JP DINNELL ｜ Pray and Work with Intent
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Summary
JP Donnell is a former Navy SEAL and Director of Experiential Leadership Training Programs for Echelon Front. He served as a member of Task Unit Bruiser, the most highly decorated special operations unit of the Iraq War, and was awarded a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, and two Bronze Stars with valor. He also served as point man, a machine gunner, and lead sniper for Delta Company, alongside the American Sniper, Chris Kyle, who was in Charlie Plata's Charlie Platoon. In this episode, JP talks about the importance of being a man of action, the relationship between trust and influence, allowing the people you lead to come up with their own solutions to their own problems, and how to avoid creating dependency from others.
Transcript
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Last week at Origin Immersion Camp, I had the opportunity to sit down with my good friend,
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former Navy SEAL and Director of Experiential Leadership Training Programs for Echelon Front.
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His name is JP Donnell. Now, we didn't have a lot of time, but we got into some
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incredible subjects that him and I have never discussed before. And I know you're going to
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get a ton of value from. We talk about the relationship between trust and influence,
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allowing the people you lead to come up with their own solutions to their own problems,
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why you need to avoid creating dependency from others and how to do that.
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The concept of working up and out, teaching how to think versus what to think,
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and also how to pray and work with intent. You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest.
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Embrace your fears and boldly chart your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more
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time. Every time you are not easily deterred, defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is
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your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become at the end of the day. And after all
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is said and done, you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is
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Ryan Mickler. I'm the host and the founder of the Order of Man podcast and movement. Welcome here and
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welcome back. It is my mission to have conversations with incredible men, talk with them about what works,
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what doesn't work, their experiences, their lessons, their successes, and their failures,
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and then deliver those conversations to you so you can improve in your life. And I've got none other
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than JP Donnell, who's an incredible man on the podcast today. So I'm going to introduce you to him
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in just a minute. Before I do want to mention that our show sponsors and good friends, origin USA
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out their brand new American made hunt line. You will not be disappointed. Uh, with that said,
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guys, let me introduce you to my guest. Again, his name is JP Donnell, and he's an absolutely
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incredible human being. He spent nearly a decade in the seal teams. In fact, he served as point man,
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a machine gunner, and also lead sniper for Delta platoon opposite the American sniper,
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Chris Kyle, who was in Charlie platoon. Uh, he was awarded a silver star, two bronze stars with
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valor and was a member of task unit bruiser with Jocko Willink, which was the most highly decorated
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special operations unit of the Iraq war. Uh, JP brings his incredible and extensive knowledge
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and experience from his battlefield time to individuals and corporations through the world
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to help them get on the path and succeed at the highest levels. Enjoy this one guys.
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JP, what's up, man? Good to see you. Is this, this is podcast number three, I think.
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Is it three? I think so. I should look. I always should look and I never look.
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And we always do them here. It seems like. So this would be the third, I think. Yeah.
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Yes, sir. What'd you do your fingers? That's what you got to let the guys know first and foremost,
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because they can't see us. So I'm like, well, they can't. And, uh, there's been a few people that
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like tagged photos of like, you know, like people are taking pictures with us at camp and sharing it.
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And then I shared as well. I'm like, bro, what happened? Yeah. Uh, long story short,
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I was stopping and Uma Plata by grabbing, which is a submission on the shoulder. And I was grabbing
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onto my belt and holding on a grip onto my belt so that my arm couldn't be rotated. Right.
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Grab the back of his pants, lifted them up to stack them and got out of it. Got put in that position
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again. So, so that I couldn't continue to do that. It broke my grip from my belt. So I grabbed my
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sleeve, pulled it away from the belt. So then he could finish this mission. Well, when he did that,
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my ring finger, um, twisted and went over my, my middle finger. So I have a spiral fracture
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from my knuckle down into the joint and partially torn ligaments. And that happened Monday morning,
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just a couple of days ago, first round, first round of me rolling Monday morning. And then have
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you rolled since with it? Oh yeah. I've been training and rolling. You just tape it up. You're
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like, get on with it. It's painful. So I went and got x-rays Tuesday because it kept getting worse
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and worse. Monday afternoon. Couldn't do the no gi. I could barely do no gi stuff. I couldn't really get
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my grips and then trying to get grips on a gi Monday night. Not how it was just horrific. Um,
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you know, horrific relative term. It was pretty bad. Yeah. And, uh, it wasn't horrific. You,
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you know what horrific is like the horrific scale. Yeah. The horrific scale. That's me being dramatic.
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Um, it was just painful, right? I couldn't get grips. It was annoying. It would hurt.
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And I thought it was just cause it was dislocated because when it happened, the finger was twisted,
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literally twisted and over my finger, not just over my finger, but twisted. And, um, I reset it.
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And then we finished the round. We, we kept rolling. Um, and it was loud when it happened,
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everyone around us on the mats and on the other side of the mats over the music and people rolling
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heard the pop. Oh, I mean, it was nasty. And, um, so Tuesday morning I was like, man,
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I just couldn't get grips. I couldn't even like really do the drills properly. And it was super
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swollen, black and blue and purple. And I had bruising all the way into my palm. And, uh, Peter
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Roberts like, you need to go to get an x-ray. So he called one of his doctor buddies,
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set it up and I went and did the appointment. And, uh, yeah, they're like, yeah, you have
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a spiral fracture from your knuckle down into the joint and, um, partially torn ligaments.
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Didn't you get hurt last year too? Or was it two years ago?
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Uh, two, Oh, no, technically three years ago, 2019 with Pete and I were doing our,
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Yes. 2019. And, um, he separated both my shoulders.
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Cause you were trying to do, he had to sweep you 10 times. You had to escape or something?
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Seven times within 10 minutes or one overhead sweep.
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I mean, literally me stopping a sweep, he separated my shoulder and then he separated my other shoulder.
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Well, it's crazy. Cause I roll with Pete up until about three months ago. Cause my own personal
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injury, but I roll with him every week, you know, and every week he gets better and better.
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And I'm, and I finally came to the conclusion that it's not that he's getting exponentially
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better every week. It's that he's showing you more, right? It said he's going 2% against me
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this week. And then a month later, he's like, okay, let me ramp this up to 3%. And maybe is it
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Pete's an insane human when it comes to jujitsu.
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You know, we have some of the top jujitsu people here in the world. My professor Formiga is here.
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Rafael Formiga is his nickname. Barbosa. He's a nine-time world champion.
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11-time Pan Ams champ. I mean, I think he has around, if it's not over, it's right around
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300 gold medals just as a black belt from competing.
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He's insane, right? And he's here as a camp as one of the experts and just to hear these
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guys talk and him and Pete used to be training partners back in the day.
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And so it's really cool to be able to hear them talk and share their stories. So yeah,
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I had the little soft cast on it and I took it off and taped it up. We have a, actually
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one of the top hand orthopedic surgeons in the world is here or not in the world, maybe
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the United States, but yeah, Dr. Luke, he trains that.
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Somebody was saying they were like, cause he wears like gloves or something to protect
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And somebody's like, I wonder why I'm like, he's a doctor. Like that's his, that's his
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like bread and butter. He can't get his hands hurt, but he's a legit black belt and he's
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And so he was kind of talking to me. He wasn't able to see the x-rays cause you know, it's
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I know I got that. I was like, what is this? Where do I even put that? There's nothing,
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there's no laptops that you can do that. Not even the regular desktops these days.
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So he's going to take it back to his work and he's going to check it out and tell me what
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I need. I might need surgery. Hopefully not. But yeah, whatever. So, you know,
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that it was in, you know, our buddy, um, Dakota Meyer says it's a minor inconvenience. It's
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We were, uh, before we hit record, we were having a personal conversation and you were
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helping me work just through some, some of my own personal stuff. And it struck me the
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way that we were talking because obviously you talk a lot about leadership principles.
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And I think a lot of the times we, as men think leadership is like dictatorship, like
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the guy standing there going, Hey, everybody listen up. Dude, that's actually horrible
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But the way that you worked me through some of my own personal stuff is you were just
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asking questions and then you would share, you know, well, here's what I'm dealing with.
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And then you'd ask me another question and you know, it helped me obviously, but it was
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very interesting as we were talking. Cause I got thinking about like, Oh, this is actually
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really good because he's getting me talking. He's getting me working through my own stuff.
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Is that something that you've had to learn, how to develop? Is that something that comes
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So it is a learned skillset. Um, you know, it's nothing that I really naturally knew. Um,
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I know we've talked about on your podcast before, you know, I grew up with a speech impediment.
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I don't like talking in front of a lot of people had to in the military. And then when I was an
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instructor in the military, you know, had to learn to talk in front of people, but working for
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Jocko and Leif at echelon front, that's one of the things we do is we talk to people about
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leadership and you know, when you break down leadership, it's trust and influence. And if somebody
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doesn't trust you, you have zero influence over them. And if you have zero influence, they're not
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going to listen to you. They're not going to trust you. They're not going to do what you think they
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need to do. So the base of leadership is, you know, having a relationship with somebody and you have
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to build a relationship and prove that you are trustworthy. And you know, when I've had these
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issues with my wife before in the past that I caused, you know, I'm thinking, Hey, everything's
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good to go. Let's, you know, Hey, we're good. Like you should forgive me or here's the deal. Yeah.
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I broke her trust. Guess what? I do not have. I don't have influence because she doesn't trust
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me because she's waiting to see if my actions are going to back up what I say. It's the same
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thing with buddies and friends and coworkers or your boss or your, your employees. Like if you lose
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trust, you have zero influence. You can't actually lead. You can't lead your wife and your kids. If
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they don't fully trust you, because it means you don't have the influence that you need to lead them
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as a man. It's the same thing for wives that are listening. Your husband's not going to,
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you don't have any influence over your wife or over wives don't have influence over their husbands.
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If the husband doesn't trust their wife. Right. And it's the same thing with our kids. If your kids
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don't trust you, they're not going to, you're not going to have the influence. Now you might be able
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to be like, Hey, I'm your dad. You're going to do this. Right. Cause you can hang over a punishment
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over them or something. Yeah. But that's, you're not leading and that's not even going to be as
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effective as you think it's going to be. And so ultimately you want to drive ownership to people
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and you drive ownership by giving them the ability to be a part of the plan or come up with the whole
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plan. And you know, that's one of the things that Jocko and Leif did really well. And Seth,
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when we were in Ramadi was they understood what we needed to be doing. They understood why we were
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doing that mission and they made sure that they drove like the, how, Hey Ryan, this is what we're doing.
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This is why, how do you want to do it? And you know, that's kind of what we were doing in our
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conversation. And I was just asking questions to, to learn like more about like, okay, here's what's
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going on. Oh, same thing I've dealt with. You know, these are things that, Oh, you know how many other
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people and humans are dealing with these things, right? So many, it's crazy because it's a communication
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thing. Communication is, is a very difficult thing, but in order for you to properly lead your family,
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lead your business and be a leader, humility is the number one, like characteristic communication
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is the number one skillset. So you have to humble yourself to be a good leader. You have to humble
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yourself to be a good father. You have to humble yourself to be a good husband and you have to humble
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yourself before the Lord as well. And I mean, that's the thing that I struggled with for a very long
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time was truly fully submitting myself to God and in showing that humility of saying, Hey, you know
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what? I can't do this without you. I don't, I don't have the ability to do this without your support and
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your help. And, you know, just the power of the Holy spirit, you know, helping me be a better man
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and a better leader for my family has, has been awesome. And it also affected work at echelon front
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because I've been able to actually relinquish more things to the team. Cause I didn't have the anxiety
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of over everything having to be perfect because in order for you to actually be able to lead others,
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you have to give them ownership. And I realized when we, when I was doing that at echelon front
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and Cody would come up to me and be like, Hey, you know, I have a question. And my default answer
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to Cody every time was, what do you think? And he'd be frustrated. It's annoying. It does get annoying for
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sure. And he'd get frustrated a little bit, not like mad, but it just kind of like, he's like,
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bro, I'm coming to you. I'm literally coming to you because I don't know. And I told him like, Hey,
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the reason why I'm asking you, what do you think is because I legitimately want to know what you
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think. Right. Like I want to know, like, what do you think you should do? And I guess that gives me,
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it gives me a kind of a, a grade on his, like, where is he at? Where's his thought process?
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Where's his capabilities? You know, what is he actually able to work through? And I told him,
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I'm like, Hey, I'm always going to ask you that because I want to know what you think,
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because a lot, because I can also one, learn from you. And two, it allows me to see where you're at.
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And then it, and then it got to the point where there are some things he would come to me
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and say, Hey, uh, this is what's going on. This is what I think we should do.
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Oh, so he was coming to you with that. Yes. Because I told him, Hey, you have to have some
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sort of a solution. And when it got to the point where Cody was saying, Hey, here's what's going
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on. Here's what I think we could do. Dude. 95% of the time it was on. That's a good idea. Hmm.
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I like your plan, buddy. I like your plan. And it was his plan, right? Guess what? He had ownership.
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And when, not if, but when something happened, you know, cause that's life, business, marriage,
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everything, things are going to happen when something changed. Do you think he came back
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to me right away? And it was like, Hey, my idea didn't work. Or do you think he found a way to
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make it work? Right. Find a way, found a way to make it work. Sure. Now, if I would have dictated
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what he needed to do, how engaged do you think he would have been to work through that problem?
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Or do you think he would have come right back to me and be like, Hey, I tried your plan
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and it didn't work. Right. I mean, honestly, then it's your plan and he doesn't have ownership
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in that. He has your ownership. Right. Now we have a good relationship. So you might try
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to work through it. But most of the time, if you're dictating your plan to somebody else,
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when something goes wrong, they're going to call you and say, Hey, this happened. What
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do you want me to do now? Oh, so you're just creating dependency. Exactly. Hmm. I'm trying
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not to be like, I hope it doesn't come across as rude. I've got my phone out. I'm actually
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taking notes. I know what you're doing. I'm not checking texts. I don't care. I'm like,
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I know what you're doing. I know what you're doing. Yeah. I'm like, he probably thinks I'm
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like, Nope. I do the same checking texts while I'm not at all. I do the same thing. And I actually
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encourage people. Um, that's actually a really good point is if you're going to be in like
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a meeting with somebody, I always tell people like, if I have a notebook, it's obvious I'm
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taking notes. Sure. But I'll tell people and I'll do what you just did. I'll show them my notes
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and be like, Hey, I just want you to know, I'm taking notes while you're talking because
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I want to be able to brief this back to you to make sure we're on the same page. And
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people are like, Oh, okay. Right. So now it eliminates that confusion or somebody thinking
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he's being rude or whatever. Exactly. And also holds me accountable to be taking notes so
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that I'm fully paying attention and able to brief it back to them. And you know, that
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comes down to like the conversation that we're talking about leadership, right? It's just
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like, Hey, I want to be asking those questions. I want to drive you to get the answer. And
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you know, just asking questions forces people to think. And as a leader, you want to teach
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people how to think, not what to think. Right. And that's, that's a hard thing. I remember
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I was running training and one of my, one of my chiefs, he said, Hey, you know, when we
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were in our first platoon and my platoon chief, you know, one of the smartest things he ever
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said was, Hey, we've got to teach these guys how to think not what to think because combat
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is dynamic. The SEAL teams is dynamic. And as I got out of the military, I realized like
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it's the same thing for business. It's the same thing for life. You know, you have four
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kids, right? I have three kids. You're married. I'm married. Like we don't want our wives and
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kids dependent upon us. Well, and yes. And you know, you think about in combat or I even think
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about this as a father and husband, like what if I'm driving home tonight and I die, then my wife
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and my kids are screwed. 100%. You want them, you want to get yourself to a position where you're not
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needed. Now I know that seems a little crazy when you're talking about marriage and as a father,
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but think of it from a leadership aspect from, um, from business. Like my goal is to earn
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nobody on the team needs me because that means I have trained and equipped everybody. Do you think
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so? Okay. You know what that allows me to do is be up and out. It allows me to be more strategic
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and there's a, there's a problem I see with that. Okay. And, and I don't, I don't think you're wrong.
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I actually agree with that. I've said it. Like I, I've told the guys like your job is to render
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yourself obsolete as a father. Yep. The, the concern that I've had, and I've actually been thinking
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about this pretty heavily over the past several weeks is that if that you could run the risk of,
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of it being perceived as being disengaged. 100%. There's always that risk. And that's why you
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have to communicate with your team. And, but, but here's the thing. It's not like you're just like
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not doing anything. It means that you're up and out. Like that's your goal up and out.
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What do you mean by that? You're thinking strategic. Like I'm not in the weeds. I'm
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not, I'm not doing this work. I want to be thinking for the future. Like you want to be
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thinking year, two years, three years down the road. And it's cool because Cody is such a stud
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and he's such a good leader at echelon front. I'm not needed on any of the FTXs anymore. The field
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training exercises that Leif and Jock were like, Hey, create this, develop. This is what we want
00:20:21.920
that I've been doing this whole time. I don't need to go to one FTX anymore. Now I do because
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you know, it's a source of income and I enjoy doing it. And it's part of what I do. And some
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of the clients literally are like, we want JP to run this training. Cool. Hey, boom. That's part
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of the contract. Here's a pricing. Yeah. It's awesome. Or I have really good relationship with
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our, you know, our biggest clients are like, Hey man, with your new promotion, because I'm now
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our chief training officer. So I'm in charge of the FTXs, the councils, battlefields,
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and instructor development. Okay. So I have all these things. They were like, are you still
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going to be doing FTXs? And I'm like, I will be at your guys' FTXs. But I told them, I'm like, Hey,
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you guys actually don't need me here. Cody runs an awesome program. All these other instructors are
00:21:05.400
absolutely phenomenal. Carlos. I mean, those guys don't need me there. I mean, and to be honest,
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they're making the program better. The more I've actually gotten out of it, the better the program's
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gotten. And you were the bottleneck in a way. Yeah, I was because I was the only one that knew
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how to run it all. And, but so if you weren't around or something like that, but if something
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happened to me, yeah, that was going to be a problem. Now it's the point of literally I could,
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I could, I don't want anything to happen to me, but let's just say I got injured and I couldn't
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travel, right? Like whatever. Maybe I couldn't travel because my ring finger is broken. Right.
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Something horrific happen. Yeah. My horrific ring finger accident. I'm never going to live that
00:21:48.360
one down and just wait for all the internet comments, keyboard warriors, mom, bring me
00:21:53.760
meatloaf. I got one. Um, no, the guys that listen to your podcast are legit. Um, some of them, most of
00:22:01.340
them, most of them, all of them are right. Um, but I'm not needed. And it's because this is what I've
00:22:06.740
been doing with Cody since day one is asking him questions, but also telling him, Hey, your goal
00:22:12.200
is to take my job. I want you to take my job so that I can get hung up on that. Like, I don't,
00:22:18.580
I know what you're saying. I, I get it. And even, even though I get it, I still get hung up on it
00:22:23.280
where it's like, well, I'm just, I'm training my competition or I'm training to take my job and
00:22:27.760
then what I'm going to do. But I think that's most guys miss the up and out. That's ego and insecurity,
00:22:32.300
my friend. Yeah, of course, which we all have, right. You know, but the more I realize it's not
00:22:38.020
about me, it's about serving the mission of our, of echelon front. And if I'm the only one that can
00:22:43.380
do the FTX is, then that limits our ability to scale and grow. Now my next goal is to have another
00:22:50.660
Cody and have a third Cody and have a fourth Cody and have a fifth Cody and have those guys build up
00:22:56.340
to where they're building out their teams and their departments. And we're running these trainings all
00:23:00.320
across the world at multiple times. Yeah. Like that's our goal strategically. And if I'm doing
00:23:07.480
the day-to-day work every day, all day long, I can't think strategically. I can't, I can't be doing
00:23:13.840
the work that's not paying me right now. And yeah, that is an ego thing and there is some insecurity,
00:23:20.580
but in reality, like I'm not training my competition. I'm not, you know, it's, we're on the same team
00:23:28.460
and I have to think, how am I able to better serve our clients? How am I able to better serve
00:23:36.760
Cody? How am I able to better serve Carlos, Danny, Jesse, Joe, Cowie, all these guys that are on the
00:23:42.720
team, all these guys that are like legitimately working their butts off every single week for us.
00:23:50.540
Like I need to be serving them. And the best way I can serve them is to build them as leaders.
00:23:56.520
Men, let me, uh, let me pause the conversation very quickly. We have very good news. Our exclusive
00:24:01.620
brotherhood, the iron council is going to be opening back up, uh, mid September. And if you're not
00:24:07.440
familiar with what the iron council is, uh, then I would encourage you to head to order of man.com
00:24:13.600
slash iron council. You're going to learn what it's all about, what we do, what benefits there
00:24:18.840
are, why it might be valuable for you. And you can also watch a quick video to see, uh, what we do
00:24:25.240
and the, and the tools that we give to men so that they can see in every aspect of their life. So
00:24:30.760
that's order of man.com slash iron council. Now, in the meantime, be sure to join our battle ready
00:24:35.780
program at order of man.com slash battle ready order of man.com slash battle ready. Because when you
00:24:42.240
do, you're going to get access to a series of free emails that will get you on the path to success,
00:24:47.380
uh, whether you join the iron council or not. And if you do decide to join us in September,
00:24:51.620
you're going to be light years ahead of the pack. Having gone through this battle ready program,
00:24:57.020
you can do that order of man.com slash battle ready. So it's order of man.com slash iron council
00:25:02.640
and order of man.com slash battle ready. Do that right after the show for now, I'll get back to JP.
00:25:07.660
You, you, you said something a little bit ago and it was kind of in passing. You said you need to
00:25:15.500
submit, I'm paraphrasing. So correct me if I misrepresenting, but you need to submit fully
00:25:21.700
yourself to God. I, I personally have a struggle with that because of ego and, and one question I
00:25:31.440
actually get a lot is, isn't that at odds or relinquishing, you know, control of your own life
00:25:40.580
or even ownership of your own life by completely surrendering or submitting to a higher power.
00:25:50.320
So we're still responsible for our actions. Um, and surrendering to God doesn't mean that
00:25:58.840
we're not in control of what we do. It's us acknowledging, Hey, I need your help.
00:26:06.120
And to me, surrendering to God is when I acknowledge, Hey, I cannot do this alone.
00:26:12.280
I need your help. And it's me praying and spending time in the word and, you know,
00:26:20.660
praying over my wife, praying over my kids, praying over my household and thinking, okay, how,
00:26:27.500
how can I serve him? How can I serve others around me? You know, I was doing a Bible study
00:26:33.940
and there's a video included in it, which was really cool that our church does. And this guy said,
00:26:42.620
if, if we would love God and love others, there's no need for any other rules.
00:26:50.980
Well, I mean, that is the two great commandments, right? Love God. And then what's the second great
00:26:57.980
commandment? Love your neighbor, right? Yes. But if you like, but you know, he was, yes. And so he's
00:27:03.560
talking about the fact that if we, if we just loved God and if we just loved others, we wouldn't need
00:27:09.780
any of the other rules. Yeah. But some people just aren't lovable. That's, that's the problem.
00:27:15.500
I agree. I agree. At times it is hard. And that's a hard thing. That's the point of making
00:27:20.840
exactly. And that's hard, but we don't love them because of our ego. Cause we think that they should
00:27:26.040
be a certain way. Yeah. But we're not showing empathy. Now I know we can go, we can play the
00:27:31.720
devil's advocate. What if game like, well, are you saying I need to love a rapist? And no,
00:27:36.660
you're not there, but somebody there that just listened to what we said is going to go to that
00:27:42.240
extreme. They will. I'm just wondering how you love somebody who maybe has hurt you or abused you
00:27:50.740
or taken advantage of you or, you know, yeah, that's, that's hard. And you're not able to until
00:27:57.200
you can actually forgive them. And when you forgive others, it's actually releasing yourself. It's
00:28:02.440
giving yourself freedom. How so? Because you do something wrong to me. I'm upset with you.
00:28:12.460
I'm holding that grudge. I don't forgive you. What am I holding on to?
00:28:19.360
You're holding on to a lot of, a lot of stuff, grief, pain, sorrow, remorse. So when you,
00:28:26.240
when I can fully forgive you, what have I just freed myself from? Yeah. All of that,
00:28:30.560
all those things. And here's the thing. How can I expect and ask God to forgive me if I'm not
00:28:38.240
willing to forgive you? Yeah. That's, that's a good, that's a, and I've thought I've contemplated
00:28:42.940
on that. These are actual conversations I've had with myself while I'm praying. Cause I'm having a
00:28:48.000
real hard time, you know, forgiving another person in my life right now. And I just finally was like,
00:28:55.180
you know what? Like, how can I be asking God to forgive me for these things if I can't forgive
00:29:00.500
them? Like God's God is forgiving me. Right. And he's forgiven me for all these other things that
00:29:08.780
I've done. Like if I can't forgive somebody else. And then I actually had to change my mindset to where
00:29:15.160
it was, Hey, this isn't who they are. I don't know what they're dealing with. I don't know why they
00:29:20.560
said what they said. I don't know why they did what they did. I don't agree with it, but you know
00:29:25.840
what? Like as a child of God, I need to forgive them. Yeah. Like, and when I forgave them and true
00:29:32.300
forgiveness is when you can pray that God blesses their life. That's what I was going to ask. Like,
00:29:36.240
how do you know if you fully, cause it's easy to say, I forgive you, but then hold a grudge.
00:29:41.480
But that's not actually forgiving somebody that's lip service. So how do you know when you have to be
00:29:46.740
able to pray for them? And I wasn't doing that. And then when I started praying for this person
00:29:52.500
specifically asking that God would release the bondage of anger and frustration and just rage
00:29:59.560
and lying and, you know, all these things that this person was doing manipulation, like all these,
00:30:05.900
and these were all spirits of the devil that they're dealing with. I realized, Oh, they're being
00:30:11.600
held in captive by, by the devil. Like this is not who they are. And I started to actually feel sorry
00:30:17.660
for them. And when I started feeling sorry for what they were going through and started praying for them
00:30:23.760
and praying that they would be free from that and that they would be blessed and successful.
00:30:31.240
That's when I was like, okay, I've forgiven that person. And now when I think about that person,
00:30:35.640
guess what? There's no anger. There's no resentment. I'm, you know, there's none of that.
00:30:42.300
It's legit. Like I think about this person as we're talking about it and I'm, I'm good to go.
00:30:48.400
Yeah. Two weeks ago, I wouldn't be able to have this conversation because I'd be so mad and I
00:30:55.320
wouldn't be able to focus, but I was doing this Bible study and talking about forgiveness and I was
00:30:59.720
like working through it. I'm like, okay, this is a good timing. And then it was like, Oh, and then the next
00:31:04.380
one was surrendering yourself to God, which I'm working through that section right now. And I'm
00:31:08.380
like, yeah, you told me we're going to talk this evening. Yes. I'm going to go dive in and finish
00:31:13.020
it. You know, um, you know, what's cool is the name of the Bible study that it was from our church
00:31:18.120
is called freedom. Oh, really? Yeah. And it's just, you know, once you can free yourself from all these
00:31:22.680
things, then it allows you to have the freedom to have a good relationship with God, have a good
00:31:26.840
relationship with yourself, your wife, your kids, and those around you. Does your pastor head that up
00:31:32.440
or is it like a separate? Yeah, it was through our church. And then it's an actual like hard book
00:31:37.400
that I have. And then as it goes through, it'll be like, all right, go to this website, watch this
00:31:41.120
video. Oh, that's everything else is driven by different passages. And each day you're doing a
00:31:45.740
thing. And I mean, it's a legit Bible study. It sounds like it's been amazing. Yeah. People ask like,
00:31:52.260
Oh, what, what devotional do you do? And I'm like, I don't know. I just read the Bible.
00:31:57.800
Yeah. Like I don't, what I want to do, let me, I'll get you a copy of the book. I'd be really
00:32:02.340
curious. I'll get it. I'll just get a copy and get it sent out to you. Um, cause what, like I was
00:32:06.840
doing it with my pastor and I just, I wasn't committing to it cause I was complacent. Right.
00:32:11.900
And then I find, and I was, I just realized like, I need to do this. And then so that, cause he was
00:32:19.160
willing to be like, Hey, once a week, let's get on the phone. Let's work through it. Like an actual Bible
00:32:23.420
study. Like you do that throughout the week, you meet, you know, once a week with your group
00:32:27.660
and he, you know, he's doing this with all these people. And I, man, I, I took that for granted at
00:32:36.260
the beginning. And since I dove back into it, I was like, I felt really so guilty for like not sticking
00:32:44.200
with it. So what I'm doing is I'm going to go through the whole thing and then I'm going to go
00:32:48.160
through it again and do recaps with him. And cause I, you know, I told him, I'm like, man,
00:32:53.600
this would be awesome. I have some friends that could do it. He goes, let's get you through it.
00:32:57.920
And I want you to lead these guys through it. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Oh, okay. You're like, wait,
00:33:03.220
I don't want to do it anymore. I was like, Oh no, but it was awesome because you know, it was,
00:33:08.480
it was really cool. Him, the way he said it. And he was like, dude, you're just, you'll be good.
00:33:14.740
He understands the same concept that we were talking about earlier.
00:33:17.400
Exactly. That's what he's doing. Right. He's not, you know, he's, he's giving me ownership
00:33:22.020
to go lead another group. Yeah. Which is awesome. That is cool. And that's what you want.
00:33:25.940
And what's interesting about that is the guys shout out to pastor Tyron. He's awesome.
00:33:31.520
It sounds like it. Um, is it the guys who do that? Like the leaders who do that, that you're led by
00:33:35.940
the, those are the people we admire. The ones who do give us that authority are the ones who do give us
00:33:43.420
enough, you know, leash to hang ourselves with those. Those are the men
00:33:47.300
that we actually want to follow, not the ones that want to dictate and yes. And, and tell us
00:33:52.220
everything about everything. And absolutely. Let me go. Let me like, I can do this. You know,
00:33:57.060
even if we flounder a little bit, those are the guys we respect.
00:34:00.420
100%. And, um, you know, the way, the way he does it is awesome. Another one of my buddies,
00:34:06.720
I was talking about Matt Russell. He started this ministry called walking in truth ministry.
00:34:11.680
And I went to one of their men's retreats in February and what I was able to work through
00:34:16.760
personally was, I mean, just absolutely incredible. Just the freedom I got from just dealing with a lot
00:34:24.920
of stuff that, I mean, bro, I like, did I work through stuff that I had buried that had happened
00:34:32.840
to me when I was in high school, man. Really? That I'd never talked to. I'd never taught. And I
00:34:38.300
still, I didn't talk about it there. I still haven't talked about it to anybody, but I was able to fully
00:34:43.500
surrender that to God and say, Hey, just take this burden. Like, take this away from me.
00:34:49.840
Do you feel like when you did that, like, you don't, do you still think about those things or is
00:34:55.220
it like, no, I'm done. I'm done off. I don't feel any guilt for what, what was done to me.
00:34:59.840
Like none. Um, was that a process or was that just a decision? Oh no, it was a process. We had
00:35:06.920
to work through it at this men's retreat. Okay. And that's why they retreat. Yeah. It was through
00:35:10.200
the retreat. Um, you know, a lot of anger, anxiety, jealousy, manipulation, um, you know,
00:35:18.860
addiction, uh, porn was a bad thing, you know, and you know, you justify it because you're like,
00:35:25.320
oh, you know, whatever, you know, and like, bro, I haven't even thought about porn since February.
00:35:29.840
It hasn't entered my mind once really since you worked through these issues. Yeah. Cause I fully,
00:35:34.440
fully surrendered it to God. I fully surrendered it to God, literally prayed it out of my life.
00:35:40.120
So like, and ask the Holy spirit to fill that void with that. Let's take porn for example,
00:35:45.380
cause it's an addiction. Yeah. But do you like, are there temptations where, you know, you might be
00:35:50.940
tempted and then you say, you know, you say a silent prayer, for example, and then it's out of your
00:35:55.860
life or you're, you're strong enough to avoid it now. Or is it like, no, I don't even think about it.
00:36:00.860
So it's a combination. Like I literally haven't had the desire to look at porn once. Now you can feel
00:36:06.560
that creep in because I mean, did you get on Instagram and you know, for sure you see bikinis
00:36:10.680
and it's craves. And, but one of the things you can actually do is you can remove those things and
00:36:16.840
change the algorithms. Like I don't want to see anything related to this post. Oh really? Yeah. And so I
00:36:22.040
started doing that. So now that's the hard part when you actually have to start doing the active
00:36:25.460
things. It's accountability. I don't want that. Yeah. It's accountability. Cause you can still
00:36:28.920
sneak something in there. You a hundred percent could if you wanted. Yeah. But when I looked at
00:36:32.840
like the damage that had created just within my own heart and my mind, I was like, no, you know what
00:36:40.680
I mean? Not at all. And you know, it was, it was an addiction. I mean, it wasn't like a bad
00:36:47.400
addiction. It wasn't crazy, but it was one of those things where I didn't, here's the deal. I had justified
00:36:51.840
in my mind where I didn't think it was a problem. Right. And that's a dangerous road. I've done that
00:36:57.040
with alcohol as well. And you know, you justify it, you know, I bring it back to what Jocko told
00:37:01.820
me in January of 2020 discipline is rooted in the truth that we tell ourselves. I was lacking
00:37:08.340
discipline because I was lying to myself and any area that I'm lacking discipline. It's because I've been
00:37:15.900
lying to myself and being able to not lie to myself and say, Hey, this is a problem. Hey,
00:37:24.080
my temper, this is a problem. Jealousy. This is a problem. Anxiety. This is a problem.
00:37:31.320
And then what you're saying is that, so I wrote it down. Discipline is rooted in the truth. We tell
00:37:35.420
ourselves. So what you're saying is that once we acknowledge the truth about the problems,
00:37:40.340
yes, then we can be disciplined to overcome it. Whether it's addiction, alcoholism, pornography,
00:37:46.600
anger, anxiety, the things. And it goes back to discipline equals freedom that Jocko says all
00:37:51.520
the time. Right. And when I was disciplined enough to be humble and show humility and say, Hey, this is
00:37:57.460
a problem. I need help at that men's retreat and pray about it and ask the Holy Spirit to help me
00:38:03.180
and pray those things out of my life and have the Holy Spirit come into my heart and fill those voids.
00:38:08.580
It gave me freedom from that, from that bondage. Like I, like I'm telling you, man, I haven't had
00:38:13.860
any desires to look at porn. I haven't had any desires to get hammered like zero. Like I'll have
00:38:20.420
some wine with my wife or I might have a drink, but like zero last year at camp, I was here. I got
00:38:25.660
blacked out drunk multiple times, hit it, hit it from a lot of people. It wasn't a problem. Yeah. So
00:38:32.380
again, I was lying to myself. I mean, I was literally, there's a few times I thank God.
00:38:38.060
I had good friends here at camp with me that walked me back to where I needed to be. And like,
00:38:42.940
I remember everything up to leaving that campfire and like this camp I'm here. I'm like, I mean,
00:38:48.820
I think I've had, I've had a wine, you know, I've had a couple of glasses of wine, right?
00:38:54.620
Uh, you know, and so just understanding, like I had to, I had to, I had to be humble and I had to,
00:39:02.200
to submit to God saying, I need your help. Right. You know, and that's what, you know,
00:39:06.300
when you're big, when you're submitting your life to crisis, like, Hey, I need your help.
00:39:09.700
I can't carry this cross. I can't carry this bird. I can't care. I can't do this without you.
00:39:14.360
Like, and so for me, that's just been, you know, changing my relationship with God as well.
00:39:19.640
Um, I'm, I'm just processing it all. Like, no, I, a lot of guys have said, Oh man,
00:39:28.800
your podcast lately are awesome. And I appreciate that, but I've been trying to take it more to
00:39:35.180
heart instead of being an interview type format. I'm genuinely listening more and care about how
00:39:43.620
it might apply to my own personal situation. Yeah. So I'm not even thinking of questions. I'm like,
00:39:49.520
Oh, that's, that's really good. And I just want to sit here and think on it for 10 minutes.
00:39:54.060
Get it. I can't do that. I'll have to do that afterwards. Cause the guys are in the guys in
00:39:59.280
their minds right now are like, no, no, you, here's the next question you got to ask. And
00:40:02.800
there's, you know, a thousand different questions. We can do this again for sure. Yeah. Yeah. I know
00:40:08.460
we're short on time today. Cause we've got, obviously we've got more jujitsu and you've got your
00:40:12.520
study group and things like that. Camp pictures at eight. Oh, it is. Oh, it's seven 40. Yeah. So we've got to hustle.
00:40:18.700
It's all good. We'll do this again. Let's do it again. Um, tell the guys where to, at least
00:40:23.580
where to connect with you on, on the socials or even with like FTX programs and some sort of stuff.
00:40:28.980
Yeah. I mean, Instagram is just JP to know, uh, JP D I N N E L L. Um, you know, Instagram,
00:40:38.980
Twitter, it's all the same. I'm active on, on Instagram is just the platform that works best
00:40:42.940
for what I do. And then obviously echelon front E C H E L O N then front. That's the leadership
00:40:49.860
consulting company that Jocko Willink and Leif Babin created. They brought me on board as the
00:40:54.680
first instructor almost six years ago. It's crazy. You were the first instructor. First instructor.
00:40:58.240
Okay. I didn't know that. Yeah. Eight years ago. Almost six years ago. Sorry. I thought you said
00:41:02.440
eight. No, I might've said that's wild. Six years. Yeah. But yeah, it's been crazy and it's been
00:41:06.940
amazing opportunity. And what's cool is I've been able to learn from a lot of different people
00:41:11.940
throughout those years. Like, like you were just saying, this podcast, you know, think about all
00:41:15.760
the people you've had the opportunity to talk with and just learn. It's amazing. I'm the biggest
00:41:19.980
recipient of what we do. Cause I get to sit here and talk with you guys. Well, you know, it's funny
00:41:23.940
as I say that at echelon front as well. I'm like all, I mean, all these people I get to work with and
00:41:28.720
learn from and help them find solutions to their own problems, because it's not, it's not what we do at
00:41:34.980
echelon front would not be effective if we came in and said, Hey, this is what you need to do.
00:41:40.860
It's like, okay, we're gonna do that. And then we leave and they're gonna like, Hey, are we still
00:41:44.240
doing the right thing? Right. Hey, let's have them. No, it's not leadership. You need to get,
00:41:49.480
you need to allow your team to come up with the solutions to their problems on their own.
00:41:54.140
Yeah. You want to teach them how to think, you know, and that's one of the things we've been,
00:41:57.960
you know, working with our kids is like, Hey, pray with intent. And I want you guys to
00:42:03.780
think with intent as well to where you're really questioning things and thinking about not
00:42:08.280
questioning things in a defiant manner, but like thinking about it because you know, the ultimate
00:42:14.640
goal of the leader is to teach their team, how to think, not what to think. And you give them
00:42:19.820
training, you, you equip them. Then they have the ability to where they can step into your role
00:42:24.780
to where you're not that bottleneck. I want the same thing for my kids. Like if I'm gone,
00:42:29.040
they can think through problems. And when they're praying, I want them to be praying with intent to
00:42:34.040
where they developing that relationship with God. And you know, that's one of the things Amanda and
00:42:38.500
I've been doing as well. I love it, brother. I love it. Every time we talk, I feel uplifted
00:42:43.680
and edified. I'm writing that pray, pray and work with intent. Um, like I said, and I, and I'm being
00:42:51.440
serious about that. Every time we talk, every time we converse, every time you lift me up or pray or
00:42:55.240
whatever, I'm, I always walk away uplifted and man, I, I just, I really appreciate you for that
00:42:59.700
more than just being on the podcast, but I just appreciate your friendship and guidance and
00:43:03.720
counsel. I've always felt the same way. And I know Amanda loves your, your wife and your kids and
00:43:07.620
yeah, you know, the feeling is mutual brother. Awesome. Thank you, man. Appreciate you. Thank you.
00:43:14.000
All right, guys, there you go. My conversation with the one and only JP Danell. Again, it was a little
00:43:18.400
bit of a shorter one. We were, we were strapped for time, but I hope you enjoyed it. We talked about
00:43:22.040
some conversations that we've never addressed or dealt with or talked about in the past.
00:43:26.120
And I hope you gave you some things to consider and think about, or at least look at things
00:43:29.600
from a new perspective. And that's one of the things that I really try to do is get
00:43:33.380
unique and interesting men on the podcast that force us in a way to look at things through a lens
00:43:39.260
that maybe we've never explored before. So again, I hope you enjoyed it. Make sure to connect with JP
00:43:43.960
through echelon front, their FTX trainings or their muster programs they do with echelon front. And then he
00:43:49.580
also shared how you can connect with him on the gram. Also one last thing, take a screenshot right
00:43:54.800
now, tag me, tag JP, share it on your feed, share it on your stories. Let people know what you're
00:43:59.940
listening to because it goes a long way in boosting and promoting the visibility of what we're doing
00:44:05.340
here with order of man. So guys, that's it. Also check out the iron council at order of man.com
00:44:11.260
slash iron council. And we will be back tomorrow for asking me anything until then go out there,
00:44:16.720
take action and become the man you are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the order of man
00:44:21.860
podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be.
00:44:26.940
We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.