Jocko Podcast - 538: The Legendary Speech on How Leaders Should Lead. Major C.A. Bach Back, 1917.
Episode Date: April 29, 2026>Join Jocko Underground Full Episodes< Breaking down Major C.A. Bach’s legendary 1917 leadership speech and separates timeless leadership truths from outdated doctrine. They cover earning resp...ect instead of demanding it, why confidence comes from preparation, when leaders should apologize, how to avoid becoming a power-tripping boss, and why the best leaders quietly sacrifice for their teams.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content
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This is Jocko podcast number 538 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink.
Good evening, Echow.
Good evening.
Major Christian Albert Bach, more commonly referred to as Major C.A. Bach.
Born in 1870, entered the U.S. Army as a private in the 13th Minnesota infantry.
A little later, by the time he deployed to the Philippines for combat in the Spanish-American War
in 1898.
He was a sergeant by that time.
Fought with the 13th Minnesota
on the right flank
of the U.S. line during the Battle of Manila,
August 13th.
And the right flank
became the most contested terrain
during that battle.
13th, Minnesota suffered the highest casualty rate
of any American unit in that battle.
He continued to see combat
in the Philippine-American War
for the next few years after that,
where
Sergeant Bach was promoted and commissioned to become a second lieutenant.
And then after the Philippine-American War, he transitioned to the regular army,
served in the seventh calf.
By the time America entered World War I, Bach was a major.
And based on his experience, his combat experience from fighting in the Philippines,
he started off the war, World War I, training cadets.
that were to become officers and to go into company command.
Eventually, he did join the fight overseas.
He was awarded the Silver Star, the Army Distinguished Service Medal.
And then after the war, he continued to serve in the Army until he retired in 1934, after 36 years of service.
He, after retiring, became a military historian.
He came an author.
He put out some books about the history of war, specifically.
I think his most popular book was about the fourth division and its achievements in World War I.
But the most enduring thing that he passed on was not something actually from his books.
It was a speech that he gave to graduating students that were about to become officers
or going to command as officers, company command, in Fort Sheridan in 1917.
So this is right before we got into World War I.
He was training officers.
And he gave this speech.
about the principles that he had learned about leadership when he was in combat.
So let's hear how Major C.A. Bach told young leaders to lead. He says this.
In a short time, each of you men will control the lives of a certain number of other men.
You will have in your charge loyal but untrained citizens who look to you for instruction and guidance.
your word will be their law.
Your most casual remark will be remembered.
Your mannerisms will be aped.
I always thought ape was like a modern,
you know,
slang word for imitating.
That's what he means.
Your mannerisms will be aped.
Your clothing,
your carriage,
your vocabulary,
your manner of command will be imitated.
So he goes out of the gate.
You're being watched.
You're being watched.
And the way that you behave is the way your team is going to behave.
When you join your organization, you will find they're a willing body of men who ask from you nothing more than the qualities that will command their respect, their loyalty, and their obedience.
That's a very, very high bar.
Hey, look, nothing more than the qualities that command their respect, their loyalty, and their obedience.
They are perfectly, and by the way, I forgot to say this.
So this speech is something that you can find little pieces of this speech throughout all different areas of military leadership.
It's all kind of infused in various organizations, especially in the Army, but it infused a little bit in the Air Force as well.
So a lot of the things might sound a little bit familiar.
And it's because they're rooted because this speech became very, very famous.
inside the military.
They are perfectly ready and eager to follow you
so long as you can convince them
that you have these qualities.
Hey, they'll follow you,
as long as you're a badass.
When the time comes that they are satisfied,
you do not possess them.
You might as well kiss yourself goodbye.
Your usefulness in that organization is at an end.
From the standpoint of society,
the world may be divided into leaders and followers.
The professions have,
their leaders. The financial world has its leaders. In all this leadership, it is difficult,
if not impossible, to separate the element of pure leadership, that selfish element of personal
gain or advantage to the individual without which any leadership would lose its value. So what
he's saying there is, you know, if you're a banker, there's a certain amount of, what do they call
it, personal advantage, personal gain that you get by being a leader in a bank or in a financial
industry or in a trade, you get a certain amount of gain from that. Then he says, it is in military
service only where men freely sacrificed their lives for a faith, where men are willing to suffer and
die for the right or the prevention of a wrong, that we can hope to realize leadership in its most
exalted and disinterested sense. Therefore, when I say leadership, I mean a military leadership.
There's a couple things to navigate there.
Number one, if you think military people, military leaders don't do things for personal gain, you're completely wrong.
I've talked about that since day one.
And if you know anyone in the military, they can definitely tell you about bosses that we're looking to get promoted.
That's the main thing they're looking for.
They're looking to get the best possible situation for themselves, right?
So that's not true
And also in the civilian sector
When people do the right things for the right reasons
They will end up more successful
And look are there are there people that do bad things
Do the wrong things for and try and give themselves personal gain there of course there are
But I'm just saying that exists in the civilian sector and it exists in the military sector as well and you see it
you get to see it when it falls apart in the civilian sector,
some guy that's been embezzling,
some guy that's been, you know,
falsifying contracts or falsifying documents or falsifying what they're doing
from their financial perspective or their egotistical trying to make the,
like all those things come out.
And they don't come out when they win in most cases.
They come out when they lose.
Now look, do people occasionally pull it off, you know,
some guy builds up some,
some fake ass company or is abusive and just kind of gets it done and makes money.
Yeah, it happens.
It happens.
Eventually, usually they get found out, you know, but, but it does happen.
So keep that in mind.
It's not quite as pure as he mentions here.
But what he does say, and I will, so I'm going into that one a little bit hard,
but he says what we hope to realize is leadership in its most,
exalted form. So he's he's admitting it too. Like we hope to see the pure leadership. Yeah,
it's ideal. Yeah. Um, continuing on. In a few days, the great mass of you men will receive
commissions as officers. These commissions will not make you leaders. Well, that's a little newsflash
there. Second lieutenant. That commission does not make you a leader. They will merely make you
officers. They will place you in a position where you can become leaders if you possess.
the proper attributes, but you must make good.
Not so much with the men over you as the men under you.
Oh, dang.
Okay.
Okay, so we in the game now.
You know what I'm saying?
Hey, it doesn't matter what your boss thinks you.
What are your boys think of you?
What are your troops think of you?
That's how you become a leader.
And it's always interesting because you ever heard somebody talk about weedle,
but you can't get away with the way we used to be able to do things,
can't lead like that anymore, almost in a negative way.
That's not true.
Like people act like, oh, when I was, you know, when I was in,
somebody got out of line, smack them upside the head.
It's like, oh, yeah, yeah, you did that.
You weren't a good leader.
You know what I mean?
Even me, I did that.
Like, you know, when I was a E5 mafia, you know,
my leadership style was definitely more harsh than it was as I got older,
more mature and had better examples.
So the fact that you have to make good with your troops and earn their respect and earn the position of leadership, that's what this is about, even in 1917.
And by the way, he's bringing back, you know, experiences from 1898.
Like this is old school stuff.
Can I ask you something.
Send it.
Do you remember or know when you first became in charge of other?
people well in my it was interesting even in my first platoon I was the primary comms guy and so
there was one guy that was my guy like subordinate he was my subordinate technically yes and when was this
like your first year that was my first when I first got to a seal paltune okay so okay so coms
what was his position name or whatever he was secondary comm secondary primary primary okay so
so you you had to tell him what
to do from time to time.
Oh yeah, for sure.
And he wouldn't really tell you what to do.
So it was, it was, was, was it was,
was a, like, tangible and established
that you were his boss.
Yeah, it was, it was, yes, it was the change.
Like, you're the primary calm guy.
Okay.
Yep, 100%.
Okay, and then do you remember,
I guess that might, okay,
do you remember when you were in charge
you like more than just one guy?
Like when you got either promoted or, you know.
Yeah, so I guess once, once,
you know, when you're a little bit of a fire team leader,
which I didn't usually do
because I was a radio man.
So, you know, my fire team would always have the lieutenant in it.
So I'd have an officer in my fire team, so I wouldn't be the fire team leader.
So it wasn't really when I got, I guess when I got to trade at, or sorry, training cell at team one.
And we'd go on trips.
And I would be like, in charge of a trip.
Is that like permanent or is that just part of the rotation?
Okay, okay, that's what I mean, like where you're like established like permanent.
And that's the thing I was going to say because even, you know, when you're, like, you've heard me tell a story about when DC took over the platoon and put me and another guy in charge to run the op.
But that's not really what you're looking for.
No.
You're looking for like technically, according to by the book, you are now in charge of these individuals.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
You're their boss.
Yeah.
And even though that happened all the time on a temporary, like, oh, you're running this op or or you're, hey, you're.
in charge of clearing the backside of this target or you're in charge of this OP observation
point like getting put in charge of that stuff a lot or like you're the dive supervisor for
this dive or you're the range safety officer for this range all those things are leading like hey
I'm giving the range brief I'm making sure that everything squared away if something goes wrong I'm in
charge on a dive like hey I'm making sure that everyone's showing up making sure that everyone
dive expected I'm in charge of the overall safety like so you know you're in charge of
things, but to go straight up by the book, it wasn't really until I got commissioned and I went
to team two and now I'm in a platoon as a assistant platoon commander and I have a squad of guys.
Okay.
Actually, you know what this question might could very well apply to like even when you're
temporarily in charge.
So I personally have a very hard time.
I have to admit this to myself telling people what to do, like being their boss, you know,
like hey, you go over here and make sure this is done.
You know, like, bro.
I always feel like I shouldn't be bossing nobody around, you know?
Yeah.
And I would say even when I was like the primary calm guy,
bossing people around has never been something that I did much of.
Yeah.
It's never really.
And you've heard me say this when I talk about relationships.
You know, everything that I did in the military is based on relationships and listening
to what people have to say.
And I was never like, this is what we're doing, boys.
Or like, hey,
echo you need to be here at this time right i'd be like hey that we're launching around here
when do you guys think we should show up yeah and that's as a matter of fact i wrote in leadership
strategy and tactics i i told a story in leadership strategy and tactics where i my guys there was like a guy
guy that showed up almost late not quite late and then we forgot a piece of gear and i told the
the 5 mafia and the leadership of the the platoon because i was a platoon commander but i told you know
like the LPO.
I was like, hey, if anything like this ever happens again,
I'm going to run everything.
Meaning like I will micromanage everything.
And I told them I want to do that.
But I'm not going to.
I want to.
And they were like, we got a boss.
We got a boss.
And never had any issue ever again.
But to your point, like I was never like, okay, here's what time we're mustering.
And here's what gear you need to bring.
And, you know, I never did that kind of stuff.
I would say like, hey guys, here's the,
We got what time you think we need to be here what hey what gear this is what we're doing
You know make sure we got the right gear for it yeah so you know I was never really like telling people to and again
Does this apply when you're doing an immediate action drill and desert warfare training and you go peel right now?
That's a different thing it's like a different scenario
Yeah yeah fully so I guess my so and you're right though now I'm like reflecting now where even now you
Like sometimes my daughter will be like oh
Something about blah blah your your boss and like I don't care what she says but when she says it it gives me like a very
Specific feeling like I want to correct her not because no no not my boss it's not that it's just that it doesn't feel like it
I don't feel like it I don't feel like I'm following your orders all the time you know like it either I don't feel like I got to check you know so it doesn't feel like a boss scenario
Well I don't really consider myself your boss
You know, I really, the weird thing is, is I don't, even though, like, we just came back from
the muster.
I use the term subordinate a lot.
Yeah.
I don't actually consider anyone to be my subordinate.
Right.
And that's what I, which is a weird thing.
Like I don't, I don't look at anyone and think, oh, that person's a subordinate to me.
I just look at other people and go, oh, they've got this part of the mission.
They got this part of the task.
I got this part of the task.
We're going to work together, cover for each other and make sure that it gets done.
Like, that's the way I view everybody.
And by the way, even, you know, even don't matter where I am, you know, even out in, you know, walking around the streets, you know, I don't look at other people like, oh, I have a nicer car than that person. They're subordinate to me, you know, or inferior. Inferior. I look at it and I'm like, oh, yeah, that person's probably doing something cool and probably has some skills that I don't have. So I don't really consider anyone to be a subordinate. Yeah. Yeah. And it doesn't feel.
like it, it just feels like
back in the, you know, in those
days when you get promoted.
Okay, actually, this is more appropriate to when
you're temporarily in charge, actually, now that I'm thinking of it.
Because at one moment you're part of the team.
I think that's why. Because I always feel like
we're kind of doing the set. Let's say, okay,
me and Connor will say.
Let's say we're going on a video shoot. Actually,
this happened. We went on a video shoot. And I got like
the camera. I got this other stuff or whatever.
And I'm like, technically,
I could carry everything.
You wouldn't be carrying any. We have to go down this
Canyon and all this stuff or whatever.
I felt uncomfortable telling him, hey, can you carry this?
Because I know technically, I could carry it.
So why would I tell him to carry when I can do it kind of a thing?
It's like I'm bossing him around.
Like I'm this boss.
It felt very uncomfortable because I see him in a bra.
We're both kind of making this video.
So why would I order him around right now?
See what I'm saying?
But then isn't there like an element of that that you have to like overcome?
Because it like it would help.
I mean, that's the thing.
You prioritize the mission a little bit.
Yeah.
But also, it's, you know, you don't say, hey, come over here, grab these three bags and carry them down.
You go, hey, man, could you give me a hand with these things?
Yeah.
Right?
That's not really an order.
Yeah.
And in fact, if you picked it all up yourself and you started walking, most people that you interact with be like, hey, let me grab one of those bags.
That's how it is every single time.
Yeah.
It was, yeah, I'd go into a whole thing.
But yeah, that's exactly how it turns out.
And that's why I know that it's kind of an issue because I'm like, my discontal.
for quote unquote bossing people around or telling them what to do or whatever is keeping
is like hindering the like the mission and the efficiency yeah and again I don't want to sound like
I don't want to I'm not sitting here making a claim like I haven't been like hey grab that table
over there you know what I mean like of course but I would say that to anyone you know what I mean
Like, I don't care if you were the Admiral or you were the new guy.
If I was like, had to pick up this piece of equipment and put it on the palate, I'd be like, hey, Admiral, can you grab that?
You know what I mean?
Like, it's not that big of a deal.
So I think as long as you're doing stuff for the good of the mission, I think people recognize that.
Yeah.
I got to, I got to.
I'm not like, hey, Admiral, can you load my bags while I sit over here with my feet up?
And I'm also like, hey, new guy, can you grab my bags while I sit over here and my feet up?
Each of those, those are equally disgusting.
I understand.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think it's like a reframe, I guess, because I don't know.
Maybe I'm traumatized.
Maybe like some old bosses or whatever had that high horse kind of vibe to them, you know?
And it's kind of, you know, sometimes you get the impression like, oh, this person's telling me what to do in that tone just for the sake of like flexing their authority in front of people.
or something like that.
Yeah.
And by the way, like there are times when you're in charge
where you're making the call.
Yeah.
Like I can think of millions of times where, okay, this is going on,
this is going on, this is going on.
This is an option.
This is an option.
This is an option.
And I go, all right, do this.
And everyone goes cool.
Yeah.
You know, usually there's enough time and space
so everyone kind of realizes like, oh,
there's advantages, disadvantages.
We need to go one direction or the other.
Yeah.
And when I feel that right there, it's like, okay,
here's what we're doing.
Yeah.
You know what I'm thinking and you're laying out these perfect scenarios where I'm like,
wow, that's how you know, that's the jam right there.
And when I think in my mind of my past, I think I'm like envisioning these very real
experiences that I've had where I see someone just get put in charge and they turn into a whole
different person and start ordering people around and like, you know, with their chin up and just
sort of, you know, just quote unquote running stuff, you know, like really embracing the boss role.
And I remember thinking, probably like that.
I would rather die than look like that.
You know what I'm saying?
So I'm like all scared or whatever.
You're a little bit shy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But like I said, I think there's absolutely appropriate times to do it.
And I think you just need to be aware of that.
Yeah.
I think I got to frame it where like your your whole vibe comes off just like how you said,
where it's kind of like, hey, we're all like doing it.
And sometimes, bro, I'll tell you, like, I'm in this position sometimes too where some of us
kind of need direction.
Since you have more of a mental grasp on the whole thing, it's like, right, it's best coming from you.
You know, it's like, hey, there's a hole right there.
Can you fill that?
Oh, perfect.
Because I was looking for something to fill.
For sure.
For sure.
Where if you, yeah, I guess I got to just frame it like that more.
But from the leadership perspective, if I'm telling you what time to show up, what equipment to
bring, I'm telling you, I'm giving you every possible order that I can.
Number one, you have no, you don't learn anything.
You don't take any initiative.
And you're like, well, I'm just going to wait until Jocko tells me what to do.
So that's bad and then when I really need something
You don't it's just another it's it's an order number 49
Out of you know 50 and who cares
As opposed to like oh you kind of figured out what you were bringing and I go hey
One shot you need to get today is this
You're gonna get that shot but if I told you to do all these other things and get this other shot too
You're like I can't be surprised when you weren't able to do it or you didn't do it or you didn't understand the priority of it
Right right
It's just the way it is yeah
Carrying on, men must and will follow into battle officers who are not leaders, but the driving power behind these men is not enthusiasm, enthusiasm, but discipline.
They go with doubt and trembling that prompts the unspoken question, what will he do next?
Such men obey the letter of their orders, but no more.
of devotion to their commander of exalted enthusiasm which scorns personal risk of self-sacrifice
to injure his personal safety they know nothing their legs carry them forward because their
brain and their training tell them they must go their spirit does not go with him that's people
that are just not good leaders when people aren't good leaders there's no there's no spirit right
they're not going to take extra personal risk they're not going to do more they'll just kind of do
what they're told and what are the chances that you as a leader are going to be able to tell everyone
exactly what it is they need to do all the way to the nth degree the chances are zero they're going to
be in situations we're going to have to change they're going to have to step up they're going to
do more than what you told them to do and if you don't have good leadership they're not going
to be able to do it and they're not going to do it continuing on great results are not
achieved by cold, passive, unresponsive soldiers. They don't go very far and they stop as soon as they
can. Now he gives the contrary. Leadership not only demands but receives the willing, unhesitating,
unfaltering obedience and loyalty of other men and a devotion that will cause them when the time
comes to follow their uncrowned king to hell and back again if necessary.
That's leadership as opposed to following people that aren't leaders.
You will ask yourselves of just what then does leadership consist?
What must I do to become a leader?
What are the attributes of leadership and how can I cultivate them?
Leadership is a composite of a number of qualities among the most important I would list.
self-confidence, moral ascendancy, self-sacrifice, paternalism, fairness, initiative, decision, dignity,
courage.
And now he rattles through him.
Self-confidence results first from the exact knowledge.
Second, the ability to impart that knowledge.
And third, the feeling of superiority over others that naturally follows.
all these give officer poise.
Now it's interesting.
I'll continue.
To lead,
you must know.
You may bluff all of your men some of the time,
but you can't do it all the time.
Men will not have confidence in an officer
unless he knows his business
and he must know it from the ground up.
So what's interesting about this is,
you've heard me say a thousand times.
If you don't know how to do something,
you don't pretend like you do.
And he's saying that,
but he's like eliminating the fact
that there might be some stuff.
you don't know you know he's like you gotta know you gotta know and what's interesting is when
you talk about confidence like if you're feeling confident going into jiu jitza match what makes you feel
confidence is it a pep talk no is it um a go drinking a go before you compete no so what gives you
real confidence before you compete.
You practiced.
You practiced hard.
You trained hard.
You rehearsed.
Like those are the things that give you confidence.
And by the way, that confidence follows through in leadership because if you have trained and you prepared and you study, you feel confident.
And people are going to see that.
And that's a good thing.
And again, of course, we're not letting this flow into arrogance, but it is, you know, we're not following people that lack confidence.
We don't like to follow people that are egomaniacs,
but we don't want to follow people that are scared and lack confidence.
Confidence is a good thing.
The officer should know more about paperwork
than his first sergeant and company clerk put together.
He should know more about messing than the mess sergeant,
more about diseases of the horse than his troop ferrier.
He should be at least as good a shot as any man in his company.
So that's kind of a tall order.
And I'm going to tell you,
I never I never knew more about admin than my admin people I never knew more about the logistics than my logistics people I never was you know never there was always people in a platoon that are going to be a better shot than you are so that's a that's a tall task there um if the officer does not know and demonstrates the fact that he does not know it is entirely human for the soldier to say to himself to hell with him he doesn't know as much about this as I do
and calmly disregard the instructions received.
Yeah, this is a tough one, man.
Like, I'm not, I don't agree with all this.
Well, the way I break this down,
the way I've always broken this down is,
you ever heard the thing that there's no such thing as stupid questions?
Well, there are.
And especially if you're in a leadership position
and you have neglected to do the basic groundwork
to understand the fundamentals of the situation that you're in.
Those are stupid questions.
Those are the things that people will lose faith in you.
If you go out and you shoot your sniper rifle with the sniper,
or you shoot the sniper rifle of the sniper and you don't shoot as well as him,
the sniper doesn't go, what a piece of shit.
Yeah.
No.
He goes, yeah.
Well, the boss is out here.
He's not going to be as good.
If you don't know everything about programming a certain radio,
the radio man's like, oh, he's a loser.
No, that's not true.
So, but if you come out and you see the sniper rifle and you go, what's that?
Or you pick up the radio.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, is it, what weapon is that?
Well, bro, you didn't, you don't even know what sniper weapons we have.
Or you pick up a radio and say, what radio is this?
Like, I understand you don't know the detailed how to program four levels into the radio.
But for you to pick up the radio, hey, this is good, good, UHF radio.
Good, it's got embedded crypto in it.
Great.
Like knowing the basics, knowing the fundamentals is where, is what you need to do.
And listen, occasionally you're going to get caught off guard and maybe you have to raise your hand and there's something that you don't know, it's okay.
But to not to do that on a regular basis is a problem.
And but but to think that you're going to know it more than your radio man, it ain't happening.
You think you're going to know more than your sniper?
It ain't happening.
You think you're going to know more than your medic?
It ain't happening, man.
Those people went to a year-long school to figure that stuff out.
You're not going to be better than them.
But if you've got stupid questions that shows you haven't even put forth the effort, that's going to be a problem.
Continuing on, there is no substitute for accurate knowledge,
become so well informed that men will hunt you up to ask you questions that your brother, officers will say to one another,
Ask Smith, he knows.
And not only should each officer know thoroughly the duties of his own grade,
but he should study those of the two grades next above him.
A twofold benefit attaches to this.
He prepares himself for duties which may fall to his lot during any time in a battle.
He further gains a broader viewpoint which enables him to appreciate the necessity for the issuance of orders
and join more intelligently in their execution.
Totally agree with that.
Always know what the next couple levels above you in the chain of command have going on.
on and what their job is.
And by the way, I would say two levels down as well.
Right?
One or two levels down.
I used to actually teach one level up and one level down.
Maybe it's like 1.5 and 1.5.
Because again, you should know how to pick up that radio and make comms with it,
but you probably don't know how to troubleshoot it.
You should know how to fire some rounds during, you know, on that sniper weapon,
but you might not know how to not know how to dope it in.
So there's a difference.
And up the chain of command, it's like,
oh, I can definitely make communications with the overhead assets,
get information from them,
but I probably don't know how to plan the whole stack of aircraft that are up there.
So like one and a half up and down the chain of command
is probably a good spot to aim for.
Not only must the officer know,
but he must be able to put what he knows into grammatical,
interesting, forceful English.
You must learn to stand on his feet and speak without embarrassment.
I am told that in British training camp, student officers are required to deliver 10-minute
talks on any subject they choose.
That is excellent practice.
For to speak clearly, one must think clearly, and clear logical thinking expresses itself
in definite, positive orders.
Absolutely.
So a lot of this stuff I'm thinking in regards to, like, my kids, right?
And I just thought of this thing.
And you can be kids, whatever.
So you know how your kids will have like arguments, right?
Like, hey, I want to stay up late or I want to do a sleepover tomorrow, right?
And sometimes we're on the fence about it.
Like, yeah, I want them to have these experiences or blah, blah, blah.
But it might not be a good idea for X, Y, Z reason, but you're on the fence.
If you could do an exercise, actually, I'm going to do this.
I'm like thinking out loud, kind of.
Make them present an argument?
Yeah, in front of everybody.
That's what I'm saying?
Great.
And then, you know, ask quite, I mean, look, not like full on freaking interrogation mode or nothing, but, but really kind of, you're rooting for them, but ask them some challenging questions, you know, like, hey, what about, you know, hey, I think I'm going to do that.
Yeah.
Because, bro, I get arguments all the time.
Not, you know, terrible, but like.
Yeah, there's a lot of, that's great.
And I, I had my kids present cases at times.
Oh, I kind of like, like, uh, they want to get a phone.
Yeah, yeah.
Present the case.
Perfect.
Yep.
You know, and there's a lot of things that you can do that with.
very, very helpful.
So the idea of standing up in front of everyone to me is because my kids are,
they'll present their case as of right now.
Their whole thing is presenting their case.
And sometimes I'm like, bro, it's kind of impressive.
You know, you know, like, oh, bro, have you ever seen that video?
Okay, it's a video.
It's like a dash cam, you know, not a dash cam looking out, but looking in at the driver
and the passenger.
And then they had a girl, a daughter, six, seven years old in the back.
They're at a drive-through.
And the mom's like, oh, can I get a, um,
a coffee and this and that.
And so the mom's in the driver's seat,
making the order through the drive-thru.
And the dad is in the passenger seat
and the daughter's in the back.
So the mom says, oh, can I get a coffee and blah, blah, blah.
And then the girl goes from the back.
She goes, oh, can I get a cookie?
And then the mom goes, no, honey, we have a cookie at home.
And then the dad's just kind of looking at the drive-thru.
And the girl goes, well, we have coffee at home.
And the dad, you look at the dad go in the passenger seat.
He's like,
Bro, he had no, you know, he's kind of like,
bro, she has a point.
He kind of made that gesture.
And then the lady's like, she's thinking about it.
And she didn't get mad.
Prop, Sarah.
She didn't get mad.
She's like, thinking about it a little bit frustrated,
but she's like, she pauses and she goes,
and can I get a cookie too?
Yeah.
You see what I'm saying?
It's like, bro, kids will have an argument,
but if you can add that little layer of talking in front of people
and making a clear case,
you know, while you're talking, that's good.
Because there's that whole thing with,
you know, public speaking is one of the big.
biggest fears or whatever phobia so you can help and get over that the young
age can be very helpful oh yeah I like it continuing on while self-confidence is
the result of knowing more than your men moral ascendancy over them is based upon
your belief that you are the better man again this is kind of opposite of what
I just said you know I don't I don't see I don't see other people as like
subordinates or or inferior you know and I
But I think I get where he's coming from, and I'll get to in a minute.
He says to gain and maintain this ascendancy, you must have self-control, physical vitality, and endurance, and moral force.
You must have yourself so well in hand, even though in battle you will be scared stiff, you will never show fear.
For if, by so much as a hurried movement or a trembling of the hands or a change of expression or a hasty order, hastily a veercedly of.
revoked, you indicate your mental condition,
it will be reflected in your men to a far greater degree.
So I think what he's doing there is he's setting them up.
You ever had like a coach or a parent say like,
you're better than that.
Yeah.
I think that's what he's setting up is like, hey, be better than that.
Yeah.
Be behave in a way.
You know, this is actually something I tell young military people.
Like when you're part of this unit, you represent this unit.
And everything you do, people look at it at what you do and how you behave.
And they put that on this whole unit, including, by the way, guys that died.
Act accordingly is what I tell them.
Act accordingly.
And so that's what he's saying.
I think you have to be careful.
Obviously, you're walking around thinking you're better than other people.
That's terrible.
But to elevate yourself to say, hey, you're better than that.
You need to behave to the highest possible standards.
Standard.
Exactly.
Yeah, that's all I got.
I mean, you know, let's face it.
This is old school.
You know, so the presentation might not be as, you know, finely tuned as it could be like today or whatever.
But yeah, the, if you do, yeah, like taking the high road, holding yourself to a high standard because, hey, bro, people are looking.
You got to, you know, you got to kind of set the example.
So make sure that.
example is high standards you know say like it feels like yeah I feel like that that checks out there yeah and
and one thing he says that he gets to later you know unless you he's saying like oh you know you need
don't change your order but he talks about later like when you make a mistake you have to change
so don't get you don't want to get locked into something just because you said it now that's what
we're doing continuing on in garrison or camp many instances will arise to try your temper and
wreck the sweetness of your disposition.
If at such times you fly off the handle, you have no business to be in charge of men.
For men in anger say and do things that they almost invariably regret afterwards.
Boom.
Don't lose your temper.
An officer should never apologize to his men.
Also, an officer should never be guilty of an act for which his sense of justice tells him he should apologize.
So, I mean, I totally disagree with not.
apologizing. I think when you mess up, you should absolutely apologize. That being said,
it's almost like a, it's almost a trick, right? He's saying you should never apologize because
you should never do anything where you have to apologize. But hey, since we're not perfect,
if you do screw up, you should absolutely apologize. And I've heard that today. I've heard,
I hear people say that, never appellate. Like, you should never have to apologize to your kids
or you should never have to apologize to your team. Like, I call bullshit on that. You make a mistake,
apologize. Hey, I screwed this up. Yeah.
It feels like a lot of times the no apology or, you know, you got to know everything or whatever.
Because, you know, a lot of us like we kind of need, if we're going to follow somebody, we need an element of consistency there.
You know, you don't need some wishy-washy, you know, person that doesn't know what they're doing, quote-unquote.
So it's almost like they're trying to maybe over index on that element of perfection.
Like you got to stay, you know, and even if you mess up, which we all do, it's like you can't let them see you sweat.
You can't, you know, it's like almost like that vibe.
Yeah.
You've got to be careful with that.
It comes so much better when you just, when you screw up.
Everyone sees when you screw up.
They see it.
It's not like they don't see it.
They see it.
So just apologize, take ownership and move on.
Another element in gaining moral ascendancy lies in the possession of enough physical
vitality and endurance to withstand the hardships to which you and your men are subjected
and a dauntless spirit that enables you not only to accept them cheerfully, but to minimize their magnitude.
That's legit.
You got to be in freaking shape.
You got to be able to handle it physically.
Not only so that you can accept it, gleefully, but you're like, no factor.
You can minimize its magnitude.
This is a great one.
Make light of your troubles.
Belittle your trials and you will help vitally to build up within your organization
and a spree whose value in time of stress cannot be measured.
So you got some big problem going on?
No factor.
You like that one.
I do like that one.
It's like that, you know, I always refer mentally back to the jiu-jitsu incident
where I like, I was trying to cross my leg over whatever and I kicked you in the face
heart.
Like there was a straight up strike to the face to the point where I had to say, oh, I was like,
oh, wait, pause the roll.
You know, like, are you okay?
You're like, what?
What happened?
No, you didn't feel it.
Didn't even notice it happened.
Okay.
All right.
That's some cool stuff.
We're not, we don't notice that.
We're not admitting.
Is your heel okay?
Yeah, well, shit okay.
Yeah, what happened?
You said your heel hit something?
Are you good?
Cause yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
I caught a couple, uh, I caught like legit, like two freaking hardcore knees to the face.
Yeah, that's all that.
From Noah, by the way.
Yeah, it makes it.
Last round scenario.
So it was, you know, all right, last one, I think we did 10 rounds.
It was, it was getting crazy and everyone was getting kind of nuts.
But it was, but, you know, towards the end, everyone's kind of like DS-
I got escalated a little bit, but then I'm like, you know, I'm,
last round boys.
And, but it was, you know the little flashes you get?
Oh, when you get hit?
Yeah, yeah.
I got one.
And then I kept going, got another one.
Double.
And then I felt blood and I was like, oh, I really hope.
I was hoping it wasn't a cut.
It wasn't a cut.
It was just a bloody nose.
But I had pretty good Shiner.
Yeah.
Thanks, Noah.
Good job.
But I tried to make light.
You know, I couldn't keep going because now I was bleeding, you know,
and you want to get blood all over the nose.
Matt in the whole nine yards.
But yeah, if as much as I can, I'm going to belittle my trials.
Good idea.
Moral force is the third element to gaining moral ascendancy.
To exert moral force, you must live clean.
You must have sufficient brain power to see the right and the will to do the right.
Be an example to your men.
I think that's what that all boils down to.
You know, there's a, we have to watch out, you know, we have to watch out that we're not
believing that we're better than people because a lot of this, if you,
you if you have the wrong personality,
you're going to take this and like,
uh,
the person that,
you know,
you go to the,
you go to the restaurant and,
you know,
you order,
uh,
you order a steak and Caesar salad.
And then you got someone else.
And they order a steak and Caesar salad,
but then they pull out the croutons.
So you're eating the croutons.
Yeah.
And they think they're better than you as a human.
You know what I mean?
Yes.
They're like, oh, uh, typed you diabetes much.
You know, yeah, yeah.
Like, that, that kind of, we've got to watch out that we're not taking all this stuff
to where we feel like we're better than other people.
Yeah, fully, brother.
And that's like, in that example even is actually, I mean, that was a fun example.
There's, you know, the croutons.
But even that example is impactful.
So again, we'll go back to the kids real quick.
So I know a person that we know, I'm not going to say this name.
He, um, he's a fitness guy.
You know, he's into, you know, fitness and stuff.
Um, and he'll compete in certain things.
Uh, so in preparation.
I think it was in preparation.
Like, you know, the family would go eat dinner
and he had a young daughter.
And so when he would eat dinner,
his dinner was different than the rest of the family's dinner.
And the daughter, unbeknownst to him,
felt this overwhelming guilt that, you know,
because he's obviously eating the correct stuff.
She's eating the incorrect stuff.
He's eating broccoli and a skinless chicken breast.
Yeah, exactly right.
And to the point where the daughter,
wound up having a slight like disorder from it as a result and she admitted this later or whatever
and yeah so you think you know like no no no i'm not pressuring nobody i'm just doing my thing or whatever
but brad you can kind of give off that vibe if you're not careful and people can smell that vibe
people can smell your intent and if you and your heart believe that you're better than them
you got a problem yeah like you got a problem man it's going to be problematic you know if we're
out at the bar yeah hey man like like even when when i go out somewhere right
and people are drinking alcohol,
which I totally disagree with,
drinking alcohol.
I don't,
I literally do not think I'm better than them.
You know what I mean?
I'm not like,
I'm like,
oh,
they're,
you know,
they're gonna have a good time.
And I,
you know,
probably not thinking too much
about the future,
but they're living in the moment
props to that.
You know what I mean?
I don't think I'm better than them.
Yeah.
And that is definitely something that can happen.
So that's what this whole,
like a lot of this list right here,
you have to watch out for.
because even when I think I know you know it's a classic example actually
Jiu Jitsu jiu Jitsu when I am better than someone at Jiu Jitsu and I've told us to many
people when you're better than someone at Jiu Jitsu you're not a better person you've just
trained a little bit more Jiu Jitsu than that you know what I mean it doesn't make you better
you're not a better human you're not a better athlete they just you just been training longer than
somebody and that's that's a very good thing to keep in mind you know people are in various
stages of their ascension.
Yeah.
In that particular thing.
In that particular thing, which you or they may or may not care about, by the way.
Exactly.
They may not care.
You know, at the muster, I was talking about bowling.
Yeah, exactly.
Because Dave Burke beat me in bowling.
You know?
But I was talking about in different ecosystems, people judge things differently.
And one of the things, you know, in every ecosystem, they have different things that they judge
differently, right?
the you know I brought up if you're a biker and you've done time it's kind of like more respect
if you're a banker and you've done time it's like your respect goes out you might not even have
that job anymore and depending on what ecosystem you're in oh you know people really care about
and I was like bowling is one of the examples I brought up and then I remembered as I was on stage I
remember that Dave Burke and our families together went bowling yeah and Dave beat me in bowling
Yeah, hell yeah.
And, you know, I'm like, if there's, being beaten in bowling is really, I don't know what's at the bottom of my list of things I care about.
But it's way down there.
You know what I'm saying?
It's way down there.
It's way down there.
But, you know, but if someone's into bowling, like, they're like, oh, this guy's that good at bowling.
Whereas I literally don't care at all.
Not in one, not in no part of my brain.
Any part of my brain do I say, damn, like respect.
What was your score?
I have no idea.
I have no idea.
Dave was,
Dave was beating me.
Oh,
and he beat me,
yeah.
Hey,
real quick.
My wife's good at weird stuff.
Like,
I think she,
she's good at,
like,
uh,
billiards,
like pool.
Oh,
pool.
She,
she had a,
in England,
they have a game called snooker.
Yeah,
snooker.
So she's,
she played snooker all the time growing up.
She plays darts.
She'll,
like,
beat you at,
weird stuff.
Dang.
Or she'll try to.
Yeah.
Until you have to go agro.
It's kind of respect.
Darts, too.
Oh, yeah,
Darts,
she'll crush.
Maybe she's a Brit,
you know.
She'll just.
Why,
that's how.
Oh,
yeah.
They go to a pub and play darts
like it's going on a style.
Oh, yeah.
I remember American Werewolf in London?
That was like a big thing.
Yeah,
or, uh,
uh,
what's the soccer TV show right now on Apple TV?
I don't know.
Yeah.
Well,
it's in there, too.
Um,
real quick,
back to the famous,
Famous dart scene.
Oh, on this show.
Yeah, so on the show.
Okay, I didn't know that.
Back to belittling your own trials.
So that can help yourself even as an individual in life too.
For sure.
By the way, and actually probably more,
for sure.
I remember when I first got wind of that where I was in,
it was my third, second,
third jujitsu tournament.
Dean Lister was coaching me first match of the tournament.
And I was like, we were kind of battling with this guy, Chris, we know him.
I haven't seen it for a few years.
But anyway, we're going, we're battling back and forth.
And I was kind of getting tired.
So my pace started to slow down.
And Dean Lister's, you know, he's coaching me up or whatever.
And he goes, you're not tired.
And bro, I just became not tired all of a sudden.
Because it's true, because I kind of like allowed myself to accept it, that all I was
getting tired.
So I'd let me slow down my pace, you know, kind of a thing.
But I was not even nearly.
as tired as I probably in real life was, you know, where it's like it was that mental gray area
where you have the choice to accept or reject, you know?
Reject.
Exactly, right?
Be little that, man.
Be little that.
Yeah.
Continuing on.
An officer can be a power for good or a powerful evil.
Don't preach to them.
That will be worse than useless.
Live the kind of life you would want them to lead and you will be surprised to see the number
that will imitate you.
A loud mouth profane captain who is careless of his personal appearance will have a loud mouth profane, dirty company.
Remember what I tell you.
Your company will be the reflection of yourself.
If you have a rotten company, it is because you are a rotten captain.
Self-sacrifice is essential to leadership.
You will give, give all the time.
You will give of yourself physically for the longest hours, the hardest work, and the greatest
responsibility are the lot of the captain. He is the first man up in the morning and the last man
at night. He works while others sleep. You will give of yourself mentally in sympathy and appreciation
for the troubles of men in your charge. This one's mother has died and that one has lost
all his savings in a bank failure. They may desire help, but more than anything else, they desire
sympathy. Don't make the mistake of turning such men down with the statement that you have
troubles of your own. For every time you do that you, for every time you do that, you knock a stone
out of the foundation of your house. Your men are your foundation and your house of leadership will
tumble about your ears unless it rests securely upon them. Finally, you will give of your own
slender financial resources. You will frequently spend your own money to conserve the health
and well-being of your men or to assist them while in trouble. Generally,
You get your money back.
Very frequently, you must charge it off to profit and loss.
Even so, it is worth the cost.
That's it, man.
Self-sacrifice.
And you know what?
This is one of those things where everybody notices it.
And the one way you can diminish it is by chiming in about it.
You know what I'm saying?
Like if I say, dude, I had to stay here until midnight last night.
Like you you already know like you showed up to work in the morning and the things that had to get done that weren't done when you left and you know how much time they take and you show up and they're done.
You know it.
You know I at least eight till 10, maybe 11.
You might not know that man, but I want that last little bit of credit for midnight.
The worst, the best way to diminish the credit you want is to ask for the credit you want.
Keep your freaking mouth shut.
And whether that's the physical, let's.
well, I was actually carrying this much weight on that.
Or whether it's the mental, well, you have no idea what it's like answering to the,
to the headquarters all day.
Or the time.
Well, I had to come in even earlier than you did it.
No matter what the thing is that you want that little bit of credit for, don't ask for it.
Hide it.
Freaking hide it if you can.
You can't hide it, though.
They're going to know.
Just have faith that they're going to know.
And everything's going to be okay.
The next one is paternalism.
When I say that paternalism is essential leadership, I use the term in its better sense.
I do not now refer to that form of paternalism which robs men of initiative, self-reliens,
and self-respect.
I refer to the paternalism that manifests itself in a watchful care for the comfort and welfare of those
in your charge.
Soldiers are much like children.
Sorry, they're my army brethren.
Soldiers are much like children.
You must see that they have shelter, food, and clothing.
the best that your utmost efforts can provide.
You must see that they have food to eat
before you think of your own,
that they each have as good of a bed as you provide
before you consider where you will sleep.
You must be far more solicitous of their own comfort than your own,
solicitous of their own comfort than your own.
You must look after their health.
You must conserve their strength
by not demanding needless exertion or useless labor.
Team comes first.
And by doing all these things,
you are breathing life into what would be an otherwise,
what would otherwise be a mere machine,
you are creating a soul in your organization
that will make the mass respond to you as it,
as though it were one man.
That is a spree.
And when your organization has a spree,
you will wake up some morning and discover that the tables have been turned.
That instead of you're constantly looking out for them,
they have, without even a hint from you,
taken up the task of looking out for you.
You will find that a detail is always there to see that your tent, if you have one, is properly pitched,
that the most and cleanest bedding is brought to your tent, that from some mysterious source,
two eggs have been added to your supper when no one else has any, that an extra man is helping
your men give your horse a super grooming, that your wishes are anticipated, that every man is Johnny
on the spot and then you have arrived.
And you've heard me say, take care of your people and your people will take care of you.
And that's exactly what that is.
It's exactly what that is.
You take care of your people.
They're absolutely going to take you, take care of you, and they're going to do it with
pride.
Next, you cannot treat all men alike.
A punishment that would be dismissed by one man with a shrug of the shoulders is mental
anguish for another.
a company commander who for a given offense has a standard punishment that applies to all is either too indolent or too stupid to study the personality of his men.
In his case, justice is certainly blind.
And this is, I oftentimes, um, I would have guys that would do something stupid and I didn't need to do any punishment to him.
Like I literally didn't need to do anything.
They were punishing themselves.
You know, they were.
horrified by what they had done.
But what you gotta be careful of,
then other people that are like,
well, man, he kind of got his slack.
Jocko doesn't care about that.
So you'd have to find how you talk about it
so that everyone understands
that a grievous thing happened,
that it can't happen again.
But at the same time to like mutilate a guy's soul
when he's already freaking feeling terrible himself.
Right.
It's like the, it's like this idea of like punishing somebody for almost like revenge versus like actual rehabilit, like solving a problem.
You see what I'm saying?
Like if you can tell the guy is so beat up internally because of the shame and the embarrassment, the this and the anticipation of getting fired.
Like just going through something psychologically and you can tell.
It's kind of like, okay.
Like we can kind of rest of sure this guy learned his lesson kind of a thing.
But if you're like, no, no, no, he needs some kind of like pain that I inflict on him.
It's like different.
That's like your own ego.
Yeah, yeah.
It's like it's the difference between doing doing it for like the group and the system versus like making it about yourself kind of a thing.
Not good.
How do you feel about like group punishment?
Collective punishment is what they call it.
Yeah, yeah.
It depends.
It depends.
There are times when it's when it's necessary.
there are also times when it's stupid.
And it just depends on the situation, you know.
Like occasionally, and sometimes it elevates to collective punishment,
meaning like, okay, this guy got in trouble.
And now this guy got in trouble.
And hey, listen, if one more guy gets in trouble, you're all going to pay.
You see what I'm saying?
Like one guy forgets a piece of gear, cool.
You know, that guy's going to show up an hour early for the next two weeks.
another guy forgets a piece of gear
okay that guy's showing up
by the way next time this happens
everyone's showing up you see what I'm saying
so sometimes like the group needs to police itself
and if the group isn't policing itself
then I got to police the group
you see what I'm saying
because our goal is that the group
the gang polices itself is what the goal is
the gang polices itself
that's what generally happens
that's why you know when I was a platoon commander
I was a tasking commander I didn't have to go
and police the group when someone showed up late
I didn't have to say a damn word
It was getting handled
Someone forgets a piece of gear
I didn't need to go and do a gear inspection
It was getting handled
So
It didn't really ever
Usually things for me did not elevate
To group punishment
I did tell that story with my guys
That almost showed up late
And forgot a piece of gear
And there was a little bit of a spotlight on us
For what we were doing at the time
And so unacceptable
And that's why I escalated
immediately to a threat of like group punishment,
which was me running things.
Because when I'm running things, bro,
it's on, you know?
You want to talk about showing up early, bro.
We're doing dry rehearsals for the rehearsals.
To rehearse.
See what I'm saying?
They did not.
That was a great group of guys,
but I remember the acting leading petty officer
at the time.
And who's a great dude,
who I always had a great time with
and did a great job
in combat, but I remember the look on his face
when I said like, I'm gonna run this.
You can see he was like, dude, we do not want this.
We did not want this at all.
He was like, he was like, hey, hey boss boss, we got it.
We got it, won't happen again.
Won't happen again.
And probably a week before this, I had said like, hey,
let's get here tomorrow like, I don't know, 630.
And he was like, how about 645 or something like that?
And I go, bro, you're trying to squeeze 15 minutes
of liberty out of me?
Mm-hmm.
Jack, that group punishment, I know, I, at first,
I always thought that, hey, I think this is like abuse.
Like you shouldn't do this because it causes like secondary like problems.
So like everybody, okay, Pop Warner football.
Yeah.
We, we do.
What was the name of your team?
The Titans.
Colora Rams.
And then Colora Raiders when you move up to midgets.
It's peeves and midgett.
Anyway, so we did this drill where we're doing sprints, but it's when you do sprints in football, sometimes they want to condition you mentally as well.
well so you know the count right set down hot hot hot right this football so the first hut is
one second hut is two so sometimes the count will be like on two and if you go on if you do a
fault it's a false start if you don't go on the correct thing right if it's on two you say set down
hut and someone jumps that's jumping off sides or a false start right so it's to it's to train you
with that as well so if the quarterback says hey in the huddle hey it's on three you guys got a
focus you know because it's once you hear the first hide it's almost automatically you go you see
what you see what you can run into that issue so you train it in practice but they train it in practice
when we do the sprints for conditioning so you're kind of physically you see what I'm saying you got
lock in bro so um if someone keeps jumping off sides and every time someone jumped like of the
whole team now you got freaking however many 60 guys or whatever lined up across the whole field and
we're all doing sprints for conditioning and mental training so um if one guy jump bro one
Anytime this is the one, it's like, okay, the coach goes, okay, it's on three.
Everyone's already ready.
All right, bro, someone's going to jump.
Of the whole team, no one's going to jump, Brian, possible, right?
So we're all like, fuck.
And if someone jumps, now we've got to back up five yards.
So now the sprint is five yards.
You see what I'm saying?
So it's like, oh, my gosh, it's very stressful.
So anyway, if the same guy starts jumping off sides too much,
like if he does two, three in a row, people start getting mad, right?
But it messes with the guy.
So now he can concentrate even less.
Like, it's hard.
It's like a compounding thing for that guy.
So after a while, the coach is like, all right, bro,
freaking everybody do pushups, everybody.
But except for the guy who jumped off sides, you got to watch.
So everyone hates him.
I remember thinking, hey, that's, I see what you're doing.
But now even when we're done with conditioning,
everyone hates that guy now.
We're less of a team.
See what I'm saying?
But when you think about it, like one more step,
it's kind of like, no, no, no, no.
Your lack of focus, your shortcomings are affecting the whole team.
The whole team has to go five.
your back not just you see what I'm saying so you got to lock in it kind of trains you and plus
and everyone being mad at you is part of the punishment but psychological and social see what I'm saying
it's not like that's like in full metal jacket when uh he gets caught with the donut and everyone else is
doing push-ups and he's just eating the donut you know what I'm saying exactly yeah collective punishment
I dig it yeah there's a time for it yeah that and that's that's what I think that's spot on how you're
like, hey, if there's, if you're doing it through a very specific methodology, like, for,
for a reason, yeah, yeah, makes sense to me.
Jack.
Back to the book.
Study your men as carefully as a surgeon studies a difficult case.
When you are sure of your diagnosis, apply the remedy.
And remember that you apply the remedy to affect a cure, not merely to see the victim squirm.
That's what you were talking about.
It may be necessary to cut deep, but when you are satisfied as to your diagnosis, don't be
diverted from your purpose by.
any false sympathy for the patient.
Hand in hand with fairness and awarding punishment,
walks fairness and giving credit.
Everybody hates a human hog.
When one of your men is accomplished
an especially credible piece of work,
see that he gets a proper reward.
Turn heaven and earth upside down to get it for him.
Don't try and take it away from him and hog it yourself.
You may do this and get away with it,
but you have lost the respect and loyalty of your men.
Sooner or later, your brother officers will hear of it
and shun you like a leper.
In war there is enough glory for all.
Give the men under you his due.
The man who always takes and never gives is not a leader.
He is a parasite.
There's another kind of fairness.
That which will prevent an officer from abusing the privileges of his rank.
When you exact respect from soldiers, be sure to treat them with equal respect.
Build up their manhood and self-respect.
Don't try to pull it down.
an officer to be overbearing and insulting in the treatment of enlisted men is an act of a coward.
He ties the man to a tree with the ropes of discipline and then strikes him in the face knowing
full well that the man cannot strike back.
Consideration, courtesy, and respect from officers toward enlisted men are not incompatible
with discipline.
They are parts of our discipline.
Without initiative and decision, no man can expect to lead.
So what I mean this is just obvious and again people think oh back in the old days they were so hardcore
And there's no here's a guy pre world war one this this document is pre US involvement in world war one and he's saying do not insult do not be overbearing treat people with respect
In maneuvers you will frequently see when an emergency arises certain men calmly give instant orders which later on analysis proved to
to be, if not exactly the right thing, very nearly the right thing to have done.
You will see other men in emergency become badly rattled.
Their brains refuse to work or they give a hasty order, revoke it, give another, revoke that.
In short, show every indication of being in a blue funk.
Regarding the first man, you say, that man is a genius.
He hasn't had time to reason this thing out.
He acts intuitively.
Forget it.
Genius is merely the capacity for taking infinite pains.
the man who has already, the man who was ready is the man who prepared himself.
He is studied beforehand the possible situations that might arise.
He has made tentative plans covering such situations.
When he is confronted by the emergency, he is ready to meet it.
He must have sufficient mental alertness to appreciate the problem that confronts him
and the power of quick reasoning to determine what changes are necessary in his already formulated plan.
He must also have the decision to order the execution.
and stick to his orders.
So, again, he's saying, hey, someone's going to make a quick call.
It's because they planned for it, which is good.
That's good.
And he's going to make it even more solid here.
Any reasonable order in an emergency is better than no order.
The situation is there.
Meet it.
It is better to do something and do it wrong than to hesitate, hunt around for the right
thing to do and wind up doing nothing at all.
And having decided on a line of action, stick to it.
don't vacillate.
Men have no confidence in an officer who doesn't know his own mind.
Occasionally you will be called upon to meet a situation which no reasonable human being could anticipate.
If you have prepared yourself to meet other emergencies, which you could anticipate,
the mental training you have thereby gained will enable you to act promptly and with calmness.
And I'll go one step further than that, which is, it's not just mental preparation.
It's getting put in scenarios that are crazy and complicated
and having to figure out what to do.
You get better at that.
So that's what I got to see running the advanced seal training
is you put a guy the first time he gets put into a chaotic situation,
disaster.com locks up, doesn't know what to do, freaks out.
Then you put him in another situation.
And maybe obviously you tell him like, hey man, take a step back.
Hey, assess what's happening.
get up to a little bit of high ground.
Look around.
Don't try and figure everything out at once.
Make a very small decision.
Okay, try it again.
They'll do a little bit better.
They do a little bit better.
And eventually, they learn the protocol to get through these complex emergencies that happen.
So it's not just mental training.
It's like a physical thing that you have to do.
And just like you can teach someone an arm bar for three months with PowerPoint.
The first time they do an arm bar is so it won't be there.
You got to do it.
Continuing, you must frequently act without orders from higher authority.
Time will not permit you to wait for them.
Here again enters the importance of studying the work of officers above you.
If you have a comprehensive grasp of the entire situation and can form an idea of the general plan of your
superiors, that and your previous emergency training will enable you to determine that the responsibility
is yours and to issue the necessary orders without delay.
Understand what the mission is.
the element of personal dignity is important in military leadership.
Be the friend of your men, but do not become their intimate.
Your men should stand in awe of you, not fear.
And I try to find if there was like an alternate meaning of awe.
And there is, you know, it doesn't quite mean, you know,
there's alternate meanings that are like less profound.
You know what I mean?
It's not like awe.
Right.
It's like oh yeah like like heavy levels of respect right almost reverence. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but not quite reverence, but we're approaching it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're looking up to this guy. He's close. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. You know, because again, you got to be careful if you're like goal is to have people, if you think people should stand in awe of you, that's not going to go well. But if you think people should respect you and see how you behave and respect your actions, that's good. Yeah. If you're, if you're,
men presume to become familiar it's your fault not theirs your actions have encouraged them to do so
and above all things don't cheapen yourself by courting their friendship or currying their favor
they will despise you if you are worthy of their loyalty and respect and devotion they will
surely give you all those things without asking if not nothing that you can do will win them
so this is this is the classic case of trying to get everyone on the team to be your buddy
And if you do that, you're not holding the line like you need to.
It is exceedingly difficult for an officer to be dignified while wearing a dirty, spotted uniform at a three-day stubble of whiskers on his face.
Such a man lacks self-respect, and self-respect is an essential of dignity.
There may be occasions when your work entails dirty clothes and an unshaven face.
Your men all look that way.
At such time, there's ample reason for your appearance.
In fact, it would be a mistake to look too clean.
They would think that you were not doing your share.
But as soon as this unusual occasion is passed, set an example for personal meekness.
Kind of a big deal.
And then I would mention courage.
Moral courage you need as well as mental courage, that kind of moral courage,
which enables you to adhere without faltering to a determined course of action which your
judgment has indicated is the best one suited to secure the desired results.
You will find many times, especially in action, and he means combat action, that after having
issued your orders to do a certain thing, you will be beset by misgivings and doubts.
You will see or think you see other and better means for accomplishing the object sought.
You will be strongly tempted to change your orders.
don't do it until it is clearly manifested
that your first orders were radically wrong
for if you do you will begin
you will again be worried by doubts
as the efficacy of your second orders
I have a little bit of beef with that
my beef with that is you make a call
and he says to wait until
it is clearly manifested that your call
was radically wrong
to me that's a little bit much right
I don't need to see clear manifestation and I don't need to see radically wrong.
I can see strong indications that this is a bad move.
Now, I do, you ever heard me say, plan your dive, dive your plan?
Yes.
Yeah, there's a reason for that.
And that doesn't only apply to diving.
Most of the time, like we plan, we brief, we rehearse.
Sticking to that is a smart move.
And thinking that you're going to make some quick adjustment, it's,
It doesn't go well.
Plan your dive, dive your plan.
Now, if you're diving your plan and you're, it's not,
you see that it is clearly wrong, you know,
maybe not radically, what is it radically what?
Maybe not radical disaster radically wrong,
but you start going, oh yeah, this is not,
this is not effective.
You don't need to wait until it's clear, crystal clear.
You can be like, oh yeah, this is not going well.
And what you can do, this doesn't mean you need to,
you do, this doesn't mean you stop and do something totally different.
But you can start making some small adjustments to mitigate your bad call.
Every time you change orders without obvious reason, you weaken your authority and impair the confidence of your men.
Have the moral courage to stand by your order and see it through.
Again, if you're telling someone to do something as not working, you should have the humility to be like, oh, this was a bad call.
Stop what you're doing.
Come back over here.
Moral courage further demands that you assume the responsibility.
for your own acts.
That'd be a good idea for a book, wouldn't it?
Assuming responsibility for your own acts.
If your subordinates have loyalty, have loyally carried out your orders and the movement
you directed is a failure, the failure is yours, not theirs.
Yours would have been the honor had it been successful.
Take the blame if it results in disaster.
Don't try and shift it to a subordinate and make him the goat.
That is a cowardly.
Act.
So there you go.
When you make a mistake, you need to take ownership of your mistake.
Let's say goat.
That means scapegoat.
Yeah, he means scapegoat.
Not goat.
Grace of all time.
Clarity.
Furthermore, you will need moral courage to determine the fate of those under you.
You will frequently be called upon for recommendations for promotion or demotion of officers
and non-commissioned officers in your immediate command.
Keep clearly in mind your personal integrity and the duty you owe your country.
not let yourself be deflected from a strict sense of justice by feelings of personal friendship.
If your own brother is your second lieutenant and you find him unfit to hold his commission,
eliminate him.
If you don't, your lack of moral courage may result in the loss of valuable lives.
So moral courage, I mean, I've actually recently been hearing that a lot, that expression,
moral courage.
So that is just to be just in the spirit of understanding.
That's a what during the doing the right thing right even when it's uncomfortable painful in the short term.
Yes.
And doing the right thing even though there's a heavy price to pay and it's not a physical price.
It's it's you know courage physical courage is like I'm going to do this thing and I could die.
Yeah.
Or I will get hurt or whatever.
There's huge sacrifice that I that I might have to make to make this thing happen.
Moral courage is like, oh, I might get in trouble.
I might, you know,
uh,
have to answer to the man.
You know,
there's,
I might get canceled from this thing that I'm supposed to be doing.
All those things would be moral courage.
And it's,
correct me from around.
So,
and,
but it has to be based on doing quote unquote the right thing.
Yes,
doing the right thing 100%.
Because regular even like,
it doesn't have to be physical courage if it's courage like,
um,
I don't know,
freaking.
and having like courage,
like a hard talk with somebody or something like that.
That's not necessarily moral courage.
That's just like, hey, sack up, you know,
or if you're gonna ask for a raise, you know, all this stuff.
Moral courage is like a whistleblower.
Yeah, it's standing up for somebody,
like a bully or something like this, yeah.
That's moral courage.
Now if the bully's going to kick your ass.
It's both.
It's a little bit of both.
Both.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
Yeah, and I was about to talk about moral injury, right?
And this is when things happened where this is that, you know,
I really first started hearing this from General Mukayama.
You know, he's, he's very involved with the moral courage thing.
Or sorry, the moral injury thing.
This is when something happened that you witnessed, you participated in,
and it was, you, you did the wrong thing.
And now you have a moral wound because you feel like you did the wrong thing.
Maybe you feel like you should have stood up.
maybe you felt like you didn't take the action you should have taken from a,
and it wasn't,
it didn't have anything to do with physical courage.
Like,
oh,
I'm a coward because I didn't do this thing.
I'm a physical coward.
But,
oh,
this thing happened and I didn't report it or I didn't,
you know,
stop it from happening where I should have.
And,
you know,
if,
you know,
in Vietnam,
you know,
the Milai Masker,
right?
If someone was there and they didn't participate in it,
but they didn't,
like,
tell people to stop,
they might have a more,
moral injury because now they feel the guilt of not doing the right thing.
They know they didn't have the moral courage to stop it.
Yeah.
Continuing on, if on the other hand you are called upon for recommendation concerning a man whom, for personal reasons, you thoroughly dislike, do not fail to do him full justice.
Remember that aim is the general good, not the satisfaction of an individual grudge.
I'm taking for granted that you will have fifth.
Physical courage.
I need not tell you how necessary that is.
Courage is more than bravery.
Bravery is fearlessness.
The absence of fear.
The nearest,
the merest dalt may be brave
because he lacks the mental,
the mentality to appreciate his danger.
He doesn't know enough to be afraid.
Courage,
you never tell you about my,
my fearlessness in Africa?
No, I don't think so.
So Laif and I were in Africa
and we were working
with the company down there.
And after we worked with the company,
we went to like a park.
And the parks down there is where the elephants,
the rhinoceros is the lions tigers.
Straight up safari.
Safari park, right?
But so we go to this safari park.
And it's a long drive.
We're in Johannesburg and we drive.
And, you know, I'm in the vehicle.
And we're talking because we're with a guy,
great dude.
And we're all talking and carrying on.
And it's like a three, four something hour drive.
and at some point, we were driving,
and there was like this beautiful sunset.
Sure.
And I go, oh, dude, let me like get a picture of the sunset.
You know, it's like looking out over the planes, right?
So I'm like, hey, and I tell the guy that's driving,
I'm like, hey, you know, we stop the car?
So I get a picture of the sunset and he's like, yeah.
So he stops the car and I just like get out of the car
and I kind of, because you know, I don't want to take it through the window
or whatever, so I get out of the car and I kind of like line up and
and get a couple shots, you know, walk around a little bit,
check it out, get a good angle.
Yeah.
I get back in the car and, you know, we start driving.
Well, it turns out that during our conversation,
I had missed the fact that we had entered this park, right?
And he, you know, he just thought, dude, Jaco just, you know,
he just, he'll just deal with it.
Like, he just got, like, he's, like, he just,
I guess he'll take on whatever, what, what, lying, you know.
Haina, whatever, he's ready for it.
Like, joggle, like, because, but what I, but I saw when we left, you go through like a gate.
And it's like, do not get out of your car.
You are entering the safari zone.
You are, you know, there's all these dangerous animals.
They will kill you.
We literally drove by a sign that said that.
So I just roll, got out of my car, sorry, you know, whatever, taking some pictures.
And it wasn't until like, like late, I guess later on that night, they're like, yeah, dude, you just kind of just got out of the car.
And I was like, well, what do you mean?
They're like, this is an open, because it's weird in Africa, all the, all the animals are in these game reserves.
Like there's no, there's no like a lion that's just walking around in the clear, in the public, because they'll kill people, right?
So they're all, you think, you think it's that way.
Like in America, like there's a moose walking out through like a town.
Yeah, like you see that, right?
You know, you see a grizzly bear walking like digging through.
garbage like that's the way it is in America but in Africa it's not like that partially
because these are like like not that I don't even what's more ferocious a gris or a damn lion
or but but they keep them all like cooped up you know yeah not cooped up because because the land
reserves are huge yeah like they're it'd be like if we put a fence around our public lands
You know, if we put a fence around freaking Yellowstone
and we're like, hey, you know, they can't get out
and you can't go in.
And when even, but the crazy thing is,
it was like Jurassic Park.
Like once we got to our little cabins where we stayed,
there's an electric ass fence.
Like, they're, and it's like Jurassic Park, you know?
And I didn't realize I was just in the clear
just walking around.
So, so to put it the way he put it,
I was a adult, a mere adult,
because I lacked the freaking mentality
to appreciate the danger at all.
And I think Leif was kind of like,
well, you know, it's a jaco, bro, you know,
like, and actually his wife Jenna was with us too.
It was kind of like, hey, Jocko just goes hard.
That's just what we're doing.
You know, hey, let's go.
No, I'm not tough.
I'm just dumb.
Not courageous, just too stupid
to know any better.
So that's one of those moments where,
but luckily nothing happened.
And then like five minutes later, we see rhinos, like for real.
And boy, those rhinos, do they look, they look like they were going to.
They look like if they wanted to, do you don't stand a chance, bro?
I made eye contact with it.
And we're in a car.
We're in like a land rover.
And I make eye contact with this thing.
And I was like, this thing can completely kill not just me and not if I get out.
Like I felt like if it if it got fired up.
Yeah.
It doesn't matter.
You're in a car.
I mean, this thing, I don't know how much they weigh, but they're as big as a car.
And they got a freaking giant ass horn.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, that that thing will kill you.
Yeah.
And he didn't look happy, bro.
He looked pissed.
He looked pissed.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
That was a weird thing because most of the time when I make eye contact with something,
I'm kind of sizing him up and I kind of feeling pretty good about it.
Not this time?
No.
No.
No.
Did not feel good about that.
But it was a badass.
In that Jurassic Park, when you got in the camp thing,
there's like straight up activities going on out front, you know?
Hey, have you ever seen a giraffe?
Do you know what a giraffe's primary weapon is?
What?
Do you know how they defend itself and how they, like, fight and kill and all that stuff?
I don't know, but if I were to guess, I would say the feet, the legs.
Bro, they use their head and they swing their head on that long ass neck and, like, hit shit.
Like a wrecking ball.
Yeah, like a wrecking ball.
And then I went with Jason Gardner.
We went to a damn special zoo in Nebraska.
And we got to feed like rhinos and stuff.
But the damn, you wouldn't want to get hit in the head with that.
No.
Yeah.
No, a lot of these animals are like, you know, you see them on TV and you're like, yeah, cool.
That's freaking crazy.
But then you see me in real life.
You're like, bro, this thing is way bigger than I thought.
Like way bigger and wider.
Yeah, and they have a different strength than humans.
Yeah.
You know what I'm saying?
Like when you wrestle, when you wrestle like any animal,
it just feels stronger than a person.
Yeah, like even my little dog is like pretty impressively scrappy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know, yeah, pound for pound.
Pound for pound.
Animals are just like kind of stronger than this.
Hey, um, whatever happened to the picture?
the picture the picture the picture the sunset oh i probably have to go look for i could find it oh you still
have it yeah i'm sure i do yeah i'm sure i have it's a good pick you know luckily i'm alive yeah no shit
layf was about to fill me getting just brutalized actually it's funny that that was a good one too
like a damn elephant we were in a in a land rover and an elephant like i don't want to exaggerate
an elephant came close to us you know what i mean yeah and like real close right and
And bro, if that thing wanted to kill you,
you don't stand a chance, man.
Like if that thing, if that thing just had one fake out,
which the fake out would be,
I'm going to walk close to this Land Rover.
And then when I get close enough,
I'm going to knock it over and kill everyone inside.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, some of us would be able to run away, you know?
Yeah, yeah, can't get everybody if they're scattering.
Yeah, like, I don't think they're able to get everyone
because it was just one.
But I videoed that too.
Yeah.
It was pretty interesting.
The weird thing about elephants,
when they're moving,
big they look like they're moving in slow motion yeah oh yeah in Honolulu back in the day
elephant got loose from I remember that show hell yeah I remember that yeah you don't want to mess around
I was I'm scared of elephants I understand completely because I was in Thailand and I went to like an
elephant park and it's not cool like the elephants are not happy they're chained up and they probably
get beaten but I didn't know that going into it I went into it like oh cool elephants right
And I was feeding the elephants.
They give you like, you can buy bananas, right?
So I buy some bananas,
gonna feed the elephants.
And these are not big giant elephants.
These are like kind of smaller type elephants.
And I start feeding the elephants.
And they start getting, like, they want,
they want what I got.
And finally I was kind of running low
and I was close to this elephant.
And you know how elephants, their head is sort of vertical?
Like their head is vertical, right?
Yeah, yeah.
And I was standing right in front of its head, and it bucked.
And it threw me through the air.
It threw me through the air.
I had no, I had no, I had nothing for it.
You know what I had nothing for it.
Dang, so it assaulted you.
Yeah, it kind of assaulted me.
And I was like, yo, I want to, I want to leave here.
But that's why I don't, I don't mess with elephants.
Well, I'm, they're mean.
I'm a thousand percent with you.
And I feel like this was like, pretty, pretty,
You in Hawaii when they got after it?
No, no, no.
That was in Honolulu.
So I only was on Holland for like five years.
But yeah, it jammed up a guy too.
I don't know if he did it.
I think it might have killed him.
I don't know, I forget.
But there's video of it.
I've heard this and I'll have to read.
I don't know if this is,
I've heard this for a long time.
So I don't know if it was just some internet rumor because this is pre-internet
rumor for me.
But I heard that in Africa,
if like an elephant kills a person,
they have to kill all those elephants because it just learned.
Like,
they all just learned like oh we don't need to take shit from these little aunt things i heard that i've
heard that before so huh the uh yeah uh bra i don't mess with any wild animals at all i think it's like
um you know like we get into this almost like collective complacency kind of like oh yeah they're like
pets at the zoo like a petting zoo you know and they forget that like no brother the freaking
giraffe like just like how you said like they look kind of cute and pretty or whatever you know when a big
sucker is in America
is moose
because you know moose
they kind of look a little bit dopey and friendly
yeah they're kind of like they're the meanest
of those type of animals
you know what I mean? Not as mean as a gris
but like they're they will kill you
like a moose will
it will run rough shot
all over the head
ruff shot
but moose is one of those animals
that I was surprised on how huge those
are like a moose
and I've never seen a polar bear
But there was like this video saying
Oh five animals that are way bigger in real life or something
And it showed a polar bear next to like a person
I was like that's like AI
Then you go look it up at the numbers and you're bra
That thing is freaking like it's huge
Yeah it's like a monstrously huge polar bears are like the most
Like legit if you're going out bro
Like if I'm going out I'll take that polar bear
Like just let's go in the glory
You know what I mean
It's like pretty impressive.
Yeah.
Like that thing's just going to...
That thing, you know when you...
Imagine a cherry.
You know when you eat a cherry?
Imagine a cherry when you take a whole cherry and you bite it.
That's what your head is to a polymer.
Like one shot.
There's that crunch boom.
Like, it's just game over.
Yeah, man.
Just game over.
Don't mess at the animals.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I was getting...
I was hunting with Dudley.
and we were we were going after a elk and then there was a mountain lion that was going after it
and we kind of were behind it was like bro if that thing wanted to get you yeah you wouldn't know
it man just grabbed you by the head and just them big ass claws yeah even small mountain lions
can like jam you up pretty hardcore yeah although there was one article about a guy like beating
up a mountain line and it was kind of in the headlines and they showed a picture of it was like it was like a large
cat oh it was like a large house or it was like a large house
I didn't.
Yeah, I didn't see.
Like a large house cat, that thing will jack you up too with all kinds of scrapes
towards your eyes and stuff.
Oh, yeah.
So the, and I run, you know, I have a canyon by my house.
It's like trails.
It's where I go get my road work from time to time every day, by the way.
But they, um, there's not mountain lions, but they're those.
Like a bobcat.
Exactly.
Right.
And I saw one.
And they were like pretty cool.
I wasn't scared of that thing, bro.
I was like, bro, I would kill that thing.
Like if it came down to it, I would win.
But it just like how you said, you know, like a hobby.
Cat when they get real aggressive and scratch you yeah oh it's gonna
like one like if it caught a vein or something oh you could die for sure
oh yeah but yeah they're not they're not impressive like how you see on like I don't
know movies or whatever or something but then the mountain lion thing but the weird
thing is you ever heard rogan when rogan talks about like chimpanzees like they go for your
eyes yeah yeah your your testicles and stuff like out of the gate yeah they're just
chewing your face off yeah I wonder if a cat knows that too you know what I mean
Like is a cat like oh I'm going for eyes?
Yeah.
Because then you're you're screwed.
Yeah, they kind of have this kind of thing to them where they got things figured out a little bit more than like a random dog.
Just the vibe of me.
Yeah, like dogs, dogs will bite your arm or your leg.
Kind of that's partially because that's how they were trained.
But also they're just like when you watch a dog fight another dog, they're going for the back legs like incapacitate it.
Right.
Oh, yeah.
I didn't notice that.
But if it knew, but also a dog doesn't have the dexterity to go after your eyes.
eyes like a cat.
Yeah.
Cat one slash at the eyes.
Yeah.
You're,
you're in trouble.
You're screwed.
And not to mention,
you could grab onto your face with one,
like with three paws and they just get at the eyes with the other one.
I don't know if they have the ability to do that, though.
You know what I mean?
They're pretty freaking agile.
That's what I'm saying.
Yeah.
Even like a dog.
No,
I don't mean the ability.
I know they have the physical ability.
Do they have the cognitive capacity to recognize that that would be a real game changer?
You know what I'm saying?
Like a real game changer.
Never mind, it's like trying to bite your eyes.
Yeah.
I bet we would know if they did that.
Because Rogan seems to know with confidence, by the way,
that the chips are just going to get in there.
Yeah.
The chimps.
But maybe that's because they're similar to us
and they know how to win a fight against each other.
Feels like it.
Yeah.
Like they would just get in there.
Yeah.
Yeah, dogs are kind of dumb comparative.
Not dumb, but they feel kind of dumb, comparatively speaking.
Yeah, but there's a whole spectrum of dogs.
Yeah, yeah, I dig.
You know, like some dogs are,
They're so smart like you ever like all like I'll taunt my dog and thankfully she knows that they're like I'm playing
But you know it's trying to bite you it's like it's chompy at every little thing even like faints you know like she's like reacting to faints
But cats it feels like they kind of know what a faint is but the weird thing is you ever seen when you ever see people throw cheese at a cat and a dog
Like randomly throw a piece of cheese at a dog and it just like immediately bites it yeah and a cat it like like like go discombobobbubbery
You might say they fall over and stuff.
I've never seen that.
Yeah, it's a whole thing.
Okay.
It's a whole thing.
See,
that's why I don't mess around,
but it's unpredictable.
That's what I'm saying.
The animals,
the animals.
All right.
Back to the book.
Courage, however,
is that firmness of spirit,
that moral backbone,
while fully appreciating the danger involved,
nevertheless goes on with the undertaking.
Like if I would have known
what was outside of that vehicle,
I wouldn't have gotten out of it.
Bravery is physical.
courage is mental and moral you may be cold all over your hands may tremble your legs may quake
your knees may be ready to give way that is fear if nevertheless you go forward if in spite of this
physical defection you continue to lead your men against the enemy you have courage the physical
manifestations of fear will pass away you may never experience them but once they are the buck fever
of the hunter who tries to shoot his first deer.
You must not give way to them.
A number of years ago, while taking a demolitions course,
the class of which I was a member was handling dynamite.
The instructor said regarding its manipulation,
I must caution you gentlemen to be careful
in the use of these explosives.
One man has but one accident.
And so I would caution you,
If you give way to fear that will doubtless beset you in your first action.
If you show the white feather, if you let your men go forward while you hunt a shell crater,
you will never again have the opportunity of leading those men.
Jack.
Use your judgment in calling on your men for displays of physical courage or bravery.
Don't ask any man to go where you would not go yourself.
If your common sense tells you that the place is too dangerous for you to venture into, then it is too dangerous for him.
You know his life is as valuable to him as yours is to you.
Occasionally, some of your men might be exposed to danger which you cannot share.
A message must be taken across a fire swept zone.
You call for volunteers.
If your men know you and know that you are right, you will never lack volunteers, for they will know you.
your heart is in your work, that you are giving your country the best you have, that you would
willingly carry the message yourself if you could. Your example and enthusiasm will have inspired them.
And lastly, if you inspire to leadership, I would urge you to study men. Get under their skins and
find out what is inside. Some men are quite different from what they appear to be on the surface.
determine the workings of their mind.
Much of General Robert E. Lee's success as a leader may be ascribed to his ability as a psychologist.
He knew most of his opponents from West Point days, knew the workings of their minds,
and he believed that they would do certain things under certain circumstances.
In nearly every case, he was able to anticipate their movements and block the execution.
You cannot know your opponent in this war the same way.
But you can know your own men.
You can study each to determine where in lies his strength and his weakness, which man can be relied upon to the last gasp and which cannot.
And he closes it out with something that has been adopted by the military, by the army.
Know your men, know your business, know yourself.
And that's what we got.
know your men, know your business, know yourself.
Such a great document.
And so much is so applicable today
because it's all based on human nature.
And technology changes and environments change
and business changes and combat changes.
But at the end of the day, we, as humans,
our nature doesn't really change.
And Colonel Christian,
Albert Bach died in 1944,
but left us.
These lessons we can still apply today.
So, of course, you also mentioned physical vitality.
Yeah.
Hell yeah.
Critical part of leadership to be able to endure physically.
And you know what?
Sometimes people think that they can just rise to the occasion.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Like, hey, you know, if I really, if I really needed to do it, I could do it.
That's actually not freaking true.
Yeah.
You might be able to do a little bit more.
Yeah.
A little bit more.
But if it comes down to it and you got to do a rope climb and you haven't been climbing ropes and you haven't been doing pull-ups.
I don't care how bad you want it.
You can't get up that rope.
You got to put, you got to carry somebody.
Got a buddy carry somebody.
You can do it for, you know, maybe do it for 30, 40 meters.
Then you just got to start going uphill.
what happens you get your muscle failure right that's a real thing muscle failure it doesn't matter how
much mental will you try to summon to make something happen it ain't happening it ain't happening
you the where you need to use your mental will is in the preparation you got to prepare
which means we need to lift we need to run we need to sprint we need to
to train jih Tzu, we need to surf, swim, rock.
We need to get after it.
That's what we need to do.
When we do that, by the way, we need fuel.
I recommend jocco fuel.
You need protein.
You need milk protein.
Powder, ready to drink.
The whole nine yards.
You need energy we got you covered.
You need hydration, we got you covered.
You need supplementation, we got you covered.
Joint warfare, we highly recommend.
Super Krill, highly recommend every day.
Time war, highly recommend every day.
That's what we're doing.
If you want to get on the path,
check out joccofield.com.
Sounds like you need some cold war.
What do you got going on over there?
You're okay?
You're all right?
I feel like...
Coughing up a storm.
You're even making yourself,
you're going to edit.
People won't hear it because you're going to edit it out.
No.
But you've caused yourself a couple edits here.
That's an extra labor for Echo Charles.
I don't feel like I'm sick in any way.
I feel like I inhaled something.
You know, you inhale something, like some dust or something, something physical.
Okay, yeah.
So it feels.
That's annoying.
Yeah.
Joccofield.com, go to your store.
You can get it.
We're all over the country now.
Appreciate the support.
It's weird in this modern age.
People know, like, exactly what's being sold in the store.
They know.
So it's every time you roll in and you grab yourself a RTD ready to drink, as they call it,
or you grab a bag of protein.
powder delicious horchata flavor wait is there really horchata yeah we just made
hot chata wait is that the right there's a pro series and then there's the oh j okay
all right dang that's interesting because my kids freaking love that oh it I was
unfamiliar with it like I heard it yeah but I never like had any and then we this was
maybe I don't know two months ago or something like this and they got it I was like oh
this is kind of different I dig it the thing that's it's very sweet like it's it's very sweet like
It ain't healthy.
The regular rotichita.
But our horatata?
Yeah.
Tasty.
What is it like a cinnamon scenario?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it's horser chatta.
Yeah.
So, you know how you have the, um, what I'm the point here is that that that's a good move.
Cause you know, uh, the fruity cereal one, right?
And I remember thinking, oh, that's a good idea.
But my favorite cereal.
Milk remnants scenario is fruit.
Peveled cinnamon toast crotch oh okay we're good with that or oh I didn't know we had it
Yeah I know and you know we're good to go that's why we're here man uh check it out joccofield
com or go to a store and get yourself what you need also check out origin USA.com and get yourself some
American made gear by the way women's jeans yeah it's been a long time coming but the women jeans
Women's jeans check them out my wife got one of the prototype pairs and they were already good to go
yeah I saw
Favorite genes, by the way.
Oh, yeah, okay.
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
Oh, because that's all minor.
You know, Katie from Ashland Front?
Yeah.
She gave me, like, a rundown of why those women's jeans are the best genes.
She went full.
She gave me every detail that there was, like, things that I don't even know.
Bro, that was my whole point.
The fit.
The whole nine yards.
Yeah, the video that I saw is like, you know, I don't know, maybe four or five ladies, you know,
wearing the jeans.
And, bro, they're just giving the report.
And I'm like, bro, they put, they, no.
There are so many more elements to gene fit and all this other stuff compared to like a guy's genes that I'm aware of anyway
So I you know I got my one two three elements of criteria and I'm kind of good to go
GTG oh yeah
But for the females they got she was telling me I can't even remember what she was saying like it was a
It was a list of excellence
Good good list of excellence
She's like and she you know she's a she's an athlete she's a jiu jitsu player and she's like telling me why they're so good
It makes sense too because let's face it that the
Generally speaking the female body has more curves and angles and like all this other stuff
Then let's say generally speaking a male body
So I that makes sense because in the video they're like oh it fits here
But a lot of times it doesn't fit here when it fits here so but this one fits here and here's you'm saying
So it's like the little the ratios
We're a little bit more intense I think and by the way
A hundred percent American made and are we selling them for four hundred and eighty dollars the
way other companies try and show American-made jeans?
No, we're not.
We're not.
They are in the zone.
So check out origin USA.com.
Plus, you got jeans for you, geese for you, rash guards for you.
This is what we do from the ground up.
American made.
No, no communism.
Communist free jeans.
It's important.
A lot of people, you see, you don't know it.
A lot of people, they're putting on communists.
infused genes you know what I mean and then they're wearing communism and that communism is infusing into their body next thing you know they're a slave
Yeah, well what someone puts on a pair of origin jeans freedom is infusing into their body yeah and they go out and take ownership of the world that's what that's what we're doing so check out origin USA.com get some American made gear
That's true. Yes also Jocco store trick in full effect at this time you know we got the new get after it out
I was kind of clever
You look close on that one
It looks clever
There's layers
I told you I think I told you this
Yeah I know the layers
Okay what's the layers
The layers are tape
Yep
The layers are J.P.
Dinell
Putting tape on his helmet
That says J.P.
Yep
Because you asked him to
Because I was like
Hey put J.P on your helmet
Big letters
Because I want to just be able
To see you on the battlefield
So you can handle shit
So when you told that story
I was like okay that's a cool story
Actually JPM told the story
So I was like
Oh yeah that's pretty legit
And then when I saw the actual picture of J.P.'s helmet.
Because J.P. has that helmet.
Yeah. So I figured Sharpie or something like this.
And I'm like, cool and just, you know, never gave a second thought.
But when I saw the actual, it was like with this black tape.
It's like tape.
I was like, oh, that's a good look right there.
Plus J.P. gets after it.
Let's face it.
There's a video called J.P. getting after.
There's a reason why I was like J.P put J.
On your helmet so I can see you.
Because I might need you to get after it in a certain way.
Exactly right, man.
certain time and he's he's the kind of MFer that will get after yes yes exactly factually
JP the freaking get after it instrument yeah in this case yeah so yeah I'm saying so yeah I took
inspiration from that whole scenario and the get after is made in tape looks dope that's yeah yeah
so that's the new one um also you know good we got an updated good we got an updated good we got
an updated discipline equals freedom it's kind of just kind of good to go at this yeah gtig as they
Yeah, all on jaco store.com.
Um, shirt locker.
Subscription, new design every month.
People seem to like it.
Guys at the muster, we just got back, by the way.
Guys at the muster were like, they didn't know.
They're like, hey, I saw a shirt that said sugar-coded lies.
And it had that symbol, you know, the X-Pike symbol.
It's like, yeah, bro, that's the one from the shirt locker.
So the design's a little bit more, uh, what, creative, we'll say outside the box.
We'll say, we'll see what I'm saying.
But anyway, check it out.
Go, if you click on the top versus shirt.
You can see kind of what it's all about and yeah man if you want to subscribe to that get it get it
We got some books put your legs on by Rob Jones
We got need to lead by Dave Burke I've written a bunch of books
Extreme Ownership dichotomy leadership leadership strategy and tactics just one goes freedom field manual and a bunch of kids books
So check all those out also check out primal beef.com you need steak
So you if you go to primal beef.com you can get steak delivered here also Colorado
craft beef can deliver steak to your house.
So check out brimalbeef.com.
Check out Colorado craftbeef.com.
Eschleonfront.
We have a leadership consultancy.
We solve problems through leadership.
If you need help inside your organization,
go to Eschlonfront.com.
If you want to come to one of our live events,
go to Eschlonfront.com.
And also, if you can't come one of our events,
you can go to Extreme Ownership.com
and you can learn the skills of leadership online.
So check that out.
And if you want to help service members active and retired, you want to help their families?
Do you want to help Gold Star Families?
Check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee.
She's an amazing woman who had an amazing son, and she now has an amazing charity organization.
If you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to America's mighty warriors.org.
Also, please check out Heroes and Horses.org.
And finally, Jimmy May's organization, beyond the brotherhood.org.
and if you want to connect with us, check out jocco.com
and then on social media,
I'm at Jocco Willink.
Echoes at Echo Charles.
Just don't spend too much time there
because it ain't healthy.
It's a monster.
Thanks to all the soldiers, sailors,
airmen, and Marines deployed right now
in harm's way around the world
protecting us and our freedom.
We are grateful.
We are also grateful to our police, law enforcement,
firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers,
correctional officers,
Secret Service and all other first responders.
Thank you for protecting us here at home.
And everyone else out there, we got some lessons today.
Keep your emotions in check.
Have self-control and have physical vitality,
which you've got to work for and you've got to earn.
Make light of your troubles.
Belittle your trials.
And of course, assume responsibility for your.
for your own actions.
The people that you lead,
they ask nothing more than that.
So go get after it.
And that's all we got for tonight.
And until next time,
Zeko and Jocko.
Out.
