management. Oh, this person's a micromanager. They're giving too many instructions. Hey, dude, you need to stop giving all the instructions.

Then they give no instructions. Classic seal. So the classic seal over correction allowed me to see that there has to be a balance in all these things. And if you take anything to an extreme, it's a problem. So we're not taking things to extremes. And by the way, America, I'm talking to you. we have issues with this because we like to look at everything

in the extreme way and if you look at things with an extreme viewpoint you end up isolated and alone in that extreme so you've got to be more balanced in the way you look at things it's going to make your perception of the world

a lot more relatable to you to other people as well but to you you'll start to be like oh okay I can kind of see why that person is doing that Instead of being like I don't see why I didn't ever do that. No, well Maybe there's a possibility why someone would do that.

Hey, are there some things that are totally out like off the limits over the limits that we're not doing them? Yeah, of course But when you start getting into things that are legal and ethical and moral, it's like okay, well there's there's a there's a room there some gray area So there we go. All right, let's get into this There's an introduction in here It says leadership requires balance. Every leader must walk a fine line and find the equilibrium in the dichotomy of many seemingly contradictory qualities between one extreme and the other. That's what I was just talking about. Every behavior or characteristic of a leader can be taken too far.

And when balance is lost, leadership suffers and the team's performance rapidly declines. So I will go and talk to companies and I'll say, hey, any characteristic, any trait that you have can can, can, get out of balance, even if it's a really positive trait, such as, and I say, what's the most, like what's the most positive trait there is? And someone will say, what's a real positive? Generosity. Can you be too generous?

Well, can you? Oh yes, you can. This is people that get taken advantage of. These are people that give all their money to a Nigerian prince through some internet scam. You see what I'm saying? Yes, they're very generous. Yeah.

Yeah, what about trusting? Is it good to trust people? Yeah, absolutely. Well, guess what? You're a little too trusting. When you're wiring money to the Nigerian prince who just needs $700 to free up his diamond mine. Oh, yeah. Have you ever done an online scam get you before?

No, get me. Not get you. But you talk to him before? I've received those emails for sure. I had the IRS, well, I had a fake IRS person call me. Oh, yeah. Yeah. actually called it's funny he called my wife yeah and my son who was probably like 10 at the time

he was sitting there saying it's a scam it's a scam like he knew it was a scam yeah yeah but my wife didn't tell me that part she just calls me and said because I was I was on the road and she calls me it says the IRS called you have to answer like she sent me nine texts and seven phone calls I'll call what's going to the IRS is good they're going to arrest you yeah that one I'm like Are you crazy? But anyways. So, bro, that's real. I just got the same one, not IRS, the sheriff's department for, and same thing with my wife.

She's calling me. This was like last week, literally. And but she was falling for it. Where was your boy saying it's a scam? It's a scam. So I always say they're always a scam when they call you. Everybody that calls me is a scam, by the way. That's my approach.

I called just to make sure. I don't know. Maybe there's some new protocol. I don't know. Just to make sure I called NACO. Okay. Called them up. What up?

This is that. No, no. No, no, no, that's a scam. What scam were they running? You missed jury duty. We sent you a thing. We have your signature. Going to get arrested.

There was some, so. So could you pay your way out of it or something? How are they trying to get your money? So, yeah, exactly right. They're like, hey, come down to the sheriff's department, bring your IDs. He's like, and the thing is he just kept on it and super nice, too. That's the thing. He wasn't pressuring.

He was just like, yeah, yeah, that's up to you. It was like, but you are, there is a bench warrant out for your arrest. So when you go down there, they will take you into custody. And I'm like, and then later, she said, well, what can it do? Well, you could pay it now and you could avoid the detention by paying this now, but you will still have to do paperwork and all this stuff. It's weird. Oh, yeah, he said it up perfect.

Yeah, he was good. Yeah, he was good the way he did. But then it, you know how like this one thing doesn't make sense, but everything else is sounding good? But the one thing is keeping everything from sounding like fully good, you know, that's the feeling I got. Did you call him? Did you call him too? Who, knock, knock.

I called knocko. No, no, but this guy called my wife. to the guy. Yep. So, and that's what made it kind of like, wow, this guy's going hard because he called Sarah. Sarah's like, oh, I'm doing a conference call

with my husband to just verify. He's like, yeah, sure, go ahead. Like, yeah, do it. And I was on the way from recording the other, it was like last week. And she's like, oh my gosh, I don't know what's going on, this and that. She's like, I don't remember signing for the thing,

you know, the jury duty. I don't remember signing that, but they say they have my signature. And the guy's like, all calm and doing it. I was like, what the, he's polite too. He's giving his badge number. he's doing the whole deal. And I'm like,

this is a scam. So I got home and then the kids get involved. They're like, it's a scam. Like it's this fun thing, little spy versus spy thing or whatever. But after a while, I was a scam.

So then Sarah started like stringing them on and started like kind of cracking jokes at them just a little bit like, okay, I'm gonna do this. And then I was like, hey, don't mess with this guy because this guy literally has our address and whatever.

So I was like, hey, just like, okay, let it go. But yeah, those scams, they can go hard. Yeah. Well, what was interesting for when this happened to me, I was actually getting audited

by the IRS at the time. Oh, that makes it even more. I was actually getting audited. So my wife's was like just in total, she just believed 100%. Like we're getting audited and now they're calling and now they're going to arrest Jocko.

Well, that makes more sense, bro, because you know, like the old ones are like, hey, they leave a message and it's like kind of robotic and it's like real generic. Like, hey, law enforcement agents are in your area and they're going to come arrest you, blah, blah, blah.

And it's like, you don't say law enforcement. Like, no one would ever say that. And no one's going to call you. Like, that doesn't make sense at all, you know, kind of a thing. So it's easy to, but yeah, if you're in that situation, oh, man. So anyways, I talked to the guy and I started asking him some questions, like real generic. But I was like, so where are you at? And I was being nice.

See, I was instantly just everything's scam if you're calling me. So I was being nice to him, like, oh, I really want to resolve this problem. You know, luckily, I had. money and then I started asking where he was and then I asked him like he said he was in Washington DC I was like oh what neighborhood he was like yeah yeah but I go there a lot what neighborhood and he didn't know and so well what's the weather like there today didn't know and so then the funny thing is I dragged him on for about probably 15 or 20 minutes and then he hung up on me oh yeah see but that's when you know you annoy somebody yeah but we're trying to do that we

literally did that same thing and this guy was just going hard the thing he messed up is when he transferred us over to the payment department we're like oh let's get this person too because they're in on it or whatever so I was like all right let's get this so he transfers me over and then I start asking her and this girl was not prepared she just kept like acting like I didn't ask the question I was like yeah yeah but what's the you know what's the address and what's the phone number and like can you just oh what's your name to by the way I just for my records I got to I got to make sure and she just like she just keeps on with her script.

And I was like, no, no, no. And she's like, I don't feel very comfortable and transfers me right back to the guy. And I'm like, ah, this motherfucker. Yeah. So that's good. I'm going to use that one. Wait, which one? Your thing.

Like being super nice to them. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, where are you? Asking questions that they should know. I was just trying to make them nervous. Like, oh, wait, he's getting my name. Oh, my gosh.

You know, but if you ask like all these questions that they should know and they don't, they don't know. They don't know. So scam. Going back to the dichotomy of leadership here, a little tangent, of course. Here's another thing. When we start talking about these dichotomies that we have, we all have instincts. And the instincts that we have, generally speaking, most people will have similar instincts, but also there's outliers and also there's different types of people.

So, for instance, some people are, they're just micromanagers, man. Like, that's just the way they are. Some people are very laissez-faire, very hands-off. They don't want to, they don't want to impose. So those are two extremes. Those are two ends of the dichotomy. And what you have to know is you have to know, do you lean towards micromanagement or do you lean towards hands off?

And if you lean towards hands off, then you need to kind of lean back into the micro-management. If you are a micromanager, you need to lean towards hands off. So when I say to myself, like, all right, I'm a micromanager, and I see that Echo's doing this thing a certain way right now, and I know a better way to do it. I need to think to myself, Jocko, you're a micromanager, lean in the other direction. Let Echo do what he's doing. Everything's going to be fine. There's no catastrophic incident's going to happen. He's not going to cost the company a bunch of money.

No one's going to get hurt. It's going to take him probably 10 minutes longer to do it his way. But that's no big deal. I'm not going to micromanage. So, and just about everything that we have, like trust, right? We just talked about trust. Are you a trusting person? Well, if you trust people out,

that's how we started talking about scams. My wife believed her trust level is high. My son, who was 10, didn't trust this mother-knaker. You know what I'm saying? He's going, it's a scam. And when my son thinks something, like he's going hard, especially when he was 10, he was like, it's a scam. Like when my wife called me, he was in the background,

Say it's a scam. It's a scam. It's a scam. Just getting after it. But so if you're a very trusting person, you've got to lean towards I'm not going to trust this person. If you don't trust people and someone comes up to you and they're like, hey, I need some help. My car just ran off the road and my wife is stuck under it. You can't be like, dude, this is a scam.

You got to lean towards like, okay, if this is real, at a minimum, I'll call not. Yes, give me the address. I'll call that one one for you. I'm not going to get out of my vehicle and you know it's midnight or whatever and expose myself to whatever scam you might have going But I will phone the police for you I'm not just like this is a scam and drive off So you got to figure out where your instincts are and you got to lean one way or the other That's one of the key components of the dichotomy of leadership is Understanding what are you a person with a bad temper?

Are you a person that never gets emotional? And now someone comes in and they're freaking out and you're like calm down. It's gonna be okay no If someone's freaking out, you're you're like if someone's freaking out You can wait a second, they're probably freaking out for a reason. Or when someone's freaking out, do you freak out? And if you freak out, then you need to be like, all right, and you chill. So all these dichotomies, you got to figure out kind of where you are. Kind of know your own personality.

You got to know your strengths and weaknesses. You got to know where you lean so that you can purposely lean in the other direction. So that's what we got to watch out for. One of the first implementation questions here, it says, have you experienced a leader who took extreme actions? How did this affect you and the team? Now think about that question. That's a very good question.

You remember those times in your life when you had the leader that flew off the handle or made these huge adjustments or did these drastic changes to the plan late in the game? Like all those things, not one of those things sounds good. Not one of those, hey, can you occasionally do something extreme and it works out okay? Yeah, occasionally.

But the vast majority of the time, We're looking for our default mode to be center, not overreaction. Again, these are default modes. The thing you got to remember about default modes. Default modes are the default setting, but you can always override the default setting. Like you've got the default setting. I know on your Cadillac escalade, which you have. Sure.

You have the default setting on the roof thing. Sorry, the hood that opens up. The what's it? The tail? The trunk. Oh, yeah. What's that door called? I gotta forgive it's a random example, but yeah, the tail lift gate, whatever.

Yeah, the lift gate thing that comes up in the back. If you live in a garage that's low, you can set that thing. Right. But then you move out of that garage, you can go back to the default mode. It's high, right? You can do that. So it's the same with all these default modes. We want our default mode to be not hit the roof.

Yeah. But if we need to, we can override the default mode and we can make an adjustment. We can make an extreme call if we have to. But that's not our default mode. Our default mode is center. Our default mode is not overreacting. And think about the bosses that you've had. And most of the time, you'll probably remember that when they made an extreme call or an extreme reaction, it wasn't good.

All right. First section of the book and the first section of this book is called Balancing People. It says here, chapter one, the ultimate dichotomy. There are limitless dichotomies in leadership and a leader must carefully balance between those opposing forces. None are as difficult as caring deeply for each person on the team while at the same time accepting the necessary risks to accomplish the mission and putting the long-term best interest of the overall team above any individual. A good leader builds strong relationships with their team members.

While that leader would do anything for those team members, the leader must recognize that there is a job to do and that the job might put those very team members at risk. And the classic example of this is you're on a ship, a war ship, and the ship has been hit by a torpedo, and a compartment is flooding, and there's people in that compartment, and you have to seal the door to that compartment, which means the people in that compartment are going to die. And if you don't seal that door, the whole ship is going down. In combat, this is the ultimate dichotomy. A leader may have to send their most treasured assets, their people, into a situation that gets them wound,

or killed. If their relationships are too close and they can't detach from their emotions, they might not be able to make tough choices that involve risks to their people. With that attitude, the team will get nothing done. The team fails the mission. And it's important to remember, the team fails the mission. And then the greater strategic mission is a failure, which means national security is at risk. So you're going to risk, then this is what the military is. The military is filled with human beings that are going to risk put themselves at risk and risk their own lives because they're trying to protect their friends and families and back in their country at the other end of the spectrum if a leader cares too much about accomplishing the mission

they may sacrifice the health and safety of their people without gaining anything this impacts the team who recognizes the leader as callous and no longer respects or follows the leader the team will fall apart so this is something that they depict they depict us in a war movement right like get out there you're gonna go like no that doesn't work can there be a mission and this is what you have to weigh when you're doing when you're executing missions what is the strategic value of this mission that we're going to execute there's no strategic value we're not gonna do it and sometimes this strategic value is oh we're gonna put constant pressure on the enemy over the next six months

okay that means we we're gonna go now if all of a sudden there's an extreme risk for some reason and all we're trying to do is put pressure on them well maybe we can do something to put pressure on them without endangering people Sometimes you know the World War two examples is like D-Day you are gonna storm the beach head people are going to die and if you don't get this beachhead secure We're not gonna be able to get through France and get to Germany and end the war So that's what we're doing I'm watching a mini series they still called a mini series sure anyways it's called a mini series sure anyways it's called Masters of the Air, and it's about the B-17 bombers in World War II, and it's outstanding.

But, you know, they're just taking massive casualties, just massive casualties. And they hint at some of the underlying themes that were going on during the war. Curtis LeMay sending the Americans on daytime bombing runs, and the Brits would only do nighttime bombing runs. So daytime bombing runs, you're way more vulnerable, but you get to hit your target, more accurate. Nighttime, you're less vulnerable, but you're not as accurate with your bombs. So there's this little debate going on there. And I don't know how they're going to, I don't know how they're going to come to a resolution in the show, but it's a great show so far.

Implementation. Do you practice having hard conversations with your team members? Provide one recent example of when you've done this. So this is what I like about this question. First of all, it says do you practice having hard conversations? There's two ways to take that. One is do I practice them? Like, I got to talk to Echo,

so I'm going to practice this with Waife a couple times. Like that practice run. Yeah. But the other way to take is like, do you practice? Like, this is my practices that I have hard conversations. Right. Yeah. It's,

the cool thing is both of those are good. Like, hey, I should be practicing and I should be practicing. Right, right. But here's the thing. And I've talked about hard conversations a lot. A hard conversation, if you have it earlier,

is easier. Number one. Number two, if I really care about Echo, Charles and I'm having a hard conversation with you it's not actually that hard of a conversation if I if my true intent is that I care about you and I'm like hey echo I notice you're showing up you showed up late two times last week and you had alcohol in your breath bro like is everything okay like what's going on in your life right now is that

that's a little bit of a hard conversation but really I care about you and I like what's going on you're late you're drinking like is everything okay that makes it a much easier conversation then hey you were late you got alcohol your breath I'm going to write you up Yep. That is big time a thing. So consider this with your wife where, you know, it's easy to be like, hey, you did this wrong or you, hey, you talk to me that way. Right. And if...

I don't say that to my wife. Yeah. That's why I'm kind of hesitant. I'm like, shoot, I got to say something that you can relate to. But either way, either way. Like, a wife talking to a husband. been a certain way that maybe could be seen as like disrespectful is not a rare thing we'll say we'll say it happens from time to time so if that happens and then yeah the instinct is

be like hey don't talk to me like that I wouldn't talk to you like that you know kind of a thing that's different than if you just really like harness the whole like you just said really care about them kind of like hey wait what would cause this person to talk to me this way obviously something bad and I don't want something bad to be going on so let's get to the bottom of that like hey are you okay like dang was today like rough or I don't know something stressing you out because you talked to me like that which you normally don't do kind of a thing it's just a different it's a different delivery different approach yeah just FY I just kind of FYI sure like each one of

those statements well I what the intent was okay the delivery wasn't good because the reason the delivery was your delivery wasn't good because the many you say like you talk to me like that it's it's it's the wrong move because that move is still it's an attack, you know? It's like, hey, is everything okay because you don't normally talk to me like that. Right, right. Right.

Yeah, yeah. So instead, what the best move in that situation would be is to absorb, right? I'm just going to take that hit. Like, hey, no, look, whatever I did to my wife or whatever kind of day she's had or however she's frustrated, okay, I'm going to take a little hit. You know, boom.

Okay, cool. Yeah, you know, I can't believe you didn't do the dishes. I'm on it right now. Like, boom, boom, take the hit. No big deal. There's no big deal. Right? No big deal.

Take the hit. All good. When you say, hey, is everything okay? Because why are you talking to me like that? You're not, it's not a de-escalation. Your mind, it's a de-escalation. But you're laughing right now because you know it's not. Well, I do.

Well, I think there's, I mean, there has to be more to that than like, oh, yeah, okay, okay. The dishes thing. We'll say, hey, you didn't do the dishes. Right. And she, like, talks to me crazy. We'll say, just hypothetically, because the dish thing's not issue. Disclaim right. Anyways, so she says, hey, you didn't do the dishes, you scum back, I don't know, whatever.

I'm like, hey, oh, yeah, no, no, no, I'll do it, right? So to me, this is what it kind of feels like. And actually can play itself out this way, where now in the future, she gets frustrated as a bad day, whatever. She can continue to talk to me like that. So now we're getting into a pattern of life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is a lot different than an instant, an instance of hostility. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, yeah. Okay. All right. Look, if you got, if you have a repeat offender, yeah, that's constantly like getting at you about stuff that they shouldn't be getting at you about,

then you have more significant problems that you have to now work through. Yeah. But we're talking about the moment of contact here. The, the fist, look, like, if you're getting beat up all the time, you need to learn more about, like, how to,

how to avoid these things and not put yourself in these situations and figure out what's going on, why this person's attacking you. In the moment, though, what you got to do is like not get punched a bunch. You know, not make it worse. Yep. And maybe this is the ego thing because, okay, I'll tell you, full disclaimer. This has nothing to do with me.

I'm watching my friend get beat publicly, not public in the general, but in front of like some of us by his wife. Yeah, yeah. In a way that I'm like, bro, I kind of want to beat your wife for that kind of stuff. you know, metaphorically, obviously, Jack. And I'm like, so I think about it, like, how would I handle that, you know, that kind of thing where you're like, oh, how would I handle it or whatever? I'm not going to jump in. That's not my business, right?

And especially at that time. But you may be able to influence your friend on how to help his scenario. I felt the exact same way. But at the same time, I'm still not there yet, obviously. You know, that's their thing. And he didn't seem that broken up about it is like almost like he was used to it, which to me was an additional problem. So, I mean, that's what it felt like.

know behind closed door. I don't know how it works, but that so I'm thinking like what would be the move, you know? And to me, it felt like, oh, wait, there has to be a little thing that's established that, hey, talking to me like that isn't nothing. Like it doesn't, it doesn't go over smoothly. Like, you can just continue to do that, you know? So it made sense to me, especially at the time that you at least got to mention, hey, I notice you talk to me that way. Like, you Normally don't. There's so many things that we could go into on this. And one of the, I mean, just to start, right?

There's a respect issue. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Now, normally, and I say this all the time, if I want you to respect me, I have to respect you, right? Right? Yeah.

I'm going to take that one step deeper right now. If I want you to respect me, I have to respect myself. I have to respect myself. Now, why don't I respect myself? Why don't people respect themselves? I can tell you why people don't respect themselves. They lack discipline. They're not doing the right things for the right reasons.

They're not keeping their word. Their integrity is weak. They have problems themselves. And so what happens is they don't respect themselves. So when someone else just respects them, it's just sort of the way it is. So what I would recommend a situation like this, that individual, in this case, the husband, needs to build a up his self-respect so that he can then recognize and treat her with respect, not submission, because there's a difference between respect and submission, right?

So that individual needs to, what's he doing? Like, where's his life? Where is his part of his life? And this is his wife? Yes. Yep. So I'm sure we'll talk about this offline. But there's problems with him.

because he doesn't have the respect for himself where he allows someone to treat him that way and he doesn't have any recourse. Right? He's got no leverage. He doesn't have leverage in the relationship. And if you don't have leverage in the relationship, now of a sudden someone could do whatever they want.

Just walking all over me. And I can't even say anything. Because if I say anything, I'm going to get beat down even harder. Why? Because I don't have discipline. I'm not making money. I'm not carrying my weight in the house. You know what I mean?

There's all kinds of things. Yeah. You know, if my wife and I, she's got her stuff that she does, that's 50% of the solution for the household. I've got my stuff that I do. That's 50% of the solution for the household. So we're both carrying our weight. I respect what she does.

She respects what I do. We have a mutual positive respect. Now, if it wasn't like that, who knows what's going to happen. Yeah. And it's the same in any team. If you and I are working on a project together, bro, if you and I are working on a project together, bro, if you and I are working on a project together and you're not you're doing 10% of the work and I'm doing 90% of the work what can I respect am I giving you right and I'm like hey echo get in

hey echo clean up the bathroom and you're kind of like oh got it yeah because you can't even you're not you're not you're not up with me so it's going to happen so we have to we have to behave in a way and carry ourselves in a way where we respect ourselves now can you also get someone that's a sociopath does this happen yes it absolutely does happen yeah it happens less often but can you have wives or husbands that are that don't respect their spouse and they don't care. It doesn't matter what that spouse does. I've, you've seen spouses like this where the wife or the husband is like the complete breadwinner, the alpha in the, in the relationship, but the other person actually kind

of crushes them. Oh, he gets walked all over. Gets walked all over. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So there's, there can be an in balance in these things. And can that person be a sociopath?

Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. They can be like a psycho. They just don't care. And there's little things. There's little regrets and little resentment. That resentment will come out.

Brah. Once the resentment comes out, like, if she, she was going out with the high school quarterback. Or no, the college quarterback. She was going to get married. And, like, they were going to get married. But then he got his NFL contract and he bounced, bro. And who does she end up with? She ends up with Fred.

And Fred's like a hardworking dude, but she always resents the fact that she didn't get freaking quarterback guy. So now it's continual resentment and aggression. And the same thing vice versa. You know, the guy who, the guy that, the guy that peaked in high school.

Right? You remember that guy? Huh? Uncle Rico. Uncle Rico, yeah. Uncle Rico peaked in high school, right? So he might, he might be all regretful and mad

that he, you know, he ended up marrying this girl and he should have, he should have married old Mary Sue, because Mary Sue ended up, you know, as a real estate agent and she's on selling Las Vegas or whatever. You know what I mean? He's resentful.

Yes, I do. So there's all kinds of issues there. Right. So we have to have respect for ourselves. How do we get respect for ourselves? We get respect for ourselves by working hard, by being disciplined, by having integrity. And by having integrity, I have a real simple way of saying having integrity. It's not some big fancy thing.

you do what you say and you say what you do. So when I say I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it. When I say this is what I'm going to do, that's what I'm going to do. And it's not some big like, I'm going to build a rocket company to compete with SpaceX. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying when I say I'm going to do something, I say reasonable things that I'm going to do them. So that's integrity. So if you have integrity, if you work hard, if you have discipline, you will get self-respect.

Once you have self-respect, then you can be respected by other people. If you don't have any respect for yourself, no one's going to respect you. So there you go. Got to watch out for this stuff. Yes, sir. All right, going fast forward. Chapter 2. There's much more detail in these sections and much more.

The way these books are set up, if you don't remember from last time, there's like a, there's a, it kind of explains them. Then there's an implementation process. And then there's an immediate action drill. but it tells you something to go do that's going to help you. You can do this with everyone on your team. You're doing this together. That's what these books are for. To kind of enable people to train as a group.

Chapter 2, own it all but empower others. The leadership styles of micromanagement and being hands off are obviously opposites. A micromanager tries to control every action of individuals on their team, which ultimately leads to failure because no one person can control multiple people executing a vast number of actions. Micromanagement also inhibits the growth of team members. When the people become accustomed to being told what to do, they begin to await direction. Initiative fades away. Creativity and bold thoughts soon die too. Damn.

The team waits for orders and only moves forward when told to do so. So that's the micromanager. That's what the micromanager creates. The hands-off leader with a laissez-faire attitude is on the opposite side of the spectrum. Do you know what laissez-faire means? Yeah. We when we originally wrote the original book the dichotomy of leadership I always called it Lase-fair. Yeah, and I think Leif was like bro, we need to call it something else He'd love Lose-A-Fair. So we end up calling it we end up using both

Mm-hmm both what Lazy Faire and hands off hands off yep hands off so he would say is that Cavalier the same thing I kind of like whatever I wouldn't say cavalier because Cavalier is more like I'm a little bit overly courageous it's not like, hey, I'm not going to tell you exactly what to do. So hands off, laissez-faire attitude. This type of leader fails to provide specific direction. In some cases, almost no clear direction. Team members have grand ideas and plans. They even start to develop their own broad strategies

beyond the boundaries of their responsibilities and competence. These ideas can become misaligned with the vision and goals of the company causing this team to move in random directions. That's if you're two hands off, two laissez-faire. A leader must correctly balance this dichotomy and pay attention to the team. And then we got some symptoms. Symptoms of micromanagement. I'll give you a couple of them.

The team shows lack of initiative and will not take actions unless told to do so. That's a classic. Like you show up to work late and you're the boss and no one's doing anything. What's what's wrong with you guys? You've been micromanaging them. Another one. The team does not seek solutions to issues. They wait to be told the solution.

Same thing. Like, hey, why don't you just figure out a solution? Tell me what to do. What's the solution? During an emergency, the team will not mobilize and take action. Lack of bold, aggressive action, creativity stops, an overall sense of passivity and failure to react. Those are some symptoms of micromanagement.

We got some corrective measures for those. We also got some symptoms for hands-off leadership. Lack of vision of what the team is trying to do and how to do it. Lack of coordination between team members. That's a big one. When we got teams that are not working together, it's because they're working on different. things team members carry out unauthorized actions overstep the bounds of

authority yeah seen that I am a I lean towards laissez-faire hands-off like I'm very decentralized command very decentralized so I usually when I get when something gets tripped up it's not because someone didn't take action it's because someone did take action it's someone on the team was like well yeah we just decided we were going to buy this stuff like okay yep and I've been telling people this a lot lately there is risk with decentralized command yeah there is risk with decentralized command because you're not managing everything you're not touching everything you're not making every decision and your team is gonna do some things that

you didn't expect yeah and don't be mad at them be mad at yourself thanks it's no factor the implementation do you struggle with micromanaging or being two hands off it's a good question to ask why is this difficult for you oh that's a good question why is it difficult for you not to micromanage or why is it difficult for you to tell people what to do those are those are things you got to pull the thread and see what's causing that how does this affect your team it asks in this book to good these are very good questions to ask yourself immediate action drill identify two projects or tasks on which you can empower other team members to

take the lead. Talk to each team member about that opportunity before having that conversation. Roll play it with a trusted agent to ensure you are communicating it effectively. It is an awesome thing to let someone on the team handle stuff. Go deal with it. It's all you. You run with it. I trust you.

Take two projects or two tasks and let someone else do them. I was just talking about that today. I was talking with the company today and I was talking about a, So building a pallet Like a platoon chief who's been building So a pallet is what you They're there these palettes And you put gear on them to be loaded onto an aircraft

And there's a little bit of an art to it You know what I'm saying? It's like oh you put the boxes on the bottom And you want a certain height And they have to start to kind of like Fold in towards the top so they can fit inside Like there's all these little things Sure

And the platoon chief has been doing this for 15 years or 17 years, he can do that, kind of do it with his eyes closed. But the new guy, he's just going to be like moving boxes for chief. But when the chief says, hey, new guy, you get this pallet bill. Guess what?

It's going to take the new guy on extra 45 minutes because he's going to have to unload a couple of the boxes because the labels were facing the wrong way for the hazmat. See, there's all these little things that he didn't know about. So it takes him an extra 45 minutes,

but guess what? The next pallet takes him only an extra seven minutes. By the next pallet, But he does it the same, basically the same time that the chief could get it done it. Next time, he's doing a little bit faster than the chief. And guess what the chief's doing? He's not even out there anymore. He's in there looking at the mission.

Yeah. Going through the planning process. That's what we want the chief doing. We want the chief building pallets. So true. I was a mover back in the day. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I know about the pallet scenario.

Actually, we had these trucks with these big wooden like crates. They're like essentially small route. You know, like a U-Haul, right? You know, if you get a small U-Ha. But there's three of them. of those right three trucks three containers yeah and they instead of facing the back the openings face the side got it and you got a nail nail in the the cover right it's like would you do military moves yeah mostly were military okay oh this whole thing just check that's how

I know all about Schofield barracks kind of like all this thing so so you do it and then you got to tie it down because these crates have to be lifted off with a forklift right so they're not attached to the truck so the and so you got to load the crate so you got to be able to fit all as much furniture whatever boxes in there as possible so there's couches there's chairs there's square boxes long so you got to know the deal it's like a little tetris scenario going on a hundred percent of so the older guys they know boom boom so the younger guys they don't know as much you know you learn over time just how you said but especially when they let you do it and that's not to mention the other part is tying it down right so you got you have all these

knots that tie it down but there's a system to it you can't just tie it down as hard as you possibly can because the guy who has to untie it has a job to do. And it's, you know, you got to do it quick. So you have to tie it in the specific knot. And you got to learn that. It's not a regular knot. It's like a very specific knot that the more it gets tugged on like from pressure or whatever from the, um, you know what not of this. I forget what it's called. But I don't think I could even do it. That was like, trucker's hitch. Maybe. It was the kind where like the more you tug on the integrity of the knot, the tighter it gets. But all you have to do is pull one thing. Okay. You know, uh, do you know what a bowling is?

No, no, that's a not, you can use different sized ropes, but you can pull as hard as you want, but when you want to untie it's super easy to untie. Right. So, well, this one is like, if you pull the one rope, it unties everything. But the more you pull, like, let's say the crate, let's say you hit a turn or something in the crate, like, you know, it moves with the momentum. The more the crate kind of pulls on the rope, the tighter than not gets. It's like one of those deals. So you got to know, and you got to tie it correctly, too.

And it's like, oh, they let you do it. Because a new guy, they teach you how and it's fun and all this stuff or whatever, but of course they check it, you know. But they let you do it, which is cool, which is very good because after a while you get it down, they check it. All they do is a boom, boom, boom, check it. It's way quicker because they can do other stuff or whatever. But yeah, if they don't do that. What was the name of the moving company? American Movers.

Yeah. All day. Lessons learned. Chapter 3, resolute but not overbearing. Leaders cannot be too lenient, but they cannot become overbearing. So you can't be too lenient. You can't become overbearing. Leaders must set high standards and drive the team to achieve those standards,

but they cannot be domineering or inflexible on matters of little strategic importance. To find some balance, leaders must evaluate when and where to hold the line and when to allow some slack. They must determine when to listen to the other team members and allow them ownership to make adjustments for their own concerns and needs. So there you go. You know what kind of leader you are. You know what kind of instincts you have. Implementation here. Evaluate yourself.

Where do you fall within this dichotomy? Are you resolute when needed or are you overbearing and inflexible with matters of little importance? This is very, very important thing. Do it my way. This is also very interesting in the military because, like, there's such a fine line. Like you got to be you guys got to look sharp got to have the right uniform on got a haircut Got to have a good clean shave, right? And but if you become like a uniform Nazi Or a haircut Nazi mm-hmm, you're actually giving up leadership capital because like dude are you serious you're you're mad at me about my haircut right now

Mm-hmm I never thought that because I was at a good haircut actually you ever seen patients of me when I was younger I was pushing the envelope I was pushing the envelope long long hair yeah that was before I figured things out

before I figured things out but if you have someone that's really focused on small things all the time they become the what is it the the person that cried wolf who cried wolf

cried well the boy you cried boy yeah become the boy who cried wolf what are you doing without the proper uniform on. Get a haircut, get a haircut, get a haircut, get a hair cut. And now of a sudden, when I need you to show up with the right weapons, I'm like, hey, need these weapons, you're like,

oh, see, only jockos freaking out. Yeah, yeah, that's true. So don't let that happen. Yeah, I found that's true with, like, yelling at your kids. Oh, yeah. So, like, you know, you yell at your kids for, like, small stuff with, like, barely any consequences. And then, yeah, when it comes through the big stuff,

like, bro, they're just used to that yelling. Bro, they're not taking no action. I guess my daughter was telling me someone was asking. You're like, scary when your dad gets mad. And she was like, oh, no, my dad doesn't get mad. And they were like, what? And he's like, no, he doesn't get mad. Yeah.

And in fact, you're the most scary and I'll, with 100% certainty say that your kids will agree with me. Where you're most scary when you take no action. All it has to be is like something anomalous out of your behavior. We're like, oh, shit, what's up with jock? Oh, shoot. You know, like, so, yeah, it's a way different. And the thing, I actually modeled that with my, like, kids. totally did.

And actually, to me, you proved it to me. Like, where I was like, hey, when my kids, if I need me. So, you know, people, they'll be like, oh, that my kids should fear me, you know, or be able to, you know, some people will say that or whatever. And I'm like, yeah, I mean, I get it. You know, I was scared of my dad. You know, when he'd come home, I'd be like, oh, shit, his dad's going to get mad or whatever. Like, I had that fear for him, even though I really liked him, you know, like, he was a super fun person.

So I'm like, yeah, I guess there's some value to that or whatever. But I kind of, at the end of the day, kind of disagreed where, like, I don't need my kids be nervous when I roll in, you know? But I'm like, wait a second. But I do need that authority if I need to fucking, you know, utilize it from time to time. So I'm like, freak. But so it only has to do with consistency, right?

And like predictability, essentially. So if it's like, hey, there's no reason for them to be scared to me until there's a reason to be scared to me for some reason. And all I would do is just be super nice, jockey the whole time. And instead of if they do something wrong, that's like a genuine mistake, no, no, it's freaking all good. Yep. All good.

the only time is if they know better and then all I'll do is be a little bit more quiet that's it and bro they'll freaking snap right to and I was like bro this rickett works good but you can't abuse it in that conversation we had on the underground podcast where someone was asking about spanking and I was like I was asking my kids like because someone asked for the underground hey what do you think of spanking and I was like well I was thinking myself well I didn't spank my kids. But then I wanted to confirm it. Like I couldn't remember it. You know, you don't have a perfect memory. My kids are 20. My oldest kid is 24 right now. So I went, I was like, went, I was like, my wife was there. I said, I didn't spank the kids. I didn't spank you guys

didn't. And they were like, no, no, no. And then they're like, I wish you would have spanked. I was like, oh, do you mean? Because they were like the shun and the psychological warfare is way worse. Like get a little bit quieter. It's like way worse. So yes, I agree. That's a, Right. You got to know how to pull that off, though. That's a big kind of part of it where like you, I understand, because obviously you fucking do that shit, you know, and you pull it off super, super good. But if you're like, if you don't have that consistent, like,

record of being a certain way and then when you introduce the shunning or the, you know, whatever, the normal, or whatever, whatever you want to call it, and you start introducing like that calm, that impending, doom of calmness that you can do. And the kids are, they're going to take it completely wrong. In fact, it'll completely,

it'll backfire. That's what it'll do. Oh, so you're saying you normally fly off the handle. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. You get calm.

They're like, oh, shoot, a moment of peace, you know, that's kind of approved maybe. Yeah. Yeah. As opposed to like,

the world may end soon. The shunning thing I wouldn't have the heart to do. I can't do it, bro. You do it for a little while, maybe. No, bro,

I can't. Even, even when I scold. Okay, so I'll scold the kid. I'll pull the thing, right? The move. When they're like, it's my, this is totally my fault too. This is part of the reason I feel bad because, okay, so I joke around too much, just admit it.

So when it's time for things to get done or whatever, they're still joking around. And I'm like, shoot, I created this so I know. But I'll kind of pull that. You know, it's pretty rare, so it still totally works. And I'll be like, hey, like right now, like in a tone, you know, like right now you're not listening. And then, oh, you know, let's say my son or whatever. He'll, like, snap to him be like, okay. And he'll be like, sorry.

He'll say sorry. And I'll feel terrible. Oh, my God. I made this little kid so sad by talking to him like that or whatever, even though I didn't, you know. But, bro, it's hard. Can you just tell them like, hey, hey, we got to stop joking right now. We got to get this done. Can you do that instead of going full, full disciplinary?

I could, but like, it doesn't work sometimes. You know what I mean? Because let's face it, there's no consequence for me, like, saying that. We still have like a fun, you know, hey, I know. I know and then he'll want to push it like because that makes the joke even funnier. Yeah, it does. Because I do that shit too, you know, where it's like everyone's being serious and then I'll be like, okay, okay, you're serious.

And then I'll like trip him or something, you know, like that. So he's just doing the stuff that I do. So I gotta push it sometimes, but I'll feel bad when it works, you know. So I couldn't do the shun. That's the point. The shun is like, probably you gotta, you got to, that's some pain. You're induced some psychological pain that you're putting on the floor. Yeah, I was, I was,

Well, especially when my kids were younger, I was pretty hard on, I was pretty hard on my son. We got, you know, he got, he definitely got more benefits of, you know, because I kind of treated him like he was, you know. Yeah. Yeah, you're preparing him for, no, I'm like I understand. That's your jam. Chuck. All right. When have you wasted your leadership capital on insignificant issues that have no impact on the

Strategic long-term objectives. Just check yourself daily on that if you're in a leadership position, which includes being a parent. Like you're wasting leadership capital on dumb stuff that doesn't matter. Don't do that. Immediate action deal. Perform a leadership capital analysis on your most recent interaction. Was it a deposit or a withdrawal?

Let me tell you what it probably was. If you open your mouth, it's a withdrawal. If you told somebody what you do, it's a withdrawal. If you imposed your will, it's a withdrawal. Think about that. Think about what you're doing. Number four, when to mentor, when to fire. Gosh, this is a common question.

Most underperformers don't need to be fired. They need to be led. Notice it says most. But once every effort has been made to help an underperformer improve and all efforts have failed, a leader must make the tough call to let that person go. This is the duty and responsibility of every leader. This should be rare because they went through the hiring process. They got screened.

Leaders are responsible for the output of the individuals on their team. the goal of any leader is to push each person to reach their maximum potential. Humans have limitations. Not every person will be suited for a particular job. Some people might need a less technical position, may not be able to handle stress, may not work well with others. Leaders must identify where to place people so their strengths are fully capitalized on. And then we talk about the leadership or sorry, the escalation of counseling. Going to the implementation, do Do you have any team members who are underperforming? What are you doing to help them out?

What kind of training feedback and or support are you providing for their improvement? Here's another one. How do you change your approach when your attempt to counsel is unsuccessful? So if I talk to you, Echo, and I do it a positive way and it doesn't work, what's my next escalation going to be? What does that look like? And what's the escalation going to be? And I might want to think through this entire escalation before I go do it.

So I can actually plot out what my plan is of how I'm going to get echo from failing to do his job to doing his job well. But if I, I got to have that plotted out, that escalation of counseling. So it makes sense. We're getting into section two of this, balancing the mission. So we balance the people. Now we're going to balance the mission. Chapter 5, train hard but train smart. Hard training is critical to the performance of any,

team how you train, how you fight. You train how you fight and fight how you train. Is a common mantra that drives the successful U.S. military training programs. The best training programs push teams hard far beyond their comfort zones so the team can learn from their mistakes in training and avoid making those mistakes in real life. That being said, here's the dichotomy. Training can't be so difficult that it demoralizes the participants to the point where they fail to learn.

Or they lose confidence. It's another big one. Happens with fighters. Oh, you want to bring him in the cage? Let him get some rounds in. Oh, he's looking weak today. Let's pounce on him. Now his confidence breaks.

When you're, when you got a fighter, get towards that fight, dude, you're taking some dives in the cage. I've taken some dives in the cage. You know what I'm saying? In those sparring rounds, someone's like a little bit tired and you're like, dude, but he's fighting in, you know, in a week. He's got to have some, my, my beating his ass right now is not going to help his confidence. It's going to hurt his confidence, it's going to hurt the fight, hurt the outcome. So what are you going to do? Maybe take a little bit.

Take a couple shots for the team. Well, what's the mistake there? I mean, you always say this example, where the mistake is, because you think, oh, let's put him through adversity. So now he's trained in adversity. You know, like, so that'll help him. But yeah, you're right, though. You do that too much or at the wrong time? Yeah.

At the wrong time and too much. both equally bad. Like the kids got the big game coming up. So you smash them so they're ready for it. No, it doesn't work that way. All you did is hurt for confidence. Now, three weeks before the big game,

boom, smash them. Now they're like, I've got to get in there. I've got to work harder. Great. You inspired them. One of the questions here in the implementation, what kinds of role play scenarios

or other training opportunities could be especially useful for your team? How and when can you run this training? And this is an important point that I have been emphasized a lot lately life is training your job whatever it is you do your construction company there's training opportunities every single day you're a sales company there's a training opportunities every single day your police department

there's training opportunities every single day you're a manufacturing company there's training opportunities every single no matter what your company does no matter what your mission is you have training opportunities every single day even if you're building an aircraft palette you put a kid in a leadership position to make that thing happen he's getting leadership training and he's learned how to build a palette. So that informal training, not everything is formal training.

In fact, a minimal amount of knowledge comes from formal training. Like people that went to school to become a software engineer. Is that where they, do they learn in that classroom? No, they learn doing it, working on projects. They got that job, now they have to build this thing and, you know, that's the way things work.

So think about life. And when I say life, think about everything that's happening in your business, everything that happens at your job, everything that happens at work. Think about everything that happens is an opportunity to train. That's the way I look at everything now. Everything that I see is an opportunity to train. Immediate action drill, write down the next meeting you have where you have where the majority of your team will be together,

physically or virtually, and make a plan on how you incorporate one training opportunity during that meeting. That's all it is. It's a great immediate action drill. Oh, we got a safety brief. Oh, I'm going to let Little Michael do it. He's been here for three weeks. He's going to give the safety brief.

Well, he's not qualified. Okay, well, I'll stand there and make sure that what he covers everything. But he's going to get up there and do it. And he's going to write it down. That's training. Now, if he skips the major part, cool. I'll be like, hey, everybody. Little Michael just forgot about this.

So remember to blah, blah, blah. But that's training and that's what we're doing finding time to train informally Chapter 6 aggressive not reckless problems should never be expected to solve themselves leaders must Get aggressive take action implement a proper solution being passive and waiting for a solution to appear often causes a problem to escalate out of control an aggressive mindset set should be the default setting by any leader, default aggressive. When leaders understand the commander's intent, which is the overarching purpose, strategic goal, and desired end state, as also why we're doing what we're doing, and the parameters within which they can make decisions they can execute.

Fast forward a little bit by aggressive, we mean proactive. We do not mean getting angry, losing your temper, being aggressive towards other people. Leaders must always be professional when interacting with subordinates, peers, and senior leadership and when representing the organization to external players. Of course, and I'll go one step further. It's not just be professional.

It's build relationships. If I have a conversation with someone, I want my relationship to be being built, not being deteriorated, not being degraded. Aggression wins on the battlefield and business in life when it's directed towards solving problems, achieving goals,

and accomplishing the mission. Here's the implementation part. When do you tend to take action without calculating the associated risk? Oh, Because by the way, it's aggressive, not reckless. Can you be overaggressive? Yes, you can. Why do we say default aggressive?

The reason we see default aggressive is because the majority tendency for a human is to lock up and not do anything. That's the majority reaction and instinct. So we normally have to teach the default aggressive. If everyone, generally speaking, was a freaking maniac that took action, what we would be teach is like we'd be teaching default patience. And there's some people that need that. There's some people that, they don't think. Sure. So we would be teaching those.

If that's the way most people were, we'd have default patience. Hey, listen, everyone flies off the handle and just goes and runs into the sound of the guns and gets everyone hurt, killed. They make bad decisions. We can't do that. We need to be default patient, but we don't have to say that because most people, their default mode is to sit there and allow things to happen to them. That's what we're trying to overcome. And listen, this is especially in pressure situations, right? This is especially in dynamic situations.

There's a fire. Most people, they don't want to aggressively go handle that thing. Oh, there's an employee that's frustrated and starting to complain to people on the team. What do they want to do? They sit back and don't want to do anything about it. No, you got to go talk to that person and find out what's going on. Does that mean you get aggressive towards the person? No, it means you get aggressive towards the problem.

But when you go into that conversation, you have a good conversation, a positive conversation, a relationship building conversation. That's what we're doing. When you don't have a lot of information, how can you move forward while still mitigating risk? This is the iterative decision-making process. Make a little decision. Take that action. assess the outcome and then make another little decision. That's what we're doing.

Do you ever visibly lose your temper with your people? If so, what will you do to prevent this from happening going forward? Please explain. There's a bunch of other questions. I'm skimming through this book. But when you get this book and you go through this with your team, there's all kinds of these powerful questions that will help the truth be revealed to people themselves. So you don't have to tell them.

Hey, Echo, you keep losing your temper, dude. This is ridiculous. Instead, Echo goes, I lost my temper three times the past month. I know I looked bad. Here's some steps I'm going to take. We want the truth to be revealed to people from themselves. Chapter 7, disciplined, not rigid. While discipline equals freedom is a powerful tool for both personal and team development.

Excessive discipline can stifle free thinking among team members. The more discipline a team exercises, the more freedom that team will have to maneuver by implementing small adjustments to existing plans. When facing a mission or task, instead of having to craft each plan from scratch, a team can follow standard operating procedures for the bulk of the plan. But there must be some balance. In some organizations, there are leaders who put too many standard operating procedures in place. They create strict processes that inhibit their subordinate leader's ability to think. this can adversely impact the team's performance and the mission. Discipline procedures must be balanced with the ability to apply common sense to an issue

with the power to break from SOPs when necessary, with the freedom to think about the alternative solutions, apply new ideas, and make adjustments to processes based on the reality of what is actually happening. Yes, I am a huge proponent of discipline, but can it go too far? Can it become out of balance? Yes, it absolutely can. Here's one of the implementation questions. Do your leaders and frontline workers have the ability to make adjustments within standard

operating procedures while working on a project? Pretty straightforward. Here's another good question. Fast forward a little bit. How often do you conduct training on standard operating procedures? Do frontline leaders and employees understand why these standard operating procedures are in place? That's a big one. If people are if you don't if you don't keep people informed as to why standard operating procedures exist

Eventually people don't know why they exist and eventually those standard operating procedures get shifted or changed or eliminated and that's when we have problems So especially when it comes to safety Especially when it comes to quality people might not know why I'm Rotating this bolt once it leaves the machine. Well, oh, that's just what we're doing well why you're doing? Well, why you don't? I'm Oh, well, I don't really know why I'm doing that. Well, why are you doing it? I'm not going to do it anymore. Fast forward two weeks.

And, oh, when the part got shipped and it rattled around inside the truck, the bulk came loose and it caused a problem. That's why we tighten them up. Oh, okay, I didn't know that. Now I know that. Now I'll do it. But if we don't explain the why behind the standard operating procedures, we have issues. Here's an immediate action drill. identify one standard operating procedure that needs to be updated work with others who also utilize the standard operating procedure to determine changes and why they are necessary then present the proposed update for the chain of commands approval

chapter eight hold other people accountable but don't hold their hands that's a good chapter title hold people accountable but don't hold their hands accountability is an important tool for leaders to you utilize however it should not be the primary tool it must be balanced with other leadership tools such as making sure people understand the why empowering subordinates and trusting they will do the right thing without any direct oversight leaders often get the idea that accountability can solve anything and in a sense that right if a leader wants to ensure that subordinates follow through with a task a leader can inspect repeatedly to confirm that the task gets done with enough oversight task completion can achieve 100% success.

Therefore, leaders often want to use accountability to fix problems. It's the most obvious and simple method. A task is given to a subordinate. The leader watches the subordinate do the task. The leader inspects the task once it's complete. There's almost no room for error. Unfortunately, there is almost no room for the leader to do anything besides monitor the progress of that specific subordinate.

If there are multiple subordinates with multiple tasks, a leader very quickly becomes physically incapable of inspecting them all. while focused down the chain of command, the leader will have no ability to look up and out, up towards senior leadership to build relationships and influence strategic decisions and out toward the strategic mission and to anticipate future operations. Instead of using accountability as the primary tool of leadership, leaders should implement it as one of many leadership tools. Leaders must ensure the team understands the why and that members have ownership of their tasks

and the ability to make adjustments as needed. Team members need to understand the importance of their specific task and the consequences a failure. Classic. Classic stuff. If the only way you get things done as a leader is just to run around holding everybody accountable, it just doesn't work. Because what about when you're not there? So we want to use something else. We want to use leadership. Oh, I understand that this is the task that needs to get done. I know why I need to do it. I know how it's going to impact the mission. I know how it's going to impact me. I know how it's going to benefit my team and I know it's going to benefit me. I'm going to do this thing. I know the consequences

If it doesn't get it, I know all these things. Now I don't need anyone to inspect it. I'm doing it. Here's the implementation, one of the questions from the implementations. If you have subordinates, how can you ensure your team understands the importance of their tasks and how they fit into the larger mission? If you're a frontline employee, how can you get clarity when you don't understand the why behind your task? Yes, that's your responsibility. If you don't know why you're doing something, my boss didn't tell me.

Freaking ask him. Does leadership in your organization allow full? Front line workers to make adjustments as needed. I hope so. Here's an immediate action drill. Identify one person you have been micromanaging, handholding recently, make a plan for how you can begin to show more trust in their ability to get the job done. I execute that plan. Now, when is holding someone accountable to be utilized as a tool?

I can tell you when. When they're jacked up. when they're jacked up. Like Echo, you've got to do Task A and you failed to do it yesterday and you failed to do it today. Guess what I'm going to do tomorrow? I'm going to inspect it. I'm going to come down. Hey, are you getting started on your task?

Cool. How long is it going to take you? 45 minutes? I'll be back in 30. See, check the progress. And I'm going to do that. I'm going to account for your actions until you learn to get them done. And people don't like to be micromanaged.

Like after I come and check on you five times, you're like, like, hey, Jocco, you don't need to come back. You can see I've got this now, right? You don't want me coming down inspecting you. No one wants that. Is there a, you know how people will use accountability, kind of and interchange it with like punishment? You know how they, they'll say, yeah.

Yeah, they do the same thing with discipline, right? Yeah, yeah, you're going to discipline that person. Yeah. Hold them accountable for their actions. So when you say accountability as a tool you're talking about like your accountability, like account for their actions, not necessarily punishment or whatever. Yeah, not necessarily. Yep.

Yeah, when you talk about someone that has done something that is wrong, then you hold them accountable for their wrong actions, right? Yeah. But if you have a task and I'm holding you accountable and get that task on, I'm not punishing you. It's not punishment, but I'm checking on you. Right. Right. So, yeah, it's a little bit of a different meaning of the word. Yeah, because you know how Sean Glass will talk about holding people accountable rather than like leading them kind of a thing? And it's like, yeah. And he says essentially the same thing. But his examples are more along lines of punishment where it's like, hey, this person isn't is underperforming. And instead of holding them accountable, they need to be led kind of a thing.

And, you know, because I get, I've been in those situations where it's like, yeah, underperformer gets like punished rather than helped, you know, kind of a thing. And so, so yes, those are both right. Because if you were supposed to do task A and you didn't do it, I'm like, hey, did you do task A? And you say, no, I didn't do that task. And I say, okay, well, I'm going to dock your. pay. Yeah. So I'm holding you accountable, but what Sean is saying, what I should be doing

is saying, hey, hey, why couldn't you get it done? Do you need some more training? Do you need the resources? Has anybody showed you how to do it before? You know, oh, you've never done this task before? Do you want to do some repetitions with me? So I make sure, you see what I'm saying? Yes. So that's what Sean's saying. Yeah. And it's correct. Yeah. Agreed. All right. Part three of this book, balance. So we balance the mission. We balance the people. Now we're going to balance balancing yourself. Chapter 9. A leader and a follower.

Every leader must be willing and able to lead, but just as important is a leader's ability to follow. Leaders must be willing to lean on the experience and ideas of others and listen and follow others regardless of their rank or experience. If another team member has a great idea, a good leader recognizes it doesn't care who gets the credit, only that the mission is accomplished in the most effective manner possible. confident leaders will encourage their team members to step up and lead when they put forth ideas that will contribute to mission success. So that's what we're doing.

You've got to know when to lead. You've got to know when to follow. We also have a line in here. A good leader must also be a good follower of their own leader. One of the most important jobs of any leaders to support their boss. Oh, people are like, uh, when the debate is over at a particular course of action ends and the boss, makes a decision even if you disagree with the decision you must execute the plan as if it were your own so why do we have to talk about that if you haven't been to get getysburg go to the

battlefield of gettysburg we talk about this a lot this did not happen to me in the military like in any in any regular or significant way whereas like oh my boss is telling me to do something that I totally disagree with and they say jaco shut up and do what I told. That never happened to me. Why? Because I had a good relationship with my boss. I had a good relationship with my boss.

Now, in a less significant way, would occasionally like, hey, hey, Jocko, no, you've got to get this paperwork done. Hey, boss, it really doesn't make sense to do this paperwork because I'm just going to have to refile it tomorrow when we get back. Hey, no more discussion. Get it done. Hey, Roger that. Now what do I tell the team?

Hey, guys, listen, the boss is under a lot of pressure right now. This paperwork works and make him look good. It's going to improve his relationship with his boss. It's going to improve my relationship with him. We're going to knock this out of the park. Boom, done. That's what we're doing. That's what we're doing.

If you're being told to do something that's unethical, immoral, unsafe, do you go, yeah, okay, Jocko said to do it, execute it as if no, that's not what I'm saying at all. Someone's doing something that's illegal, immoral, unethical, unsafe. You actually have a responsibility to stand up and say, no, this, we're not doing that. It's not happening. It's not happening. But if the boss wants to do six and you want to do a half a dozen and you want to say, no, it should be a half a dozen, no, it should be six, you want to argue about this, it doesn't matter.

And it also doesn't matter, you know, if it's going to be your way is 4% more efficient than his way. It's like, bro, who cares? You wasted that 4% of efficiency by standing you're arguing like an idiot. And by the way, when you make a mistake, now your boss is all over you. Whereas if you'd be like, hey, boss got it. We're going to execute. Make a little mistake. Your boss, like, I trust you.

Get it handled. No factor. So that's what we're doing. That's why it's important to be able to follow. Implementation. Where inside your team or organization can you do a better job of being a leader and a follower? Pretty straightforward. How can you make this happen?

Do you consider input from less senior team members? Oh, that's a good one. Because if you're asking them what they would do, guess what you're doing? You're training them to think. You're developing them as leaders. It's a great move. How do you support your leaders when they make a decision with which you disagree? I already went through that earnest questioning.

Hey boss, can you just explain? I want to make sure I understand what is you want to get accomplished here and why you want it done that way. Hey boss, I don't know if I understand the strategy here because I want to make sure I'm supporting the strategy. Can you explain it to me? And by the way, each of these questions may reveal something to your boss that they didn't see. Do you execute it the best of your ability? Yes, you do because that way you can gain more influence and that's what you tell your guys. Hey, I'm not sure why the boss wants it done this way.

I push back and he just, he wants it done this way. So we're going to build a good rule. We're going to do an excellent job on this. So I increase my influence with the boss so we can do it a smoother way next time. Guys with me? Yeah, we're with you. No factor. Does your leadership trust you?

Does your team trust you? Here's a question. Does your leadership seek? your opinion. Because if they don't, we got a relationship issue. Pay attention to it. Next one. Plan, but don't overplan. Careful planning is essential to the process and success of any mission. In Extreme Ownership, Chapter 9 plan, we wrote that mission planning meant never taking anything for granted, preparing for likely contingencies and maximizing the chance of mission success while minimizing the risk to the troops, executing the operation.

There are significant risks in both combat and business alike. In the business world, livelihoods are at stakes, jobs, careers, capital, strategic initiatives, and long-term success. Leaders must manage these risks carefully through contingency planning, though not every risk can be controlled. Leaders must find a balance when planning. You cannot plan for every contingency. If you try to plan for every possible contingency, you will often overwhelm your team and the planning process and overcomplicate decisions for leaders. Therefore, it is imperative that leaders focus primarily on likely contingencies

that could occur during each phase of a mission or project. Select at most three or four of the probable contingencies for each phase, along with the worst case scenario. This will prepare the team to execute and increase the chances for mission success. So you've got to plan, but you can't overplan. And here's a question. Is your tendency to underplan or overplan or over? plan. Look, we all know some freaking planners out there.

Yes, we do. Right? We know some people that are going to plan for the plan about the planning meeting to have a plan to come up with a plan. They never do anything, these people, by the way. We also know people that just kind of shrug their shoulders like, I got this. Hold my beer. You know? So we're not doing that either. So you got to know who you are. And then you've got to lean the other direction a little bit. If you're a person that doesn't, you know, you're a person that doesn't come up with a plan and just freaking rolls out there and gets after it look we we respect it but that's how you get sideswiped that's how you get taken down so let's make sure we have a plan another question fast forward a little bit are you and

there's like I said there's a bunch of questions in this in these handbooks and workbooks that you can you can use with your team another question are you and your team prepared for worst case scenarios explain how you will execute a tit contingency plan if one should occur very important we did this all the time in the seal teams we were constantly okay worst case scenario we have a casualty here's what we're going to do here's how we're going to deal with it even at our training sites if we have a casualty on our training sites we're going to not just brief it but we're going to we're going to rehearse it sometimes someone gets severely wounded someone gets shot at a training site someone gets

run over by a vehicle at a training site someone gets blown up at a training site Because we're conducting high risk training. There is risk in our training. So we run full mission rehearsals, full profile rehearsals to make sure we're ready for that. You should do that at your company. Do you have to do it once a week? No. But I'll tell you, should you do it maybe once every six months, maybe once a year,

you go through the full casualty evacuation? Who knows how to call the life flight helicopter if you're a construction company? Who knows how to do that? Look, can you do that with every job site? No, but you do it with one job site and then that, you know, you film it and you get some lessons learned from it so everyone knows. Oh, guess what? We got to clear out any obstacle from our landing zone. We had a helicopter landing zone, but guess what?

We had two cranes parked in the middle of it. Took us 15 minutes to move those cranes. Okay. So guess what? We need a secondary, every construction site. We need a secondary landing zone. You see what I'm saying? You go through these rehearsals once a year or whatever and you take the lesson.

learned and you pass them and distribute them and maybe you do a rehearsal without the helicopter like okay well where are they going to land oh yeah we can land them there oh no we got cranes parked there so you can still run through the kind of a kind of a mock rehearsal as well next chapter chapter 11 humble not passive humility is the most important quality in a leader when we had to fire seal leaders from leadership positions in a platoon or task unit it was not because they weren't physically fit or were tactically unsound. It was most often because they lacked humility. They couldn't check their ego.

They refused to accept constructive criticism and did not take ownership of their mistakes. In extreme ownership, we dedicated an entire chapter to check the ego because humility is essential to building strong relationships up, down, and across the chain of command. Some leaders take this too far. Strange, right? some leaders take this too far and become humble to a fault they become passive when it truly matters leaders must be willing to push back voice their concerns stand up for the good of their team and the mission and provide feedback up the chain of command against the decision or strategy

they know will endanger the team or harm the strategic mission do you think um so passive and then lack of confidence do you think lack of confidence is from being kind of too humble or is that a different thing for sure yeah yeah you you want a confident is is good arrogance is too far right and then lack of confidence is too far in the other direction so we want someone that's confident but we don't want them overconfident yeah but if someone's like i'm not really sure if i can do this job like can you imagine you're a seal platoon commander yeah or you're a seal platoon chief yeah and someone says hey what do you think we should do here and you're like, oh, I'm not really sure.

Yeah. I've never, I'm not, I, I, I, I'm not sure if I can do this or not or whatever. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Like, it could be bad. Yeah. Fully. So you, you, you want to be balanced.

You know, we had to say this because occasionally you get someone that's like, well, you know, I don't really, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm not experienced enough. And, and echoes come up with this plan. It doesn't make sense to me, but I guess I'll just execute it. Right. Like, no, not a good call. not a good call so we want to be humble but we don't even passive

we don't want to just let the world happen to us do we want to let what what do we usually have to contend with usually we have to contend with our ego getting out of control that's what we that's why we talk about humility so much we talk about humility so much because normally it's people's freaking ego gets out of control

yeah occasionally people don't have enough ego and now they lack confidence and now they become passive. I went and talked to some inner city kids. This was years ago. But this group asked me to come up and talk to some inner city kids.

But this intercity group of kids that I was talking to, they were all extremely intelligent. And so they were in a special program. But just imagine being like in a group of 30 kids, low income, really bad neighborhood, all really super smart. And so they were all kind of shy. and yeah just shy and they all lack confidence and so when I normally go and talk to people about you know ego stay humble and all this right I didn't even bring that up oh dang I didn't even bring up so one of the few times I didn't talk about humility because everyone in that room was they were probably they were they lack confidence all of them you know they were all kind of slouched in their chairs kind of looking at the ground they're really smart kids but they're in a freaking violent environment you know know, 12 to 13 years old.

And they're in a terrible environment where if you open up your mouth, you're going to get beat by someone that's bigger and stronger than you. Whether it's a neighborhood kid or whether it's an abusive parent. So what I talked about was, hey, oh, you want to ask me a question? Cool. Stand up. Yes, go ahead and stand up. Hey, put your shoulders back. Talk a little bit louder. No one's going to bite you. This is confidence. So this does. happen we don't want people to be passive we want them to be humble but we don't want them to be passive very important the implementation section where do you fall on the scale of humility from arrogant to passive how can you make sure you're balanced look most people are gonna be leaning towards arrogant but occasionally get people that aren't hey new guy seal officer

probably one out of seven one out of seven is like like black's confidence. Six out of seven are like, oh, I'll board to do this. They got the ego issue. Do you find that, because for, for whatever reason, and I don't know, I don't have very little experience, comparatively speaking, but the lack of confidence or the, the arrogance, you know, you say like most people, or you said one in seven will say, Csill's lack confidence. But do you find in the real world that it's kind of like reversed, like more, It depends on it depends on the group right. Yeah. So you get the you get the construction site, right? Most of the foreman on a construction site they've been doing this

for 22 years. Dude, they're freaking confident. Yeah, that's true. But then you get the new guy. Okay, then you get probably a similar no you're right. So now you take the project manager who's like a college kid that's never run a construction site before and he shows up. Dude, he's a lot. He's lacking confidence. Yeah. You know, he's lacking confidence because he's never done this before. Yeah. And he's got a big budget and the foreman's freaking looking and I'm like, oh, just got out of freaking college, huh? How was your dorm or whatever? You know what I mean? Oh, you think you're going to tell me what to do? What did you build? Your lunch tray in the cafeteria? I've been doing this for 27 years. I'll tell you what's going on. So they're going to lack confidence. So what do they

need to do? They need to gain confidence. How do they gain confidence? The same thing we talked about earlier with gain respect work hard ask good questions don't act like you know everything you don't everybody knows you don't if your response is hey I might just graduated college but I had some really good classes on engineering and I'm ready to tell you what's up job foreman like how's that gonna go over they're gonna go over good but if you say hey hey yeah I did just graduate didn't learn much but I mean I know I can look at you I can see I'm gonna learn a lot from you how are we gonna do this stuff tomorrow how do you recommend getting this done all of a sudden is

like, oh, okay, this guy listens. So be confident. You have to have confidence in the fact that you don't know everything and be okay with that. No one hates you. Yeah. You know, can this foreman or whoever be an asshole? Yeah, that can happen. And they really have a big ego and they want to rub it in.

You don't know what the hell you're doing. Do you see more, this seems like an obvious thing, but the thing is I don't know because I don't have the experience of this. Do you see like, compared? comparatively like do you see more arrogance that higher up you go in leadership? Yes. Because they've been screened. Right, right.

Because they've won. Yeah. Like it's like that process selects for the selecting. And look, you didn't even apply for that leadership job unless you had confidence that you could get it. So you had some confidence. But then you got it. Confidence gets a little boost.

And by the way, how did you, when you applied for that leadership job, you had to succeed on some tasks or some missions or some projects. So you were successful. Leadership boost. So now you applied, you got the leadership boost. Now you applied, you get the promotion. Oh, yeah, I deserve this. And that's where you have issues.

That's what happens with young seals, right? Yeah. There's a young seal officer. There's thousands and thousands of people that apply to be a seal officer. Thousands and thousands, they take 30. So think about that. You're already like, dude, I'm kind of awesome. Yeah.

Then you go to seal training, which, by the way, now people wash out a seal training. A bunch of people, you have a class of a hundred guys, 20 of them make it. You're one of them. Oh, I'm even more awesome. So now you get put into a seal platoon and you're the number two person in charge. By the line diagram, you're in charge, boy. Of course I'm a badass. It's better listen to me.

So you can see where this ego starts to grow. Yeah. And so, yeah, that sounds common or whatever. And I, you know, obviously we see that in pretty much everywhere. We'll see at least some of that. But I was wondering, is that, am I just biased towards when I see it versus like the whole? Because let's say in jujitsu, right? Like it's like a meme, like a joke even.

It's like, yeah, the day someone gets a blue belt, they're teaching everyone how to do stuff, you know, like that kind of stuff. Yeah. And where it's like, yeah, that's common. Like it's so common. There's jokes about it, right? But is that the majority of blue belts, though? Is that the majority of people who get blue belts or whatever? Yeah, it's some, right?

It's like less. So I'm like wondering, wait, is that just my bias? Because let's face it, like, I know some guys who are the boss or the manager, not even that high up. And they're like super arrogant, like more arrogant than their little positioning capability, you know? And I freaking know a lot of them too. So these people have a tendency to be arrogant. And some people have a tendency to lack confidence.

And so, yes, you're going to run into all kinds. I'm sure we could sit here and talk about people in the chess club. What kind of confidence they have? People that are knitting. Like, where's there? People that play video games. What's their ego like? You see what I'm saying?

And sure, are there people that play video games that have huge egos? Yes, there certainly are. There are people that have bad egos. But there's probably some generalization that you could make for people that knit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And people that are in the SEAL teams and people that are firefighters and people that are, of course. But generally speaking, I think that that particular attribute of ego, it varies a lot. And you know, in every organization, you're going to have some people that are on both ends of the spectrum.

And of course, like, oh, you go to investment bankers. It's the same thing, right? All these kids applied for this job. They worked for two years as an analyst. Most of the people quit. Then they got promoted. So they're going to, by the time they get up there, they're like, I've been doing this for 19 years.

I know how to freaking run this. Run this. And it's going to be hard to talk to them in some cases. There's also the fact that, I don't know how well they do this in any industry, but there is like, oh, this person's arrogant and we get rid of them. Like there's a high level of arrogance. If they don't learn how to subdue that thing,

bro we'll see you later sure like I said in that little section I just read when we'd fire a seal leader usually of the vast majority of time it's just because they're totally out of control with their arrogance yeah totally out of control um other question the implementation how do you usually react this is such a good one how do you usually react when given constructive criticism from your boss or teammates not a good one mm-hmm do you do you choose truly listen and make adjustments based on the feedback, list some examples of when you've done this. It's a good, good question.

Yeah. I wrote about that in leadership strategy and tactics. Like when someone that you don't respect gives you criticism, what do you do? And it's like, listen to them. Yep, how are they right? It's so much better if you do that. If you can go, huh?

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yep. Okay. Yep, I'm going to listen to them. How are they right? Your life will get so much easier if you can do that. Hey, if you can pull that off, man.

It's not easy. Yeah, I will say this, though, where I've successfully done that. Yep. And it was in the middle of the heat of the moment where it was like we were arguing. And I hit it years ago, like probably five, six, seven years ago. And it had to do with a video I made of us. And it doesn't matter the details. But did I continue?

No, no, no. Oh, dear. That would have been funny. No, that. No, yeah. I think you have a statute of limitations here. I think you're good. I think you can't talk about this.

No, no, no, I can't. Come on, bro. I can't. I'll tell you after who it wasn't when it was. Actually, I already told this to you. I told this to you before. Yeah. Okay.

Nonetheless, heat of the moment, full on, like, and bro, I sucked it up so hardcore, like, hardcore. Like, hardcore, because there was other shit. That was, like, kind of leaking into it. You know, anyway, and I sucked it up. And I did it. It was like your video's bad and it reflects your life, son. Well, things were leaking into it.

It more had to do with the person and the delivery. And like, you know, it was all at the above, to be honest with you. And, yeah, my video shit. Like, oh, yeah, yeah. It was everything for real. It was like. But you pulled it off. It was the final boss of subjugating my ego in that very specific situation.

Pulled it off. And then, but I will say, so I will say this. After you pull it off, you're like, oh, wait a sec. Because you get to the other side, almost like a like a big river or wall or something. You get on the other side, you're like, oh, wait a second. Like, we're kind of better. Like, yeah. But in the front of the other side of that first side of the wall, you're like, bro, I'd rather die.

I'd literally rather die than admit that you're right or okay, you know, accept this thing. But when you pull that off, bro, yeah, it's way brighter on the other side. But and you prove it to yourself. That's what I was trying to say. Like you, it kind of gets proved to you that it's going to be okay. In fact that it's better because it doesn't feel like that in the moment at all and it's actually the win too Yeah, yeah like if you if you get defensive Yeah, they kind of win honestly they're because they're like oh

He he he's got such a big who can't take any criticism like that's what they're thinking yeah That's true they don't think like oh he took my criticism he's weak no they actually go oh damn He's he's pretty confident he just said oh yeah Roger that's a good point yeah That's like such a big win in your mind you think it's a loss if you care if you're not careful you think dude I'm not not coming down to this guy my video is awesome what he talking about yeah like to see you make a better video like all those things those defensive things that feel better they actually land a lot worse then oh yes good feedback appreciate it

oh it's such a win I can't wait to get the full debrief on that one all right last chapter focused but detached Leaders must be attentive to details. However, leaders cannot be so immersed in the details that they lose track of the larger strategic picture and are unable to support or provide direction to the entire team. Leaders must be able to stand back and observe everything going on inside their team and organization, which will allow them to provide good direction all around. This allows the leader to keep the larger overarching goals of the mission in perspective.

This dichotomy must be balanced. To be engrossed in and overwhelmed by the details risks mission failure, but to be so far detached from the details that the leader can't support the team and loses control is to fail the team and fail the mission. The implementation, here's a question. Can you stand back and observe everything happening within your team and organization? How can you improve your ability to detach? Do you ever lose track of the bigger strategic plan? How do you prevent this? So these things both happen, right?

We can't stand back, we lose it, or we get so involved that we lose the strategic goals that we're moving towards. Here's the immediate action drills. During your next team meeting, focus on what is happening with your team by talking less and keeping a detached perspective. I wouldn't even make that at one time immediate action drill. I would make that a standard operating procedure to shut your mouth. And use the information to formulate a plan to better support your team. That's what we're doing. We're supporting the team, exactly.

And then I'll close it out with this little section here. Study. And this is an excerpt from Leadership Strategy and Tactics, field manual by me. Leaders are never good enough. A leader must be constantly improving and learning since, and any leadership job, new and unexpected challenges arise all the time,

And as one continues to lead, the number of people being led increases projects multiply in number and scope. And the overall strategic impact of the missions being led also expands. Leadership in any chosen profession is just that a profession. Being a leader is your life. Do everything humanly possible to know and understand everything there is about your profession and being a leader in that profession. strive every day to learn and become a better leader. Think about the fundamental principles of leadership and overlay them onto everything you see to expand your thinking. Cover move, simple, prioritize, and execute decentralized command, extreme ownership, dichotomy of leadership.

If you look for these principles, you will see them. If you see them, you will understand them better. The better you understand them, the better you can implement them. The better you can implement them, the more you can look for them. them and this cycle continues forever do I remember reading like war books but with the old breed when I was young and it was just like a war book but then when I got older it was like a leadership book about face is obviously the the the key example of that like I read about face the first time I ever read about about face as a kid and by kid I probably mean 23 or 21

or 18 or something like that it was just a war book about war Yeah. By the time I was 30, I was like, oh, this book seems to be like more about leadership. And now it's just a leadership book. Yeah. But overlaying your thoughts and your principles, overlaying the principles onto these books or onto a TV show. Oh, how's that husband and wife interact in this sitcom? Is it realistic?

What kind of attitude? What's their ego? Like you can actually do that. Sitcom. Is that still a thing? situational comedy. Is that a boomer thing? No, no, that's real, man.

Still going on. None of this happens without humility. If a leader thinks they've achieved the pinnacle of leadership expertise, they are already going in the wrong direction, stagnant in their skill set, and worst of all, unconsciously giving off the stink of arrogance. Don't let this happen. Stay humble and always learn.

So there you go always learn and we should always be learning and getting better and improving and If you are getting better as a leader your team will be getting better your mission will get accomplished And in the end you're gonna be successful which is good very good excellent you might even say Find the balance yeah these workbooks so helpful to so many different Organizations companies and teams across the country across the world so if you want to if you want to check those out again go to Amazon and just be careful get the official companion workbook don't get the the suspect rip-off off yeah cheap I should have done this earlier so people knew that more

clearly but I didn't yeah yeah that's real there's a clothing as well that's knock a here's the shady part two about it where like there's certain details that kind of help make it what it is the real deal and then the people who knock these off a lot of the time they don't know those details they don't recognize them because they don't it's not their jam they just see the surface and they're not they're not in the game exactly right there's fake clothes on amazon there's fake jaco podcast clothing right on amazon yeah do we have any no we have no so if you buy anything from amazon i always feel bummed out like someone will come out to me like bro and they're they'll be like dude they'll be like i love this shirt and i'll be like cool yeah i don't

of the heart usually to say like bro you paid that to some thief yeah some yeah that put discipline equals freedom on a t-shirt yeah and he made whatever nine bucks off of your 28 dollar t-shirt yeah and I feel bad about it because the t-shirts from wherever yeah and and it doesn't even have like the anything the layers no let's face it the layers are not there but that's part of like what you know like especially like with this this kind book like there's there's stuff There's all kinds of stuff in there. Yeah. That, yeah, if you're not in the game, you just see it and maybe even like copy it.

I mean, I don't know if they buy it, copy it and whatever. Jamie bought the like fake workbooks so we could see what's up. They're there. I would tell you. Like if I was like, hey, man, this other person that came from this industry, they applied the dichotomy of leadership to their industry and they did a really good job. I'll tell you that. Yeah. But, but it's not true.

They're junk. Yeah. They're little junk. They're not like someone said, oh, man, I got a lot of, out of the, you know, this and from my perspective, I think I could help. No one said that. Someone said like, dude, I think this is a popular selling book. We can make a workbook and make some money.

Yeah. Get my fourth grade kid over here to write. Yeah. To write a synopsis of the chapter. Yeah. And the kids like, eh. Yeah.

So again, nothing against fourth grade kids. But is your son in fourth grade? What grades he had? No. First grade. So he'll be. Oh, dang.

Yeah. He's in first grade? Yeah. Damn. I thought he was older than that. Well, my daughter's in fifth grade. Okay. Yeah.

There you go. Check. Boom. Nonetheless. Yeah. Watch out for the knockoffs. You kind of know the more you're in the where, especially the clothing thing. And I was going to say this on the clothing part, but, but they'll, okay.

So I do have the heart to tell them just so they don't think they're going around supporting. I'm like, hell yeah. I'm like, I'm like 50, 50, 50 where I'm like, hey, bro, that's like, echo did not design that shirt. Because I've had people tell me like, oh, you know, I never. thought Echo would design a shirt like this. And I'm like, well, Echo didn't design that shirt. Yeah. Echo shirts are cool.

There's a certain like random effortlessness that goes into those knockoffs. Honestly, you know what it is? It's like chat GPT designed them. Yeah. Like no creative or no actual, not even creative, no actual understanding. Yeah. Of the game. Correct.

None. Absolutely correct. Yeah. And there's like certain placements of certain things are there for. reason to really and it said those certain like little nuances and whatever that says something like it's literally there for a reason there's messaging behind it or whatever and then of course it's not there because it's not on the surface you know like for example the one that says good it'll say good inspirational jitl they'll use your name this is i'm talking about the knockoffs that are offered on amazon one of them

says good jocco willink navy seal inspired t-shirt and says good period right let's face it everything's wrong about that yeah Yeah, exactly right. And so the good is the original good one, the one with your head on it, is backwards. And it's backwards for a reason. So you can see it in the mirror. Exactly right, because that message is for you. Look at the layers.

Look at the layers. Look at the layers. Look at the layer. Look at the line. They knocked off that one. Like they put my head on it. Your head. They said good.

They spelled it forward. Yep. Wrong one. Freaking one of these T spring. T-spring, that's another, that's a website that people just knock off, knock off, knock off. T-spring, Amazon or whatever. Anyway, this is how you know for the, the Jocco store stuff. If it's on Amazon, it's knock off.

100%. We don't offer anything on Amazon. Now, JoccoFuel is on Amazon, just FYI. Yep, it's different. Yeah. So if you go to Jocco, if you want JoccoFuel and you see it on Amazon, that's for real. So you can get it there. You can get it at joccofuel.com.

You can get these beverages right here. You can get protein, which I see you over there. Were you going catabolic? Would you, did you lift today? No. No. Okay. Not yet.

Well, I did. Mm-hmm. And I already had milk prior to coming here. Easy money. So what a good way to get 30 grams of protein? Just in a tasty way. Yeah. And now you just drank a banana.

Now you're going chocolate. Yes, sir. Just mixing it up over here. Yes, sir. Okay. Cool. Joccofuel.com. We got everything that you need for supplementation for fuel for your body.

That's what you got. joint warfare super krill vitamin D 3 Cold War We just got it going on Time war We got all kinds of wars

A bunch of wars Going on time war Cold War Anyways Wawa vitamin shop GNC Military Commissaries Afees Hanford

Dash stores in Maryland Wake Fern Shoprite HB down in Tejas I think I'm going to be visiting Tejas soon I'll see y'all at HB I'm

I might even see you down there at 7-11 with Junko fuel. Okay. So hey, if you're in Texas, keep your eyes peeled. You may be getting what you need. Small gyms everywhere. Oh, don't forget about Harris-Teter. Don't forget about Meyer. Don't forget about Lifetime Fitness.

Don't forget about Shields. And then small gyms. We got CrossFit open going on right now. And we got a bunch of CrossFit gyms that are getting Jock-Fuel in there because they want the good, clean goods. And also jiu-jitsu schools. You know Jackson? Jackson. Jackson. Jackson.

He's out there with Jared. They're out there just on the front lines going into Jiu-Jitsu academies. Just, hey, you want Joggle Fuel? You know what people say? Hell yeah, we do. So let's get this set up. So the boys are out there getting after it on the front lines. And if those guys don't visit you, it's all good.

You can email them. JFsails at joccofuel.com. Get the goods in your store, the good stuff. Also, origin USA.com is where you can get blue jeans, hoodies, t-shirts, Jiu-Jitsu geese, rash guard, boots, wallets, belt, belt. You can pretty much get what you need to wear on your body, training gear and hunt gear. That is everything you need, by the way. Once you got training gear, hunting gear, jeans, geese, gie, rash guard, we're good.

You don't need anything else. Go to origin USA.com and get stuff that's made in America. Made in America. Not just made in America. Let me go a little further. The materials are from America. This is the way clothing is supposed to be. Not supposed to be made in some sweatshop in China where they're taking the leftover chemicals

and dumping them into the ocean and ruining the earth. No, we don't support that. This is America. OriginUSA.com. Get yourself some goods. That's true. Also, if you want the authentic, discipline equals freedom.

With layers. With layers, all the layers. All the layers. You need to go back in time and figure out like the first time layers got set on this podcast. I think my daughter asked me if we started layers.

Yeah. Well, I don't know if we did or not. The word, the term layers or whatever? I know that there's the term layers. And I know that it does mean like layers. Yeah, it does. I don't know.

It seemed like. Yeah, it had to be. Yeah, the first from the first ducal store. Freaking whatever when it first came about. You know where I got the term layers was from my brother. Oh, okay. And kind of from her brother in the teeth. So he was like, oh yeah, he had this thing called vapor tickets back in the day.

It was like an app where you could buy tickets. But there was a social media. a layer to it right this is what he would say and so he'd be like yeah there's a and then Tim Tim Ford formerly known as Tim Comas he would be like oh layers TimboMedia yeah so he would tease them because that sounds stupid there's a social media layer to this vapor tickets and layers he always tease them he just he'd hit us with a group text layers like just teased you know like full out and it was really funny so that's where I got it from

So it would be like layers kind of just teasing Jade more. You know, really. But then I was like, it sounds correct, I guess, in a way. And that's what it is. So boom, there you go, layers all that. Well, if you want the correct layers. You want the correct layers. You want discipline equals freedom.

You don't represent all this stuff. You go to jocco store.com. That's where you get this stuff. And there's a lot of other stuff on there. But the high content layers, really, once you get into the shirt locker, the layers are deep. That's the layers. Multiple layers, like an onion.

Yeah, like an onion. What do you call it when you're in a, you're mining for gold and you hit the, you know, where it's like a pocket of a bunch of gold? Yes, I know what you're talking about. I forget what it's called. Like a vein or I don't know. It's a vein. It's a vein. It's a vein.

Yeah. Boom. So the short locker. If you don't know what the shirt locker is, the subscription scenario, new design every month, whatever. That is the vein of layers right there. Just happy. And we're having fun with it. But yeah, it's a good program.

I think a lot of people seem to be liking it so far. But yeah. So check that out. It's all on jocco store.com. If you like something, get something. It's a real one, the authentic one. Again, reminder, nothing is on Amazon. From jaco store, the jaco store,

Discipline equals Freedom stuff. None of it is on Amazon. Yeah. So if you got it from Amazon or you see it on Amazon. Spiritually, do we appreciate the support? I mean, spiritually, yes, kind of. That's not support. Oh, that's right.

Oh, wait, when people buy it, you mean? Oh, yeah. No, from Amazon. Oh, no, no. Like, we appreciate the effort. No, we don't. because that's come here's the thing if you know the back end bad judgment if you know the back end of that that's like basically they scoured and it's all on purpose too so if you go if I go

okay if I go on Amazon I see jaco uh willing Navy SEAL inspirational quote shirt says get after it not by the way nothing you just said is anything that would ever come out of my mouth ever exactly right this point yeah and that's part of the point and then you look at the the shirts or whatever you're like oh wait okay let me see like what what did what did this take and maybe it's from a legitimate outfit. So all you got to do is click like two things, one thing. You know how like on Amazon it says like kind of the supplier, right? Or the, what is it, the store or whatever it's called? You can click on it and see other stuff that they sell. It'll say the name of the store is Jocko Willink inspirational quote shirts. Like they make it just for that, you know,

just to sort of like get away. They're not an official outfit. They went and they look you. They take whoever else, Joe Rogan or whoever these guys who make cool stuff. off and they'll be like oh let's just knock it off like on purpose knock it off and cash in on their like whatever intellectual product whatever it is you know whatever they're cashing in on they do it on purpose well no we don't we don't we don't like that um but we do appreciate support from the people jocco store dot com so there you go also speaking of if you if you if you like something get something go to colorado craftbeef dot com or primalbeef dot com because there's There's gonna be something you like there.

It's called steak. And if you like some steak, get some steak and get it from a good source, a clean source. The best source. Colorado Craftbeef.com or primalbeef.com. Check those out. Also, subscribe to the podcast. Also, subscribe to Jock Underground.

Also, YouTube channels, also psychological warfare. Also, flipside canvas. Also, I've written a bunch of books. These workbooks, we already talked about them. The Dicotomy of Leadership and Extreme Ownership, official companion workbook by Jocka Willink and Laif Babin. Check those out. And then a bunch of other books that I've written,

especially some kids' books. We kind of went ham writing kids books. Some people are surprised. How did you start writing kids? I got four freaking kids. What's happening? You know what I mean? I'm going to write some damn books about it.

That's what we're doing. Got a novel I wrote called Final Spin. You might want to check that. out you might not not heard of that one then you read it and you're like damn why am I crying and why am I feeling like this because that's what's had in there also echelon front we have a leadership consultancy we solve problems through leadership all the problems that you have are leadership problems so go to echelonfront.com and we will help you solve the problems that you have

through leadership and we also have an online training platform go to extreme ownership.com for that learn how to lead and then if you want to help service members active and retired you want to help their families gold star families check out mark lee's mom mama lee she's got an incredible charity organization and if you want to donate or you want to get involved go to america's mighty warriors dot org so she can keep helping our veterans get better same with heroes and horses dot org help micah think take our veterans up into the hinterland of the mountains so they can find their soul and jimmy may's organization beyond the brotherhood let's help guys transition into the civilian sector and if you want to connect with us go to jocco dot com you can check out all the stuff that i'm talking about you can also find us on social media i'm at jaco willink echoes at echo charles just be careful because the algorithm's about to stab you in the neck and watch you bleed out which ain't cool speaking of

balance thanks to all our uniformed personnel out there in the world from the military who are risking their lives to keep balance in this crazy world thank you for your service and sacrifice and also thanks to our police law enforcement firefighters paramedics emts dispatchers correctional officers border patrol secret service as well as all other first responders you risk your lives to keep us safe here at home and we are thankful for that and to everyone else out there. Extremes are tempting. They're easier to see. They're easier to understand. They're easier to act on. It's easier to throw something away than to sort through it. It's easier to tear something completely down than to rebuild it. It's easier to hate everything about someone than to try

and find their redeeming qualities. It's easier to completely renounce an idea than to try and understand that idea but those extremes fall short so don't fall short do the extra work open your mind and balance the dichotomies of leadership and life and until next time this is echo and jocco