Jocko Podcast - 498: Regardless of the Distractions, You Know What To Do. Do It.

Episode Date: July 9, 2025

>Join Jocko Underground<>Explore Jocko Store< Exploring deeper themes from the Marine Corps Institute’s Leadership Credo. Leadership isn’t about rank—it’s about earning trust through action. True leadership requires understanding human will, stress, fear, and mission focus. The will to fight is central in combat—and in life. Emotional control, both personally and within teams, determines success or failure. Jiu-jitsu parallels are drawn to show how will, not just skill, defines performance. Leaders must inspire through hardship, guiding others even amid chaos, loss, and uncertainty. Leadership is the art of influencing people to push beyond their limits toward shared goals.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Janko podcast number 498 with Echo Charles and me, Jocco Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. So last podcast, number 497, we covered an article by retired United States Marine Corps Colonel Joseph H. Alexander. And it was about combat leadership at Iwo Jima. But the place I got that document from was from a Marine Corps Institute document, which is called leadership credo.

And just in going through that document, look, there's some pertinent information related, related to the article that we read about stress and friction and human will and, of course, about leadership. And the lessons that it teaches, I was thinking, you know, we can use these lessons, of course. So let's get into this document right here. Marine Court Institute.

Staff, non-commissioned officers, career distance education program, leadership credo. Leadership credo. A credo, do you know the definition of credo? I don't know what creed is, but. Yeah, so it's a very similar thing. Credo is a statement or beliefs or aims which guides someone's actions. So you're right, creedon. Have you noticed there's been a little bit of.

of news going around where people will ask a kind of a got you question and then a person doesn't know it and they just look bad yeah you've seen some of this I'm familiar with this trend for sure so I feel like I just did that to you a little bit what the creedo means oh and you're like kind of not really I don't I understand what you mean but I don't think that applied to me but I don't yeah yeah check under no circumstances am I required to know what creedo means in my everyday life I think for you Kind of honestly, you don't really have any requirements to know anything. Very low requirements, yes.

So check. Leadership credo starts off with the quote, No man is a leader until his appointment is ratified in the minds and hearts of his men, the Infantry Journal, 1948, which is really important to remember. Because if you think just because you got a rank put on your shoulder or you got a title, you think now you're in charge, doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean anything if the people, if the people, People that work for you don't respect you.

It also says leadership is the art of getting things done through people. That's General Al Gray. Grayisms. 29th common out of the Marine Corps. Carrying on. Leadership is the defining quality of Marine senior NCOs and officers. Good leadership inspires and motivates Marines to accomplish a mission. Leadership emphasis on will.

Leadership inspires others to take action. To provide inspiration, the leader must affect the Marine positive. To do this, the leader must first understand the factors that determine a Marines' will to fight. These factors include fear, courage, stress, and a shared sense of the mission. So look, of course, we're talking about Marines right now, but if you talk about your company or your business or your team, the things that the factors that play into a person's will to work hard to take the step to execute, these factors, like a Marines will to fight, include fear, courage, stress, and a shared sense of mission.

Although these qualities are intangible, they often determine the outcome of combat. Okay, fair enough. But please take a note, take a moment to think about the fact that these things apply to whoever you are. You don't have to be a Marine in combat. Motivating Marines. The best leaders can motivate Marines to perform actions they wouldn't ordinarily perform. Anyone can be put in charge of a group of Marines and lead them to the Chow Hall. Why is that, Echo Charles?

Putting you on the spot again. Well, because we're going to the Chow Hall. Yeah. Yeah. So anyone can lead the Marines to Chow Hall. However, it's not as simple to motivate a Marine unit to continue fighting during difficult circumstances against a determined enemy. Such a challenge requires effective leadership. So keep that in mind if you're on the, if you're on Iwo Jima and you've just lost 40 of your guys on D-Day alone, might be a little bit more challenging.

Fast forward a little bit. Marine Corps legacy. The Marine Corps has a long legacy of success in battle. The cornerstone of success has been leadership. Leadership by Marines who, in combat, refused to bend to the will of the enemy. This legacy of leadership of getting things done through people is now your mission. Combat is just getting, just breaking the will of someone else. Do you feel that in Jiu-Jitsu?

Sometimes, yeah. Sometimes you just get caught, right? Which is different than when your will gets broken, right? When you were saying that, I was thinking about Jiu Jitsu or it's like, okay. But have I ever broken your will in Jiu Jitsu? Yeah, you know. Because I was good. Yeah, a few times.

Yeah. So, but you got to figure, though, I feel like Jiu Jitsu has this very unique. Well, sometimes I might feel like it's a unique characteristic where no, someone can just simply be better than you. That's why in the beginning of Jiu Jitsu when you first start or let's say you've never done it before, someone will get you and be like, no, no, no, no, let's go again. And then they'll get you in your, you're just kind of more confused. Oh, freak yeah, will all day.

Exactly right. Freaking sick Jeff Glover on one of these guys. He'll be like, well, I don't get it, you know? So put it this way. Someone who maybe I outweigh or you outweigh by a lot, but is way better than you, they're not going to, it's not a, it's not a really test of your will. It doesn't feel like it. Maybe in some different sort of way.

Yeah. But yeah, yeah, but as opposed to you get you or Sloan or one of these dudes who's going to kind of. Like you're wrong. It's a very different experience. So yeah. Yes and no. Keep mission focus. You must think rationally, make good decisions and inspire your Marines to renew their efforts.

You must keep yourself and your Marines mission focused. Furthermore, you must do this despite a clever, cunning, active enemy who is constantly devising and implementing ways to kill you in the Marines you lead. this idea and you you haven't been you haven't gone off on a tangent on this in a quite sometimes I'm probably am breaking my own my own rules but you used to be real into distractions yeah maybe it's because you have less distractions now than you used to maybe it's because you learned how to overcome them or maybe you've submitted to them I'm not 100% sure yeah wait what do you mean I I you used to talk about distractions yeah and how distractions were like

a huge part of the friction that people face in life. And this is what is they're talking about here and they go into it more later. So I'm just warming up. Get your mind warmed up. Because you used to distract us with all kinds of stuff. Leadership challenges. You will face tremendous challenges as a combat leader.

Some of your Marines will freeze, cower, or panic under fire. Horrible wounds and deaths of friends and fellow Marines could become overwhelming. And we read some of this on that last podcast. Guys that are just completely locking up or breaking down. Competent battalion commanders, 8, 10, 12 days into battle leading their men,

and they break down. And they can't perform. They're crying. They've got to be evacuated. The entire unit may suffer unimaginable hardships from heat, cold, thirst, hunger, or fatigue. The prompts of civilized life may be stripped away and you and your Marines will be fiercely bent on simply.

Surviving. So there's some of the challenges. And this has a little quote in here that we might be familiar with. For us, combat was a series of changing events characterized by confusion, awesome violence, gripping fear, physical stress and fatigue,

fierce hatred of the enemy and overwhelming grief over the loss of friends. Think about that combination right there. Awesome violence, gripping fear, physical stress and fatigue, fierce hatred and overwhelming grief. That's what these guys are experiencing. We endured vile personal filth in a repulsive environment saturated with the stench of death and decay.

In combat, I saw little, new little, and understood less about anything that occurred outside K-35. We had our hands full fighting and trying to survive moment to moment. And that, of course, is E.B. Sledgehammer with the old breed. but what a characterization of emotions and thoughts confusion awesome violence gripping fear physical stress and fatigue

fierce hatred and overwhelming grief all at once and that's what you're feeling for day after day after day after day now he talks about the two challenges face that we face to achieve success in the face of these challenges you must study and understand them

you will study two challenges and explore the problems that may they may cause the leader one the will to fight and two the friction of war so the will to fight combat is the supreme test of wills it is a clash with an enemy who is determined to kill you the enemy's will keeps him fighting if you can defeat the enemy's will you can bend your enemy to your will in combat. This is your central aim. And I think what's really important is to identify that. Like when you identify its will against will and you have to break their will and now

you understand the pieces on the board and the way you move these pieces, if it's going to help break their will, make the move. If it doesn't help you break their will, it's not worth it. Here's a firsthand account. Prior to the first world war, all armies fought in comparative. closed order. The psychological reaction of the individual soldier was not so decisive since the fighting was done, not by the individual, but by the mass, and the mass was held together by drill and discipline. Moreover, the psychological impressions of battle were simpler. In modern war,

the impressions are much more powerful. Usually we fight against an enemy we cannot see. We no longer fight in great masses, but in small groups, often as individuals. Therefore, the psychological reaction of the individual has become increasingly important. As commanders, we must know the probable reaction of the individual and the means by which we can influence this reaction. And that's Captain Adolf von Schell from battle leadership, which we covered on probably one of the first 20 podcast we did here. And then here's another one. Because war is a clash between opposing wills, human wills, the human dimension is central in war. It is a, is the human dimension which infuses war with its intangible moral factors war is shaped by human nature

and is subject to the complexities inconsistencies and peculiarities which human which which characterize human behavior since war is an act of violence based on irreconcilable disagreement it will invariably inflame and be shaped by human emotions so what i was thinking about here is, is that an advantage or a disadvantage to you? Right? You get put into a situation. Are the emotions that you're, that are, that are taking place,

both yours and your opponents, are they advantageous to you or are they disadvantageous to you? And if you're not keep, because sometimes do we not want to like, capture the emotions of the team and accelerate those motions? Yeah. Of course.

But sometimes are the emotions getting out of control? Yes, of course. Now we got to, especially like a negative emotions, we got to try and subdue those as much as we can suppress them a little bit. But positive motions, we want to elevate them. And then what about your own motions? Because those can also be tricky and they can help you out or they can hurt you. Yeah.

As you know, I've spent some time alone these past few days. So you start thinking, I have emotions is another one of those ones that I, thought about for a while as I'm doing circles in my yard on myself um but it's and this is this is going to seem real obvious but you know when you kind of think about it it's like you kind of think about the depths and how deep it goes or whatever in all the different situations it applies to but it's yeah you can have you can have elevated elevated elevated emotions and it'll still help you the only thing that makes emotions as far as i can tell the only thing that makes emotions a negative is when you can't control them so you can take a negative emotion

No matter how much or how little and if you have it and you use it for what you're trying to use it for It'll help you same thing with positive emotions same thing with even like stuff like being sad Like you know how you know like you know like you would think on the surface like oh no no one would want to be sad You know like that's a that's a that's a it's a motion because people go to sad movies exactly right listen to sad songs You just like people go to horror films exactly my family my kids watch horror film well yeah my kids watch horror film well yeah my kids watch horror films. Yeah. All of them.

Exactly. My wife can't even be in the house if there's a horror film on. Yeah. Ain't happening. That's the hard. The horror film's weird because there's an element, you know, people who like horror film and some two degree I do too. Yeah.

But it's just more, I feel like, no matter how scary and gory and all this like, you know, intense stuff going on that, you kind of can retreat to the inner safety of the fact that this is just a movie, you know? It's kind of like, you know, when it rains outside and it feels cozy because you're out in, here you know kind of a thing so it's almost like there's that going on yeah but nonetheless that's but the sad thing doesn't isn't really explain like that doesn't feel like it anyway like let's say you go through a breakup and you're one of these feelers you know and you go through a break up and then you want to listen to like some sad song it's like you want more sadness it's weird it's like

you get pleasure in these if you can kind of control like but when you when you can't control it oh freaking hate being sad i hate being mad sad scared for all these negative emotions or whatever. It's like, bro, if you can't control it, it sucks. It's bad.

But if you can control them, they're going to be good. Even like positive emotions, if you can't control them, you get too excited. And here's one of the things I thought of, too, by the way, while I'm walking circles in my yard.

Positive emotions are one of the main contributing factors to me getting injured a lot of the time. Because I get distracted by the excitement or the this or the that and I don't pay attention. Then I slip or I freaking, don't brace like because I kind of hurt myself doing deadlift. It was just, it wasn't terribly, but it was just a little bit. And it was like, I was just getting too fired up, you know?

And so I didn't pay attention to my technique. You see what I'm saying? And that can happen a lot. That's why like little kids, they get excited and they stubbed their toe on the side of the freaking thing because they tried to run through the door. You know what I mean? So it's like that kind of scenario. If you can, if you can control it, you'd be good.

Yep. And believe it or not, you can, controlling your emotions is a learned process. I mean, clearly, little kids have not learned to control their emotions. That's why they have temper tantrums. And then hopefully, like, a teenager has learned to control some of their emotions, but they haven't controlled them all yet, right? They're still going to do some ignorant type activities. They're going to lose their temper, slam the door, whatever, be all mad.

But hopefully, by the time you're an adult, you have control over your emotions, and your emotions aren't controlling you. But in combat or in a contest of any kind, how are these emotions you know you the fighters that like oh I'm gonna get him you ever seen a fighter that was about to win because he put a guy back on his heels and they goes ham and like gasses himself out yeah or gas himself out on a on a freaking guillotine choke and they're just dead after that yeah man so that's like an emotional or you ever seen the emotional fighter that would come out mad you know like you talk so much shit during the during the pre-fight conference

that I'm just like so mad, I just go crazy and get emotional and I lose the fight. Right. If you can't control it. If you can't control it. Let's face it, some guys, MMA is a good one where when they're mad, but you can tell they're just using that anger as like this fuel for their game or whatever. In fact, you know, back when Dean won 80, I think it was, yeah, ADCC, like he had, he like, when he won the absolute, he like lost, right?

His weight division. Yeah, he lost the day before, yeah. So I forget who I think might have been Kijipeliko. He's I think he's the one who said this might have been I forget who it was, but he said no Dean you could tell he was mad he was like his anger He used it as fuel and that's why he won And I was like huh that would make sense. I don't know if that's true or not But I remember thinking just like I'm thinking now like bro, that's a thing You can totally use negative energy and anger and all this stuff for good and for and for it to be beneficial if you can control it

That's the facts. Those are the facts right there. All right. To overcome the enemy's will, you must inspire and maintain a strong will to fight in your own troops. Combat can cause a wide range of human responses from freezing under fire to acts of extraordinary valor and courage. The leader must ask, how will my Marines react to enemy contact? You can never be certain because so many intangible factors affect human will, such as fear. Anguish, a spree, and unit cohesion to name only a few.

Furthermore, your Marines' reactions to combat will vary from man to man and from time to time. Some will fight more bravely in one engagement, but less than the next. But one point is certain. You, the leader, have tremendous influence on the fighting spirit of your Marines. And again, it doesn't matter what the leadership situation is. That leader has a huge amount of influence on the people. Can be really positive. Can be really negative.

Combat stress. In combat, certain factors and reactions can inhibit a Marines' will to fight. These factors and reactions fall under the category of combat stress. Factors causing combat stress include stress, fear, panic, shock, fatigue. Some reactions are called acute stress reactions because they cause immediate loss of performance. An example of acute stress reaction is the fear you would experience if you suddenly came face to face with an enemy tank at close range. Yeah.

Although you heard me on the last podcast, like, I don't know how a tank, I don't know how an enemy tank is suddenly appearing to you at close range. It's like, you'd be hearing some noise. Some factors and reactions called cumulative stress, build stress over time and include fatigue, anguish, and repeated exposure to danger.

So on the last podcast, they talked about these two types of combat fatigue, right? One was immediate and acute. Like, hey, I'm on the beach. We're getting mortared and machine gunned. I'm getting in this first crater that I find and I'm not getting out. As opposed to your 14 days in, 16 days in, 18 days in, and now you break from the continuous fear and stress. And it goes into that a little bit.

Acute stress. Sudden unexpected, relatively short duration and very intense. Fear is the most common source of acute stress in combat. Fear is a reaction to danger. Since combat is inherently dangerous, dangerous. Fear is universal among men in battle. This makes fear not a sign of cowardice, but part of combat. Yeah.

Yep. I like how they say that. It's just part of combat. There's no not part of combat. If you're going into combat, there's going to be machine guns and there's going to be fear. Humans instinctively want to survive and combat threatens them with death. Fear of injury, fear of pain and fear of being permanently disabled are normal in the combat situation. As men see other men being killed and injured,

in combat, their fears become more intense. They know the same can happen to them at any moment. And of course, the unknown is a great source of fear. And this is something that I talked about in the book, Mikey and the Dragons, right? You don't know what's going on. Man, that anticipation is so much worse than the thing. Yeah.

It's so much worse than the thing. You know, it's being backstage with fighters or grapplers. You can see everyone all nervous. And then once you get out there, You're just doing your thing? Yeah, fully. Obviously, certain weapons cause a lot of fear. The amount of fear usually depends on what the Marine perceives he can do about it.

For example, being mortared or bombed may raise great fear in infantrymen because he usually cannot respond directly to the source of the fire. Marines, or sorry, mines and booby traps have the same effect. On the other hand, the infantrymen may deal better with fear caused by receiving enemy small arms because he can usually fire back. This is something that's important to think about in your world because there's certain things in your world that you can't really control. You can't even like the market changes and you're afraid the market's going to change the part. Well, you can't really control that. So what can you

control? What can you deal with right now? What can you impact? But sitting around and worrying about something like the market is not going to be helpful to you. You're better off freaking just getting out there and getting after it. It talks about the German Stuka dive bomber, which had like the siren mounted on it. So when it would attack the dive bomber, it'd be like, and how that caused much more fear than normal, which is kind of, makes sense.

It's kind of horrifying and cool at the same time. Fear causes both physiological and emotional reactions. Physiological reactions include trembling hands, nausea, perspiration, and increased breathing and heart rate. These reactions are not necessarily bad. if effectively controlled, they help the body prepare for danger. In fact, controlled fear increases your ability to react to physical threats and survive them, right?

So you get that adrenaline flowing. You're kind of hyped up. It's not necessarily a bad thing. Of course, we don't want to live like that because then it can become a bad thing. Panic is a sudden burst of emotion that results in flight. It is particularly dangerous to a unit because it spreads rapidly. Isn't it kind of crazy? It's like the ultimate form of group.

think is a panic situation, a group panic. Oh, yeah. Like in combat. After studying incidents of panic during World War II, SLA Marshall noted two distinct steps in a unit that panics. First, some friendly action such as the unexpected withdrawal of an adjacent unit was misunderstood. Soldiers watching the adjacent unit withdraw panicked because they feared they would be isolated and surrounded by the enemy.

This in turn caused the panic to spread quickly and the entire unit fled. Yeah, like they talk about in World War I, how a runner, meaning, hey, Echo, go take this message to the rear and tell them we need more weapons or more ammunition. So you go, you start running back and someone sees you, he's running, I'm running. Next thing you know it's five people, ten people, then everyone's running. That's a weird. It's actually not weird. That makes sense. If, let's say you're in the downtown San Diego daytime, just walking.

and someone's walking towards you or in front of you, whatever, right? And they all of a sudden just start running. Oh, yeah. You're at least going to feel it. You know, it depends on your personality, but you're at least going to, whatever caused people to panic, you're going to feel that. It's weird. No other context except for them just running all of a sudden. It's weird how that is.

It's like, it's almost like. It's like a tribal instinct, right? Yeah, it's like an instinct. Like, you know how people, like they say a lot of times they say it in this weird kind of esoteric way, but they're like, oh, yeah, we're all kind of, we're all connected or whatever. But you can kind of zoom out and be like, wait a second, maybe there is like this thing that's connecting all of us, you know? And then someone interrupting it kind of like short circuits us for a little bit, you know, how they interrupt in all these little teeny tiny ways. Yeah, and there's

got to be some. So we're up at Bull Hill Ranch for the council. And when we were up there, we know we ride horses. And actually, I've been riding horses. the last year because the way the schedule is set up. But the first time we were not been riding horses, there was like an incident with the horses where two of the horses got tangled up, they started fighting and there's like 35 horses, but they all got like some of them,

some of them just started running, right? The one I was on, I had to like chill that thing out and I'm not an experienced horse rider. Sure. And by that I mean, that was my first time riding on a horse. So I'm like going, okay, buddy, like okay, it's okay, it's okay. But you could feel like the tension, And same thing when you see a dog park or like a dog, like one dog starts running,

they all get nuts. Yeah. Yeah. And so it's not that different that a human sees a human running. Right. And you think, what? Yeah. Yeah.

Panic. So your behavior, especially from a leadership perspective, when you start to panic. And another thing is like, what is your psychological state when you see someone else running? These guys are in combat. They're already afraid. So this isn't one, that's all they need to see. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Check. And then it says, panic usually begins in the rear and moves forward. This is why maneuver warfare tactics stress getting into your enemy's rear. But you must remember that a capable enemy will be trying to do the same to you and will sometimes succeed.

Your Marines tend to panic. Your Marines may tend to panic when they feel cut off, isolated, or encircled. And then it says shock or freezing under fire is the most common reaction to uncontrolled fear. You may observe Marines who completely lose the ability to act when they suddenly find themselves in danger and overcome by fear. Fight.

Remember when it used to just be fight or flight? And then it became fight, flight or freeze? Because people realize, like, that's the most common thing is locking up. Yeah. Have you ever locked up from fear? No. I mean, I feel like I have, but I can't remember a very particular time. Yeah, I feel like you'd be like, the headlights, right?

Kind of a scenario. Yeah. I don't know. Some will cower in their fighting holes or sleeping bags, unable to fight no matter the circumstances. Others will have the will to fight but find themselves physically exhausted and unable to move to fire a weapon. Yeah, and people just accept it. I was watching a thing about Everest the other day. And it's just at a certain point, people are like, yeah, I'm not going anymore.

Well, then you're going to die. And they're like, well, I guess I'm going to die then. I mean, they might not say that. But when someone is saying, hey, I'm going to leave you here. Unless you get up and start walking and they're like go ahead right they're just accepting death Yeah, I don't know if that's quite the same as fight or flight or freeze but that's more like will Just their will is broken right like they're they'd rather like death is like a relief of some yeah Existing torment or something like this yeah the freeze feels like it's like your brain

kind of you know on a certain level kind of shuts down because it doesn't know what option to pick Like, you know, like the, you know, the front part, I guess the front part of your brain is like, okay, logically, if since this is coming from here, I'm going to come from here, go from here. And since I see other stuff over here, I'm going to not, you know, it has this like decision making like sequence, you know, but when it kind of short circuits because it's like too much to process or whatever, it's like, well, it's like almost like a flash of you have zero options. Therefore, you act on all available, which is none. Which is just locked up. Yeah. Lock up. Yeah. That's what it feels like. You know. And then it gets into the source of courage. Any of these reactions may be temporary, lasting only as long as the danger is present or the reaction may incapacitate a man indefinitely. However, fear can also be a source of courage. The fear of letting his comrades down is common in men who are about to enter battle for the first time, particularly in cohesively tightly knit units.

Marshall noted the following in men against fire. When fire sweeps the field, Nothing keeps a man from running except the sense of honor, the bound obligation to the people right around him of fear of failure in their sight, which might eternally disgrace him. So that's what's keeping you there. Because I don't look bad in front of my friends. As Tony Afratti once said, I'd rather die. He was like horrified of heights and he had to remember that?

He had to freaking repel off some giant building in Hong Kong. and he was just scared, like, no part of his humanity wanted to go. Yep. But he definitely didn't want to look weak. And so he just went, just overcame the most primordial fear. But he just doesn't care. It was like, better to die. I would 100% relate to that.

Like, I'd rather just die than go out looking like a... You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I do. The... I got to ask that question on the podcast, with Chris Williamson the other day. It was like, you know, overcoming fear. And I said, go.

Yeah. You know, very. And I think that's something that you learn, you know. You learn in the military, at least for sure. That waiting is not going to help you. Your fear is not going to dissipate. Yeah. It's going to get worse.

I was, I was skiing. Hell yeah. And it was like springtime. Things were getting pretty thin. And there was like, legit little little no no no no no it was

it was legit like this is going to take some courage you know I hate to use that word where I'm talking about skiing but it was like potential danger right potential injury right rocks snow ice steepness but I'm standing there

and in my head I was just like yep I'm going like you know blah blah blah blah blah blah like oh you think it's a You think it's about, you know, like conversations are happening and I'm just like, go, go. You know what I mean? Yeah. You just learn that she's got to go.

Let's go. Yeah. Yep. That's real. My daughter did that when we're skiing. Mm-hmm. Is she skiing or snowboarding? She was skiing.

I was snowboarding. By the way, I got a snowboard, uh, snowboard for you. Yeah? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. My, uh, my, uh, my boys got Cardiff snowboards.

Okay. So I got one for you. She's coming. Man, that's, thanks, bro. I'm fired up about that. But yeah, so he was like he said echo's really into snowboarding, right? I was like, hey, really is a strong word, but would he like probably to have a card of snowboard? Most likely.

Yeah. They're freaking down for the causal to you. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So your daughter. Yeah, we're on the top of the month and I'm like, you know, at this point I was like, was I wasn't brand new, but I was like, kind of new. But I'm with her. So you know how like at this point was she maybe like nine years old.

maybe I don't know 10 so I'm thinking like that's what I'm worried about like I don't need this girl freaking charging this freaking hill and then hurting herself and I'm responsible you know and I'm like relatively new I'm not like some pro snowboarder where I can just freaking mosey down no I got this you know kind of a thing so I'm there's an element of nervousness and she was scared I don't know if she was scared or not but we were hesitant up there so I'm like okay wait like if she falls down maybe I can go over there and kind of you know so I'm making this plan And she's like, so she's looking at it, looking at it, not saying nothing, looking at it. She's like, I'm going.

Yeah. And she just goes. I was like, oh, I feel like the control. But then I was like, huh, she just, I feel like she just charged. Yeah. She was like, bro, I'm tired. It's just standing up here and like waiting, you know, for the unknown to like overcome me, you know? Yeah.

I always have felt in combat for sure like being aggressive and having an aggressive mindset is safer than being scared and being passive. Yeah. Same thing with the Jiu Jitsu. Like if you show up in Jiu-jitsu and you feel like, oh, what? doing this type oh doing stand up and you're feeling like lack sedesical or you're feeling like i don't know if i want to do stand up today i want to get hurt if you're doing standup freaking get it on you know what i'm saying yeah get it on don't don't be like weak like that yeah you know speaking of fear and overcoming fear i put this together the other day which was pretty

wild so i was actually at the council and we were talking you know we cover every subject the and we get like granular. But, you know, they ask questions about all different aspects of life, including family. And one of the individuals was asking, you know, had like an incident with his daughter, who was nine years old. And he didn't, you know, he didn't like the outcome of the incident. It wasn't, it was nothing. But the first thing I relayed to him was the story that you and I have discussed, which is like, hey, your son is five. Yeah.

Like, yeah. And then I went to the fact that I just said, these things that your kids do at a young age, it has almost zero impact on the trajectory of their life. And the example that I ended up really nailing was Rana, my daughter, when she was probably eight years old or something, she was so horrified to compete in a jiu-jitsu tournament. that she like got dizzy, got pale,

was like sick and fell down and like couldn't compete. She was so horrified of competing. And what made me think of this example was like she just competed the other day and looked like she was going to a party. Like she was having so much fun, smiling and dancing and like just loving life. And it's my point in saying that is if you got kids and you think that this little one little tiny tiny data point. on their personality, it, you think it's like the beginning of the end.

Yeah. When in fact it probably has almost zero impact, almost zero, zero impact. Like it's got to be like a point zero zero zero zero one. And maybe the impact it'll have is like push them in the other direction. Yeah. You know, maybe a Rana at some point was like, well, I'm gonna get more, you know, I'm gonna become more confident or something like that. But you can't freak out when your kids are a little.

Now listen, if your kid has some pattern, some negative pattern for months at a time, then it's like, okay, you know, maybe I need to help them out. But a lot of it's just like, whatever, dude. Like it's just a little kid doing a little random thing. Yeah. You can't put a bunch of money on that.

Yeah, I learned a lot from that day. And, you know, as time goes on, you start to recognize that, that kind of sequence of things. So it's almost like, you know, also another expression that you say, it's like, it's a data point, right? So it's like, yeah, it's a data point. But it's kind of even let, I mean, it's a data point at the end of the day, but it's just one single unit at a certain time too.

Things change, man. It's like, you know how like the idea of late bloomers? Physically, I mean, you know, late bloomers can apply to a lot of stuff, I understand. But physically, you know, people, they have their growth spurt, like, in their late teens or their 20s sometime. So that's like saying, oh, wait, he's like the second shortest kid in his kindergarten class. therefore he's going to be, you know, like he's not going to grow that much or something like this. It's like the same like evaluation process.

Oh, yeah. It's like one data point at a very specific point in time. Yeah, exactly right. So, I mean, and that, you saying that about Rana? Like, I didn't know that about Rana, like that she was like that nervous or didn't want to compete or whatever. Horrified. And I'll tell you right now, but if she sold me the other day, she never did a competition she didn't cry at. Yeah, that's.

Even once she would win. and she'd cry. That's borderline unbelievable, given how she is right now. Yeah. She's having all kinds of fun. I mean, it's ridiculous.

You know what I mean? Yes, sir, I do. Yeah, it's almost like a different, it's, you wouldn't, if you were, if you didn't understand what we're talking about, you would think there's no possible way that a kid that started like that would finish like this.

Exactly. You wouldn't seem possible. Yeah. So if you got kids and you have fear because your kid, you know, uh, didn't want to do. something or didn't perform the way you expected or quit early on some little thing or the other

line at the spectrum is someone that's a little kid that's super determined those kids get burnt out they don't want to do anymore so just chill so here's a mistake and I say this is a deviation from from the Marine Corps in war for sure but the principles with the kid is relevant it can work the other way too so you know how like um this is a common thing where let's say the mom or the grandma or whatever. Thinking from my experience where, let's say your kids, all right, I'll say my experience. My daughter was good at swimming and she could stand like cold water for some reason,

like better than all of us, everyone. Like during the wintertime, I know it's not East Coast or nothing like this, but San Diego when it gets wintertime, the pool gets colder than normal. I don't want to get in there. But she's like, she don't care. It's like literally a non-factor. I'm from cold.

where you got to bear with me but she'll just jump in like oh as if she's not trying to impress nobody she just jump in because yeah it's all jump in the pool you know she she'd always been like that and she got good at swimming real early so we're like oh yeah um let's put her in swimming so we put her in swimming she's like yeah i don't really like it i was like hey just just give it a good try because me just like jiu jitzu right where it's like hey once you get your first submission you're gonna be hooked i already know like anything you get success at early you're good chance so you're gonna like it right and I knew she would do good so she joins swimming and of course she does good she wins like her meets like she won she she wins first place every single time except for like two

second place things right win this I'm like oh bro this girl's gonna be the swimmer you know but I was already hit to this notion where if I'm if in my mind oh she's gonna be freaking the swimmer I'm gonna like be too overbearing yeah I'm not turn her off of you know because I know everything, right? So, you know, it's like I risk that and I knew that. So I had to stick with my word, but I was on the inside. I was like, I felt that. I was like, oh my gosh, this girl, she's going to love it and it's going to be, you know, I'm ready to get her all kinds of support and like all this stuff, right? But I didn't. Sure enough, she was like, yeah, I mean, it was cool, fun to win, but I don't like swimming. She simply didn't like it. So it's like,

just because they're good at it and like it at this point, it doesn't mean you start rearranging your whole life and their whole future for that one thing, you know? You got to let time and, you know, just one data point. Yeah, and the other thing is, like, think about what you were doing when you were nine years old. You know what I mean? Like, it's totally ridiculous. Now with me, I was running around in the woods, like, with a freaking charcoal, uh, cork blackened and rubbed on my face wearing a camouflage top. Trying to shoot my buddy Jeff with a BB gun.

Bro, so was high, though. Yeah, exactly. Bro, I wasn't joining up. That, you know, that was not my thing. But which is actually part of the point. How come you didn't join? What? The military.

Yeah. I wanted to be an architect. Actually, what's interestingly. But like cake nuts. You didn't see cake nuts going. You're like, yeah, you know what? Yeah, they were like, well, Jeremy's dad was a Navy SEAL and then Kiko and Jeremy were just like, fuck yeah, this is what we're doing, you know, kind of a thing.

And Jeremy was all. But they didn't drag you into it. No, no, no. They wanted to be like Navy SEals. I was like, bro, I don't want to be a Navy seal God, I don't know. It doesn't make sense to me, whatever. But they were, he had like a very specific, like.

But they didn't get you hyped on it at all? No. Like even if you were around playing BB guns, shooting BB guns in the woods and your buddies are like, yo, we're going to go do this for real. No. No, bro, I was way more of a mellow person, I think. I wasn't like. But there's mellow teen guys.

That has no bearing on my personality or what I wanted to do at all. under anything. And you got to think too, in Kauai, the military culture is not super strong. So it's not like, that's not like the, you know, if someone's just floating in the winds, you don't, I don't, I'd hardly know anyone who went in the military. I think I know like three, four guys besides Jeremy Cake Nuts.

Actually, yeah, one of my best friend, he went, he was a pilot, and then one guy went into the army that I remember. So yeah, I don't know. It's probably a whole thing, a whole number list of reasons. Well, if you would have gone, maybe you would have learned about overcoming fear. Fear is a powerful force in battle. It is common all men rarely discussed and understood. You'll feel it yourself.

Instead of denying fear, you need to think about it, plan for it, and learn how to lead yourself and your Marines in spite of it. Yeah. This is still just something that you can't really 100% get control over. People are going to be afraid. but it is very good to let them know what they're feeling. If they know what they're feeling, it makes it easier to overcome.

I know we had some MMA fighters. And I had a kind of a standard speech for the MMA fighters when I'd see that and those nerves start to kick up and just talk about, hey, there's some things you can't control. Over in Iraq, you could be driving down the street, get blown up, killed by a freaking roadside bomb. That can happen. And you know how much I worried about that?

Barely any, because I couldn't control it. I worry about getting shot or getting a firefighter or having one of my guys get wounded to kill. But there's some things you can't control. And just like when you're about to go in this cage and fight this person, there's some things you can't control. You might, you know what? You might get caught with a freaking left hook that knocks you out. You might get caught with a straight right that you just go down. And you know what?

You've trained as hard as you can. There's nothing more you can do about it right now. What you can just go out there and fight your fight, focus on what you can control. and that's what you got to deal with. So same thing with guys, you two guys like in combat, like going to the bathroom a bunch of times before an operation. You're like, you're nervous? No, I'm not nervous.

Yeah, you are. It's all good, man. It's all good. You're supposed to be. Yeah. Yeah, that, how you would say that and even recently where you, when you say these feelings, your feeling are normal.

Yeah. Anytime you indicate that it's normal, it's like you almost give them permission to have those feelings. and then not panic for having those feelings, you know, kind of a thing. Because the element of panic is kind of like, especially when you look around, you can't read somebody's mind. Like, sure,

this guy seems a little bit nervous. But, bro, on the inside, I feel like 10 times as nervous as this person looks, you know? So you think there's something kind of wrong with you. And you might short circuit or whatever, you know. But then once someone says, oh, no,

no, that's normal, you know? And it's like, oh, wait, I can feel like this. And then you feel like way less, like, destructively nervous, you know? I remember the football camp where in college football camp, you know, like two a days and condition. Like it's freaking, it's not a very fun experience given the whole football experience. It's the least fun part.

And it's however many weeks or whatever. And then you get a lot of new guys from, you know, out of town and stuff. And, you know, some of the freshmen, they're new to the state. And it's like you're just doing football. And it's like you get homesick real quick. And I remember thinking, shoot, man, am I like not? cut out for this because I'm not enjoying this anymore. Like football is not fun right now. And I got to dedicate my quote of current life to it. I'm like freaking bro, some question marks were coming

in my head. And then about that time, this other guy from a, like I was from Hawaii and we're still in Hawaii. So it's kind of whatever. This other guy from like Kentucky. He was like, he's just straight up overtly saying this isn't for me. I'm leaving. I'm going to quit. Like this is just this isn't for me. And they're like, what? What's not for you? He's like, man, this just not for me, man. And he couldn't put his finger on it. But the thing is, we're all going through that shit.

It's like, bro, it becomes less and less fun. You feel claustrophobic. You feel like you're in prison. Like all these little feelings that it's almost like you can't put your finger on, they add up after a certain amount of time.

And then everyone would laugh on them. Like the veterans, the guys who have been there for a while, they'd like laugh. And he'd be like, whatever, he's like, he's like,

he's like, it'll be better when school starts. Right. I remember one guy said that. And then he's like, I don't know, man, I don't know. And then he kept saying it for days. This is not for me. Every single person would say, ha, ha, they'd laugh and they say, it'll get better when

school starts. I'm thinking, oh, this is like normal. Like everyone feels like this. And everyone like knows what to say. Everyone knows the process, you know? So I felt, I felt way better after that. I was like, okay, I guess this is normal. So I guess I'm allowed to feel like this.

Exactly. Yeah. No, that's a key component. And you can help your kids out with that a lot too. Yeah, I have. It's like, oh, yeah, it's okay. Do you be afraid right now? Oh, yeah, you're going to new school.

Everyone's nervous going to the new school. I've said that to a thousand people coming into Victory MMA. And they're like, well, I've just never trained before. Like, yeah, there's four more people in the class that you're going to right now. They've never trained before. Yeah. And you're all going to get in there. You're all going to do fine.

It happens every day. It was so funny because why I got the words from you. Like, hey, that's normal. Instead of saying, hey, don't worry about it. Like, instead of saying, hey, don't feel this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Of course you feel it. You know you're sad you're mad or whatever and it applies to everything not just Not just fear so I'd use it with my daughter because you know like girls when they breach puberty and all this stuff They feel like insecure and oh my god this and all that and bro I would use that thing every day I'm like oh yeah that's normal that's part of like this whole process or whatever yeah and I've gone and talk to a lot of people Um both military and law enforcement and yeah military and law enforcement where it's like oh yeah you went you went through something really terrible and you feel sad, angry, confused, depressed, and chaotic in your brain. Oh, yeah, that's normal.

Cool. Yep, it'll go away. It won't go completely away. I won't go away overnight. But, like, you're going to live on. You're going to keep doing stuff and you'll feel it sometime. You'll think about your friends that you lost. Oh, yeah, you miss your friends that you lost.

Yeah, that's totally normal. Totally normal. So drive on. Um, back to the document. The cumulative effects of combat stress are the greatest of all. In World War II, nearly 25% of all casualties were related to stress. In some units, stress casualties were equal or equal to or greater than those from death and injury. Dang.

Early combat experience usually builds confidence and steals a man for, for future combat. However, this is true only to a point. As stress mounts with each new enemy contact, a Marines performance suffers and adverse reactions begin. Some men develop fatalistic attitudes joking about death, believing it's only a matter of time before the number opens up. Been there done that. They may throw caution to the wind and behave irrationally in the face of fire. Others may experience great internal conflict as stress builds and they try to overcome their loss of courage. all those things are all things that can take place it's funny the um the the the the like irrational anger

and stuff i got to see that sometimes you know guys that would be just guys would be and you see this in any or in any situation when people are stressful when there's a lot of stress put on they lash out they break they yell they scream like that's all just normal this is the way it is but then you put them in combat for an extended period of time that's going to maybe even happen even more and the other thing that's funny is when you call come home kind of people forget about that you know what I mean kind of like we forget about the bad stuff stress related suicide such men may deliberately seek death as the only honorable escape from their predicament others may take their own lives during the six hour aerial bombardment prior to

operation Goodwood the 1944 allied breakout from a normity beachhead at least 25 german soldiers committed suicide. I tried to find a source for that. I couldn't find it. I'm not saying it's, I'm not saying it's not true. But that's really fascinating. I would think if I thought I was going to die and I was a soldier,

I would do everything I can. If I'm going to die to kill as many of my enemy as I possibly could. I wouldn't just do their job for them. You know what I mean? That's a really weird outcome. But I guess if you're suffering a bombardment for six hours and you're just knowing you're going to lose and you're just waiting to die in some horrible way, You know, like, oh, well, I'll just finish the job, I guess.

Today, it is generally accepted that all men have a breaking point. There is no doubt that troops, however well-led, can only take the stress of battle for so long, then they break. Any commander at any level who tries to overdraw the account is courting disaster. The mental and physical constantly interact. Therefore, physical fatigue, hunger, disease, thirst and above all the stress of adverse climactic conditions climatic conditions can reduce the physical state of the soldier to such an extent that his will to fight is broken so yeah fatigue makes cowards of us all but so can cold so can heat so can freaking sores on your feet and and mosquitoes

gnawn at you like all those little things combined together they can break your will and by the way that was major general T.S. Hart. Each man's breaking point is difficult. Oh, sorry, identifying each man's breaking point is difficult, if not impossible. Some men draw from a deep well of courage while others break early from the anxiety of entering combat for the first time.

Rest and encouragement can replenish the will only to a certain degree. So they're saying like, oh, yeah, if you get broken, rest is only gonna replenish you to a certain point. I think that depends on how broken you let them get. I think if they get a little bit, you know, a little fracture can heal back up,

but maybe like a compound fracture that's completely broken, sticking through the skin, maybe that's not going to heal up all the way. While most of your Marines will never reach their breaking points, some will, depending on the severity of the breakdown. Their incapacity may be short or long term. Many psychiatric casualties are reversible if they receive prompt treatment as close to the front as possible.

So that's kind of in line with what we've been saying. But some severe cases require long-term treatment in rear area medical facilities. A few never recover. So there you go. Get them off the front lines. Get them to the help as quick as you possibly can. If you got somebody at work that's starting to break, they're starting to get stressed out, you're starting to see them.

They're not eating. They're looking sick. They're getting sick. They're freaking out. They're losing their temper. Give them a break. People need a break sometimes. Over time, the cumulative effects of,

anxiety, anger, anguish, fatigue, boredom, and repeated exposure to danger reduces combat effectiveness in almost all men. As you lead Marines in prolonged combat, watch carefully for signs of stress-related breakdown and treat quickly. Stress casualties can be just as debilitating as those caused by death or physical injury. So as a leader, you've got to be paying attention. Many factors determine a Marines' will to fight. Combat factors such as fear of stress fatigue and fatigue affect, each Marine's.

differently. Since it's impossible to predict or measure the impact these combat factors will have on your men, you as a Marine leader must do your best you can to prepare yourself and your men. Study and learn human behavior in combat and use your own actions and example to positively affect your men's will to fight. You are the most important factor keeping your Marines fighting. And as much as all I just laid out, this is an interesting quote here. It is my belief that no one can give a prescription for correct application of the principle of psychology in war the only thing of which we are certain is this the psychology of the soldier is always important no commander lacking in this inner knowledge of his men can accomplish great things it's like it's so variable that they don't

actually say hey here's how you handle this it's so variable that's like oh this guy might be in one day totally stressed out get him to the rear this guy might let make it 14 days before he gets stressed out and you send him to the rear. I guess the only thing is not variable is you have to be able to identify it. You have to pay attention to it. And then when it happens, you got to pull someone to the rear. Also, it's pretty clear that people are more afraid of what they can't see than what they can see. And they're also more afraid when they don't have control versus when they have control.

Like for me, I always felt more scared in a vehicle than on foot because in a vehicle, you have less control. In a Humvee, I'm the vehicle commander. I can be like stop, go, turn left, turn right? In a tank or in a Bradley? Like, you have no, I have no control. I'm sitting in the back with a bunch of freaking soldiers or Marines. And that thing is going, that Bradley's going where it's going.

And if it gets blowed up, you're just getting blowed up, you know? So I had the most tension, I would say like fear, but the most like discomfort in a Bradley with the least amount of control. And then the Humvee with a little more control and then on foot. No, I'm in control. So this next section deals with the other thing that we have to contend with as a leader, which is the friction of war. And it says friction is the force that makes apparently easy, that makes the apparently easy so difficult.

Friction inhibits effective performance. When a plan fails because the trucks do not arrive or the link up unit gets lost, this is friction. Friction is not a difficult concept to understand because you can see it daily during both peace and war. So portrayed, war appears a simple enterprise, but in practice, because the countless factors that impinge upon it, the conduct of war becomes extremely difficult. That's from war fighting, Marine Corps. Everything in war is simple, but the simplest thing is difficult. The difficulties that accumulate by end by producing a kind of friction that is inconceivable unless one has experienced war.

Fiction is the only concept that distinguishes real war from war on paper. That's Carl von Klauswitz from his famous book on war, which we have not covered. People ask me a lot of times where we haven't covered on war yet. We will at some point. But the main reason we haven't is because I prioritized other books that I think more accurately reflect what I've experienced. And that's why I like B.H. LaB. H. Liddell Hart, who is kind of counter to. He's the other.

He's kind of the, maybe this is strong, but a little bit more opposing of the, uh, Klauswitz view. But the Klaus Witt's view, there's plenty of good takeaways that we should pay attention to, myself included. Maybe I'm like, you're, uh, what are those, um, like a hipster with music. Yeah. You know what I mean? Sure.

Like a hipster with music is like, oh, that band? Yeah, yeah. Oh, there are. They're so popular. I don't listen to that. Oh, right, right. Yeah. I'm like an elitist.

You know, I like the, I like the, uh, the more lower, unknown. Not that Beasiel Del Hart is unknown, but he's definitely not as popular as Klauswitz. Yeah. But then again, we've covered a really popular stuff too. I mean, freak, we covered Napoleon for crying out loud and, and Sun Tsu. Sure. So we've covered the greatest hits. Yeah.

But there's a greatest test we haven't covered. yet and that's cost words maybe i need to get in the game maybe check noted uh opposing wills it is impossible to fully appreciate friction in combat until you've experienced it enormous friction is generated simply by the fact that combat is uniquely dangerous and the reality is that the enemy is trying to kill you the very essence of war a clash between opposed wills creates friction the enemy is not an inanimate object, but an independent, independent and active force that seeks to resist your will and impose your own will on you. This dynamic interplay between the enemy's will and your will makes war difficult, complex, and full of friction. So we were talking earlier about paintball versus

live fire. This is an interesting thing. So in, when you're using paintball, and people are shooting at paintball at you and you don't really want to get hit but you still don't really mind that much you see what I'm saying? So on the one side I might run across the street

and grab Echo and drag him back even though there's people shooting paintball at me I'll do like a full freaking medal of honor run to freaking save you right? But we might think oh well that's not really realistic because you aren't actually getting shot at

so you're not actually going to die. But it kind of gets leveled out because the people that are shooting at me, my guys are putting down cover fire on them. So the fact that they're still shooting is a little bit unrealistic. They might be not be taking such accurate shots because they're freaking like scared of getting shot themselves.

So it evens out a little bit. Interesting. Like you wouldn't be so brave, but the enemy wouldn't be so accurate. Yeah, yeah. Gotcha. This kind of reminds me of I'll be training with like, I had this discussion actually with Meeha

because like if if I get a heel hook on you, but we're just, we're just training, right? So I get a heel hook on you. Well, I'm not going to put the full effect of the heel hook to where I'm going to hurt you. But also,

you're not going to go as crazy defending it, nor are you going to take it as far as you would if we were in competition. Yeah. So I think it kind of evens out that if we were training, I put a heel hook on you. It was a good, solid heel hook. I go to, I go to start apply the presh and you, but I don't apply it so hard because I don't want to hurt you. At the same time, you're not defending as chaotically, but more important, you're taking it further. Right.

A little bit brave on that. Yeah. Yeah, you're a little bit more brave because I'm a little bit more chill. Right. But if we escalate both those things, we're probably pretty realistic. Right, right.

So if I was going harder, but you were taking it further, then, you know, we probably get to a place where just the training, the 85%, like, well, you know, you might say to me, like, if you get out of a heel hook,

you might be like, I might say, like, I would have had you if I went all the way. And you would have been like, well, I would have defended more and I would have taking it to a more of a limitation, right? Because let's face it, we're not,

we're not training our ACLs. You know what I'm saying? Very hard. So I think when you're training appropriately, it does reflect very closely the real thing. Yeah, that makes sense. Not quite the real thing, but the real thing. Yeah, that makes sense.

Actually, I never thought about that. That's true. Like, yeah, you're way more inclined to, you know, stay in the pocket, see if you can't wiggle out of that arm bar or heel hook or whatever when the guy's not freaking cranking on that thing.

Like he's trying to really rip it off like he would be in the competition. Right. And but also if you get my arm in a competition, I might let that thing pop two, three, four times and I can still functionally fight. It's just that I'm injured now.

You know, I can still get through the fight. So there's a little bit, it's very realistic, surprisingly. Yeah, you get that weird balance. Except for maybe with chokes, because chokes you can take out. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, let's go.

100%. Yeah, 100%. Let's go. Sources of friction. Friction comes from both external and self-imposed sources. External friction is imposed by factors such as enemy action, the terrain, the weather, or mere chance. Self-imposed friction includes factors such as a lack of clearly defined goals, a lack of

coordination, and unclear or complicated plans. Isn't it interesting that the freaking friction that we have to fight against? a bunch of it comes from us. Please keep that in mind. A bunch of the friction in your life is self-generated. It's important to keep in mind that friction from any source has a way of sneaking up on you despite awareness and planning, countless minor incidents, the kind you can never really foresee can combine and create friction causing you to fall through your goals. I think that I personally am very good at predicting friction.

It's like, I know that things are harder than they're going to be. I know that friction is going to sneak in. I was like, BTF Tony used to say everything, everything takes a half an hour. Like you think it's going to take, hey, we'll just take 10 minutes to reload these radios. No, it's going to take a freaking half an hour. Everything takes a half an hour. That's just a little element of friction. That's just universal.

For a combat leader, friction has two important implications. The Marine Corps war fighting doctrine, teaches that while you should try and minimize self-adduced friction, the greater requirement to fight effectively within the medium of friction. This means accept friction as part of the combat fight. This means accept friction as part of combat and fight effectively despite it. That's really good. Maybe that's what I, there's, let me put you this way. I'm not often surprised when things don't go like perfectly. You know what I mean? I'm not like, oh my God, what happened? No, I'm like, oh, okay, I get it. That's friction. Oh, that little thing went wrong.

Oh, it took longer than we expected. Oh, the people didn't show up. Oh, the thing went, yeah, I'm like used to that. Overcoming friction requires will. Learn to prevail through your persistent strength of mind and spirit. It helps to remember that friction affects both you and your enemy in combat. That's a good one, right? Hey, the enemy's cold too.

Or the enemy's hot. Or the enemy's tired. So while you strive to overcome the effects of friction, you must attempt to raise your enemy's friction to a level that destroys his will and ability to fight. If you can operate at a higher tempo than your enemy, despite friction, you'll be victorious. Brian Stan.

Brian Stan was hyped on freaking tempo, dude. Operational tempo. That's what he was, a full supporter of operational tempo. To generate and maintain a high tempo within an environment of friction, you must control subordinates by using mission orders.

So this is when we get into a very important part from a leadership perspective. Mission orders, the way that they use that term in the Marine Corps and the military at large is like, this is when you tell someone what the mission is, what the purpose is, what the commander's intent is,

not like, hey, I need you to do this specific thing. You don't say that. You say, this is where we want to get to, get us there. And that's actually a really good example of like, instead of trying to give someone freaking street by street directions to get somewhere. Instead, you just say, hey, you're going to head north and you're going to look for this

landmark and when you see this landmark go. Just a much more, I don't care what route you take to get there. None of that matters to me. But here's where you need to get to. You can figure it up. You can use GPS. You can use the freaking mapping compass. You can use the Thomas roadmaps or whatever.

Remember those old things? Probably used them for the moving. company. No. No. No. Well, what they're saying here is that to avoid friction, you need a high tempo in order to have on a high tempo, you've got to give people mission type orders. And that is, this is your task. This is your purpose. This is my intent. Go make it happen. Sometimes you will see leaders use detail orders to closely control subordinates in an effort to eliminate friction, which means they're focusing inward. Rather than 10, Take friction in stride.

Historically, however, this is seldom worked. Yeah. That's called a little something called centralized command, which does not work. In the face of friction, your most important challenge is to maintain focus on your mission. Friction generates constant and urgent pressure to lay your mission aside. This is Echo Charles talking about distractions. Casualties demand your immediate attention. Communications break down.

Your neighboring unit you told would be what attack has not done so your key subordinate leader has just been killed These are all little points of frictions all these distractions And more will press upon you forcing you to lay aside the mission This challenge is your strength of will you must be strong enough to keep yourself and your unit focused on the mission Despite the pressure to do otherwise so there it is echo Charles right in line with the Marine Corps Sure. These distractions. Yeah.

And we'll, uh, you got jammed up by a lot of distractions back in the day. Are we doing better now? Yeah, big time. Uh-oh. Because of understanding that, well, and the real, put it this way, the premise that kind of was furthermore, we'll say was you'd be surprised what kind of forms distraction can come in. So a lot of times it's like comfort, you know, comfort is like a distract. Yeah, we have.

Or it is a distraction or like some kind of relief or, you know, I don't know, pleasure. Like, there's a lot of distractions. There's obvious ones like, you know, TV or I don't know, if you have a goal or whatever. But like they have, there's like an expression, what's it called the shiny object syndrome, you know? It's like that kind of stuff. A lot of people, there's a kid's movie that has like a thing that chases a squirrel all the time. You're not familiar with this kid's movie? Squirrel!

You hear people say that now. That's the new shiny object is. Squirrel! Yeah, yeah. It's all distractions. But yeah, if you can... I would almost argue that a lot of time, most of the time,

people don't get to where they want to go because of some sort of a distraction. Yeah. Yeah, that's certainly very... plays a huge part. Yeah. And sometimes the distractions, like it's, here it says your key subordinate leader has just been killed.

It's calling that a distraction. Yeah. You know what I mean? Which is pretty psycho. Right. But at the same time, you got to accomplish the mission. And you got to assume that if you don't accomplish the mission is not only going to be your subordinate leader that gets killed.

You got to get across that airfield. You got to seize that high ground, whatever that thing is. If you don't do it, you're going to lose a lot more than just your subordinate leader. Yeah. So you can't get distracted. But yeah, if you're paying attention to the things that distract you, that's a huge help. Oh, yeah. Because a lot of people are being distracted.

They don't even know it. Oh, yeah. Don't even know it's going down. Bro. Tradition can be a distraction. True. It's pretty much. The way we've always done it. Just keep doing it the same way.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, big time. Or you're trying to, I don't know. Oh, you're trying to like cut down, trying to make weight. I'm trying to lose weight, trying to reach a certain, like, weight, physically. These are that's like, I feel like that's like the obvious, uh, obvious mission that a lot of people are on, right? But no, but oh, Christmas dinner.

See what I'm saying? It's the tradition. Oh, yeah. Here's through Christmas dinner. I was like, what does this have to do with anything? Oh, yeah. I couldn't distract you. Like that's the tradition.

So it like distract, you know, takes your eyes off the goal. You got to tend to that, right? And in order to do that, you've got to impose your will, right? So the leader's will in an effort to keep your, unit fighting and focused on its mission your own will the will of the leader is the single most important factor being a leader requires great strength of will Marines sense their leader's

strength of will if your will is weak your Marines will yield easily to fear and stress if your will is strong it will instill and strengthen courage and determination in your men you're going to close this out close out this section because there's more in this in this book and it kind of drifted into some things that I didn't think were to be as pertinent for our people. I'm going to close us out, the story from the Korean War.

And it says, Captain Robert H. Barrow, commanding officer, company A, First Battalion, First Marines provides a powerful picture of strength of will in combat. In battle at best, SLA Marshall described Barrow's

exceptional leadership during the first Marine division's legendary march to the sea from the chosen reservoir in December 1950. At dark on 8 December, the snowfall ceased and the cold intensified. Down along the canyon, the canyon road near the water gate, a brisk wind was piling on the drifts as high as a man's head. At the battalion CP, which was partly sheltered by the canyon wall, the thermometer read 30 degrees below zero.

up on the wind-swept crags where Abel Company was clearing Chinese dead from the bunkers to make room for its own ranks and at the same time preparing to evacuate its own casualties down the iced slopes of the mountain, it must have been a touch colder than that, though there was no reading of the temperature. All the batteries had frozen. Weapons were stiffening. The camp long since had run out of water because of the freezing of camp. To ease their thirst, the men ate snow and seemed to thrive on it. But many of the problems raised by the weather, but of the many problems raised by the weather,

the most severe one was getting an average man to observe what the field manuals so easily described as a common sense precaution. For example, prior to marching from Chin Hung-Ni, Captain Barrow of Abel had made certain that each of his men carried two spare pairs of socks, but that safeguard did not of itself ensure his force through the men with the feet sweated from the labors of the day were all at the point to becoming frostbite casualties by the hour of the bivouac. Captain Barrow continues, quote, I learned that night that only leadership will save men under winter conditions. It's easy to say that men should change socks. Getting it done is another matter. Boot laces become

iced over during prolonged engagements and snowdrifts. It's a fight to get a boot off the foot. When a man removes his gloves to struggle with the laces, it seems to him that his hands are freezing. His impulse is all against it. So I found it necessary to do this by order, staying with the individual until they had changed, then making them get up and move to restore the circulation, end quote. That process, simple and telling, consumed hours. By the time Barrow was satisfied that his command was relatively snug, it was wearing on toward midnight. Right then, his perimeter was hit by a counterattack, an enemy force in platoon strength plus, striking along the same ridge line from Hill 1081 in approximately the same formation which Barrow had used during the

afternoon. All that needs to be told about this small action is summed up in Barrow's brief radio report to Lieutenant Colonel Schmuck. Quote, they hit us. We killed them all. So there you have it. there is going to be resistance, right? There's going to be friction. And the most important force in those scenarios, the force that we utilize to overcome fear, to overcome inertia, to overcome friction, to overcome resistance is the human will.

And we have to remember that a leader can impose his will or if he's not careful, he can impose his weakness. And then it is very important, critically important. perhaps for most people listening most important to remember that you are your own leader you are the soldiers yes you're the captain yes you're the battalion commander you're even the freaking general you are in charge of what you do you have to make the calls and you are going to resist you and you can't do that you can't allow the prisoners the inmates to run the prison right you can't you got to impose your will on yourself don't let your own troops yourself don't let yourself down the easy

path you can't do that you have to take the hard path you have to force yourself to take off your gloves and untie your frozen laces and change socks so that your feet don't become frostbri. You have to force yourself to get up in the morning and go do physical activity so that you don't become weak. You have to force yourself to put away the donuts and eat something healthy.

You have to impose your will. That is where the leader's will comes into play every single day. It's in your own head. So keep that in mind. And that's what we got. And speaking of will and speaking of, Discipline.

We need to impose discipline on ourselves. Impose our own will. Every day. Training. Fighting. Running. Lifting. Stretching.

Reading. Writing. Just got to be doing everything. When you're doing that, you're going to need fuel. We recommend the best fuel, actually. We recommend you try out. Jocco fuel.

Hey, check it out. joccofuel.com. We got the real goods there. We got deals there on joccofield.com. We got free shipping over $99 bucks on joccofield.com. We got subscriptions that get you up to 20% off and a bunch of free gifts there. So we're trying to take care of you.

Trying to take care of our core people, right? The troopers that are out there at joccofield.com. If you're one of the troopers there, we will give you, we'll give you the goods. So check that out. And you know what we've got there. We got protein. I just drank a mold protein.

Freaking. tasty by the way we drank some milk i also had so today i've only partaken in jaco fuel products a hydrate a go a mulk and i have another go that's kind of like we're sipping through because we're honest because it tastes good and that's what we're doing and we got what i have this morning joint warfare time war super cruel this morning yeah that's every morning for me i'm a little nuts because I have three super krill at night, three super krill in the morning, three joint warfare at night,

three joint warfare in the morning, and I have time war every morning. Yeah, that's a, that's a mega dose for sure. Yeah, but man, here I am. Hey, you are getting after it. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, I do. So do you might want to check all that stuff out.

If I go on a trip, I bring some of that cold war. So you've got some cold war over there. You partaking a little cold war right now? Well, I brought it for a video, but the answer is still yes. Mm-hmm. Of course. When I go somewhere and I have to shake hands with 1,000 people and I have to ride on four different airplanes filled with disease-ridden people. So, that's where we got. Go to Joccofield.com to check it out.

Or you can go to Walmart, Wawa, Vitamin Shop, Gncs, Military Commissaries, Afees, Haniford, Dashdoors, Wakefern, Shoprite, H-E-B down and Tejas. Leif was pointing out to me that sometimes you've got to look around a little bit because it might not be exactly, you might not find, like, go with you. energy drinks. You might not find it might be in a different section. You can ask somebody, H.EB is super cool. Same with Meyer. If you got to ask somebody, ask somebody.

Same with Wegman's. Harris Teeter. Publix. Like all these regional freaking places that are kind of the place to go in their various neighborhoods. If you don't see it where you might expect to see it just ask, somebody else pointed out

where it is. And then we've also got a lifetime fitness. Shields. And then a bunch of little gyms. Little gyms, big gyms. Victory, MMA and fitness. We got Jocco Fuel. A lot of it, which is real nice.

It's a real nice little situation there. If you need it in your small gym or in your business or your chiropractor in your hair salon or in your massage office or your cold plunge facility or your, what are the gymnastics joint? Dental office. Like you don't want your kids drinking sugar. No. No. So if you got a, if you got any kind of business and you want to give them the goods, Email JF Sales at joccofield.com.

We got you covered. Also, if you want communist-free clothing, go to origin, USA.com and get clothing that is made without, it's 100% communist-free. No communism can be detected at all. We get communist-free clothing, built by freedom, origin, USA.com. We got workout clothes.

We got hunt clothes. We got jiu-jitsu clothes. We got jeans just to work. Where when you're taking your wife out to dinner, by the way, there's, there is female genes that are slightly in the works right now. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like exclusive female, like women's jeans. That women's jeans, yeah, women's. Okay, all right. Getting into it. Bro, I got that habit from the military. It's just like the most, like, a way to describe a female. It's just female. Real textbook, official.

You know what I mean? Like textbook. Yeah, yeah. You don't know, you don't play any gray areas in the military. It's like, male, female. Those are just two things we're talking about here. Yeah. So sometimes that still, I wouldn't. I wouldn't say like a lady or women's.

Like you were able to easily as a civilian just be like, oh, women's. Yeah. But no, I was thinking female. Yeah. You know what I mean? I figure when you go to like one of these stores, you know, with fashion items. Yeah.

You can go in the women section, not the female section. But if you go, if you go to the Navy exchange, you go to military uniforms, there's male and female. I'm pretty sure. Don't quote me on that. It feels like that's the way it should be. I feel. But females, women. Sure.

We will have you covered in the future. Oh, yeah. But go to originusa.com and get yourself some communist free clothing. No communism whatsoever. Detected. It's good. So there you go. Yep.

Speaking of clothing, jocco store.com. Mostly like t-shirts, some hats on there, some hoodies and stuff, but it's discipline equals freedom. Yeah. So I'm saying. So we're representing on this path that we're all on, by the way. 100%. Oh, yeah, big time.

So yeah, discipline goes freedom. Good. Get after it. Actually, I'm wearing to get after it right now. You know, these various ideas while we're on the path, you know, you can represent. We have a thing called the shirt locker. It's a new design shirt every month. People seem to like that one a little bit outside the box as far as the creativity goes.

I think anyway. But yeah, people seem to like that. So check that one out. It's on jocco store.com. We have new stuff coming out over the next two weeks. So be on the lookout for that. And if you want to be updated on new stuff in the future, I don't spam nobody. You just put your email, sign up for the email list.

You sign up on the little thing, on the form. Can we expect spam? Do not expect spam. Look, if you're into spam emails or whatever, sorry, brother, I don't have anything for you. But if you want to be updated, maybe even some discount, down for a little discount from time to time. Yeah, put your email in there. I'll hook you up there. Anyway, yes, jocco store.com.

Also, primalbeef.com, Coloradocraftbeef.com. You know you need steak. You need all beef hot dogs. You need ground beef. Get to good stuff. Actually, it's great stuff. I just had a Colorado Kraft beef rib-eye last night. It was freaking tasty.

That being said, it was a Colorado Kraft beef ribeye, but I used the Sean Glass primal beef methodology for cooking. You got the hybrids. 3-3-2-1-1. Okay. All right. Get it done. Check those out.

Great steak. from great people. Also subscribe to the podcast. Also check out jocco owner ground.com. Also check out our YouTube channels. A bunch of books. Next book you need to probably get is called Need to Lead by speaking of the Marine Corps, Dave Burke. Good deal too. Yeah, good deal Dave Burke. He's got a book, Need to Lead. I've read it. I wrote the forward to it by the way. You know, just over here right in the forward. So it's a great book. Lots of really good information and good angles on things from that aviation perspective. Also, I've written a bunch of books, including a bunch of kids books. So check those kids books out. We have the warrior kid.

One, two, three, four, and five. We got a movie coming out. Starring Chris Pratt. You ever heard of him? Yeah, I hear. Yeah. Great things. You like his acting skills? Yes, of course. Do you could do better than him? How do you grade your own acting? Because you are in the movie, Way of the Warrior Kid. Oh, in that movie? Have you seen yourself in it yet? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. How would you think? I'd say, well, what, like a one to ten scenario? My acting, given my role, 10. Okay.

Couldn't have done it better. What about when you starred in your movie? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. One. I thought your acting was better than that. That was pretty good, actually. One point five? No, I thought it was pretty good.

Put it this way. I had my moments of maybe five or six, but I'd say generally speaking. I'd have to rewatch it. It was a learning experience. I'd have to rewatch it. Try to check it out. So anyways, we got a bunch of books, kids books, adult books. Check them out.

Also, Eschlam Front, we solve problems through leadership. If you have problems in your world, they are leadership problems. And the way that you solve them is through leadership. We have a bunch of ways to infer this information to you. The lessons that we learned in combat, you can come to one of our events. You can attend one of our events. We have the muster down in Florida, December 7th through the 9th. By the way, these things sell out.

Everything I'm talking about will sell out. So if you want to go, contact. go to Eschlamfront.com and click on events and you'll see which one you want to go to, the battlefield. We're actually doing new battlefields. It's not Gettysburg. We're doing another Civil War battlefield out on the East Coast.

So fresh look, very cool, very interesting. It's kind of awesome when you, like, to show up there for the first, be like a plank owner of the first one of these. And then, of course, we got the Women's Assembly down there in San Antonio, Texas, September 11th through the 13th.

And also, we have a consultancy. We can embed in your business, do an assessment, figure out where the shortfalls are, and help you with your leadership, get your entire business turned around and on the right track. So go to Extreme Ownership. Go to Eshalonfront.com for that.

But then if you want to have some online training to learn these skills of leadership, go to Extreme Ownership.com. Whether you're a frontline individual contributor or whether you're the CEO or chairman of the board of a massive company, there are skills that you need to win and Extreme Ownership.com

can teach you those skills. And if you want to help service members active and retired, do you want to help their families? Gold Star families, check out Mark Lee's mom, mom and Lee. She's got an amazing charity organization.

If you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to America's Mighty Warriors.org. Also check out Micah Fink's Heroes and Horses.org. I think I'm going to try and go. They have an event like a, like a dinner or something, like a big fancy dinner.

Which fancy for Micah, think means he's like what are we going to just campfire so yeah campfire i don't know but but it's nice and um try and get up there for that heroes and horses dot org and then jimmy may's organization beyond the brotherhood dot org and if you want to connect with us check out jaco dot com or on social media i'm at jocco one echoes i dot com charles just don't spend too much time on there you got better things to do you know it i know it also thanks to the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps for holding the line around the world and leading from the front. Also, thanks to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers,

correctional officers, Border Patrol, Secret Service, as well as all other first responders. Thank you for holding the line here at home to keep us safe. And for everyone else out there, here's one more quote from Marine Corps doctrinal publication one, MCDP one. We know it as war. And it says, discipline is not just a matter of following orders. It is a matter of self-control and self-direction, a willingness to do what is right, regardless of the circumstances. And quote, that's what we have to do, self-discipline, self-control, and self-direction. You know what you're supposed to do.

Regardless of what distractions present themselves, you know what you're supposed to do. so go do it and that's all i've got for tonight and until next time this is echo and jaco out