Jocko Podcast - 552: How The Mindset of A Sniper Apply to Life. With JP Dinnell.

Episode Date: August 5, 2026

>Join Jocko Underground Full Episodes< Being a sniper isn't just about shooting. It's about observation, patience, preparation, adaptability, and making the right decision at exactly the right moment. Jocko and JP Dinnell explore the unseen skills behind elite snipers, telling stories from combat while revealing how those same habits create success in leadership, business, and life.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 552 with Echo Charles and me. Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. The sniper has special abilities, training, and equipment. His job is to deliver discriminatory, highly accurate rifle fire against enemy targets, which cannot be engaged successfully by the riflemen because of range, size, location, fleeting nature, or visibility. Sniping requires the development of basic infantry skills to a high degree of perfection.

A sniper's training incorporated. a wide variety of subjects designed to increase his value as a force multiplier and to ensure his survival on the battlefield. The art of sniping requires learning and repetitiously practicing these skills until mastered. A sniper must be highly trained in long-range rifle marksmanship and field craft skills to ensure maximum effective engagements with minimum risk. and that right there is a quote from the U.S. Army Field Manual 23-Tact 10 sniper training gives a pretty good overall look at what a sniper does and there are many, many skills that snipers develop or they amplify that are not only good for combat and good for long-range

target interdiction, but also many of these skills are good for other aspects of life as well. and to talk about some of these skills and how they apply across the board we have with us. Once again, my brother, J.P. to know and J.P. has been on this podcast, I think six times before. He is the chief training officer at Eslam Front, our leadership consultancy. I originally met him when we were at Sill Team 3 together. He was the point man and the lead sniper in Delta Paltun, Task Unit Bruiser. He played a critical role for Task unit Bruiser in the bot. Battle of Ramadi where he used a multitude of skills machine gunner point man assaulter and of course sniper where he executed the sniper mission exactly as it is explained in military doctrine quote the primary mission of a sniper in combat is to

support operations by delivering precise long-range fire on selected targets by this the sniper creates casualties among enemy troops, slows enemy movement, frightens enemy soldiers, lowers enemy morale, and adds confusion to enemy operations, end quote. And that right there is exactly what JP did, and he did it with extraordinary effectiveness. And so back once again, JP didn't know. Good seeing you, brother. In town for the 20th anniversary of Task Unit Bruser. Yeah. So we got a bunch of the boys coming into town.

Yeah, it's going to be good. It's good to be back. It'll be over by the time this comes out. So that's why I don't mind saying we're going to be here in force. We got a night at one of our go-to bars, and then we have a night that the UDT Seal Museum in San Diego has opened up the museum for us at night. We're having food and drinks and whatnot. And, of course, then on Sunday we're going to go visit our boys. at Rosecrans.

So Mark and Mikey and Seth and Chris and Ryan are not buried there but of course we'll be thinking about them as well. It's going to be awesome. Ramadi was, I don't know, I don't know if we could create a better environment for a sniper than Ramadi.

It would be tough to create a better environment for a sniper. I agree. It was interesting when I had General McFarlane on and I've always had this thought in my head but I've never really said it aloud. And then not only did he say it, but getting ready for that podcast,

I was reading articles where he had been interviewed. And he said that putting in the combat outposts was like bait for the insurgents so that the snipers could kill the insurgents. Yeah, it was pretty awesome. And to do that over and over and over and over again was again you're not going to get much better

of an environment than Ramadi for a sniper. I agree. And what you said over and over and over that's an understatement because there were I was just yeah the

environment in Ramadi was target rich because of how many evil people were there, how many insurgent fighters that we're just doing as you've talked multiple times on this podcast just horrific things to the local populace and i love that you said i'm sorry i love that you use the word support in there because you know as a sniper it's really cool to have that title and to be a sniper and you can definitely feed into like the

egotistical side of that like yeah i'm the sniper i'm one of the lead snipers but you're you You and Laif and Seth did a phenomenal job, reiterating what our job was, was to protect those soldiers, Marines, and our seals that were on the ground to support them in their clearances, in the operations. And if we did our job well, well, we got to kill evil people. So for me, it was the best thing ever. and because of that target-rich environment, it really allowed us to progress those skill sets

to try things new, real-time. You know, in the movie Warfare, that opening scene where they're in the sniper hide, those loophole charges, I came up with that on a rooftop, just talking with the guys, and then was talking with one of our breaches, you know, because the rooftops were awesome.

They provided, for the most part, covering concealment with those big thick walls. But the problem is, like, you have to stand up, look over, you're scanning. You do that long enough. The enemy fighters and enemy snipers see you, and they're going to take shots. And if you come up in that same spot two or three times, that's an easy shot for them to take. So you're squatting down, you're moving around, you're popping up, look, scan, all right? They see me, I'm down. And that gets exhausting over time, especially when it's 100 plus degrees full kit. And so we would start rotating out. Okay, you're up, you're looking and scanning moving around and I'm just sitting there.

I'm like, man, it would be awesome if we could like bust a hole through this wall. And we had these like little masonry hammers. I remember the phase of masonry hammers. Did you guys have to buy them? What did you get the, yeah, I, uh, so myself and a few of the other guys, we built out those urban sniper kits.

Okay. I went to Home Depot and literally just went up and down all the aisles just thinking, hey, what would help? And that's where we got the Stanley rolling boxes. We got, yeah, it was like, uh, what's the, It was like Shawshank Redemption. Yeah.

It was like Shawshank Redemption. These dudes were up on the rooftops. Just chisling holes. Just chisling through the freaking walls, Echo Charles. Which sounds good until you realize how thick and well built those walls are. I mean, if those walls are able to stop RPGs being shot at us, I think it's going to take me while for that masonry hammer. Plus it's 120 degrees out.

And it's not like you can stand up and get good swings. No. If you stand up your shot. Yeah, you're on, like you're kneeling or you're on your side. I remember laying on my side swinging the hammer, just getting so pissed off. But yeah, we, I mean, a kind of backtrack to, it was cool because of the ownership that you, Laef and Seth drove down into our task unit as nobody dictated for us to build urban sniper kits.

We realized, hey, we're going, we need urban sniper kits. Guess what? There was none provided to us. Cool. Hey, can I go to Home Depot and buy something? stuff. Yep, cool. Put, you know, and so that's what we did. And then eventually they're like, all right, cool, this is what's needed.

And then the Navy was able to go make those purchases so that guys could have their, you know, urban cyber kits. But yeah, that was, you know, those little masonry hammers was part of the kit, which is super cool to be carrying extra weight in Romadi that, you know. And, but yeah, so we started, I started thinking about it. And, you know, I know from our breaching, I'm not a breacher, but the breaching training that we, the explosive trainings that we go through in third phase in SQT and basics and the teams, hey, we can build a charge that can punch a hole through something without damaging everything else around it. So I'm thinking about it. I start talking with one of the other guys in the platoon, our lead breacher who is a savant when it comes of breaching, like Bob Holland, right? Just a phenomenal breacher. We had him in our platoon. And I think he's still

in, yeah, he's still in getting rid of your time. I'm not going to say his name, but love the guy. Awesome dude. And so we're like talking on a rooftop. I'm like, could we build this, be able to do this? And he's like, yeah, I'm like, cool, let's do it right now. And so we did that. We built it. Put it on the wall. You know, stuck to the wall with the things that we have that allow us to do that.

Put a six second time delay fuse. Guys get off the rooftop, pop it off. We run around and goes off. And it was so awesome. Like we come around the corner. It was just like, oh, like angels are seeing you like this is a little hole and the smoke's kind of moving away and the dust and the dirt and everything. And I was like, sweet. I can now lay behind my sniper rifle, which gives me a better platform.

I can lay behind my sniper rifle for days, which we did in Ramadi at times. You know, obviously if someone was like, you weren't awake the whole time. Okay, we would sleep, we'd rotate out. But I could literally lay behind my sniper rifle, have a very stable shooting platform, have protection of the rest of the wall around there. And then it made me more efficient and more effective with my ability. as a sniper to support whoever was on the ground and whatever was going on. And I like sharing that story when we're working with clients at Eschononfront about innovate

and adapt because nobody was doing that. And it was just a culture of the SEAL teams. How can we get better? How can we make what we're doing better through conversations, through thinking and just trying to refine your craft. And I was infactuated with trying to refine my craft as a sniper because of the example that the older snipers set for me. Benny, Doug, Smurf, those guys

in my platoon, you know, and then Chris over in Charlie Batoon and those snipers were phenomenal. But, you know, Benny, Doug, and Smurf really poured into me a lot, specifically Benny, because of our friendship and just our positions in the platoon. And Benny doesn't get the credit he deserves for being as good

of a sniper as he is. Benny's just awesome across the board. Yeah. And the only reason why Benny didn't have more kills than me were as much as Chris is because Benny when we're in Ramadi you guys put him in a leadership position when we're out there so Benny being a good leader instead of you know put himself he would put us in good positions now he'd get on the gun and do the good lord's work and he was very efficient at that

but he was humble enough to know like hey that wasn't his primary purpose and rules and responsibility but man he was a phenomenal teacher and he really helped me be somewhat good at my job yeah it was awesome because after that deployment we came back and he took over as the LPO of the next platoon so I was putting him through land warfare and stuff and he was just it all just it's like it made sense to him yeah like war just made sense to him and you can watch him and you're like oh yeah then he's just crushing um some of the uh the interesting thing was that we had 13 snipers in tasking a brusier which is a big number it's a lot it's a lot very lucky yeah yes partial luck but but also wisdom and experience from Tony and Dale.

Because they were snipers. And I think, correct me if I'm wrong, but Tony was the one to push for, hey, we need more snipers. Probably. And because we went, even though we had that condensed workup, there was a big push for us to go to sniper school.

Like some guys like Wes, he was able to go to the actual full-blown army sniper school. And, you know, the rest of our guys, we went through the NSW short course, which was phenomenal. You know, Charlie Melton was one of the sniper instructors. That dude is a frogman. And he's also a great instructor, but holds very high standards. I think it's been broken, but a few years ago, he set a world record for a long shot.

I'll have to look up the details later. But yeah. That's no surprise. Yeah, but those are the guys that I was getting to learn from. And it was just crazy. But yeah, I think the big push for having that many snipers with the, potential of us going to Ramadi came from Tony. Yeah.

And then obviously Dale supported it. He's like, yeah, let's get more guys. Yeah, well, when both of your platoon chiefs are snipers, that's two that you normally wouldn't have, right? So you just go down the list and you get, okay, this guy happened to go, this guy went, and you end up with 13, which is. Awesome.

Going into a really good environment. And having such a good relationship with the Army and with the Marine Corps to be able to, you know, get their support when we needed it and support them when they needed it. And we were able to learn a lot from those Marine Corps Army sharpshooters and snipers. When we got to Ramadi just sitting down talking with those guys, hey, what are you guys doing?

Why are you guys doing it this way? Like, we learned a lot of lessons. I know we, I can say we. Oh, for sure. Because I know our whole task unit did. And I, as a sniper, learned a lot talking with those guys that were out there, which led to modifying your gear and changing things up. but it was also really cool

realizing how good we had it in the SEAL teams because I remember talking with some and I know we talked about this on a previous podcast but talking with some of the army snipers that were right across the hallway from us at a camp cricketer in full metal jacket and they you know we were just talking rounds the type of rounds and we were talking about the rounds that we had for five by six

like man how do you guys get that? I'm like what are you guys using? And there was just like a standard 5-5-6 round. And so we're just talking. And Benny and I went back across the hallway because we weren't using the 556 sniper round. We were primarily using the SR-25, which is a 7-62 caliber round or the 300 wind mat, which was my sweet baby girl. And so I wasn't using the 300, I'm sorry, the 556 round. I also knew that if I did need it, I could get more from y'all.

And so we went back over there and had a Benny and I, we grabbed a bunch of cases, had some other guys grab cases. We walked across the hallway. We're like, there you guys go. And they're like, you would have thought we gave them a million dollars in just unmarked bills because they were so appreciative of that. And it's like, well, one, we're out here working together.

Why would we not do that? If we can enhance your capabilities with a better round, hell yeah. Let's do it. You know, that's cover movement. which we talk about all the time for sure yeah and if you think about the opportunity to do that type of mission over and over and over and over and over and over again like if you don't do 10 of those you're still good with uh with the with the with the with the freaking mason you know hammer you're

like you just deal with it you're like okay yeah you know but by the 14th time you're like wait a second there might be a better way you know my first deployment to iraq we were doing direct action missions and we were doing them a lot and so you just get you get you get to really hone it and get it good. And that was the deal in Ramadi was having that opportunity over and over and over again. I mean, Leif tells the story. Speaking of Marines, the first time we were not on patrol

with Marines, like Leif was going to die, not from enemy contact, but because he had brought enough ammunition and weaponry for World War III. And he was just completely overloaded with weight. And, you know, the Marines are running from, from you know from cover to cover out there cover to cover to cover cover to cover cover and he's running from cover to cover and from cover to cover and from cover and he's got to lighten this up

but that's one that's one mission yeah so then you go okay I can get rid of this I can streamline this what I can bring that and you that's how you get good and it's very you know in the 90s bro you didn't do one mission yeah you know didn't do one like we did VBSS but even we did VBSS even if we did a few of them you didn't do enough to where you really get to hone it, hone it the way you should. So man, the GWAT for the American warfighter was freaking legit.

Yeah, it's crazy. You know, repetition and taking action helps with innovate and adapt. Like, just go out there and do it. Just go out there and do it.

You know, that's one of the things I love talking with companies and, you know, they know they need to change. And it's like, hey, just go take an iterative step,

try something out. if it works keep doing it expand upon it when it's consistently working and then that's your new direction if it doesn't work cool you made a small interdiceps not a big deal we were doing that all the time in romadi hey this sounds like a good idea cool let's try it oh that was a horrible idea well good thing we didn't make a you know a big commitment to that but you actually have to go out there and do it over and over and over like our brother our frogman brother andy stump he got his black belt in crazy amount of time and there's not one other that's not one other black belt that could challenge that black belt he has because he was training seven days a week

every day for years and years and sometimes twice a day you're going to get better you're going to get good when you put in the work meanwhile you are training once a year maybe you're talking about my jiu jitsu yeah i would say i probably did you start what year did you start what you started jitza my first actual exposure to Jiu-Jitsu was in Guam when Kaui and I, I know we shared the story before, Kaui and I were out at a bar, grabbing dinner, and we're standing at the bar, and I noticed that we were surrounded by a bunch of Chimorans, which is what the locals in Guam. And these are all big dudes, small dudes, but you could tell these, these are some hard dudes, like scars on faces, colorful out here. And they're surrounding Kauw and I'm like, and I

grabbed the knife and fork that was on for my food and I turn around. I'm like, all right, I'm taking a few of these guys out before I die. And we turn around. I kind of bump cowie. He turns around. They're like, yeah. And all of a sudden they're like, oh, bro. I'm like, why don't we start with that posture, the smiling? Well, they had recognized him because before we deployed to Guam, he had taken leave, went back to Hawaii where he's from, did this big jiu-jitsu tournament and won the whole thing. Nice. So they recognized them. And they're like, hey, bro, you got to come train with us. Yeah,

because Jitsu's big in Guam. Yeah, big. And those guys had all traveled from Guam to do this tournament. And that was my first introduction, was in a backyard MMA Jiu Jitsu gym set up. Lily, cage in the backyard, weights in the grass and dirt. They had to do climb up the pole to connect into the power so that they could turn on the lights back there.

And that was my first actual jujitsu training with, with Cowie and these guys from Guam. And then it was just here and there. So that's 22 years ago? Yeah, 22 years ago. Yeah. And so Andy Stumpf got his black belt in what? Five years?

I think six years. Six years? Yeah. And your black belt is where? I would say maybe a solid two to three, maybe probably four years away. Yeah. I'll probably be 46, 47. My time I get my black belt, which I'm fine with.

The path is hard. Is it not? It is hard. Yeah. Right on. All right. So, hey, in some of these FMs, some of these field manuals, like some of the stuff that they talk about

when they're selecting snipers, marksmanship. Isn't it weird that marksmanship can be taught to just about everyone, just about everyone. Like, occasionally, you get a person that gets rolled from buds because they just can't shoot a pistol or they can't shoot a rifle.

It's like one out of every hundred, I would say. Yeah. A person that just cannot, and generally they'll get it the second time around, but something about their hand-eye coordination or something about what's happening, they just can't do it. And I think I know why.

I would wager a very large sum of this. They don't have an open mind. They're not humble. They're not coachable. And even if they have a bad instructor, like so when I was, I had never touched a weapon before going into the military. My first time shooting an actual pistol was in boot camp.

I didn't even hit the target. because they're like yelling at you. They don't give you any instruction in you're shooting this qual. They're yelling at you, super stressed out. I mean, I hit the target, but I didn't hear what we're supposed to be shooting. I'm like, this is horrible. And I just knew like, they're like, maybe I'm going for the wrong job. They didn't teach me.

Well, no, I didn't think that because I also, I was, at least had enough awareness. They're like, they didn't teach me anything. And I knew going through seal training, they're going to teach you how to do the job. Like, they have to. But in, in, in third phase, when we're doing all of our weapon stuff, I had some good instructors and I had some really bad third phase instructors that literally didn't teach us anything just yelled at us and trying to stress us out and as soon as you understand you're like I'm getting ready to graduate okay cool I get it like this isn't first phase this isn't how we

you know I've proven that I want to be here I had passed every evolution first try going through buzz except for the tread but they changed out our whole classes fins for to try these new fins everybody failed. That's not fun. And so they went back and they're like, oh, cool. And then we got the original duck feet fangs and I passed. So I've, I'd literally pass every evolution first try.

You're in third phase and I'm like, okay, I get it. We're still on buds, but you're not actually like, okay. And I wasn't doing well on the pistol. And I was stuck with an instructor that did not actually teach us the fundamentals of how to shoot a pistol all. those things and I was super stressed out. Well, I had some of the older guys, some of the officers in our class and other guys that had grown up shooting and they did really well. I went and asked them for help. My hey, can you guys help me out? And so in our off time, I was practicing and

doing dry fire and I was doing everything on my off time, which is very limited in third phase. And so, and then I would ask the instructors that were cool that would talk to the students, that would teach us, I would ask them for help. And so I truly, but I could teach anybody, you could teach anybody to shoot if they're willing to have an open mind, show humility, listen and be coachable. And here's the other thing. Just like we teach companies at echelon front, it's on you to seek that out. If you have a bad boss, okay, what are you going to, how are you going to mitigate that impact?

And at the end of the day, you have to get the job done. At the end of the day, I had to pass those qualls, and it was 100% on me. And there might be like a 0.001%, like anomaly of somebody that can't shoot because of whatever reasons. But I mean. Yeah, even at sniper school, guys get dropped from sniper school. Most of the time it's not for marksmanship. Most of the time it's for stalking. Yeah, because they're, yes.

You know what I mean? Yes. You can teach generally speaking, you can teach most people the marksman's, peace. And of course, there'll be some people that will be just better. Maybe they're naturally better. Yes. And even at the end of the course, they're still going to be a little bit better. Yeah. But like everyone will get the passing or most of the time. Yes. Occasionally people don't make it, you know. Yeah, there's a few. But again, those guys, I've, I've seen guys that were struggling on the shooting part of sniper school. And I would watch them. And guess what? They

weren't listening. They weren't paying attention. They were distracted. They weren't. And also when it was when our time was done, they'd go do other things. And it's like, okay, cool, you're putting in the minimal effort. You're going to get the minimal results. Isn't this kind of why females will learn to shoot faster? Like a female that's never shopped before, we'll learn to shoot faster than a man this never shop before. When I teach shooting, typically the women are able to apply what you're teaching them much faster.

Guys have some thing in their head that they are James Bond. Yeah. Jason born. Is that his name? Yeah, yeah. Jason Bourne. Yeah. And they want to impress you.

And, uh, you know, I've been, when I teach shooting and, um, it's crazy. Like, and I recognize like, okay, I need to set better expectations like before the shooting course. And that's part of like the intro talk as I'm like getting ready to like run somebody through a course is talking about having an open mind, being patient, slowing down, listening. And I'll remind people like, hey, you're paying. us to teach you how to shoot, have an open mind and listen to what we have. Yeah, listen to what we have to give you and apply what works. And I always tell people, hey, if what I'm teaching doesn't work, they don't do it. I will help you find something that works for you.

And I always like to start off with a test cold and because, hey, baseline. Baseline is always cold. No warm ups, no dry reps, nothing baseline. I'll run them through it. And I had one guy who wanted to sign up for more of a. advanced course and I was like hey you got to come through the beginning of course I was like but hey if cold or even at the end of the day if you can pass eight out of the 10 test first try like you can take the next course and like I'll give you your money back for this

and he can go towards the next one he passed zero out of 10 zero out of 10 zero out of 10 and but at the end of the day you get everyone where they need to be and like I love when I'm teaching long range shooting you're like really taking your time slowing it down and I've worked with people that have never shot past 100 yards with their hunting rifles and at the by time we're breaking for lunch

day one I have them on target hitting steel at a thousand yards that's freaking epic batting 100% on that because we'll take our time open their minds and I think a part of that is really taking the time because I also realize like I'm not putting guys through a selection course I'm trying to help them

refine their skill set so it's on me as a teacher to get them where they need to be. So let's set the standards and expectations, open their mind, build a really good relationship with them. And as we know, what we teach, if you build relationships with people, they're going to listen to you. Yeah.

Shooting is one of those things where if you don't know what you, like you're talking about shooting, if you take someone that's never shot before, they're not hitting a target at 1,000 yards. It's not happening. And yet, if you, it's a skill that you can learn very rapidly and by the afternoon you can be shooting hitting a target a thousand yards Yeah when you watch

TV shows and you see it's it You can you can make anything make sense because when you see some like person shooting another person and they miss and miss and miss and be like Dude how how could you miss but then you got to remember that person never trained before Yeah, and you see someone else In another movie where they take a shot and they hit someone and you're like oh that's like they're gonna hit him the first time? Well if he's trained Yeah, I see have you seen the clip with a The cop pulls up, there's like an active shooter. And this cop pulls up.

He's like, hey, we got an active shooter. He's just so chill. Gets his, gets his, uh, M4 out of the back of his vehicle. Like, watches through the window where the dude is, kind of posts up on the, on the vehicle. He takes a shot. And he literally says on the radio, he's like, uh, shot fired. Not shots fired. He goes, shot fired, you know, perpetrators down.

Just so awesome. And that's exactly, you know, when someone's trained, you can do that. Yeah. If you haven't trained, there's no, well, there's a very small chance that you're gonna hit a moving human being at 100 yards or 200 yards. It's gonna be very, very difficult if you've never trained. If you've trained, it's gonna, it's not that difficult.

Yeah. So it's one of those things, marksmanship, you're gonna, you can get the skill, occasionally get someone that just doesn't have the knack for it, but you'll get through it. Some of the other stuff they talk about is like physical condition, of course, vision, smoking, like they're looking for people that don't smoke and don't use nicotine. I know we'll get plenty of push back on that one

because quite a few people use tobacco products as snipers. Mental conditions. When commanders screen sniper candidates, they should look for traits that indicate the candidate has the right qualities to be a sniper. The commander must determine if the candidate will pull the trigger at the right time in place. Some traits to look for a reliability,

initiative, loyalty, discipline, and emotional stability. A psychological evaluation of the candidate can aid the commander in the selection process. That's important stuff. Emotional stability, discipline. It's interesting that they say loyalty. That's an interesting one. You know, to throw, this is from an Army manual.

Yeah. Like you get reliability, you get initiative, you get discipline, you get emotional stability, but loyalty. That's an interesting one to put in there. I could see how, I don't know if this is where they got it from, but as you said that,

I was like, that's interesting. And I'm really thinking about it. You know, in combat, you know, enemy fighters come around the corner. They have weapons. They're shooting at you or you see them. You engage them with a machine gun. You know, it's awesome. It's a lot of fun.

But it's not intimate and personal. When I was taking shots as a sniper, I can see the whites of their eyes. I'm watching their facial expressions. I think it makes it a little more real. And maybe they threw in loyalty because now when you're looking at somebody where it seems like you're up close and personal and you're watching literally like body language and everything else like that, it's not a silhouette in the distance. It's not just that's a figure with a weapon.

That is a real human. And I can see how that could be hard for some people of going, but then you also have to understand. like your loyalty to the mission and your nation, that is an evil person and also our loyalty to those innocent Iraqi families that we were trying to keep safe. And I never had that issue of wondering

if I should take a shot because we knew. And the reason why we knew is because you, Leif and Seth were telling us about Ramadi before we got there. And then we get there and it's like, holy. And then we attended that memorial service for the Marines and it was very real and I'll tell you probably one of the images that will never leave my brain. There's a few from a body,

and we've talked about this. But the first time I saw a grown man use a kid as a shield, as a human shield, like, that's evil, man. And to know that they had zero regard for this innocent kid, it was just like, okay. It was already real. But then the first time I saw that, I guess it just had changed the way I looked at things and it made me want to be better at my job

I actually remember reading like Seth sent me or yeah sent me the the write-ups right of who you shot and I remember reading I was like oh that's new because you used I know you shot at least one of those dudes yeah that was had a kid if I remember correctly the guy was carrying ammunition. Yes. And he was holding a kid in front of him. Yeah, a little girl. Yeah, and you killed the guy.

White dress with red flowers. I guess that's why they got loyalty in there. Yeah. You know, field craft. It talks about all this stuff. You know, the thing that we get into and the thing that we were going to talk about today, which we've not done very much of so far. but we'll get into a little bit more now is the like kind of this kind of these

lessons that you learn from being a sniper and how they apply to to life right and you know it's interesting I was going to talk about the fact that being a sniper is like a blue collar job it really is like a straight up blue collar job you got your tools which are your weapon you know your scope your bino's your ammunition your camouflage equipment all that stuff and then you also have like radios and all that stuff but So you have these tools and then you'd need to know how to use those tools. You know, so you train to use those tools.

So it's a very, a very technical, like, blue collar type job of what you're doing. And by the way, that's what the SEAL teams is. The SEAL teams is like, that's what you're doing. You're working with your hands. Whether you're building pallets to go on a trip or whether you're out in the field building a hide site, it's just work, man. It's just hard-ass work, which makes it awesome. But you also, the reason I think about that is because, as guys, the more you do it,

it's like when you see a good drywaller. Like a good drywallers, man, they're drywallers. It's like, it's like incredible how fast they can do it. Or a good framer. Like, they just can make stuff happen very, very quickly. They know all the little tricks that trade. You know, you see a guy with doing drywall,

and the only thing they have is just their drywall hammer. It's crazy. Like it's got like the sharp edge that they're doing all the cuts with. And they're hammered. Like, it's, it's impressive. So there's things that they know in that job. job, but same thing with drywalling or being a carpenter. There's things that you can apply the rest of your life.

And sniping certainly has a lot of that. So you sent me over a bunch of lessons that kind of apply on both, and we'll talk through some of them. But tactical patience moving slow and moving slow sometimes and then knowing when you got to move fast. Yeah. And it's very easy for us as humans to develop. a pattern and get stuck in a pattern where we always move fast or we always move slow.

Yeah. So talk to me. I struggled with the moving slow part at first in sniper school. Big shocker. Yeah. You know, like Leif reminds me often, hey, your default aggressive, JP, that's great. But there has to be a balance there. And it's one of the things that you and Leif have really helped me work on is just,

All right. Hey, that's a great trait to have being default aggressive, but we can't be default aggressive all the time. And we actually have to know when to slow down and when to pause and when to not do anything. And so as a sniper, I remember I was having that issue. I wasn't a sniper yet going through sniper school. I was having that issue. And one of the instructors, he was joking. He was, um, one of the instructors was joking. And he's like, bro, am I going to have to like inject you with some estrogen to like lower your testosterone because you're just going going going he goes you have he goes if you want to make it through this training you have to slow down on the stocking here's why and and as soon as he said here's why i was like yep got it and i just had to remind myself to

slow down and there was times that when you're in sniper school because of when you're moving from one train feature to the next there there is nothing blocking you and so you're moving movements, it might be a few feet within an hour. So you're moving like a quarter of an inch at a time and settling. And you're praying, hey, let there be some sort of breeze. Because if there's a breeze and it's moving all of the things out there, then you can kind of move with that same motion. And now allow you to move. So there is a time to slow down.

And then now I get to that point. If they can't, if I can't see them, they can't see me. So now I can stand up, I can crawl, I can walk, I can run, depending on that train feature. And it allows me to progress and move forward. And it's the same thing with shooting. There's times that you really have to slow down your shots. And there's other times like you're going to, you have a very brief moment of taking a shot. And so you got to make sure all your fundamentals are done in this, in just a very smooth fashion.

And, and so that's why starting slow is really important. And when you think about it from business, like we need to be making small iterative steps like what we teach at a echelon front, especially if we're implementing change. Take make a small iterative step. All right, cool. I move that direction. Pause. See the impact to the organization. See the impact your team.

Was it a good impact? All right, cool. Let's do it again. Let's do it again. And then you eventually can create a little momentum if you're moving in the right direction. And so it was hard for me to slow down. But when I realized the why behind it and also understanding that burden of like, hey, I'm in sniper school. This is an opportunity.

It was a dream. It was literally a dream of mine to be a sniper. And so, yeah, just knowing, having that tactical patience, letting things develop so that you can get a little more information. And, you know, and that was something also when you're observing targets or you're observing a bad guy moving. It's like, okay, let me see what he's doing. Okay, we're trending towards being within the rules of engagement for me to take a shot. And over time, you really are able to run that OOO loop and that feedback loop faster and faster and faster because you're like, all right, that's a trend. That's a trend.

Okay. I know where he's going. Cool. You know what? As soon as he does this, the slack is coming out. It's not like, oh, he did this. Now I need to get in position. And I get in position to take my shot.

No, I am ready to take that last ounce out of the trigger once they do the next step. And if they don't do the next step and they went somewhere else and then it's like, okay, hold. I'm not letting go with the trigger. I'm not letting that slack back. I'm holding, scanning, observing, watching. Oh, he did some. Okay, he's trending back there again. Okay.

I just need him to do this to be well within the rules of engagement. Keyword, well within the rules of engagement because there was no gray zone for us. And you guys set that expectation from the very get-go. And so just had that tactical patience to observe, collect information so that we can make a good decision. And you have to have information to make good decisions. Yeah. So you don't make a mistake. Yeah.

It's weird how just like doing building clearance too, sometimes you move really fast and sometimes you got to slow down. Yeah. And being able to figure out when it's time to move fast and when it's time to slow down. And what's interesting in business is you can have one project or process or task that you have to really move quick simultaneously while you have two other processes that you have to be very slow and methodical. So being able to bifurcate your brain into like a fast mode, a slow mode and a medium mode, because I'm telling you I see people all the time get stuck where they've been super methodical about this project that was a big strategic project and therefore it had to. They really had to take their time and make sure that everything was squared away and in order and the legalese was all correct. And then they apply that to something else that's, you know, basically barely even matters. But you know when it matters?

It matters when it doesn't get done because we were being so methodical with something that doesn't really matter. It's taking up a bunch of time. So that idea of knowing when to go fast and knowing when to go slow is something to pay attention to. And I think more than a more than a skill, it's just an awareness. Like pay attention. Just pay attention. How much, what speech should I be going on this project that I got? Is this something that's going to be inspected by, you know, the regulatory committee?

Okay, then I'm probably going to have to be more methodical. Is this something that's in-house that just needs to get done and no one's really going to look at the look underneath the hood to see how it got done? Okay, cool. Then I can move a little faster. Yeah. So just those are good things to think about. And these are skill sets. Yeah.

That you have to develop. But they also. If you're listening to this and you're in that position where you need to be doing it and no one's taught you these things seek the knowledge If you're in a position where you're how the ability to teach these things Teach them like and that's why that's why I love about the SEAL teams is we were always talking about things The older guys as much as they give younger guys a hard time They were always pouring into us Benny Doug and Smurf were always pouring into the snipers and you know those are things

that I didn't just come up in my in my brain with these things and like oh yeah I should move fast here and I should go slow here it was taught to me Yeah, um you talked a little bit about the terrain and reading the terrain and navigating the terrain That's just critical importance Obviously on the battlefield, you know it's like for you guys picking out Where you're gonna set up a sniper overwatch position? Yeah, I mean that's just a terrain drill It's a hundred percent terrain drill and then it's like okay, Okay, then how we're going to get to that sniper watch position? Well, that's a terrain drill as well.

But that's not the only place it applies. No. And the principles are the same. Study, study, study. I would study the battle maps. I would study the city. We had videos and pictures to study. And it's just having awareness of the environment that you're moving into.

Where am I starting? Where am I going? Okay. This environment to that environment. What changes along the way? What are some key indicators that I have hit these, these objectives that tell me, all right, I'm moving the right direction. I'm trending in the right direction.

It's the same thing in business. Okay, hey, here's where your business currently is. Here's where you want to go. All right. Things are going to have to change for you to go from here to here. That means that you have to have a clear understanding. where you're at, which means that you have to do an honest self-assessment and evaluation of you and your team and everything included in with it. And then you have to take the time to educate

yourself on that market that you're trying to push into or the changes that you want to implement into your business, study, do research on different companies in that industry, have an open mind to what other people are doing, be willing to change what you're doing and then make an iterative step move in that direction. Because there's times I would plan. our routes as our point man and I had my primary route and then I had a secondary route and then there was a tertiary route that I was aware of but I knew if I went from primary to secondary we were going to slow down and then evaluate and then all right let's say if this doesn't work I'm going to go to the third option well if I go from primary to secondary I have to slow down

and if I go from secondary to third option I'll stop it's the same thing if you know with our weapons primary weapon rifle rifle goes down get that pistol out but i'm slowing everything down if my pistol is out if my pistol is out i'm not making entrance into that next room because if my pistol goes down and i'm transitioning to a knife or a hatchet man that's a really bad situation as cool of a story as that might seem that's a bad situation by having that awareness but also training your team on what to expect when things change. When we were teaching close quarters combat when I was working at Trita under you, we would teach the guys,

hey, listen, if you're next to go inside that room, they made interest, whether it's a four man or two men, whatever, you better be paying attention and listening because we know what a rifle sounds like and we know what a pistol sounds like, two completely different sounds.

And we would tell guys, Because again, all these things that we talk about at Echon Front and on your podcast and everything, they're all skill sets. You have to teach people these things. Hey, if you hear guys go in there and they are engaging targets with the rifle and then you hear the pop, pop, pop of a pistol, get your ass in that room. Because that means that guy needs support. Because now in a room that we said, hey, we need rifles for a gunfight. He's down to his secondary. We can't go.

That pistol can't go down. That is nonverbal communication. Yes. And so you have to be aware of what your team is working on so that you can come in and support them. And so, hey, you hear the, you hear the pistol. Rife goes down, pistol shot. All right, cool. That next guy is coming in. And you also know that if you transition from rifle to pistol, somebody's coming in.

So you need to also position yourself in a manner that allows them to come support you properly. You can't block them. You know, you got to let them get in past you. They're going to bump past you. They're going to address that threat. target I'm sorry that that that target threat in the corner they're going to do their scans you're going to keep your pistol out because you're still in the fight once that room is cleared and now they're lining up on the next threats you're going to go to a corner where you're not exposed

and you're going to get your rifle up so you can get back in the fight and but it's just having awareness yeah yeah and that you know when you talk about the terrain you know you got your big picture terrain when we're moving through the city yeah you also have your small picture terrain which is when you're in a room or in a hallway and you're you're in a hallway and you're You know, you talked about in the business world, you're like, oh, where are we strategically? What market are we trying to move into? But it's also the same thing when you go into a room. Yeah.

And how well do you know the human terrain that's in that room? Do you have that person that's in the room that you already know doesn't like, you know, you're the plan that you have or doesn't like what you're presenting or has a bad temper or someone that you're hypersensitive to? Like, oh, I know Echo's going to be in this meeting. He's got a big ego. I'm going to, and I, that means my ego is triggered. So now we got a scenario going on.

You got to pay attention to that before you go into the room. Same exact thing. You got to be aware of what is happening. Learn to read the terrain. That's what we got to be able to do. You talk about in these notes, knowing your gear just by feel and by position and being able to find stuff in complete darkness. And that's something that obviously we do, but how do people get there?

Start small and you have to put in the time. And it's reps. Yeah, I mean, I could say nothing else and that applies to every listener in their life, but I can dive a little bit deeper if you want me to. You know, you're you want to set your gear up to where it's best support you. Now, we had SOPs for how guys would carry their gear, you know, you know, where they put the med pouch and all those different things. But for me, I had to be very mindful of how the gear affected my ability to do the job. having all these other things on your gear for extra stuff sounds great until you're trying to carry it it sounds great until in 100 plus degrees right 120 130 like when it's 120 130 degrees plus like man like

you'll quickly think about did I need to bring that like did I need to bring that eraser for my pencil I mean you are you're really thinking about cutting things down but then also for me as a sniper like how is my gear set up? Am I able, am I going to be able to lay down in a position comfortably to be able to do my job? Okay, cool. Nope.

All right. What does it need to do? Do I need to bring it up? Do I need to change it to where, you know, I have to keep my body armor on, you know? That was a rapid change when we all got to Ramadi. Everyone adjusting their gear so that they're gear. So we could all take off our gear and so have our body armor on.

Yeah. Because it, you know, it seems when you're doing direct action, it seems like, oh, I just, I'll just have it all. integrated into one thing. Yeah. Seems kind of cool. Yeah. It's very slick.

You put it on and off very quickly. But then you get over there and you're like, wait a second, I'm going to be sitting in this overwatch position for the next 48 hours. And I'm going to have my gear on this entire time. I don't really like that idea. But I don't want to take my body armor off. Yep. Okay.

That's another good little evolution that happens. So laying down and be like, okay, quiet. All right. So I need to have a setup that I can pull off, put right next to me. But when I, when it's on my gear, I'm pulling. and mags out a certain way. When it's off and face a different direction, I'm now having to pull those magazines out a different way. So it was either, all right, do I switch the magazines around once I take it off or do I change how I grab them when the gear is off? And I chose to

change how I grabbed it because if I'm grabbing something and I can feel it. I can feel the magazine. I know when I grab something, if my thumb is touching this, the rounds are pointed one way. If my thumb is touching this, index finger touching this, rounds are pointed a different way. So I can just manipulate that magazine to go into my weapon or the rounds to go into my 300 wind mag that I'm manually loaded in there. I didn't want to be, I didn't want the risk of, okay, I take my gear off and then I switch it. Magazines around. And then all of a sudden is like, hey, we got to roll out of here quick, which would happen. Like, we got to move the next spot or something changes.

And then I, because that's a little bit of stress, right? just a little bit at times, sometimes a lot of stress. Also, I'm like, hey, we got a roll or whatever. So I never wanted to be in a situation

where I'm putting my gear on and my magazines are in a different direction and having to then fumble that football. When it really counted, when the time really counted. Because I wasn't having to do quick mat changes as a sniper. Right, and especially I wasn't doing any of those

when I was carrying my 300 win mat, which I had to transition from weapon platforms from SR-25 or 300. in a wind mag, which I know we'll talk about a little bit later. But yeah, knowing your gear in the dark, and I would practice just changing things, zipping things, unzipping things. How do I, okay, if I, if I pinch and grab it this way and my wrist is, you know, here, then cool, I can easily pull it over.

Hey, when I do this, the fabric is actually really soft and worn out. So instead of the zipper on zipping easy, there's like some give in that. And it's like, all right, cool. Okay, put it like a little piece of cardboard, tape it on the inside to add, make it a little more rigid. So then just in and out with the zippers, I was just tweaking my gear. And, you know, those were things that guys would talk about that I taught. You know, and I remember Seth just one time I was leaving work and I was, I thought I had been there late. And I was leaving work and he was just in his cage.

Just like tinker tinker, right? Just playing with his gear. Getting it dialed in. Yep. Yeah. Know your gear, rehearse it. That's what we got to do. That doesn't matter if it's your computer.

It doesn't matter if it's how you interact with other people. Like you've got to rehearse stuff that you're doing. This is an interesting one. Acceptable sight picture versus perfect site picture. If perfection even exists. If perfection even exists. Talk about that. I love talking about this.

And I love mentioning and teaching it and showing it. shooting. And so the principle behind that is can I take an effective shot to do my job? And if I can, take the shot. Because that's going to be much faster than trying to make micro adjustments and get it absolutely dead perfect. I'm not doing a competition marksmanship shooting event where I'm trying to keyhole my rounds. I'm trying to eliminate an evil person and shut off birthday. days. So anywhere in that chest cavity with 300 wind mag or that in that face meet is going to do the job. And so it was understanding like based off a distance round what's going to be effective. You know, now if it's, you know, a 5, five, six round, you're probably not shutting off the light switch right away in the chest cavity. That's what you had shots. That's one of the things that we changed at trade at was instead of shooting to the chest one in the face. Sorry. That's one of the things that we changed at trade at instead of shooting to the chest one on the face.

It was, you know, I was just talking with the guys. I'm like, hey, why don't we just shoot three to five of the face? That shuts off the light switch right away. And if that guy has an RPG or grenade or something and you're in that same room, like, you don't want to shoot them in the chest and they don't die right away. And if they're all hopped up on opiates, which these guys were, they're not going to die right away. And so it's what's the, what's the most effective shot place, like site picture that you need to have. based off that individual and the environment that you're in and the caliber of round that you have. And so understanding like, hey, if you have that acceptable site picture to get the work done, do it.

Do it. Yeah. Now, we want to refine that craft in training. And absolutely in training, we would practice quick shots, quick acquisitions going from one distance to the next without changing anything. It's like, is that acceptable? Boom. ding, right? If I hit my piece of steel at 500 yards and you hear ding and it's on the steel and you shoot

and I let's say I get that done because I'm going from one distance to the next and I shoot at 850 yards and I shoot at 300 and I shoot back at 500 and it's all boom dink, boom, dink, boom, dink. And let's say that takes me three seconds. But you do it and you're like boom, dink, dial, dial, down, down, boom, dink. da da da da boom ding but all your shots are dead center but i'm dead exactly i did what was needed to execute the work in the most efficient and effective manner yeah yeah i think i think the translation to civilian life is very obvious here you're gonna you're gonna have to go sometimes and if you're waiting for the perfect scenario to unfold for the perfect situation to be there it's not

going to be there. It's just not going to be there. It's never going to be there. And by the way, if you wait and hold and hold and keep looking at that site picture, guess what? The target moves. Yep. Like the target moves. So it doesn't matter anyways. So if you're waiting for the absolute perfect time to enter this market or to hire this person, you're waiting for the perfect time for everything to be lined up is not going to happen. So if you have a good site, look, I'm not trying to randomly hire someone or you randomly enter some, you know, market that you're not prepared for, but you've done the research. The numbers look good.

Okay, we need to make this move. Cool. Let's do it. And I think the key phrase of that that I really want people to listen to is, are you able to execute the task at hand? Yeah, will it get the job done? Will it get the job done? Which is what we teach also at echelon front with decentralized command.

When you're driving ownership down to us and we'd come up with a plan that was a workable plan, not even close to how your brain was working at the time. your default response was execute. I like it. What can I do to support you? Just get the work done. And this is the Oudal Loop, which Dave Burke talks about, teaches. Dave Burke's explanation of the Oudoloup on YouTube in like two minutes and 36 seconds is the best explanation of the Oudaloup.

We didn't call the Oudolup in the Seal Teens, but it was the decision making process of, hey, observe what's happening. Orient yourself, decide, act. And if we take too long, like orienting ourselves based off what we observed and then deciding to come up with this absolute perfect plan, well, guess what? By time it's come, by time it's time to take action, your environment's changed. And it's a missed opportunity. So 80% solution. Do you got an 80% solution? Maybe a 75% solution?

That's good enough, man. Yeah, I mean, 75, right? Cs get degrees. Yeah. There you go. zooming in and zooming out on targets again this to me is a little bit like a little bit like when I talked about the fact that sometimes you go to fast and sometimes you got to go slow and sometimes you're going fast with one thing and you're going slow with something else this is

you know if you're not careful you zoom in on the target you're going to get target fixation you're going to miss what else has happened to go ahead well that's that's exactly what it is target fixation you zoom in but the thing that we would have to be aware of is and this goes back to what we were just talking about. I want to zoom in on my optic at just enough to be capable of doing my job. Because, I mean, especially now the technology with scopes, it's unreal. I have a bunch of scopes from Vortex, which I absolutely love. I know you got a bunch of, a buddy Seamus. Thank you. Thank you, Vortex. Yes. Thank you, Seamus. I got rangefinders and binoculars and scopes. A whole nine yards. Yeah. Pretty good load out. Absolutely. Shamus took care of

the, took care of us. Um, but, you know, those, even back, Then in 2005, 2006, we had good technology, good scopes that we're using. And you could zoom in and it's incredible what you see. I don't have to be all the way zoomed in to do my job. And so it was teaching guys, okay, zoom in enough to be able to execute the work. Don't get so target fixated on that one thing that you lose situational awareness of what's happening around the target because I can have my optics dead center on your face and I can zoom in all the way to where literally all I see is your face, but I don't know anything else

that's happening around you. But if I zoom in and I have my optics here and that crosshair is still in the center of your face, but I'm able to see echo and able to see what's going on around you. I'm able to see what's behind you because when that round travels through you, what's the backdrop? What's what's the potential collateral damage of behind you? Hey, zoom in enough to be effective at your job and then once you're done with a task zoom back out you mean it and that was part of we would just run drills all right and we do this dry click zoom out scan all right potential threat zoom in and you're you're also practicing staying on your weapon and stabilizing it as you zoom in so you can maintain your crosshairs with the right in the right place so you're saying

focused on the task of hand but not being too target fixated that you lose situation awareness But it was, you know, this is detachment. It's teaching yourself, hey, you got done doing something, step back. And so when you zoom out, you're able to see what's happening around you. Okay, next problem. Zoom in. Execute the task. Zoom out.

Scan. Boom. And it's, you know, I mean, that application of business in life is, I would say, very easy to connect to. Because, hey, you're working on something. Cool. You're done. Step back. You know, one of our big FTCX clients that we're working with up in Michigan, the field training exercises that we run national infront, this one always connected with them.

Because after every single mission, we sit down and we do a debrief, this would come up 99% of the time, this analogy of not being target fixated and having the ability to focus it on the work and step out. Focus on the work and step out. And this is a big one in the construction industry. Oh, yeah. We've been doing a lot of work in the construction industry. And this connection is huge from a safety standpoint with the clients that we work at Ashlandfront. Hey, zoom in on the task, but don't zoom in so much that you lose situational awareness. But then also, hey, when that job is done, step back, detach, look around.

Next problem, boom, go in. You have to have the ability to go in and go out. Yeah, because if you're focused on what's right in front of you, cool. Then you come to work the next day and guess what the supplies haven't been ordered. Yes, so that's a problem. I had a, my first appointment to Iraq was, we had those vehicle-mounted fleers, fleers like the infrared.

Yeah. And we were in this position that had been getting a lot of attacks, and so we went out there to, you know, try and kill some bad guys. And so I'm sitting there in this Humvee on a flare, and I'm looking, and I'm looking across this river, and across this river, you know, I'm scanning and looking and looking,

and looking, all of a sudden a vehicle pulls up, and I'm, like, watching them. I'm like, okay, and then it stops. I'm like, oh, okay. So I zoom in a little bit closer. Now a guy gets out, a zoomed a little bit closer. Another guy gets out. Now these guys are both out.

I'm zooming closer. Now they open up the trunk. And now I'm zoomed in. Like, oh, these guys are getting ready to attack us. They start like kind of messing with something. And as they're messing with something, we get hit with a couple RPGs. And I mean, just the perimeter of where we were at.

Yeah. And sure enough, I don't know if these guys were a decoy. It worked, but I completely fell for it, like 100%. I just zoomed in. And it's almost like textbook they did. They each, each thing that they did made me get more and more and more zoom in more and more and more. Because that Fleer could zoom in like crazy. That's awesome.

I mean, I'm watching their hands, you know. Yeah. Not quite their hands. I could see their whole body clearly. And sure enough, we got hit from, you know, probably 200 yards away as I, as I pulled the thing back and like figured out where we just got shot at from. But yeah, it's total mistake. It's very easy, especially for, especially for leaders, you know, like I can easily have JP, JP, make sure nothing's happening over there.

Like, you can 100% focus on that. Cool. But I got to make sure that I'm back far enough going, okay, while JP is focused on that, I got to be looking heads up. That's what we have to do with leaders. So as you have your team, focus on some construction task of doing the concrete pour that day, you got to be stepped back enough to be looking around going, oh, hold on a second, do we have the material that's ordered for tomorrow?

Where's that out? How's it tracking? Are these other subs showing up tomorrow at the right time? Who talked to them? What about in four days? Do we have that dialed in? So definitely, no one to zoom out, zoom in, and no one to zoom out. And modulate between the two.

This is a good one. So reading wind, and we can go in a little bit of reading wind, but I think that one of the most interesting thing you wrote in your notes is, gauging the wind right in front of you is stupid. Where is the wind going to have the most impact on the road? which is farther down range so you're looking at the wind does all kinds of weird stuff and you can get sucked into looking at the wind that's 20 yards in front of you but you're taking a 600 yard shot it's crazy to me it's absolutely like i'll watch guys teach shooting whether i've been there helping assist or watching on youtube or something else like that and you know they'll have you know

the firing line of long-range rifles lined up it's all clear and safe guy goes out about 10 feet, 20 feet, maybe in front, and they're holding up the castrol, which is great. It gives you data. Okay. Castrol is a great tool. And they're testing the wind and they're like, all right, guys, this is a wind. I remember the first time I heard that. I was, I looked like, I thought he was joking.

Like, that's a wind right in front of us. But we're, these guys are taking 700 yards shots. I remember like, just like looking down. I'm looking at like the grass kind of blowing. which is great but that round is so much higher than the grass so i started looking at other like trees and bushes that or about the level of that path that that round is and i'm that's where i gauge my wind because that's where the round is going to be going and at the farther the round goes the less energy it has which means it can be much greater impacted by that wind and uh you know you just

have to learn to be able to read the wind all the way down. And, um, you know, I've, I've been teaching at things where other instructors are like, hey, here's the holds. And I had my group and I'm like, do not listen to that. And I would explain why. I said, hey, here's why. Here's where the wind is going to have the most impact on that round is down there. And so this wind will actually counter that wind. I don't want you holding anything. And they looked at me like, the other guy's telling him to hold off the target, I'm like, just trust me one time. And if I'm wrong, you can switch instructors. I want you to hold dead center. And these other instructors are like telling like crazy holds. And I'm like trying to also teach them like, hey, here's why. Like look at the, look at the train. Look at what those,

look at the bushes are there. Look at the top of the trees. Like look, see what they're doing. Hey, see the dirt moving down here? That means the wind's also doing this. And hey, we're, we're shooting over a ravine where the wind's going to be doing this, which you can actually, the, There can be an updraft, which I'm just telling you, just please hold dead center and let's try it. My guy holds dead center. Fundamentals are perfect. Dink. Less than a minute, less than a minute of angle off dead center.

Everyone else, guess where they were at? In the dirt. And my guy looks at me. He's like, damn. And but it was a cool opportunity just explaining, hey, you've got to look at the big picture. It's not what's right in front of you. You have to be able to see the big picture. Where are you at?

Where are you trying to go and then reverse engineer it back to you? Yeah. And the business world, this is difficult because you got to, you're placing bets, right? And a lot of the time people place bets on where they are right now based on the data that they have right now. but you need to be placing bets, just like you need to read the wind that's downrange, you need to be placing bets on where you anticipate you will be in the future.

So when it comes to, you know, like how much, let's say stock you're going to have, how much stuff are you going to have in stock? If you read that wrong, you could be very, it could be problematic. Yes, and that's another thing I would tell guys, and I'm glad that you said this because I missed it earlier and it applies to this.

The other reason why I don't want to be all the way zoomed into my optic, I can't see the environmental data around it. And I would tell guys, all right, hey, based off of what we're seeing right now, if you were to pull that trigger, this is what it'll do. And so you need to be on your gun ready to go reading that wind. And if you have a spotter giving you those corrections, cool. But you also have to be open-minded to stop at any moment. Because if I say, hold, you can't pull the trigger.

when I say hold you hold and then I'll give you a course correction like all right move one minute of angle to the right or one mill to the right depending on the scope you're using and I'll you know I can say hold all right send right because there might be a gust of wind that came up and also as a spotter I'm looking big picture I'm literally scanning left and right there's not a lot of movement here but I see movement 200 yards to the right moving in our direction cool guess what's coming shortly after it that wind. And so you have to be able to look at things big picture. You also have to be able to stop and recalibrate, make a small minor adjustment.

But the big thing for long-range shooting is you have to have everything ready to go and then execute at the right time. You're hunting elk, man. The wind is, the wind is everything. It's everything. It's like the top of the list when you're trying to maneuver. It's way more important than what the elk can see because their sense of smell is much better than their sense of sight or hearing and so but you start paying attention

I'm obviously I'm not good at it but when you're hunting with someone that's good they're like you're same thing you're like look oh there's the wind there but then 40 meters it's like this and then another 200 meters so we're okay right now but we're gonna have to maneuver it's uh definitely stuff you got to pay attention to uh next one and I'm going not reading all these but this is a good one because this is so common you hear And this to me was always the most important fundamental of shooting is gun surprising you and not anticipating the shot. Our bodies will try to counter the recoil if we are anticipating the shot. Whenever I'm blowing shots, and this is true in archery and true in firearms, whenever I'm blowing my shot, I know that it's this.

I know that I need to let the shot surprise me. What do you got? Yeah, you know, especially when you're shooting a long-range rifle, which is typically a larger caliber round. Not all the time because the evolution of weapons and rounds now, it's crazy what people are actually doing with like 22 long range and then 2, 2, 3,556 rounds. But typically, you know, you're shooting a 6.5 Creedmoor or 308 or 3001 MAG.

That gun's going to kick. And the basic, your human instinct is to counter that. You know, if I push you, you're going to push back. back unless you know that if you let me push you, it puts you in a better position for like jiu-jitsu. You're like, all right, cool, push into me. You're giving me the advantage. For shooting, you just have to let the gun surprise you.

And that's the other part that's really important is putting yourself in a good, stable shooting position toward that recoil doesn't drastically affect you because the better you're able to support that weapon platform and absorb the impact of that realm going off, absorb the recoil. If you absorb some of the recoil, less recoil means less time off target. Less time off target means faster shots. And that's a big thing. And when I'm teaching pistol shooting, how you grip to eliminate that recoil is really important. But for, yeah, long-range shooting, like, hey, you have everything going, it has to surprise you.

And that's why you have to start dry. Like, I love starting dry fire. Like just have them run through the motions of chambering around, getting, set up, all right, your position on the trigger. That's really important with your finger because you want a smooth trigger pull. You don't want to squeeze. I hate when people say squeeze the trigger. No, you're an idiot because when you're saying squeeze the trigger, you're also squeezing your hand. When you're squeezing your hand, those other three little amigos are going to throw off your shot. So you need to isolate a smooth trigger pull, whether it's long range, pistol, rifle, smooth trigger pull.

If I have a smooth trigger pull and I can get used to those fundamentals and boom click and if you didn't move, if I put you on a rifle and it's you don't know if it's live or not. That's another thing I like. The dummy rounds kit. Yeah. Always show the freaking. Yeah. And I love it because I'll do that when I'm teaching long range shooting. I'm like, all right, cool.

Hey, you're set up. I'm going to put your round in. And I'm just putting an empty casing because it'll, it'll chamber in there. And it sounds very similar. they don't know the difference. If you try to do that with me or, you know, like, Jason Gardner, your legendary SEAL sniper or Benny Olson, you know, like our guy, like, if you were to try to put a casing in there and chamber it,

they would be like, that sounded different because your gear sounds different. Like your weapon sounds different. And so anyways, I would put an empty, uh, uh, empty round in there. Boom, go through. And then it would show them what their natural tendencies are. And so now that you know your natural tendencies are, you can create habits to change your behaviors and tendencies. So like, all right, cool, this is what you did. This is what we have to do to correct it.

We're going to do that 10 times in a row. And once you've got it, cool. Now we're going to do another 10 times perfect. Once you have that, you can do that 10 times perfect. Now we can move on to the next thing. And so it's exposing their natural tendencies so that they can now create habits to change it. And that's what we need in business and their life. Right.

And as you and Laif have been working with me and help. of me my natural tendency is to be a little too aggressive which even though my intentions are pure you guys know my intentions are pure it can send the wrong message yeah yeah and that's the big thing on this one is that our bodies are our minds our brains our lizard brains have all these instincts and if we're not paying attention to them they will screw you up and so when someone walks into the room and they get aggressive to me and my natural my natural instinct is to get aggressive back, that's not going to help me. If there's some high pressure situation going on and my natural instinct is to start to escalate my own emotion, that's not, that's not, it's not going to help me.

And we can go down the list of all these natural human instincts that we have that are great for lizard survival. They're great for lizard survival. They're not great for human interaction and they're definitely not great for leadership. These are emotions that make you make bad decisions. These are panics. These are fear. We make bad decisions when we're afraid. We make bad decisions when we're in the animal world. If you roll into my space and you start looking at my food, what I should do is attack you.

And I should be defensive. In the human world, if I start doing that, well, you're rolling into my space, but that's because we have to work together. And so my instinct is to get hostile with you because you're in my space and I'm afraid you're going to get credit for the project that I'm going to. I'm supposed to be in charge of. Bro, what does that do? So these instincts are things that we absolutely, we've got to control them.

And if we don't control them, going to be problematic. Well, we also have to understand, like, why are we trying to be better at what we're doing? And if I can remind myself that the only way I can lead people is by having a relationship with them so that I can influence them, that changes the way I think about every interaction. Is what I'm about to do or say going to build or hurt the relationship? Yeah. I'm trying to think of good ways to kind of use the dummy round for interacting with other people. Role play.

Yeah, role play for sure. I did it the other day. I got asked a question, a guy said, you know, because I was talking about the indirect approach. And a guy said, hey, you know, I understand you like the indirect approach. But where I work, we like the direct approach because the direct approach, you know, we just need to get the stuff set. And I go, I said, well, that's dumb. and it's not going to work. Next question.

And, you know, there's this weird, awkward silence. And I looked at him, I go, how'd that feel? And he goes, not good. And I go, that's the direct approach. That's what you do to people when you give them the direct approach. You make them defensive. You make them not want to hear what you have to say. I was like, I just did the direct approach to you

so you'd see what it feels. Like, that's kind of like a dummy round. We, the national FTX, I'm sorry, the national muster that we had a few musters ago, we were doing a pre-muster FTX. I know that's awesome. And we got done with a run and we had a leader that was doing that. And so Cody and I are debriefing before we kick off the debrief.

And I said, hey, I'm going to do something that is counter to what we teach, but to prove a point and then I will explain it afterwards. I just want you knowing what I'm doing before I just do it. Because it's his program now. You know what I mean? Like this is his program. don't want to like I'm not I'm not trying to throw him off to expose or test anything it was to get a reaction so that they could feel it and I did exactly what you did but I went level 10 and I just it was it went on for about a minute I was just like and then I and then I just paused how'd that feel

and I smiled I said that's why we don't do you know and whatever I said right and then we broke it down in a debrief and actually afterwards one of the FTX attendees when we're actually getting ready to head back to go check in for the muster was like that was the most impactful thing I got from it. He goes, I didn't realize that's how people feel when I do that. He goes, you weren't even talking to me and I was getting so uncomfortable and mad and emotional. He goes, thank you for doing that. But you can do that in a controlled environment. That's the dummy round. Is it a controlled environment that you can learn, talk, address, assess, and then recalibrate? Reacting to a missed shot.

Boy, this is a good one. There's nothing worse than being on a range and getting totally self-destructing because you missed a headplate. You missed the number two headplate out of six, and then you miss seven more shots, eight more, nine, 12, and you have to do a mag. change just a meltdown how are you supposed to react to a miss shot you miss a shot no factor like that should be your response i miss a shot no factor detached don't get emotional meaning don't get frustrated with yourself you missed a shot go back to the fundamentals reengage because if i the worst thing you can do is now try to do everything you just did faster all you're doing is missing faster.

Yeah. Yeah. And so if you can teach yourself to pause, recalibrate, and then re-engage, you're going to be good to go. The, I think at some point we had the SEAL teams had Tiger Woods sports psychologist come out. Oh, yeah. And, but one of the things that he was saying was, you don't think about your last shot, you

don't think about your next shot. you just think about what you're doing right now. And even the, the quote unquote, think about what you're doing right now, even that is, you can blow that too. Because if you start thinking about like the 19 things you've got to do correctly,

you've got to have that process down on that. Just do it. Yeah, I would, yeah, if, because yes, people that are thinking about it can overthink. I would just say be present. Yeah, there you go. Be present in what you're doing.

And if you're doing the right things at the right time in the right order, you're going to hit your shot. And if you miss, recalibre, like literally pause, recalibate, re-engage. Honestly, I think that the, the reaction to a miss shot

shouldn't even be no factor. You shouldn't say no factor. It should literally be no factor. Like you pull the trigger, you didn't hear a ping, and you shouldn't even, you should just shoot again like it didn't even happen is where you want to be.

I missed a shot in Ramadi with a guy that was running across the street. Homeboy had some, beat on him. I was not expecting that. And older guy in the platoon that really looked up to, I looked up to all those guys. He's just the epitome of the silent professional, right? There's no photographic evidence of this guy existing in the teams. And he actually was right next to me.

And I missed a shot. And you know what's funny is when I pulled the trigger, I knew that it was a missed shot. And so I pulled the trigger. knew as a miss shot and was already in motion. Because one of the things also that we'd get really good at is, hey, when you pull the trigger, you can't do anything else other than prepare yourself for the next shot. And with the 300 wind mag or any bolt action rifle,

that means ejecting around, chambering a new one. Well, hey, the gun's moving. It's off target. Now's the time, baby. Like use that time to your advantage. So cool, I pull the trigger. And as soon as I pull the trigger, and the way I would hold my weapon for long range shooting,

I would teach people this, is I would pull the trigger, and because I'm not gripping the weapon and holding it, my thumb is over here to the side, which allows it to go up, hit the bolt, pull it back, and as my hand is pulling it back, this opens up, catches the brass,

sets it down right next to me, like drop it, and then slide a new round in. I'm already off target. It doesn't matter. Like I'm efficiency and conno. of motion and time. And so then I knew I had missed a shot, like I said. So I get back on, make my adjustment based off of the miss that I, the,

yeah, Speedy Gonzalez. And, uh, yeah. And so I now made the adjustment based off the previous hold I had, which is, you know, when we're talking about holds and how important that is to know, it's like, all right, cool. That hold did this. I need to do this. And then my, my follow up shot, dude, dude just dropped them. Dirt nap.

Yeah. This is so important. It's such a good, this is a skill that you definitely need to learn. And, you know, being a new guy where you're shooting headplates is a new guy, and you blow one shot and you just melt that full meltdown. And especially because everyone's putting pressure on you, you know, it's a competition. You're shooting against someone else. You hear their ping, ping, ping, ping, and you hear your, you're like, and then what do you do?

You, you, you shoot harder, you know? Like, no, that's not the answer. The answer is not to shoot harder. This is a scenario for goldfish memory, next play, right? The, the, uh, something we take away from the lacrosse finance segue pipeline is just goldfish memory next play. Have you seen this guy? There's a guy on, uh, he's like a comedian or something.

And he, he just goes through these verbal, uh, repetition of what he does in his life. Oh, that's cool. He played lacrosse in college. now he's on in finance and the segue from from lacrosse to finance pipeline and then goldfish memory next play just get it right that's what I thought you're going that line from Ted Lassow what did Ted Lassow say very similar he pulled the guy's high he's like you know what the happiest animal is the world he's like I don't know coach he goes goldfish goldfish memory next play because he doesn't remember what happened be a goldfish out there and he's like the show Ted Lassow is I've only

watched one season of it but it did it was It was. It's a great show. It's, yes. Yeah, it's a great show. I got to watch more of those. We'll get into that. So Goldfish Memory Next Play. And don't think about what just went wrong. Instead, think about nothing. Don't think about what's next. Just, just get, what do you say? Be present. That's what you're doing. Man, it's weird how you can get. Archery, you can have a meltdown too. Like you can have a full meltdown in archery. You blow a shot. And then it's just, this is where I will get a vision. I'll get that glimpse of. over I'll start to over thinking I'll be like dude shut up just do do the protocol do the protocol that's what I'm doing you know being present is so important in life in all aspects hey you're at you know you're on the road for work be present with your client you're on a flight be present working or interacting with the person next to you to get to know them and build that relationship and get a you know and hey you're at home cool be present with your wife be present with your kids

and be thankful for what you also have because I can choose to be frustrated or I can choose to be happy. Joy is a choice. Anger is a choice. And if I miss a shot, I can be angry. That doesn't help me. Or I can say, all right, be present,

go through the motions, take the next shot. Yep. Yep. I have a lesson learned on this. I have a lesson learned on this. And it's kind of, it's not the opposite of what you said, but it's not completely aligned with. So I went to see the last Black Sabbath show ever.

Oh, yeah. And so Jack Osborne, he knows that, I'm friends with him, and he knows that Black Sabbath has been my favorite band since I was a child. And it is the soundtrack to my life. And when he found out that they were going to play their last show in England, he's like, he sent me a text. He says, don't say anything. Do you want to come to this show?

And I was like, let me think about it. Hell yeah. So I went with my wife and we went over there. And it was, so I get there. And I literally had this conversation with myself. I'm like, you know what? This is the, this is the Mount Everest of my, of my music, my love of music.

This is it. It's not going to. And by the way, it was. It wasn't just Black Sabbath. If it was just Black Sabbath, it would have been just amazing, but it was Metallica, guns and rules, it was everybody. Tool, it was ridiculous. Jesus.

So I get there and I say to myself, I literally had this conversation with myself of like, okay, listen, just, just freaking live and enjoy this day. And the thing that I was putting out of my mind was like, don't sit there every 30 seconds and take out your phone and take a picture of everything all day long. Just just just freaking just just soak it in right and I did and I took I took a handful of videos and pictures And dude it was it was beyond it was as good as I thought it was gonna be was beyond that it was freaking epic And and and when I got back I mean I got done and I took some pictures I took some videos But I wish I would have just I wish I would have I wish I would have honestly

Mounted a damn GoPro to my chest and filmed the entire thing because every second was epic Yeah, and so yeah I I think I misinterpreted the idea of being present with like oh that means you shouldn't You know document what's happening so I kind of blew it And the other thing that is in my mind still, like there was a lot of recording going on. I mean, obviously they had like the full video, you know, they're going to release at some point, like an entire digital reproduction of the whole thing. So I'll have it.

But God damn, dude. It was freaking epic. And I'm happy I took what I did, but I actually would have taken more. Well, it's the same thing when we're in the teams. Like you look back at the photos and videos we have. Bro, you know why there's the same? I wish I would have taken more. The same nine pictures of me in Ramadi,

because there's no pictures of me in Ramadi because we weren't taking. I mean, I wasn't taking pictures. Yeah. And yeah, absolutely. I wish I would have recorded all kinds of stuff and videoed all kinds of stuff and all that. But it was not only was I not thinking about it,

but also there was rules like, hey, you're not allowed to. And I actually lifted those rules. So Echo Charles, there was some guys from another seal team that got in trouble for having pictures. before I went on my first appointment. So they were, the, the leadership was already mad. And so they're like, hey, you're not allowed to take pictures.

And by the way, it's like general order number one. You're not allowed to take, there's got a list of things. So I was a rule follower. I'm like, okay, cool, no pictures. So I didn't have barely any pictures of that first appointment. And then the second, like when we got to Ramadi, still the same thing. And then like a couple weeks into it.

I was like, all right, boys, take some pictures. because I knew we would want some historical documentation of our brothers. So we ended up with some pictures and some more than others. But like me, I have barely any pictures of me. There's one picture of me that's taken, there's a picture of me taken by Army dudes or by combat camera dudes.

But like I have, I took one series of pictures like in the Mark Lee building for my kids. like I'm standing there because they were like my wife's like can you send us a picture of you and I was like yep so I took a picture you know or whatever five pictures you know you know and yeah we can have these reflections and wish we would have done things different but it's also just part of like your personality like you've always been very stoic and professional and you know then that you have the other guys in that you work with that while they're professional they're there it's just the way we we all think about things

differently. I like to take pictures and videos. I have a crazy amount of pictures and videos. Do you have a crazy amount of pictures of video from Ramadi? Um, yeah, on a on that laptop, I told you that I can't, you know, I, I'm sure somebody will help me figure this out. But yeah, you know, and also I was, how it wins the last time you had it figured out. Like, oh, geez, like after Ramadi. Let's do it quick. Yeah. Let's get that thing. Let's figure out what you got on there. That'd be awesome um matthew moyer was a uh marine that was attached with us um he actually sent me a good amount of pictures and um it those are some of the pictures that we've used in the muster slides that you're like where did you get this from and i'm like dude i met i met a dude surfing and he goes hey you're jaco right

and i said yeah and he goes i was a combat camera in romadi i got a bunch of pictures of you and you you dropped off the thumb drive here what i you've used those pictures too they're they're kind of Okay, yeah, yeah, that's awesome. He has pictures of when Gunny Gibson got shot. Yeah, like the pictures of him getting worked on in the courtyard. Yeah, those are his pictures. Yeah, and I didn't have those until I met him surfing. That's crazy.

Yeah, freaking nuts. But as I've gotten older, I've been more mindful of like, hey, I want to take, you know, I want to capture these things. And I still don't do a great job, you know, because we'll do stuff in man. It's like, we didn't get a family photo again. I'm like, dang it. And I joked one time with her, I was like, man, we just need one of our investments to go through

and we'll just hire somebody to just capture these moments in our life with our kids you know what I mean? Because it's like when you go do stuff with your family like you want to be present but I want to also capture that's how do I'm saying? I went too far at the Black Sabbath concert I went too far in the I'm going to be present

and not far enough into I'm going to document this shit because it's freaking epic. When we're in Australia for the muster and we'll go back to track when we're in Australia for the muster you know we all went to this one spot to surf and when I say we surf it was us watching Laif surfs and he's awesome

I do not surf but I enjoy hanging out with my friends and I like watching hey if you like to surf guess what I like to watch you surf man like I just want to be there with you remember I talked about this before Seth loves to surf and I didn't surf I wish I would have now you know back in the day I wish I would have been surfing with Seth and Guam but whatever can't go back but I would to the beach with him because he would go surf and I'd go there just to watch now there's other

reasons because a few times he thought the locals were going to fight him he's like hey i need you to come i think these locals are going to fight me i'm done i'm there i'm there i really don't want to get in a fight with the locals but if sath is asking me to be there i'm going to be there anyways we go to australia we go to this awesome place to surf and we're in this like a little surf shop and i i'm standing outside waiting looking around i'm just like man this incredible beach like looking around right being present and i see this dad and his son standing there he has his arm around his son his son's holding a surfboard he's holding a surfboard silhouetted between the trees and everything i'm like bro that's dude that's awesome

and i ran across the street pulled out my phone and like just took some photos and they weren't looking at me they're like looking away and i like took some photos of them and then they go on i'm like hey like sir and he's like and obviously you can tell him an American not Australian and I was like hey I know this seems super weird I'm a but I'm a father and what I just saw was amazing I captured it for you I took some photos do you have an iPhone he goes yeah I'm like cool I'm gonna air drop them to you he's like oh really so I air dropped it to him and then I was like hey if you want me to delete him I can delete him because like it's a picture of you and your son he's like no we're looking away He's like, I don't, he's like, this was the nicest thing someone's ever done for me.

A stranger. Thank you. But I just remember looking at that and I had that thought like if I was him, I'd want that photo. And, yeah, I was just, you know, just trying to be more mindful as we get older. Yeah, no, I totally blow that all the time. I do cool stuff with my kids and I'm like, we'll get done doing cool stuff. And I mean freaking cool stuff with my kids and I'll get done and be like, uh, there's a friend of mine that his, his daughter wrestled, son wrestles and he's like a professional photographer and now whenever we see that's who takes

all these awesome pictures but he's taking awesome pictures of like I wouldn't be able I couldn't take these pictures like me and like my daughter's getting ready to go wrestle and you know being being able to see that and have that and like a guy uh that dude that took a picture of Rana she's in her first UFC BJJ this guy took a picture it it is the best picture of my of rana and me for sure but she's standing on the top of the bowl right behind her is a giant freaking american flag it says rana willink on it i'm on the ground looking up at her with a big smile on my face and this guy got got this picture i was like bro thank you so and he sent me you know they put pictures on like metal like they like he sent a man he sent a

metal one of those. And yeah, just, again, I think this is the lesson learned for today. Hey, you can only do so much for yourself, but if you see some other cool shit, is this out of bounds to be like, if you see some people doing some cool stuff, take some pictures of them and then give them to them. Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. Yeah, no, I don't want to get creepy here. I don't want to get creepy here, but like, that is, this stuff just fades.

And I'll tell you another thing is your, you know, your memory. Your memory fades. Yeah. And so I find that, you know, I grew up in a small town and don't really ever go back there. And when I do occasionally go back there, people that live there, they remember all these things that I don't remember. And I think the reason is because every day when they drive by, you know, such and such school, they think about all the memories from that school. Yeah. I don't, I don't like re-fire those neurons about that school ever.

And so those memories just fade away. I got a bunch of new memories. So if you don't have something to remind you and reconnect those neurons, they just not going to get reconnected. Like, I'll talk to guys that were in Ramadi with us. And they won't remember something that we will remember because we talk about it and present it and look at pictures of it where they might not do that. Maybe they talk once a year or whatever to one of their buddies.

So the memory starts to fade if you don't keep it. So documenting and taking pictures. In my mind, I've now moved since the Black Sabbath concert, I have moved taking pictures to a part of being present. It's a positive thing. Do it. If we pull the thread a little bit deeper on what we're talking about, being present allows you to appreciate what you have.

No matter how bad the situation might be, there's good in where you're at. And one of the things I like to say when I'm speaking with companies is, my worst day is somebody's dream because I know that my worst day in America millions of people would love to swap and have that bad day that J.P.'s having.

The freaking echo Charles over here having a bad day because he got a flat tire on his Cadillac escalade. That's why you get this run flats, homie. But it also helps you with your perspective. I was talking with a guy

who's struggling with his face. and I'm just sitting there listening, which I've learned to do from you and Laif and, you know, just listen, right? Just listen. And I was a little like not nervous, not scared, but like this was a serious moment for this guy. And I didn't want to screw it up. And, but I knew that if I just listen, that I'll be prompted to give him whatever he needs to. to hear. So I'm listening to them. I'm praying silently as I'm listening and then we get done, you know, talking through some stuff. And I just like asked them. I'm like, hey, I want you to actually think. And if you want to write these things down, write them down or whatever, I was like, I actually want you to think about all the good things that God has provided you, all the blessings, all of the things that

you weren't felt like you weren't deserving of. And also all the times that you've received forgiveness when you probably think you didn't deserve it. I was like, just think about it, write it down. And then like, we'll talk more. And I wanted him to see the mirror himself of like, hey, you know what? Actually, man, my life's not that bad. Actually, every time I've had hard times, I've come out on the other side. And so guess what?

I'm probably going to as well here. And so it's just being present and thankful, but then also reflecting upon, like, where you've, where you've come from and gone is, is pretty dang important. That's why you know this, that Marco's Pizza hat is in my closet as the first thing I see every day when I'm home. Just says, you know what? I'm not delivering pizzas to try to help make ends meet for my family right now. Yep. Check. Last thing from your list I want to cover what, know what to do in.

technology fails. Yeah. So going back to the fundamentals of what you know is going to work, there's always going to be an evolution of technology. There's going to be, you know, there's going to be, you know, better, faster ways to do things. But there are things that are tried and true. And so this isn't so much of a sniper thing.

But it, but it applies. It's, you know, when we're teaching, you know, rifle shooting and we have optics on there, guys would take their iron sights off the back. And it would drive me crazy. And so to teach the lesson, I would take their batteries out if I could without them knowing. And so when they'd be on the line, getting ready to shoot, they're like, oh, my optics's not working. Run the drill. Well, I don't have a, why'd you take it off? and so you know you have to have a you have to have something that is is a backup plan

and yes do I want to use that red dot or that optic from vortex 100% but if it fails can I still get the job done do I have the ability to get the job done and you know I think about it from like a business standpoint we have a lot of SOPs put in place at echelon front to make it to where we are able to be with our clients and you know some of the soPs like at first I was just like I don't know this doesn't make sense but then it's like okay yes it does make sense you know like the travel usopies that we put into place those are very smart for the business to take care of our clients like they're very smart and we you know and so you know if technology is going to fail how are you going to get the job done and when I got out I was doing sell the

financial company like we had you know things on different servers or whatever but I also kept hard copies just in case and there's one day there's issues with our system and nobody else could do work but me because I had hard copies that I could still access and and make calls and and do the job so yeah contingency planning yes that's what we're doing um you know one one other thing I will I think This might be the last thing. I gave you a super long list. No, no, no, it's all good stuff. Well, we'll just do another podcast

and get to the rest of the other stuff. And I'm sure we'll have more questions that come out of this. But one of the other things that when I was doing some research and I was reading through a bunch of difference, I read the Marine Corps sniper manual, the Army sniper manual. I didn't read the whole thing,

but I looked through them. And the special operations, special forces sniper manual. So those were kind of the ones that I looked at, just getting some ideas. But one of the things that I found was really interesting was, was they had a little section in one of them. I figure which one it was, but it was about target indicators.

It's like, why is something seen? And so, you know, it talked about smell or how do you detect a target, right? It talked about smell and it talked about tactile, which is like what you can feel. It's kind of a, they made a little bit of a stretch there because it's like, oh, trip wire, which for sure, but that's not really a sniper thing. That's just a soldiering thing. But the visual piece, right? And this is stuff that I was like, oh, I remember a little bit. this stuff what makes what makes things visible right so and the list of them was like oh

the thing is out of place like it's just a thing that is out of place so is that is it an out of place shape and is that shape recognizable as something shadows like shadows can make something stand out silhouettes can make something stand out a different surface texture can make something stand out the the spacing like a spacing that doesn't match the environment can make something stand out. Obviously, color can make something stand out, and then movement can make something stand out. So, and what I thought was interesting about this is as we learn in the seal teams, and you

learned all these things at a basic level as just a regular seal, and then as snipers, you're going to learn it like probably four times more, like four times more what this looks like. And what it does is when you learn about how to what to look for, how to identify a target, and you guys play in sniper school, you play all these Kim's gain and you, and as sniper instructors, you spend a lot of time observing, looking for all these things. But my point in saying all this is because once you learn what to look for, obviously you reverse engineer that to figure out how to not be found.

And what's interesting is what it boils down to is, it teaches you as a sniper when you learn how to look for things it teaches you to how to be self-aware of what you what visual signals you're giving off and what that teaches you is true self-awareness and so as you interact in the world all and just as you'd think a sniper that was easily able to find a target using these looking for these things how stupid would that sniper be to not then take advantage of that information to camouflage correctly. Well, isn't it interesting that we as human beings, our instinct is to look at other people and pick them apart and go, oh, I can't believe J.P's, you know, talking a bunch during this meeting.

I can't believe it. I can't believe J.P.'s coming here with this attitude. I can't believe J.P.'s got a big ego. I can't believe J.P. is trying to take credit for this. And I apply all those things to you. But I never say, geez, why am I in this meeting trying to take credit for this thing? Or why am I the one that's running my mouth? We need to become self-aware.

And I think sniper school and a sniper skill is becoming acutely self-aware of how you are presenting to the world from a visual standpoint and a noise standpoint and a smell standpoint. But really, that visuals, how you are presenting to the world, whereas you have to apply it to yourself.

And in the civilian sector, we can easily see what makes someone stand out in a negative way, and yet we don't apply those rules to ourselves. And that is extremely problematic. So I would say, be careful of that. Yeah, be careful that. That's why I love, you know, that we do the balance assessment at Echelon Front. Because if you're humble and doing it honestly, you'll see the mirror very clear.

and the more you do it and the more you understand our principles, the more zoomed in that mirror comes and it can be humbling. You start to see some stuff that's out of place, out of shape. You start to see shadows, silhouettes, and surfaces that don't, they just don't match. Yes.

They don't fit in there the way it's supposed to fit in there. And, you know, the reason why I brought that up is because as a sniper when we were learning to build hides and part of stalking and urban hides or hides out in the field. If you had the ability to get everything set up and then go look at it from a different perspective, it allowed you to see, oh, my setup is good.

And as you do that over time, you can actually build the skill set to know that if I do this, this and this, I don't have to go look because I know how I look. I know how I feel. I, you know, and it's like, did I use the right backdrops? Did I use the right environmental things that I'm using to veg up in front and veg up behind to take away that depth perspective? Did I break up all my straight lines and 90 degree angles with different things? And, you know, at first it takes, okay, try it. Look.

You know, it's like what we teach in a national infront. When we're talking about our core values, how leadership is a skill. Well, you have to learn it. You have to put it into practice, assess, and then adjust. and you just keep running that loop. And if you do it enough and enough and enough, you'll know the adjustments you're making are trending in the right direction

without having to take too much time to reflect. You can now, you can make real-time adjustments in the right direction. And isn't it interesting, though, when you first build your first sniper hide site and you think you're good to go and you think no one can see you and then trade at comes along,

pulls you out and goes, hey, come over here. Walk 50 yards with me over here. Now go look at your hide site. And you're like, oh my God, it's, you know, some pathetic just thing that sticks out horribly. And like you said, okay, so lesson learned. It's shocking that people do things, interacting with other people, leadership things where they don't think anyone's going to see what they're doing. And it stands out so much. And you've got to be self-aware.

I'm pretty sure I shared this on a previous episode here. If not, it's been on other podcasts or my podcast. I know I shared this story. When I was a kid, I was building urban sniper hides not knowing what I was doing. And I set up in my garage, which was elevated off the street, cracked the garage door, had my BB gun. And I set it up to where I was going to be laying behind it, turned off all the lights in there, walked out to the street and was seeing if I could see anything in there. And when I realized, oh, nope, you can't see anything. Then I went and got on there.

and, you know, was set up. That's what we're doing. And I definitely was not shooting at the mailman that was driving by. Definitely did not do that. And even if you were, statute of limitations, he's good to go. Allegedly. Right on. Right on.

Awesome. Well, we're about to go meet up with the boys. I can't wait. I'm asking a bruiser in a little bit, which is going to be awesome. And I know I've got a few of them scheduled to come on. I've also got some, some, uh, I got another army guy coming on, which he was, you know, down there with us. So going to bring in some more historical documentation before it all gets forgotten.

Dang, we're old. Yeah. So we're going to go do that a little bit. In the meantime, how's your workout program going right now? It's good. How's your jocco fuel intake going? Man, that new pro series? That's freaking legit.

Let the muscle drive. Yeah. People are like, is it worth it? I'm like, yes. like without a shadow of doubt absolutely you know I've I'm down about 30 pounds and strength is still worth that yeah and obviously when you're down about what's the biggest change how long has it taken you go down 30 pounds I did it pretty quick I I would have to look back through what's the biggest what's the changes that you made um heavy on my protein

um like protein first thing in the morning you know getting 30 to 45 grams of protein right That's a milk. That's a milk cookie and a mulk by the way. Yeah. If you're wondering. No, no, no, no. I'm getting getting that, you know, you know, Jason Kalippa has this shoulder shoulder challenge right now where it's 45 grams of protein right in the morning first thing. So I'm doing that. So like first thing like when you wake up or is that the first? Yes. No. Get fuel in your body. Okay. Your brain needs it right now. I know there's some people are going to be talking about fasting. But I'm not fast. Everything is everything. Everything's got to it doesn't matter. But I can tell you what I've been doing. Yeah. That's what we're talking about. And guess what? I've been. I've

been trending in a good direction with my health. So I know what works for me. Yeah. I know everyone has different methods. So when you say first thing in the morning, like you are getting out of bed and you're like brushing your teeth going downstairs and having a mulek. Yeah, good question. I wasn't clear on that. Within an hour to 90 minutes of being awake, I want to consume that protein. Before or after you work out. Um, if I'm so right now. So when this comes out, is this coming out next Friday? Or Wednesday. Yeah. Okay. So this comes out next Wednesday. So if you're listening to the day of, of tomorrow night I'll be starting my 31 mile ruck for the 15 year anniversary of extortion 17. And so I'm starting in the evening doing 31 miles pushing through the night.

And now, you know, I have actually like six, seven people that are like, I'm going to do all 30. Like Josh Rosperger who else is, works with us at us on the front. He's doing all 31. My son, Aden, and a handful of other buddies are doing that. But what I was saying is like, when I went with that is if I'm going to go do a ruck, Like I'll get some protein in, like a liquid form of protein before you work out is a great fuel source. So it might just be a milk, not additional stuff. So a milk with some carbs and go before you work out.

Yes. Got it. You need the fuel. No, that's okay. You know. And then afterwards, another 45 right away. That's a good way. If you're got 90 in the tank, 90 grams of protein.

Yeah. Like in the AM. That's solid. And, you know, using. just calculations of like hey this is where I want to be I want to be around the 210 range cool non-negotiable 210 grams of protein a day and then for me what how hard is it for you to get a 210 grams of protein down not hard at all okay good because some people struggle with that but maybe that's because they're eating just like freaking well what's where's their yeah what are

they eating yeah you know if it's a high protein source it's actually not that hard to do and if you start in the morning, it's really easy to do. And so for me, to give me good energy, I like, I like clean carbs, rice, potatoes, fruit. And then I just, I don't consume a lot of fat, you know, and that's, any time I follow that, I slim up. But also being physically active every day. Just a non-negotiable for me is something every day, whether it's training jujitsu, lifting weights.

Even if it's like, hey, I'm just going to throw on the ruck and just get a mile in. Like, hey, I just flew in. My flight was delayed. I didn't land until 1245. I didn't get back to my house until 1.45 in the morning. I can at least go walk a mile with the ruck on to know that I did that. You know, there's times where I'll show up to jiuitsu just out of discipline because it's like, hey, I know that if I don't come, then that goes down the path that I don't want to go.

the other thing is just you know taking ownership over my health and my blood work and getting blood work done and recognizing okay hey here's where my markers are having you know being on TRT having healthy sustainable like levels of testosterone and then taking peptides for recovery and I freaking feel great I love it good to go and I don't yeah are you going to jiu jitsu camp emerging camp yes absolutely so aug so jocco We talked about muscle drive. Yes. Muscle drive. We talked about milk protein. We talked about we're both drinking some energy drinks right now, which is clean and the best. We're both drinking hydrates right now.

Yes. It's pretty good combo. That's the other thing is making sure I'm drinking enough water and hydrates throughout the day, which helps with your energy, clarity, all that stuff. And once I wake up also is consuming at least 20 ounces of water or a hydrate, which I know isn't 20. It's only like, what is it? 16, but whatever.

16 to 20 ounces right away because when you sleep, you dehydrate yourself just by breathing about 20 ounces of water. There you go. So if you don't do that, you're starting off in a dehydrated state. So make sure I'm hydrating with water, the hydrates and like the mulks and everything from Jocco fuel makes it so easy. Yeah, I was looking at this morning we had a Jocco Fuel meeting and we were going through the product roadmap for like the next year. and I was like, okay, so next year I will be consuming nothing but Jocko fuel. Like, we got such good stuff coming to next me happy. I don't want to make everyone all fired up, but like we got, I mean, bars.

They're on the roadmap. Yeah, roadmap. Yeah. So can we have a request from Josh Schrosberger and Brent Casigolo and a, you know, a few of my guys from DFW that help on the FTXs and that'll also be at immersion camp. Can we keep the raspberry gelato flavor? That's also a request for me. It's definitely, it's definitely under consideration.

Okay. Yep. Because that is unreal. And the fruity cereal. Yep. You put that. By the way, so just so you know, fruity cereal was going to be a limited time. But it did so well.

It's permanent time. And jolotto, raspberry jolato is heading in the same direction right now. It'll take a little bit of time to the logistics behind it. Yeah. You know, because we got to do another run of it. But yeah, noted. Yeah, just, you know. But going on.

Going back to what we said, iterative step, if it makes sense for business, right? Which I would think it would. But, man, you put that in a ninja creamery? The ninja creamier. Protein ice cream. That would be jocco-approved ice cream. Oh, yeah. It's a milk.

I have not quite mastered the ninja creamy, but what I have mastered is the Greek yogurt with milk. This is such a cheat code to just eat dessert anytime you want. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. It's freaking ridiculous. And by the way, if you don't want dessert, if you just want breakfast, you can put banana in there,

you can put a strawberry in there, and you can have like a fruit situation, and then at night you can have chocolate, or you can have mint chocolate, you can have peanut powder. So you get, you get like, what is that called in the morning? What is it called when something you eat something sweet in the morning or like something tasty? Because it's not really dessert.

I don't know. Is there a name for it? No, I guess it's just called it. Freaking Molk JocoFuel. All day. Jocofuel.com, you can get all this stuff. And you can also get them, Get it at whatever

Retailer you shop at We're nationwide If they don't have it where you are Something's wrong So tell the people in the store Do you want Jocco Fuel Or check out joccofuel.com Also, origin USA

So we got a Jiu Jitou Camp There's still time to come We got slots open It's August 23rd through the 28th It's between Zero and seven hours of Jiu Jitsu a day Like depending on where you're at bro Like if you want to come

Hey honestly I'm not kidding if you didn't even do any jiu jitsu none let's say let's say like last year I had a hurt neck I couldn't train oh yeah so I was just there does it was that hurt kind of because I wanted to train of course but even still you know it's still fun so even if even if I had like a bat if I if I had a torn ACL right now and you still go to camp you're still going to have fun even if you didn't do jitzer even if you're like oh I'm just going to go and hang out with JP and hang out with echo and hang out with with Jocko and tour the factory and see what's going on,

swimming the lake and do the stand-up paddle boarding. Like, it's fun. Oh, yeah. It's adult summer camp. I'm, if I'm out immersion camp or signed up to go, like whether I'm on my way there or there, and if I'd tear my ACL, I'm still training.

Like, immersion camp is so unreal. You could train with a toy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You make a good point. I'm just saying. Yeah, because remember when I tore my bicep and I couldn't train, it was like, like, two months or something after I got, surgery or whatever I still trained you told me not to but I did still train but I

throughout the I was responsible didn't hurt it but like are you saying oh yeah you don't have to train you can go hang out with this person hang out with that person I was like I was doing workouts with people you can do other workouts so I was gonna oh I'm just gonna work out or whatever and like eight people will come with me you know so it's like yeah you're right it's like this big yeah kind of vacation camp kind of jujitsu in there as much as you want it's good time jujitsu food lake activities barbecue activities story campfire story campfire activities because the campfire has like a full I did like a two hour Q and a day down there last year like it's just freaking

with rolling lifting gym the whole nine when you and Pete sit and do Q&A and talk about business that alone is worth the cost of camp and it's a jiu jitsu camp yeah the jiu jitsu I mean yeah of course obviously but what it's like what 30 black belts there something like that you know that I was thinking about this I knew we're going to talk about this you know at Eschonfront we have a hard time properly communicating the expectations versus reality of what our field training exercise is like that and I know we want to do a podcast of breaking that down expectations versus reality there's a lot of wrong expectations around the field training exercise we do versus the reality of what you get it's the same thing for

immersion camp and that's actually one of the things i wanted to just kind of talk with you and p and deco and amanda about is the expectations aren't i'm sorry the expectations aren't bad but i don't think people truly understand the reality of what you get at immersion camp i was legitimately frustrated with you the first time i went to immersion camp because a year prior you and echo had gone and in that first year is when they only did like i'm sorry they did full week or half on the front half on the back. I had a gig at the beginning of that week. So I was only able to come in the half, the last half.

I was so mad that I wasn't able to be there the whole week. And then I got frustrated. And I'm like, dude, they were here last year and I didn't get experiences with them. So not frustrated at you, but frustrated that I didn't get, I didn't have an extra year under my belt being at camp. And it was after that first immersion camp that I went to when I came home and I was talking about it with Amanda, you know, it was from that moment. on, I was like, this is a non-negotiable on my calendar.

Like, I have to be here. Because some of the friendships that people create and business relationships that people create at immersion camp are life-changing. It's awesome. It's awesome. So origin, USA.com, come and register, come to camp. It's awesome. And by the way, Origin USA, 100% made in America, built by freedom.

Did you see the speech I gave at the, at the, uh, opening? Yeah, built by freedom was in there. We slid it in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not built by the government, not built by the state, not built by the bureaucrats. America was built by freedom. That's true. And origin is built by freedom.

So 100% American-made stuff. Gies, jeans, hoodies, t-shirts, training gear, whatever you need, boots, check out origin, USA.com and get some. It's true. also we notice JPs over here straight up representing the D shirt good okay so that's the newest good

shirt by the way for people watching on video whatever what a dish what a dish 3.0 3.0 yep anyways from jaco store you can get discipline equals freedom stuff mine's a standby to get some of that by the way you and I did a video

the other day and people were saying they saw my shirt that I'm currently wearing which says Jock fuel on it and people were interested in where this shirt came from and where they could get one. I can guess. Maybe JoccoFuel. Yeah,

yeah, JoccoFuel, but we don't really sell this. Oh, okay, that's the inside, inside track. Yeah, this is my shirt.

Yeah, okay. They literally make these for me. Okay, all right, like that. Good thing we were in the same size. You don't read that closet.

But, okay, yeah, Jockafel, cool, that's good, not very helpful. Thank you,

though, for that. But, yeah, if you want the good, one or the discipline is freedom you want to standby to get some hell yeah jocco store.com all day maybe I was hinting that we should make a shirt like oh yeah yeah right on right on

indirect approach that's good which was not received no no no shirt locker flat my father-in-law is a member of the shirt locker and I mean I if we're not the only time he's not wearing something from Jocco store is if we're if if if we're going somewhere If we're going somewhere, doing something that he wants to, like, a button-up shirt on. If it's non-button-up shirt wearing, it's 100% shirt locker. There's a lot of people on that representation. Oh, yeah.

Do you ever see Jamie Cochran's entire family? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're just, they, they, because there's a lot of them. Mom's dads, you know, kids. And there's all, all of them, 100%. Just Jocco's, joggle shirt locker shirts all day. Flynn will send me pictures of all of them just doing, doing normal stuff, you know, and just all of of them just representing doing abnormal stuff too yeah yeah yeah

be in a sick workout as a family yeah or they might be like out of at the grocery store yeah representing yeah one of them I had a bulletproof vest on with a shirt lock a shirt underneath yeah come on bro that is credit hardcore representation we call that props props props props to our homey so shirt locker if you don't know what it is we all do but if you don't it's a subscription scenario new design every week seems a little bit more creative than the you know the the the roots basic stuff that's good yeah people seem to like it next month one what is that

august it's kind of a master's oh no no no no like a Transformers kind of theme it's pretty dope came out good jp was in transformers yeah Transformers 5 yeah yeah hell yeah so you're gonna like that one it's a little bit of a stretch an extra plan in a navy seal oh no I figured it out yeah not much train for six oh yeah yeah when the there's a scene that you can see me jumping out of the back

of the helicopter when it crashes and the guy jumps out and you see the machine gun going off like that's me jumping out carrying and shooting the Mark 46. That's a real stretch of a character. Yeah. But yeah. So yeah,

you like down, that's that. That's the short locker. So yeah, if you want to check out what the shirt locker is more about, you can go jocco store.com, click on the top says shirt locker. You can just kind of see what it's all about.

It's pretty cool. I seem to like it. But everything else, yeah, on jococcal. We'll look into it. Yeah, much appreciate it. Also,

we got some books. Let's see, we got put your legs on by Rob Jones. We got Need to Lead by Dave Burke. I've written a bunch of books for kids, wrote a couple books with Laif Babin, leadership books, discipline equals freedom. I guess that's a leadership book

if you're talking about leading yourself. And the Warrior Kid books, of course. Warrior Kid movie coming November 25th, Global Release on Apple. Are we ready for that? We're ready for that. Ready for that? We've got J.P.'s working on his book,

feverishly working on his book. So we'll get that to you as soon as we can. Did you just paint me in the corner? 100%? What the, apparently privately painting you in the corner hasn't really done it. So here we go, publicly putting you there on notice.

Aishton Front. If you have a company and you have problems in your company, there's a decent chance that you do. And the problems that you have are leadership problems. And in order to solve those leadership problems, you need leadership. And so that's what we do at Eschlawn Front. We teach the leadership principles

that we learned on the battlefield that we have now conveyed. and embedded into hundreds of companies and incredible results. So if you need help inside your organization, go to ashlamfront.com. You can come to one of our events. You can bring us in for a long-term engagement with your company. You can go to one of our field training exercises. You can go to one of our battlefield tours. You can go to the council, the muster, the women's assembly.

We've got all kinds of options for you. Check it out at eslamfront.com. Also, we have Extreme Ownership.com, which is where we teach these principles online. So we have an online training academy where you can learn these principles and get better at leadership, which is the most important skill you can have in life.

Also, if you want to help service members active and retired, you want to help their families, you want to help Gold Star families. Check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. She has an amazing charity organization. It has helped so many veterans and first responders and their families and it has helped our friends,

people that we know. It has saved them, save their lives. So 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. I just got a book in the mail, a cookbook from Micah Fink's wife

about food being healing medicine. So Big H, my wife, she ordered that book. and it's really good. I'll let, I'll give you a, and I can only pass judgment on the, on the physical nature of the book. It's big, it's clean looking,

it's well put together, image pictures and stuff. Like it's a badass book. And you don't really say a cookbook is badass. I mean, I've never seen a badass cookbook. I've seen good cookbooks before, but I've never seen a badass cookbook.

So Micah Fink's wife made a badass cookbook. Because you know Micah Fink's involved, let's face it. He's going hard with the cookbooks. So you can check that out, Heroes and Horses.org. And then Jimmy May's organization got the Navy SEAL Swim taking place in New York.

I believe the date is August 15th. Beyond the Brotherhood.org. Well, it's in August, let's say. If they go to the website, the dates there. Yeah. Beyond thebrotherhood. org. It's a badass event.

It's going to help. It's going to help a lot of people. people with their lives. So check out Beyond the Brotherhood.org. And then, of course, we got Warriors in Need, taking our military aviation specialists and getting them in a pipeline to fill the 11,000 jobs that are short in America. So check that out. If you know an aviation person from the military and they're getting out, we got a mission

for them, Warriors in Need.org. So check that out. If you want to connect with us, jocco.com and then on social media jp's at at jp. to know i'm at jocco willink echoes at echo charles you got your podcast too the jp dennell podcast yep can check that out as well when you're on social media um obviously just be careful because it's a brain destroyer now they're coming out with these studies

that are saying that these kids aren't even developing properly have you seen these studies yeah oh yeah big studies hey these kids brains are not developing because they're all their if you think about how how dopamine gets filled into our brain when we as a I'm a 54 year old man and if I look at Instagram I'll be like oh that's neat and I'll be excited by some stupid shit that I just saw in there and I know it's stupid and I'm at least able to go okay that you're wasting your time but when you're nine you just you have no just just like you can't control your temper when you're seven yeah well when you're here you're not going to be able to control your to stop yourself from freaking still looking at this bullshit yeah that's what we're doing um anything else jp uh thank you for having me back on here uh when did you say the last time you were on uh 409 or 406 so that's that's like years ago yeah yeah it's been a while yeah i appreciate being on here i love what we get to do at echelon front

You know, this October will be in Denver for the next muster, and it will be one week shy of my 10-year anniversary with you. Sure. And Leif Ed Eschlein Front, which also was the anniversary of the very first muster, which was, you know, one year to the date after Extreme Ownership came out, which was also to the date when you guys left Ramadi. And I just, you know, think back of the last 10 years of what we've been on, to do it echelon front, you know, just sharing the lessons that we've learned in combat so that

people can actually take these things and apply them to their lives to improve their business, their marriage, their health. It's really incredible to see what has grown from what you and life built. And I know to an extent what it took for you guys to build this. And I don't know all the details. And the sacrifice that it took you and life to, to build this, which changed my life, which changed my family's life, which is awesome, but I know the principles in extreme ownership and dichotomy of leadership

and leadership strategy and tactics and the field manual has changed hundreds of thousands of people's lives. And to know that I'm a small piece of it is freaking awesome. Just like to know that we were a small piece of what those soldiers and Marines did in Ramadi is absolutely incredible. And I was doing an event last year in Vegas, and a guy came up to me, had a line of people to talk with afterwards,

and this guy's getting closer and closer, and he's a very tall, I put this to the group, a very tall Iraqi guy. I could tell you he's of Middle Eastern descent, and he's getting closer, and he's a big guy. And I'm just, you know,

talking with people, acting's getting closer and he's he's next up to talk with me and i could see that he's getting emotional and he's next up i you know shake this lady's hand afterwards she gives me a hug take a photo she gives me a hug again and she walks away and i look at the guy and i smile and he he steps in and just gives me a hug and so i gave him a hug back and kind of like then step back and uh he has tears in his eyes and he's looking at me and he said my family was able to leave romadi before all those things happened we were able to escape romadi when it was starting to get bad but our whole family wasn't able to leave and he goes that picture of the first all-girls school

that was established my niece was a part of that because i just want to say thank you to what you americans did for us he said can i show you something i said yes sir He pulls out his phone, pulls up Instagram. He goes, this is my niece. She lives here in America. She's finishing up med school. She's engaged to get married. And her life is completely drastically changed because of what you guys did.

He goes, thank you. And to know that we were a small piece of that was incredible. And I still had that feeling doing what we do at Eschlein Front, knowing I'm a small piece of what you. you guys have built and it's incredible to know that we have these opportunities and I'm thankful that I get to do what we do every single day and I know you and Leif always say this we're just getting started so I'm looking forward to the next decade check well you were an integral piece both in Ramadi and tasking a bruiser and an echelon front since day one so that's

That's the way you operate. You know, you always bring impact. You always punch above your weight and you always make things happen. Sometimes you make things happen where I got to freaking pull the reins in, you know, that's what we talk about. But, you know, that's what we're here for.

And that's an awesome story. I just met a guy. Same thing, I was at an event and a guy came up to me. He was seven years old in Ramadi when we were there. And, you know, he was just so thankful that we were there.

And they left before ISIS came. but just it's amazing to meet those people that were there at the time so awesome man thanks for coming back man thanks for what you've always done for me for for task unit bruiser for the teams and for America and what you're continuing to do by being out there and spreading the principles that we learned so thanks brother appreciate it and thanks to all of our military personnel right now that are deployed around the world in harm's way protecting freedom and protecting our way of life and as the saying goes God bless our troops especially the snipers also thanks to our police law enforcement firefighters paramedics

EMTs dispatchers correctional officers border patrol secret service as well as all other first responders thank you for protecting us here at home and everyone else out there look being a sniper is a skill and leadership is a skill and really if you To zoom out a little bit, life is a skill. And you're not born with the skills of a sniper. You're not born of the skills of leadership. And you're not really born with life skills either. You have to learn them.

You have to practice them. You have to earn them. And you do that by paying attention. By paying attention to how you do things. By paying attention to how you do everything. The details matter. So pay attention to what. you are doing and how you are doing it and how you are improving your skills and that's all

we got for tonight and until next time this is jp and echo and jocco out