Jocko Podcast - 515: Discipline, Detachment, and the Power of Going From "Why" to "What". W/ Dakota Meyer

Episode Date: November 19, 2025

>Join Jocko Underground<After 15 years away, Dakota Meyer reenlisted in the Marine Corps because, in his words, he had “more to give.” In this episode, he and Jocko talk about the lifelong duty to serve others, the cost of freedom, and the honor of carrying forward the legacy of fallen brothers. A raw, unfiltered look at sacrifice, resilience, and living for something greater than yourself.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 515 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. When I'm outperforming fire fighting duties, I don't hear the alarms and ask, why did this fire start? Who caused it? Why did it have to happen now when I was in the middle of dinner with my family? No. I act.

I don my gear, climb into the engine, and immediately start to formulate a plan based on whatever problem I am told that I am headed into. The only questions I ask en route are solution-based. I rely upon experience, preparedness, and training rather than on anxiety and nerves. Instead of asking, why did this happen? I ask, what can I do? Or what is my role in preventing this problem from getting worse? This movement from why to what strips away or emotional thinking eliminates hypothetical,

and empowers us with the flexibility to fix the problem rather than wait for it to snowball and become too big for us to handle using the what line of thinking is solution based logical and proactive whereas the why approach is emotional abstract and inactive if we have a problem and we're stuck on the why instead of the what we are going to be behind the curve every single time. I don't get stuck on hypotheticals or the past. I go and I do. The more we deal with the real problems in absolutes, the more we can change. And that right there is an excerpt from a book called Why to What? Written by Dakota Meyer. And if that name sounds familiar, it should. Dakota has been on this podcast before we discussed his first book. called Into the Fire about his time in Afghanistan. His brutal battle there, the battle in which Dakota performed the heroic actions

for which he was awarded the Medal of Honor. We covered that on episode 115. We talked some more on episode 277, reflecting on the battle that continues after the war, finding the demons here at home and finding peace. And Dakota has been back in the next. news recently because after a 15 year, 15 year break in service on April 17th, 2025, Dakota re-enlisted into the United States Marine Corps Reserve, stating during his re-enlistment

that he still had, and I quote, more to give. And it's an honor to have one of my heroes and one of my friends back with us on the podcast to share his thoughts on service, leadership, and life Dakota what's up man we're here just the usual man we've already been talking

for a little over an hour before we decided to hit record we had to get all the all the classified yeah all the classified material out expunged from the conversation yeah man

back in the Marine Corps you you asked me if I could go to that and I just unfortunately had something scheduled because damn I would have liked to be there although if they would have held out another Bible I probably would have put my hand on it as well. I probably would have raised my right hand again as well. If I saw your ass getting up there,

damn, 15 year of breaking service. What year did you get out? I got out in 2010. The same as me, bro. See? 2010. Reenlisted.

Maybe we need to talk to Sack War and see what up. We can. Two days. Yeah. Cool. We got a bunch of stuff to talk about. I guess the themes, the themes start off by covering some of the stuff in this book.

When this book, This book came out, what, a year ago? Yeah, it came out like a year ago. You know, I wrote the book, self-published it. I wanted to get my blueprint down of how I got to where I was at. I felt like I was finally in a place to be able to pass on some knowledge to other people on things they're struggling with, you know, and I finally felt like I was something to be proud of that I could go out and then help people get there.

You know, so many people are stuck at where I was stuck at probably 10 years ago. and how could I help put this blueprint in a book of really the most impactful thing that shifted everything for me and took me from being a victim to being in the driver's seat of controlling my own destiny, right? And I talk about it in the book a lot. And the number one core piece to it was shifting why to what. You know, I spent so many years trying to figure out why my team died, why I went through that, why I didn't get him out of life, why I lived.

All of those things were these mindsets that kept me in this, really this powerless position. But then when I switched it and I switched it to, okay, well, what happened to my team? What happened that day? What can I do with this? What am I supposed to do with it? And ultimately the most, the question that hammered me the hardest was when I, I said, what would my team want me to do?

And what would they want me to live out for their lives that they gave? And I think that, you know, when I was walking around talking about PTSD, depression, anxiety, and every time I was not living up to that, I think the most unbecoming thing I've ever done in my entire life was when I used to justify me not living a life worthy of their sacrifices, and I used to justify it by their deaths. That's a paradox, huh? Yeah.

Damn. Do you know what I mean? You know those bracelets. I used to wear those bracelets. You remember them? I had them on both wrists. And they were just handcuffs of me going out and living the best life that I could live.

Because every time I looked at them, I felt guilt. And that's not, if any of us died, like all I was doing was dishonoring their deaths. When I could be going out and using their deaths on the side of a mountain in Afghanistan and talking to people about it and living a life that people wanted to listen to that. You know?

And that was like ultimately where this book came from of how did I get to where I was at? Yeah, that's even even the like the protocol or the immediate action drill of when stuff's going sideways instead of being like, why is this happening to me? Just like what am I going to do about it? Just that little protocol is a huge step up and will get you moving in the right direction. It might not get you moving in the right direction, but it'll get you moving in a direction. and moving in a direction will at least give you some information here very quickly of whether it's the right direction or not

and if it's not, no big deal, you start moving back in the right direction. Well, you start taking fire, right? Like, let's just break it down. You know, the most simple thing in life, I tell people all the time, gunfighting is so simple because if it wasn't simple,

Marines couldn't do it. You know what I mean? Like, here it is, and you, you know, you tell me if I'm right or wrong, gunfighting is literally this simple. People start shooting at you. You need to figure out where they're at. where you're at and what you have to get them to stop doing what they're doing to you and your

people. It's that simple. It's the most creative thing that you have on the planet. It's a creative job. But the first thing that happens if you're somewhere and you're getting shot at, what do they tell you to get off of? Get off the X. Did they say which direction? No. Nope. So just start moving. Get off the X and then start figuring it out and start breaking it down into chunks. you know what I mean? And so, but what really gets in the way of us as humans is we lack emotional discipline. And I'll tell you what I think with a lot of service members getting out and where they struggle and they get hung up.

I call it on the front side of the obstacle is we are so young, we're physically strong, we're mentally strong, but we are emotionally immature because I think what we don't do enough of is we don't exercise our emotions. What we do is suppress them, right? Because we are so mentally strong that we, what are emotions? We don't feel those. Don't feel those. We do everything we can to not feel those, right?

And I think what happens is, is then you get out. And then at some point these emotions get so big when so many things happen that then you can't control them and they start to control you. And while emotions are very powerful when they're anchored in logic, they're very dangerous when your logic is anchored in emotions. And I think that's what happens is we don't do a real good job at emotionally exercising us at a young age and then you get out. And now you've got these big emotions that we can't take away because that is what makes us human. And so I think that that's what ultimately I had to exercise out and to be. bounce it off logic while I talk about it a lot is I wake up sometimes and I feel I you know I talk

about the feelings right I look and I get up in the mornings I feel like I'm the man but then logically I have to look in the mirror and tell myself I'm not the man you know what I mean and so like you know and I think I think it comes with wisdom right and it comes with learning but I think that you know that's what I call your emotions are they're not they're not truth they're feelings. Logic is truth and they have to be able to support that truth. And I think, you know, that that's where I think that like I got hung up a lot of, but, you know, it became your identity. Yeah. One of the things when I talk about emotions, I talk about people is like, and this is, this is something that I learned when friends of mine were killed was you're not

going to be able to control your emotions sometimes. which is really weird when you're an adult. Because, you know, when you're a little kid, you have a temper tantrum, yell and scream, cry. And then people are like, hey, you can't do that. You have to control your emotions. You can't have a temper tantrum. You can't yell and scream.

So you get to be, you know, eight or nine. And you're like, okay, I'm not going to cry anymore. Your dad's like, hey, we don't cry. And so you're like, okay, we're not crying. And so you learn to, like, suppress your emotions. And then what happens is something happens in the world where your emotions overwhelm you. And I think what scares people, what certainly made me very uncomfortable, was just all

of a sudden out of nowhere not being able to control my emotions, which I was very used to doing. So a little bit, it's like a tangential theme that what you're saying is, what you're saying is like, we suppress our emotions, we suppress our emotions. And I was like that, like, hey, nothing's going to ruffle my feathers. But then all of a sudden, like you have friends get killed. And all of a sudden these emotions are coming that you can't control. And then you think, then what I think people think is there's something wrong with me.

Oh, yeah. Because I'm supposed to be able to control my emotions. And now I'm crying like a little baby in my car alone. What the hell is wrong with me? Because no one says, oh, yeah, even when you're a grown ass man and you've been in the seal teams for 15 or 18 or 20 years, oh, yeah, there's going to be some emotional things that happen where you're not going to have control anymore. And that's the way it is. And instead of being like, oh, there's something wrong with me.

And I actually figured this out on the podcast with a guy named Tom Fife, who is in World War II, Korean, Vietnam, got a purple heart in World War II, Korean Vietnam. And he got emotional when he was talking about, he was a battalion commander in Vietnam. He got emotional. He was talking about the soldiers that he lost. And when he got emotional after 60 years, I was like, oh. So here's a badass that was in World War II Korea and Vietnam and he's getting emotional 60 years later. This is going to happen to me forever and there's nothing wrong with it. No, it's actually a good thing because emotions mean, it's emotions stress all these things.

They're all just different words, but they're the same thing. They just mean you care. People who don't get emotional don't care. people who don't stress don't care and so like you know when you look at these things they're very powerful they're very normal like but the more you feel them the more you get used to them right it's like like going out and working out the more physically or mentally like the more you've seen it i mean think about the first time you got shot at you were in the red right and then after you've been shot at 10 or 15 times you ain't in the red no more it's like

Yeah, okay, whatever, right? But the new guy comes and then he's in the red, but he's standing next to a guy who's been there 10 or 15 times and then helps him get through it the right way. And that's what we've been missing is people helping lead people through the right way and how to deal with their emotions. Because let me tell you what's happened is you've got everybody out there now, they're all identifying their trauma becomes like their identity.

And so instead of people leading people, through who are on the other side of it, you've got a bunch of people who haven't got through it, who are bonding over what they went through, their experience, and they're never getting through it. So imagine if, like, imagine if the SEAL teams only let the guys who didn't make it

deal with the guys before they were going through the SEAL team. They were going through buds. They'd never make it. And that's what we got out there right. now is you got a bunch of people who never got through it, not leading people through it, right? It's become like this PTSD, this depression, anxiety, this mental health issue that we've got going out there right now. And I learned this in the fire service. Ultimately, where I learned so much about this, this aspect was in the fire service. Watching these guys,

you know, I used to think going over the trauma, because it was marketed, right, The trauma that we've seen as service members overseas, nobody could imagine. Nobody could imagine. And, man, I became a firefighter, and I got to tell you something, the stuff these guys see makes the stuff I've seen in combat like a Mickey Mouse clubhouse. And these guys get up and do it every single day. And I would arguably say that what we've seen overseas, it made sense. None of us went over there not knowing what we couldn't face.

These first responders over here, they get on a rig, and they go watch people who were driving to school in their communities. The next thing you know, they're having to cut the, I mean, it's like people like us, not in a war zone. And they go back and they do it again. And they do it again. And like, and they deal with it. And obviously there's a lot of PTSD out there, but there's a lot of them who've been doing it for 20, 30 years.

And they get through it. So like I learned the most about it there. And I think what ultimately changed my mindset the most is I came home from a call, the CPR call. And it was and it's such a weird call. It doesn't even make sense why it bothered me. But I got there. It was a guy who, I'll never forget.

It was in their house. I was like the first or second one there. The guy had collapsed. They were going to lunch. his wife was at the front door. They were going to lunch. They'd been excited. They lived in this nice house.

And you could tell that they had kind of lived the American dream and worked their asses off. And then they were at this house. And, like, they were probably empty nesting. They were at that age, right? And they were kind of, like, going to go to lunch. And you could tell she loved him so much. And he had gone to take a shower before they were going to lunch. He had took the day off.

And he had collapsed in the shower. And so, like, I ran in there, pulled him out of the shower and got him in the the bedroom in there was a suite and started doing CPR on him and and I'd done CPR tons of times before this like it's just a routine and I never forget she like crawled up on the bed like the foot of the bed like doing it and she like crawled up on the foot of the bed and was watching and I wanted to bring this guy back so bad and like we did all of her rounds and you know obviously protocol and and you know you hear the the medics call they say you know last round it's a two minute round and you know what that means how many rounds is it going well i mean we had gone so usually

we go the protocol is usually 45 minutes um and so you know every two minutes you do a pulse check and so we we we were going at our our last you hear them say last round and it's like it's like everybody knows that if you don't get a pulse it's they're going to call it you know and they call it before you go to the hospital? Yeah, where we're at, yeah. So we don't transport unless you get Rosk, you know, which is you get a pulse back, right? You have to have a pulse back for a certain amount of time

before you even transport them. It's safer to keep working on them. Yeah, I mean, our medics, like these paramedics, if you said right now, Dakota, who do you want working on you? If you go down, a doctor or a paramedic, I'm going to pick a paramedic all day long. And so, yeah, I mean, with the technology they have, we work them there because what it does is if you get it to a hospital you take up so many resources right

all the way there and then the there's a couple pieces to it but um so we worked him and i heard last round and i wanted like gosh you just want to pull us so bad and obviously we didn't get a pulse back and so then you you clean it up and they obviously tell the family member and um dude she crawled up on this guy and she like cried and laid there with him until they came you know until the funeral homes comes and gets him and I remember going home and like I went back and I walked in and took a shower and I just it was the first call that I'd left and I just cried like I cried in the shower for probably 45 minutes and I'm like what the fuck why am I doing this and I realized that I had to shift my mind.

And I thought about it. And, you know, everybody wants to be, and I thought about it in a way of like, what an honor. Everybody wants to be, everybody wants to be there when you're born. Everybody does. They're excited about it. Everybody wants to be there throughout all these days of your life. But not too many people want to be part of your death.

And like any chance that I get, like what an honor for me to share that with that family. Those last moments. Like I had an opportunity to show her that there were people that don't even know them that are trying so hard to bring back obviously the most important part of her. That we cared about her. There were people who didn't, we didn't even know each other. But she dialed three numbers. and there were people just like her who were willing to come and spend that worst moment of her life probably

next to her and then to spend the last moments of this guy's life with him and let him know that he went out of this world with a bunch of people trying to keep him in it and doing everything that they could to make sure we got one last breath out of him and make sure that his heart pumped every beat that he could get out of every ounce of life

it's not a job that a lot of people want to do and it's a hard job but when you start you twist it around like what an honor like what an honor that that we get to be that and it was like that moment that like i realized that that as bad as these things are if you shift your mindset it's really not the things that are happening to you it's your mindset that you're going into them and you're leaving with of how you're looking at it and that shift is everything for me. From that moment on, like,

I just, I took the weight off of my shoulders of that it was on my responsibility to decide what happened. But what was my responsibility was to show up and make sure that while I was there, that people knew

that somebody cared about them. And that was my job. Idea that you're talking about, like the ability to reframe something that's that's a skill that because it's really really hard to do that it's really really hard to do that yourself from inside your own head like you ever had a friend that's got you know some crazy girlfriend and like it's so clear that what they need to do is get rid of that girl yeah and it's so clear but they can't see it themselves or you got a friend that's like drinking all the time

and it's so crystal clear that that's ruining their lives. And it's so clear that what they need to do change it. And but it's so hard to get someone to see that. So what you're talking about, what, you know, came to you that day, this like reframing of going from like, oh, I'm in this terrible, I got to watch this over and over again,

this terrible thing to like, oh, I actually get to participate. and get to carry this person across the line and be with them and their family. Like that is a very difficult thing to do for people to be able to take something that's going on in their world and reframe it into something good. It's a skill. And if you can take a step back and you can attach like when you're facing issues and you can take a step back and be like, okay, let me reframe this.

How, you know, for lack of a better way of saying it, how is this good? Like how is this thing that's going on right now? Good. Because in most cases, when you reframe something, you go, yeah, okay, I'm going to benefit from this in some way. I'm going to help the world. I'm going to help people. I'm going to be tested.

I'm going to get stronger. I'm going to get tougher. I'm going to get more experienced in life. Like all those things are going to happen. It's going to suck. Yeah. But there's going to be good that comes out of it. And that ability to reframe is really important.

It's another like protocol to set aside. for yourself. You know, this might be the protocol after you change the why to what, because why to what is going to work right now. But then as you, once you get home and now you've had whatever it is, whatever bad thing has unfolded on you. And now you go, okay, I did the why to what. I solved the problem, but here I am.

Now it's like, the next thing to go is reframe. Okay, where, where am I at? Yeah. And I do this through a process called. the dash process right so it's it's it's literally we we are protocol driven people like we are process procedures steps like all that structure right like I mean and and that's why people people perform better in that that's why people have habits yeah that's why when you perish you've got like hey this is what you do for a cutaway yeah arch look grab look grab pull pull check check like

I did that little rehearsal over and over again I only did it once for real but when I did it real it was like second nature and if I had to think yeah you know what I mean if I had to think yeah I couldn't think at that moment do you have time to think and if I tried to think I would have been thinking like ah yeah what I mean like this sucks or something like that yeah instead it was like oh yeah that's parachutes not working okay arch look grab look grab pole pole check check new rig okay yeah check and we have that with every you know fighter pilots they've got you know I was talking with Dave Burke talking through the little protocols that they have it's like This is what you're doing.

You're not thinking about it. You're seeing something and you're reacting to it following the protocol. So yes, you know, immediate action drills out in the field. Contact front. We have a protocol that we're going to follow. Like we're going to, we're going to execute that protocol. And then there's going to, by the way, the nice thing about the protocols is it gives you a baseline that you can then make deviations from because you don't have to worry about

all the little things. The little things are the big things are you can make maneuvers. You can start to assess where the enemy is. You can assess whether you can take. take them or not, you can assess what the train, what you've got for training. Like there's all these decisions that you can make. But the initial protocols, like, this is what we're doing. Yeah.

Boom. Yeah, I mean, and you think, so, you know, you think about it. Like, you know, we make over, there's some study out there that talks about how we make, a human being makes over 30,000 decisions a day. So majority of those are, our habits. They're autopilets. Right? I mean, a lot of those decisions are.

And so, you know, how many of those things, though, still? don't serve you, right? Like at one point they did, but they still don't. And so I think that what we don't do is we don't do an inventory enough as to, I call it intentional living, right? Like living and doing things with intentions, you know, and part of that comes down to is take an inventory and leading with questions, leading with questions. And so I have a process that I call it, you know,

it's the dash process decisions you you must make a decision you have a decision without action is just an idea right and then you have to have support but not like you think and then ultimately if you do that intentionally and you do that enough what does that turn into a habit and what we have is is we have a lot of habits and i'll give you one perfect example of a habit that crushes a lot of us is sleep, right? So where did staying up late start? What started as a electric lights, I think, right? Well, yeah, but think about this. Like in your ecosystem, staying up late used to be a privilege when you were a kid, right? Like you wanted to do it on the weekends. So then you did that. Like nobody, no adult that has responsibilities, like staying up late doesn't serve them at all.

There's nothing that happens late at night that they're doing this serving or helping them or is worth their sleep, right? Think about it. Oh, yeah. But I'm sure you heard this like, hey, nothing good happens after midnight out in town. It's so true. Like you're getting in trouble. That's what's happening. Your life is not getting better when you got 14 beers in you and you're out in town after midnight.

But no good things are happening. No, no, just ask Marines. No, I'm just kidding. But that decision or that idea of. staying up late meant that I was, it was, it started as a privilege or as a, as a reward. Oh, you, you mean you got psychologically programmed that it was a good thing. Well, that, and then it became a habit. Oh, well, the older I get, the later my bedtime can be. And then guess what happened is? Now people are staying up late and then they have to start getting up early.

And it was just a habit that they never checked or never asked, is this serving me? So I talk to people all the time. If you set an alarm to, to go to bed or to wake up in the mornings, you know, what do you think the most impactful thing on your day is? How much sleep you get? And so why don't we set an alarm of when we're going to bed to make sure that we get enough sleep to prepare for the next day? And reprogramming little habits like that,

but how many of those, how many things do we do today because we've always done it? and where did that habit come from and take an inventory on that? And so that's where I look at decisions like, hey, is this getting me closer to my goals or is it getting me further from it? And I realize this other piece that I talk about in there a lot before you can get to any of those is you have to know what you're trying to hit. And I realize this with my kids, right?

Because like the ultimate leadership of you and to decide if you're a good leader or not, because anybody can manage. There's a difference between those two, a manager and a leader. Anybody can manage, but can you lead. And if you want to watch and see how good of a leader you are, if you can't lead your kids, you can't lead anybody. And so what that means is, for me, you know, Sailor came in one day and she was like, this kid, so-and-so,

she pushed me or I pushed her on the playground. She told me I was fat and I pushed her on the playground. playground. I was like, that's not justified to push her on the playground. And it's easy to run around and tell our kids all the time what they're doing wrong, which is what we do a lot. And I was like, I need to give her like some tool to be able to know what my intentions are and my expectations are of her. And I said, so both my daughters know now, I call it the box. It's called the box method. And so each side, four words at a minimum of what a mire is. A mire is respectful, a mire is kind, strong, and is a leader. That is the four outsides of the box. And every decision

and action that they take in every situation better fit in the box. So instead of me just telling them, hey, you were wrong for that, I look at her and I go, okay, so-and-so said you're fat, You pushing her, is that strong? Is that kind? Is that respectful? Is that what leaders do? Like, what if everybody looks at you as a leader and then they just start shoving each other over stuff that they don't agree with somebody said?

It's not good. Now I gave her a tool. What decision could you've made that fits in the box? Because we're not conditional Myers. We're going to always be Myers and represent the box no matter what everybody else does because there's a real fine line before we become them. and we can't do that. And so, you know, she comes back to me and she goes,

well, I could have told her that if she does it again, I'm not going to be friends with her, and I'm not going to hang out with her, and I'm going to just go hang out with somebody else. And I'm like, yeah, that's what leaders do. That's what being kind and respectful is. And so now I don't just tell my daughters where they're wrong. I give them something to shoot and strive for no matter what,

even whether they see a kid that's walking by themselves, and they don't know, you know, that kid doesn't seem like they have a friend. Well, they better go over there and they better take action to go let that person know they matter, right? Which is ultimately what matters to me. And so most people in this world today, they can tell you what they don't like and what they hate, but they can't even tell you what they're trying to achieve or what they're aiming at. because we become a society that we live off of, I call it emotional porn. Right?

And when you think about it, you know, you look at why reality TV, negativity. You post something on the internet. Like negativity draws it, right? Because it's like eating a donut. Like you eat that donut, eat that sugar high. Yeah, short-term. And guess what happens? Good times.

Crash. And it's why so many people have anxiety. depression because think about this people come back from war and I'm not trying to put them in the same category so let me state this up front before everybody loses their shit but people come back from war and because they're dopamine rushes and these chemical balances from being this excitement they struggle with trying to find that sometimes well what do you think happens when people have all this what do what does negativity do it raises your senses it gives you the dump of this emotional tie it gives you this dump of chemicals in your body.

Well, then that's why they're watching reality TV. They're all negative. And guess what their conversations are? Negative. Everything's contagious. And so we've got to change that up. We've got to, and in the book I talk about how there's this process of we state the problem, we discuss the solution, and then spend majority of our time on execution and reevaluation.

but right now everybody just wants to sit here and complain about problems and just discuss that and it's like it's literally it's literally like emotional porn yeah well it's so much easier to break something that it is to build something and it kind of it kind of feels a somewhat equivalent like did you ever do demo before like on a construction site yeah it kind of feels as good to destroy something like you're smashing a concrete wall with a sledgehammer it feels pretty good and you're doing you're you're you're you're you're bringing something down it kind of feels as good as building something but building something takes skill and time and effort patience and patience and it's so much easier to just go i'd rather just break shit down all day so instead of creating

something you're destroying something and a lot of people fall into that trap the intentionality i've been i've been joking about this lately uh i i've avoided the word intentionality and intention for a long time because it sounded like a new age yoga retreat word yeah and but then I was talking to a group uh probably about six months ago and I trapped myself I trapped myself on a corner and the only word I could use the only word I could use was I was like you know when you do things you've just you no matter what's happening you have to be intentional and I and I said it and then I was like okay Well, let's think about what that means. And then I explained to them what intentional means.

It's something that we did in the military all the time. In fact, everything that we did in the military was supposed to be intentional. So what does that mean? That means we plan, we execute, and then we debrief. That's what being intentional is. You come up with a plan. Then you go and execute the plan. And then you get done with the plan.

And you go, okay, now we debrief. How well do we do executing the plan? That right there is how you do things intentionally. As opposed to rolling into, even if I'm going to have a conversation, if you work for me and I got to go counsel you about something that didn't go right, I'm going to go, okay, here's what I'm going to take ownership. I'm going to go and here's my plan. I'm going to take ownership. I'm going to find out what else I can do to support him. And then I'm going to see if there's anything he needs right now.

Okay, there's my plan. And then I go in, I'm like, dude, you screwed that project up. You know, well, no, I failed up my plan. Debrief to myself, hey, you didn't take ownership of anything. You place blame on him. Okay, here's what you got. So that's what we have to do. plan execute debrief that's that's how we do thing in intentionally but in intentionally 100%

every bit of that is the execution piece but it doesn't matter if you don't have a clear objective yes that's the difference people are out there people people are people are definitely armchair quarterbacking they're talking shit they're they're they're doing all these things they're doing the three you're talking about most of the time but most of the time they're not doing it with a clear objective of what we're trying to achieve you know they come into the conversation and and they don't like the number one question i have to ask when i'm trying to figure out the problem is what are you what are you trying to accomplish because if they can't state that you know when you talk about a leadership checklist i call it the mirror you know i've got it on my new um on my new substack i actually just launched today the leadership series, Leadership Zero-N. And I talk about leadership to people ship, the evolution of leadership. Because leadership is like a formality, like people have kind of boxed into these, like, you know, the X, Y, and Z.

But really, peopleship is where is the application of leadership principles to the individual customized person and to the contextual situation of what you're doing, right? Leadership's not a hands-off game. It's a leadership is a is a it's a contact sport and it changes and it's like these are tools but what we forgot is is that these tools no matter what are only as good as the person that's applying them. Yeah it's going back to it's funny that you talk about what are you trying to accomplish because you actually have used with your kids commanders intent, decentralized,

centralized command and here's the parameters that we work with it. So you've given them the parameters like, hey, here's this box that you're going to draw and here's the words that keep you inside this box and you've got to go out and make your decision. So it's interesting you didn't say to your daughter, hey, next time that happens, this is what you do. You said, hey, next time that happens,

here's the parameters you're allowed to work within, figure out a better solution. Yeah. And so then she's allowed, just like when you were in the Marine Corps, you didn't get told, hey, take this particular piece of terrain, Right here, no, it's like, hey, we want to get fires superior over this zone. Okay, cool.

Let me find a piece of terrain that works the best. Let me figure out how to make that happen. So that's decentralized command. That's setting your commander's intent of like, hey, this is who we are. And then here's the parameters you're allowed to work with it. So those are awesome. And then, you know, when you talk about the way that different people respond to different leadership situations, you know, I wrote about this in the book, Leadership Strategy and Tactics,

I talked about woodworking and how when you're like, hey, leadership is like woodworking in that you got a bunch of different tools that you can use, right? You got a saw, you got a chisel, you got sandpaper, you got a drill. And all those are tools.

And you got to learn how to use those tools. Then you realize that there's different types of wood and there's a piece of pine, which is real soft, and there's a piece of oak which is real hard. And then there's Ipe, which is like super hard. And if you use the tools the same way, they're going to react differently. So you've got to learn not just what the tools are, but then you got to learn about the different pieces of wood. And then you realize that every single piece of wood is different.

And this piece of pine over here has got a knot in it. And if I use that, you know, drill on that knot, it's going to react differently than another part of the wood. So it's, you're right. It's very, you have to learn. the tools and you have to learn the materials that you're working with and you have to recognize that the materials that you're working with, which are people, they're going to be different. Yeah. And you know, and you know, you see out there right now, you're seeing across the board, especially going back in the Marine Corps. I mean, I see it, I do a ton of speaking and stuff,

but fire service as well. You know, but I keep, I'll tell you what, what's really frustrating is, is I keep hearing this, you know, that next generation. And I'm like, I'm like, I'm, like so tired, man, of leaders blaming the fact that they suck at leading on the very people that they are trusted to lead. And I see it. I see it. And I'll tell you, like coming back in these kids today, there's more potential in the entry-level service member today than there's ever been that I've known. They're looking to be led. They're hungry to be led. I see a society of that are looking to be led, they're hungry to be led. But we've just got these conditional leaders.

And it's really... What do you mean by conditional leaders? You know, they only... They're more like managers, right? Like, they hate... Like, the number one thing that tells me they're conditional leaders is whenever they hate the word why.

That's insane. Like when they're like, oh, you know, this is the why generation. Like why am I doing this and they look at it and I I get part of it of you actually hear people say that Oh I I will occasionally you know I would I always make this joke that there's some people there's some bosses the last question I want to hear in the world is wait Why are we doing this and their answer is because I said so and I always say that's the worst form of leadership and it usually makes people laugh because you know I'll say what do we say to our kids because I said so that's not even the right answer with your kids not I'm here to tell you it's not even the right answer with your kids not I'm here to tell you it's not even the right answer with your kids, but they should respect me.

I'm the dad. I pay for the rent. I pay for the food. They need to do what I say. Oh, let's see how that works out for you. I'm going to tell you right now it doesn't work out for you. There's something called psychological reactants, which means we as human beings don't like to be told what to do.

We don't like it. And so when you tell whether someone's five years old, 10 years old, 20 years old, or 50 years old, when you bark orders at them and you tell them what to do without telling them why, they're going to have a problem with it in most cases. And it's so interesting because, you know, you look at the Marine Corps and I've covered so many Marine Corps documents on here. And, you know, a perfect obedience to orders. But that is all overridden by the fact that Marines are supposed to think. Soldiers are supposed to think.

Like that's the way it's supposed to be. And if you're giving orders that are so specific that allow no deviations and you're removing the ability for your troopers, to make decisions on their own, you're not being a good leader. So I'm going to toss this at you. And I'm going to give you something to think about on this. So let me tell you why this is happening right now. I think people were evolving at a rate that they weren't, like, as knowledge was, right?

So like, I think that back when we were in, you know, go 10, 15 years ago before all this technology and all this stuff, really you as a leader meant that you had, Like you can control the knowledge, the information, you could control the information to the people you were leading, right? And whether it was what was going to happen or the schedule or all this, right, you kind of, you were the gatekeeper of that. And that was kind of your power to be able to lead. And what's happening today is, is the reality is, is, in your experience, it was going along with that, right? So like your experience, between your experience level of you being in and you

getting to experience things and the information that you could be the gatekeeper of, those two things left you in a absolute place of power to where you were absolutely needed. Today, this generation is evolving so fast because they have so much, they have so much information at their fingertips that literally today somebody could enter in the military and know more about weapon systems and know more about your job than you do, technically. And so it's made it trickier. And I think that we're back in our day to be a leader,

you had to be the expert in everything. Leadership has got to evolve to where I said peopleship of no longer is that going to be the case. Now you have to be authentic. You have to be an influencer. That's what leadership is going to be today of those two aspects if you want to be effective as a leader and not as a manager. And so I think that that is a dynamic that's changed up. I mean, I want you to think about this.

What happens when you have to ask a team today that has all the information to go do the impossible, that they don't know, that they can look at the information? could look at the statistics, the data of what the survivability is of this, the enemy that they're going up against. Today, if you to be a leader today and what's going to be asked of you, it's got to be, you've got to be, like there's more asked of these leaders and you've got to be the best in the history of leadership if you're going to truly be a leader and not a manager today, to be able to out-imluence all this other information and to be able to still motivate them.

And I think we got to talk about what the difference between managers and leaders are. Both of them are trying to get the same objective of getting somebody to do something they need them to do. That is both of their roles. But why the person that you are leading does it decides if you're a manager or leader. If the person only does it because they're scared of the consequences and because of whatever the organization power it has given you or laws or whatever, then that's a manager. If they do it because. And it won't hold up. and it won't hold up because they'll out-system you.

If they do it because they understand why it's part of the overall arching objective and why it matters and why it's part of the bigger piece and they do it because they want to do it because they respect you in the organization, then that is what you are, when you are a leader. And I think that this why thing, when people get asked why and they get frustrated, I think that's a missed opportunity for a leader because anytime somebody asks why, It's another opportunity to sell the mission to them. Yeah, and or it's another opportunity to listen to what the troops have to say. Because you can, yeah, sure, there's a lot of access to information right now,

but throughout the entire history of the military, there's always been troops on the front line that understand what's happening on the front lines better than the generals do. And so the generals that go, hold on a second, what's the feedback that we're getting right now that actually listened and you know general patent said however many years ago it was the leaders on the front line are always right and that wasn't like a hundred percent guarantee but the the mentality is when you're in the front line Dakota and you call back to me and you you request something or you inform me of something

my default shouldn't be he doesn't know what he's talking about he's junior to me or he doesn't know what he's talking about he hasn't been as long as me my default should be okay he's giving me information I need to do my best to support whatever it is he's asking for whatever is he's telling me that's what I need to do that's all that's always been like that and a failure of leadership is when they don't listen to the information the people that on the front line had i.e. the Vietnam War where the people on the front line are like hey this doesn't seem to be working very well maybe we should try something else nope just keep going keep going keep going do what we tell you to do from back here in Washington DC and we lose

So yeah, when people ask why, one of the things that scares people, if I'm your boss and I say, hey, Dakota, here's what we're doing. You say, why are we doing it? And I explain it to you. And you say, but that doesn't make sense. I'm scared. I don't even want to open up that conversation. Instead of saying, hey, what do you mean? It doesn't make sense.

And you say, well, listen, if we put all of our heavy weapons over here and we leave nothing over here, if the enemy shifts, we're going to be screwed with no heavy weapons on this side. and I go, huh, that's a good point. Let's let's put some heavy weapons over on the north end as well. And you say, cool, got it, boss. And all of a sudden we're aligned as opposed to me being like, you shut up and do what I told you to do. And now we've got one of our elements that has no heavy weapons with them. And when the enemy happens to turn in that direction,

which we both know they will, they're going to get overrun. And we aren't going to be able to support them. So listening to what the team has to say and truly listening, to what they have to say and trying to incorporate what they're saying into the plan is how you should overcome that and listen I The guys in Vietnam the good leaders in Vietnam from Hackworth when you when you read about what Hackworth says about the draftees in Vietnam He didn't he loved them he loved them when I had General Mukayama who is a company commander for Hackworth in Vietnam and I was like well what did you think of the draftees? He said I didn't know which guys were draftees and which guys weren't Think about that so we all have this image in our mind of these hip

that were forced to join the army and they've got a big peace sign on their helmets and they don't want to do the job and if they do the job they might get killed doing it in a war they don't believe in but the good leaders would make things happen as a matter of fact there's another good example of that in the civil war at the battle of gettysburg Joshua Lawrence chamberlain he's moving into position on the line for the union troops and they deliver to him a bunch of Like 50 deserters. Hey, you have to stand watch on these deserters so they can go to jail after this battle's over and he ends up Saying what's going on why are you guys in trouble? Why are you guys why are you guys arrested? Why are you guys under arms right now?

And they start talking to him saying hey listen here's here's what contract we signed up for We were told we'd be done and however many long it was 12 months and our time was up and we got to go back to our homes We got families and kids and farms and whatever we got to go back to homes and they're telling us we got to stay and that's not what we signed up for and he's like yeah you know what that doesn't make sense i'll tell you what if you guys want to fight with me we need you and if you guys will step up and fight i'll bring this up the chain of command and we'll get this squared away and like something like 48 out of the 50 guys took arms and went and fought these were guys that were being arrested and so totally didn't want to you know they were out they were being

arrested and he changed their minds and they went and by the way and then they did a little round top you know what I mean it's not like they rolled into some easy you know operation they rolled into little roundtop so listening to what people have to say actually trying to figure out where they're coming from trying to figure out where they're right he's like oh yeah you guys are right you signed a contract with the u.s. government and the u.s. government is now like revoking that contract that's not cool cool you guys if you guys can help us out we can move we can make something happen so listening to what people have to say not trying to impose you will on him. He didn't put him at bayonet point and say, get on the line or I'm going to kill you.

No, he listened to what they had to say. So those are really good examples of throughout history, throughout history. The troops are going to know things that you don't know. If you listen to what they have to say, you might learn something. Yeah. And, you know, these things are, these things are simple. They're not complex. The more complex they get, it usually is a sign the more emotional you are to being right instead of being effective. Yeah, the more your desire is on being right, the more your ego is being checked. 100%.

Like, if they give you another solution and they believe in that solution, why does it have to be your way? You've already got them sold on something. You know what I mean? That's another black belt move. I always say, like, how do you get someone to buy into the plan? Let them come up with it.

and how different is your plan going to be? You know, like there's only so many ways to assault the target. But so, you know, you talk about, you know, you just brought decentralized command, and I talk about this a lot in the military, and I've seen it. It's a big difference in coming together. And I think this is something that's taken away this ability, maybe not the ability, but it's taken away opportunities for knowledge to be gained is there, I don't know. There's decentralized command is a lot harder today than it used to be.

and I'll tell you, I'll give you from a sergeant's, you know, at the sergeant level perspective. You know, used to, I had to figure things out because what would happen is, is we would show up to morning formation. I would come up to the company office after the staff NCOs met. They would let me know what needed to be executed that day. And that I would leave. And I would have to execute it because I wouldn't see them again until possibly that night at evening formation. Or maybe the next day. Or the next day.

I couldn't just reach out and ask them. And what I see today is, is leadership, people are so unwilling to accept ownership and responsibility. It's like a responsibility hot potato. And they're doing it through these digital formations. And then it ultimately turns around and looks like micromanaging. And so it's a very, it's a very, like, unique thing that I've seen. and I was so not used to because of technology now. And it is allowing people to outsource their leadership, right?

And so what do I mean by that? Well, number one is they're telling people, hey, you know, go Google this, look at it on YouTube. Hey, go ask your buddy on this on instead of getting people together and them taking the pride and teaching people how to do it. And then the other thing is, is passing off responsibility. What do they tell them to go watch on YouTube? Oh, I mean, listen, how you're going to set up your gear or how you're going to do this, right? Like, I mean, it's a, it's, everything can be outsourced these days because there's so much information everywhere. Instead of us doing it together and talking about why we're doing this and passing down what we've learned.

And one thing that I have seen is, is this responsibility passing off, you know, our NCOs is I think probably one of the most unique thing about the, and I realize this when the Ukraine war kicked off with Russia. I think the unique thing about us is, and what makes our military so lethal is the decisions and capabilities of our NCOs and our small unit leadership. It's the way it's supposed to be. When you look, I mean, we're watching generals get killed from Russia. And you look, you know, so if we lose that, we've lost our secret sauce, a little bit of it, right? And so today, though, like these guys are able to text, hey, first, aren't, what do you think about this? And so what it's causing is it's causing these NCOs not there's no teaching them because they're able to just ask The question up here

I always said like this was always the rule of thumb that I had as a once I became NCO which being in the Marine Corps Once you become an NCO like Corporal was the by far a bigger honor to me than ever getting a metal of honor Right like because of what it represented in the rain court You heard it here first everybody. You heard it here first. You heard it first. You heard it first. You hear it You heard it here first, corporals. Get some. Yeah, I mean, being a corporal or sergeant in the United States, Marine Corps is a big deal. Yeah, it is.

But them being able to text. And what I, the rule of thumb I always had when it was somebody higher ranked than me, or it was an officer, which obviously a high rank, I only ever asked them one question, anything else. I didn't ask them, like if they came to me and they said, hey, we need this done. Roger that, anything else? I wasn't asking them how they wanted it done when they wanted to show up,

what they wanted us to wear. Like, these are my guys. And you go through me, I do the executing, but I took ownership of my guys, and I didn't just take ownership of the good, whatever. Like, they were mine. And I think one mindset we have to shift

when we are in the leadership position is is we're not in charge of people. We are responsible for people. We are responsible for their successes, their losses, their wins. We're responsible for their actions. And for me, I think, like, I just had this, like, I loved my guys I was in charge of. And I took offense to it. Like, this was the level of leadership that I always tried to live to.

I was offended if they called 911 before they called me. because look, I was going to come give them solutions and 911 was going to clean up what was left. And so, like, we've got to have leaders that are so unconditional that it's not about when we're getting paid. It's not about when we're appreciated. It's almost, and I go back to the parent thing, imagine if you were only going to be a good father when your kids appreciated you, when you had enough time, when you respected, when you felt like it, when it made sense. imagine if that was the only time you were going to be a good father. It would never work. It's the same thing with being a leader.

Once you get the position, you must always be that leader for that person in every aspect and every facet of their life. Because whatever organization you're part of, you have to understand you're leading, not just an employee, you're leading a father or a mother, a son or a daughter, your ability to impact generationally and the secondary and tertiary

effects of how you lead them but it starts with number one today example you must be the example the one thing I see different today about leadership than when I was in the last time used to there was two forms of it do as I say not as I do or do as I do

the do as I say not as I do is an absolute extinct path of leadership in today's generation because they're smart. Yeah, they won't they'll be tracking you. But I refer to that a lot. Like when I was a young guy in the SEAL teams, new guy, I'd be watching like if my platoon commander showed up four minutes late, dude, I was tracking on that. If he didn't have a piece of gear with him, he's supposed to add and someone had to go run back to the armory and grab some. I was tracking that. I noticed, I noticed all that stuff. My little logbook

writing down these shortfalls. The thing that makes me, you know, nervous about what you're saying is, is if I can constantly, if you're my boss and I can constantly check back in with you and say, hey, how many batteries should we bring for this mission? And then you tell me to say, how much water should I bring?

And you tell me, and then you say, you know, what frequencies should we use on the radio? Like, if I'm having to ask you all those questions, you're really stunting my growth, my ability to grow. And when shit happens, I won't be in, I won't have been educated.

and trained to make decisions for myself. I'll only know how to go back. And as you pointed out, that's, that's what decentralized command is not. Decentralized command is exactly what you said. Hey, Dakota, this is what I need done.

Cool. Got it. Anything else? Nope. That's it. Got it. When do you need it done by? You know, 1600.

Cool. Later. But it's on the leader that's getting asked a question to shove that back down instead of providing the solution. And that's what we're... Don't be the easy button.

That's what we're having right now. That's what, it's like when your kids come to you and, and they're doing homework and you want to get done with the homework because you don't want to help them with it. Yeah. And you just give them the answer. You know what I mean? You're stealing from them. You are stealing opportunities for them to get better. But that's what I'm seeing the most out there.

I call them digital formations. I call them digital formations. Well, there's, you know, I talk to young military guys now and they'll be like, oh, yeah, we're, we're heading up to this, a, this. You know here in America we're heading up to this place. I was like oh you know what time you guys leaving and they're like oh I don't know around this time and I'm like Where are you guys stopping for fuel? Oh, I don't know It's because in the old days bro you were getting in a convoy like we didn't have we had to have a loss of columns plan We had to have muster points like this is what time we're leaving we're all leaving together and nowadays just like oh

Hey we're running low on fuel comes the text the text message thread so they don't have to plan and look is that a big deal It's not that big of a deal, but you get in that habit. Habits. Yeah, you get in that habit what you were talking about earlier. What you're hurting your subordinate leadership by saying, hey, I'll text you when I need this. And I'll text you when we're going to stop for fuel. And I'll text you when we're going to get lunch. I'll send a thread on that.

Instead of saying, hey, here's where we've got to get tomorrow. Let me know the plan. And when you're subordinate says, we'll just text you. No, no, no, no, no, dude. This is a come up with a plan. This is an opportunity to learn, to lead. So go make it happen. Yeah, and we've got to get back to that.

You know, we've got to get back to the basics, right? And I'm not talking about going back and, you know, we got to shoot iron sights, right? Like, I think that's irrelevant in the whole sequence of all of it, right? As long as you have good positioning, right? You know, like, I hear all that. Like, all these kids don't even know how to. They don't even know how to, you know, shoot iron sights anymore. Well, we didn't know how to, we didn't know how to saddle horses in case we lost all her hum bees either, you know?

So, but, but what I will say is, is we have to get back to the basics of discipline, right? Of, of how our uniform looks, like taking pride in that. It sounds kind of crazy, but it's like, look, nobody's ever died from an Irish pennant. But guys have died because they missed the snail trail, because. attention to detail. You know, it's all, you can't pick and choose where you're going to have discipline at and where you're not, where the basics are going to matter or where they're not. They either matter all the time or they don't matter at all.

And we've got to get some of that back, not just uniform. I don't want the uniform people to come at me and go, you know, I'm not an idiot, right? But what I'm saying is, is the leaders should be giving them clear expectations of what to meet that keeps them constantly getting better. You know, me, as when I was a corporal, I never spoke to a guy and didn't leave him with something to work on. Oh, yeah, you know,

and it would be like little small stuff, like, hey, Corporal Meyer, or so on so, I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that sounds good, but also like you think those sleeves might be a little bit better. You know what I mean? Like it was always something of me just chipping around. And I think, you know,

the other piece that I see a lot of, of is is people want to be liked and I think this has to do something with like the generation and like social media and kind of society where it's at right now people want to be liked and they want to feel good and all this I'm seeing that a lot and I try to tell people you know it's like fratinization is a big thing inside the military you know I don't know if you talk to your NCOs when you were I mean I didn't like there was no way I was hanging out with these guys because they were always on my ass all the time yeah the seal teams is different for sure for sure different right but but for us it's like majority of the nCOs like you you avoided them

because they were like like it's like do you want to go hang out with your mom and dad like if dad comes in like you're shutting up you're saying as least amount as possible um and i think that one of the thing is leaders who are friends with the people that are leading is a big problem it's like do you know parents who are friends with their kids i'm kind of friends with them all my kids well now now I kind of always was. Well, so you got a good wife. I do have an awesome wife. But, but, but they, they respect you and there's a clear line.

Well, so, so here's what we'd have to break down. Let's break it down. This is a good one. I've been breaking this one down for a while. Because for a while, I was telling people for a few years, like, hey, you, you know, have good relationships, build good relationships, but I realized people didn't really understand what that was. And so here's what I finally broke down a relationship. to be trust listen respect influence and care trust listen respect influence and care so it's

easier to understand that when you look at the negative if I don't trust you and you don't trust me do we have a relationship no if I don't listen to you and you don't listen to me do we have relationship no if I don't treat you with respect and you don't treat me with respect do we have relationship no if you have no influence over me and I have no influence over you do we have relationship no and if you don't care about me and I don't care about you do we have relationship no so it's easy to understand when you don't have those things that's not a relationship So when we do have those things, then it means we do have a relationship. And the stronger those things are, the better relationship we have.

Now, think about each one of those components. If you want to receive those things from someone, you got to give them to them. So if I want you to listen to me, how do I make that happen? I have to listen to you. If I want you to treat me with respect, how do I make that happen? I have to treat you with respect. I can't just demand respect. Whether I'm your dad,

your sergeant, your platoon commander, if I say, hey, Sergeant Meyer, you better respect me. Does that, it doesn't work.

No, that's managers. It doesn't work. If I, so trust, less, and respect, influence care.

If I want you to care about me, I got to care about you. If I want me to be able to influence you, I better allow you to influence me. And if I do these things, things we're going to have a relationship and by the way we'll be friends yeah and so for me with my kids and look this was you know i i got better at this as i got a little bit older but you know when your

kids are talking to you and it's really hard it's really hard with your kids what makes it so hard with your kids is like you know 100 like i'm not i'm not being uh i'm not being like facetious here you actually know 100% what is good for your kid and what is bad. Yes. You know it 100%. So to listen to them and their stupid idea that you know is wrong, it takes so much humility to say,

okay, if you really want to, whatever, you really want to eat that ice cream. Okay, okay. You know it's not good for them, but they really want to do it and it hurts.

Yeah, you know, okay, go ahead. Go ahead and have the ice cream. Now, you have to listen to them. Like they really want it for whatever reason.

And you've got to say, well, Hey, do you know about what the, you know, that's not good for you? And if you keep eating ice cream all the time, well, yeah. So that's what we have to do. We have to listen to people if we want them to listen to us. And, you know, all my kids, they all, I mean, I have a great relationship with all my kids. And by the way, this was the same thing in the, when I was in the military.

Like, I had a great relationship. I had the same relationship with the admiral that I had with the new guy in a platoon. like they both like I listen I listened to what my new guy had to say I treated him with respect I cared about him I listened to my boss listen to the admiral listen to what he had to say listen to my commanding officer listen with it and when I listen to them guess what they listen to me too yeah and I guess but I but I but I think like the listening piece is I mean that's just that's basic human respect yes right you would think so but but my my my the friend thing though and maybe I'm wrong but your kids probably aren't inviting you to go

hang out with them and their friends doing whatever they do for fun. Bro, I got some bad news for you. All the time? Not all the time, but also like, hey, I don't,

they know. But your kids are older. Yeah, they are older. Your kids are older. Yeah. They're not like an eight, nine,

seven, eight nine. Your kids are definitely to go through a point where, you have to be the, yes. Yeah, where you're a dorky dad. You know,

they don't want your dorky dad around. Just like you're talking about. You don't want the dorky enceal around. And by the way, you're right in the fact that now that I think, about it like there was definitely times when I was in the seal platoon it's like you know hey boss you might want to head out for a while the boys got some stuff we got to handle right that's yeah that's definitely happening so yeah

I get it but here's here's what I here's what I sometimes guys think sometimes people lean on this yeah hey I'm not here to be liked yeah and what that what that then in that statement gives them permission to do is not listen to you not treat you with respect not be influenced by you at all. So I don't want people to use that crutch of like, hey, I'm not here to be liked. Matter of fact, there was a, there was a guy that came in to instruct when Laif was teaching the junior officer training course. And the guy came in and says like, it's not your job to be liked. And he said, as a matter of fact, it's your job that you're not liked. And, you know,

Laif had to like let the guy leave and then correct him. Because if you had a bunch of junior officers going, hey, I'm here to not be likes. That's a freaking problem. Yeah. And the Marine Corps just actually, I think they put in this, they added on the JJ did tie buckle, which is the leadership traits. Yeah, they trade. Empathy. Yeah, empathy. And it was, in my opinion, based around officers, not being a dick to be a dick, right? It wasn't this coddling thing. It was, hey, don't be a dick just because you can be a dick, right? And so my point of it is, and so I say that liked and trusted thing a lot in this book. I think you can be both. But I think only one can be your priority.

So it's, it's, and I'll give you an example. Politicians are leaders that live by being liked. Do you trust them? Police officers are people who live by being trusted, but do you like them? And so like that's the difference of, of what point you're, you know, of which one you, I think, I think you can be both. but I don't think you can both can be your priority. Yeah, and even the fact that let's look at respect, right? So it's an interesting thing that goes on in the military

because you've already made like a few, it might have been before we started recording, but look, when we're enlisted guys, we talk shit about the officers, right? It's like it's open, kind of open season. But then when you become a senior NCO, there's a lot of senior NCO. is that all of a sudden now they want to flex on the on the rank because now I'm a senior

NCO and now I'm going to kind of flex that rank but you want to you wait we so we don't have to respect the officers but you want me to respect the senior NCO there's a little hypocrisy there where as for me it's like hey when when you and I work together then you're my boss and we respect each other not only do I respect you as a person but I respect the fact that you're the whatever rank you are I respect the fact that you're a a captain or you're a major, whatever. And just like you respect the fact that I'm a corporal. You respect that.

You know what it took to get there. And so the respect part of it is so important because we actually respect each other as human beings and we respect the rank. So if I'm with Laif Babin and he's, I'm the troop commander and he's the platoon commander, so I outrank him. And we're sitting around back at camp and I'm talking to him, guess what he calls me all day long? It's like, hey, Jocko, how do you want to do this? We get, and all of a sudden we're sitting in front of a battalion commander, he'll look at me and be, hey, sir, can I make a suggestion?

Because he understands, we all understand the dynamic. Now, occasionally, this is what you got, this is what maybe what you're talking about here that you're going to watch out for. I might have Dakota of the knucklehead who, I'm cool to you. I'm the, I'm the platoon commander and I'm cool to you while we're out in the field. And then we come back. And now the battalion commander's there and you're like, Hey, Jocco, that was a pretty stupid way to execute that. And all of a sudden, you've let it show that there's a lack of respect that you didn't

understand to tighten it up when we're around the battalion commander. A good level of respect that we have for each other. You'd be like, hey, sir, sorry, I made that bad call out there. Here's some things I'm going to do different next time. And all of a sudden, it's like everything falls in the line. But the minute I'm treating you bad, like if we're out in the field and I treat you like shit because I outrank you, bro, I should out openly expect that when you get the chance to freaking belittle me in front of the battalion commander, you're going to do it all day long.

And I think like when you talk about your kids, I think like here's the, here's the dynamic of, and this is just, it's a wild guess. Could be wrong again. Could be three strikes. I'm out. But you and your wife and how you talk about her when she's not in the room and how you respect her, not just as your wife, but as authority. of her being a commander in chief of the kids.

And the same thing back. You've taught your kids and gave them an example on how this dynamic will work, right? So like when leaders, if you're standing there and you're an NCO and that officer walks out and you're talking shit about that officer to the guys, you know what they're doing when you walk out of the room?

Yeah. They're doing the same thing. So you as a leader, you also and probably the most impactful thing is is you teach and you're showing through example how to follow as well because whoever's above you and how you show them that you follow them is exactly how they're going to follow you yep and that's one that can become very tricky and can become very tricky and i've had to talk a lot of people through this and i had to live through it because I've worked for knuckleheads.

I know you've worked for knuckleheads. Total knuckleheads. And everybody in your platoon knows that the boss is a knucklehead. And if you try and whitewash that, they're not going to believe it. And they actually lose respect for you. So you have to figure out, okay, how am I going to convey to the guys?

Like, hey, listen, hey, look, this is the way the boss wants us done right now. I know it sounds a little bit strange. But listen, if I'm going to earn any trust with him, we've got to execute this thing the best of our ability. And that way we can get a little more leeway. And the guys go, Okay, cool, we get it.

And I still treat the boss with respect. And I don't, I'm not clearly, I'm not going to be like, oh, the boss is an idiot. I'll say, hey, listen, the boss sees this a little bit differently than I do. I don't know if we understand the strategic implications of what, of how this is going to land. But what we need to do right now in order to gain more trust with him is execute this to the best of our ability. Yep. And ultimately come up and sell it. You're selling it to them.

Right. Like, and no matter what, whether a good decision or a bad decision, you can still make some type of good out of it. Yeah. Like, hey, you know what? We're going to go do this and hopefully it shows the boss that it doesn't work. But it's all on you as the leader on how you sell that decision and what you're going to need to them.

If you're like, oh, this is stupid. This is dumb. Like, this makes no sense. Well, guess what they're all thinking. Yeah, yeah. Why are we even doing it? And it's like, it's almost like when we like, whether, whether, you know, it's doing an exercise with the Marines or whether it's getting on a rig with, you know, the fire service.

It's like, I hate those. people and nothing is more annoying than going to a fall call at two o'clock in the morning and then you got the guy that gets on there and's like man this is dumb like negative the whole way there yeah we all know like no shit we all had to wake up we're all on this rig with you we're all have gone here three times today with you right we all know it sucks like but what are you doing to help make this any better right and you as a leader i think i think you know one of the most impactful things you can do as a leader is be a conversation shifter. Oh, yeah, for sure.

Right. Shifting that conversation to, yeah, but you know what? Like, we get paid to ride on a big fucking truck down the road and people call us and people need us. We still have a job. We're still getting paid. And we're getting paid to care. How cool is that, right?

You know, but being that conversation shifter. And it's so important because, man, like, you know as well as I do. Shit's contagious. and negativity is contagious, positive's contagious, fear, all of it is so contagious. But we got to be able to, you know,

you just can't talk shit about who you're following and you as a leader no matter what has got to sell it because you prep the mindsets of the people to go perform this. Yeah, another key component. Number one, if you're getting asked to do something that's immoral, illegal, or unethical,

you don't do it. So if you're a young trooper out there and you're getting asked to do something that's illegal or moral and ethical, you don't sell that. You don't do it. Yeah. Now, when your boss is telling you to do something that doesn't make sense, you need to ask some questions about why it's happening that way, we'll present some of those secondary and tertiary effects that your boss might not see. Because if I'm telling you to go charge a machine gun nest and you look at me like, hey boss, if we go up this towards this elevated position where there's a bunkered man, machine gun nest, we're all going to die. Is that what the intent that you have? I'd be like, no, no, no, no, no, no. I just think we need to get rid of that machine gun nest so we can maneuver across this open area. And you go, okay, cool. Let me put down a base of fire. Let me move around to the flank. And let me, oh, okay, cool. Yeah, you handle it, right? So as a leader, you should want to get pushback on your ideas. And there's also something I call the explanation effort meter,

which is when I'm trying to convince you of something, it's, sure. Shouldn't be that hard. My meter shouldn't go into the red. I shouldn't have to be like, well, no, Dakota, but this and no Dakota, but this and no Dakota, but you know what? Shut up and do what I told you to do. I can't even explain it anymore. I went to the red and it blew out the engine.

If it's that hard for you to convey what it is and why it is you're doing something, then you might need to check yourself. And I always get, you know, I get asked a lot like, what about when the military you got told to do things that were stupid? I'm like, well, that, first of all, that didn't happen. Very often. I do write about it in the dichotomy of leadership where we got told we had a minimum number of Iraqis that we had to take with us on every mission.

And it was a ratio of how many Americans could go with Iraqis. And that, and for a Ramadi at the time, didn't make sense. And I raised my hand, wrote an email to my boss and said, hey, boss, here's what's going on. Here's what the requirements are. Here's my request for a waiver. And here's the minimum number of seals I want to have in the field. And he's like, thanks for that information.

Make sense. Proceed. So when you're getting told to do something that doesn't truly doesn't make sense Ask some questions now look are there going to be times where your boss might be like hey listen This is what we're doing make it happen Hey I'm not sure if hey Dakota this is what we're doing make it happen got it cool and my Interpretation of that is we don't I don't have you know I don't have time to explain it to you Yeah there's something that I can't explain to you right now There's some political bullshit going on but I need

to make this happen and you go, cool, got it, and you go and execute it to the best of your ability. Now listen, if it's, you know, also like if you're going to take unnecessary casualties, then you go, hey, I just want to make sure we're going to storm this machine gun nest and I'm probably going to lose 50% of my force. Is that what you're saying? I'd be like, no, no, no, no, that's not what I'm saying. Yeah. I just want that.

So there's a whole bunch of things going on here. And again, just to tie this back into like being friends, you, you, that shouldn't be your priority. Your priority shouldn't be to be friends with people and one more thing If you want to build relationships with people a lot of times you think well of you know I want to build I want to I want to build relationships with with Dakota You know he's my senior NCO and I go hey Dakota. Let's go have a beer Hey Dakota. Let's go have lunch That's cool. That's cool. I get it But does that show you that I trust you? No does that show you that I listen to you? Does that show you that I have

That that you have influence over me? me, does that show that I respect you? Does that show that I care about you? Maybe if I pay for lunch, maybe that's about it. So me just going to lunch with you, me just having a beer with you doesn't actually improve our relationship. What improves our relationship is when I say, hey, Dakota, here's the mission. We've got to get done.

Let me know how you want to make it happen. And then you present me a plan and I listen to you and I allow you to execute that plan. Now we start to build a real relationship. And what we end up with is what, and maybe we just have a mismatch of definition, what we end up with is you and I are friends. Yeah. And, but, but what we define friends as is ultimately it, right? Like, I, I, I don't surround myself with people like, that, like, I don't give a shit about going to lunch. I give a shit about getting better. Bro, I didn't go to lunch. My, my friends, lunch is for cowards. Lunch is for cowards. You work through, you work through lunch and stay late. But, but,

then that's what I respect. That's, that's, that's where we're going to become friends. Exactly. When we're getting after it, when we're both accomplishing this, we're going after this. You know, I talk about leadership equity, right? And so like one of the things when you're talking about somebody questioning you over and over, it's a diagnostic tool, right? It's either a diagnostic tool that you haven't sold them on why you need it or why you're doing this, which you should. You owe it to them. No, you're not ever in a position of where you don't owe them an explanation, especially people you're asking to do something for you. Or the second piece is it's a diagnostic tool that you have expended all of your, you're, you're not.

leadership equity. And I talk about the story of, you know, when I got to the Marines, eventually people are going to, it's going to cross your mind why. It's human beings, nature. Like at some point, you ask yourself,

why am I doing this? You know what I mean, no matter what. And so I got to the, I got out to Hawaii. I went to Paras Island School of Infantry. And I got, and I tell you,

I arrived in Hawaii. And it was, I mean, I showed up to a line unit, and they just came back from the Haditha Triad, showed up on Brown Thanksgiving weekend. What year is this? 2006. Check.

Yeah. And when I showed up, you know, the rooms that we were walking into, it was like a Thanksgiving weekend, but the rooms that we showed up and walked into were of the guys that they had lost. The first thing I did with Kilo, company was that Monday we showed up together as a as a as a as a as part of the

platoon in the company was we we went to the chapel and did the ceremony of all the guys they lost and um so you could imagine what what these guys were like and I had a uh squad leader and I didn't understand I mean you go from you know, school of infantry to getting to the line. And like we talked about, they do things a little bit different. And every day, I mean, we had this squad leader that was just, man, there was never any time off. It was 24-7, your PT and you were, you know, he'd come in and you didn't, you know,

you got, you learn a nine line. Like it was like every other, you know, it seemed like every other squad was not having to do shit and we're the ones that are in there just, everybody else is hanging out, you know, skating. And then we're in there just nine line, nine. line and it was like you got an eye line now it was like you know you got to do this and it was just just craziness right and and i didn't understand it and after i thought everybody hate us right i mean you just you felt like nothing and you go off this high of becoming a marine and then now you get to the

fleet and you're back to the start and you're just a boot and um i thought everybody hated me and i'll never forget after about two weeks of being there i called my dad and i'm like hey dad what's going on he's like man like you're making a lot of friends out there and I'm like yeah you know I got I think I got taped to the pull-up bars because I couldn't do all the pull-ups you know I mean I could only do so many I couldn't do all of them you know um and I was like fuck what did I sign up for and my dad's like well one of your buddies your buddies called me I'm like what he's like yeah you know like said you're doing great and I'm like I don't know know that I have a friend out here right now. And he's like, he's like, you know, Daniel or whatever

his name was called me. And I'm like, who? And he told me, I was like, what's his last name? And he told me, I'm like, corporal called you? I'm like, fuck. He's, he's hazing my dad too now. And he's like, yeah, he wanted to call me and let me know that, you know, because when you check in, you check in with these folders, or we did. And you had all your, your information on it, you know, went your check-in paperwork, and I gave it to him. And my dad's like, yeah, he called me. He wanted to let me know that you got checked in. You live three rooms down from him.

You're in a room with three other guys. He let me know that he just got back from Iraq. It was his first deployment, that he was a squad leader, and he wanted to let me know that if I had any questions about his son, that he was responsible for you in every single way. And if I had any questions to pick up the phone and call him and make sure that I had his information. And then he promised me that he would do everything

and he would not waste one second of time to make sure that you are prepared for whatever the country might ask you to do for them. Damn, dude. Who was that corporal? Yeah, it was Corporal Chrysor. And I thought the guy hated me. He would still deny it to today that he did it.

But, you know, when you talk about leadership equity, from that point on, what he asked me didn't have to make sense. I'm sure that mopping the basketball courts and the pulling down rain, I'm sure it had something to do with it. I'm sure that...

There was a damn good reason for it. Yeah, sure. But you know what? Like, do you think I ever question if that guy cared? No. That's why that last component of relationship is care.

It's care. Because when you, when he, when you knew, that he cared about you, you knew you'd care about him. I'm telling you something right now, still to this day,

I would run through a wall for that guy, right? I mean, just a good guy. And you know, and I had leaders like that, you know, Sergeant Major Soto Rodriguez. Same thing, right? I mean, just I had leaders like that and they're everywhere. And so, you know, but let me tell you something.

Those guys lived it. They lived for us. They didn't live for themselves. You know what I mean? And I'll tell you, there was never a time when I look at those leaders that made such an influence, there was never a time that they ever thought they were above doing what we did. So like, yeah, if there was a working party and they had something else they had to do, then they weren't there.

But let me say this. They were their first and they were leaving last. and that is something that like I have been so fortunate with of the leaders that I was raised by but let me say this on top of it they always demanded the most when and I'm so thankful for it because you know when I look at the medal I think of all that was the easiest day in my life you know those guys getting up and being who I needed them to be not who I wanted them to be ultimately prepared me for that thing and and and I think think that as leaders, if your biggest fear as a leader is not that the person you're in charge

of is going to fail because you didn't prepare them, if it's you worried about you failing, wrong. Everyone will see it too. Everyone will see it. And I'll tell you that's what's different about this generation, is they are emotionally in tune and they can tell if somebody genuinely cares about them or not. You're not going to fake. authenticity with this generation.

I was watching a guy named Flynn, Cochran, who is in the SEAL teams, and he was working at Ashland Front, and his wife works at Ashland Front, and he was on stage, and he was describing me debriefing him during a training operation, and just how, you know, I was just freaking tearing him a new ass and up and down, why the hell did you do this, and what the hell was this over there? And as he's up there telling that story, I'm kind of like, damn, dude, because I'm always like, hey, you know, you need be building relationships. And how, because that's the way I was. And I was like, how, because I was like that for, you know, for my career of like, if someone's doing something that's messed up, like, I'm going to let him know.

And I was like, how come he, he was okay with that. Because he said, like, it was like, you know, this is where I learned this from. And I realized that the reason that guys listened to me was because they knew that more than anything else in the world, I cared about it. Yeah. And I wanted to make sure that they understood their job so they could come home themselves

and bring their guys home. And so that's what, as soon as you realize that with your first squad leader, as soon as you realize that, you're like, oh, I'll do anything for this guy. Anything for him, right? And it was that way on. And that's what like,

I try, I take back is, is giving a shit, right? Giving a shit about the people, you know, I just, like, obviously I re-enlisted and I was up at, I was up at RTC. And I'll never forget there was this kid up there. And when I got there, you know, they called me the old, I'm old, I'm old core, right? Yeah. And I had to learn, learn a little bit about, you know, way things, way things are. And they're, it's still the same.

And I argue, it's still, it's no. different now than when it when I was in it's just about are you willing to do it and be there and and and hold the standard and but there was a kid I'll never forget we were coming out to formation and so you had to run this test to pick up with the class and you had to pass it to pick up with the class right and this kid we're out there in formation and I'm like hey where's so and so and they're like all he's in his room he's not he doesn't want to pick up he's defined with just dropping back to going to the line unit and going on by his way he just it's it's something and about him is just it ain't in him saying so I went up there man I'm like somebody opened this door

so open the door because we were going to chow and then we had to go do the test and so I walked in there and he was still in bed and I'm like get up I'm like get up I started asking I'm like what job do you not want in the Marine Corps he's like admin I'm like okay well I'm going to make sure you get fucking admin And I'm like, he's like, well, I'm already an infantryman. I said, okay, well, I'll call your unit before you fucking get there. I said, I'm going to tell you something what you're going to do right now. You might go out there and fail, but you're not going to quit.

You're not going to quit. And I said, so get up, get your shit on. I said, I don't care what you do. I said, I will physically take you. And I'll deal with the consequences that I get. But I said, I'm an NCO and I'm not going to let you not show up. And so I said, what you do? I said, you want to get out there with all of us and you want to fail the run or you want to fail

to pull-ups? Have at it. But that's on you. but I'll tell you what, I'll get you there. You're going to fucking get there. And I got the message over here on my phone. He wrote me because he graduated BRC. Yeah, yeah.

And he thanked me, and his mom, you know, he introduced me to his mom. I flew out for the graduation. He introduced me to his mom. And that's, do you think that kid liked me in that moment? No. He hated me. Probably was thinking about how he's going to kill me. But you know what?

Like, if I had failed him and I had let him go about that route, who knows where he would have ended up in life one day. You know what I mean? Yep. Like who knows. And this is exactly what you were talking about. If your goal, your prioritized goal was to be friends with this guy in the traditional sense of the word friend, then you'd be like, hey, dude, I get it. It's not that big of a deal.

A line unit's cool too. And not this isn't for everyone, but that's okay. That he would have smiled and said, thanks, man. I really appreciate it. But that's not what he needed. That's not a real friend, by the way. I don't even consider that a real friend. 100%.

And that's what the difference is today. Is brotherhood today is over being, like, and this is where we get it mixed up. And the same thing with love, the word love. And I know it's a weird fucking thing for me to say. Yeah, we usually don't use the L word on this podcast. Yeah, but because here's the thing about love. People tie it to an emotion.

And it's not. It's a fucking choice. Love is a choice. It's not emotion. It's not about making me feel good. It's about putting what's in the best interest of you over everything else, over how it feels, over everything else. It's about you putting what's in the best interest to somebody else. That's what love is ultimately.

And 99% of time it's hard. It sucks. It hurts. And it doesn't fucking feel good. But that's what it is. And that's what brotherhood is. Brotherhood is loving other people. And I'm like, if you're not willing to stand there and,

tell this kid to do what's right or to correct them before they go get fucked up by somebody else or to beat their ass if they need to have their ass beat before getting out of the fucking car for drinking or whatever you think you're really going to go in a house when they're trapped in it or out in the middle of the road getting shot up and you're going to go risk your life when you could die for them when you could die trying to help them nope I went to one of my buddies retirements he did like 30 plus years in the SEAL teams and he was given his retirement speech and he said you know he gets up then this is like a senior enlisted master chief like I said like 34 35 years in active duty the whole time and he says I can sum up what the seal teams is in one word

and I was like what the hell is you get and it's good you know I'm known this guy for a long time I'm like what's up? I'm thinking like real quick. Is he gonna say discipline? Is he gonna say, you know, it's only one word. It can't be firing maneuver. It's, you know, it can't be superior firepower. What's he gonna say?

I'm sorry, for, you know, those milliseconds, I had that thought. And he goes, love. And I was like, yeah, damn dude, he's right. I'm like, yep, since everything you just said. Yeah, it's like legit. It is, right? And, yeah, I mean, I, and I, and I mean, and I, I think so much about, and obviously like the further, I think the further, you know, I think it's why

I say time heals everything. The further you get away from things, you see it different, you see how complex and multidimensional things are. You know, and I talk about how, you know, obviously whenever I, I think about Gangegall, and that's by far the single day that transformed who I am so much, right? And I think this might sound probably bad, and I'll probably take some heat for it, but I'll say it anyways. I think this last year, I would say last year, was the first year that I was that I was thankful for my teammates' deaths. And I'm not happy about it. But when I thought about it,

if I'm not thankful for it, then I'm disrespectful to it. And it means that I don't appreciate what their deaths had meant. And I think about this. If I told you today that you could die for a cause, that people would be inspired and would live off of your story for the next, it's been 16 years, would you say that's a cause worth dying for?

You could inspire thousands, maybe millions. Because of your story, and what you did and your sacrifice and what it meant and the lineage it left. Dude, I would jump on that in a heartbeat. And I think for me, like, when I shifted that mindset, like, I obviously was here because I have to go, somebody has to go tell it. Because if nobody tells it, then it doesn't matter. Yeah.

I had Travis Mannion's sister Ryan on the other day, and he, you know, he's, you know, was killed in 2007 in Fallujah. And she was talking of one of his friends. And the friend basically asked that same question. Because, you know, he has the Travis Mannion Foundation. It's inspiring people all over the world and all over the country. Helped out so many veterans, helped out so many families. Yeah.

And she was like, she was like, you know, he would make the choice. And she was kind of like, you know, I was kind of like, you know, I was. I was like, no, I would give all this stuff away. Like if I could have my brother back. But then she was like, and I thought about it. And she was like, yeah, he was right. Like Travis would do it all again, the same exact way, knowing the impact that he's going to have and knowing that he kept a few of his Marines alive.

Yeah. That day. That's enough. And so, yeah, that's a pretty profound way of thinking about things. Yeah, I mean, you look at it. I mean, you look what, I mean, look, the Travis Million Foundation is. I mean, the man in name, his lineage and legacy of the core, you know, and but it, but it wouldn't be that without, you know, his family going out and pushing this. I mean, you know, could you imagine like being the sister of this and having to relive it over and over, but, like, the courage it takes to be able to go tell the story in a way that, that takes care of others, you know?

And I think that's ultimately what we're all going to face bad. Like that's just life. Like bad things happening is just life. You're never going to get away from it no matter what. Whether you sit on the couch and hide all day, you're going to struggle. Whatever you do whatever. But the only way to turn bad into good and to get it out of the world is if you absorb it and you turn it in to help others.

They say that evil, good and evil. comes from the same place. There's somebody that has gone, people who do it. There's somebody who has gone through something bad and one goes out and hurts others because they were hurt and the other one goes out and helps others

because they were hurt and they don't want that to pass on to anybody else. And you can't decide, neither one of them could decide what happened to them, but they could decide what they did with it. And that's what we all have to do. Yeah, that's a weird, like you know, people that have,

their dad was an alcoholic. And some of them never drink. They're like, oh, yeah, I saw what that's like. And some of them become alcoholics. Yeah. You know, like, same thing with abuse. Like some kids get abused. They become abuser.

Some kids like, oh, I'm never going to do that. So this, how you, how, I don't know what makes that shake out the way it does. That'd be good to know. It's a choice. The choice. The choice. That's where the power of life is. Mm-hmm.

And the choice. Speaking of bad things happening. In your book, you talk about inconveniences, problems, and emergencies. Yeah. And properly identifying those things as to what's an inconvenience, what's a problem, and what's an emergency. Talk me through those because that can help people. Yeah.

You know, we all, you know, if everything in your life becomes an emergency, then nothing's an emergency. And how often do you hear people talk about that? You know, like, oh, you know, I got this emergency. You got this emergency. You got this emergency. So the way that, you know, when you, and really what you're tying to these is how much emotional equity you're going to put in each one of them. It's a tie to it, right?

A problem gets a little bit different level of emotions than a, you know, an inconvenience. I mean, they're just, they're literally the same thing. They're just categorized of how much emotions you're going to tie to them. And we talked about how emotions are so important. But I think you have to identify what each, what the difference of all of them are as you're so. And so I look at it like this, look, if you can write a check for it, if you can make a decision, or you can do something to change it, it's an inconvenience, not a problem. At the point that it becomes something you can't make a decision to change, it's a problem.

And eventually problems will ultimately sometimes become inconvenience is the longer that they go on. You know? You just have to accept that's the way that is now. It's just the way it is, right? The longer it's there, you live with it. And then you just start, when people are so, human beings are so adaptive. It's funny. When our gym burned down, well, we didn't burn down, but when our gym had the fire, right,

people would be like, oh my God, that's terrible. And I'd say, yeah, it is a completely devastating, massive inconvenience for me. Because even though, like, because we opened up a new gym, but it's like 25 minutes away, you've got to get on a couple highways, there's traffic. There's like we don't have showers there. So it's like all these little problems. But guess what? The gym caught fire didn't burn.

I was sorry, didn't burn down. We saved the building. No one died. We're rebuilding it. We have insurance. Like so it's not that big of a deal. It's a major, major, major. Inconvenience for me.

Yeah. But you know it is what it is. But think about people who are like, you know, everything becomes an emergency. And an emergency is only identified as something that has happened. right now that if you don't do something, take action or make a decision, somebody's life will end. So if anybody's even listening to this podcast right now, they're not having an emergency. There's no emergencies. You know what I mean? And majority of things are inconveniences.

And I remember this. I was going through this problem and this guy looked at me. I did see like a freaking video of a cop in high speed chase and he was listening to Djokka podcast. He was on his case on. Crucial camp, somebody said it to me. It was freaking awesome. He's like, you know, lights are blaring, sirens blaring. And he's, like, listening to the podcast. I'm like, oh, this is pretty dope. He's been doing that for a while. And I also saw a video of a kid gets in a crazy car accident and then, like, turns up ACDC.

It's pretty legit. Yeah. You know, so, yeah, I mean, I had this, like, problem going on. I was bitching about something. And this guy's, like, he goes, you don't, you don't have any, you don't have any problems. He goes, that's an inconvenience. He goes, the day that your kid gets cancer, you got a problem. He goes, you ain't got no problems.

You got inconveniences. Make a decision. Yeah, there's always somebody else in a freaking really bad situation around you. Yeah. It's about perspective and context. So you got this other thing. So, you know, talking about the book, but you've got this other thing that you got going that you mentioned real quick. It's a substack.

Yeah. And it's called the bluff, which, by the way, I was chuckling because in your bluff, you've got the bluff last. Do you know that? Has anyone hassles you about that yet? They've already hassled me now. I'm so glad you brought it up. So bottom line up front is the military term.

And what that means is when I write you a six-page email, at the beginning of it, I put the bottom line up front, hey, we need more ammo and weapons for this platoon because we've got augments. Yeah. And then I give you six pages worth of, here's who the augments are, here's when they're checking on board. Here's what weapons qualifications they have. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah.

But I gave you the bottom line up front. So that's kind of the theory behind your substack. It's like, hey, here's some things that are going on. You happen to put the bottom line in the back. But you know where it's at. I do know where it's at. I can scroll right there. If you want to, if you want to, like, it really matters where I put the bottom line up front.

I actually was like, yeah, you know what? It kind of makes sense to recap it. but now that I'm thinking about it right now, I think you should put it in the front. And I'll tell you why. Okay. Tell you my two reasons why. Number one, the people can read it

and they'll get the main message of it very quickly. The other thing is, is when you, like, because I started, I read the articles and then I would reread them. And as I was rereading them that I knew what they were about, I kind of knew, it kind of made it more impactful. Okay.

Because I understood what the bottom line was and now I was getting the supporting details. So then I'm going to put them up front then. Well, I mean, look. I had put them at the bottom because I didn't want to, I didn't want it to keep people from reading it. So like, I didn't want them to just show up and be like, I wanted to, I didn't want them to read it and then be like, well, I already know that. Instead of like seeing the contextual piece of how I like laid it in there and what the lesson was from it. So I put it at the bottom.

Like one guy let me know day one of launching it. It should be the, the blubber. something bottom line up in the back in the back or something right blib or whatever um i mean i got it right um yeah and i did the same thing in the book right the bottom line up front's in the back yeah the bottom line up front is the back but um but yeah maybe i will if i because i just wanted what i wanted was is everybody everybody reads stuff differently and i just wanted to make sure that at the end of it they knew what the point was right like let's let's recap before you walk away with this. I'm going to leave you with exactly what you should have took.

Actually, you know what would be probably really good is front and back. Yeah. You know, um, because here's the other thing. These are not excruciatingly long articles. Like they're written by Marine. They're, they're, they're not. They take three minutes to read or something like that or four minutes at the most. So when you read it and what I also think is I think that the bluff is enticing. Like I, when I read when I read the bluff, I'm like, oh, that's what I wonder, I wonder how he came to the. that conclusion or I wonder what he means by that. So I don't know. Yeah, no, that's some good feedback. That's some good feedback. You know, that's what, that's brotherhood.

Maybe I shouldn't have done it in the middle of the podcast. No, no, no, because now everybody's going to go over there and look at it. They're going to be like, as soon as I start getting these hammers on comments, I'm going to get changed before this thing comes out. But, but they, but no, so I started it, you know, I had so much more to say. And, and I think, You know, we're seeing a real time. We have an opportunity in our country the next 48 months, 24 months, 24 months, I think 24 solid ones, to really build back and get a foundational piece of who we are as people. Right. And I'll be honest with you.

I mean, I think I called you before about it, you know. speaking out and giving your opinions, all of us at some point are, whether you like it or not, you're tied, you're tethered to something. It's just a reality of it. You're tethered to something, right? And, you know, for me, like,

I had to ultimately make a big decision this year of was I going to be silent? and at the possibility the expense of everything I believed in and at the expense of my children's future? Or was I going to stand up and do what I could with what I had? You know, I think for a lot of us, we've tried to live the example, but we have probably not used what we need to use the most right now, and that's our voice.

and now it's got to be done in a way that's effective because your voice doesn't matter if nobody listens to you. And it's got to be through only one anchor and that's in the best interest of people. Right? So what you're saying has got to be, the only loyalty you can have is into the greater good and your principles have got to be aligned.

And I think that's what's happened across the country is the world is, you know, there was laws and there was policies and there was all these things to put handicaps in place to make everything equal and to protect people and things like that. But laws, rules, and policies are no good if they are at the expense or they hurt the very people that they're supposed to trust. And they're only as good as the people who are enforcing them. And so I came out with this substack. I can put a longer form of my opinions on there of like what I think, what I see, what I've experienced and try to share that knowledge across the board to people like of what I've learned, right? I mean, look, I definitely am a

guy who's made more mistakes than probably most people on the face of the planet. You know, I've struggled when it comes to mental health, like I, but I've also came back from it, right? And so like, you know, when I look at all this to be able to pass on that experience, and I think that's a thing that our generation, I mean, I'm not going to say everybody, but I think that's a thing that our generation has not done a good job of is is taking on the role of spilling up and training the next generation

and I think we got to do more of it right I think but it's got to be the right people well that's where I wrote a bunch of kids books to be honest with you okay I know I'm sitting here I got it I got it that is that is my you know that's why I wrote them and I wrote them you know my by I always tell the story that I wrote them because my because they want good books for my kids by the time my kid by the time these books came out my kids were two of them were totally out of the picture as far as reading this book and being influenced by it um maybe a little maybe just a little bit they got a little bit of influence my son

was you know he was you know maybe a little bit and then my youngest daughter maybe but really it was like oh these there's a lacking of what you're saying what there's a lack of hey here's here's some just broad guidance brought to in a way that you can understand you can laugh you can smile you can get the you can read a cool book yeah watch a cool movie and you're going to learn some lessons that are going to help you um how do you how do you avoid getting caught up in the freaking day to day like chaos of the 24 hour news cycle yeah it's tough it's It's tough because, you know, that's a tough one because I have, I refuse to do it. Like, I'm not going to be the guy that's going to sit back and throw eggs that the car is going by, right?

I mean, because that's, if I'm not, I don't bring up any problems that I'm not willing to be the solution to. You know, I'm only going to speak about things that are in my wheelhouse. So, like, I don't know if you noticed on my substack. I set the expectation in the viewpoint and who I am in the first article. You know, like my leadership piece. I've never led a Fortune 500 company. I have no clue how to talk about that, what boardrooms are. I've never gone to school.

I can't tell you what you read in a book. But what I can tell you is I know what leadership's like whenever I've led teams in combat. I've led teams in the fire service, right? I do understand what leadership is when the stakes are high and that not performing costs other people their lives. So I'm going to come from that piece of it, right? If you want a high-level strategy guy,

probably not going to be me. But if you need somebody who's going to get you results, I'll probably be your guy. And so, you know, I try to level set with that so people understand. But I am done with, and that's why I've not been getting on these news pieces, is I'm done with just pointing out the problem.

Like I refuse to do that. Like I will only point out a problem if I'm going to provide solutions. Because if that's not what you're doing, you're just bitching. It's hard though. It's hard, but I'll say this. And I don't know how you feel about this. I just think that there's a ton of people out there.

There's a very toxic piece that's crushing us right now and it will kill our population. is this extinctionist mindset. And I'll tell you what that is. Anybody that is categorizing, well, all men are bad. All women are bad. All marriages are bad. All this next generation, they're just weak.

Anybody that's doing that and is leaving conversations where people are powerless, when they just sit there and point out the problems and they leave people powerless, which is what we're seeing in the news cycles all over, you want to talk about, let me tell you how you kill the human spirit. is by getting them to believe that things can't get better and it's not worth doing because nobody, and they started this with these talks, okay? You ready for me to how this has all been a marketing campaign?

It started with this one thing that everybody can relate to right now, and it's absolutely untrue. Well, why go vote? My vote doesn't matter. You talk about one of the most powerful things of selecting who runs this country. And what they do is they put this ideology and they do this, I call it factual blending of where they take a piece of the fact and then they blend it in with all this bullshit, right? And they play off your emotions and they get you to believe that still getting up and doing the right thing doesn't matter.

And what that does is it kills the spirit. And I don't know if you've ever heard of this study. There was a study when it came to mice. And these scientists, what they did is they threw these mice into this pool. and then after like five minutes the mice started to drown so what they did is they reached and they pulled the mice back out and they stuck them on the side of the pool or a little tub or whatever and they let them recover and then they tossed them back in and the mice swam for over 24 hours do you want to know why hope because of hope and if you want to kill a population of people

you kill their hope and I get so sick and tired of hearing these people talk about statistics and this is where I do think that like this data stuff is really getting the way of us of statistics you know I stood up in in and what was that

what was the city called in Massachusetts where the British marched up conquered okay I stood up there and I got to speak on the stage like a few days before the anniversary this year and I was like to give this speech and it just hit me and it's like it hit me of what the american spirit is i said

the american spirit is is is not it's not logical it's it's that we believe it's the power of belief and hope and you know when you look at all these statistics and you look at these numbers and when you start putting people into to numbers and and all these like other things which i understand they're powerful and they matter but I think about that day imagine if you had told those shopkeepers and you had told those farmers and you had told these everyday people this computer's statistics of them being able to fight and be able to be successful and there be something that we get to live off of and enjoy if you told them what the statistics and the odds were of them defeating the British who were marching up there that day do you think they would have ever picked a gun

up. No, and we need people who leave conversations of people that they can do something. And that's what's killing us right now. So when you talk about why do I not get, how do I stay out of that? It's a conscious decision. But I cannot bring up things that I can't leave people better than I found them with. If I'm only going to amplify what they already know and point out what they're already seeing, we've got to be dealers of hope. Yeah, I was talking to one of my buddies yesterday after I got done training in Jiu-jitsu. You hear that?

I go, Charles. We were going to be training. I was training with Mija. So I was talking to Maha. And we were just talking about the fact that, you know, I was telling him this story. I was in Iraq, took down a building. We were talking about this topic. We were talking about, like, hey, how do you make things better?

And I was in Iraq, we take down this building. And this building is an old building. It's probably, it's a rural building, but it's a, probably 30, 40, 50 years old, you know, an older building. And in the building where we capture this bad guy, there's a, there's like the kitchen area with the sink and a little area for like prepping food, a little counter space. And then directly to the right of that is a little hole with a little gutter where you shit. And then it goes through this little gutter out through a hole in the wall into a shit pit

out there. And I was like, bro, I looked at that for, for 0.01 seconds. And I was like, if I lived here, I would move the shit hole away from my kitchen area. I would do that the very first moment. I lived there. And they hadn't done it. And this was a family. Like, there was a lot of shit in the by the way, the gutter didn't have like a steep angle of elevation. So it was like, you know, kind of just there was shit and piss in there. And their, their sink, their kitchen is four feet from it. Meanwhile, when I got to Iraq, my first deployment, we're living in like these tents, you know, like in GP tents, right? Just general purpose tense or big Alaskan tents or whatever. And I get in there and like minute three, I'm like, okay, I need to build a rag, get a plywood and

build a little rack for my gear. And then I build a little desk so I can do the paperwork bullshit I got to do. And I put like, I'll get another cot and I elevate that thing. So like, that's within moments. we're like, how can I take the situation I'm in and make it better? And I think this is exactly what you're talking about. This is why America, this is why America is the land of opportunity. Because when you look around, if you want to,

look, it's going to be freaking hard. No one's going to cut that wood for you. No one's going to get the plywood. No one's going to move that shitter for you. You're going to have to do it. You're going to have to clean that old shit out with your hands. That's the way it's going to work.

But we, when you look, and that's what I was saying to Miha, Mejah's he came here from another country and he's established himself and he's built a business and he's working all the time. It's like, oh yeah, he's not even American, but you know why he's here? Because he knows that's the American dream to make this stuff happen. And you don't, you know, like showed up here.

And that's what we do in America. We look around. So we're supposed to do in America. We look around and you go, you know what? I can make things a little bit better. I can make things for me and my world a little bit better. That's what I'm going to do. And look, you know, people like, what opportunity?

Opportunities, bro, this is America. This is America. Like, oh, go to a trade school and learn to be an electrician. And you're going to be in a whole other world, a whole other world. You learn how to be a plumber. You're going to be a whole other. You learn how to weld. Like, there's, oh, I don't know how to program computers.

Well, first of all, now you got AI. You don't need to know how to do that. You just need to think of good ideas, but you're not necessarily going to be paid for that. But guess what you do need to get your car worked on? So there's so much opportunity, but you have to be willing to go, all right, I'm looking around. I see the situation that I'm in. And I think I can make this better. And if you do that, it's not going to come easy.

It's going to be hard. There's risks. And by the way, you're going to make some business decisions that are going to be. be bad. Like anyone that's got the idea that starting a business is like the best way to do it is not necessarily. In fact, it's very,

very difficult. And most businesses fail. So be careful of that. But if you're a hard worker and you're willing to grind it out, you can definitely make your part of the world better. And so, yeah, if you're not sensing that hope when you're out there,

that's definitely a negative thing. killing it because there's control behind it how do they kill it well i mean people tell you that you know everything's bad you can't do it anymore i mean we've got a whole generation that's not buying houses because they've been told that the world's going to shit they're just watching the news everything's negative i mean you got a generation right now you i mean you got kids that don't even think that they want to drive you know i mean and it's like because because words matter what they're being told and what they're seeing and it's not worth it it it's not worth it to do this it's not worth it to do this why am i going to go get a job and all I'm going to do is pay taxes or like you know I mean like when you look at

this like it's a mentality out there that is just and it's because nobody is giving them hope right like it's it's a we've got to be dealers of hope and we've got to get away from I see it in the I see it in the fire service still like I still see in the fire service of like you know there's no story, heroic story for sure, that made logical sense. It was an emotional decision. It wasn't a logical one. Name it. Name it. You can't name one. That's a good point. When you look in it through the X's and O's and the logic of it, I mean, if you went strictly logic, you wouldn't even play, the teams wouldn't even play the game. You got to, and that's where the emotion of the human spirit matters and that's why we've got to stay engaged in it you know i talk about you know um

the meadow of honor day i i didn't know what to do i was just simply you know the two hardest days probably of my life is that one and then you know this um this this this day in uh as a firefighter you know two different things but both of them what was similar was i didn't know what to do I didn't know how I was going to do it I wasn't prepared for either one of them I was just a guy who believed in something bigger than myself and I believed in people and good

and that people were suffering and then I had to do something about it and I was willing to do that up into the cost of even if it was my life I believe that much in it you know when you talk about courage you talk about resiliency, whatever those things, those words you put with it is. They're all directly correlated in how much you believe in your cause.

Courage, all those. Like they are a direct reflection of how much you believe in the cause that you are part of and the cause you're doing it for. That's direct correlation to it. They're just a secondary. They're just the action part of the belief of that. And I got to tell you, like, You have to believe in something.

You have to believe in something bigger than yourself. If you're the biggest thing you believe in, then you're never going to get anywhere. Yeah. Even looking at like, you know, you got this T-shirt on that says, dad on it. Yeah. And, like, hey, can you make the world a little bit better for your family? Can we just do that? Just start there, right?

Like, making a difference, man. Like, and I don't know why I've gotten so into it. I mean, it's like, everybody feels better when you help somebody else. I believe that, and maybe I'm off on these numbers, but I believe that 90% of people want to be good. I've even believed that majority of people in jail wanted to be good. They're just a little bit of leadership gone wrong or the circumstances of where they're at or how they grew up, right? And so I do believe that most people want to be good. and I do believe that most people want to be needed.

They want to be needed and they want to be helpful. And so it's how you do that. And I just, I have a rule that I try to live by is I try to leave every room and every person better than I found them. And all I do is give somebody a compliment. Like just try it. Just try it. Hey, gosh, I like your shirt.

Hey, like your hair. Hey, how's your day? Little things like that make a huge, huge difference and more of an impact. than you'll ever know, right? And you'd be surprised at how many people don't do that. Open the door for somebody. Nobody knows what somebody's ever, everybody on the face of the planet right now

is going through something. So like when we choose to connect or not connect, it's a choice. It's a choice of. And I get, what I love about it is and why I love people is I control if we're going to be related. like if we can relate or not on a topic.

I drive that and it's going to be a choice of if I want to relate to you or I don't because we are all more relatable than not. And I think that we've got to get back to that. We've got to get back to this like being, I call it unconditional in who we are. Like if you want to be a good person, then be it. But it can't be conditional upon how other people treat you. because and I realize this a lot you know a lot of people call me an asshole but you know what nobody ever asked the person that calls me an asshole well what did you do they just remember that I was the

asshole nobody ever asked well what happened to get to the point to where Dakota was an asshole so if Dakota wants to be remembered as a good person then I have to be that no matter what and I'm not going to be unwavering and who I want people to remember me as in that aspect of it. Does that make sense? And we've got to get back to that, man. I do believe that we can get our country back to where it needs to be. I do believe this next generation's better and I believe they're going to correct a lot of the wrongs. I think we're getting better. I think that, you know, we're, we just got to get united. We got to get on the same front. And we've got to stop being so shallow when it comes to people.

You know what I mean? Like we gotta just, we, so my point back to all this is, is how to, just stop throwing eggs, stop pointing out what you don't like. Like, start, start talking about what you do like and start talking about what we need to do and start having, stop being so subjective

in your rhetoric that you're talking about and be objective. Like, hey, quit walking past problems that you could be a solution to. That's the problem. If you want to fix it, stop walking past problems that you could be the solution to. It's a simple phrase that I love. It's called, if you can, you must.

If you can, you must. If you can help somebody, you must help somebody because not everybody has the ability to help that person. I have a friend who's a veteran and great guy, definitely going through some struggles. But, you know, when I would talk to him, he would have these incredible plans. about, you know, what to do, how to solve a problem. And he would present them to me and be very determined and very excited about him. But then be, but then be like, well, and what I need is, and there was a whole bunch of things, you know, millions of dollars or, you know, people, relationships with people that didn't

have relationships with or access to people they didn't have access to. So, like, those kind of things. And, you know, he would get done, tell me, you know, during one conversation, You get very frustrated that he wasn't able to do the things that he wanted to do. And, you know, I'd be like, bro, you got to just like, you know, start small. Like, start small. What can you help out? You know, who can you help out?

Literally, which of your neighbors can you help out? Which of the veterans that you know right now, which three veterans that you know right now, can you help them move in the right direction? And, and that's like, that's. what you got to do? Like you're not going to be able to solve the world's problems, but maybe you could help solve one of your neighbors' problems. Maybe you could help, you know,

someone in your family solve their problem or someone across the street or whatever. And if you get focused on solving the world's problems or you get focused on the world problem, look, there's some things that's going to be real hard to change. You know, there's some policies. There's some political and global situations that are very difficult to unwind. And I'll tell you, if you focus on those things that are very hard to wind.

difficult to unwind and that's where you spend your your waking hours bro it's gonna be really really hard for you it's gonna be really hard for you but if you look at if you look at your five to 25 meters around you yeah you know and go hey what's in this 25 meter zone that I can affect what's the max effective range of your influence and your voice and look hopefully that grows over time and you can move to a position where you can the max effective range of your voice and your influence increases but But if I sit here and the only thing I do is I get frustrated because the problems are beyond the max effective capability of my weapon system.

I'm not doing anything. Meanwhile, I could be using my influence and the power that I do have to solve a problem that's 80 meters away. I can be on target all day long with that and solve something as opposed to being frustrated that there's a problem a thousand miles away that I can't do anything about this. Okay, well, what are you going to do? Sit there and shoot at the air? No. Focus on the problems that are a little bit close to you and get, take care of those. Yeah, and you know, most people, you know, where it starts, though, is in the mirror.

You have to fix your own problems before you can go help others. And I see so many people out there trying to fix everybody else's problems as like a coping mechanism to avoid their own. Yeah. Yep. That's... And let me tell you what that's called, hypocrisy. Yeah. And we've got to start there, right? And that was probably the hardest thing that I had to do was look in the mirror.

You know, when I was going around, I was drinking all the time and I had a friend that pointed it out. It was just straight up like, it's that mirror, you know, of... And that mirror is hard to look at sometimes. And I write on my mirror every Sunday. I don't know if you've seen that. I did a post on it the other day. But I write on my mirror every Sunday. Obviously, it gets clean once a week.

But I rewrite it every Monday with a paint marker. What did you expect? So I look at that mirror every morning. I look at it every evening. What did you expect? Did somebody really get one over on you? Or did you just, is this what you expected if you, the decisions you're avoiding or the decisions you were making

or the things you were allowing. Like, really are you surprised? Like, let's ask that one first. Because if you're not, and 99% of the time, you're not, then you should have made a decision. You should have fixed it before it got there. You did this. So fix it, right?

And I think, you know, for me, like, I had to look in the mirror and I remember, man, I remember. I would say, and I told you this before we got on here, you know, I'd say, say the single most life-changing moment of my life after coming back home of really taking a hard look in the mirror was when you picked me up for the first podcast here. And because I think for the first time, like I'd been obviously around tons of badass people. I think for the first time in my life, in a long time I looked at somebody that I respected

and I was like, I want to be like him. I want to be like him. I want to treat people like him. I want to be fair like him. I want to, I want to be like that right there is what an example looks like of what I should be. And then it gives me, it gave me, I had to take some self inventory on where was I at, right? And so when I talk about support in the book, this is a real key piece, this support. And it's almost like support's kind of like nutrition, kind of like I wrap them up kind of in the same, but support of, you know, because nutrition is supporting, fueling you.

Support around you is usually fueling you. But you don't need people that just go along with what you are. You need people that hold you accountable to who you decided you wanted to be in that box initially. And I'll never forget, like, you know, getting around, I had a guy look at me one time and he's like, you're looked at as a warrior. You present yourself as a warrior. He goes, you drink every day.

So what is that? Well, it's an alcoholic. You're fat and out of shape. You're not, who are you kidding? Like, are you lying? Like, you think you're lying to everybody else in this room? Like, is this what a warrior, Is this a warrior that you would follow?

And then you're an asshole. Like you're just a, and he goes, and I got to tell you, I couldn't argue that that's what my actions added up to. But the cool part was that once I acknowledge the problem, well, then it was time to get to work. And it was either accept, and I just think, I think the only thing that we owe us, the world as human beings or other people is to be who we say we are. That's it. If I wanted to be a

drunk, fat, alcoholic, then I'll be it. But don't act like, and don't wrap up and diminish the warrior title that other people were still out earning and doing and living. And so I think that like those things of how the closer you can get back to truth, because I think that when you look at people, our job as leaders is nothing more than A figuring out there's capabilities and there's intentions Capabilities and intentions and you have to figure out the margin that's between those because leaders are the ones who are helping get those capabilities up to as a leader every person you come into You have to figure out what their intentions are. Do they intend to be the best person on the team? Do they intend to be a Navy SEAL? Do they intend to be a warfighter? Because if they do then that's a good place to start but are they capable of meeting those intentions? And that's what you have to find out by measuring and putting them through hard things.

You know, and then your job after that is to help get those capabilities to match their intentions. And so for me, you know, like that was a big thing for me to get back on track was I hadn't seen what Wright looked like. You know, because I grew up in a generation that you came back from war, you drank, you became a broken toy for the rest of your life. I mean, that's why we got 22 a day. And we got it wrong. You know, we got it wrong. And we have an obligation that once we get this sacred knowledge,

which is what combat is. Combat is sacred knowledge. Not many get it. And once you get to see that level of belief and love on a battlefield, you have an obligation to live, live like you know that. And then you have to go in society and you have to pass it on to others of why it matters because not everybody's going to get to see why it mattered. Not everybody's going to get to see the consequences of getting it wrong.

You got to see it firsthand. You got to see the power of people believing in a cause bigger than themselves. And you got to see the consequence. firsthand of what this job does. And you have an obligation now that you get the knowledge to pass it on because it's gonna help people. But you have to pass it on a way that it helps people, not a way that it hurts people.

One of the articles, you're kind of brushing up against this, but one of the articles that you wrote about on the substack, the bluff is about mental health. And I'm just gonna throw a couple things out here from me. You say, I don't, you don't have, you know, you, Dakota, don't have any degrees or licenses. You haven't been to any school. You don't have any type of thing to hang on your wall from graduating from any university or anything. Then you say, you have a doctorate in traumatic, a doctorate in traumatic events, which I thought was interesting and accurate.

And then you, you, you write that, you got asked if there's anything that triggers your PTSD. And you said, no, I'll be honest. I don't have PTSD anymore. Then you say you overcame it through Ibegain, choices, self-accountability. And then you say we've turned PTSD, depression, and anxiety into terminal illnesses. Bad memories don't mean you're living a bad life. Just like good memories don't mean you're living a good life. People like begin to use, they let trauma become their identity.

And, and they interestingly take pride in the life. the label. And again, I'm just kind of giving some, some close quotes from, from what you wrote about. And listen, you and I both know that there are people like that have true, um, clinical depression, true clinical anxiety, true clinical, uh, PTSD, of course. And those people, they need to get help for that. But there's also opportunities and the way you say it here, no pill, no therapy session. and no book can do the work for you. And then you talk about PTSD, depression, anxiety. There's solutions that aren't found in a pharmacy

and that aren't found in a therapist notebook. They're found in ownership. Ownership of your story, ownership of your choices, ownership of your healing. And you and I kind of talked about this a bit before we hit record today, but I think one of the hardest things

that people have to deal with coming back from combat is things that they did or things that they didn't do that did not or do not meet the expectations of who they wanted to be, who they want to be. And instead of taking ownership of those things and an important part here that we didn't talk about before it recorded, taking ownership of those things and forgiving yourself. Look, you people, people don't always do what they intended to do in combat. Sometimes there were, you know, they might have been, they might not have performed deeds that they should have. They felt like they should have looked back and say, I should have done this different.

I wish I would have done this. I wish I would have done that instead. And then sometimes they do things. They go, I wish I wouldn't have done that. Yeah. Here's the thing you you know you what happens in combat you don't there's no way to ultimately prepare for it like you can get real close You can get real close in preparation, but you can't you can't fully do it because it doesn't matter how intense the training is You're you're not gonna die well in you can die parachuting you can die fast rope you can die in helicopter but you're not

Statistically, you're going to be okay. No one's trying to kill you. Let me put it that way. And even it's funny, you know, I used to talk about how with like either simunition or it kind of evens out because, you know, if I'm sitting here when we're playing Sammy, we're training with simunition and there's, you know, rounds coming down the hallway, well, I might stick my weapon out, start pulling the trigger and then run across the hallway. And I think to myself and I'd be watching guys doing this in training, I'd be like, okay,

you would not have done that ever if there was real bullets and also the guy that's shooting those bullets at you when you stuck your your weapon out and started firing him he would have taken cover too so it kind of evens out a little bit but you can get close but you cannot simulate fully combat and so people do things that they didn't expect people things that do that they go i wish i would have performed differently and i think the guys that have a hard time are guys that either a don't take ownership of what they did or B don't forgive themselves that they didn't perform how they wanted to perform or how they look back and how they wish they would have done something different and I and I think that's a huge you know I can tell you all kinds of

things you know people would ask me like is there anything you regret it's like well yeah I didn't bring home all my guys were you you kidding me like of course I would give anything yeah to bring home all my guys. I guess I should say almost anything because what we have to do is our duty. And the only way, and it's not even a guarantee, if you go into combat or you go into a war zone and you don't do your duty, I guess you can increase your chances of not taking any casualties. There's still a chance because you can get mortared. You know, you can get, there's all kinds of bad things that happen in the war zone. But if you say, oh, you know what, I'm just not going to do my duty.

You're going to have to live with that. Yeah, you have to live with it. You have to live with everything. So for me, I ask myself, how does, with thoughts, ideas, and conversations. I ask myself, how is this? helping me be better today and if it's not I'm not participating in it and I'm not having it nor am I nor am I gonna sit here and I'm gonna entertain it and I think what happens is and where I used to do it a lot A I think you're right

on the truth part which is ultimately why I've always said I failed that day because that truth matters and And to ignore the truth, then I feel like a fraud. It turns into all these other bullshit things. But I also think that if you change one thing that happened to you in your past, it changes everything. So I think it's unbecoming for you to ever regret, like to live with regret or to ever look back and want something changed. So, for example, let me ask you this. Would if you talk, because ultimately if you talk to your guys and let's say they lived,

all of them lived, and you weren't able to have the knowledge you did to help and impact the people that you have since then, would they want that? Or would you want that? Would you give that up? Would you give up the good that you've been able to do since then with the sacred knowledge? that they gave their lives to teach you, to pass on. Would you give all that up for all the people that have wrote you that you've helped and you've impacted the secondary and tertiary events?

Because that's what you're saying when you say these things. I would give it up in a heartbeat. Of course. But they wouldn't let me. But they wouldn't let you. And that's why I started with them, right? We, ultimately, I would go back today, hands down, if you told me I could walk back in Gangegall today

and take all their, any of their spot. dude I wouldn't you heartbeat but you think they'd let me no chance no chance because you wouldn't let them right so my thing of it is is absolutely truth that's the hardest thing to swallow you know no matter how it feels no matter how it makes you feel no matter how ugly it is because also my superpower is that pain I felt by losing all my teammates. You know what I mean? Like I walk in the room, Jocko, you're not going to hurt. I am not, A, I'm not scared to die. I am not scared of what you think you might take from me because here's what I do know. And you can't take more from me than September 8, 2009. And I guarantee

you that you don't, you've never felt that. And I can take a lot more from you than you'll ever be able to take from me. I can hurt you way more than I've been hurt because I know what the depths of hell look like. And so it gives me a superpower of a concern that most people don't get to be able to overlook and override. And it's helped me in multiple situations since then, right? And so I think that, like for me, and I think a lot of guys, it's just like we don't like, you know, it's, I call it the Uncle Rico syndrome. And you can do it with good and bad. It would be me living off of the regret of what happened that day is no different than me walking around and wearing the medal and telling you that I'm a metal of honor recipient walking.

And they're both just one day of my life. And we're all going to be remembered as the sum of the good we can do in our lives. But the hardest thing I think for people to understand and come to terms with, and you're never going to be able to live a fulfilled life until you come to terms with this one statement. For something to live, something must die. and if you can't stomach that, you're always going to be at the hands of circumstances. But until you come to terms with that

and you come to accept that in every way, shape, or form, for something to live, something must die. And that's the reality of everything in life. You can't give me one scenario where it's not the case. How often do we go to a few, funeral and we all come back and say we need to it reminds us we lose somebody look to the Travis mangan foundation look at the lives that things changed you know what I mean and it's like

everything we do for something to live something must die and it's a hard one to swallow it's a hard one to to take on but it is the reality of life and it's it's all the way down down to good and evil. For good to live, evil is going to have to die. You know, for you to become the person you can become, you have to give up who you are now. For you to become anything in life, for you to truly embrace a new idea or new mindset, that old mindset must fully die. So for something to live, something must die, for something new to flourish. something must end. And it's no different with every day.

For night to come, the day must end. You know what I mean? I've got a bunch of writing that my buddy Seth Stone did before he died. And that's one of the things he wrote almost those exact words. But he's basically saying that he was changing. And the old parts of him had to die in order for him to become who he had to become. Yeah. But isn't it true?

Yeah. Yeah. Isn't it true? And it's hard. It's a hard one to take because, because there, I think, and I think it's comfort. Like I think, I don't know, I think it's comfort. I think it's expectations that we put on ourselves.

Unrealistic expectations. But again, it's a fine line because if you don't believe in the impossible, you'll never be able to perform. Like, you will never achieve more than you believe. you'll never achieve more than you believe. And so it's a hard one because when you live by these beliefs and you have these high standards and these high expectations, when you don't meet them, it comes back and forth.

And it's like, you know, I always talk about the hardest thing I think for me to get over was in the Marine Corps, every training event that I ever did. If you executed it the right way and you did your job, you were successful. Right? And that's a mindset you have to have. But it's not always the truth. And it's not always happening that way. Because guess what? The enemy gets a vote every time. And that's the difference in training versus reality. The enemy and circumstances get a vote. They get a play. You can't mimic it. And so while I don't think that we're, always where we want to be, I do think that we are all where we are supposed to be. And it's on us to figure out why we're there and what good we're going to do while we're there. Because there's always the capability. I don't care if you're homeless on the side of the road, you can do something.

As long as you have air in your lungs, like you say, you can do something, right? And you must. Yes, indeed. you must. If there's air in your lungs, you must. Probably a pretty good place to wrap it up. Let's do it. What else?

What are you working on right now? And just my substack, you know, I'm marining it out. You know, I got to join the Marines and come back in. How old are you? I'm 37. Check. Yeah, I go back to BRC in January. Is there an age cutoff for BRC?

No. There's not. So it's just, just get some. Yeah, just get some. Yeah, so I'm going to go back. And I got to tell you, like, these kids today, they are the best of a generation. They're the best. Like, they're studs.

They're incredible. And I think one of the biggest decisions of me rejoining was obviously I had more to give. But, you know, at a time right now, especially, like, I mean, I got my dad shirt on, right? And as a father of daughters, for sure, you know, we're always fighting to, to, to figure out influence what's going to influence our kids, right? I mean, you're, you're fighting it. We all fight what's going to influence them because something's going to influence them. Oh, yeah. And I just, I always thought, you know, that if my kids would either grow up reading and knowing, reading about people like the Marines, or they could grow up calling them

their aunts and uncles. And I think that was probably the biggest deciding factor of me going back in was I wanted them to grow up and these are the people they call their aunts and uncles and they get to grow up knowing that real people like that exist. Yeah, that's awesome. So what do you do? Do you do like one weekend a month, two weeks in the summertime? Are you kind of like, I'm all over right now. Yeah, like we're going to be out here this weekend. I got pre-dive in two weeks. It's a week long, right? And then once I get, once I get through BRC, then I got Sears School, I got a jump, free fall, and dive. Bro.

That's so freaking crazy. What's crazy about it isn't the tasks themselves, but it's just like, it's weird that you're 37 years old and you're going through those training blocks, which are kind of aimed at like 20 to 24-year-olds. Hey, these kids, it's a reality check when they look at you and go, do I'm sorry Marr like you're older than my mom and uh you know so it's like uh it's it's a reality check but but it's been you know

god you know and going to the recon side of it you know that's the reason i joined was i like those guys i mean those guys are i mean they are they're like the legends into my generation and so like to be able to hopefully you know i got to get through BRC but hopefully to become part of them and to be able to become part of that community So awesome. And then, you know, one of the agreements was, you know, because there's this misconception out there that a lot of people are saying, oh, you know, you're not, you're not really doing anything or like things like that. Like I only agreed to join if they would allow me, like there's no restrictions because of the metal. No restrictions. Like that was the agreement. There's actually

a policy getting put in place right now to back that up with sector. war to make sure that it doesn't happen again. You know, because John Basselon ended up getting killed. And he really screwed things up for the rest of us. And, you know, so, like, that was my piece that I wanted was, was my piece that I wanted was I wanted to come back in at the same rank I got out as, right? Like, I didn't want to get moved up a rank because of my age and things like that or whatever.

I didn't want any special treatment. And if my unit deploys that there will be zero restrictions on me going back and deploying with my unit or whatever I'm part of and they have they agreed it's the first time I've asked this multiple times before but this was the first time that the leadership agreed 100% to all that damn dude so look I'm just going to be honest with you I if we go back to where I'm going to send you pictures I'm going to make y'all just like regret that you're not part of it I'm coming dude I'll think of a machine gun bro I'm in right on people can find you the interwebs

Dakota Meyer.com. You got your substack you can just put a substack Dakota Meyer and you'll find it. My Instagram's Dakota Meyer 0317 and Twitter X Dakota underscore Meyer

Echo. Got any questions? Yeah, real quick. Rewind back to the old you if you don't mind. So when you were off the path back in the day, what was the heaviest you got up to?

Probably 265. 265. A solid heavyweight. You seen that picture? Damn, dude. 265? Bro. When was that?

That's a dirty bulk right there. You seen that? That was a dirty ball. Was that post metal and your civilian just being a disaster dot com? About 2014, listen, when I show you this, you're going to pass out. I'm going to send it to you just so you can look at it. I might put that on my mirror. Yeah, speaking to me, I was wanting to say this, speaking of mirrors, you know.

You're sitting here talking about the recon's guys being legend. You might occasionally want to take a look in the mirror before you roll to recognize that you're a little bit of a legend. Oh, well, no, no, no, no. These guys, you know, we were running down the road. And like, you know, I obviously I'm being a sergeant to these kids. And I ripped this one kid for like running with his phone or something. Dude, he's so stoked.

He didn't call his dad. Hey, dude, Dakota Meyer freaking let me have it today. Like after I chewed him out, he goes, he goes, Roger that Sergeant. I said, you know why I don't want you running with your phone? I said, I don't care if you're texting your girlfriend or not. I said, but you fall and you hit your face. I said, then you ain't going to have any girlfriend.

He's like, Roger that, Sergeant? And then I'm like, I started to walk off. And he goes, you know, I only joined the Marine Corps because of you. I was like, great, great. Oh, it's terrible. That's like, I thought you were going to say he said, hey, Sergeant Meyer, can I get a picture with you before you leave. Oh my hell

God. Bro, we're looking at a picture for those of you that can't see this right now of a very plump. How tall are you? 5-11. Yeah, dude. 265.

Dirty though. And not even, yeah, you're not even looking like you're in your power lifting phase. No, that's the rest between sets phase right there. Yeah, that was a, that was, yeah, you know, but that's, you know, and what I want to tell,

We talked about the mental health piece, and I want to leave it at this. I want to say this up front. There was that guy right there, like from the injuries I'd had and from the things I had listened to, the system. Told you that's who you had to be. Who I am today, that guy right there never believed it was possible. It wasn't that he didn't want to be it. It was the fact he didn't believe it was possible. Like I remember, I told this guy the other day, I work out.

at on it down there sometimes with Juan and Eric there was a I remember the first time I ran an entire mile after getting out without stopping but I never believed that I could run another mile I didn't think it was in my books anymore you know they wanted to fuse my back when I got out like all these things and I was on just drinking and if it wasn't drinking it was medications and it was all these things that made me feel like shit and and all I was doing was talking to other people who were in the same position. I was what I was spending my time around. And once I got out of that, because those people I thought were supporting me, they weren't. What they were doing was, is we were codependent on each other. And it wasn't until like, again, I met you and then I got

around guys that were like, they had done shit that I respected, but we're still out getting after it to show me what was possible. You know, but I'll say to if you're out there and you're struggling and you you ever get to the mindset to where you don't think things can be better than where they are you could be who you know you could be understand that that is a a limit that's put in by your mind it's not reality like that is that is a boundary or that is a parameter because I could have never imagined me running I mean I just did an Iron Man a year ago like I'm I got to join the Marine Corps again, like all these things I could have never, ever, ever.

There was a point in my time where I didn't believe that I would be anything more than a guy that has nightmares every single day and drinks every single day. I thought that was the best that I could be. And I truly believed it with everything I had. And today I wake up every single day and I live the best day in my life, like every day. I don't know the last time I've had a nightmare. I wake up and I am thankful for what I have. have. I'm thankful for the moment. I'm thankful for my kids. I'm a good father. Like all those things.

And I wasn't always that. So where you're at right now, I promise you I've been there. And what I'm telling you is, is that you can be where I'm at. And it's not going to be found by other people. It's not going to be running around and doing hunting and fishing trips all the time. It's going to be looking in the mirror. It's going to be getting up every day with intentions. And it's going to be looking at every decision and action, food you put in your body, and everything you do, and you're just asking yourself, one simple question can get you there. Is this getting me closer to who I want to be or getting me further away from who I want to be? That is the ultimate question. If you just ask yourself that fucking question every day and every decision and every step you take, where you spend

your time, who you're around, the conversations you have, what you consume on your Instagram, is it helping me get to who I want to be or is it taking me further away from who I want to be and then eliminate who's taken away from who you want to be and that'll get you to where I'm at. Well, there you have it, man. Freaking outstanding. It's always good to see you. Thanks for coming back. Like, actually, I had not seen that picture before that you just showed me of you being fat

and just like long, scraggly looking hair, faces all rosy from drinking. Like, I did not, I did, I knew you went through some rough patches, but I'd never seen that physical representation. And the fact that you're sitting here right now, freaking lean, mean, like on track, dialed in. That's freaking awesome, man.

It's freaking awesome. So hopefully people can listen to this. Hopefully people follow you. Check out your substack. Learn your lessons learn. Thanks for everything you've done. Thanks for everything you did in the Marine Corps. And thanks for everything you are continuing to do in the United States Marine Corps.

Thanks for being one of my heroes. And thanks for being one of my friends. Thanks, I appreciate it. Thanks. And with that, Dakota has left the building. He is en route to Camp Pendleton. Sergeant Dakota Meyer is en route to Camp Pendleton right now to go do some. Marine Corps activities.

Awesome. Awesome to have him here. Tell you what, that picture, crazy, right? Yes, it is. He pulled up that picture. Can you put that on the podcast,

have him send it to you or something so people can watch it on the YouTube? Yes, I can. Maybe he doesn't wander out there publicly. But, yeah, man, it shows you,

you know what it is, is like you realize that it's, it's hard to, picture his words and what they mean until you see where he was and where he is. It's like a visual representation of the power that we have when we start taking ownership of what's going on in the world. And when we start asking what instead of asking why. Yeah.

So good. And when that happens, there's going to be some physical activity. activities running, lifting, sprinting. Habitually, by the way. Habitually doing jiu-jitsu, training. Yeah, hell, yeah. Getting after it. When that happens, guess what else you're going to need?

Guess. You want me to guess? Yeah, you guess. Let me guess fuel. Yeah, you need some of that. So check out joccofuel. joccofuel.com. We have pretty much kind of everything that you need to get on that path and stay on that path.

So you can go to jankofuel.com. You can go to your local store, whatever that store would be, whether it's high V, whether it's Walmart, whether it's H.E.B. Meyer, Harris, Harris, T. Whatever, wherever you live, publics down in the southeast. We got you covered. Is military commissaries on base? Yes.

Is that what that is? Yes. They're on base. Yep. And we're in pretty much all those. Even those are one of the few places that you can get Joccoville overseas. Like there's overseas. So I get, I get messages from people.

but that are overseas. We got it. Doing it. A little picture. So joccofuel.com, check it out and get yourself on the path. Also check out OriginUSA. OriginUSA.com. This is where you can get your training gear for the path.

You need shirts. You need shorts. You need hunting gear. You need jeans. You need jacket. Yeah. Hell of you. Winter's coming.

So you utilized one of the jackets. Yeah. I use that little lightweight. You were proven right. One day out of the year, you're correct. We'll take it. One day out of the year, you're correct. It was too warm for a head for a normal hoodie.

Yep. And it was a little bit of a little bit of a chilly woo. A little bit of a chilly woo. So I put on, I put on the stow jacket. And by the way, it felt perfect. Yes, sir, it does. There's all that wind was cut back. The little breeze was cut back.

So whatever you need, don't get something that is made by slaves don't get something that is made by communists don't get made something that is made that will steal money from our country and give it to our adversaries don't do that by something that is 100% American made from the thread to the zipper to the cotton buttons to the buttons everything the rivets rivets that a thing yeah yeah rivets on the jeans Everything's American Made. OriginUSA.com.

Get yourself some communist free goods. Commie free. That's what that jacket is called, the stowaway one. It's like a lightweight, yeah, stow jacket. Yeah. It's clutch. See how, and you put it into words, but this is something that I've recognized the value of from many years.

So one of the scenarios, you want to wear that jacket is on the plane because, you know, sometimes in a hot, you know, when you went to Vegas, it was an example, where it's hot, so they turn on the air in the plane. which I did of course but sometimes the thing is blowing on you a little bit kind of obliquely kind of defeating its own purpose you know so slightly too cold for just sitting there in the wind freaking tunnel you're right you put on that lightweight bright blocks it perfectly

perfectly so you're just sitting there in your own perfectly calibrated heat climate of your own climate micro climate of your own body and the and the stow jacket you can put that thing kind of in your pocket like a big pocket yeah like Okay, so perfect point. That's, I forgot to add that. That's why it's called the stow. Yeah, you just put it right. I put it in my computer bag.

Doesn't even take up space. Yeah, perfect. Perfect. Whoever came out with that freaking credit? Credit. Good work, credit. Also, speaking of credit and good work. Jocco store.com.

Yeah, yeah. So you can get your apparel. Discipline equals freedom shirts. We've got a new one out. Discipline equals freedom. 5.0. Check. 5.0.

5.0. We're there. I guess it's called 005. But I guess so it's kind of the same thing. Fifth version, fifth class, if you will. Another last, good one. Mod 5. Mod 5, 100%.

The good mod 3 is out. That's the most recent one. So that's a good one. Check it out there. The new mod or the new design with the new mod is standby to get some. Okay. That's a new mod, mod 2. Mod 2.

It's been years, but hey, it's going to be out. It's going to be out. It's going to stay on the lookout for that. If you want to have the heads up, put your email in the little space on the front. on the front page or whatever, we'll all just email you. Relevant stuff, no spam. Just only relevant stuff.

It won't come every day. If you're expecting an email every day or even every week, bro, sorry. I don't know. I don't do that kind of frequency. But when I send it, it'll count, I promise. Also, the jaco shirt, locker. New design every month. Dave Burke.

Good deal, Dave. Just sent me a text while we were recording, by the way, of this month's design. He said this is a good idea for a design. And I'll show it to you later. Don't be a deal with. Check. Didn't you say occasionally shirts make it from the shirt locker to the public? Yep.

And has that happened? We have one that's currently in the world. We are not making this a thing. But by the time this comes out, it'll have already been done. But yes, the good. The good. So it doesn't have a mod, right? So I guess it'd be the mod, whatever.

I don't know what it is. Anyway, it's called good. HLP short for a high level problem. Not every problem is life and death. You're not always knocked in the dirt. Sometimes it's just like Dakota Myers protocol. It's an inconvenience. But sometimes in this cushy world we live in, which is real, by the way,

you know, it's a delicate fabric. Sometimes these inconveniences can be good. And this is just a little reminder. Even in those minor inconveniences scenarios, we still got to lean on that good philosophy. You see what I'm saying? Anyway, that's what this story is represented. of the main reason why I'm releasing it though to the public is because literally for the past three years came out in 2022 by the way for the past three years every time someone apparently would see it they'd email me or text me or whatever take a picture of it tag me and be like where is this shirt where is this shirt locker oh by the way three years ago so I'm like all right but you know I'll just release it to everybody not enough for a whole bunch of time but you know we'll do it nonetheless it's all in jocco store dot com right on so check that out also some books

Dakota Meyer latest book, why to what? Check that one out. Also, Dave Burke, his new book, The Need to Lead. Also, things my brother used to say by Ryan Mannion. Check that one out as well. Awesome for the kids. I've written a bunch of books too. I've written some kids books as well,

so you can check those out as well if you want. Eschelon Front, you're going to talk quite a bit about leadership today. All these principles, we teach them all the time, We teach the skills of leadership and we help your company, your team or your organization, solve problems through leadership. Go to echelonfront.com and we can help you. And if you want to learn some of these skills in the comfort of your own home, go to extreme ownership.com.

We have an online training program to teach the skills of leadership. And then also if you want to help service members active and retired, you want to help their families. You want to help Gold Star families. Check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. She's got a charity organization if you want to donate or you want to get involved. Go to America's Mighty Warriors.org. Don't forget about Micah Fink's organization up there in Montana,

teaching people how to find their souls out in the wilderness. Heroes and Horses.org. And finally, Jimmy May's organization, beyond the brotherhood.org. Check out Ramadi Reunion20.com. If you were in Ramadi with the 1-1-A-D at all, or Gold Star Families, check out romadi reunion 20.com January 16th and 17th 2026 we're going to be down there

meeting mustering getting together sharing stories reconnecting if you want to connect with dakota check out his substack substack dakota mire and then on the interwebs dakotamire dot com and he's on facebook at dakota mire instagram dakota mire o 317 and Twitter X Dakota underscore Meyer. And for us, check out jocco.com and then on social media, I'm at Jocko Willink, echoes at echo Charles.

That's all I'm going to say about that. Once again, thanks to my brother, Dakota. Incredible example of heroism, of humility and of leadership, and it is an honor to be able to call you a friend. Thanks to all of our military personnel out there. across the globe protecting freedom

protecting our way of life of course a little special shout out to the United States Marine Corps always faithful also thanks to our police law enforcement firefighters paramedics EMTs dispatchers correctional officers border patrol secret service as well as all other first responders

we're grateful for what you do every day to keep us safe so thank you special shout out to those firefighters you heard what they go through every day from Dakota It's a rough job. Thank you for what you do. And for everyone else out there, here's one more quote from Dakota's book, Why to What? He says, quote, when people tell me that they're in a situation or a place they can't change, I ask them to consider the mission at hand.

I ask whether the place they're in and the support it lends or doesn't lend is conducive to the mission. If it's not, I ask if they're in a position to alter their place they're in. If they aren't, I ask what they could do to make a change possible. If they tell me they can't change their position, I ask them if they're bound by law. Because unless you're in prison or dead, there's no position you can't change and no place you can't leave. End quote. That kind of sounds like it's on you. Put yourself in the place you want to be in.

Create the situation you want to have. That is ownership. And it's on you. and that's all I've got for tonight. Until next time, this is Echo and Jocko. Out.