The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 234: Jocko Willink - Why Discipline Equals Freedom

Episode Date: December 4, 2017

The Learning Leader Show "As the leader, you are responsible for EVERYTHING that happens in your organization." Show Notes: Commonalities of leaders who sustain excellence: Humility Constantly looking to improve Learning Willing and able to take criticism Incredible story of a mutiny within the ranks because of a platoon commander's ego Way Of The Warrior Kid - The message for children Be humble Don't give up Work hard Ramadi -- The epicenter, insurgency in Iraq The confusion/fog of war A firefight... Between friendly forces: Who's at fault? Jocko took ownership - "As the leader, I'm responsible for everything that happens on that field. It wasn't your fault, it's mine." "If you make a mistake, you must own it." Owning the mistakes created confidence and trust with Jocko's boss How do you handle a bad boss? Make them look good Ask for feedback, advice, ask for their approval, build them up Isn't that manipulation? "Yes..." "It's not just what you preach, it's what you tolerate." Decentralized command -- Empowering junior leaders to make important decisions. Front line leaders must be empowered. Why? Speed Being empowered as a quarterback to call an audible -- Why this was an optimal way for us to attack a defense and ultimately win games. The coaches needed to trust and empower me to do this Are leaders born or made? Characteristics of great leaders? They take complex things and simplify them They are articulate They are loud (seems strange, but it's true for military leaders and a quarterback) How much can you learn?  You must detach emotion, and be decisive. Why wake up at 4:30 am? "It is time for me to own, it's before everyone else is awake" Favorite part of work? - Podcasting and working with companies How has Jocko created this lifestyle? -- Many years of consistent, sustained work "Discipline Equals Freedom." His discipline for many years has helped him create a lifestyle that he loves "It's not just what you preach. It's what you tolerate."   Social Media: Read: Extreme Ownership See why over 150,000 people follow Jocko on Twitter: @jockowillink Connect with me on LinkedIn Join our Facebook Group: The Learning Leader Community To Follow Me on Twitter: @RyanHawk12

The bottom line is if your junior leaders, your frontline leaders don't have the power to make decisions, then they can't do anything. They can't lead. And if they're not leading, then they're getting flanked and overrun by the enemy. Whether that's the competitor down the street, whether that's another team that you're competing against, that's what it is. If the frontline leaders aren't empowered to be able to make decisions and lead, then they're sitting there. And when you're sitting there, you're getting flanked and overrun.

This episode is brought to you by Workfront. Workfront is a work automation platform that allows you and your team to do your best work. Focus on the right work and complete that work faster than ever. Workfront connects all the phases of your workflow from planning corporate strategies to tactical execution. They go beyond just project and portfolio management. It delivers an operational system of record for today's largest and most innovative companies, including Fossilcars.com, and Old Navy. And they also work with Focus Brands, who's C-O-O-Cat-Cole was featured on episode 78 of The Learning Leader Show, Workfront, because work matters. Hey, and welcome to the Learning Leaders Show. I am Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. It is Mindful Monday. We'd love to have you join us. Text Learners to 4-4-2-2-2.

Text learners to 4-4-2-2-2 in order to join thousands of other fellow learning leaders from all over the world discuss the latest trends and topics in the field of leading and serving others. Text learners to 4-4-222. Now, on tonight's featured leader, and it is a big one. It's Jocko Willing, decorated, retired Navy SEAL officer, author of the book, Extreme Ownership, How U.S. Navy SEALs lead and win. Jocko spent 20 years in the U.S. Navy SEAL teams starting as an enlisted seal and rising through the ranks to become a SEAL officer. He was the commander of SEAL Team 3's Task Unit Bruiser during the Battle of Ramadi. Task unit became the most highly decorated special operations unit of the Iraq War. And during his career, Jocko was awarded the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, and numerous other personal and unit awards.

This one was huge and I loved it. a few of the topics. Jocko answers the question, are leaders born or made? Then how to win the war within, followed up by the importance of decentralized command and empowering others and why that makes a difference

both on the battlefield and in the business world. Then we finished with advice to those who want to make a living, doing what they love, and exactly what Jocko tells you to do in order to make that happen. Ladies and gentlemen, This one is huge, and I loved it with Jocko willing.

All right, Jocko. I mentioned to you before that you've been requested by, it feels like hundreds of my listeners from all over the world. So thank you and welcome to the Learning Leaders Show. Thanks for having me on, Ryan. I am curious. So you have experiences from all over the world, some of the worst, toughest moments that you've been through. You've surrounded yourself by other fantastic leaders. You've made mistakes.

you've admitted that you've had incredible success along the way and so from your perspective when you look at leaders who have sustained excellence over an extended period of time right they're their long-term performers what are some of the common characteristics you've found in those people i say it all the time i think the most important characteristic for a leader to have is humility because if you're humble then you're constantly looking to improve yourself you're not rest of the time on your laurels, you're not gaffing off other people that might be making suggestions to you. You're taking criticism and instead of getting defensive about it, you're actually taking it on board and seeing what you can do better. And you're never sitting back and just waiting for things to

happen because you're humble and you know that things don't just happen. You need to make them happen. So I always think that humility is the most important characteristic, not just for a leader, but for a person. Was there a specific moment in time? where you learned that lesson potentially the hard way, or perhaps you had, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but perhaps all of us, I feel like we mature. And as we're younger, maybe we have quite a big head at times. Or maybe I'll speak for myself. And then there are moments in our lives that humble us and that help us learn some of those lessons the hard way. Did you have any of those specific moments in your life?

Well, one of the things, and I've talked about this before, is I had a platoon. commander when I was a young seal that was very inexperienced and he was also had a huge ego and completely lacked humility and no one wanted to work for him none of us young troopers really liked him he forced everyone to do things his way even though he didn't really know what he was doing but he was too insecure about himself to actually say hey guys I don't know how to do this how about you make a suggestion on how we get it done and then we'll go that way he'd have the humility to do that and so we ended up actually having a small mutiny in that seal platoon and we got him fired and the guy that took over for him was a guy that was actually by far the most experienced guy that we had

he was a really smart guy he was very tactically sound and he was the most humble guy and he always asked us what we thought and how we thought we should we should do things as a platoon and he was such a humble guy. We all wanted to do our best for him. And that's one of the primary reasons that I recognize that humility is the most important trait you can have. I love it. I think people who know your work obviously understand that. And so I'm thinking of the ones who, for some reason, haven't heard of or haven't bought into your work yet. But you have a few books out. You have your own podcast. I'm one of the guys who's a listener and a reader of your work. And as a dad, and this may be an odd place to start, but you wrote Way of the Warrior

Kid in regards to from Wimpy to Warrior, the Navy Seal Way. And I was curious, what made you want to write a book for kids like that? Well, for one thing, I have four kids my own who are between the ages right now of 18 and eight. And raising kids, as I was raising them, you know, I saw that they would be coming up against obstacles and I would do my best to kind of coach them through those obstacles and applied some of the stuff that I had been through in my life to teach them those lessons and it seemed to be pretty effective. And also, so I decided I wanted to capture some of those lessons and some of those

methodologies for kids that weren't my own so that everyone could kind of see them. And then on top of that, a lot of the books that were out that my kids were reading or wanting, wanted to read really didn't reflect the kind of qualities that I wanted my kids to have. And so I just decided to be best if I wrote my own book. And that's what I did. What are some of the qualities you want your kids to have? Well, number one is humility. But I also want my kids to not give up. I want my kids to work hard. And I want them to be able to stand up for themselves. And those are some of the topics that are covered in the book, Way the Warrior Kid. You know, you got a kid in the book. In the beginning of the book,

It begins on the last day of school. And this kid, he doesn't know his times tables. He can't do any pull-ups. He doesn't know how to swim, and he's getting picked on at school. And all those things are pretty normal for kids. Kids go through, whether you don't know your times table or whether you don't know your spelling or whatever subject in school you're having trouble with, kids have trouble with something in school. Kids will have physical limitations where, you know, this kid in particular case, he can't do any pull-ups.

but maybe you're not a fast runner or whatever. The fear of the water, and he's really afraid of the water. It's not just that he can't swim. He's actually afraid of the water. People are afraid of all kinds of different things. And kids are especially because they don't have the experience. And then finally the kids getting bullied,

which is, as we all know, is very common. And when little kids come up and ask me if I got bullied, I said, yes, all kids get bullied. Because all kids do get bullied. It doesn't matter who you are. If you're the biggest 10-year-old kid in your school and the strongest 10-year-old kid in your school, there's still an 11-year-old that's a little bit bigger and a little stronger than you.

So all kids get bullied and these are all things that happened to my kids. I saw it happen to my kids and things that happened to me as well. So I thought I had some good ideas of how to overcome some of those challenges. So that's what I wrote the book about. I appreciate you writing that because it's a good book for I'm a dad of five daughters and to see them kind of engage in that and then us have these conversations in regards to it where we can make these comparisons between extreme ownership and my reading that, as well as The Way of the Warrior Kid.

I like how it goes full circle. And so I want to dive in a little bit more to extreme ownership. And there's a well-told story, but I still think it's important for the listeners who have not heard it about some of you taking ownership, especially through adverse situations. And you wrote about this in extreme ownership. And I just watched your TED Talk again for, I don't know how many times it was, this morning as I was getting ready for this talk and about the moment in Ramadi that you went through and I'll let you tell the story if you'd like because I think it just shows and I have definitely

some thoughts after you tell it but shows what it means to take ownership as a leader. So can you take us back to that moment in Ramadi and kind of set the stage as far as what happened and the end result from it? Well, we had basically just arrived in Ramadi in the spring of 2006. At the time, it was the epicenter of the insurgency in Iraq. It was a very, very violent and war-torn city. And we were going to work with other coalition forces to get in there and take the city back and stabilize and secure it.

And we started some of these initial missions going into the city. And we were working with, not only with other U.S. forces, but also with Iraqi soldiers, friendly Iraqi soldiers. And we had put what we called sniper overwatch positions. So small teams with US Army soldiers, Iraqi soldiers and seals in small groups. And we put them in various places throughout the city as a larger group of Iraqi soldiers helped by American soldiers were going to push through and clear a big section of the city, going house to house, going in building,

buildings, looking for insurgents, looking for weapons, and clearing and securing that part of the city. Well, there's a lot of confusion in war and there's a lot of mayhem that unfolds and it can happen very quickly. And that's exactly what happened in this situation. And where it ended up was that one of my little elements of seals and Iraqi soldiers were in an Overwatch position and there was a rogue element of Iraqi soldiers that had left the main group that had been clearing the city, and they went to a position that they weren't supposed to go to, and they got into a firefight with my seals. And it was a horrible situation.

This is the worst thing that can happen in a war where you've got friendly forces shooting friendly forces. And I had one of my seals get wounded. multiple Iraqi soldiers were wounded. One Iraqi soldier was killed before we got all this sorted out and figured out what was happening. And obviously, this is, like I said, the worst thing that can happen in war. And it happened. And so when we got done with this operation and we cleaned up and we got the guys off the battlefield and we now got notified through my commanding officer. So what that is, that's my boss. That's my my CEO and my commanding officer said, hey, I'm coming to meet with you. I want to debrief. I want to know exactly what happened. I'm bringing the investigating officer who's going to do a full investigation. So what this really means is they're looking for someone to blame and they're looking for someone to fire. I mean, obviously friendly forces should not be shooting and killing friendly forces out on the

battlefield. So they're looking for someone to blame and say, okay, this is this person's fault. And we're going to fire him, whoever that person is. So I started preparing this debrief, you know, took big graphic of the city, of the area we were working in. I started kind of laying out arrows of where all the different units were maneuvering. And there was all these mistakes, all these different mistakes that got made. Radio men didn't, didn't pass his position quickly enough that they had moved to a new spot. The guys that were controlling the Iraqi soldiers, They didn't keep control the Iraqi soldiers, obviously, because they left their pre-planned position. There was a communication breakdown.

There was a cryptographic change in the radio systems that happened at 2 o'clock in the morning, and all this started happening at about 4 o'clock in the morning when some people hadn't changed their radios yet, and so we weren't getting good communications. The Iraqi soldiers showed up late and came in through a different approach, So there was problem upon problem and mistake upon mistake, which had happened. And as I was sitting there preparing this debrief to tell my commanding officer kind of who he needed to blame. And I'm going over my head.

And there was something in my head that just couldn't, I couldn't get a grip on it. I couldn't feel okay about which person I should actually blame for what had happened. And I sat there. I looked at every position. I looked at every individual. I looked at each leader and what their team did. And there was so many people that I could blame, but I couldn't. figure out exactly who I should point the finger at. And it gave me a really horrible feeling,

a very unsettling feeling. And finally, I was getting ready. I was about 10 minutes before I actually walked into the debriefing room. And I realized that there was only one person to blame for what had happened. And that was me. I was a senior guy on the battlefield. And I'm responsible for everything that occurs out there. Everything, everything that occurs is on me. And I went in that room and, you know, I asked everyone. I said, hey, whose fault was this? And I had my entire, both my seal platoons from my task unit were sitting there along with the commanding officer, along with the command master chief, along with the investigating officer. And I said, whose fault was this?

And, you know, the radio man raised his hand and said, it's my fault. I should have passed this information of where we were sooner. And I said, no, it wasn't your fault. And I said, and another guy raised his hand and said, hey, I engaged that Iraqi soldier. I should have done a better job of identifying who it was. And I didn't. And that's what started everything. So this was my fault.

And I said, no, it wasn't. And then one of the other guys raised his hand and said, no, it's my fault because I let my Iraqi soldiers get away from it. So if they wouldn't have gotten away from me, they wouldn't have been in that position where they shouldn't have been. And this wouldn't happen. So it was my fault. And as I went around the room, guys wanted to take the blame. And then I eventually said, no, it wasn't your fault. It wasn't your fault.

it wasn't your fault. There's only one person to blame for this happening. And that's me. I'm a commander and I'm responsible for everything that happens out there. And that's the story, you know, that extreme ownership the book starts out with. And we started out with that story because it's one of those moments. Of course, we had all had this attitude. And I had had this attitude for a very long time that if you make a mistake, you own it. You own it. If you cause a problem, you step up and say, hey, this was my fault. Here's one you to correct it. But certainly I had never been in a position where I was going to take ownership of something this severe, which was Americans, my guys being wounded and coalition forces being killed. So it was a very difficult thing to do.

And at the same time, it was actually a very easy thing to do as soon as I realized that that's where my mind was. I knew that that was the right thing to do. If I wanted to maintain my integrity as a leader and as a man, that was the only way to do. do it. What was a response when you took ownership for the mistake? Well, this is another thing that I think surprises people, or maybe it doesn't surprise people externally, but internally, people think if they take the blame for something, people are going to point their fingers and they're going to say, yeah, that's right, it is your fault. And the reality of what happens is people say, you know, no, here's, here's the mistake that I made. It wasn't your fault. And now what we end up with is a team where

everyone on the team is taking ownership of the problem and the problems get solved. Now my commanding officer's reaction was here's a guy that instead of making excuses, instead of pointing the finger at other people, he's actually saying, you know what, this is my fault. And here's what I'm going to do to fix it, because that's the other part of the story is I said, hey, here's the mistakes that I made and here's the things I'm going to do to fix it so that this won't happen again. So his confidence in me actually went up and he trusted me even more because he knew I was the guy that was never going to shirk responsibility. Within the military, I'm not a military guy, I've just called you guys in the highest regard, as long-time listeners know, but within the military, when mistakes were made, was it out of the norm for them to respond the way you did?

Yes. Really? Really? The military is a microcosm of society. And so the same things that happen in society happen in the military. And I mean, we could go back and you could give countless examples of bad leaders that try and shift the blame when something goes wrong. Now, good leaders, they do take the blame, absolutely. And bad leaders, they try and shift the blame on someone else.

And that's pretty normal in every industry. They're good leaders and they're bad leaders. Good leaders take ownership. Bad leaders don't. I think that's interesting because it's like you look at other professions, maybe that you're not, I've grown up in sports and business. And we've seen poor coaches, right? and coaches that you just assume if they're an NFL coach that they must be great. But that's just as simply as in the case.

It's every single industry, every single job has, or even if you look at doctors, unfortunately, too, every single area of profession or industry has their leaders or their performers that are great and that are average and that are poor, unfortunately. And I think, I guess as somebody who doesn't have a military background, you just assume all guys are perfect warriors who own up and who take it to the enemy and do it the right way. But that makes sense that you find it. So, Jocko, if you're cool, I'd love to dive into some of the specific topics when it comes to being somebody who exemplifies extreme ownership.

And I want to relate it now to the business world, basically the people who I interact with a lot. And I know you do too, teaching and coaching and leading them, specifically when somebody is a manager and they have a team of people. And I've heard this verbatim, unfortunately, on more than one occasion where they get in a meeting with the people that are their bosses and they say things like this. Well, I don't understand why they are doing this. Or, yeah, these guys just don't listen or these guys just won't do it. And they use that word they as opposed to we or I as the leader.

And I'm always shocked when I see people using that terminology when it comes to the people that they're in charge of leading. And so as you make this transition from the military to the corporate world, how do you handle situations with managers who use those types of words like, yeah, they don't listen or they won't do what they're supposed to do or what I've told them to do? Yeah. I mean, you hear that all the time. And I think that's why the book Extreme Ownership has been so popular because it's the real solution to the problems, right? If I say to you, Ryan, I see your team didn't meet their goals that they were going to meet. And your response to me is, well, you know, they're not putting in enough hours. They're not organized enough.

They're not executing the way I told them to execute. Now, think about that. What do you think as your leader? What am I thinking? you aren't doing the job and as a leader i'm not doing the job yeah well first of all i realize you know what i haven't i haven't explained to ryan that he's the guy that's in charge of this stuff and he's the guy that needs to make it happen so so i'm actually going to take ownership for the fact that you are not a good leader and if i'm your boss i'm the one that's responsible

for turning you into a good leader so i already know that i'm at fault and then i've got to explain to you hey you can blame this on your team but you're the one that's in charge of your team And so if your team is doing something that you don't want them to do, then whose fault is that? And I'd see this all the time. And this is something Laif and I who wrote the book with me, we would talk about, you know, if his machine gunner, when we were on a training operation didn't move to the right place to set security, I wouldn't run over and yell at the machine gunner. You know, I'd pull Leif aside and say, hey, what do you think the machine gunner's doing

over there? I'm not blaming the machine gunner. The machine gunner is doing what he thinks is right. The leader is the one that's responsible for where these guys are positioning themselves. correctly for security. So yeah, the team, there's no bad teams, only bad leaders. And we have a chapter in the book that explains that very clearly. When it comes to the emails you get and I get that say,

Jocko or Ryan, I'm into this. I love it. I'm learning. I'm growing. I'm taking ownership. However, my boss is kind of the opposite. They're just not into this. They're one of those kind of veterans who stuck on their ways.

They're the type that say we've always done it this way, and this is the way we're going to do it. How do you get or what is the process to help get them to buy into being an extreme owner to understanding how they could be more effective leaders? Well, first of all, you've got to be very carefully that you're not stepping on the toes of your boss because if you form an antagonistic relationship with your boss, you're not going to make any progress. You're not going to move forward in any way. So you want to give them respect. You want to give them support. You want to make them look good. I'll tell you, if you want to do well in your job and your career, make your boss look good.

And now if you've got someone that doesn't want to take ownership, so there's two things here that you asked. One of them is someone that doesn't want to take ownership. So you got a boss that says, you know, hey, this isn't my problem. This isn't my fault. When my boss says that to me, I say, you're right. You know what? It's not your fault. It's my fault. I need to do a better job. If my boss doesn't take ownership of something, I take ownership of it. If my boss doesn't want a brief the troops, I'll brief the troops. If my boss doesn't want to come up with a plan, I'll come up with a plan. I have no problem with that. So a boss that doesn't want to take ownership is fine. Now, like I said, this doesn't mean I make my boss look bad and say, oh, the boss wouldn't come up

with a plan. So I did. Actually, I'd go to my boss. I'd create a plan and I'd say, hey, boss, I put this plan together and I know that you're more experienced than me and I would love to get your feedback on it and see if this is something that we can go ahead and execute. And so then you're actually asking for approval and you're asking for their opinion. So you're building them up a little bit instead of trying to undermine them. And so that is what you do when your boss won't take any ownership is you take ownership yourself and you do it an attack for way. Now the other question that you ask is like, oh, what if my boss is stuck in the mud and doesn't want to change? That comes down a little bit to ego, which is, hey, we've always done it.

The way I do is the best and we don't need to change anything. And so then I just start planting seeds in their mind. And I'll, again, I'll massage their ego a little bit and say, hey, boss, I know we've been doing this for a while. I'd like to maybe try something. And I want to run it by you because I know you know this a lot better than me. But I'd like to just maybe make a little tweak to the way we're doing things right now and see if it works.

Now, sometimes they still reject that problem. They still reject that recommendation. And oftentimes what I'll do is I'll literally say, hey boss you know a couple months ago you were talking to me about a new way of you were thinking of doing this and it was like this and i'd like to maybe try that so they never said that to me it doesn't matter though i want to put that idea in their head like it was theirs i want i want the idea to be theirs because then it's a lot easier for them to accept and then they say well yeah yeah yeah you you know what that was a good idea i had why don't you go ahead and give that a try is that a little bit of manipulation though it is a little bit of manipulation is that okay are you yeah so okay the difference between manipulation and leadership and influence So they're all very closely related. If you work for me, Ryan, and I'm trying to get you to do something, then I'm going to use

various tools of leadership and influence and really manipulation to get you to do it. And if I get you to do what I want you to do, that's good leadership, right? And at the same time, if I get you to do what I want you to do, that's also manipulation. So what's the difference between the two? For me, the difference between the two is if I'm getting you to do something that's going to benefit you and it's going to benefit you. and it's going to benefit the team, then that's leadership. If I'm getting you to do something that's not going to benefit the team,

it's not going to benefit you, and it's only going to benefit me, that in my mind is manipulation. And obviously that has, that's not good because I'm not doing it to benefit you. I'm doing it to benefit me. So those are the difference between those two types of influence that we use on people. You said there's not bad teams. There's bad leaders. And another one of your quotes that reminded me as somebody else I spoke with,

You said it's not what you preach, it's what you tolerate. And Dr. Henry Cloud, who I just had on, said, as a leader, you'll get what you create or what you allow. So it's not what you preach, it's what you tolerate. Can you go deeper on that aspect of winning the war within as far as leading, serving other people when it comes to what you, not what you preach, but it's what you tolerate? I could go deeper, but there's not really that much deeper to go. it's a pretty self-explanatory thing. If you allow people to do things that you know that they shouldn't do, well, it doesn't matter that you don't think that they should do it.

If you allow them to do it, that's what they're going to do. And you can talk all you want and you can hang up little posters and you can send out emails. But if you allow behavior to occur or behavior not to occur, that is the opposite of what you want. Well, that's what you're going to get. So there's really not too much deeper to go on that one. It's not what you preach. It's what you tolerate. Is this a big problem you find when you're out consulting, helping teaching, leadership

development within organizations? You know, everything that we talk about in this book are all problems. There's none of them that spike up more often than others. It just depends on the organization. And some organizations have a hard time enforcing rules that they know that they should enforce, but they don't want to for a variety of reasons. They're uncomfortable doing it. They fear that people will be angry.

They'll fear that they won't be liked as a leader or whatever. You run into those companies, and there's some companies that take it too far in the other direction, where they're so draconian in the way they run things that no one wants to work for. So there's a balance that you have to have as a leader that comes across in just about everything that you do as a leader. You have to be balanced. We're talking about speed and decision-making. I had a guy on named Chris Zillow, because episode 157, he wrote a book called The Founders Mentality.

It's really good. And it's about having a frontline obsession. And I remember Chris Fustle talking about General McChrystal getting down on the front line to get a feel for what was really going on. And also having an aversion to bureaucracy. And you talk about decentralized command, having teams broken down into manageable elements of about four to five operators with a clearly designated leader, as you spoke about a little bit earlier. this conversation. And I think the word that I really like here that you talk about that is so necessary, and it works both from a military perspective as well as the business world, is that the junior leaders must be empowered to make decisions on key tasks. And that could be a problem.

So when it comes to decentralized command and why is it so important that we give, that we empower junior leaders to make key decisions? Well, The bottom line is if your junior leaders, your frontline leaders don't have the power to make decisions, then they can't do anything. They can't lead. And if they're not leading, then they're getting flanked and overrun by the enemy. Whether that's the competitor down the street, whether that's another team that you're competing against, that's what it is. If the frontline leaders aren't empowered to be able to make decisions and lead, then they're sitting there. And when you're sitting there, you're getting flanked and overrun. This seems obvious. Why is it such a problem? It's a problem for a few reasons. And the biggest reason is that people don't build trust with the folks that work for them. And then their ego, oftentimes, they want to control everything. They don't think anyone can do this as well as I can.

And so therefore, you know, Ryan, if you run into a problem out there, I want you to call me back immediately and ask me what to do. Okay, well, now you're out in the field and you've got enemy fire coming. from somewhere and you know what you should do you should you should put some guys online start laying down some suppressive fire and send an element around to the flank to to take out that shooter well you know you should do that but instead you call me and you say hey jocco we're taking fire and i say okay what direction are you taking fire from and you say uh from the north and then i say okay how heavy is the fire can you maneuver under the fire that you're receiving and you say well we're taking accurate fire and I wouldn't feel comfortable getting up and moving around, but I think if I put down

some suppressive fire, I may be able to maneuver some troops. Okay, how many guys do you have that can put down suppressive fire? And you say, well, I've got two machine gunners and I've got a grenadier that are ready to roll. And I say, okay, get with them and I want you to tell them to fire approximately 150 rounds from each machine gun. And I want the grenadier to put 12 grenades on the enemy firing position. Now, in the time that we've had this conversation, the enemy, while you were sitting there talking to me, has now maneuvered to another position. They're on your flank, and another machine gun opens up, and you get four or five guys hit, and now you're having a real problem. So that's the difference. That's what decentralized command is.

Decentralized command means the leader in the field can make decisions, make things happen, and get after I think the key word you talked about at the beginning there was trust, I think, is the aspect when you look at organizations that have a lot of bureaucracy is that there is almost like a dictatorship or a lack of trust or in a lot of cases a really insecure leader at or near the top of that organization. And when I view the difference specifically in my lifetime between whether it's the great CEOs, presidents, and great football coaches I may have played for, I think of some of the best coaches, they gave me freedom as a quarterback to, if I saw something in the defense at the line of scrimmage, when there was no time to ask anyone for help, they gave me

freedom and helped me prepare to make the proper audibles, the proper checks at the line of scrimmage to get us into a better play against that defensive look. And I think that empowerment led me to then take even more ownership of the team as a captain, as a leader. and it also made us more successful because we were running better, just quite simply running better plays against the defensive looks we may have gotten that particular week. Regardless of the industry, Jocko, I think it relates, whether it's the military or a football field or the business world of empowering your leaders to make decisions is the difference between some of the great teams and some of the very average teams. That's 100% correct.

and obviously we work with every type of industry that you could imagine from finance industries to insurance industry to the energy industry and gas and oil and construction software, hardware, pretty much everything. We work in every industry. And yes, this is absolutely true in every industry. If you're out on a construction site and the foreman on the job has a late delivery and he wants to move and start doing another part the job and bump this section back two days because he doesn't have the material he needs on hand, if he has to run that up the chain of command to make that decision, they're going to lose days and hours. And all of a sudden, the crane that they had ordered doesn't show up.

And so what are they going to do? The guy's got to be able to make a decision. Same thing in the financial world. Same thing in any industry that you go into. Yes, it's always the same. You've got to build that team up. You've got to have trust. And then when this is important, everybody on the team has to understand what the mission is, what the end state is, what the goal is, and what the strategic direction that they're trying to move in so that the decisions that they make support that strategic decision.

It's pretty easy on the football field, right? On the football field, you're trying to take that ball and get it down to the end zone. That's what you're trying to do. Now, in businesses, that could be a little bit different. Things can shift a little bit. And so everyone's got to know, you know, you might have a time period at a company where the company is really trying to improve their regulatory reputation and really be strict following the rules. Maybe they've gotten some hits against them and they're getting scrutinized by the regulators. So everyone in the company's got to know, you know what, right now, if you've got to make a decision, you lean towards being incomplete, incomplete compliance with the regulations.

And that's the way we're going to maintain. Well, now you fast forward. Now these people have a great regulatory reputation, but no one wants to use them because they're too stringent. So now you've got to talk to your troops and say, hey, look, we're going to push a little bit. We're going to really try and make sure we're taking care of the customer. The customer comes first.

If we have to push a little bit on the regulations, don't do anything illegal, but let's push hard. So as long as people understand what the strategic goal is, then the folks out in the field can make decisions. When it comes to leading, Jocko, how much of it are you or leading qualities capabilities are you born with versus how much can be learned i'm curious from a leadership perspective what are your beliefs so you ever seen those video games where you are assigned a character and i i don't play video games so i can't give you

a specific example but i've seen them where the different characters have different strengths and weaknesses they've got a certain level of strength they've got a certain level of dexterity they've got a certain level of skill with certain weapons and you build the character the best you can or you get the character and then you do what you can with this certain character. Well, that's the way human beings are too. And there's certain characteristics that we have as leaders. There are certain strong ones. You might be good with some of them. You might not be so good with others. And you're born with those levels at a certain spot. And so for instance, as a leader, what are some good character? characteristics to have as a leader. Well, a good leader can take complex things and simplify it. That's very beneficial. If you're a leader and you can look at a complex problem and then you can simplify it, well, that's very good. Now, another characteristic that's good to have is if you're articulate. So now, if you're very articulate, now you have a complex problem, you can simplify it. And now you can take it and very clearly articulate that problem and what the solution is and how

you're going to execute it to your team. That is also very beneficial for a leader. On top of that, you know, one that I always laughed at and I learned from it was being loud and the ability for a leader to be loud. Now, you were a quarterback. And as a quarterback, if you couldn't project your voice and make the next audible call, that would be a serious detriment to you being able to do your job. And it was the same thing I found in the SEAL teams. Now, I was lucky, well, that's one characteristic that I had that was very good. My teachers in school when I was in eighth grade didn't appreciate me being loud. But by the time I was on the battlefield, it was a very good characteristic to have.

And same thing with you on the football field. Well, I had this one officer who was a very smart, very cerebral guy. He was actually pretty good at simplifying things. He was fairly articulate, but he really just wasn't loud. He just wasn't. He couldn't raise his voice. He couldn't project his voice. And I said to him,

a few times. I said, hey, you need to get louder. Your guys can't hear you. It doesn't matter how good your plan is. If no one can hear it, no one can execute. And a couple of iterations go by, and this was in training operations while I was running the training out here for the West Coast SEAL teams. And I'm telling this guy, hey, you need to get louder. This isn't working. And finally, we do another iteration, and he gets to a situation where there's a lot of shooting going on, explosions and confusion and I'm looking at him and I'm waiting for him to make a call and the call that he finally he says hey bill mike come here he calls over two of his guys and the two guys that he called over were like two of the biggest loud mouths he had in his task unit and he says hey tell everyone to get

in this room right now we're going to break out the north door and the two loud mouths go hey everyone get in this room right now we're going to break out the north door and he spreads that word so he had a weakness, he figured out a way to complement his leadership weakness with some other guys that had the strength of being loud. And he was able to overcome that and ended up doing that all the time and doing a great job. Now, the other piece that you asked is how much of it can you learn? The answer is you can learn a lot. You can get better at all these things. You can get better at simplifying problems. You can get better at articulating. You can get better at detaching from your emotion so that you can make good, clear decisions on what's actually happening. There's a lot of things you can do to

improve your leadership capability. And there's only one person that will never improve as a leader. And that is the person that has a big ego can't be humbled and or can't be humble and will not take advice or listen to anyone else. Those are the people that don't get any better. And they, and they in the seal community, those are the guys that get fired. Why do you wake up at 4.30 in the morning? What time do you wake up? I woke up at about 4.50. Okay.

Well, I guess I just want to be 20 minutes ahead of you. What is the reason behind your morning routine? Why is that so important to you? You know, I get up early in the morning. The thing I learned, and I learned this in the SEAL teams, they don't make you wake up early once you're in the SEAL teams. But if you want to do anything for yourself in the SEAL teams, you have to do it early in the morning.

because the rest of the day you're going to be doing platoon work. You're going to be prepping for operations. You're going to be talking to your department heads about what needs to be done. You're going to be running your supply issues through the chain of command. You're going to be going through your operational orders to figure out where you're going next. It's just a constant stream of things that build up. And really, you can't get done. That's a thing.

And there's a lot of jobs like that. You can't, your day could go 24 hours. indefinitely and you couldn't do all the work that you have to do. And what I found is if I wanted to do anything for myself to improve myself or to prepare better for the day for my own stuff, not for the platoon stuff, for myself to make myself to get my gear ready, to study more, to go over some information that I knew I needed to look at, to do workouts, to train, to get better at Jiu-Jitsu. If I wanted to do those things, the only time that I I could actually own was before everyone else woke up.

And so that's kind of where it started. If you wanted to get some extra study time, if you wanted to get some extra PT time, if you wanted to go over your gear again, you had to do it on your own time. And about the only time you could own was very early in the morning. So I started waking up earlier early in the morning. And now that I'm a civilian, I realize it's the same thing.

If you want some time to actually get stuff done, you got to do it before other people wake up. You got to do it before you start getting the text and emails that you know you're going to have to deal with. You got to do it before your wife and kids get up and start saying, hey, I need you to review this with me. And hey, can you look at this? And so you've got to just get up before other people and have the peace and quiet of the morning to make things happen. So what does your morning routine consist of? Get up, brush my teeth, go work out.

So you do pushing days, polling days. I've read and listened to. So usually it consists of some extremely strenuous workouts. And then you finish up, I assume, and then get on with the rest of the typical workday like most people. Yeah. I don't know that I really have a typical workday. My days are very... Yeah, what is a typical work day for you?

They're very a lot for me. While I travel, I work with a lot of different companies. I talk to clients on the phone. I'm writing. I'm preparing for the podcast. I'm recording podcasts. So there's no real normal day. But one thing that is fairly consistent, it's very consistent, actually, is I get up early

in a workout. And once you get that workout done, it's done. You know, when you say, oh, you know what, I'll just put it off. I feel like laying in bed a little bit longer. I'll just work out this afternoon. Well, what happens that afternoon? You get that call from the client. You get that call from your wife and she needs you to go pick up the kids because the

recital went long or whatever. And all of a sudden, you didn't get your workout in. And that doesn't just happen once. That's what happens. That's life. So get up early and get some. Yeah, I'm with you. That's what I found, especially when you, as you get married and you have kids in a job,

that there's just flat out no other time I found than to do it very early in the morning. Of all the things to do, you write, you podcast, you speak, you consult, you help people. What's your favorite, favorite thing to do, favorite part of your work? Well, the interesting thing about my work is that they're all related. So they're all fun. I mean, I've got, you know, the podcast is about leadership and it's about, you know, physical fitness and it's about human nature and it's about war. And when I go and work with companies, that's what I'm talking about. And I go and train jiu-jitsu, and jiu-jitsu is about being tactically smarter and more trained than the guys that you're going against.

So that's fun. And, yeah, I mean, it's, it's all interrelated. So it's all fun. If there's things that I don't enjoy doing it, don't do them. And I'm glad you said that. When you think about, there's a lot of stories of veterans who struggle. You know this. I know you talk to them all the time who struggle, whether it's to find work, to find purpose, there's PTSD.

There's things happening. And it's not things that I've experienced. So I'd have to lean on others who have or are close friends with those who have. And maybe you went through some of these struggles, I'm not sure. but how you've built a life for yourself that you just said is quite fun and you don't do things that you don't want to do. I think that's most of us as the type of a life and the type of work that we want to create is that we do the things pretty much only that we want to do. How have you been able to do that versus a lot of both people and veterans that have not? What's the difference there?

A couple of things. First of all, and I think I've told this story before. So I was putting up some social media one day, probably about a year ago. And it was just a good day. I woke up early in the morning. I went for, I did a hard workout. I got done with a hard workout. I went surfing.

The waves were good. So I went and got some good waves for a couple hours. I got done with that. And I went to the gym because I have a jihitsu mixed martial arts school. And I went there and I trained some bunch of jihitsu. I got done with that. And I posted pictures of this. put picture of the wave i put picture of the gym i put picture of jiu jitsu and you know said something

like us it's a good day something like that and somebody responded to it and they said it must be nice and when i read that i actually i felt bad you know because i thought to myself well here i am you know surfing and doing jihitsu and working out and whoever this guy is who knows what he knows what he knows what grind he's going through is he working two jobs right now he can barely make ends meat, what kind of nightmares he stuck in that he doesn't like. And he's looking at me and thinking, look at this guy, surfing and doing jiu-jitsu and working out all day. That's pathetic. And I felt bad about it. I kind of said to myself, you know, I'm going to, I need to make sure I don't post pictures like that where it just looks like I'm over here cruising and having

fun while, you know, some other people are in much worse positions. And I can empathize with that. And so, you know, I just kind of thought that to myself. And then a few more hours go by and I was reading through a couple more comments and somebody responded to his comment. And someone wrote in response to his comment, discipline equals freedom, which he was using my words. That's my mantra. And what he was saying and he was completely correct is that the reason I am able to do things that I like and the reason I'm in a position right now where I can do things that I think are fun is because I work hard and I put in a lot of time and effort and I still do by the way the podcast doesn't record itself the books I've written didn't write themselves

um going to work with clients that that's me or my partners we are going to work that's that's us that's what we do I enjoy all those things but it's not like they happen by themselves it's not like they're hard work so if you want to end up in that position you got to put in the work you got to put in the grind. And, you know, Laif and I, who is my business partner with Echalon Front, who was one of two commanders that worked for me in the Battle of Motti, you wrote the book Extreme Ownership with me. You know, you rewind five or six years ago and him and I were doing going and doing speaking events for 500 bucks, a thousand bucks. And that's how we built the business. And luckily, we, you know, we were able to build it quickly. And now we've got more guys on board. And

we command a significantly higher price than that. And we do long-term contracts, and we work with businesses for six months, and it's a lot different right now. And it's easy to look and say, well, that guy's got it pretty easy. You know, he's just surfing and doing jihitsu and working out. But the fact of the matter is, it was work. And not to mention, before, you know, before I retired from the Navy, I was in the Navy, And I was going on deployment after deployment after deployment.

And I was, you know, missed all kinds of my family growing up and or I missed my kids growing up. And that's the price that I paid. And that was the discipline to do that job. Now provides me with more freedom. So hard work. It's hard work. And there's no real substitution for hard work. And if you want to have freedom like that in your life, then you've got to have discipline.

Consistent discipline just day after. day after day. Those things typically don't happen by accident. That's why I like the phrase sustain excellence or sustaining excellence a way to maintain it. And usually it's that consistent discipline in yourself to put in the time and the work. And usually when they see the jaco Willings this overnight success, it's like, not really. He put in years and years and years and years and years of work that led to then a number one New York Times bestselling book and speaking engagements in this teaching that you guys, you and Lafer doing all over the world, is built upon that work.

I always tell the story. It's about when you, you know, I take one of my daughters to the bank to deposit a check after a speech that was a, you know, a good, good size check. And they always think it's wild that you get paid that much money for a one hour talk. And the response is always the same. It's not the one hour talk. It was the years and years and years of work that won into, one, earning the ability to get the chance to give the speech and two to then develop the content from the speeches from what all

the work that was done leading up to that i think that's exactly what you just said when it comes to discipline equaling freedom jocca one last question when i've been talking with your team for a couple years um and not even sure if you're aware of that but whenever you first saw that the the guy who runs a podcast with the name learning leader in it what was the first thought that came to mind specifically around the phrase learning leader. I think it's a positive statement, and it's the same thing that we started off this podcast talking about, which is if you're in a leadership position,

you should always be trying to learn. You should be humble and seeing how you can improve yourself. And I think that the name of this podcast, learning leaders, but yeah, if you want to be a good leader, you better be learning. Yeah, man. I love it. Thanks so much for being here, Jocko.

Where would you send my listeners to learn more about you online? Well, jocopodcast.com is my podcast website. There you can get all the books I've written. Discipline equals freedom. Field Manual, which just came out, which is sort of my operating system in a book. Everything from how I work out to what I eat, to how I sleep, to how I recover from injuries,

to martial arts training, to what I think and what my philosophies of, being are. And also extreme ownership, the leadership book that I wrote with my brother, Laif Babin, is available on there as well. And then, of course, the way of the warrior kid. Extreme ownership is a leadership book. It talks about the leadership lessons we learned in combat and what those principles are and then how they are applied in business and in life. Way the Warrior Kid is the kid's book I already talked about. And that's a great book for anyone and I just got a great some great feedback that I read on my podcast about a guy who said he said I

read your book and then he went through all these life changes he stopped drinking alcohol he started working out he lost 30 pounds his jeans are hanging off of him he's performing better at work and he said the book that I read was way the warrior kid so way the warrior kid's a great book for anybody and those are all available on jocco podcast.com the consulting firm that we have is called Eschelonfront and you can go to echelonfront.com for that. And as far as social media goes on the interwebs, I am on Twitter. I am on Instagram and I am on Facebook. I am at Jocko Willink.

That's me. And I'm fairly responsive on those platforms. So if you want to talk to me, get me up. Yeah. Well, Jocko, thanks again, man, from here. And it goes without saying. I know I said it before, but thank you sincerely for your service to our great country. I'm so grateful to get the chance to be born and raised and currently living here.

And you have put yourself on the line. You've taken it to the enemy to protect it for us. And I'm very grateful of that. So thank you for that as well. It was an honor to serve. And thanks for this conversation. It was great. I'd love to continue our dialogue as we both progress, man.

Appreciate it, Jock. Right on, man. Good talking to you. Thanks again to Jocko Willing for joining me on The Learning Leader Show, and thank you for listening. Remember, as the leader, you are responsible for everything that happens in your organization. If you make a mistake, you must own it. And it's not just what you preach. It's what you tolerate.

We would love to have you join us in the Learning Leader community. Text learners to 4-4-222 in order to join thousands of other fellow learning leaders from all over the world. learners to 4-4-2-2-2. Thanks again to Jocco and to all of you for listening and I will see you next week on the Learning Leader Show. This episode is brought to you by Workfront. Workfront is a work automation platform that allows you and your team to do your best work. Focus on the right work and complete that work faster than ever. Workfront connects all the phases of your workflow from planning corporate strategies to tactical execution. And they go be on. on just project and portfolio management. It delivers an operational system of record for today's

largest and most innovative companies, including Fossil, Cars.com, and Old Navy. And they also work with Focus Brands, whose C-O-O-Cat-Cole was featured on episode 78 of the Learning Leader Show, Workfront, because work matters.