Jocko Podcast - The Debrief w/ Jocko And Dave Berke #26: Your Boss Wants What You Want

Episode Date: April 15, 2023

With all the challenges that superiors can present, know that Your Boss Wants What You Want. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is the Jocko debrief podcast number 26 sitting here with Dave Burke and me, Jocko Willink. What we do on this podcast is we have a leadership consulting company. It's called Echalon Front. We work with a bunch of different companies, every different industry, a wild range of industries. And we help them with their leadership. And a lot of times we debrief amongst ourselves to try and learn and educate ourselves on what different leadership challenges people face. So we do some debriefs as a company, but I figured we might as well debrief on the podcast

or on a podcast so we can educate more people and more people can learn from these lessons. And these, we change the names and we change the industries so that to protect our clients. So whatever we're talking about, we say, oh, this was a gas oil company. It's probably a software company. Or if we say it was a software company,

it was probably a manufacturing company. But the leadership stays the same. The leadership challenges, stay the same. So that's what this podcast is about. And Dave, what do you got? What do you got for debrief for today? Yeah, this podcast, by the way, people are pretty stoked on it. What cracks me up because we do always mix things up and we're never going to talk about something that can identify a particular client or a particular person. And because people really like this podcast, I'm always getting the question, hey, was that our company? Hey, was that me? So it tells me that it resonates. So,

you know, the problems we're talking about with this company, whatever might be, it's the same problems that so many different companies are having. Well, that's like an echelon front when we do the academy. And I, at the beginning of the case, we have an online training academy and we go on there. And I usually present something on a Monday. Hey, here's a leadership issue. Here's a, here's something you should try and look at as a leader.

And usually the team in echelon front is saying, he's talking, is he talking about me? He's talking to me. And the funny thing was, after a month of that stuff, of the kind of the text thread going back and forth, oh, is he talking about me? Is he talking about me? I said, yeah, I'm talking about you, all of you and myself. Like, this is what we're doing. We all make these mistakes.

We all have these tendencies that we can fall into. So, yes, we're talking about you. And the interesting thing about that is if you don't think we're talking about you, we're probably talking about you even more. Totally. All right, so what do you got? The easiest summary for this one is your boss wants what you want. And the reason I say that is because so many questions we get,

And so many challenges we get from people are challenges with their boss. And this was an interesting one in which I thought was worth talking about because I got a question. I'm with a client. We work with clients sometimes relatively short period of times, but usually we're with them for a while. Just real quick. The real interesting thing is the minute you have a, if you're sitting here thinking, oh God, I'd like to ask a question about my boss. Let me tell you, the answer to the question about your boss isn't your boss. It's you.

You're the answer to the question. You are the answer to the question when your boss is doing this that or the other thing The way to change that isn't to change your boss it's change yourself It's a change your interaction so just keep that in mind and there's some people that are sitting here right now like well yeah But in my case okay so cool what do you have the have you figured out some Hypnotism way to sneak into your boss's house at night and change their personality you can't do that you can't do that your boss? You can't do that your boss? Your boss? goes off the handle sometimes your boss is slow to make decisions your boss is micromanaging your boss you name that problem it's who they are and listen can

you over a campaign of years get someone to kind of morph their personality and change and trust you more sure you can't but as far as what you're gonna do tomorrow during the meeting you can change your actions you can't change your boss's actions tomorrow so we focus on ourselves that's called ownership all right well that's the main that's spot on and Obviously, the connection ownership is embedded in everything we talk about. But what was cool about this is not just what you just described. But how hard it is sometimes for people to even get to the question, which is, hey, I need to change my boss's behavior.

It's what they're thinking. The question that was asked to me, which is why this was so interesting, was that it was posed to me that said, hey, what would you do while you were in the Marine Corps? If your boss gave you a set of orders, they would get your people killed. That's how this question was phrased. Yeah. Which is there, which is, I've been asked the same question. Yeah, but what are you doing? They're telling you to do something.

So this is a common question. And it's a common, what is it, a straw man, right? It's a common straw man question. Well, what would you do if you were being told to do something that was going to get everyone killed? Okay, I'm going to let you continue. But that's a straw man question. It's a straw man setup of, well, what would you do? Because everyone thinks that their boss is telling them to do something that doesn't make any freaking sense at all.

and they're freaking out about it. Like, what would you do if your boss was so dumb? Okay, continue. Yeah, that's it. No, that was it. So the cool part for me is that when I get to answer that question, I get to say, and I've been asked that before as well, is I was in the Marine Corps for 23 years.

And that never happened to me once. Now, listen, I know that has happened. And you've actually covered some of that on the Jock podcast. We know that as a thing. Now, it never happened to me. I never had someone give me a set of orders that based on those orders, if I followed them would get people killed.

But that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. It doesn't mean it hasn't happened throughout history. You've talked about that. I wrote about it, by the way. Yeah. Because this is the situation. Look, when we were told to take Iraqi soldiers out with us on operations and they gave us a ratio of we had to take seven Iraqi soldiers for every one seal that we took out, that was

going to be a disaster. That could have literally gotten people killed for sure. Yeah. And what did I do in that situation? Well, what I did was wrote a email to my boss, explained the situation. And luckily, because I had built up trust with my boss over the previous 18 months, my boss was like, yeah, Jocko, don't get anyone killed. Yeah, you do what you got to do.

Of course, which by the way, ties into the point that you're about to say. Because guess what? My boss did not want us to go out and get a bunch of people killed. My boss did not want us to take excessive risk. So go ahead. No, I mean, you're hitting it. And I think why that story is such a powerful story and why we get to use that as an example so well is the whole point behind that is that there is no way your boss's secret agenda with that ratio of who to take out was to get you or anybody killed. There's no way that that's what it was.

Or just fail a bunch of missions, put people at massive risk. Totally. Setback the war effort. Yeah, we're not doing that over here. And so the whole point to that was, which is the beginning of this conversation was, hey, listen, I never got told in my career to do something. to get my people killed. But I worked for some bad bosses. I had times where I had bosses that weren't great.

You know, on my 23 years, I had the whole bell curve. I had some incredibly good bosses. I had a couple bosses that were pretty bad. And most of my bosses are just solid guys, good guys to work for. But universal, no matter where they fit in that bell curve, my number one goal was to have a good relationship with my boss. My number one goal, didn't matter if I thought they were the best guy ever or if I hated him. And I think you've used the phrase at the molecular level. It didn't matter.

I don't think that is my phrase molecular level. We've talked about, yeah, I hated this guy at the molecular level. I heard people talk about how much they hate their boss. And I could go from a boss who I loved and a boss that I hated. And what they both had in common was I had a good relationship with both of them. For the exact reason that you just described, I don't want conflict with my boss. Specifically, if I do get to a place where I do get those orders that inadvertently we're going to get people killed. So the first question,

about getting orders to get people killed. We're able to move away from that with that explanation. And I talked about, hey, I want to have a good relation with my boss, which really got us to the actual question. He said, well, how about when you know your boss is wrong? Now I started to understand, all right, this is really what's going on with this question. He doesn't really want to know about my Marine Corps experience. He has a boss that's telling him to do things that he knows is wrong.

So we're getting to exactly where you were, which is the real root of this conversation. And to me, this all centers around the biggest challenge in all this, not what your boss is asking, but how your ego was reacting to that, especially if your ego says your boss is wrong. And the first mental exercise that I think of, every single time I hear something from someone that I might think isn't a good idea. The very first question I ask myself is, what does my boss want? And I'll go through the series of questions.

Does my boss want us to lose money? No. Does my boss want to hurt the company? No. Does my boss want to put us behind schedule? No. And I go through all these questions. Does my boss want us to lose clients?

Does my boss want to hurt our reputation? Does he want to alienate employees? And on and on and on. And the answer to every one of those questions is almost always no. That is not what your boss wants. And so just by thinking about what does my boss wants, 80 or 90% of the problems that you have, just by stopping and thinking about what he wants and you come up with the answer,

that problem, that problem gets solved right away. Without even having to go through the whole exercise of He's wrong. He's this. He's that. It's trying to get me killed just recognizing what it is that he wants. So I was almost I thought you were going somewhere that I was going mentally. You were we were in the ballpark. I have one more previous question that I'm going to ask. So your question that you ask is What is it that the boss really wants? That's the question that you ask when your boss so if my boss tells me to do something that doesn't make any sense my second question is probably that my first question is probably what am I not saying how am I wrong this is when when somebody tells me something that doesn't make sense to me I don't think they're an

idiot I don't think that they don't understand the world I think there's I want to check myself first because there's a decent chance my boss has been dwelling on this my boss has been looking at the studies my boss has been running them numbers there's a bunch of things that my boss has been doing he's been gathering information from a bunch of different sources there's a really good that I don't actually know. And by the way, this also includes my peers. So if Dave's my peer and Dave comes in and says, hey, here's how I think we should execute this mission. My instinct is that Dave has been looking at this for a while. My instinct is that Dave has probably reviewed this with the Intel officer, that he's talked about it with his platoon, and he's coming to me with a pretty

good idea. And there's something that I don't understand. And also, if Dave is my subordinate, and Dave comes to me and says, hey, I looked at this project that we want. I looked at this form of marketing and I think we should put a bunch of money behind it. My instinct isn't, oh, Dave is an, oh, Dave is actually coming to me, his boss and he's presenting me with an idea. Did he come with this idea half cocked and he's not really, he didn't do any research, he didn't look into it. He doesn't have any numbers to back it up. No. My instinct is actually, oh, it doesn't make sense on the surface to me right now because that's probably because I'm personally uninformed. Yeah. I think that reveals the core of this question and the core

the question we get all the time, which is the instinct is, if you listen to your ego, your ego actually tells you your boss is an idiot. That's what ego is whispering to you. So if you ask me a question that doesn't make any sense, my instinct, if I have a fragile ego and I don't have a good relationship with my boss, if I actually have a bad relationship with my boss, what my ego is going to tell me is he's an idiot, which exactly to your point, which we know is, is not true. And so the exercise of what does my boss want is, to me, it's a very similar way of saying, what am I not hearing from this guy? What don't I understand. What is he asking me to do that I just don't fully understand for a second? Let me just

think about it. And the whole point to this is that I don't need to go back to my boss most of the time. If you ask me to do something and it doesn't initially doesn't make sense, the resolution nine times out of ten, I don't even need to have, I don't even need to talk to you. If I can just sit for a minute and go, all right, hang on. Let me think about what he said. Let me think about what he asked. Let me think about what he wants. And if I can be humble and thinking about that, sometimes I don't even need any clarity. I can go, oh, all right, hang on. I'm just frustrated. I'm mad about this, or I've got an issue over here, or I'm struggling with these things and I'm pushing that back of my boss. If I just take a step away from my own ego and just think about what you're asking,

I don't even need to go back and say, hey, walk me through this so I understand it. I can just think about what you're asking and know what it is that you want, and I can go execute on that. So I think the instinct, when you are frustrated with your boss, which is the whole theme of this, the whole point of this question in which several people ask is the problem with your boss is you. And if your instinct is my boss is an idiot, the first thing you need to do is stop and think, is my boss, does my boss really wanna hurt the company? And my boss has real objectives

is to cause problems for me or for my people. And in almost every case, the answer is no. Now this is one of those scenarios where I'm gonna talk about that point zero one percent that I hate to talk about because it's the one that everyone says, yeah, you see this is the one, this is, which is, well, talk about it. But let's just read, because I have that at the end,

like I wanna reinforce it, I'm always over here on the other side, Just make sure, just because Jocko's talking about the point zero one, it doesn't mean it applies to you. Yeah. In fact, it doesn't apply to you. There's some other person that it might apply to. And that is, guess what? You may have a boss that's an idiot. You may have a boss that's a tyrannical maniac.

You might have a boss that's an ego maniac. All these things are true. You might have those bosses. Here's what's awesome about what we're talking about. Let's say your boss is a great guy, a brilliant leader, and they present you with. something and say hey I want you to do this and it doesn't quite make sense and so you say hey let me think through this hey boss let me just make sure let me clarify this and you go back to your boss and he starts to see that there's some things that should be done differently and he says yeah that looks

great go ahead so that's that's the course of action you took you took an indirect approach of trying to figure out where you were wrong owning the relationship and it turns out positive now let's say your boss is a tyrannical idiot and your boss that's a tyrannical idiot tells you you do something that doesn't make any sense. Guess what you should do? You should actually exercise the same protocol because that's how you're going to have the best possible outcome.

The worst possible outcome is to say, oh, you know what, my boss is an idiot. So your boss says, hey, I want you to do this plan. And you say, that plan is stupid. It doesn't make sense. How does that work out for you? Now you have an antagonistic relationship. You're probably getting demoted.

You're probably getting fired. You're probably getting overrun, you know, just overwhelmed with brow beating from your boss is going to make you do this thing and you're going to be miserable. So the course of action when interacting with other people is actually listen to what they have to say, actually try and figure out where you're wrong, actually try and figure out how you can support their plan. Like those are the courses of actions that actually work.

And it doesn't matter where you are on that bell curve. That's right. That's right. Tyrannical egomaniac to a benevolent leader of justice. It doesn't matter. No matter where you are on that bell curve. anyone in between the best way to interact with them is to listen to what they have to say try and support what their plan is oh and by the way it's not just bosses it also

applies to your peers well you know if it's my peer the I don't have to put up with it no it still doesn't help well if it's my subordinate I can at least smash them no it still doesn't help doesn't educate them doesn't put them in a positive mindset it doesn't unify the team instead it breaks the team apart you know I said something on the Huberman podcast a little while ago he we were talking about I forget how we even got into it But I looked at him and I said, hey, Andrew, if you had a team of 10 people and you all loved each other and I had a team of 10 people and we all hated each other who would win in whatever we were doing. And he says, well, the team that loves you. Yep, 100%. It's 100% right. And you get those, you get a seal platoon that's falling apart and you dissect them. What do you find? You find a bunch of infighting people that are pissed to each other. People that have little egos. They're fragmented. You take a seal poutine that's really good. You go talk to me. You can't find any cracks. You can't find any discreet. You can't find any discreet. You can't find any discreet. Any body that does maybe feel like they're getting slighted they know enough to

Subdu that and suppress and go you know what I just need it for the good of the team I got to get on board with the program So the idea that when you're interacting with other people up down or across the chain of command What you should do is you should do it in a positive way so that things move forward So you have strong relationships up down and across the chain of command Up down and across the chain of command it's interesting and You know, early on at Echelon front, we were talking about leading up the chain of command. And the reason we talked about leading up the chain of command specifically is because most people didn't view that as a thing.

Most people didn't see leadership as something you do up the chain of command. And because we talked about it in a way that people weren't used to, people thought it was somehow different. So now whenever I talk about leading up the chain of command, I also say, And by the way, that's the same way I treat people across the chain of command and that's the same way I people treat people below me in the chain of command I'm building relationships. I'm listening. I'm treating people with respect I'm allowing them to influence me up down and across the chain of command with the way you lead up the chain of command Ultimately is the same way that you lead down the chain of command and it's the same way you lead with some other team that doesn't report to you, and it's the same way you lead when you call for a a seat change at an airline and you're going to talk to this person for seven minutes and hopefully they can get you an upgrade that that's how you talk to them you try and build a little

relationship with that person you don't say hey by the way look at my miles where I'm at right now do you know what kind of a no you don't do that you know what that person does they go I'm sorry sir we can't find your we can't find this I'm sorry sir no it looks like the middle seat is the last thing available and the it's in rowing 93 middle seat so no matter what you're doing and listen does this mean that you're running around being a brown-nosed or kissing up to people no it doesn't mean that at all means you're treating people with respect that's what you're doing and when you do that people are much more likely to treat you with respect and say

actually sir you know it looks like we just had a cancellation in one of our one of our business class seats will that work for you and you said it'd be wonderful it doesn't matter who you're interacting with Be cool. Be nice. Damn, I did that with Eschelon Front the other day. I said, here's something you can do. Be cool to people.

Be cool. It goes a long way. What else? That's a lot of it right there. I mean, that covers it. I've been this thing in my mind. I wanted to go through the spectrum of this different types of scenarios. And listen, there is a spectrum.

It goes back and forth from situations by which we don't even need to communicate with each other. Two times are I going to sit down and have a conversation with my boss before we execute on something. And the point that I think is critical to this is, and I think you've already emphasized it extremely well, which is the tool that I have in the few times, the few times that I really need to stop before execute and sit down and you can call it pushing back, you can call it asking questions, you can call it whatever you want. But just like you described up, down and across, my goal, my goal, especially in a subordinate position in this particular case, If I'm asked to get something done for the team, my goal is to try to execute on that.

Think about what the outcome is. Think about it helps a team and be able to execute on that without causing a bunch of issues, without pushing back, without having a reputation of being, you know, someone who resist. And what do they call those people, the ones that are always, always pushing back. Contrarian? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Thinking it in some other way.

My goal is to execute. And the thing that gets in the way. That's a really good, that's a really good personality trait to have. in life. Oh, what's your goal? My goal is to execute, make things happen. That's just just amazing. And just like you described, that doesn't just work with my boss. That's with everybody in every aspect, my personal life, my professional life. My goal is to just be able to execute on what it is we're trying to get done. And if I can keep my ego out of it and keep my frustration out of it, even when I'm asked to do something that initially doesn't make sense, just like you described

in the beginning, if I just think about it for a minute and go, what do they want? What are they trying to accomplish? Does this make sense? What am I missing? I can. can think about it for a couple minutes ago, I know he wants. And I can just go do it. And even at times when maybe the instruction isn't exactly the way I should do it, if I have a decent relation with my boss and you tell me to go do something, you've given me some latitude. I might not do it exactly the way you want or follow the instructions to the letter ABCD, but if I get to the same outcome, you're not coming down here saying, well, did you do this, this, this, and this, or did you just get it done? Hey, I got it done. It wasn't necessarily the exactly the way you wanted. But on a few times, a very

few times and that's when you said that point whatever 1% I was like hey listen this is the rare event if your mindset is just to go execute once in a while I might I might need to hang on hey hey jacca before we go execute on this I need to talk to you and what I'm gonna need in those rare times is I'm gonna need more than anything you being willing to listen to me you talked about trust you talk it's all stuff same things I wrote down all the same thing that I said is all the components of a relationship or a relationship is if I do need to push back and resist what I need more than anything is you being willing to listen to me, go, hey, I think if we execute on this, just like your email, you want

that other person to be willing to listen to you. And I don't get that by pushing back and resisting every single time you ask me to do something. I don't get that. In a fact, I get that by doing the exact opposite. So you covered it all. The whole point behind this and the conclusion of this is the biggest problem most of the time with our bosses is not our bosses at all. It's us. It's our egos that convince us. They don't know what they're talking about. They don't understand. They're dumb. They don't get it or whatever story we tell ourselves when most of the time if I just sit and think about it for a minute I know what they want. We're aligned. We want the same things the end and I just go execute on it So much better. It's so much easier so much easier so much better and listen. I know it might sound like it's going to take a little bit longer

It might sound like you'd be better just to say hey boss. This doesn't make sense then you put kick up their defenses. You seem like a resistor And you don't move forward in a positive way Just by saying what you said, if you put yourself in a position and you just are honest with yourself and somebody says, hey, I don't like what you said. I don't look at you say that. Most people have a problem with that comment. Most people don't like pushback. And you said it earlier. This isn't about being, I think you described it.

We don't want a bunch of yes men. We don't want yes men. What we want is a bunch of hell yes men. Hey, was that what you want? Hell yeah. We can go make that happen. And there's a big difference between those two. but that resistance, I have to recognize that me pushing back is a habit,

is a habitual way of letting you know that I don't like what you're doing, hurts everybody to include me. The habitual I can get this done to make it happen helps me. And when it helps me the most is when it matters the most. When you get that email, it says you need to take for every one of you, seven of them. You're like, hey, boss, listen, I need to let you know how we operate and what this looks like. And if we do this, the risk that's created, what you needed more than anything, is your boss to listen to you.

And if you would push back on every single directive and guidance and idea, the time you actually needed to push back, he might not have been interested on what you had to say. And in fact, he might have given you two choices. Hey, Jocco, go execute.

Or, oh, it sounds like you don't want to execute, I bet you I can find someone that will. And then all of a sudden, that bad plan is getting implemented all because of what we just described. With no mitigation whatsoever. None. It's on you, people.

And it's not. And like you said, it's not that hard. To just stop for a second and think about it and go, okay, I know what he wants. I'm going to go execute. Yeah. All right. So here's my debrief point.

I was working with a company and this company had a big group, a big group of people are in the field. And the people that are in the field have all kinds of autonomy. They can kind of show up when they want. They can kind of take breaks when they want. They can come back to work when they want. They can kind of wear what they want. And there's some guidelines. There's some guidelines on everything I just said.

There's guidelines about when they're. supposed to show up. There's guidelines about when they're supposed to take a break. There's guidelines about what they're supposed to wear. There's guidelines about the task that they're supposed to conduct when they're out in the field. There's guidelines on these things, but they're real loose. And they're also real unenforceable because these people are out in the field solo. They're on solo operations. And with all this autonomy in this company, some people were starting to take advantage of that autonomy, right? And, you know, when there's multiple people in the field that are not quite doing what they're supposed to be doing and they're kind of abusing this autonomy,

well then corporate starts to get frustrated. They start to get feedback. You know, they see the report of someone that gets, you know, in a car accident. Well, how'd they get in a car accident in this neighborhood when they're supposed to be over on this job site and they weren't even there? So they start catching these things and all of a sudden they start getting frustrated. So now corporate's wondering what's going on. So now what does corporate do?

Corporate starts to impose rules. And now what happens with the people that are out in the field? Well, now the people that are in the field who were most of them, when they're taking a break at a certain time, it's like, oh yeah, I take a break at this time because I'm already driving by this, you know, the restaurant, so I just stopped there and I have an early lunch, but I still get back to work on the, and it actually makes sense. You know, you've got people on the front lines making decisions that are positive most of the time.

And then you've got a small group of people that are making decisions that are abusing the system. But what does corporate need to do? They need to police up the people that are abusing the system. So they start making rules. And then what happens with the folks that are in the field? Now they start flexing a little bit. They start to do what they can do. They start some of those like the solidarity campaigns in Poland when they were resisting the Soviet Union.

They would just do small things just to frustrate. right that's what they did and then what does hq do then hq starts to impose even more rules and now what we end up with is we end up with a lack of trust trust is a key part of relationships you get it's not respectful if i say hey dave yeah you do what you want but you can only take a lunch break from 1130 to 1230 then i want you back in your vehicle doing your job that doesn't show trust that doesn't show respect and when you say yeah but jonko you know for me i don't like to take a lunch break at that time because I'm so far out in the field. I can't get any food.

And I also can't even check my emails because I'm too far. I'm outside the zone of cell phone. So I'm not going to, I like to take my lunch actually at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. And I say, I don't care. The rules are the rules, 12.30. And now you're not being able to influence me. I'm not so you can see we just have relationships falling apart. So I'm sitting here listening.

By the way, in this meeting, I had the field work. and I had HQ all in the same room at the same time. So I asked the question, I asked a question, I said, and I was talking to the field workers. I said to the field workers, I said, let me ask you a question. If you break rules, do you get more rules or less rules? If you break rules, do you get more rules or less rules? And that's a good question.

And it was, I could tell it was a good question because the room went silent. because everybody knows the answer to that question. We all know the answer to that question because we all are human beings that grew up. If you break rules, you get more rules. That's what happens. And what this really is, as I thought about it after the meeting, this is just another form of discipline equals freedom. That's what it is. It's another form of discipline equals freedom, but it's on a very professional work basis.

Here's something that I actually talked to this group about in the Marine Corps and everybody knows I love the Marine Corps I love the Marine Corps I've spent time on Marine Corps ranges so so when you go shooting sometimes we'd go out and read use Marine Corps ranges And you sometimes we'd show up in the Marine Corps that be there you know finishing up their range and it's very very very controlled right it's like lock and load one magazine each with three rounds of 556 ammunition ready on the left ready on the right already on the firing line commence firing with three rounds like they're doing that why are they there well they're there because they have a lot of rules why do they have a lot of rules because mistakes have been made and for every mistake that gets made a new rule gets

implemented and you end up with a book of rules that are well there's there are a little too stringent in some case a seal range if you go to a seal range it's basically this range is hot or range is cold that's it that's it that's all you're gonna get range hot is range cold right range is hot cool we're shooting we're doing whatever we want but the reason for that is we are so freaking hard core about the rules of weapon safety we are so psychotic like you can get I don't know what happens in Marine Corps if you have an accidental discharge I don't know what happens you know Lance Corporal has an accidental

discharge cracks off around what happens yeah that's not good that's it's not good but yeah what happens to him I don't know if I could tell you exactly what happens to him yeah I can't imagine based on what I think the path you're going down is that the punishment is nearly as is yeah significant as what you're going to get if you crack that you crack up around it's severe punishment if you do something stupid with a weapon in the seal teams it is severe it is absolutely severe so what you have is a very small number of rules that everybody obeys religiously. Yeah.

Religiously. And so what you end up with is a very, you know, range is hot. That's what we're doing. Very few rules. So think about that. Think about that if you, as you work for a company or as you work for a team, there's rules in place. If you obey the rules that are in place, you'll end up with less rules.

And that's why I spent. So much of my seal career doing, and I know this sounds crazy, but doing whatever I wanted to freaking do. I had so much leeway in my career. And that was because I followed the rules. I followed the rules. And because I followed the rules that were in place, I didn't have very many rules to follow.

Because my bosses knew that there was a parameter, there was a left flank and a right flank that I was not going to depart from. And so they let me go all the way out to that right flank, all the way out to that left flank and do whatever I wanted to when I was inside that box. I followed the rules and therefore I had very few rules and got to do whatever I wanted to. So think about that when you're working inside of a company. The more you follow the rules, the less rules you have.

And then also think about this as you lead a company or as you lead a team, you should explain that to your people, that your goal is. to give them less rules your goal is for them to have autonomy your goals for them to be leaders your goals for them to make decisions and you should also explain to them that when you as a leader are forced to impose rules you should tell them it's because these rules weren't being followed like hey Dave the only reason I'm gonna have to come down and inspect your weapons two times a month is because the last time I looked at them they weren't cleaned so we're putting some rules in place.

So whether you're a subordinate and you're part of a team, think about following the rules to a T so that you can have less rules. When you're in a leadership position, think about making it a goal to give less rules. And the reason you do that or the way you do that is by explaining to the team that following the rules will actually give them less rules. And then as an individual human being, as a person. and you're in your personal life you need to have rules in your personal life. And if you have rules in your personal life that you follow, you don't need that many of them. If you have a rule

that says, hey, wake up early. If you have a rule that says work out every day, if you have a rule that says eat clean, if you have a rule that says get your work done, be productive, don't waste time. If you have those rules in your life, you're probably doing pretty good as long as you obey them. Now, if you can't follow those rules, then you need to put more rules in place. You need to be one those people that sets the thing on your phone where it turns off at 10 o'clock. So you're not wasting time on that. You need to be the type of person that wakes up in the morning and says, okay, I'm not going to eat anything until I get done with a workout.

That's my rules. Oh, and by the way, I can't control myself when there's a sleeve of freaking Oreos. So guess what? I have a rule that I'm not going to have any junk food in the house. And if you're wasting four hours a day watching TV, watching streaming services, which is now like putting heroin into your house, because you can just tap into it at any time. Well, guess what? Now you need to make the rule that you're not allowed to have any TV at all. You're not watching it.

You can only watch it on Saturday from 7 o'clock at night until 10 o'clock at night. That's it. That's all the TV you get. So you need to put rules. If you can't follow the simple rules, the basic rules, then you put more. more rules into your life. I was watching, I saw a clip from Theo Vaughn and he had another comedian on there. He's a Greek guy who I can't remember his name, but he's really, really funny. But the guy says, yeah, you know, I can quit drinking at any time. He's kind of a heavy guy. And he says, you know,

I can quit drinking at any time. I can quit. You know, I've used drugs. I can quit them anytime. But he goes, but food, I just can't quit. And then they started talking about the fact that, you know, the thing with food is you have to have food right and so Theo von was saying yeah can you imagine if it was like hey don't do cocaine but you have to do cocaine every six hours every day you have to do a little bit he's like I would be out of control so putting those rules in your life to make sure that you are on the right path and if you live by those rules if you have to tighten up the rules on yourself eventually you realize oh my life is a lot better when I don't eat crap my life is a lot better when I wake up at a decent time every day.

My life is a lot better when I don't waste a bunch of time doing things that don't provide me any benefit whatsoever. And if you can live by those rules, your life is going to be better. And what this boils down to is another form of discipline equals freedom. But the aspect of considering, see, we don't like rules. It's the psychological reactance. We don't like rules. But if you realize that those rules are the pathway to less rules, it will hopefully put it in perspective, make it easier for you to follow those rules.

And by the way, I'm a rebellious person. I figured this out. I figured this out when I was like in boot camp. If I follow the rules that they set up for me, I'm going to have more freedom. So I'm a rebellious person. But the way to rebel is actually to succeed. The way to rebel and overcome the rules and not have to follow them is. by actually obeying those rules. I did that at officer candidate at officer

candidate school. I obeyed the rules so hard that they told me to stop. I actually did that at buds too. You know a buds the punishment for being dumb is or doing something stupid or is getting wet and sandy meaning you're gonna be miserable so they could go hit the surf go get wet and sandy. So when we were in third phase we're in San Clemente Island I would just start off the day go get wet and sandy. Didn't do anything wrong, me and my swim buddy, we go get wet and sandy. The instructors finally after like day three or four, they're like, what are you doing? And we're like, I'm just trying to be tough or trying to be harder. And he's like, you can't do that. They eventually told our whole

class, you guys are not allowed to get wet and sandy anymore. We obeyed the rules to the nth degree. And they told us, hey, stop. I did that at our officer candidate school too. At officer candidate school, you got to yell everything in what they call a ballistic tone. So every time I was interacting with the upper classmen, I would be like yelling at the top of my lungs. And finally they're like, hey, we don't want anyone your class to yell anymore because we like hurt their ears. So yeah, sometimes I take it to an extreme. But guess what?

You end up with less rules. So it remains true. Discipline equals freedom. You got anything from your notes there? I just was thinking back on something you said when you were talking about. And it gets to all the counterintuitive things we say. If you want less rules, follow the rules. But it also made me think about too if you want influence over some of the rules that aren't good rules

Following that those those it's another great way to get the influence because if you're always pushing back on all the rules Sooner later I'm gonna stop listening to you even if the rule is dumb and I actually do need to hear you if all you ever do is push back in the rules But if you're a dude that understands those limits Operates inside those limits and you go hey boss there's this rule here that really prevents me from getting these things done like the lunch rule I am so much more inclined to hear what you have to say if we need to change that rule if you're someone that operates inside that. So it doesn't just give you less rules.

It gives you influence over the rules that need to be changed. And I think it ties in that earlier question too. So yeah, my boss asked me to do something to do if my boss asked me to do something that doesn't make sense, I'm actually gonna try and do it to the best of my ability. Gonna try to execute.

And I'm probably gonna do it try and do it really, really well. Yes. And then my boss, and then I'm able to say, yep, boss, we did. We won, we got that contract. We got the next one too. We got this last one. I think we're doing some extra work here.

Well, what do you mean? Well, here's the form that we're going to throw out and blah, blah, blah, yeah, yeah. So totally. There you go. A little bit counterintuitive, but you'll win in the end. Probably a good place to stop for today. If you want to dig deeper into all these aspects of leadership, check out Dave, me, Laif, J.P., Steve, Cody. I mean, the whole team, Jamie.

the whole team come and check us out extreme ownership academy extreme ownership dot com we're having these conversations like if you heard something today and you said you know what to say wait a second Dave that doesn't make any sense come on to the academy at a live session and ask us these questions you can ask us whatever you want that's what it's for and there's also a bunch of courses you can take if you want to to get knowledge at a little bit of a deeper level also we have a leadership consultancy echelonfront dot com if you need us in your company to help with your leadership

We got a bunch of books on leadership. Got another podcast called Jocko Podcasts. So if you want to check that out, check that out out as well. And if you want to support any of these things, go to joccofuel.com, jocco store.com, origin USA.com. And get yourself some food, some clothing, some jiu-jitsu geese. You know, get you what you need. Thanks for listening to us debrief.

Now go lead. This is Dave and Jocko. Bye.