Jocko Podcast - 539: Elevate From The Gray Slop In Your Head.

Episode Date: May 6, 2026

>Join Jocko Underground Full Episodes< Breaking down the battle between the limbic system and the prefrontal cortex — emotion versus reason. Why people panic, escalate conflict, make terrible decisions, and how to detach from the “gray slop” in your head.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 539 with Echo Charles and me Jocco Willink. Good evening. Good evening. So Leonardo da Vinci. He said there are three classes of people. Those who see, those who see when they are shown, those who do not see. I want to talk to you about something that we brought up on the underground podcast. I coined, I called it on the, on the podcast, gray slop.

Gray slop. Gray matter. Like, you know, your brain is gray, gray slop. This has to do with detachment, which is another thing. You know, I've been talking about detachment for years. Detach from the chaos. Detach from the mayhem. Detach from your ego.

Detach from your emotions. That's going to make your life so much better if you can do that. But lately I've been looking around and I'm realizing how truly difficult that can be for people. And at the same time, seeing how important it is. and how much it really fowls and jams people up. And when you look at someone, you know, like you and I've talked about, you see someone that's drinking too much.

And it's kind of bringing down their life and you can see it so clear, but they don't get it. Or they're involved in a relationship that's a disaster and you explain to them, but they're like, no, no, no, no, like this time or I can savor or whatever the thing is, right? Those are all emotional decisions.

those are just being all your all in your own gray slop your gray matter your your your core so what is that you know this gray matter actually has a the gray matter that I'm talking about is called the limbic system and we'll get into this some more later but the limbic system is kind of the part

of your brain with the animal instincts the raw emotion it's got the fear in there it's got the rage in there it's got the the fight or flight things it's very fast It's very impulsive. It's very irrational. That's your limbic system and then the other side of course you have the prefrontal cortex. This is the rational brain. This is the logic brain. This is what has this is what gives you impulse control. This is what allows you to execute long term planning, which I know you like strategic thinking strategic is in your prefrontal cortex moderating your behavior. So you don't go nuts is in your prefrontal cortex. And there's people been talking about this for a long time. You know, this is nothing new.

When I talk about detachment, I'm not the first person to come up with this, right? No, dude, people have been talking about this. Plato. Plato had the chariot allegory and you had these two horses. One was the animal mind and the other one was the spirit and the moral impulse. And the driver is reason that's supposed to guide those forces, right? So this is nothing new. Descartes had the machine.

Versus the soul and the animal the animal is just instinct and humans have the ability to override those instincts. You're supposed to have that ability In more modern times like nowadays Daniel Kahneman he wrote a book called thinking fast and slow He breaks it down to these two systems you know system one is the fast the automatic the emotional the intuitive and then system two is the slow deliberate the analytical one Jonathan Hate describes the elephant and the rider And his point in the elephant, the elephant's big and strong. Kind of like if your emotions are big and strong, they can override the rider.

It's just going to do what it wants. So that's a good analogy. We can take something away from that. Steve Peters, he wrote a book in 2012 called The Chimp Paradox. And then he wrote a children's book called My Hidden Chimp. And then he wrote a guidebook to go along with that in 2018. And he wrote a book called The Pimp. path through the jungle. And he runs a consultancy, which is called chimp management.

Because your inner chimp, when he calls the inner chimp, that's the thing that's going on emotion and going on animal instincts. And the frontal cortex is the human thing. So you've got to manage that chimp in your head. So again, these are a bunch of, these are centuries worth of people that have talked about this and written about it. And clearly people understand it. And they've been putting the word out forever. And yet it's very, very difficult for people to implement it, this detachment. And I don't think people, one thing I don't think people realize is how much influence that animal brain, that gray slop that's in your head, how much it really influences your logic and your rationality. I don't think people see that it's not actually each of these examples, they talk about it just two separate things.

but there's all kinds of little wires going between the two. And I sometimes don't think people recognize how much they feel like they're being logical, but they're not. They feel like they're using their human elevated, enlightened brain, but they're not. They're using the chimp brain. So we do things and we think, we kind of think that the animal instinct is kind of good because, you know, if you get something happens, You're afraid you get extra strength you were just talking about before we hit record. You know, you see fighters that they're exhausted, but then they knock the guy out and all of a sudden they have all this energy. For the celebration.

Yeah, energy for the celebration. There's like a regulatory component that's going on and then it overcomes it. But we get extra power when we need it sometimes. And it seems like it's helpful. But there's just so much more going on inside that gray slop. And I just don't think people recognize that a lot of times they think they're out of the gray slop. but it's really like their neck deep and it's still interfering with their nose it's kind of getting little sprinkles into their eyes and it's it's just bad and it's it's real man and then this again this is

not me saying my theory this is like factual information the amygdala which is part of the Olympic system, it wants us to categorize people as us or them. Right. That's part of our nature. That means prejudice. That means irrational polarization. That's why we get into clicks, right? Social status.

Social status posturing, right? You might think that's like, oh, well, he's got a big ego because he's insured, but actually as an animal, higher status, positioning means you get more food. It means you get better mating rights than the other animals. So you're actually genetically programmed to kind of posture up and act tough and show off. That's an animal instinct that you have. And by the way, how does it make you look?

It makes you look arrogant. It makes you look stupid. There's all kinds of things that translate, this animal behavior that translates into our, what we think is oftentimes elevated behavior. This is stuff we talk about all the time in the Esplan Front, the feeling like I need to be right. Because if I'm right, I have more status. If I have more status,

I have better, you know, position in the hierarchy. The urge to show off. The pain of, the pain of social rejection is, you feel that. There's, that's like a similar, it's processed almost the same way as physical pain.

That's why people are so scared of it. it. Hyper vigilance, negativity bias. Like we focus on bad news. You're genetically programmed as an animal to focus on bad news because good news won't kill you. That's why we get hyper folks fixated on it.

The resource hoarding means I need more. Well, that's a human instinct. That's why people do impulsive shopping. That's why people binge eat. That's why there's actual hoarders. in the world that hoard things. Their whole house is filled with stuff that they will never, ever, ever need.

Here's one, displacement aggression. So when an animal gets stressed by a more dominant animal and it can't fight back because it knows it's going to lose, it turns and attacks weaker animals. Does that sound like something humans might do? Hell yeah, it is.

So all these things play into it. And of course, we got the one that we hear about all the time, which is, again, pure animal instinct. It's instant gratification from the dopamine loop. Dopamine wants reward right now. It doesn't care about five days from now. It doesn't care about five years from now. It doesn't even care about five hours from now. It wants dopamine right now.

So that's why you're doom scrolling. That's why you're eating junk food. That's why you're making all these short-term decisions that are bad. It's genetically programmed into you. It used to keep you alive because you're like, I'm just going to keep looking for these berries until I find them so I get food. or I'm just going to keep going after this animal until I get it so I have food. I'm going to keep chasing down this cave woman so I can procreate. Like all those things.

And yet they made it into our world right now. And the people, this is what I think is interesting is I think people have varying levels of escaping their gray slop. And most important, it's difficult to see. Most of the people, when you're just swimming in your own gray slop animal instincts, You don't see it. You don't, it doesn't feel different. You don't know it. It's not like the temperature drops and you go, oh, wait a second, it just got cold in here.

No, you're just like everything looks the same except for you're really emotional now. And you don't say, oh, I see what's going on. This is my, I mean, this is the problem people have is they start getting emotionally. They don't go, oh, this is an animal instinct of mine taking over. And I shouldn't allow that to happen. So, and people have very, very. Varying levels of being able to escape their gray slop that's given them all these animal instincts And by the way, when you're when you're little

You're just in it? You know what I mean? That's why little kids lose their temper that's why they get nuts. That's why they even a baby What does it do when it's hungry? Screams Oh that's what they do and as we get older hopefully we don't scream as much but when you're you know when a When a little kid gets bullied, how do they react to it? Right? When a little kid is afraid, how do they react?

Sometimes they cry, they freeze up. But then as you get older, hopefully you control those emotions. When you get dumped in 10th grade, I can't believe I got dumped, you know, and you're crying in the school or whatever. When you get dumped when you're 24, you're like, okay, hey, it didn't work out. You're a little bit more mature. You have a little bit more control. But at least you hope. But let's face it, there's a chance.

By the way, there's a reason that people get murdered after they get, after they dump someone, right? Because people just succumb to just gray slop and it's the end of the world and it's total emotion and its ego and it's chaos. And they go and kill people. So we're supposed to grow out of it. But it takes time. I mean, this is why a young male driver has a really high insurance.

because this this dude is just I mean he's an animal right yeah he's just how fast can I go how you know I'm going to take risks I'm going to make things happen I think I can survive I'm going to push the envelope hopefully over time you you get more and more elevated out of this gray slop and you get a little bit this you know a little bit of distance from it but it still drives so much in people and by the way it's like one of those things where If you think, if you think you're not insane, that's the person that's insane, right? The person that's like, I'm not crazy.

You know, like, no, no, that's the person you have to watch out for. This is the catch 22, the book, Catch 22. If you were, if you were sane enough to say, hey, I don't want to fly on these raids, then, well, it doesn't make sense. So when we're crazy, we don't know that we're crazy. And when we're caught in the gray slop, we don't know that we're calling the gray slop. We don't know that we're caught in the gray slop. And so think about all the things that are in your head

that drive decision-making process. Right? Fear and anxiety. What does that make us do? It makes us freeze up. It makes us play it safe. What about anger? Anger drives us to the short-sighted win.

You're right. Like, I'm right. Oh, that's great. That's a good way to win an argument with your wife. to show or prove that's all it is greed greed's the other end the spectrum now you're just ignoring obvious risk or you got excessive optimism these are monkey minds right here sadness when we're really sad when someone's really sad they lower the bar they settle for less oh this is as as good as i can get just an emotion need for validation this is a this is an animal

instinct and now you're doing things just for approval making decisions so that you can get approval fear of rejection what happens if you're fear of rejection which is an animal instinct to have well you don't step up you don't take you don't you keep quiet um you know I have to be right I'm better than them I'm you know this is an attack there's all so many mistakes that we make I'll start tomorrow right even even conformity the herd instinct These are all things that will make us make bad decisions. I mean, how many teenagers have made bad decisions because of they're trying to conform with whatever

everyone else is doing? This is peer pressure. There's a thing called HALT, HALT, Hungry, Angry, Lonely, and Tired. These things all disrupt your decision-making process. We even have a combined name, hangary. Right? When I'm hangary, people are like mad to just get out of my way.

I need to get into the freaking KFC lines ASAP Get that Domino's pizza Right now That's hangary But people make dumb decisions

When they're lonely People make dumb decisions When they're tired So many of these decisions That bad decisions that we make They're just rooted in this gray slop In this Olympic system In this chimp brain

And generally speaking Like I said they're not good decisions So here's something that I think a lot of people don't recognize. If you can elevate above it, right? If you can get out of the gray slop, if you can get out of your own limbic system, not only will you then be able to see

the errors that you could make that are being driven by your animal instincts, but a huge bonus is that I can see now echoes chimp brain in action. So in other words, if I'm walking down the street and I see Echo Charles and he mouths off to me, like, get out of my way or something like that.

If I'm in the gray slop, what am I going to do? Who the hell are you telling me get out of your way? Maybe I push him. Maybe I attack him. Maybe we escalate the situation. But if I'm elevated, if I'm enlightened above my own gray slop and I'm walking down the street and echo says,

get out of my way. I see that it is his animal instinct that is causing this behavior. And I say, oh, that guy must be having a rough day. Probably not much gain to interact with him. I'm just going to, like, you know, move a little bit to the right and carry on. So when you're not caught up in your own animal brain, you can see when other people are. but you want to see problems at alcohol right which which unleashes our our chimpanzee brain

and now all of a sudden you you bump into me in the bar and that is a challenge and we're fighting but if I'm elevated and you bump into me in the bar and I go oh hey man this guy must be having a rough day hey sorry about that and I can deescalate but here's a thing this doesn't only apply to like physical altercation We do so many dumb things based on our ego and our emotions and our and our chimpanzee brain that have nothing to do with physical interactions at all and And and that's because the the mind recognizes things that are rooted in physical survival, but they're not actual physical survival in today's day and age in other words like hey if I'm I'm protecting myself Like I have to have some animal instincts, but if I'm just protecting my ego, why?

I don't need no animal instincts to do that. If I'm trying to show that I'm superior because I need to get more food for myself in a caveman situation, okay, makes some sense. If I'm trying to show my superiority in a board meeting, you know what I'm saying? so that I can prove my position in the hierarchy, it doesn't make sense to do it there. And so we make stupid mistakes. And by the way, by the way, that, those things, when I try and prove a point in the board meeting

and make Echo look like he didn't know what he's talking about, that doesn't help me. It doesn't help Echo. It's not the right thing to do. So the instinct is actually wrong when removed from this physical world. This is why people talk down to other people. This is why people impose their plan.

on a group, hey, you need to do it like this. This is why people try and get the credit because I'm trying to improve my status. This is why people make little maneuvers to try and get the promotion because it's based on their hierarchical status and they want to rise up.

This is why people escalate an argument instead of de-escalating an argument. That's why they do it. This is why people talk instead of listen. It's all just monkey brain. It's all a bunch of emotion and ego. And we have to get away from it. It is not easy.

It is so intertwined. Again, the metaphors that I raised, the elephant and the chariot and all these things, these are metaphors that make it seem like there's a really good, clear bifurcation between these two elements. But in my opinion, they are much more intertwined. There's little wires going all in between the two of them.

And I found a good article about this. Now the article relates to it somewhat what we're talking about. It's from a combat perspective, but again, this doesn't just apply to combat. But I want to read some sections from this article. The article is called neuroscience for combat leaders. And it's written by a guy named Major Andrew Stedman. And the little footnote about him, it says Major Andrew Stedman, U.S. Army is an infantry officer and a student at the commanded general staff college for Leavenworth, Kansas, holds a BS from the U.S. Air Force Academy.

He must have switched from the U.S. Air Force Academy to the Army. His combat experience includes two deployments to Iraq and one to Afghanistan. So this article is called a brain-based approach to leading on the modern battlefield. field. And I think you're going to see some examples of what I'm talking about and then we can extrapolate this combat situation to the rest of our lives. Of course, everything in combat is more pronounced. So it should seem real obvious in combat when someone does, gets caught up in their freaking

animal brain. It causes real catastrophic situations, but makes us stand out. When we get caught up in our animal brain during an argument with our spouse, doesn't lead to a catastrophic scenario, hopefully most of the time. But if that's how you live your life, your life is not where it should be. So here we go. Let's get to this article. Everything you do in life is based on your brain's determination to minimize danger or maximize reward.

The brain wants to move towards things in life that give it pleasure or ensure survival and away from things that cause it pain or threaten survival. Combat demands. that military individuals overcome this natural impulse to survive and move toward the danger. From this perspective, succeeding in combat is a measure of how well the brain copes with dangerous situations and performs tasks that ensure survival. The field of neuroscience has seen significant advances in recent years, and the benefits of this knowledge can positively affect numerous disciplines, including combat leadership. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging MRI, surgical methods and experiment-based approaches, researchers have reviewed. revealed many of the biological processes that underlie our most basic, emotional, and cognitive

behaviors such as how and why we react to threatening situations, how our brains allocate energy to cope with competing demands, and how our senses interact with our minds to create the world we know. So, again, threatening situations. What's a threatening situation? Look, when we're reading an article that's written by an infantry officer, you think threatening situation is, gunfight, IED threat, mortars imbound. But a threatening situation for a normal person is like, oh, this guy's maneuvering and trying to get credit for the project that I led. That's a threatening situation, right?

That's a threatening situation. And this is what triggers our limbic brain to kick into gear. Back to the article. Learning about brain function and physical reactions to stress does not simply inform the leader but create self-awareness that makes him better able to control these processes. Tactical level military leaders can use new knowledge to understand the effects of combat, anticipate and recognize cognitive reactions, and adjust their leadership abilities to succeed in difficult situations.

They can do this by performing exercises to decrease physiological stress reactions using emotionally controlled leadership to guide their organizations and creating an environment during battle that facilitates effective decision-making. So we're going to force our brain out of the animal mode and into the logical mode when we're in stressful situations. That's what a combat leader is going to have to do. By educating soldiers about brain function and incorporating cognitive stressors into training, leaders can prepare their units to perform battle with emotional stability. But it is not just combat.

If you can do this when you're having a conversation with your boss, when your kid is getting mad at you, when your kid does something stupid, which they're going to do because they're a kid. You can react like an animal and do bad things, do things that are going to have a negative impact on the situation, or you can control your brain.

You can get out of your own gray slop. Basics of the brain. Combat leaders need a basic knowledge of cerebral biology to understand the importance of the minds function during combat. The two major areas most relevant to this topic are the limbic system and the prefrontal cortex. The former is the collection of brain regions involved in emotions, learning, and memory. The latter is for higher level thinking.

That's a prefrontal cortex actively influences body functions and performance. Inputs travel along pathways in both these systems and allow us to react to scenarios with a balance of emotion and reason. That's what they're supposed to do. Why does our emotion so often take lead? So often. It's ridiculous. It's embarrassing for us.

humans to let our animal instincts run the show. Located in the center of the brain, the limbic system primarily contains the thalamus, hypothalamus, hippocampus, hippocampus, and the amygdala as the creator of emotions and memory. Its primary function is to interpret information sent from the body senses to issue emotional commands back to the body. The limbic system also sends its data to the executive areas of the brain, the frontal lobe for cognitive processing and receives instructions about how the body.

should respond to the given situations. Sometimes the limbic system can independently respond to the world, like when we react to threatening situations. This occurs on a subconscious level when the amygdala, the fear and anxiety response center compares data from the world with the hippocampus, which is the memory data piece of experience. If the incoming information corresponds to a threat that has been tagged as negative or dangerous, the amygdala immediately commands the body into action.

We've all experienced this process when our reflexes have caused us to snatch a hand away from closing door, leap away from a snake. So there's some times where it's going to do something. And if you don't have control over it, that those times are going to grow. Those times are going to be bigger than they should be. Right? You know, the classic thing that I tell people is if I said, hey, echo, I'm going to be at your house when you come home and I'm going to scare you. There's probably zero percent chance I'd be able to actually scare you. But if I just got in there and I tried to scare you,

there's probably a really solid percentage that I would scare you. So that's having the cognitive pattern where you can get control that quickly is very important. Back to the document. The more sophisticated process of the mind, occur in a sheet of tissue just behind the forehead known as a prefrontal cortex This is memory judgment planning sequence of activity abstract reasoning impulse control personality reactivity surroundings and mood That's a pretty big important block isn't it crazy that just gets overrun all the time like every time you see someone get road rage they've lost their mind Yeah, I actually that's funny you hear me say this when I when I talk about someone losing their mind

And I've never thought about this until right now it's when they've lost control of their prefrontal cortex that's like and I say that a lot you know I'll be like oh this dude just lost his mind but the funny things I say it when I'm talking about people that are doing something super emotional their egos out of control like someone doesn't I go the duty lost his mind you've heard me say this I do this but that's what I'm talking about they've lost their mind they've they've they've shut down their prefrontal cortex and they're just full chimp mode just going this is the area that I'll this is

This area is what allows humans to solve math problems, develop abstract concepts, and ponder our own existence is also the area that military leaders use to balance risk in combat, develop courses of action, and create strategies to lead effectively. So there you go. That's what it's doing. It's got a little section in here about every part of the brain is packed with blood vessels, and it talks about how it actually, the brain redirects blood and glucose to appropriate areas based on what's happening.

This allocation leaves less fuel for other brain functions like cognitive control, which requires vast amounts of blood and glucose to operate. When the Olympic system is heavily engaged, as it is during high threat stress of combat, it will quite literally steal fuel from the prefrontal cortex,

thus handicapping a leader's ability to combat the situation with cognition. So think about that right there. You're losing your mind. You're losing your mind. mind and this is something that you know you can train to it's we used to call it stress inoculation if you get put in stressful situations often you eventually get used to them and now it's not going to need to steal so much fuel so much glucose and oxygen for your for your

frontal cortex because you're not freaking out that uh that does explain panicking oh for sure more like where it's it steals blood and nutrients from your prefrontal cortex it gives it to other parts of your body by by way it gives it the part of the brain that's freaking out so basically your prefrontal the your decision making goes down the rest of your the other part of your brain the panic mode that part the emotions is lit up and then it feeds the rest of your body that it needed you know how like like when you physically you know you're running away from a dog chasing you or something like this where you'll you'll spring right into action but if there was no dog chases you'd be like bro i'm not running nowhere you're saying but all of a sudden you have this energy out of nowhere spontaneous energy now that explains it yeah it also explains why people shut down it explains why people do dumb things in the moment it explains it kind of explains crimes of passion right oh yeah like i'm so emotional that my prefrontal cortex, which is long-term planning is like,

oh, if I do this, I'm going to go to jail. My life is ruined. No, that's all shut down. And I'm just, I'm going to pay this person back. Yeah, so you ever heard of this? And I always wondered if it's true. I can't help but believe that it is true. Where some people, they'll do a crime of passion or whatever.

And then they won't get convicted because they were temporarily insane or something like this. And then from what I understand, like when they even, evaluate the person they literally don't remember doing it. I was about to say like sometimes people don't even remember doing it. Yeah. And there's times where people do things like in a combat situation and they don't remember. Right.

Like they don't remember that that happened. Yeah. They were just in full survival mode. Yeah. So it doesn't even, it doesn't go into the part like the brain that that has memory, the hippocampus that creates the memory like kind of bad. It just shunted all the energy and nutrients to the other part of the body and it wasn't working for that moment.

You know, that's what I'm saying? Dang. Yeah. And by the way, you can see this a lot with your kids. Because your kids, you know, they're, it doesn't take much to just shut down the, the thought and just become a little animal. Back to the doc. As a successful business consultant and CEO, David Rock explains in the book, Your Brain Works. The degree of activation of the limbic system is the degree of deactivation of the prefrontal cortex.

brain research has shown that there are many more neural connections that flow from the amygdala directly to the prefrontal cortex than vice versa. Therefore, it's easy for our emotions to guide or suppress our rational thoughts. Hello, everybody. This is our problem. This is a crucial fact because military leaders must preserve cognitive functions when leading in combat. And by the way, guess what? Combat has all these things going on. Fear anxiety pressure stress not to mention physical stress you're tired not to mention you haven't slept in a half or two days

The limbic system in combat the limbic system is evolutionarily older than the prefrontal cortex primitively old in fact It helped it developed to help man survive the ancient battlefield of predator versus prey the limbic system has the chemical authority to initiate rapid responses to threats and is good at doing so the amygdala ignites. Adrenaline flows to the blood, the pulse races, the eyes focus, and rapidly scan for threatening movement. We halt unnecessary digestion, intense major muscle groups in preparation for a clash. Then the brain teeming with blood vessels redirects the available supply of oxygen and glucose-rich blood to the limbic and motor areas so that we can react quickly in the impending

fight. At this point, the mind is in its most basic survival mode. It has no spare energy to devote to solving geometry problems or problem. pondering philosophical dilemmas. This biological decision to focus resources toward limbic areas during dangerous situations is what keeps us alive at a time when the cerebral problem-solving approach would be fatally slow. But today's military leaders do not face the same world that our ancestors did.

And by the way, you don't face the same world that our ancestors did when you roll into a department meeting that's going to be tense. And yeah, you'll roll in there and just shut down half of your prefrontal cortex. or you've got a decision to make on buying a car and you're all emotional excited about it and you just shut down your pre override your prefrontal cortex and walking out of there with a $1,200 a month payment on a, what is it, a 72 month loan?

Hell yeah. But it's all relative though, right? You know how you're like, oh yeah, our ancestors and their environment is extreme. But like there's an element of certain extreme levels of things that you kind of get used to. So it's like, you know, how, you know, Theo Vaughan has the joke, right?

Like, oh, we all have our Vietnam, right, or whatever, where it's like it's relative to the person. So if you start to get used to stuff, then yeah, you're gonna be less sensitive. But so if the environment is extreme, there's a general, like, you're used to it on a certain level. Yeah.

So you'll still have all these fight or flight stuff, you know, all the stuff, but it just takes a little bit more. Now, nowadays it's not like that. We're just more sensitive, so I'm saying. So the board meeting kind of seems like a little bit of a final boss battle. That's what I'm saying. Yeah.

That's what I'm saying. Exactly. Or not to mention when someone bumps into you in the, in the Vaughn's shopping line. You know what I'm saying? Sure. Vons. Hell yeah. And then maybe mouths off to you.

Yeah. Now all of a sudden we got a situation. Animal comes out. While there are still many threats that require rapid, reflexive action leaders also have to manage countless streams of information communicate over multiple. technological systems, balance political, military and civilian considerations, and lead hundreds of men and women in the process. Combat requires a coherent, rational mind.

And it ain't just combat that requires that. Combat is full of stressful moments. Initial contact with the enemy, Russian to secure enemy terrain or responding to an unexpected event that test emotional resolve. Those involved experience intense sensory input and encounter debilitating, explosion. grotesque scenes and threatening enemy movements as the limbic system attempts to keep pace with the environment it starves the soldiers ability to maintain a clear mental framework coupled with the typically exhausting

physical exertion of combat soldiers are constantly or consistently at risk of degraded cognitive processing I got a quote in here from JFC Fuller he said in an attack half of the men on a firing line are in terror the other half are Unnerved. Going into a leader in combat. Each duty position on the battlefield contains some balance of reflexive and cognitive tasks. Some can be trained repeatedly and developed into muscle memory like loading and firing a weapon. Others are more cognitive in nature like calling for indirect fire coordinating a synchronized attack,

while each soldier has his own personal tactical situation to react to typical frontline riflemen operate in reflexive region, while the cognitive component of the battle increases with the rank and responsibility. In this article, the term leader refers to any individual is responsible for leading several groups of soldiers in maneuver against the enemy and must manage multiple battlefield systems. This leader spends most of his time on the battlefield outside of his weapon sites. You've heard me talk about this 10,000 times. High port your weapon, look around. While the team and squad leaders are unquestionary leaders, they use battle drills and reflexive training to guide most of their actions. It will not have to rely on their abstract cognitive abilities during combat unless they are operating as an autonomous element.

The platoon leader and the platoon sergeant are the first leaders that engage in more complex problem solving than direct fire battle. The company level commander is squarely in the cognitive region with occasional moments that require reflexive action. The battalion level commander will rarely perform actions that are not based on pretty meditated cognition. What can these leaders do to mitigate physical reactions to stress that will inevitably occur? What methods are available to regain cognitive control and place the leader, in a position to maximally benefit the unit. First, actively decrease the effects of stress. Second, infuse emotional stability into the organization.

Finally, create an environment that facilitates effective decision-making. So he's going into the things that you can do. Right? There's three of them. Control the effective emotional energy. As combat will readily reveal the body and mind undergo rapid changes when reacting to stress, While moderate levels of stress improve functions like motor skills, stress can easily impair performance in cognitive areas where today's tactical leaders

typically need to operate. Heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing will all increase. Digestion will slow and nausea may occur. Speech may falter and auditory and visual cues may diminish. All of these effects are natural as the body emotionally reacts to the fight. However, leaders have a responsibility to control the effect of emotional energy and remain calm in the face of danger. One proven combat used by law enforcement and military professionals is tactical breathing.

As one of only two automatic nervous systems actions that we can control, the other is blinking. Breath rate is the first reaction to stress that leaders can rain in. So you can actually go send it in the other direction. This is why people say take a deep breath, right? Immediately after a significant stressor occurs or just prior to entering a high-stress environment, simply take several successive deep breaths and hold each one for three to five seconds as you breathe, visualize your body relaxing and remaining calm during the event, although time may not allow leaders to take a long tactical pause, simply diagnosing a rapid breathing pattern and forcing a couple of slow

breaths will help decrease the body's agitated state. And again, this is something that I didn't learn, but I stumbled upon because when I were talking on the radio, I didn't want to sound like a panicked freak. So I would take a breath. And when I took a breath, Guess what? Calm down. Another method of controlling stress is a concept called labeling and reappraisal, which is the act of naming the emotional state you are experiencing and actively reassigning a new emotion that is more productive for the situation.

Verbly identifying the emotions or reassuring yourself that loud activates the prefrontal cortex and begins to reclaim some of the power from the limbic system. simple cue words like steady, stay focused and relax are active reminders that can elicit a controlled behavior. And this is something I've been teaching lately. We have something called a ditty. And we used to use the ditty for like pistol work, right?

You'd have a little thing that you would say to make sure you hit all these points of performance. You know, fast to the holster, thumb on the index, turn point, you know, slack off the trigger, easy squeeze, front sight focus. And you do that every single time. You'd say that ditty to you. Was that yours or was that everybody? No, people have different ones.

I just made it up right now. And it probably wasn't a great one. But, you know, lately I've been saying, hey, if you start feeling like excited, say to yourself a little ditty, calm, cool, and relaxed, calm cool and collected, whatever. Something like that. You say, you know, slow, smooth, smooth is fast. Slow, smooth, it's fast. Calm down, calm down.

Like whatever, say something to yourself is a good way to get yourself to calm down. A unit's motto can be another steadying phrase. Repeating these words can trigger confidence and strength in the face of trying circumstances. More important, such statements not only have effect on leaders, but also filter through an organization to reinforce its members. The key is to talk to oneself into a mental framework that is capable of handling the highly cognitive experience of modern combat. Any military leader will readily support the practice of unit rehearsals before the operations. Of course, rehearse, rehearse. Do individuals not also have the responsibility to rehearse how they will react in combat?

Professional golfers, divers, and other elites who rely on precise skills use a techniques called visualization to reinforce desired behavior. Likewise, a tactical leader can benefit by visualizing himself performing with an emotional, calm, and cognitive. clarity. A leader with with clear vision of how he wants to perform will, as survival author Lawrence Gonzalez put it, create a kind of memory of the future. It's an interesting concept that the brain can access during combat. Like muscle memory, proper mental processes can become reflexive. You got to rehearse, man.

I recently relearned this lesson. I was in a movie. Hell, yeah. And in this particular movie, it's kind of a long scene. And I don't say, I don't say anything until the end of the scene. I have two lines. But here's the funny thing. So, you know, I'm trying to be a professional, right?

You think I'm trying to be a professional? Sure. Yes, I'm trying to be professional. It's a big deal when you're, when, when you're in something like this Hollywood scenario, because they have to do it a bunch of times. and everyone's on the clock and everything's getting all set up and the lights and the cameras

and all this stuff and like if you screw it up bro everyone kind of they don't like that and no one says anything because they don't want to put more pressure on anybody you know because then people freak out right so everyone just but it's like a

it's the heaviest like unspoken like weight of like dang like I think I screwed up and it's funny when someone screw something up you know, the director, when I was on billions, the TV show, there was three of us standing in this scene, and we were doing it.

They were doing the scene. And like the director was downstairs. We were upstairs. He was downstairs, like all the cameras were upstairs, but he was watching it from downstairs. And like, somebody wasn't doing something the way the director kind of wanted it. and he like

he goes okay you know whatever cut and then there's like a pause while the director walks up the stairs and then he like says something to one of the actors like hey you know maybe just you know a little bit more

like gives him a direction he's a director gives him direction and then you know okay cool and then he walks back downstairs and we do it again and then he's like do a couple of cut and now the director's coming again

and you know he's like and each time I was like I hope he's not going to talk to me because everyone is watching and everyone's going, this actor freaking not nailing it. So you feel kind of bad. So I'm filming this thing and I'm just, I have one, two sentences,

one line, right? Two sentences. And I haven't said them yet. We've recorded for like an hour. It's all the other individual talking, just delivering these lines, delivering it, doing great job, just all great and everything. And then, they have to stop and reset all the cameras for a different angle

because now it's it's jocco's turn right and believe me bro I'm a professional I guess what I did I memorized those lines in my head I went through him in my head I was like boom boom boom I went through him in my head like hundreds of times yeah yeah gonna be ready bro I'm a pro don't want to end up from filming war your kid I didn't I know what it's like when someone you know when you mess something up and and Mick G's got to roll in and say hey oh Okay, let's do it. Okay, we'll do it again.

You know, everyone feels it. The cameraman's lugging that thing around and he's kind of like, bro, what is wrong with you? You had one job. Yeah, that's real. So anyways, this is now three, four hours into this. And it's finally, now we go to the other angle and finally it's now my turn to deliver my line.

And the first time I say it, I had not, even though I memorized it, I hadn't spoken it. I hadn't actually said the words. And they were kind of like a little bit awkward. And I said it, bro, but I got it done. I powered through it. But I was like, but it wasn't smooth. It wasn't the performance that you hoped for. It wasn't the performance that I don't think anyone was hoping for, right?

But I got it done. Okay. But I was like, oh, you didn't say the words. You didn't actually let the words come out of your mouth. Yeah. And that's a bad move. So it's like when you partially rehearse something. And that's why what's interesting here is like you might have the idea of like, oh, I'm going to, if we get to hear, I'm going to give this command.

Yeah. But if you've never actually said it, bro, it might jam you up a little bit. And I got jammed up. Now look, like I said, I just had to go in a team guy mode and just get them words out because I didn't want to have to just throw away the take, right? Yeah. So I got the words out super awkward. I think they were like thinking maybe, oh, maybe, you know, maybe Jock was trying to. put a little stank on it.

But I, but I was like, yo, that wasn't trying to put anything. I was just trying to get the words out of my mouth. But I learned that lesson, you got to, you got to actually say the words.

You can't just practice them in your head. Yeah. Because that's another thing. I was alone. Like there was no one to practice the lines with. Yeah. Yeah, what do you do in the mirror or some?

No, I just like was literally looking at it and just going over, like with like sitting in a chair, just thinking the words. How long did you have to, like, from the moment you got the,

the lines, the script to the moment of performing. How many days? How long did you have to prepare? I probably had weeks to prepare, but I only prepared for one day. I understand. I didn't need it. I mean, it's literally two sentences. It didn't take me long to memorize it.

Yeah. But I didn't say them. Bros. I think even you preparing jammed you up. And this is why. So I have, you know how like you ever been in a situation where you're like, I'm going to let you continue? You're wrong.

But I'm going to let you continue. Okay. Yep. Go. Okay. Because I believe I'm right right now, but I'd be interested to see if I'm wrong. So. you're I don't know you don't seem like the type that would have this problem but I've run into a situation where I'm like shoot I got to bring this up it's not even a big deal but I just I feel like it's the right thing to bring it up and like sort it out right to whoever whether it be to your friend or your wife or whoever right I got to bring this up and then I'm like all right well I don't want to bring it up in a way that makes it seem like it's a big deal than it really is you ever heard me say and I know this I say this all the time it's like

I consciously say that. I say, even me bringing it up is making it seem like a bigger deal than it really is. Always say that if it's like a small time like that before.

So that's to make a big deal out of it. Yeah, I know because I go deep to the thing. But only because in the spirit of understanding, you know, but then I got to be like, hey,

but the more I explain, the bigger deal it seems. So now I got to explain how it's not a bigger deal and it becomes a whole thing. You see what I'm saying? So that, and that's part of my point

where if I'm like, okay, I already made the decision to bring this XYZ thing up. Right? I already made that, decision. So how do I deliver it in a way that makes it not a big deal? I said, well, but there and there is a way to do that, right? But if you're going to deliver something in a specific, specific way, it has to be natural.

Otherwise, it looks contrived. And then now you bring, you introduce another element of the whole conversation. Are you even, are you being authentic? Are you little bit? And it becomes this big deal, right? Which isn't a big deal. So you jam up your whole process. Okay. I said you were going to be wrong, but I think you're actually right in many cases. So just to finish what I jam myself up from time to time is I'll be like, okay, let me just practice in my mind how I want it to sound.

And I'll go over it and over it. But that whole process of me going over it in my mind makes it a big deal to me. But also in your mind. Yeah. Maybe if you would have rehearsed out loud saying the words, there's one more element that comes into play. I feel like that is true.

But yeah, so besides that part of it, the point is if you don't actually go through it, because that's what being natural is. When you're actually natural doing something, you're really used to doing it. So it's just natural. But if it's your first time ever doing it, no matter how simple or complex it is, your first time actually doing it ever. And you've been thinking about it. Right.

It's impossible to be natural. Well, this is kind of the similar thing. when we record stuff at echelon front. Yeah. And like someone will be, one of the instructors would be like, oh, hey, you know,

talk about cover and move. And they'll be like, oh, you want me just to say, blah, blah, blah. And they rattle it's perfect. And then the red record light comes on.

Boom, it's game over at freaking disaster.com. Bro, this is stuff that they've explained thousands of times. They know in and out better than anybody. And boom, you hit that,

they see that red light, brain lock, bro, brain lock all day. So I think that has something to do with it. I also think that if you really, I think that you reach a point in memorization where it does become, it will sound natural because you've memorized it

and now it's coming out of your brain just like it was, what is it, thought? You know, it's like, oh, I just thought of this. So I think if you partially memorize something, it's probably going to jam you up. But if you memorize it to the core, it's probably going to be beneficial. I'm not saying that,

you won't be a bad actor. I'm not saying you won't be like saying the line. Any military leader will readily support the practice of unit rehearsals before an operation. Like you might say it like a dork. Yes. Or like in a very unnatural way and not know. There's a, like there's a reason that actors, there's a reason that some actors are good actors.

Yeah. Because they could do it and it's convincing. This is my little theory. Everybody thinks they could be a good actor, but it is more tricky than a lot of people think. So that, and I feel like at the end of the day, it comes, it kind of goes along with what I'm saying.

So, like, think about this idea of doing the thing, right? So snowboarding, for example, I watch all these tutorials, okay, you put you away before I went, you know? And that one's obvious because it takes a lot of physical balance that you can't just learn on a video. You've got to actually do it. It's just the nature. So that's like an extreme example.

But just this idea of doing the thing, X, Y, Z. So your thing that you had to do was say the lines. And how you did it was kind of up to you, right? But you had to do the thing, right? And in this case, doing the thing is saying lines. That's the doing. I didn't doubt. I didn't do it.

You never did it. I never did it. So you can't make it look natural. And you can't make it look authentic. You can't make it look however you're, quote, unquote, trying to make it look because it has to, it can't be contrived. That's it. Because technically, I'm sure, like, these lines, there's probably a handful of ways you could

easily set them and they would have been right on for a bunch of different ways as long as it came out natural right that's really what good quote-to-quote good acting is but what's interesting is because of the role that I was playing it wasn't actually me you know what I mean show you I've done plenty of things where I'm just straight up just being jocco or some other named of a guy named jocco who's just jocco with a different name way easier right yeah well you've done that many ways but I'll tell you what Prout said that that's he's like oh that's shit's heart Like, yeah, and he was like, dude, you, you're, I think people, they, they, they start to act the way they think they are in their own head. So, okay, that jams them up.

Oh, yeah. Big time. Okay. So Sam Harris talked about this long time ago where it's like, okay, you use a certain part of your brain. Like, you know, the, you're habitual. I don't know, whatever, you know, you know, all the parts of the brain here. But there's, there's, there's like this part of your brain that that does the habitual stuff, walking, you know, whatever. Just habitual stuff.

You don't have to like, okay, let me take my, this. step or that okay so that and then there's the other part which can still make you do the same action but it'll be way more clunky so like you ever here this is where i really notice it can i walked up and down the stairs in my house a million trillion times but if i'm carrying like a big tv or something i'm like bro i can literally walk up and down these stairs with my eyes closed but i'm not i'm like bro if i take one wrong step i'm dead so now my this other part of my brain is engaged trying to manage it trying to micromanage your movement it gets all jammed up exactly right and it makes it worse. Like you're, I'm literally worse at walking downstairs now that this other part of my

brain is all engaged. That's what happened when the red light comes on when they're videotaping in the echelon front who, you know, if you're jamming up your lines. That's what happens when they're saying action, you know, like all this stuff. Even if you're quote unquote just being another version of jocco, which you've been for however many years, you know, now this other part of your brain is trying to be jaco. That's not the part of the brain that's used to being jocco. So a good actor, this is what it seems like anyway. And I've heard people say this where if you can just, they say it's not even acting, you just be you. So it's essentially you got to like, like actively disengaged, bro.

He's getting deep, bro. You got to disengage that. Damn, okay. All right. I see how it is. We're going there, huh? Yes, I've heard. In fact, okay, you know David Fincher is, right?

He does like, he did like seven fight club. Like he's a director, right? So he's known from doing like an ungodly amount of takes. And in his philosophy is like, we make people. He makes people do the lines on set in the moment. Cameras running so many times that after a while, it's just like, all right, bro, I'll do whatever. You know, the lines coming out, the physical doing of the lines is just, that's natural already. Because you did it.

That's kind of what I said. If you memorize it to a point and you've done it over and over and over again, now it's just, it's part, you're not thinking about it. You stop thinking about it and just start doing it. Exactly. Right. Now, but it's in show business or whatever, how often do you get the opportunity to do. it in the actual moment over and over and over and over again with everybody watching with the camera guy I heard like Clint Eastwood will be like all right like first take he's

like all right that was good and they'll be like hey could we think we no that you did fine like we're moving on yeah I mean I'm sure there's so many different philosophies as for approaching that goes but it to me it made sense and it and it has a lot to do with and I think anyway of what you ran into because you literally had zero reps yeah doing I had a million mind reps yeah but not one single actual rap and I got jammed up in that moment and like pushed just just team guided out it's it's like literally like me watching a snowboarding tutorial a million times never been on the slopes a million times and I'm like I know exactly what to do I know when to do it I know I got this down I go on there and of course I'm going to fall down a little bit so I'm saying I might have some good technique in principle but it's a little bit there's that that that it's a little bit there's that that it's a little bit there's that that it's a Experience part that nuanced experience that needs to be there. Yeah. Yeah. So what's that? So did so they did they call you back? No, no, no, we did I mean the next one I was good to go and then it was just hey, you know, what do you want to what what stank do you want on it? you know what I'm saying?

Yeah, yeah. Were you like kind of surprised? Were you like, dang, I, I suck more than I thought I would. No, I was, I knew exactly what happened. I was like, oh, you didn't move your lips and get the words out. You just thought you could do it because you do it all the time. And now you try to do it. And it took, let's say it, let's say if the line was, any military leader will readily support

practice of unit rehearsals before an operation. It'd be like this. Like my time to send the line is now. any military leader will readily support the practice of unit rehearsals before an operation. It was like just clunky. Yeah, I understand. It wasn't like a throwaway. I didn't lock up where they're like, okay, hey, did you, you know, like, because you don't want to be that guy, dude.

You know what I'm saying? You don't want to be that guy that just doesn't know what you're supposed to do. You didn't prepare it, bro. It's unprofessional. Right. Sorry, for it. I'd be professional offense. So it wasn't a total drop of the ball.

Yeah. But like I kind of fumbled it for a second, grabbed it and like, you know, went down immediately. I still caught it, but it didn't look great, you know? So that's why we rehearse is what I'm saying. Rehears. The role play comes to mind. Like, you know, you guys like, hey, do a role player or whatever. Just how beneficial that is.

So beneficial. And what they're saying is rehearse mentally. Hey, if stuff starts getting stressful, oh, I'm in a high port. I'm going to relax. I'm going to take a breath. I'm going to look around. Like that, right there. Say that out loud and then relax,

look around, make a call. This is what I wrote on Seth Stone's window of his Humvee in 2005 in the desert. Relax, look around, make a call. Follow these instructions, dude. Okay, got it. Back to the dock. Infuse emotional stability and control into the organization. Leaders must discover ways to control their application of emotional energy.

Their behaviors encompass for the unit, an indicator of what stress is allowable. and appropriate for the situation. Okay, so they're looking at you as the leader. The first actions after a significant event, like an attack with an improvised explosive device, set the unit's tone for the engagement. As General George S. Patent counsel's,

leaders are always on parade. An uncontrolled yell, a high-pitched radio call, or even a worrisome look, can transmit stress and doubt to the unit. Conversely, leaders with composure and confidence, despite stressful circumstances will infuse those traits into the unit. Commander should be deliberate and concise. Leaders should objectively verify emerging information to avoid overreacting or acting too hastily.

Again, these are great. You know, this is stuff I've been saying for years and it's just a great angle on it. Do you mind repeating that part where he said leaders are somebody's always on parade? George S. Patton said leaders are always on parade. Yeah. Great one. So kind of like everyone's always kind of watching you. Yeah, they're watching to you for the whole deal.

And if you freak out, everyone's going to freak out. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. That one kind of goes deep. Because like, you know how like, I think it might have been you. I don't know. It doesn't matter who to. But it was like, yeah, once you kind of let your uniform slack or a certain thing slack,

just for your own personal self, people will like start to be like, oh, I guess we can kind of do that, you know? That's true. But this is an even more acute moment, which is if you see me, panicking. Yeah, yeah. You're going to panic. So if you see me acting calm, you're like, oh, okay, we're calm. Right. That's the way it is. That's what we're doing. It works with your family too. Yeah. When your kid falls down and scrapes his knee. If you go, oh my gosh, are you okay? The kid's not going to be okay. But if you go, dude, that was awesome. Try it again. The kid's

going to be fine. Yeah. So always on parade. Yeah, always on parade. Neuroscience research reveals that there are methods leaders can use to do this. Noted author Malcolm Gladwell describes deliberate emotion in blink. We take it as a given that we experience that first we experience an emotion and then we may or may not express that emotion in our face. We think of the face as the residue of the emotion. The process works in the opposite direction as well. So you can force your emotions through your facial expression. Emotion can also start in the face. An equal partner, it is an equal partner in the emotional process.

A German psychology experiment revealed that people who were physically made to smile by holding a pen clenched in their teeth, rated cartoons as funnier than people who watched the same cartoons while holding the pen in their lips, which prevented smiling. Facial expressions are not just a representation of emotions. They can direct emotions. Leaders can physically incite a more positive, relaxed emotional response in their bodies by intentionally forming a relaxed facial expression during combat events. This demeanor will also cue similar responses in the soldiers around them.

There you go. Like, you have to impose your emotions on yourself. That blinking thing is funny. Well, this is freaking, for 10 years, you and I've been talking about a little something called normal face yeah you know I used to play this game with my own children mm-hmm to get them to not give away their emotions in stressful situations if you make a face if you break you get smacked in the head with the cardboard roller from inside the Christmas wrapping paper yeah yeah and it'd be funny you know the kids

would be trying not to laugh mm-hmm but that translates to everything that you're doing because man if you give away your emotions you see your bossies that you're mad your team sees that you're frustrated bro it's gonna spread it's gonna cause problems normal face all day brother you know I noticed this in

back to acting for a little bit like if you watch certain movies if the actors let's say it's not as experience and they're trying to deliver some like deep like dope like freaking line and then but then they're blinking a little bit too much it's like it doesn't land as much versus like you know all these real intense

actors like a you know Daniel Dayluid like Tom Cruise or like this and they're like going hard on some like monologue to somebody, but they don't blink at all. And it Brad lands super hard. That's freaking dope. Or on the other side, if they want to imply like stress or worry, they won't put stress and worry all over their theatrics.

They'll just like start blinking a little bit more. And I'll be like, brother, that freaking sells it. Like you feel it, you know, with the close up. Just from the blinking or no blinking. There you go. Next section. Create an effective decision-making environment, regardless of rank rank and even in the midst of intense combat leaders must create an environment that is conducive to making cognitive not emotional decisions

They can start creating this environment but physically and emotionally disengaging from the immediate fight You heard me say this a thousand times come off go to high port come off the skirmish line This may mean finding sufficient cover for a local command post a company commander seldom belongs in the hatch of his vehicle or exposed on the street Scanning for targets like a rifleman of course desperate times will call for every gun to be in the fight but only a handful of commanders will ever face the situation the goal is for every leader to mentally zoom out from his personal tactical situation and take a more macro level view of the battle preparing his brain to handle the impending cognitive challenges this is what you need to do and again it's not just in combat during that meeting and everyone started getting wild just ease your chair back push away from the table

shut your mouth and listen to what's going on don't get involved in don't get on your gun which your mouth. Don't start firing your mouth off. No. Listen. Assess. The commander should use his space from the battle to focus on what he is trained to do. Assess and analyze what has occurred, recognize friendly forces of vulnerabilities, predict what the enemy will do next, decide on feasible course of action, communicate the plan to the unit and apply the appropriate leadership skills to inspire the unit to accomplish the mission. The specifics of these steps can include conducting rapid terrain analysis and land navigation using complex digital systems, calling for mortar artillery or aircraft fires, establishing hasty, and it gives a whole list

of things that you've got to do. These are highly cognitive and require a steady mind. A leader needs to find a suitable environment where he can generate new ideas, new insights for each unique tactical situation encountered. Battle drills are, of course, an effective method units used to survive the first moments of event, but the leaders must think be. on the battle drill and formulate innovative ways to beat the enemy. If you hear me talking to the muster, I'm like, oh, what's the first thing I did?

Get on, you know, take cover, return fire. And then immediately get off the gun, look around. You got a whole team that's shooting. You need to look around to make a call. As neuroscientist Jonah Lehrer explains in how we decide, this is where prefrontal cortex really demonstrates its unique strengths. It is the only brain region able to take an abstract principle and apply it in an unfamiliar your context to come up with something entirely original for a solution. It's very powerful.

And then we got a model for cognitive battle. In your brain at work, David Rock explains that the mental processes relevant to performing work are understanding, recalling, deciding, memorizing, and inhibiting. These are the things that are, you know, what you're doing. Understanding following the initial shock of an attack, understanding involves how a leader creates maps in the prefrontal cortex that represent new incoming information and connects these maps to existing maps in the rest of his brain. That's what we're doing. You can look at terrain. You're looking at the enemy that initiated the attack. You've got pertinent data. You've got the population considerations. You got maneuverability requirements. You've got restrictions and friendly force disposition.

Like these are all the things that you're mapping out. And then recalling. In battle recalling is the process of comparing existing situation with the database of stored knowledge in the long-term memory of networks. These are the lessons that you've learned. These are the instructions that you've received. These are the experiences that you've had. These are doctrines that you've looked at. These are lessons learned that you've gone through.

This is where perhaps a little phrase or a piece of advice comes into play, like cover and move or take the high ground or keep it simple. Next up is deciding. A combat leader's brain engages in the deciding process when it chooses which recalled information will be most useful and applies it to real time in the world to build a new mental map that's the one we're making the decision and then memorizing this was one that i didn't really expect the other ones make sense right david rock describes a memory memorizing as holding maps in attention in the prefrontal cortex long enough to embed them in long-term memory research

shows that is impossible for our brains to simultaneously hold multiple complex concepts in working memory without degrading accuracy. For leaders in battle, memorizing is also in the internalization of a plan. Focusing on the concept of an operation, planned or hasty, creates familiarity that allows execution without redundant analysis or reference to written notes. Yeah, and what that boils on, that was kind of cool. My first deployment to Iraq, we were always going to a different, like, a area of operations. There's Baghdad, but Baghdad's huge.

I think I want to say Baghdad was like nine times bigger than Ramadi. And so you'd be going to a neighborhood you'd never seen it before. And I would do a decent job of getting familiar with the battle map going in there, but not as good as we like, once you're in Ramadi for four months, you're just like, I know where this is. And it just makes you better at it. I think if I went back in time, I would do a little bit more memorization of the battle maps. But what I would memorize would be like phase lines. or the approach to the building or follow on targets. Like I would have chunks of it.

So then I understand it makes sense. Like you don't want to have to be like, hey, we're moving to phase line, bravo, and be like, hold on, let me pull up my map and figure out exactly where it is. Oh no, there's the building with the fence by it. That's phase line. So that makes sense.

And it gives you phase line. Just it's an area of an operation that you designate. For instance, hey, when we reach this, when we've got all our forces assembled, we're at this phase line, at this location, hey, we're at phase line alpha.

Now we've pushed through the target, the target secure, we're at phase line, Bravo. It's just a way of describing kind of the flow of an operation chronologically, but it's also physical. Yeah, yeah. So, okay.

So it's like a little designation of an understood area. Exactly. Yeah, okay. The next one, the last one is inhibiting. Inhibiting is the practice of selective focus when one actively tries not to engage certain mental maps because they're irrelevant or counterproductive. We call that prioritized next year. That's the red light when they press record on a camera.

Yep. You got to suppress that thing. Yeah, suppress that thing. But it's also prioritized next to you. Like these things don't matter right now. Right, right. These nine things over here don't matter. What matters is these two things right here.

Yeah. So inhibiting is practice of selective focus. This is prioritized. execute all day. The leader must and he talks about some of the things that we got to suppress. Must suppresses learned tendencies, realign his mental perspective and develop new neural connections that will help him properly frame and respond to it.

And then this author adds personalizing to these. I add personalizing, which can apply to every moment of a leader's day. This is the application of leadership principles and personality attributes that will guide the organization to accomplish the mission effectively. Personalizing is the leader's conscious effort to prevent external influences from altering the foundation of character and leadership that he is consistently developed and that his subordinates have learned to expect. And then it talks about training for the emotionally stable fight. Training for combat is about changing the brain.

Decades of neuroscience. And by the way, what's cool? I've got to see this over and over again. I got to see young seal leaders when they're going through training, be, get caught up in the emotions and learn how to detach and start to be able to make really good decisions. So this is something that you can do. You can change your brain. Decades of neuroscience research have firmly shown that the brain is highly adaptable and that repeated activities designed to create specific behaviors like combat training literally change the cellular structure and strength of connections between neurons. So you can actually change these.

things you can start to get some control over how much time you spend in the gray slop at the rifleman level training teaches soldiers to respond reflexively to situations that demand spontaneous conditioned response such as engaging an enemy fighter at close range and like mag changes and ready up drills is the same behavioral process that professional athletes apply to develop the fine-tuned motor skills needed in competition this learning process also applies to activities that demand higher cognitive ability such as detailed planning

for a combat operation or reacting to a complex attack. A way to train this capability would be construct an exercise that requires leaders to undergo physical or fear-induced stress and then perform deliberate time-constrained planning for an ambiguous situation.

So you get better at these things. And again, I just said that you see this, and you've heard me talk about this before. In the military, they want to get you used to being afraid. So what do you do to get used to being afraid? Well, guess what I did? the first thing I did was climb over the low wall

you climb over the low wall it's only like 12 feet you climb over it you kind of dangle and you the next obstacle two obstacles away the cargo net the cargo net is like 50 feet up you got to climb to the top of it when you get to the top of it you got to climb over it and at a certain point you've got to kind of like

just let go and get to the other side if you're scared of heights you're not going to be able to do it and even if you're not scared of heights you've got to overcome them. Well, it doesn't matter. You got to go do it, right? You got to suppress that feeling.

And then, by the way, a little further on the obstacle course is the slide for life. Now you're up three stories. You're going to dangle off the edge and slide down a rope. It's if you can't, if you're afraid,

it's going to be a problem. It's the slide for life. You said you got to dangle on a rope. You slide down a rope. You slide down a rope. Like a zip line. It's at an angle. It's like a zip line,

but you're using your hands as the zip. And you pull yourself down, like hand over hand. Oh, okay. So you're kind of maneuvering. Yeah, and then eventually do a commando stop. Style, once you get to a certain point in buds, they let you, like, slide down on your stomach.

But when they first make you do it, you're, like, hanging underneath the rope. Like, your legs are wrapped around the rope, and you're pulling yourself. How do you slide down on your stomach? Just go look up commando style, slide for life, and you'll see somebody doing it. I'm gonna.

Or I think they even call it Australian style. Hell, yeah. Okay, all right, cool. But eventually, you get done with that. guess what you're doing, rappelling off the tower, and then you're rappelling out of a helicopter, and then you're a fastroping out of a helicopter, and then you're parachuting.

And your first parachuting a static line, and then eventually you're free falling, and then you're free falling from high altitude with an oxygen and a rucksack. Each one of those things levels up the amount of fear-induced situation. And then they do the same thing with shooting, like the first time you're shooting on static range,

and then the next thing you're shooting, you know, on a static range with a little bit of movement. And then eventually you're doing live fire, immediate action drills in the middle of the desert with rockets and grenades going off you've ever been afraid of heights or had a thing against height i i think i have just the normal kind of natural like appreciation yes but the weird thing is when you're parachuting it doesn't feel like heights that that's and i feel i don't know at the end of the day but it feels like yeah if i feel like that's kind of one of the little tests i've been more i've been more i've been

more aware of the height when I was on a building or on a rooftop than I was ever aware of the height when you're when you're jumping out of an airplane. Yeah, I'm with you. The same deal where if I climbed up there, I don't get afraid of heights at all. If I like, you know, like a big cargo dad or something like this. The only time I'm like, quote unquote, aware where I'm like is, yeah, like, you're at a, let's say a hotel or something. you're on a top floor and then they just allow you out on the balcony.

And I'm like, bro, this, there is a very little barrier given how far down that is. You see what I'm saying? Like someone could like fall all over this balcony and just freaking fall this whole. Like an airplane or something like that. It's almost like there's too much of a disconnect to understand that you're high up. You just seem like you're just sort of in a different world, you know? So you don't. But I feel like that's kind of the litmus test where if it's like if people have this like, oh,

like they kind of have this panic mode. when they're like way up in the air. I feel like, if I felt from here, I don't know. I'm not in touch with it. Is it what I don't know? Interesting.

Makes sense. Continuing on, units should structure training to present multiple streams of information and detectable patterns of enemy activity that will teach leaders what to look for.

So that's what we're doing, right? We're putting people in situations where they're going to start going, wait a second. It doesn't really matter that this is happening. What matters is that? Like we used to tell guys if there was no shooting like the enemy stopped shooting at you Your instinct can't be oh cool they left your instinct has to be their maneuvering

So that's the kind of thing you can train people to pay attention to On the individual level leaders should develop the personal cognitive battle drills that better prepare them for mental challenges of combat They should rehearse exactly what words they will use to report initial contact and what guidance they use anticipating issuing in the opening moments of a battle. These drills create neural circuitry that is familiar to the brain when the actual event happens, thus making it easier to execute with calm and confidence. Leadership position themselves on the battlefield to facilitate their cognitive responsibilities. Despite mission, terrain or movement technique, leaders must discern what position allows them to survey all aspects of the fight.

As much as possible, they should directly observe their soldiers and get information real time without compromising their ability to keep a macro view. Conversely, soldiers expect to see their leaders at the proverbial front and cannot respect leaders who are never among them. Finding this balance is part of what makes command an art. Most importantly, all leaders have a responsibility to build a database of professional knowledge that will assist them in creating insight

during stressful situations. They do this by studying doctrine, seeking instruction from mentors, being self-critical about performance, recording new ideas, participating in thought exercises, discussing related concepts with peers, and reading professional works. You got to know history.

You got to have tactical options. You got to have your personal experience. And if you have those things, you will be able to find creative answers on the battlefield because sometimes the answer is not in doctrine. The concept of brain-based combat leadership deserves attention to both military and professional development courses and unit-level education training programs teaching leaders. what they will physiologically experience will better prepare them to maintain emotional stability and effectively lead others during combat. It's got a bunch of recommendations for the army in here.

And then here's the conclusion. Combat involves a wide range of events, dangers, and sensory inputs that can easily overwhelm the unprepared mind. The first job of every soldier, regardless of rank, is to maintain his composure and react reflexively to the threat as required. Leaders, however, must go beyond the conditioned response to combat that we train on the live fire range. They must zoom out, right, detach and adopt a macro-level view of the battle, quickly analyze events occurring, decide on the appropriate response, coordinate complex systems, and apply the appropriate leadership skills to accomplish the mission. These brain functions are among the most sophisticated processes that we humans can perform. Leaders who do not protect their own cognitive function during combat will find themselves short of the bylawful. resources necessary to win, meaning glucose to your brain and place themselves and others

at risk. In this sense, knowing how to think could be a combat leader's most valuable tool. So what that whole article was about was trying to get leaders, trying to teach leaders to detach from the monkey brain and use your brain to think. and not be driven by your instincts, but driven by logic and reason. Now, here's where I'm going to give some additional information that is slightly contrary. It's not contrary, but you have to think about it. This is something I've always said.

Detachment doesn't mean that you become void of emotions. In fact, emotions have to be part of the calculus. your emotions, your team's emotions, your boss's emotions, all emotions need to be taken into account. Now, this does not mean that they drive our decision-making process, but they have to play a role. They have to be in the calculus. We have to be the driver, right? Here's my metaphor. We heard about a chariot.

We heard about this. We have to have the steering wheel. We have to have the brakes. We have to have the gas. We have to know when is it the good time to add more emotion because sometimes we need to add more emotion to the situation. Right? You ever had a situation where someone's not getting it like cornering someone in

MMA and they're losing two rounds and they have one more round left and they go, I think the fight's going okay. No, that's not no. You might need to press the gas on the emotion. You also might need to take some of that emotion away. You know, in yourself, you might need to know when it's time to turn on the emotion, when it's time to pull some back. You might need to know what you need to control.

When it's time to follow your instinct and when it's time to say, hold on, I need to, I need to pay attention to the logic here. That should be our goal. Our goal should be to have the steering wheel, have the brakes, have the gas, no one we need to push, no one we need to pull back. And learn how to drive and manage and modulate your emotions and your ego and your reason and your logic and utilize all those different inputs to create decisions and solutions and create actions. And of course, you can't do any of this. if you can't detach. You'll never figure out anything that I'm talking about if you are in the gray slop.

You won't ever see it. You won't even know what I'm talking about right now. But you can't abandon emotions and ego and passion. You need to stay in touch with them. You need to stay connected to them, but you can't be controlled by them. And this is very, very difficult. And it's also very, very important.

So T.E. Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia, a famous British guy, archaeologist. He's a military officer. He became famous during the Arab revolt in 1916 and 1918 against the Ottoman Empire. And he had a quote in his book, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom. nine tenths of tactics are certain and taught in books but the irrational tenth is like the king fisher flashing across a pool and that is a that is the test of generals and i saw a guy on a twitter x named infantry dort which had a lot of good information he had this quote up but the point of this quote is this is something that is very very very dangerous Difficult to teach this that you can learn nine-tenths of being a combat leader You can learn from the books you can learn from the schoolhouse you can learn it on the drill field like there's all nine-tenth of you can have it all dialed in but there's a tenth of it because it the irrational tenth which is like You can't you can't teach it to somebody now T. Lawrence does say you can get better at it

But it's very very difficult to teach but it's not only a plan a plan to the military, it's applicable. Like you hear about it in sports, right? In sports, I think, and you can correct me on this, you're more of a sports guy than I am. You hear people describing athletes that have certain intangibles, right? Hey, they got this capability, they got this much talent,

but they have intangibles. Michael Jordan, was he the tallest guy? No, like he, but what did he have? He had something that we all have a hard time naming. And people will try and name it, court sense. Like, even court sense, what's that? Is that a thing? Like, are we gonna name that?

Like, is that a, can you just, can I teach you court sense? Right, right. Maybe I can give you some, you get familiar with the game, but there's some people that have another level of it. Tom Brady, the famous videos of Tom Brady at the Combine. Looking weak, you know, slow. But what did he have? He had some intangibles.

Muhammad Ali, Lionel Messi, Dion Sanders. These people had some. And M.MA, we see it, right? John Jones. Johnny Bones Jones. What is he doing? Like, he's doing, like, okay, we all know Muay Thai. We all know wrestling.

We all know jujitsu. We all know boxing. But all of a sudden, he's doing something else, right? He's taking all those things and mixing in a way that we go, wait, no one taught him that. And Coach Jackson would say, like, no, he never saw him. that before he just did it there in the moment fadoa milianenko what is he putting together how does he how's he winning fights right hicks and racy marcello garcia in the jiu jitzy world like what there's something going on there they have these untangibles they have these these these irrational

tents that it doesn't matter you can't get them from the gym and then in hollywood you get the same thing right to be in Hollywood what do they call it they call it the they call it the it factor just it Marilyn Monroe Marlon Brando Denzel Washington right Al Pacino Chris Pratt Chris Pratt bro you hang out with Chris Pratt and you go oh yeah you're like oh okay there's a reason that he's Chris Pratt there's something about him he's got something they call it it they call it call it the thing, but you, when you, you don't, you don't really know what it is. Like when I was first going to meet Chris Pratt, I was going to a UFC fight with Jack Carr.

And we were, we were flying from L.A. It was super cool. But it's my first time meeting like a real famous like Hollywood person. I was kind of like, oh, you know, I bet this guy's going to be like, you know how they portrayed Matt Damon in, um, in America. Team America World Police. You know, they kind of portrayed Matt Damon, like, like kind of just dumb or whatever. And so I kind of thought, you know,

I don't know nothing about Hollywood. I'm like, okay, that must be the real assessment of these Hollywood people. So, but I've seen Chris Brad and stuff, but I thought, you know, whatever, like he's going to be kind of like that caricature that they put forward in Team America World Police. And then you meet him and you spend like five minutes around him

and you go, oh, okay. Okay, I get it They're the reason that he's, who he is But no one can't He didn't learn that in acting school I don't even think he went to acting school Right, he didn't go he didn't I don't think he was in the school plays

And had the the drama teacher like saying No, you need to get a little bit more furrow in your brow Or be a little bit quicker on your comeback Like none of that But there's something there And then you get like rock musicians right Ozzy of course Elvis

Hendricks Prince Like you know These are people that They just have some thing And by the way Not just singers but You people that are people that can play an instrument

If you go down to a guitar center And you put up hey I'm hiring a guitarist I need a guitarist that can play Led Zeppelin Black Sabbath tool Which is hard to hell and rush which is hard as hell proficiently call this number i'll get in san diego i'll get 10 phone calls and they'll be able to do it too and one of the guys is like a waiter one of the guys will be a construction worker one of the guys will be a whatever because they

they're really good at their instrument but they don't have that little thing that kirk Cobain hat, which is take four chords and turn it into like a crazy whole album. So there is this unquantifiable kind of tenth or intangible, um, irrational tenth. And here's what I think is, especially from a leadership perspective, that thing is the connection back to the gray slop. the connection back to the gray slop, which is the ability to connect with someone emotionally, connect to that animal instinct,

communicate with that. Like you ever, even what you're just talking about, you see someone talking and they're getting people fired up. They're not talking to their logical. You never heard someone say, I want to go over the statistics right now. Like they don't,

that's not a fired up speech. The fired up speech doesn't appeal to that. What it does when someone, has this ability, when they have that connection back to their emotional gray slop and they can modulate it properly, they can utilize it to write a great song, to lead people to improvise a martial arts move like they're to get when they get done, Connor McGregor gets a hold of the microphone and everyone goes nuts because he's going to connect. in a way that someone else

that doesn't have that ability to have problems or to not not get where they want to go and by the way sometimes some people can tap into it and and they but it's too much right and in the like in the in the

entertainment business you end up with Kurt Cobain you end up with Jim Morrison you end up with Janice Joplin you end up with Amy Whitehouse you end up with Sid Vicious You ended up with Jim Belushi. You end up with Heath Ledger. Like these people are people that would tap back in, but then it would kind of like just get hold of them.

So they, it's one of these things. You got to control it. You got to tap into it. But if you don't have control over it, it'll, and by the way, this happens with leaders too. Like leaders that lose their minds, which I, you know, when you have a leader that's in charge of an organization and they lose their minds. They were able to use that tapping into their emotions and their ego to,

drive things and make things happen, but at a certain point, it takes over and they lose their minds. Their prefrontal cortex just shuts down, and now their ego's running the show, and it's a disaster.com. So that's why you got to, you got to know how to when to hit the brakes. You got to know when hit gas, you've got to steer it in the right direction. And if you can, if you have the rationalization, and you have the discipline to do that, you have the discipline to go, oh, hold on a second, this is about to be an egotistical decision.

And by the way, when I stood up in front of the company, I said, we're going to go into this market. Nothing's going to stop us. And that was tapping into my ego and tapping into my emotion and connecting with other people's emotion because they all want to win and I want to win because that's going to do better for our survival in the world. And I'm going to tap into that. But then two months later, when it's like, hey, we got a decision to make on if we're going to continue to expend this money on this marketing campaign that hasn't done well. My ego might be saying, I know it's going to work. but it's not a good move. And you've got to be able to decipher

and utilize the proper area of your brain. And you have to be the person that's controlling it. You can't let your emotions make decisions, but you can't leave them out of the decisions. And sometimes you've got to press the gas on your emotions. And sometimes you've got to press the gas on your ego. You ever seen an MMA fighter as they're getting closer and closer to the fight? Their ego starts growing.

If it grows too early, they stop training. If it grows too late, they're not ready for the fight. They doubt themselves. They have got to figure out how to modulate these things. We have to figure out how we modulate these things. When someone can do that, that's a rare person. And that's going to be the person that rises to the top. But we, we're not counting on that over here.

Draco's not over here just counting on all the doing it right. We're just trying to do it right. We're just trying to do better. We're just trying to do better. And in order to do better, in my opinion, we truly have to learn, first of all, to detach from that gray slop, that animal instinct, which, by the way, drives so much in our lives. By the way, the workout that you didn't do, grace slop.

That's animal instincts, telling you you're tired, telling you don't need to. to do it. The donut that you ate, immediate gratification. Dopamine. Dopamine, dopamine, dopamine, dopamine, dopamine, that's all it is. The gray slop is if we're not out of it, if we're in it, we're not doing the right thing. That's what happens. Letting our stupid animal instincts make decisions about our long-term lives or without considering our long-term lives. We cannot allow this. We have to get control. We have to detach. We have to elevate above the gray slop We have to take control of our lives And when needed

We artfully utilize the emotion and the ego and the passion like a You know it's like a little Like a little fuel Little nuclear reactor. It's real like it's burning Those things are burning But you can't let that fire get out of control. It's like a meltdown in a nuclear facility You got to keep it you got to know and to put the carbon rods into the reactor to cool it down sometimes.

You can't let it just run out of control or you can have a meltdown, which is terms that people use about someone having a freaking meltdown. Why is that? They let their emotion, they let their ego, they let their passion get out of control. Set them on fire. But if you can control that, if you contain that energy and utilize it properly, you're going to have a win. So think about that.

And if you can do that, it is going to elevate every aspect of your life. And that's what I got. That's what I got for today. So pay attention to it. It's there. The chimpanzee mind is strong and it is loud. You know, that it factor or whatever. I feel like, and I was kind of going deep as you're explaining, I was like,

probably, that's true. You know, like the ability, and you said something actually which was spot on a little bit later. You said artfully, artfully like, you know, take from the gray part, the gray slop and then, you know, and kind of interchange them and whatever to create this kind of thing. It feels like it's like with five minutes of thinking, obviously. But the it factor that, you know, that intangible, that what is it, the 10%? The something 10%. The irrational 10th. Yeah, the irrational 10th.

I think it has to do with some kind of lack of restraint or boundary, whatever that looks like. You know how like, I think in acting they call it like self, self-consciousness. You got to let go with the self-consciousness, you know? And I think, and even in sports, right, where you like, you doubt. You're like any competition, you have a healthy level of doubt for yourself, you know, kind of a thing. But then if you can, some people have it just naturally. they're like, I don't follow those rules. Like even all the way down to their subconscious,

like they don't follow your etiquette. Like, Brad doesn't apply to me, you know, kind of a thing. So like, okay, remember, okay, this MMA guy, he was a, he was a black guy, he used to fight in. I want to say, he would like, he'd do weird crazy stuff. What was his name? Ed. Nine Mill.

No, no, no. Yeah, no. It was a different guy. We don't, I don't think we know him personally. He was my young brother's favorite guy. I think he had like silver teeth maybe yeah Yeah Crazy horse

Yeah yeah yeah yeah The Bennett Charles Bennett So he was wild exactly right So he's in a wild That's exactly what I'm saying But he had this very specific thing where He wasn't like he he was the opposite As far as his style goes

It wasn't this highly disciplined You know like think GSP right If you if GSP comes out to win this fight You're like bro this guy's game is just tight You know, like he's making all the right moves. Bro, you're even more right than you know you are. I've been back in the day, the UFC on the same card, GSP fighting. You could see like cutting weight.

You would see him cutting weight like a machine. Machine. Just a machine. Just like, you know, checking weight. Like no big deal. Like no expression on his face. You know, just so disciplined and professional. Yeah.

You're like, okay, cool. Like clockwork. Even his fights. Yep, same thing. And you know which fight was really like, this guy came to like 100% win. Like no risk, no this and that. Like this was like it, it's almost like, hey, if you're going to increase the probability of you winning but to 100%, you have to do all the right things. Take zero risk and do the right things.

And finish the fight. This is how he would fight. It was his rematch against Matt Sarah. When he lost him at Sarah, that second one, it was like, bro, this guy's not losing. There's no way he's going to. So anyway, it was so calculated and so tight Versus crazy horse Bennett Yeah, bro, the exact opposite, bro,

But that motherfucker still won sometimes Or a lot of the time. Yeah, yeah. And by the way, he connected emotionally with so many people. He was a fan favorite, right? He's a fan favorite. But he didn't modulated enough. And by the way, it didn't only apply to in the cage.

It was also like, what was his lifestyle like? Was this a guy that was like on the mats training? No, he was like not on the mat. He was obviously a very gifted guy and he trained but like that next level of discipline There was more emotion. There was more crazy. That's why his literal nickname was crazy horse So maybe his unright irrational tenth was like an irrational 30 or something like this or for it was it was It was it bigger than it maybe should have been as far as ideal But as far as identifying that thing he had a lot of that thing where he was like he didn't have boundaries

He didn't have internal boundaries like hey maybe I should not he was sending it all just full send like good good this what we're doing this what I'm doing you know and it wasn't like I'm gonna timidly send it because you know some guys they'll timidly send it you know Jeremy Stevens yeah another like he he was losing a fight you know and I was in his corner and I had to I had to go emotional with him and get him emotional and dude he got because he's an emotional dude you know and dude he tapped into that emotion and freaking almost murdered a guy. You know what I'm saying?

Just, just, K-Oed a brother. But it was one of those things where his, he needed to tap into that at that time. Yeah. And that's a positive thing to have. But like you're saying, like GSP,

like there was no, I don't remember, maybe we could find a fight where he had to get into some, like, emotional level. But a lot of times, dude, GSP was just a machine.

And same with, like, Fado or Emilianenko. Yeah. Like you did you ever see an expression on his face? It's like no not really. He was not fighting with any type of emotion at all and that kind of became his made him so popular right like like just like a Terminator but yes this this thing is being able to figure out how much of this fire you're going to let out and when you're going to let it out. And how you're going to let it out. The guys who just like I said can put it together perfectly or because it has to be the perfect uh combination and then the first perfect like back and forth with all the training discipline competitiveness self-confidence like all that

stuff and then on top of it that like lack of restraint where you can be like no i'm not gonna follow the protocol i'm gonna i'm gonna step outside of the protocol for this one you see what i'm saying so like you know michael jordan or the the best one i think i can think of the top of my head is john jones Because you know, like, bro, he finished fights with a spinning elbow. And just like how you said, who was it, Coach Jackson, right? Greg Jackson. We were like, yeah, I never seen him do that. But he has been, he's so creative, like, minded with everything within the confines of his discipline, for sure, where he'd be like, no, no, no, I can send this and make it work.

He doesn't have that constraint that I would have. Right. If I'm like, bro, I've never practiced that spinning elbow, bro, I'm not going to try in a fight. Doesn't make sense. Well, this is an interesting thing because I was, you know, in the publishing world right now, there's a lot of AI being. published and one of the things about publishing or one of the things about humans is humans have an irrational tenth right and I don't know that they can successfully put the irrational tenth into a I'm can they say by the way I want

you to throw in some random thought and process it in there but it's it's that it's random but it's whereas AI is gonna take AI is predictable you put in the input, it's going off of, it's going to be, here's the story, here's the thing, because it's based on other things that have existed before. But a human is going to hopefully have this irrational 10%. The it. That's what makes a writer write. You know, I was talking to my literary agent a long time ago, and she's really smart, studied

at an Ivy League college, studied history and literature. And one day I was like, you know, like, why are you a literated and not a, not like a writer? And she says, you know, I look at a paper and I don't really have anything to write about. And I was like, oh, okay. And which is weird because for me, I have like all kinds of like ridiculous ideas that I need to figure out which one I'm going to invest in. Yeah. You know, but that's a similar thing. Yeah.

So that we were, I think, yeah, it was you. we just weren't recording. This is a while ago. We'll talk about like, you know, creative people, right? And there's all different kinds of creative. I get it. But like, you know, a lot of these people who we regard as like highly creative, they have this weird past, you know, where they've been through something,

whether it be traumatic or just super dynamic in one way or another, that they can kind of draw upon, which and whether they know it or not. And I think that that's the struggle. I think that AI is going to have a hard time, like, replicating I whatever with enough time who knows but it's hard to replicate like someone's actual pay yeah okay so AI we'll say a video right I make it AI video and say hey do this make him feel this and they'll do it and they did it but I'm like right wouldn't really look like that it wouldn't really feel like that you see I'm saying you're doing it too perfectly so when

you really yeah predictably exactly right if you really went through it oh you would know there's little details of someone you know how like if someone's telling a story about like their friend and be like you're talking about yourself right now you see what I'm saying because you know like there's something that kind of comes with it that is like so like inherently human that it's like you you can't just replicate it I can't describe it but once you experience it you're like okay and it's like it's hard to like predictably recreate it out of nothing or imagination like you kind of got to do it well it's kind of like I I before we hit record the you know we know what is in an amoeba we know all the components that are in amoeba we can put all those in a little dish and stir them together but it doesn't come to life it takes some other element and so the idea like everything that you can put all these things into the AI dish but like there's something that just like you said like there's something can look similar and sound similar but at the end of the day you're kind of like

Well, it's not quite that thing. It's not quite there. So you got to tap, you got to be able to tap into it appropriately. Most people don't have a problem with this, by the way. But I do think most people have a problem with their, they're too emotional. They're letting their ego and all these emotions and everything run the show. But I think if you can detach more, I think people that detach properly, they find a way to better recognize the power of that emotion and funnel it and get it to a right spot. where it can be utilized properly.

Now look, you know, like crazy artists, right? That burn in and they better to burn out and fade away, right? That's like, these people are crazy. And when they get enough success, they can kind of carry on. But a lot of, like, how many people, you know, I talked about Jeff Lang, the kid I grew up with who was smarter than me.

In the book Final Spin, I kind of dedicated the book Final Spin to my friend Jeff Lang, who was smarter than me, funnier than me, better athlete than me, like just a creative, just a spark, just like fire. And he killed himself when he was 19 years old. And you're like,

was that fire was just burning so, it was too much, right? And sometimes, you know, how many people are like that? And it doesn't necessarily mean they have to kill themselves, but, you know, their fire wouldn't allow them to be in a band. It wouldn't allow them to even practice their instrument. It wouldn't allow them to sit down in front of a video thing and learn how to edit the stuff. They got too much of it.

And it just doesn't, like, it can't, like, you know, Ozzy Osbourne. Like, Ozzy Osbourne, he was like a, like, just like this intense creative energy. And luckily, like, he got into Black Sabbath. and became like but if he if that wouldn't happen to him if he wouldn't have found those guys if he wouldn't have found bill ward and tony iommi and gizzi but if they wouldn't have if that wouldn't happened where would he be i mean i can guarantee you he wouldn't we wouldn't know who he is you know he might have done a man here there whatever but like you've got to get in that moment and have the right

ingredients and then you've got to get a little bit of luck and you've got to survive it like the fact that Ozzy lived so long. Like, why didn't he die when he was, you know, 23 years old, all drunk, fall into a train? Like, there's somebody, that fire is going to burn bright and occasionally people can survive with it. But a lot of times,

and they can be successful with it, but a lot of times that fire ends up with people in jail, with people, you know, committing crimes, with people Odeing, with people just ruining their lives. The fire in the emotion and the ego. And by the way,

we can say the same thing about ego. Like, what ego? drives a person to achieve things, but then when it goes out of control, all of a sudden they're embezzling money and they're doing all this, you know, they're doing terrible things because their ego can't be shut down.

That fire is just too much. They can't control it. They don't know how to, they never learn to modulate it. Yeah. Yeah, the Ozzy, actually a lot of the musical type, it makes sense, too.

Jim Carrey went through a version of this where, so they have this, we'll just call it, for lack of matter to him, a fire, right? So, Aziz's a fire, this fire inside of him, and he goes, he goes crazy, right? Is he Kerry?

No, we'll say, Ozzy Oswald. And then, you know, he finds music or he gets into music early on, right? So there's something about, like, music. And maybe I would imagine just performing for the world, you know, like, but truly performing, not being performed at it, but like truly doing your art as a performer

for the people and they're just loving it. There's something about that. So in music, let's face it, like, I don't even really play music. And bro, I'll listen to music and be like, man, this is like, this is a bad. Yeah, you know, to a point where it affects you emotionally. That's what I was going to say. You know why?

Because they, whoever that musician was, they tapped into that emotion. They pulled it out. They put it. They recorded it. And now when you hear it, this is the same thing to you. Yeah. But they had to have the discipline and the control to make that happen. Now look, occasionally you get a band that just takes, they have that one member.

This is why like the lead singer dies, the whatever. The guitarist kills himself. Like crazy stuff happens. You know, like we've had incredible musicians that they, like Chris Cornell, like from Soundgarden. Here's this guy. He's at the top of his game, 50 years old or whatever. Iconic. But that fire caught up and then killed himself.

You see what I'm saying? Like it's wild. Sorry I cut you off. But yes, the reason that you echo Charles, it doesn't know how to play an instrument, you know, doesn't collect. records, but you will hear a song and go, dang, dude, this one hits. Yeah. There's a collection of songs that, and my kids will tease me about this word, like, if I find a song that I really like, I'll just play it over and over and over until,

like, just don't like it anymore, or don't like it as much. But, and I remember thinking to myself, I think, I think there's something wrong with me in that way where, like, I don't like all music. You know, people are music lovers. I'm not a music lover, but I like certain songs, like, just stick. right now kind so I don't know maybe there's plenty of people like that but now consider that right where I think music has a way to affect people in that way and a lot of people I think across the board that's the way music works mostly now you're a person with all this fire in you and you get to

not only consume that but you get to harness it and create it you know in the and that fire is just driving it so now it's this like you're almost like this lightning rod of fire and creativity and then the medium is music that just affects, and you know it's affecting themselves, too. Is you what I'm saying? Let's face it, a good song comes on that you really know,

bro, you're singing it like, if you're alone in your car or whatever. Bro, you're singing it like you're singing it. And it feels like you're actually singing it. See what I'm saying? Now go one step further as you are the person really singing it. Bro, it's like,

that can drive you crazy, I think. See what I'm saying? Especially if it's like, if it's literally coming from you, it's like, bro, it's too much power sometimes. You see what I'm saying? And then not to mention all the fame and all this other stuff, discombobulating your whole freaking mind and life,

is you what I'm saying? So it kind of makes sense. Yeah. And that's how you end up, I think, with that fire just you're getting rewarded for that fire, right? Yeah. Like you're getting rewarded.

So then you just unleash it. Yeah. And boom. If you're not careful, it's going to get you. Jim Carrey said he got to the point, I'm paraphrasing that he didn't even know who he like was. Because it's kind of like,

you know, he started off with, I just wanted to make the people around me laugh and happy. So he starts doing this and he likes doing it and he's it's working. So he takes it to the next level and he's you know his creative mind is like doing this and it's this next level and everyone just wants that Jim Carrey making them happy and laugh. Then he's like wait a second. If I'm not doing that like who am I he focused so hardcore on it that he said like he didn't even know who he was anymore kind and I was like I could I could see it. I totally could see it.

Yeah. Just getting getting not only are you unleashing the fire but everyone else is just throwing gas on it. Yeah, no, bro. Totally throwing gas on it. Check. Check. Well, detach from that emotion. Use it.

But don't let it get out of control. Oh, that's what we got. By the way, when we do that, when we impose discipline into our lives, which, by the way, when we crank up the music when we're working out, your music, your workout can legitimately go better. That can happen. That's when you're tapping into your emotion. Sometimes when you let the emotion be, hey, I feel like sleeping in today, echo Charles, which I know happened today, actually. Sure.

Right? Hey, sometimes we need a little bit more rest. Not trying to call you out, but I'm calling you out. No, you know what I'm saying? Why? Because the emotion was, I'm tired. The emotion was, I feel sore, but baby, yeah, yeah. And you let it win.

You didn't impose logic. knowing that a good workout before you came in here, it would have been better. Okay. All right. I went for a run. Okay. Oh.

Okay. Good. Good. Well, hey, listen, if you're on the path, you're trading, you're lifting,

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See what I'm saying? I think that's most of us. Jack. So it's good. OriginUSA.com, get some. Good to go. Also, don't forget about Jocco's store. We're representing while we're on this path, right?

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Into the main stream. What is it? Sugar-coated lies. Is that that one right there? Nope. This is a different one. Sugar would light, the one of the first cream. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I'm releasing that one. Be on the lookout for that. If you want to be notified. Put your email, go jocco store.com at the bottom, put your email in that. I'll email you when it comes out. Oh, so you can spam everybody? No, no, no, no, no, no. I don't spam anyone.

I've never spammed anyone ever in my whole life, ever. And I never will. Dang. I don't mean that. I don't like that. But I will let you know when it's live and when it's going live even before it goes live so you can jump on there whenever you want. So you'm saying?

You want to get it. You want to get the jump on it. You can. If you want to get back to it, you can. You do run the risk of it's selling out, though. Because they do tend to sell out nonetheless. It's all on jocco store.com. Check it on.

Also, we got some books. Check out, Put Your Legs on by Rob Jones. Check out Need to Lead by Dave Burke. I've written a bunch of books about leadership with my brother Lafe Babin. I've written out some other books for adults and kids. Check all those out.

Warrior Kid. Movie coming. Movie coming November 20th. Oh, yeah. Right? Way of the Warrior Kid movie. Starring Chris Pratt. Who Has It, by the way?

Has it, big time. Directed by Mick G. Kind of has it, too. You know? Legitimacy and authenticity. Yeah. Excellence. Excellence and legitimacy.

Yep. That's what Echo Charles. Oh, because Echo Charles is in it too, by the way. Yeah. Acting. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Stretch of a roll.

You know. Playing a jiu-dit-to black belt up there with the guion. Being very supportive. Yeah. Dude, you did a great job. You brought a lot of excellence on legitimacy to the situation. Thank you. We were all very happy.

Thanks. Primalbeef.com. You need steak. Check out primalbeef.com. and Colorado Craftbeef.com. Also, Eschlein front, we have something called the muster. We just got done with the muster. The muster is a two-day conference,

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if you come to the muster. The next one is in July. And it is in San Diego. So that is a very cool place. We did it in the summertime. We know that people like to come to San Diego. So if you want to make it into a little family scenario, bring the fam out. You learn about leadership.

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Check out Mark Lee's mom, mom, mommy. She's got an amazing charity organization. If you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to America's mighty warriors.org. Also check out heroes and horses.org. And finally, Jimmy Mays organization beyond the brotherhood. Dottero.org. If you want to connect with us, you can check out jocco.com. And then on social media, I'm at Jocko.

Well, echoes that echo Charles. Just be careful because that whole thing is filled with a bunch of spam crap trying to manipulate your brain. So what it is, people paying money to get into your brain and get control of you. And you know how they attack you, by the way? They appeal to your animal instincts. Your brain gray slop. Your gray slop. That's why the thumbnails are what the thumbnails are.

And I apologize for the freaking dumbass thumbnails that Echoes made When he was experimenting with AI And I'm like bro I asked you to stop doing those No less than I would say eight times I was like bro this is the dumbest looking AI look at slop And then I think I'd shut it down

And then the next one would come out It'd be me like on a stack of gold coins With a crown on or me in a business suit I'm like bro And I get it because it was early in the AI Yeah, it was early in the AI generation, so you were kind of like flexing in a way. Yeah, yeah. But it didn't take long before you were, you were not flexing anything. Yeah. So anyways, but that's what people do. They create these thumbnails. You didn't create thumbnails specifically aimed at your animal instincts. But whenever you see a thumbnail, it's got like a female, you know, that's in some skimpy outfit. That's or the, or. they put some fear into you, like a fearful title.

Or you can win now, like defeat anyone, like those kind of things. The things you're missing. Yeah, yeah. If you notice that. Yeah. That's, those are real AI, sorry, those are real gray slop attacks. And you fall for them. We all fall for them.

That's why they get so many views. So just be careful. When you're in that zone, just be careful. Try and scroll with your, with your prefrontal cortex. And you'll spend if you if you engage your prefrontal cortex, you'll be you'll shut it. You'll go do something smart three three scrolls later. You'll be like what is this crap? Yeah, but if you just let your that your limbic brain just it'll look at that shit all day just like oh wow it's amazing.

Oh, that looks like a good meal. Oh, I'm gonna learn something new. I'm didn't learn anything. I'm gonna learn something that's going to change about. I didn't learn it. That's what it is true. So just be careful. That's what's happening there. And finally, thanks to all of our service members, Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps, thank you for your service and sacrifice that allows us to live in freedom and live in security. Also, thanks to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, Border Patrol, Secret Service, as well as all of their first responders. Thank you for your service and sacrifice that keeps us safe here on our soil. And everyone else out there, you've got to be the one that's in control. not your impulses, not your emotions, not your ego, but you, your enlightened self.

You with plans and goals and hopes and dreams and things that can only be achieved if you are holding a steering wheel. If you force yourself to overcome the short-term immediate gratification of the mind that satisfies you right now but robs you of your future. And I'm not saying don't have emotions. You got to have emotions. And you should utilize those emotions, but don't let those emotions utilize you. Do not allow that. And if you do that, you will improve your lot in life. That's all we've got for tonight.

And until next time, Zekko and Jocko out.