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[Assistant] Where you are going to end up. And this is something that when I was running training in the SEAL teams.


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[Assistant] I was always training guys for the worst case scenario. In fact, we would do, we would set up operations where we'd tell them, okay, you're just going to go and meet with the local tribal leader. And we'd, you know, we'd have actors that were going to play the local tribal leader and we just want you to go in there and you know, drink tea with them and try and gather some information from them. And so they'd go, okay. And if they didn't prepare properly,


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[Assistant] They would get destroyed because of course we lure them in and say, oh yes, the tribal leader is ready to meet with you. Oh great.


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[Assistant] Lower him into the room, and then all of a sudden you take that guy hostage, you kill him, and then you start... So he'd cause total mayhem. But the point was you always had to prepare for the worst case scenario.


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[Assistant] It was a good unit, had trained and prepared well


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[Assistant] before coming into Sri Lanka in late 1988. It had well taped up drills.


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[Assistant] The unit and subunit commanders plan their operations as innovatively as circumstances permitted.


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[Assistant] And took pains to avoid routine. So these guys were a little bit sharper.


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[Assistant] was that they did not take enough pains to detect the setting in of routine and inclination to find comfort in slackness.


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[Assistant] So that means they did a good job when they were fresh.


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[Assistant] And for a long time, nothing happened. And this is something that people try to express about combat, but combat is often a lot of waiting.


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[Assistant] And sometimes they picture this, sometimes they portray this well in the, in the better, in the better,


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[Assistant] movies about combat, they show, you know, these long periods of waiting and that can be what combat is. And, and what's happening here is this unit is there. And for a long time, nothing's happening.


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[Assistant] So when nothing happens, you start to get more and more complacent.


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[Assistant] May 1989, on a day when the road to Elephant Pass


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[Assistant] Had to be opened by the unit. One of the posts and route detailed its platoon to ensure security of a stretch of road for a distance of about two kilometers.


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[Assistant] The platoon split into four parties of six to seven men each.


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[Assistant] And set out to search the road physically and secure an area stride to it a distance of 300 to 500 meters within its given beat.


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[Assistant] Having cleared the roads, these parties established squads 300 to 400 meters away from the road from where they could observe the road stretch and the area astride it.


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[Assistant] At varying intervals, one squad was to move out and relieve the next one, and so forth, the chain of relief would go, sometimes clockwise, sometimes anti-clockwise. This was to overcome boredom, avoid routine, and keep mobile at odd times, and thus dominate the stretch.


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[Assistant] So what they're doing is they've got their little squad set up and then occasionally one squad would go move to another squad's position and that squad would go to another squad's position. So they would just do that to keep moving, keep mobile, not get complacent. The road had been kept open for the whole day.


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[Assistant] For up and down convoys, so they had to keep this road open because they were running convoys, uhm, to another area.


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[Assistant] As all such road rail opening days were. So this is kind of a common mission for them to secure these roads and these railroad tracks to get convoys through to bring logistical supplies to other parts of the military.


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[Assistant] The platoon secured the area and saw the convoy and the trains through by about 1030. So 1030 in the morning, they'd gone by.


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[Assistant] They would now have to wait for the returning convoy and trains in the afternoon.


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[Assistant] The sun was well up in the sky and the men were being baked. Humidity added to the discomfort.


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[Assistant] Number one and number two squads were north of the T junction about 400 to 500 meters away from it. Number four and three squads were opposite.


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[Assistant] One and two respectively, south of the road.


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[Assistant] So there's that opportunity. Instead of baking out in the sun, we're just gonna kinda get a little bit closer to the road, get a little bit closer to the T-junction, we're gonna sit in some shade.


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[Assistant] The squad occupied the Grove as it had been doing and relaxed against the trees. It was comprised of six men.


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[Assistant] The militants had noticed this routine. So this whole time they're being observed.


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[Assistant] You know, that's something you've always gotta expect. You've always gotta expect that you're being watched.


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[Assistant] About 15 militants with weapons slowly drove a vehicle to the T-junction and went on dropping a few members.


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[Assistant] At four or five places around, or sorry, across the branch road. Opposite the unalert squad, barely 40 meters away.


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[Assistant] Then they occupied a few old trenches dug by the IPKF during the previous year. So here are these guys, basically asleep.


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[Assistant] And sitting in this coconut grove and 40 meters away. I mean you played football 40 that's less than half a football field away. You got the insurgents getting in position.


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[Assistant] They just said, okay, we're not gonna hit him. You know, we used to say that about when we were driving around my first deployment to Iraq and we'd be driving around in our Humvees with no armor on them. Slick Humvees.


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[Assistant] And we, we would say, look, our protection is that we're gonna look alert. We're gonna have our guns scanning. We're gonna be, everyone's gonna have a gun pointed at the, at the...


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[Assistant] So, so generally I assume that that worked well for us considering how often ambushes were happening.


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[Assistant] Around 1100 hours, all of them poured bullets into the resting squad. Not one remained alive. Not one could fire back. Thus, just then,


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[Assistant] The number four squad, which had upstuck from its location south of the main road and was going to number one's location to relieve it, entered into the inferno. The opening volley of the militants who were watching


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[Assistant] Caught and killed four of this party too and wounded the other two. Just as they were entering the grove. Out of these two, one succumbed soon.


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[Assistant] But the other who survived froze took no further part, perhaps feigning death and survived. Hearing this firing.


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[Assistant] The number three squad, which was about a kilometer away, rushed in very fast.


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[Assistant] But what was not was that the two groups having connected or having contacted an exchange fire with the militants at that site did not pursue the militants and allow them a clean break.


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[Assistant] And they allowed them a clean break. So these other two squads when the firing started, they rushed in from two different directions and actually were in a good position to do some big damage to the militants, but they didn't.


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[Assistant] It is all the more regrettable because the two parties had contacted the militants from two directions and were thus in a position of considerable advantage.


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[Assistant] Instead, all of them converged on the site and started getting hold of the dead and wounded.


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[Assistant] So instead of attacking, they all just converged on the guys that were dead and wounded and started taking care of them.


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[Assistant] The losses amounted to ten killed and one wounded. The militants suffered one dead. So again, a horrible situation.


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[Assistant] The glaring example of crass complacency on the part of our brave soldiers, who neither firmly adhere to the spirit and content of basic tactical teaching, nor thinks it's necessary to use that little brain God has given.


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[Assistant] Our teaching and officering methods make sure that the soldier does not use his gray matter and develop guile.


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[Assistant] Our teaching and officering methods make sure that the soldier does not use his gray matter and develop guile.


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[Assistant] So what he's saying is the way that they train these troops and how they treat them.


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[Assistant] They get them so that they don't use their, they don't use their mind. They don't use their brain. And...


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[Assistant] That's something that we've talked about on this podcast multiple times. Just going automatic like boom boom. No, to try and make sure that the training that you do expands your brain and makes you think.


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[Assistant] Not to fall back on, on their training that had been embedded into their brain, but to think of their own solution to a problem.


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[Assistant] In ju- it's like in jujitsu, when you see someone that is really masterful in jujitsu, the person that you consider that is the person that you see get into a position and they do something completely unexpected.


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[Assistant] That's the kind of training that I want to do for people. To put them in positions where they have to do something that's unexpected and new and that they created. Nobody from the patrol could be punished. Those who made the mistake were already dead.


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[Assistant] To talk a little bit about this book, this book, as I said, it's called Assignment Jaffna by Sardis Pandey, Lieutenant General Sardis Pandey. And here's his opening to the book. And I think this is one of the most honest openings to a book I've ever heard.


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[Assistant] Political Front in Sri Lanka from 1987 to 1989, a period of over two and a half years. And this is where I think this guy is just beautifully honest.


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[Assistant] I lay no claim to scholarship and research on the subject.


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[Assistant] Nor have I had ready at hand documentary backup to substantiate my remarks and conclusions.


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[Assistant] I have not attempted to consult others who are closer to the decision makers or even the decision making process itself. I kept no notes, no diaries, not even, not even compared notes with my peers, colleagues, or subordinates.


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[Assistant] With my seniors, I had the normal all-too-human quota of professional animus. I did my job as I understood. Perceived it, or sorry, perceived and thought it appropriate.


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[Assistant] In my post retirement glow, I simply reminisced.


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[Assistant] Memories resurged as I did so, not always with precise contextual precision perhaps, but with sufficient clarity to heat up, illuminate, and see through this effort. And this is something that


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[Assistant] I, I, whenever I'm, the books that have always kind of hit me and the books that we've used in this podcast are these books that I find value in and that's the books with kind of unaltered thoughts and it's usually coming from the person itself and that's, that's one thing that automatically


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[Assistant] Gives me a, uh, a negative impression, or not a negative impression, but...


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[Assistant] And you know, this is something that I used to, when we were running training, or when I was running training, and you'd have a guy do something.


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[Assistant] You could have a guy come into a room, and you know, this is just a training operation, but you'd have a guy come into a room and, and there'd be, you know, a doorway or a prisoner or a hostage, and they would do something like, like dumb or crazy or wrong.


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[Assistant] Yo, go and do that again. And although we would definitely make them do it again, I would always make them deal with what they did.


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[Assistant] Because they, they, they did whatever their instincts told them to do. And what your instincts told them to do, guess what? Your instincts were wrong, now you still have to deal with it.


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[Assistant] Talk about what they did and as you can see from those first two, you know, stories.


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[Assistant] This guy's talking about what they did wrong, what happened bad.


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[Assistant] And his assessment of, of why. I'm gonna continue.


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[Assistant] It is the account of the happenings as seen through the eyes of a divisional commander, who in war, in my opinion and experience, is the main link between strategy and tactics.


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[Assistant] Was, you know, how that strategy of what the goal was, how that got interpreted into the ground.


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[Assistant] There are others who cherish macro-level viewing and tend to underrate ground realities.


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[Assistant] This is another thing that I always look for. Now, of course, I'm interested in what the generals say. Absolutely. I'm always interested in what the presidents say or what the, the prime minister says and how the generals took that and what they did with it and those broad strategies. I'm very interested in that. I always want to read about that.


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[Assistant] In what he's saying, that there's others that cherish the macro level viewing, which is what that is, the generals, and tend to underrate the ground realities. And I agree with him. I belong to the former category.


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[Assistant] Mine was termed a worm's view and I preferred it that way. Meaning he is the guy that was on the ground and this is what he saw as he, as if he was a worm on the ground. That's how on the ground he was. I knew exactly where I stood.


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[Assistant] It is this that produced considerable disillusionment.


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[Assistant] Once again, this is something that I always find intriguing when you get these guys, these soldiers, people like Hackworth, people that are dedicated, you know, lifelong


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[Assistant] Military members and they get this twist of disillusionment and suspicion against their higher headquarters.


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[Assistant] I kept shouting myself horse, but the juggernaut rolled on, unheeding.


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[Assistant] So despite this guy's protests and talking and trying to explain,


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[Assistant] There is a school of thought which says that mistakes were bound to be made in the complex and undertaking of projecting power outside our national geographical confines and that these have to be taken in stride.


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[Assistant] So yeaah, hey look, we're gonna have mistakes, they're gonna happen, we just have to deal with them and move on.


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[Assistant] My contention is that if we consider ourselves professional soldiers and experts in concerned fields,


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[Assistant] Then there was no need to, and no excuse for committing most of these mistakes. After all.


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[Assistant] It was human lives and limbs which were being lost.


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[Assistant] We know we have an abundance of manpower, even cheap human lives in this country. But that does not give us the power of attorney to waste them.


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[Assistant] And I think that's a sediment that anybody that's been on the front lines can understand is that it's, it's easy to write those checks from the government or from the, the rear echelon or from the safe place.


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[Assistant] But those checks that you're writing are, are human lives. And no one should write that check without a heavy burden on their mind.


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[Assistant] There is a good deal of I in the narration. It is not so much


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[Assistant] Because of my ego, to show up myself, or to put others always in the dock.


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[Assistant] Is saying, look, the book's about me and I apologize and I'm not trying to be egotistical and actually in reading that right now.


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[Assistant] It's not about us, it's about what we learned. And I think he's trying to make the same statement there.


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[Assistant] Sri Lanka was a fascinating assignment. The most challenging of my life. The most tense. The most rewarding.


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[Assistant] That anybody that's been in tense combat will tell you that's the most rewarding thing that they will do in their life.


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[Assistant] I am grateful to my colleagues, subordinates, peers, and our magnificent men, steady, solid as they are.


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[Assistant] I have a high regard for the LTTE for its discipline, dedication, determination, motivation, and technical expertise. So there he is, he's talking about the enemy.


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[Assistant] Is you have to respect your enemy. And there he is. He is high regard for the LTT and its discipline and dedication and determination and motivation and their technical expertise. That's everything.


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[Assistant] Find little justification in its senseless, mulish, destructive insistence on continuation of military means in the search of an honorable solution to the Tamil problem in Sri Lanka.


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[Assistant] I thank some of my Ernst Weill subordinates for helping me refresh my memory. Most of them took me seriously in war and remain two steps ahead of me in their spheres. God bless them.


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[Assistant] Like me, looking at the guys that worked with me and for me, I hold them in the highest regard for taking care of me. Then he's saying the same thing. Fashion apart.


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[Assistant] I genuinely feel I must dedicate this personal account to the young officer, the young soldiers and the Jaffna Tamils who made


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[Assistant] Me a good soldier and a better human being in my own eyes. I think that's just an outstanding opening for a book.


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[Assistant] Now, getting into the tactics.


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[Assistant] These rose only a little above what is known as minor tactics in military terminology. That is, tactical arrangements and drills at section and platoon level.


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[Assistant] Counterinsurgency operations demanded far more innovative and integrative formulations at company, battalion, and formation levels.


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[Assistant] Obviously something that we had to deal with in Ramadi, and that was this idea of...


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[Assistant] You know, it's, it's so, it's infinitely more complex than a situation where, you know, two uniformed military groups are fighting against each other.


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[Assistant] Everything is clear. It's very easy to understand. You know, they have a different shaped helmet, they have a different colored uniform, and we're gonna get on our different sides of the lines and we're gonna go and destroy them.


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[Assistant] And an insurgency is just infinitely more complex. People mixed in with the populace. The populace swaying back and forth on who they support, wanting to protect the populace from the insurgence.


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[Assistant] Some of the populace supporting the insurgents and some of the populace supporting the, the host nation or the friendlies. It's just a, it's just an infinitely more complex situation.


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[Assistant] And what that means is that the person who's overall in charge has got to do an outstanding job of explaining what the mission is and explaining how it's connected and explaining how what is going to happen on the front line is going to affect the broad strategy.


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[Assistant] That getting that commander's intent down to the front lines is critical and this is something that when I was in Ramadi and I was working for Colonel Sean McFarland, who's now General McFarland, who is just an unbelievably outstanding leader, but he was able to get his intent.


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[Assistant] You know, from him to the battalions to the companies to the platoons.


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[Assistant] Very similar situation that Colonel McFarland was able to execute in a, just a, just an outstanding way.


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[Assistant] Beyond the strategy, or beyond the tactics, and as we talked about on the last podcast, what always interests me more is the principles of war.


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[Assistant] And how different people in different situations see those principles and how those principles of war can be translated into principles of life.


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[Assistant] And principles of business and principles of fighting and principles of relationships and everything that you're doing.


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[Assistant] Also, the principles of the war within and the war that we have within ourselves to beat back the insurgents that are in our mind.


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[Assistant] You know, beating back the emotions that are in our mind that are trying to make us weak and trying to bring us down and trying to keep us from being the best that we can be.


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[Assistant] And luckily enough, the good general has a section that's called Principles of War.


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[Assistant] Principles of war distilled from conventional warfare are well known.


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[Assistant] But their degree of relevance in insurgency wars is not the same.


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[Assistant] Again, we're talking about insurgency much more complex.


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[Assistant] Insurgency is total war in the sense that it involves people too in an intimate and positive manner.


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[Assistant] Employs all sinews of war. Political, social, economic, psychological, diplomatic, and military.


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[Assistant] It exemplifies determination and readiness for great sacrifices in pursuance of its goals.


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[Assistant] It is so difficult to achieve. Insurgency


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[Assistant] Is an unrelenting, low-intensity, long-drawn war.


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[Assistant] With time and opportunity serving the interests of the insurgent.


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[Assistant] And wherein the insurgent designs to overcome his weakness in one sphere with strength in the others. So in an insurgency, they don't have tanks, but they have time and they can wait you out and they can just


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Pick away at you. The death of a thousand cuts. That's what the fear is. That's how the insurgent is going to win.


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[Assistant] Is the death of a thousand cuts. And when I think about


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[Assistant] It's those little things. It's those little cuts. It's those little times. It's those little, those little situations where you cut yourself a little bit of slack.


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[Assistant] And that's the insurgent winning. That's the insurgent beating you.


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[Assistant] Relentless pursuance of the aim.


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[Assistant] The LTTE was clear in its aim and unrelenting in its pursuit.


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[Assistant] Possible modifications that they wanted their own state, period.


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[Assistant] On the other hand, we were not very clear about our aim. Destruction of the LTT or weakening it? If the latter, then to what degree?


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[Assistant] We had not fought through the eventuality of the Sri Lankan government refusing to fulfill its part of the accord obligations.


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[Assistant] We did not know what to do with a warring LTT, hostile population, or recalcitrant Sri Lankan government.


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[Assistant] And as it finally turned out, we were not even sure of what our national interests were and what military intervention and later military operations were required to achieve.


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[Assistant] This is when you hear all the time about people saying, oh, you gotta write down your goals. This is what they're talking about. You gotta know what your goals are. You gotta have them clear.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then you gotta have a relentless pursuance of the aim.


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[Assistant] Yeah, it needs to be a clear goal. What does that mean? Is that a certain amount of running? Is that a body weight that you're trying to reach? Is that a strength goal? What is that goal?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Do you write it down? Do you know exactly what it is and is it clear?


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[Assistant] It's an interesting how we keep hearing this word aggression and aggressiveness in all these.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Different principles of war. Aggressiveness is so important.


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[Assistant] And we talked about it on the last podcast, and I talked about how it had to be balanced, but it has to be balanced.


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[Assistant] In low intensity, long drawn conflict, unflagging aggressive spirit is of vital importance. Far more than in conventional offensive action.


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[Assistant] The LTTE had realized it thoroughly and practiced it with great deliberation and to great effect. We were somewhat lacking in it.


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[Assistant] And why I think this insurgency and this talking about an insurgency when we're talking about life and becoming better is because it is a long-term struggle.


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[Assistant] The, the war, the, the conventional war is a fast war where you, you know what's gonna happen, you know what your, you know who your enemy is, you go and you fight him and it's done. It's very easy. The conventional, I mean the, the,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The insurgent war is more like what we go through as humans trying to improve because it's a long drawn out struggle and we're, we got pieces of our brain that are changing sides just like the local populace might and it's very, very challenging and that's why this notion of aggressiveness


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And knowing what your aim is and then this relentless pursuance of this aim and getting aggressive as you pursue that aim. Can you see how, how important those are? Obviously in an, in a counter insurgency situation, but also as you develop your plan to become a better person and a better leader.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This embraces surprise at tactical, strategic, and political levels.


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[Assistant] IPKF, that's the Indian Peacekeeping Force, could not do anything, could not do anything.


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[Assistant] In, in the tactical field, it was unable to match the LTTE mainly because of the lack of innovation and serious application of all our professional acumen to stymie our, to stymie the LTTE. Our methods largely remained conventional.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How do we surprise ourselves? I can tell you. You gotta surprise yourself.


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[Assistant] If you can't surprise yourself, it means you lack creativity.


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[Assistant] If you're not coming up with new ideas and new ways to do things, you're lacking creativity and you're lacking surprise. So, you know, I was, I've been traveling a bunch lately. And guess what? Sometimes I'm in a hotel room.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But that's just being creative and aggressively adapting to the situations that you get put into.


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[Assistant] So you gotta, you gotta maintain that adaptability, that creativity all the time, and I think that's absolutely critical.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that healthy food thing, especially when you look, start looking at intermittent fasting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, oh, you're in the airport and they don't have, you know, all you can get is those.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You should be on the intermittent fast when you're in a travel situation. You don't need to be eating. And I'm telling you this right now, and it's fresh in my memory, cause I had two of those bad boys this morning. And they were good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Must develop intelligent and guileful flexibility in planning, conducting, and overseeing actions so as to retain initiative, suffer the least damage, and yet keep the opponent guessing.


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[Assistant] So that's what the insurgent has to do. They gotta be super flexible. They gotta


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Keep you guessing and keep you in a prolonged state of readiness. That's a, that, that sounds good, right? Prolonged state of readiness. That sounds good, but it's actually not good. When you, when you're constantly on edge, that's what wears people down. It breaks them down over time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But where we failed was we did not exhibit enough flexibility in our strategic and tactical plans and their guileful execution. We had to seize the initiative.


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[Assistant] So you know, mobility, flexibility. Something we talk about all the time on this podcast is having the ability to adapt and be flexible. And you know, whether it's working out in a hotel room, whether it's, you know,


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[Assistant] Finding something good to eat or not eating because there is nothing good to eat.


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[Assistant] Whether it's being in a leadership situation and you're adapting to a personality that you, that is awkward or different or you're not ready for or a situation that needs to be overcome.


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[Assistant] In prolonged, slow, bleeding, low intensity, people oriented struggle, motivation and discipline as ingredients of morale are far more important. The LTTE and the people


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[Assistant] Had both these to a remarkable degree.


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[Assistant] The IPKF's discipline was as good as any army's, even the LTTE's.


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[Assistant] But its motivation was limited to the spirit of professionalism only.


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[Assistant] And that encouraged their discipline. They understood why they were doing what they were doing.


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[Assistant] Did the IPKF know why they were doing what they were doing? No, they did not. They just, he just talked about that. He just talked about how they could, they didn't know what their goal was. They didn't know how it was going to affect. They didn't know, they didn't know what their end state was supposed to be. So when you take that away from them, even though they're disciplined troops, they missed that last level. And that's why. Why are you doing this?


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[Assistant] As you try and get something done, you keep that in mind of why you're doing this. What's the end state going to be? Because it's so easy to lose track of the end state. I mean, if you're trying to make, you know, you're trying to get, gain 25 pounds of muscle. I mean, that's going to take you a couple years, possibly.


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[Assistant] Let's talk about this. Let's talk about you're trying to lose weight because you're trying to be healthy. Right. That's a longterm goal that's realistic.


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[Assistant] Especially when, I'm gonna read this part again, and again we talk about when you're trying to get stuff done as a person. It's a prolonged, slow, bleeding, low intensity, people oriented struggle. That's what it is, that's what you're up against.


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[Assistant] You know, that's what you're up against. It's a low, anything that's worth achieving as a person, it takes all those. It's long, it's slow, it's probably, you know, there's nothing you go, oh, this is going to be the ultimate achievement of my life and it's going to take you 15 minutes to do. No, it's going to take you months and months and months and years of effort of blood, sweat and tears to get there.


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[Assistant] Now, continuing with discipline and morale.


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[Assistant] This goes into a section of the book where he starts talking about their performance and we're going to take a little bit of a, of a turn here, but I think it's important to bring up.


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[Assistant] In October to December of 1987, there were complaints and reports of rape.


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[Assistant] Looting and wanton destruction indulged in by the IPKF.


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[Assistant] When a soldier is pushed and led into a blind alley, like the situation in Jaffna.


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[Assistant] Where it suddenly changed from so well tom tomed peacekeeping operations into a full fledged battlefield.


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[Assistant] He feels terribly insecure and starts seeing an enemy all over.


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[Assistant] So we talked about this earlier. These guys thought they were going on a nice peacekeeping mission and they put their blue helmets on and you know, be a referee while the referee gets attacked.


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[Assistant] And this is starting to talk about the psychological effect it has and they start seeing an enemy everywhere. You know, and this reminds me of...


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[Assistant] And one of my teachers that was in Vietnam had seen the movie as well and I asked him straight up, you know, hey, what'd you think of the movie? And he explained to me,


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[Assistant] In a very solemn way that the movie depicted these Americans going in and, you know, brutalizing these villages and in, you know, doing horrible things to these villagers.


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[Assistant] But the way he explained it to me, he said, listen, you know, we'd be in, in and around a village for three or four weeks.


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[Assistant] And in that three or four weeks, they, the Americans, would lose seven or eight guys to booby traps.


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[Assistant] So they're out walking the same trails in the same areas through the right, same rice paddies and the, the villagers aren't.


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[Assistant] Hitting any booby traps. They're not getting blown up. They're not getting killed. So that means they kinda know where they are.


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[Assistant] And he said that kind of frustration is exactly what this is talking about right here.


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[Assistant] I'm going back to it. In an insurgency sparked and sustained by an opponent who is dressed in civilian clothes but shoots and blows him up unseen, suspicion alone takes a vicious turn.


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[Assistant] When he sees his comrades being killed by innocent looking civilians, blending again into the civilian population, he gets into a rage and anger against the uncertainty and the unseen.


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[Assistant] Welling feeling of helplessness and burning desire to explode into a release of counter violence are in frantic search of a tangible object he can master.


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[Assistant] An object which is weak and helpless itself.


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[Assistant] What better object than a frightened, weak, cowering woman?


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[Assistant] An unguarded wide open shop. An unresisting defenseless house and its feeble occupants, whose shelter the unseen deceitful opponent had obtained by whatever means.


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[Assistant] But just for a brief spell, if he can get a hold of himself, or if someone controls him in that moment of crisis, of cathartic explosion, he might in all probability get over his baser instincts.


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[Assistant] Where this does not happen, then the explosion manifests in counter-assault.


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[Assistant] Rape, loot, and wanton destruction. Seeking release from tension, fear, and rage.


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[Assistant] Within minutes of their act and repent, weeping like children.


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[Assistant] This, this paragraph about this pent up tension and we've got to remember that it's extreme.


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[Assistant] In a situation, you know, like this, the tension is extreme, the fear is extreme, the rage is extreme, but, and obviously for those that are listening that are


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[Assistant] In combat right now that are deployed overseas, these are things that you have to watch out for. And especially as a leader, you've gotta be the person that controls him in the moment of crisis of cathartic explosion. As a leader, that's gotta be what your job is.


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[Assistant] Also, as you work in businesses as a leader, you've got a sense that things won't be as dramatic as this, but you can get people that do


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[Assistant] Make mistakes in business. They make ethical mistakes. They make moral mistakes. They feel that pressure.


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[Assistant] And they wanna lash out, and they make mistakes, and you've gotta get them through those moments, you gotta pay attention to it.


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[Assistant] It is under these circumstances, back to the book, it is under these circumstances of total uncertainty, initial disorientation, sudden violence, inability to communicate because there was language differences, and lack of effective control and education that excesses were committed by a few, by a few.


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[Assistant] But the command and leadership chain rapidly gathered their brood once again.


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[Assistant] Within the warmth of their moral influence and disciplinary binding.


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[Assistant] Inquiries were instituted and disciplinary action taken against the defaulters. Warped minds had to be weeded out. But there were not very many. After February


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[Assistant] To March of 1988, the incident rates dropped to almost zero. So they were able to get control of the situation, to weed it out, get rid of the sadists and the folks that couldn't control themselves.


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[Assistant] But this is the type of pressure that you see.


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[Assistant] Military people under and especially in these counterinsurgency operations like we've had for the last


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[Assistant] 10 or 15 years in Iraq and Afghanistan where you have local populists, you have IEDs, you have


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[Assistant] Indirect fire mortars and guys are getting killed.


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[Assistant] From the book. What we lacked in many an instance was what I should specifically emphasize. Inspiring leadership.


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[Assistant] If the leader, particularly the formation commander, did not inspire his command, then that body of troops would be it.


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[Assistant] Half its effectiveness. So, Leif and I talk about extreme ownership.


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[Assistant] Leadership is the most important thing on the battlefield and here it is another example of saying, you know, he's saying that if the leader is not inspiring, they're going to be at half their effectiveness. For instance, if he visited a post


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[Assistant] And the men did not talk warmly, inquisitively, and fondly about the visit for the next week or 10 days. And if they did not perceive a challenge left behind by the commander, did not feel a spontaneous desire to meet it in thinking it hard to solve, in thinking hard to solve it, embracing to present an innovative novelty to the commander on his next visit.


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[Assistant] Then it is better that this type of commander did not visit at all.


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[Assistant] Many formation commanders fail to inspire.


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[Assistant] Not many of them roughed it out with the troops on patrols, ambushes, staying in their posts at night, on road opening and raid or heli landing missions.


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[Assistant] Kind of a negative example and this is very clear and you actually see this portrayed in movies about Vietnam a lot and you'll get that.


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[Assistant] Very quickly, the brigade commander would land by a helicopter in a post on a helipad which had to be secured.


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[Assistant] So I mean soldiers had to go out and like secure this helipad somewhere and set security around it and move the brush and make sure there's no mines on it, et cetera, et cetera.


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[Assistant] Then the general would breeze past a few bodies lying in the muck and mud, beam a flashy smile to affect unconcern for danger, have a hurried chat with the local leader, blurt out directions or orders, sip a cup of tea or coconut juice, showing no concern for the soldiers who labored under those circumstances to prepare it,


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[Assistant] An offer before you could blink an eye would be off in his chopper. In his chopper.


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[Assistant] What inspiration could his men in the post draw from that?


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[Assistant] It's a stereotypical thing and it really happens. It really does happen.


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[Assistant] And you know, you see that with, uh, you know, not just military leaders, but you see that with senior leaders in big companies where, you know, the, the folks on the front lines,


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[Assistant] On the construction site or on the main, in the manufacturing plant, the boss is coming. So what do they have to do? They have to do all this preparation. They got to clean everything, got everything dialed in and, and then the guy shows up for five minutes and it took, you know, four hours to get everything ready. The guy shows up for five minutes, flashes a quick smile and then leaves.


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[Assistant] Is anyone inspired by that? No. Absolutely not.


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[Assistant] We had three types of officers. One category was that which thought, acted, moved about, was bold and got down to business fastest.


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[Assistant] Even in totally alien, confusing, unknown environment. Getting down to business. That's the guy.


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[Assistant] The second one consisted of those who had the brains and moved about as best they could, but lacked boldness and ability to inspire.


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[Assistant] The third category consisted of those who simply slogged when prodded.


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[Assistant] And complained about their troops not being trained, orders not being clearly given, and so on. They could do nothing else.


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[Assistant] Orders not being clearly given and so on. That guy's not a good leader. Cause all he's doing is complaining that his orders weren't clear. He's complaining up and down the chain of command.


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[Assistant] The guys below me aren't trained right, the guys above me aren't giving clear orders. This guy's a disaster. Don't be that guy. Don't be that leader.


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[Assistant] And here's a piece on leading from the front.


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[Assistant] They, there was a big battle and there was a bunch of friendly casualties.


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[Assistant] And now I'm going to the books. Their belongings, dress and equipment.


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[Assistant] And I went up there on one of my visits. I thought this was disrespectful to the brave souls and asked the escort team accompanying me.


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[Assistant] To help pick up all those items, and remove them from public gaze.


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[Assistant] To my acute horror, not one of them moved to pick them up.


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[Assistant] The escort team consisted of all denominations, but none dared. So, so here we are. He's out on this battlefield.


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[Assistant] You know, gear and personal effects of all these guys that were killed and it's just been sitting there and no one's moved it.


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[Assistant] And so he tells the team that he's with like, okay, so go start rounding up the gear. And they won't do it.


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[Assistant] It became painful to see such reluctance. I spontaneously got down from my open Jeep, walked up to a pair of pouches and a belt and picked them up. Brought them to my Jeep.


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[Assistant] And then the Brigadier General that was with him did it as well. Was the next to do so. It was only after this that the rest of the escort team got down and gathered the other items. Little bit of leadership from the front right there.


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[Assistant] Views and visits of senior generals and their interaction with field commanders and troops did little to inspire us subordinates.


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[Assistant] Everybody lived and fought from one day to the next. No strategic view. Our wait for pearls of wisdom remained endless.


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[Assistant] What increasingly showed up instead was the political eye and bluster of the generals, the tentativeness and uncertainty of the army commander above them and the army chief.


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[Assistant] Which did little to change systemic incongruities and tackle the hidden rot.


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[Assistant] Consequently, boldness and experimentation became prominent casualties.


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[Assistant] from the senior leadership snuffed out the creativity and the boldness of the troops. They actually


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[Assistant] Made, you know, this, this intense.


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[Assistant] Scrutiny. Like I said, it made the troops not want to do anything.


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[Assistant] And I think not only should you keep that in consideration as a leader,


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[Assistant] That you make sure that you're not snuffing out creativity from your troops, but also on a personal level. You can't let the fear of failure


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[Assistant] And that's something that happens all the time. People are afraid to step out and try something new.


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[Assistant] You definitely should not punish people for making honest mistakes. And when you are going to take risks yourself, you need to cut yourself some slack and realize that things might not go perfect.


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[Assistant] An example that's sitting right in front of us right now is this podcast that we're doing because, you know, people were asking, you know, hey, you should do a podcast, but there's, you know, okay, well, where's it gonna go? Do we really want to do it? What's the,


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[Assistant] What are people actually going to think of it? You know, it's one thing to have, do a podcast with a guy like Tim Ferriss or Joe Rogan or Sam Harris where you've got this, you know, famous individual. And of course people want to listen to them, but who's going to want to listen to Jocko and Echo? So there's some, you know, let's, but, but okay, what's the worst thing that could happen?


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[Assistant] We fail, no one listens to it, okay. Cool. It wasn't gonna affect me that bad. You know, we'd move on and figure something else to do.


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[Assistant] But that's the kind of thing that, that experimentation that can lead to good stuff.


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[Assistant] Then you're going to have problems. And the same way, if you don't allow your troopers to


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[Assistant] Make mistakes, like you said, and try new things, and you don't encourage that, then they're gonna be...


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[Assistant] Their morale is going to be crushed and they're not going to make the progress that they need to make.


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[Assistant] Several years, last probably a couple decades was this, we, we called it the zero defect mentality.


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[Assistant] Where it's like, okay, if this, if this, if this guy made any mistakes over his career, he was not going to be advanced, he was not going to be promoted. And they've really tried to move away from that because like you said, that completely suffocates any type of risk taking, any type of creativity, any willingness to go outside the box.


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[Assistant] And try something new, it just suffocates it.


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[Assistant] I was definitely never a person that would hammer people for making mistakes as long as they were.


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[Assistant] We'll call them good mistakes, not just making stupid mistakes.


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[Assistant] So that kind of wraps up the book assignment Jaffna.


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[Assistant] By Sardis Panday. Great book. And I don't know if you can get a hold of it.


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[Assistant] But those are some major lessons that I learned from it. And again, I bought this book while I was in Sri Lanka and


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[Assistant] Yeah, and although, and you know from, from, from our book, our book has a lot of, this was a mistake that we made, here's what we did wrong.


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[Assistant] Was successful overall, but we definitely point out the errors of our way because they're successful.


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[Assistant] A lot of those stories about the mistakes we made because we learned more from them as, as brutal as that is, that's the reality.


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[Assistant] How do I deal with fatigue, mental and physical? I rest.


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[Assistant] And, uh, you know, when, when, if I'm feeling like just completely overtrained and weak, uh, I usually tell, well, I tell my fighters, I'd say, hey, you just got your butt kicked today. Go.


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[Assistant] Eat a big steak tonight, take tomorrow off. You know, you just need rest and it's pretty obvious when that happens. And so I do the same thing for myself. If I, if I'm feeling horrible and you know, you can see occasionally my workouts just consist of like, you know, doing some mobility training, rolling it out, you know,


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[Assistant] Between being lazy and being overtrained. And it's very easy to make that excuse for yourself. And that's why I always err on the side of I'm working out, I'm training. Because, and usually then the next day, so if I feel like exhausted today,


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[Assistant] But I will take the next step, but I work out today just to make sure.


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[Assistant] So I'll do another workout, get another training session in, or whatever the case may be. So I make sure that it's not just that moment. Cause sometimes the next day you're like, you know, I'm not that bad. Right. I'm gonna get it, I'm back in the game.


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[Assistant] I've probably written this a dozen times or more on Twitter is, do I take naps? And the answer is yes. In fact, I slept on the, I flew today and I slept probably two hours on the plane. Um, and that's a little bit more than a nap and I'm not on a plane every day. So what do I do for naps? Yes, I do take naps.


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[Assistant] What I do for naps, and this is something that I learned from a high school teacher that I had.


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[Assistant] Was, I walked into his office one day and he had his feet up on the desk. Above his heart.


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[Assistant] And I said, what, you know, what are you doing? And he said, Oh, this is really good for you. You put your feet above your heart and it allows the blood to circulate out of your feet and gives, you know, let's your, your veins and your one way valves and your veins rest a little bit.


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[Assistant] And so when I was going through CO training, I used to, when I'd come in, we'd...


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[Assistant] We have like a couple minutes between evolutions and I just go in and put my feet up, set my alarm clock, sleep for a few minutes. You know, nowadays if I can, I'll try and sleep for like,


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[Assistant] Six to eight minutes. Set my timer on my iPhone. And.


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[Assistant] And that's the thing is, I can do, if I'm, if my mind is engaged in something, especially if my body's engaged in something, that's what's cool about working out. You can work out when you're exhausted. Because once you start moving, it's not like you're gonna fall asleep while you're doing squats. It's like you're gonna fall asleep while you're doing pull ups.


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[Assistant] You're just gonna do the pull ups, you're just gonna do the squats, and when you get done, you'll be tired, you go to sleep.


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[Assistant] What's hard to do, and this is when, like when we were writing the book, when I was writing my section of the books, I'd be writing at night, 11 o'clock at night, 12 o'clock at night, be trying to hammer through it, and sometimes I'd just fall, you know, I'd be falling asleep. Oh man. So, but that feeling of, hey, I'm just falling asleep,


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[Assistant] So when I'm feeling that tired, I'll, I'll power it up. But it's like one of those things where I also like to push through it.


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[Assistant] It can make you feel amazing. Don't underestimate the powered app. It is a legit fool right there.


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[Assistant] No, but seriously, 15 minutes is, yeaah, you probably felt like, outstanding.


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[Assistant] I wonder how much of this is just you just not just powering through stuff.


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[Assistant] It'd be interesting to at some point for you to experiment with like lack of sleep and sleep deprivation and see how well you can perform. Like I've been noticing that where if I don't get a lot of sleep, I can still perform really well.


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[Assistant] Feel like garbage. Right. And there'll be some physical activities that I'll feel weak at, but...


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[Assistant] Yeah, but I'm seeking comfort fully for sure. But it still does help though. But to answer the question, yes, if you're tired, sleep. If you need rest, rest.


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[Assistant] And don't try and overtrain yourself. You probably are overtraining and, and just need some rest. Yeah. Next.


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[Assistant] The guy that rolled with the maniac, so we've all been there rolling with the maniac. Okay, so this is a, this seems like a pretty straight forward question at first.


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[Assistant] But then all of a sudden it gets really complicated. It really does. Who is at fault here? Right? So you're rolling with a guy, guy's super strong. You catch him in the submission and guess what? He doesn't want to tap.


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[Assistant] And so the next thing you know, there's a little pop, there's a little crack, whatever, and you got an injury and the big guy that was going all crazy is like, I can't believe you did this. So the question is, who's at fault?


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[Assistant] And there's actually two sides to that story in a lot of ways because from one


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[Assistant] Should never really hurt a lower belt, right? I mean, if, if I'm a black belt and I'm going against the purple belt, I really shouldn't hurt that person because if I do,


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[Assistant] I probably meant to do it. I mean, of course there's, you know, mistakes happen and I'm not talking, I'm talking about submission, right? I'm not talking about, hey, I, I


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[Assistant] You know, so the higher belt generally shouldn't be like putting someone in a submission and hurting them because experienced guys in jiu jitsu, they know when the tension is there on the arm or the foot or the knee, they know that that tension means the next


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[Assistant] And that's why he's not tapping. So, so that must be his fault, right?


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[Assistant] Well that's kinda jacked up too because you shouldn't be getting someone's, uh, uh, foot and cranking it.


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[Assistant] Or getting their arm and cranking it when you know. I mean maybe they couldn't tap. Maybe their arm was stuck or whatever. Now all of a sudden you heard them.


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[Assistant] And I think that part of the dual safety mechanisms in jujitsu is that there's two people that can control the situation. The one that's getting submitted should tap and the one that's doing the submission should, you know, should know


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[Assistant] To stop before the injury occurs. Again, there's a, there's about a million little things that can happen where you get injured in jujitsu. There's arm locks that get thrown on and it's a little tweak and, and that, that stuff does happen, you know, but, but when I look at Dean and I, Dean Lister, who's my main training partner I've been training with for 20 years, we, we've put,


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[Assistant] You know thousands, literally thousands and thousands of submissions on each other. And neither one of us has ever hurt the other one.


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[Assistant] But, I mean, I've submitted him many, many times as well and never have one of us got a submission on the other one.


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[Assistant] And hurt the other person and I can tell you he's let go of hundreds of submissions on me and I've let go on many submissions on him because I go, you know what? Oh, I've got this. He's, you know, he's,


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[Assistant] Not tapping for whatever reason would go to the next move or he gets me in some weird position. He, you know, he's got it, but he lets go and goes to the next move. And what's really cool about this is what you end up with is you end up with an ego free training because the truth of the matter is I don't care if Dean taps me and


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[Assistant] I don't care if I tap Dean, like, and he doesn't care if he taps me and he doesn't care.


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[Assistant] If he gets the tap from me. So what we are able to do then is take all kinds of risks and do all kinds of crazy flow drills and, and where we're really trying to get each other but at the same time we really don't care.


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[Assistant] And, and, and the biggest, uhm, dichotomy of that is, I'm sitting here saying I don't want to get tapped, or I don't care if I get tapped by a dean, but it drives me crazy when I get tapped.


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[Assistant] Being like I didn't want to tap. It's just a frustration that I made a mistake or whatever. So that allows you to


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[Assistant] To really learn more. Now, all this being said, if someone's just a big maniac...


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[Assistant] That goes crazy the whole time and they're gonna hurt you, well then you gotta make a decision that you're not gonna roll with them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You want to not get hurt. You want to continue training. So someone that's a, that goes crazy and is super strong, you don't want to roll with them. That being said, and this is one of, this whole thing has been a non-answer, isn't it?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You wanna train with the big strong guys, but that being said once again is if you train with a big guy and you get hurt then you can't train anymore.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So you gotta be smart. You gotta use your judgement. Uhm, you gotta check your ego. You gotta roll with people that have their egos checked.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I think that's, that's the best way to answer that. It's a long answer. It's probably not the most complete answer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But there is no clear cut answer because there's a lot of little


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nuances to every little roll in the jiu-jitsu.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But yea, you shouldn't care so much about the submissions you're getting. That's the bottom line.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That is something that Dean and I will do that I think is awesome is let's say Dean puts a heel hook on me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And instead of cranking it and making me tap, he'll hold it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And when he holds it, it gives me an opportunity to work some kind of escape. Now, sometimes he'll hold it and while he's holding it, he's adjusting his legs and he's actually getting me deeper and deeper into where I can't, can't get out anymore. And eventually,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I had time to think about it, well maybe next time I do it I don't have to think and now we actually have figured out an escape from the position.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And really for Dean, more than me was him holding a submission and not, and allowing me to try different things to escape.


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[Assistant] And then eventually where I was like, okay, now I've got you in a position where there is no escape.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's how things like we end up with like the four, four 11 and ultimate game over all that stuff came from holding those positions because if he just locked them on and cranked it, well then I tap and then we start again, but he didn't have to adjust anything. And now you start building technique on top of technique on top of technique.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, so these were a couple questions actually that I got, and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I, I just kinda bunched them together because my answer is gonna be very similar for each of them and it's actually very similar to a situation that I'm dealing with right now with the guy that I'm helping out and I wrote


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, a leader had come in that didn't have the knowledge inside the industry they were working in. So he came from another industry, got put into a leadership position and that guy, that new leader was resisting change and not giving support


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To the new procedures that the guy I was coaching was trying to implement.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was kind of, you know, at a loss for what to do. You know, you got this new manager that's coming in, that's inexperienced and the guy I'm coaching obviously doesn't respect him because he doesn't have a lot of knowledge in this industry. And so here's the advice I gave him. I said, you need to set this up to make the new manager look good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Make some adjustments to the words you are choosing, the tact you are taking, and the focus you are using to ensure that your changes make him look good, not bad.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's what everybody's instinct is to do. And it's wrong. It's wrong.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Somehow, let the ideas come from him or make him the approver or the driver of some of the S aspects that he can handle.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I'm actually saying go out of your way to make this easier for this guy. Make him look good. Give him credit. It's your ego that wants to pull him down. Put your ego in check. Help him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Without being condescending or acting like you know more than him, he shouldn't even know you are helping him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Have you ever been, this is so fun to do, is when, you know, Echo doesn't know this section of the equipment.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'll teach it to you, right? This condescending tone of, you know, but instead of like, hey, have you ever seen the way this one works? I know you, have you ever seen this specific equipment before? Because the way it works, it's a little bit different than some of the other ones is you got to do this, this and this and you can sit back and you can accept that knowledge.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Considered me to be a threat. Now I'm threatening. And that's not good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He shouldn't even know you are helping him. Respect what he does and show him that you respect it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, hey, you know, I know this is, you probably haven't been down in the weeds on this type of gear in a while, but hey, this is the way, you know what I'm saying? Like, you actually, I actually respect the fact that you're up top in charge, and I'm just a frontline guy, but here's how you do this if you ever had to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Downplay what he doesn't know and subtly help him to learn it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right? You know, you probably would never have to do this. This, this new equipment over here. I mean, I know it's a little bit below your level. Here's how it works. If you ever needed it, boom. You know what I mean? Not like you don't know how to do this. Right? I do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You don't want an adversarial relationship with this new leader. You want him to support and help you. He will do that if you are making him look good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is so easy, man. This is so easy and so hard. Because everybody's ego will get in the way. Everybody's ego will get in the way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Extreme ownership often requires covert and clandestine indirect actions. So all these things that I'm talking about, helping the guy without him knowing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, letting him take credit for ideas without him knowing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Everything's jiu-jitsu. You don't wanna... If you know I'm gonna do an arm bar...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm not gonna get the arm bar, right? You're gonna defend that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I have to go take indirect actions and set things up and take my time and be clandestine and covert. This is chess, not checkers. This is where you need to master your ability to influence, which as we talked about a couple podcasts ago is actually manipulation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm manipulating this guy to think that he's got something over me. I'm inflating his ego. While I'm putting my ego in check, I'm making him feel like he's even better.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is the same thing with leaders that you quote unquote don't respect. First of all,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There should be something that you respect about everybody. Everybody that you meet, you should have some kind of respect for them. And by the way, if you don't respect someone, what is making you not respect them?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's your ego. It's your ego that makes you not respect people. Cause you think, oh, I'm better than them. I should have their job. They don't know what they're talking about. And I do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's all ego. Meh. So put your ego in check, and just be like, okay, this person's above me, they seem really inexperienced, but what can I learn from them?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Put your ego in check. And this is the key point.


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[Assistant] And anytime I talk about quote unquote leading up the chain of command.


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[Assistant] So they trusted me. They were gonna stay out of my way and let me do what I wanted.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's how you win. Which by the way, when you win, they should never know you win.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that way you can do what you want. And so that is how you deal with people above you in the chain of command that you have little respect for or that lead from a place of ego. You build a relationship with them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You don't go head to head with them. You're not gonna win going head to head with your boss. They're your boss. They have rank on you. If they're an egomaniac, they're gonna use that rank.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If there's someone that you don't respect, you gotta build a relationship with them. If there's someone that's an egomaniac, you gotta build a relationship. Regardless of the situation, the solution is the same. Build a relationship of trust. Help them. Build them up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Take a backseat. Let them get credit. It's all those things. And once you do that, you're gonna have...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're gonna have much better results than if you try and bang heads with them, overcome them, defeat them, have an antagonistic relationship with them. It's never gonna work.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I am. And as a matter of fact, I think one of the key, uh, kind of measurements of this is


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Only a couple years ago I set my, my personal all time record for pull ups. A couple years ago. Maybe a year or two ago. How many did you do? 63? Yeaah. So, uh.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But that being said, obviously, y-you know, you're gonna go up and down, so, so, and you don't...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Man, I haven't deadlift heavy in a while. I'm gonna get, I'm gonna get my, I'm gonna get my 500 pound deadlift on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm really working it. I'm starting to all my, you know, maybe I'll be deadlifting a little more often. I'll throw it in another day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A little bit of that sprinting or a little bit of that high rep stuff. Right. And I just start, you know, spending more time deadlifting. And after a while.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, maybe a month goes by, month and a half, and I get where I want to be.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, so I get to, let's say I get to 500.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Get my 500 deadlift feeling good. Now, I could say, you know what? I want to get 525, right? I could say that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But if you think about what I'm gonna have to do and anybody that lifts weights at all knows that the difference like the higher you go, the harder it is to


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you will have to sacrifice other parts of your physicality in order to get there. You're going to be slower at row sprinting. You're probably going to be heavier. So you're going to be able to do less calisthenic workouts or less, less repetitions in calisthenics. So I'll get there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then once I get to like that good goal that I'm looking for, then I'll just shift to another goal and I'll start looking at something else. And, you know, whatever it's gonna be, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, a certain number of, you know, a 20 rep squat routine at a certain weight. I'll start heading towards that or a certain number of muscle ups in a certain number of times. Whatever the case may be, I'll do that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's what I've been doing for, for many, many years and I never go so far down one path and become so specific that it takes away a bunch from the other areas because at the end of the day, you know, I want to be, uh, well rounded.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think I've actually told this story before, but it was, it is a pretty clear memory to me. I was doing, I was a young seal.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Probably in my first or second was actually my second platoon and we were taking down an oil rig.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And oil rigs are very complicated. There's a lot of, there's different levels to the oil rigs and.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And complex. And so as I stood there, everyone froze. And as everyone froze, I, I basically came offline and put my gun to high port and I said,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hold left, move right. So I was able to step back, look around, assess a good solution for the situation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And once I assessed a situation, I just called out what to do. I said, hold left, move right, which basically means the guys on the left stay where you're at. The guys on the right were going to move and do the clearance and the guys did it. And I realized right then, you know, like, wow, I can, I can kind of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think I got this. And it wasn't, then I didn't all of a sudden start trying to take charge of everything because in the SEAL teams you can't just as a new guy step up and start taking charge of stuff, you know, you'll get put in your place.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I, I had that vision and the vision that I actually had was that vision of detachment. The vision of coming offline and stepping out of the tactical situation and realizing that when you step back you can see everything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And once I realized that, it was always easy for me to do that from then on. And not only that, but-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, business situations where there's a lot of emotion going on and saying, you know what, I just gotta, just gotta step back and, and observe this from a better vantage point that's more.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So we talk about mentorship and how mentorship is important and it's good to have mentors and I would agree it's good to have mentors if you can find them and you can't always find them. And so I think this individual that asked this question, what if you don't have a good mentor? What do you do?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For me, it actually brings back my memories of when I first got to the SEAL teams because when I first got to the SEAL teams, it was actually pretty hard to find a good mentor that I looked at and said, you know,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I want to be like that person and they were going to invest in you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, it was one thing to say, hey that guy looks like a badass and I wanna be like them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Listen new guy, I'm going to invest in you and you know, make you into a great seal. That really wasn't happening.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, we had, first of all, the reason, some of the reasons it wasn't happening was because there were guys that were...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You were on constant going on deployments. And so it wasn't like someone would grab you and pull you aside. And uhm, when you got a seal platoon it became a little bit easier and you'd usually find somebody that's gonna at least take some interest in you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But the, like the Vietnam guys, they were around, but...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They were, you know, instructors and, or working in the training department. So they didn't, you weren't gonna see them on a daily basis. They weren't gonna mentor you. They weren't gonna be there for you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We actually wanted to be more hardcore than...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To be honest with you, we kinda mentored ourselves.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we set the standard of what we thought.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That was us kind of mentoring ourselves. And we did that with everything. You know, we were spending time at the team on the weekends. We would inspect each other's gear over and over again and modify it and make sure it's squared away.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then you gotta become your own. And I think with, with the way the world is now, it's actually


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or maybe it's not who you want to be like, but what aspects of other humans you can take and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Bring on board. Now that is something I did with all kinds of seals. There was all kinds of badass seals that I said that guy's really good at this and I'm gonna try and get good at that too. Or the way that guy acts in this situation is awesome and I'm gonna try and act that way too. So it wasn't like I was trying to be like them, but I was at least trying to emulate the best aspects of these different individuals.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That you sanity check some of the people that you look into on, on that. But I think the key really to mentoring yourself.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It goes back to what we just talked about with detachment because you need to


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you want to mentor yourself, you gotta be able to look at yourself and you gotta be able to look at yourself in an honest way. And that means you need to be able to detach yourself and observe yourself.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] From that distant place, by distant I mean three feet. I mean just from just outside of inside your own brain. And if you detach, you can see where you're making mistakes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What the long range you that you're striving for, you can see what it's going to take to get there. And I think that's, that's what, that's what I've done.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When I haven't had a mentor is I've figured out a way to mentor myself. And I think the goals that you set and the path that you draw out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you detach yourself so that you can give yourself an honest observation of who you are and how you're doing. And I think that is a good way to handle it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Question and whoever asked that question, I would say thank you for asking that question. Where does discipline come from? And the answer is actually pretty simple and pretty obvious. Discipline comes from within. It's an internal force.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now sure, of course you can have discipline imposed on you by


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Some person, like, like a drill instructor, or like that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Isn't the real type of discipline that we're talking about. That discipline isn't as strong. It won't survive that imposed discipline that someone else is putting on you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now self-discipline, as the very term implies, comes from the self. It comes from you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When you make a decision to do more and to be more.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Self-discipline comes when you decide that you're gonna make a mark on the world.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's because you haven't created that discipline. Yet. It's because you haven't become that discipline.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Make the commitment. Become the discipline.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The discipline, the root quality that will improve every aspect of your life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's pretty much all I've got for tonight.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And if you want to continue this conversation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or engage in a conversation. You can find us on Twitter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Thank you for listening. Thank you for subscribing. Thank you for leaving reviews. Thanks for spreading the word.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And most of all, thanks for getting after it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is Jocko and Echo, and until next time, out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But, but it kinda is though, that's the thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was doing it so bad via bridges, look at each other like, yeah, we ain't got a chance, bro. They like, it's over.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, that nigga damn near beat us by himself. Nah, exactly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Let me get two more shots and da da da. And then you'd be like, where y'all about to go?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which is where Jaco gets his krill oil to keep his, we'll say what, aging joints?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Anyway, you can get em at Onnit.com. O-N-N-I-T.com slash Jocko. And you get 10% off. Boom. Get some shroom tech.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sport, by the way, while you're there. I think as a public service, yea, if you're doing something that's high output, like a CrossFit situation, that's a public service. I'm telling you. Night and day. Anyway, Shroom Tech Sport, that's the one. I don't think you should. I don't think you should.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes, if you would like to support this podcast in a painless way, would you call it painless? Yea. Seamless, seamless way. Seamless and painless.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Obviously I think you would too, but people ask though. They're like, hey, this is great. Like some people, they'll, they'll sign up something. I guess other podcasts, they'll have situations where you can sign up and just enter your credit card and it'll take out like a dollar a month or something as like a thing. This guy, I totally forget his name. Such a cool guy. Anyway, email me and told me that. I was like, dang, that's solid. But nonetheless,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, that's like a 400 level term paper. My term papers are 1.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright. And then on it, onnit.com. Thanks everybody. Thank you. Alright. Internet questions. First question.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm just curious about your opinions on the regular army infantry. It seems like nowadays the regular infantry is almost looked down upon from the regular public and every prior military public speaker. I almost feel like we're looked at.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like we were just bodies that held ground and absorbed attacks and made no real impact on the war.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm almost hesitant to ask because I'm not sure if I can, or I'm not sure if I'm in denial or if it's just pride. I served with some fantastic warriors and I don't want those heroes to be looked over in history because they were regular grunts.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I'd enjoy your opinions on this matter and if you could enlighten me on how infantry divisions are looked at from other groups and organizations.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So Jaco posted a Twitter post. Instagram. Twitter and Instagram post of a picture, black and white.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Another way to kind of look at that is like a black and white mind. You know, like don't stick.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Your mind is more or less black and white. For sure. Well, as far as how you think generally speaking, but...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Don't neglect the gray. There's so much gray in there. And of course, you know, if you have rules and they're solid rules, man, yeah, stick to those rules. But like I said, don't neglect the gray. You know how you say you gotta...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Do you have any advice on consoling a member of your team that you're leading?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who knows their to blame for the project failing or falling through. The person in question is a great worker.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then I personally failed to communicate enough with them. I think it's a great thing. This person is so passionate at their job, but is there any way I can get them to distance themselves and show them that this one failure is not that big of a deal.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That, that sense of, or that access to control over, over a situation that's so critical to...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To know when you're in that position. To know what? To know that you can control it. To have it on the front of your mind. What you can and cannot control. Like I said, have access to that. Because it feels, as far as feelings go, it feels like, use the parachute analogy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Um, it feels like dang, there's the problem. The parachute, that's the problem. So all my attention and all my emotional, um, energy is, is, is on that. That's the problem.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But like how you said, if you just under just focus on the fact that, Hey, I can't control that bad shoot. That bad shoot is gone. That's, you know, and cut it away. And yeah, focus on the thing. But like I said, man, that's the, that's the key right there to understand that, man, you don't, you don't have control over that anymore. We're done with that. We're not doing that anymore. We're doing this new stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That other question, the black and white mine one, uhm, are you breaking your own rules? Your one rule? Mhm. Kinda like uhm, on, on Ghostbusters, one, don't cross the streams. You ever watch Ghostbusters?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right, they had to cross the streams to kill the demon.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, those are understandable terms. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And all you had to worry about was teaching the skill and not the aggressive side of a person that is key within this job. We now face a new generation where they're hiring soft- they're hiring softer men.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I truly believe that our profession is a calling.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, that goes for all public servants in military alike. So my question to you is, how do you instill aggression or passion? How do you instill it?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How do you turn a soft man into an alpha male? Skill can be taught, but aggression and passion is where I come up short and tend to get frustrated because some people don't love this job the way I do. Those soft men will potentially be put in a position where they may have to pull me out of a fire or even save someone's life and aggression will be key. Call me crazy, but I'd rather have the alpha male that gets after it on a daily basis to pull me out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, in, kinda in life, I think you, you can, cause again, it's, it's one of those things that, that sounds pretty simple. It's either be aggressive or you're not being aggressive kind of thing, but it's so hard because like, like for example, if you're in life,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, exactly, but when you're in that situation, it kinda seems like that's how the world works.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So it doesn't, they, and a lot of it, you know, it's maybe how people are raised, I don't know, uhm, where if.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you don't know what that is, that if you don't have access to that feeling of being an aggressive person, it's hard to get there. Until, like how you said, if someone shows you, like, in the exact situation that you're in, and in your case it was that one specific, um, training situation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You can kind of in that regard, you can learn a little bit because you can hear like you always hear the coach or whatever yelling saying be first, be first, be first.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, exactly. You don't hear them say, okay, be defensive.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and really, that's really the core of the evaluation, is that you, you, when you roll with people, you, it's like, you're real, uhm, it's like variable style, you know, it changes. So, and it depends your mood too.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like if you're just messing around with me or whatever, you're like, you know, this is kind of weird, but you do this thing that no one really does and you look.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes. Smash and pass. So, in regards to these, these choices, uhm, all, all, all of the above, right? So, so passive when you're kind of taunting and maybe even learning, or not learning.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so you'll be passive kind of waiting for me to do something. And then if it doesn't work, then you taunt some more. And then, so that's passive. And then reactive is obviously, you know, reacting to anything that I try to do. Aggressive is when either time runs is running short or I talk too much and smashing pass is the result of that aggressive stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And surprisingly, and I think that people, a lot of people wouldn't really assume this right away, is that you're, uhm, yeaah, sure, you're gonna smash and you're aggressive and kind of rough, you know, a lot of times, but you're like, uhm, like a playful jiu-jitsu guy, you know?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But, that same, and this is the part where I think is kinda, kinda interesting, is that you do, it doesn't seem like a war. Like it seems like a war, but all within the confines of some silly, not silly, but some game. Yeaah. But, but, it's, it's obvious though.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, like, I think that someone who maybe never seen your role or never had that experience with you specifically, they would assume that you're this, like, heavy-minded guy who's like, I'm gonna smash it, and that, and that I am taking this really seriously, you know? Because some guys are like that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I know guys who have told me straight up that when they're driving up to the gym, they have anxiety. Yeaah. Anxiety like, oh, how good am I gonna do? Or if they get tapped out, it ruins their day or their week or whatever. Yeaah, no I have none of that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I rolled with the Chris Martin today for an, it was all, like, you can make jokes, you can talk trash, and you can do all this stuff while you're rolling.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, you can call a move and then do it on the guy if you're better than him or whatever. And it may, but it makes it fun though, you know, and me and Chris, we're, we're doing that the whole time. I'm like, Oh yeah, watch this. Ooh, how's that feel? Kind of thing. And of course that's taken to an extreme because I know Chris for a long time we're friends, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think people wouldn't assume that about you, given how you may come off sometimes. But you're really like that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] However, I interpret your concepts for leaders leading men were mostly driven or other leaders who have a desire to make themselves better and maintaining the status.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] People follow orders or people die. Yeah. That was his thing. They say that kind of stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, but before you said, before you told me, that's kind of what I figured. Yeah. Last question.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And uhm, that's where we get our supplements, including, but not limited to, AlphaBrain. Which helps you think better and, uh, your memory and stuff, it's good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, yeaah, onit.com slash joco get 10% off.