Jocko Podcast - Jocko Podcast 4: Rendezvous With Death, Disrespect, Workouts

Episode Date: January 6, 2016

0:00:00 - 1:07:32  >  "Rendezvous" /   Book, "Battle Leadership" (Adolf Von Schell) 1:07:32  >  Internet QuestionsSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number four with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. So several years ago, I was at the UFC. And I've been to a lot of UFCs, love going to watch UFC, and I've been to, I don't even know how many, but it's many. Many times I was there with fighters that I trained, cornering them, or with fighters that I trained with, and I was watching them. So I've been to a lot of UFC's. And this one in particular, I don't remember, I don't even remember which fight it was and who was fighting or who I was coaching or whatever,

but my work for the night was done. And so now it was time to kind of sit back and relax and watch the rest of the fights. And I actually linked up with one of my good seal friends who I was in Ramadi with. And we were sitting there having a good time. This is post-Ramati. this is around 2007, 2008, so we've been home for a year or two.

And we're sitting there, watching, enjoying. And all of a sudden, in the arena that we were in, there's big giant screens, and the UFC plays various advertisements in between fights. And normally there's some noise and there's background, and there's people who kind of continue with what they're doing. For whatever reason, this advertisement came on and it captured everyone's attention, not just mine.

So we're sitting there and all of a sudden, kind of everyone was sort of captivated by this advertisement that came up on the screen. And it was a commercial for a video game. And I'm not a video game player. and I just don't know much about video games but the video game was called Gears of War and the commercial was right here

and if you're watching this on YouTube we're going to have to send you to the link because we don't want to interfere with the rights of the commercial so we'll put that in the link on YouTube, but it's a Gears of War. If you type into YouTube, Gears of War, Rendezvous of Death, rendezvous with Death, you will see this commercial. A rendezvous with death at some disputed barricade.

It may be he shall take my hand and lead me into his dark land and close my eyes and quench my breath. I have a rendezvous with death and I to my pledged word So I hear that commercial. I see that commercial. And I'm honestly, as I see this, I'm kind of surprised or shocked and maybe even a little bit embarrassed because something about that commercial hit me in a way that I didn't think. that some Hollywood video game commercial producer should be able to do. I felt like that shouldn't be able to happen.

And I don't feel like that very often. And so when the fights were over and I got back to my hotel room and when I got there, I just, I was still thinking about this. I was still thinking about this commercial that I saw. And so I opened up my computer and I googled Rendezvous with Death. And sure enough, there it was. Not the video game commercial, but a poem, a real poem that was written by a real poet who was a real warrior. And I did some research on him.

It turns out this guy that wrote this poem was named Alan Seeger. He was born in 1888, raised in Staten Island, New York, had a pretty privileged upbringing, went to private schools, ended up going to college at Harvard. He was classmates with T.S. Eliot, so he was kind of surrounded by very important and influential people. and when he graduated from Harvard, he went to Paris. And from what I can tell, he wanted to kind of continue this lifestyle of an artist or of a poet. And while he was in Paris, World War I broke out. And on August 24, 1914, Alan Seeger joined the French Foreign Legion.

He wrote in a letter to his mom about this move, I hope you see the thing I do and think that I have done well, being without responsibilities and with no one to suffer materially from my decision. In taking upon my shoulders too the burden that so much of humanity is suffering under and rather than stand ingloriously aside when the opportunity was given me doing my share for the side that I think right. So this young guy goes off and he actually wrote a bunch of letters home and he kept a journal as well, which is very interesting and perhaps that will become one of our future topics on this podcast. But the poem, which is called rendezvous, actually is a little bit longer than what they put in the commercial. I'm going to read the full poem.

Again, written by Alan Seeger. And here it is, rendezvous. I have a rendezvous with death. At some disputed barricade, when spring comes back with rustling shade, and apple block. Fill the air. I have a rendezvous with death. When spring brings back blue days and fair, it may be he shall take my hand and lead me into his dark land and close my eyes and quench my breath. It may be I shall pass him still. I have a rendezvous with death. On some scarred slope of battered hill when spring comes round again this year. And the first of the first of the first of the

first metal flowers appear. God knows twere better to be deep, pillowed in silk and scented down, where love throbs out in blissful sleep, pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath, where hushed awakenings are dear, but I have a rendezvous with death, at midnight in some flaming town, when spring trips north again this year and I to my pledged word am true I shall not fail that rendezvous and he did not fail that rendezvous Alan Seeger was killed in action July 5th 1916 as he in his unit successfully charged the heavily fortified French village in France called Beloit and Sontair.

It was during a tactical assault, one of the small fights in what became known as the Battle of the Somme, which resulted in 420,000 British casualties, 200,000 French casualties, and 500,000 German casualties from one battle. Talking a little bit about how he died, this is from a friend of Seeger.

that was with him during the attack. About four o'clock, the order came to get ready for the attack. None could help thinking of what the next few hours would bring. One minute's anguish, and then, once in the ranks, faces became calm and serene, a kind of gravity falling upon them. While on each could be read the determination and expectation of victory. Two battalions were to attack, our company being the reserve, of battalion. The companies forming the first wave were deployed on the plane. Bayonets glittered in

the air above the corn, already quite tall. The first section, which was Allen's section, formed the right and vanguard of the company, and mine formed the left wing. After the first bound forward, we lay flat on the ground, and I saw the first section advancing beyond us and making toward the extreme right of the village. I caught sight of Seeger and called to him, making a sign with my hand. He answered with a smile. How pale he was, his tall silhouette stood out

on the green of the cornfield. He was the tallest man in his section. His head erect and pride in his eyes. I saw him running forward with bayonet fixed. Soon he disappeared, and that was the last time I saw my friend. That's an excerpt from John Keegan's face of war. So Seeger was shot in the stomach,

and while he bled to death, he reportedly continued to encourage his fellow soldiers to press on. He was posthumously awarded the French Cross of War and the Military Medal. And like many, many soldiers, especially ones from World War I. He was buried in a mass grave. Now, the reason I started off today talking about Alan Seeger

is because I wanted to talk about World War I. And I often tell my son that World War I is the one war one that I would not want to participate in. was just completely savage and brutal. And if you haven't listened to Blueprint for Armageddon on hardcore history, which is an absolutely phenomenal, phenomenal podcast. But if you haven't listened to that, listen to it, it will give you a good oversight of the war.

But what really disturbing, me about World War I and what scares me about World War I is that you had very, very limited control over your destiny. You could not use your brain and your tactical prowess and your skills to keep you alive. You, you know, if you watch any footage of World War I, it was, listen, there's, we're in our trench, they're in their trench. At this designated time, we are going to get up and we are going to go over the top and we are going to charge. And it was just absolutely brutal, brutal warfare. Now, that is kind of what brings us to a book that I wanted to talk a little bit about today. And this book,

is a very quick read. It's a very interesting read. I looked for it on Amazon. I think it's available in some digital version. It's also available for free. If you just Google this book for free, you can find it. It is called battle leadership. And it's by a guy named Captain Adolf von Shell, who was in the German army. and to give you a little information on Captain Von Schell and why he has this sort of phenomenal insight into war let me tell you a little bit about him this is from the forward of the book

he entered the Imperial German Army a few years prior to the outbreak of World War of the World War so this was written in the 30s when there was no Second World War The mobilization in 1914 found him on the Belgian frontier in command of an infantry platoon. In October of 1914, he took part in several battles which occurred during the historic race to the sea. And again, if you watch hardcore, if you listen to Hardcore history, you will hear all about that. In one of these, he received the first of several wounds the World War was to bring him.

And he was sent home. in February of 1915 he returned a duty and he was a company commander there under hindenburg his company marched and fought in meter deep snow in a series of engagements known historically as the winter battles of the of the missourian lakes in which over 100,000 prisoners were taken from July to October the same year he took part in the gigantic Austro-German assault of the Polish salient which was climaxed by the fall of Warsaw following this the German drive to the east was carried carried the young officer into Russia as far as the Bersina River this summer filled with endless marches and repeated engagements gave him a wide experience

in the open warfare tactics of small units in 1960s in 1916 Captain von Schell still in the east operating in close conjunction with the Austrians in an effort to stop the Bruce-ilov steamroller. In 1970, his division was transferred to the Romanian front, where Von Scheld took part in a number of engagements in the higher altitude of the Carpathians. In 1918, the war carried the author into its by-paths, the Ukraine, the Crimea, and the Caucasus.

The armistice found him operating against the Bolsheviks. after the war was over, he stayed in the army. He was in all kinds of different positions as he stayed. And he ended up actually in between, after World War I, he came to America and went to Fort Benning, Georgia, and went through airborne school, which is an American army school. And this is where this volume, this information developed from, because while he was going through airborne school, he taught a bunch of classes. And the reason he was selected to teach all these classes is summarized pretty well, again, in the forward from the book. There is probably no officer in our army who has participated in so many widely varying types

of military operations as Captain Von Schell. His knowledge of war was gained firsthand in meeting engagements, advanced guard battles, rear guard actions, night attacks, guerrilla warfare, mountain fighting, in which he took part. He has run the entire gamut of tactical experience from pursuit to withdraw, from an assault on permanent fortifications to a major offensive in the rigors of a Russian winter. There is no page of his story as set forth in these lectures that is not worthy of study by American officers. And I will say this. Yes, he is extremely experienced. obviously, I mean, just an incredible amount of battle experience, especially in World War I, where the casualty rate was so absolutely crazy.

But also, and perhaps more importantly, and you'll see this as soon as we get into his writings, is he had an incredible mind for war and an incredible mind for leadership. and I think that is what makes it makes him so impressive and what makes this writing so important and right out of the gate the first chapter by this guy who again, he's this guy that's done been all this warfare, he's done raids

and assaults and defenses, he's done all these things, all these tactical things. And the first chapter is called battlefield psychology. So he's not talking about he's not talking about the tactics and how to fight and how to maneuver. He's talking about battlefield psychology. What does he mean by that?

From the book here. Psychology, as I understand it, means knowledge of the soul. Yet, how shall we speak about the soul of others when we do not even know our own? Is there a single one of us who can say, with certainty, how he will react to some given event? Nevertheless, as leaders, we must have some knowledge of the souls of our soldiers, because the soldier, the living man, is the instrument

with which we have to work with in war. So this is something, you know, going back to when I got interviewed by Tim Ferriss, and he asked me, what was the most complex operation you were ever in of. And my answer was, look, the operations themselves aren't that complex. The complex thing about being a combat leader is dealing with human beings. And that was clearly what Von Schell thought as well. Back to the book. The great commanders of all times had a real knowledge of the souls of their soldiers. Let us use a more simple phrase and call this knowledge of the soul, knowledge of men. Knowledge of men in all wars has proved an important factor to the leader. It is probable that this will be still more true in future wars. And I am here to attest a hundred

years later that knowledge of the soul of your soldiers is still the most important thing to understand as a leader. This is interesting. Now he's going to get into why this increased in importance during World War I. Prior to the World War, all armies fought in comparatively close order. So this is when you go back to watching the Red Coats fight and they're all lined up or you watch Braveheart and everyone's lined up or any of those, the, the phalanx, you know, back in the day, how the Spartans fought. Everyone had this, you know, you were at close order, you were close to your teammates, your fellow soldiers. The psychological reaction of the individual soldier was not so decisive since the fighting was done,

not by the individual, but by mass. And the mass was held together by drill and discipline. So you had these very close, literally close together organizations. And I would tell you that even in combat today, when you get your group mustered together, let's say in the ground floor, of a building and I have 40 seals in there and you if you hear me talk about decentralized command I'll tell you hey can I can I control 40 seals out on the battlefield no absolutely not that being said you put everyone in the small ground floor of a building and I can yell out hey everyone muster

here we're going to break out in three minutes get a good head count check your ammo everyone can hear that you can kind of control them when they're in that close proximity for for at least a 30 seconds you can get some control so he goes on to talk about that But more importantly, he says, moreover, the psychological impressions of battle were simpler. Rifle and cannon ruled the battlefield, and the enemy could be seen. In modern war, the impressions are much more powerful. Usually we fight against an enemy we cannot see. The machine rules the battlefield.

We no longer fight in great masses, but in small groups, often as individuals. therefore the psychological reaction of the individual has become increasingly important. So again, if you've got all your people mustered together, and you can verbally talk to them and they can see you and you can set that example and you can lead them through physical contact, it's a little easier to overcome whatever psychological barriers they might have. When they start getting spread out and all of a sudden they can't, can't hear everything and they can't see you anymore.

Now the psychological element becomes a lot more important. As commanders, we must know the probable reaction of the individual and the means by which we can influence this reaction. The knowledge of men is especially difficult for two reasons. First, because it cannot be learned from books. And that is one that I know drives people crazy and it drives me crazy. And also, he will go and kind of reverse that a little bit because he does talk about how military men should study history because you do learn what to expect.

But to say that knowledge of men is especially difficult for two reasons. First, it cannot be learned from books. And I think we've all seen that. You know, where you get somebody that's been through some kind of a leadership academy and they try and do this doctrinalized. book solution for something and they fail with it. Second, because the characteristics of the individual in peace are completely changed in war.

Now, I agree with him on this with a caveat. Because he's saying that the way men react in war is completely different from the way they react in peace. And I would venture to guess that if he was alive, and I was to have this discussion with him, he would agree with what I'm about to say. It is not that their reactions are completely changed. It is just that their reactions are amplified and intensified.

And that is something that Laif and I talk about all the time. When people ask us about in civilian companies, you know, it's different because it's not combat. And we say combat is like life. It's just amplified and intensified. So when you have some business leader that's nervous about making a decision, because they might lose a bunch of capital

or set the company up for a bad quarter or whatever. And that's real. That's real emotion. It's real fear. It's real hesitation. All you do in combat, you put somebody to combat leadership position and they have to make a decision

where it could cost someone their lives or could cause mission failure. It's the same emotions, but it's just amplified. And I think that I think that Von Schell would agree with me if he heard that explanation. I think occasionally you get at the top end of intensity, you do get some other emotions. You know, you get people to freeze. But then again, I see people in the business world that freeze when things get too

complex or too crazy. People freeze and they become paralyzed and they don't make a decision because they're too scared. So actually, I would stick to my guns on this and say that the reactions, although different, they're the same reactions. They're just amplified. He goes on. Man reacts differently in war than he does in peace. Therefore, he must be handled differently. For this reason, we cannot learn in peace times the psychology of war.

Again, I will tell you that the training that we put together when it was intense enough, we would get to see in a micro way. We get to see the beginning of those reactions that guys would deliver in war. It is my belief that no one can give a prescription for a correct application of the principle of psychology in war. The only thing of which we are certain is this. The psychology of the soldier is always important. No commander lacking in this inner knowledge of his men can accomplish great things. That I would agree with.

You have to understand your people. and I would go one step further and say you have to not just understand your people that work for you. You need to understand the psychology of the people that are above you in the chain of command. Understand what's driving them. Understand what kind of decisions they're making

and why they're making those decisions. As long as armies were small and the battlefield narrow, a leader could exert psychological influence on his army by personal example. In modern wars, however, the high commanders are necessarily far in the rear, and the majority of the soldiers never even see them. Consequently, the task of influencing and understanding the soldiers psychologically has, in large measure, passed to subordinate commanders. For this reason, we shall deal only with the psychology of individuals and small units.

so this is something that is held true today and that element there's there's this element in the army it's called a company commander which is above a platoon and this guy's in charge of a hundred maybe 150 guys and that's sort of the the level that I think this is addressing and the reason is because above the company commander now you've got a battalion commander and while he has some influence, you know, he's got 500 or 700 guys under him. They don't interact with him. But that company commander, he interacts with them.

And so that's why he's saying that it's, that's the focus here. So now, in peace, we should do everything possible to prepare the minds of soldiers for the strain of battle. We must repeatedly warn them that war brings with it surprise and, tremendously deep impressions. And he keeps using that word impressions. And when I looked it up just to kind of clarify, you know, the closest thing that I think he's talking about is it gives you ideas.

It gives you feelings, you know? War gives you these deep feelings. And it's trying to prepare men psychologically for what they're going to face because it's going to be deep. We must prepare them for the fact that each minute of battle brings with it a new assault on the nerves. As soldiers of the future, we ourselves should strive to realize

that we will be faced in war by many new and difficult impressions. Dangers that are thus foreseen are already half overcome. So something you know, you've already half overcome it because you know it, you expect it. It's the thing that you don't know.

It's the thing that you don't see that is going to really affect. affect you in a negative way. I'm going back to the book. And again, this is, this opening chapter to me is battlefield psychology just applies to so many different situations. You know, yes, it's about battle, but it's about life. It really is about life.

And when you talk about preparing teams or preparing kids for things in the world that are going to hit them and how hard it's going to be. You know, I talk about with, I get asked a lot about self-defense, you know, and someone will say, hey, what should I do with my daughter? How can I get her to be able to defend herself? And I always say, you know, give them the talk. But in terms of jujitsu, one of the things that it helps a girl with and a guy, both, is you get used to physical contact. And if you're not used to that physical contact, when it happens to you for the first time, that alone is enough to throw you off and make you nervous and make you scared and make you freak out and not be able to react properly.

But when you do jihitsu, I mean, you've got somebody grinding on you and smashing you and holding you down. I mean, it just gets you used to that. And it becomes that, it's become second nature for a jihitsu guy. Oh, you're going to get a fight. It's like no big deal. Yeah. And same thing with boxing or with kickboxing,

someone squares off with you. If you've never squared off with someone before, it's a freaking panic situation. Or if you get hit. Or if you get hit, it's a panic situation. So these things are a way of, you know, introducing people to dangers that are thus foreseen and already half overcome.

So by training with these things, they're already half overcome when you get in the situation. And that's one of the things that makes, training martial arts prepare you for these self-defense situations. Let us take, going back to the book, let us take several actual examples from war and see what we can learn from them. In studying these examples,

it should be borne in mind that they do not constitute universal formula. I love this guy. Like everything that I think, he thinks. You know, I always say, like you can't just apply the same formula to everything. You have to have an open mind. You've got to free your mind. And that's what he's saying right there.

Bear in mind, they do not constitute a universal formula. They deal only any, now he goes into specifics, they deal only with German soldiers. Moreover, they deal only with particular German soldiers in certain definite situations. Whether other soldiers of other races would react similarly in similar situations, I do not know. But I believe not. For instance, the mentality of the American soldier differs from that. of the German. And even in America, the northern soldier differs from the southern. A soldier from the city of New York has an entirely different viewpoint than the soldiers lived as a farmer in the

Middle West. Now, I will say this, I served with everybody, guys from the city. And I think where this is a lot different nowadays, and I think in, in 1910, if you were a farmer from the Middle West, you were a farmer from the Middle West and you hadn't traveled you hadn't seen much the rest of the world. If you were someone from New York City, you didn't travel. You didn't see anything. So I think this is probably less true now where you have people that even though they're a farmer from the Midwest, guess what? They've been all over the country.

They've lived in cities. They moved to cities. We're a lot more mobile of a people now. It's a much more global. And on top of that, you have the internet. You have movies. You have all this media. So I think this is probably less true now that people are more.

well-rounded than they used to be. Yeah, they're exposed to more. Exactly. He will therefore react differently and will require a different method of handling. Now that is true. It has nothing to do with their background. It has to do with their background,

but it doesn't have to do with where they're from. It has to do with who they are as human beings. During the Battle of Tannenberg, Hindenburg, Ludendorf, these are German staff officers, and their staff were standing, on a hill and observing a portion of the battlefield. While so engaged, the well-known Colonel Hoffman, who was at the time the G-3, came up

to a young captain of the general staff and said to him in a quiet tone, My friend, you seem to have nothing to do. Pay attention. In the village of X, there is a Land-Sturm Battalion. Call up its commander and say to him, a Russian cavalry brigade has made a deep penetration in the direction of Village X. the Landstrom Battalion is to counterattack and throw back the Russians. On hearing this, the young general staff officer became quite excited and said,

Oh, Colonel, that Landstrom Battalion consists only of old men over 45 years old. They cannot defeat a Russian cavalry brigade. The Colonel answered, merely give him that order quietly. And if the battalion commander refuses to obey, ask him for his name. You will see that he will do it instant. The young captain gave the order over the telephone, and the battalion commander, terribly excited, answered, How can I attack a Russian cavalry brigade with my old men? That's impossible. Then the captain said, I have been directed, if such be the case, to merely ask you for your name. Oh, me? came the

quick reply. I did not mean it in that way. Certainly we will attack. I will have my unit forward at once and in five minutes we will be on the march. Your orders will be executed immediately. And they were. The fear of unpleasant consequences resulted in the disappearance of all the commander's fears. With the order, with another battalion commander in different circumstances, the effect would probably have been entirely different. Colonel Hoffman had correctly estimated the probable reaction of this battalion commander. Now this is the same idea, but this is very clear. A really classical example of this art of estimating a situation psychologically was shown in year 1970, by a brigade commander. The general said each of our three regimental commanders

must be handled differently. Colonel A does not want an order. And as you listen to this, think about the people you know, the people that you work with, and these three people exist everywhere. Colonel A does not want an order. He wants to do everything himself and he always does well. We all know that person. Colonel B executes every order but has no initiative. We all know that person.

Colonel C opposes everything he is told to do and wants to do the contrary. We all know that person. A few days later, the troops confronted a well-entrenched enemy whose position would have to be attacked. The general issued the following individual orders. To Colonel A, the one that wants to do everything himself, my dear Colonel A, I think we will attack. Your regiment will have to carry the burden of the attack.

I have, however, selected you for this reason. The boundaries of your regiment are so-and-so, attack at X hour, I don't have to tell you anything more. to Colonel C, who opposes everything, he said this. We have met a very strong enemy. I am afraid we will not be able to attack with the forces at our disposal. Oh, general, certainly we will attack. Just giving my regiment the time of the attack and you will see that we are successful, replied Colonel C.

Go then, we will try it, said the general, giving him the order for the attack, which he had prepared sometime previously. To Colonel B, the one that always must have detailed orders and doesn't have initiative, the attack order was merely sent

with additional details. All three regiments attacked splendidly. This is something that when Laif and I are working with companies, we run into this all the time where you have to, modulate and adjust your your directives and your interactions now I'm not saying and this is the dichotomy that makes it tricky you can't be a different person to

different subordinates or senior leadership you can't be this different person you have to modulate slightly to make these different impressions on people and give them a different read of you where if they talk to each other they they would still know you're the same person and you're not being this two-faced or three-faced or five-faced person you've got to have the consistency but you do have to modulate your personality and use it in different ways and use your speech and your words carefully because they affect different people in different ways and i've always had that i mean even between laif and his sister-pil-dune commander who are my two bros but you know i had a little different relationship with both

those guys and that's just the way it was and it was both both relationships were great and both those guys were incredibly uh successful and aggressive in in accomplishing the mission even though i had a little bit different a little bit different relationship and a little bit different way of dealing with each of them and they both had their own way of dealing with each of them and they both had their own way of dealing with me. So it was, it was an interesting dynamic of how well that worked. The general, going back to the book, the general knew his subordinates. He knew that each one was different and had to be handled differently in order to achieve results. He had estimated the psychological situation correctly. It is comparatively easy to make a correct estimate if one knows the man concerned.

But even then, it is often difficult. This is getting, this is where it just gets crazy. because the man doesn't always remain the same. He is no machine. He may react one way today, another way tomorrow. And this is going back to, I think, our first podcast where I said that people are crazy. People are crazy and they do crazy things. And that's why you've got to constantly have the open loop with people. You've got to give them something and you've got to get that feedback and read and react to what they're saying and how it's changing.

Soldiers can be brave one day and afraid the next. Soldiers are not machines, but human beings who must be led in war. Each one of them reacts differently, therefore each must be handled differently. And I know that sounds crazy. And people always think that in the military, you're just got all these troopers.

And they're just machines and go out and, you know, Leif and I have been quoted saying this many times because people ask us and say, well, you were in charge of seals and those guys, you know, they do whatever you say. And it's just, no, they weren't machines. They're humans.

They have their own free will. They make their own decisions. They decide what their thoughts are going to be. I don't decide what their thoughts are going to be. You have to actually lead them. Furthermore, each one reacts differently at different times and must be handled each time according to his particular reaction. So it's, again, you've got to be open looped and reading and reacting to how people are

acting. To sense this and to arrive at a correct psychological solution is part of the art of leadership. Yes. Sorry, a lot of, sometimes you'll find the situation where, let's say, a boss, he'll be, he'll say, hey, you know, what's wrong with you? Your work output isn't, you know, as, as much as this next guy. You know, this guy, what's wrong with you? This guy follows directions like everything I say. He does it perfectly. What's wrong with you? kind of thing. So isn't that an example of how a failure in doing that, recognizing what this guy responds to versus what this other guy

responds. Well, that depends because some people, if I say Echo, this guy's doing better than you, some people are super competitive and they'll go, oh, okay, well, I'm going to do better than that person, I'm going to get, you know, but some people will take that with a negative tone and say, you know what, that guy doesn't even see what I do. I'm not going to do even less. So it depends. It's always a read. It's always a psychological or read on people that makes it challenging.

Yeah. So if you were to think, like how you were saying, if you were to think that there's just this one formula, so you're putting out this one formula as the boss, right? And you see two out of your team of five guys, two of these guys are responding, great. They're perfect, you know, but these other three guys are kind of operating

with varying levels of success. It's an indicator that, all right, you have a dynamic group of people under you. So, and they respond differently to different things. That's one of those perfect examples. That's the perfect example. That is it. Okay, now, with regard to other matters, still in the same chapter, battle psychology.

We who have been in war know that the hardest thing we had to do was lie quietly under hostile fire and wait for an attack. why and this is something that I completely understand and relate to is this feeling and this is something I think I talked about it on the Tim Ferriss show was when there's a movie called the Pacific and the first episode you're expecting you're expecting this big giant you know war battles to be breaking up the whole time and they draw you out for I want to say 40 minutes of them patrolling through the jungle. And the whole time you're just waiting and waiting. And it creates this tension.

And when I watched that for the first time, I remembered that tension from Ramadi, where if a firefight hadn't started yet, and you're walking through the streets and you just feel this tension because you're waiting for those rounds to go off for the explosion to happen. And it's very unnerving.

It's the war. time to it's the worst feeling and I remember actually my first deployment to Iraq we were helping out a fob which is a forward operating base who had been getting mortared and so we said oh cool we'll go out there and try and help them out and so we went out and we set up sniper positions and we started getting mortars. And unfortunately, these positions we were in, they didn't give us any line of sight to the people that were launching mortars of us. So they were just freely launching mortars at us. And they were so close. They were, you know, within probably 200 meters that we could see, we could hear the launches of the mortars and we could see the trail of the mortar going up

as it launched. And so we would hear the launch. You couldn't see the guys doing it because they were hidden behind buildings, but you'd see the mortar trail going up in the sky. And you'd hear the launchers, chom, comb, chom, and then you'd just wait because it's coming. And I remember I was on a rooftop with one of my seal buddies, and he was the automatic weapons gunner. And these rooftops were really weird. They had these basically like concrete squares. all over them that were three or four feet deep. They were probably five foot by five foot.

This whole rooftop was five foot by five foot concrete squares. And we had gone out on this rooftop and walked over to the far end. And it took us a couple minutes and we got there and we were set up. And I'm sitting there with him and we hear that noise and we see the launch of these mortars. And he looks at me and he goes, you think we can make it back? inside, meaning you think if we got up right now, we ran all the way back across the rooftop, back down the stairs, we could get inside the building where you're going to be safe. And I said, no, we're not going to make it back.

And he said, what are we going to do? And I said, we're going to sit here and get some. And he said, do you think it'll kill us? and I said, no, as long as it doesn't land in our quadrant right here, meaning this little five by five, which would have, you know, obviously killed us. But I remember, so we endured this night. I say, I used the word endured. That's a strong word.

We went through this night. We got mortared a bunch. And I remember thinking the next day, we all got back. And it was early. This is early in my first deployment. This is the first time any of us had been under fire or any of us. that and we everyone was a little jumpy a little bit jumpy and i remember thinking that those guys in world war one that endured months and months and months of indirect fire like mortar fire and there's

something that's if you want to know what it does to people go on youtube and google or and and search for world war one shell shock and you see these soldiers that are so completely psychologically scarred from that. And it's an eye-opener. And the other really horrible thing about this was in World War I, this whole notion of PTSD and psychological scarring, that didn't exist. If you broke down mentally,

there was only one word for you. and it was coward. So they, these guys, I mean, it was just a, it was just a nightmare. And again, that's why World War I is the, to me is the most, the most vicious and atrocious of, of the wars. Who is that that was with you? That one asking, you know, is it going to get us? It was a guy named Sean.

That's all I'll say. It was a good buddy of mine. and yeah we were just huddled up there looking at each other feeling stupid waiting to get blown up how long do those take when when you hear the those were probably a a minute of flight time yeah so you just we'd hear three you know two or three of them and the other funny thing that night was one of my other super paranoid brothers who was always like thinking it was the last day and that guy on one of those, you know, we hear the launches and he comes up on the radio, he goes,

that's three boys, count them out. And, you know, because we heard three launches, so now you're waiting for three explosions and you hope that no one gets hit. But, and, you know, again, I'm sitting here talking, that was one night for us, and those guys that were there on that fob, they were there every night.

They were there getting mortared every night. And it's just one of those, you know, thing, on that first appointment, we traveled around a lot, so we'd go and, be in some weird outpost somewhere like going into apocalypse now and then the next day you'd be at the Starbucks on on base and on one of the firm bases so it was very it was very strange for us but the war is very different for different people depending on where you are what your job is and that's

why you know you always hear me give respect and props to all the soldiers the Marines that were out there in the field far and they didn't have any opportunity to come back and and take a wrap off ever they were just in it all the time seals for the most part we generally would have some kind of a situation where we could get back and take a wrap off not always though i mean take a wrap off meaning just like like like like rest and rest from the game yeah rest from the game a little bit but you know that being said you know romadi was a very constant uh pressure like that and the guys that were out in karegador i mean they're getting mortared and machine gunned every night basically um

And it was, you know, same thing. So again, I never want to make anything that I've been through or even that we've been through in the modern era compared to, I don't want to put that on the pedestal or put it on a scale next to what the guys in other wars have been through because, you know, every war has its thing, whatever its thing was. Yeah. And, you know, I just, I just don't ever want to throw, trying to, trying to compare that. I'm just telling my simple experiences. And I'm saying that the guys in World War I and what they went through, I can't even fathom what that was like, you know, knowing just what a little bit of it feels like, a little tiny, tiny fraction of it. Knowing what that feels like compared to what it must have felt like day after day, after week, after week, after month, after month. And if you want to get some indication as to what that felt like, like I said,

go and watch World War I shell-shocked videos and how completely psychologically scarred these guys were. And it's awful. It's awful to see. Dang. Going back to the book, and this is the same subject, when a soldier lies under hostile fire and waits, he feels unable to protect himself. He has time.

He thinks. he only waits for the shot that will hit him. He feels a certain inferiority to the enemy. He feels that he is alone and deserted. That's what we're talking about here. Now, always I like to tie these examples from war back to life. And I think that this theme is very accurate. I think people get into two modes in their life.

modes where they're being offensive and they're making things happen and modes where they're defensive and things are happening to them and they're having to react and I think that those psychological if you think about

anyone thinks about their life and when times were good it's when they were on the offensive I mean think about financially when you when you're doing good you got your bills paid off and everything's going well and how you just feel

you feel good about it. You feel financially secure and you feel like, oh, I can make things happen. And then you think about the times in your life. You know, I spent 20 years in the military. You're not highly paid in the military. You think about times in your life

where you didn't have a lot of money and how that feels completely different. All of a sudden, when you're walking down the street and you see something, you go, that guy doesn't even have a job or that guy's getting free money. You start to get that feeling. Whereas the times in your life

where you saved up money, and you're doing well, then you feel a lot better. It's the same thing physically. You know, the more you go on the offense with your health and with your diet, the better you feel. And when you get taken down by a sickness or an injury or laziness, you let one of those things take you down. All of a sudden, everything is negative.

And that's why I think this relates very well, is that when you lay under hostile fire and wait, you feel unable to protect yourself. So he goes into a quick story here. I remember one day in 1916 in Russia. During the night, we had relieved the Austrians. On the following morning, the Russians began a heavy artillery preparation,

meaning they started bombing the crap out of them. We were unfamiliar with the terrain. We had no idea what troops were on our right or left. We did not know what artillery we had. I was alone with my company in the midst of an Austrian battalion. I didn't know my superiors. The Russians had been firing for two hours, but our artillery didn't reply. I went constantly from dugout to dug out to see and speak to my men.

They should at least see that they were not alone. Repeatedly, they asked me, are we really entirely alone here? Haven't we any artillery? It continued this way for hours. Our telephone wires had been shot to pieces. Finally, a tremendous noise came from our rear. our own artillery was firing. At once, high spirits returned.

These soldiers no longer felt deserted. Each could see and hear that our side was doing something now. Each saw that he was being supported and that everyone was ready to repulse the attack. In great defensive battles, one will constantly hear the remark, when the enemy artillery is firing, where is our own artillery? and everybody experiences that kind of gets the same thing when you're a part of a team or you're part

of a company and things are starting to go backwards people immediately focus on the negative they immediately focus on the negative negative when you're on the defensive and when you're being attacked everyone starts turning on each other almost where's our artillery right that happens and then to to reverse that trend you know when something positive happens all of a sudden people start feeling positive again. So it's important to be aware of that and recognize that and look for those signs. And it's also important not to just do it if you're part of a team, but to detach yourself from yourself and see when it's happening to you as an individual. When things start to go negative, are you amplifying the negativity? Because that happens. We do that. Now he goes on to talk about

it is different during the attack. Here the soldier himself acts. He has to do something. He moves forward. He fires. He assaults and dictates the action of the enemy. At the moment of the attack, he never asks, where is our artillery? From the beginning of the attack, he feels himself the victor. He storms forward. He believes he can do everything by himself. He needs no support. As soon as the attack slows down, the cry for artillery is heard again. So this is a psychological thing. When people are attacking, they feel better. They feel like they're going to win.

And that's why that mentality of attacking is so important. And you hear this in UFC fights. You hear people say, be first, be first. That's literally the coach. You'll hear that from every coach in MMA will say that. Be first, be first. They're wanting their fighter to initiate the attack and not be on the offensive. Now you do get some fighters that are really good counterpunchers,

and that's understandable. bullets. That's another thing. But a majority, it's be first, you know, attack first, go on the offensive. And we're always trying to encourage people to do that. Yeah. In Jiu-Jitsu as well, how if you if you stay ahead of the guy, you're at an advantage. Even if the guy's kind of better than you, if you just stay ahead of him and focus on that, because it's like he has to make up ground, then he can, you know, do his game and be better than you. But yeah, if you're constantly on defense, It's almost like you don't have time to be offensive and to win or to be, you know, in the black. You're always in the red.

You got to get out of the red first. Yeah. You know, and if you can, like I said, stay ahead of the guy. Keep yourself in the black. So you have this advantage. Even, like I said, if he's even a little better than you were bigger or whatever. Yeah, it's such a weird dynamic there where it gets in a way like that. It's not even a weird dynamic.

It's just a reality. Yeah. It's here's the deal. If you are on the attack, you're. are doing better. If you are on the offense, you're psychologically winning, and that has a huge, huge impact. And if you're on the defense, you're psychologically losing your mind. And so that's the important thing.

So if you're training with someone, and all of a sudden you're like, you start getting negative in your mind, you're getting dominated, just say to yourself, oh, you know what's happening right now? Okay. I'm just caught in the negative here. So let's not worry about that. Let's figure out how to get back on the offense, but you can't double down on your negativity. You're already getting dominated position-wise.

Don't double down on your negativity. When somebody gets in positive position on me, a better position on me, I don't even care. Like I'm just like, oh, cool, you got mounted, you're a cross-eyed, whatever good position you got. Cool. Stand by because I'm going to come back. I don't let it get to me psychologically.

Yeah. Halaksh. Back to the book. This desire to act is, in my opinion, the reason why soldiers go so willingly on patrol. I repeat that this is extremely difficult. to lie in hostile fire and wait because one feels exposed to blind chance. On patrol is different.

The soldier feels that his destiny rests in his own hands. He feels that he is not dependent on blind fate, that he's not forced to go this way or that, but can himself decide what to do. He feels that he controls the situation. For example, he may think that path over the hill seems dangerous to me. I don't know why, but I have that feeling, most definitely. Therefore, I prefer to go through the valley.

He has the feeling that his actions depends on his own will. And in consequence, he can act in accordance with that will. Same message. But from a leadership position, how do you give your people that ability to be on offense? And that's what you want to constantly look for. How can you get them on offense? Now this is going back into a little bit of what we talked about on the last podcast. And that's mission type orders.

And in this one, Von Schell calls it mission tactics. In the German army, we use what we term mission tactics. Orders are not written out in the minutest detail. A mission is merely given the commander. How it shall be carried out. is his problem. This is done because the company commander on the ground is the only one who can correctly judge existing conditions and take proper action if a change occurs in the situation. There is also a strong psychological reason for these mission tactics. The commander,

who can make his own decisions within the limits of his mission, feels that he is responsible for what he does. Consequently, he will accomplish more because he will act in accordance with his own psychological individuality. Give this same independence to your platoon and squad leaders. It is certainly evident from training and peace that the more freedom allowed a subordinate leader in his training, the better result will be. Why?

Because he is made responsible for results and allowed to achieve them in his own way. Boom. There it is again. And in life, what does that mean? It means take personal initiative. in your life. Be in control. Be first. Lead your life. Lead your life. People use that, you know, say, oh, you got to lead your own life. And I'm, I'm going to put the emphasis on lead.

You are a leader of your life. You need to lead your life. Don't be reactive. Be aggressive. And going back to the psychology piece and back to the book again from Von Schell, we know that psychology is tremendously important in war. It is a field. unlimited in extent to which every conscientious soldier should give much time and study. And that's, you know, that's one of the things that I find about Jiu-Jitsu is that it is also unlimited in extent. It doesn't stop. You don't, you don't ever get to the end of that learning process. And that's why we're always trying to be better. And that's why we still make mistakes. That's why you still make mistakes in leadership position. That's why I, I,

who sit around and teach about leadership and tell people how to lead, I make mistakes and do things wrong and treat somebody the wrong way and make them mad and I got to go back and unwind that. That's what happens. So we got to do as much as we can to learn as much as we can. Yet it cannot, go back to the book, yet it cannot be learned as one learns mathematics. It must be sensed. Unfortunately, we cannot formulate a set of psychological rules.

human reactions can never be reduced to an exact science war is governed by the uncertain and unknown and the least known factor of all is the human element and i think that's that's what i like about this is that the fact that war is governed by the uncertain and the unknown and the least known of all factor is the human element and war again war is like that life. And that's why I think when you hear these stories and these philosophies about the psychology of war, you apply them to yourself. And you lead your own war. You you detach yourself psychologically, you detach yourself and you observe and you see how these psychological elements are affecting you and what and what you can do to straighten them out constantly be asking yourself

am i on the offense or the defense that's a huge question we should check with ourselves every day and what's if you're on the defense what's putting you on the defense and how do you go back on the offense you know i think a lot of people with um we get asked a lot about doing tasks and how do you get stuff done every day i think there's some people that their task list their list of things to do makes them defensive. They go, oh, I've got so much to do, and I'm at the whim of this list. Where if you wake up and you say, no, no, I'm not going to be defensive about that list. I've got clear targets.

This is a target list. And I know exactly what I have to do to knock them out. And that is what I am going to go do. And that simple change in attitude, that self-leadership is critically important. Now you're not going to see that, that you're in that situation unless you detach. And it's the same thing with your team. It's the same thing with your company. And it's the same thing with you personally.

You cannot be so engrossed in the problem that you don't see what's happening to yourself. So that's a little bit from battle leadership, Captain Adolf von Schell, a smart and observant person that taught me a lot and I much appreciate his thoughts. So that's a wrap for that book and now it's time for some questions that we've got

from the internet, from Twitter, from Facebook and appreciate everyone sending those questions. It gets some great questions. So question number one. Question number one. Okay, how important is mentoring in your experience, in your opinion? And if it's cool or whatever, what are some key points in doing it?

Mentoring, and this is asked in two ways, right? Because how important is mentoring to be mentored is very important. You need to suck knowledge out of people as much as you can and learn as much as you can from people and find good mentors that are gracious with their knowledge, and that's very important. and you should always be looking for good mentors to help teach you. And then as far as mentoring other people, that is also a key. And one of the things I find about mentoring other people is that that is your legacy. That is what you leave behind.

For instance, I was in the SEAL teams for 20 years, which sounds like a long time. But the SEAL teams has been around for over 60 years. and the seal teams is not me at all. I'm a tiny, minuscule fraction piece of the seal teams. So when you leave the seal teams, you don't leave anything. The only thing that you do, you don't leave anything of yourself. The only thing close that you do leave is the people that you mentored, the people that you raised. and that's why you need to take great care when you mentor people to make sure that you're

doing a good job and raising people right and one of the interesting things about mentorship is that you have to let go of your ego because what you should want as a mentor what you should desire as a mentor is that the people that you're mentoring become better than you that's your hope is that they do better than you they perform better than you they become better than you and you've got to be proud when that happens you know i i uh in jiu jitsu when i'm teaching people in jiu jitsu and you know you'll get some somebody will say oh i'm going to tap you out one day and i always say good i i hope you do you know good i hope you do tap me out because first of all i'm teaching you jujitsu and jiu jitsu works and so if you catch me in a jiu jitsu position in a submission hold

it jih jih Tzu works and i will be submitted so good if you're here and you're learning from me and you never get any better then there's something wrong with the way i'm teaching you so it should be the same thing in business it should be the same thing in life and the the weird thing too is is that it's hard to find people that want to be mentored in life It's hard. It's hard. A lot of young, you know, younger people, and I mean, I'm only 44, but I've said this before. You know, when you're 23, you think you know everything.

You really do. And then when you're 27, you look back and you go, man, I didn't know anything then, but I know everything now. And then when you're 33, you think, oh, when I was 27, I didn't know anything, but I know everything now. And eventually you reach at a point, you know, when you're 40 and you say, well, when I was 30, I didn't know anything and I still don't know anything and that's sort of when you reach a good point in your life where your mind becomes open well it takes several years maybe many years for that to happen so if you can find someone that is really has an open mind and really wants to be mentored a young age it's awesome and you can really affect

people in a positive way and you know I had some great I had some great mentors some of those older seals that I looked up to and said wow this person really has done an awesome job. Those people help me out a lot. And sometimes it wasn't a active mentoring. It was more of an imitation. You know, I was just imitating what they did and trying to,

I didn't, you know, I can't remember that many times where someone sat me down and said, all right, son, here's what you need to do to win. It didn't happen a lot. But a lot of times they'd be saying,

hey, group of people, here's what you need to do to win. And I was taking notes and making sure that I remembered what they were saying. So yeah, mentoring is absolutely important. And it's also a very positive thing

because you're having a positive impact on somebody's life. And that always feels good to watch them do well, unless you have a big ego and you're an idiot, and in which case you'll be miserable. Do you think that's kind of natural, though, to say from an instructor's point of view or whatever, when you mentor some orientation and a mentoring situation and that person does start to kind of catch up with you and beat you,

Do you think that that's pretty It's pretty common though, right? To have some resistance in your mind against that? I mean, everyone has an ego. You don't want to get tapped out by your students, but if you let that drive you, then you're holding back information from them. Then you're not pushing them to do better.

So it might be a reality, but it's a reality that you have to deal with and you have to get rid of. It's kind of like the growing pains of the group, right? Of the unit. So like if you have, you know, three students or you have an academy me a school and now they get better than you.

Your school, which is kind of your whole goal and your whole motivation, your school is strong. But if you're still the bull, the alpha beating everyone over, sure, you're individually strong and your ego's strong, but your school is weak. So those growing pain is kind of part of it. I tell my guys all the time

at the gym, you know, the better you are, the better I am. I have this awesome move that's working well. Let me show you the counter so that I can learn to overcome the counter to the move. And that's how we all get better. Next question.

You say you keep your expectations of people kind of low, how you were saying last time. But do you ever call people out for being disrespectful or, you know, something like that? This is an interesting question, and I was thinking about this question. And there's one thing about it that is, and I don't know if this is just me. I don't know if I have a positive attitude. I don't know, but I don't see a bunch of disrespect. Like, people aren't disrespecting me.

People aren't, you know, saying things to me that I find disrespectful. It just doesn't really happen that much. To you. To me. Yeah. And I know I look like a serial killer and all that. And that's fine. And so this is why makes it a little bit of a tough question to answer,

because I'll tell you that I believe that if you carry yourself, a certain way, if you carry yourself respectfully and you respect other people, not only will people not disrespect you, but they won't act disrespectful in your presence. And of course, what am I telling people all the time? I'm telling people to, you know, get up early. I'm telling people to work out. I'm telling people to train jihitsu. I'm telling people to train boxing and wrestling and Muay Thai, because all those things help your confidence. And when you're confident, and people look at you and go, oh, that guy looks like he can handle himself. I think I'm going to show some respect in his vicinity.

So I think it's, I think it's kind of a carryover of your presence and how you carry yourself. And the main point of that is if you are respectful to other people and you treat other people respectfully, unless you have someone that's just a complete jerk, they're not going to just come up and start being disrespectful to you. Now, on the interwebs, and this, where I got this question from, he's kind of come back and I have to read through the questions again, but, you know, he basically got into some kind of a incident where he's sticking up for someone. And that, that's different, you know, now if someone sees, if I see someone's getting bullied, you know, yeah, I might stick up, I might stick up for

them. Sometimes I think to myself, well, why isn't that person sticking up for themselves, you know, that person has to stand up for themselves. So there's kind of an interesting dynamic. But again, I think when you carry yourself with respect and confidence, not cockiness, but just with respect and confidence in who you are and what you do, I think that most people are going to be respectful when they're in your presence. And I usually, I mean, I give respect to people and I usually get respect and I see people acting respectfully when I'm around.

So I apologize if that doesn't solve the problem for someone that is, you know, seeing disrespect all the time. And I think the way that you carry yourself, you give an impression that you're not going to put up with disrespect as well. So I think it's about presence. I think it's about giving respect. And I think it's about having confidence. And I think that eliminates a lot of that need to call people out.

for being disrespectful. Next question. So you do a lot of strength work, as far as your workouts go, a lot of strength work. Do you do any stretching or mobility stuff? You know, isn't it important especially, you know, for being a jujitsu guy, I know. Well, the actual question says, especially for an aging jujitsu player. So. But that applies to kind of everybody, though, right?

Well, we're all aging. But I kind of feel like this was directed at me as an old man at the age of 44. I'm an aging jujitsu player. Now, of course, at our gym, we have guys that are 50 and 60 years old that I roll with. And they roll with the young studs and everything else. So I think aging is a relative term. We're all aging. The bottom line here is, yeah, absolutely.

Stretching mobility are important. I should do more. I don't do enough. That being said, I will say that a lot of the movements that I do involve mobility in their own right. For instance, when I do squats, I squat all the way to the bottom. And so people are always surprised at my hip mobility because I squat with heavy weights on my back and I go all the way down into the full squat position. So I'm relatively flexible in the hips You know if you do muscle ups and you know you're getting really good mobility work in your shoulders

Same thing with ring dips I mean any of that any of the ring I'm on rings all the time and so you get a lot of mobility and Strengthening you those little muscles and keeping them healthy So I do some pretty good there that being said you know I I know I should do more and whenever I get some kind of an injury this is a a bad policy. You know, I get injured and then I do mobility work. You know, I should do the other way around. This is one of those things that I need to increase my discipline on.

So I need to improve the amount of mobility work that I do. It's one of those things that I don't find that enjoyable. And I don't find it that satisfying. Even though it does feel good, I mean, I enjoy the pain of it. But I don't feel those results like I want to. and so that's probably one of the reasons why I don't do enough of it. But, you know, you can see sometimes, you know, I'll, sometimes I have to take a day where I just do nothing but mobility and I do nothing but grind out sore muscles because

I'm so sore after nine days straight. I'm like, okay, I can't take this anymore. And my body will start to tell me, dude, you need to stretch out and take a day off. So I do that, you know, mobility, mobility wad with, uh, with Kelly Sturret and his book, The Supple Leopard. And, you know, I have that. And when I have something going on, I'll dig into that book or dig into those videos and find out what I need to do to grind that problem out.

And I love doing that. I love getting on that when I need to, but I need to do it more. Yeah, interesting. You kind of hear that question a lot. Like, since you do jujitsu, do you do mobility training? But jujitsu is mobility training. So if you try, there's some guys, they don't do anything except Jiu-Jitsu. And Dean sometimes will say this where he'll be like, oh, okay, if you're going to, if you're a runner, what's the best way to train is to run?

So if you're a Jiu-Jitsu guy, the best way to train is Jiu-Jitsu, and that goes for conditioning and stuff, this Jiu-Sase conditioning. But so like if you're, like if you're in the guard, like the clothes guard and you're trying to hold a close guard and you're training even five days a week, you're inner thighs, you're adductors, Adductor muscles are going to get a lot of training. Yeah. Now, I will say this. You know, you look at like the 10th planet system and Eddie Bravo. And, I mean, they really focus on flexibility. It becomes a great aspect of their game.

And I definitely respect that. I also do think that some people that go psycho with yoga and stretching can actually do more damage than good. You know, I've known, I knew some guys along the way that got really into yoga. and as the years went on, I think it was debilitating for them. You know, your spine and your muscles

are supposed to stretch to a certain point, and when you start stretching them beyond that, in my opinion, you start doing more harm than good. Now, I'm not even close to that. This is no excuse. This is no being saying, hey, you're in danger. I'm in no danger of stretching too much. But I just didn't want to throw that out there

that some, I think you can, I think you can overdo it, and you can go into these extreme positions that are not good for you anymore. And I've actually one of my seal buddies who was very into yoga for 15 years, and he is messed up now. And he says, yeah, you know, I think the main reason is because I went too far with yoga. Yeah, with everything, right? You go too far and jams you up.

That's true. I think that, especially if you're doing it in reference to your jiu-jitsu, it's going to depend on your game. Like you mentioned the 10th Planet System. If you're in, if you like the 10th Planet system, that's your thing. To improve your flexibility, that's going to be a big asset compared to your deadlift. But if you have a different type of system or maybe you took Jiu-Zitsu from a smash type guy, a bigger guy or something in his school is like, yeah, smash the guy, smash, get on top.

Establish position, smash on top. Your assets are going to lie more in maybe some strength, maybe some balance stuff. more so than submission. So it just depends on what game you want, really. But either way, when you do jujitsu in any capacity, you're doing mobility stuff. Yeah. True.

And at the same time, mobility training otherwise does help your jiu-jitsu. So it's kind of like a two-way street. Affirmative. Do you think you can have too much on your plate? And how do you handle multiple tasks? Well, this is a question. I think we actually answered this. almost the exact same question.

And first of all, do you, can you end up with too much stuff on your plate? Yes, you absolutely can. That being said, before I go down the road of I've got too much of my plate, it is you probably not doing good time management. You know, you're probably sleeping late. You're probably not focused.

You're probably on the interwebs when you should be getting work done. You're probably listening to, you know, music while you're trying to work and getting distracted. So there's all these things that we go, I got so much on my plate. No, you don't. You don't have too much on your plate.

You're just not focused when you need to be. You're just not getting, you're just not attacking the problems. And so what's the easiest thing to say is, oh, I think I got too much of my plate and you need to get rid of some stuff, you know? So there's something that eat. This is an example.

Have you ever had something where it's something that's going to take you like 20 minutes? But it hangs over your head for a month and it becomes this sucker of mental use, mental power. Yeah. How many of those things do you have? And how many can you actually deal with before it starts ruining and losing your focus because you're not? So these little 20-minute tasks or half-an-hour tasks that you don't do because you put them off and procrastinate, those are the ones to get those things out of way.

Okay, you got too much stuff on your plate. Go get some of those things off your plate. They take a half an hour. There's so many things that you can get done in a half an hour if you just get on them. that that's how that's one way to clear your plate so that's my first piece of answering this is is likely it's not that you have too much in your plate it's just that you need to focus you need to get stuff done you need to quit wasting time now that being said if you are truly taxed which it definitely happens if you are truly taxed what do you do well number one prioritize and execute right this is a

Back to the book, Extreme Ownership, one of the chapters, one of the laws of combat is prioritize and execute. So you've got to take whatever, all these things that you have to get done and put them in priority order and start to take care of the highest priority first and go. And that's what you need to do. Another thing you can do is you can delegate. If you've got a team or if you've got someone you can hire or you got someone that can help you out, you delegate and say, you know what?

I hear, I don't have time to do this. Do this. I'll give you $50. I'll give you $10. I'll do something that's easy for me to do. Like, you know, some tasks that I'm good at I'll do for you, you do this for me. So delegate or hire somebody to help you, or the last thing is you can say no. You know, people want you to do more stuff.

Say no to them. Listen, I can't do that enough the capacity right now. So that's my cut on can you have too much stuff on your plate and how do you handle multiple tasks? Long board or short board? A surfing question. so I definitely like to surf I surf as often as the waves are good and as far as longboard or shortboard I surf both longboard and shortboard and you know for me it's like ghee or no gey I mean what's what do people on the mat have on that's what I'm going to put on and that's what I'm to get on and with the waves if the waves are good for short for a short board I'm going to grab my short board and go out and if the waves are good for longboard. I'm going to grab my longboard and go out.

And it's the same thing. I like to vary my training. I mean, so that I'm more well-rounded across the board and I can handle more different situations. So, and I enjoy both of them a lot. See how surfing questions are like pretty linear. I mean, most sports questions are pretty linear compared to Jiu-Jitsu. Jiu-Jitsu is freaking mayhem.

It really is the complexity of it and the directions that it can go are so crazy. Yeah. And I guess it could be argued that surfing could have that, but it's not as obvious. It's not. It may even go into like a philosophical thing. Yeah. But okay. But you could go down the philosophical path of jihitsu and you're going to go still another infinite world way.

So there's something crazy about jihitsu. And it is. It is very, it's like what, I forget what that quote was tonight from. von Schell, but just how it's just the psychology of people is infinite and always changing and always different and that's very similar to

Jiu-Jitsu. Infinite, always changing, different with every person you roll with. Every person you deal with psychologically they're different. Every person you roll with has a different little thing in their game and you never know how they're going to react to your movements. So that's why psychologically it's such a good training methodology.

How has your military training affected your training slash coaching of jujitsu, i.e. more structure, et cetera. Well, interestingly, I would say that my military training has made me want to be less structured

in jiu jihitsu. It made me want to be less structured in military. The military, the experiences of combat made me want to make training less structured because, again, it goes back to what we talked about last week,

I want to train people's minds to be ready for situations that they don't expect. Training the mind is more important than training the body. Now, that being said, of course, you have to have a certain level of standard operating procedures. You have to have a certain level of knowledge. So in jiu-jitsu, you've got to make sure that people have those basic knowledge, the base, I shouldn't say basic, the fundamental knowledge. You know, people used to say that when the SEAL teams, and we would teach different tactics. And for a while we were saying basic tactics.

Like, hey, you need to stick with the basic tactics. And I said, look, these aren't basic tactics. These are fundamental tactics. And that's the same thing with Jiu-Jitsu. Basic tactics, they're not basic. They're fundamental to the game. And then everything else is built upon those. So I would say that my thoughts around Jiu-Jitsu training are,

are not more structured, they're less structured. And also, in terms of the style of environment, I like to be in, I like it probably is unstructured, just about as, I mean, there's definitely some structure, but I don't like it to be overly structured. I would rather have people with the mindset of self-discipline rather than imposed discipline. So in other words, you, my students must do as I command and otherwise you will be punished. That's imposed discipline and that's not what I'm looking for. That doesn't expand people's brains. It doesn't make people smarter or able to think differently about situations.

Instead, it entraps their brain. So I want people to have an open mind when they're training judici. I want them to have their own ideas. I don't want them to follow my ideas. I want them to follow, I want them to springboard off of my ideas. And then I want them to give them their ideas back to me so I can springboard off their ideas. That's how you expand your game and get better. And, you know, that means chaos and training.

That means starting in different positions. That means using different pacing, you know, let's do three-minute rounds. Let's do one-minute rounds. Let's do 20-minute rounds. Let's do all these different scenarios that get you ready for different situations. let's use ghee, let's use no gey, let's do put MMA gloves on. Let's hit each other. Let's hit each other during take downs.

Let's mix it up so our brain is constantly trying to or constantly adapting to situations that it didn't expect. That's my BJJ training philosophy. Yeah, you'd think obviously you're a, you know, this military vet obviously you take your class and you're, you're a, you take your class and you're, you're, you're, you know, you're. going to be saying yes sir no sir and but yeah it's kind of the opposite in my experience yeah i'm i'm there to teach not to impose what if someone comes in late how you feel about that come on the mat i'll show what you missed you know better than not i mean i mean yeah definitely better than not coming at all but i mean you think that these guys that have have jobs they they're working they got wives and kids and car accidents and guy shows up late for class thanks for coming man

i appreciate it get in here let's i'll show who you missed and let's let's roll yeah you know i'm not thinking that the guy is in a military organization that is missing his movement to go on an assault no that's not happening the guy is a human that's got a life and jiu jihitsu he's he's there to train so let's help him train yeah that's good do you ever do you ever ever fail to wake up early? Do you ever wake up at, you know, five? Yeah, of course. So.

And if you do, what do you do immediately right when you get up? Okay, so first, do I ever fail to get up early? Yes, the answer is yes. It does happen. And as soon as, you know, if I wake up, now, if I wake up and I go, you know, I slept late, you know, I have multiple alarm clock. Now, so if it's a critical situation, if I have a flight to catch, I got those alarm clocks are all charged and ready to fire. So therefore, there's no sleeping through a situation like that.

Like it cannot happen. It's never happened to me. But if it's, hey, it's a day where I'm not due anywhere and it's a Sunday and I set my alarm clock for 4.30. and I, you know, in the dredge of a nightmare, I wake up and I turn it off and then I decide, oh, I'm going to be weak and lay my head back down. And all of a sudden I wake up and it's 5 or 630 or whatever, and I slept in.

So immediately I feel guilty, you know, because I, the guilt is because I know I missed a great part of my day. You know, I know that I missed the morning. I know I miss the sunrise. And I'm addicted to that feeling of seeing that. and so to miss it, it feels really bad. And once you get in that train of where you get used to that, it becomes addictive.

You love to be up when it's dark. You love to see the sunrise come up. You love to have your day started. It's a very, very positive feeling. It feels really good to do that. And so when you miss it, it's like you went backwards. And it definitely makes you feel bad. And for me, personally, you know, I mean, and, you know,

there's a lot of guys that didn't come back that didn't don't have the opportunity to get up early that don't have the opportunity to seize every day and make something good happen and so I feel guilty that I'm letting those guys down too and you know you just want to uh you want to live a a positive life that's worthy of their sacrifice and and when you don't you feel guilty about it and and of course there's sometimes and I should do this more often when my you know my body does need more sleep and usually I try and make that mean that I go to bed earlier rather than waking up later. So that way you keep your sleep patterns organized. But you know, sometimes it's hard. Life gets in the way and you stay up late and I know there's a lot of folks and there's a lot

of medical proof that says that I should sleep more and we all should sleep more. And that's something I'd like to try out. So at some point in my life just not now. Not right now. Just

not now. Okay. So, final question. How do you take leadership over yourself? Do the same principles apply and, you know, how is it different? Well, first of all, let me say that this question came from a guy on the interwebs named Amos Craig. And I don't even know if that's a real name or maybe his name is Craig Amos. I don't know. He's got a, on Twitter. He's, on Twitter, he's. at D-A-M-O-Z-E-R and what was funny and what made this question stand out was he made a YouTube video of him playing acoustic guitar and singing a song so if you look up on YouTube Amos Craig A-M-O-S Craig and he's got this song it's like a song about jocco Willick and it's actually pretty funny he gets a lot of uh he got a lot of laughs out of me and out of the folks that watched it.

It's actually a catchy song. It is. Like if you play it, like if you were just playing it, you didn't know, Jock Willink, you'd be like, oh, this kind of a cool little,

you know, like a kind of folksy, kind of catchy. Yeah. So he made that song, and it's, like I said, it's funny.

Check it out. It's kind of weird, too, because, you know, no one's ever done some weird stuff like make a song about me. So yeah, that was kind of weird too. I had to get over the weirdness part. At first I was like, oh, oh.

I liked it. This is bizarre. But then he seems like a totally good dude and he was just having a fun time. So good on him. And he asks a question, how do you take leadership over yourself? Do the same principles apply? How is it different? And we actually talked about this a lot today with Von Schell.

And the answer is clearly yes. That is what we were talking about today. And the thing about, leading yourself is you have to be able to detach to lead yourself. And when you detach, if you can detach from inside your brain, then you can become your own leader. And that is where you start to make progress. Any team without a leader doesn't do well. So if you're a human and you don't have leadership of yourself, you're not going to do as well as you could if you are in a leadership position. But the principles are the same with leadership, whether you're leading yourself or whether

you're leading a team. I mean, things like having simple, clear goals and being disciplined and that discipline within the team or within yourself equaling more freedom. We just talked about prioritized and execute. That happens with a team. It happens with an individual. Ownership. Taking extreme ownership. If you're in a team and you take ownership of your problems and everyone takes ownership of the problems within the team, then they solve those problems. Well, guess what? If you're a person and you're leading yourself and you take ownership of when mistakes happen, then guess what? You can solve those problems. If all you do is say, oh, that's not my fault, it's everyone else's fault. No, you're never going to solve those problems. But if you take ownership of when things are going

bad, then you can fix them. So the principles are the same. You have to lead yourself. You are your own leader. And you know, we open today with a heavy, heavy poem and a conversation about a guy. The poem was called a rendezvous with death. And while that is heroic and it's noble and it's courageous and actually guess what? We all have a rendezvous with death. There's no escaping that. And this trip we're on, it's a short one. But instead of thinking about that rendezvous with death, let's instead focus on a rendezvous with destiny. And that's a phrase that you hear it and it sounds almost borderline corny. And I'll tell you why it doesn't to me because I worked with a group in Iraq called the first of the 506th, part of the

101st Airborne Division. And it was one of their sayings that came all the way back from when the when the unit was stood up for World War II. And the major general, a guy named William C. Lee, he said that while the 101st has no history, it has a rendezvous with destiny. And they fulfilled that destiny. The 101st Airborne Division fulfilled that destiny over and over again during D-Day,

during the Battle of Bulge, during the siege of Bastogne. And you know what? When I was in Ramadi, they fulfilled that destiny again, the first of the 506, the band of brothers. So think about that rendezvous, not the rendezvous with death,

but the rendezvous with destiny. And make the most out of the opportunities that you have. Through discipline, through hard work, through focus and drive. And most importantly, that you are responsible for the path you take. Don't waste time with things that don't matter. Get in the game, get in the gym,

get to work, get to living. This is your life. Lead it. Lead your life. Lead it how you want to lead it. Every second of every day. Take that leadership of your life. And that's all I've got for tonight.

So to everyone out there, thanks for listening. Thank you very much for spreading the word. And most of all, Thank you for getting after it. This is Jocko, and until next time, out.