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[Assistant] Opening with a little bit of Beowulf, and that is the opening of Beowulf, translated by Seamus Haney. And what I notice is even back in the day, in the opening of the, the original old English poem, the first one written, what are they talking about? They're talking about war, and they're talking about leadership.


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[Assistant] Back for a third time. My brother, Jason Gardner, retired Master Chief, who I've known since I got into the Tames in the early 90s. He's been on the podcast before, so if you haven't listened to 167 and 168,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So uh, yeah, welcome back. How's retirement treating you?


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[Assistant] I know we missed something from your youth. What were you talking about? The best, the best show you ever saw? The best punk rock show you ever saw?


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[Assistant] Cause a lot of times if your parents, if parents try and-


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[Assistant] Shield their kids from that? Where they won't let them go? Then you would've just snuck out. They would've never known where you were.


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[Assistant] Right? Yeah, that's what happens if you're if you're if your parents trying to control you too much It's kind of like with with any person right you try and control them too much Then they get out of control. They rebel against you, right?


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[Assistant] I was actually, I was talking about this with a leader in a company, and I was explaining, cause like for sure, money drives people, compensation drives people, but,


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[Assistant] Ability to choose your fate or have some influence over your fate is, is it also very powerful motivator and incentive for people to follow. So when you have a look, like if you have one job where you make more money but you don't have any freedom and you don't have any control over your own fate versus a job where you get paid less money but you have really a lot of autonomy.


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[Assistant] Most people will go with the autonomy. There are rare people that don't want any autonomy. They just pretty much want to get told, hey, give me my paycheck, I'll do whatever you tell me to do and that's fine. And they're not into their job, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But a lot of people, the more autonomy you give them, the more into it they are, the more they enjoy what they're doing. Whereas if you're just micromanaging them or centralized command scenario, they're not into it and that's a problem.


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[Assistant] Exactly, exactly. You know what? You have to address that. You have to address that when you're working with companies. That there are people that they just want to get their paycheck. They're gonna punch the clock at 4.59 every day. And that's the way it is. They don't want to get promoted. They're fine with that.


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[Assistant] And so you gotta know, and you know my answer to those people always is, oh if you're leading someone like that, okay, you know what you've got, get the most out of them, take good care of them, and they'll do their job well and you know you can count on them for that. So that's fine, there's nothing wrong with that.


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[Assistant] Just that somebody that does have higher goals or different goals, I guess, where they want to break out of that, then you gotta give them the opportunity. And those people, if you box them in, they're gonna rebel against you. You gotta look out. They'll be like Jason Gardner, age 15, with a mohawk.


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[Assistant] Yeaah, that's awesome. I was with Chris Kyle's procession going.


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[Assistant] And we were in this massive, there was a massive procession of people, but it was just, I remember sitting there for a long time, and it's just the windshield wipers just going back and forth. We were not talking.


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[Assistant] Because there's nothing to say. You can't, you can't put words to that. You know, you can't put words to thousands of people standing out in the rain with their hands on their hearts. Just every bridge, fire trucks, flags hung up from the ladders extended. Yeah, this, uh,


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[Assistant] Same, same type of feeling that I had when I was doing that.


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[Assistant] And it definitely makes you realize that regardless of all the... What do they say these days? That America is...


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[Assistant] Division. All this division that everyone talks about. There's plenty of people that, that understand what it, what it takes to keep this country free, for sure.


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[Assistant] Yeah, for sure. I'll say two things about that. I was on, I was on Ben Shapiro's podcast.


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[Assistant] And, you know, Ben was like, and Ben's a real nice guy, he's, you know.


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[Assistant] Hinting at the fact of this massive division and, you know, these, the massive right against the massive left and, and, you know, I said, listen man,


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[Assistant] I travel the, our whole country all the time. I work with construction companies, with finance companies, with now you do too, insurance companies. I mean, we meet people from every different industry.


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[Assistant] These people aren't on the extreme right. They're not on the extreme left. They're common sense. They're Americans. And I said, you Ben, you're...


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[Assistant] You're like here at, at, at ground zero for political like mayhem. And so what do you expect to see? Like you're, you're the, you're the lightning rod for a lot of this stuff. And so that's what you hear. Has it normal America?


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[Assistant] You know, with some extreme views, are there a small number of people, sure, on both sides? Yes, absolutely. But in general, people are realizing, oh, well that's not a bad point. And then I was on Brian Koppelman's podcast, and we were talking about the same thing. And what's interesting is, you know,


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[Assistant] Uhm, Ben Shapiro's pretty, pretty far on the right, and, and Brian Complman's pretty far on the left, and me, I think they're both really nice guys that are super cool. And, but what I said to him was,


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[Assistant] What you're saying, what I believe is leading to the attitude kind of shifting is


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[Assistant] Basically this, if you're not humble and you think you know everything, then why should I listen to anything that you say? You know, why should, if I'm on the far left, why should I listen to anything? I know everything and everyone on the right is wrong. If I'm on the far right, why should I listen to anyone that, anyone say, anything that anyone's saying on the other side? I know everything.


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[Assistant] If you're humble and you say, you know what? I've got some ideas, but I'm probably not 100% right. You know, maybe I'm only 98% right. No, if you just look at other people and say, oh, you know what? I probably don't have the full solution for this. Maybe I should listen to other people's opinions and try and try and come up with a


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[Assistant] A more broad based idea than just what I think. So I think people are starting to realize


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[Assistant] If you take one extreme view and you don't listen to anyone else, then you're wrong.


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[Assistant] And so, I think people are becoming a little bit more balanced. I certainly hope.


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[Assistant] I've, I, I allude to often times the dark sense of humor in the teams and there's a dark sense of humor in the military and you kinda have to have a dark sense of humor. And I think, did you see the movie Range 15?


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[Assistant] Okay, it's, it's about, it's just a crazy movie that Tim Kennedy and, and, and Matt Best and the Black Rifle Coffee Company, like all those guys.


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[Assistant] I don't know how well it did or whatever. It did good enough. It did good enough. I mean, I'm sure it offended a lot of people. I'm sure it offended a lot of people. But, they did it. So good for good on them. But,


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[Assistant] That's obviously one of many stories. How does that translate to like, when you're dealing with your, with your family? Like, so for instance,


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[Assistant] My wife, when I had to go to college, I had to go to the University of San Diego.


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[Assistant] And so this is my first time in my adult life that I wasn't, like, in a platoon. And so I was, I didn't really think about it, but all of a sudden, I didn't have anyone to, like, attack verbally all day. Because when you're in a single platoon, it's just constant, you know, attack and combat, verbal combat, sometimes physical combat.


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[Assistant] And so when I would come home from school, of course there's my wife, and I'd want to have some verbal sparring matches, so I'd start hacking away at her, you know?


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[Assistant] And finally after three months, she goes, she goes, she goes, she's bright, you know, she says, uh,


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[Assistant] I can't treat my wife as if she's an E5 in a suit.


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[Assistant] And so much time just waiting, you know, it's a hurry up and wait thing. So, oh, what do we need to do on a four hour van ride?


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[Assistant] We're gonna destroy someone, get into a fight.


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[Assistant] Spilled Cheetos everywhere, you know, just like total chaos and mayhem. But yeah, it's all about that. But that, but I guess what I'm asking is, I know, you know, Iris obviously had to get


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[Assistant] No. And so you, you know, you, how'd that work out? Like, the ideal wife, the, I don't wanna say ideal, I'm gonna throw that on you, poor Iris, listen to this, but the squared away, let's say that, the squared away spouse. What does that look like?


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[Assistant] Yeah, it's more like she had the strength to contend with the hard,


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[Assistant] Life that it is. Exactly. Of being married to some guy that's going on constant deployment and isn't around a lot and then when they're gone, by the way, they might die, they might come back horribly wounded, whatever, and you sign up for that as well.


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[Assistant] I've described it, and I forget who I described it to, as emotional independence.


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[Assistant] She was gonna run the show if I'm not there. She's not freaking out, you know. And I think that's, if you're gonna look for a good spouse, they gotta be, you can't be, they can't be codependent, right? Codependence is actually,


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[Assistant] So, yeaah. So, but if you go to the other end of the spectrum, or not, maybe, I don't know, maybe there's, I guess if you go too far on that spectrum, then you get to where, hey, I don't even, oh, you're gone, I wasn't aware of that. Sorry, I'm over here doing my own thing. So you, but you gotta find a good, strong balance, probably leaning towards independent. In my opinion, you gotta be leaning towards independent. Cause if you're not leaning towards independent,


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[Assistant] Yeah, that's uh, that's something to pay attention to. Cause the thing that's kinda weird is when you're young, guys get suckered into the being. It feels all empowering.


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[Assistant] And so it's easy, I think that I've seen that happen a lot where guys get suckered into those situations and that's not a good situation to get.


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[Assistant] Like you're not just doing it for yourself because it's easier, sometimes it's easier to let yourself down, right? Yup. It's easier to let yourself down than to let down this person that's, that's looking at you thinking, hey you could do better than that, come on. Are you serious right now?


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[Assistant] I've been pretty straight forward with Iris on some things. We're working on some projects together. Yep. And it's pretty cool for me to be able to just be real straight forward with her. You know? Yeah. And she's like, no, tell me. Well actually, I don't know how she says it. She says, no, go ahead and tell me.


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[Assistant] You did, the last time you were on, you know, we breezed through Afghanistan pretty quick. We did. But that was actually a really


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[Assistant] Pretty big deployment in terms of what you guys did there.


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[Assistant] And I know there were some details that you wanted to get into on some of those operations and some of the things that you brought home from those operations. Lessons learned, etc. I mean, you were talking about one earlier, talking about the Marduse and bringing the Marduse


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[Assistant] That's it, that's it, that's a good piece of gear to bring out on an operation.


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[Assistant] Once you guys were doing that, we started, the guys in trade at, that we were putting through training, started doing it, started carrying them in. There was some big team guy.


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[Assistant] He would carry the 50 cal, like he looked like he was carrying a 60. He did. And it was a legit good to watch.


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[Assistant] Yeaah, no, the, the blue on blue situation, those guys put 150 rounds into, 150 rounds of 50 cal from, I don't know, 20 meters away. I mean from the corner, it was a building on the corner and they stopped in the corner and just shot. And, uh, those guys coming out of that building after we got the thing under control, I mean I kicked open the door, I saw Tony there, and, and then, but the, and Tony looked pretty much just like normal Tony.


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[Assistant] Everyone else in that building looked like they just saw death, and they actually just did see death. I mean, they're in a building, they get 150 rounds of 50 cal.


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[Assistant] One of the one of the one of the many little like components of this so that guy the guy that was on the rooftop that I was talking to


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[Assistant] You know, weapon, which is the Soviet equipment of the 50 cal, for those of you that don't know. He got lit up with that and hit with RPGs. So he said, I remember, as soon as, you know, as soon as this was all over, we got back to base.


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[Assistant] So when he got lit up, he was in this, he was in a, he was on Camp Corregidor in an Overwatch position looking for IED emplacers. He's sitting there on his sniper rifle, and...


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[Assistant] All of a sudden, he starts taking machine gun fire, and it's, it's a Dishka, and then he gets hit with a couple RPGs. Well, I'm inside with the company commander from, from the, from one of the companies from the first of 506, and we were planning an operation that we were doing the next day. So we started hearing gunfire.


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[Assistant] And all of a sudden we hear RPGs, boom, boom. And I said to him, the machine gun fire starts.


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[Assistant] Like, just Jaco the badass, right? Yes. And all of a sudden, boom, boom, so we hear the RPGs hit. So we go running outside.


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[Assistant] And I'm, I'm still just, I say, hey, don't worry.


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[Assistant] Out of the bottom of the sniper tower, cause we were right next to it, out of the bottom of the sniper tower, out pours that guy, who I'm sure will be on the podcast one day. He comes pouring out of the tower, his weapon, his sniper gun had been blown, like the stock up blown off, bro, by the RPG. And he just looks like, oh my god. And I said, okay, well maybe not.


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[Assistant] It was horrible, but so that's the guy when they're getting, when they're getting shot up with .50 cal, he just thought, and the rest of the guys too, cause everyone knew that this had happened. No, we briefed it. Hey, they, Hey, just imagine the PLO going out to this. I'm saying, Hey guys, these guys have


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[Assistant] Dishka 12.7mm, you know, anti-aircraft gun out there. So, be ready for some significant heavy weapons. And sure enough.


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[Assistant] Where guys would put 50 rounds of 50 cal into a building with blanks, you know, simulating combat and, and then we have a trade out guy in there that would get up and shoot someone and they'd be like, that's bullshit. You know, that guy that that would never happen. And I'm like, oh yes, it would happen. You know, you, we had guys survive.


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[Assistant] 25 millimeter chaingun. From, from Bradley's. And still stumble out of, you know, not Friendly's.


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[Assistant] Not, not for me, but, but, uh, you know, there was an enemy that made it out of buildings that had whatever, however many rounds, a bunch of 25mm chain gun rounds coming out of the building, coming into your building and they'd still live.


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[Assistant] So, you don't know what's gonna happen with bullets. You know? You just don't. No. It's hard to tell.


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[Assistant] Boom. That's an awesome weapon. Now, another one, you know you were telling me another one about...


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[Assistant] Gettin' extracted in like a, like a, like a, like a Russian, like hip 17.


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[Assistant] Yeah, well those are aircraft too, you know, it's like, uhm.


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[Assistant] Those old school aircraft, like when you read about the Vietnam guys, and I'm reading a book right now, those are aircraft.


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[Assistant] They were flying these King, they were, they had Vietnamese pilots in these King Bee aircrafts. Uh huh. And those things, the, the guy came back from one op, they had 48 holes in it. Been shot 48 times.


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[Assistant] And this American SF guy's looking at the aircraft and he's looking at the pilot. He's getting in like you were and he gets in and he's looking at this Vietnamese pilot.


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[Assistant] And the Vietnamese pilot looks cool, he's just like Roger. It's a great quote, the guy says something along the lines of, when I'm flying, I'm just thinking about flying. I'm not thinking about bad guys, I'm not thinking about bullets, I'm just flying my aircraft. If it's my day, it's my day. Period, end of story. But that, coming in a hot extract like that, that's...


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[Assistant] Contracted helicopters, but that was, but it was contracted pilots too.


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[Assistant] And I cut you off so you didn't tell it to me. But you were telling me a story about a Taliban guy getting shot in the leg.


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[Assistant] I'm just thinking mentally from the viewpoint of where the enemy's at, like you're reaching out and touching them accurately way further than they can get you.


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[Assistant] Pretty much. Which again, leans towards you thinking to yourself, we're gonna kick these guys ass every time.


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[Assistant] I'm sure I did. Yea, SF Guy Medal of Honor recipient. But if you go watch the videos,


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[Assistant] I was just, I couldn't believe that. When I, when I, as I was reading, like I was reading a bunch of articles about the situation.


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[Assistant] And then they kept talking about video and I said, oh, you know, I'll check out YouTube. And I saw it and I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it.


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[Assistant] Yeaah. He's so understated. He's like, well, you know, it was a little bit of a hill. Yeaah. And it was a pretty big building. I'm like, it was a cliff. And it was a castle. Talk to the cliff.


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[Assistant] What a freaking awesome guy. You know another thing that we were talking about and


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[Assistant] You made, obviously, and this isn't leaving Afghanistan, but it's getting back early in your career when you were


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[Assistant] And you kinda touched on it when you were on last time, but I was wondering like, a little bit more granularity on what you changed.


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[Assistant] That you went from failing the stocks to, alright, here's me knocking out whatever, a 10.


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[Assistant] Yeah, and it's from a leadership perspective, obviously this applies because from a leadership perspective, if you're, and I was just on Peter Tia's podcast and we were talking about a little bit about that.


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[Assistant] You know, what I said to him, where it first started to occur to me, that was, hey, if my guys don't know what it is that we're trying to accomplish,


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[Assistant] They can't make it, they can't, they can't move, sure I can tell them to move 8 yards forward.


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[Assistant] And then they can't hear me anymore. Now what? They're going to wait for me to get wherever they are. I can say go take that building right there.


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[Assistant] Well now they can't hear me anymore, so now what are they going to do? They're going to sit there and wait for me to come up and tell them to do something else? No, they need to know what we're trying to get accomplished. And then they need to have this, the standard operating procedures down well enough so they, and the parameters that they're allowed to maneuver within, and that allows us to actually accomplish the mission. And that's something, I think I, I mean, I don't even know when I learned that, but,


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[Assistant] Without that strategic objective, and that's a strong word, okay, I get it, I get strategic, I get what it means, and I'm not talking about, you know, global warfare, but when you're in a town,


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[Assistant] And you have a mission objective that, okay, we're gonna get to this building, or we're gonna move to this area, or we're gonna take this piece of terrain, and everybody knows that. And even when those things change, cause as you know,


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[Assistant] You get into a contact or you get into a situation where you change what you're doing.


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[Assistant] You have to let everyone know that, hey, we're breaking contact, we're getting out of here, hey, we're going to Strongpoint this building or whatever. Once everybody knows that,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then they can act on it, then they can carry it out. Same, same thing of what you're talking about there. Now on a bigger picture, of course it still applies on a bigger picture. If your troops in the field don't know what it is you're trying to achieve, then they make bad decisions.


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[Assistant] If they don't know that you're trying to protect the populace, if they don't know that that's a broad strategy, then they get out there and treat the populace, they act like idiots. If they know that's what they're trying to do, then they make better, I'm not saying they make perfect decisions, cause they don't, but they'll make better decisions.


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[Assistant] You know, I run into it with businesses where they're, for instance, trying to go public, so they need to make money every quarter. They need to show that profitability increase. And so the biggest thing they got on their mind is trying to show a good quarter.


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[Assistant] And they'll sacrifice some strategic things like they'll sacrifice a little bit of taking care of a customer.


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[Assistant] Because they want to scrape a little more money out of it, out of the situation. That's a bad strategic play, but they do it short term at the time because they know they gotta make more in the quarter so they can come back and reinvest more. So, but everybody's gotta know that because if everyone thinks, hey,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hey, the number one thing is we, we never let our customers out. Okay, guess what? We lost money this quarter. Now we, now we can't go public because we, and again, this is really, uh, kindergarten level examples, but that's the kind of thing where what you're talking about, if people don't understand what that longer term goal is, then they can't really operate and function on their own, which is a problem.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I kind of went off at the muster on that one kid that asked me


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[Assistant] You know, I just kinda was going off about, look man, every single thing I do is strategic. I'm not making any tactical moves. I'm not, I'm not worried about the tactical wins and losses. Now there's a reason for that. I'm in a good spot right now where a little tactical loss doesn't mean that much to me right now. And it's really easy for me to just focus on the strategic stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You gotta keep that stra, you know, you might have to take some tactical, you might have to, you might have to make some adjustments and win some short-term battles just because that's the way it is, but you should be thinking tactics all the time, or sorry, you should be thinking strategy all the time, you should be thinking long game all the time.


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[Assistant] All the time thinking about the long game. All the time thinking about how does this decision affect


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[Assistant] Where I'm gonna be in the long term. Cause the short term decisions, those are the ones that beat you down.


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[Assistant] The wrong game. And he thought to himself, how often is Jocko thinking about that? And so he asked the question, good on him.


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[Assistant] So I could explain, I'm thinking about it all the time. I'm thinking about it all the time. That's the way you gotta do it.


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[Assistant] I said something the other day, uh, most things don't get finished cause most things don't get started. And people don't even start, people don't even make that move. Right. Of course, hey guess what, big shocker, there's a dichotomy. And that's the bottom line, there's a dichotomy. If you rush into it,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you start moving without having a long term plan, you're probably gonna make a bad move. If you take too long, you're gonna wait too long and the whole world's gonna pass you by. So you have to constantly modulate and figure out where you're at. And no one's gonna be able to give you the answer. I can't sit here and be like, oh, you know what you wanna do right there?


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[Assistant] You wanna make this? No. No one's gonna be sitting there telling you that day by day. You gotta figure that out. And you gotta figure out if it's really, really moving you in the right direction.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The way it's gotta be. When you were talking about coming back to Trader and, you know, you and I both had the, the, the luck.


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[Assistant] To be at trade at, in the positions we were in, I was the, I was the trade at OIC, you were the trade at CMC, so basically we were the senior dudes, we weren't together unfortunately.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What a good job and what a good opportunity to see how things unfold.


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[Assistant] And what a good opportunity to take these standard operating procedures and pressure test them.


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[Assistant] To put this simply to everyone, when you're in a gunfight, there's two horrible things that the enemy will do. They will shoot at you, and they will maneuver.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And when you're using live fire for training, you end me.


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[Assistant] Is a bunch of paper targets. At best, they're mounted on those little carts that can move around, but they're very, very limited. Not even remotely close to what a human being is gonna do. So when you're going with live fire, your enemy neither shoots back at you, nor do they maneuver. So,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To dominate and sure there was that level of of stress of the fact that it is live fire and when you're out like in in the desert


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[Assistant] You are and you and you do do and we still do this where you have to shift fire and you're walking and you're You know, you're you're making sure that you're safe because you can't you know, you can you can shoot each other


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That type of stress compared to the stress of, okay, now the enemy, we're using, we're using laser tag guns or paintball and the enemy is full on maneuvering, they're full on shooting back at us. That's a, that's a big step up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, you know what's, as you were talking about that, one thing that I definitely noticed is


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[Assistant] The, you could have almost 90% of the time that you use the word modify RSOP, you could have used the word simplify. Because most of the time, it was someone saying,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hey, we got this crazy, we, this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna do this and you're gonna do that and there's all these crazy things and they realize that doesn't work so you make it simpler and simpler. Now where that's counterintuitive is


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[Assistant] Like, in Extreme Ownership where I talked about doing SSE.


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[Assistant] And when we first started doing SSE, the plan was real simple. Just smash everything and just take whatever you'd find, right? But that was a horrible plan and it didn't work. So we had to, we had to put something that was a little bit more looked on the surface to be a little bit more complex, even though when you broke down the individual human beings and what they were doing, it was very straightforward and very simple. So,


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[Assistant] So yeaah, yeaah, no, there's no doubt that having that opportunity to watch SOPs get tested and either pass or fail, it was so obvious either way, because


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[Assistant] It was so cool when the platoons and the taskings would start to work together and they'd start to cover and move for each other and they'd start to use decentralized command. They would, they would crush the trade at guys. Or they would, they would at least


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[Assistant] Get the best of them. They'd at least kill them all. Whereas when they're not doing it, it would be comical.


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[Assistant] Four tray deck guys would kill 40 guys or whatever it was. And you'd just be thinking, hm, and you're right, this is where you'd have ego problems would show up.


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[Assistant] Because guys would think, and it was so hard from, from my perspective, from your perspective, when you're like, listen, the, the trade head cadre,


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[Assistant] Is going to do the same, they did the same thing to the last nine troops or the last five troops. They did this exact same scenario and the other troops.


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[Assistant] Used simple standard operating procedures, they covered a move, they used essentialized command, and they, they won.


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[Assistant] Here's what you're doing. This is from my perspective, and I know it's hard, but what you're doing is you're trying to control everyone, or what you're doing is you've got these, these standard operating procedures that are too complicated, or you're not prioritizing and executing, you're just, you've gotta follow these simple rules.


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[Assistant] Anyone, any, any military mind in the world is gonna get the high ground.


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[Assistant] Anybody could figure that out. Any, any military mind is gonna look at a target and do it one of three ways. Or one of four ways. And 50% of those four ways actually is gonna overlap. So you don't have to be a freaking rocket scientist or, or


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[Assistant] Or, or Napoleon, to be able to figure out, okay, here's the target, where do I think the seals are gonna come in from?


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[Assistant] So, that would offend guys, and they'd get into the, hey, this is, this is wrong, and instead of saying, okay, what did I do wrong? Can you just, can you just tell me what I did wrong? Again, cause,


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[Assistant] I'm not sure I understand it. Oh, well, what you did is this. You didn't prioritize next year. You didn't use decentralized command. And they would just say, if you're not gonna listen to that,


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[Assistant] You know, it's a problem. I had a guy at the Mustard just asking me about like, how do you handle it when someone really picks you apart on a debrief? And I'm like, bro.


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[Assistant] You know how I handle that? I, what I do is I look him right in the eye and I say, thank you.


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[Assistant] Thank you for telling me that. Please, thank you and, and I appreciate it. And I'm gonna go look at what you just told me, and I'm gonna try and figure out if I can fix it. Because,


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[Assistant] Otherwise, like you just, I can see it in this guy's eyes, like he's asking me that question because his ego is getting offended.


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[Assistant] It's epic and when guys would, to your point, when guys wouldn't make that step.


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[Assistant] How are them younger guys coming out? You know, everyone talks about the big millennials. And I'm, from what I've seen, when I've talked to the teams and when I've gone out to some training sites, the guys are awesome.


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[Assistant] But yeaah, these guys know for a fact. I mean, they see, they see, you know, memorial services on TV. They know what they're getting into for sure.


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[Assistant] What about for you, as you've gotten older, what kind of mindset changes have you gone through?


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[Assistant] Where, like I just kinda talked about one from my perspective, you know, as I got older, see different things, and I always try and make that perfectly clear to everyone that, you know, I kind of...


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[Assistant] Things that if you could have learned or changed your, your mentality on earlier, like what?


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[Assistant] I don't know if you remember this question that the monster guide asked. Hey, what, what do you do when you, how do you deal with someone who's super negative and about, you know, the


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[Assistant] The, the, the team, or whatever. And, you know, I said, here's a really good leadership technique that you can use. It's very complicated. It's called Listen.


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[Assistant] Instead of always feeling like, hey, anybody that steps to me is getting crushed. No, actually, anyone that steps to me is gonna teach me something. And I'm happy to hear it.


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[Assistant] Yeah, you're gonna find out about it. The 24 hour news cycle is filled with a lot of things that you don't need to know. You don't need to know at all. And that's, that's the kind of way I am, I mean.


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[Assistant] I still look at it, but it doesn't, it, I'm completely, I, I can look at, I can look at 19 headlines in a row, and none of them have any remote impact on my mentality at all.


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[Assistant] Until I see one that says, oh, there was a terror bombing here, and I go, oh, okay, let's see what's going on, or hey, there was a US serviceman killed here, and I'm like, oh, okay, but every other of the 17 headlines that I read that were, uhm, I'm trying to think of a good one right now, cause there's just, you know,


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[Assistant] And then you gotta listen to that Sam Harris, and I forget the female's name that was on, but she did this whole research about it, talking about how the Russian, the Russian bots and all that stuff, and yeaah, you can create headlines that are gonna make people click, and then you can make fictional random


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[Assistant] You can just make up stories. And peep, they'll catch, you know, someone else will report that story as being true. It's a crazy world.


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[Assistant] Totally nuts. So, you gotta learn, you should definitely at a minimum learn to detach when you read the news.


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[Assistant] And so like I've been hyper sensitive to that for a real long time. I do not ever, you know, I don't care what I'm going through. I will not complain about anything. Like I am hyper sensitive about that. At least I try to be. I mean. Yep.


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[Assistant] You know, cold, not gonna, not gonna say anything. Uh, you know, hurt, like I hurt my knee.


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[Assistant] For doing something, I automatically know it's me. I automatically, and I've known that for years, there was a stoner as a matter of fact, was going to, he wanted to go to Princeton.


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[Assistant] I wasn't, we weren't, we weren't together at Team 3 anymore, and so he was talking to some people, and finally he comes to me and he says, hey man, I wanna go to Princeton, I wanna put together this package and go to Princeton. He said, but uh,


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[Assistant] And I'm like, bro, those guys are just jealous, uh, that's not happening. I go, you go and you get your freaking degree from Princeton, are you kidding me? How is that gonna be bad for, and he did, he ended up doing it, and he got in, he got accepted, and, but that was one of those things where it was so obvious to me, like, whoever told you that,


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[Assistant] Is just telling you that cause they don't want you to have, have another punk card to pull on you. Cause like, hey, you're a stoner, you're, you know.


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[Assistant] And this is actually in Way the Warrior Kid 3, this is why I had to address this, which in Way the Warrior Kid 3, have you read it yet?


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[Assistant] He's better at Mark than everything. He's like a little bit smarter, does better on the tests in school and he's a little bit faster and he can do more pull-ups. And then like to take the cake, cause he's a new kid moves in and Mark still thinks he's got the ultimate.


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[Assistant] Punk card to pull, which is, I do jiu-jitsu and I can choke you so none of the other stuff matters. It turns out Danny Reinhardt's been trading for two more years.


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[Assistant] And, and that's exactly what happens, is Mark, instead of saying, wow, I can learn from you, wow, you can help me, wow, uh, that's awesome, I know you worked hard for that. Instead, he just tries to undermine and he just is jealous. And so, that's something that you deal with when you're starting to be, even as a little kid, you know? Yup. As even as a little kid, you can be jealous. So,


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[Assistant] Checking to check yourself if you're being resentful, if you're jealous of someone, those are like the first things I check when I start getting mad at someone. Those are the first things I check when I start getting mad at someone. I go, am I being jealous right now? Yes, I am. Yes, I am. That filter. Yep. That is not, is not good.


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[Assistant] And so that makes Mark even madder cause everyone wants to be friends with him. You know, just cause he's nice. So yeah, you gotta watch out for that. Check yourself. Don't get that. Uh, I wanted to talk about some leadership mistakes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That you've made. And I was thinking to myself, well I could talk, I could call out Jason for leadership mistakes that he's made. That's kind of jacked up if I don't talk about any leadership mistakes that I've made. Now of course I've listed a bunch of leadership mistakes that I've made in the economy of leadership and in extreme ownership. So there's that, but I, I got a couple that I thought of. And I was trying to think of some broad ones. One of them is when I was in Ramadi, I hate to start off like that, when I was in Ramadi,


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[Assistant] I did not do a- as good a job as I should have. And I'll go a little bit further.


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[Assistant] Keeping the rest of our community informed as to what was happening and why it was happening.


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[Assistant] And to be honest with you, the reason I say I'll go further than I just didn't keep him informed, I wasn't even thinking about it. I wasn't even thinking about it. When I got home and one of our good friends said to me, and he was all fired up, and he's like,


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[Assistant] We were reading your, Ezek, we were reading your AARs and quarters every day. Like, so he, every day at trade at, at the time while we were in Ramadi.


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[Assistant] Hey, wait a second. Wait, why are you conducting operations during the daytime? Hey, wait a second. Why are you staying out after you get contacted? Why are you staying in position?


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[Assistant] Hey, wait a second. Why are you working alongside the conventional forces? Why aren't you doing


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[Assistant] Stuff with just special operations. And I did a bad job.


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[Assistant] That's one big one that I wish I would have done a better job, and I just, I just wasn't even paying attention. And you know what it's like, man, I mean, this is my, this is my excuse, is my, it's my fault, because,


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[Assistant] If I could have supplemented that with, hey guys, Jocko here. I know this one sounds a little bit crazy. Here's what's going on. The Iraqi soldiers that we're working with, they don't have night vision.


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[Assistant] They have one flashlight per fireteam. To go out at night with these guys is completely, uh, it doesn't work. And so we gotta go out in the daytime with them sometimes.


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[Assistant] That's an official document that's written a certain way. It's another thing to say, hey guys, Jocko here, here's what's going on. Cause I mean, let's face it, at that time I'd been in for


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[Assistant] But that should have been an indicator if one of my friends was reaching out to me and saying, hey, what's going on? I should have been more cognizant of the fact that people beyond and people that didn't know me at all


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[Assistant] You know, would be thinking what, you know, whoa, this guy's, this guy's a hyper aggressive and they're just out there taking too many risks. It's like, no. And, and what was cool was there were some guys that were in Ramadi.


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[Assistant] That's what I think, and I think I should have explained that better than I did throughout the community. And, you know, I still talk to guys, I still have the opportunity when I, you know, some guys that I'll, I'll still explain this to some guy that I haven't seen, cause you know how it is, you run into a guy that you haven't seen in 15 years.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They'll be like, dude, what were you doing over there? I was like, hey, let me explain it to you. I've had people sit through kind of the, the Ramadi brief.


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[Assistant] And be like, oh, okay, I get it. I get it. Yeah, that makes sense. Hey, Roger.


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[Assistant] Yeah, should have done a better job of that from a leadership perspective. Uhm, I was trying to think of a tactical example of, and this is a real easy story, one time I personally chased down some dude over like multiple rooftops in Baghdad, you know, like, just got in the one man pursuit, well I had another guy like trailing me, but,


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[Assistant] Basically, we're hitting a target, there's a squirter, I'm outside the building as it's happening and all of a sudden, you know, the, the


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[Assistant] The uh, overhead asset reports that there's a squirter and he jumps to another rooftop. And I had a radioman, the radioman was like near me. And we both know the radioman. And he's like, hey! He's like, hey, you went to the next roof! And I was like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Got him. And so I climb up a palm tree. I climb up a palm tree.


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[Assistant] Like in between a palm tree and like the garage and I get to the roof and I get and then he's like he jumped to the next one and so the radio, the JTAC is in the street with me following down and telling me what's going on and basically I left my, I shouldn't have done that, you know, I should have sent a couple guys and eventually I got someone else with me and then we got the guy.


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[Assistant] But, you know, I just was trying to think of, hey, where did I make some mistakes that were more on a tactical level? And that's one right there is, you know, I'm in charge of the assault and if I'm out there chasing a guy from rooftop to rooftop, I'm not doing my job.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I tried to get a hold of it, but of course it's classified so I couldn't have it. But yeaah, it was pretty cool to watch, you know, doing like parkour in kit.


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[Assistant] And uh, yeaah, so that was one. And then the last thing, again I was trying to think of like a variety of different mistakes and here's something from a leadership perspective that I really, when I look back I wish I would have done a better job and that's helping guys with their finances, young guys. I mean,


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[Assistant] How many young guys, re-enlist, they get a $150,000 re-enlistment bonus, and they show up at work two days later, they've got a new Ford F350 Super Duty Harley Davidson, uh, version, and they have, you know, they have a $62,000 truck.


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[Assistant] And guys that would rent instead of buy, you know, just all those things where, and, and I wasn't like super at it, but I was ahead.


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[Assistant] And I should have been telling guys like, hey man, let me talk to you. Hey guys, let's do a little, let's talk for half an hour about where you're at. Right now, let's come up with a strategic objective of where you're gonna be.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And five years. You know, do you still want to be renting an apartment in IB? Because that's probably not great. Or do you want to be buying a place? Get with one of your buddies. So, I never talked about that kind of stuff. And again, what it boils down to is my own, my own, uh, being obsessed. Like,


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[Assistant] The quote was, like, whatever, six months ago we were having a conversation, and I said something like, hey, Dave.


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[Assistant] And so, I mean you and I were having a conversation about a couple of people that I obviously don't like at all. They don't know that.


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[Assistant] Support what I'm trying to get done, so I'm pretty lucky in that way. But yeah, if you, if you let that out, that's bad.


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[Assistant] It's like, actually let me tell you what I actually want to do. What I actually want to do is I want to win. What I actually want to do is I want to have my platoon able to get the support that they need. What I actually want to do is I want to be able to have my platoon get the support that they need so that we can actually do a better job doing our mission.


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[Assistant] That's what I'm doing. What I care about is my guys and my mission. That's what I actually care about. And if I've gotta be polite to someone,


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[Assistant] And, and you, or I'm making really bad decisions, and all you do is support me, and you're a yes man, well your guys are gonna lose respect for you. So you, there's times where you have to say, hey listen guys, here's what's going on. I don't agree with everything that the boss says, but you know what?


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[Assistant] He's the boss right now. And what we're gonna do is try, the easiest way, the way for me to get him to make better decisions is if he trusts me. So right now what we're gonna do is we're gonna kick ass. And so, suck it up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is the best option. The other option is me to have an antagonistic relationship with the boss, in which case all he's gonna do is screw us over. So, how do you guys wanna play this? You know what I mean? So sometimes you gotta be transparent about that stuff. And, and that's fine too. I mean, I've, I've been in situations where I've had to do that. Where it's like, okay, hey guys, here's what's going on. I know this seems a little bit crazy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I know that the boss may seem like he's making a rash decision on this. Here's what we're gonna do.


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[Assistant] Let's explain his perspective. Here's what the boss is seeing. He doesn't want this to happen again. He's tightening the noose. He's tightening the leech way more than I want him to. But guess what? Let's show him that he can let loose on the leech again. Let's get in line. You know, so you gotta have those conversations sometimes. But, broadly?


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[Assistant] I'm gonna get along with everybody. Why not? I wanna do my mission. I wanna take care of my guys. The best way to do that is if I have good relationships up and down the chain of command. Boom.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They have a name for it in the teams. That guy's a ticket puncher. They're trying to get their ticket punched. Oh, he's just trying to get his ticket punched. He's trying to grab onto that guy's, grab a hold of that person's coat tails and ride him up. You know, ride him up to the next rank. It's like, no. Everyone sees through that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Leif Babin told me that. Hey, you're so patient, I don't see how you do it. I don't see how you do it. You know, this is when he was younger. Like bro, how do you deal with that?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I care about our task unit. I will make this happen. I can absorb some impacts, no factor.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sure. Well, cause the other option, the other answer I was gonna give is, I'm not acting differently in one situation. I don't go, hey boss, yes I got it, and then go back to the platoon and go, he's an idiot. No, no, no, no, I don't do that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think we could, you know, so I don't act differently. I'm not a different person in front of, you know, I was doing an event the other day and I was like talking to a company and I was backstage talking to the CEO.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we were just, you know, and all of a sudden, you know, there's like, he's like, hey, it's only another half an hour before you go on. Do you need some time?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I was like, no, I don't need any time because the person that's going to walk out on that stage is me and I'm not acting any different way. It's just me. I'm going to, you know, I don't need to get into character. I'm in character. I'm walking around on me. This is me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he was like, oh, that's awesome. So same thing. I don't, when I'm dealing with the boss that I don't like or whatever, I don't show that to anybody.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, they're gonna go with it. Yeaah. That's...


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[Assistant] That's the, uh, that's the extreme ownership story. And it was me sitting around with your task unit commander, the other task unit commander from all the different teams. And everyone's, you know, say they got this problem, that problem, the other problem. You know, and the Commodore at the time, who was a friend of mine, says, hey Jocko, what do you need? And I was like, hey sir, we don't need anything, we're good to go.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which this, they gave it even more impact because he's just like, you know, he knows me, he goes, Jocko, what do you need? I'm like, nothing sir, we're good to go. And you can see, you know, four months later when I go in there and I say, hey sir, we need X, he goes, cool.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Go to supply, I'm calling them right now. Boom, taken care of. That's how it should be. Another thing that I was thinking about,


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[Assistant] When you were talking, somebody asked me at some point


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[Assistant] You know, at which, what point did you start sort of like looking at yourself?


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[Assistant] Kinda what you're talking about. At what point did I start to look at myself?


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[Assistant] From an external position and say from a detached perspective and say wait, are you being jealous? Are you being resentful? Are you complaining?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I can tell you right now that when I stepped into a leadership position, what I knew was that as you said,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Every guy in my platoon is looking at me. And I looked at myself the same way. I s- cause as a young enlisted guy, cause my first leadership inside of a platoon was as an, as an assistant platoon commander, you know, as an ensign.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so, sure, I was a little bit, you know, when I was in E5, I was a s- I was a...


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[Assistant] Three platoon, E5. And are you in a leadership position? You know, a little bit, sure. But not really. A little bit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When I was at Platoon Ensign, I was thinking the whole time, these guys are looking at me just like I used to look at my officer. So if I complain that it's cold, or I complain that it's, because when my officers used to do that, dude this sucks. Oh really? I'd be like, I would, I would just, I would, I'd just, I would get furious.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Quite frankly, when I started putting in an officer package, as a young enlisted guy, and I was like, wait a second, these guys, I want these guys to think that I actually should be in charge, I need to tighten it up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They're looking at me right now thinking, why does Jaco think he should be an officer? Here's why. Here's, I need to act like I actually deserve this. So that was a real precursor


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you're in charge of me? You're making more money than me? You're making the decisions tonight on this operation you didn't bring your handset?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Really? That's where we're at? I know what that felt like and so I held myself to a high standard because I didn't, didn't want somebody to be looking at me thinking.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Jock was complaining. He's weak. He's making a, he's, he forgot a piece of gear. He didn't show up on time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He didn't show up on time. You know how many times I was late when I was in the US Navy? For 20 years? Zero. Zero times late. Zero. Never. Why? Paranoia. High level of paranoia. Don't wanna have, guys. When my officers were late,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, that's a young, arrogant kid for sure. Absolutely. That's me. But I, I, I ate that and I held on to it. And that's one of the first things that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Into like, you need to be a better person, you know? If you're gonna be in charge, it went from like this attitude that I'm kinda portraying right now of like, oh you suck. Into like, hey, you need to do a better job. You need to hold yourself to a high standard. You need to be a better person.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you're gonna be in charge of these guys, you need to hold the line. And you need to elevate that line. So that had, that definitely had a big impact on me. And bro, if anybody knows this, you do. You knew me when I was E4, 20 years old, maniac, right? Yeaah. And then you, you know, you ran into me however many years later and you're like, hm, seems a little bit different, you know? Not totally different. But, cause even when I was a young kid, I was fired up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're, you, you just, there's some things that you have, that, that you, it's like you can't be taught. Yeaah, but you, you can't, like someone can't tell you this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For some reason there's some things that people can't tell you. Unless you can just completely open your mind and get humble and put your ego in check, which is really hard to do when you're 22, 23, 24.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like there's things that I look at and I go, oh, you know what, I've heard that before. I learned that lesson, I got told that lesson, but I didn't learn it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I, I, I did those things. Like when I was a platoon commander. I was doing this stuff. I wasn't, I wasn't as crystallized.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm gonna, hey, why does that guy do that? He always tells me what's going on. Okay, I'm gonna always do that. You know, like that kind of thing. It's, but, but like you said, when you get done with a job, you look at him and be like, man, let me just do that one more time, because I will knock this thing out of the park.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was telling him this stuff, you know? I was like, hey man, here's what's going on. Like, hey, we need to do this. Hey, you, when you go in and brief this guy, you need to be, like, this, this stuff, I was doing it, but then the next deployment, it was like when I was, you know, when I was working with Leif and Seth,


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[Assistant] You know, it was me saying, hey man, come here. And I, you know, those guys would whip out the freaking, uh, the wheel books, you know? Like after they realized what was going on, which was like three days into our, our, our task unit, I'd be like, hey,


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[Assistant] But as far as actually taking it and crystallizing it, that was absolutely my first, the first FTX I went on with Tray Dad.


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[Assistant] And watch the, watch the task unit out there just fall apart. And all I was doing was sitting there thinking, if this was my task unit,


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[Assistant] I basically condensed everything that I had told my guys, and said, okay, here's what you guys need to do. And that was, cover move, simple, prioritize, next, decentralized command.


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[Assistant] And they all kind of overlap. Yea, they definitely are intertwined and they overlap and you do have to throw extreme ownership on there only because...


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[Assistant] If you don't take ownership of the problems, then they're not going to get solved and that is going to hurt you. So yeaah.


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[Assistant] Yeah. One of the, one of the last thing and we're getting kind of like...


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[Assistant] Getting pretty long here, but uhm, you know, one of the things I wanted you to talk about, and I know this isn't really, well I guess it is, cause as a leader of your family,


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[Assistant] Uhm, I know that we, we have to, we have to lead our family, right? And one of you, you posted something the other day that was legit. Uhm, I think it was called A Promise to My Daughter. And I was, I just asked if you could bring it in because I think if you don't mind reading that.


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[Assistant] To everyone, I think it's a pretty cool, uh, setup of how to take ownership of, of your family and how to, how, what you, what you as a leader and as a dad.


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[Assistant] And as a father and as a husband, what you are putting forth.


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[Assistant] As your strategy, with your daughter. And I thought it was pretty awesome, so if you wouldn't mind reading that, that'd be cool.


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[Assistant] Well, you'll have to write one a little bit specific to him. Very similar, I'm sure.


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[Assistant] Yeaah. No, that's awesome. And uh, that's really cool and I'm bet a lot of people will A. Listen to it and B. Plagiarize it and you know. Ab-absolutely. Yeaah. For their own family.


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[Assistant] But no, that's awesome man. And uhm, like I said, we're, we're going pretty long right now. So, I think that's a good place to wrap up this one.


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[Assistant] In long game slash strategic, instead of short game slash tactical, you're gonna end up in a better spot.


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[Assistant] That's one of the biggest, one of the biggest things I got from doing this podcast is Captain Plum saying when they were in the, in the Hanoi Hilton. Yea yea. And him saying, if you were annoyed with your prison bunkmate. Yea. It was your fault. Yea.


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[Assistant] Yeaah. I thought you were going to use the word reverse. Reversal. I thought that's what you were going to handle the transition.


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[Assistant] OriginMain.com, that's where you can discuss. Also, Jeans. Yes, American. American, yeaah. Yes. Which we are producing right now. We are hiring more people to produce even more, so my apologies on it. If you're ordering right now, maybe we don't have your size, we're working it. We're working it hard. We're growing.


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[Assistant] Supplements. The best kind of supplements, by the way. Yeaah. There was some, there was some people freaking out. Sure. On the strawberry slayer. Have you tried strawberry slayer yet?


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[Assistant] Like right after I PT. And then, when do you feel hungry for your next meal?


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[Assistant] Hybrid situation. Here's what I said the other day. If you put in front of me


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[Assistant] Haagen-Dazs strawberry milkshake. Yes. Right? Sure. Nestle's strawberry quick.


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[Assistant] And Strawberry Slayer Mock. And I was gonna die.


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[Assistant] Satisfaction, 100%. Pure short-term, like the long game is out of the picture. Yes, sir. I'm going straight to the strawberry slayer, MOLK, because that's what tastes the best. That is the taste test, right? No one does a taste test like that. I'm not throwing a caveat on there, but the Haagen-Dazs is gonna be sugary, or the Nestle's Quick is gonna give you a sugar, no. We're taking the long game, totally out of the picture, we're going pure,


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[Assistant] Short term, tactical taste. Where you at? Strawberry Slayer. Break it.


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[Assistant] One time Pete, Pete was trying to like tell me product names. And he's like, he's like brainstorming. Pete goes, you know, Pete's like Mr. Creative, right? He's like into being creative. Yea, he even told me. Yea, yea, yea. Oh yea, he'll tell you. Like, that's his creative stuff, right? So Pete's like, hit me up, he says. So he started sending me all these.


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[Assistant] Yeah, some of them were real funny. Actually, I texted him. He texted Brian and me. He's texted us all these names and I was like, okay, stop no more. He just started laughing. Yeah, so check that. He probably had a little too much discipline. Go.


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[Assistant] So you're on 5 hours of sleep right now. Did you sleep on the plane? No. Can you sleep on planes? Yes. I can sleep on planes like a boss.


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[Assistant] I can sleep on planes, not as well as Echo though. Echo gets the world championship belt. We're sleeping on planes. We get on a plane, I got a plane with him. Within, within 38 seconds, he's asleep. He looks, he puts his sunglasses on, he looks like he's awake. But it's a lie.


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[Assistant] It's like a shake. Yeah, I think actually, I think the way that they are, they are actually suitable for their audience. So that's true. The strawberry, the Warrior Kids Strawberry Mulk is just a little bit, a little bit lighter, we'll say, cause it does have less protein.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the one, the adult one is a little bit heavier. Gotcha. A little bit more like that Haagen-Dazs hitter.


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[Assistant] Maybe I guess if there was someone that couldn't hit an 8,000 pound deadlift, then they might come at me.


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[Assistant] Come at me bro. You know what I'll say? Lift harder. Yea man. Drink more.


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[Assistant] We are working, we are working currently at this time, so that by the time fall rolls around, we offer the heaviest of heavyweight hoodies. That's the plan. I'm talking big time.


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[Assistant] That's what I think. Yeah, no, if, if, there are some things where I'd be like, this looks stupid, therefore I will not wear it. So we are correct, that puts me at a level one.


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[Assistant] And don't forget about the Warrior Kid podcast. Yes. Which comes out not as frequently as it should. It should step up this summer as time opens up to create and record that particular podcast.


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[Assistant] Awesome. Yeaah, he's a firefighter up in Ventura County. And uh, he's got a farm as well. And his son Aiden.


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[Assistant] The young warrior kid makes soap so that everyone in the world can stay clean.


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[Assistant] And sometimes Echo puts cello music behind him. And he puts explosions in him.


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[Assistant] Do you ever feel like maybe we should just get a couple of cello players in here?


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[Assistant] You know, my alerts, my alerts actually come onto my phone. They like, spring up.


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[Assistant] From the YouTube app. From the YouTube app. Yes. Which is pretty cool.


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[Assistant] This is what I'm worried about. I'm worried about, since you're very decentralized, since there's a lot of decentralized command here, I'm worried that if people don't subscribe, all of a sudden you're just gonna start putting the little thing at the end of your enhanced videos that says, that says,


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[Assistant] Psychological Warfare, iTunes, Google Play, mp3 platforms, if you wanna, if you wanna wake up call.


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[Assistant] Which a lot of people say, can't you make an alarm? Can't you make an alarm? Can't you make an alarm? Yes, you can use psychological warfare as an alarm. There's a bunch of alarm options there. There's also something on there if you're, if you're feeling like you want to eat a donut or you want to eat a bag of Cheetos.


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[Assistant] When's the last time you ate a bag of Cheetos? One time I ate a whole bag of Hershey's Kisses. And this is when I was in the teams. I'm talking a grown man.


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[Assistant] But, when I, when I look at them, or like the last time I tried to sip one, I was like, eugh.


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[Assistant] Who's the most, who's the most powerful character in Star Wars? Darth Vader. This doesn't seem like he's kind of a chumpsum.


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[Assistant] The book is called Where There's a Will. There is a good message. Talked about it already. Check that one out. It is available now. Also, Way of the Warrior Kid 1 and 2. Mark's Mission is 2. Number 1 is Way of the Warrior Kid.


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[Assistant] Check those out for your kid to teach your kid these lessons. These lessons that Jason and I just talked about for two plus hours are broken down, simplified, and, and sprinkled


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[Assistant] sprinkled throughout these books so that your kid is gonna read them and your kid is gonna say things to you. Like, dad, I think that might be your ego talking.


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[Assistant] So why? Because I wish somebody would have told me about my ego. I wish somebody would have explained to me that I was resentful. I was jealous. I was... I was... whining. No one did.


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[Assistant] So, uh, get those books. Also, if you got a younger kid, you can get Mikey and the Dragons as well. Which, again, this is the thing where your kid gets taught a lesson. Hey, I didn't listen to my dad.


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[Assistant] With a bunch of like real, really squared away people. Business people.


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[Assistant] And we start talking about kids, and then I say, hey, wait a second, who here listened to their parents?


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[Assistant] No one raises their hands, like very few. There's the one occasional, two occasional, uh, Eddie Haskells.


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[Assistant] Most, most, but what happens is, when they hear it from another angle,


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[Assistant] About the lessons that we learned overseas now. You can apply them in your team, in your business, in your life. Also, we got Echelon Front Leadership Consultancy.


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[Assistant] You know why we're very busy? We're very busy because no matter what problem you have in your team, in your business, the problem is a leadership problem. And if you wanna get it solved, you gotta solve the leadership.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then they're gonna solve the problems in your company. So it's me. It's Leif Babin.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] JP Denell, Dave Burke, Flynn Cochran, Mike Cirelli, Mike Baima, and Jason Gardner. If you want us to help you, go to Ashlandfront.com for details. We got the muster.


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[Assistant] Chicago's done. Did it sell out? Yes it did. How'd you like the mustard? It was your first mustard, Jason. How'd you like it?


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[Assistant] Don't you wish you got to go to that when you were 25 years old?


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[Assistant] Yeah. That's not normal, right? Eh, I mean when you say there was people, there was probably... Okay.


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[Assistant] Sydney, Australia, December 4th and 5th. It's gonna sell out. We got people in Australia? Yes, we do. When I went to Brizzy,


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[Assistant] Home of David Hackworth, Brisbane. That's where we moved. Take it. Yea. Cool. And if you want to come to that, go to ExtremeOwnership.com. Get on it early. EF Online.


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[Assistant] If you can't come to the muster, or you can't bring your entire company to the muster, because the muster is expensive, then


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Doesn't work like that. Just like you can't go to one jiu-jitsu class, or even one week's worth of jiu-jitsu class. You can't go to a two day jiu-jitsu seminar and now you're good to go. No. You need to keep training. And that's what happens here as well. So you, it's not a, it's not an inoculation. You gotta get it.


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[Assistant] Repeatedly, and that's what EF Online does, or if you can't make it to the muster.


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[Assistant] Go to efonline.com. And also, EF Overwatch.


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[Assistant] Taking proven leaders from Spec Ops and Combat Aviation.


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[Assistant] Hire for their character, hire for their leadership capability and then teach them the industry specifics they'll pick up and they will fill in the leadership holes that are causing you problems. And if you want to hear


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or you want to hear more about war or leadership from Jason or me, then all of us are on the interwebs. Jason is on Instagram, jason.n.gardener. He's on Twitter, jason.n.gardener. He's on Facebook as well, jason.gardener. And obviously,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Echo's at Echo Charles, and I am at Jocko Willink. And thanks to all the veterans out there, like Jason.


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[Assistant] Who did their time on the line and thanks to everyone else out there right now in the fight. Thanks for protecting our way of life. You got any other closing thoughts?


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[Assistant] And also thanks to police and law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, secret service, and all the first responders. Thank you all for keeping us safe here at home. And remember that we all make mistakes.


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[Assistant] But the mistakes that you can't recover from are the ones that you don't own, the ones that you don't admit.


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[Assistant] So step up, admit your mistakes and own your mistakes and then, no matter what,


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[Assistant] This is Jocko Podcast number 170 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. It is time for some Q&A. Okay. It has been a while.


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[Assistant] Good question. Yes, obviously, give a group talk. That's affirmative. You get everyone together. Hey guys, my name is... Bill.


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[Assistant] Some judgement calls that you have to make. Because...


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[Assistant] You're gonna introduce yourself, but if you're taking over a well-functioning team, then guess what? You're not going in to revamp everything immediately because everything's going fine.


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[Assistant] So hey, I'm happy to be working with you guys. Looking forward to it. I know you guys have a great reputation. Glad to be a part of the team. Awesome.


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[Assistant] If you have any questions, let me know. I'm here. That's easy. If you're taking over a team that's not working well,


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[Assistant] Like there's problems and that's why somebody got fired and that's why you're coming in there. You might need to address some of those things. Hey listen, I know things have been a little off track.


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[Assistant] I'm gonna look at what's going on, I'm gonna take input from you guys, we probably need to make some changes. We're gonna do it together as a team, that's where we're moving from here. We need to get back to where we're supposed to be. Boom, something like that. And again, there's gonna be people on that team that have been busting their ass and working really hard, and if you go in there and just disparage everyone,


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[Assistant] And then yes, do you meet with people individually? Absolutely. You go around, you meet with them, and when you- what do you talk to them about? You talk to them about them.


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[Assistant] So, go, yes, and talk to everyone. Take notes. Maybe not right in front of them, so you look like a nerd.


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[Assistant] But, you know, afterwards you go, hey, Bill has three kids, his wife also works at the company, he's interested in soccer and basketball, whatever, you just take those notes.


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[Assistant] Don't go in there looking like an idiot. Don't go in there thinking that, oh, I just, I'm the boss man. So everyone has to bow down and, and.


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[Assistant] Bow down to my superiority. No. They're actually mad at you. Right? The thing is they're mad at you. So I remember one time I was taking over a small element.


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[Assistant] And, one of my friends was a part of the element, and I went in, like 20 guys, I went in, hey,


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[Assistant] And I walked in, but I just had a notebook with like five things I wanted to talk to them about.


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[Assistant] You brought a notebook, you're always squared away, that's why you're putting in charge. That's why you're putting in charge. So like, just a little impression of, hey man, I'm, I take this stuff seriously.


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[Assistant] Just trying to be prepared. That was good. In case there's anything, you know. Yeah man. Topic comes up.


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[Assistant] Hey man, how's it going? How long you been here for? I've been here for four years. Oh cool. Do you you?


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[Assistant] Now that being said, if the guy says, you know what, I've noticed some things around here that need changing.


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[Assistant] You know, if, it's like when you get a micromanager, you're working for a micromanager, bring a notebook. They see you writing stuff down, they think it's, they're like happy.


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[Assistant] Check, check. Echo's not prepared for you to take notes on him, we got it.


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[Assistant] If I ever had to punish someone, when I had to administer punishment on my troops,


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[Assistant] Right? Like, even if a guy got in trouble out in town, got drunk, got in a fight.


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[Assistant] Did something stupid. I would still look at that and think to myself, how could I have-


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[Assistant] Allow this guy to not realize what a disaster it is, how much trouble he's gonna get in, what kind of international incident he's gonna cause, how that's gonna hurt us and the team strategically, all those things. How did I let that happen?


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[Assistant] So that's what you should not be looking to punish. And just like I just said, you should be looking to build relationships. You should be looking to show people a better way of doing things.


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[Assistant] A way that's more smooth and more efficient and doesn't disrupt what the team efforts are.


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[Assistant] Explain how it impacts the team. Explain how it impacts them. That's also important. Uhm, you've got to have people rehearse and


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[Assistant] And retrain, cause now I'm talking about how do you get people to do the right thing, right? Without punishing them.


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[Assistant] So we're trying to avoid punishment. How do we avoid punishment? By training.


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[Assistant] Yeah, that's what it is. If you're a sergeant and you want to deal with your men way without punishment, well...


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[Assistant] Think of what the mistakes you're making. When you're, when you're, when you're fire team or you're...


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[Assistant] Your platoon does something wrong? Why did they make that mistake? Did they make the mistake because they wanted to?


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[Assistant] No, they made it because you were a bad leader at that point in time. What could you do better? Hey guys, what didn't you understand? Oh!


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[Assistant] You guys messed up this training operation. I'm gonna restrict your weekend duty. I'm gonna restrict you to weekend duty, meaning you can't go out in town.


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[Assistant] Right? But if you say, hey listen guys, we did a bad job. I know I must have made a mistake in trying to


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[Assistant] Explain this information to you all because we didn't do what we were supposed to do.


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[Assistant] Sometimes you do have to punish if people do something stupid, especially after they've been warned a couple times.


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[Assistant] I've almost never punished people.


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[Assistant] Yeah. But the reason is, why didn't I punish people? Because people weren't doing stupid things. They were doing what they were supposed to be doing. They were doing...


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[Assistant] Yeah, I mean, I probably, I don't even know if I, I probably, I think I had like a one or two captain's mask where I had to bring somebody in and drop the hammer on them. That's because they did dumb stuff.


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[Assistant] Yeah, clearly there's a dichotomy here. I know it's my favorite word apparently according to Dean Lister.


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[Assistant] There is a dichotomy here. Because... fear.


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[Assistant] Is something good that you should take advantage of, so it's kind of good to be afraid because it keeps you on edge. Edge, it keeps you from slacking.


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[Assistant] So what I obviously failed to communicate well in the book Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual is the dichotomy between these spectrum, the spectrum of fear that you can have.


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[Assistant] No fear. Well guess what? You get cocky, you can get arrogant, uhm, if you have too much fear, you can't even get out of the gate.


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[Assistant] You just freeze. You hesitate. So like all dichotomies, you gotta balance those two.


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[Assistant] The way you balance those two is to try and do things that make you feel fear. Right? Try and do things that, that make you feel fear. So that way you get used to it.


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[Assistant] You can overcome it, you can deal with it, you can utilize it. And if you have a fighter, you ever hear UFC fighters that are like, I'm afraid every time I get in the ring.


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[Assistant] Pretty much everybody. Yeah, pretty much everybody. I'm afraid, cause you're, you're afraid you're gonna get knocked out, you're afraid this, you're afraid that.


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[Assistant] Yeah, there's a healthy level of fear. It can also get, get the best of you. So keep it balanced.


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[Assistant] And the, and so to continue with that thought in order to embrace the fear, what do you do? You step, you go into it. So there you go. There's your answer. Cool. Next question.


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[Assistant] This is something that leaders have to deal with all the time. So, clearly out of the gate, things that are immoral, unethical, or illegal, if you participate, you're guilty. That's the way it is.


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[Assistant] Now, things that are a matter of opinion, that's where you might have to play the long game. Like, maybe you don't want to do something a certain way, and if you, but if you think, oh well,


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[Assistant] I think the jiu-jitsu class warmups should be doing these exercises.


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[Assistant] If I go along with this, like if you ask me to do nine things that are pretty menial,


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[Assistant] And you're my boss and I say, yep, cool, got it, boss, no problem. And you ask me to do something else, that's me, yep, cool, got it, boss, no problem. And you ask me to do something else, me, cool, got it, boss, no problem. Then you ask me to do something that's downright stupid and dangerous. And I go, hey boss, I need to talk about this, I'm not sure, can you explain to me why we're doing it this way? Because there's a possibility that someone could really get hurt and you go, aww.


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[Assistant] That's what we're hoping for. That's why we're trying to build relationships. NOW!


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[Assistant] All that being said, yes we're playing a long game. There are times, and this is a really sketchy area to enter into, there are times where


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Standing up and saying, this is wrong to exterminate Jews. I protest. How long would he have lived if he had done that?


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[Assistant] He, even though he knew, like he would, he would see them executing people. He would see them executing Jews.


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[Assistant] And he knew it was wrong, he thought it was wrong, he felt it was wrong.


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[Assistant] And if he would have stood up and said, Hey, what you're doing is wrong.


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[Assistant] Then he wouldn't have been able to save anyone. He would have been killed himself. So even in that situation,


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[Assistant] The Jewish people are making good workers here. I'm gonna, I'm gonna continue to use them or whatever. You know, maybe he built up a whole new, you never know.


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[Assistant] Influence, when you lose your influence because you stand up, it might not be the best move.


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[Assistant] And the thing that you have to weigh for this, what you have to weigh with this is,


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[Assistant] You are participating. And actually, you know, they say Oscar Schindler felt completely guilty because he did participate and he was a part of


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[Assistant] of what was happening. He did his best to stop as much as he could but he wished he would have stopped more and


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[Assistant] You know, at some point, maybe you see a little six year old girl getting shot and you think, you know what? I should screw it.


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[Assistant] I should stand in front of that bullet and take that bullet for that little girl, you know? That's the kind of guilt that he felt. So.


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[Assistant] There are times where you really have to weigh this out. And also I'll tell you,


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[Assistant] I mean, even in things that aren't this big ethical dilemma.


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[Assistant] Head on conflict is generally not the best way to solve problems.


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[Assistant] That's not as always, but generally speaking, we do a better job. The outcome is better when we avoid conflict.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, of course, anyone listening to this thinks, oh you take that to extreme, this is someone that never stands up for anything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, and that's bad. And it's also bad from a leadership perspective. If, if your team is looking at you and they think, huh, Jocko never sticks up for us. He never gives the boss any pushback. So we just, we're just at the whim of this tyrannical boss and Jocko is no buffer to it. That's what they see. So you can't just be a pushover. But at the same time, if you go to your troops and you say, hey, listen guys, here's what's going on. The boss has got a lot of ideas right now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You were saying, and I think you were wrong actually, you were saying that, that uhm, standing up and doing the right thing is the same thing as


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[Assistant] And now, you put someone, some yes man in my place, and then that yes man gets everyone killed. Cause it was a stupid, stupid plan.


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[Assistant] They send a recon mission across the river. One night. Someone dies. They come back.


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[Assistant] The guys go down, they drink a couple bottles of wine in the bottom of a, they don't do the mission.


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[Assistant] You help with other tasks, you look for work. If you look for work, you're gonna find it. You're gonna find it.


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[Assistant] This is beautiful. So let's say we're in a platoon, there's something going on, uhm, in a mid-grade position.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I realized, like, I wanna be a leader, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What I would usually do is I would, I would let things escalate to a point to where when I


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Phased. He feels like I jumped down and micromanaged his platoon and why are you doing this? Everything was going fine. So I don't want to do that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So what, let's say, same thing's happening. Things are going a little bit bad.


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[Assistant] You, yes you want to be in charge, yes you should look for work, but you can't step on toes. Don't jump in every time, chance you get, like Captain America.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's gonna offend people. Cause, and I'll tell you why it offends people. It's rightfully so. You know why it offends people? Because what is it about? Themself. It's about me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I wanna be a leader. I, me, me want to lead. That's what it's about. And everyone recognizes that. If what you really wanna do, is you want the team to win.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you realize that sometimes you're going to be in a supporting role and sometimes there might be a situation where you need to lead


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Almost hesitantly, you know what? Leadership needs to happen. I'll go make it happen because the team needs it to win. I'm here for the team. So don't be the person about yourself.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We don't like that person. I don't even like that person. As much as I love people that want to step up and lead, I don't want that person that's like looking for themselves.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, sure. Does that include when someone else on your team makes a mistake? Yes. But how can that be?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, let me ask you these questions. Here's what I'd be thinking. Uhm, the teammate was in error. Why? Why did the teammate make a mistake?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What mistake did I make? My coworker dropped the ball. What mistake did I make?


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[Assistant] Did I not do a good job of identifying that Bill was a little bit slow on the uptake? And therefore he needed a little extra preparation for this.


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[Assistant] You go down and you say, hey guys, you guys messed up this thing.


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[Assistant] Uh, why did it happen? Now think about the team where everyone goes, well, you know, it's our fault. Mostly Bill. Right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I'll tell you, when I, when I look at a platoon and Bill made a mistake, I don't look at Bill.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which guy do you want to work for? Which guy do you, which, which team do you want? You want the team where people are taking ownership of the problem, not blaming Bill.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We own it. Ownership is actually owning it.


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[Assistant] Bill doesn't, Bill can't get this part of the procedure done right. Here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna put Bill into this other position that's an easier part of the procedure. We're gonna make sure he knows how to do that. Meanwhile, we're taking Mike and Mike is gonna go down here and he nails this procedure and he's gonna spend, by the way, an extra 15 minutes a day during lunch. He's gonna get Bill trained up so Bill can eventually do that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then actually there's a third part, which is you implement the solution.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You identify a solution for the problem and then you implement the solution. Yes. That's what you do.


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[Assistant] Yeah, well what bothers me the most about this question is I feel like


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[Assistant] There was this one guy who was part of the team who made this mistake.


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[Assistant] Is exactly what you are saying Echo. Yes it is. And if you look at it, when Bill makes the mistake himself, he's alone in a room and he's supposed to


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, he's supposed to put part A on top of part B and bolt them together. That's his part of the job. He's alone in a room doing that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There are plenty of people and definitely plenty of machine gunners that when they shoot that weapon in the wrong direction, you know what they say?


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[Assistant] The, the leader in this team, the leader in this team, you know what he says? No, it was the machine gunner's fault.


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[Assistant] And it's the but really that you need to check yourself on.


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[Assistant] Are you surfing the internet? Are you watching YouTube videos?


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[Assistant] That's my question. What are you doing before you go to sleep at night? Are you looking at Twitter? Are you looking at Instagram posts? Instagram videos?


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[Assistant] When you could be reading. So, so there you go. Stop wasting a bunch of time. And then, what about audiobooks? What are you doing when you're mowing the lawn? What are you doing when you're trimming the hedges? What are you doing when you're pulling weeds? What are you doing when you're cleaning the dishes? Get some audiobooks. Get some audiobooks. What are you doing first thing in the morning? What are you doing? Are you


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Waking up, checking your email, sitting around, waiting, you know, wasting a bunch of time. Are you getting up early enough that you could just get up, get out of bed, go and read for 30 minutes?