Jocko Podcast - Jocko Podcast #9: “The Motivation” – General Patton, Jiu Jitsu for Streets, Home Gyms, Hero Worship

Episode Date: February 10, 2016

[0:00:00] - "War as I Knew it" - General George S. Patton INTERNET QUESTIONS  [1:15:30] 1:15:30 - Is Jiu Jitsu practical for street defense, knives, multiple attackers, etc? Extension video From Tim Ferriss interview (Facebook) 1:27:36 - Leading UP the chain of command in an organization who's tradition is para-military. 1:33:58 - Essential equipment for a home gym. 1:46:40 - Worrying about hero-worship. 2:05:14 - What motivates Jocko?Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number nine with Echo Charles and me, Jocco Willink. Perhaps I stabbed our Savior in his sacred, helpless side, yet have called his name in blessing when in after times I died. Through the travail of the ages midst the pomp and toil of war, have I fought and strove and perished countless times upon this star. I have sinned and I have suffered, played the hero and the knave, fought for belly, shame, or country, and for each have found a grave. So as through a glass and darkly, the age-long strife I see, where I fought in many guises, many names, but always me. So forever in the future shall I battle as of your, dying,

to be born a fighter, but to die again once more. And that is a poem by General George S. Patton. And I've been thinking about the podcast and about the direction and about the things and about what we talk about and what I talk about. And I was actually, have been looking for a non-military book, for a book that talks about, the same kind of things that I think about, but it's not about war,

because there's a very small population that are engaged in war, in real war. So I've been looking for a book, and I've got a bunch of books, and books that I enjoy and books that I like, and I've been looking for a good book that is not a war book. And I had some close ones,

and maybe they'll make the cut, but we're not there yet. because because quite simply war is at another level that's not better and it's not a good thing and I don't

worship war but it is in fact the ultimate human struggle and as Judge Holden in the book Blood Meridian puts it this is the nature of war whose stake is at once

the game and the authority and the justification. Seen so, war is the truest form of divination. It is the testing of one's will and the will of another within that larger will, which because it binds them is therefore forced to select. War is the ultimate game because war is at last a forcing of the unity of existence. war is God. Now, I'm going to tell you, I'm not going to go into Blood Meridian tonight. Blood Meridian, I've talked about it on a couple occasions, and one day we will.

And it's probably going to take multiple shows, and it's going to take research, but that is a heavy, heavy book that is thick with content and meaning and words that are powerful. And that's a tiny slice of Blood Meridian. And we will get to it at some point. And I actually get, you know, people always like, hey, do Blood Meridian, do Blood Meridian, because there's a lot of people that take a lot of information, a lot of meaning from that book. But I'm not ready yet. I'm not, you know, that's going to take.

And it's the same thing with Shakespeare. People are like, hey, when are you going to do the Bard? And it's the same thing. I want to be fully prepared And I'm either gonna do it Maybe I won't be fully prepared to do the whole thing But maybe we'll take chunks Of blood meridian

Or some chunks as Shakespeare And start to try and digest them Because those are big meals Now That's why We're not talking about a business book tonight That's why we're not talking about a business leader That's why we're not talking about a sports leader

That's when I were not talking about a public figure that had to struggle through whatever to get to the top of the mountain that they were climbing. Or a mountain climber. We're not talking about that. We're talking about war. And like I said, war is not God like Judge Holden describes it in Blood Meridian, but it certainly is a powerful force. and it certainly is the ultimate struggle. The ultimate struggle for life against other humans that want to end your life, and that's it, which brings us to Patton.

And that poem, you know, obviously in Patton's mind, he was a warrior before over and over again. Yeah, he thought he was reincarnated. He thought he was reincarnated. He was a soldier for Caesar. soldier for hundreds and thousands of years. Yeah, yeah. And before I do jump into Patton, I do the tankers, the tankers of the world, the U.S. military.

We worked with the 1-1-A.D., the 1st Brigade First Armored Division in Ramadi Iraq in 2006, the Ready First First, First, First, and the tanks. The 68-ton Abrams main battle tank with a giant turbine engine grinding the street apart as they come to support and rescue and save the seals, which they did over and over again. and there was no better sound in the world than those tanks firing up their engines and putting main gun rounds into buildings to kill bad guys

and protect American troops and we heard a lot about Patton while we were working with the 11-AD because the guy is the kind of the foremost tanker and And even me, I grew up with Patton because the George C. Scott movie was released when I was a kid.

And to this day, I remember watching that for the first time and being, you know, awe struck by Patton. And when you stick your hand into a bunch of goo that a moment ago was your best friend's face, then you'll know what to do. And that's all. And so that was just a That's how I grew up I mean I grew up I watched that movie so many times I can't even remember

Do you still watch it? We watched it in Ramadi We watched it in Ramadi What just to get fired up? Just to get fired up And And it is a great movie But let's talk about the real patent

Who actually In many ways was more colorful And more charismatic And really larger in life In real life then George C. Scott and the movie could make him out to be. I read that he would, when he'd talk and stuff, he'd swear a lot, he'd use a lot of profanity, but he did that on purpose.

He did it like to send a message or to get his guys fired up, but in regular conversation he didn't really swear. He's a mysterious guy with a lot of different facets to him. So I'm going to kick this off. So we're going to the book, George S. Patton, war as I knew it. And interestingly, this book was given to me by Laif, Laif Babin, who wrote Extreme Ownership with me, and who served with me in Ramadi and is one of my brothers. So, General Order No. 18, this is from Patton to his troops.

Soldiers of the 7th Army. born at sea baptized in blood and crowned with victory. In the course of 38 days of incessant battle and unceasing labor, you have added a glorious chapter to the history of war. Pitted against the best Germans and Italians could offer, you have been unfailingly successful. The rapidity of your dash, which culminated in the capture of Palermo,

was equaled by the dogged tenacity with which you stormed Trinia and captured Messina. Every man in the army deserves equal credit. The enduring valor of the infantry and the impetus ferocity of the tanks were matched by the tireous clamor of our destroying guns.

The engineers preferring prodigies in the construction and maintenance of impossible roads over impossible country. The services of maintenance to supply performed a miracle. The signal correlate over 10,000 miles of wire and the medical department evacuated and cared for our sick and wounded. On all occasions, the Navy has given generous and gallant support.

Throughout the operation, our air has kept the sky clear and tirelessly supported the operation of the ground troops. As a result of this combined effort, you have killed or captured 113,350 enemy troops. You've destroyed 265 of his tanks, 2,324 vehicles. and 1,162 large guns. And in addition, you have collected a mass of military booty running into the hundreds of tons. But your victory has a significance be above and beyond its physical aspect. You have destroyed the prestige of the enemy.

The President of the United States, the Secretary of War, the Chief of Staff, General Eisenhower, General Alexander, General Montgomery have all congratulated you. your fame shall never die G.S. Patton Jr., Lieutenant General U.S. Army commanding.

So you were talking about getting fired up and what he would do to get people fired up? There you have it. Obviously a very skilled writer with great command of the language. Can you even imagine what you'd feel like hearing that address to you and your people, you and your troops,

you and your brothers. A little bit about Patton. Few military figures in history have laid siege to the public imagination more relentlessly than George S. Patton Jr. Half a century after his exploits in North Africa on Sicily and across occupied Europe, his name still evokes the dash

and Brewer of a cavalry charge. He is widely considered the best field commander in the American Army of World War II and he is certainly one of the most feared by the Germans who paid him the compliment before Normandy of massing defenses against a non-existent Army patent group. By V.E. Day in 1945, he commanded 18 divisions and 540,000 soldiers, a force comparable to the size of the American military at its peak in Vietnam. The New York Times declared in his obituary, History has reached out and embraced General George Patton. His place is secure.

He was not a man of peace. A man of peace he was not, but his legacy clearly transcends his military conquests. He was complex and contradictory, larger than life, and yet all too human. It is the patent paradox that transfixes. This is something that we've talked about

before on this podcast and it's something that I talk about all the time. And that is people's strengths can be their weaknesses. And you get a guy like Patton who's hyper-aggressive. And that actually ends up being a negative in some cases, even though it's extremely positive in others. Back to the book. A warlord fighting in the name of democracy. He was also an unrepentant aristocratic snob.

So this is a guy that, and they talk about this some more, a guy that was like proud of soldiers almost to a fault he revered soldiers and yet he's an aristocrat his devotion to common soldiers bordered on reverence yet his slapping of two enlisted men nearly caused him to sit out the war in disgrace and we'll get into that a little bit more he exuded confidence and relentless certitude in truth he was insecure and often confused He was well-read, fluent in French, and as a wealthy child of privilege and the husband of an heiress, at home in society's most fashionable salons, he could also be crude, rude, and plain foolish. His humility seemed heartfelt, yet he acknowledged an overdeveloped personal ambition,

and once confessed, I don't like the dirt at all, except as a means. to fame. So, like I said, this guy is a complex guy. This is an assault of the earth, David Hackworth guy, that you never got that from him. You never got that from, like, a guy like Hackworth. Yeah. That he had any sort of quest for glory. Yeah.

He, just a complete opposite. And that's why Patton, for me, is not a pure figure, you know? Not that I would really say that I can think of any pure figures, but he's definitely, a very faulted leader and which makes it good to learn from and he had some of me I mean obviously I should I'm here I am a complete idiot loser sitting here calling uh you know general george as Pat George as Pat and saying he's a faulted leader so don't get me don't get me wrong here yeah the guy was unbelievably uh powerful leader an incredible leader an incredible tactician and strategist.

But, and it is very clear that he had some of those dichotomies that went a little bit too far in one way or the other. As a warrior, back to the book, as a warrior, his fundamental prescription for waging war involved the violent attacks everywhere with everything. Yet he considered the carpet bombing of German cities to be barbaric, useless, and sadistic. So that's a contradiction you don't hear very much about him. And here's how you've seen by the higher-ups a little bit. Eisenhower, who once referred to Patton as this mentally unbalanced officer,

also told George Marshall, Patton is a problem child. But he is a great fighting leader in pursuit and exploitation. A division commander described the general as invaluable in war, but a disturbing element in times of peace. And to that, Patton was flattered. But perhaps the epitaph you would treasure most came from one of his soldiers before the Allied invasion of France. Here is a man for whom you would go to hell and back.

So clearly to his troops, they held him in very high regard. Quote from Patton, may God have mercy on my enemies. They will need it. that's the kind of thing that when he says people you know the front line troopers are going to hear that and say yes

we are ready to roll he also said leadership is a thing that wins battles I have it but I'll be damned if I can define it in Patton's career we see certain trademarks a relentless aggression and faith in the offensive

an uncanny instinct for enemy intentions and disposition common theme that we talk about all the time being on offense being aggressive and Patton was an absolute probably I think he is probably the most aggressive of of the people that we've talked about and of pretty much I think of anyone I've ever heard of and it goes a little bit negative and we see to the creeping arrogance the hubris which would cost the American army so dearly in Vietnam, summing up the achievements of his troops in crushing the German counterattack of December 1944, Patton with ponderable pride claims to have moved farther and

faster and engaged more divisions in less time than any other army in the history of the United States, possibly in the history of the world. No country can stand against such an army. This smug pride, The disease of victory. And I love that. That's a little something we should all remember. The disease of victory. Victory is supposed to be all positive, but guess what? There is something called the disease of victory.

Back to the book. This disease of victory would rot the army from within, leading future commanders to underestimate their enemies and overestimate their own battlefield prowess. tragically, the only antidote to this disease of victory would be the humiliation of defeat. We see that sometimes in sports. We see it in sports.

We see it in business. Sometimes people need to get humbled. And when they get humbled, they get arrogant from the victories, and then they get humbled, and they get back in the game. And they realize what they have to do to win. Back to the book. His passion for military life ran so deep that he considered it as natural for me to be a soldier as to breathe. War, he claimed, is the only place where a man really lives.

Beyond a keen interest in technological developments of armored vehicles and airplanes, he retained a near fanatical belief in the importance of being mentally and physically ready to fight. Even in war-wary 1920s, he admonished junior officers, you must school yourself to savagery. And speaking of savagery,

this is the slaps when he slapped these young enlisted troopers. The infamous slaps heard round the world. Patton's memoir gives the episode short shrift.

But it nearly wrecked his life. In early August, while visiting wounded troops on Sicily, the commander cuffed a soldier who had been diagnosed as suffering from battle fatigue. Patton called it cowardice. Further examination revealed the man had malaria and dysentery. A week later, Patton repeated his behavior with another soldier, and this time made motions to draw his pistol as if to shoot the wretch. Patton publicly apologized, but remained privately unrepent.

Had other officers had the courage to do likewise, he wrote, the shameful use of battle fatigue as an excuse for cowardice would have been infinitely reduced. So that was a significant incident. He publicly apologized, but he obviously didn't really mean that. He felt he had done the right thing. But still, there was much glory to be won. Patton's exploit in the battle the bulge,

abruptly wheeling his army around and driving 100 miles through the icy Ardennes to hit the Germans in the flank with 17 divisions remains among the most storied campaigns in modern warfare. And then after the war, as Europe was now almost an occupied state in many places, and as people talked about Patton being good for war but not being good for peace and that turned out to be pretty accurate. No longer able to attack, he indeed became bullious. Patton was arrogant, defiant, and erratic as the summer of 1945 passed. And that's kind of the intro on Patton.

Now, going back now to the beginning of the war. And his first, one of his early journal entries, he says, have been giving everyone a simplified directive of war. Use steamroller strategy. That is, make up your mind on course and direction of action and stick to it. but in tactics do not steamroller attack weakness hold them by the nose and kick them in the pants this is something that we talk about all the time it's it's flanking people it's not keeping not going into their strengths and keep attacking their strengths no you you attack their strengths

to keep them occupied but then you come around to the flank you know it's in jiu jitsu you attack the arm and you get the neck or you attack the neck and you get the arm. In combat, it's flanking. That's what it is. And he was a master of this and pushed it very, very hard. Now, we can get into a little bit more of his, what he says are his reflections and suggestions. And in this book, if you do end up getting this book, I'm basically skipping the war part.

The entire book is about what he did and how he did it. And I'm skipping that. And I've said this before because I like to know about what they did and how they did it, because that is important. But I like to know why they did it and what they were thinking and what principles they were following. And this book beautifully breaks it down. Again, it's written by him. But it breaks down what he was thinking.

and why he did take these actions and what his strategies and tactics were. And this is great because he starts off saying something that's very similar to what Laf and I say in the beginning of our book, which is like, we didn't invent this stuff. So here's General George As Patton saying the same thing. Probably there is nothing original in what I shall now put down because war is an ancient subject. and I, an ancient man, have studied and practiced it for over 40 years. So what appears to me as original thought may be simply subconscious memories. So he's saying, I didn't necessarily think of all this.

Then Leif and I, in the beginning of our book, say the same thing. Concerning the soldier, is the army. No army is better than its soldiers. The soldier is also a citizen. In fact, the highest obligation and privilege of citizenship is that of bearing arms for one's country. Hence, it is a privilege to be a soldier, a good soldier. To be a good soldier, a man must have discipline, self-respect, pride in his unit, and his country. A high sense of duty and obligation to his comrades and to his superiors and self-confidence born.

of demonstrated ability. His number one characteristic was discipline, which should come as no surprise. There has been and is now a great deal of talk about discipline, but few people in or out of the army know what it is or why it is necessary. No sane man is unafraid in battle. But discipline produces in him a form of vicarious courage. which with his manhood makes for victory. Self-respect grows directly from discipline.

Self-confidence, the greatest military virtue, results from the demonstrated ability derived from the acquisition of all the preceding qualities and from exercise in the use of weapons. So self-confidence comes from practice and skill, and that's derived from discipline. Discipline is clearly a subject we talk about quite a bit. And its importance in the military is cannot be overstated.

It really can't be. And I would go so far as to tell you that discipline's importance in life cannot be overstated. The root of all good characteristics is the discipline. Battles are won by fire and by movement. The purpose of movement is to get the fire in a more advantageous place to play on the enemy. This is from the rear or the flank. You're going to hear this guy talk about flanks all the time. He's going to talk about fire and move.

He's going to talk about cover and move, as Laif and I called it in our book. Cover and move. And this is, again, this is teamwork. Teamwork. Constantly working with your team. and your other teams that are with you to make sure that if I'm putting down cover fire, you're moving, you're moving.

And when you're putting down cover fire, I'm moving. You've got to work together to make that happen. And every business in the world has multiple little units in it that have to cover and move. Talking about bravery and courage. If we take the generally accepted definition of bravery as a quality which knows not fear,

I have never seen a brave man. All men are frightened. The more intelligent they are, the more frightened they are. The courageous man is the man who forces himself, in spite of his fear, to carry on. And where does that come from? It comes from discipline, pride, self-respect, self-confidence, and the love of glory are attributes.

which will make a man courageous even when he is afraid. There's not too many people. I mean, Hackworth would never talk about the love of glory. Just not, not his deal. Not his deal. What you mentioned about bravery, how you were talking with Sam Harris about it, where bravery is only present if you are scared of something.

Because if you're not scared of it, you're not being brave to overcome anything or to go, you know, to do anything. any kind of activity that's, you know, that you're scared of. So the very... Although I don't know if I necessarily agree with that. Because there's guys that are, you know, he says he's never seen anyone that's not afraid. I've seen some pretty...

I mean, it's almost the word to use this. Like crazy. Guys that are just so brave and you look at them and they, you go, this guy's going to sky. I had guys with me, you know, in my task unit. and some of those guys were so brave that I didn't think they were going to make at home. Is it because they were like, it's like they weren't scared to die at all like it didn't? Yeah, and you see the almost a lack of self-preservation. Right.

You know, not stupid, not suicidal, but like, oh, this guy doesn't think he can be killed. You know, we were talking about that on the last podcast. And I forget the name of the major that was on the beach landing at Tarawa, I think. And he's up and he's like, hey, look, they can't hit me. Come on. I've seen guys do that. Yeah. So as far as actual bravery goes, though.

So would you consider that? Like, let's say, okay, two guys are going to go go do some. let's say an MMA fight, right? And one guy's just really scared of competing in front of people. It's his first fight or something like that. Then you have this other guy who's not, who just feels different. Same exact situation, but he's like fired up. He's not scared at all.

And they both go into it. Did they both exercise the same bravery? Yeah, I don't know. You know, and I don't know if it matters. Yeah. For one thing I can tell you, the guy that's acting like he's not scared is probably the that's more scared. Yeah.

With MMA fights. And I actually see that combat two guys that are overly like bravado are probably more scared. And again, there's nothing wrong with that. I'm not holding it against them. But, you know,

I've seen guys sitting in briefs to go out on operations that you can tell are, are petrified. Yeah. Usually it's a guy that's not used to it. Maybe someone that's visiting. in an area of operations and shows up and it's, oh, we're going to take you on an operation. And you get to see them, they're scared because they're not used to it. All the guys from my task unit, you know, they might be scared, but they're confident.

They know what they're doing. They've put that fear aside over and over again. So it's not that big of a deal, but you see a guy dealing with that fear for the first time. And especially stands out because you've got a bunch of confident guys that know, that understand that understand the risks so you can see their faces then you see like that guy that's come in from another area and is going to go out an operation and and they're they're tapping their toes during the brief and they're looking around yeah yeah and they got to overcome that fear and if they stay there for a few weeks though they'll they'll get used to it too yeah so it could

kind of be looked at as um just just the act itself whatever act if it's understood as being yeah Sam Harris's point was that it doesn't matter. If there's a machine gun nest and you're horrified to go charge it and I'm not and we both go charge it, you just had to pretend that you weren't scared. It doesn't matter. You were still being brave. Right, right. And I didn't have to pretend, but I'm being brave.

So it doesn't matter whether you're pretending or not. You're brave if you go. Right. Or maybe to overcome or do something that's understood generally as being scary. just because it's not scared to you. You're still being just as brave. You are. But yeah, I think, yeah, and I guess in a real black and white terms, it's like,

if you're not scared of this activity you're doing and you do it and you're not scared of it, then you're not being brave. And that's just generally speaking. You know, it's a good example, skydivers. Yeah. Skydivers with 5,000 jumps, they're not scared anymore. I mean, I know even when I've done like, you know, 50 jumps, you're not really scared anymore. Right.

You're just doing it. And guys that have thousands of jump, they're not scared at all. That's what they do. Right. So they're not being brave. They're just doing their job. They're just doing their thing. Yeah.

So what if some guy's jumping out for the first time and he's scared and he overcomes that fear and jumps out? He is being brave. Yeah. Right? So yeah, that's kind of a point. Yeah. So if I go outside and check the mail, I'm not being brave. No, you're not being brave.

But what if there's like a tiger or something out there? And I really need that mail. That's pretty brave, right? Tigers, going after tigers. Yeah, you're right. You're right. Section here, small unit tactics. And you know, I was questioning whether I wanted to put this in there, but I know that I'm getting a lot of feedback from guys that are in the military, guys that are in SWAT, and this is something that I used to talk about, and I know it's true.

Squads should seldom be split. So you want to keep your forces together as much as possible. However, if it is necessary to split a squad, be sure that the unit separated as at least capable of mutual supports. This is something I used to hammer the SEALs about if you get too far away from your other unit where you can't support. them anymore, that's problematic now that other units alone. And that means that each unit that's separate should have the ability to support. It means it has to have some firepower and some strength. This means that the unit separated from the squad should have not fewer than three men.

The squad possesses in itself weapons necessary for a base and fire and maneuvering element. This should be its invariable method of attack, but the squad leader should not spend so much time thinking. which way he is going to envelop that he suffers casualties which would have been avoided had he attacked at once. So don't hesitate. Don't sit around. When it's time to get it on, get it on. Patton's all about the taking action.

Another small unit tactic. This is a short one. Always capture the highest terrain feature in your vicinity at once. and stay on it. And that is something that we executed all the time in Ramadi. Get in the high ground, get in those buildings, find the three-story building amongst the two-story buildings, find a two-story building amongst the one-story building.

Always looking for that high ground in the rural areas, any kind of knoll, any kind of bump, anything that gives you the high ground is what you're looking for. And as I said last time, from an ethical and from a moral standpoint, High ground. Take the high ground or the high ground will take you. You got to watch out for that. Don't delay.

The best is the enemy of the good. And these are, I mean, that's just a common saying now. The best is the enemy of the good. By this I mean that a good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan next week. war is a very simple thing and the determining characteristics are self-confidence, speed, and audacity. None of these things can ever be perfect

but they can be good. He's talking about now general officers meaning the senior leaders and these apply to everything and not just senior leaders. There are more tired division commanders than there are tired divisions. Tired officers are always pessimists.

Remember this when evaluating reports. Generals must never show doubt, discouragement, or fatigue. Generals should always adhere to one type of dress so that soldiers will recognize them. They must always be very neat. And most importantly, from my perspective, I like what he says here. In cold weather, general officers must be careful not to appear to dress more warmly than the men. You don't want to do that. You don't want to be in the comfort zone when the boy.

are suffering. You look like you're debating that. No, no, no, no. I'm not debating. I was thinking about it. It's good. Because you're about to get shut down. I have a question.

Send the question. So, let's say you're a boss, right? You have this office and this office is like decked out. Meanwhile, everyone on your team may have normal offices. Is that an example of what he's against? No, generally because you actually do have more work to do. You have to have meetings in your office. And, and it's in,

too because I didn't highlight it in this for this series but they were saying that General Patton wasn't a four-star general he was a 28-star general because when he would put his full uniform on he had four stars on his collar on each collar four star in each shoulder four stars in the helmet and four stars on each one of the handles of his of his pearl handled pistol grip 45s so the guy was like a little bit of I mean that's a that's a showman, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a diva, right? Yeah. So he didn't, you know, he knew that there's a certain amount of showmanship. Yeah.

To being in a leadership position. And that's sort of what he's talking about by being recognizable. I mean, he's very recognizable. He had stars all over his cars and everything. Yeah. So it's more like the comfort of battle. Yeah, but you could, you could as a CEO, you could absolutely take that to the wrong level where you're, you know, just living in total luxury and all your people are out and, cramped into cubicles that you know your your folks would definitely look at you in a negative way

yeah but to but to have what's needed for the job you know when i was t u commander i had an office that was mine you know and i had space in there to work right um but i wasn't you know shipping in steaks for me to have every night while the men were eating right right morees yeah so just got to be careful keep yourself in check a little bit What about when you travel, you go first class? Meanwhile, you send your team and coach. That, once again, sometimes the boss is traveling in first class because when he lands, he's got to present. And he's got to be a little bit better rested.

Sometimes the boss man is just sick of being cramped in a little tiny seats. But yeah, you do got it. You got to keep that in check. And I'll tell you, when I worked for the admiral of all the seals, we didn't fly first class. We were in the cheap seats. They are very careful about that. They don't want to think that the, oh, the military elite is flying around first class. No, we were in the cheap seats sitting in the back of Delta, you know, eating peanuts.

Yeah. Yeah, there's so many justifiable reasons in business. And I think you would go along with that, too. But you just got to use your judgment. You know, you've got to use your judgment and make sure that, you know, everyone's wearing, you know, a 10-year-old field jacket when it gets cold. and you're wearing a brand new down and Gortex jacket. Right.

Your people are going to not respect you. Yeah. You know, you can't just deck yourself out when the boys or the troopers are suffering. Yeah. Yeah, and how he mentioned where, or how you mentioned what he's talking about, where it can be categorized as being recognizable.

Right. So there's a lot of things, even stuff outside of just uniform, that a CEO, how he presents himself, that'll keep him recognizing. for all these reasons, but I'm sure I'm sure most of the time no one's perfect where they're gonna, they're gonna start doing it just because

but you do have to, you know, there's good business leaders now that follow this type of lead. I mean, look at some of these new younger business leaders. They're not getting decked out. Yeah. I saw a picture of the guy that runs Facebook. I saw a picture of his closet the other day. He's got a bunch of gray t-shirts in there.

Right. And from what I here, I've been to the office or nothing, he he doesn't have an office he there's this open space everyone's coding and stuff like that and he's just cruising in in there as well you know so yeah there's yeah i guess there's all kinds of different philosophies yeah yeah yeah i guess they depend on the business as well yeah however this part is undebatable a general officer who will invariably assume the responsibility for failure whether he deserves it or not and invariably gives credit for success to others, whether they deserve it or not, will achieve outstanding success. It's a little something that we call extreme ownership.

That's the name of our book. It's someone that's taking ownership. And there's George S. Patton. Sorry for jacking your ideas, George S. Patton. I think that's crazy how that was like such a prominent idea back then. Yeah. Because like growing up and I don't know, I just never heard about that. I know.

And when Laf and I presented this book to people, they don't say, oh, this is a very common theme that I've heard my whole life. No, they go, this is outstanding. And we're saying the exact same thing that General George's Patton is saying right here, which is obviously extremely important. Issuing orders. The best way to issue orders is by word of mouth from one general to the next. Failing this, telephone conversations, which should be recorded at each end. However, in order to have a confirmatory memorandum of all oral orders given a short written order should always be made out, not necessarily at the time of issuing the order, but it should reach the junior prior to carrying out the order. So that if he has forgotten anything, he will be reminded of it and further in order that he may be aware that his senior has taken definite responsibility for the operation ordered orally.

This is something that I used to do this all the time. If I had a conversation with my boss, I still do it to this day. If I have a conversation with someone and we talk about something, I'm following it up with a little email. Because also oral conversations, people hear what they want to hear. And they might hear two different things. You know, if I tell you, hey, we're going to record this podcast. Hey, can we record this podcast on Saturday? You're like, oh, yeah, definitely.

Does that mean we are? Does that mean, in your mind, you think we are. But I didn't come back. You know, so I just follow stuff up, and I used to do that in seal teams, too. You know, I'd get in an order. I'd get, I'd have a conversation with someone that was either above me or below me or whatever. Yeah. I'd follow it up with an email of what I thought the conversation meant and say, hey, just to confirm

what we talked about, here's the three bullet points. I'm going to do this. You're going to do that. We're going to do this. And boom, it's done. And we have a document of it and it exists and that way we were confirmed. Yeah. And so how you bring up that example where if you say, hey, can we record a podcast on Saturday?

technically you just that's a yes or no question like yes we can like we're we have that ability that's a night you didn't schedule anything technically you said so i could have taken it either way you could be like yeah we can and i show up here at eight and you're oh yeah i didn't know we're actually gonna do it you just said you know um when i first started getting more more hiring clients it was immediately noticeable that that was a common thing they'd always follow up with with an email right after and helps so much man it does you got to do it. It is my,

oh, this, I love this. It is my opinion that Army orders should not exceed a page and a half of typewritten text and it was my practice

not to issue orders longer than this. Usually they can be done on one page and the back of the page is used for a sketch map. And my favorite part about this is

if you get someone that can't give you their orders in like a page, then that means their orders are too complicated. Yeah. That means they need to simple their plan.

And he's going to say this a few times. Commanders must remember that the issuance of an order or the devising of a plan is only about 5% of the responsibility of command. The other 95% is to ensure by personal observation or through interposing of staff officers that the order is carried out. Orders must be issued early enough to permit time to disseminate them. So he's saying like, hey, it's only 5% of your job to come up with a plan. and disseminate the plan, the other 95% of your job is to make sure it happens.

Take ownership of the plan and get it implemented. And this is the most important part of this section. Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity. So you want to give them sort of the broad, hey, this is what I want you to get done and let them figure out how to do it. You're not going to be able to tell everybody on your team what to do and how to do it and all that.

You've got to let them run. Yeah. You got to use the little decentralized command, as we like to say. Yeah. In the creative world, that's a really, really significant thing to just say what you want and then let that person do it. Because if you have some creative vision. Let's do a little critique of Jocko.

How do I do with that? Because you're sort of the creative end here. Yeah. And how am I? Good. Because of all I do, I say, you know what echo? Here's what I think. Yeah.

And then I just back away. Yeah. And I let you run with your game. Yeah. And that's the way to go for sure. No, I don't micromanage. Especially in the creative. Well, I don't know.

I'm sure it's equally as applicable everywhere. Yeah. Right. I realize that I can't. When you got an expert, you know, it's the same thing. It was in the teams. It's the same thing in the business world. If you're the big boss, man, you shouldn't.

You're not going to know how to do all the technical things at the folks on the front line. You're not going to have the creativity because you don't have the capability because you've got other things you should be worrying about. So get on those other things and let your people run. Yeah. Let them run. It is sad to remember that when anyone has fairly mastered the art of command, the necessity for that art usually expires, either through the termination of the war or through the advanced age of the commander. and this is just a damn shame

and it's the way it is and it's this way in the military you're the when you start feeling like you've really gotten good at that job you're on to your next job and that doesn't feel good it's a bummer

and there was a little example when I talked about him being ultra aggressive and this is from a section this is from a section which I didn't take, I don't think I took much out of it all. This one's called,

or this section was called, I ring my pain. He talks about these important decisions that he made, but they're a little bit complex, some of them. But this one was fairly concise. About the 5th of September, it became apparent that we would run out of gasoline,

he's talking about for his tanks. We would run out of gasoline. I directed the two core to continue the advance until the tanks ran out of gas and then to go on on foot. This was a, actually done and the bridgehead across the Mazzel River was secured as a result.

There was considerable resistance on the part of the Corps commanders to do what appeared to them an unnecessarily dangerous operation. Its success again proved that it was not dangerous. So that's pretty aggressive. Hey, you drive until the tanks running a gas and the tanks run out of gas and get out of the tanks and walk. That's pretty legit. We used to say like, hey, in the SEAL teams, hey, we're We're going to take the boats, the boats run out of gas.

We'll tow the boats. If the towing boats run out of gas, we'll get out and swim. We'll keep going until we get it done. Letter of instruction number two. So these are what this guy, and I love this. This is what this guy was writing as instructions to be handed out to all of his men. I mean, and this is documented. So you wonder what Patton thinks about?

You don't have to wonder. It's right here. So here's his letter of instruction number two. Discipline. There is only one sort of discipline. Perfect discipline. Men cannot have good battle discipline and poor administrative discipline. Discipline is based on pride in the profession of arms,

on meticulous attention to detail, and on mutual respect and confidence. Discipline must be a habit so ingrained that it is stronger than the excitement of battle or the fear of death. and this is why it's every day and every decision that you make and keeping that discipline. And I actually have been hearing, you know, I hear that this, this, that your willpower deteriorates. And I actually don't believe that. I think the more, they say, oh, you know, throughout the day, your willpower, if you test

it too many times, it gets weaker and weaker. And I actually don't believe that. I actually believe it gets stronger. Mine gets stronger. When I'm, the more I hold the line, the stronger, the whole. hold is, the better the grip is. And that's day by day, day by day. Day by day. And normally,

like, it's all together. It's all grouped together. When you wake up early and you get your workout in, you just stay on track. You're like, you know what, I'm not going to eat that food that I don't need right now. You know, it's so much easier. But the day when you're like, I didn't worry, I woke up late

and I didn't get my workout done and you know what, there's a donut. You know, and you break down. So you want to use the Discipline and forces discipline. Yeah. Discipline, more discipline makes more discipline. Yeah, it kind of seems like that it would be just like any other exercise, right?

You're exercising your discipline. And I don't know, but maybe this is what that means when they say your willpower wears down. Let's say you're trying to stick to this diet, right? And you're going to be like, hey, I'm not going to let myself get too hungry. Because when I let myself get too hungry, I know that donuts seem way more. viable. Donuts are not viable. But, you know, as far as the pay off, you know, debtor, it, you know, it's like basically, so if I test my willpower, I'm just saying throughout the span of a day or, you know, however many hours when you start to get hungry. So they're saying, okay, so let's say you take your hunger to a certain point, then you say, you know what, I'm going to stick, stay strong. Usually I eat way before this, but I'm really hungry. I really want those donuts, but you know what? I'm going to stick with it, right? And you have that that one experience of taking your hunger to a certain point and still sticking to it. You do that, you let your hunger go on for even more.

That's your willpower wearing down, wearing down. But let's say you stuck to it, boom, and you stuck to it that day. Then the next day, you have experience going that far in your hunger and you will be stronger and know how to deal with it. I actually disagree with you. I think that when you stay strong, you get stronger. and when you break, like how often does this happen? I'll just have one bite of that donut. For me, every single time.

And then you have that one bite of what happens. Yeah, that donuts get crushed. Every single one bite, 10 bites, same thing. So that's what I'm saying. Stay strong. Hold your discipline in place. Yeah, so to compare that to like a workout, right? So let's say I do a hard set of, I don't know, push-ups.

Then I do another hard set of push-ups. I'm going to be less strong on that second set. and I do another set. I keep testing it, but the next day or the next week, I'm going to have benefits from that workout. Yeah. So it does reinforce. So the workout, the fatigue is that temporary fatigue,

then you recover from it and then you're stronger in that way. But I think the better example is like when you say no to the one bite, it's easier to say no to the whole donut. Yeah. When you say yes to the one bite, it's easier to say yes to the whole no dot. So say no to donuts. Keep your discipline intact. Discipline, back to the book.

Discipline can only be obtained when officers are so imbued with the sense of their awful obligation to their men and to their country that they cannot tolerate negligence. Officers who fail to correct errors or to praise excellent are valueless in peace and dangerous misfits in war. So he's giving equal equal importance to correcting errors and praising excellence. You can see how important that is and that's something that I've never been very good at.

I was never a big praiser of excellence and in reading this I look back and say I should have done that more. Officers must assert themselves by example and by voice. They must be preeminent, encourage, deportment, and dress. One of the primary purposes

of discipline is to produce alertness. A man who is so lethargic that he fails to salute will fall an easy victim to the enemy. So the discipline just keeps you on track. Combat experience has proven that ceremonies such as formal guard mounts, formal retreat formations, and regular and supervised revelry formations are a great help and in some cases essential to prepare men and officers for battle to give them that perfect discipline, that smartness of a appearance, that alertness without which battles cannot be won. And this is something, you know, the SEAL teams for sure are very undisciplined when it comes

to uniforms, when it comes to march. I mean, we don't march. I mean, we barely can get in, whenever a bunch of SEALs have to do something militaristic, it's usually a pretty, we have to dumb it down and make it as easy as possible because we just don't do it enough. You know, and that's just, that's, I'm just, I'm kind of stating that because we spend all of our time, you know, when we're, when we're practicing for war, we're not doing anything ceremonial.

We practice for war. So this is kind of a, a funny little dichotomy there is that seals generally are not ready for military inspection, but they're ready for combat. So there's a little, little hypocritical, a little hypocritical item about that. Combat principles. Number one, there is no approved solution to any tactical situation. Little theme of creativity coming back again. Yeah.

There's no approved solution. You've got to figure it out. There is only one tactical principle, which is not subject to change. It is to use the means at hand to inflict the maximum amount of wounds, death, and destruction on the enemy in the minimum amount of time. That's a pretty simple and straightforward principle and according to General Patton it does not change Battles are won by frightening the enemy fear is induced by inflicting death and wounds on him Death and wounds are produced by fire fire from the rear is more deadly and three times more effective than that from the front but to get fire behind the enemy you must hold him

by frontal fire and move rapidly around his flank. Frontal attacks against prepared positions should be avoided if possible. I told you who's going to talk about flanks. He's talking about flanks. Catch the enemy by the nose with fire and kick him in the pants with fire in place through movement. That's flanks. You can never get too strong. Get every man and gun you can secure,

provided it does not unduly delay your attack. I used to say, we'd try to figure out how many guys we'd bring on a mission and I'd get some kind of, you know, restriction like, hey, we only want you to bring this many guys. And I'd say, well, this isn't soccer where we're only allowed to bring 11 per side. Why would I not bring 38 if I can bring 38? Why would I stop myself at 287? You know, bring as many people as you can. Let's go. Let's rock and roll.

The larger force and the more violence you use in the attack, whether it be men, tanks or ammunition, the smaller will be your proportional losses. Violence of action is what we used to call that in the SEAL teams. Violence of action. Never yield ground. It is cheaper to hold what you have than to retake what you have lost. Never permit a unit to dig in until the final objective is reached. Then dig, wire, and mine.

So you can't rest until you get too good spot. This is a little statement I use a lot in jihadism. to coaching because people, they get in a position and they rest before it's time to rest. Right. You know, you've got to get the guard back. You've got to, if someone pass your guard, you don't settle there on your back and let them settle in and start to smash you. As soon as someone passes your guard, you're recovering.

You don't settle down until you're back to a good position. You can never do that. I noticed that, and I actually brought it up to you, remember, last, just last week or whatever, we rolled. And I was like, there's something that I noticed about you that, and that was that in the scramble, you won't just settle and hang out in my guard. You don't even accept the guard. And we talked about it a long time ago before, but it was really, for whatever reason, just really prevalent that day, that, yeah, in the scramble, you know, a scramble goes on for, let's say, a longer time. Let's say the scramble goes on for six seconds, right? It's a pretty

long scrambles. It seems like you still wouldn't you wouldn't even stop the scramble until you're beyond the guard. You know? Yeah, you won't just hang out when me, I'll sit right in that guard and get my rest on. Yeah. And it's surprisingly

painfully effective. Yeah. Yeah. I was talking to Dean about that yesterday. If Dean isn't a mindset where he's accepting a guard pass or he's accepting, it becomes a much much, much easier game.

When he decides he's not going to let you settle until he gets to the advantageous position, it's a nightmare. Yeah. Because he won't stop moving, and he's a good scrambler. Yeah. Yeah. You know what's interesting about these? I have a note in here that, you know, he said never yield ground, never permitted

units dig in. He says never. And that's something that I don't say. Right. Because it takes away the fact that, of what he said earlier about there's no written rule, there's no approved method. Right. You shouldn't use that word never because sometimes you should yield ground.

Right. And sometimes you should dig in even when the final objective is. So I know he's just being extreme, but it is, I did make a note of that to point out. General training, back to the book. More emphasis will be placed on the hardening of men and officers. All soldiers and officers should be able to run a mile with combat pack in 10 minutes and March 8 miles and 2 hours. The hardening of men and officers. He goes on to say, sharpen axes, pickaxes, and shovels now and keep them sharp.

That's just an attitude, right? Look, the pickaxe that you're going to use to dig in, make it sharp. In case you've got to hack somebody's brain out. Keep it sharp. Yeah. Battles are fought by platoons and squads. Place emphasis on small unit combat instructions so that it's conducted in the same precision as close order drill. A good solution applied with vigor now is better than a perfect solution 10 minutes later.

Common theme. Needless requirements. He's actually got a section in here called needless requirements. There is a tendency, and I used to see this in the military and I see it in businesses now. This is the needless requirements. There is a tendency for the chain of command to overload junior officers by excessive requirements in a way of training and reports. You will alleviate this burden by eliminating non-essential demands. You go to any business and they've got reports that people are generating and meetings that they're attending and conference calls.

That's what this is about. Those are needless requirements. Get rid of them. Yeah, man, especially those meetings. I think people just like meetings because it helps them think they help them think or feel. Like they're doing something. They're doing something. You know what you do?

You make meetings 20 minutes long. Just call them on the phone. Yeah, or you just call them on the phone. Yeah. But meetings make your meetings 20 minutes long. If you have to schedule them, show up on the meeting, ready to,

you don't need to learn anything. Let's know what we're going to talk about. Let's talk about the decision. Because that's what everyone needs to get on the phone for. It's for the decision. Yeah. You can get informed by reading a quick bulleted list. So don't go over those bullets with me

when I already did that. Yeah, yeah. Unless they have questions. or something like that. Like, I felt that. Yeah, if you got a question, that's what I'm saying. That's the discussion piece. Yeah.

And then in the meeting, a lot of the time, let's say there's a meeting of 10 guys. And let's say three, four guys are discussing stuff. And maybe they're trying to solve this problem that they specifically have. And then the other few guys, they feel compelled to want to be contributing to the meeting. So they say just more of the stuff that's so unnecessary, just so they can have something to say in the meeting.

Sidebar. Take it somewhere else. You've angered echo, people. You've angered echo. The meetings, yeah. Keep them 20 minutes. There's a whole, there's a whole lot of people in America in business world that are listening to that. Needless requirements.

And they're thinking about the needless requirements they fulfill in a daily basis. And it makes them angry. Yeah. It's a source of frustration. I talk to folks about it all the time. But they feel like they don't have time to do their job. And we felt like that in the military. They're like, are you serious?

We have to do. you know, fill out this document, attend another call with the so-and-so commander. Just tell me, you know, give me the highlights and let me do my work. I got a job to do here, people. Infantry. Infantry must move in order to close with the enemy. Infantry must move in order to close with the enemy. It must shoot in order to move.

Again, there's cover and move. When physical targets are not visible, the fire of all infantry weapons must search the area occupied by the enemy. Use marching fire. It reduces the accuracy of his fire and increases our confidence. Shoot short. Rickshays make nastier sounds and wounds.

That's something that they used to have us do all the time in the SEAL teams. So you make sure you're shooting low. If you're going to make a mistake, aim low. So the rounds hit in front of where the enemy is, and they ricochet up and they hit him with all kinds of frag and rocks. And you have a chance of still hitting them. If you're shooting over their head and it misses them, it's gone. Gotcha.

Yeah. Interesting. To halt under fire is folly. To halt under fire and not fire back is suicide. And this is what we just talked about in Jiu-Jitsu. To halt under fire, that's what you're doing. Yeah. When you let me keep scrambling, when you stop scrambling, that's when I'm going to get a little, you're halting under fire.

And guess what? It says here that that is suicide. Move forward out of fire. Officers must set the example. few men are killed by the bayonet many are scared by it bayonets should be fixed when the firefight starts bayonets must be sharpened by the individual soldier

the german hates the bayonet and is inferior to our men with it our men should know this little psychological warfare here you gotta sharpen your own bayonet you're better at it than the enemy put that thing on the end of your gun when the fire fight starts and get ready to get some.

Yeah. That's General Patton right there, keeping it real. It works for General Patton. Care of men. Officers are responsible not only for the conduct of their men in battle, but also for their health and contentment when not fighting. An officer, and this is where he's going back to the CEO and how they act,

an officer must be the last man to take shelter from fire and the first to move forward. Similarly, he must be the last man to look after his own comfort at the close of a march. He must see that his men are cared for. The officer must constantly interest himself in the rations of the men. He should know his men so well that any sign of sickness or nervous strain will be apparent to him, and he can take such action as may be necessary. Same thing we were talking about.

and we're about to wrap this up here with a couple more and I kind of saved the best for last to be quite honest with you such as this right here command leadership this is actually another letter of instructors so again this is just what

you want to know how General Patton thought here it is his own words on what he wanted his men to know as they prepared for combat leadership full duty each in his appropriate sphere will lead in person any commander who fails to obtain his objective and who is not dead or severely wounded has not done his full duty doesn't need to be much clearer than that yeah there's your there's your standard if you're not dead or severely wounded and you haven't achieved your objective,

objective, you haven't done your full duty. Visits to the front. The commanding general or his chief of staff should visit the front daily. The function of these is to observe, not to meddle. In addition to their own specialty, they must observe and report anything of military importance. Remember that praise is more valuable than blame. So if you're going to go to the frontline troops,

don't go up there and blame them. Praise them. Remember, too, that your primary mission as a leader is to see with your own eyes and be seen by your troops while engaged in personal reconnaissance. Execution. In carrying out a mission, the promulgation of the order represents not over 10% of your responsibility. The remaining 90% consists in assuring by means of personal supervision on the ground by yourself and your staff proper and vigorous execution. And that's one we already talked about. Yeah, you put together the plan.

Yeah, you disseminated the plan. That's great. Your job is to make it happen and ensure that it happens. Take ownership of it and execute it. Plans. Plans must be simple and flexible. Actually, they are only a form of data plane from which you build as necessity directs or opportunity offers. So he's saying that plan.

is just a just something to build off of as as necessity directs or opportunity offers. I got asked this the other day at a at an event, you know, when do you know when it's time to change the plan? When I, you know, when necessity directs or opportunity offers. That's when you make the change. Plans should be made by the people who are going to execute them. Formal orders. formal orders will be preceded by letters of instruction

and by personal conferences in this way the whole purpose of the operation will be made clear together with the mission to be accomplished by each major unit so he's saying the whole purpose of the operation

will be made clear so that if during combat communication breaks down each commander can and must so act as to obtain the general objective. There you go. So if you understand what the overall broad mission is when we go out to attack and all of a sudden you're separated from us or you don't can't communicate with us anymore

or something happens and you need to make an adjustment of your plan as long as you know what the broad mission is, the whole purpose of the operation, which later ended up being called the commander's intent. That's what we called it in the modern military. As long as you know what the commander's intent is, what the intent of the operation is, then you can execute on your own. You don't need any more direction from me.

Go and make it happen. Keep your own orders short. Get them out in time. Issue them personally by voice when you can. Keep troops informed. Use every means before and after combat to tell the troops what they are doing, what they are going to do and what they have done. Reiterating.

Discipline. There is only one kind of discipline, perfect discipline. If you do not enforce and maintain discipline, you are potential murderers. You must set the example. Condition. High physical condition is vital to victory. We talked about that. And we talk about that all the time.

your physical conditioning. High physical condition is vital to victory. There are more tired core and division commanders than there are tired core and divisions. Fatigue makes cowards of us all. Men in condition do not tire. So you've got to be in shape. And here's the close.

And this is the last one. And it's the shortest one. and it's probably the most important one to remember from General Patton. Courage. Do not take counsel of your fears. And that's it. That's what he had to say about courage to all of his troops as they embarked on this intense combat day after day, week after week. You want to know what you do with your fear?

do not take counsel of your fears. No vote. They don't get a vote. Your fears don't get a vote. So next time you feel that fear no matter what it is, it's pretty easy. You don't take counsel of it. They get no vote.

That's General Patton. Great book. Great leader. Lots to learn. Lots to pass on. War. as I knew it. Questions from the interwebs.

Yeah. First question. Jocko Willink, is BJJ really practical for street defense where there are no rules? My understanding is that it doesn't fare well against knives and multiple attackers compared to something like Krav Maga, Muay Thai, boxing. So this is a good question, obviously. And it's a question that we get a lot. I get a lot.

I actually did a video We did a video like this and Tim Ferriss put it out So you can look for that if you kind of want to hear Another version of this Maybe we could link to it on Jocko podcast I think we can do that yeah Excellent

But okay so self-defense We're talking about true self-defense here First and foremost Most important thing And I actually didn't say this on the last video But I should say it now, is situational awareness. And putting yourself in good situations where bad things are not going to happen to you

and doing that to the best you ability and being aware of your surroundings, that's of the very important first step in self-defense. Second, guns. If you are a person that really needs to defend yourself and you live in a horrible, area and there's violent people around and you might be a small, a very small person, or you might be elderly, or you might have some sort of a physical limitation, then how you're going to defend yourself is using guns, using a gun. So, I mean, that's just, that's just the way it is. Now, okay, so that being said.

maybe you can't have a gun, maybe you don't have a gun, and you don't always want to have to pull a gun out. Even though a gun is a great deterrent. And most people, if they see that you have a gun, are not going to want to fight you anymore. But obviously you can't be just yanking a gun out at anything that happens and you don't always have them with you. For instance, you know, in certain places you're not allowed to have a gun.

Certain states you're not allowed to have a gun. In the water, if you're surfing, you're not allowed to have a gun. So, what do you do? How does jiu jitsu stack up against these other martial arts? I say that you should learn jiu jitsu first. It should be the first martial art that you try and learn to defend yourself. And there's a reason for that. There's a bunch of reasons for that.

Number one, and sort of a base reason, but jih Tijuana is probably the, most complex to learn. There's the, it's the, it's the most three-dimensional martial art. It's not linear. It's very three-dimensional. There's a ton to learn and it's infinite in what you can learn. So you want to get into it early because it's going to take longer to learn it. But that's, that's actually a secondary reason. The primary reason to learn Jiu-Jitsu first is because of the nature of self-defense situations. So we are born with our primary form of self-defense, and we learn it from a very young age.

And our primary form of self-defense will keep you safe from most of these situations, and that is running, and using your legs to run. So, and if you think of, now think about this, You're kind of chuckling because you don't understand the gravity of what I'm saying because it's very accurate. So listen, we're talking about self-defense. We're not talking about offense.

We're talking about defense. How do you stay safe? So if I square off with you and I want to fight and punch you, run away. I'm not holding on to you. I run away. If there's me and three of my friends, run away. If I have a knife and I'm going to try and stab you, run away. So all these kind of attacks, they're a disconnected attack.

I'm not holding on to you. So run away from me. Get out of there. Run into a public place. Run to where there's other people that can help you. Run. Where this changes is when somebody grabs a hold of you. When somebody grabs a hold of you, you can no longer run away.

And you have to be able to make them ungrab you, let go of you. And how do you do that? You do that by knowing how to grapple. And grappling is jiu-jitsu. So that is why the first thing you should learn is Jiu-Jitsu. Because if someone's not grabbing a hold of you, run away from them. If someone's trying to square off and go toe-to-to-toe with you, run away from them. If there's five guys that want to fight you, run away from them.

If someone pulls out a knife on you, run. But here's the deal. if that person knocks you down and gets on top of you, you can't run anymore. So what do you have to do? You have to grapple them and you have to know Jiu-Jitsu to get them up and off of you and get away from them or submit them and put them to sleep or break their arm.

That is why you should start with Jiu-Jitsu. Pretty straightforward. Agreed. Once you know Jiu-Jitsu, absolutely. Learn Maitai. Learn wrestling, learn boxing, learn Krav Maga, learn a screamer, learn everything you can about fighting. Do it, of course. But set your base with the one that you're going to need if somebody grabs you.

And that's jujitsu. The other thing about jujitsu is it's pretty easy to add in some of these other more animalistic self-defense situations. So if somebody grabs you and pulls you to the ground and you want to get away from there, yeah, you can you need to know your body positions, but it's pretty easy to decide you're going to bite their ear off or take a big chunk out of their face with your teeth or jam your fingers into their eyes. It's, it's not hard to augment that stuff. Yeah. So these are all things that you can do within Jiu Jitsu that jiu Jitsu does not hamper that ability to be savage in your attacks on people. Yeah, and that's interesting you bring up because everyone's heard the guy where he'll be like, hey, what's that jiu-jitsu, whatever, and then I don't know, you show them or you explain it, and they'll be like, oh, well, I'll just, I just gouge your eyes out right here. Or I just, you know, I don't know, strike your throat or something like this, right? So take the eye-gouging option.

You don't have to be trained to eye-gouge, so we both will eye-gouge each other. Like if we're going to go eye gouging. Yeah. I've had people trying to eye gouge me before. It's not going to stop me. And that's a second point. Sir's brother, he was after like metamorphous,

we're talking. And he basically did that. He was asking questions. He'd be like, no, I don't have to learn Jiu-Jitsu. I would just do this. And he's like, I know like pressure points

that subdue people. And I was like, yeah, okay. So I said, okay. Him and Darth Vader. Yeah, exactly. So I was like, okay, well, what's the pressure point though? So I was like, okay, do the pressure point on me.

I won't even, like, fight you back. And he did the one, like, here by the nap. And I was like, not only does that not hurt right now. I mean, I can see it. It hurts more than if you did it here. But not only does that not really hurt that much right now. If we're in any kind of fight situation, I don't even think I would even notice that. So he was like, oh, yeah, yeah, well, let me get this one.

And he did one, like, behind me here and then my ribs. Same exact thing. It's, yeah, it's more sensitive for sure. But it's not going to stop that, buddy. Man, yeah, it simply does not work. But the Jiu Jitsu, if you know Jiu Jitsu, you can still do all those things if you want to do it, but you don't even have to. Yeah, because you're going to put them to sleep. Yeah.

And I would say even, in my opinion, more accurately, Jiu Jitsu will help you or it'll give you the ability to control the fight. Oh, for sure. So you can, like, if you, Jiu Jitsu, you're not going to learn how to throw like a sick, like, a sick, left hook or nothing like that. You're not going to learn that. But you'll control the fight where if you want to punch someone, you'll be in the perfect position to punch them, no matter how much punching training you have. You can have no punching training. You can just, I don't know, just throw your fist out of them in whatever capacity. It'll be way more effective when you know jujitsu. And that goes through any other one of

these moves that people say they'll do if you do jiu-jitsu on them. You're the one going to control the fight. I've tried all. All those people have come to me and I've gone through them all. No factor. The pressure points, the this, the that. It doesn't work. Sorry. Sorry to tell you.

It might work like, you know, the wrist ones. If you sit there and let them do it and be like, okay, yeah, that hurts. And also going against someone that's completely untrained, you can't have some sort of success with some of this stuff. Right. But not against a determined attacker. Yeah. And that's kind of the point where it's a, yeah. say yeah it might work if you let them do it but that's the thing you don't let them do it so

ultimately it learned the likelihood of that work is very very low just in spirit of fairness and jihitsu's fun yeah it's creative yes it's a good workout it ups your confidence it gets you used to combative situations where you're going 100% yeah you get you used to having someone grind on you and try and smash you and that's a big deal that I didn't even think about where just having someone in girls especially or just people who aren't used to confrontation, man, when you get in a fight, it inoculates you to the terror of having somebody just ball up on you grinding up on you and trying to smash you. In, I want to say it was UFC four, which one was one with Art Jimerson with a one glove?

Was that? Oh, that was one. That was one. Yeah. So he got mounted and tapped. Yeah. And man, that's a perfect example. he didn't get punched, you know, he didn't tap from any kind of punch or submission old.

He got mounted. And then in an interview later, I saw he said, man, I was just feeling claustrophobic over there. And if you watch it, he wasn't mounted for very long. He was just, man, he just wasn't used to that. And imagine if that was a real life fight. Someone attacks you and they're like mounted on you and you don't know. And you can't tap. Man, you're not going to be able to handle that.

Right. If you know Jitza, you get mounted, that's no factor. Some people, they know Mount Escape. good where they hope they get mounted so they can get on top, you know? And then so you compare those two sides of the spectrum, Jiu Jitsu. No the Jiu Jitsu. No the Jiu Jitsu. Next. Next question. Can you expand on how to appropriately, effectively, and tactfully lead up the chain of command in a profession that's considered to be very paramilitary? My line of work sometimes works against us limiting ideas and ways of doing things. Yeah. And they're talking about the tradition

in their line of work. Okay, so what do you do? You got a organization you're working in and you've, how do you lead up the chain of command? Well, even in a paramilitary organization, which, you know, infers that this is a very

hierarchical structure and it's chain of command driven and how do you possibly get your boss to do what you want them to do? well it's actually fairly simple fairly simple not easy but simple it is it is hard to do it does take a lot more it does take a lot of tact takes a lot of patience so number one you got to build trust you got to build trust with your the people that are above you in the chain of command you've got to build a

relationship you got to be proactive you've got to stay ahead you know when i joined the military i one you know one day just told my dad hey by the way i joined you know i joined you I enlisted in the Navy. I'll be gone in three weeks or whatever. My dad just looked at me and shook his head and he says, you're going to hate the military because you hate authority. You don't listen to anybody. And I was kind of a young, stupid kid, and I'm like, whatever.

I'm going to the SEAL teams. It's a team. We don't have to listen to anybody. Of course, I was completely wrong. And you do listen to people and you do have a chain of command. But he was right in the fact that I didn't like to, listen to people when I didn't like authority. So how did I get ahead of that?

It was pretty easy. What I did to get ahead of that was I got ahead of it. And that's what you need to do here. You have to start that attitude of where you're doing what needs to be done before you get told to do it. So you start to appear to have more knowledge and good foresight of what's going to happen. Now you've got to be careful that you're not showing up the boss. You can't be thwarted in their face and I already did that, you know, because I'm so much better than you. That's not the goal here.

The goal is to build confidence, not to build animosity. You don't want to build animosity. You want to build animosity. You want to build trust. You want to build confidence. You want to make that person start to realize how good you are. Again, be careful not to throw it in their face. Now, the tradition piece.

And sometimes people do cling on to the tradition. traditions and they use the traditions to shut down evolution and that's bad because what they're really doing is they're protecting their world they're protecting their existence and so that's a that's a big wall that's a big hard wall to get through now most people do have traditions and traditions what are traditions built on do we build traditions are there traditions of failure and we're proud of that? Are there traditions of losing and we're proud? No, no, no.

The traditions are proud traditions. The traditions of winning. Their traditions of excellence. And in some way, traditions of excellence and traditions of winning and traditions of domination have to be tied in some way to evolving and to adapting and to getting better because that's how we win. that's how we dominate. So you have to find that hole in the tradition,

that part of the tradition that implies that what we do in our tradition is we get better. That's all it is. You just got to find that thing that says we get better. We win. And you take that and you carry that lead, that little crack in the armor of tradition. And you turn that into, you know,

yeah, we have a proud tradition because we're the best. And if you're going to be the best, does the best stagnate? No, the best evolves. And again, you've got to be careful. You can't throw this in their face. You got to say, hey, you know what? Our traditions that were the best, we make things happen and we get things done. And we always do it better than everyone else.

So you know what? Here's one way we could do it better. If we did this, you've got to look for those little cracks in the tradition to bring forward change. Now, again, the most importantness thing, though, is you've got to continue to build that relationship with your superiors. You're constantly trying to build that. I've said this before, and I'll say it again, no matter who I ever worked for, I had the same relationship with the crazy boss, with the knucklehead boss, with the loser, with the great guy, had the same relationship all the time, and that was they trusted me. Didn't matter who I worked for. So you've got to build that relationship of trust.

you've also got to be careful that as you're trying to be proactive and as you're trying to get things done, that you're not looking to do it for your own ego to get credit. Because that disturbs the people at the top. And it makes them say, oh, he's just trying to shine. He's just trying to look good. Screw him. Throw his ideas out. That's what you got to watch out for.

So that's your ego. Don't make your ego fight their ego because they've got an ego too. you want to let your ego go. Build that relationship. Make the change slow. It's going to be slow, steady, and it's going to take persistence in the long war. You've got to have patience.

Tradition doesn't break down overnight. Tradition takes time to morph. So you've got to be ready for that long war. And don't get frustrated. You're part of a winning team. your party team that has a proud tradition, you just got to add to that tradition and that's going to take time.

That's how you do it. Next question. Hi, guys. How about on a podcast, do you talk about what is the essential equipment for a home gym? Okay, so for me, first of all, if you have nothing,

if you're building from zero, the first thing you need is pull up bar a pull-up bar and a dip bar. Somewhere to do dips and somewhere to do pull-ups. And that's what you need. Now, be careful if you're listening and you're like, okay, I'm going to go buy a pull-up bar and a dip bar. Don't get the little flimsy-looking things that cost $129.

You don't want that. It's almost worthless. It's better than nothing, but it's almost worthless. You want to get a legit dip bar and a legit pull-up bar. bars are a little bit easier. You can go, you can go pretty cheesy on dip bars,

but pull-up bars, you can't. Pull-up bars, you need something legit, strong. You can bolt it to your wall, but you need a nice pull-up bar with a,

with an inch and a half or a two-inch metal pipe. I still have a pull-up bar that I bought from Home Depot. I bought it in 1998. I've had it ever since. And it's bolted on

to my squat rack. But that's all of this piece. a two inch pipe and that's what you do pull-ups on. So when you say make sure it's legit, why is that so it doesn't break while you're using it basically?

Yeah, and also it's got to have some weight to it so you can do kipping pull-ups so you're not the thing's not shaking all over the place. You see these, I mean this is just going total cheeseball, the things with like the foam handles that just rotate and fall off and it's just a nightmare. What you need is a pipe

that's what you need is a piece of pipe from Home Depot and then you need somewhere to do dips now one thing that you can do that will cover both these is you can get rings you know gymnastics rings and you can have you can adjust the height of the rings and you can do dips and pull-ups on rings and then you can do muscle ups as well so

rings are almost like if there's one thing you could have if you could have one piece of equipment for working out it'd probably be smart to go with just wooden rings because they are that flexible and you can do that much different stuff I mean you can do dips you can do muscle ups you can do pull-ups you can do push-ups you can do all kinds of stuff you can do levers you can do front levers back levers

there's all kinds of gymnastics moves you can do I mean you could basically work for the rest of your life on rings and be good to go so rings are a way of handling the whole pull-up and dip bar situation but and that's why it's pretty much the number two thing for me is is pull up bar dip bar slash rings because those are all going to kind of get you those basic body movements to build your strength once you get past that now it's time for a squat rack it's got to have a squat rack and as soon as you have a squat rack now my squat rack has a pull-up bar on it which I bolted on myself.

My squat rack is the same year. When I bought my first house, immediately had a garage gym. It was 20, I don't know, 27 years ago or something like that. Built a garage gym immediately. Bought a squat rack. Still have the same squat rack. Bolted a pull-up bar onto it. Still have that.

I modified it a little bit and made dip bar, so I had a dip bar on it. This is before you could buy gymnastics rings. I didn't know how to get a hold of gymnastics rings. back in those days. And then the next thing that you need is you need an Olympic lifting bar and bumper plates. And so you can do your squats,

your cleans, your clean and jerks, your dead lifts, and all your basic strength movements. After that, for me, I think kettle belts, you know, so now you have, you can do your swings, You can do your farmer's walks. You can do your snatches.

You can, I mean, there's a ton of exercises, Turkish get-ups. I mean, there's a ton of exercises that you can do there that kettlebells now add to the situation. And you can do some really psychotic conditioning, metabolic conditioning with the addition of kettlebells as well. At this point, if you only have one set of rings, I have three sets of rings, and I have one that's high for muscle ups. I have one that's medium for dips, and I have one that's low for pushups, and I just have those all the time, so then you don't have to adjust them because I guess I'm too lazy to want to adjust my rings all the time. Yep.

The next piece for me is I like rowers, the concept two rowers. I have one. I've had it for a long time. They're a brutal workout. I think that you can just destroy yourself very easily and very quickly, and I think, you think like an a like an airdine or an aerosol type bike i don't have one of those i'm probably going to get one very soon but i think those are outstanding as well i didn't say jump rope earlier that's another good kind of cardio kind of metcon kind of get after it and then maybe some medicine

balls um and after that i mean i think you know the the question was essential equipment to me that's sort of my list yeah and then from there it just becomes fun you know it's becomes what kind of other implements can I bring into the situation that are going to eliminate boredom, increase creativity, increased dynamic and functional movement. And I think these are pretty good. And this is all stuff that's pretty common nowadays. There's a bunch of different places to get it and make it happen. Yeah, especially when you kind of start with kind of one thing and you slowly just add on.

Yeah. And essential, that's kind of a complex. question anyway to begin with and you did say for you right so it depends on what kind of gym you're doing like what kind of results you want you know well everyone that's listening to this podcast wants to just peak physical conditioning in a broad array of of environments and tasks right I would assume that as well but it's not necessarily a fact so like I'm just saying if they have different goals. But name a goal.

It's going to look different. Name a goal that won't be covered by this. You can't do it. If they want to get their bench up. Okay. That's one. You need a bench. If you want to get your bench up, you need a bench. Yeah.

Yeah, I think your list was pretty elaborate because so, just my opinion. Oh, because you're going to break it down because you're like a minimalist over here when it comes to working out. No. Let's hear a minimalist. Well, essential equipment, right? I would say that, man, it depends.

So, yeah, okay. It doesn't depend. Yes, it depends on what results you want. So if you just want to be a bodybuilder with big muscles. Go to listen to a different podcast. That's not the question. The people that are asking these questions are listening to this podcast. They're into physical fitness.

They want to be healthy. They want to be jihitsu players. They want to be fighters. They want to be able to functionally move well. they want to stay healthy. They're not just getting their bodybuilder on. Okay. That still is an assumption though.

Yes, it's a correct assumption. For the sake of efficiency, I'm going to go ahead and... I'm going to let you... I'll tell you what. Make that assumption as well. You have one minute to complete the list. It's not about completing the list. I was going to elaborate a little bit more, but...

Do. No, I think that, no, I actually agree with you. You don't have any elaboration. There's one more thing you probably added. a bench on there. Yeah. Is that what you'd add on? Anything else?

Yeah. Anything that would facilitate. The same thing, a bench would facilitate. Other than that, it's a pretty good list, I think. Yeah, I think that's a big time list. I think that's the deluxe list, though, man. I think you could cut a few of those off and still get good results. It's an escalation, though.

Yeah. If someone's listing right now and they're like, you know what, I'm going to go get in shape. First thing you do is get a set of rings that you can do pull of zay. That's number one. Yeah, yeah, gotcha. Then you can get a squat rack. Then the squat rack's going to come with a pull-up bar and a dip bar somehow, so you're good there. Then you got to get the bar and bumper plates, right?

Which you can escalate. You can start with a, you can start with just a bar. And, you know, two 25-pound bumper plates. And then every month, buy another 45 pounds or 100 pounds or whatever, and you're good. After you see those gains. Yeah, you start jacking the big steel. The thing about home gyms is if you work out at home, especially these kinds of workouts, you get more of a testosterone boost if you work out at a public gym, like at a 24-hour fitness or CrossFit gym or something.

Which one gives you more? If you work out, well, basically if you work out in front of people, if there's other people around, you get a testosterone boost. How come? So then you would, it's this thing where, I don't know, it's this weird. Some guy did an experiment a long time ago where, I don't know how long ago, but he did an experiment where he found out all these little things that you can do in front of people that'll boost your testosterone. One was like drive a car, like a certain kind of car.

And if you do it in front of people, it boosts your testosterone. So if you, and not only do you get that, you get psych mental priming as well. when you walk in the gym, like the CrossFit Gym, all the smells, the sounds and all that basically primes your mind and your physiology for a workout. So at home, I mean, I'm sure you could do that. I don't think it would replace the actually being there. Just that part of it. I'm not saying home gym for junk.

I'm not saying that at all. Yeah, no, because when I walk in my home gym, you're primed. I feel it. I feel brim. I love it. Yeah, see, and that's part of it as well. So the whole reason I set up a home gym was so I don't have to make that drive to the gym and, you know, but that kind of works against you. It's interesting that you use that. Like I say, hey, I have a home gym so I can just be alone in the, in the cavern of doom and just get after it and bother me.

And I can be alone in my world of pain and proving myself. And you're, you did it because you're too lazy to go. the gym. Yeah, to make that drive. It's just more of a pain. I can save some time. Yeah. Which,

which... It is an efficiency thing for sure. Yeah, but that efficiency thing can... It depends on who you are. Yeah, it'll backfire. Like, for example, I'll be like, hey, I don't have to... You feel like you don't have to get the most out of your workout,

because I can just come right back here, you know, in an hour when I, quote, unquote, feel better or when I feel more like doing it. Or the TV's right there and look, hey, whatever is the... lack of discipline. Big time. It's a lack of discipline. Yeah, it can be. And if you're looking for helpers for that discipline, a home gym, it could go either way.

Yeah, it's interesting. Because I personally, I'm able to work out sometimes only because I have a home gym. Yeah. You know, in other words, if my time is in a day, I'll get up super early. And if I wouldn't be able to hit my own gym quickly in 30 minutes and get a workout and I wouldn't be able to get, it would take me 30 minutes to just get it. Get to gym and back. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I recommend if you make a home gym, you do it in a positive way to increase your discipline. That's what I recommend. Yeah. I like how, you know, your home gym is kind of separate. From my house? Yeah, like you have to kind of go to it. Yeah, so I do get to escape. Yeah, I feel like that's a big factor.

Mine is like right outside next to the barbecue. Yeah. Next to the little, you don't know whether you want to work out. Yeah, I don't know if cruising or lifting. you know? So, yeah, it depends. It's rough for a record, tells you.

It doesn't know if he's cruising or lifting. Next question. Okay, podcast's question. How does it feel to do Tim Ferriss podcast, Joe Rogan podcast, and get thousands of followers listening to your podcast, reading your book, etc. Do you worry that some of your fans

place you on a pedestal and engage in hero worship? Yeah, so this is a question that I was actually not going to do because I was a little bit uncomfortable with it. And then I was like, okay, why are you uncomfortable with it? It's not that big of a deal. Although I will say, like, it does make me feel uncomfortable to think of people,

thinking of me in a heroic way or whatever. That does feel strange to me. As far as being on Rogan and Ferris and Sam Harris and doing some of these podcasts, It's you know it was it was really cool. It's definitely You know meeting people all the time as I travel and meeting people that have read read our book and And have gotten a lot out of it, you know and that that feels very rewarding You know it feels very rewarding. It feels great when someone says hey, you know I use this chapter Or hey your book I mean people are saying that okay your book changed my life and I take that with a grain of salt

But it feels it feels good. It feels positive you know it feels I like that. You know, I want to help people. And so that feels good. But as far as it's not like my social media presence, which I had zero before

and now I have it. And it's it's not really that big of a deal because it's just me. I'm still just me. And there's no there's nothing

that's different or has changed and when we talk about doing this podcast we don't talk about how we should act or how I should act to get more people

to listen to it. I'm only doing what I'm doing because this is me. And I'm not going to be different in order to achieve achieve anything else. I'm only going to be who I am and that's why the thought of people putting me on a pedestal or whatever that's I know that I'm just a person and and I think that it might be how how I get presented you know by the media how I get presented even on this podcast when I'm on

this podcast talking to you, we're talking about specific subjects that we are interested in. And it's not, you know, I could see where someone might think, oh, you know, Jocko's this super, you know, superhuman. And, and no, I know I'm not. So if I come across like that, it's only because you're seeing a sliver of me that appears that way. Right. You know, I'm not saying I'm, I know I'm not totally normal as well. I mean, I know I'm not a normal. person. I know I'm a little bit to the edge of, you know, being a little bit extreme. Yeah, a little bit extreme

is-ish in some ways. And I know a lot of that just has to do with my habits as a person. But the fact of the matter is that no matter what happens and no matter what I come across and no matter what people

might perceive me as, I don't perceive myself as special or as a hero for sure. Because, and one thing that will not, that will always stay with me is that I've been in combat and I've been humbled by combat. And I think that I've been on the battlefield and I've been confused and I've been outmaneuvered And I've had my guys killed. And so I know what a real hero is. And it ain't me.

And that's always going to keep me grounded. And I will never forget that. Yeah. And you, as far as being worried about people putting you on a pedestal, like how you're saying, you just you be you and that's all you're going to do is be you you're not trying to live up to anyone's expectation that's that was never a goal of yours no so if someone has an expectation since that's not your goal how can you worry about it you're going to continue to be you and it's I think I don't know if it's irony but the more you do that and just be just authentic or whatever it

seems to draw more people to you I guess But I don't know because I'm not acting any other way than I acted a year ago or, you know, four years ago. I'm just, you know what I do? I train jihitsu. I work out. I wake up early in the morning. I try and get smarter. I try and do better.

Yeah, yeah. You know, that's what I do. Yeah. So, so, yeah, I'm just going to, you know, I'm me. And I actually, I'll tell you, this is interesting, is that. people that I interact with now, I enjoy it and I get something out of it. I'm taking away.

They're giving me as much inspiration as I'm giving them. You know, there's one girl on the, on the, on Twitter. And I don't want to say her name because I mean, it's, I don't know how,

I don't, I don't like to disrupt people's privacy. I mean, she's on Twitter, but she's a, uh, clearly a little bit of an older lady. she's

a cancer survivor I mean when I say older I mean she's in her at least in her 60s and she put a picture on the internet the other day on Twitter of her at the gym and she's got you know like a kettlebell a medicine ball

and an oxygen tank in the game because she's in there working out and she's yeah and she's Yeah, I got to bring my oxygen tank because of what, you know, I don't know, no specifically why. But, hey, man, if she can bring an oxygen tank to the gym and get after it at, you know, age 65 or 70, you know, that's inspiring. And I can get up and get after it and do my piece just, you know, just at least just as well as she could. And so I think that that's what's been interesting about this is seeing other people that are fired up.

And, you know, that's another thing that kind of happened early on in this journey for me. I have not a bunch of friends, but one of my friends, who's a seal, when I was just about, I think I had recorded the Tim Ferriss podcast. and I knew it was going to be released, and I knew it was going to be heard by people. And when I did, when I got back, I texted my friend, and I said, hey, I did this podcast, and it's going to be released, and I'm going to be one of them. And what I meant by that was one of these guys,

that sold out, for lack of a better word. And I'm out there, you know, oh, I'm a Navy SEAL, and I'm the biggest, baddest guy, because there's plenty of those guys out there. And now I'm going to be one of those guys. And so I said, I said, I'm going to be one of them now. Sorry. And he wrote me back, and he said, that's awesome.

And we got so many guys running around. saying all kinds of stuff, you should be out there representing. You should be. And he went on to say something even more powerful. And he said, you know what? There's a lot of people in this world that need a role model, that need a dad. I needed a dad. I needed a father figure.

And that's what you were for me. And for you to go out there and be out there in the world and be that role model for other people, it's awesome and you should do it. And I love the fact that you're doing it. And when he wrote that to me, it kind of changed my attitude. Yeah. Because I did look at the role models that people look at. And I said to myself, and again,

I think part of what might make me a good role model is that I don't think I'm a good role model because I'm still trying to get better. And I've done all kinds of stupid stuff. We need to have a dozen podcasts on the stupid things I've done. in my life and talk about the mistakes I've made growing up and all the just I mean I'm That's another thing like when you when people see me on the podcast or hear me on the podcaster they read the book They're seeing the good part right they're seeing I would hesitate to say but they're seeing the best part of me They're seeing a mature person I'm not that mature but they're seeing that they're seeing the older the maturist that I've ever been which is right now

They're not seeing the idiot you know growing dummy that I was and that many of us were when we were younger. Now, might I have had a little edge, a little bit of advantage? Maybe I was a little bit ahead in some cases, but man, I didn't, you know? And so that, when I got that text, that was a series of text from my brother, that really gave me a different attitude. on this whole thing and it made me feel more comfortable with the fact that I was selling out and that I was now going to be out there in the public view.

And all this being said, at some point, I'm probably going to go right back to the cave that I came from. And I'm, I'm, I don't want, you know, I don't have. what Patton had, which is like this huge desire to be famous. I have no problem not being, I was unrecognizable to the world for my whole life. And the fact that I'm a little bit recognizable now, it doesn't make me feel great. It doesn't do anything for me. I'm just doing what I do. It's not my goal.

But is there a goal to try and help some people out there? Yes. And I think hearing that from that buddy of mine made me solidify that goal a little bit. And again, not to try and say, hey, be like me. No, it's to say learn from what I learned from. I did some dumb stuff. I've been through some stuff that most people don't have to go through. So if you can take something away from it, awesome.

You know, don't worship me by any stretch. But let's work together and see if we can get better as a team. Yeah, and you're a good, like a lot of your messages and the things that you say, a lot of it is new, and then a lot of it It's not new, right? So, and so this is one point where, and some of this stuff, people may have heard before, but someone like you who's done what you've done and think the way you think and do what you do right now, you're the perfect medium for that information to get passed on to someone.

You know how, like, you know, when you're a teenager or something, your dad tells you to do something, your mom tells you to do something, you're like, yeah, fuck that. But then when you go, then you go to your friend's house and then, like, he tells you to do it, the exact same thing, you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it just, it takes that same message, but from someone who you can, for lack of a better way of putting it, someone you can accept it from. And so all your messages are perfectly in line with who you are,

so they're so, like, you're so eager to accept them, you know? So, like, how you put, you know, online, you'll post a picture of your watch every morning and you're kind of the workout setting and stuff like that. And you're kind of your message, more or less, get up every morning and get your work done, get a workout in whatever, and then you're doing it, and there's the proof right there. So if you were just some dudes like, yeah, work out every day and you don't do it, then it's like,

it's going to be harder to accept. So people will get those messages, and they'll internalize them way more readily from someone like you, given the messages that you're sending. That's one. Two, the whole broadcasting yourself thing is totally understand. for someone like you and that it's good that you kind of got your kind of got turned on to the notion that it's more you have really good messages and good content that will improve people in their life whether it be older people younger people girls guys everything and this is

especially like a podcast situation or even like certain online profiles and stuff they're good ways to get that information out that people need man like to improve themselves like If you're in a neighborhood or an environment with a bunch of people improving themselves, that's going to be a good neighborhood. And if they have the means to improve themselves, then that's a good service that you're putting out there. And to reach as many people as you do, essentially, you're helping the world with your message. Well, okay. I'm telling you. So I'm saying broadcasting yourself is a good thing.

Yeah. It definitely was a hard thing to overcome the aversion to broadcasting yourself, which is something that, you know, I talked about with Tim Ferriss and I talked about it with Joe Rogan is this idea of people that are talking. Yeah. And, you know, you look at the extreme examples of social media, you know, abusers. abusers and worthlessness. Yeah. You know, and you just don't want to have anything to do with them.

Yeah. And when you're, when you're doing it, regardless of how much you don't want to have anything to do with them, you have something to do with them. You have something to do with them because you're doing it too. And it's very difficult for me not to feel like that. Now, obviously, I've gotten over it. I mean, I've gotten over it to a point where I'm saying, okay, these are kind of the acceptable parameters that I operate within for my personality. You know, which is there's things that I haven't done and I won't do on social media, you know, because I'm not there to promote me. Yeah.

But I'm there to only open a door of observation, I would say. Not to knock on people's door and enter, but just to open the door of observation and say, this is how I try to. to live and this is the steps that I take to try and live that way, observe. And if you want to enter my house and hang out with me, come on in. As long as you're like-minded and you have the same sort of goals, then come on in. And you know what? You're going to make me stronger. You're going to bolster me up.

So many people now, they're posting pictures of their watches on my Twitter. When I wake up, I'm looking at 52. 100 watches every day. Yeah, man. And I'm going, wow, that's a lot of people. And that is unity. And that is leadership. And it does make me feel like, oh, okay, cool.

There's other people in the world that are up and getting after it. Yeah, there's a guy. 20. Yeah. And there's a guy who's a teacher post good. Yeah. He's a teacher. Yeah, posted good on his classroom door.

Yeah, on his classroom door. Man, and so now he's, yeah, kind of pushing that, those good messages to the kids, you know? Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, it's all, I think it's all positive. Social media, it is easy to get, to get that attitude towards it because of all the people who abuse it, quote unquote. But, you know, like if you went, I don't know, like on the highway and all you saw

was people speeding, reckless driving, it still doesn't change the fact that you still want to drive on the highway because you have something to do, you know? Your pursuit is different. But yeah, there's going to be... The other weird thing is I have no idea where this is going. You know, and so like this podcast, I didn't, you know, we just kind of did it. I went on with Tim Ferriss and just kind of did it. I started Twitter.

I had no idea what that was going to be. Yeah. And so it's fun for me to be adventuring into things that I don't know the outcome of. Yeah. And this is one of them. And Twitter is one of them. The book was one of them. And, you know, I don't know what's around the corner next, and I don't know where this is going.

But I will stay with the principles that I believe in to the best of my ability. And I think that's what makes it an interesting ride. Where's that going to go? Yeah. We'll find out. Okay. Last question. Jocko, what motivates you?

I heard you mention the man in the cave. Can you go deeper on this? what motivates me. Well, I've talked about this before and it's kind of what we were talking about a couple minutes ago as well. And that is, first of all, with the man in the cave and this idea and this thought of the enemy. And that was a thought that used to drive me and kind of haunt me and make me get me get up early and work hard to push myself. Because I knew that somewhere out there, there was an enemy, a real enemy, a real man,

a person, a human that was waiting for me and that was preparing for me. And therefore, I needed to prepare for him. I needed to be ready. I needed to be the things I always talk about. I needed to be stronger and faster and smarter and better. So that when we did meet on the battlefield, I would be ready for that rendezvous, for that meeting, that fate, that battle.

And that thought of the enemy, yes, it absolutely fueled me. And when I was a leader, in the SEAL teams, in charge of men, it was even more profound. Because I was thinking about that rendezvous for everybody that I led, everyone I was in charge of, everyone that I trained. And I felt that burden,

the burden of responsibility to prepare those men and protect those men, those men, those, Those frogmen, those warriors, my brothers. And it was my burden to train those guys and prepare them. And that burden, it may have made me a little bit crazy, a little bit paranoid, a little bit over the top.

I didn't really know any other way. And so now I am no longer a bat leader. I no longer prepare men for war. So the drive and the motivation is from a different place. It's from a solemn place. The drive now and the motivation now is not really from the enemy anymore. Now it's from my friends, my brink. my brothers.

It's from those seals that I knew and that I heard about more than anything and that they sacrificed

everything. Those guys, they gave their lives for us. And now I cannot help but think and remember. member that every breath that we take is a it's a gift it's a sacred gift from those men every day we have

every sunrise every thought and every smile and every laugh it's a and i will treasure that gift that gift of life will not let it go to waste not one second of it I'll cherish every moment of it and I will live it I will live

it in their memory and in their honor I think that's about it for tonight so as always thank you for listening thanks for subscribing

Thanks for reviewing, thanks for supporting, and thanks for taking a moment to remember the brave men and women that have fought and died for our freedoms. And in their memory, make sure you get out there and you get after it. Until next time, this is Echo and Jocko. Out.