[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And not be like, hey, you need to act like me. No. People don't like that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You need to just act how you're acting and if you're doing it, like I said, the right things for the right reasons, people are going to see you and they're going to follow.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that's how you begin to change the school of thought.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They won't pick up this pen right here because they look at it and say, hm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I wonder what the weight of that pen is and if I should pick it up right now because I'm also thinking about saying something and what if I drop the pen while I'm trying to say something that makes a noise on the desk that disrupts the flow of my sentence and then the whole flow of my sentence is disrupted which means my strain of thought will be disrupted. Now I can't finish what I was gonna say. That's an overthinker.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, here's what I do when someone's overthinking. When I got someone that's like a, like a chronic overthinker. I'm gonna...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because again, they're putting layers upon layers of complexity on top of things that don't deserve it. So what exactly are we trying to do? And again, you're just kinda plain dumb, a little bit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With people is I used to not really understand why people are drawn to this complexity.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I actually think I understand now, and I think it has something to do with the fact that if I come up with a plan,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I came up with something that's so genius and so complicated that you don't even understand it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, the only way you're gonna understand it is if I break it down for you, cause you don't get it. So it's an ego trip. And it's completely wrong.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause the fact of the matter is if I'm trying to get you to do something and you don't understand it, I'm a loser. I'm failing as a leader. So you, you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You gotta try and get people to understand that simplicity beats complexity every single time and overthinking things is a failure in ability to simplify.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Let's say you have a target building that you're going off of, or going after. You're gonna go take down a target building in the middle of wherever, the middle of the desert. And you basically come up with a plan that you're gonna use your standard operating procedures. You're all gonna get online or you're gonna at least set up a base and a maneuver element. It's very simple. Two elements.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One element's gonna hold cover and the other one's gonna move through the target. Cover move. It's as simple as it gets. That's great.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So you come up with a plan, that's your plan. And then as you're looking at the imagery or you're looking at the map, you notice that there is an outhouse.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 150 meters away from the house. So now what you do is you go, you know what?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because there's that outhouse there, you know what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take another team of our guys, we're gonna break them off from the main assault force, we're gonna put them over there, and that's what they're gonna be in case the guy's in the outhouse, blah blah blah. So what you've done is you've separated your units.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You've increased your communication problems. You've sacrificed your fields of fire. You disaggregated your firepower. You've diminished your unity of command. You've broke from your standard operating procedures. You've given up your real tactical advantage that you have for the chance.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That this guy at 2 o'clock in the morning when you hit the target is in the outhouse and not in his home.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is it worth that? No. So don't overthink it. We're hitting this target. You know what? Cool. We'll keep eyes on that thing. No big deal.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But don't give up your tactical advantage because you overthought the situation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A lot of times when people get super detailed like that in planning, they're actually planning things, planning on things that, that can't be known.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I got a better idea. Instead of making a plan for something that can't be known, make a plan that's adaptable.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You want your plan to be adaptable and you know how you have the best adaptability for instance on the battlefield that you have the most control over your guys so that you can move them, maneuver them quickly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And how do you do that? By having good unity of command. And how do you do that? By keeping your guys, for the most part, together.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The minute you start spreading them out all over the place and something changes, something unknown that unexpected happens, now you gotta reel everyone back in and try and get them to change the formation of their assault. It becomes very, very complex.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So if you set up your plan so that it's adaptable to changing situations, then you're going to be good to go.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Same thing in business. Do you know what the market's gonna do? No. We have predictors, yes. Do we know them? No. Do you know what your competitor's gonna do? No. Do you know what your consumers are gonna do? No.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Do we have intelligence? Of course we do. Do we have metrics? Of course we do, but we don't know things.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As opposed to overthinking things and creating specific branch plans for a-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Possibility of something that might occur in the future or might not.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, so, so yeaah. Yeaah, so there's, obviously you have to think about things. Right. And yes, you should be caution of someone, cautious of someone that's just constantly saying, man, you're overthinking this. Right. I spent three minutes planning.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, so if you didn't see this, if you're into MMA at all, they caught Greg Jackson on the mic after


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, John Jones recent fight saying, you know, basically, hey, I told you so. He's too big. He's all that power lifting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I've talked about Greg Jackson before and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nothing but respect for Greg Jackson. Uh, not only is he a outstanding coach and a great tactician, he's also just super humble guy who has built a really cool gym and built a lot of champions.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I'm not gonna second guess, you know, what he's saying about a fighter that he's worked with since day one. And I think really it boils down to this sort of...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Definition of perfection, if you've ever heard this definition of, the definition of perfection is when you have nothing more to add and nothing more to take away.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You've got it where it needs to be. And they use this with design.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, design of whatever, furniture, of iPhones, of you know, anything, buildings. When you've, when you've got everything that needs to be there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you can't take anything away, that's the, that's perfection. They say this about writing too. When you look at someone that writes really well,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Every sentence, you look at that sentence, you can't take away a word.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you can't add a word and that's perfection. And I think that is what Greg Jackson is trying to do with Johnny Bones Jones. Get him in that physical status.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where you don't want to add anything and you don't want to take anything away. So what they may have done according to


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Greg Jackson is they may have added a little too much muscle.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of course you gotta have some muscle because it gives you strength that's in the explosiveness. But at the same time, muscle requires oxygen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so you can actually get too big to where it's affecting your cardio.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I think that's all Greg Jackson was talking about and I think that's the balance that, that's the balance I'm always looking for, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I try and find that balance by doing both strength work.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Metcons, baby. So that's what I think he's talking about. And, you know, like I said, respect for Greg Jackson, and I'm sure that he had a, he's got a good handle on why he's saying that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Been waiting for people to start saying like, oh, you put another picture of the sweat and of a squat rack. Really?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On that squat rack and grinding it out for 25 years. And I'm not bored with it yet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not just physically, but mentally.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That makes me tougher. That makes me harder mentally and physically.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It gives me much more than I give it. I wanna struggle.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I wanna grind and claw and scratch and I wanna dig in and I wanna push. And I don't want it to end.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If I ever got the rock to the top of the mountain and it stayed there?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't want to rest and I don't want to coast and I don't want to reach a point in my life where I say,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Relentless cycle of day to day challenges. They aren't maddening to me. They don't frustrate me. They inspire me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So to all you troopers out there, thank you for joining us. Thanks for inspiring us. Thanks for listening to us.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Listening to the podcast or watching the podcast on YouTube. I had somebody hit me up the other day on Twitter and said, man, I didn't know you guys were on YouTube. Yeah, we're on YouTube. Got the YouTube channel. Jocko podcast.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And thanks for giving us feedback.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Echo is at Echo Charles on Facebooky. What are you? Slash Echo Charles? Yes sir. And on those three, I'm the same.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I am at Jocko Willink and to everyone out there in uniform.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Military, police, firemen, EMS, thanks for what you all do and gratitude for your service. I second that. And for keeping us free and safe.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And if you want to support the podcast, once again, how can you do it? Echo Charles.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And if you want, if you, if you kind of liked what uh, what we're talking about here, leadership, life, lessons,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hard cover. You can get it on Kindle. You can get it on audio.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the audio is read by myself and by Leif as well. So you can check that out and thanks for supporting that. And finally to everybody out there in the world living in freedom.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Drive hard. By getting out there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is Jocko podcast number 14 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Don't want you to think that because you're a soldier that this training has made you into some kind of a superhuman or maybe into a different kind of being because it hasn't. The training that you've been through hasn't changed the fact that you're a human being.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All warriors are human beings. So this is you I'm talking to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And if you're in Iraq, maybe you're waiting to go into the Malab district of Ramadi, where there's been vicious IED.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And casualties happening every day for months on end.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And if it's World War One, perhaps you're waiting and you're at-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Maybe you're thinking about your friends getting killed or wounded. Maybe you're thinking about yourself getting killed or wounded.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But one thing is certain, whatever you are thinking about, whatever those thoughts are,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] World War I, again, in my mind, the most brutal of all wars.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The tender green of young leaves shimmered in the flat light.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We followed hidden, twisting paths toward a narrow gorge behind the front line.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On the dot of noon, our artillery launched into a furious bombardment that echoed and re-echoed through the wooded hollows.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For the first time we heard what was meant by the expression drum fire.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A runner plunged through the company to the company commander. Brisk exchange.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The three nearest trenches have fallen to us, and six field guns have been captured. Loud cheers rang out. A feeling of up and at'em. At last, the longed for order.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In a long line, we move forward toward the pattering of heavy rifle fire. It was getting serious.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To the side of the forest path, dull thumps came down in a clump of firs, bringing down a rain of branches and soil. One nervous soldier threw himself to the ground.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then, death's call slipped through the ranks. Ambulance men to the front. A little later, we passed the spot that had been hit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The casualties had already been removed. Bloody scraps of cloth and flesh had been left on the bushes around the crater. A strange and dreadful sight.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That put me in mind of the butcher bird that spikes its prey on thorn bushes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We entered the battle-trampled realm of the infantrymen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The area around the jumping off position had been deforested by the shells. In the ripped up no man's land lay the victims of the attack still facing the enemy. Their grey tunics barely stood out from the ground.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A giant form with red, blood-spattered beards stared fixedly at the sky, his fingers clutching the spongy ground.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A young man, tossed in a shell crater, his features already yellow with impending death. He seemed not to want to be looked at.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He gave us a cross shrug and pulled his coat over his head and lay still.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In a curious failure of comprehension, I looked alertly about me for possible targets for all this artillery fire, not apparently realizing that it was actually ourselves that the enemy gunners were trying for all they were worth to hit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We had our first fatality. A shrapnel ball had a rip through rifleman's stone, stone, carotid artery.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Three packets of lint were sodden with blood in no time. In a matter of seconds, he bled to death. In the rising mist


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Flesh like moldering fish gleaned greenishly through slits in the shredded uniform. Turning around, I took a step back in horror. Next to me was a figure crouched against a tree.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It still had gleaming French leather harness, and on its back was a fully pl- packed haversack. Topped by a round mess tin.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Empty eye sockets and a few strands of hair on the bluish black skull indicated that the man was not among the living.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There was another sitting down, slumped forward towards his feet, as though he had just collapsed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All around were dozens more, rotted, dried, stiffened to mummies, frozen in an eerie dance of death.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A headless torso was jammed in some shot up beams. Head and neck were gone, white cartilage gleamed out of a reddish black flesh. I found it difficult to fathom.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Next to this very young man, lay on his back with glassy eyes and fists still aiming.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A peculiar feeling, looking into dead, questioning eyes. A shudder that I never quite lost in the course of the war. His pockets had been turned inside out, and his empty wallet lay beside him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that right there is a portion of the opening chapters of a book called Storm of Steel.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ernst Junger, that's the author, Ernst Junger's book on the 1914 war, Storm of Steel, is without question the finest book on war that I know, utterly honest, truthful, in good faith.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In contrast with most of the others, is Stark.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It has no pacifist design. It makes no personal appeal.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It does not set its author and his experience in any sort of context.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It offers nothing in the way of hows and whys. It is pure where and when and of course above all what.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Fighting is all. Everything else is cropped away.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And from first to last, in the affirmative.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It is the work of a man whom the war made.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's one of the things that makes it so powerful, and it's also one of the things that reflects very well what it feels like to be on the front lines.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When politics don't matter, when the outcome doesn't even matter, the outcome of the broader war doesn't matter anymore. So what are we doing right now in this trench?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Back to the book. The desolation and the profound silence sporadically broken by the crump of shells were heightened by the sorry impression of devastation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ripped haversacks, broken rifles, scraps of cloth, counterpointed grotesquely with children's toys, shell fuses, deep craters from explosions, bottles, harvest implements, shredded books, battered household gear.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Holes whose gaping darkness betrayed the presence of basements where the bodies of unlucky inhabitants of the houses were gnawed by the particularly assiduous swarms of rats.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the cattle buyers and stables and barns, the bones of livestock still dangling from their chains. Trenches dug through ravaged gardens in among sprouting bulbs of onions, wormwood, rhubarb, narcissus buried under weeds.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On the neighboring field's grain barns, through whose roof's grain the grain was already sprouting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All that with half buried communication trench running through it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And all suffused with the smell of burning and decay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sad thoughts are apt to sneak up on the warrior in such a locale when he thinks of those who only recently led their lives in tranquility. So he's actually providing a little caution to people.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Little caution to the warriors that when you see, you know, these babies, toys, and this normal,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Once, as I was striding through the ruins of Mon-Monkey on a warm night, they came oozing out of their hiding places in such undescribable numbers that the ground was like a long carpet of them, patterned with the occasional white of an albino.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] First of all, so many rats that it looks like a carpet and so many rats that there's actually a regular occurrence of albino rats. That's a lot of rats.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And talking about life in the trench, we're real renaissance, back to the book, we're real renaissance men.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who can turn our hands to anything and the trenches make their thousand fold demands on us every day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Revet, support, level, raise and smooth, fill in latrines. In a word, we do all possible tasks ourselves.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So these guys are in the business of constructing their house, constructing the trenches that they live in. They live in these dugouts, which is like a lower part of the trench where they dig in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They build all the stuff themselves, and that's what they do. And then in the middle of that, back to the book, a sentry collapses, streaming blood, shot in the head. His comrades rip the bandage roll out of his tunic and get him bandaged up. There's no point, Bill. Come on, he's still breathing, isn't he? Then the stretcher's bearers come along to carry him to the dressing station.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The stretcher poles collide with the corners of the fire bays.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Only a new recruit maybe leans against the revetment.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Looking a little green about the gills. He's endeavoring to put it all together.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Standing at dawn on the fire step opposite our dugout next to the sentry when a rifle bullet ripped through his forage cap without harming a hair on his head.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At the same time, two pioneers were wounded on the wires. One had a ricochet shot through both legs. The other, a ball through his ear.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the morning, the sentry out on our flank was shot through both cheekbones. The blood spurted out of him in thick gouts. And to cap it all,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When Lieutenant Von Ewald, visiting our sector to take pictures of Sap N, barely 50 yards away, turned to climb down from the outlook, a bullet shattered the back of his skull and he died on the spot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Large fragments of skull were left littering the sentry platform.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Also, a man was hit in the shoulder, but not badly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The middle of the platoon's section of trench was attacked with six inch shells. One man was hurled against a post by the blast so hard he sustained serious internal injuries. And a splinter of wood punctured the artery in his arm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That night, two men were wounded while unspooling wire.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Gooch Schmidt was shot in both hands and one thigh, and Schaeffer took a bullet in the knee.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Following a torrential downpour in the night, all the traverses came down and formed a gray, sludgy porridge with the rain, turning the trench into a deep swamp.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Our only consolation was that the British were just as badly off as we were because we could see them bailing out for all they were worth.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Since our position has a little more elevation than theirs, we even manage to pump our excess their way. So here it is, their


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Almost face to face with the British. They're getting a downpour of rain. And they take a little...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Satisfaction, the fact that they can actually funnel some of the water into the British trench. That's how close they are.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was standing next to Territorial Wiegman in front of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Altenberg Redoubt, when a long shot passed through his bayonet, which he was carrying over his shoulder, and gave him a bad wound in the groin.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] God in the beginning talked about some of this first combat that he was exposed to and he goes on to go through, I mean, just the Battle of the Somme.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which is 60,000 casualties in the first day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, there was 58,000 killed in Vietnam. I mean, 58,000 Americans killed in Vietnam. We're talking 60,000 casualties the first day and in three months there was a million. A million.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't care what anybody says. We have more respect for human life now than they did then. Maybe that means we're weaker. Maybe it means we're more cowardly, but just


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so now we're getting, I leave that for people to read.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, the bulk of the middle of the book where he goes into these details.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Really pretty fierce battles and also what's interesting is this is when he starts seeing the enemy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like they can hear him in the other trenches, but now he starts meeting them face to face.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And indeed we heard on 29 November from Captain Von Brixen that we were...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That we were to take part in a sweeping counter offensive against the Bolts that the tank battle at Cambrai had made in our front.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Even though we are pleased to play a part of the hammer, having so long been the anvil, we wondered whether the troops still exhausted from Flanders would be up to the job.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That said, I had every confidence in my company. They had never let anyone down yet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On the night of 30 November to 1 December, we were put on Lori's truck. In the process, we took our first losses as a soldier dropped a hand grenade.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which for some reason exploded, gravely injuring him and another man.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After a lot of toing and froing, a buffet in the ribs from an NCO seemed to sort him out. And we were able to go.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It showed me that that sort of play acting is difficult to keep up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've talked about this before and if you didn't go the last time I talked about it and look at the shell shocked videos of World War One on YouTube, they're horrific to watch.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you realize what this war did to people. And I pulled this section out because he was a guy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he's like saying, this guy feigned insanity. He just said, you know what, this guy's faking.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know. Even though he probably was for real. He probably was. He says, you know what, beat this guy up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was the attitude they talk about. I mean, I've paid more attention to it on the British side.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you went into a medical ward, meaning you were in there because you had psychological problems. It was because you were a coward in their minds. Which is sick. It's sickening.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It is really horrible when you see those videos of what they, of what this war did to people. And that's what war does do to people.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, we gotta remember that, that it impacts people in a horrible way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And this war, to me especially, more so than any other war, primarily because of the conditions and from the...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It wouldn't be, well, okay, what's your strategic opinion? What's your tactic clue? What's your tactical brain tell you? No, it was, no, you're a coward.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Endeavor, especially in war, but in war, in business, to, to have an open mind from a leadership position, to listen to what people are saying.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because they might be right, and here I guarantee you there were thousands and thousands if not hundreds of thousands of soldiers that would have said, Hey, you know what? This doesn't make any sense.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To say, you know what? No. I mean, it's like we talked about with Napoleon's Maxim, right? Napoleon's Maxim was if you are aware of a problem with an order and you carry it out and you get your guys killed, you're culpable.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So these guys obviously hadn't read that and hadn't, you know, hadn't taken that on board. When you listen to your subordinates and you say, okay, what do you think of this plan?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We've tried it 12 times in the past, you know, month and a half, and we're gonna try it again tomorrow. We're gonna get up at the sound of the whistle and we're gonna charge towards these other enemy machine guns.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Listen to your people. And listen to your brain. You know, listen to your common sense. Don't get stuck. Don't get stuck in a mental rut.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's so easy to, look, if you could send millions of humans to their death because you can't think your way out of the strategy, you can't identify a strategy as being wrong, you can't come up with a new way to execute something,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Corporal Kimpenhaus jumped onto the parapet and fired down into the trench until he was brought down by two bad wounds in his arms. I took note of this hero of the hour.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And was proud to congratulate him two weeks later on award of the Iron Cross First Class.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was one of those curious incidents that can suddenly and unpredictably transform an entire situation. The noise was coming from a sub alter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the regiment on our left who wanted to line up with us and seemed inflamed by a berserk fury.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Drink seemed to have tipped his innate bravery into towering rage.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where are the Tommies? Let me at em! Come on boys, who's coming with me? In his incident fury.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He knocked over our fine barricade and plunged forward, clearing a path for himself with hand grenades.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, he's described as being like almost drunk. Maybe he actually is drunk, but he's just standing up and charging.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Charging forward, clearing a path for himself with hand grenades. Back to the book. His orderly slipped ahead of him along the trench, shooting down anyone who survived the explosion- explosions.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Bravery, fearless risking of one's own life is always inspiring. We too found ourselves picked up by his wild fury and scrabbling around to grab a few hand grenades rushed to form part of this berserker's progress.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Soon I was up alongside him, tearing along the line.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the other officers too, followed by riflemen from my company.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Even Captain Von Brixen, the battalion commander, was up there in the van, rifle in hand, bringing down enemy hand grenade throwers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The British resisted manfully. Every traverse had to be fought for.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The black balls of Mills bombs, those are British grenades, crossed in the air with our own long-handled grenades.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Behind every traverse we captured, we found corpses or bodies still twitching. We killed each other, sight unseen. We too suffered losses.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A piece of iron crashed into the ground next to the orderly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which the fellow was unable to avoid and he collapsed the ground while his blood issued onto the clay from his many wounds.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We hurled, we hurled, we hurdled over his body and charged forwards. Thunderous crashes pointed us the way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We were already a long way from our own front lines.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] From all sides, bullets whistled round our steel helmets or struck the trench parapet with a hard crack. Each time a black iron oval broke the horizon, one's eyes sized it up with that instantaneous clarity of which a man is only capable in moments of life and death. During those instances of waiting,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You had to try and get to a place where you could see as much of the sky as possible because it was only against its pale backdrop that it was possible to see the black jagged iron of those deadly balls with sufficient clarity. Then you hurled your own bomb and leap forward.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the exchange of hand grenades, it reminded me of fencing with foils. You needed to jump and stretch almost as in a ballet. It is the deadliest of duels.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As it invariably ends with one of the participants or the other being blown to smithereens. Or both.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And just to kind of explain that a little bit, it's one thing that you, that we definitely learned in the SEAL teams when you're patrolling at night, and this is especially before night vision.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When you wanted to see the person in front of you, and especially like to see their hand signals, because we, you know, we use all hand signals at night. So if you want to see them, you kind of get down on a knee and you put the, you put the, the backlight behind them so you can see what hand signals are passing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And what he's doing here is they're trying to get as low as they can and backlight the sky as much as they can so they can see the grenades that are being thrown at them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then when they do get thrown at them, they try and get up to a spot where they don't think it's gonna blow up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In these moments, I was capable of seeing the dead. I jumped over them with every stride, without horror.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the relaxed and softly spilled attitude that characterizes those moments in which life takes its leave.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The trench they were trying to escape down doubled back on itself towards ours like a curved frame of a leer. And at the narrowest point,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They were only ten paces apart. So they had to pass us again. From our elevated position, we were able to look down on the British helmets as they stumbled in their haste and excitement.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I tossed a hand grenade in front of the first lot, bringing them up short. And after them, all the others. Then they were stuck in a frightful jam.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hand grenades flew through the air like snowballs covering everything in milk white smoke. Fresh bombs were handed up to us from below.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Lightnings flashed between the huddled British, hurling up rags of flesh and uniforms and helmets.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There were mingled cries of rage and fear. With fire in our eyes, we jumped onto the very lip of the trench. The rifles of the whole area were pointed at us.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Suddenly, in my delirium, I was knocked to the ground as by a hammer blow.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sober, I pulled off my helmet and saw to my terror that there were two large holes in it. Cadet Mormon.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A bullet shot from some distance had punched through my helmet and had only brushed my skull.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Half unconscious, I reeled back with a hurriedly applied bandage to remove myself from the eye of the storm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No sooner had I passed the nearest reverse than a man ran up behind me and told me that Teb had just been killed in the same place by a shot in the head.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who only a few moments ago had called out some pleasantry to me. Taken from life by a tiny piece of lead.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Unfortunately, it was all too true.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Shots in the head rain down. Lieutenant Hopf and another one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was another one of the fallen. An older man, a teacher by profession, a German schoolmaster in the best sense of the word.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And yet, the Seventh Company held on to the conquered line under the command of Lieutenant Hoppenrath, the only able-bodied officer remaining, until we were relieved.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There is none to compare with the encounter of two stormtroop commanders in the narrow clay walls of a line. There is no going back and no pity. And everyone knows who has seen of them in their kingdom.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The aristocrat of the trench with hard determined visage.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Brave to the point of folly, leaping agilely forward and back with keen, bloodthirsty eyes. Men who answered the demands of the hour and whose names go down in no chronicle.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He, he, he uses the term the aristocrat of the trunch, and it's not the term, you know, the term aristocrat, that isn't, it's not the, you know, the, the,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that's what he's talking about. These guys that were the best guys in the trench that had the hard look that would get after it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And yet their names go down in no chronicle. And I'll tell you, I know. Many, many brave men.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the seal teams, in the Marine Corps, in the army, brave souls that were aristocrats of war.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] From time to time, well aimed rifle grenades came flying over. We were able to see them and take evasive action.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Lay in amongst us, stretched out, like a cat in the warm rays of the setting sun.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He slipped into death with an almost childlike smile on his face. It was a sight that didn't depress me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That beleft me with a fraternal feeling for the dying man. Even the groaning of his comrade gradually fell silent.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because they, they're so familiar with snow. And these men.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you know, one thing that I remember from some of the older Vietnam SEALs talking to me about, guys that have been wounded. This is, you know, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I remember, like, they were telling me, hey, you know, sometimes guys get wounded, they get shot, and it doesn't phase them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And as part of it's the physiology, like if you get shot in a certain place, it just doesn't, it just doesn't do anything, you know, you can, you can drive on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it just, there's nothing you can do about it. Like it blows their femur apart or it hits their hip in such a way that they cannot, they're just down in agonizing pain where someone else may get shit shot on a through and through.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Meaning it just goes in one side and out the other and it's almost like they don't even notice it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And some other people are, are, you know, I got hit, just leave me alone. Hey, I got this. Don't worry about me. Ain't got time to bleed. Yeah. So, so those are some situations that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You are just different and then it's the same thing. Obviously when this guy sees death after death after death after death, he sees the variables and the various faces of death.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So now, we're getting towards the end.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And what's crazy about that is now, okay, if you, if you tell me, hey, we're fighting for our country. Okay, I get it. We're going to drive on. Maybe we're going to make some sacrifices. These guys now recognize that they're probably not going to win.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I paraded my company in battle order in a small apple orchard.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who were drawn up in front of me in a horseshoe arrangement. They looked serious and manly. There wasn't much to say.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Probably everyone of them had come to understand that we were on our uppers. And on our uppers is an expression that means


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's like when you're in poverty or when you don't have the means anymore. So they knew, he knew that they were on their last legs. They knew that they were on their last legs. He goes on with every attack.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The enemy came forward with more powerful means his blows were swifter and more devastating. Everyone knew we could no longer win.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As if I were able to view myself through binoculars.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Indistinct figures moved against the background of red brown clay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A machine gun spat out its gouts of bullets. The feeling of hopelessness increased.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Even so, we broke into a run while the gunners found- were finding their range.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We jumped over several sniper's nests. And hurley.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Excavated trenches. In mid-jump over a slightly better made trench, I felt a piercing jolt in the chest, as though I'd been hit like a game bird.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With a sharp cry that seemed to cost me all the air I had, I spun on my axis and crashed to the ground. It had got me at last. At the same time as feeling I had been hit, I felt the bullet taking away my life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That moment is one of the very few in my life of which I am able to say they were utterly happy. I understood as in a flash of lightning.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The true inner purpose and form of my life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I felt surprise and disbelief that it was to end there and then.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But this surprise had something untroubled and almost merry about it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As if I were a stone sinking under the surface of some turbulent water.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, obviously he did survive that wounding.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because he was able to write this book and he wrote many other books.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The book is called Storm of Steel by Ernst Younger.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And as I wrap up these books, again, sometimes I feel like, you know, hey, where do I compare this? How do I tie it in?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I mean, obviously there's lessons in leadership and strategy and, you know, I talked a little bit about listening to your troops and keeping an open mind.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But something that I often remind people.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That looks at war and says, let's try to avoid it if we can.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And there are things that can only be stopped. There is evil that can only be stopped. Through the waging of war.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But when you do have to go to war because the evil must be stopped, then go to war to win and win decisively.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, but it just depends on where you hit, because the bullet could go through your arm, and you don't notice it, or go through your arm and hit your, your bone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, it could hit the bone, it could shatter the bone, you know? I saw guys that got hit in the bone, and it's devastating.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so that's, you know, war is a, uh, there's a, there's a, there's a huge element of chance in it. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you know, I actually got, there was an internet question that I got asked and I didn't, I don't think we brought it up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For me, it's the way I dealt with the randomness of war is the really simple thought of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You can't worry about the random sniper shot. I mean,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You can do everything you can to mitigate it, you know, when you're out there in the field, you know, you keep moving, you stay behind cover as much as you can, you don't come up in the same spot over and over again, you do the things to mitigate the risk.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But you can't just be dwelling on it. Right. Because you can't control it. Yeah. The same thing of getting hit with a random IED or a random, uh, you know, indirect fire from a mortar.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then, you know, you worry about the things you can control. And I used to tell that to MMA fighters too, and I've told that story before, you know, listen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's like, hey, you've done everything you can to mitigate that, you've trained, you've conditioned yourself, you've sparred, you've done mitts, you've done everything that you can do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If it happens, you can't control it, so don't even worry about it. Worry about the things you can control. The pace of the fight. Putting the fight where you want it to be. Winning the rounds. Being a tactician. Worry about those things. Don't worry about getting knocked out. You know what? Keep your hands up. Keep your head movement.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Keep the distancing correct. Those are the things that are going to keep you from getting knocked out. But you can't mitigate all that risk, you're in a fist fight.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sometimes people get wounded and sometimes people get killed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Actually that's one point. The other point is, always treat weapons as if they're loaded.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We've got some young listeners out there. Don't point guns at your hands and pull the trigger.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, that's actually- Always treat weapons as if they're loaded, and never aim a weapon at anything you don't intend to destroy. Period.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think it's uh, time for some, some questions from the interwebs.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, for me, you know, I work out every day. So what that means every morning, I wake up early and I get it on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They say don't you ever take a day off. And I do. But I don't plan to take days off. Days off.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Some, there's some reason, there's some travel plans that don't allow it. So there's, life will give you days off. So don't take off days voluntarily. Don't do that. Let the days off come through life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then, then you don't have to freak out about it, you just go, oh cool, I got a day off, day to rest, cool, I'm gonna travel, or I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna miss a workout today, just gonna take it as a day of rest. So, but I do, I work out every day, and part of that is,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For being weak. And then there's times where I'm like, you know what, I do not want to do that kind of workout today because I feel an impending injury.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm tight, I'm sore, I'm gonna not do that type of workout today. So it's a little combination of instinct.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And discipline versus freedom of, you know what, this is going to be too much for me today, I don't want to lift heavy today, or I don't feel it. Sometimes I feel like lifting heavy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, but then some days you feel, you know, ah man, I don't feel like putting any heavy weight up today. I'm gonna go in there and do something lighter, but maybe higher repetitions and that type of things. So.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm doing that every day, you know, calisthenics. Sometimes I'm doing a combination of all three, sometimes I'm doing one, so that's just, just how I'm getting after it. And again, I think at some point I'm gonna write an ebook. Because the publishing process and the publishing world's a real pain.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And ebook, and ebook is easier. It's easier to do, you do it, you produce it, you put it through Amazon, and Amazon just says, oh cool, you sell em, we sell em, I could sell em for like three bucks.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then anyone who wants them could just get it. And it doesn't have to be, I don't feel bad if I don't, you know, if it's not the, it's something that I could do the way I wanted to do. I don't have to, I don't have to, like, I don't have to make it a certain length.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because everybody wants to know that. I don't know why I'm not, you know, some incredible athlete, you know. So, here's my workouts. And so that's what I'm thinking of doing. Uhm, then again, that's, that's, I've been thinking about actually getting someone and saying, hey, you seem like a capable human.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I need to do that more, just go out so you're constantly in shape because paddling, paddling a surfboard is a different kind of conditioning than anything else. Yeah, just to be in shape for paddling.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Kinda like I've been saying, hey, if you wanna get good at humping a rucksack, then just hump a rucksack.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And if you want to get good at doing bulbs to bulbs, well if you want to be good at paddling a surfboard, you gotta paddle a surfboard. So, you always feel weak when the big waves come and you haven't surfed in a while, and you feel weak because you haven't been paddling, you lack the discipline. So I should be paddling more. Uh, and then we get to the jujitsu. The roll. The jujitsu.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I roll, if I'm home, I'm going to the gym and I'm training. Uh, you know, we usually do some technique. I usually get a little something from Jeff or from Dean and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, Dean and Jeff, what's crazy is you can always learn something. And it still freaks me out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because it's not like, when I say learn something, I'm not like saying that they're teaching me some new variation to the go-go-placha. Right? Yea. No. They're teaching, like, Dean will say, hey, when you put the guillotine on over here, make this adjustment.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or when you're passing the guard, do this here. Like some simple thing. Or Jeff, I remember Jeff Glover was, I said, hey Jeff, teach my son the, the Darce choke.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I just watched him give my son, you know, like a seven minute class on the Dar's choke. Now my son, you know, can you imagine you're getting your


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nine years old and you're getting a personal class on the Darce joke from Jeff Goldberg. But my son, you know, he just thinks that's normal. But I'm watching and I remember Jeff was just going over little details and stuff that I did not know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Relearnin' the Darce Choke. And so there's always these little things. I'm surprised at the obviousness of those things. And actually it does happen occasionally in the other direction. You know, Dean was going through a slump where he's really having a hard time passing my guard. And I just said, hey man, you've been doing Y, just do X. And you could see, I saw on his face, cause he has a


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But uhm, so yeaah, but yeaah, you get these little obvious things, you get the, you get the,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I like to roll. That's the reality of it. I enjoy training.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not starting, I, not starting in one position and going into, no, I like to train, that's what I like to do, that's what I love about jiu jitsu. So, I like to roll, and I roll, and whenever I go in, my goal is to roll. And the same way that I will


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Some nights I go in, like there was some days I go in or nights and, and, you know, normal night I just feel like Rollins are going in roll.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's right, it is that. And, and like a couple weeks ago, I said to myself, I got there and I did not feel like rolling.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so, you know, the last, you know, so we start with 20 guys on the mat and then after three rounds, there's, you know, 15 guys or 16 guys in the mat and then at down day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ten and then eight and then four and then it's me and one other guy and I'm like, looks like it's you got the last round, my friend. But I just did that to myself. It's a little form of...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's a little form of exercising, a little discipline. But, that being said, there's days where I go in and I don't feel it, and I don't feel it as a different sense that I have, which is...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Today's not gonna be a good day. Today I'm gonna tweak something. Today I'm too, I'm too wore down or whatever. And so I'll go, I'll do, I'll do some rolls and then I'll just, I'll just.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Leave it at that, you know? I won't force myself to stay on the map forever. So I do, again, I use that instinct of what I am feeling to make a decision on how it's gonna go down.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Six, six minute rounds. You know, it's kind of like what I like. Yeah, it's strange because- One time we did like a, we had the gym was closed, but we had, you know, an open mat.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it wasn't an open mat. It was like, hey, we're gonna train. And we did. Wait, we who? Just a bunch of people. You were probably there. I don't know. I don't remember. But we did.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Six, six minute rounds no gi, and then six, six minute rounds gi. Were you there that day? I usually don't get tired. I got tired that day. I got tired that day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I have a conditioning, cause like when we do 20, like when I'm, when Dean's getting ready for ECC or whoever we got, that's doing the longer or the no time limited matches. And I'm doing 20 minute rounds, 20 minute rounds.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm just good to go in. Yeaah. I don't know why. I don't know why. But I think it has to do with what we talked about the other day where I'm not a really fast sprinter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I think it's one of those, like I can grapple for a long time and not get tired.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, is when you're putting, you know, I'll be in, or one of our guys that's competing will go in the middle and you're getting a fresh guy every two minutes, one minute, three minutes, five minutes, whatever the case may be, you're getting somebody fresh on you and that's where you get, that's where you get tested.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I feel like I got good training at like 6, 6 minute rounds. That's where I feel good. Yeaah. That's 36, maybe it's almost 40, 40 something minutes of training. That makes me feel good. Yeaah, man.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not everybody, but obviously it has to do with who you're training with. I mean, I can train with somebody that's not that good all day long, but you get to start getting the grinders on you. You gotta be ready.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, but, for a while, he didn't work out at all. He didn't like lift or anything. Right, yea, back in the day, right? And then I said, hey man,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I just said hey, go do a bunch of pull ups and then the next day do a bunch of push ups and dips and then the next day do some squats. And he's okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He started doing it, and in a month, man, he was a different dude. And now he started powerlifting. So he's even, he's even, uh, morphing a little bit more. But he's won some big, he's won some big tournaments, he's got some game, for sure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, so decentralized command is obviously the, uh, one of the principles of combat we have in the book that we wrote.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I have a very simple definition that I've been explaining to people. Decentralized command. It's everybody leads. That's what decentralized command is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, and obviously that means you want everybody else to lead.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so this question is what's the difference between being lazy and just delegating everything and what's good decentralization? So lazy delegation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Number one is delegating things that are actually your job.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right? Because there's, there's some roles and responsibilities that people have, and if you take something that is supposed to be your job, and you delegate it to somebody else because you don't feel like doing it, then that's lazy. If, as a matter of fact, if you're delegating something that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then that's being lazy, right? If you're actually delegating something because it's something you don't want to do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, and I'll tell you, it's actually a mindset to


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Take on the tasks of the things that you don't want to do or that your team doesn't want to do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like literally, there's something that is hard to do or that no one wants to do. Do that thing. And I'll give you an example. We had to stand watch in Iraq on my first deployment to Iraq. We had to stand watch on the prisoners that we would capture. So we'd come back and we'd have to stand watch on them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I made myself and my assistant platoon commander, I was a platoon commander at the time, I gave us, I assigned us.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The worst watch of the night, like the 0300 in the morning till 0500 in the morning. The watch that nobody wants because it's in the middle of your sleep pattern. No one wanted that watch. I put us on that watch.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We took the worst watch. So I didn't delegate the hard watch. I took the hard watch. So there's an example of the opposite of being lazy. You're taking on board the hard tasks. You know another one is


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When we would go shooting and we'd get done shooting, and believe it or not, even the SEAL teams, you gotta go pick up brass. You gotta go pick up brass off the ground. All over the desert, all over the field, all over wherever you did a bunch of shooting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's pretty easy for the guy that's in charge to have a meeting to attend to when it's time to pick up brass, but I would always pick up brass, you know, I would delegate the shell, the shell cases, but it's a pain, you know, literally at, when you're at, at land warfare, it takes a couple of days to pick up brass. And instead of, like I said, instead of having to go back for a meeting,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'd go out there and, you know, jump in there and have the crap job like everybody else of picking up brass. So I wouldn't delegate these things. That's being lazy when you delegate that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, and another thing I'll find is if somebody's complaining of some, if one of my subordinates is complaining to me about having to do something, I automatically take it. And I say, oh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, Echo, it's a pain for you to do this? Cool, well, I'll do it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It has a good psychological effect on it, right? I mean it's, it's, it's...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's showing them that like, look man, I'm here for you. And if it's too much for you, I'll take it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's a way of exercising some discipline in your life. And...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Making things happen. So that's the kind of thing, all those things, that's like lazy delegation if you're doing those kind of things where you're getting rid of jobs you don't want, you're getting rid of jobs that you should be doing and getting rid of jobs


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That are a pain or are monotonous or you think they're below you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, the opposite of that is decentralized command, right? This is where you're letting other people do what they're supposed to do. It's when you're letting people do things that will help them grow.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Does it help a person grow by picking up brass? I suppose there's a little character building in there, but it's not going to literally help them grow. So you don't need to delegate that task. Does it help someone grow as a leader to do the 0 300 to 0 500 watch on prisoners? No, it's pain. It's just, it's just unmitigated pain. So


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It doesn't help people grow, so that, that, then, then you don't have to decentralize that. But if you got something that's gonna let somebody grow, you let them do it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If there's something that allows you to stand back and be the tactical genius, and we wrote about this in the book, you know, then


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And thereby allowing me to have a different perspective on something, then I should absolutely...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Decentralize that delegate. So if, if there was a mission came up and we need to come up with a plan, I would tell you to plan it. I'd be like, echo, you come up with a plan on this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then you'd go and plan it and you'd be all involved in it and you would lose the elevation that I would have. So when I come back to look at your plan, you say, here's the plan. I go, Hey, it looks good except for these two points. And you'd be like, man, how did he see those points? I'd say it's because I had the altitude.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that's another time that decentralized command. It's very helpful. Decentralized command means letting people make little mistakes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because I've been punitive with my actions towards them. Now, that doesn't mean...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I've seen this happen. That doesn't mean if I'm gonna let you go plan a mission and I see you're screwing up, I'm just gonna let you have a catastrophic failure. No, I'm gonna be like, hey Echo, think about this over here. Hey Echo, think about that over there. We're gonna get you dialed in. I'm gonna give you some rope, but I'm not gonna let you hang yourself.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Get the job done and think on your own, but if you start looking like you're going to hang yourself, I'm going to stop you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The other thing about decentralized command that's positive, that's not just lazy delegation is when you let your subordinates lead so that you can focus upward, outward, and forward.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So if, if you have a mission, if we have a mission to accomplish and I tell you to lead it, that means you can take care of that mission, I can look upward, meaning up the chain of command, find out what's going on, outward, meaning what's the enemy doing, and forward, meaning what's going to happen in the future.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And if I'm wrapped up in the accomplishing of the task at hand, from a leadership position, I can't do any of those things. I can't look outward, I can't look outward, and I can't look forward.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You gotta let people lead so that they can become leaders. And your actual goal, and this is where people get intimidated, is to, to set them up so they can take your job. That's what you want. You want them to be able to take your job.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, no, that's, that's good. And you definitely want to set your people up. You want to work yourself out of a job and then you got to, you know, your other opportunities will come because people will see that you develop a team, people to see that you develop good leaders and they're going to say, Hey, I want you to come and do that at this higher position and you're going to get benefit from that as well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, so I know I've asked, answered this question before. It's very, I'll answer it again, I'm gonna do it quickly. What were my, what did I do when writing? I wrote a thousand words a day, no matter what.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If I had some obstacles as the question hit said here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I would write. If I had ups and downs, I would write. If I had a daily ritual, it was to write. Every day, that's what I did. I wrote a thousand words a day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And when you're writing a 50,000 or 60,000 word manuscript, that means in two months you got your, you got your manuscript done.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And also I had the outline, I mean for Extreme Ownership that Leif and I wrote, I had the outline, we had the chapters, so I broadly knew what I was writing about.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then it's just a matter of sitting down and making it happen. And when I went to college, I was an English major in college, and guess what? I sat down and wrote. When I had to write papers, when I had to write scripts, when I had to write whatever I had to write, I just sat down and started writing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then it's the same thing when I was in the Navy. In the Navy you write all kinds of stuff. You write evaluations, you write operational summaries, you write awards, you write all kinds of things in the Navy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And one thing about me is my rough draft, when I'm sitting down and I just start writing, I know it's gonna be...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The f- the foundational information down on the paper, that's the hard part. Uhm, and it's easy for me to edit it or hone it later.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, as far as future plans, future books, uh, yeaah. I mean, Leif and I are definitely doing a follow-up, uh, book about leadership and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're working on that right now. So that's a comment.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Language and linguistics to be very interesting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I know that, uh, might strike some people as weird, but I really do. I find linguistics and language and the written word and the way words are combined together to


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Make thoughts in people's brains. It's a very interesting process to me. And so I was, uh, I was very interested in it. And that's another reason why I, why I studied English when I was in college. It's the, it's the written word. You know, it's the written word, which is a very, very powerful, very, very powerful,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, it is not both. It is not both, actually. And if you think about it...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, the detachment that we're talking about is when you get involved in these situations, you gotta detach yourself from them so that you can make good decisions, so that you can see things clearly, so that you can assess things clearly. That's why you detach from these situations. So, technically, if before or after an event,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You are detached from them. Because they're not happening at that time. Now I guess you could be so


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And before it, you could be so amped up about it and so nervous about it and so...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Emotional about it that I guess beforehand you could. So I guess, I guess I am wrong.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I am talking about detaching throughout the process.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The skill itself is being able to detach during the event.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The hard part is to notice that you're stuck in the gravitational pull of all that emotion. So you gotta pay attention to that. And what you really wanna try and do is try and, it's what you just said, try and detach yourself


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Before the gravity and the, uh, uh, the gravity of the emotions and the chaos builds up. If you can detach before that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then you'd have to break through it, you're already outside that realm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so then it's, it's, it's much easier. So it's like there's quicksand in front of you, and it's much easier to just see the quickstand and just say, I'm not going to step in there. Then it is to walk in there, go up into your waist and start feeling, getting sucked down and then decide, oh, I'm going to pull myself out of that. It's a lot harder.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You gotta look for those signs, you gotta look for that moment when you start feeling emotional or you know that it's gonna be something emotional, you gotta step back from those and get yourself in the habit of asking yourself,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What do I look like right now? What does Jaco look like right now? What does Jaco sound like right now?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Listen to the words that are coming out of your mouth and see if you're being a reasonable human or not. And I'll tell you one thing that I, I do, I kinda see


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, when I'm fe- when I'm really good, you know, in a very detached mode, and I'm having a conversation with someone, I- I like see the options in my head of what I could say to them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I, oh yeaah, that'll make him mad. Oh yeaah, that's too offensive. Okay, that's a good one. Hey buddy, blah blah blah blah. So.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think that that mindset kinda works pretty good, but again,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. That warmth that flushes through your face, that's not good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When your breathing starts increasing, your pulse is going, that's the stuff you gotta notice. To say to yourself, oh, there it is. There it is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, I'm not saying be like the Terminator. That was a, uh, that was a comparison of thinking, of being able to visualize.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The options that you have. And if you're emotional, you don't think like that. When you're emotional, you're just, you're just blurting out whenever he's going to come out of your mouth. But when you're detached a little bit, you go, okay, I could say this. I could say that. Oh, this is answer three. And then you say it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I do remember that. Yeaah. That was pretty dope. The fake emotions, which sometimes, which I've talked about before, sometimes you gotta use the fake emotions. The switcheroo? Yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Exactly. You know, rather than, you know. Rather than I'm just a machine, a robot. Yeaah. Yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they're gonna flare up as soon as somebody says something critical of you. As soon as somebody goes to evaluate you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Your defense mechanisms are gonna go up. And then once that happens, once you feel those defense mechanisms go up, you gotta put your ego in check.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You gotta put your ego in check. And then once you do that, you gotta listen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Listen, I know it sounds crazy, listen to what they're saying. Don't even, don't even think of a response.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, so you're right, you gotta listen, and not just listen, but truly listen. Not listen just with your ears, but listen with your mind and your brain, and with an open mind. An open mind.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because if you just see it from your perspective, you're not even seeing what the criticism really is. You're only seeing...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the challenge of trying to present this problem to me if it wasn't important.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Are they just doing it just to make me mad? No. They're trying to help you. And you know what? Just like-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just like a joke, you know, they say like every joke has some little truth to it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Every little criticism, even if the person is your arch rival.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What is that reality that you can take away from it, even though you gotta take it with a grain of salt, especially if the person like it says here, if the person has different opinions and mode as well. Of course they have different opinions. You want people with different opinions. Maybe they have different motives, so maybe you think they're trying to usurp your authority or something like that. So,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] From their perspective, what the problem is, and learn from it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And one of the most beautiful things about this is you take the criticism and you make adjustments. You know, how do I deal with being evaluated?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I try and accept the evaluation and make adjustments to improve myself as a human.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's how I deal with being evaluated. And I'm not saying I deal with it anybody better than anybody else. Because everybody gets defensive, myself included.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know we had a little conversation when we started tonight. Right? Sure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You said I repeated some stuff on the last podcast, allegedly. And, you know, and then we talked through it. And then I said,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, and you know, I noticed that your camera work was a little bit off. You know, it was just, my point was just to prove how defensive we all get. We all get. And you know what I did? I said, you know what? I noticed that too. You know, as far as me repeating, there was a couple little sections and it was because I pulled from multiple different books and they had a little bit of overlap.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But still, people don't want to hear the same thing over and over again, so I probably shouldn't have done that. So, guess what? Criticism accepted.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I will adapt, adjust, and I will make improvements to my game based on your criticism of my technique, my skill, and my life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Take their criticisms, fix the problem. That's what it's all about. Use them to get better.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And by the way, I don't even like donuts. That's pure echo right there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I like, I like the fact that the people that are asking this is actually two questions in one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, or you could take it that the fact that they don't even think you ever break.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But then again, you talk about eating sleeves of Oreo cookies on here, so that's an issue. Uh, but to get down to it, obviously.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Number one first and foremost, mint chocolate chip ice cream. Uh, and especially mint chocolate chip ice cream milkshakes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That those are actually good for me. Yeaah. And that they contain, you know, just enough carbs and there's some protein in there and there's some fat and it's actually like a full good meal. Which is just a big lie because it's a big sugar bomb. It's like a supplement. Right. So, but I do, I do, uh, yeaah, I love mint chocolate chip ice cream.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So again, I'll, I'll twist that one in my head and sometimes for 10 minutes I'll convince myself that really that is the right thing to do. Uh, obviously we've discussed on here before.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then, you know, you know, the normal crap foods, the potato chips, the french fries, the whatever, the junk.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Genetic evolutions that human beings have been through that make us desire sugary foods and the endorphins going off and firing your head. No, I'm not immune to those things.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When I, and I'll tell you, when I do, first of all, I like to earn those things.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I either earn them on the front end or the back end. Like one way or the other. Like I either busted my ass and it did a couple days of hard working out and all of a sudden I'm, you know, I'm out with my kid and we're swinging by and all of a sudden I see there's a little ice cream shop in the corner. You know what? Hey, let's get a little ice cream. A little, little go time. And, and one thing I, when I do it, I don't like have guilt.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When I'm sitting there, I'm not going, Oh my God, I can't believe I'm doing this. No, I say, man, this is awesome. This ice cream milkshake tastes great. That's great. But later on,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Either that night or the next day, I earn that thing. Put a little punishment.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, and I'll tell you the thing you gotta be careful of is that it is a slippery slope. And as you mentioned, like one potato chip.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Can lead to 20 and it does lead to 20. And even that is like, okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] of bad food and no working out. That's what happens. That's what makes you sign off the rails. And actually, I mean, there's


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, Tim Ferriss, he's got that thing where he does, it's something like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Six days in a row of eating super clean and then on the seventh day, you actually, it's not just cheat day, you have to like just get after it because your body has to get the shock of carbs and all this stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But, but, you do have to be careful of the slippery.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, slope that for me, that's what, that's what I think happens. I think, I don't believe in the stuff that, you know, you, you use up your willpower throughout the day and you use up your discipline. I believe that your discipline decisions create more discipline decisions.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If I do just have a disaster of a day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or if I have, let's say for whatever reason I have a two day, just


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For whatever I lose the bubble, you know, and there's could be anything, any number of things that could cause that maybe, you know, it's like multiple.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know, bad situation with travel than with an event than with something that come home and it's a birthday party and then the only thing to eat is pizza and I'm like, you know what, it's just done, right? Is it better to hold the line? Yeah, it is. Um, but if I do have one of those situations, then,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'll usually react to that. You know, I'll earn it later. I'll, if I go on a just a terrible food thing, I'll do some kind of a fast. I'll do like a 24 hour fast, maybe in a 48 hour fast. I haven't done a 72 hour, but I'm gearing up to do a 72 hour. What do you just drink water? Yeah, just drink water. Just drink water. I did the 48 hour.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's, it was actually nothing. It was like no problem, no factor. I did everything normal, squatted, went surfing, did jujitsu. There was like some guys on the mat and I said, I was talking to Big Eric, you know Big Eric?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I was, hey, I gotta tell you something when we got done training, this is after, this is on the second day of doing it. And so we trained a bunch and, you know, it was no factor. And he's like, what were you gonna tell me? And I said, I haven't eaten for 48 hours. And I said, you know, I'm just trying this out and I feel completely normal.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, uh, so that's it, that's one of the things I'll do to recover and I'll just do some kind of, you know, psycho kind of hardcore workout. Uhm, you know, we,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A body in motion tends to stay in motion and a body at rest tends to stay in rest. Don't let the momentum start going the wrong way. You know what I mean? Get that body back in motion. Get back on track. Snap yourself back into the discipline. Crush some workouts. Get after it. And get on that path. The path of discipline and strength.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hey, this is one of those situations though. It's your daughter's birthday party, right? You got the family over. What are you going to do? Put them all on a paleo diet for the evening? No, you're going to get them some pizza and ice cream and it's all good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Don't be a sucker. So don't be a sucker to that piece of your brain that's trying to trick you into wanting stuff that's actually bad for you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So Buds is the basic underwater demolition and seal training and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It does a decent job. And uh, I'm not gonna say that everybody that makes it through Buds is a guy that you wanna work with. Or even a guy that you want on your team. Cause, one thing that happens in Buds is that,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Punishment is dealt out, right? I mean, it's just suffering. It's just hard work. It's, you know, putting a boat on your head and being cold and wet and all this stuff. And you either embrace that and crush it. That's one way to get through. That's the way you should get through. But there are guys that they, they find a way to


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And those guys definitely exist in the teams, and the real team guys know who those guys are. But one thing that's hard, it's hard for a civilian.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To, to know the difference. Because to a civilian, a seal is a seal seal. If you have your trident, you're a seal, you must be a badass.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's, there's, there's all kinds of guys. There's all kinds of little corners that you can cut. There's things you can get away with. And the weird thing about Buds is, and I think Leif talked about this when he was on the podcast is, or maybe he didn't, maybe we just had it in conversations.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You have a mentality when you're going through buds is that you're a teen and you're trying to help everyone get through.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Most of the time guys are, you know, like, hey man, are you okay?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or you can sneak through it and skate through it and it does happen. Now, it's also mainly a physical test and people talk about no, it's mental, it's physical, right? There's a mental aspect to it, no doubt. And if, and if you're not mentally


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Committed to making it through that it's gonna be hard for you, but it's primarily a physical test and physicality is actually a small part of being a seal. Now, of course it's like a baseline factor. I mean it is a factor as a seal. You gotta be able to do the job physically, but


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's the baseline, right? And being a good athlete is definitely, that does definitely not automatically make someone a great seal. Because there's guys that go through buds that are studs physically. And we get the seal teams, they're not good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They're not good seals. They, they might be a bad leader. They might be unsafe or they can't shoot or they can't handle the pressure or they can't handle the grind.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because you get a guy that's an elite level axe, athlete.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And guess what? He's used to elite level of food. He's used to elite level of, of treatment.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you're out the desert and you're just going on an operation after operation after operation and some of these high level athletes, they're such a fine tuned machine. It's like we talked about before. They're like a Porsche or a race car and what you want to be is a four by four.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like you can put diesel or biofuel or whatever into that engine, it's gonna keep running.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I've said this before, no one in the SEAL teams cares about buds training. Once you've gotten through buds, it's like as normal as brushing your teeth. Like everyone's done it. No one says, hey, did you brush your teeth? No, we all brush our teeth. We all went through buds. It's not that big of a deal.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One thing that Buds does do good though is it does do a good job of finding people's weaknesses and whether it's swimming or whether it's running or whether it's the obstacle course or whether it's, whether it's lack of sleep or being in the water and the water work that they make you do. If you have a weakness of any of those areas, it's gonna, it's gonna show. It's gonna show.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Again, some guys do find a way to make it through and they end up in the teams and they end up doing a couple of CO platoons, but again, being


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just being a SEAL doesn't make you a badass. That's just the truth. It doesn't make you a great leader. It doesn't make you a tactical expert. It just doesn't.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It means that you made it through the training and you survived a couple seal platoons. That's what it means. Now there are


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Plenty of seals that are badass and great leaders and definitely some tactical experts, but it certainly isn't every seal. Cause there's a bell curve.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the SEAL teams, a bell curve, just like any other group of people or any other organization.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That carry more than their share of the weight in the teams and these are the guys that have built or are building the reputation that the SEAL teams have. And then in the middle of the curve,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's where you got the bulk of the guys and these are great guys, they're great SEALs, they do the job and they do it well and they're outstanding professional combat troopers. Who get the job done?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they get a job, they get the job done. On time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And those are awesome, solid guys that maintain the reputation of the SEAL teams. They maintain it. And then you got the crew at the bottom.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And these are the guys that slip through the cracks, they work the system, and while they're technically classified as SEALs,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] These aren't guys that are like, respected by other guys in the SEAL teams.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And these are the guys that they don't build the reputation or maintain the reputation of the SEAL teams. These are the guys that live off the reputation of the SEAL teams.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When, in all likelihood, they probably haven't contributed anything themselves to that reputation. Leeches.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The teams gave me everything. The good, the bad, and the ugly, and I wouldn't, I wouldn't change a thing. I love the SEAL teams. The frog man.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The ones that carry the weight and carry the torch, those guys are in my blood.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes, discipline, it, it does start with waking up early. It really does.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Discipline is the root of all good qualities.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To things outside of just waking up early. It's everything. It's working out every day, making yourself stronger and faster and more flexible and healthier. Discipline is


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It, it's about disciplining your emotions.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So you can make good decisions. It's about having the discipline to control your ego. So your ego doesn't get out of hand and control you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's about treating people the way you would want to be treated.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And doing the tasks that you don't necessarily want to do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Give in to the desire and the short term gratification.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Discipline is your best friend. It will take care of you like nothing else can. And it'll put you on that path.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Out there for putting on those headphones and listening to this podcast. Thanks for the feedback you give us.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's definitely good to know that people are listening and getting something out of it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Also thanks for subscribing and reviewing and spreading the word and thanks to Onnit for the support, for the great products that they make.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We appreciate that and please support them for supporting us. And speaking of support


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Another big way you can support us and the podcast is if you want to buy something, anything, especially the books that we talk about, go through


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So JockoPodcast.com and that's if they're going to buy anything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Get that duct tape through JockoPodcast.com. That's awesome.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, uh, awesome. We really appreciate that support. Again, that's how, that's how Echo Charles is hosting all this stuff and paying for all this stuff and all that. So it's much appreciated.