Jocko Podcast - 57: STRATEGIKON: How to Apply Timeless Combat Leadership Lessons to the Battlefield, Business and Life

Episode Date: January 10, 2017

0:00:00 - Opening 0:01:33 - "Strategikon: Handbook of Byzantine Military Strategy", by Maurice 1:41:58 - Final Thoughts 1:49:13 - Interesting Internet stuff and support: Onnit, Amazon Click-thru, JockoStore, YouTube, Psychological Warfare(on iTunes), Jocko White Tea, Extreme Ownership (Book), The Muster 002. 2:18:51 - Closing GratitudeSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko Podcast number 57 with Echo Charles and me, Jocker Willink. If the outcome of the battle is favorable, one should not be satisfied with merely driving the enemy back. This is a mistake made by inexperienced leaders who do not know how to take advantage of an opportunity and who like to hear the saying, be victorious, but do not press your victory. too hard. By not seizing the opportunity, these people only cause themselves more trouble and place the ultimate results in doubt. There can be no rest until the enemy is completely destroyed.

If they seek refuge behind fortifications, apply pressure by direct force or by preventing them from getting more supplies for men and horses until they are annihilated, or else agree to a treaty to our advantage. One should not slacken after driving them back just a short distance, nor after so much hard work and the dangers of war

should one jeopardize the success of the whole campaign because of lack of persistence. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. Now that's some direction there on how to pursue your enemy until they are completely destroyed. And that direction comes from a book called Strategicon,

a book that's normally accredited to a guy by the name of Flavius, Marisius, Tiberius, Augustus, or as he is more commonly called Maurice, emperor. And he was the emperor of Eastern Rome, which is what we now call Byzantine, a term that wasn't even created until the 16th century. But Maurice was a Roman emperor who started his journey as a soldier, a general, who campaigned successfully against the Persians,

the Avars, the lombards, all over Persia and the Boklands, and basically around the Mediterranean Sea. And his military experience served him well, and this is the book that he's credited with. And in it, he details a variety of the mindset of the famous Roman Legion and what it had evolved to, especially as they adopted the strengths of their enemies and transitioned to using horses along with the use of lances and spears and bow and arrow and swords again all these things be using them all together much as we do today what we call combined arms which is when we attack from the sea and from the air we land forces and we drop bombs and we use artillery we use everything to lock people get people in the combined arms dilemma my favorite ideas

and something that's that combined arms dilemma is when you're getting attacked with all these from all these different positions it's very hard to contend with and obviously they were able to do this as they adapted different their enemies they adapted what they used but then they use them together and so this book marisa's book strategic on captures a lot of those ideas i know it's no surprise but a lot of these ideas remain pertinent today and i know it's no surprise but not only on the battlefield but also in business and in life and famous historian charles oman said about the Byzantine armies in courage they were equal to their enemies in discipline, organization, and armament, far superior.

And we go into the introduction in this book a little bit here because there's some good information to know about. And here we go from the introduction of the book, they inherited the long tradition of Roman tactics and strategy with its emphasis on constant adaptation to the changing of war. It was largely this remarkable ability to adapt to new situations and new peoples which guarantee the Byzantine military success. Gotta be adaptable. The Byzantines, moreover, like the Romans, took warfare very seriously.

The Byzantine's war was an art to be practiced by professionals. They possessed books on all aspects of warfare, which were collected, copied over and over again. and read the fact that officers in the byzantine army had to be able to read and write by itself sets it apart from other medieval armies so obviously we do a lot of reading over here in this tradition right this is what set them apart one of the things that set them apart was the fact that they read and they collected books on this subject Byzantine generals carefully studied the habits and tactics of their enemies whereas Western knights found themselves at a loss when facing unknown foes. The Western European considered

himself a good warrior if he could ride and wield his weapons well and if he showed no fear. Okay, so that's cool. You can ride and you can wield your weapons well and you show no fear. For the Byzantine, it was not superior strength or courage which won battles, but after God's favor, thorough planning and intelligence. Nothing could be left to chance. Maris twice reminds his readers that the Byzantine general should never have to admit. I did not expect that. Now, let's get, so that's just from the introduction kind of getting into the book. And now we'll go to the actual book.

And I'm not going to go into the whole thing of who actually put these words on the paper. Again, it's credited to Maurice, but did someone? else possibly write it and he blessed it did he tell someone write it did he have a ghost writer I don't know but he's the guy that's credited as having the brains behind it starting off here the training and drilling of the individual soldier he should be trained to shoot rapidly on foot either in the Roman or the Persian manner speed is important in shaking the arrow loose and discharging it with force this is essential and should be practiced while mounted.

In fact, even when the arrow is well aimed, firing slowly is useless. He should practice shooting rapidly on foot from a certain distance at a spear or some other target. Imagine that you're shooting at a spear with a bone arrow. He should shoot also rapidly mounted on his horse at a run to the front, the rear, right, and left. He should practice leaping onto the horse.

On horseback at a run, he should fire one or two oars, arrows rapidly and put the strong bow in its case if it is wide enough or in the half case designed for this purpose and then he should grab the spear which he has been carrying on his back with the strong bow in its case he should hold the spear in his hand then quickly replaced it on his back and grab the bow is a good idea for soldiers to practice all this while mounted on the march in their own country for such exercises do not interfere with marching and do not wear out the horses the reason I had to put this in here is because this is is very much what we do in the SEAL teams and you're shooting you're shooting offhand which means you're shooting with your weak hand we're reloading magazines with only one hands you got to put the weapon between your legs and you got to pull the bags you're doing all this stuff you're shooting while you're running you're shooting while you're laying down you're shooting while you're behind a vehicle you're shooting from inside a vehicle you're shooting from outside of vehicle you're you're doing all these things all these different ways all the time

because the better you get in all these strange situations the better you're going to perform in these strange situations and you're going to perform in these strange situations and you're apply this to any, you know, a business. I've talked about this before. When you're dealing with business, you want to train your people so they can handle these weird situations, you know, be a bad customer. You know, pretend to be a bad, if you've got leaders that you're training, be a horrible employee.

Be that person. Put them to the test. How are they going to handle an employee that flies off the handle? How are they going to handle employee that doesn't fly off the handle, get all verbal, but just goes cold. Yeah. Oh, what are you going to do now? How are you going to handle this person?

Yeah, remember you guys were doing at the must. you guys were doing that, you did that role playing thing real quick. It was like real quick too. Yeah. I caught Leif off guard. Yeah. He was like, oh, you're going to roll play. All right, let's do this.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. When you've presented it a little, yeah. But man, that was such a good point, though, because you go through one situation, right? And the guy, like, is like, I don't got time for you or whatever, however yours went. And then you're like, okay, and you get to put yourself through a potential situation. And then at the end of it, you said, okay, look, we just went through that and we did it. And, you know, maybe there was problems and maybe not. but now you're familiar with it

kind of like the lights are on now you're not going live into a dark room not knowing you know you're doing exactly what Marie said to do here which is the most important thing is intelligence yeah yeah combining what he's saying right the more you prepare for that in that particular situation that Leif and I did that little role play on

he acted like he was a company commander that didn't have time for me yeah yeah and he took it to the next level and said I don't have time for you because I got guys in combat right I got troops in contact, which is, you know, when you got troops in contact, that's where everyone's going to focus on that. So I'm in there playing this young SEAL officer going, excuse me, Captain, hey, I'd like to talk to you about an operation we're going to do in your area of operations tonight. Leif says, hey, I'm busy. I got troops in contact. Leave me alone.

And I was kind of taken aback. And I said, sir, you know what? Can you just tell me where your ops officers and I'll go talk to him? Yeah. And that was it? I overcame it because what else are you going to do? Yeah. But it took me a second.

I had to think on my feet. If that ever happened again, I wouldn't have to think on my feet. I have the answer. And you went through, like, if you were to do that in a real situation and you stumble, you didn't know what to do that's a way, a huge deal. It's looking bad. You know, you're not giving any confidence. You're saying, hey, I want to come into your area of operations and execute a mission tonight

and I can't even put a sentence together. Yeah. No, not good. Yeah. So that's why we rehearse. That's why rehearse worst case scenarios. That's why you practice shooting on the horse, off the horse, putting your bow way, pulling it back out, throwing your spear, that's what you do.

Yeah, it's crazy how. even going through it once makes that much. Well when I work with companies I'll do a role play and I'll tell them watch what happens in three times, three iterations they get that much better. They'll go from totally stumbling

and not being able to handle a bad employee to where the third time they got it. That's all it takes. Then it was the same thing. We put guys through in the SEAL teams, we put guys through really hard training scenarios and they would blow it and I'd kill all this is training. I'd kill all the good guys.

guys, right? They don't be getting hit with paintball. You're dead. You're dead. Next time, I'd say, okay, here's the mistake you made. Let's look at it. What would you do? Step back.

What would you do different? Oh, man, I didn't see that. I got, you know, I got drawn to the situation. I should, okay, so let's do it again. They're going to be 50% better the next time. The time after that, we can't even catch them anymore. Right. Because they got it.

You know, it's crazy. Preparation. All right. Another thing that Marie says, in actual combat, nobody can properly supervise the entire battle. Since the line is spread out so far and some can desert from their bandons and bandons is There's two meanings of the word bandons one is a flag like this is our flag But then it's also a group of about 300 troops so what he's saying is that people can can desert back to the book

Unnoticed and give all others an excuse to retreat if they do retreat there's no way of turning back or of checking the flight for nobody is able to get them back since as we said the whole army is routed so he said this is this is why we need a little bit of decentralized command right because he's saying you're no one can no one's gonna know you can't keep track the whole battle how many people can you keep track of during battle four maybe five these guys are going in a battle with thousands you can't keep track of them all so one of the things that they do and this is sort of a it's sort of a cover and move scenario so the way they set up

They set up two lines. Instead of just one line, they set up two lines. Back to the book. And there should be two lines, one of them, a support. The troops in the front line will fight more eagerly, knowing that their rear is protected by the second line and that their flanks by the flank guards. So even if you just know you're covered,

man, you're going to fight harder because you don't have to worry about what else is going on. That's why we do cover and move. Second, a man in the first line is not as likely to run away when he knows there are many other soldiers are stationed to his rear. That is in the second line and will see anyone deserting his posts. There's a little psychological. Hey man, I'm not going to run because the guys are right behind me.

They're going to know. In combat, this can be extremely important. Supposing that the first line retreats or is pushed back, then the second line is there as a support and as a place of refuge. So you got to back each other up, cover move. next one a small army should not prepare to face an organized and more numerous foe in open battle except in case of necessity boom don't go don't go and fight against a bigger batter opponent with more people don't fight against them back to the book if the necessity does arise do not mass all your troops in front and even if

an enemy number is superior, direct your operations against his rear or his flank. For it is dangerous and uncertain in all conditions and against any people to engage purely frontal combat, even if the enemy stations is a smaller number of troops up front. So this is, we talk about this over and over again. Don't attack the front. Don't attack the hardened position. next squads should be made up of old and young men in proportion otherwise the older men if formed by themselves may be weak and the younger inexperienced men may turn out disorganized

so this is a this is obviously important but sometimes people have a tendency to want to build a super team right i'm going to take all these guys all the best guys you want to make your teams as even as possible. This is a classic example. Don't just take all the old senior guys who have all the experience, but they might not be in the best physical condition. I mean, you take a seal platoon. You know, you take a 43-year-old seal.

Now, there's some studs out there. Don't get me wrong. But you compare him to a kid that's 24 that's on fire. That guy's going to be. You tell that kid to go climb a ladder, jump up a building. He's going to do it. They're beasts. So you want to have both.

both those elements in your team. And it's the same thing in a bigger organization or a business organization. Spread out the knowledge and spread out the enthusiasm. Is that, does that have to do with like, are you saying like a senior guy? He might have a bunch of knowledge versus, you know, a younger guy, he'll have a lot of athleticism

and physical capability. Or in the business world, it could be enthusiasm, right? It could be like, hey, I'm just gonna grind. Right, hungry young guy. I'm like, hey, echo, I'm gonna head home. You take care of this. I got it, boss. Let's do this.

Is that also because, let's say, a young guy who has enthusiasm, and if you mix it up with, instead of all enthusiastic people, you have older guys, they can teach the knowledge to the guy. Exactly. Yes. We're going to make our team stronger. Okay. Next one. Various tactics and drills.

Constant drill is of the greatest value to the soldier. Each formation drill should be identified in a special way so that the soldiers who are trained in these maneuvers may recognize the differences and not be puzzled by them. I can't even tell you how much you do what we call in the SEAL teams. They do in the Marine Corps. They do in the Army. Immediate action drills. So it's contact drills when something goes wrong, how you're going to maneuver your troops on the battlefield. And the more you do that, the better you're going to get at it.

And the better you get at it, the better you're going to perform in combat. Period. In a story. Is that like a fire drill at home? Yeah, it's like a fire drill at home. It's like a fire drill at home. It's like when you drill jitsu, when you say, hey, I'm going to practice this escape.

You know, we do that a lot. Jeff Glover makes us do that all the time is, okay, let the guy basically put you in a triangle. Oh, yeah. Or Dean will make you go in triangle danger. Right. Or arm lock danger, whatever. So then you're going to drill how you can get out of that.

And that way, when you're rolling live, it's an instinct. And it's the same thing with the situation, with your military unit. Yeah, yeah. As soon as you make that simple call, flank, you know, punch right, move left, whatever the peel left, whatever that call that you're going to make, everybody knows what to do. And it provides instant organization and focus and direction to everybody. It's weird. You know, there's certain calls in the SEAL team, certain maneuvers that everybody knows.

If you make one of those calls, like everyone knows it. Every single person in the entire SEAL community knows exactly. It's the same thing in the Marine Corps. They're certain standard operating procedures that you learn in Marine Corps boot camp if you say it to To a hundred different Marines that have been assembled for the first time ever in their lives you say one of these commands They're all gonna get on it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's good it's awesome Yeah All right going back to the book strategy the points which the general must consider

Before the day of battle a ship cannot cross the sea without a helm's mind nor can one defeat an enemy without strategy and tactics. With these and the aid of God, it is possible to overcome not only an enemy force of equal strength, but even one greatly superior in numbers. For it is not true, as some inexperienced people believe, that wars are decided by courage and number of troops, but, along with God's favor by tactics and generalship, and our concern should be with these rather than wasting our time mobilizing large numbers of men. The leader must take advantage of favorable times and places in fighting against the enemy.

First, he must guard against hostile attacks which can injure our men, and then he must attempt to launch the same against the enemy. Above all, he must look for enemy ambushes, sending out frequent and far-ranging patrols in all directions in the area around the battlefield. He must avoid disordered and uncoordinated pursuits. Now, this is, think about what we started this whole thing off. You get the advantage, you get the upper hand in battle. Go finish him.

Keep pursuing them until all the enemy is completely destroyed. But he's saying this right here. He must avoid disordered and uncoordinated pursuits. Now, my first deployment to Iraq, there was a couple times we got ambushed. We were in our vehicles got ambushed. And the urge is stop the vehicles. Let's go get these guys. And we didn't do that.

On these particular missions, we had some kind of priority target we were going after. So we're going after a bad guy somewhere. We make it through the ambush. If all of a sudden I say, okay, stop. We're going to go get these guys, like an ego thing. That would basically be an ego thing. Oh, stop the vehicles. We want to go get these guys.

Not a good call. We made it through the ambush. We're good. We have a mission to accomplish. Let's report this up the chain of command. Maybe they can get some aircraft overhead or something like that. But we're not going to just go into this disorganized pursuit of an enemy that actually has the upper hand. Because we made it through that festive.

What else do they have prepared for us? Because I can guarantee they want you to stop. So you need to think before you just get overly aggressive. Back to the book. We would not allow the general to take part personally in raids or other wreck. attacks. These should be entrusted to other competent officers, for if one of the subordinate officers blunders or fails, the situation may be quickly straightened out. But if the leader of the whole army fails, this fall can open the way to complete disorder. The general is wise who before

entering into war carefully studies the enemy and can guard against his strong points and take advantage of his weaknesses. Obvious stuff that we talk about every single day. Back to the book, warfare is like hunting. Wild animals are taken by scouting, by nets, by lying in weight, by stalking, by circling around, and by other stratagems rather than by sheer force. In waging war, we should proceed in the same way. Whether the enemy be many or few.

To try to simply overpower the enemy in the open hand to hand and face to face, even though you might appear to win is an enterprise which is very risky and can result in serious harm. Apart from extreme emergency, it is ridiculous to try and gain a victory which is so costly and only brings empty glory. we're talking about flanking we're talking about taking always making sure that the cards are stacked in your favor that's what we're talking about here and it's again it applies in life it applies in applies in jiu jitsu we had a little battle like that today you did you were I was I was actually did you see me smiling I was like kind of laughing because you were boom coming at me coming happening I was I was I was kind of laughing because I was thinking about this podcast and I was

thinking hey he's going head to head with me face to face yeah and I'm gonna but that's that's the way it works you know evidently yeah apparently all right back to the book on the actual day of the battle the general should not take on too many tasks he might exert himself too much become worn out and overlook some really essential matters. Now that to me is number one, you got to detach, and number two, you don't want to be in the weeds. If you're trying to get everything you're done yourself, you're going to overlook some really essential matters.

He should not look downcast or worried, but should ride jauntly along the lines and encourage all troops. He should not himself join in the actual fighting. This is not the role of the general, but of the soldier. After making all the proper arrangements, he should station himself in a suitable spot from which he can observe which troops are exerting themselves

and which might be slackening. When needed, he should be ready to send assistance to a unit in trouble by making use of his reserves. That is the flank and rear guards. So you've got to stay detached. We're talking the general here.

This is the general. This is the CEO. Right? This is the president of a company. Not getting so far into the weeds that you just don't see what's happening. And you can't, if you're in the weeds fighting, who's going to be watching to see that that area is slackening? Who's going to be able to direct the rear guard to help out? Who's going to send the reinforcements?

The answer is nobody. You're not doing your job. Here's another one. Even though the general decides against a pitched battle, he should still make preparations for one. got to be ready. Somebody asked me actually on Twitter a couple days ago, are you worried about

another 9-11 in America? And I said, I'm not worried. I'm prepared. And that's what this is saying. Even though you don't want to do a pitched battle, I'm not going to meet them.

Hey, that's too much of a frontal attack. I'm not going to do that. You better be ready for one. Yeah, yeah. That might be the only choice. You might get attacked. You've got to always be ready. Back to the book, he should make it appear that he plans on one and convey the impression to all his troops that he will definitely attack the enemy.

This will cause trouble for the enemy when it comes to their knowledge. So you got to prepare. Be prepared. No slack. Another one here. This is about infantry. drill movements. So we're going back to training here. The Herald commands, silence, observe orders. Do not worry. Keep your position, follow the standard. Do not leave the standard and pursue the

enemy. The troops then advance at a steady pace and in silence without anyone even whispering. They should become accustomed to these movements so that as a spoken command, or some other signal they march or halt reduce or divide the depth of the files march steadily in close order for a good distance over various kind of terrain close or tighten their ranks in depth and width march engage in mock battle sometimes using staffs and sometimes naked swords so this is this is a really important one this is this reminds me very much of something that we used to do so he's saying you're gonna do a drill right and you're not allowed to talk

You have to be completely silent and this is something we absolutely used to drill us in the SEAL teams where You're not allowed to talk and we would actually sometimes take radios away so hey you came we turn off hey everyone turn off your radios So you just have to figure this out and if you run like that all the time Eventually everybody learns how to it makes everyone more proactive because you know you're not gonna hear a command You know the boss is gonna get on the radio and say flank left You know that's not coming because that's so you have to learn to look around you have to learn to sense what's going to happen. And it makes everybody better at what they're doing.

And I'll tell you, you know, I've talked about this before. We didn't, in my task, you know, in my platoon, we didn't talk on the radio. We didn't, we barely talked on the radio. If I came on the radio and said something, it was like, everybody was, oh, the jock would just talk or, you know, Laif would say to me, Jock, I'm moving to building 48. I'd say, do it. They'd go.

They'd say, Roger, and he'd go. They wouldn't say anything else. And that was because when we were in training, we would do these drills where we wouldn't talk. You're not allowed to talk. You're allowed to make a head nod. You're allowed to give somebody a visual signal, but you're not allowed to come on the radio

and you're not allowed to talk. And that makes you so good. What it does is it makes your verbal, your nonverbal communication skills on point. It was cool when I went to Officer Candidate School. So at Officer Candidate School, they got a little weird things that they do to you. And I'll give you a couple examples.

One of them is you're not allowed to look at your food when you're eating. Okay. So you have to stare straight ahead. And this doesn't sound like a big deal because you think to yourself, well, I'll just look at my food, right? If you look at your food, everybody can see it. And the drill instructors come over and they start, you know, look at your food. You're not supposed to look at your food.

So what you have to do is you have to just look straight ahead. You're looking straight ahead across the table and you're just guessing where your food is pretty much. Stabbing your fork into the tray of food that you have in front of you. And it's, you know, it's a little hard to eat. And then over time, you start to be able to utilize your peripheral vision a little bit more so that you can, and see it without looking at it. That's one. The other one, I think I've talked about this,

you have to scream everything that you say, right? So there's all these little things that they make you do. Go ballistic. Go ballistic at all times, right? I've told that story before. But when it was pretty cool, when my drill instructor,

gunnery sergeant, Marine Corps, awesome guy, when we got done, you know, he was explaining why we did all this stuff. And the one about not looking at your food comes from, it does come from improving your peripheral vision. Because the way the officer candidate school was originally set up was for pilots, potential Navy pilots.

So guess what? You got to be able to see your instruments down below you while you're looking around and scanning for enemy aircraft. And so this is what it does. It allows you to improve. Well, this is the same thing. When you build that muscle memory of, hey, I'm not going to talk. And I need to look around and I need to be mentally proactive and make sure that

I'm not going to hear anything. So as a junior guy, I'm not going to hear anything. I have to look around. I have to make a decision. I have to absorb and figure out what's happening. That is unbelievably good. So anybody that works in an environment, you know, police officers, obviously military, do these silent drills.

Do them. It'll make you that much better. It was funny. I was just relaying the mats at our gym the other day. and Andy was there. Big Andy, by the way, just got his black belt, by the way. Yeah. We relaying the mats and, you know, he's just a, we're just working and we didn't say a word to each other for five hours.

We're there. We're just picking up stuff and doing stuff. And, you know, he's, you know, an iron worker by trade. And so he's just guy that, you know, just, he sees me doing something. He's doing. I see him doing something. It's what is nonverbal communication. Just nonverbal communication.

Work on it. It's awesome. All right. So this next section is really kind of where I was heading with all this. This is the, these are maxims, right? General instructions and maxims. And when we do books that are maxims, it makes my job really easy because I'm not trying to pull stuff out.

It's there. They already pulled it out for you. And we did Napoleon's maxims. There's nothing to pull out. Read the maxims. Boom. Sonsu Art of War. There's nothing to pull out.

Read the maxims. And that's what this rolls into right here. Different. And one of the things, I talk about this in Jiu-Jitsu. I talk about this in anything. So these maxims you're going to see, these are familiar. So why would we go through them again? Why do we need to hear them again?

I'll tell you the reason why we need to hear them again. Because just like Jiu-Jitsu, you are going to see these things from a slightly different angle every single time. Just like in combat, you're going to enter a million rooms. as an assaulter on an assault team, you're going to enter a million different rooms. And there's a basic structure to all of them. But no two rooms are alike.

No two rooms are exactly like. And the more that you enter, and the more different angles you see, the better you get at handling them. Just like in Jiu-Jitsu, when you go against different body types, the better you get at your arm locks. When you do arm-lock from the bottom,

from the top, from the side, you get better at those arm locks. In the business world, the more deals that you see and you understand how they unfold, the better you're going to get. Construction industry, the more walls you build

are a little bit different. Little things come out a little bit different. So the more you see them, the more you hear them from slightly different angles, the more adept you are utilizing them. That's why I love when I see these maxims. So here we go.

General instructions for the commander. In carrying out very critical operations, the general ought not set himself apart as though such labor was beneath him. But he should begin the work and toil along with his troops as much as possible. Such behavior will lead the soldier to be more submissive to his officers, even if only out of shame and he will accomplish more. So even though, you know, earlier saying, hey, general, don't get in the weeds. but if there's work to do do the work show them you're doing the work

next when certain offenses are common among the soldiers moderation is called for do not judge and punish all indiscriminately widespread resentment might draw them altogether

and discipline would become even worse it is wiser to punish just a few of the ring leaders so we you can talk about the harshness of the Roman Legion.

But here he's saying, look, dial that back a little bit. Dial that back a little bit. If the offenses are common among the soldiers. So when you, this is also a little bit of Laif Babin. It's not what you preach. It's what you tolerate.

If you're tolerating it, then you can't just all of a sudden drop the hammer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because you're going to look inconsistent. If you're not going to tolerate it, don't tolerate it. But if you do and it's a common offense, don't all of a sudden fly off the handle. Right.

Inconsistent. Next, the general's way of life should be plain and simple like that of his soldiers. He should display a fatherly affection toward them. He should give orders in a mild manner. And he should always make sure to give advice and discuss essential matters with them in person. So we heard this from Pat, we hear this from everybody. But Patton said that exact same thing, right? You need to do that.

You need to live like your soldiers. We hear that all the time. Dick Winters said, everybody says this. Don't go up in the, don't go up in the ivory tower. Right. Don't do it, boss, man. So like the boss who gets the huge corner,

everyone has cubicles, but he has a huge gold-plated stuff. Yeah. With a massage chair in the office. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't disturb me. Yeah, yeah. For 12 minutes.

I'm running the 12-minute massage chair session. His concerns. ought to be with their safety, their food, and their regular pay. Without these, it is impossible to maintain discipline in an army. By being just in punishing offenders, he should instill fear. At the very first sign of a disciplinary problem, he should take action to end it and not delay dealing with it until it grows or becomes more serious. The general is successful when his men regard him as unshakable and just.

You should also see that civilians are left unharmed. Boom. So when you got the problem, when you see the problem, get the problem solved. Don't wait. It's not going to go away. It's not going to get better on its own. Next, he should be temperate in his way of life and vigilant. Pretty straightforward.

It's a maxim. Next, it is essential to be cautious and take your time in making plans. And once you have come to a decision to carried out, right away without any hesitation. Timmidity, after all, is not caution, but the invention of wickedness. When you're going to go, go. Go. Once you make your decision, go.

That a default aggressive thing. That is a default aggressive thing, yes. A healthy mind is not unduly elated by success or overly depressed when things are not going well. a lot of these speak for themselves. That's one of them. You've got to be middle of the road.

Maintain. Don't get emotional. Not a lady, we won. Not depressed who we lost. No. Maintain. Next, it is safer and more advantageous

to overcome the enemy by planning in generalship than by sheer force. In the one case, results are achieved without loss to oneself, while on the other, some price has to be paid.

Next, it is very important to spread rumors among the enemy that you are planning to do one thing and then go do something else. Your plans about major operations should not be known to many, but just a few and those very close to you. Next, alarming rumors or traps of treachery, whether on the part of the enemy or on or own ought not be neglected or action deferred but steps should be taken to deal with them and put a shop stop to them before they become realities you start hearing rumors smash them that's one thing i see in companies companies this is a problem that businesses have

i mean it happens in the military but businesses have this problem where they they let rumors grow. They let messaging get formed by the uninformed. And that's not what you want to do. If you're in charge of a business and something bad is going to happen, explain it to everyone.

Don't let the people explain it themselves because the idea that they're going to come up with is going to be the worst case scenario possible that they can imagine. So proactive communications so people know what is happening. Don't let them define their own messaging. and their own rumors stop them by giving them the information.

Next, the enemy should be deceived by false reports of our plans, brought to them by deserters from us. So you got people that you think might leave you? Cool, give them some bad intel. Courage should be roused in our troops by fabricating report of a victory. over the enemy one by our men someplace else now this is a controversial in my mind right so what they're saying is hey you should make up some stories about how well so-and-so's doing in another

area you've got to think about what you're doing there and of course this day and age that's hard to do we have just open communications we have texting we have phones we have all this stuff so it's you'd be out hard-pressed to verify that but one of the things that I thought about when I read that where I disagree with this is in mixed martial arts for instance instance, guy loses a round in, you know, round one, the guy goes out and doesn't do a good job. Yeah. Is losing the round comes back to his corner. What is his corner tone?

You're doing great. Keep it going. That's the wrong, worst thing you can do. Worst thing you can do is why. Why? Because he'll keep it out. You're going to keep it up all right. Yeah.

You need to say, look, you're losing. And anytime it's close, you've got to assume that the other guy won. Any round that's even remotely close, you've got to assume the other guy got that round. Yeah. So don't do this Don't say great round keep it going No there's not a single MMM fighter that I've ever worked with

That when you tell them great round You're winning steps it up I never said never I've never heard it Never seen it never heard it And if you watch the UFC Because they got those corner cams now Oh yeah huh

And I have the internet thing Where I can pick who I'm gonna listen to And I can rewatch and you can hear What the corners are saying to Oh dang okay You check it out Go and look at a fighter Whose corner tells them

they're doing a great job and tell me, find me an example of where a guy hears he's doing a great job and then he steps it up even harder. It doesn't happen. Everybody goes into cruise mode. Right, right. Yeah. And if they're losing, guess what that cruise mode? That gets them destroyed. So be careful with that one. Maurice got to disagree with you on that one. Back to the book, news about reverses suffered by us should be kept secret and reports stating just the opposite should be circulated about. Okay, so now we're talking about controlling the messaging, but we're talking about lying. And in this day and age, it doesn't work. It does not going to work for you.

You can't say, don't worry about it. It was like, remember Baghdad Bob when we went into Baghdad? And there's American tanks, M1 Abrams rolling in, crushing. And he's there going, we've got the Americans on the run. Yeah, we're running down your front door. So this is not, this isn't going to work. Right. What you need to do is if reverses happen, you need to come out, you need to own them.

You need to explain what happened. And you need to get ahead of. And don't let the rumor mill turn it into something worse than it is. You might be able to mitigate it. Don't lie about it. I'm not going to get you anywhere. Next, defeated troops should not be allowed to fall into despair, but they should be dealt with by stirring up hope by various other means.

Common sense. Next, during combat, one has to overlook offenses committed by the soldiers, but afterward, get rid of men guilty of sedition. which is like someone that's going to rebel against you again this is very this is a questionable right if you during combat if you start overlooking offenses guess what you're going to end up with my mili massacre that's what you're going to end up with no stop them disagree maurice sorry when you have a situation like that happening you need to stop it yeah need to put an end to it now that being said are you going to

hound on every little thing that happens. No, right? Maybe you're going to give a little bit of slack with something that's pretty meaningless, right? Maybe give a little bit of slack. At the same time, you can't just, you got to give you guys some room. That's what I'm saying. You got to give you guys some room.

You got to hold the line, absolutely. You got to hold a line, but you can't freak out because you got bigger, you should definitely have bigger things to worry about. than this little item, right? Let's just, hey, get that tightened up. Yeah. Let's move on. Let's not focus on it.

I'm not going to fire you because you made a mistake. Next, our own dead should be buried secretly at night, but the enemies should be left out there as a means of making them lose courage. Good psychological warfare. Next. when a delegation comes from the enemy, inquire about the leaders of the group, and on their arrival,

treat them very friendly so their own people will come to suspect them. There's a lot of little crafty little psychological warfare that they do. That's one of them. Act like you know this enemy,

make the enemy look at them like, why is Jocko being so nice to echo right here? They're acting like their old friends. They're going to get suspicious of you. That's what I'm trying to do. calls them divide. Plant the seat. Yes.

Acts of cowardice on the part of our soldiers should be kept quiet and not publicly condemned since this may make them even worse. Again, we're talking about a communication thing and you're not going to be able to keep that stuff under wraps. People are going to know. So get ahead of it. Next,

a way of arousing discord and suspicion among the enemy is to refrain from burning or plundering the estates of certain prominent men. men on their side and of them alone. So going, like I said, going to the village, burn everyone's house except echoes. And you're like the prominent guy.

And they go, echo, what's up? How come you didn't burn your house? No, no, no, no,

I'm not friends with them. Oh, really? Oh, dang yeah. Yeah, really? We're going to come back

and we're to kill you. Yeah, like the cops, right? They do that where they'll apprehend some guy in the cartel. I don't know, whatever,

the drug gang. Yep. And then they'll be like, okay, bye. Like, oh, you got arrested and nothing happened to you. They're like, oh, no, it's all good. They'd be like, hmm, okay. Exactly.

That's exactly it. Next, one way of getting a besieged city to submit is by sending letters tied to arrows, promising freedom and immunity. This can also be done by releasing prisoners. Cool. Next, great caution must be observed in pursuing the enemy over ground suited for ambushes. A good general will turn back at the right time, so we can come back later to attack more effectively.

That's why I'm not stopping my patrol to go back and attack an ambush that we just got through. It's their ground. They have it. They're waiting for us. Kind of impromptu. They have the advantage. They have it. They've been waiting there.

Every art of war, every maximum war will tell you, you want to have the upper hand. You want to pick the battlefield. They picked it. Don't get into a scrap with them right there. Next, do not be deceived by humane acts of the enemy or by their pretending to retreat. Next, cowardly officers are recognized by their hesitation and pallor during combat. They should be assigned to auxiliary forces. Notice that he is using them, right?

Just because someone's a coward, he's still got work for him. You go and run the logistics, you know, that's okay because I need bodies. I need people. When a populous city is taken, it's important to leave the gates open so that the inhabitants may escape and not be driven to utter desperation. The same holds when an enemy's fortified camp is taken. So we want to give people an out so that they don't fight to the death. And this is very common with the ego.

You don't, I don't trap you and prove you wrong in the room. Right. Right? I don't have in a big meeting. I don't go, Ego, here's the four reasons why you're completely wrong and they're indisputable. Yeah.

No. I give you a little out. Yeah. I say, echo, you know, I found these things. And I think this might be a better way to do it. And by the way, you know, this also happens and this other thing. So maybe we could adjust your plan a little bit and do it here. Now, if you have any sense whatsoever, you see all four of those reasons.

And you go, yeah, yeah, yeah, let's go ahead and do that, Jaco. Yeah. That's a good call. And I say, no problem, boss. And we're good. Yep. But if I come in there and start making you look like a jackass, you're totally wrong. Your system doesn't work.

You're going to dig in on that. Now we got issues. Now you're fighting to the death. Yeah. I'm going backwards. Next, even in friendly territory, a fortified camp should be set up. A general should never have to say, I did not expect it. Even in friendly territory, be ready.

For a safe retreat, build a fire in one place and go off quietly to another. The enemy will head to the fire. Deception. Next, letters ought to be sent out to desergers from our side who have joined the enemy in such a way that the letters will fall into the enemy's hands. These letters should remind the deserters of the pre-arranged time for their treachery so that the enemy will become suspicious of them. They'll have to flee.

That's a crafty little move. Crafty little move. Oh, Echo, you deserted us and, hey, we'll meet you at this night so you can give us the information you told us you were going to give us. They hang you. Trader. Next. When it comes to dangerous or surprise operations,

Cowards could be weeded out if all the men who are sick or whose horses are too weak are ordered to fall out The cowards will then claim to be six and so they can be separated from the others They can be assigned to guard fortresses or some other duty involving little danger. That's a good tactic you think about that back in the day Hey guys if anyone's not feeling good Fall out over here because we you know you're not a hundred percent so we don't want to bring you in this operation the cowards go Hey yeah, I'm a little bit sick feeling a little under the weather Okay, cool, you go guard the rear. Is that because, like, in a way, they're not 100% either, right?

Yeah, they're not 100% because they're cowards. And you're giving them an out. Yeah. Because they're not going to say anything, but then at the moment of truth, they're not there to back you up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you give them a little out. Hey, if you're not feeling good, go over here in this line. Yeah.

Okay, cool. Yeah, you're over there, coward. But I'm still going to utilize you. Yeah. Next, we should not furnish arms to those who promise to fight on our side because their real intentions are not clear. This is something America as a nation should get very familiar with. We should not furnish arms to those who promise to fight on our side because their real intentions are not clear. We give away arms in a ridiculous manner, ridiculous manner.

And we shouldn't because the real intentions are next. After a victory, we must not become careless but be on our guard all the more against surprise attacks by the vanquished. Just because you won, doesn't mean? And this is, you know Jeff Higgs, right? Yes. So this is something Higgs taught me like years ago. I'm talking Blue Belt in Jiu Jitsu.

Higgs, Jiu Jitsu, he's a seal. He got out of the SEAL teams. He got totally into Jiu Jitsu. And one of the original guys I trained with with Master Chief Steve Bailey back in the day. So anyways, we were rolling one. one day and we were talking and he said if you tap somebody you got to go harder because they're going to go hard yeah so if you know and I mean someone that you battle with right someone that you battle with and all of a sudden you get them mm-hmm better step up your game

because they're going to go harder yeah same thing right here you gotta show them yeah you got to watch yourself yeah it's like if you're running the the mile you know like in track you're running the mile you pull away out of hit right you you're like oh i'm you know this last lap whatever you know i'm just gonna yeah right you gotta step it up because that guy that you've been beating vanquished whatever yeah you know he's coming he's coming next envoys from the enemy must not be treated disrespectfully even when our forces are much stronger next an army no matter how strong besieging a city must never leave its own camp unguarded nor should it think that

fortifications are sufficient to assure It's safety, but should keep sending out patrols. Don't ever let your guard down, saying this over and over again. Next, suspected defectors should be told the opposite of what we intend to do so that we may use them to deceive the enemy and treachery must be guarded against even during periods of truce or temporary peace. Next, by no means should we believe reports that come from deserters or defectors alone. But their reports should be checked against statements made by prison. Taken in raids and in this way the truth may be discerned. So you got to check with all the different sources and this is something that the intelligence

community does extremely well, which is they take all these different little chunks of information and they assemble it together into a picture. You know, we've seen those pictures where it's just like a bunch of dots when you look at it up close but then when you step back at something real. Yeah. That's why these intelligence, these, intelligence communities do they take all those little dots it seems like a meaningless dot just a meaningless little dot but they're going to put it on that broad picture and it's going to fill in one little piece of information that they need you put all that stuff together and all of a sudden they know who you are they know where to attack yeah and that kind of makes

sense there where it's like some deserer or somebody who basically doesn't have credibility right is what it is so they'll be like hey he's not necessarily lying but he could be so he becomes real circumstantial, you know, and then like how you're saying, you put all the dots together and for some reason this dot, it's not fitting. It's not painting the picture, but then you know, okay, he's wishy-washing anyway. So, oh, I see he's lying right now. You know what I mean? Lying about that piece, but maybe he didn't lie about another piece. Yeah, you know what I mean? That makes sense. Next, in no way should a sworn agreement made with the enemy be broken. So if you, you need to hold, hold your word. Even with the enemy, hold your word. Next, after God, we should,

should place our hopes of safety in our weapons, not in our fortifications alone. Don't just count on the defense. Next order should be given to the soldiers that they should be ready to march out on a holiday in the rain day or night. For this reason, they should not be told the time or day beforehand so they may always be prepared.

This reminded me of when my last appointment to Iraq and you're winding down and I told my guys I said hey I'm not going to tell you guys when we're going to stop operations like we're just going to stop because I didn't want anybody going out thinking this is the last operation

but play it safe yeah I said hey guys when we're done you know but just keep going guys are like Roger that we'll keep going and then one day we got done yeah but to keep the mentality of you know don't think about this

is going to be the last operation you don't want them cruising through the finish line and it's not the finish lane right next risks should be taken without necessity or real hope of gain sorry risks should not be taken without necessity or real hope of gain to do so is the same as fishing with gold as bait next inhabitants of the area who seek refuge should not be received indiscriminately often enough They've been sent by the enemy deceitably to plot against their hosts. This is something we ran into a lot in Ramadi where people are acting normal and they knew our rules of engagement.

And so they knew like before they didn't have a gun, we weren't going to shoot them. And so they would do things. They'd probe and they'd see how close they could get and see where we were. So just because these people are coming with their hands up doesn't mean they're innocent. You know, they might not be guilty. They might not be innocent either. Yeah. Next. We should also be on our guard against deserters who approach a besieged city.

Often enough they are sent by the enemy to set fire so that while the defenders are busy putting them out, the enemy may attack them. Just be cautious. Troops defeated an open battle should not be pampered or, even if it seems like a good idea, take refuge in a fortified camp or some other strong place. But while their fear is still fresh, they should attack again. by not indulging them may they may with greater assurance renew the fighting so don't take care of them you can't just say oh we beat you so come on in the camp and relax

no not happening next if the general thinks he's ready to meet the enemy in battle he should get set to carry on the fighting in the enemy's country instead of his own men waging war in a foreign land become more aggressive They will also feel that the war in which they are engaged is not only being fought on behalf of their country, but also their own personal safety. This is not necessarily the case if the war is fought in their own land

in which the existence of fortresses eliminates the risks to men since in case of flight they may easily take refuge in them. This is a little bit different than what we might deal with today because today we deploy to some country and fight. That's not your homeland. So you're saying, oh, you know what? This is this, you know, I don't have to defend this. I mean, can you imagine if America got invaded how hard the Americans would fight?

Yeah. No one could ever pull it off. Yeah. It would be too hard. Because once the Americans say, oh, you think you're going to take my country? Wouldn't happen. Anything. You can pick my anything.

Not happening. Yeah. Not happening. Yeah. Yeah. Go try and take someone's parking space in America. They're ready to kill you. I know.

So are you going to take land from us? It's not happening. Not going to happen. So it's a little bit different. But the mentality of being aggressive in what the, what, I think what the mentality is talking about is knowing that you can retreat, knowing that you can go back to your fortress. So that means, you know, in this day and age or sorry, in that era, they knew they couldn't, they didn't have any, all they could do was fight.

They had to win. You know what this is a great comparison is in the, in the old school Navy. You had no choice. you have no choice on a naval vessel. You have no choice but to fight. You have no choice. Because if your ship gets sunk, you're dead. On the ground, you can run away.

You can hide. You can retreat. You can fall back. Where do you fall back to on a ship that's being attacked? You don't. You go in the ocean and you die. So that's one of the kind of core things that's old school Navy. You cannot retreat.

You cannot give up. You can't. There's nowhere to surrender. You can't surrender. it's if you surrender you die if you don't fight with everything you got you die so you have no choice but to fight until you're dead yeah that's kind of the the mentality of the old school navy nowhere to run to you can't can't retreat can't fall back you're there so that little section was called the the general instructions for the commander and now we get into the straight-up maxims

first one the man who spends more sleepless nights with his army and who works harder in drilling his troops runs the fewest risks in fighting the foe self-evident reminds me of major lee in colder than hell who remember they're they're like patrolling to combat and he's got the guys doing drills he's getting after it next never lead soldiers into combat before they before having made sufficient trial of their courage so why we train hard next it is well to hurt the enemy by deceit by raids or by hunger and never be enticed into a pitch battle which is demonstration more of luck than of bravery so he's saying a pitched battle is like there's luck there's luck yeah what's a pitch pitch battle face to face head right straight up yeah next only those battle plans are successful which the enemy does not suspect before we put them into action. Next, the deception is often helpful in warfare.

An enemy soldier who deserts us, apart from some plot, is of the greatest advantage. For the enemy is hurt by deserters more than if the same man were killed in action. Next, he who does not carefully compare his own forces with those of the enemy will come to a disastrous end. Here's a good one for you. Courage and discipline. are able to accomplish more than a large number of warriors. Often enough, the lay of the land has been helpful in making the weaker force come out on top.

Terrain. For those of you in the military, terrain, learn how to read terrain, learn how to use terrain, learn how to figure out the high ground, learn out where the dead spaces are, learn where the ravines are that put you in a better firing position. Next, nature produces but a few brave men, whereas care and training make efficient soldiers. Soldiers who are kept working improve in courage.

I'm going to say that again. Soldiers who are kept working improve in courage, while too much leisure makes them weak and lazy. Next. Things which are unexpected or sudden frighten the enemy, but they pay little attention to things to which they are accustomed. You used to that After gaining a victory of general

Who pursues the enemy with a scattered and disorganized army Gives away his victory to his foe And here's a simple one The cause of war must be just Next, it does not help to assemble The whole army in council Or to keep sending for men When they are off duty

These things only cause discord in the army I put that one in there Because this applies to business a lot where all of a sudden you're calling that person, all the weekend of nights, staff meeting, we're having another meeting. I need to talk to everyone. Okay.

On their off day. Burn them out. Be careful with that. Next, the soldiers must always be doing something even if no enemy is bothering us. Habitual idleness spells trouble for an army. So those two are kind of contradictory. They don't be calling people all the time,

but keep them busy. We got to figure out how we separate, in the business world, how do you separate work? from life yeah and as the boss you got to make that distinction yeah yeah it kind of seems like that makes sense I mean consider like exercise or something like you got to have the recovery period yes no but you can't be just cruising skipping days all the time you know so it's like that what do you what do you call it in the in the deal

dichotomy there's a dichotomy yeah yes nicely done thank next for what should be done seek the advice of many for what you will actually do take counsel with only a few trustworthy people then off by yourself alone decide on the best and most helpful plan to follow and stick to it hey everyone tell me what's going on give me your ideas yeah okay great a little bit smaller group okay guys there's the input we got what do you think and then guess what the commander's got to make a decision. Yeah. You can weigh all those different inputs, but the commander's got to make a decision.

Yeah. And when you make the decision, you got to own it. Yeah. Now, one thing that's interesting, and I don't mean to go on too much of a tangent here, but I'll make a decision and execute with aggression, but my mind is not closed. Yeah. And if I go, say, we're going to do X. and we start executing X and X is not looking good.

I'll say stop executing X. I was wrong. Here's what we're going to do. So just because you're being decisive doesn't mean that you're being stupid. Just because you're being decisive doesn't mean you're losing your plasticity. We don't lose our plasticity even when we make a hard decision. Even when I say this is what we're going to do, my mind is still open. And again, a lot of times I will try and break as a leader, I will try and break big decisions

into smaller incremental decisions that allow me to change course during the execution. And I've told, I've said this something like this before, but if we got a bad guy target and we think the bad guy's going to be there, the first thing I'm going to tell the guys to start planning.

So they're going to start planning. Then I might put them, okay, guys, we're going to go and put you guys in the staging area. We're executing, but we're not executing, right? All you're doing is going to a staging area. Yeah. Then I might even put a reconnaissance element out to watch the target.

We're executing, but we're not executing. I could still say, okay, stop, everyone come back home. We don't think he's there. We don't think it's a good mission. We think it's a trap. Whatever. So I gave, I committed. I made a decision.

We're going to hit this target. But I made that decision incrementally. I didn't just say, we're going to hit it. And now no matter what happens. So a lot of times as a leader, I look at the big decision. Okay, yeah, it's a big decision. And I'm going to be decisive on it. But I'm going to make incremental progress towards.

that decision that way I can be adaptable as I move towards that execution. Yeah. A very important lesson to learn. Very important lesson to learn. I never just jump off the cliff. Right. It's like you're creating a point of no return, you know, unnecessary or something. Yeah.

There's a, there's a last point of cover and concealment is an actual term that we use. Last point of cover. So that means there's a target. And once you cross this line, now you actually do have to go. Yeah, yeah. Now you're out in the open. They can see you. Yeah, do or die.

So that's the point. But that point should come so far down the road that you can execute the target. You can execute the target. You can execute the target. But you still haven't actually executed until you've gone past that last point of covering concealment. Once you go past the last point of covering concealment, you're done. You have to go. But that should be very late in the game.

And it's the same thing in the business world. Oh, we want to open up into this new market. Okay. Let's do a reconnaissance. that market. You're executing. Yeah, yeah. But you might do reconnaissance to the market and say, you know what? It's not what we thought it was going to be.

Stop. Okay, let's get a building. So now you're going to lease. We're not going to buy a building because we don't want to own that thing yet. We don't know the terrain well enough. We're going to lease a building. Guess what we're doing? We're doing an eight-year lease?

No, no, no. We're doing a two-year lease. We're just going to slowly execute incrementally because we might get in there and say, it's not looking good. So think about how you. can break these major decisions down into smaller incremental decisions that give you the adaptability. Next. If an enemy spy is captured while observing our forces, then it may well, it may be well

to release him unharmed if all our forces are strong and in good shape. The enemy will absolutely be dismayed by such reports. On the other hand, if our forces are weak, the spy should be treated roughly, forced to divulge enemy secrets and finally either be put to death or sent off elsewhere under guard. Obviously we don't put our prisoners to death anymore. But you know what's interesting about this in the business world and I work with all kinds of different companies? And the reason I keep talking about this spy stuff and the captured is because every

industry, every industry out there, they are constantly competing for people. Yeah. And whether it's technology companies, whether it's financial companies, they're always trying to recruit each other and to try to get this guy to leave and they're trying to pull this person over. Every different, a lot of times I work with companies,

they don't realize that all other companies are like this. There's only, you know, they say, well, you know, the thing is we get, we, people are trying to recruit our people all the time. Yes, it happens in every industry. Every industry has got people trying to recruit their people. And that's why I'm talking about this stuff, Because if you think about it, if you know someone's going to go to another company, let's give them some bad intelligence before they leave. You know, let's say that we're thinking we're not going to go into that market.

Let them know that. Yeah. You are going into that market, by the way. Full speed. Yeah, full speed. Yeah. So that's why I'm saying this. Again, you know, you get to this point where, you know, as a as a upstanding human being, let's be straight up with people.

But I'm assuming now that someone has maybe done you wrong. You know, they're trying to take clients. They're trying to take business away from your business. So we're getting into a little bit of a, we know a little, some hostilities are brewing up. Yeah. So some psychological warfare. A game within the game. There's a game within the game.

Yeah, yeah. And there's a game within the game. And again, you have to maintain your integrity as a, as a human. And then that's, that is definitely. for me the absolute primary thing, right? It's to maintain your integrity.

They're not maintaining your integrity with you. Maybe they're going to get some misinformation on the way out the door. Sorry, that's the way it works. Yeah. I'll kind of draw back on that a little bit and I'll tell you why. One of the best things

about when someone leaves a company, one of the best things you can do as treat them good as they leave. Yeah. Really? Because when they show up at that new company that made all these promises to them, that are not true.

And they're looking back and going, man, you know, Jocco was just honest with me. And he told me he wanted me to stay. And he told me we're going to grow and he told me didn't have an opportunity right now, but he would find one in the future.

He believes me. Yeah. So I'm going to actually retract my statement about using these kind of, you know, putting your integrity at risk. It's better to maintain your integrity. And it might not be better instantly.

But in the long run, you're going to be better off. Even with like a spy situation. So I mean, kind of consider, I don't know if you were to draw the analogy of a spy. Like let's say a temp came in your company and he's really a spy because he's a temp somewhere else.

I don't know. Whatever. And you find out or you get, you know, like information, whatever that leads you to believe all that guy's a spy. Right. And then you start essentially lying to him about projects or I don't know,

whatever goals. Yeah, I'd probably just get rid of them. Yeah. I'd probably just say, but still treat them nice kind. I'd, be like, hey, listen, I don't think you're here for the best reasons.

Yeah. And in fact, I think you came from this organization. And I'm going to let you go. If you ever want to come back here in earnest, you know what? I think you got a lot of potential. And I think, I think, hold on. I think that the fact that they did this to you, it shows that they don't really respect you. Yeah.

And, but if you want to come to a place where you will be respected and where we work with integrity, this is the place for you. Let me know if that ever happens. But for now, because the way this is shaking out, I can't have you here. Because you know what I'm trying to do? I'm trying to protect my team. I'm trying to protect what we're doing here.

And you know what we're doing? We're doing something positive. And what you're bringing right now, it shows you the weakness of the people that you've been working with on the other side. It shows you that they're weak. They're trying to do these things. It's not going to affect us, by the way.

We are going to win. Why are we going to win? Because we are staying on the path. See now you approach it like that you're gonna win all day long. So let's just retract you know that's why that's why people don't understand man integrity is so important and the minute you start giving up even under these adverse conditions when you give up your integrity in the long land you're gonna hurt yourself And I kind of got drawn into it right even myself. I'm like oh yeah spies and all this no

Be straight up yeah don't maintain your Debt don't don't put them to death no you're not allowed to do that Yeah dang that's actually that's way more advanced than kind of what I was gonna ask you so what if like you expose them you know if you expose the company or the person like oh hey everyone i don't know you know now we have you know yeah well i think it'd be i i would do it in an appropriate way yeah you know i wouldn't be trying to set them up and make them look up to say hey listen guys we found out that bill he's actually he's actually still getting paid by ex company over there yeah and bill we we're going to have to let you go

Appreciate you coming over, but, you know, we here are a team. We stick together. You're not part of the team, obviously. So we can't have a year. If you ever decide that the weak team you came from is not for you and you want to get on board with the winning team, let me know. Yeah, that's advanced to kind of let them know that like, hey, I still like you and everything kind of thing. You know, the opposite of burning a bridge. Yeah.

It's like you're kind of building it. And there is nothing better. A lot of times companies that we work with, somebody will leave. And it'll be under those weird circumstances, right? They'll get a good offer. You know, again, all companies do this. They say, I'll give you a signing bonus.

Yeah, yeah. You'll be a signing bonus to come over. Okay. And a signing bonus, that looks, that's a way to get somebody over. And they say, don't worry, we'll give you this. And we'll give you this. We'll give you a helperer.

And we'll give you this title, right? Oh, yeah. They lure them in with all those things. But all those are recruiters. They're not telling the truth about stuff. Sometimes. The worst, the best recruiters tell everything straight up, right?

The best recruiters are like, oh, you're doing this? Yeah, they're really good at that. Your company you're at Echo. They're really good with that. You're right.

Here's where their weaknesses are. Here's where we beat them. Your decision. It's honest and it sets your expectations, right? So when you show up, you're not thinking, well, Jocko, you said that this was the best at that X.

Now, I didn't say that. I said we're the best at Y. X we're working on. Right? That's what you want to do. It's just, what I'm talking about is integrity. That's what I'm talking about. And you've got to maintain it.

Best thing to do. Easy to win in those scenarios. Is that one of those, take the high road or the high road? Yeah, take the high ground or the high ground is going to take you. There you absolutely. All right. Back to the book. If the soldiers show signs of cowardice,

various skills should be used to restore their courage next take your time and planning but when you have made decision be fast and putting it into action in war opportunity is fleeting and cannot be put off at all opportunity is fleeting I was not just talking about war that's talking about business that's talking about life your opportunities in life are fleeting what are you doing with them What are you doing with the opportunities you have in front of you right now? Are you capitalizing on them? Are you going after them?

Because they're fleeting. They're not going to be there. They might be there tomorrow. They might be. In a week, where are they? In a month, where are they? They're gone. Opportunities are fleeting.

So get after them. Next, let the Army see that you are not unduly elated over successes nor utterly cast down by failures. We already covered that. Next, it is not the general whose words are, frightening but the one who gets things done who is feared by the enemy that's a big one right there be the person that makes things happen yeah be the person that makes things happen that's you know in the military my guys I was in you know the seal platoon or seal task unit or when I was running training I had guys my boys my people men they made things happen if I said something to

it was going to happen. It was going to happen. There was no, I didn't barely, I didn't give it any direction. They said, hey, we need this. They take, got it. Done. Done.

That's the kind of person you want to be. Not the person that comes back, you know, a week later and said, well, you know, we tried to make some progress here, but I really ran into a brick wall with so-and-so. No. Yeah. My guys didn't hit brick walls.

And if they hit him, they hit him with sledgehammers and busted through him. Yep. So, Jade, would Jade Charles Echo Charles's brother Yeah

So he'd be like This happened more than once Is why I'm saying Saying he would do this But maybe twice Anyway he'd say Hey I know you're going to the store

Go buy me some wine While you're there And he's like hey it's this kind Whatever kind Wine So I'm like All right I'll do that for you

You know favor kind No problem I go in the wine section, aisle, whatever. And he's like, hey, it's this. And there's, you know, there's wine, there's white rind, red rank, Bordeaux, Cabernet, all this. A bunch of different wine, yeah. Yeah, and then there's the brand.

So basically it's a wall. The whole thing is all wines. It's not the kind where there's sugar, here oil, this all wine, different kind. And he's like, I want this guy. I'm looking at this thing, bra. I was here for tomatoes. That's it.

I don't want to spend one hour looking for wine. So you kind of, come to like this decision you got to make you know i could easily just grab my tomatoes go home and be like bruh you know what you sent you sent me on a treasure hunt for your wine i could say that and it'd be justifiable really so that i grab a bottle no yeah no as you'd say hold the line he asked for wine i said i would get wine i'm going to get wine and i'm not going to say anything about it's what i did found it give it to him and i know where it is now legit right because justifiably i could have said, bro, hey, I'll do it next time.

Or show me, next time where they're, show me where it is. You know, but, bro, I didn't have that kind of time, whatever, you know. You got the mission done. Yeah, do. What do the guys say? They say, don't talk about it, be about it. Yeah, yeah, don't talk about it, be about it. All right.

Next, plan what you have to do at night and carry out your decision during the day. One cannot plan and act at the same time. Before you go to bed at night, make your list of what gots to get done. Next, the general who is overly harsh with his subordinates and the one who is too indulgent are both unfit for command. Fear leads to great hatred and giving in too much results in being despised. It is best to take the middle course. It means balance. Got a balance.

So this is the dichotomy of leadership. Don't want to be overly harsh. Don't want to be too indulgent. I like the fact that he says giving too much results in being despised. And it's interesting. I've heard that. Like in the SEAL teams.

Wait, that expression? No, I should say, I've seen that idea. Where you get a guy, of course, you get a guy, you get a platoon leader that's really over the bearing and no one likes him. Yeah. And it's not a good unit. But you get the guy that just,

gives everything, he's not liked either. He's not respected. Yeah, yeah. That's the problem. And he might be everyone's buddy. Right. It doesn't make anything happen. Doesn't have a good unit. He doesn't take an advantage of maybe, I don't know. Yeah, no, for sure. Next, after agreeing upon a treaty or truce with the enemy, the commander should make sure that his camp is guarded

more strongly and more closely. I bet you, Maurice, the way he writes these things, they must have gotten reattacked on multiple occasions, because he is paranoid. If the enemy chooses to break, the agreement, they will only gain a reputation for faithfulness and disfavor of God. While we shall remain in safety and be true to our word, the general should not have to say, I did not expect it.

Next, for smaller forces, we should select a place with a narrow front whose width corresponds to the size of our army. The superior numbers of the enemy are useless in such a place since there is no room for them. This is classic battle thermoply pick a place that's really narrow so all those Persians can't attack you at the same time. It is a good idea to maneuver so that the sun, wind, and dust are behind our men and in the face of the enemy. By so obscuring his vision and making his breathing difficult, we should quickly be victorious. Think about those environmentals. Next, we should put, we should line up our troops for battle before the enemy gets ready.

This puts us in a position to do what we wish and barely allows the enemy time to arm. So be ahead, be early, get up early. Be first. Be first. If we are all set for the charge, then we can attack the enemy in safety with our men full of confidence. And the enemy very worried. Next, if the enemy is put to flight, our soldiers must be restrained from plundering. otherwise they are scattered doing while they are scattered doing this the enemy might reform and attack them once again i like marisa's paranoia

next the general is at fault if most of the army is destroyed in a single battle we wrote a book called extreme ownership that's what it's about own it next an army which shouts out its war cries good and loud can strike terror into the enemy that like the rugby the New Zealand the all blacks you know they're yeah yeah they're doing that yeah yeah okay's awesome have you were seen there's a there's a there's a did you the hawka in like memorial services yeah that is that is very moving yeah it doesn't get much more moving than that yeah they yeah they get up even the football teams in hawai do that too some some of them they'll do that before the game it's it's kind of i think in hawai they're kind of used to it so it might not have the effect but what if like you've never seen it before

you're not expecting and they do that you're like bro these guys are kind of like they're ready they're nuts you know yeah that's cool next our commander ought to adapt his stratagems to the disposition of the enemy general if the latter is inclined to rashness he might be enticed to premature and reckless action if he is on the timid side he may be struck down by continual surprise raids so you're making adaptions oh I know you got a bad temper oh I'm gonna make it out or you're your passive cool I'm gonna get aggressive on you mm-hmm the general should be impartial in dealing with his own men with allied and with allied forces he should be a just judge for both when he gives presence to the allies he should make a regular increase in

the gratuities for his own soldiers so he's talking about they would adopt these other armies and he's seen treat them fairly treat them justly you know where you see this is is when we get acquisitions in the business world. So one company takes over another company. And a good leader is going to treat people fairly. A bad leader is going to be taking care of the guys that he's always been with. So you've got to be careful of that. In wartime, the generals should do more than his share of the work and take less than his share of the gain.

This will enhance his reputation and secure for. him the goodwill of all. Do more than your share of work and take less of the share of the gain. Aware of the uncertainties of war, the general ought to be ready, even after victory, to listen to the proposals of the enemy for peace on advantageous terms. So, got to keep an open mind. The best general is not the man of noble family, but the man who can take pride in his own deeds. Next, the general must correctly manage not only matters of immediate concern, but but must also take thought for the future common sense but how often do we see people not doing that not thinking about the future only mean concerned with what's happening right now

next the best leader is one who does not willingly engage in a hazardous and highly uncertain battle and refrains from emulating those who carry out operations recklessly and are admired for their brilliant success, but one who, while keeping the enemy on the move, remain secure and always in circumstances of his own choosing. We dictate the situation. We dictate the situation. A greedy general can be the ruin of his own people and an object of contempt to the enemy. A general who loves luxury can destroy the whole army. Next, the commander is the one who can instill courage at the right time and can hold back the headlong flight of frightened soldiers. Next, a general who desires peace must be prepared for war. For the barbarians

become very nervous when they face an adversary of war. set to fight that is why my that is why my foreign policy is one word strength because the barbarians get nervous when they know you're ready to fight mistakes made in ordinary affairs can generally be remedied in a short while but errors made in war cause lasting harm this is why this is why combat is like life but amplified and intensified next those whose performance is consistently poor should not be entrusted even with just ordinary responsibilities next the general the sharp general takes into account not only probable dangers

but also those which may be totally unexpected next make peace a time of training for war and battle an exhibition of bravery so during peace prepare next the general should not go to sleep before reflecting on what he should have done that he might have neglected and on what he has to do the next day get ready for the next day the next day the night before period can you do that yes you can think that's good to to do not go to bed without Reflecting on it I think I don't know but it seems like that's something that that most people probably wouldn't do just in life. I mean, you know Yeah, no absolutely this is about life. Yeah, you don't have to put that caveat on there. This is about life life

Think that's a good on you. I mean shoot go to bed. It's time to go to bed Whatever. Yeah, I got work tomorrow, but you know you typically you don't reflect doesn't take long to say you know what? This is what I got done today Yeah, this is what I got done today. Yeah, and you know what? This is something to think about when it's, when it's, When you're prepping to get stuff done, when you know you got a long day, think about how good it feels when you accomplish a lot in one day. That's how you want to go to bed at night. Going, yeah, I nailed this, I nailed this, I nailed this.

Oh, I messed up this. But I'm going to get on it tomorrow and fix it. Yeah, that's the part right there. It doesn't take long. I'll do that. Echo's going to do it. Why don't you do it while you're editing videos for this? podcast. I do. I like it. I like it. Next, it is well for the general to exercise self-control

at all times, but especially during war. Next, the general should not be hasty in placing confidence in people who promise to do something. If he does, almost everyone will think he's lightheaded. So you got to, you can't just be a. I know you're going to take care of it. I trust you. Got to Got to put it in check a little bit. Next, long and careful deliberation promises great safety in war, whereas hasty and impetuous generals usually commit serious blunders. Next, the general should set an example of how things ought to be done for his subordinates, training himself in the highest ideals, doing what is right and refraining from those things his soldiers should refrain from. Set the example.

The general should make sure of the good disposition of his troops by an oath. Next, if the general knows the inclinations and tendencies of each officer and soldier, he will know better what duties should be assigned to each one. Know your people. Next, the general who wants to keep his plans concealed from the enemy should never take the rank and file of his own troops into his confidence. So just be careful. be careful who you're telling and does that does that contradict you know having a what is that transparent transparency in your leadership no it doesn't you you you did you don't have to divulge

every single idea that you have to your entire chain of command you know especially because you're going to change those ideas things are going to adapt things are going to get different so this isn't contradictory to say you know what I'm not going to tell every single person, especially if you've got a security situation. Yeah. I mean, we're talking about national security. Yeah, there's things that are need to know only. That's a legitimate thing.

Yeah. If Aco doesn't need to know this and that can happen in the business world too. Yeah. Because you do have people leaving. You do have spies. You do have all these people coming and going from businesses. So this is legit. This isn't a lack of transparency.

This is prudent. Yeah. Information control. Yeah. I go home. I tell my wife and she's cruising with her neighbor, you know. And they're like, hey, that was. interesting so the wife goes home and tells the husband how everybody knows who's putting together

all those little dots yeah painting a picture next when both sides are equally well armed the better tactician will win next the general who possesses some skill in public speaking is able as in the past to rouse the weakhearted to battle and restore courage to a defeated army work on those skills just like we learned in the in the guidebook the 1950 guys book for military officers work on your speaking skills how do you do it practice it is good to occupy any hills in the area before the enemy has a chance to do so boom take the high ground this is awesome reiterated again and again and again and again take the high ground next as in the past misleading moves taken by the general can be very advantageous for example if you

makes it look as though he's going to set up camp, the enemy might be lowered into doing the same thing. Then while they are scattered about getting things ready, he may secretly draw up his troops in attack, where he may quietly withdraw his army if the terrain is unfavorable. Simple. Next, in his movements, the general should act like a good wrestler. He should faint in one direction to try and deceive his adversary and then make good use of the opportunities he finds and in this way he will overpower the enemy same thing with jiu jitsu by the way right he could have swap those out if you wanted to i guess he could have said pangration sure next in battles and in every action against the enemy the wise general even the most courageous will keep in mind the possibility of failure and defeat

and will plan for them as actually occurring. Huh? You're confident? That's great. Plan of what's going to happen if it fails. What's the worst case scenario? What if things go wrong? What are you going to do?

The spirit of the commander is naturally communicated to the troops. And there's an ancient saying that is better to have an army of deer commanded by a lion than an army of lions commanded by a deer. Yeah, that's a pretty common. Next, if you imitate the enemy, and do what he is doing for his own benefit, you only harm yourself. Conversely, if you do something

which is to your advantage in trying to imitate you, the enemy will injure himself. A lot of times you do see that in the business world where the competitor is something, so they're, oh, we'll do it too. I'm not saying that never good, but if you're doing that, it means you're behind.

So try and step up, come with some original plans, Make something happen. Next, a wise commander will not engage the enemy in a pitched battle unless truly exceptional opportunity or advantage presents itself. We're hearing that over and over again. Next, whatever terrain the general chooses, he should make his troops familiar with it. They will then be able to avoid rough spots and because of their knowledge of the area will fight the enemy with confidence. Know your terrain.

Next, when the general leads his men out to battle, he should present a cheerful, if he should present a cheerful, appearance avoiding any gloomy look soldiers usually estimate their prospects by the appearance of the general so if you're in a leadership position that's what they're saying if you're in a leadership position the people are watching you and if you look like sullen and downtrodden guess what they're going to think we're about to get whooped next after a victory the general should not allow the men to break ranks right away for has happened often enough that the enemy on noticing that arm men have let down their guard and rejoicing and have broken ranks have regained their courage, come back to fight, and turned our victory to defeat. Don't let your guard down. Boom. I think we're

hearing that loud and clear from Maurice. Next, when the enemy is surrounded as well to leave a gap in our lines to give them an opportunity to flee in case they judge that flight is better than remaining and taking their chances in battle. Next, an army is judged by the spirit of its general. Next, it is better to avoid a tricky opponent than one who never lets up. Let me say that again. It's better to avoid a tricky opponent than one who never lets up. The latter makes no secret of what he's doing, whereas it is difficult to find what the other is up to. So conversely, which one do you want to be?

Of course, we want to have determination and we never want to make sure they know that we're never going to let up. but you really want to be the one that keeps him guessing. Yeah. Harder to deal with. Next, the commander should be severe and thorough in investigating charges against his men, but merciful in punishing them. This will gain him in their goodwill, in their goodwill. Next, the general should be calm in emergencies, prudent in counsel, courteous to his associates.

He will be most successful in battle if he charges against the end. enemy not like a wild beast but in a calculated manner next the general should be ignorant of none of the situations likely to occur in war who can attempt to accomplish what he does not understand and ask that again who can attempt to accomplish what he does not understand who is able to furnish assistance in situations whose dangers he does not understand understand. So you gotta get the knowledge. Next, the general must make plans to defeat the enemy not only by arms, but also through their food and drink, making the water unfit to drink and poisoning the grain. And that's, again, we're not just attacking on one front. We're attacking

on all the fronts. We're not just attacking with swords and bows and arrows and lances. We're poisoning the water. We're poisoning the grain. We're attacking at every possible angle. And that wraps it up. That's Marisa's strategic con.

And by the way, I forgot to mention this. This is somebody on Twitter said, hey, check out this book. I got it. Opened it up and said, yes. Ancient war. Bring it. Maxim's bring it

awesome book and you know I wanted to close this out kind of with something Roman related and of course I thought about Julius when you think of Rome you think of Julius Caesar when you think of Julius Caesar you think about

that guy named Shakespeare sure who wrote a play called Julius Caesar and I'm obviously not going to do the whole thing right now but there's a part of it and you know we're talking about leadership right and really in in talking about maurice and caesar actual rulers of an empire that's what they were rulers of an empire it it's

possible to think that maybe they were better than us right like they were superior human beings and it's also possible to think that they were better than us not by what they did and how they led it's possible to say oh you know Maurice came up with this stuff nah that's just that's not why he was the ruler this is luck to fate but in the play julius caesar by shakespeare cassius reminds us as he speaks to Brutus that that isn't so. Not so, not luck. He explains to Caesar. In these great lines, he explains to him that Caesar stands above the world like a giant.

So Caesar's a giant like a colossus is the word he uses. While we, us down here, we little men, we just want. wander about, wander about under his massive legs, under his giant presence. We're just moving aimlessly towards a, towards a dishonorable death.

But this is what I like about is then Cassius explains that it isn't fate that has put Caesar into that powerful position. But that men men control their own destinies and that men are masters of their fate

and that the fault in men the thing that holds us back from greatness it doesn't lie in chance it doesn't lie in the way that the stars are aligned no

the fault lies within us not in the stars it is our fault that we become slaves instead of kings and this is this is how Shakespeare put

why man he doth bestride the narrow world like a colossus and we petty men walk under his huge legs and peep about to find ourselves dishonorable graves Men at some time are masters of their fates.

The fault is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings. So Cassius there is making an early case for ownership, for extreme ownership, which is obviously something that I believe in. Then that is that you can't blame faith. You can't blame the stars. The fault lies within us. And you got to own it. You got to own that fault. You've got to fix it.

You've got to dictate your own future. Don't let fate dictate your future. You've got to make that decision to be better. To like Caesar, to be a general, to be a leader. And most important to be a free human being. That's what he's talking about. He's talking about underlings. They're slaves.

Don't be a slave. Be a slave to any other man and don't be a slave to weakness and don't be a slave to sloth and don't be a slave to your ego. Be a slave. Be a slave. Be free. free your mind. And the thing is, you can't free your mind until you realize, like Cassius says, the fault

is in ourselves. And the pathway to overcoming our fault is not complaining or blaming or making excuses or attacking others. No, pathway to freedom actually comes from attacking ourselves. attacking ourselves with discipline and with hard work and with physical training and mental training and reading and studying and learning and that that is how we overcome those faults that's how we leave behind the underlings the slaves that's how we get away from the darkness of subjugation and that is how we become free and I think that's all I've got for

tonight looks like we're pretty long to slide into Q&A right now yep so echo yes sir if we are not going to do Q&A I have a question if people wanted to support this podcast? Do you know of any ways that they can do that? I do as a matter of fact. Let me go ahead and tell you about it. So people have been asking me and not the kind,

you know how like some people they'll say that. They'll be like, hey, people, a lot of people have been asking me about this, but it's like two people, you know, and they say a lot of people. It's not that case. This is a lot of people. Probably like 20 people.

Which is a lot of people. asking the same question, by the way. A lot of people asking the same question. So, anyway, they're like, hey, what supplements or are these on it, Kim, on it? I'm talking about on it. So the supplements of the

krill oil is that the good stuff, is the true tech, is that the good stuff? And I was like, cool. Yeah, yeah, they're the good stuff or whatever, but so you kind of think, and I was thinking about this one, I was actually working out. And I was like, hey, to myself.

It's not, like, the supplements you take aren't going to like get you in jaco shape you know it's going to be like all the other stuff like do you mean hard work yes exactly you know workout diet rest like all this stuff and if you have like you know whatever goal the supplements are going to like they're going to help you get there faster they're going to create less roadblocks like you know injuries all this other stuff keep you put you and or keep you in better health like all this stuff right but The way I kind, I don't know, I could have been taking it wrong though, that it sounded like they were like, oh, yeah, I'm looking for like the answer kind of thing. Not all of them, but that's kind of, I don't know, maybe it was just collectively.

That's what it felt like. Yeah. So I think that's important to point out. Supplements are not the answer. Yeah. Your squat rack is the answer. Yeah. Your pull-up bar is the answer.

Yeah. And you got to do that stuff like over and over. Yeah. Like, you know how, okay. I'm not going to mention this name. but one of my friends would be like, yeah, you're like you're a genetic guy, whatever. You know, they'll be like, yeah, your genetics are like good. And I'm not saying my genetics are not good.

I'm not going to say they are or are not. I'm not saying that. But I got into like working out when I was 14 years old. Didn't stop, by the way. Knew about like diet and all this other stuff. So when you hit, let's say you had not started working out when you're 14. Let's say you were like, oh, you know, I know. I know what a weight room is kind of thing.

I'm out of shape. I'm 35 or whatever. However old and you say, I want to get in good shape. It's like that's a completely different situation, you know? Yeah. And you could possibly try and blame the fault on your genetics,

but it's not the fault of your genetics. Not the fault of the stars, baby. Nope. The fault is yours. Yeah. Because you didn't work out now. You could say, hey, I didn't, wasn't the environment.

Okay, cool. That doesn't matter anymore. Right. What matters is how you? you're going to fix it. Yeah, what are we going to do? Exactly right. So which brings us to the same kind of this profile, maybe fundamental concept of it's not like it's not these external things. You're not going to escape the fact that if you want to get in shape, you got to go get in shape. And that entails these fundamental things. It's not going to be the supplements. It's not going to be your genetics. The supplements, genetics, all the stuff. That's part of the game for sure. But that's not what's going to get you. So that being said. I'm going to recommend some supplements, but in the hopes of us, everybody, being on a good workout program. Yes. These will help you if you are on a good workout program, by the way.

These will definitely help you. Yeah. And a lot of people speaking of, again, a lot of people, I don't mean two. Yeah. I mean more than two. I mean, think about all the people on Twitter that have said, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, been taking krill oil. Yes.

My knees feel better now. Oh, my shoulders feel better now. That's a fact. Curl oil works. Yeah. And personally, however many people told me that it worked for them, that has no bearing on my understanding that it works because it works for me. And I don't take like protein massive gainer to get big money.

I don't do that. You can, I guess. And that's cool. And I'm not going to recommend necessarily that. But like krill oil, for example, like that will keep you in the game way more. in my opinion than like a creatine situation. I think. And again, I agree with you.

This is, and you're, by the way, for those you don't know, Echo does have a doctorate in bro-science. Yes. Well, if you notice, I won't make any scientific claims. Yes. Or maybe I will. I don't know. Well, the best claim you can make is that you use it and you feel it.

That's, you know, that is bro-science, I guess. Well, it's anecdotal. Yeah, it's anecdotal. But what if it works for me too? Yeah, there you go. Then we're starting to paint that picture with the dots. Remember how you're talking about? Yeah.

Same thing. And I do want to add that this, that does mean something when I say it works for me because I was for a long time anti-supplements where it's like, yeah, you're just taking that to make yourself feel better about working out or whatever. And they're selling it to you because they're telling you the same thing. For a long time, I'd take any supplements and still had gains and all. you know, who's doing fine.

Gains. Big time gains. So I was like, yeah, supplements. You know, when people talk about supplements, I was like, bro, you're totally wasting your time because you can just eat good and eat enough of the right thing and do everything that your supplements is doing. Yeah. That is true.

You can do that. Yeah. But here's a thing. I don't know if you can do that with krill oil unless you're eating a bunch of krill in a smoothie or so. Even that, I don't know. Can you? Shroom tech.

How can you replace that with diet? I don't know if you can, man. So I'm slowly, and this is what it was. It was like the correct kind of supplements. That's what it is. So, krill oil, take care of your joints. The other ones that you take, glucose, me. Strong bone, yeah.

Gucosamine. Dope. Shroom tech, if you want a little efficient oxygen usage, you know, keep you in those hard workouts longer, better, more comfortable. Get you in the, like in the car, the RPMs. You know, what goes, it's in the black. Yeah. We know.

Why we know? Because I told you. Tell us this every time. The slogan is, you can't pull ahead if you're in the red. So the Shroom Tech keeps you in the like the yellow, maybe the orange. Anyway. The other day, Shroom Tech, I took, we showed up to train. And it was kind of the pipe hitting training partners, you know, the guys that.

The big dogs. Yeah, the big dogs. And before I went, before I went, I'd worked out as normal. Yeah, yeah, sure. But I took, not only did I take Shroom to Export, I also took the pre-workout drink. Yeah. What is it called?

Earth-grown. Yeah, it's Earth-grown, something. It's pre-workout. Yeah. And I took both, and we did 10 rounds. You know, 10 rounds. That's a little 10, 5-minute, or they were 5-minute rounds because I was trained with MMA fighters, so.

But 10. One hour of training. Yeah, a little over an hour of training. I was good. You showed, wait. No, I didn't go for that one. Yeah, but I walked out of there going, hmm, shroom tech. Shroom tech.

Yes. For the win. Ten rounds is hardcore when you're going with no, because you can do a round with three hard guys. And then you go against someone that's not that great and you can completely relax and recover. Yeah, some active recovery. But when you are going against every guy is trying to rip your head off and they have the capability of doing it, 10 rounds is a lot of rounds. Yep. So the Shroom tech.

And the feeling there is, because I've been in the same boat. I'm not going to necessarily say 10 rounds, but in the same boat where... There's a lot of rounds for echo. Actually, I've done six tens. That's good. That's a minute round. It might even be hard. Yeah.

Some might consider. Yeah. With heavy hitters. All of them. Yeah. That's tiring. Yes. So basically what the Shum tech will do is put in layman's terms.

What it'll do is, you know the field? Let's say you go six tenths. Actually, can you do scientific terms for us here? No, no. I'm going to layman. Thank you. after the six-tenth or the one hour of rolling you're going to be like just physically you know like dang I'm done that felt good whatever but we're done I'm good I'm gonna go home on a rest

eat my stuff I'm good yeah and even today when I showed up today to roll and we had some we didn't do anything that extreme but when I showed up I already worked out hard strength and met con then I went surfing mm-hmm you know getting after it. Sure. Freddy. Didn't eat anything, but just rolled in.

No, I had some, I take that back. I had some bacon, like three pieces of bacon. In between working out and surfing. So I was like, had some bacon.

True. Then I had some shroom tech. And then on the way to the gym, I drank the, the pre-workout stuff. Yeah. And I felt ready to rock and roll. Yeah.

Well, actually, instead of me saying I was ready to rock and roll, why don't you answer that? Jocko appeared and demonstrated that he was ready to rock and roll as it were. I actually did rock and roll. Yes. Yeah, you didn't talk about it.

You beat about it. Yeah, I beat about it. Afterwards, after the hard rolls with the Shroom Tech, you'll feel like, sure, yeah, that was good. That was hard. I could go another one. Like, I could keep going. That's how you feel. Not necessarily that you want to keep going, but you could.

You feel like you could. Yeah, I mean, I wanted to. we had to record the podcast. Yeah, yeah. So that's different, but, you know, I get it. Anyway, yeah, StrumTech, that's good on Shroom Tech sport. Still having done Shroom Tech immune. I think that's the next one.

Yeah. Warrior bars. And, okay, so we'll talk about that pre-workout one. And I took it one time for rolling and I was like, okay, cool. But I'd been taking it all week for lifting, working out, met cons. Very, very good. Very effective. Okay.

And here's here's the, the, the, really the results. The proof, straight up proof. So you know how like, okay, do you do, do you do any kind of like pressing or any kind of lifting? Even pull-ups or something. You know how some days you're like, oh, I feel like flat. I can still do them, but I feel flat. Then some days is opposite where you're like, boom, I got a little pop in my thing.

Not necessarily stronger or doing more. Maybe you are, but I just got a little pop in it in my movement or whatever. That's how you felt. And it was noticeable. And I was like, okay. And here's the thing. With mine, I did do more. More weight than I normally do.

More reps than I normally do. But I was like, okay, that was the first day. I was like, okay. You know, that easily could have been other circumstances. Totally could. Yeah, because sometimes you just feel the pop. Feel the pop. Feel the pop.

You got more rest. Yesterday was easier. I don't know, whatever. All these other circumstances. You never know. It's like, okay. And that's different. Typically, you don't get two pops in it in a week.

So anyway, next time I go in again, I'm like, all right, we can keep this going. This is the telltale. So here's what happened. So I warm up. My routine is I warm up my workout. That's it. I warm up and I have my son. And he needs some something without going to for him to it.

I warm up ready to go. Ready to go for a set. He needs something for half an hour. I'm like, okay. You know, I go. So do I have to warm up again? Am I going to? Did you utilize the pop to care for your son?

So no, no, what I'm saying is kind of physiologically and mentally, I went out of the game for a little bit out of the workout. So I come back. I got to reengage mentally. And I'm fit, to be honest, like mental, I'm like, shoot, I'm kind of flat. Back in the day, that might have postponed the workout until tomorrow. Back in the day. Anyway, so I'm like, all right, I'm a little bit flat. Whatever.

I'm working out today. That's it. You know, whatever. Maybe I got to warm up again. I don't know. Maybe you just got to get mentally harder. For sure. Yeah,

that's no question about that. Everyone knows that. So whatever I get under there, I choose the weight that I had already chose, you know, chose before when I was like, I'm in it. Yeah.

Boom, boom, boom, boom. More reps than I expected. It was a winning day. That's good. Three in a row. Anyway, that was it. Sounded like some strong.

Well, I'm in. It's to me that's like, like, okay, even if you say scientific proof or not scientific proof of course it's not scientific proof but that's like to me that says okay this is something you're going to be taken now you know i mean it's not like i tried it yeah that's sort of what the 10 rounds yeah yeah you're on you're in it okay yeah you know what i did

today took it again there you go you know and actually we had some no shows today at at the gym yeah i don't know i wasn't one of those so yeah you were there i was there but and we had some other heavy hitters there but we didn't get the full spectrum of heavy hitters that were there to crush so I didn't even need to take it to them. Yeah it didn't get put to the test. No. It's good. So now I'm kind of

in a way I'm a supplement guy. Okay so if people wanted to get these supplements how could they get them? All right on it.com you want 10% off you go to on.com slash jaco you want the 10% off support yourself, support the podcast if you're in the mood too and you know go handle

your business. Another cool way. Amazon clicked through. So, Sarah, thanks for the duct tape. I want to say that. All the duct that I have like a pile of duct tape too,

which is good. None of it's here, by the way. No. Because I needed it. She sent it to microphones. Yeah. Well,

there's smiley faces on it. Okay, it can't be on the podcast. What? But the smiley face, you know how now the new iPhones, you type a word and it suggests an emoji. Yes.

So if you type in good. Good, guess what's right there? Smiley face. It should be your face, but now it's a smiley face currently. Slack HQ has that for some reason. My face or someone, I don't really understand it fully, but somebody sent me a little picture of an emoji that said good and it was my head. Yeah, so it's kind of the same concept.

But generally speaking, it's a smiley face. Smiley face went on the duct tape layers. Is it what I'm saying? Oh, I get. It's good duct tape. Good duct tape, but emoji style. you know Sarah's she's clever like that anyway the point is Amazon if you're shopping for duct tape or anything else not necessarily duct tape but like books you know you want to get this one or whatever and we list that on the website too by the way if you didn't already know click through go to the website joccal podcast dot com click through the Amazon banner over there on the side and then do your shopping you can support podcasts that way you said small click like it takes like two seconds right Click on it.

Go do your shopping. Two seconds supports, you know, like a big amount. Well, because it's a lot more than just you. Yeah.

Clicking. Like just, it's not just one person clicking. Yeah. Which would be helpful, but when a bunch of people click through,

then it's very helpful. Yeah. Creates a bigger reaction. Yeah. So small action, huge reaction. And I made the reference to when you throw a small piece of sodium metal

in a, you know, in water and the big chemical reaction. So I'm like, wait, did I remember that correct? I looked up on YouTube. Look up.

So put sodium in water. Look that up. So you get guys, they'll have a big fish tank with water. They'll throw the sodium and the fish tank will blow up. Well, people posted them on Twitter. Did you see the one where somebody had a,

somebody's holding a small brick of sodium? Oh, yeah. And through the lake. Did you see that? No, yes. Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. I'll leave it. Yes. You know, so see. Where can I get that? Exactly. Right.

So when you, next time you shop Amazon, you're thinking, hey, I'm shopping Amazon. I'm going to buy some batteries. That little click through the jocco podcast. dot com.

Boom. That's that sodium that we're looking at on those videos. It's crazy. Anyway, that's a good way to support in a big way.

And then, yeah, so YouTube, that's a good one, right? Subscribe to the YouTube channel. Subscribe to the iTunes one as well, but that one seems

kind of obvious. Most people already subscribe. But if you haven't, well, we went over an entire book today of obvious things that people don't always include myself.

So we need to reiterate just so we all make sure we're on board. Yeah. Reinforce with our friends. Yeah. Yes. That you should always be prepared.

Yeah, always be prepared. Yeah, really that one is all about preparedness. Yeah, subscribe. iTunes, subscribe.

Be a subscriber to the podcast. And that's no commitment. You just unsubscribe. If you don't like what Jocco's talking about, you just unsubscribe. But if you like, and you do want to support podcasts. What is they don't like what you're talking about?

That too. You know, that too. That's a bummer. That is a bummer. YouTube. Luckily, you don't talk a lot.

Yeah, I try to keep it too. Like Echo? Sometimes. You can just suck it up. Fast forward his voice. Hold the line. Yeah.

If you don't like me, you're pretty screwed. Yeah, yeah. You can have a long, long struggle. Maybe there's people that are just listening to Echo. They're like fast forwarding through me. Yeah, you press the skip. Skip 10 seconds.

Echo's about to say something super dope. The one guy. My mom or something like this. Anyway, YouTube. We do more videos now. We put out the little desherable McNuggets.

How's this? My brother, other day he's like hey this this new guy you know he listens to a lot of like talks and stuff like this new guys talking about this i'm like oh that's good he's like yeah he's talking about he goes into these little ideas that he's talking about it's like oh i was like hey send that to me and i usually won't say i'll be like cool maybe i'll look into it kind of thing and i'm like this one song i said send it to me send it to me it's an hour 37 minutes long i'm like bro yeah and i scolded him i said britt you can't do that to me we got into like a little thing

you're going to have everyone that listens scolding you yeah but not anymore. You know why? Because we have Jocko McNuggets. Three minutes. You want to learn about how to not learn necessarily, but yeah, learn. If you want advice, good advice, Jocko advice, on how you should approach college after the military, after high school, whatever, go ahead and listen to that. Three, four minutes, boom, you're good to go. You're ready to go to college. Ready to function. If you say, hey, listen to this podcast. It's in there somewhere, two hours long. No. Anyway. A lot of people don't have the extent. attention span for that and but it's but you do other ones besides just college exactly right we do

multiple multiple and i do suggestions like a 20 pack of mcnuggets sure more than that even really and you know you can share and consume you know boom boom boom i do suggestions as well request if you will people on twitter they're like hey jocco podcast what does it take to actually make that come true it's not a hundred percent turnover see people don't like that i know and It's quite respond and say yes or no Kind of yeah I don't say yes or no like yes. I'm gonna do that one

I'm I just noted you know so yeah, I mean they're all good I know, but when they see them boom there it is. Yeah, you should actually tell them Yeah, I know it might be hard maybe because you're gonna lose track of them all Yeah, maybe or maybe you should just do them all. Oh yeah, maybe there it is I think that's that's that But yes, you know, there's no downside right? There's no down side right? There's no down To doing them all? No, to doing a, is there a downside to saying making a bunch of them? There's not, unless you make ones that are lame.

Right. Unless you pick out a lame one when I'm talking about something stupid or making mistakes. Yeah. Or giving bad advice to the world. Yeah. Don't do those. Those are, that's a downside for sure. The good ones.

Yeah. No downside. Okay. There you go. And when you subscribe, boom, you have like. Because I subscribe. Yeah. And when you upload something, you don't tell.

me. I just get a little email that says Jocko podcast just uploaded a video and I was go wow! Yes! Echo has been hard at work for four minutes making a video. Anyway, it's good to

you're taking heavies today for me. I'm sorry. All day, but all good though. I took it off of brains. I'm solid, I think. Yeah, so subscribe to you. Subscribe. If you're in the mood, subscribe YouTube if you like that stuff which is cool

and then of course Jocko has a store it's called Jocko store URL is jocco store.com anyway shirts you like these slogans the slogan is that a lame word for like discipline equals freedom I don't know I think it's I think it factually

it could be used but I don't know that it necessarily I'm not waving it around jumping up and down. Yeah. Although if you ask me a question on Twitter, like I asked me the other day, how can I wake up early? How can I work out every day? And how can I eat the right foods?

Yeah. I'm just going to tell you discipline. Right, right. There you go. You know, that's so easy. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the point there is that there's some shirts.

They're cool. I think they're cool. But if you think they're cool, you want to support podcasts, you get a shirt, a hoodie, like some good stuff there. I think add even some more stuff. And look at them if you if you like some stuff, get some of that support the podcast. Support yourself too.

Get a new shirt. It's kind of cool when you order something. You know the day it comes in, you know, even just regular Amazon stuff. About this little microphone adapter for my other stuff. It comes in. What's your other stuff? I do stuff.

This is kind of messed up. I'm going to do no other stuff. I'm just doing this. I know, yeah. Anyway. So yeah, when, you know, shirts come in. You can wear them.

You got a new shirt. Discipline equals freedom. Jocco's head says good backwards. So when you look in the mirror, it's telling you good, like, you know, that whole thing. Yeah. That's a good one. Whatever else. The coffee mugs, I'm working with this guy, Chris, he's really helping you narrow down a better travel mug.

Yeah, the travel. It's going to be good. Real good. That's good. Anyway, other stuff on there. Look at it. I'm not saying buy it. I'm seeing go there.

If you like something, get something. And if you want to support the podcast. It's a good one. to support the podcast. Yes. And actually, so maybe someone will ask you about what that means. And then you say, oh, I listen to a podcast. Yep.

Which happens a lot according to my experience and the experience of others that email me. They meet. They spread the word. People will be like, what does that mean? Who's that guy on your shirt? If you're like, and here's a funny one that you wouldn't really think of. So let's say I'm wearing the jaco good shirt, has your face on it, right? I'm at my friend's house barbecue.

whatever and we're like hey let's all take a picture and you have the thing and it's you know the square that finds the faces it's finding your face on my shirt and they're like oh wait they're like oh it's finding you're the face on your shirt echo and then later on they're like who's that on your shirt boom spread the word you know it's like one of those kinds of things I like the idea of spreading the word because what's cool is uh you know we get I get a lot of messages people saying hey thanks Yeah. I lost 40 pounds. Hey, thanks.

I'm back in school. Hey, thanks. I got a promotion. I'm not doing any of that. You guys are doing it. But you're somehow influenced on the fact that you're getting your discipline together. You're working hard and your life is getting better. So when you spread the word, you're helping somebody else too, which is cool.

Yep. 100%. But yeah, those are the ways, you know, other ways there's, psychological warfare and here this is an ambiguous one so no more oh wait no every day those are two different ones right no more in every day yes I believe

so okay I listen to the everyday one because you know how like when you're like hey I'm gonna I'm new I turned over a new leaf whatever the expression is my new year's resolution and you go hard typically typically you go hard you're like carbs are gone you know you don't cut a little bit they're gone

right yeah after like a little while, usually like four or five days, you're kind of like, ah, maybe not gone, you know? So you listen to every day, right? Every day, really, it not only does it like make you like fired up to keep going, but it puts it in perspective, you know? Yeah. It's like you, I don't know, this is a cliche, but Michael Jordan or something like this, someone who's doing, someone who's successful, you know, he didn't go back to old him five days

later, you know? No. And that sounds real obvious. and yeah we heard that be but that's why that's effective so psychological warfare if you don't know it is an album spoken word album it's available on iTunes of like little for lack of a better term psychological warfare yeah like verbal you can listen to it it tells you to get after it under certain circumstances yeah there's actually specifically made to deal with

common everyday weaknesses that we all face. So when you face one of those weaknesses? You can just press play. Track seven. Track four. Oh, everyone that's asked for an alarm clock to wake up, just get this album,

set it as your alarm tone. I'm waking you up in the morning. Tell your wife. Tell your significant others. Otherwise, they're going to think there's a strange man in the room talking to them and they're going to freak out,

pull out their firearm. Bad things can happen. Affirmative. Psychological warfare. It's on iTunes. Yeah. Psychological. I should think I should put on like Amazon music too.

That's a good one. Yeah. But yeah. Currently iTunes search psychological warfare. It's on Google Play too, right? Jock Willink. I don't know. I don't know if the podcast is.

No, I know the podcast is. Yeah. The distribution channels. Oh, you need to expand. Yeah, I got to expand for sure. Expand. Get in the game. Yeah.

But that's a good one. And incidentally supports the podcast. That's true. Very true. Which is appreciated. All right. So also, you can get joccal white tea. That supports the podcast.

And it supports you. And it's in stock. We got a bunch of it. And it will do things to you. If you want to crush the souls of your enemies, drink some jocco white tea it'll be a little bit easier to do that you'll it'll taste

better so that's that we had get after it mugs they're out of stock I sent one to Joe Rogan he took a picture of it they were gone they're gone so I got more of being ordered they're being made logistical nightmare all that sorry

keep checking they'll be back in stock they say get after it wild gear there on Amazon you can also get a book called Extreme Ownership, written by me and my brother Laif Babin. It's about leadership and it's about combat. So if you like the podcast, you dig that book. You know, I also have another book that's going to be coming out in May. It's not available for pre-order yet, but it will be. And I will announce it when it comes out. I think everyone's going to be pretty psyched on it,

Because I am. And also the extreme ownership muster, May 4th and 5th at the Mariam Arche in New York City. This is it. This is the gathering. Yep. It's about leadership. It's about strategy. It's about tactics.

It's about getting after it. Google it. You'll find it. We'll see you there. And until we see you there. If you want to see us. well we can actually be found all up in the interwebs we are on Twitter we are on Instagram and you gonna also could find us on dash Facebook y boha cruising with you my

French ECHO is at Echo Charles and I am at Jocka Willink thanks for the The support. And, you know, we talk a little bit about these Amazon clicks and the store purchases and the getting the tea in the mugs and the t-shirts and all that stuff. Just so you know, that support is actually literally what fuels the podcast. That's what the podcast runs off of. So thanks for all that, truly. We appreciate it. Thanks to the military, the military personnel that are out there smashing our enemies.

And thanks to law enforcement and firefighters for protecting us here at our. home and the rest of you that are out there listening that are working through your lives that are building and creating and grinding and finding faults finding faults not in others but in yourselves and thank you for crushing those faults by getting out there with discipline and getting after it So until next time, this is Echo and Jocko.