[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Say to do those things is that so you can get more control so that people ask your opinion so that you get listened to so that perhaps you get promoted. Which is good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But the reason you're doing all those things, the reason that you're playing the game, is to help your team accomplish the mission.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's what you are trying to do. It's to help your team accomplish the mission.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, the, the other side of that is what this question is about. People that are playing the game for personal gain. They, they play the game so that they can


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And maybe that abuse of power is just, is just working less, maybe it's making other people do their crap jobs, whatever the case may be, but they've got an agenda and they're gonna try and get promoted so they can take care of themselves.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's not why I played the game. And I definitely played the game and I played to win. But I played because I wanted my, my squad or my platoon or my task unit or my training command to be able to better accomplish our mission. That's why I played the game. Now,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There is a secondary benefit of playing the game, and that is that you could-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Possibly get promoted earlier. You could get praise from the boss that looks good on your record. And all those things can happen when you're playing the game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But that's just like collateral sort of fringe benefits. But that's not why you're playing the game. You play the game to help the team win. And when the team wins, you win.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which also makes the team win again, so it's like a positive cycle, cause you start developing a good reputation, now you get more leeway from the boss, and the more leeway you get from the boss, the more you have the ability to make maneuvers on the battlefield, the more you can maneuver on the battlefield, the more offensive you can be, the more offensive you can be, the more you win!


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No one likes them and they're, believe me, the military. The military has unbelievable people that play the game for the best possible reasons to help their platoon and help the mission and help succeed. There's also plenty of people in the military and in every, every different line of work.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was for the team to win. I would get that into their head because a lot of times they miss that point. They're looking out for themselves, they're not worried about the team. And I would get them thinking that they're gonna look the best if the team wins.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because what you've done is you've helped them act correctly, actually.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And there's a chance, a decent chance, a good chance even, that they carry that forward. They realize that hey, the best way to play the game is to help the team.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the best way to look good is to help, is to make the team good and succeed at the mission.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, it's really, you know, one of the classic cases, and we'll get into ownership a little bit, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, and so that's a challenge, right? Because once you start blaming, once that boss starts blaming everyone, then the whole team starts blaming each other. So, how do you fix that? Well, we've talked about this a million times. You know, you step up and say, hey, you know what, boss, this is my fault.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's a good chance that they recognize how positive that is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it may take a while and it may never happen because some people are just savages, right? Some people are just complete. They only care about themselves.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the other thing that happens, I think, is if someone's just a flagrant self-promoter,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You might get them one promotion because you were there to kind of make them look good, but the next time around they're gonna get seen, they're gonna get found out, they're gonna, people are gonna realize what kind of person they are and that's, that's where it catches up with them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You keep playing the game, you keep, you keep working hard.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Don't worry about them and actually do your best to help them out. The person that's like self promoting, do your best to help them out. If they're the boss, make them look good. I always want to make my boss look good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yep. It's gonna help you in the long run. It hurts sometimes. Yeah. It's hard to do sometimes. Yep. Our ego gets in the way sometimes. Gotta put that ego in check. Because what's more important?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because if you're my boss, Echo, and you're doing this just to make yourself look good, if I then undermine you,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, and now we don't accomplish the mission as well, I'm actually a bad person because I didn't do my best to accomplish the mission.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You want to look great? Cool. I want to make you look great because I want us to look great doing our mission because that's what's important to me. And if so, so some of the collateral damage of that is that you look great, even though you're a jerk and I get you promoted, that's okay because eventually you're going to get found out or you're going to learn.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To be a better person and to support the team and that's how you got promoted and you're going to realize that and you'll become a good leader.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But you are not focusing on the negative. Instead of saying, oh, we're horrible at this. You say, you know what, we got some deficiencies here, here's what I'm gonna do to fix them. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. How simple is that? Do better.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, so what we've got here is what he's saying is extreme ownership. If you're taking extreme ownership of things, your enemies can actually take advantage of that. And in this guy's case,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and he said, well actually he says that for him it's worked great, but that he's seen some of his compadres who have started to take ownership and they've got weak team and the team, what does he say here? What's the words he uses?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They didn't have good team members and they took their extreme ownership for weakness and took advantage of it. Okay, so first of all, out of the gate, if


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right? If you have truly weak and bad team members, then you need to either train them or coach them or get rid of them. That's the first thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Bad team members that are looking to claw you down as the leader. You got a problem with those people and you need to fix that problem. Number one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So let's just start with that. Number two.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And this is, this is, there's two, two kind of parts of this. There's an insecurity, a level of insecurity, and there's a level of, or a, a matter of perception.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The insecurity is the thing that says, if I say this is my fault, then everyone up and down the chain of command is gonna say, fire him!


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If what you do is, let's take the other example is what you do is you blame everyone else.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If that's your attitude, if your attitude is it wasn't my fault, it was his fault, it was her fault, it was their fault, it was not me, I'm just the person in charge, it's not me. Think about that statement. It's not my fault, it's my team's fault, I'm just the person in charge, it's not my fault. Think about that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Whenever you're placing blame, if you're a leader and you're placing blame on your team,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What you're saying is, hey, it's not my fault, it's my team's fault. I'm just the leader here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm not the one out there in the field doing the work. I'm not the one that's making those decisions. I'm not the one that's...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm not the one that's, you know, uh, interacting with customers. I'm not the one that's doing that. So this isn't my fault, it's my team's fault.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Heh, well meanwhile, guess who's in charge of the team? You are!


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, the minute that you start saying it wasn't my fault and it was probably everyone else's fault, if you think about how you look to your boss, it's laughable. You look like an idiot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You don't look like a good leader. So don't fall for it. And you know what? I'm actually not saying that you'll never get fired if you take ownership.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause you know what, if you do something that's really bad, there's absolutely a chance you could get fired.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you do something that cost a bunch of money or was immoral or illegal or you covered something up or your team covered something up or you did something that was truly wrong.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you take ownership of it? Yea, you might still get fired. You know what, that happens in the Navy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the Navy, if your ship runs aground, or like lately there's been some collisions on these ships, and I think, uh, Leif and I might talk about those at some point on the podcast. But, the captain of the ship is done.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He could be, cause just because of ships at sea, the captain might have had to flown to another ship to talk to the admiral.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It doesn't matter if he's there or not, he's responsible for the training, he's responsible for the actions, he's responsible for everything that's happened on that ship. And he's getting fired. And he, and also, if he did do something wrong, well yeaah, and he takes ownership of it, doesn't matter, he's getting fired. So I'm not saying you're never gonna get fired. Uhm, but generally,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Generally, and this is, when I say generally, this is the vast majority of the time. This is 99% of the time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you take ownership, you don't look like a weak boss, you look like a strong boss that is taking ownership of the problems and is going to get the problem solved. Did I say this over and over again?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As always, you don't just have to own the problems, you have to own the solutions to the problems too. So, this is the situation here. You got this guy, people, if you're in charge of a bad team, and you're taking ownership,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The bad team is what you have to fix. You have to fix it. You have to train them. You have to co- you have to coach them. You have to mentor them. You have to do all those things and if you can't get them to get on board with the program then you gotta get rid of them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or get rid of that one or two bad people that are causing the infraction and causing that cancer to spread. Get rid of them. Set the example. Promote somebody that's hungry and young and wants to get after it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, you gotta take ownership of the team.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The problems, the weak people on the team, you gotta take ownership of the solutions and get them solved.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Go. That when you take- I was gonna cut you off with, I have talked about this before, sometimes people say,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They think if they say, I'll take ownership of this, then the problems, then it's like they're, then they're safe. That's exactly what I'm saying. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That is not the case. Just because you say, Hey, this is my fault. Hey, it's my fault. I'm taking ownership of this. That doesn't mean the problem is solved. There's a problem. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh bro, it's actually good, I mean. It's really squared away. When you're in a convoy of military vehicles, it's awesome.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Even early on, okay, this is my fault, here's what we're doing. Even early on, you don't look like an idiot. You actually look squared away because you go, here are the problems that we're having.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No one knows where we're driving right now. You're kinda half driving and half paying attention. I'm over here talking or doing whatever. Guess what?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We made a mistake. It's not gonna happen again. I got this. Hey, right turn coming up 500 meters. Right turn.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Get in the left hand lane, prepare to go left. You know what I mean? That's how we solve the problem.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, you get there and you say, hey, here's the problem, here's what we're going to do, fix it. It's not, hey, everything's my fault. That's not extreme, extreme ownership isn't, hey, everything's my fault, everything's my fault.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But hey, you know what? Just like jiu-jitsu, you gotta see a move a bunch of different times, a bunch of different ways. Yeah. Bunch of different ways before you start to truly understand it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Do you ever hear yourself make an excuse? No.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, it's definitely something that you get used to and you get good at. Right? You get good at. You get good at saying, you get good at not saying, well, you know,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One of my assistant platoon commanders, who's an awesome guy. And he had this thing, if he was gonna disagree with me, he would say the word well. Meaning, you know, well, let's think about it. But he had a funny way of saying it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so, I'd say, hey, you know, how are you gonna do this? And he'd, you know, come up with his plan, and I'd say...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then I'd say, after a while that became a code word for, you're about to get choked.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't even know what... I don't know if discipline would be my greatest strength. I don't know. I mean, I'm a disciplined person.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No doubt. But I think it, I think that I think that one of the things that people would find interesting is that I'm not overly orderly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So if you think about those, like, psychological characteristics, one of them is extreme orderliness, which normally goes hand in hand with highly disciplined people. You know, those people that are, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They're just ultra highly disciplined, but they have to have everything. They're OCD. They're OCD orderly, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] About a lot of things. I am about some things, but like, it's pretty funny. Actually, my floor in my garage,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it's totally functional, right? And my point is that...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't, I don't freak out about it. It's functional. It doesn't bother me at all that it's not perfectly orderly. This also means that I don't mind when things don't go as planned.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They're too, they're too far. They're not balanced. So now when things don't go the way that they've planned things to go, they start to lose it a little bit. They can't deal with it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They want, they want to have everything in order all the time. And I'll tell you, that's not the way life works. That's certainly not the way combat works. But that's not the way life works. And I don't really mind that. I don't mind chaos.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, I would say probably if, if you look at discipline as a strength, I don't think


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think that would be generally considered the weaknesses of, of being hyperdisciplined is that you, you can't stand when things are not in order.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, you freak out completely. Like, you know, okay, I don't like missing a workout, but I don't lose my mind over it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I would say that I am a very much a creature of habit, and I do like to do the same things over and over again. I don't like to travel. Even though I have to travel all the time, I don't like to travel. I'd rather stay home.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I pretty much eat the same food all the time and go to the same three or four restaurants all the time. Right? I like to follow routine as much as I can. You know, it's even in jujitsu, I do the same.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Basic movements all the time. I have the same, you know, I've talked about like a funnel, like everywhere that you go with me, it's gonna lead to where I want you to be. Cause I'm gonna use those same moves.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I surf the same spots all the time. So I guess, I guess for me, the way that discipline is weakness or whatever for me is that it may, I think I'm, I'm, I could be fairly boring and predictable.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You see what I'm saying? Like, oh, you know what? I haven't had time to watch movies for a long time. But when I used to watch movies, it'd be like, oh, okay, I'm gonna watch Big Lebowski.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, no, I do. I, well, and you know, to me, I guess that's, that's balanced to me. But to me, balance is, I don't, I don't, it's also boring.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right? Cause I don't go far in one direction, far in the other direction. I don't get extreme about this or extreme about that. I just, I, I think that's what has been good for me. Was I never freaked out about stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'll tell you what I think your biggest strength is. You're humble. You're super humble.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, interestingly in Jujitsu, you could take it to the extreme of where there was times where people thought you can't learn anything from wrestlers, you can't learn anything from Judo, you can't learn anything from Sambo, you know, that's, that's, that's crazy talk.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I will catch myself, and I, I used to catch myself doing that, let's say, once a day. And then, and then it was once a week.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then it's once a month. And, and, and, and it's pretty, it's less now. But sometimes I'll, I'll catch myself listening to someone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Even if he's a white belt, even if he's inexperienced, even if he seems completely arrogant and crazy, even if you're learning how not to act.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's better than just saying, oh, this person, oh, I'm not gonna listen to this person, I've got nothing to learn. No, you do. I do. So I, it's interesting as we talked about how you make excuses, you personally make excuses less now. I personally make excuses. I might be a little ahead of you on that because I figured that out maybe a little bit earlier and I'm older than you, but


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's, you know, I used to probably make excuses once, once a day. Yeah. And then once every three days and then once a week.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because the minute you say, well, you know, I didn't get the thing I wanted because...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is the minute that you stop working hard for that thing, or maneuvering for that thing, or adjusting for that thing, or getting up early and chasing that thing down.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I didn't even know, I didn't recognize, I was usually not in the state to even be paying attention to those kind of things. Anyways, to make a long story short, I decided I was going to put it in an officer package.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I put together the package and I went into the administrative office at SEAL Team 1 and I talked to the chief that was in there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I'm putting in this package and I was just wanting you to take a look at it. You know, if there's anything you see I should add. And he looked at me and he goes, you're putting in a package, huh? And I said, yea. And he goes, I wouldn't expect that from you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I was kinda, why not? He goes, you usually know I'm the DJ on this bar.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that was a little bit of a wake up call, but that, that, so my point is,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But definitely, back in the day, I was an idiot. I had fun. Yeah. I had fun, but I was, did a lot of dumb stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I think, yeaah, I think the biggest thing is I had open eyes, you know what I mean? And as I moved into leadership position, I saw, I saw how other people perceived me and I saw the importance of leadership and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I mean you just, you just have to change and that's something that as a leader, you, you see this all the time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What got you here isn't necessarily what's gonna get you there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They were aggressive young cowboy when they were out in the field. That's great. But you have to, you don't have to stop that, but you have to put some reins on it. You have to rein it in a little bit, the more senior you get.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The more you become accountable to a board, the more you become accountable to uh, being a publicly traded company. Those are things that are real.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the more you become accountable to the actions, if you're in the military still and what the way you're going to be seen, the way the way your unit is going to be seen and perceived by other senior leaders. Those are real things. And if you don't grow up, you don't make the progress that you need to make.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I was lucky enough to see that. You know, I had some great examples along the way, great leaders that I worked for. But it can be hard to see that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I just was aware of what was happening a little bit more than


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Normal, or a little bit enough to make the changes, I guess.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know what else is weird too, is like, as I talk about this stuff, like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like when I talk about detachment now, I used to, I used to not know that word when I would tell guys to do it. This is even, you know,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It took me a while in the teams while I was trying to tell guys that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know what I mean? And that's just one example. There's a bunch of examples like that where I was trying to convey, I would convey the message, but I didn't just have like a concise way to do it or a clear way to do it, but I was still conveying the same message. Right, right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Maybe, and that's another thing that happens is as you get older and you get more experienced.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You understand the message yourself better, just like when you teach jujitsu or you teach anything, the more you teach it, the better you understand it. And so as I taught things, I understood it better. And so that's one thing that I think helps out a lot and this is why it's an answer for me on so many different things with leadership.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When I was the youngest guy and I was the most junior guy in my first platoon, I was the, I was the, the head radio man.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It seems like a little thing right now, but let's tell you what, when you're 19 years old and you're in charge of the communications for some training exercise,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you don't know what the hell you're doing? You step up and figure that stuff out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's, that's very, very impactful. So that's what you do with your junior leaders that you want to have them step up and lead. You put them in charge of things. You put them, that was very lucky that I had leaders that I worked for that did that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I've talked about them before, I mean they had leaders that put myself and the other junior guys and platoons in charge of things. Not just saying it, but actually putting us in charge of things and that's a quick way to grow a leader. So I was very lucky that I had that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right? Was being put in charge of things even at a young, younger age.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm trying to think if it was my first or second platoon. I'm pretty sure it was my second platoon. And as we came up on this, this level,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was, it was a little confusing and the whole platoon gets online and no one does anything and I, I basically stood there for a second and then I kinda stepped back off the line a bit and I looked around.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I said, okay, I see what we should do, and I actually said, hold left, clear right, or whatever this little call was, and everyone did it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the only reason I understood that was because I stepped back like a foot and looked around. And that's all you, that's what, and I realized right then, oh, if I'm not staring down my gun, if I take a step back, if I look around, if I detach, I didn't use that word because I didn't know that word.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I said, oh, if you just step back and you high port your gun and you look around, you're gonna know way more than anybody else that's staring down their gun.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Put messaging around it that it was important. There's an every lesson that I talk about was all kind of learned in that method.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All of it was kind of learned by being put in situations where I had to figure something out or something occurred or, or I, and that's the same thing with my life. I got put in some situation, I said, okay, you know what?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And what I think might be kind of key about that particular idea of detaching is, is when you can detach in life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And continuing to try and improve as a leader. It's because if you can detach and see yourself, cause that's the same exact thing, like I, I, I mentioned this earlier.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I said, you know, I kind of saw myself and saw how other guys were seeing me. Well, that you've got to detach from. In order to see how other people are seeing you, you've got to be able to detach a little bit and understand it. And so that ability to step back,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And see myself from other people's, to see myself in situations and see how other people were interacting with me was very, very helpful. Now this does not mean


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That I was able to just correct course overnight and I don't want to make that, you know, anyone think that. And I did dumb stuff when I was a, when I was a assistant platoon commander and I did dumb stuff when I was a platoon commander and I did dumb stuff when I was a task unit commander and I did dumb stuff when I was a training commander and I do, I'm gonna do something dumb tomorrow. Watch me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But, I think I will recognize it most of the time I look at it and say, mmm, you know what, that was dumb.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And don't do that again, or here's how you can avoid it. And I think that's what will help people. If people can, can adapt that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Little skill of stepping back off the, off the line and taking a look around, taking a look at yourself, look at how you're being perceived. What else is important is how


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You don't make real, you can't understand them. So if my boss is doing something crazy to me, and all I do is get pissed at him for doing something crazy, well that's, we've just created an antagonistic relationship and now things are going sideways and it's not good. If my boss is doing something crazy to me and I say, wait a second, why is he doing this? Let me think about what he's seeing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, he's seeing Jaco, the caveman looking guy that wants to go out and he seems crazy and okay, I need to, I need to correct that. I need to correct that thing. I need to let him see that I'm thinking about the big picture and that I understand the strategy. Okay, let me make those adjustments. As opposed to he's stupid. He doesn't get it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Screw him. No. Detach. Check other people's perspectives.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you have to do something completely different. Yeah. Right. Just imagine that you're walking down the road and now all of a sudden you're walking down the road. Maybe you're even jogging. You're jogging down the road. Now all of a sudden in a split second, you've got to


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like go read a book, like right at that moment in time while you're running. It's like that radical of a change. Like it's something totally, that's what it feels like when you detach.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Let's say an argument with someone, a heated argument. It feels like you're going from running a thousand miles an hour to...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But if you think about the advantage that you have, and, and I know you're a football player, I'm not, but you, you know, you can watch everybody that's watching the football game on TV can see every mistake that's being made as it's happening and everyone else on the field is, they're trying to, they can't compensate for them fast enough. They're in the game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause you'll be like, oh, guess what? My wife, I haven't been home.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, next question. Next question. I think this question is a good lead. That last answer was a good lead into this next question.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, you see that reaction that you just had is what I expected.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If young Jocko was working for old Jocko, it would have been good to go. I would have liked me as a young guy, and as a young guy, I would have liked me as a boss.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, it wasn't ever interfering with work and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, you know, guys, but we weren't like causing major trouble, right? We weren't getting arrested much. We weren't getting in fights all the time. You know, we were causing some problems, but it was nothing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Major, so we'd have been tightened up and we got tightened up sometimes, but it would have been no factor. And, as a young guy, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I think I would've, I would've liked working for me, cause I would've looked at myself and been like, oh that guy's fired up, he wants to get after it. And that would've been cool with me. So, so again, I don't think it's, I don't think it's like, uh, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It sounds like a really interesting question, but it's not really that interesting. And the cool thing is,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's a lot of young team guys that are like, I was when I was a young team guy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh yea, from the loose ends for sure. Yea, I was on the path. Yea. And in, in, you know, my, my, the guys that I got, went to Buds with that showed up at shield team one broke the day. Sure. Old Jocko would have loved all those guys. They're all fired up. I was nothing special. I'm not trying to say I was special cause I wasn't. There's guys that were way better than me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you know, that's, to go back to your question earlier, when I described myself like as my good quality being durable.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The reason I say that is cause like, there's guys that were better at me than, that just about everything. Like, faster than me, stronger than me, better shots than me, whatever. I was pretty durable though. Like I was pretty, I was good at being average at a lot of different things. I was a strong average in a lot of different things, which is good. And I was durable. Like I could,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I could take some abuse, mental and physical abuse, which is a cool quality to have.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, and again, I'm not trying to s- I'm no Superman, but I'm durable.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That, that makes sense. You know the, you know like the, the Toyota Hilux, do you know what a Toyota Hilux is? No. Anyways, it's a, it's a Toyota truck, they have them overseas, they're diesel.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they're really, really durable. Really, there's a...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's a show from England. My wife's from England. There's a show in England. It's called Top Gear. My son watches the show Top Gear. They tried to destroy a Toyota Hilux. They were doing like, just crazy things to it. It's a really durable. It's not the fastest. It's not the strongest. But it's durable. Durable's a good quality to have.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yo, yeah, yeah, crazy talk. Check. So yeah, young, young, young Bok Jocko. He woulda had a good time. Old Jocko. Like I said, man, there's...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's a ton of young team guys that are fired up. I was, I was out with some young team, I was out with some team guys, and there were some young team guys there, and some of these young team guys were fired up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's like they were on the path. Oh, they were on the path for sure. Those are the kind of guys I'm talking about. Like those guys, I would love to have those guys working for me when I was a commander and I would love to have those guys as my chief when I was a young guy. Yeah, no factor.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah bro, I mean I was a young kid. And as an older guy, you look at the young kids and you go yeah, you know he's young. He's getting after it. God bless him. Bless rock and roll. I gotta let me keep him out of trouble. That's all good. All good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's true, man. It's true. The things that you think are a big deal when you're 17 years old are not that big of a deal.


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[Assistant] And it's really hard to convince someone that's 17 years old of that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They also, also what they don't recognize is things that are a big deal.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They don't recognize, they think they're a little deal. So they're doing stupid things, right? Whether it's drinking and driving, whether, I mean, kids still drink and drive now. Like, how dumb is that?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I guess, you know, I've heard now, you know, we work with a lot of different companies. When you apply for a job, they go and look at your social media and see what kind of an idiot you might be.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, it's a great move. It's a great move. So uhm, yeaah. Just, just recognize that some of the little things are actually big and some of the big things are actually little and I'd square those things away.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the, I've said this before, when you're young, you've gotta realize that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How you act now is directly related to your future success, to your future happiness, to your future financial situation, to everything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It might be impossible. Some kids get it though. I'm telling you, some kids get it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, some kids get it. Some of my oldest daughter's friends, they get it. Like they're on track. They're on track.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They're like, hey, I'm doing this, I'm doing that. They're on track, they're 16 years old, they're studying for the SATs, they're taking the AP classes. My daughter included, like they're on track to make stuff happen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I know where you're going with this, and you're, you're, I, I believe that there are definitely some kids like that, that are just, they're just like, hey, okay, I'm supposed to get good grades, I'm supposed to get good grades, they're on that track.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I know for a fact, kids that are like, no, I am going to do this, this, this and it's gonna lead me here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's the way most kids are. In my opinion, most kids are, hey, I don't want to get in trouble. Some immediate repercussions, myself included. Hey, I gotta pass this so I can go to the next grade. You know what I mean?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I guess the final thing, obviously I'd tell myself discipline equals freedom.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which is basically what we're saying. Yeah. So, get this one in how you live your life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Check. Eh, uh, one thing before we closed out tonight, cause I think that's good for questions, uh, I want to hit a couple quick, Tim Ferriss' new book, I want to hit a couple quick things from it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Tribe of Mentors is what it's called. And uhm, there's a lot of good info in it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's written in really short little sections, if you didn't know this yet. I mean, you can read them in like 5 or 10 minutes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Successful in whatever realm they're gonna be successful in, cause I guess successful is a very...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Open term, right? Whatever realm they're in, they're successful, there's all kinds of people in here, and I just, I read like the first couple hundred and fifty pages or so, and I just wanted to pull out a couple of the, a couple of the ones that I thought were pretty cool.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, here we go. The first one is...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A little section from some excerpts, and I'm not reading the whole, uh, like everything in each person's section, but just some of the highlights. Steven Pressfield. The guy's an author, he's in the Marine Corps. You know who Steven Pressfield is?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, he wrote The Art of War, he wrote The Legend of Bagger Vance, that's a movie. The War of Art. Yeah, sorry, he wrote The War of Art, yeah, which is obviously a play on words for, for The Art of War, and The War of Art is like how to


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And uh, Joe Rogan actually told me he used to have a stack of those books and he'd just give them to people that came to meet him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, there you go. And oh, he also wrote Gates of Fire.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which is a freaking awesome book, actually, and it's about the Spartans.


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[Assistant] The Battle of Thermopylae. And they actually teach Gates of Fire, like at...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The basics go for the Marine Corps and the Naval Academy, at least I've heard that they've teach it. So that's pretty, that's pretty awesome anyways.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Here's a question for Steven Pressfield. The question is, what advice would you give to a smart, driven college student about to enter the real world? What advice should they ignore? Here's what he said. I'm probably hopelessly out of date, but my advice is get real world experience. Be a cowboy. Drive a truck. Join the Marine Corps.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Get out of the hyper competitive life hack frame of mind. I'm 74. Believe me, you've got all the time in the world. You've got 10 lifetimes ahead of you. Don't worry about your friends beating you or getting somewhere ahead of you. Get out and get into the real dirt world and start failing.


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[Assistant] Why do I say that? Because the goal is to connect with your own self, your own soul.


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[Assistant] Adversity. Everybody spends their life trying to avoid it. Me too.


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[Assistant] But the best things that ever happened to me came during the times when the shit hit the fan and I had nothing and nobody to help me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who are you really? What do you really want? Get out there and fail and find out.


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[Assistant] Check. Uh, next question for Steven Pressfield. When you feel overwhelmed or unfocused, what do you do?


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[Assistant] Here's his answer. I have a friend at the gym who knew Jack Lalane.


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[Assistant] Google him if the name is unfamiliar. Jack used to say, it's okay to take a day off from working out, but on that day you're not allowed to eat.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's the short way of saying you're not really allowed to get unfocused.


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[Assistant] Take a vacation, gather yourself, but know that the only reason you're here on this planet is to follow your star and do what the muse tells you.


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[Assistant] It's amazing how a good day's work will get you right back to feeling like yourself. That's good info right there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Feel bad. Not get good workouts. Sleep late. Sleep like crap.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Break, what did you call him the other day when Jordan Peterson was on? Break the Loop.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that's the same thing, you gotta break the loop, and that's what he's talking about. When you're feeling like crap, get after it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's how I translate it. And it makes you feel better. And it gets you right back on the path.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You feel good. So, hit a fast. 24 hours. You know? Yeaah. Rock and roll.


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[Assistant] And I like that. You wanna take a day off? That's cool. No eating.


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[Assistant] How legit is that? It's real legit. It's real legit. Cause now guess what?


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[Assistant] Alright, getting into the next cat here. This guy's name is...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Jersey Gregorek. And this guy emigrated from Poland to the United States as a political refugee with his wife in 1986. And he won, subsequently won four world weightlifting championships and established one world record.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Founded the UCLA Weightlifting Team and by the way, this guy's been on...


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[Assistant] This guy's been on Tim's podcast as well, This Guy Jersey.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Also, writer, write poem, wrote poems, and had award-winning poems, but this is kind of a cool little statement that he wrote in here.


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[Assistant] He kind of goes on a little bit of a tangent. This isn't related to the question, but I want to jump into it. He says, five years ago, I decided to eliminate my reactive behavior to irritations.


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[Assistant] But at first, none of my tricks worked. I placed philosophical and inspirational quotes on my iPhone wallpaper and wrote in my journal, but the Proverbs always lost their effectiveness over time.


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[Assistant] Then one day I told one of my clients who blamed her husband for everything to take 100% responsibility for her part in the interactions.


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[Assistant] This way, I said, you will be free of trying to control him and you will be able to find constructive solutions in your relationship.


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[Assistant] When she left, I realized that the same advice could help me as well. Taking 100% personal responsibility would help me to stop blaming or complaining and achieve a sense of flow.


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[Assistant] It would also give me the clarity in any conversation to locate the right words to help a person accept a hard choice. So he's talking about extreme ownership.


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[Assistant] And we talk about that in taking an extreme ownership in a relationship with another human being.


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[Assistant] Don't blame them. Figure out how you're gonna solve the problem yourself. You know what this reminded me of was when Captain Plum was on and he was had his cellmate.


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[Assistant] And what they, do you remember Captain Plum, and he touched on it, but,


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[Assistant] He was saying that if their cellmate was annoying them, because believe, you know, they're, they're living with one other or two other or three other people for months on end in a little freaking Hanoi Hilton cell.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he said if that person, cause you can imagine how you get on each other's nerves, and they all took the attitude that if they allowed themselves, if, if Echo was getting on my nerves, it wasn't Echo's fault, it was my fault.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My fault. And that's what he's talking about here. Then you can actually fix it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The next question that Jersey answered is this one. If you could have a gigantic billboard anywhere with anything on it, what would it say? And why?


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[Assistant] And here we go, here's what his answer was. Hard choices, easy life, easy choices, hard life.


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[Assistant] Nothing truly meaningful or lasting has ever been created in a short period of time.


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[Assistant] If you learn the story behind any great success.


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[Assistant] You realize how many years went by and how many hard choices were made to achieve it. Reaching for more is not only an act of ambition, it also becomes, it also comes from passion and love. Nothing is achieved because of easy choices.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I believe that people can endure any hardship if it is sensible and constructive.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hard choices means never retiring because the brain has to be engaged in finding new solutions in the moment, not just remembering old formulas.


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[Assistant] Hard choices make us wiser, smarter, stronger, and wealthier, and easy choices reverse our progress.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Focusing our energies on comfort or entertainment.


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[Assistant] In every difficult moment, ask yourself what is a hard choice and what is an easy choice and you will know instantly what is right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, well, I heard one the other day, you can either suffer the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. Right, right, same thing. Same thing. Same exact thing. People saying the same thing. Must mean something.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She's a beast and what's cool about her is she beats, like she did the 2012 World's Toughest Mudder Competition. It's 24 hours, 90 miles, 300 obstacles. She finished second overall out of more than a thousand competitors.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Last one we'll do here, but she, she got asked the same question.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you could have a gigantic billboard anywhere with anything on it, what would you say and why? And Amelia says, no one owes you anything.


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[Assistant] We live in a world that's rampant with entitlement, with many people believing that they deserve to be given more.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My parents raised me to be self-sufficient and depressed upon me that the only person you can really depend on in life is you. If you want something, you work for it. You don't expect it to be given.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If others help you along the way, that's fantastic, but it's not a given.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I believe that the key to self sufficiency is breaking free of the mindset that someone, somewhere owes you something or will come to your rescue.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Anything, no one's coming to your rescue, it's on you. Obviously. I couldn't agree more. And it's funny because-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you always hear people say, you know, you can't do it by yourself and I'm not here. I'm here because of so many different people. And that's true.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But that doesn't mean that you can sit around and rely on other people to save you or to do the heavy lifting or even to help you out in either way. Help from other people is a luxury.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's a luxury that you shouldn't count on.


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[Assistant] So step up and own it and make it happen because no one owes you anything.


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[Assistant] That book is Tribal Mentor's Timothy Ferris. He's got Timothy. Not Tim anymore.


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[Assistant] Alright, speaking of helping people. Echo Charles.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Learn how to support themselves. Yeah. And maybe if they want to also simultaneously support this podcast, if they want to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So if it was the Echo podcast, it would just be silence.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes, you know what I think? You know what I think? The krill oil and the joint warfare do make you durable.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Maybe. Some people. Not Amelia Boone. She's out doing 90, 300 obstacle courses. 300 obstacles and 90 miles. I'll send her some.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's like, it's an athletic weave. It's a real weave. It's not just taking cotton, which is what, which is what they just make pants from 1908 from. No, it's an athletic. And when you put it in the dryer, or you put it in the washing machine, when you get done, it's almost dry. It's got cotton in it, but it's also got a poly blend.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] South Carolina, I think. It's either Tennessee or South Carolina. I forget which one. We'll find out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause I didn't used to use rash guards other than for surfing.


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[Assistant] Do you notice you feel a little bit uhm, like the compression helps you athletically? Do you feel that?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, I wear knee pads when I roll. Yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I wear them for two reasons. Well, I wear them for three reasons. Number one, just, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Abrasion's on the knee, right? Whatever. Map burn on your knee. Which is cool, you get it, maybe you get it, maybe you get it once every three days. That's once every three days you got map burn on your knee and you got blood and you got people that are like, hey I don't want to roll with you because you're bleeding or whatever. So that's just a pain. Number two.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It, for me, keeps him warm. Right? The knee sleeve just warms up your knees. And number three, it provides a little bit of compression. That makes me feel good. Now I feel when I put on


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which is good. I don't know, I think it feels good. Yeah, yeah. Compression gear.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, well you wear it because it's, uh, efficient to roll in, for sure. The most efficient thing you can roll in is a rash guard.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's not weird the way your body learns proprioception to keep you from getting mad. Hey, notice if you haven't rolled for a long time, you'll get your feet all matte burned up. Your knees get all matte burned up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Mode, you barely get map burn. Yeaah. Get it like once every 3 or 4 rolls. Once every 3 or 4 days you'll get a little map burn on the top of your toes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We gotta toughen up right now. Have you ever rolled on a, like a Resolite Wrestling mat barefoot after you've been rolling on a hard tatami mat for a while? No. It takes like a week to get used to it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause you will stub your toe a bunch. Cause your toes won't know where to go. Cause they're deeper and softer.


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[Assistant] Where he asks everyone the same question. Well yea, because that's the type of person, Tim's personality, he looks for patterns and things, right? Yeaah. So that's how you find patterns.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then he's got like, uh, he kind of sorts them in the back.


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[Assistant] He kind of assembles the information in some various ways in the back of the book so you can sort of pull and pool the knowledge.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cardinal block. Read the War of Art.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Put the War of Art on our, on our site too, so people can get that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You also on Amazon can get Jocko White Tea.


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[Assistant] Which is good. If you don't believe me, go read the reviews on there. I'll read some of them again. I've read a couple of them on here, but you can read them yourself. The reviews explain that when you drink chocolate tea,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, I also got some books. You can get them anywhere, really. Way of the Warrior Kid.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Thank you everyone that gives me feedback all the time. L-kids. That are.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Doing various things like studying, like reading the book, studying, doing jujitsu, doing pull ups, swimming, competing, just all kinds of awesome stuff. Everything from figure skating, to ballet, to wrestling, seen it all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Little warrior kids getting after it. That's.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Extreme ownership, the new edition is out, it's longer, it has a little new forward in it. It's got some new pictures, color pictures by the way, color.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Q&A on there, which is the Q&A that's in the new version is from this podcast, which means it's from you listeners. So thank you for the questions and also the new version. It's black.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's flat black. Did you notice that? It's flat black. Did you notice that? Yeah, that makes it even better.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, there must be somebody invading the podcast space Yeah, you can get the new version of extreme ownership right now flat black questions from the podcast all that also discipline equals freedom field manual so This is book it's not a normal book right we know that It's a book that when if you give it to somebody


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Can I make fun of my publisher? Yes, especially if they sound like that. Sounds like I'm going to do that right now. So, my publisher, they say, we gotta make, we gotta have a tagline. You can sell your book.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they send me, cause I always say like, hey, don't be saying stuff about my stuff without asking me first. Cause you guys will say dumb stuff about my cool stuff, and I like that. So, they said, this book makes a great holiday gift.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or whatever. And I said no, and I thought about it for four seconds.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I wrote them back and I said, use this. There is no better gift than the gift of discipline.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Boom. Factually. There's your tagline. So, for your people in your life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That you don't want to get him a stupid gift? Like a necktie? Or a belt?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or something else that they don't want or need.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] People keep asking me and I keep telling everyone, everyone wants the audio version of this book. And they say, when is it coming out? It's out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's out. The audio version of Discipline Equals Freedom.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And use it for alarm or use it to spot yourself if you get a moment of weakness, which this book is good for. So.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's where you can get the audio version and beyond the books, beyond the podcast for leadership training and execution with your business or your team.


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[Assistant] You can contact our leadership consulting company. It's me. It's Leif Babin. It's JP Denell. It's Dave Burke. You can email info at echelonfront.com. And if you have questions for us or you have answers for us.


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[Assistant] We want to hear them both. You can communicate with us.


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[Assistant] Echo is at Echo Charles and I am at Jocko Willink and to the service men and women world ride right now. Defending freedom. Thank you for your service.


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[Assistant] And for giving us the ability to do this podcast. And to the families of those servicemen and women that are supporting them from home, thank you for your sacrifice day to day. It is much appreciated.


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[Assistant] And to the police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, other first responders, thank you for doing what you're doing, which is keeping us safe here at home and answering the call when it comes. And to everyone else that's listening, just remember that sure you have a team.


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[Assistant] You have friends and family and co-workers and colleagues and you have a support network and you have people you can call and that's great but don't count on them.


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[Assistant] This is Jocko Podcast number 95 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo.


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[Assistant] Authorized by Act of Congress, July 9th, 1918, takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Service Cross to Second Lieutenant Air Corps, James K. Kunkel, United States Army Air Forces, for extraordinary heroism.


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[Assistant] In connection with military operations against an armed enemy.


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[Assistant] While serving as a pilot of a P-38 fighter airplane in the 401st Fighter Squadron, 370th Fighter Group, 9th Air Force, in aerial combat against enemy forces on 16 September, 1944, during an air mission over Aachen, Germany.


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[Assistant] On this date, while flying as rear man in a squadron on an armed reconnaissance mission, Lieutenant Kunkel noticed that his squadron was about to be surprised by a vastly superior force of enemy aircraft.


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[Assistant] Unable to summon his leader on the radio, he alone, unhesitatingly, pulled away from his formation and vigorously attacked the enemy, immediately destroying one of his aircraft. In doing so, Lieutenant Conkle placed himself in a position to be attacked from rear and above.


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[Assistant] When this attack materialized, many hits were registered on his aircraft, which caught fire burning his face, neck, and hands.


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[Assistant] Despite his burning plane and the gunfire from enemy planes, Lieutenant Kunkel continued his attack against the vastly superior enemy force and succeeded in destroying a second enemy aircraft.


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[Assistant] Second Lieutenant Kunkel's unquestionable valor in aerial combat is in keeping with the highest traditions of military service and reflects great credit upon himself, the Ninth Air Force and the United States Army Air Forces.


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[Assistant] That is a military citation for a distinguished service cross and this pilot also flew


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[Assistant] Missions just after D-Day, including armed reconnaissance flights and attacks on German trains and vehicles and airfields. And also this pilot flew close air support missions to help push Germany out of France and drive allied troops towards victory.


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[Assistant] And it is an absolute honor to have this pilot, this hero on the podcast with us today.


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[Assistant] Mr. Jim Kunkel, sir, thank you very much for joining us. It is great to have you on.


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[Assistant] I am also honored to welcome back to the podcast, Jim Kunkel's friend, fellow pilot, another American hero, Captain Charlie Plum, F4, Phantom pilot, shot down,


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[Assistant] On his 75th mission in Vietnam War and spent six years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. Captain Charlie Plum, sir, welcome back to the show.


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[Assistant] And for those of you that haven't listened to Captain Plum the first time he came on the podcast, just stop now.


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[Assistant] Go to podcast number 76 because that is a, that is a whole incredible story of, of his time in captivity. It's detailed in the book that Captain Plum wrote which is called I'm No Hero.


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[Assistant] But go back and listen to that and then you can return and you can listen to this podcast. But it was interesting because when we got done with that first podcast,


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[Assistant] And I was taking Captain Plum to the train station, which is odd in its own right to have the pilot riding a train. I don't know if you'd approve of that, to have the captain on a train.


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[Assistant] And he said, hey, you know, I got this buddy. You might want to talk to him.


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[Assistant] And he said, you know, he's a World War II pilot, fighter pilot. And, you know, he's a, be, be a great guy to talk to. And of course I said, uh, yeah, absolutely. So it took us a little bit of time, but.


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[Assistant] Here we are, and this is also the first time we've had more than one guest at one time on the podcast. And sitting amongst you two, my plan is to sit back and listen to you two talk about whatever you want to talk about.


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[Assistant] I've heard some of the stories and, uh, and actually, interestingly, the podcast that just came out last week,


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[Assistant] Was about a book called The Men at Arnhem, which detailed


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[Assistant] The, the British participation in the, in Operation Market Garden, which started


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[Assistant] On September 17th, 1944, and as I was reading your citation, if you noticed, that was September 16th, 1944, that you were, that you were shot down. And that's, that's, uh, right at the beginning or right, right before that, that operation took place.


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[Assistant] So, I guess before we get into all that, at any greater depth, how did you end up, as a pilot, what, you know, how did you end up there?


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[Assistant] And then you, you get out to California and that's where you go through high school and what not.


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[Assistant] So what, what year did you transfer from the, the Air National Guard into, and how did you get a commis- did you get a commission? Did you have to go to college or did you not have to go to college at that time to get a commission and be a pilot?


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[Assistant] And yet you had worked on the P-51s. What was the deciding factor that made you want to fly a P-38 instead of a P-51?


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[Assistant] Yeah, I guess that's what threw me off was cause you know, I always thought of the P-51 as being, as being, you know, the best air to air combat.


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[Assistant] Uh, aircraft of the war, but I didn't realize that it had go, didn't get there immediately and it had to get there in stages. So that, that, that makes sense to me now.


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[Assistant] So you said the greatest what, deflection? Deflection shooting. What is that?


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[Assistant] So you're calling them the mud air force? Is that what you said? Yep. And that's just a, that's delineating that these guys are working with the ground troops and you're flying low and the dream of aerial combat is not so much there right now.


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[Assistant] You guys must have been all ears though. I mean, you talked about screwball, but, but the RAF pilots that had fought the battle of Britain, I mean, were you guys getting lessons learned from them and, and were you, were they actually directly teaching you guys at all?


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[Assistant] Yeah, the violent piece, I mean you could apply that to really many situations in life where, you know, we see people and they're, they're in a bad position in life. They need to do something violent to move out of that situation, not just sit there and wait for something to unfold.


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[Assistant] We had that same philosophy in all my seal platoons and seal task units. Stay off the radio.


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[Assistant] So would you, would you fly with multiple people or multiple aircraft so someone had the duty of watching the rear?


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[Assistant] When you, before we get to that one, when you were doing close air support for troops on the ground, and you had four radio nets that you could be on, would you be talking to the guys on the ground?


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[Assistant] So up until that point that was kind of your primary mission that was going in and hitting railway stations or munitions factories.


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[Assistant] How long did you arrive in England before D-Day actually happened?


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[Assistant] Had you flown missions before D-Day started? No. So your first missions were right after D-Day.


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[Assistant] When you were, when D-Day was about to go.


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[Assistant] I mean, it's every single person, you guys must have absolutely known that what you were about to do was, was, you know, gonna be one of the most epic undertakings of the modern history.


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[Assistant] No, I've actually, on a recent podcast I was talking about the fact that


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[Assistant] Many of American, or at least as much of America's victories in many cases have to be attributed to our ability to produce and make things and America's incredible ability to, like you said, build such incredible equipment in such a short amount of time. It's epic.


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[Assistant] When, when uhm, I always read that for D-Day they wanted troops, not all, but they were looking for, they brought a lot of troops that didn't have any combat experience.


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[Assistant] What was the, because these, these guys were so, you know, were inexperienced, when you were out at a pub in England talking to these army guys that were getting ready to go in, were they just 100% fired up to go?


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[Assistant] That's the only thing, because I can imagine myself when I was 18 or 19 years old, I first was in the military, if you would have told me I was going to do a giant amphibious landing, an epic amphibious landing, there would have been just nothing but, uhm, absolute


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[Assistant] You know, they don't know, they don't understand what they're getting into yet. And again, maybe to the credit of the planners,


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[Assistant] They decided it's better to have a bunch of guys that aren't really 100% sure of what to expect than it is to have a bunch of people that know what they're getting into and know how hard this is gonna be.


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[Assistant] Uh, you know, let's, let's, we're talking about, now we're talking about getting shot down, you know, you're ending up in a prison camp. Let's, you were about to get to the, to the, to the engagement where you actually did get shot down. You wanna talk through that one a little bit further, Jim, and just give us some details on that?


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[Assistant] I would guess, especially in Germans are generally orderly people. So you'd think they'd want to fly tight formations. But I guess if you think about it from a, from like even from a basic camouflage perspective, when you see things in a pattern, it stands out more. So maybe they did that to break up their pattern a little bit.


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[Assistant] A literal firestorm inside your cabin, inside your cockpit? No. Or just still outside the plane? Just outside the aircraft.


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[Assistant] But this is unlike, you know, Charlie, you're, you know, the modern rigs where you pull the ejection handle. This is all stuff. I mean, in a modern aircraft, you pull the ejection handle and you're getting shot out of the aircraft.


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[Assistant] And get all that done while the plane is burning and then you have to get out and that's kind of when you come back into consciousness. So you did that either instinctively or at some point while all this mayhem was going on.


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[Assistant] And also, just one more point, on a ejection sheet, a modern ejection sheet, you come out, your parachute opens automatically, right? Oh yes. So you're still in a ripcord scenario, right? Where you're gonna have to make this parachute open. So when you say you're floating down, you're actually falling down at 120 miles per hour towards the earth.


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[Assistant] Okay, uhm, yeaah, that's interesting. Having jumped out of at least a decent number of airplanes, this is not something you want to do for the first time under these circumstances. Or you don't want to do it again either.


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[Assistant] No, it's actually, you know, we've read some books on the podcast where there was nurses that were over in France and they were receiving guys right off the front lines. Yeah.


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[Assistant] And so how did you two end up, uh, meeting?


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[Assistant] Yeah, that was, we, we, we joked about that on the first time you were on the podcast, that, that you had the ultimate man cave.


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[Assistant] All the, I mean the, the history that you have here and the pictures and the photographs and the, you know, pieces of aircraft and everything else is, it's, it's phenomenal to look at. And, you know, it's interesting, so when I got here,


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[Assistant] Uhm, you know, we're walking around in Jim's hangers, a few hangers down, and you know, you said, hey, Jim wants to show you something.


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[Assistant] So we, we get out and we walk from your hangar and we're walking down towards Jim's, Jim's hangar and, you know, we shake hands and I meet Jim for the first time.


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[Assistant] And he says, you know, I want to show you something. And I say, oh okay, you know.


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[Assistant] Neat. And he goes, it's a picture. And I said, oh, awesome. And I have no idea what to expect. And he says, it's someone you know.


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[Assistant] And I said, okay, well that narrows it down, but I don't know, you know, I don't know who I have in common, you know, with Jim or I don't know. I have no idea, no idea who this was or who this picture was going to be. So we go to


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[Assistant] Jim's man cave, which is an equally impressive and awesome, you know, hanger with, you know, his personal effects and pictures and models and parts of aircraft and everything else. And he walks into a corner and he picks up a picture.


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[Assistant] And he hands me this picture and the picture, I immediately, I know who it is and it's, it's this second lieutenant from the Marine Corps. It's a picture of a young Chinese American second lieutenant from the Marine Corps and it,


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[Assistant] It's, it's Kurt Lee who I talked about in podcast number 53.


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[Assistant] I went kind of off about him a little bit. I talked about him a lot because if you remember from this particular podcast and from that particular book, this was at the Chosen Reservoir and, and this second lieutenant, Kurt Lee, he was, while these guys are engaged in, in just intense, continuous combat,


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[Assistant] In order to lead his men, he fashioned a fluorescent orange vest out of some signaling material.


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[Assistant] And, or out of some parachute material or something, he made this vest for himself so that he would be completely visible to all of his men. Now that also means he's obviously completely visible to the enemy as well. But that was what kind of a leader


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[Assistant] That this guy was. Look, I'm gonna take extra risk, but I'm where to make this happen. I'm in charge, you're gonna know where I am, and you can follow me.


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[Assistant] Through whatever. And it's an incredible story of, of heroism. So that's the picture that Jim puts in front of me is this picture of, of Kurt Lee.


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[Assistant] And I'm, I kinda look at him and I, you know, and, and it turns out that you, that you knew Kurt Lee.


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[Assistant] Yeah, it was, it's an interesting story too because that's another thing that we talked about was in part of that.


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[Assistant] What he did at one point in that book, and I don't remember it specifically, but he basically dresses someone down in the middle of a firefight for not giving him, you know, not calling him sir or not calling him lieutenant. And you know, I'm kind of saying, Hey guys, you know, you need to think about when the right time to do this is. But as you said, he was an extremely.


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[Assistant] It is unbelievable story and unbelievable that you handed that picture to me and, and that you knew him. I mean that's just, just phenomenal, phenomenal situation.


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[Assistant] Was there anything Charlie that when, when you were on last time, was there anything that, you know, I know we, we talked for a few hours, I think. Yeah, we did. Yeah.


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[Assistant] Was there any major things that as you listened to it again that you said to yourself, you know what, I should talk about this as well?


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[Assistant] I got asked a question the other day. I was working with a company. I was actually, no, I was working with a company. I was doing a speech and I was doing some Q&A at the end and a guy asked me,


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[Assistant] How do you define character and how do you build it?


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[Assistant] And I'd actually never been asked this question before and quite frankly I hadn't really thought about it very much. And this guy had thought about it and I talked to him afterwards and it was something that he, it was why he really wanted to hear me talk because he wanted to get my perspective on this. And I answered the question


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[Assistant] You do what's right. You do the right thing. That's what you do.


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[Assistant] And if you do the right thing, regardless of what the consequences are, that represents character. And so then how do you build character?


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[Assistant] Are hard things often, right? Those are hard things. You have to make the right decisions. You have to live a disciplined life.


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[Assistant] Those build character, those little things that you do on a daily basis to make yourself better, to improve your health, to improve your, your situation in life. You're doing those things, they're hard to do.


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[Assistant] And when you do those things, they build your character. And ultimately they lead to your character being a good character as opposed to a bad one. But I'd never been asked that question before, and I thought that the simplicity of it


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[Assistant] It's pretty clear when you think about it, you know, when you think about the people that you know, you know, when I think about the, the people that I worked for in the military or that worked for me up or down the chain of command, what, what is it that made them


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[Assistant] Three seconds as this guy asked me this question. You know, I thought to myself, what about the guys that I know that have good character, that I look to and say, yea, this, this person I trust, you know, without question, what kind of person is that? That's the person that you know is gonna do the right thing all the time, regardless of the consequences.


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[Assistant] And you're talking about when you were


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[Assistant] When you were depressed, when you were laying there, it's because you felt like you had failed, you felt like you had broken, you felt like you weren't the man that you thought you were, and they'd found your breaking point, and you'd found your breaking point, and you didn't like that.


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[Assistant] Was, you know, you, you went broke down and took one of your, one of your cellmates and said, well, this is horrible. I'm a, I'm a, I'm a disaster. I'm a failure. I broke. And he kind of said, oh yeah, welcome to the club. We all break. It was like one of those things. And I think to your point, absolutely everyone.


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[Assistant] Everyone has a point where they go, ah, you know, I, I, I failed here. I didn't do what I was supposed to do. I lacked the character that I needed at that time.


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[Assistant] To be a good leader or to even stand up and fight one more time. I failed. And the point is us all sitting around at this table and every single person that's listening to this right now


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[Assistant] You can find a spot in your life where you said, you know what, I didn't do it. I didn't hold the line. I, my character broke and I wasn't the person that I should have been at that moment. And that's, that's absolutely true. But what's more important than the fact then that we all get to a point where we break.


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[Assistant] It's number one that everybody breaks, and number two, that doesn't mean it's over. That just means it's a bump in the road. It's a bump in the road and you gotta rebuild from it, you gotta come back and you can, you can do that.


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[Assistant] I mean, what you're saying is essentially


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[Assistant] The fact that you have to know, you have to understand what your weaknesses are. You really do.


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[Assistant] And you have to understand human beings and what human beings weaknesses are.


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[Assistant] And for me, you know, and I've talked about this a ton on this podcast, you have to understand that there's, that human beings are capable of doing very dark and horrible things. And if you can't, and if you can't recognize that you yourself are capable of the dark and horrible things and of the weak things,


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[Assistant] Well then you're not really being truthful with yourself and, and with your existence really as a human being. And you ignore those things and I think when you ignore those things I think that's when they sneak up on you.


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[Assistant] Yeaah, it's interesting, you know, Jim, you kinda, you kinda made that


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[Assistant] Uh, joking comment, you know, hey, Truman dropped the bomb and ruined a perfectly good war. And we all laughed at it.


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[Assistant] We all also kind of understand that there's some level of, of reality to that. And you think when you're in the military and I always, you know, I was, I was talking about the fact that when I joined the Navy, it was 1990 and I just missed the first Gulf War and


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[Assistant] Like I was completely dismayed by that because you know there hadn't been a war since basically since Vietnam so it had been 20 years and I'm thinking okay there was my shot to fighting a war and I just missed it.


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[Assistant] And, and so that, that what you're talking about of, Hey,


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[Assistant] You feel like this is your purpose and, and this is what I'm supposed to be doing with my life and it's a higher purpose and it's a higher cause and it's something that is


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[Assistant] And I think you're right, that's where people get into trouble because they're so tied to their old, higher purpose and they can't transition to the new one.


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[Assistant] And, you know, I get great feedback from, from vets all the time that they do. They open up, they go, okay, well, what am I going to do now? That's what, that's what I'm looking at. What's your next mission going to be? What is, and you know what your next mission might be? Being a good dad, right? That might be your next mission. You know what your next mission might be? It might be building airplane hangers. You know, you don't know what your next mission is going to be.


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[Assistant] Find out what your next mission is going to be. Make it something productive. Make it something that's going to impact, you know, at least you and your family and get good at it. Even if you pick something that's somewhat selfish and you say, hey, I want to, I want to surf on every continent.


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[Assistant] I don't want to make this sound the wrong way because I always talk about the fact that for us, we didn't get tasked missions. Like when, when I was in Iraq, there was no higher up telling me, you guys are going to take this target or you guys are going to take that. That happened occasionally, probably less than 5% of the time. Most of the time we developed our own missions.


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[Assistant] Overall, when you're in the military, you have a broad mission that you're trying to accomplish, which again is for societal good.


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[Assistant] And so when that disappears, guess what? You have some autonomy now. Now what are you going to choose as your next mission? What are you going to do? How are you going to improve yourself? How are you going to improve your life, your families, your communities or your countries or the world? What are you going to do to make it better? And you see the vets that are out there that are doing that and they, they, they, they, they go


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[Assistant] No, that's a, that's a great point. Actually I was, I was curious because I'd never heard before about the flack houses.


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[Assistant] And that the bombers, the bomber crews were being sent to when they'd basically said alright, we're done right now. I mean, what was the casualty rate of the bomber crews? It was something completely insane, wasn't it?


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[Assistant] So let me just, let me just focus in on that for one second, just to explain to everyone what that means, because I did know about the 25. So if you were a bomber crew,


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[Assistant] You were flying in, uh, in, uh, what, a B-17?


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[Assistant] And, and also anti-aircraft guns from the ground. And so it was, it was hellish to get through. And it was so bad that


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[Assistant] You had to make it through 25 of these bomb runs and you were done. That was it. You didn't have to do anymore. But you're saying the chances of actually making it through those 25 was minimal.


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[Assistant] When you say we almost lost that one, you mean we almost had to stop the bombing campaign?


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[Assistant] Yeah, I guess I was, with all that, you know, thinking about these...


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[Assistant] These guys that were in those bomber crews that would need a break and they say, okay, you need to go over here and not think about this. And it reminds me of, you know, talking about Dick Winters from the first of the 506 band of brothers and what he would say when he would see guys were getting stressed out. You know, he'd get them off the line, get them out of it and give them the rest that they need.


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[Assistant] And, and then I think, I think there's a certain part of you that goes, okay, like I need to not think about this right now.


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[Assistant] You know, now, you know, I've, I've had my break, but now you're talking about this stuff and I appreciate it. And I bring, it lets me know that I'm not the only guy that thinks this way or had those thoughts or, you know, went through this. And I think that's, that's good. So I think it's, I think you do need a break. And actually that, now that I think about it,


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[Assistant] When I was in Ramadi, I had, the book that I read every night was About Face by Colonel David Hackworth, and I read it every single night, every single night, every single night. And then about three months into deployment,


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[Assistant] I wanted to, I didn't want to think about, you know, I didn't want to go to bed thinking about, you know, the war and war and so there was a random book sitting around and I picked up, it was actually a book called The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, which is about the hippies in


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[Assistant] It's written by Tom Wolf, who wrote the right stuff. But it's a great book and it was so completely outside of what I was doing that it gave me, you know, like a mental break. And I read that book and it was, you know, it took me four days to read that book.


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[Assistant] And I got done and I put it away. I pulled about face back out and I continued on. But I just needed a little bit of a breather. Right? Just a little bit of a mental breather. And I guess


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[Assistant] You know, which was the way he summed it up was, was, was me, me, me, me, everything's about me. And that was what was good for me to read this book. I'm like, okay, that's not how I want to be with, with my life. It's not about me. It's about, you know, what we're trying to do here.


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[Assistant] So yeaah, I think sometimes people need a mental break. I, I can't even imagine what the, you know, what was going on in one of those flack houses with those guys.


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[Assistant] Yeah, that's about as, that's about as bad as it gets. And uhm, you know, it was a horrible situation. It was the fog of war. It was multiple units out on the battlefield.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was, it was actually not me that was, that shot an Iraqi soldier. It was one of my small teams that was in a position where


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, amongst the confusion, they were assaulted by a friendly group of Iraqi soldiers with one, they had one marine with them. And yeah, you know, it's, it's something that you can, it's hard to make


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In special operations for sure, it's a taboo in any and I'll tell you during the during the


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I guess we'll say the dry years in between Vietnam and the current wars we're in, there was, we actually,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was, it was like an unbelievable thing. It was so bad. It was the absolute worst thing that could happen. Actually, I would say there would be one more thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, the soul, the, the person that was killed, the soldier that was killed was an Iraqi soldier. You know, if it had been a seal or an American, I guess that would make it one level higher for me because I would have known the person. You know, in this case, it was an Iraqi soldier. Again, a tragic loss nonetheless.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, how did I feel? It felt absolutely horrible and the thing that...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Honestly, when I had that transition in thought and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was, it was the first moment that I felt actually okay. Uh, there's a horrible sinking feeling that you get.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In wartime situations, I guess you can get it in other times too. And I've talked about it with some of my friends. It's like when something is just really


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Horrible is happening. You get this knot in your stomach and this, it's, I've never felt it any other times, but when I was overseas, of, of, like this is, I, I have,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's, it's the most horrible feeling. And uhm, that was, that was,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The most severe I ever felt it was leading up to my own recognition that, you know what, and where that was coming from was the unknown and I didn't know how to react to it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And here I was, you know, Mr. Experienced Seal, Mr., you know, in charge of the task unit, whatever.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And yet here I was going, how do I deal with this? And I didn't understand how to deal with it. And what I had to do is go to what I actually did know, which is if you're in a leadership position, you take responsibility for what happens. That's what you do. So, hey,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's what you do. And if, if they're gonna fire you, you get fired. If they're gonna reprimand you, you get reprimanded. If they're gonna replace you with someone else, you get replaced, you salute, you do the best turnover you can, you try and do the, you know, give all the information you can. That's what you do. And as soon as I accepted that,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And looked at it and said, okay, well then, that knot started to go away. And I realized that, okay, the real problem here is the way that you're looking at this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, and then the other big thing is once you admit what those are and you take ownership of those problems and you actually not just take ownership of the problems but you say here's the problems and here's how we're gonna get them solved.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Here's the standard operating procedures that we're now going to follow to make sure that this never happens again.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, then people look at you and they go, okay, he's got a plan. He's not sitting here dodging the blame for this. He's actually taking ownership of the problems and he's gonna get them solved. And I think, you know, I've never had this conversation with my commanding officer about his reaction.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I could see it. You know, I could see it. And the fact that I, the fact that he said, okay, you know, let's make sure it doesn't happen again. I like the procedures that you're putting in place. Use caution. Proceed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, where is, I believe that if I would have said, well, it wasn't my fault, it was his fault and their fault and the other guy's fault, he would have said, okay, you need, you're not going to have this job anymore. And I think that's the same thing with life. You know, the minute that you're looking around you and you're saying, hey, it's someone else's fault that this, that I'm in this bad situation. And again, you know what? Okay.