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[Assistant] So as they push back, that battle, the battle of the bulge lasted almost a month and a half, something like that.


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[Assistant] And part of that was transporting wounded, right? You ended up on a ship.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's, like we mentioned, like I mentioned earlier, there's 47,000 wounded during the Battle of the Bulge. So instead of the ships being able to take people home on furlough, you ended up on these ships getting people transported where? Back to England?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that, that's uh, as you, as you get home.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I can't even imagine going from that many months of direct combat and just


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was there anything else about the war when, when you were there, like on a day to day basis? How did you, how did you handle that? How did you face, you know, you said when you were going to D-Day, you weren't really afraid. Then once you were getting shot at behind this bird.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So when you get back, uhm, and now you find out that, that you, they're gonna discharge you. You're done with the army.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When you're done with the army, uh, you say that here, you say, I was done. That was April 13th, 1945 and the war ended in May. I was just 22 years old with seven years of soldiering under my belt. It's crazy when you think about that. So, that's it. The war's over for you. And now it's, uh, you start off by going back to farm life, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, and meanwhile, you also met Lola.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] October went by, then November came along and I told Lola that it was killing me and that we had to do something about it. We arranged to have a wedding at the Lutheran Church in Austin where my sister Peg and my brother-in-law lived. November 23rd, simple wedding.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And plus we're lucky you don't take up much room. You say this, when I got, when I came home from the service, I had the shakes.


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[Assistant] But nobody visited doctors for post-traumatic stress disorder back then. I woke up one night and I was choking Lola. So we got separate beds. She realized what I had gone through. She was there for me 100%. I had to learn how to drink coffee with my left hand because my right hand shook so much.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What is that? Propanol? Propanol for that. And still take it to this day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So there's, there's definitely, even though you came home from the war, the war was kinda still going on in some ways.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You tell the story in here, I mentioned that the picture earlier, that the major took of you while you were sitting in the Jeep. And that picture got published in the newspaper.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then, uh, you say this, one day I came home from work finding Lola changing her wallet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She had all the remains of her old wallet dispersed across the table. I walked by thinking nothing of it until something caught my eye. I noticed a picture of a young soldier sitting inside an army jeep. But that wasn't just any soldier. That was me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She had the picture of me in her wallet from years ago when I was in Major Ridgway's Jeep.


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[Assistant] The one that was in the local paper. I asked her, where did you get that picture? And she told me that she cut it out of the paper and put it in her wallet. I said you didn't even know me!


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She said no, but I met your brother Bob and he was talking about you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At the time she was a sophomore going to high school. Her family had just moved two farms north of us near Hope. I never met her or her family and didn't even know she existed. While she was in high school, one of her girlfriends questioned her for keeping the photo and asked, who's the guy in this picture? She announced that is the guy I am going to marry.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So you have your first son, Kurt, in 1948, uh, you end up with that lineman job, you have your second child, Linda, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then, and then you go, you go, you become a TV radio repairman after you do the service station. You end up moving to California. When you get to California, you're doing, you're working for Sears as a TV repairman for $2.35 an hour.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Your brother-in-law has a print shop up in Northern California. He offers you a hefty raise up to $3.42 an hour. And so you go up there and do that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You, you end up also doing TV repair on the side. Working with, you know, replacing people's tubes and what not. So now it's, years go by.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, and you say this, while working for my brother-in-law, I'd come home about 3.30 or 4.00 every day, and then worked fixing televisions. One particular day, I'll never forget, I came home from the print shop, and Lola met me at the door. I said, Hi hon.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Pregnant, you had better get the doctor to make sure. Well the reason she was, cause this is what, 10 years after your last kid?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You end up getting a house, uh, here's a conversation. In 1990 we were still living in Pleasant Hill, California. As usual it went to, uh, I still went to the flea market every Sunday in January. Carlin found me and said, Mom wants to talk to you. Lola was sitting in the car.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With the first word out of her mouth, I knew I didn't have a chance. I knew I was screwed. She looked at me and said, father, I found my dream house.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What do you mean by dream house? A house we can live in with my two sons and their families. I want you to come look at it. All I could think was, man, this is gonna cost me a lot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But you end up buying the house, Lola moved into the house in Martinez.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] During the construction renovations followed by Carlin and Kim then Kurt. Linda wasn't interested in moving in because she already had a home with her husband and family. I lived in Pleasant Hill while our house was up for sale. The housing market was slow at the time because the interest rate was at 12%.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] While I stayed at Pleasant Hill, the house and Martinez really came together. All of Lola's ideas coming to life. I was starting to see what she saw in that house. So you end up with a compound for the family.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, so while you were living in Pleasant Hill, you got a call. One day, Lola called me and said, Father, I want you to come down there and stay with, I want to come down there and stay with you. Go to war to get a roll away bed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She said I'm losing too much weight because I miss your kid cooking. I asked how much weight she lost. I lost 40 pounds last month.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Don't worry dad, Linda said they're gonna operate. They think they can get it all. They might have to take some of her stomach out, but she can live a normal life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She would have to eat less, but more often. I just wanted anything and everything done for her to keep going.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The doctors opened her up, discovering that it did spread to her intestines. They gave her six weeks to live, but she lived a little longer than expected.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Kurt and Carlin fixed up the room in the house that looked towards Mount Diablo so she could look out the window and enjoy the view. One of the last things she saw was that view. It's a beautiful sight.


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[Assistant] I never was much on poetry, but Lola loved to write. She titled the poem, One of the Lucky.


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[Assistant] My husband was one of many, a second world war volunteer. Who left home to go serve his country, this land that we all love so dear. He never complained, he was lonesome, surrounded by enemy guns.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The letters he wrote home were cheerful, like the battle was only fun.


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[Assistant] In his foxhole there, death sat beside him with shells whistling over his head. He tried to remember his childhood, tucked safely away in his bed. His buddies, they fell by the dozen on the beach, their lives ebbing away. In my heart, I think God had watched over him when he made it to cover that day. Time and again, he was lucky. He still ran when his best buddies fell.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A dodging and jumping and dying in this man-made inferno to hell.


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[Assistant] But the day came when his nerves had shattered and the general so plainly could see. This boy should no longer see battle. So they sent him home safely to me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, you, you, uh, you were very lucky not just to avoid machine guns and bombs and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Everything else, you were also very lucky that you met your beautiful wife, and you were able to spend so much time with her.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, even after Lola died, you kept working.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You retired after working for 19 years at Harrington McGuinness, but then you still kept a schedule. So how old were you when you retired? Oh, 73. But you, you


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Run errands and, and cook for the family. Taking the kids all over the place to different schools and stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, you know you, a little earlier in the book, you were talking about having the shakes in your hand. And you say, I came out of World War II with the shakes in my right arm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And when you fell down, you went to the hospital, you were knocked out, you went to the hospital, you got 30 stitches, uh, 30 stitches in your head.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Before you went in the MRI machine, I gotta read this part. He said, I got down to the MRI room and the guy who was operating the MRI machine said, I have to ask you a few questions before I put you in the machine. I replied, go right ahead. He asked me a series of questions like, what year is it? Etc. Then he asked, are you pregnant? I answered, I've been screwed so many times I ought to be.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, the MRI came back without any problems, but, but you, the shake went away after 70 years.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the, you know, you mentioned earlier going over, going, being, having the opportunity to go to the 75th anniversary of D-Day. Part of that was cause of a, of a,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You, uh, but they ended up raising money for you and you found your bronze star. It's in the book. You found your bronze star.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So you raise the money, you end up going to Normandy and you talked about this, but I just want to read this section because it's so moving. You say we drove straight from Paris to Normandy to the American cemetery. The first grave I saw was a private from the first infantry division.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That choked me up because I went on in on D-Day with members of the 1st Infantry Division and now I was looking down at his grave 75 years later. It's kind of a weird feeling. I made it. And he didn't. Look at the family I have while he has nothing. War is so unfair.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I took off my hat, thanking him for paving the way for me. I teared up and walked away.


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[Assistant] I never realized the cemetery had over 9,000 Americans.


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[Assistant] I was never one for visiting cemeteries. There are souls still hanging around, but this visit was different.


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[Assistant] I owed it to those who had been killed to pay my respects.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And as you mentioned earlier, you ended up doing a bunch of interviews for French TV and CBS and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That you also went back to Omaha Beach itself.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because you ended up seeing a berm that was basically exactly what you had hid behind.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, they had a big ceremony. Uh, you shook the president's hand at the ceremony.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And uh, you say this, the D-Day anniversary trip was the trip of a lifetime that I will never forget. What a moving memory surpassing D-Day in my mind. There was no killing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we were celebrating. It was the epitome of my life. I'm so grateful for all the people who came together in order for me to make it back there. I never in my life thought I would return to that beach but I'm glad that I did. I did not return for myself.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But instead, for my fellow soldiers who did not make it.


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[Assistant] There is a god. Yeah, and there is somebody that, somebody, I guess if you look at the world, there's gotta be somebody that actually is the luckiest man in the world. That's the name of the book. I think we're finding out it's non-fiction.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The stories themselves are impressive enough. The, the verbiage is secondary.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Another thing that you did was take, uh, an honor flight and the honor flight is a nonprofit organization, great people, and they provide their, their, their mission is to provide veterans with honor and closure. And so they fly veterans to Washington, DC.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, to, to see the war memorials. And your name came up on there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so you ended up going to Washington DC, thanks to the private donations to the honor flight organization, which is a great organization like I said. And you said this when you got there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, I was ticked off because they took so long to complete the World War II memorial, only opening in 2004.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] By that time, most of the men from the war were gone and would never have the chance to see it. Carlin convinced me that I should go in their memory, so that's why I went.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The irony is that the 135th Infantry, which is part of the 34th Division, has a shield that says, to the last man. I was 15 years old the first time I saw that. Well, they are all gone except me. Who would ever imagine that I would actually be the last man?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, and then came the battle of the bulge, 75th anniversary. And there's a guy named Mitch Mendler.


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[Assistant] And he's the president of a non-profit organization called World Memorials.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And doing great work with that. And they volunteered to sponsor you to get you out to the, to the 75th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And uhm, you say here, when we went to the airport, flew down to Los Angeles, I was met at the gate by my sponsor group who introduced me to two of the men entrusted to travel with me. Colonel Mike Droll.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of the Arizona Rangers and Rick Cochran, the executive director, Hispanic Medal of Honor. Joshua Kaufman.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A holocaust survivor who survived five concentration camps was amongst the group.


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[Assistant] When U.S. troops liberated him at the age of 16, he weighed a mere 55 pounds.


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[Assistant] His daughter interpreted it for him in Yiddish, informing him that I was going back for D-Day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] An individual that had been in the concentration camps and was liberated by Americans such as yourself. That's amazing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I've, I've read a bunch of this book so far, uhm, tonight, and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I know we've been talking for a while, but I wanted to close the book out with this, this last section that I'll read. And again, there's so much more in this book. I've only cut, covered a couple of the highlights, but there's


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was hard to even select which highlights to cover because it's all just incredible stories. But I wanted to close with this quote here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It says it's mind-boggling to have someone kiss your feet in thanks for what those soldiers did. I am not the one to be kissed.


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[Assistant] I'm representing all the guys who freed all the concentration camp victims. It was their actions.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm not a hero, I'm here too.


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[Assistant] I'm here to tell you what I went through. All these people are gone, and I'm left alone. I can't see where I deserve the credit for that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm the last one alive to represent these guys that gave their lives over there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I could relate, relate this story to everyone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And again, the story is incredible, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You lived it and you're sitting across the table from me and you even realize how incredible and almost unbelievable it is and you are doing an outstanding job carrying on and passing on the story of your, your brothers, your comrades in arms.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, and so you're carrying on that story, and that's not the end of the story by the way. Because like you said earlier, you're very popular on social media. You're a TikTok star. You're on Instagram, you're on YouTube.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, it's all under the same title, which is Storytime with Papa Jake. You have hundreds of thousands of followers and you have millions of views on some of your stories.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of course this book, but it's just, uh, it's incredible and the story's not over yet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, it's an amazing story. Uhm, and you're on, you're not just on TikTok, you're on Instagram, there's a YouTube channel, uh, that people can, if people don't have TikTok, they can watch it on YouTube, they can watch it on Instagram.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The book is called the luckiest man in the world. It's a fantastic read. It's just, it's, it's an unbelievable story. And if it wasn't, if we weren't sitting here talking to the man himself, you'd have a hard time believing it. But, but there he is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so, so definitely uhm, pick up the book and, and it's just incredible. Uhm, Echo. Yes sir. Do you have any questions at this time?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Really? Echo usually asks like some kind of interesting question at the end, but maybe today we didn't just, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Papa Jake's, Papa Jake Larson, uhm, we've had you for two hours right now. I want to be respectful of your time, but if there's any other final thoughts you want to share?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well sir, thank you so much for joining us today. Thanks for your family to get, for getting us down here. Our friend Jack that connected us. Um, thanks for being here and thanks for sharing your wisdom. But most important, thank you for your service to this great nation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You and your friends and your generation stood against tyranny and evil and allow us


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To live under this blessing of freedom today. So we thank you and all your brothers in arms.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, we are grateful, grateful for you and grateful for your service and sacrifice and the service and sacrifice of all of your comrades in arms and, and especially as you have mentioned the real heroes that did not come home.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Talking to him before and after, man, you know, he kept saying he doesn't have any pain and he's doing great.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's doing great. Cause you know during the podcast we weren't.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're not really yucking it up, we're cracking jokes, but we're downstairs. He's, we're cracking jokes and even before the podcast started, I, he said something about me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I went right back at him talking about being bald and he like laughing and he's just totally sharp. Uhm, man.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's crazy. Yeaah. The book, and the book has more details and, and you know, it's, it's, there's a balance, right, of wanting to read some of the book and then getting some of those reflections on what he went through, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, but just, it's just awesome to have someone like that. I mean literally, to go from D-Day


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It has all the little campaigns that he was in. You know, D-Day, Saint-Lo, going right down, Paris. I kinda rattled him off, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it's just, uhm, it's unbelievable. It's an honor. Obviously a ton to learn and a ton to reflect on. So thanks, uh, thanks Jack out there in the, in the, in the


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Made the connex told you, told you we could possibly, you know, get in touch with him and then you were kind enough to respond to him seven months after he sent his initial, you know, email, which was good. We liked that timing and stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What, when I walk away from this, I just think to myself, you know, as, as Papa Jake kept saying,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, all these, all these other individuals that did make it. You know, he's looking at that gravestone thinking.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This guy didn't get to have the family the life and He did get to have that chance and guess what so do we so it seems like we should be doing our best


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To live a life that is worthy of those sacrifices. Seems like a good plan.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They didn't have electricity. They didn't have electricity in their house until he got out of the service in 1945.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I got that GPS system. They're in horse and buggy. What about, what about this whole scenario? Well, you know, my school is 14 miles away.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Slay. Yeah, man. And by the way, another thing, they don't, they're not wearing Gore-Tex Thinsulate freaking, you know, pile, polyester, they're in wool.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Some canvas jacket, right? Just a different time. Freakin' epic.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, you know a parking curb? Yes sir. He tripped over one of those, he was just like looking off ahead and just hit it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, the color blindness was cured when he got cataract surgery.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, no, we didn't have any money for that kind of thing, but that might be too strong. My dad was like a computer, he was into computers before computers were really a thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so he had old school computers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So there was no, we never had any of those systems. Now we didn't have one game playing system, but we did have a computer. Do you know, do you know about old, old school computers? I do, yes. Do you know what a Commodore VIC-20 is?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's the first model. It's the first model. I want to say that the memory that came with the machine itself was 2K.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then there was some cartridge that you plugged in that gave you an extra 4k. Yeaah, yeaah. This computer was weak.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know what I'm saying? Cause my dad, my dad was a cheap human. He was not spending money on anything. This was when you get, he was part of like a sharing group where they would trade cassette tapes that had this information on it that you could play the game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How we can try and maintain that as long as possible.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So Segway occurred, now we're back on track.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, he said he had 75 pounds of gear plus his weapon. So we're talking, that's a massive amount. That's the over double body weight.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now I did, I can tell you that guys nowadays carry way more gear than they did back then.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Four grenades, a bunch of mags, and your weapon, like those guys were all light, light. And nowadays, man, you're going, you got radios, you got so much ammo, you got body armor, you got helmet, you got night visions, you got lasers, you got extra batteries for everything. It's just a lot more. Which is not good, by the way, in many cases.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you drink it too late in the afternoon, you might not go to sleep very early. You will.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You want to stay in the game? When you travel or just general life, you know protect yourself immune wise vitamin D D3 You can get that you can get Cold War. I just had to jack some Cold War up


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To me, when I feel that, I'm like, where's that Cold War started hitting it hard? It's my MOLK. By the way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're just having a discussion, uh, and look, we all know that you have your favorite.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which is fine. You might, maybe your favorite is peanut butter, strawberry, whatever. That's cool. The fact is, after a month, it's good to have that alternate.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They have no issue with telling me if something sucks.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They'll be all into it. And plus they're also into stuff. Is it a thing?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, I am, you know, you know what a foodie is? Yes, I do. Yeah. Right? It's a thing. Yeah, it's a thing. And I think it's more of a thing now than it ever was like when we were younger. Yeah. It wasn't a thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] More appreciation and sensitivity to taste. So, because I'm kinda like, hm, if I can stomach it, it tastes good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We gotta send something to Tulsi because Tulsi is kind of the original banana adder, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cucumber Gatorade? No. Who's the freaking idiot on the marketing crew that was like, hey, let's make Cucumber Gatorade at first to be fired.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Go get it. By the way, Jockofuel.com, if you subscribe to any of these things, you get the shipping for free. That way we compete with the large global corporations that are trying to take over the world.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Help us compete. Go subscribe. Yea man, it's true. We can help you stay healthy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we got more stuff coming. Oh yeaah. We got the hunt line coming. Which the hunt line, gonna be versatile too.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was talking to Pete, I'm like, hey, you know like the puffy jackets that everyone wears?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When you go anywhere cold, people are wearing that everywhere, right? I said, hey, we need that, and well, so we're on that. So we're gonna be able to have an American-made one, because these people are like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, we get it. You wanna, you wanna say how nice you are? We get it. You wanna talk about your, how positive you're doing for the environment?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, we're gonna, we're gonna, we got you covered. Origin USA.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There happens to be Warrior Kid Soap. We're down with that, right? Young Aiden, out there, decentralized, command-making stuff happen. Guess what else he made? Candles. So, it's funny, cause in my house,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't like candles, right? Yeah, I don't like the smell of them. I don't like the more heat being produced in my house. I don't like a fire hazard up in here, right? I don't like the, uh, the, uh, the, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well no, he gets the, he has enough shirts, right? Which is pretty common in America, you have enough shirts. But he still wants to support. And he's seen some shirts that have come out where he's been like, that one would have been nice. So he gets them, and then he gifts them to the appropriate person.


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[Assistant] It's cool, you wanna leave a review, it's cool. What's interesting about the reviews is they're permanent. On the Apple reviews, they're permanent. So you can go back in time.


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[Assistant] Attacks. Heat. Okay dawg. So anyways, subscribe to this, check out Jocko unraveling and record another one tomorrow. So those should be up. Hitting some pretty interesting topics with my brother Darryl Cooper. Grounded podcast. The Warrior Kid podcast. And we have Jocko Underground.


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[Assistant] Jocko on the ground dot com. This is our alternative platform in case we get attacked, banned, shadow, shadow banned, which apparently is a thing now, which has happened. Have you been shadow banned?


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[Assistant] Well, it is interesting, you know, it is interesting, but you wouldn't think that there'd be anything that they would look at me and go, yeah, we need to suppress this guy, but hey, here we are literally being suppressed. Yeah. So we have to have a backup plan. We have to have a contingency plan in place. So that's why we have jock on the ground.com if you want to help us.


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[Assistant] That helps us build it and maintain it. We give you back another additional podcast. Do you need more podcasts? Probably not.


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[Assistant] Maybe not, but maybe you like to chill. Maybe you like to hear about some alternative topics and maybe you just want to support either way. We appreciate it. Also, if you can't support us, we'll support you. If you can't afford $8 and 18 cents a month, it's cool. Email assistance at Jocko underground.com. We have a YouTube channel which


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[Assistant] There's some really good videos on there, and most of the really good videos have that extra little component, that extra thing that just makes them hit. Yes sir. And that thing usually comes from me.


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[Assistant] The assistant director. It's true. Yeaah. I had to, well, when Kerry was in the hot seat, K-Dawg, I had to kind of, I had to go a little bit deep on that one.


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[Assistant] Also, if you want to hang something awesome on your wall, go to flipsidecanvas.com, which is Dakota Meyer's company, and he makes awesome stuff to hang on your wall. That's what it is. Made in America. Got some books, obviously. First book, luckiest man in the world.


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[Assistant] Stories from the life of Papa Jake by, by Jake Larson. It's a great book. We skim the surface today. Go check it out. Support the man himself. Also final spin had that story come out, had that book come out and


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[Assistant] Check that one out if you want to check that one out. Uhm, I would recommend you don't read it on a plane like JP Denell if you're gonna get embarrassed when you're crying. I'm not saying you're gonna cry, but I'm saying


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[Assistant] It's an emotional book. It's an emotional roller coaster. So check that out. There's some lessons in there.


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[Assistant] Leadership Strategy and Tactics Field Manual The Code The Evaluation of Protocols Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual


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[Assistant] And I just said it. And I stand by it 100%. There's nothing that could have better influence on a kid than those four books.


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[Assistant] That's kind of where we're at. Uh, About Face by Hackworth and then Extreme Ownership and the Dichotomy of Leadership. Also we have Echelon Front, which is a leadership consultancy. We.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Solve problems through leadership. Leadership is the solution. If you need help with the leadership inside your organization, go to echelonfront.com. You can also find out about our live events there, whether it's the muster, whether it's field training exercises, EF Battlefield,


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[Assistant] You can check that out. Next Muster is in Dallas, Texas, by the way. March 24th and 25th. We have online training program. You can't get good at Jiu Jitsu in one day.


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[Assistant] You can't get good at basketball in one day. You can't get good at guitar in one day. You can't get good at leadership in one day. You also can't get good at leadership from reading one book.


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[Assistant] One time. And thinking you got it. Now it doesn't work like that. That's why we made the Extreme Ownership Academy. If you want to come, you want to ask questions, you want to interact with me, with Leif, with the rest of the EF team, come on there.


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[Assistant] ExtremeOwnership.com and if you want to help service members


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[Assistant] Active and retired, their families, gold star families, check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. She's got a charity organization. And if you want to donate or you want to get involved, you want to help veterans,


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[Assistant] Go to americasmightywarriors.org and if you want more of my


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[Assistant] Over emotional episodes, or you need more of Echo's exasperating explorations, you can find us on the interwebs. On Twitter, on the gram, and on.


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[Assistant] That you can also check out Storytime with Papa Jake.


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[Assistant] On Instagram, on TikTok, on YouTube. Great, great stuff to watch. And to all the service, men and women, past, present and future.


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[Assistant] Thank you, and especially to those of you that served in World War II.


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[Assistant] Whether you're here with us in this life or you've moved on to the next.


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[Assistant] And to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, secret service and all the first responders out there. Thank you for your service, which keeps us safe here on the home front and everyone else out there.


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[Assistant] You cannot turn back time and in the end, even forever is too short.


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[Assistant] Until next time, this is Echo, and Jocko.


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[Assistant] And it's crazy to just hear them all like the Saddam Hussein one. I didn't connect those dots before. Uhm, the Captain Phillips one I did not know either.


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[Assistant] He said some, he said something that I, I, I feel like I'm going to kind of take this with a lot of things obviously, but one that really stood out is, and he said it twice, maybe three times, where he's like, my job is to put you, set you up for success, right? Put you in a position where you can succeed, right? That was his deal.


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[Assistant] It's like, man, that's a good way to put it right there. Because, you know how you always talk about, hey, don't micromanage, don't, you know, you want to let your team lead, you know, how you put it. And it's like, yeah, if you, cause you can apply that to yourself as well. Like bro, set yourself up for some success, man. Sounds like a good plan. You know, go learn some stuff.


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[Assistant] Like don't, like beware of complacency or resting on your laurels. You know how like, you know, someone who has the over...


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[Assistant] Stated attitude of, I don't have anything to prove when it's like too much of that, right? Little off balance of the dichotomy kind of thing. It's kind of like they did something awesome and then they sort of ride it out and then they still think they should get kind of the cred for it, like,


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[Assistant] A hundred years later or whatever. And it's like, hey, like that's cool that you did that, but recently you've been kind of doing nothing. Kind of an addict, you know.


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[Assistant] So that, that's what that always struck me as, where it's like, you always have something to prove. Like, don't be like, oh yea, you should like, keep respecting me this much for like, one thing I did yesterday.


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[Assistant] Well, big things and small things, and a lot of us, you know, we're not gonna be admirals. Straight up. I'm not gonna be an admiral.


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[Assistant] It's very unlikely we'll just say that. Okay. So, I'm gonna do maybe my small little part to set myself up for.


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[Assistant] Success. Okay. Just my small little part. In your world. In my world, exactly right. So what does that look like for me? And I think others too. So the good news about this, this kind of stuff is that it's achievable by anyone.


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[Assistant] Take a few little steps, set yourself up for success. So what are we doing? We're reading more, we're working out more, keeping ourselves physically and mentally capable. That's what it is.


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[Assistant] An opportunity presents itself. You wanna be physically and mentally capable or you wanna be physically and mentally incapable? That's the question.


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[Assistant] Kind of rhetorical, right? Kind of obvious question. So we do that through working out, we do that through reading, paying attention and listening. That's a big one. A lot of us don't do that that much anymore.


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[Assistant] Pay attention and listen. Trust me. Kinda like you're not really listening to me right now. See, you see what I'm saying? So you see what I'm saying. Anyway, on this path that we're doing all this, we do need supplementation. So, good news. We're gonna start with energy drinks. I'm calling it energy drinks. It's a new wave of energy drinks.


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[Assistant] So yeaah, so that's what's going on. Boom, new energy drink. No stigma on this one. No.


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[Assistant] No sugar, sweetened with monk fruit, no unhealthy preservatives, no toxic chemicals, none. No preservatives whatsoever. Why, we, it's, it's pasteurized. Yep. Boom.


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[Assistant] Boom, and it tastes good. So boom, this thing is good for you straight out. All upside, no downside. Short term and long term benefits.


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[Assistant] There's also just been going powder and capsule format. Don't forget about that one. Also, we got stuff for your joints. Keep your joints in the game. Don't have to worry about that anymore. Yes sir, I did squats. You did squats when? Monday, right? Or something like this.


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[Assistant] So I always think about this, where I'm older than I was before, and so I incorporated the deep squats, right, from your influence, and I thank you for it.


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[Assistant] So every time I think about this, like, this joint stuff, like my joints, I think about the squats. Got it. By the way, yes, uh, yesterday.


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[Assistant] We started warming up doing squats. My brother came over, Jade. We start to talk, you know, you get into conversations, whatever, and then- Well not when you're squatting. So I'm, well, you know, I'm doing the warm-ups for squatting. We get into this conversation while I'm warming up.


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[Assistant] And it's basically one set, one, it's like a half working set. It's like the, the weight that I'm going to use for my first working set. I do that, but not as many reps as someone. So I'll just, you know, it's like a priming kind of thing. So I do that, right? Boom. Right at that point, the conversation goes deep. So like.


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[Assistant] We're just talking two hours, two and a half homos, hours. Before my first set, by the way.


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[Assistant] Anyway, lack of sleep, lack of this, lack of that, can.


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[Assistant] Kinda jam up your immune system, don't worry about that kind of stuff too, that's supplements for that. Cold war.


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[Assistant] Vitamin D3. Boom. Don't worry about your immune system either. Joints, immune system, no factor. Right there. Uhm, also. Mulk.


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[Assistant] Supplemental protein in the form of dessert. That's, uh, that's some good stuff as well. Whole nother story, but good stuff nonetheless.


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[Assistant] So, to put that into perspective, and I just heard this, I didn't even know where I was listening to something, but,


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[Assistant] Yeah, I can dig it. Yeah, so the, the, the, the situation I was hearing about reminded that remind, it reminded me of the concept that some people don't do these crazy runs or workouts or whatever. It's just part of their normal everyday routine. Like hey, let me just eat some ice cream every single day. Yeah. Some obvious detriments when you do that kind of stuff.


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[Assistant] You drink the, you replace the ice cream with the milk. You got the same front side or front end payoff.


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[Assistant] It's true. Also, uh, Jocko has a store called Jocko's Store. This is where you can get your discipline equals freedom. Good. Get after it. All this, uh, all the, all the representative ideas of the path on your apparel.


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[Assistant] Say more fun designs, for like a better way of maybe putting it. Anyway, they're more interesting. You get one every month, it's kind of cool people seem to like it.


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[Assistant] People seem to be enjoying them. Uhm, yeaah. So yeaah, free shipping on that one. And yeaah, every month is a good one. Check it out, if you like it. Hey, get that.


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[Assistant] Speaking of Jocko's vision, and my lack of vision from time to time, Psychological Warfare is an album with tracks of Jocko telling you how to skip, not skip, not skip, not skip.


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[Assistant] Okay. Workouts if you're in the mood to skip a workout. Like basically to achieve what I achieved last night.


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[Assistant] No, like my, I, I was wondering, and actually now like kinda thinking about it more, let's say clearly or whatever, uhm, you always kinda wonder about the experience from


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[Assistant] Would it be in the boat, you know, landing, and then going on. He did, you know, he talked about it, kinda, for lack of a better term, kinda vaguely, where he'd be like, yea, I'm dodging bullets, yea, I'm running, I'm running, trying to get away, whatever, that was sorta it, it wasn't like a, like a narrative, like of,


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[Assistant] Technically, you're not even a full adult. Really, and just, that's, you know, that's the end.


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[Assistant] Yeah. Boom. Hits his head. Collar blindness cured. And what else is cured?


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[Assistant] Okay, so you're, yeah, you're the correct generation kid. You remember Nintendo Entertainment System, the original NES?


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[Assistant] So okay, I, I dig it. This might not be horse and buggy, but we're approaching. I understand, truly, yep. And, yeah, you lived on a dirt road too, so, hey man, I get it. Uhm, well, either way, the, the rest of the 99.9% of us that got our Nintendo entertainment system know that there's, when you're in, when you, Nintendo got kinda older.


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[Assistant] And it would jam up, right? You put the game in, you stuff it down, and it, and it, it blinks, or whatever, it doesn't turn on. So there's two, two methods to get it going. Everyone knows the, the one you take the game out, you blow it, you blow on it, because there might be dust in there. I don't know, I think it's psychological. Either way, you put it back in, it usually works. Second method is,


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[Assistant] You turn it off and you hit the side of the thing. You hit it. Just like a, even like a TV. Yeah, you hit it. Yeah, oh yeah. We do it all the time. Uhm, TV's kinda like that too, I think.


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[Assistant] Well, hey, we're working out, right? We're, shoot, Papa Jacob.


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[Assistant] Freakin' Jocko rolling up through, you know. You know how you guys talk about like all the gear that you guys carry or whatever? It's like, bro, 120 carrying gear. Bro, that's like some effort.


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[Assistant] So. Makes sense. Either way, when you're 120, bro, you better be going extra light. Otherwise, that's gonna take some effort. So, nonetheless.


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[Assistant] That's neither here nor, nor there as far as right now. Right now we're trying to be as strong as we can. I don't care 120, 180, 190, two bills, whatever. We're trying to be as strong as we can over here and as smart as we can all this stuff, right? Yes. Not all of us are going to reach 99 by the way. Hey, this is just the reality of the situation, but we're going to try. Cool. So we're going to do good stuff for our minds and our body. Don't worry. We got you. Don't worry. Choco supplements.


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[Assistant] It's like a regular cu- it's actually not even that big of a cup of coffee. It's like a regular, like, cup cup. Does anyone drink one cup of coffee anymore? I don't know.


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[Assistant] Nonetheless, it does have a little bit of caffeine for the little, little boost, but all the other good stuff is a healthy thing.


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[Assistant] A wise man. So you can get that. Yes, many different flavors. You mentioned mine. Mine is mango. The best. Bro, ask around. It's the best.


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[Assistant] Nonetheless, if you don't like the mango, there's all kinds of other flavors too. Sour apple, sniper, orange, all this stuff. Look into it. ChocoFuel.com. That's where you can get this stuff. Also, for your joints.


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[Assistant] Papa Jake's talking about his joints don't even hurt.


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[Assistant] Okay, that's how I want to be. You know what I'm saying? And currently that's how I am. My joints don't hurt either. So I'm saying it's because of the joint warfare and the super krill oil. I didn't bring any in Hawaii.


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[Assistant] How long, how many days did it take before you felt it? Four. Four days. Four days, yep. It could have been the bed I was sleeping on didn't help either. But it was, one time I felt it in my knee though.


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[Assistant] Been lucky enough to have the opportunity to have Banana Bomber.


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[Assistant] It's like wine taster, right? Like I'm into wine tasting, but instead of wine, it's food. I think.


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[Assistant] I know, it's good. So, banana bomber. Yeah, and banana's one of those, and I don't know, maybe I'm alone on this, but maybe I'm not. Banana's the kind where it's like, okay, banana's good, it's fine, it's fine, but let's say, you know, when you got your more exotic fruits.


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[Assistant] Yeah, uh, frozen banana. Check. But uhm, it's like cucumber, where it's like cool, cucumber's fine. But if you get something that's like way better than cucumber and then you add cucumber, cucumber makes it go to the middle of the road with it. So it kind of brings it down. That's the nature of cucumbers and that's the nature of bananas too, from time to time.


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[Assistant] Cream, this is what I expect. I didn't taste it yet. But this is what I expect. That's what I expect with a banana cream bomb.


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[Assistant] You know, speaking of large global, well, corporations taking over the world, you know, how they, you know, use, you know, what they do is they do this mass thing where they get the labor.


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[Assistant] Yeah, if they can. See? Doesn't work like that. It's not sustainable. See what I'm saying?


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[Assistant] Unlike Origin. See, that is sustainable, I'll tell you why. It's all made in America. Everything. All their stuff. They got denim jeans. They got geese, jujitsu stuff. They got boots, wallets. What uh, is there belts? They got belts, right?


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[Assistant] BTN stands for better than nothing, right? So people use that in a good way. Like I say, it's better than nothing, right? Yeah. You think workouts, freaking, uhm, paying attention to your kids, like all this stuff you can use BTN, the BTN method here, it's better than nothing. It's like looking at the bright side of things, which is, it's not all bad. You see what I'm saying?


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[Assistant] What are you, how'd you do it? The low res, the freaking, real black and white.


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[Assistant] Right? BTN's not good. You want to do the best you can straight up.


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[Assistant] Alright, so you start giving 1% to something that is a 50% detriment, that's BTN, that's bad. You see what I'm saying?


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[Assistant] So, Origin, USA, supply chain, taking care.


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[Assistant] Good job. Environment being saved. Good job. You talked to all of our people there making stuff, bro. They'll tell you all about it. Smiling the whole time. Yeah. Oh man. Here to tell you. OriginUSA.com. Dot com. That's where you get it. Also, Jocko's store called Jocko's store.


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[Assistant] Sockelstore.com is where you can get your discipline equals freedom. Shirts, hats, hoodies, that kind of cool stuff, uh, stuff that says good.


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[Assistant] And Echo Soap too, by the way. So, you know, hey man, do your thing. Sounds good. DTN. In a good way this time. But yea, there's good stuff on there. Jocko's store. Also on Jocko's store. The shirt locker.


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[Assistant] A lot of updates to that one. Upgrades. Upgrades. Update sounds like, you know, just maybe just, you know, some bad things that are now not bad.


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[Assistant] Subscription situation. Every month. They're all cool. They're a little bit more creative. You know?


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[Assistant] That is totally, it was totally my fault. I, I, you know, I got, what do you call, I, I started on the wrong foot. What's that expression? Anyway, got off on the wrong foot. This is why. My first analogy, if I remember correctly, was like, you know, you gotta balance the dichotomies or whatever you were talking about back then. And I made the analogy of, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Very Useful album gets us past our moments of weakness.


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[Assistant] You ever think about, and I'm not saying you Jocko, I'm saying to our people, you ever think about the day where you're about to slip or you're about to skip the workout? What if Jocko is like right there, not yelling, not yelling by the way, just telling you, Hey, like, Hey, let's not skip this workout. In fact,


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[Assistant] Here's some good reasons why you shouldn't skip this workout. See what I'm saying? And he was just telling you practical advice to not skip the workout.


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[Assistant] So you get that, you get that wherever you can get MP3s. It's a good one.


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[Assistant] Okay, 16, so we got what, 5 years in the bank. Maybe a little bit more than 5 years. My daughter was 8 now. Still. Demands. I read. Every single night. Part 1, we just finished it. Again, by the way.


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[Assistant] This is Jocko Podcast number 328 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo.


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[Assistant] It's the most important thing in business and it is the most important thing in life. And on this podcast we...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Consistently and regularly go through examples of that from military history.


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[Assistant] And about how the principles of extreme ownership apply to combat situations. And I've had many combat leaders.


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[Assistant] On this podcast from every level, from corporals and sergeants.


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[Assistant] To gunnery sergeants and master chiefs to generals and admirals. Talking about


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[Assistant] Sometimes they talk about how these principles positively impact their lives as well. So we've covered the battlefield, we've covered life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Provides foundation repair, basement waterproofing, crawlspace encapsulation, and concrete lifting. And a host of other services that helps.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Keep Americans foundations dry and safe and serviceable. It's a company that's ranked number 1047 on the inc 5000 in 2021 grew by 461 percent in three years.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Has over 20 brands under its umbrella, still growing.


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[Assistant] Let's, uh, let's start at the beginning. Let's start at where you started.


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[Assistant] I went on a field trip. So this is, we're talking, this might be 1977 or something like that. I was young. And I remember we went to a bank on a field trip.


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[Assistant] And first of all, I was thinking this is the most boring thing I've ever seen in my life. I don't want to, I'm never going in a bank. But they had this thing that they were calling a computer, and they had the little, these little punch cards. And I think it was some kind of an IBM computer system that kept track of something, and I remember thinking, well,


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[Assistant] Not going into banking over here. I'm sure there's some kids that were thinking, wow, look at that guy with a briefcase. Remember? Do you think a briefcase was ever cool, Echo Charles?


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[Assistant] I remember some kids thought a briefcase was cool. I wasn't one of those kids.


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[Assistant] I'm laughing because that statement about like, we didn't have much money, but you know, we didn't really know it.


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[Assistant] And, and we would get, get into that thing in the summertime to go like drive to see the grandparents, three kids in the back of the tiniest car. So when people are like, oh, you know, I was poor, but we didn't know it. I knew it. I knew it, man. I was like, I'm getting out of this joint.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and of course, I mean, uh, I don't want to make it sound too bad. When you have a car, you're not doing too bad, right? And we've always had food, so thanks to my mom and dad and the teachers union that they got paid.


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[Assistant] And we ate, we got to eat all the time, but yeaah. Uh, as far as not knowing you're poor, I definitely, I know, let me rephrase it. I knew we didn't have much money, that much I do. I knew we weren't, I knew we weren't getting like, you know, a new bicycle. We might get a used bicycle, we might get a, you know, uhm,


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[Assistant] We always had some fun around Christmas time, uh, the saying in my family was, it's gonna be a lean Christmas. Which had been inherited, I guess, from my mom's dad, who would say the same thing, it's gonna be a lean Christmas. That's all we'd hear about. So whatever dreams you had for Santa, don't count on it.


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[Assistant] Did you have to say that you were Catholic to get in there?


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[Assistant] You're looking back and you say, oh, this is what I said. Do you actually remember a moment in time when you said, okay,


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[Assistant] I'm gonna need to, I'm gonna need to apply myself academically. 100%. Okay, so you, that actually, cause I look at my, people are like, hey, when did this happen? When was this moment? And I, I've always, for the most part, had more gradual, sort of, sort of,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Realizations of what's happening in the world, including for myself, but that's where I'm asking they're like, did you have a specific like, alright,


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[Assistant] So did you know you wanted to go into business at this time? Were you starting to think, did you see some kind of a career path? Was there anything that interested you?


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[Assistant] Are you communicating with him on a regular basis? Never. No. He's just reaching out to you. Yeaah.


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[Assistant] So you just made such a good impression over pouring him scotch over those years, whatever gigs you did for him, you did a good job, built a good relationship with him, and he liked you.


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[Assistant] Creates the business. Yes. And that's, business is doing great. When that boomer steps away.


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[Assistant] It's got a 30% chance of survival. If you give it to your kids. If you give it to your kids. And if that...


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[Assistant] I've had that discussion, I had that discussion with my wife, uhm, and I've told people about this. You gotta figure out what your minimum standard is. And you gotta figure out what your wife's minimum standard is. And I had the conversation with my wife a few times.


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[Assistant] With living in RRV and we're going to travel up and down the coast of California. I'm going to surf and we're going to hang out. We're going to go to a bunch of different jujitsu schools and we'll live off my Navy retirement. And I'm good with that. I need to check if you're good with that. And she's like, oh, it sounds good. It sounds like fun. I'll get to see you more. And I was like, okay, cool.


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[Assistant] You gotta figure out what that minimum standard's gonna be. Cause if the minimum standard is, hey, I at least need a house. Or I at least need a house, you know, with three bedrooms. Or four. What's the minimum standard? You gotta have that conversation sometimes. And I gave this advice on, on the academy the other day. Someone was asking about, you know, I'm going through this transition period. How do I address it with my wife?


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[Assistant] And I said, look, you're gonna take risk, not just with you, but it's with your wife. Figure out what the minimum standard is, and then make your decisions.


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[Assistant] And, and that you have a lot, your minimum standard is a lot lower when you're a solo dude, right? You're flying like there is no minimum. I really didn't even have a minimum standard as a person, right? As an individual, I had no minimum standard. I could survive literally with nothing. Yeah. We'll, we'll get it done, but figure out what that minimum standard is. So,


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[Assistant] So you had your wife, you had kids, uhm, was your wife okay with living in a van down by the river? She would have been, yeaah.


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[Assistant] That aren't necessarily going to be able to pay those loans back. Because you go to college for four years and it costs $380,000 and the job that you get with your degree when you leave that school is a $32,000 or $38,000 a year job. That's what's happening. So it's a disaster.


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[Assistant] Interesting little backstory on that. That sort of is the, you know, failure on my part because one of the things that I would tell the team at Echelon Front is I'd say, listen,


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[Assistant] I don't wanna be like these consulting companies that go in and hang on, put their hooks in and claws in and they, they're just gonna milk a company for everything that they're worth. Listen guys, if we're doing our job correctly, we're not there for five years. We're there for six months, we're there for a year, they understand these principles and they take them and run with them. What I didn't clarify,


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[Assistant] Is, hey, if we've got a company that's growing rapidly, we may need to help them along the way. And, and that happened with other companies, and your company is one of the ones that it happened to, and it was happening to very fast. And so, I had to kinda, I, I mean, I forget how it got back to me, but I remember re-briefing the team, and saying, listen, if we have a client that's growing rapidly,


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[Assistant] We can train all their trainers, but they're still gonna need people, they're just gonna need support. I mean, when you're absorbing two or three companies a year that have two or three hundred people each,


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[Assistant] They're probably gonna need help. We need to help them, so.


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[Assistant] Yeah, the, the, you know, when you talk about merging, hey, this idea, this, these principles into some other company.


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[Assistant] And sometimes I'll, I'll, people will, I'll have discussions with leaders about that.


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[Assistant] And you'll say, well I don't know if it's gonna, I don't know if, you know, our culture's gonna match. And I always say, like, I have like a, I've answered this question so many times.


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[Assistant] That I kind of just go, oh, you don't think the culture is going to match. You, you maybe think you have some different leadership principles that you thought, yeah, you know, we're just, we're not in the military. We weren't in the military. So we're just, you know, we don't have that mindset.


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[Assistant] And I said, well, you know, let's talk about it a little bit. You know, for instance, we teach cover move, which is teamwork, which is supporting team. Are you teaching that you should all stay in silos and work against each other? We teach about keeping things simple. Are you teaching that we should make things so complex that no one knows what's going on? We talk about prioritize and execute. Do you think that in your company, what you'd rather do is


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[Assistant] Or what you thinking is this doesn't match with your culture cause your culture is we're gonna all sit around and blame each other and point fingers at each other. So like,


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[Assistant] That disagrees with these principles. You just can't. They're, they're universal principles.


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[Assistant] That are foundational to leading other human beings. So, the fact that you've, that you recognize that,


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[Assistant] That you saw, oh I see this, and then the step that you're talking about that JP and the rest of the team, that JP does well, but he's been working with you for a long time, we do this all the time. We do it with finance companies, we do it with manufacturing companies, like the principles apply to any organization.


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[Assistant] The thing that's nice is that you were able to sit there at that muster and go, Oh, I see the alignment between, Oh, decentralized command. Well, let's see, I got a bunch of disaggregated people. I got small elements that are going out in the field. They've got to understand how they're going to interact with the customer. That's how we're going to get good feedback. That's how we're going to grow our business.


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[Assistant] Okay, that makes sense. Oh, what about prioritizing execute? Oh, yeah. Well, we've got all these things that are gonna go wrong on a job site if we don't have people that understand


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[Assistant] And you just were able to see that. And therefore take it and go, hey we need to run with that. And that's an impressive call to make.


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[Assistant] The, uh, the, the, the investment that you make, right? So this is, this is the thing that's very interesting. You, you are investing in your leaders and you've been investing in your leaders. You know what, uh,


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[Assistant] When I got back from my last deployment, when I was in Ramadi, came back and


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[Assistant] Took over the west coast training and I was just so focused, Charles focused on the shooters, focused on making sure that the young guys understood that as SEALs they needed to be thinking shooters, absolutely. But I really, really was focused on the leadership and making sure that the leaders, leaders understood how to lead. And,


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[Assistant] It was one of the things that really opened my eyes is on that deployment and really on my previous deployments through my whole career. The Army and the Marine Corps had absolutely professionalized and doctrinalized how they trained leaders. So,


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[Assistant] The army, the army would go to this, uh, the, the,


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[Assistant] Company career course, their career course they call it, which is a company level commander. And this was like a six month or a year long school that these guys would get trained on how to lead their troops. And they have that at every level, enlisted and officer in the army and in the Marine Corps.


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[Assistant] And in the SEAL teams, there was almost nothing. There was almost nothing. There was a little junior officer training course that was, Leif ended up taking it over. When he took it over, it was, hey, this is where you're going to learn how to write evaluations. This is going to, you're going to learn a little bit about writing Navy, Navy message traffic. It was,


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[Assistant] And you'd get some debriefs on stuff, but you weren't going to actually learn any principles of leadership.


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[Assistant] And it was just, it was unbelievable that this was taking place. And I remember as I started to try and push this hard,


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[Assistant] The, I went, I started going up my chain of command, and one of the things that I'd bring up the chain of command was, was Hamburger University. And Hamburger University, if you don't know, it's up in, uhm,


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[Assistant] I think it's in Schomburg, Illinois, but if you're gonna run a McDonald's, you gotta go to this, this course. And it's like a six month school that you go to.


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[Assistant] And so I remember sitting down with my boss and saying, hey, have you heard of Hamburger Universities and what's that? I said, it's if you're going to run a freaking McDonald's.


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[Assistant] You're gonna go to a six month training course on how to lead a McDonald's where you flip burgers and fry french fries. And we've got guys that have, are gonna go out and oversee combat operations and have lives at risk and we give them, they don't go to any school.


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[Assistant] We're a victim of our own success. So hey, you know, hey Jocko, you just went on deployment, you came back, you did a good job, you were in charge, okay, so what we're doing is working.


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[Assistant] And hey, this other guy, you know, Leifah, you did good, you got mentored and you got trained up so that what we're doing, the on the job training works. And it does work sometimes.


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[Assistant] But it, but it also fails sometimes. And this is, so now we find this in every industry. Every industry. Hey, oh we...


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[Assistant] We got, we got Echo Charles here. He's a good salesman. In fact, he's our best salesman. Let's put him in charge of sales.


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[Assistant] What does he know about leadership? He knows how to sell stuff. He doesn't know anything about leading. Oh, we got Echo Charles here. He's our best, he's our best mechanic. Okay, great. What are we gonna do? Let's put him in charge of all the mechanics. He's good at turning the wrench. He's not good at leaders, leadership. And we just throw him in there, and for some reason,


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[Assistant] People think that leadership is something you're just born with or that you know how to do it intuitively. And it's just factually not true. So what we encourage and what you're actually doing is, oh, echo, you're the best mechanic.


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[Assistant] We're gonna take you and we're gonna elevate you into a leadership position and we're gonna train you how to lead just like at one point we trained you on how to turn wrenches and repair this carburetor. We're gonna, we're gonna train you the same way and you've put a massive amount of investment into your leadership


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[Assistant] How are we going to know if this works? What are the metrics to know if this succeeds? And I still to this day, I just had this conversation the other day.


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[Assistant] Whatever metric you're running at your company that means you are successful. So whether you're trying to cut the cost to produce or you're trying to improve your time to produce or you're trying to grow or whatever metric you're looking at.


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[Assistant] And, and that's where you say, hey, look, we actually have, we do some of these like, you know, soft skill surveys now and, you know, what do you think your leadership, and that's good too. That's good feedback. It's good feedback to say, hey,


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[Assistant] The leadership is now has a better relationship with the troops. That's great. The troops think the leadership is more in tune with what they're thinking and what they're saying. Those are, those are great things to do as well. But.


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[Assistant] For me, where the money, where the rubber meets the road is, hey, we're trying to produce this widget in this amount of time, and now we're doing it, we're cutting our costs, we're getting it out, our salespeople are doing better.


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[Assistant] That's how we measure leadership success is what is the success of the company. So as you, you invest, you get that ROI and that's what I, you know, that's what I love about seeing the success of your company and some of the other companies that we work with that


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[Assistant] We get to see this, this incredible growth and, you know, I started this whole thing off saying leadership is the most important thing on the battlefield in business and life and to, to look at a company like yours where you are proving


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[Assistant] How that works and how important it is and how you can grow things and how you can have


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[Assistant] 4200 employees. And I'd love to, uh, you know, if you are fishing for a compliment, say no, but Matt, it all starts with you. Hey, it does. I'll give you a compliment. It does start with you. But let's face it.


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[Assistant] Except for the fact that you already have helped them, because you trained them as a leader, they understand the culture, they understand the mission of the company, and when you do that, it allows you to, to, to drive a company forward with people at every level leading, making the right decisions, and moving in the same direction strategically.


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[Assistant] The, uh, when you were talking about how the, the culture gets into the system and it becomes part of who you are, I was thinking so, I was going to officer candidate school.


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[Assistant] And when you're at Officer Candidate School, when you first show up there, it's, you know, it's a total indoctrination, boot camp style indoctrination.


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[Assistant] And you, one of the rules, they have all these weird rules, one of the rules is that you can't look at your food. So you sit down to eat and you can't look at your food. You can only look straight ahead.


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[Assistant] And I remember I was an enlisted guy for my first eight years and I'm kind of street smart. So I'm sitting down and I got to eat and I think it was like chicken breast, right? So how are you going to eat a chicken breast without looking at like, how's that even going to work? Right?


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[Assistant] But also, I'm thinking, how are they possibly gonna see if I glance down at my food, right?


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[Assistant] So, and, and really the people, there's drill instructors, so there's Marine Corps drill instructors there, but there's also the senior officer candidates are there, so there, so there are, everyone's watching you when you get into the chow hall for the first couple, well, they're there all the time, but the first couple meals is where this happened to me. So I'm sitting there, I sit down, you know, and people are yelling and screaming.


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[Assistant] You know, don't look at your food, look straight ahead. They call it squaring your meals. Also, you have to lift your, your food has to go up, straight, you know, 90 degrees up from the ground, or from the plate, you have to bring it up straight, and then, you know, 90 degree turn into your mouth. That's how you gotta eat. They call it squaring your meals, you have to look straight ahead.


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[Assistant] So as I'm sitting there, I'm thinking they're never going to be able to tell that I'm looking at my foods. I'm just going to glance down and get it, you know, see what part of the chicken breast I'm about to eat. So I kind of glanced down there and as soon as a millisecond after I looked down, they're like, ah, what the hell are you doing? And they get it. And I was thinking to myself, how did they see that? So fast forward 10 weeks or 11 weeks. Now I'm one of the senior people and I'm standing at the end of the table and


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[Assistant] And that's the, that's what I think happens inside these companies that we work with where you get this attitude of ownership and when it starts to sink in,


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[Assistant] Anybody on the team that's like, well, you know, this actually isn't my fault. It is like, so obvious to everyone. And eventually, it becomes obvious to yourself. Eventually, as you're about to say, well, you know, this isn't really my fault, this is eeeeh. And you can't even get those words out of your mouth. Instead, you say, you know what, what can I do to fix this problem?


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[Assistant] Uh, attitude, that culture in so deep, man, it really becomes unstoppable. It really does. Because everyone on the team now becomes, they're looking to solve problems, they're not looking to blame, they're looking to solve problems. You combine that with decentralized command. They have the authority.


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[Assistant] Also, you know, we're talking about that example. You got some, it's part of the foundation's a little bit messed up.


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[Assistant] The attitude, he fixed that problem. That problem's probably not happening. Because going into that moment, when they were about to set that fixture, that guy says, hey, you know what, if this isn't good, I know I'm gonna have to fix it.


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[Assistant] And I know if it's not good and it's gonna cost money to fix it, I'm gonna have to call my supervisor and say, hey, I messed this up and I, you know, we're gonna have to eat this one.


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[Assistant] So you get that preemptive ownership where people care more about the job. They want to do it correctly the first time because they are taking ownership. You know, that's one of the bad things about extreme ownership is the first book's all about, oh, extreme ownership is in the past. It's a mistake that happened and oh, it's my fault, which is good. But what's even better than that?


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[Assistant] I'm not even gonna let that mistake happen. And that's when you, when you have it infused like you have it at your company, people aren't allowing that, those things to happen. And, and that's a powerful thing.


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[Assistant] A little bit, you know, you've, you've, you've glanced on this a couple times and we've been on for a little bit, but I just want to, before we, before we kind of close out, you know, one thing you, you mentioned a couple times was, you know, that the fact that we, we got an average age of welders at your company, your prior company was 54 years old.


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[Assistant] As you know, I'm also in the business of people working with their hands. We've got, we've got people that are manufacturing things in America that haven't been manufactured in a long time here.


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[Assistant] Uh, passing on, we were lucky enough to grab some of that knowledge, you know, Pete was lucky enough to grab some of that knowledge from some of these people that were older than 54 years old, you know, that were 65. We've lost some of those, those mentors at Origin that were passing on first-hand knowledge of how to do this stuff.


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[Assistant] Is there something that we could do better as a country, uhm, to help steer


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[Assistant] People in the right direction. I know I just worked with a university up in, up in Indiana called, called Ivy. Ivy Tech. And they teach trades. That's what they're doing. And, you know, I had an interesting conversation with them. It's like the, the highest paying job that you can get out of Ivy Tech is an elevator repairman.


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[Assistant] And you gotta, you gotta, a job, a career, a life, what do, how are, how are we failing to educate the, the young people in America that they don't necessarily have to go to college, they don't necessarily have to get a degree, and they don't necessarily have to look for, uh, some kind of a job, some kind of a white collar job,


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[Assistant] That if you go and you get a trade and you learn how to do something, and you know, I always say this, the SEAL Teams,


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[Assistant] On the enlisted side, this is as blue collar as it gets. I mean, that's what you're doing. You're working a machine gun. You're, you're building demolition charges. You're, it is, and you're a moving company. We always joked about the fact that we're always moving stuff. But, where are we making that mistake? How can we do better in America?


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[Assistant] You guys are, are you, how much are you able to keep your manufacturing in America?


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[Assistant] The luck of being kind of obsessed with building stuff in America and having that supply chain up. And you know, Pete and the rest of the team at Origin, you know,


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[Assistant] When COVID hit, we were kind of looking around, look, we were, it was horrible, you know, people are losing their jobs, it was horrible, but we were kind of looking around like nodding our head going, we were on the right path and we're not worried about, we're not, we don't have, we don't have containers sitting off the coast of wherever, waiting to


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[Assistant] Waiting to get here. We have our supply chain. It's an American supply chain. And then like you said,


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[Assistant] We're employing Americans. And we got people that are building this country and taking these skills. You know, I had a conversation with someone who was talking about


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[Assistant] You know, people not being fit for the military, right? I'm sure you've seen articles like that. You know, they say that the kids are spending so much time on video games or whatever that they won't even be.


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[Assistant] I think you mentioned that who's going to technical schools nowadays. You know, it's just, I don't even know.


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[Assistant] The high school where my kids went, they, they don't, they are trying now to reopen the, the, the automotive, you know, repair section. When I went to high school, all the kids were working on cars. It was part of, you know, everyone was building their own car and, and doing that. And then a lot of them went on to do that for, for a living.


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[Assistant] Where's that, where, who's gonna do this stuff now if we don't refocus America on, on the skills that we need as a nation to be self-sufficient?


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[Assistant] I gotta throw one more thing out there because I've, I've


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[Assistant] Just, just for anyone that's 18, 19, 20, 22 years old, whenever you are.


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[Assistant] A lot of times I talk to people and they say, well, you know, I don't want to be doing that kind of physical labor my whole life. Well, I'm going to tell you right now, if you go, if you become an electrician or you become a plumber.


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[Assistant] You're not gonna do that. If you're, if you're smart and you're hardworking, and you really get after it, and you have the intention,


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[Assistant] of elevating in that environment, you'll absolutely do it. I mean, who's the guy you were talking about that's a high, high school graduate? Uh, that's Jeffrey Martin. So, so Jeffrey Martin, is he, is he right now, how old is Jeffrey Martin? 32.


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[Assistant] But he did 20 years of sling and steal, he's not in a crawl space anymore, you know? And so my point is that, and I've got, I've got multiple friends like this that started off, they were electricians.


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[Assistant] And they were an electrician for four years, six years, and all of a sudden, they got put in charge of two electricians.


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[Assistant] And then they got put in charge of four electricians, then they went and said, you know what, if I'm going to be running four electricians, I might as well just have my own business. That's right. And they start their own businesses and now they have 28 electricians working for them. And you can go in any one of these trades. If you have the mindset and you want to learn and you want to grow and you want to, you want to take a little extra time to understand the financial part of it. If you have that mindset,


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[Assistant] You can run, you can run any kind of business that you want. So don't think when I'm sitting here or Matt's sitting here saying hey we need people that are gonna know how to weld. We do. But this doesn't mean you're gonna be necessarily welding until you're 62 years old. You can if you want to. That's correct. But if your goal is to


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[Assistant] Is to grow out of that role. You'll have the experience to do it You'll have the money to do it and you will definitely in this country have the opportunity to do it That's what America provides


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[Assistant] And that's when it counts. That's when you say you gotta keep going. That's when it counts. Characters defined by hardship, right?


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[Assistant] Right on. Well, Matt, thanks for coming on. Thanks for sharing some of these lessons. Uhm, and most important, thanks for what you're doing today. I mean, uh, you can probably hear when I talk about this and I talk about all the time and I live it too. Uhm, the fact that you're building a company that is


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[Assistant] It first of all, it's providing a much needed service, right? I mean, like you said, it's the American dream to have a house. It's not an American dream to have a house with a basement full of water. Uh, but, but you not only provide that service, but you know, you, you give ownership to your workforce and they get a skill and they get a career.


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[Assistant] It's just powerful and that, that helps. That is, that is what drives the American economy. That's what does it. And that attitude, that attitude, that work ethic, that's the American culture.


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[Assistant] And look, the American culture might get, might get pushed around a little bit. It might get, it might get some layers put on it by various things that are going on in the world. But the American culture of hard work, the culture of entrepreneurship and the culture that


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[Assistant] Supercedes all those, is the culture of taking care of your family, taking care of your friends, taking care of your community, taking care of your people. That's the American way, and that's how you win. And thank you for being an example of making that happen. Thank you sir.


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[Assistant] Trying to get, like you said, trying to get to the kind of ultimate position where he got to, where he is now, I think was cool, uh, and I think that's, and plus maybe I was just like going yeaah.


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[Assistant] Within the games. But then more importantly to remember you're in, there's a game that's bigger than the game you're in. And that's what's always happening. And you gotta be careful in life that you don't get trapped in the game and think that you won that game.


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[Assistant] Cause there's a bigger game going on. So you need to watch out for it. Now, listen, here's the thing. You could never


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[Assistant] Very few people are just gonna win every game. Like all the games, the big game, right? What do you gotta do? What's the winning the biggest game? Is it Elon Musk and he won like the big game? It, it could be. But also there's some people that don't care about any of that.


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[Assistant] So it's important to remember that. Do you care about the game that someone else is playing? This comes back to this whole discussion we had one time.


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[Assistant] Where I was, I compared basketball and soccer, right? Like someone's playing soccer, they're the best soccer player in the world. In their whole season, they score four goals.


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[Assistant] Meanwhile, someone plays basketball, they score four goals in the first minute. And in the season they play, they score thousand points. So, what game are you playing? And you gotta be careful, cause you might be,


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[Assistant] I've known plenty of people in my day, and I'm sure you have too, that worked really, really, really hard and won the game that they were playing and were winning that game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it, but it was limited. You know, they weren't really barely even getting on the board.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So you want to make sure that you're playing a game that you can win, and then you also, at a certain point, you say, look, I don't really care about that next level game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't, I don't care about that. I don't need to win the game above my game and the game above that game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Basically the games we're talking about right now are all business, financial, earning games. Cause, you know, you got a game that you're playing to win with your family, to win with your legacy, to pass on good behaviors to your children, to help your community, to build good relationships. Like there's that too. Your health. Your health.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right, so we're going to abandon those things. So I think it's important to, and I think, I think Matt spent quite a bit of time doing that, playing a game and not necessarily winning a game, but saying I don't even want to play that game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, I'm going to try this other game? I don't like that game. Oh, I'm going to try another game? I don't really like that game. And finally figured out, oh, here's a game that I like. I actually want to be an operator that makes stuff happen. I want to interact with people. I mean, look, there's some people that don't want to interact with other humans.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Also, like for instance, at Origin, right, we're making jeans, we could make more money making jeans in China.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right, so we could, we could allegedly win a certain part of the game, but we're playing by other rules and we're not winning the game that we want to win. We want to win the game, bring it back to American manufacturing. So, you gotta, it's not, it's quite so cut and dry. And the other thing I was thinking about, when you just talk about raw money,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What are people gonna use that money for? A lot, if you think about like an end game, is you're gonna use that money to buy time. Oh, now I don't have to work anymore, I can do whatever I want.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You might be losing, you know, unless you figure out a way to scale it, which is what you were just talking about. Unless you figured out a way to scale it, you're gonna have a hard time doing that. So that's why it's important, in my opinion, to be doing something that you really love doing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I never even ever thought I was working in while I was in the Navy. Probably, let me rephrase that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was very seldom considering what I was doing work. Just didn't seem like work ever. Like, just didn't seem like work. So that's a really good life. You know? I had, I didn't need money to buy time because I had all the time in the world because I was doing exactly what I wanted to all the time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that's good stuff. Alright, uhm, hey, if you want to invest in your health, get yourself some stuff, some healthy things to put in your body.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which is not a common thing. You want to talk about uncommon. Yep. It's true. These other drinks.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They, they, the funny thing is, there's no, there's, there's like, there's no truth in advertising. They don't say, they don't say, hey, we're...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're not that good for you, but we'll give you like an hour and a half of like hype.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You don't say that. They can throw, they can throw, they can actually use the term clean energy. And they could be feeding you arsenic. They don't care.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, don't fall for that misleading lies. Sometimes I see them and I just want to tell the truth about what they're actually doing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, but we are telling the truth about ours. It's good for you. It's good for you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's good for you. Get yourself some of that. JockoFuel.com. Uh, get it at Wawa. Get it at Vitamin Shop. We're rolling out a bunch of other stores. Cool.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Somebody said, we have one that says everybody must get stoned. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which is based on the Stoner 63 machine gun that the SEALs carried in NOM. And I saw Twitter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was bummed that this guy wasn't down for the cause, kind of. And just to repeat the story, I heard from a Vietnam guy that he got his weapon from the armory.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After someone else had used his weapon in Nom, he would like, took whatever, a year off and went back to get his weapon. And he got, went to get his stoner 63 and on the buttstock someone had written, everybody must get stoned. And if that's not badass, come on dude. Another layer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's the deal. So if you want to get those kind of cool shirts with


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You ever see a review- I saw a review the other day that said, uh, We came for Jocko, we stayed for Ekko.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Jocko's podcast. We got origin USA. Check out that YouTube channel, psychological warfare. Got all that stuff going on. Flip side, canvas, Dakota Meyer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just, just be in Dakota. God bless him. Uh, if you want to support his company while he's over in Ukraine, like saving people. By the way, he saves people in America too. He's a firefighter. And he's a Medal of Honor recipient, in case you weren't aware of that. He's got a company here in America.