Order of Man - JOCKO WILLINK ｜ The Dichotomy of Leadership

00:00:00.000 Extreme ownership is a philosophy that has been coined by Navy SEALs Jocko Willink and Leif Babin,

00:00:05.220 and one that most of you listening are familiar with. But when does extreme ownership become too

00:00:09.760 much? That's a question my guest Jocko Willink has answered in his new book, The Dichotomy of

00:00:14.440 Leadership. Today we explore that question, how to avoid taking things too far, how to overcome

00:00:20.500 your own ego when you recognize it, how to strike the balance between caring for your team and

00:00:25.220 placing the mission first, and so much more. You're a man of action. You live life to the

00:00:29.840 fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back

00:00:35.380 up one more time, every time. You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong.

00:00:42.960 This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day,

00:00:48.340 and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on

00:00:53.840 a day? My name is Ryan Mickler, and I am the host and the founder of this podcast, The Order

00:00:57.760 of Man. I want to welcome you if you're new. I want to welcome you back. If you've been

00:01:02.200 here for any amount of time, you know as well as I do that we could not possibly do this show

00:01:07.360 without you. I am blown away each and every week by the number of people who are tuning

00:01:11.820 in, by the messages that I get from you guys that are salvaging your marriages and starting

00:01:16.820 businesses and losing weight and getting in shape and being better fathers and doing everything

00:01:22.120 that I know most of you men who are listening are striving to do and striving to become.

00:01:26.880 So I'm glad you're on this journey. I'm glad that you're on this mission. The order would

00:01:31.100 just not be the order without you. Guys, we've got an exciting podcast today. I've got Jocko

00:01:36.840 Willink back in the show. I'm going to introduce him here in a minute, but I want to make a couple

00:01:41.600 of very quick announcements. Number one, we've got a review contest going on right now. So

00:01:46.120 if you would, please go on, leave us a rating and review in iTunes, and you will be automatically

00:01:52.180 entered to the review contest. We're giving away shirts, hats, signed copies of sovereignty.

00:01:58.360 We're doing a couple of calls with me. And again, all you have to do to get entered into that

00:02:03.060 drawing, and this is going to go through the end of September is to leave your rating and review on

00:02:07.540 iTunes. This goes such a long way in helping spread the mission and spread the word of the order and

00:02:13.400 helping more men across this planet, which you know that we need. Get this message and become

00:02:18.640 better fathers, better husbands, better community leaders, business owners, every capacity and every

00:02:23.260 facet of life that they're showing up as. So again, leave your rating and review. It takes you a couple

00:02:27.660 of minutes and you're going to get entered into some of those drawings. Outside of that, guys, man,

00:02:32.880 it has been so busy. A couple of weeks ago, I was at Immersion Camp. That's with Origin. I know you

00:02:38.640 guys have heard me talk about them and got to sit down with Pete Roberts, the founder of Origin,

00:02:42.700 and Jocko and Leif Babin and JP Donnell and Dave Burke and Echo and all the other guys

00:02:47.640 with the Echelon Front team. And man, it was just an incredible, incredible week of jujitsu

00:02:53.660 instruction. But I'll tell you what, I was so sore. I mean, my knees and my back and my elbows were so

00:03:01.120 sore. And one of the things that I've really put off is taking any supplements. And as you know,

00:03:08.260 I've been taking Origin supplements for a couple of months now. And one of the things that helped

00:03:13.200 me so much was the joint warfare by Origin. I take that. I take the super krill. And I'm telling

00:03:19.960 you, I feel so much better just through recovery and then through taking care of my joints. And if

00:03:26.460 you're doing jujitsu or you're working out and exercising and doing all the things that we as

00:03:31.360 active men are doing, then I would highly, highly encourage you to supplement. Again,

00:03:35.920 it's just a supplement to supplement what you guys are doing from a nutritional and health

00:03:41.400 perspective. So if you need to look into that joint warfare, the super krill, the malk, everything that

00:03:46.340 they're doing over at Origin, go check it out because it really saved my knees. It saved my elbows.

00:03:51.620 My arm was hanging. It felt like the first week of baseball where your arm is just hanging with how

00:03:56.460 sore it was. And that joint warfare went such a long way in helping that. So head over to

00:04:01.120 origin, Maine. All right. Origin, Maine.com slash order of man origin, Maine.com slash order of man

00:04:06.880 and use order at checkout. O-R-D-E-R at checkout to get your discount. You can get rash guards,

00:04:13.220 geese, and then the supplemental lineup that I had just talked about, including the joint warfare,

00:04:17.780 which saved me over the past week or two. You can do that after the show. But for now,

00:04:22.240 I want to get into this conversation. I'm so excited to introduce you to my guest, which frankly,

00:04:28.140 he doesn't really even need an introduction. His name is Jocko Willink. And this is the third time

00:04:33.220 that I've been able to have him on the podcast. Today, we cover his new book, which I'm sure I

00:04:39.020 have no doubt will be a New York times bestseller. This is the followup to extreme ownership. It's

00:04:43.820 called the dichotomy of leadership. As you are all well aware, Jocko is a Navy SEAL. He was the

00:04:50.120 commander of task unit bruiser, which was the most highly decorated special forces unit of the Iraq war.

00:04:55.980 Again, I was fortunate enough to spend some time with him a couple of weeks ago at the immersion

00:05:00.260 camp with origin. And I can tell you that this is a man who lives what he preaches. I saw a

00:05:05.900 perspective of him through his instruction at the camp and stories from his team that only solidifies

00:05:12.200 my respect for who he is as a veteran, as a husband, a father, and a man in general. So without

00:05:18.840 any further delay, let's jump into the conversation with Jocko. Jocko, what's going on,

00:05:24.860 man? Thanks for joining me here today. What's happening? It's been good. It's been a good week

00:05:28.480 so far. I'm a little sore. I'm not going to lie. Right on. That's the jujitsu. That's the point,

00:05:32.820 right? Yeah. It's got to be a little bit of a challenge. Yeah. I've never done anything like

00:05:36.460 this. I actually just got into jujitsu three months ago. So Pete invited me out here and I thought,

00:05:42.240 man, if you're going to be out here, he's going to be out here. Echelon Front's going to be out here.

00:05:45.920 I'm going to be out here. So it's been good. Good call. Yeah, it has been. How'd you get into jujitsu?

00:05:50.860 So when I first got to the SEAL teams, there was a master chief. I was going to say old master

00:05:58.600 chief, but I think he was actually younger at the time than I am right now. But there was an old

00:06:04.100 master chief and he had studied a little bit of jujitsu with the Gracie's in the Torrance garage,

00:06:09.940 which is the old sort of where the Gracie started out when they got to California. And so he had trained

00:06:15.120 there and he was like a high level white belt at the time, which at the time meant that he could just

00:06:19.540 destroy everyone because no one knows. And so he asked if anybody wanted to learn how to fight.

00:06:26.540 And I said, absolutely. And about four of us, maybe five of us started training with him. That was

00:06:32.640 kind of my introduction to jujitsu. That was actually on deployment overseas. And I came back

00:06:37.420 from that deployment. And one of the other guys that trained in that small group named Jeff Higgs,

00:06:41.240 he went and found a gym in San Diego and he started training hard and he actually

00:06:46.740 got out of the Navy and just started training all the time while I was still in. And then a couple

00:06:53.280 of years later, he called me and said, Hey, do you want to train? And I said, sure. And so he came to

00:06:58.140 my house. We went out in the grass across the street from my house into a little park and he just

00:07:03.500 completely worked me over, even though he was, you know, 25 pounds, maybe 30 pounds lighter than me.

00:07:09.300 And, you know, he just choked me and arm locked me over and over again. I said, Hey, where's the

00:07:13.800 place? Cause I'll be there today. I'll go today. Well, it's not open today. Cool. Cause I was on a

00:07:18.060 Sunday. He said, it's open Monday. I said, I'll be there. Ever since that, I just kept training.

00:07:22.700 How did that work with your schedule with you being overseas, you being deployed? Did you guys find

00:07:27.140 time? Cause I know like within Ramadi, did you train while you were over there?

00:07:30.540 Yeah. Trained all the time.

00:07:31.780 You just had a mat over there that you used.

00:07:33.300 You know, it was pretty lucky because once I was an assistant platoon commander and a platoon

00:07:37.760 commander and a task unit commander, I would just palletize the mats and we'd just bring them

00:07:42.060 wherever we'd go. If we were going on a training trip in America, just part of the gear, just part

00:07:45.920 of the gig. Yeah.

00:07:47.260 Huh. That's interesting. Yeah. You know, we had weight rooms and whatnot over there, go play

00:07:51.400 basketball or whatever. Yeah.

00:07:52.840 You just, it wasn't on my radar at the time. Yeah.

00:07:55.680 It's crazy. It's amazing. You talk about the disparity between somebody that's just been, you know,

00:07:59.860 like a high level white belt. It's amazing to me, the disparity between somebody who's like myself

00:08:05.360 who just gets started and somebody who's been doing it for even six months. Like I walked into

00:08:10.020 the gym and there was this guy that one of the guys asked in a Q and a that we did last night,

00:08:14.020 he said, um, how long before you actually roll? And when I went in, they taught us a little bit

00:08:20.580 of technique, took about 30 minutes and they said, go, this guy came up to me. He's like,

00:08:25.860 you want to roll? I'm like, yeah. And I sized him up cause that's what we do. Yeah. Little

00:08:29.560 guy. I probably had 30 pounds on him. I'm like, Oh yeah, no problem. I got this. I got

00:08:33.760 this. And he just like, not just destroyed me, but humiliated me. It was humbling, but

00:08:39.540 I was like, I want more. I want to do this more.

00:08:42.820 Yeah. There's a choice that you make when you get crushed like that. You either say to

00:08:47.620 yourself, okay, I need to stay away from this. I'm never going to let this happen again.

00:08:51.280 Cause I'm just never going to do it again. Yeah. Or you say, I'm going to never let this happen

00:08:54.680 again by learning everything that I can about this so that it doesn't happen to me. How do you

00:08:58.900 determine that? Cause I think there's a lot of guys out there who will run away, who pick that

00:09:03.900 first option. They'll see something, they'll run away and they know they need to probably advance,

00:09:07.800 but they retreat. I think it's an ego thing that they don't want to hurt their ego. It hurts

00:09:12.860 your ego. It hurts your ego bad. You think you're a bad-ass and then you're getting choked out by

00:09:18.960 somebody that's literally half your size or that's 15 years old or that's female.

00:09:25.540 A woman. Yeah. Yeah. And so all those things can really negatively impact your ego. And you say,

00:09:30.780 you know what, I'm just not, I'm just going to, not going to do it. You should tell yourself some

00:09:34.420 little, you can rationalize it. You know, well, if this was a real fight, I'd really, I'd just punch

00:09:37.800 this guy or I'd slam him and you rationalize it in your head. Those are lies that you're telling

00:09:42.660 yourself. And that's just the way that some people take the slippery slope that some people take.

00:09:48.060 And it is, it's a slippery slope. And once you get on it, you set a precedent for the rest of your

00:09:51.900 life. Like if you're going to quit here, where else are you going to quit in your life? There's

00:09:56.360 the quote, uh, we don't rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our

00:10:00.320 training. And that's been true. I'm like, Oh, if I ever got in a fight, I would do this and I would

00:10:04.680 do that. And I would kick his ass. And then you have a guy that's actually fighting back and he's got

00:10:10.100 his own game plan that he's working and it changes everything. Well, it especially changes

00:10:14.540 everything. If the person that you're fighting against fights every single day, which is what

00:10:19.420 in jujitsu, you fight every single day, every single day you're fighting. And so if you think

00:10:25.420 that you're going to be able to just fight one time and you're going to be able to win because you

00:10:30.180 have some anger or you have some emotional will that you think you're going to present,

00:10:37.140 you can be a strong willed person. It doesn't matter.

00:10:38.860 Right.

00:10:39.360 Your will will not overcome leverage.

00:10:42.980 Well, and sometimes I found that actually gets you in a worse position because you're being

00:10:46.940 aggressive when you shouldn't be aggressive and you're being passive when you shouldn't be.

00:10:50.060 So you let those heat of the moment decisions like I'm going to bulldoze this guy.

00:10:54.160 Yeah.

00:10:54.700 Actually you fall prey to that.

00:10:56.640 And clearly that relates directly to your life as a human being.

00:11:01.060 Yeah.

00:11:01.440 It's the same exact thing.

00:11:02.940 Yeah.

00:11:03.240 You make the same mistakes in just normal life.

00:11:05.820 It is a good learning experience outside of just being

00:11:09.640 fit and somewhat capable of handling yourself in an altercation. It is a good

00:11:14.540 life learning experience as well.

00:11:17.240 Indeed.

00:11:17.980 Yes. Yes. Well, so you've got a new book, Dichotomy of Leadership. I've read it. I was

00:11:23.220 fortunate enough to get a pre-first edition. We talked about that.

00:11:26.700 Pre-first edition.

00:11:27.680 That's amazing to me. I'm going to have you sign the copy here.

00:11:30.820 Right on.

00:11:31.300 But yeah, it's a good book and it's a good follow-up to Extreme Ownership because I think

00:11:35.720 where Extreme Ownership stopped, I think this is where it picks up. There's a pattern I think

00:11:42.700 people fall into when they take your advice to heart, which is good. That's what you want.

00:11:48.500 And then they almost go too far with it.

00:11:50.660 For sure. That's the premise of the second book, which one of the problems with the book

00:11:55.720 Extreme Ownership is the title Extreme Ownership because people take that word extreme and they

00:12:01.320 say, okay, I just need to do this to the extreme. That is the case when it comes to taking ownership

00:12:06.080 of things. Yes, you need to take extreme ownership. You need to make sure that you take ownership and

00:12:10.080 responsibility of everything in your world. And failure to do that is going to cause problems

00:12:15.240 for you as a leader and as a human. But if you start taking even the principles, even the laws of

00:12:22.820 combat, if you take those to the extreme in either direction, you're probably going to get off balance

00:12:28.720 as a leader and you're going to cause other problems. So you have to remain balanced. And it's one of the

00:12:33.460 trickiest things to do. And that's why, you know, as we work with all these different companies and all

00:12:37.660 these different leaders, that's the problem that we see the most. And it's also the answer to the most

00:12:45.020 challenging questions that people ask. Someone will say, well, you know, I've got these people and

00:12:50.420 they're just not doing what, and I'm imposing discipline on them as hard as I can. And it's

00:12:54.480 like, okay, so there's your mistake. You go so far that they have not thinking anymore for

00:12:58.420 themselves. Oftentimes the really hard questions that people are asking aren't that hard, but the

00:13:05.980 answer is that there's a balance. There's a dichotomy that you have to balance. And if you don't,

00:13:09.800 you're going to be too far in one direction or the other. Is that just self-awareness? Is that

00:13:14.320 measuring your results? Like, okay, I'm taking extreme ownership, but I'm not producing X, Y,

00:13:20.400 and Z results. So I have to evaluate this and figure out a better way to do it.

00:13:23.820 Absolutely. Well, what's the problem? And extreme ownership is a great,

00:13:26.500 the idea of ownership. So Leif and I talked about this on, actually, I think we talked about it on my

00:13:31.520 podcast. We got asked at the muster, can you take too much extreme ownership? Can you do that? And

00:13:38.040 Leif was like, no, you can't. You can't really take too much extreme ownership because you're

00:13:42.260 responsible for everything. And that's correct. And then I said, well, actually you can take too

00:13:48.080 much ownership of something. And here's when it happens is if you're on my team and you work for

00:13:54.560 me and I'm a guy that's like, I'm taking ownership of everything. This is my, this is my project. I

00:13:59.540 own it. Well, now when it comes to your task or I give you a project, but I want to keep ownership

00:14:05.700 of the project. Now you don't end up with any ownership. So now I'm just giving you all the

00:14:09.700 direction. I'm giving you all the plan. It's not anything that you create or come up with yourself

00:14:13.280 and you as a person, you're not going to like that. You don't want to just follow my orders and

00:14:18.140 have no say. Human beings want to have control over their fate somewhat. And so when I own

00:14:23.740 everything myself at my level, I don't give any ownership to you. And so people say, oh, my people

00:14:28.620 aren't buying in and my people aren't, I can't get my people to take ownership. Well, there's a good

00:14:32.120 chance that you're taking all that ownership yourself. And if you do that, it leaves no ownership

00:14:36.300 left for the team. And then they're not going to perform to the highest level.

00:14:40.020 Yeah. I mean, I think where people fall short on this and I'm guilty of it too, is I want to be a

00:14:45.200 good leader. And so I, in a way, maybe even subconsciously try to elevate myself right at

00:14:50.560 the expense of the team, but that shouldn't be the case. The case should be to lift those people up.

00:14:57.060 And the only way you lift those people up is to allow them to lead occasionally as well.

00:15:01.500 Exactly right.

00:15:02.300 Yeah. Cause you don't want to undercut your team.

00:15:03.900 Yeah. You just said occasions, not even occasionally. It's like as often as you can

00:15:07.820 possibly get them to take lead, you want them to the times when you have to step in. It's like,

00:15:13.100 okay, you look at a situation, you see that people are floundering or the team is floundering and

00:15:17.240 they're not really sure what they're doing. You've got to step in and make some course corrections,

00:15:20.920 give some clear direction, and then step back again and let them start running.

00:15:25.320 Yeah. I think that's the biggest challenge for leaders is they don't understand that in a way

00:15:32.000 your job is to render yourself obsolete. It's a hundred percent amazing. If you had guys that

00:15:37.380 replaced you and surpassed you, that's intimidating. That's an ego thing though, too.

00:15:41.180 I think it's the ultimate goal. And I talk about this a lot too. I would go on missions with my task

00:15:46.780 unit, with my seal platoon, where the only thing I would do is get to the target. And I would say,

00:15:52.920 execute, execute, execute. And once I said that the guys would go and do everything.

00:15:56.300 And I would have to do nothing, literally nothing. To me, that's awesome. Now, when I say literally

00:16:02.480 nothing, what I really mean is my team is now handling the problem, the tactical problem in

00:16:08.180 front of them. And that allows me to talk to aircraft overhead, see if there's any enemy maneuvering,

00:16:14.500 find out where friendly forces are, see if there's any fresh intelligence coming. It allows me to look

00:16:18.660 up and out instead of down and in at my own team. And so when you're doing that, you're way more

00:16:24.900 beneficial to your team because they're handling what they're handling. And you're actually looking

00:16:28.520 at what's going to come next for them. So you want to be doing as little as possible. You want to work

00:16:33.740 yourself out of a job all the time. That's a good point because I was going to ask before you had

00:16:37.740 articulated that is, did you feel guilty? You were in the, we called it the talk, but we were in the

00:16:42.300 talk and somebody else was out on patrol, but it's not like you're sitting back doing nothing.

00:16:46.340 It's just freed your capacity to do something maybe higher level or something that's not even seen by

00:16:51.540 necessarily the team or the mission. No, for me, I mean, I would have,

00:16:55.760 sometimes I'd have five elements out at the same time, five different elements of seals all out in

00:17:00.220 different areas of the city. And sometimes I would go with one of them. Sometimes I wouldn't. It's,

00:17:04.840 I would try and position myself where I would best be able to support them. It's about them and not

00:17:09.220 about me. It's about me trying to give them the support they need to make things happen out there.

00:17:13.760 Well, which leads into one of the dichotomies that you talk about, which is,

00:17:16.980 and I'm paraphrasing here, but care about your team, but also the mission's got to come first too.

00:17:22.820 You get to know your guys on a personal level, you're connected with them. And yet at the end

00:17:27.160 of the day, there's a mission. And in your case, life, life and death type mission that we're talking

00:17:31.360 about here. Yeah. Well, that's the first chapter in the book is called the ultimate dichotomy. And

00:17:36.100 it is the ultimate dichotomy. The fact that you're going to form these relationships with these guys

00:17:41.680 that you're going to care about more than anything else in the world. And at the same time, when you

00:17:49.580 get overseas, you're going to task them with things and lead them on missions that can absolutely get

00:17:56.620 them wounded or killed. Yeah. And that's a really hard thing to do over and over and over again.

00:18:02.400 What are the kinds of things that you tell yourself and the conversations that you're having you and

00:18:08.320 life? And I know you talk a little bit about this in the book, when things go South and you do lose

00:18:13.020 somebody, how do you come to terms with that as their commander, as their leader?

00:18:19.780 That's definitely one of the big topics in the book. And it's, it's something that there's,

00:18:24.500 it's very, we weren't prepared for it. When I say we weren't prepared for it, I mean,

00:18:28.360 there was no one that talked to me about, Hey, if you take casualties, this is what you're going to

00:18:34.920 see from your troops. This is what you're going to feel yourself. This is what it's going to go

00:18:38.300 through psychologically. This is what's going to happen to the morale of the team. No one had that

00:18:43.240 conversation with me. Why didn't anyone have that conversation with me? Because we hadn't been at war

00:18:47.880 for 30 years. So did you never serve under anyone in a war type situation? No, no. Okay. So I came

00:18:56.140 in in 1990. I missed the first Gulf war. The first Gulf war was 72 hours long. There were no casualties.

00:19:02.580 I deployed really early to Iraq. I had one guy get wounded. We got in a few firefights. It wasn't

00:19:08.560 that, it was a pretty relatively benign deployment, you know, going out and getting after it. Great

00:19:14.440 group of guys doing our mission, doing what we were supposed to do. The enemy wasn't organized yet.

00:19:19.780 The enemy was still kind of floundering around trying to figure themselves out. Didn't have a

00:19:24.020 bunch of foreign fighters coming in, didn't have the Al Qaeda money and leadership coming into the

00:19:27.720 country yet. So everyone was just kind of floundering around. And that was 2003, 2004.

00:19:33.400 So 2006 rolled around and we still, SEALs hadn't, we'd taken some casualties. We had some guys get

00:19:38.360 wounded, but no one had been killed. You know, a couple of guys had been killed in Afghanistan,

00:19:42.480 but they were few and far between. And of course, I mean, every loss of anyone in the service is a

00:19:49.420 tragedy and a travesty over and over again. And it destroys lives across the board. But we had taken

00:19:57.240 relatively few casualties up until this point. And no, I had never, you know, my first deployment

00:20:02.360 to Iraq, that was the first combat deployment for actually for every single guy that was with us.

00:20:08.120 It was the first combat deployment. When we went to Ramadi, everyone had done one or two deployments

00:20:13.040 to Iraq or Afghanistan, except for all the new guys, which there was, you know, probably a third of the

00:20:17.760 guys are new guys that never deployed anywhere before. But the type of fighting that was going on

00:20:23.040 Ramadi, as you know, you were there, it was heavy and it was every day and there was casualties every

00:20:27.660 day. And so again, there was no training that we had been through, no discussions that we had.

00:20:33.860 What I had was I had read books about war. That's the best education that I had. The best mentors

00:20:43.700 that I had were people that had fought in World War II and Korea and Vietnam.

00:20:48.320 So that's kind of what I looked to. How did these guys handle these situations? And you know,

00:20:55.960 the book about face by Hackworth, I read that every day for the first, I read it multiple times. I was

00:21:00.920 on deployment. It was next to my bed. I would get to my bed at five or six o'clock in the morning and

00:21:06.300 I would read four pages. I'd read three pages. I'd read eight pages. It was everything that he was

00:21:11.220 going through. It was what I was going through. And so it was very, a good connection. So when we took

00:21:18.220 casualties, no, we, we weren't quite sure what to do. And, and, you know, I just talked about this

00:21:23.400 as well. And I've talked about it before in America, we don't have really a ritualistic

00:21:28.240 methodology to execute when there's a death, right? And other cultures, they have specific

00:21:34.180 rituals that they're going to do. You're going to, you're going to mourn for this time. You're

00:21:37.320 going to do this. You're going to say this, you're going to bury the person on this day,

00:21:40.600 and then you're going to move on.

00:21:42.020 As Americans, I think we try to hide it, shun it, put it away.

00:21:44.480 We try and hide it, shun it, put it away. We also have a mismatch of all the different

00:21:48.940 cultures that we have. So you get a little bit of this and a little bit of that. So

00:21:51.840 we're not really good at the ritual part of it, the protocol part of it, which means

00:21:56.020 what are we supposed to do mentally? There's no closure to it. There's no, we just don't

00:22:00.600 do a good job of it. At least that's me. That's my kind of experience as an American. And

00:22:05.980 so overseas, we didn't have that either. You know, we didn't have, well, here's what

00:22:11.080 you do. Just about everything else in the military, you can find some kind of protocol

00:22:13.940 for, Hey, what do you do when you have a vehicle accident? Oh, you fill out this form. What

00:22:17.760 do you do when you lose a piece of gear in the field? Okay. You fill out this form, you

00:22:21.380 report here, you go see the old man. This is what happens. What happens when someone gets

00:22:25.000 hurt? Okay. On a training accident. Okay. You got to fill out the, it's very organized

00:22:29.560 to be able to follow some kind of protocol. Well, when someone gets killed in combat, we

00:22:33.180 didn't have a protocol. And so I kind of had to make one up. Okay. This is what we're

00:22:36.420 going to do. We're going to take a couple of days. We're going to do a ceremony. And

00:22:39.900 then, you know, my thing was like, we're going to go back to work. That's what we're going to

00:22:42.820 do. I imagine that's how you honor that individual. Absolutely. That's what he'd want. Yeah. Cause

00:22:47.240 you talk about in the book and I can't remember the gentleman's name, but he was injured and

00:22:51.520 his biggest concern was don't send me home. Yeah. Like I want to stay in the fight. For

00:22:56.560 sure. That's what soldiers do. Yeah, absolutely. Sailors and veterans. Yeah. Yeah. To answer

00:23:02.860 your question about, you know, working through it. And so I was the senior guy and, you know,

00:23:08.960 Leif's a platoon commander, the other platoon commander, Seth Stone, like they were in the

00:23:13.000 same boat. We'd never experienced casualties. And so we had to figure out how to handle it

00:23:19.720 each on our own individual level. But then also we got all of our guys as well. And, you

00:23:25.760 know, going back to work was definitely part of it. But, you know, in the book we talk about

00:23:30.080 and I talk about, you know, of course, man, Leif's, Leif's, you know, he lost Mark Lee,

00:23:35.720 who's just an unbelievable guy. And, you know, he's soul is crushed. Yeah. And cause he's

00:23:42.800 feeling guilty because guess what? He's responsible. You know, this is the dichotomy. This is the

00:23:46.860 ultimate dichotomy. Right. Right. This is his guy. He loves this guy. He loves all of his

00:23:51.100 guys. And yet one of his guys gets killed and he's the one that's responsible for taking

00:23:56.200 care of his guys. And he failed to do it. You know, in his mind, he failed to do it.

00:24:00.720 And there's no heavier weight that you can put on another man of like, Hey, you, you're

00:24:05.500 responsible for these guys and you lost one of your guys for him. It was really heavy.

00:24:10.900 I mean, it was really heavy for all of us, but I could see that it was crushing him in

00:24:15.680 his mind. He was thinking, what could I have done different? What different decision could

00:24:20.920 I have made? Did I do the right thing? Did I do the wrong thing? I wish I could trade

00:24:25.860 places. It should have been me. Like all those thoughts are going through his mind.

00:24:29.760 And you know, the big thing that I told him, there wasn't really a decision to make. Like

00:24:36.040 you are in the military. You're an American fighting man. This is what we do. You know

00:24:42.060 this. Everyone in the platoon knows this. Everyone in the task unit knows this. Mark knows

00:24:45.900 this. He knew that. That's what we do. Right. And there was a fight going on and our army

00:24:51.180 brethren were in the fight and these guys had risked their lives for us and they needed

00:24:55.780 help. And to think even for a second that you could just sit back and let other people

00:25:04.080 take the risk. It's not even a possibility. It's not even a possibility as, as you to do

00:25:09.760 that. There was no decision. You did what you're supposed to do, what we're supposed to do and

00:25:14.440 what we have to do. That is our duty. That's the meaning of the word duty. That's what we do.

00:25:19.080 We all signed up for it. That's the facts. You bring up a really good point too, about,

00:25:24.540 you know, he signed up for it. He knew the risks. Right. And I think that comes down to

00:25:28.700 expectations. Right. As well. Like if you talk about in the civilian side of things,

00:25:32.440 I think there's got to be for a leader, a very clear set of expectations as to what you expect

00:25:36.980 from your employees, for example. And if those boundaries or those expectations aren't set,

00:25:41.560 then I think it'll probably be infinitely harder to make tough decisions as the manager or the boss or

00:25:46.860 the leader or whatever else it may be. Cause you have no standard by which to measure

00:25:50.380 performance. A hundred percent. Leif tells a good story where we're out at our desert training

00:25:57.000 facility. And during the desert training block that we go through prior to going on deployment,

00:26:01.260 it's very arduous training. It's in the middle of the desert. It's 120 degrees. Is that where you

00:26:06.120 got to do it? We do it South of there, but it's out in a very remote site, hot, miserable. And

00:26:13.420 there's a day where they give you like, before you start your field training exercises. So you've

00:26:18.040 done sort of the fundamental basic training, which is really hard, arduous training. And then they give

00:26:23.040 you like a couple of days and then you go into your field training exercises, which are going to be

00:26:26.500 even harder and less sleep and more work and all that. And the tradition is in those couple of days,

00:26:32.220 like everyone goes to town, gets, you know, get some beer, whatever, blows off some steam.

00:26:36.180 When we were out there, I was tasking a commander and no one went and no one even asked me if anyone

00:26:43.460 could go. They just knew where I stood, which was like, Hey, we're out here to work. We're going to

00:26:47.620 work. And that's what we're going to do. And like you said, people knew where I stood. We're here to

00:26:52.700 be the best. We're here to work as hard as we can. We're not going to take any time off or allow any

00:26:57.000 slack. And so with that standard, there's not even any question. Yeah. But then the other side of it

00:27:02.120 to go back into the dichotomy was that I think Leif told a story about patches. I saw it coming

00:27:08.620 the whole time. Like there's no way he didn't know what was going on right here. And yet you let that

00:27:14.580 slide. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, that's a very clear example of the dichotomy of leadership because

00:27:21.640 all the things that there's many things that I would never allow slack on and you, I would have no

00:27:28.340 mercy. But you know, we go into the details of the book, but in the army and the Marine Corps,

00:27:32.800 people judge each other by the look of their professionalism. Can they put on their uniform

00:27:37.580 correctly? Because if you can't put on your uniform correctly, how can you be expected to

00:27:41.240 handle yourself on the battlefield? How can you be expected to maintain the standards that you're

00:27:46.480 supposed to operate within with, with weapon systems? I mean, it just doesn't seem realistic.

00:27:50.680 And the other side of that too is as somebody who would be carrying out the orders of a commander,

00:27:54.920 commander, I imagine, and this was my experience that those commanders I respected through their

00:28:00.300 appearance, through their presence, through the way that they showed up, through their integrity,

00:28:04.280 I would carry out an order significantly quicker and probably more thorough for that type of

00:28:10.480 commander versus somebody. I may still carry out the order because that's my job, but I might

00:28:15.480 second guess it. I might hesitate. There might be some talking in the background.

00:28:19.700 As you look up the chain of command, if you see someone that can't even wear their

00:28:24.560 uniform right, why would you not think, why would you then think they could plan a mission

00:28:28.620 right? So I realized, but in the SEAL teams, we don't care about that. We don't care. We

00:28:34.320 guys just, there's a lot of freedom in the SEAL teams. And so guys don't wear the matching

00:28:40.420 uniforms. They wear civilian clothes mixed with their military, their beards and goatees and

00:28:45.420 sideburns and long hair and just random uniforms on. So, and it's unprofessional. Now in the SEAL

00:28:51.880 teams, I actually don't care. I don't care what anyone wears, but I realized that the perception

00:28:58.860 from the Marine Corps and the perception from the army would be, look, these SEALs are running

00:29:02.460 around like a bunch of Yahoo Cowboys. I'm not going to let them work in my battle space.

00:29:07.340 So I said, guys, we're going to be squared away. We're going to wear the proper uniform.

00:29:10.340 When you leave my little base, like even if you came onto my little base, shorts and flip-flops,

00:29:15.500 when you're walking around base, no one, you know, wearing whatever, it doesn't matter.

00:29:18.340 When you left the base, you were going to look squared away. Yeah. So guys were squared

00:29:22.560 away. And then while we were back in California, before we went on deployment, I still had that

00:29:27.320 rule, but now guys figured out, okay, we can put these cool patches on our uniforms, you

00:29:32.340 know, funny little wise ass little patches about whatever. They'd go take the time and

00:29:38.700 effort to get like custom made patches that say like suck factor and, and just, just random

00:29:44.000 more cowbell, you know, just like random things. So the patches started getting out of hand.

00:29:49.260 So I told the guys, all right, no patches. The story is that Leif and the other platoon

00:29:53.860 commander, Seth felt that we really needed patches as a task. And so before we went on

00:29:58.560 deployment, they went and got patches designed and made and smuggled them over on deployment

00:30:02.620 contraband. Yeah. Contraband. And then they handed them out to all the guys and the guys

00:30:07.640 would put them in their pockets. And then if I wasn't going on the operation, when they leave

00:30:12.540 the gate at camp Ramadi, they'd come on the radio and patches on and they put their patches

00:30:18.380 on and, and they'd go roll out. And then when they come back patches off, I think it was

00:30:23.240 literally the first time that they did it. They happen to have an embedded combat photographer

00:30:27.820 with them and the photographer took a bunch of pictures and then sent the pictures to me

00:30:32.800 so I could clear them and make sure that they were good for release. And I saw the patches

00:30:36.300 and to your point, Leif thought I was going to crucify him because I don't allow any slack.

00:30:42.060 I mean, I don't here. He was for lack of a better way to describe it. He was disobeying

00:30:47.800 a direct order from me. Absolutely. He thought I was going to kill him and he's waiting for it

00:30:53.880 that first day. And I didn't say anything. He's waiting for it the second day. And I didn't say

00:30:57.380 anything. He's waiting for it the third day. And I didn't say anything. And eventually he realized

00:31:00.960 I wasn't going to say anything. And the reason I didn't say anything is because I realized this

00:31:06.620 is the dichotomy of leadership. I realized that while I was asking these guys to do incredible

00:31:11.360 dangerous things, to risk their limbs and their lives on a daily basis to go into these horrible

00:31:17.520 areas and maintain all these standards and do great mission planning and work with these Iraqi

00:31:23.220 soldiers and wear the right uniform when they're out there and do this stuff over and over and over

00:31:28.020 again, while I'm asking them to do all that, do I really want to invest my leadership capital

00:31:34.600 into making sure they don't wear these patches when they're outside the gate? And is it worth it?

00:31:40.780 And I knew it obviously was important to them. For these guys and Seth and Leif, those guys would

00:31:46.120 do anything for me. I mean, they did. To think that it was meant so much to them that they went against

00:31:52.980 me, right? They went behind my back to think that it meant that much to them. That made me realize

00:31:58.060 how important it was to them, you know? And sometimes, you know, at my level, I was an old

00:32:01.840 man at that point, right? I was like, you know, 34 years old. I was like the oldest person in the

00:32:08.220 world. You know, Leif was probably 20. I don't know what he was. I think he's five or five years

00:32:12.760 younger than me, but you know, so he was still in his twenties and you know, for him and for his

00:32:18.000 boys, right? He's leading guys that are 19, 20, 22 years old. They want to have, it's like office

00:32:25.300 space, right? Like they want to have flair on their uniform. And it's something that I just missed

00:32:30.880 because I'm too old and have too much of a military mind. And so I knew that it was important to him.

00:32:37.900 I knew it was important to Seth, the other platoon commander. I knew it was important to the morale.

00:32:41.060 I knew it was good for unit cohesion. It's good for unit. There's a reason that the army has patches,

00:32:46.320 like it's a real thing. It's not just the SEAL teams didn't just make that up.

00:32:50.740 So added all those things together and it's like, okay, you know what? I'm not going to condone it.

00:32:54.920 And I never said, Hey, awesome. You know, you're good to go. I just never said anything. And so they

00:33:00.840 continued to hide them from me and I continued to not say anything. And then once we got deeper into

00:33:07.040 the employment deployment and we really had established our reputation as professionals,

00:33:12.080 then I just didn't care. And it was all good. Yeah. Cause you already had that credibility.

00:33:17.460 We got credibility through performance and professionalism and everything that we did.

00:33:22.420 And so once we had that, then the patches were like gold. And if you gave a patch, you know,

00:33:28.060 one of these two bruiser patches to, to an army guy or Marine Corps guy, it was like,

00:33:32.040 they were stoked and they'd do anything for you, which they were already doing anything for us

00:33:35.220 anyway. So it was, it was turned out to be very, very cool.

00:33:38.680 It's interesting though, when you talk about those patches, because to a civilian that hears that,

00:33:43.880 they're thinking that's absurd. That sounds ridiculous that that would actually probably

00:33:48.020 from my perspective, help the mission. I think that's an asset to the mission.

00:33:52.840 And it was, and that's what I realized the morale level, the unit cohesion was important. And that

00:33:59.920 trumped the uniformity of us within the regulations. And it also trumped my ego, which I'm saying,

00:34:08.660 that it trumped my ego, but I didn't care. But you could see someone that would say,

00:34:12.540 Hey, I told those guys no. And they went behind my back and I'm going to crush them now.

00:34:18.060 Right.

00:34:18.660 That's ego. That's ego overcoming the truth of the situation, which is it's good for morale.

00:34:23.660 It's good for unit cohesion. As you said, it's actually good for the mission.

00:34:26.960 Yeah.

00:34:27.540 If I let my ego become more important than the mission, we got a problem.

00:34:31.500 When you're saying that, it sounds to me like as a leader, that your motive for doing things is

00:34:37.260 just as important, if not more so than the actual action or process. So for example,

00:34:42.640 you're talking about patches, like I'm going to crush these guys. Maybe not having the patches,

00:34:48.060 it would have been a good decision. I don't know. I'm just using this as an example.

00:34:51.580 It's your motive, right? It's that you care about the guys, you care about them,

00:34:55.720 not necessarily your own fragile ego and how people perceive you and look at you.

00:35:02.220 For sure.

00:35:03.020 Which I got a lot. I mean, I see that we had some great leaders, some great commanders. And then

00:35:07.320 we had some others, frankly, where I felt like, no, they care about their own image, their own

00:35:12.840 advancement over the wellbeing of their unit. And that was frustrating.

00:35:18.280 That's very frustrating. And those people don't think that everyone can see it,

00:35:23.120 but everyone can see it.

00:35:24.140 It's so visible.

00:35:24.780 It's so visible. And I was really lucky because, you know, I was a prior enlisted guy. And so I was

00:35:31.240 kind of on a little bit of a different track and maybe even you could call it a lot of a different

00:35:34.860 track that a normal officer. Yeah. Well, first of all, I'd seen it as a young enlisted guy,

00:35:40.560 but then as I was older, I never did anything so that I would get advanced. I never did anything

00:35:47.400 for my career. And I'll tell you, the outcome of that was that my career was awesome. And I got

00:35:52.500 totally taken care of up and down the chain of command, but it wasn't because I tried to get

00:35:57.380 taken care of. It was because I put doing my mission and taking care of my guys more important

00:36:02.220 than whatever happens to me. Yeah. I think a lot of people focus on the end result. I need this and

00:36:07.360 this and this and this. When in all reality, if you focus on the task at hand, the end result takes

00:36:12.700 care of itself. If you take care of your platoon, your platoon is going to perform. If your platoon

00:36:16.680 performs, you're the leader. You're going to look good. You're going to get the promotion that

00:36:20.600 you want or that you should get. Right. If you're thinking, okay, if I do this,

00:36:26.340 I'm going to look better. Well, the platoon sees that and their performance goes down.

00:36:32.720 They might even sabotage you. They can absolutely sabotage you. And so the promotion that you think

00:36:38.440 you should deserve, you won't get because your platoon is performing subpar. Why? Because you're

00:36:43.200 more concerned about yourself than you are about the platoon. That's the way it works.

00:36:46.200 I hear that a lot when I hear, and I'll just use the term subordinates, but maybe a lower ranking

00:36:51.000 type employee who thinks, well, I'm better than my boss or I'm better than the team leader. So I

00:36:56.400 should be doing this. And what I hear you say a lot, and maybe you can articulate this is

00:37:00.120 that may be true. You might be, but you don't need to play the back office politics and all that.

00:37:05.640 You just need to prove that you are. And eventually that will take care of itself.

00:37:09.860 It'll take care of itself. The best thing you can do when you're better than your leader

00:37:13.660 is perform really well and give the credit to the leader. Make your boss look great.

00:37:18.360 If you make your boss look great, the outcome will be great for you. Your boss knows what's

00:37:23.460 happening. Even if they never say a word about it, they know what's happening. And you think,

00:37:26.900 I'm going to get them promoted. Good. Get them promoted. Now who's going to take their job?

00:37:30.080 Well, you are. And if you've treated them well, you'll take their job. If you've undermined them and

00:37:35.380 tried to make them look bad, you're not going to get promoted. And so you've got to play the long game.

00:37:40.980 And the long game is make your boss look good. Then people think, well, what if I really don't

00:37:46.020 like my boss? Good. It doesn't matter. It has nothing to do with anything. I worked for people

00:37:51.780 all the time that I didn't like. And you know what? Our working relationship, no one would have ever

00:37:56.400 known that I didn't like them because I was playing the game, trying to make them look good,

00:38:01.380 trying to help them, trying to achieve the mission. By the way, if I have an antagonistic

00:38:05.780 relationship with my boss, how well does that help my platoon? If my commanding officer doesn't

00:38:10.960 like me, how well does my platoon get taken care of? The answer is they don't get taken care of.

00:38:15.360 If I have a great relationship with my boss, he takes care of me, then we take care of the platoon.

00:38:21.180 So it's my job as a leader to build a good relationship up the chain of command, regardless

00:38:24.840 of what I think of that guy. It doesn't matter. That point is moot. You need to form a great relationship

00:38:30.060 with the person above you at the chain of command so that you can take care of your boys.

00:38:33.800 You talk a lot about play the game, and I understand what you're saying. I think a lot

00:38:37.580 of people think that that's like, oh, you got to play politics and back office dealings,

00:38:42.440 but you're talking about just do your job. Do your job well.

00:38:46.900 Build good relationships. Is it playing the game? Is it politics? Yeah. You know what? It is.

00:38:52.740 It is. And I was very successful in my naval career. And part of the reason I was very successful

00:38:59.480 in my naval career is because I built really good relationships up and down the chain of

00:39:03.660 command. When somebody asked me to do something that maybe didn't make a lot of sense, but it was

00:39:08.720 something that they needed done. Okay. Guess what I'm going to do? I'm going to do it for a boss. I

00:39:12.820 got it. How do you communicate that with your team? Because from my perspective, a team could very

00:39:18.820 easily say, well, the only reason Jocko took on this assignment is to advance himself. Hey guys,

00:39:24.620 here's what's going on. The boss needs this done right now. We're trying to prove to the boss

00:39:28.620 that we can get anything done. He's going to look at us as his go-to people. So when we get

00:39:33.680 overseas, you know who he's going to call when it comes time for a good mission, it's going to be

00:39:36.860 us. So we're going to do this little piece of shit mission right now. And we're going to do that

00:39:41.560 because it's going to build our relationship with the boss. Let's go get some.

00:39:45.440 That's powerful. Frame it in the context of this is helping us, which by the way, what I just said,

00:39:50.640 what I'm telling them is the absolute truth of what I'm doing. Sure. There's no hidden agenda. It's like,

00:39:56.020 we're doing this so that we can win. That's what we're doing.

00:40:00.360 Yeah. You're talking about telling the truth. And I think it's so refreshing to people because

00:40:04.840 they just don't get it. Their leaders aren't telling them the full story and aren't telling

00:40:09.120 them exactly why things are happening. And you know, I even see this too, is you don't get told

00:40:13.760 the full story from a leadership perspective because there's maybe sensitive information or

00:40:18.300 something that can't necessarily be shared. And so a subordinate might look at that and think,

00:40:22.080 well, if this guy's withholding things that could alter my life. And I'm not just talking

00:40:25.940 about that on the military side of things, but civilian side of things as well. I mean,

00:40:29.360 somebody's income is their, it's their livelihood. It's their life, their ability to put food on the

00:40:34.000 table and a roof over their family's head. And so if you're not telling your people the truth,

00:40:38.440 I mean, that's, that's a pretty big challenge. That's going to undermine your authority and leadership.

00:40:43.120 And the real problem, or one of the real problems when you get in that situation is that

00:40:49.660 everybody knows that you're not telling the truth. People are smart. Your team is smarter

00:40:55.100 than you think they are. When you were talking earlier about, Hey, I'm looking at my leader,

00:40:58.700 thinking I could do a better job than him. I always look at my guys, like they're thinking

00:41:01.920 they could do a better job than me. That's what they're thinking. And they're probably right.

00:41:05.380 There probably is two or three guys in this team right here that could do a better job than me.

00:41:10.100 So I'm not going to try and hold everything back. And by the way, if I now try and lie to them

00:41:15.260 about what's happening, then they're going to know it. They're going to see right through it.

00:41:19.560 That's the beginning of the downward spiral. Now, this is the hard part. Is there a dichotomy to

00:41:25.420 this? Yes, there is. Is there a dichotomy? Can you be too truthful with people? And the answer

00:41:31.880 is yes, you can. Because if you were working for me and you go out on a mission and you do a really

00:41:38.840 bad job, and I think it's your fault that this mission failed. And when you come back, I get in

00:41:46.660 your face and I'm like, hey, Ryan, you suck. This was horrible. I can't believe you did this.

00:41:51.080 This is your fault. You failed. You let everyone down. Now, that's the truth. That's what I actually

00:41:55.540 think. But your reaction to that is not going to be positive. I'm blaming you. I'm pointing my

00:42:01.560 finger at you. By the way, you're looking at me thinking, hey, you didn't give me the information

00:42:06.160 or you didn't give me the gear or you didn't give me the money or you didn't give me the people that

00:42:09.000 I needed to do my mission. And you're actually thinking the opposite thing. You're thinking it's my

00:42:12.040 fault. But I'm telling you the truth, my truth, which is I'm blaming you. What good does that do

00:42:17.640 me? All I did was I just created an antagonistic relationship. You're mad. You're going to start

00:42:21.140 blaming other people. You're going to start blaming me. It's going to send us in the wrong direction,

00:42:25.940 opposite, opposing each other. And that's going to be problematic. So in that situation,

00:42:30.480 I shouldn't do that. Even though I might think, hey, you know what? This is Ryan's fault. I'm going to

00:42:35.660 go in there and say, hey, Ryan, you know what? It's my fault that you failed this mission. I don't think I

00:42:40.040 gave you clear enough direction. I don't think I gave you the people that you needed. I don't

00:42:44.400 think I gave you the gear you needed to get the job done. I think that's my fault. What do you

00:42:49.580 think? And now you're thinking, well, you know what? I didn't actually know how many people I was

00:42:54.020 going to need and I didn't ask you. And so then we'll move in the right direction. So there are times

00:42:58.940 when the truth that you're thinking, you need to articulate it in a way that it has the proper

00:43:04.840 outcome. It's still the truth is just delivered in a way that's going to move the mission forward.

00:43:11.560 Yes. You have to move the mission forward. And you have to think about when you're in a leadership

00:43:17.200 position, what you say matters. And people forget that. What you say matters. And when you make

00:43:25.180 little comments, you make little snide remarks, people remember it. And also when you make little

00:43:30.160 positive remarks, people remember it. And you don't realize the power it is to say, hey, Ryan,

00:43:34.800 you look sharp out there today. Good job on that movement. You know, that's a big deal.

00:43:39.060 Absolutely.

00:43:39.940 And if I come down and say, oh, this mission's crap we're getting tasked with. That's a big deal.

00:43:45.540 Yes.

00:43:46.180 So I might think that this is a crap mission we got tasked with. This is again, this is like,

00:43:51.040 okay, am I going to tell Ryan, I think this mission is crap that we just got tasked with. Now,

00:43:57.020 what attitude are you going to go in the field with? A horrible attitude.

00:44:00.160 So what I'm going to say is, look, this mission that we got tasked with is going to be a real

00:44:04.860 challenge. This is going to be a real challenge. I don't think anyone else is going to be able to

00:44:08.480 get it done. I think we're actually the only platoon that could make this happen. So I think

00:44:12.580 that's why they tasked us with us because it's so hard that they need the A game.

00:44:16.340 But you're not patronizing them either because that could be the other alternative. Like we got

00:44:20.760 this, we can do this, you know, and trying to patronize in a way that's not authentic either.

00:44:24.880 You know, false cheerleading is not good. Again, Leif tells a funny story that

00:44:28.420 the times that I complimented him was one. It was when we got back from deployment and I was

00:44:35.340 talking to him and the other platoon commander, Seth, and I was like, Hey, you guys did a good

00:44:39.560 job over there. That's the only time I told him like, good job. Cause most of the time they'd come

00:44:44.300 back from something or we'd go do something or they'd go do a mission and they'd come back and

00:44:47.760 I'd be like debrief. What'd you, you know, what, what'd you mess up? What could you do better?

00:44:51.040 We're not running around patting each other on the back. So no, I would say I don't really

00:44:54.380 patronize anyone or tell them that they're doing good when they're not. And the benefit of that is

00:44:58.000 that when you say it, it has weight. Yeah. But I will say I would tell the, the younger guys,

00:45:05.020 you know, when they, when the young guy would do something good, I'd tell them I'd say, Hey,

00:45:08.480 that was awesome. Oh, nice work out there. Hey Ryan, good movement over there, man. You were holding

00:45:12.960 down that corner way to lay it down, you know, like stuff like that. But I wouldn't be telling

00:45:17.220 my officers that cause they better just be getting in the game for the next. Congratulations. You did

00:45:22.280 your job. Yeah, exactly. Gentlemen, it's been a while since I've talked about our exclusive

00:45:28.640 brotherhood, the iron council. We've been so busy with new shirts and gear and our events,

00:45:33.380 but I do want to let you know that the council is alive and thriving. If you don't already know,

00:45:38.180 this is a band of brothers, over 430 men now all working to accomplish big things in their marriages

00:45:44.100 and fatherhood business, just their lives in general. So if you are to a level where you want

00:45:49.300 to do more than talk about what it means to be a man and actively start working towards becoming

00:45:54.640 the man that you're capable of becoming, I invite you to band with us. You'll connect with like-minded

00:45:59.540 men. You'll get all the tools and the guidance and the resources and direction that comes from

00:46:04.280 having other men who have your back. And frankly, this is not something that a lot of men outside

00:46:09.640 of a program like this get. You get so busy and inundated with life and everything that's going

00:46:14.240 on that you very rarely take time for yourself and banding together with other guys who want to see

00:46:19.140 you succeed and will help you do so. So if you are interested in learning more about what we're

00:46:23.660 about and joining us, head to orderofman.com slash iron council. Again, that's orderofman.com

00:46:29.440 slash iron council. I hope to see you there. In the meantime, we'll get back to my conversation

00:46:33.720 with Jocko. One of the things I wanted to ask you about is last night was pretty interesting

00:46:39.940 as we did a Q and a after one of our sessions, Jeremy, one of my friends, he's actually here

00:46:46.140 listening right now. He had asked about raising kids and getting his daughter involved in jujitsu.

00:46:52.640 And you brought up a story I wanted you to share because it was pretty powerful when you talked about

00:46:56.780 pushing kids versus helping them and allowing them to have fun. I'd love to hear your perspective

00:47:02.820 and share a little bit of insight on what you shared last night, because I think there's a lot

00:47:05.880 of guys out there, myself included, who want to push, who want to drive, who want their kids to

00:47:10.580 excel, obviously. But there's a time where I think that becomes a detriment too.

00:47:15.040 Oh yeah, for sure. So you can push your kids too hard towards something. And I definitely did that

00:47:21.060 with my, I've got four kids and the first three were pretty rapid fire. And then I have one that's

00:47:27.840 seven years, you know, after the seven year gap and the older kids, you know, I wanted them to be

00:47:35.240 into jujitsu. I've been training for a long time and I just started making them train and making

00:47:39.360 them train and making them train. And that was okay. But then I was like, okay, now you're going

00:47:43.140 to compete. You're going to compete. You're going to compete. You can train and compete. And when I

00:47:46.260 would make them compete, I'd make them compete with older kids and heavier kids and higher ranked kids.

00:47:51.840 And in my mind, I was being the best dad ever, which is I'm going to make you so ready for

00:47:59.160 jujitsu and life by putting you under this extreme pressure. You're going to learn to deal with tougher

00:48:05.740 people. If you get beat down, you're going to get back up again because that's what we do in this

00:48:10.460 family. I thought I was being a great, you know, dad, but what you're actually doing from the

00:48:16.500 perspective of a six year old is you're going to a crazy tournament with all these people there.

00:48:22.040 And then you're getting beat and then you're getting beat again. And then you're getting beat

00:48:25.960 again and you're doing all this hard work in the training and then you show up and get beat. So

00:48:30.380 in your mind, you're thinking, well, I just am horrible at this. I have no skills. And most

00:48:34.660 important, this is not fun. My recommendation is the number one priority in what you want your kids

00:48:40.200 to do is make it fun. You want it to be fun for them. Winning is fun. Absolutely. Winning is fun.

00:48:46.100 And it's good. It's been proven that it's actually good for you.

00:48:48.500 Yes. Winning is fun. Winning is much more fun than losing. Do you want your kid to win every

00:48:53.260 time? No, I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that every single time you want to take them only

00:48:58.400 in places where they're going to get a trophy regardless if they win or lose. You want them

00:49:01.300 to understand losing, but you don't want them to be losers. And when you lose more often than you

00:49:09.620 win, you kind of get the attitude that you're a loser and it's not fun anymore. So have fun.

00:49:15.260 Let the kids get good. Let them compete. You know, put them in some tournaments in the example of

00:49:21.360 jiu-jitsu, put them in some tournaments where they're going to win and put them in some tournaments

00:49:24.820 where they're going to get beat, put some to where it's going to be even and let them have fun

00:49:29.280 and let them want to compete. Let it be more theirs than it is yours. Your kids are not going

00:49:34.560 to be who you want them to be. They're going to be who they are. And the more you try and push them

00:49:39.860 and mold them into who you want them to be, the harder they're going to push back against that

00:49:43.880 vision that you have. It's the same thing with ownership that I just talked about, right?

00:49:48.960 You have to give them the ownership. You have to let them understand. And just like with leadership,

00:49:54.880 you have to make sure they understand why they're doing what they're doing. You have to make sure

00:49:57.820 they understand why it's important, why it's important, how it is going to help them and benefit

00:50:03.180 them in all these different ways. Because if you're just telling them, hey, you do this because I told you to do

00:50:07.580 it, that doesn't work with a soldier. No way. It doesn't work with an employee and it doesn't

00:50:12.640 work with a kid. You have to be a better leader than that. Yeah. Well, you talk a lot about flanking

00:50:17.240 too. We're dealing with something with my two oldest boys. My wife wants them to play the piano.

00:50:22.440 That's not a thing to me. I could care less, but my wife's like, no, play the piano.

00:50:26.220 How come not guitar? Well, so here, so they've been going for three years and my oldest son,

00:50:31.260 he hates it. He resents it. He's like, I'm not doing that. I hate like just miserable. I told my wife,

00:50:36.740 I'm like, hon, like this isn't working. Like what's the ultimate objective? And she's like,

00:50:41.000 well, I want them to learn. I want them to know about music. I want the creative side of things.

00:50:45.740 I want them to have an outlet. I'm like, if it's miserable for him, none of that's going to happen.

00:50:50.520 So we asked him, what do you want to do? He wants to play the guitar.

00:50:54.480 Get him on that get box boy.

00:50:56.280 That's right. I'm like, look, this is going to accomplish the same thing. And he's going to be

00:50:59.780 that much more engaged in it. Outcome's going to be similar. We're going to achieve our objective

00:51:05.220 and we're going to do it in a way that we won't have to drag him out of bed to go do it. Right.

00:51:09.980 He'll be doing that on his own. So I think it's the ultimate objective. What is it you're trying

00:51:13.040 to accomplish? How do we make that happen most effectively? Yeah. And then there's,

00:51:17.740 it's a dichotomy because if given the opportunity, guitar takes a lot of practice. Sure. And if given

00:51:23.900 the opportunity, your son might rather sit and watch YouTube videos, play video games, right.

00:51:29.220 Then, then play his guitar. Right. And so there's a level of like, Hey, listen,

00:51:33.100 bare minimum, you got to do 30 minutes a day. That's the way it is. That's the rules.

00:51:37.000 If you make it an hour a day. And if you make it an hour of structured play that you're going to sit

00:51:40.860 there and video and give them feedback on and tear them apart all the time, that's not going to be

00:51:44.860 fun. But if it's, Hey, you know what? Hey, I'm going to sit down. Let's work on some songs together.

00:51:49.020 Hey, I'll give you 10 bucks. If you can learn this riff, I'll give you 10 bucks. If you can learn that

00:51:52.960 riff, you play that role. Well then all of a sudden 45 minutes goes by and he's still working on that riff.

00:51:59.220 And again, you flanked him and you win and he's having fun and he's going to get better. He's

00:52:05.960 going to appreciate it. You know, I said this last night too, like my son who's 15 now, he's been

00:52:10.240 training jujitsu and you know, since he was born, he actually said the other day, like, thanks for

00:52:15.320 making me do this all these years because I can handle myself. And that's a good feeling.

00:52:20.680 You know, it's a good feeling. That is good. Yeah, it is good. And I think, I mean, that's our job as

00:52:24.940 parents, right. To equip them to be able to handle life essentially. Well,

00:52:28.520 same thing. Render ourselves obsolete as a leader. We should be in a position where

00:52:32.160 they won't always have to rely upon us. Well, there's going to come a point where

00:52:36.320 we're going to rely on them. That's true. You want to help them well prepared that when

00:52:40.460 they take over that leadership position of the family, that they're ready to take care

00:52:44.160 of you because you're not going to be able to anymore. Yeah. That's the way it works.

00:52:48.900 I think that's a huge problem just in society in general. And I don't know if it's always been

00:52:52.740 this way or if it continues to get worse, but I see these parents that just want to be

00:52:56.380 buddies, right? They just want to be friends and make sure everything's too comfortable,

00:53:01.080 like too happy that our relation in a way as a father, because we're talking with men is

00:53:05.120 they step off of the pedestal of fatherhood into a lower tier, which is friendship. And they think

00:53:11.960 that takes precedent over being the father. You know, I've got this thing that I said on my podcast,

00:53:16.040 which is, and it sounds really evil. If you help your kids, then you're hurting your kids.

00:53:22.420 But if you think about it, and the example I use is tying your shoes. If you tie your kids shoes for

00:53:27.840 them, you're actually literally taking away a 10 second fine motor skills training for your child.

00:53:36.840 You're removing that from them. They don't get those fine motor skills that they would have

00:53:40.300 that extra repetition of manipulating their fingers and their hands and their hand and eye

00:53:44.800 coordination. You're taking that away from them. And it's the same thing with making a sandwich.

00:53:49.500 It's the same thing with pouring a glass of milk. Guess what? They're going to spill some milk

00:53:53.000 sometimes. Guess what? They're going to make a mess with the peanut butter. Guess what? They're

00:53:56.980 learning and they're becoming more self-sufficient. And the more you help them, the more you hurt them.

00:54:02.440 Every chance you get to get them to do things for themselves is infinitely more beneficial

00:54:08.140 than when you spoon feed them. Yeah, that's so true. And they got to have some basic

00:54:12.980 foundational understanding, right? Like a kid, you can just tie your shoe. Like my two-year-old

00:54:17.120 daughter, just tie your shoe. She could be there for all year. It's your job to teach them. But

00:54:21.740 if you're in a rush, you didn't plan your morning well, she can get her shoe tied, but it's going

00:54:27.180 to take three tries or four tries. And it's going to take her three minutes or four minutes, right?

00:54:31.320 And instead, I don't have time. And you just jump in there. You just do it. You just let her down a

00:54:36.120 little bit. Just let her down. That's interesting. And that applies. I mean, we're talking,

00:54:39.540 obviously kids, but that applies across the board. Employees. It's like, let me just do it. I'll just

00:54:44.720 do it faster. That's probably true. You probably will do it because you've been doing it for a

00:54:49.480 decade, but you got to let that individual do it, mess up. You can go back after action, review it,

00:54:55.640 figure it out, let them get better, let them improve. That's not only going to enhance their

00:54:58.920 life, but it also as a leader is going to enhance your life. Oh, it's going to make your life easier.

00:55:02.380 And of course, the extreme version of this is you let your kid burn themselves on the stove,

00:55:09.040 or you let your employee do something that costs you a big account or a big client or fail a

00:55:14.780 project. I'm not talking about that. You keep your employee, your kid, your subordinate, you keep

00:55:20.660 them in the box of success, but you let them bounce and hit and brush up and get bruised by the edges of

00:55:28.900 that box enough that they learn from it. It's not a dangerous environment that you're asking me.

00:55:35.520 There has to be some level of risk. Well, take jujitsu. Like if there's not a level of risk

00:55:41.820 involved in the game, it's not nearly as engaging. There's no downside. So you can only do that so

00:55:48.860 long. You can only have fun just for the sake of having fun for so long before life becomes, I think,

00:55:54.460 probably pretty miserable. Yeah. Got to have some challenges out there. Yeah, absolutely. I want to go

00:55:59.460 back. You were talking about shifting gears during your service more to the officer route. How far

00:56:04.920 into your career did you do that? I went eight years enlisted. Okay. And then 12 years as an

00:56:09.660 officer. What was your thought process? Why make that switch and that change? I had an awesome

00:56:14.680 platoon commander that replaced, we had a mutiny in one of my SEAL platoons and we got my platoon

00:56:20.960 commander fired. Oh, you and your brothers? Me and my, you know, E5. Really? Yeah. Lower enlisted

00:56:28.040 guys. Did you go above? How did that, like what? We went above the chain of command. Really? We went

00:56:32.680 to, you know, we told our, our chief of our SEAL platoon, like, Hey, we don't want to work for this

00:56:37.520 guy. And then he organized it through the master chief, the senior enlisted guy. So you still work

00:56:43.000 just one avenue of the chain of command. Yeah. Well, I mean, we completely jumped our platoon

00:56:46.900 command, chain of command. Right. And we went and said, we don't want to work for this guy.

00:56:50.020 Jeez. And so mutiny happened. That guy got fired. And the guy that they brought in was awesome.

00:56:56.720 And I realized how much impact this one human being in a SEAL platoon has. And in making the

00:57:04.840 SEAL platoon awesome and making, when I say making the SEAL platoon awesome, what I'm really mean is

00:57:08.940 making our lives. Awesome. Making everything fun, making everything challenging, making everything

00:57:15.120 a true experience that you want to have. And I remember thinking, I would really like to be able

00:57:24.120 to make life good for 16 guys at some point in my life. Cause that's what SEAL platoon is. It's only

00:57:29.800 16 guys. So that's what it is. It's life. That's the word I should have used is what he made good for

00:57:35.680 us was life. Because when you're in a SEAL platoon, that is life. That is your whole life is that platoon

00:57:40.300 is your life. It's your friends. It's your bros. It's the people you work out with, you work with,

00:57:45.500 you hang out with, you wake up next to them, you go to sleep next to them. You're in the field with

00:57:50.400 them. You're doing arduous things. It's your life. When you're in a good SEAL platoon, your life is

00:57:56.360 good. And I said to myself, this guy is making our lives good. My life is good because this guy.

00:58:04.120 And someday I'd like to make life good for 16 guys. That's pretty cool. It is amazing how

00:58:10.860 much one individual can change things. Like you hear people say, Oh, I take sports because my kids

00:58:16.440 are heavily involved in sports right now where they're young. And you know, you look at a team

00:58:20.100 and think, Oh, that's a crappy team. Is it really though? Or is it a crappy coach? Cause you could

00:58:25.480 bring another coach in and my oldest is playing tackle football first time this year. I've been coaching

00:58:29.900 his team and I'm an okay coach, but he outgrew my coaching and it's amazing to watch him, my son

00:58:35.860 in a year and the rest of his kids like completely transform and just jump leaps and bounds under

00:58:43.240 significantly better coaching than I was able to offer all just one individual that can rally them

00:58:50.440 in a way that I wasn't capable of doing. No bad teams, only bad leaders. That's right. Yeah. I think,

00:58:55.840 I can't remember if you talked about an extreme ownership. That's one of the chapters in extreme

00:58:59.600 ownership is no bad team, only bad leaders. Yeah. Something like they switched to, switched to

00:59:03.920 a boat crew. Yeah. That's what it was. And the boat crew starts go, goes from last place to first

00:59:08.440 place. Isn't that amazing? We would see that over and over again. And it's the reality. And

00:59:13.320 Napoleon said no bad regiments, only bad colonels. And David Hackworth said no bad units, only bad

00:59:21.180 officers. And we said no bad teams, only bad leaders. We said the same thing. We ripped off

00:59:26.200 Napoleon and Hackworth and probably dozens of other military leaders, but it's a reality. And

00:59:31.860 it's the thing that makes that reality hard is it's an ego hit. When your team's not performing,

00:59:36.880 when you say, well, that's the leader's fault and I'm the leader, it's my fault. Like that's

00:59:40.620 big of you to be saying, you know what? My son and his teammates, they need a better coach than me.

00:59:46.840 I'm stepping down. We got to get someone in here that's better than me. That's the reality of it.

00:59:50.260 There's not many people that can make that decision. So, well, I think it comes down to

00:59:55.000 what you were saying earlier is my son and the other boys progression is more important to me

01:00:01.720 than being called coach by a bunch of 10 year old boys. You know, it's like, I want them to thrive

01:00:07.800 and succeed. I want them to, I want, I want them to win. But how do you, how do you overcome that ego?

01:00:14.560 I mean, let's say a leader recognizes it like, oh yeah, maybe I'm, maybe I'm getting in the way

01:00:19.600 or like they start to begin to like have their eyes opened a little bit and, but they'll still

01:00:24.220 fight it. No, I can still do that. I can still do this. How do you overcome that ego and put the

01:00:30.100 mission or other people first? Well, one of the best things you can do is recognize the fact that

01:00:34.800 when you hold onto your leadership position, like you hold on and you don't want to let anyone

01:00:38.960 take anything, everyone else sees it and everyone else sees it in a negative light. People aren't

01:00:43.400 looking at you thinking he's got this under control. They're thinking, Hey, he doesn't

01:00:48.360 know what he's doing and he's holding onto it. That's what everybody sees. Everybody sees that.

01:00:55.020 And you, the only one that doesn't believe that that's what's happening is you, right? You think

01:00:59.460 you're able to cover it up and that people can't see that you don't know what you're doing or that

01:01:02.940 there's a better person for this job. When everybody can see it, you're in even worse shape than you

01:01:08.720 would be if you said, yeah, you know what? Hey guys, Ryan's done this kind of mission before.

01:01:13.060 I haven't really done this kind of mission. He's going to take lead on this operation.

01:01:16.320 If I say that right there, everyone goes, man, Jock was a humble guy and he's more concerned

01:01:21.100 about us accomplishing this mission than he is about his own ego. Good for him. If you come to

01:01:25.940 me and you know, Hey, Hey Jocko, I've, I've done this before. You know, how about we do this with a

01:01:29.920 plan? Hey Ryan, I'm running this. You stay in your lane. Yeah. Everybody in the room goes, Oh,

01:01:36.760 Jocko's intimidated by this guy. Oh, Jocko's insecure about his leadership. And he's trying to put

01:01:40.680 this other guy, Ryan in check. Everybody sees it. It's so obvious. Yeah. The person that's not

01:01:45.680 obvious is to you. So be self-aware that the way you're perceived, isn't the way you think you're

01:01:51.060 being perceived. You're being perceived like an idiot. That's a good point. You're sabotaging

01:01:56.300 yourself. You are like the very thing you're trying to do. You're undermining that very thing.

01:02:00.540 It's exactly what happens. You're trying to be the ultimate leader and everyone is looking at you

01:02:06.540 thinking you're insecure and weak because you're intimidated by someone else that understands or

01:02:12.580 knows this better than you do. And a really secure leader, it goes, Hey, Hey guys, Ryan's done this

01:02:18.860 before. I haven't done it. He's going to take lead. I'm stepping back. That's it. Everyone looks at that

01:02:23.860 guy and goes, Oh, that's awesome. That's cool. No one goes, Oh, Jocko doesn't even know what he's doing.

01:02:28.420 No one says that. They only say that when you try and lie to them.

01:02:31.360 That's true. I think a leader can take pride in that too. It's like, I've got a guy on my team

01:02:37.000 who can handle this. That to me, I'd be proud of that. Absolutely. Not, Hey, this is a detriment

01:02:42.140 to what we're trying to accomplish. Yeah. No, it's, it's better for everyone.

01:02:46.400 Yeah. How did you determine what you were going to put in here? I mean, because there's an infinite

01:02:50.980 number of dichotomies, right? How did you extract the dichotomies that you chose?

01:02:56.660 Kind of just picked ones that jumped out at us. And in the last kind of closing, I don't know if

01:03:02.080 it's closing chapter or the, the afterward and the afterward, I just started rattling off. Like

01:03:07.580 here's all these other dichotomies. All the rest, deal with it. There's just so many of them. And the

01:03:11.940 thing is, you don't need a chapter to explain to you. Once you understand the concept, you don't need

01:03:18.080 a chapter to explain to you. Some of them that I put in the afterward, it's like, can a leader be too

01:03:23.800 loud? I mean, that's a pretty straightforward. Can a leader be too loud and talk too much?

01:03:27.940 Yes, absolutely. A leader could, you can talk so much that no one listens anymore. Can a leader be

01:03:32.260 too quiet and not talk enough? Yes, absolutely. Here's one. Can you be too direct with your

01:03:38.260 subordinates? Yes, you can. Yeah, absolutely. Because now you're offending them. Can you be not direct

01:03:43.820 enough? Yes, you can. Because now they don't know what it is that you're trying to say. Another one I put

01:03:49.020 in there is, can you make your decisions based too much on data? Well, yes, you can. You just look

01:03:54.060 at the data. The data says, do this. So that's what we're going to do. Yeah. And make your decisions

01:03:57.580 based on your instinct or based on hearts and minds. Can you make your decisions too much that

01:04:03.200 direction? Yes, you can. And so the dichotomy list just goes on and on. But once you understand

01:04:08.920 that there's dichotomies, then you can start saying, okay, I'm off balance here. We're starting to get

01:04:14.200 negative feedback from the team that we don't really care how this affects them. We need to

01:04:19.480 start paying attention to them because we're making our decisions based too much on data right now.

01:04:22.640 Okay, cool. Let's balance it out a little. Yeah. Or, hey, I'm standing up talking and I'm the leader

01:04:27.420 and people aren't paying attention. Why is that? It's probably because I talk too much. That's the

01:04:32.040 most likely thing. So say less, people will listen more. That takes a lot of self-evaluation too,

01:04:38.740 right? And I don't think a lot of people do this. They get so inundated with the task at hand and

01:04:43.260 everything they need to accomplish and everybody demanding their time and attention that they

01:04:47.400 seems to me rarely take the time to think about, was I effective? Not just like the mission in

01:04:53.640 general, but was I effective? Which is strange because that's actually the only thing you should

01:05:00.600 be thinking about. I've said this many times and we touched on this a little bit. As a leader,

01:05:08.140 you know how you said, hey, as a leader, you should be trying to work yourself out of a job and all that.

01:05:12.460 And I would say, hey, I did missions where the only thing I did was say, like, execute.

01:05:17.340 My goal as a leader is to actually be in charge of nothing. I'm not going to be in charge of

01:05:22.340 anything. If you want to be in charge of everything, then you should try and be in charge of nothing.

01:05:29.200 Because that's the only time that you can sit back and you can actually see what's happening and see

01:05:32.880 how the dynamics of the team are unfolding. You can see what trouble areas are starting to spike up

01:05:36.960 and you can look around and see these interactions that are going sideways with your team.

01:05:41.100 You don't see that if you're sitting there in the weeds with everyone else grinding. You don't see

01:05:47.060 it. Now, do you have to get in the weeds sometimes? Yes, absolutely. Do you have to go and solve

01:05:51.940 problems sometimes as a leader and step down into the trenches? Absolutely. When you do that,

01:05:57.040 you need to get the problem solved and then you need to elevate yourself again.

01:06:00.200 That's one of the things that I fall prey to a lot is that I'll try to extract myself from the

01:06:06.800 day-to-day operations within the business and organization and allow other people to step up

01:06:10.940 and lead the teams and things like that that we're doing within our movement. I forget to get back

01:06:16.280 in there. Oh, we're veering off course. I got to come in and course correct so I can come back out.

01:06:21.820 I take a little longer than I know I should to get back in there and get the guys back in line.

01:06:26.980 That's one of my challenges.

01:06:27.980 But that's just a little dichotomy, right? Can you be too hands-off with your team? Yes,

01:06:35.820 you can. Can you be too micromanaging with your team where no one's making decisions? Yes,

01:06:39.480 you can. You have a tendency to be a little too hands-off. All you need to do is just pay

01:06:44.440 attention to that and keep it balanced. When you have a problem, it's most likely occurring because

01:06:48.480 you're too hands-off and people aren't making things happen like they should because they're not

01:06:52.920 sure what direction they're going in. So once you know that, you recognize that dichotomy that you

01:06:57.160 lean in that direction, no problem. You just tighten that direction. You move it a little

01:07:01.660 bit back. Don't overcorrect. A lot of people start overcorrecting and they jump down there

01:07:04.940 and they start running everything. I've done that too.

01:07:06.280 And so you try not to overcorrect. You try and just get back towards the center. Try and get

01:07:10.900 balanced. Yeah, that's a good input. This is really good. I think it's so powerful. It's kind of hard

01:07:15.720 too sometimes because I see, I don't know, I see a lot of people in a way almost need to have

01:07:21.100 everything spelled out for them, which is why I'm glad, you know, you isolate the 10 or 12 or

01:07:26.120 whatever's in here and helping them understand the concept so they can recognize it in their own

01:07:30.820 lives. So you don't need to be there explaining everything. I think that's a social media thing.

01:07:35.880 So I hear a lot of people, for example, will say, well, what about this situation?

01:07:39.760 Yeah. What about this? I used 140 characters to illustrate a concept. I think I don't need to

01:07:44.920 fill in all the blanks. Like we can think about some of these things on our own. It's kind of funny.

01:07:50.480 I think people have a challenge with that sometimes. Yeah. And it's good. That's one

01:07:54.220 thing that I think has been really helpful with my podcast because I hit these things from so many

01:07:59.840 different angles that eventually people go, okay, I know what the right thing to do here is

01:08:04.680 because it's like jujitsu. You learn an arm lock from one position. That's great.

01:08:09.820 But if you learn it from another position, that's even better. If you learn it from another angle,

01:08:13.280 that's even better. If you learn it from another instructor, they show you something else. And then

01:08:16.320 eventually you have this holistic view where you can apply that arm lock from anywhere that

01:08:20.440 it's possible to apply that arm lock from. So it's the same thing with the principles of combat

01:08:25.040 leadership, with the principles that we talked about extreme ownership, the principles that we

01:08:27.900 talk about in dichotomy of leadership. It's hard until you really see it from a lot of different

01:08:34.600 angles. It's hard for people to see how it overlays in their particular situation. It can be challenging

01:08:39.620 to do that. I mean, I've had guys that were like avid listeners of the podcast, avid readers of

01:08:45.020 extreme ownership, avid readers of the dichotomy or of, of discipline equals freedom that come up

01:08:50.960 to me and they'll be, you know, they'll say, you know, my team is just letting me down and they,

01:08:56.260 they, they're not making things happen the way they're supposed to. And it's just pathetic.

01:09:01.200 And I just sit there and I just, I just look at them and I just will sit there and look at them.

01:09:07.480 I have like a series of questions. They'll talk about some front. I'll be like, who's in charge?

01:09:12.060 I'll be like, who's in charge of that person? Get them all fired up. And they're like, yeah,

01:09:15.340 well, it's this manager. And I go, who's in charge of that guy? Well, it's this guy. And

01:09:19.820 who's in charge of that guy? Oh, me, me. All right. So that means that person on the front line

01:09:27.580 that made that mistake, that's your responsibility. That's hard for people to understand. And it's the

01:09:33.980 truth. There was that deputy down in Florida that didn't go and try and solve that situation.

01:09:42.060 And the sheriff said, Hey, I gave him the gun. I gave him the badge. It's not my job to make sure

01:09:49.500 that he does his job. You're like, you're sure about that? It was, you know, I had about 10

01:09:53.880 million people post that little statement from him on social media. Like, Hey, what do you think of

01:09:59.520 this extreme ownership? Yeah. And it's complete lack of extreme ownership, obviously. And this is the

01:10:05.660 important piece is that because that guy has that attitude, the things that he should have done to

01:10:12.600 prepare for that type of situation. If he had the attitude that I am responsible for that guy,

01:10:18.300 that frontline deputy is my responsibility. What he does reflects me. If he had that attitude,

01:10:27.240 he would have said, you know what? We need to get better training. I need to put these guys through

01:10:30.660 scenarios. I need to make sure they've clearly understand what they're supposed to do

01:10:33.720 in these dynamic situations. I need to have briefs with them. If he would put a better screening

01:10:37.880 process, I mean, he would have done all kinds of things. But if he, in the back of his mind,

01:10:41.580 he knows, guess what? I give him a gun and I give him a badge and then it's not my responsibility

01:10:44.680 anymore. Then he doesn't worry about that training. He doesn't worry about that extra screening.

01:10:49.420 He doesn't worry about doing mandatory dynamic shooting situations. He doesn't do that because

01:10:54.280 it's not his responsibility anymore. So when you have someone that takes ownership,

01:10:57.380 they put that ownership on the front end. And eventually the problem is that you

01:11:01.240 would have to take responsibility for on the back end, they go away because you solve them on

01:11:06.420 the front end because your attitude is, this is my responsibility. Extreme ownership isn't,

01:11:10.780 hey, when there's a problem, then I own it and it goes away. It doesn't go away. You have to fix it.

01:11:16.400 That's ownership.

01:11:18.000 And I don't know why I thought of this analogy, but we were cleaning the living room the other day and

01:11:21.260 we got the floors all cleaned up and then we lifted the rug up and there's just a ton of junk under

01:11:26.800 there and it's dirty and the couches got moved because my dog was jumping all over the couch and all the

01:11:30.900 toys and old food. Like just cause we don't see it doesn't mean it isn't there. Like that stuff

01:11:36.420 needs to be cleaned out occasionally. And it's just going to get worse and worse until you address

01:11:40.120 the situation and get the thing fixed. Got to get those problems solved. And the only person

01:11:45.260 that's going to solve them is you. Right on. Well, this has been awesome. Right on, man. It's been

01:11:49.460 good. How do the guys can, I don't even need to ask that. I asked that all the time. How do guys

01:11:53.380 connect with you? I'm like, everybody knows how to connect with Jocko. Yeah. Go get the book. It's a good book.

01:11:58.780 I was fortunate enough to get an early copy of it. And, uh, man, it's a perfect followup to

01:12:04.540 extreme ownership. So I appreciate you having the conversation. I do have to ask you, what does it

01:12:09.220 mean to be a man? I've asked you that twice now on our previous podcast, but I want to ask you a

01:12:13.600 third time. You changed it then. No, same question. I think you used to say, what is a man? No,

01:12:19.420 same question. What, what does it mean to be a man? What does it mean to be a man? Yeah.

01:12:23.180 Yeah. I'm pretty sure. I think we need to go back and listen. Okay. I'll go back and I'll make

01:12:28.880 that. I'll make that my homework assignment. What did I say last time? I think the first time you said

01:12:35.480 it's not all that different from being a woman, cause you were talking about raising your daughters

01:12:39.520 and boy and how you raise them the same. I don't remember what you said the last time we had a

01:12:43.860 conversation though. This question, this closing question, we don't even remember what the answer

01:12:49.220 is. That's not a good sign. I'll take ownership of that. I should have known.

01:12:54.840 I was thinking about that question because I know that you asked it to me twice. I figured you'd

01:12:59.280 ask it to me again today. Yeah. And I was thinking that, you know, for me, the guys that I look up to

01:13:05.900 are my friends that aren't here anymore. And that they set the example for me that I try and follow up

01:13:12.300 and try and live a life that would reflect what they would do, which is put others before themselves.

01:13:22.240 It's powerful. Right on. Well, Jocko, I appreciate you. I always have. It's been an honor to get to

01:13:27.360 know you. It's been an honor to be here this week. Hopefully we'll get a chance to roll a little bit

01:13:31.060 and you can destroy me that way. I think you made that offer the first time you came on the podcast.

01:13:35.720 I'm like, yeah, I'll do that. And then I see you here. I'm like, I don't know if I want to do that

01:13:38.920 anymore, but I'll still take advantage of that opportunity. Anyways, I appreciate you. I really

01:13:43.540 do. Awesome, man. Thanks for having me on. There it is guys. My conversation with Jocko Willink. I

01:13:49.580 hope that you enjoyed this episode. I was able to sit down with him face to face, something I hadn't

01:13:53.880 been able to do in the past. And man, we just put out a powerful, powerful conversation that I know

01:13:59.000 will go a long way in helping you fulfill your duties and responsibilities and obligations as a man.

01:14:05.220 So make sure you pick up a copy. It's on pre-order right now. It's called The Dichotomy

01:14:10.420 of Leadership. And I'm telling you from reading through it, it is the perfect supplement and

01:14:16.400 follow-up to extreme ownership. So if you enjoyed that book, if you got value from that book,

01:14:21.340 you will probably get more value from The Dichotomy of Leadership. So go check it out.

01:14:26.320 If you need the link to make the pre-order purchase, you can head to orderofman.com

01:14:30.660 slash 182 as in episode 182. And we've got the links for this show, including a link to the book

01:14:38.240 there. So guys, I will sign out again, as I always do. I want to thank you for being on this journey.

01:14:44.000 You inspire me, you uplift me, you motivate me, you help me become a better man. I thought when I set

01:14:48.960 out to do this three and a half years ago, that it would be all about me helping you. And as much as

01:14:54.120 I try to do that, I never knew to the degree that you would be inspiring and helpful to me.

01:15:00.040 So I want to thank you for that. If you would, and you've gotten any value from what we're doing

01:15:03.600 here, make sure again, you leave that rating and review. We're doing the giveaway shirts, hats,

01:15:08.840 signed books, and one-on-one calls with me. Leave a rating and review on iTunes between now and the

01:15:15.020 end of this month, and you will be entered in for that drawing. So I will leave you guys there until

01:15:20.340 tomorrow for our Ask Me Anything and Friday for our Friday Field Notes. Take action and become the

01:15:25.160 man you are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast. If you're ready to take

01:15:31.740 charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be, we invite you to join the order

01:15:36.360 at orderofman.com.

Order of Man - September 11, 2018

JOCKO WILLINK ｜ The Dichotomy of Leadership

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