The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - 547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming...

00:00:00.000 One time my daughter came home saying that she was stupid, and I said, well, why do you think

00:00:04.180 you're stupid? She says, I don't know my times tables. Bad father, I hadn't taught her how to

00:00:08.900 study. She literally was thinking that she was stupid. Single points of inadequacy do not indicate

00:00:14.440 general incompetence. You're not born knowing your times tables, and you're not born knowing

00:00:19.100 chemistry, and you're not born knowing European history. You have to read about it, and you have

00:00:23.180 to study it. You want to take that self-criticism and narrow it to the point where it turns into

00:00:27.620 a strategy for progress. Okay, so you wrote this book, The Way of the Warrior Kid.

00:00:32.120 So there's a guy, he has kids, and one day he walked into his kids' rooms, and his kids

00:00:37.900 were doing push-ups. And he said, what are you doing? So they showed him this book that

00:00:40.920 they read called Way of the Warrior Kid. He picks the book and says, I got to make this

00:00:44.640 into a movie. Oh, really? Oh, okay. Yeah, I don't know how much you care about Hollywood

00:00:48.960 behind-the-scenes stuff. Well, let's hear the story.

00:00:57.620 Hello, everybody. I had the privilege of sitting down today with someone who's really

00:01:10.200 become a friend, Jocko Willink, a former Navy SEAL, a serial entrepreneur. And we had a chance

00:01:19.580 to dive into the practices of his successful and adventurous life. And we talked about two

00:01:30.640 broad categories of topic, both of which are a great practical utility. One of them was

00:01:37.340 an analysis of where you find ideas and opportunities. How do you determine where to look for what might

00:01:45.840 change your life? How do you pursue your interests? How do you pay attention to what bothers you?

00:01:51.460 How do you turn the problems that bother you into opportunities? How do you pursue the things

00:01:56.100 that compel you so that they are the gift that keeps giving? How do you generate a life of abundance

00:02:01.220 around you conceptually and practically? And Jocko has done that in a multitude of ways.

00:02:06.400 We used his latest foray into a new entrepreneurial domain as a case study, so to speak. He's got a new

00:02:13.900 movie coming out, The Way of the Warrior Kid. And we discussed why he wrote that book, what problem he

00:02:21.200 thought he was solving, how that morphed into a sequence of publishing opportunities, how that

00:02:26.380 then transformed into the opportunity to make a movie, how he made that work properly. We also talked

00:02:32.960 about leadership a lot and what leadership is and how it is that you configure yourself in the way that

00:02:38.720 you interact with the world so that you can become an effective leader, so that you can invite people

00:02:43.560 to share their excitement of your vision, how you can develop an exciting vision, how you can

00:02:49.780 strategize with people so that they come aboard so that the things that you decide to do together

00:02:54.540 are overwhelmingly more likely to be productive and worthwhile. So why is it useful to talk to Jocko?

00:03:02.640 And why would it be useful to watch this podcast? Because he knows how to conduct himself effectively in

00:03:07.660 the world in a multitude of different manners, physical, psychological, philosophical, practical,

00:03:14.400 and we discussed all the things that he knows, many of the things that he knows in a way that makes

00:03:20.460 his wisdom accessible to people who are trying to straighten their lives out and to aim upward.

00:03:27.640 Way we go.

00:03:29.240 We meet again.

00:03:30.220 How are you doing?

00:03:31.220 I'm doing great.

00:03:32.460 Great, eh?

00:03:33.360 Yeah.

00:03:33.800 Define great.

00:03:35.220 It seems like the things in my life are moving forward in a positive direction.

00:03:39.420 So it seems pretty great.

00:03:40.960 And it's been like that for quite a while, eh?

00:03:44.680 Yeah, I'd say it's been like that for quite a while.

00:03:46.800 Yeah.

00:03:47.700 What are you doing right?

00:03:51.120 I guess I'm just trying to work hard and keep moving forward myself.

00:03:55.380 I think that accumulates over time, I would say.

00:03:59.120 Yeah, right, right.

00:04:00.340 Are you still getting up at 4.30 in the morning?

00:04:02.480 I am indeed.

00:04:03.340 You know, that's completely insane.

00:04:04.820 You know that, eh?

00:04:05.700 Yeah, it's a little bit insane.

00:04:06.480 So how do you structure your day?

00:04:08.800 Wake up early in the morning, work out.

00:04:10.540 How long do you work out?

00:04:11.880 It depends.

00:04:13.140 Today I worked out for about probably 15 minutes because I had to get on the flight to come

00:04:16.800 out here.

00:04:17.220 Right.

00:04:17.380 So I just woke up.

00:04:18.380 I got on the rower and I did a little bit of barbell exercise and then was done.

00:04:23.900 15 minutes.

00:04:24.160 Do you do that as soon as you wake up before you eat?

00:04:26.820 Is that the first thing you do is work out?

00:04:28.340 Yes, yes.

00:04:29.000 I usually don't eat until like 10, 10.30, something like that.

00:04:33.960 I don't really like breakfast and I don't really feel like eating when I get done working

00:04:38.920 out.

00:04:39.580 Right.

00:04:39.860 So I just let it ride for a while.

00:04:42.180 Right.

00:04:42.740 So first thing, get up, shower or do you just go right to the workout?

00:04:46.520 Right to the workout.

00:04:47.320 Right to the workout.

00:04:48.740 Right.

00:04:49.420 Do you think about it or just go do it?

00:04:51.380 I don't think about it.

00:04:52.480 I just go execute it.

00:04:53.940 Yeah.

00:04:54.280 And so what's the typical workout length?

00:04:56.720 It depends how much time I have.

00:04:58.240 You know, if it's a Sunday and I get up and I don't have anything else in the rest of the

00:05:04.760 day that's pressing, I'll work out for a few hours.

00:05:08.920 You know, just very relaxing.

00:05:11.640 Relax.

00:05:11.840 Yeah.

00:05:12.020 Relax.

00:05:12.380 Have a good time.

00:05:13.240 Yeah.

00:05:14.700 And do you do that every day?

00:05:16.680 I do.

00:05:17.340 I do.

00:05:17.840 I always find that, look, I understand rest days, but life gives me rest days, right?

00:05:24.240 You know, whether it's a super early flight or a broken water heater or, you know, things

00:05:28.880 come up in the world.

00:05:29.840 And so you get forced to take rest days.

00:05:33.960 So unless I'm-

00:05:34.560 You don't have to schedule the damn things.

00:05:35.560 Yeah, you don't have to schedule the damn things.

00:05:36.140 They just come along.

00:05:37.060 They come.

00:05:37.580 You get injured.

00:05:38.360 You know, you get some kind of an injury.

00:05:39.500 It's like, oh, okay.

00:05:40.360 It looks like I'm going to take a rest day today.

00:05:41.680 Or you get sick or just whatever the case may be.

00:05:44.600 Right.

00:05:44.940 Okay, so you work out, then what, typically?

00:05:48.340 It depends on what's happening.

00:05:50.100 But, you know, I have a few different businesses.

00:05:52.420 So we all attend to the businesses, you know, we'll have meetings and discussions and then

00:05:56.860 I have clients.

00:05:57.740 So I have a consulting business, so I'll have clients to talk to.

00:06:00.680 And then just the various businesses require, they require a little bit of time and a little

00:06:06.440 bit of care.

00:06:08.080 So tell me, list out your businesses, if you would.

00:06:11.060 And so let's go through that a little bit.

00:06:12.660 And then we can talk about where you're pursuing all of those.

00:06:15.140 Yeah, so I would say the big three, I'll call them, the big three for me anyways, is I have

00:06:20.160 a leadership consulting company called Echelon Front.

00:06:23.040 And we work with scores of companies around the country and around the world.

00:06:27.240 And we train them and help them with their leadership.

00:06:30.040 Yeah.

00:06:30.320 And then I have a food supplement company called Jocko Fuel, and we make clean supplements

00:06:40.720 for people, whether they need protein or whether they need energy or hydration.

00:06:44.880 We got you covered.

00:06:46.380 And so that, again, we're growing very rapidly and we've been growing very rapidly for many

00:06:52.500 years now.

00:06:52.960 And then the final one is a clothing and apparel company called Origin USA, which made basically

00:07:00.920 everything that I'm wearing right now, from my boots to my jeans, my T-shirt.

00:07:04.180 The shirt is made by another company called Hooli, which is another friend of mine, a SEAL,

00:07:07.840 who makes golf shirts.

00:07:09.540 I'm not a golfer, but he makes golf shirts.

00:07:12.740 And Origin, at Origin USA, we make everything 100% in America with American-made materials.

00:07:20.400 So the cotton on these jeans, the zippers, the threads, the boots, the leather, everything

00:07:24.880 that I'm wearing from Origin USA is from materials that are made here, grown here.

00:07:32.500 And then we actually have factories in Maine and factories in North Carolina where we cut

00:07:39.440 and sew.

00:07:40.880 Yeah.

00:07:41.400 I think the last time we talked, you told me about reestablishing some of these factories

00:07:46.560 and reopening them.

00:07:47.780 Yes.

00:07:47.960 So it'll be fun to cover that.

00:07:49.120 So those are the big three.

00:07:50.080 What else?

00:07:52.060 Because that's not enough, you know?

00:07:53.440 Yeah.

00:07:53.960 Yeah.

00:07:54.640 The other kind of big project that took a lot of time over the past few months was making

00:08:01.340 a movie.

00:08:02.000 So I've written a bunch of kids' books and one part of those kids' books or one series

00:08:08.280 of kids' books is called Way of the Warrior Kid.

00:08:10.660 Yeah.

00:08:11.240 And the Way of the Warrior Kid has now been, is being turned into a movie.

00:08:14.920 And so we filmed for two and a half months in September, October, or late August, then September

00:08:23.780 and October.

00:08:24.840 So three months, August to October last year.

00:08:27.920 Yeah.

00:08:28.080 Okay, let's walk through that.

00:08:30.200 Tell me about the books first.

00:08:32.540 I know about the books, but everybody watching and listening should know.

00:08:36.820 And so, and I want to know how that got turned into a movie because that's not easy by any

00:08:41.800 stretch of the imagination.

00:08:43.240 No, it's not.

00:08:43.680 So tell the whole story.

00:08:44.960 Start with the book.

00:08:46.200 All right.

00:08:46.840 So years ago, I got four kids myself.

00:08:49.900 And years ago, I was wanting to buy some books to read to my kids.

00:08:54.320 Yeah.

00:08:55.400 And going to the bookstore, the books were just not good.

00:08:59.720 And there was, actually, I remember there was a book that was the straw that broke the

00:09:03.920 camel's back.

00:09:04.540 It was a pirate book.

00:09:06.140 And I picked up this pirate book and I started looking through it.

00:09:08.960 Hoping for a pirate book.

00:09:10.300 Yeah, hoping for a pirate book, right?

00:09:12.600 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:09:13.480 And this was by no means a pirate.

00:09:14.900 These were the weakest, wimpiest pirates I'd ever read about in my life.

00:09:18.380 And I went home.

00:09:18.980 I didn't buy the book.

00:09:19.620 I went home and I said, all right.

00:09:20.740 Those were the pirates that used to be known as dead.

00:09:23.680 Yeah, dead pirates.

00:09:24.840 Exactly.

00:09:25.740 Not the kind of pirates that would survive for very long.

00:09:27.800 These were weak pirates.

00:09:28.740 Right, right.

00:09:29.520 And so I decided I'm just going to write my own books for my kids.

00:09:33.300 And I ended up writing the first book in the series, which is called Way of the Warrior

00:09:38.780 Kid.

00:09:39.080 And it's a combination of my kids, of some of the troubles that they had, which are troubles

00:09:46.180 that all kids had and have growing up.

00:09:49.100 And I kind of modified them a little bit for the books.

00:09:51.340 But, you know, for one thing, one time my daughter came home, my oldest daughter came

00:09:55.680 home, who's an incredibly smart young lady.

00:09:58.520 But when she was in whatever grade it was, she came home saying that she was stupid.

00:10:03.240 And I said, well, why do you think you're stupid?

00:10:05.500 And she says, I don't know my times tables.

00:10:07.660 And I said, well, how much have you studied your times tables?

00:10:10.320 And she said, what do you mean?

00:10:13.000 And she, bad father.

00:10:14.940 I hadn't taught her how to study.

00:10:16.800 She thought she should just know her times tables.

00:10:18.860 Right.

00:10:19.200 And so we sat down.

00:10:19.940 Come out of the womb with timetables intact if you're smart.

00:10:23.140 Yeah.

00:10:23.440 Exactly.

00:10:23.800 So she literally was thinking that she was stupid.

00:10:27.600 And so we sat down, we made flashcards, and in whatever it was, a half an hour, she knew

00:10:31.660 her times tables.

00:10:32.960 So, you know, that's also an interesting conceptual error for kids and for adults for that matter

00:10:37.840 is that single points of inadequacy do not indicate general incompetence, right?

00:10:44.060 And while it's really hard, it's really easy to fall that way to take a single example.

00:10:48.380 And well, that's the mountain out of the molehill problem, but that's a classic cognitive

00:10:52.320 error.

00:10:52.740 It's like, minimize your self-criticism to the, what would you say?

00:10:57.880 You want to make yourself criticism as small as possible in a manner that would, in fact,

00:11:03.660 rectify this specific problem.

00:11:06.080 Right.

00:11:06.400 Right.

00:11:06.620 I'm not stupid.

00:11:08.280 I don't know my timetables.

00:11:10.280 Well, that's still too big a problem.

00:11:12.260 I don't know how to go about approaching a new skill.

00:11:15.600 That's still probably too big a problem.

00:11:17.320 I haven't figured out how to set out a schedule that would allow me to incrementally master

00:11:24.740 this thing, right?

00:11:26.280 That's a lot easier on your self-esteem than I'm stupid.

00:11:29.840 Yeah.

00:11:30.240 Right.

00:11:30.440 Something that you can pragmatically fix, right?

00:11:33.860 Yeah.

00:11:34.020 Well, that's what you want to do, right?

00:11:35.240 You want to take that self-criticism and narrow it to the point where it turns into a strategy

00:11:39.820 for progress.

00:11:40.780 That's kind of the essence of behavioral therapy, right?

00:11:43.920 It's to take a, well, a vaguely defined and emotionally troublesome, foggy problem to

00:11:52.600 clarify it until you can advance.

00:11:56.120 And more than that, to clarify it to the point and to develop a strategy to the point where

00:12:02.540 not only you could advance, but you're highly likely to, to make it that small, right?

00:12:07.080 So did she master her times tables?

00:12:08.960 She mastered her times tables.

00:12:10.300 And she, you know, she kind of mastered everything from there on out from an intellectual level

00:12:14.760 and went to a great college and all that stuff.

00:12:17.700 Right.

00:12:17.960 And did that get her going in that direction?

00:12:20.520 Yeah.

00:12:21.300 Yeah.

00:12:21.560 I mean, I think she recognized that, oh, you're not born knowing your times tables and you're

00:12:26.240 not born knowing chemistry and you're not born knowing European history.

00:12:30.340 You have to read about it and you have to study it.

00:12:32.260 But-

00:12:32.880 And that that's something you can do and that that's under your control.

00:12:36.540 Yes.

00:12:37.180 Yes.

00:12:37.360 Right.

00:12:37.620 Well, that's a very important thing for fathers to teach their children.

00:12:40.580 That's for sure.

00:12:41.540 That-

00:12:42.080 Which I clearly had not done, right?

00:12:44.280 I clearly had not said, you know, I wasn't engaged enough to know, oh, you got to learn

00:12:48.080 your times tables.

00:12:48.680 Here's, here's what you got to do.

00:12:49.780 It took her coming to me with that complaint about her genetics that she was stupid, which,

00:12:57.080 you know, I said, actually, you're not.

00:12:59.400 Okay.

00:12:59.680 So you wrote this book, The Way of the Warrior Kid.

00:13:02.080 How many books are in that series now?

00:13:04.200 There are five books in that series.

00:13:05.600 Five books.

00:13:06.200 Now, if I remember correctly, did you publish those yourself?

00:13:09.920 Did you set up a company for that?

00:13:11.580 Or was that picked up by someone?

00:13:13.260 There was another book that was called, that is called Mikey and the Dragons.

00:13:17.980 Right.

00:13:18.740 Right.

00:13:19.300 Which I think is one of your favorite children's books of all time.

00:13:21.940 Yeah.

00:13:22.220 If I remember correctly.

00:13:22.940 Yeah.

00:13:23.640 But Mikey and the Dragons, that's the one where I wanted to have it published before Christmas

00:13:30.260 one year.

00:13:31.480 Yes.

00:13:31.880 And the publishing company said that that's not feasible, completely unfeasible to be

00:13:37.920 able to do that.

00:13:39.220 And I said, are you sure?

00:13:40.820 And they said, yep.

00:13:41.360 It's just, there's no, there's no world where this thing can be published.

00:13:45.640 And I said, oh, well, watch this.

00:13:47.420 And so that, that one I published myself, but, and, and thankfully, then I published a couple

00:13:53.780 more of the Warrior Kid series on my own publishing company.

00:13:58.180 But thankfully, I, you know, I maintained a good relationship with that publishing company

00:14:02.560 and they've now taken the books back.

00:14:04.940 And so now we're publishing all the books under that same publishing company.

00:14:10.900 And so why did you decide to switch from your own publishing house to, to this company?

00:14:15.980 What was the advantage in that?

00:14:18.020 Well, there's one huge advantage and that is with the movie coming out, this is going

00:14:24.760 to be a, there's going to be a lot of books to be printed and stored and the whole nine yards.

00:14:30.960 And at a certain point, you know, they're a business.

00:14:35.400 I'm, I have a business mind, at least.

00:14:37.740 Yeah.

00:14:38.160 Try to.

00:14:39.040 Yeah.

00:14:39.380 And at a certain point.

00:14:39.800 And a marketing platform.

00:14:41.100 At a certain point you say, okay, you know, what does it cost me to publish these books

00:14:47.460 myself?

00:14:47.960 Well, there's, there's a lot of costs.

00:14:49.440 You've got, there's, there's the storage, the printing, the whole nine yards, the mailing,

00:14:53.700 the ordering, there's, there's a whole bunch that goes with it.

00:14:55.760 Yeah.

00:14:55.920 You need to have a business to do that.

00:14:57.580 And there's the brain power engagement that it takes to do that.

00:15:01.140 So, so that's all happening.

00:15:02.240 Meanwhile, they have all the necessary infrastructure.

00:15:06.200 Right.

00:15:06.520 And they were a good partner.

00:15:08.180 You know, I maybe was a little bit too aggressive when I went and published my own book, you know,

00:15:13.420 but.

00:15:14.340 Were you?

00:15:16.680 Okay.

00:15:17.100 Maybe not.

00:15:17.680 Well, you make a point.

00:15:18.800 Yeah.

00:15:19.680 Right.

00:15:20.060 You make a point.

00:15:20.780 And you also indicated very clearly that you had your own marketing power, which is a major

00:15:25.020 issue.

00:15:25.960 Like hopefully what a publisher could offer you is the opportunity to, to take on all

00:15:33.040 that infrastructure responsibility, but also to market.

00:15:37.020 But if you have your own marketing clout, we should talk a little bit about marketing too,

00:15:42.760 because people just, just for clarification, you tell me what you think about this too.

00:15:47.620 One of the things that was most difficult for me to learn as a business person, let's say

00:15:52.320 I, I generated a bunch of tests 30 years ago to help companies hire better employees.

00:15:59.400 They were very good tests, but I really had very little luck selling them.

00:16:05.240 Partly because it turned out that most companies didn't want to hire better employees.

00:16:08.940 And so, which was quite a shock to me, but, and people might not believe that, but it depends

00:16:16.020 on who you're talking to.

00:16:17.140 If you're talking to middle managers in a large company, what they're really interested

00:16:21.920 in is not ever taking a risk on anything whatsoever.

00:16:25.720 They're not particularly interested in making the company grow either, even because there's

00:16:30.080 some risk in that and they won't get any credit for it.

00:16:32.240 Plus there's some expense.

00:16:33.660 And if they were entrepreneurially minded, they would be running their own companies.

00:16:37.320 And so mostly what they do is attenuate risk.

00:16:40.380 And then most companies are set up so that they don't really incentivize their people to

00:16:45.560 take entrepreneurial risks.

00:16:47.560 And so anyways, we didn't sell much of that at all.

00:16:52.040 I eventually worked with one company where it was a real success.

00:16:55.440 But what I did learn was that the product is about 15% of the problem and the communication

00:17:05.180 is the other 85% or 90% or 95% even, you know, which is why you get what's your typical royalties

00:17:12.860 on a book, maybe somewhere between five and 12%.

00:17:16.060 Seems kind of ridiculous, right?

00:17:17.740 Because you wrote the book.

00:17:18.720 It's like, yeah, but you, you didn't market the book.

00:17:22.460 So no one's going to buy it unless they know about it.

00:17:24.820 And you don't have any marketing infrastructure.

00:17:26.580 And that means you can't communicate with people.

00:17:28.700 And it doesn't matter how good the product is if no one knows, knows what it is.

00:17:33.300 And it's really hard to get people to pay attention and even harder to get them to buy

00:17:37.120 something.

00:17:37.860 So there's 90% of the problem right there.

00:17:40.820 And then there's all the distribution.

00:17:42.340 So the publishing people, were they able to also help you market or did you, did you do

00:17:47.260 most of that?

00:17:49.200 Well, as you know, the marketing that you can do, the marketing that I can do is, is,

00:17:56.280 is, is the bulk of the marketing.

00:17:59.720 Yeah.

00:18:00.180 And so, you know, that was one of the reasons why when, when I did leave them, you know,

00:18:05.520 when I did talk about to them, you know, they offer, well, they, they, they could pay you

00:18:10.920 in advance, right?

00:18:11.900 Yes.

00:18:12.340 Well, I didn't need an advance.

00:18:13.660 Right.

00:18:14.480 They could pay to have the books printed.

00:18:16.760 Yeah.

00:18:16.940 Well, I could pay to have the books.

00:18:18.240 Yeah.

00:18:18.980 They could get you distribution.

00:18:21.520 Well, I was selling 85% of my books on Amazon.

00:18:26.340 Yeah.

00:18:26.660 Right.

00:18:27.080 And so that, yeah.

00:18:28.480 And, and the final one is marketing.

00:18:30.140 So those are the things that a publishing company brings to the table.

00:18:34.520 Hypothetically.

00:18:35.440 Hypothetically is the marketing piece.

00:18:38.160 And so when I didn't need an advance, didn't need money to print the books, didn't really need

00:18:44.160 the distribution and I don't really need them to market it.

00:18:48.180 Yeah.

00:18:48.620 What do they bring to the table?

00:18:49.620 Well, the last thing that they, that they help with is, is headache removal.

00:18:54.940 Yeah.

00:18:55.180 Right.

00:18:55.620 So, so it's just headache removal.

00:18:57.080 Yeah.

00:18:57.380 And, you know, now they know that they're not going to get, you know, 90% of the profits

00:19:04.020 from it because that, I would just say, well, that doesn't work.

00:19:06.720 So we sit down, you have a negotiation, you figure out a deal that makes sense for everybody.

00:19:10.920 And that's exactly what we did.

00:19:11.940 Yeah.

00:19:12.540 Yeah.

00:19:12.960 Well, and the moral of this story in part, and for everyone who's watching and listening

00:19:16.660 and who have some business ambitions, let's say, is don't underestimate the utility of

00:19:22.600 a communications network, right?

00:19:24.340 There's nothing, there's nothing that you can build that's more valuable than that.

00:19:28.920 And then once you have a communications network, you can pretty much, you can develop products

00:19:35.120 indefinitely because now you can communicate with people.

00:19:38.600 And that's partly why you have three businesses, right?

00:19:42.060 Three plus more because you can communicate.

00:19:44.600 Okay.

00:19:44.920 So you wrote five books for kids and did they sell well?

00:19:50.100 And they obviously sold well enough so that you moved towards a movie deal.

00:19:54.080 So tell me about that because you need a screenwriter and you need a whole crew.

00:19:57.540 And is this a Hollywood enterprise?

00:19:59.880 Who are you partnering with?

00:20:00.960 Or can you talk about that yet?

00:20:02.480 Yeah.

00:20:02.760 So we partnered with a company called Apple and a company called Skydance.

00:20:08.200 So Apple is obviously Apple and Skydance is obviously Skydance.

00:20:10.200 Oh, really?

00:20:11.040 Oh, okay.

00:20:11.520 You have major players involved in this.

00:20:13.860 They're the biggest players in the game.

00:20:15.660 Skydance, that was...

00:20:17.540 Top Gun, Maverick, and a whole slew of items.

00:20:19.480 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:20:20.360 Oh, that's great.

00:20:21.220 Yeah, they were great.

00:20:21.820 And did they approach you?

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00:21:16.700 Go to Shopify.com slash JBP.

00:21:18.700 Again, that's Shopify.com slash JBP.

00:21:23.600 I don't know how much you care about Hollywood behind the scenes stuff.

00:21:27.100 Well, let's hear the story.

00:21:28.660 So there's a guy named Ben Everard who he has kids.

00:21:34.440 And one day he walked into his kids' rooms and his kids were doing push-ups.

00:21:38.760 Oh, yeah.

00:21:39.300 And he said, what are you doing?

00:21:41.580 And they're doing push-ups and they showed him this book that they read called Wave the Warrior Kid.

00:21:45.280 He picks up the book and says, I got to make this into a movie.

00:21:48.100 He reads it in a night, goes, this is incredible.

00:21:50.420 He actually tracks me down, friend of a friend of a friend, and he comes to my gym in San Diego.

00:21:56.480 You know, we set up a meeting.

00:21:57.460 He comes down to my gym in San Diego.

00:21:58.680 And I had had some offers to option the book into a movie.

00:22:04.180 And they were all kind of, they didn't seem very serious about it.

00:22:08.400 They didn't seem to really get it.

00:22:09.680 Well, Ben came down and he clearly understood.

00:22:13.180 He had kids that had been impacted by the book.

00:22:15.300 And he understood and saw the vision for it.

00:22:18.220 And he had made some really big movies.

00:22:20.680 He made a movie called Yes Day, which was one of the biggest movies on Netflix in 2020 or 2021.

00:22:27.260 And so he's coming off kind of a really good reputation.

00:22:30.540 And he came down and said, look, I see this.

00:22:32.360 I see the vision.

00:22:33.880 Let's, you know, let me make this into a movie.

00:22:36.600 And I said, great.

00:22:37.540 So we partnered.

00:22:39.220 The next thing you need to do is you need to have a screenplay.

00:22:43.380 And he said, you know, next thing we need is we need a screenplay.

00:22:45.860 And I said, cool.

00:22:46.580 You know, I'll write the screenplay.

00:22:47.760 I'm a writer.

00:22:49.320 And he said, you don't write screenplays.

00:22:53.660 And I said, yeah, but I'm a writer.

00:22:55.040 Yeah.

00:22:55.460 Come on, I've written, you know, New York Times bestselling books and whatever the case may be.

00:23:00.600 And, you know, he said, look, it's just different.

00:23:02.500 And thankfully, I was humble enough to say, okay, you know what?

00:23:07.340 This is a medium I'm not familiar with.

00:23:09.960 What convinced you of that?

00:23:12.340 I think just recognizing that there's things that you don't know what you don't know.

00:23:19.640 Yes.

00:23:19.940 And I'm looking at something that I haven't done before.

00:23:21.960 And even in talking to him, I could see that there's things that I wasn't thinking of that a movie writer would think of.

00:23:34.380 I just, I could see the way he was talking to me that there was things that I just didn't quite understand yet.

00:23:41.680 Yeah, it's a tricky issue, eh?

00:23:43.160 Because likely you could learn.

00:23:46.280 But the question is, how long would that take?

00:23:48.980 How much failure would be involved?

00:23:50.460 What would be the opportunity cost, right?

00:23:53.600 And then there's the issue of pride that you also already brought up.

00:23:57.420 You know, you learn after a while that a new endeavor has all sort of pitfalls you could have possibly imagined, right?

00:24:03.780 And those are the things you have to learn the hard way, right?

00:24:07.240 So even though it'd be fun to learn to write a screenplay, obviously.

00:24:11.160 Yeah, and I have since learned and written one, which is another, a whole other story.

00:24:16.060 Oh, yeah.

00:24:16.380 So we end up, we get pitched, a couple people pitch us on writing a screenplay, and we finally land on a guy named Will Staples, whose dad was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam.

00:24:29.260 When I heard that, I was like, all right, this must be my guy.

00:24:31.380 And this was right before the Hollywood writers' strike.

00:24:35.600 Again, there's all this Hollywood stuff going on.

00:24:37.260 There's a Hollywood writers' strike.

00:24:38.740 So we hire him to write the screenplay.

00:24:43.800 And the screenplays cost a lot of money.

00:24:46.660 And so Ben said, okay, I want to put together a group of investors to pay for the screenplay.

00:24:51.960 How much is a screenplay these days that's high quality?

00:24:55.400 It depends, but let's say $250,000 or so.

00:24:58.100 Yeah, okay, that's about what I would expect.

00:24:59.660 Maybe $300,000, maybe $150,000, but in the neighborhood of a quarter million dollars.

00:25:03.880 Right.

00:25:04.640 And he says, I want to put together these investors.

00:25:06.520 And I said, well, what if I just buy it?

00:25:10.460 What if I just pay for it?

00:25:11.260 And he said, well, I mean, you can.

00:25:13.640 And what I didn't realize at the time was that the vast majority of screenplays that get written never get turned into a movie.

00:25:23.760 Right, right.

00:25:24.880 And I mean, it is probably less than 1%.

00:25:28.240 Right.

00:25:28.660 Probably a lot less than 1%.

00:25:29.700 Yeah, basically none of them get turned into movies.

00:25:31.820 Yeah, basically.

00:25:32.220 And then of the movies that are launched, basically none of them are successful.

00:25:36.080 Yes.

00:25:36.500 Right.

00:25:36.980 So yeah, you're playing a high risk, high return game.

00:25:40.200 But I didn't know that.

00:25:41.060 Yeah.

00:25:41.280 So I'm thinking, okay, well, I'll just pay for the screenplay and then I'll get to basically sell it to the production.

00:25:48.380 I'm going to make even more money.

00:25:49.540 Right.

00:25:50.320 So that's a weird presumption too, isn't it?

00:25:53.240 Because one of the advantages, I presume, correct me if I'm wrong, one of the advantages of having additional investors is that you validate the utility of the project.

00:26:01.840 It doesn't look like a vanity project then right away.

00:26:05.920 And other people are on board.

00:26:07.280 And so that means as you move forward, there's more people testifying to the validity of the project, right?

00:26:12.440 There's lots of reasons to have partners.

00:26:14.300 Yes.

00:26:14.740 Lots.

00:26:15.260 And I didn't think of any of those.

00:26:17.320 Right.

00:26:17.540 I just thought, oh, this is, you know, obviously this is going to get made into a movie.

00:26:21.320 Obviously it's going to be a great screenplay.

00:26:23.320 And obviously this is going to get bought by a huge studio.

00:26:25.820 Right.

00:26:25.980 Obviously that's going to happen, right?

00:26:27.260 And so, you know, I wrote the check and I own the screenplay, which again, very lucky, I didn't realize at the time, but that is a huge amount of leverage, right?

00:26:38.100 Because now you own all this intellectual property, it's yours.

00:26:43.080 Yeah.

00:26:44.340 So did that turn out to be a good decision?

00:26:46.840 It was an amazing decision.

00:26:48.040 Yeah, well, that's the thing too, because you're in a different position perhaps than most people because you have that built-in marketing clout, right?

00:26:56.140 So that makes a huge, hypothetically, that makes a huge difference.

00:27:00.440 Okay.

00:27:00.800 So did you evaluate the screenplay and could you?

00:27:05.800 So, well, the screenplay, you know, luckily this guy, Will, this is a machine.

00:27:10.920 He sat down, I think he put pen and paper.

00:27:13.440 And of course he's got the IP.

00:27:15.020 He's using ideas from the books.

00:27:16.940 Yeah.

00:27:17.140 And so it's not like he's creating something from scratch, but he did a phenomenal job.

00:27:22.200 And, you know, we're all going back and forth on the thing and revising it and don't like this, add that, take this away.

00:27:27.960 So he was, everyone was very collaborative.

00:27:30.140 He was very open-minded and it was great.

00:27:32.820 And so when we finally got like the screenplay done, I could tell from my, you know, amateur perspective, this is good.

00:27:47.300 This is really good.

00:27:48.780 It is a, it was very powerful.

00:27:50.200 What did you like about it?

00:27:51.080 It has everything in it.

00:27:56.140 So it's funny.

00:27:58.140 It's sad.

00:27:59.740 It's exciting.

00:28:01.340 It's just a very, it's a very emotional screenplay.

00:28:05.680 It's a very emotional movie.

00:28:07.360 Did he do a good job of capturing the essence of your books?

00:28:10.780 100%.

00:28:11.120 What's the essence of those books, do you think?

00:28:13.140 The essence of those books is, as a human being, you start off in life and you're not going to be strong.

00:28:24.940 You're not going to be smart.

00:28:26.140 You're not going to be powerful.

00:28:27.540 You're, and it's very easy to let that become your life.

00:28:32.700 And yet, if you learn discipline and you work hard and you train hard and you study hard, you can become a good, strong, smart human being.

00:28:44.700 Mm-hmm, right.

00:28:45.680 And that's, that's the message.

00:28:49.360 It is, it's, it, it lands on you.

00:28:52.000 Right, so to, to, to give more consideration to, especially when you're young, to who you could be rather than who you are.

00:28:58.720 Yes.

00:28:59.040 And certainly not to despair at who you are.

00:29:01.500 Yes.

00:29:01.700 Right, well, all heroes start out lowly, right, in the story of Moses.

00:29:06.120 So, that's a great adventure story.

00:29:08.940 Moses is literally endangered by the, by the Pharaoh, right, who's put out the word to kill all the firstborns.

00:29:15.400 Same thing happens in the case of Christ, right?

00:29:18.040 And so, then he's launched on a river and has to be rescued and he's the son of slaves.

00:29:23.240 And then in the gospel story, you have exactly the same motif.

00:29:27.420 Christ is born in the most no-account town in some backwater of the Roman Empire.

00:29:35.400 And his parents, who are also under the thumb of a tyrant at the, at that time, end up giving birth with the animals, right?

00:29:43.820 So, it's very low beginning.

00:29:46.380 And part of the reason for that is, well, that is, that's life.

00:29:50.160 You start completely helpless.

00:29:51.960 And you start with, in some ways, you start at great risk and with everything against you.

00:29:59.460 And so, then the question is, well, what the hell do you do about that?

00:30:03.000 And certainly, in the story of Abraham, for example, so he's the father of nations, let's say, Abraham.

00:30:10.820 He listens to the beckoning call of adventure and goes out and voluntarily confronts the difficulties of his life and makes the sacrifices along the way.

00:30:22.140 And he's promised an eternal future of infinite abundance in consequence, right?

00:30:29.640 There's the idea being that if you form a, if you forge an alliance with a spirit that calls you to develop, to push yourself beyond your limits, if you occupy that space, then God will be with you, so to speak.

00:30:46.260 And no one can stand in front of you, and you'll be successful, and so will your descendants, and your reputation will grow, and abundance will come to everyone, right?

00:30:59.760 So, that's a good deal.

00:31:01.580 And I think that is marked by that impetus that children have to, well, like the kids you were talking about who were doing push-ups, right?

00:31:11.000 That impetus to develop is deeply rooted inside of people, and it's definitely what you want to encourage as a father.

00:31:19.620 So, you've written these books.

00:31:21.340 And so, tell me about the public reception and what people have told you about the kids' books.

00:31:27.220 What do people say in terms of the impact on their kids?

00:31:32.160 It's, that story that I told you of kids doing push-ups when your dad walks, that's one story of thousands of stories that I've received.

00:31:39.380 Letters I receive, notes that I receive of kids that did their first pull-up, kids that got an A in their math test, kids that memorized the Gettysburg Address, you know, kids that started training jujitsu, like...

00:31:54.680 That have been encouraged and inspired.

00:31:57.060 Exactly.

00:31:57.820 And you think the movie will pull that off.

00:32:00.200 Oh, I know the movie's going to pull that off.

00:32:01.640 Yeah, have you, what, where is it in its production sequence?

00:32:05.060 It is in the editing right now, so...

00:32:08.540 Uh-huh.

00:32:08.820 But, I mean, it's close.

00:32:10.260 Animated?

00:32:11.200 No, it's live action.

00:32:12.360 It's a live action film.

00:32:13.740 I see, I see.

00:32:14.840 And can you share the names of the actors and...

00:32:17.860 Yeah, I mean, there's a kid named Jude who plays the kid in the movie, Jude Hill, who is a great actor and just did a phenomenal job.

00:32:27.520 How old are the kids in the movie?

00:32:29.640 So, in the movie, in the book, the kid is in fifth grade.

00:32:33.460 Oh, yes.

00:32:33.740 In the movie...

00:32:34.520 So, 11, basically.

00:32:35.320 In the movie, he's in eighth grade.

00:32:36.960 So, he's a little bit older and there's a couple reasons why we did that.

00:32:39.800 Oh, yeah.

00:32:40.460 But, and then the hero of the story is the kid.

00:32:46.620 But, the mentor in the story is his uncle, Uncle Jake.

00:32:50.240 And Uncle Jake is a SEAL and he comes and stays with the kid for the summer.

00:32:58.160 And over the summer, he helps him transform from being a wimpy kid to being a warrior.

00:33:02.360 Oh, yeah, that's fun.

00:33:03.380 That's fun.

00:33:04.240 And so...

00:33:04.720 That's like a karate kid motif, essentially.

00:33:06.660 Yes, yes.

00:33:07.560 Yeah.

00:33:08.020 There hasn't been a movie like that for a while that really hit.

00:33:10.500 There hasn't been a movie like that in a long time.

00:33:11.840 Yeah.

00:33:11.980 But, so, in the movie, Way of the Warrior Kid, Uncle Jake is played by a guy named Chris

00:33:17.000 Pratt, who's a huge actor and a phenomenal human.

00:33:22.420 So, he's, and he does an incredible job playing Uncle Jake in the movie.

00:33:29.040 Yeah, yeah.

00:33:30.000 So, how involved were you in the movie making process?

00:33:37.160 Thankfully, I was very involved.

00:33:38.940 The director is a guy named Mick G. And Mick G is just an incredibly open-minded listener,

00:33:48.800 humble. And, you know, he's made some huge movies in his time. I think he started his

00:33:53.920 career in the movie world making Charlie's Angels, which was a smash success.

00:33:59.500 And that's kind of where he started. He had done music videos prior to that. But that's

00:34:03.020 where he started his movie career. And so, he's done a bunch of incredible stuff in Hollywood.

00:34:06.820 But he was...

00:34:09.660 Right. So, you've got quite a lineup, really. You've got great, great allies, Apple and

00:34:13.780 Skydance. That's like... Sundance?

00:34:16.380 Skydance.

00:34:16.980 Skydance.

00:34:17.380 Skydance, yeah.

00:34:18.100 Skydance. And a great director and good actors and a solid screenplay. And, well, that

00:34:26.980 should be well-timed in the market, too, because, well, you know, there's an appetite for that

00:34:32.440 sort of movie. Yeah. And I was... So, I was on set just about every single day. We filmed

00:34:38.040 for, like I said, I think it was almost two and a half months or something like that. And

00:34:42.400 Mick G, the director, I mean, he was just so open-minded and...

00:34:45.380 And you said he listened.

00:34:46.640 Oh, he listened.

00:34:47.280 Yeah, yeah. So, go dive into that a little bit, because you made a point of that.

00:34:50.980 So, interestingly, on a Hollywood set, as you're filming, especially now with digital,

00:34:58.520 you can watch the replays. And they have something called Video Village, which is a bunch of video

00:35:04.460 monitors that are showing real-time what all the different cameras are seeing. And so, generally

00:35:09.540 speaking, the director will be watching on his monitor all the different camera angles and seeing

00:35:15.680 it real-time and then making adjustments. And so, for basically the entire filming,

00:35:22.540 Mick G sat in his chair in Video Village and was watching, and I stood over his left shoulder the

00:35:27.540 entire time. Oh, yeah.

00:35:28.420 Chapped him on the shoulder. Hey, I like that. Hey, that didn't look good. Hey... And he just

00:35:32.940 was so open-minded. And he just... He really wanted... You know, he really related to the movie as well.

00:35:40.060 You know, he... He grew up, you know, kind of a wimpy kid himself in the beginning. Yeah.

00:35:45.700 And he developed and... And he grew. And so, he really... He really understood it as well.

00:35:51.600 And it meant a lot to him. And he really wanted to do it justice. And so, it was... It was really

00:35:58.800 interesting to see that.

00:36:00.920 What did you do right that enabled you to collaborate together that way? Because creative

00:36:06.720 collaborations are... Well, they're great when they work. And they can work very well. But

00:36:12.700 people have to... Well, that's what I'm curious about your opinion. What you had to do to... Well,

00:36:20.960 you can imagine you're encroaching on his territory. That's one way of thinking about it. Right?

00:36:25.080 And so, you have to conduct yourself in a manner that doesn't produce pointless primate dominance

00:36:33.160 competition. Right? And you want to be collaborating toward an end. How did you conduct yourself so that

00:36:38.020 that possibility maximized? Yeah.

00:36:40.960 I presume you listened as well. Yeah. 100%. Yeah.

00:36:43.800 I mean, I would ask him questions. And he would say to me, well, here's why this will look this way.

00:36:49.900 Or here's why... I don't know. And sometimes he'd say, oh, no, I'm not sure about that. I don't think...

00:36:54.260 Yeah. And sometimes you go, oh, that's a good point.

00:36:56.020 Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. So, you were asking... Yeah. So, that's an interesting point

00:36:59.640 as well. Like, something to know tactically for everybody who's watching and listening is that

00:37:05.140 if you want to offer your opinion, so to speak, it's generally much more sophisticated to do that

00:37:14.120 with a question. Accusation is the worst question. Right? Suggestion is the next worst. Question is the

00:37:22.880 best suggestion, you know? And then you leave it open. It's like, well, what do you think... But

00:37:28.040 it has to be honest. What do you think about doing it this way? And that has to... That can't be

00:37:32.780 manipulative. It has to be, you know, you have an idea. Could it happen like this? But if you're

00:37:37.140 working with someone who knows something, you actually want to know what they think of that idea.

00:37:40.940 And that's the... When I talk about this with leaders, for instance, and I talk about asking

00:37:46.140 questions, I literally say, you have to ask earnest questions. Yeah. It has to be an earnest

00:37:51.900 questions. I can't, you know, ask you a leading questions. Right. Don't you think it would look

00:37:56.120 better? Or do you think it might be better if we do it like this? Yeah. When I already think I know

00:38:00.060 the answer? Yes, exactly. I have to truly be curious and ask you the earnest questions. Hey,

00:38:04.100 do you think it would look better from this angle over here? Right. Or do you think that there's a...

00:38:08.220 This is the best angle. Right. So, that's an attitude that's characterized by

00:38:12.620 the opposite of pride. Right. That's the humility that opens doors. So, one of the things I figured

00:38:18.940 out this year, because I was thinking about what I was doing on stage when I was lecturing and trying

00:38:23.840 to determine explicitly why it was working. And I stumbled across something that in retrospect was

00:38:30.580 pretty obvious. But I pose myself a central question before I go on stage. Right. And it has

00:38:38.040 to be an actual question. I actually have to not know the answer or not enough. And I have to want

00:38:43.700 to know the answer. Because otherwise, the whole thing is a lie. Right. But then I also understood,

00:38:50.460 I can't believe it took me this long to figure this out, that the root word of question is quest.

00:38:55.940 And that what I was doing on stage, because I lecture without notes, because I'm trying to

00:39:01.620 investigate this question, was taking the listeners on an adventure. And the adventure was the treasure

00:39:09.920 at the end of the adventure, was the resolution of that question. Or at least it's maybe it's

00:39:15.820 clarification or further movement towards answering it at minimum. Right. And you want a landing to where

00:39:23.280 the, where an answer emerges as a consequence of the dialogue. But it's definitely a quest.

00:39:28.480 And that means that if you're collaborating with someone and you ask them honest questions,

00:39:33.420 which you can do if you continually consult your ignorance, right, then you're inviting them on a

00:39:40.080 adventurous collaboration. And so, and that gets immediately, that is immediately playful rather

00:39:45.940 than tyrannical. Yeah. And so. I really like the idea of consulting my ignorance. I definitely like.

00:39:52.300 Well, it's inexhaustible. What am I missing here? Yeah. What am I not doing? And you know,

00:39:56.340 this is something that when people come to me and, and, you know, whether it's a family member or

00:40:01.060 someone I work with and they don't agree with something I say. Yeah. My thought is, isn't

00:40:07.000 what don't they understand? Yeah. My thought is what don't I understand? Yeah. Right. What did I

00:40:12.640 not clarify? Right. Well, you also don't know when someone objects. Picture this. You open your browsing

00:40:19.500 history, print it out, sign your name at the bottom and nail it to your front door for all your neighbors

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00:41:33.900 First of all, you don't know if they understood what you said. You also don't know if you said it that

00:41:40.080 clearly. And so definitely in a situation like that, your best initial foray is questions.

00:41:48.920 And then it's always possible, this is a useful thing to know too. I think this is part of the

00:41:55.020 reason why you're supposed to love your enemies. Part of the reason is it'd be better if they were

00:42:00.820 your allies. And so maybe you could figure out how to make that happen and that would be better for

00:42:04.500 everyone. But part of it also is they might be bringing you some information, right? And even

00:42:09.720 if they're dead set against you for arbitrary reasons, it's possible that in their objections,

00:42:15.500 they'll shed light on something that you could have done more effectively. And if you can really

00:42:19.500 listen to them, they might tell you that and that would be a good deal. So, okay, so you used a

00:42:25.200 question approach, right? And you said it had to be earnest. How did you figure out that it had to be

00:42:30.660 earnest? I think just from my time in the military and interacting with leaders up, down, and across

00:42:39.560 the chain of command and recognizing, what would you say? Accusations are the worst form of question.

00:42:46.440 The worst way to kick things off. You're doing this. It's like, wait a sec, wait a sec. Are you

00:42:51.840 doing this? That's a better, that's better. That's easier. Same information conveyed, a little bit

00:42:58.080 less, much less likely to put the person on the defensive. Yeah. All you have to do is, you know,

00:43:03.360 when you're a young 20-year-old SEAL, all you have to do is instigate the ego of one senior commander

00:43:11.840 one time to go. That didn't seem to work real well. No, no, no. That's no, especially the first time

00:43:17.000 they meet you. Yeah. Yeah. That's a really bad idea. And then soon you figure out that it's not just

00:43:21.520 the senior commanders, it's the junior commanders. And then you realize it's your peers. Yeah. And the

00:43:26.000 most important. And you even. The most important eureka moment is when you realize that it's the

00:43:32.000 same with your subordinates. Yeah, right. That your subordinate doesn't want to get told what to do.

00:43:37.080 No. They want to get asked their opinion and they want to, and you have to listen to it earnestly and

00:43:41.840 say, yeah, maybe that does make more sense. Yeah. They want to get invited along on an adventure.

00:43:46.420 Exactly. Yeah. That's the best thing to set up if you can manage that. Yes. And you can,

00:43:50.920 if the people that you're dealing with are dealing in good faith, you can manage that. But

00:43:56.060 if the people that you're dealing with are not dealing in good faith, that's still often the

00:44:00.960 best approach. Yeah. I mean, you have to, you have to figure out if, you know, you can rely on them,

00:44:06.160 if that's a partnership that can even work. That's why you shouldn't really sell either. Because

00:44:11.060 really what you're doing is you're offering people an opportunity that's a partnership. And if

00:44:17.260 they're not interested, you don't want them as a customer. Because they're not going to be satisfied

00:44:21.160 anyways. And the last thing you need is a dissatisfied customer. And you can think, oh,

00:44:25.600 they gave me money. It's like, yeah, once. And so that's not that helpful. And who knows how much

00:44:30.960 trouble they're going to cause if they're disgruntled. Plenty. Right. So don't push. Look, but don't

00:44:37.540 push. Yeah. I was listening to something you were doing the other day and you were just talking about

00:44:40.880 the, as a leader, an invitation as opposed to an order. Yeah. And I think you used something even

00:44:47.600 more extreme than an order, you know, mandates, you know, these types of things. Exactly. Use of fear

00:44:53.280 and compulsion. That's all sign of bad policy. Fear, compulsion, mandates, orders, all of that. And

00:45:01.480 it's much better to, it's much more effective to, to proffer an invitation. And that could be a rough

00:45:10.260 invitation. That's going to happen in the military for sure. It's not like the stakes aren't high, but.

00:45:17.060 But it's, it still is, you know, and this is one of the obstacles I had to overcome when we started

00:45:21.500 doing leadership consulting with civilian companies because people have the stereotypical view that

00:45:26.140 in the military, you barcorders at someone and then people are just, they're going to obey.

00:45:31.300 Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Right. Yeah. No, no. Well, you can see that

00:45:37.720 there are, and maybe this is a bootcamp issue and there's a bootcamp issue with every disciplinary

00:45:45.740 structure. There might be a window of disciplinary necessity where the person involved has to subordinate

00:45:55.060 themselves to somewhat arbitrary demands. That would be the case when they don't know what the

00:46:01.000 hell they're doing and they really need to listen. But the goal would be to build them as rapidly as

00:46:06.640 possible into people who would engage in collaborative problem solving. And certainly in the military,

00:46:11.460 the more that capacity is distributed down the ranks, the more effective the military is going to be

00:46:16.680 because that means that competent people can make local decisions in the environment as it changes

00:46:23.300 without relying on or defaulting to a slow moving chain of command that has shaky allegiance to begin

00:46:32.580 with. This is called decentralized command. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You just explained it perfectly.

00:46:36.580 Yeah. Yeah. Exactly what you want. What you want in your business too. You want to, you want to hire

00:46:41.080 super competent people and you want to offer them a deal that they're thrilled about. So they're maximally

00:46:46.560 motivated. Yeah. Right. This is something capitalists do a very bad job of communicating to young

00:46:51.300 people. It's like, I'm the boss. That's the stereotypical view of a, you know, a evil

00:46:56.620 capitalist. And I tell my minions what to do and they do it or else. It's like, no one will work for

00:47:02.300 you productively under those circumstances. Not in the least, it has to be a deal. Yeah. And how much

00:47:08.540 can you grow? Like, are you really going to be able to make every decision? Okay. You can do that when

00:47:13.540 you've got this little tiny company, but the minute you grow, you know, you're going to be,

00:47:17.780 there's going to be decisions getting made that are, if you know about them, it's shocking.

00:47:23.100 Yeah. Yeah. Right. Well, that means the tyrant is his own obstacle to his growth,

00:47:27.100 right? Cause you want to, a good manager makes himself irrelevant as rapidly as possible. And

00:47:33.880 then he's free to go do something else. That's the, that's the payoff. Why would I give up that

00:47:38.540 control? It's like, you want control? Really? You want control, do you? Or do you want,

00:47:43.880 how about distributed competence as an alternative to control? That's a good deal. And it also means

00:47:49.660 you have to be very selective in your choice of employees and partners and, and in the manner

00:47:56.920 in which you structure your deals. And you don't want to get one up on one of your partners.

00:48:01.900 That's a very foolish attitude because, well, they won't partner with you again. And they're

00:48:06.800 certainly not going to give their best once they figured out that they've been had. And you can pat

00:48:11.480 yourself on the back for being smarter than them, but you're not likely. They, they just

00:48:16.680 trusted you and you weren't trustworthy and now they've discovered it. Okay. So this movie now,

00:48:22.040 so you're working collaboratively with the director. So that must've been fun. You must've

00:48:25.740 learned a lot from doing that. Learned a ton. Yeah, I bet. Learned a ton. I bet. And so it's in

00:48:31.320 the editing phase. Yep. And do you have anything to do with the editing? Cause that's also unbelievably,

00:48:36.500 you man, skilled editor. That's a valuable person. That's another thing for all you people who are

00:48:40.900 out there watching, listening, you young people. If you can learn to edit, cut, cut clips from

00:48:47.360 podcasts and put them on your podcast channel and see if you can learn how to pick the minute,

00:48:53.320 two minutes, three minutes, where something is like a whole story is told in a compelling way.

00:48:59.220 See if you can learn to do that, because if you can learn to do that and you can do that with a hundred

00:49:03.480 clips and they have some viral, some virality about them, even on a relatively small scale,

00:49:09.240 the probability that you're going to be able to find a job is very, very high because good editors

00:49:14.200 are ridiculously hard to find. Cause you have to have that eye for quality and that eye for

00:49:19.580 micro narrative. And, and you just have an unlimited opportunity to do that on YouTube because you can

00:49:25.760 take all the content there and reshape it. And so, and that's, so did, were you involved in the

00:49:32.720 editing? Are you involved in the editing? Yeah. So, and when you say involved, I mean,

00:49:36.160 obviously I'm not a technical person doing any, but I'm watching the iterations of the edits happen

00:49:42.740 and giving my feedback. And, and I'll tell you what is incredible. You know, the first cut,

00:49:48.020 the very next cut is, you know, in exponentially better than the first cut. Yeah. And you know,

00:49:54.440 we're, we're making, and so then that just happens over and over. And so we've iterated probably,

00:49:58.440 you know, how many times right now, 20 iterations down. Right. Well, that's crucial too.

00:50:03.860 That's a crucial thing for people to understand is that you want, you want a bad, expansive first

00:50:11.720 draft. So you have way more material than you need. And then you cut and you cut and you're not,

00:50:17.280 you're not throwing away, you're conserving the best. Right. And so you do that when you're writing

00:50:22.760 too, is assume that, assume if you're going to write something, you have to write four times more

00:50:27.120 than you're going to keep. And then why? Well, how about, so you can keep the best 25%.

00:50:32.320 That's a good deal. And so, and editing, you develop an eye for editing. That's really that

00:50:39.040 ability to separate the wheat from the chaff. It's crucially important. And I, I also think if

00:50:43.320 you develop that in any domain, video editing, for example, that generalizes, it's one of those few

00:50:49.080 complex cognitive skills that actually seems to generalize, you know, cause I found that once I

00:50:54.840 had learned to edit writing, editing video was very, very similar, very similar process.

00:51:01.560 I remember in the Navy, you have to write evaluations for your guys. And I think the number at the time

00:51:07.680 was you had 17 lines to write and you had to give them as much credit as you possibly could in order

00:51:15.940 to get them promoted. And so it was like the, the number of letters in a word sometimes, like,

00:51:21.780 is it worth those extra characters for this particular adjective? Does, is it going to,

00:51:27.400 and, and it was kind of fun for me to do that.

00:51:30.640 Right. That's a good discipline. That's a good disciplinary training.

00:51:34.100 Yeah.

00:51:34.540 And, and I think when you're editing properly, we tried to teach people that in this essay app

00:51:39.540 that I developed with my son, it's like, well, how do you edit? Well, well, here's one way to make

00:51:46.080 your writing 50% better immediately. Take your first draft and cut it by 25%. Just shorten the

00:51:54.760 sentences, keep the content, shorten the sentences. Can you get the same place more efficiently?

00:52:00.160 That's a great thing to learn. And then, well, every word, is that the right word? And length is

00:52:05.580 a consideration and poetic flow. And you want to, you want to edit at the word level and at the phrase

00:52:11.400 level and the sentence level and how the sentences are sequenced in the paragraph and how the

00:52:16.760 paragraphs are sequenced together and whether the whole thing has an impact. You want to be thinking

00:52:20.420 about that all at once. That's very careful attention to detail. If you pay attention at all

00:52:25.280 those levels, you'll write something stellar. That's a great thing to learn. That essay app,

00:52:30.820 it helps a lot with that because it walks people through that process and teaches them how to do that.

00:52:35.900 Okay. So what, what's the future of the movie? Like what's, it's not released. When is it going to be

00:52:41.120 released? I'm not sure when it's going to be released yet. Theatrically? Is it? I don't,

00:52:45.360 I don't know. So, so Apple owns it. Oh yeah. And it depends on what Apple wants to do with it.

00:52:50.700 So, you know, Skydance made it, Apple owns it. And so, yeah. And, and just like any other

00:52:55.880 product release, you know, they have to time it with their other products that they have coming out.

00:53:00.660 And, you know, do they have a family movie or, you know, at that time and which one,

00:53:04.860 which one's ready. Right. So I'm not sure when it's going to come out, but I'm definitely looking

00:53:09.280 forward to it. And I think the world is going to be happier place and a better place when it comes

00:53:12.960 out. Yeah. Well, that's fun. So that's, that's a cool thing. So now, you know, one of the things,

00:53:17.240 there's another kind of moral that we could derive from the story that you just told too,

00:53:21.300 which is crucially important because people are often confused about where they might find

00:53:26.840 inspiration or get ideas. Writers are often asked that, where do you get your ideas? And they

00:53:32.360 usually can't answer. We're building a module for essay that helps people figure out what to write

00:53:37.480 about because I think I've cracked it. And so the, the, the, the cracking is something like this,

00:53:43.380 is that there are things that call out for your attention that are like invitations in the world.

00:53:48.880 Those are things you're spontaneously interested in, eh? But then there are things that bother you.

00:53:54.360 And those are, that's, that's the activation of your conscience. And so, and one of those is really

00:54:01.060 the voice of positive emotion, things that invite you forward. And the other is the voice of negative

00:54:05.540 emotion. Here's a problem, a pitfall, an obstacle, a way of deviating off the past path, a place where

00:54:13.820 things have gone wrong. Now, what happened to you, and you said this straightforwardly, is you had a

00:54:19.620 problem, which was, well, what am I going to get my kids to read? And your experience was you went to

00:54:25.020 the library, the bookstore, and you couldn't find anything. Now, you could imagine someone brooding

00:54:30.260 about that. You know, the culture's gone to hell. It's like, how the hell can we have nothing but

00:54:34.260 like wimpy pirate novels. And it's just another indication that we're going to perdition in a

00:54:40.200 handbag and, and, you know, and to get resentful and bitter about that. But your perspective was

00:54:48.520 that absence is a opportunity. And so this is a good thing for people to know if something bothers you,

00:54:56.840 there's a billion things that could bother you. And not everything does. And so then you might ask,

00:55:02.360 well, why does that thing bother you when some other thing that's equally bad doesn't?

00:55:07.120 And as far as I can tell, the answer to that is because if it bothers you, that's your problem.

00:55:12.100 And you might think, I don't want to have a problem. It's like, that's because you don't know

00:55:15.800 that problems and opportunities are the same thing. So if a problem's crying out for you, to you,

00:55:22.520 then it could well be that your proper destiny is to address that problem, in which case it's an

00:55:27.640 immense opportunity. And you saw that exactly that. Oh, look, there's an absence in the marketplace.

00:55:34.400 Well, that's a good discovery, an absence in the marketplace, especially if you're right.

00:55:39.840 And so that's what you did. And then you've managed, you got a movie out of it. So that's a

00:55:44.420 pretty good deal. Yeah.

00:55:45.680 And that's independent of its eventual success as a movie, because even if it lands at any of the

00:55:53.120 levels of success it could land at, you got to make a movie. And so that's pretty good. And God

00:55:58.660 only knows what you learn doing that. So there's no loss in that, right? There's just gain.

00:56:03.820 There was an interesting thing that I realized during this whole thing. And it is related to

00:56:11.100 what you just said. So for many years, I have told people that if you have an idea and you don't

00:56:17.880 execute on it, your idea doesn't mean anything. Ideas are a dime a dozen and it doesn't really

00:56:22.580 matter. And what I realized in making this movie is that I was actually wrong.

00:56:30.080 Okay.

00:56:31.500 Because if an idea, it's worthless if you don't execute it on it. I get that.

00:56:39.660 But the actual idea that if you have an idea, if you have an idea and it's good, you can't

00:56:50.700 even put a price tag on that thing. And that's why when you look at Hollywood, Hollywood makes

00:56:55.700 a bunch of, what are they called? Like reruns of the same movies, right? There's a reason

00:57:01.580 for that. They have all this money to throw at ideas and they just go, well, you know what?

00:57:07.320 Make the superhero movie again, make the space movie. And they just make the same

00:57:11.340 movies often over and over again. And I realized that these, you know, if you have a really good

00:57:18.940 idea, you have to execute on it. You have to do something with it because if you don't...

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00:57:56.920 It's like a mortal sin not to execute on a good...

00:58:01.180 Well, it's a revelation.

00:58:02.280 A good idea. It's a gift. It's grace.

00:58:04.180 And that's one of the things, where does it come from? That's why I was kind of very curious

00:58:06.360 when you said that because...

00:58:06.840 That's exactly right. I know the answer to that.

00:58:08.680 I look at it like, you know, they know what molecules are in an amoeba, right?

00:58:16.760 We know what chemicals and we know what's in it, but we can't make an amoeba. We can't make

00:58:20.600 something alive. And just like in a movie or a book or a song, they know, you go to Nashville,

00:58:28.000 they know what notes make a hit song, but they can't just produce a hit song. They can put all the

00:58:33.080 chemicals in there, but they can't bring it to life. And so there is, just like there's something

00:58:39.060 special about life, there's a spark that we don't understand. We can't fabricate it. We cannot

00:58:45.640 fabricate that spark in life. And we can't, as far as I can tell, we can't fabricate that spark

00:58:53.100 of an idea.

00:58:53.880 Okay. So there's a bunch of things that come off that. So one of the things I realized,

00:58:58.840 so I've done a lot of lecturing again this year. I don't know how many different cities we went to,

00:59:04.060 60 or 70, you know, over the last eight months, maybe more than that, a lot. And I've, you know,

00:59:10.400 I have a chance to develop my ideas every night. One of the things I came to understand more clearly

00:59:14.880 was, this is a very cool thing. It's relevant to what you just said, is that the spirit of your aim,

00:59:21.860 you could say, answers your prayers or informs your thoughts. And it has to be that way because

00:59:28.360 thought is a navigation tool, right? You set an aim and then your perceptions line up so you can see

00:59:35.200 your way forward, but your thoughts and your emotions also aid that because otherwise, because

00:59:39.900 you want to get there, let's say. And then the methods by which you might advance come to mind

00:59:47.340 because you've set your aim. Okay. So we can take this apart in this idea that came to you. It's like

00:59:52.820 you wanted to serve your children. Okay. You wanted to serve them in a manner that was better than what

01:00:00.620 was being served to them. You wanted to serve them in a manner that would help them develop in this

01:00:05.560 adventurous way. So that was your goal, your aim when you went to the library. And then what happened

01:00:11.200 was there was a mismatch between what you discovered and your aim. And so now that constitutes a problem,

01:00:16.640 but it also constitutes an opportunity, right? Because now you see that there's a, if your aim was correct

01:00:23.720 and there's a void, well, then that's a, that's a moral problem even. Okay. So now if it's a moral

01:00:29.540 problem because your aim was right and that the mechanisms for that aim to be manifested aren't

01:00:37.280 available, well, then that's a genuine gap and it needs to be addressed. And if you figure that out, it's your

01:00:43.100 moral responsibility to do something about it, but it's also your great opportunity. Okay. So there's that.

01:00:48.700 So that's what you're serving is if your aim is correct and true and you have a revelation in relationship

01:00:55.240 to that aim and you don't act on it, you've thrown away the pathway to that aim and you've betrayed it.

01:01:02.700 That's not a good idea. But even more concretely, one of the things my wife has really learned to do

01:01:09.680 in the last two years, she started to write and she started to speak publicly because she introduces me

01:01:14.420 and talks for about 10 minutes. And she's learned during our discussions, our private discussions,

01:01:22.140 let's say, if an idea emerges, she writes it down right away, no matter what we're doing,

01:01:27.420 right? The idea comes, you write that thing down because it's a gift and God only knows what it's

01:01:34.520 worth. You know, you can have a good idea now and then it might be a good idea that changes your whole

01:01:38.840 life. And you could have that idea and be casual enough to forget it. And that was that. And then

01:01:43.980 you'd wonder why you never got anywhere. It's like, well, you had a gift and you didn't. And then

01:01:48.680 there's another issue too is the things that meet with reward grow. That's a neurological truth.

01:01:57.820 That's how large language models are trained. They're trained with reinforcement. The closer

01:02:01.840 they get to the target, the more weight is put on that response. So it's literally reward that trains

01:02:08.440 large language models to match to target. Well, if you're, if you have a bit of a creative spark and

01:02:16.000 you're being, and ideas are being revealed to you in, in concordance with your aim, and then you don't

01:02:22.280 act on those, you punish them. You punish the source of the ideas, just like demoralizing a kid.

01:02:28.380 Like if a kid comes to you with ideas and every time they come, you say, oh, that's stupid. Or what

01:02:33.300 the hell do you know? Or you say, I'm going to do something about that. And then you don't, that kid

01:02:37.980 will stop coming to you with ideas. And people do that to themselves all the time, all the time.

01:02:42.580 And so you even have an obligation to your, you can watch this, you know, this is what I've been

01:02:49.800 trying to teach people too, is if you want to improve your life, it's like, well, set that as

01:02:54.220 a name. I'd like things to be better. And then ask, what could I actually do that would move me

01:03:02.460 somewhat in that direction? You'll get an answer. That's a good way to pray. That's a good way to pray.

01:03:08.320 And I've experienced two things here. These are like the opposite ends of the spectrum.

01:03:13.820 And this is, I think, a very positive thing for people to hear. If I was a young person,

01:03:17.620 I would really like to hear this. So there are going to be times like you're talking about

01:03:22.240 with your wife, where all of a sudden from nowhere, or from somewhere, but somewhere that

01:03:27.520 we don't know and understand, all of a sudden there's an idea there.

01:03:29.340 The source of all revelation.

01:03:31.040 It shows up. It shows up. I've had that happen to me, where it's like, boom, I wrote a book

01:03:37.480 called Mikey and the Dragons. That came just, boom. I just instantly had this idea. Boom.

01:03:41.880 I wrote the book.

01:03:43.000 Yeah.

01:03:43.560 And I remembered, I remember when I was, I was an English major in college and some of

01:03:48.180 the old poets, they would claim that, you know, they just wrote this first, you know,

01:03:53.680 the first draft, that was it. It was one draft, one shot. And there was sort of rumors about

01:04:00.260 these that that's not really happened. They found their notes. They'd written a bunch of drafts,

01:04:04.440 but sometimes it's true. Sometimes you will get that, that inspiration. It'll come and

01:04:08.500 boom, you're done.

01:04:09.500 Yeah.

01:04:10.480 So you can sit around and wait for that. I don't recommend, recommend waiting for that though.

01:04:15.900 It may or may not come.

01:04:17.140 Yeah.

01:04:17.320 We can't control that. The other side of the spectrum, which I've also had this happen to

01:04:20.900 me. And my silly term that I came up with for it is squeezing your brain. You have to like

01:04:28.940 squeeze your brain and squeeze something out of it. And what I like is this idea just to come full

01:04:35.800 circle a little bit here. You know, I had this thing where I wanted to have lessons for my kids

01:04:41.260 that they could read in a book.

01:04:42.440 Yeah.

01:04:42.620 And so I have that. There's my aim, what you would call an aim. Well, I didn't immediately say,

01:04:47.760 oh, okay, what I can have as a kid that's going through kind of kid problems and his uncle who's

01:04:52.000 a Navy SEAL can come and stay with him for the summer and he can teach him. I didn't have that.

01:04:55.560 And I definitely didn't have the nuances of like, oh, he can get bullied by this kid.

01:04:59.980 Yeah.

01:05:00.360 Yeah.

01:05:00.700 That fills in.

01:05:02.220 Right. But I squeezed on my brain and thought, what would be a good, and then all of a sudden,

01:05:06.820 boom, you just start, you find your path and the story will come or the idea will come.

01:05:12.020 Well, that's part of that discipline, striving. Like I learned when I first started writing,

01:05:17.460 I forced myself to sit and write every day. And some days I was highly productive and other days

01:05:24.080 I wasn't so productive. But every day, if I sat long enough, I was a little bit productive.

01:05:28.400 And then I got better at being productive and much better at not delaying sitting down.

01:05:33.540 That took a long time, really years to really get disciplined. I'm still learning that discipline.

01:05:39.720 How long do you write for at a time?

01:05:42.020 Um, I max out about three hours. I find that if I write more than three hours

01:05:47.320 continually, I get exhausted. So three hours is about right. And I've learned tricks like

01:05:52.880 at the end of the writing session, write down what you're thinking so you can use that the next day

01:05:58.560 and, and do it every day and so on. And, and I've got to the point now where I can write a newspaper

01:06:03.360 article, a good newspaper article, pretty much in one draft, but that's taken 35 years of writing to,

01:06:10.900 to manage that. But I learned early that if I sat long enough, I would write something that would be

01:06:18.100 valuable. Right. And some days it took like 45 minutes to get warmed up so that, you know, all of

01:06:24.420 everything I wrote was just painful to produce and not a very high quality. But if you persist,

01:06:31.680 the thing that persist and say, that's the other thing that's kind of interesting neurologically,

01:06:36.840 you know, I already said, if you punish the source within you that gives rise to ideas,

01:06:42.760 it will stop producing ideas. So, so that's a bad idea. But it's also the case that you want to make

01:06:50.420 being creative, the victor over all the competing pulls and temptations. And partly what you're doing

01:06:58.000 when you're disciplining yourself is that it's like, no, I'm going to sit here, regardless of all the

01:07:03.720 other things I could be doing, all the other things I could be thinking until that part of me that's

01:07:08.680 able to create wins that internal battle and prevails. And then it gets stronger and stronger

01:07:14.040 over time. And it is, that's building character. That's exactly what that is. Let's, let's segue.

01:07:21.720 Oh, I want to ask you one more question. Why did you move to adolescence instead of people who are in

01:07:26.980 grade five? And then I want to segue to your leadership consulting and, and talk about exactly what

01:07:33.580 you're doing there. So for the movie, the reason we made the kid a little bit older, well,

01:07:38.840 one thing is there's a, there's, there's, there's a girl in the book that, you know, befriends,

01:07:45.040 and we wanted to elevate that a little bit, make it a little bit more of a romance. Right, right.

01:07:49.560 And a romance is good in eighth grade, ninth grade, but it's not really the fourth grade,

01:07:54.860 fifth grade type thing. Yeah, right. And, and just some of the things, some of the conversations

01:07:58.620 that are taking place are a little bit elevated. And then just from a, from a interacting with

01:08:04.440 kids, kids will, kids will buy into things that are older than them, but they won't buy into things

01:08:13.300 that are younger than them. Right, right. Of course. So a 10 year old kid goes, oh, cool. It's a story

01:08:18.260 about a 14 year old. They, or a 13 year old, they, they will do that. Sure. But a 14 year old doesn't

01:08:23.000 go, oh, I want to hear about a 10 year old. It just doesn't work the other way. So we wanted to

01:08:28.340 attract more people and open their minds to, especially a 13 year old kid. Yeah. You take a

01:08:34.980 13 year old kid to a movie about a fifth grader. They don't really like that as much. No, no, no.

01:08:39.700 But they'll go see their peer. So that was another reason in my mind. Well, in adolescence too,

01:08:44.100 like there's a lot of coming of age movies and they're also generally attractive to adults more

01:08:49.520 so than a kid's movie. Now and then you get a kid's movie that works like Stand By Me worked,

01:08:54.620 but, but those kids were also on the cusp of adolescence. I think adults are interested in

01:08:59.220 adolescence because that's this time of radical personality reshaping and, and the construction

01:09:05.100 of destiny. And so people, whether they're happy about the way their lives turned out or not,

01:09:10.160 they, they're interested in looking back to think what if, you know, so, okay. So that's okay. So

01:09:16.840 that's very interesting. And we'll keep an eye on that. And that's, tell me the name of the movie

01:09:21.560 again. Tell everybody the name of the movie again. The movie is called The Way of the Warrior Kid.

01:09:26.000 Yeah. Okay. And it's the same title as the books. Same title as the books. Yeah. Okay. And so let's

01:09:30.800 talk about your leadership consulting. So, you know, I worked with executive MBA programs and I was

01:09:40.140 very interested in the psychology of leadership, but as a psychological field, leadership is a mess,

01:09:46.240 partly because it's very ill-defined, like what, what's a leader exactly. It's a more intractable

01:09:52.880 question, not as intractable as what is a woman as it turns out. But so let's start with that. Like

01:09:59.460 when you're, when you're consulting on the leadership front, what is it that you think that

01:10:07.440 you're training and, and how did you come to the realization that that was what constituted

01:10:13.060 leadership? So let's, I'd like to know how you define leadership even, and then how you facilitate

01:10:19.060 its development. Yeah. So I actually kicked off with a group the other day and I said, you know,

01:10:26.060 let's define leadership. And, you know, we got a couple. There's a question right away. There you go.

01:10:31.440 And then I said, Hey, here, I got it for you. Getting people to do stuff.

01:10:36.960 Right. Right.

01:10:39.740 Yes. That's actually what leads to this. Nice short words.

01:10:42.080 Getting people to do stuff. Yeah.

01:10:44.020 Cause that's why we're here. That's why people are wanting to know like, Oh, I, I need to get

01:10:48.500 people to do stuff. Now. Yeah.

01:10:50.660 What that's a behavioral, that's a behavioral level of analysis to get people to do stuff.

01:10:56.580 Yeah. And we already talked about one methodology, which is, Hey Jordan, I'm your boss. Go do this

01:11:02.240 now. We are with, with an, or else, uh, lurking behind that. Right. And what I always tell people

01:11:09.340 is that works. Yeah. Short term. Yeah. For a minute. You know, I can probably get, you know,

01:11:14.500 I could, if, if you work for me and I say, Hey, I don't want to hear it from you. Shut up. Go do what I

01:11:19.460 told you to do. Or you're going to get fired tonight. Right. Yeah. You'll go do it. You want

01:11:24.180 that, whatever that you want your paycheck for that week's worth of work, but there's no way that

01:11:29.700 you're not looking for another job. And there's no way that you're going to put your best effort in

01:11:33.120 to execute whatever it is I told you to go do. It's just not going to happen. So what, what real

01:11:39.240 leadership is, is like, I'm getting you to do stuff because you want to do it. Yeah. Yeah. That's

01:11:44.640 that alignment of interests. And, and, and so that's what it really boils down to. Uh, and

01:11:49.440 and, you know, I, how do you teach that? Well, the thing that's interesting about it is,

01:11:55.900 you know, I had you onto my podcast a long, a long time ago and I had never really understood

01:12:02.960 psychology or what a psychologist would do. I didn't understand it. Never been to one,

01:12:09.100 never talked to one. I didn't really understand it. And we were talking about someone that was

01:12:13.360 scared of needles and you walked through the protocol of how to get them to not be afraid of

01:12:17.420 needles. And I said, Oh, that's, so he knows how to handle this particular, he knows how to handle

01:12:22.240 these psychological problems that people want to overcome.

01:12:26.980 Phobic avoidance.

01:12:28.280 There's a skill that you have that you learned and it has to do with interacting other people and

01:12:33.380 getting them to move forward in their life. And, and that's the very interesting thing about

01:12:38.620 leadership is it's the same thing. There are skills in leadership that you can learn.

01:12:43.960 We've already talked about one of them at me asking you earnest questions, earnest.

01:12:48.900 Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

01:12:50.060 Me being humble is humble. Is humble a skill? It is a skill.

01:12:54.140 And look, it's actually, well, since time immemorial, the core of religious practice is humility.

01:13:02.460 So what does that mean? It means you practice that. So it's a practice. Why? So you get expert at it.

01:13:08.280 Well, why? Because then you're optimally placed to learn, right? If you're noting what you don't know

01:13:14.080 and you're viewing every opportunity as a place to, as an opportunity to inform you rather than an

01:13:21.060 opportunity to control or exert power, you can become an expert at that. Rogan's an expert. You're an

01:13:26.580 expert at that. Your podcast wouldn't work otherwise. Podcasts are, you're not going to be an expert

01:13:31.780 podcaster. Well, there's some manipulative ones, let's say, that capitalize on, you know, trouble

01:13:37.840 muckraking and gotcha questions and that sort of thing. But the honest podcasters, they're trying to

01:13:45.900 get smarter and they're bringing their audience along for the ride. Yeah. So leadership. So you

01:13:50.680 can imagine that if you're making someone an offer for a partnership, let's say, because that's a form

01:13:58.240 of leadership. The first thing you want to do, I think, and you tell me what you think about this,

01:14:02.380 is like, well, this is what I'm envisioning. This is where I see this going, right? Does that strike

01:14:09.940 a chord in you? And the answer might be no. And then maybe we could discuss some more because we,

01:14:15.460 you don't understand exactly. Or it might be, okay, well, then you're not the right player for this

01:14:20.840 game, right? And so, and you don't want to force that at all, because if that person doesn't share

01:14:27.120 your vision, well, you're not in a partnership. So, so that's just an exploration, right? And

01:14:33.880 then the next thing would be something like, the next question would be, is there something that

01:14:42.180 we could do together that would work out better than if we each did it separately? Right? And

01:14:46.860 that's a question too. Like one of the things that popped up, for example, when you were talking

01:14:50.160 about your clothing company, it's worth thinking about merchandise for Peterson Academy. And so I

01:14:56.440 thought the first, one of the things that popped into my mind when we were talking was like, do,

01:15:01.040 and I could just ask you this, do you do custom clothing? We can. Okay. Because one of the things

01:15:08.060 we were thinking about for our merch is that it should be locally sourced, right? And so,

01:15:15.200 especially given the current climb. Especially when you're facing tariffs from overseas. Yeah,

01:15:21.340 exactly. Exactly. Which is the least of the reasons why you should want to do it in America,

01:15:25.220 but it is in fact, a reason that is compelling some people to change their vision. We, myself and

01:15:30.840 Pete, who own Origin, we've been, we've had that vision for a long time. We've recognized it's not

01:15:35.720 about, it's not about the tariffs. It's not about the money. It's about rebuilding manufacturing in

01:15:39.580 this country. And this is something we recognized 10 years ago. So that's part of the quest there too.

01:15:44.740 And the vision, because the vision should be nested inside a broader vision, right? To be really

01:15:49.300 compelling. Yes. I mean, if I, if, if I would have said to Pete, hey, Pete, you know, I, I want to

01:15:56.560 make a bunch of money. Yeah, right. Exactly. Profitability is the number one thing on my,

01:16:00.460 and he would say to me, we, we can't, we can't partner. Same vice versa. If his goal would have

01:16:06.440 been to make a bunch of money. No, our goal was to bring manufacturing back to America. Right. Well,

01:16:10.460 then the profit, then the profit becomes the means to the ends, right? Essentially, because

01:16:15.580 profit has a bad rap because people think about it as exploitation. But what they don't understand

01:16:23.980 is that if your aim is true, profit is the mechanism by which you accelerate your progress

01:16:31.240 clearly, because you can't do anything unless you have, unless you have capital freed up to invest,

01:16:37.980 you can only maintain yourself. There's no progress in a new direction. And so then that puts profit in

01:16:44.580 its proper place. And almost all the people I know that are businessmen who aren't, you know,

01:16:50.360 narcissistic psychopaths, which is most like, and most businessmen aren't because that fails.

01:16:56.780 They're not interested in money for the sake of money. They might use it as a marker of competence

01:17:01.720 and status. And there's something to that. But the ones that are really great, they just think,

01:17:06.700 well, obviously, I need to make some money because I can't make this thing grow unless I have money.

01:17:12.240 And then the money, that's a plus, not a negative. And the profit motif there is more a testament to

01:17:20.160 efficiency and the desire to progress than anything else.

01:17:23.920 Yeah, where you get lost there isn't through the individual business leaders that are,

01:17:27.840 you're right, because they have individual business leader, if they're doing it for profit,

01:17:30.880 and that's their main thing, and they're burning bridges, they're going to fail.

01:17:33.780 But what happens on the corporate side is all of a sudden, it's not an individual.

01:17:38.260 And the corporation is truly driving for profit, and they're willing to burn bridges,

01:17:44.560 they have the size, they have the capacity.

01:17:45.620 Yeah, that's also why they fail, though.

01:17:48.080 Eventually, yes.

01:17:48.940 Yeah, well, and it doesn't take that, it doesn't, well, the typical Fortune 500 company lasts 30 years,

01:17:55.300 right? So the failure cycle is pretty damn rapid.

01:17:58.220 And it does, I think that is what happens, is there's a vision to begin with, and it's very

01:18:02.520 compelling, and the profit serves the vision, but then it gets institutionalized, and the

01:18:07.440 machine starts to run itself, so to speak.

01:18:09.580 The vision starts to get the profit, yeah.

01:18:11.940 Yeah, well, that's right, that's right.

01:18:13.620 Become inverted.

01:18:14.180 Well, and that often, I think, also happens when the company has become successful.

01:18:18.660 It's like, okay, we did it, now what?

01:18:22.020 Well, hopefully, there's a new vision and a new direction, but otherwise, the thing is

01:18:26.100 going to keep, it's going to turn into an algorithm, and eventually, that won't work.

01:18:31.040 So, but the way the free market deals with that is then those companies become unsuccessful,

01:18:38.000 and they're replaced.

01:18:39.520 So, okay, so you establish an aim, and you negotiate to see if that's shared, and then

01:18:44.640 you start listening to see if you can build, what, a cooperative strategy.

01:18:51.100 Yeah, and a lot of times, this is where people get caught up, because as long as we're going

01:18:55.760 to the same place, you know, we could take your road or my road, and there's advantages

01:19:02.100 and disadvantages of both, and by the way, we don't really know what the advantages and

01:19:05.620 disadvantages are, because we can't see the future, and so.

01:19:09.600 Right, so you don't want to get too constrained in your insistence.

01:19:12.420 Yeah, I don't want to get too caught up.

01:19:14.480 Normally, what's making me want to take my road instead of your road is just my ego, and

01:19:19.100 you know, well, I think my idea's better.

01:19:21.040 Yeah, that's not a good game.

01:19:22.300 Not a good game.

01:19:23.040 And so, when we talk about...

01:19:24.280 You could ask, here's why I think my idea might be better, but I'd be very interested

01:19:29.180 to hear why you think that might not be true, right?

01:19:33.020 Because maybe it isn't, and I'd like to know, actually.

01:19:35.480 And my default mode, my default setting is I want to use your idea.

01:19:41.700 Whether you're my boss, my peer, or my subordinate, my default is I want to use your idea instead

01:19:48.400 of mine.

01:19:48.800 That's my goal.

01:19:49.680 So, when you come to me and you say, I think we should do it like this, my immediate response,

01:19:53.280 which I've trained and practiced is, okay, why should we do it Jordan's way and not mine?

01:19:57.700 Yeah, that's good.

01:19:58.360 Well, that's good.

01:19:59.020 You know, I've done that with, particularly with my kids, because I run a couple of businesses

01:20:02.900 with them, and my default there certainly is, like, if you've got a plan and it's a reasonable

01:20:10.640 plan and you've worked it out and you're motivated by it, how about I leave you the hell alone

01:20:14.900 because you've already done something really good, right, right?

01:20:19.000 And then...

01:20:19.540 I call it the minimally viable plan.

01:20:21.600 If you come to me with a minimally viable plan, that sounds like it can work.

01:20:27.140 And that you'd implement.

01:20:28.680 We're going to go with it.

01:20:29.680 Yeah, well, that's because you solved the motivational problem, right?

01:20:32.440 Well, and it's also, see, that's also how you optimally train partners and subordinates

01:20:40.980 is if they have a minimally viable plan and it's clear that they're going to implement

01:20:46.840 it and they implement it, then they learn to implement and they learn to modify their

01:20:52.120 plan on the fly and then they get good at doing that, that meta skill, right, which is

01:20:58.080 the meta skill of making a plan and modifying it on the fly.

01:21:01.660 You definitely want to encourage people to develop that ability, definitely.

01:21:05.860 And by the way, when I say, when I listen to you, you listen to me.

01:21:11.100 So when I say that, hey, Jordan, that sounds good.

01:21:12.760 Let's go ahead and execute it that way.

01:21:14.000 I got one question.

01:21:14.980 Yeah.

01:21:15.360 And now you actually listen to my question.

01:21:17.660 Yeah, right.

01:21:18.120 I suppose, you know, we're doing it my way.

01:21:19.360 And by the way, here's another thing you need to think about.

01:21:21.380 Yeah.

01:21:21.580 You don't want to hear any of it.

01:21:23.220 So yeah, because you've already, you've already taken a pretty good blow by that point.

01:21:27.100 100%.

01:21:27.460 Yeah.

01:21:27.960 Yeah.

01:21:28.200 Well, right.

01:21:28.680 And if you make an offer to someone like that, the probability that if they're reasonable

01:21:33.340 people, the first thing they want to do is reciprocate is extremely high, right?

01:21:37.400 So you cede as much territory as you can, assuming that you've agreed on the aim.

01:21:43.300 And it's also, you can negotiate the aim too.

01:21:45.900 You know, you can say, I find this vision of possibility compelling.

01:21:49.880 It's worth sacrificing for, worth putting some effort in.

01:21:52.940 But, you know, first, are you interested?

01:21:55.360 And if not, well, then we can talk about some other things.

01:21:58.400 But if you are, like, are there elements of it that you think might be altered that

01:22:03.040 would make it even more compelling to you?

01:22:04.940 That's certainly what you want in a, well, partner or someone who works for you, clearly.

01:22:09.500 You want them optimally motivated.

01:22:11.700 You know, when I set up my businesses with my kids, I said, when we were figuring out

01:22:16.520 the business end of it, I said, well, I have a lot of marketing clout.

01:22:19.680 And you want me bought in.

01:22:22.820 And you want me to prioritize what I'm doing with you, given all the other things I'm doing.

01:22:28.600 So you have to remember that.

01:22:30.500 But other than that, I want you to bring me the deal that you're maximally thrilled by,

01:22:35.960 right?

01:22:36.480 So that's the goal.

01:22:38.420 And then, well, if someone brings you that deal, and it turns out to be acceptable,

01:22:43.500 you, there's no enforcement requirement, because they're, it's their thing.

01:22:48.520 It's their thing.

01:22:50.060 And, and then you can have a piece of many things.

01:22:52.940 And that's a, that's a very good deal and shepherd them and, and, and help people develop along

01:22:59.600 the way and learn a bunch.

01:23:01.480 And so I don't know how it is that we ever got the idea that the boss was the person who

01:23:08.880 barked out orders.

01:23:11.480 You know, I mean, no one who's effective.

01:23:15.160 If you have someone that's working for you that requires that, they're either really

01:23:21.600 immature and still in that disciplinary phase, or you shouldn't be working with them, right?

01:23:26.380 If I have to force you to do something, we aren't suited for each other.

01:23:30.760 No, no.

01:23:32.640 Compelled labor is not what you're, you should be looking for.

01:23:35.800 Right.

01:23:35.820 That's slaves.

01:23:36.580 Yeah.

01:23:36.780 You don't want slaves.

01:23:37.880 And why not?

01:23:38.500 Because they're not very effective and, and it's no fun being a tyrant.

01:23:41.900 Yeah, well, I guess, so there's a whole philosophy in, in warfare, which is the strategy of the

01:23:48.720 indirect approach, which means instead of me assaulting you head on, I am going to maneuver

01:23:54.740 around to your flank and, and attack you from an area where you're not reinforced.

01:24:00.280 And, you know, I always, I always joke with people that we learn the opposite of the indirect

01:24:06.640 approach.

01:24:07.080 We learn that the, the, what is it?

01:24:08.760 The shortest distance between two points is a straight line.

01:24:10.980 So if I've got a problem with Jordan, what I should do is go, Hey, Jordan, I noticed

01:24:15.100 that you in the meeting today, you talk like this.

01:24:16.640 I didn't like that.

01:24:17.480 Yeah.

01:24:17.800 Right.

01:24:17.960 And that seems like it's the best way to handle thing.

01:24:21.760 It's direct, take that direct approach.

01:24:24.560 But when I use that direct approach and I attack you and attack your ego, what's going to happen?

01:24:29.600 Your ego defenses are going to come up.

01:24:31.200 You're not going to want to listen.

01:24:31.940 You're going to be argumentative about the whole thing.

01:24:33.520 We're in a power struggle.

01:24:34.680 We're in a, what'd you call it?

01:24:35.640 A prime, primate dominance hierarchy struggle.

01:24:38.140 Oh yeah, definitely.

01:24:39.180 We don't want to get into the primate.

01:24:40.460 No, no, no, no.

01:24:41.280 Unless, unless your goal is primate dominance, right?

01:24:45.300 Which is not, well, that's a better goal than abject failure, but it's not the highest

01:24:50.080 goal.

01:24:50.640 No, no.

01:24:51.260 And a problem like that, it like, if there's a meeting and it goes sideways, the, the most

01:24:57.620 appropriate approach to that, I would say is certainly not to ignore it.

01:25:01.320 Although if it only happened once, you could probably file it away for further consideration

01:25:06.020 and not act immediately on it unless it happened again, right?

01:25:09.840 Because you don't want to jump the gun, but my approach in a situation would, would be

01:25:14.800 something like, you know, I was watching that meeting and here's a bunch of things that

01:25:19.300 went well as far as I'm concerned.

01:25:20.940 But I thought this one part to me seemed to slip sideways and the discussion got counterproductive.

01:25:27.420 And I'm wondering if you saw that and what you think happened.

01:25:34.020 And that's, that, that, that embedding it in some, a more positive message, that's also

01:25:39.840 extremely helpful, you know, because lots of times too, you see when people are negotiating

01:25:43.840 and, and they're on a trajectory of success, they forget to start the discussion with that.

01:25:50.960 It's like, given that we're on a trajectory of success and these are a bunch of things

01:25:55.900 that you've done right and we've done right, here's something we might be able to improve.

01:26:01.440 Well, that's a lot, that's a lot easier on people.

01:26:04.460 And, and it's certainly not a strategy of avoidance.

01:26:08.540 And then it does have that investigative quality because you don't know, right?

01:26:13.060 And, and sometimes you think things went sideways and that was actually the person's intent

01:26:18.260 because, you know, they felt that someone needed to be corrected and maybe they're right.

01:26:22.940 Maybe it was time to produce a bit of an emotional disruption.

01:26:25.840 And there was a strategy behind, you don't know.

01:26:28.860 So that's why it has to be an earnest question.

01:26:30.940 You know, if I come to you and say, Hey, why'd you act like that in the meeting?

01:26:34.820 Yeah.

01:26:35.780 Why'd you, why'd you dress down Fred in the meeting?

01:26:38.240 That was uncalled for.

01:26:39.480 That's just terrible.

01:26:40.600 But if I say, Hey, like, I noticed you went pretty hard on Fred.

01:26:45.720 Yeah, right.

01:26:46.200 Wait, was there something going on that, that I didn't know about?

01:26:49.380 You know, I was, I was sitting there kind of, I was a little bit surprised by it.

01:26:51.900 Is there something going on between you and Fred that isn't, is not right right now?

01:26:55.860 Is there anything I can do to help it out?

01:26:57.220 Yeah.

01:26:57.580 And that is a totally different approach.

01:26:59.520 And getting back to the indirect approach, that indirect approach, obviously it took me

01:27:04.340 four sentences to ask you that question.

01:27:07.240 But you provide some context.

01:27:09.200 But.

01:27:10.060 And you also don't make the person into an enemy immediately.

01:27:12.700 Of course.

01:27:12.920 Because why would you do that to show you're right?

01:27:16.180 Yeah.

01:27:16.520 That's, that's not good.

01:27:18.100 Yeah.

01:27:18.540 Showing you're right has a cost.

01:27:20.860 Yeah.

01:27:21.020 That's for sure.

01:27:21.880 Being right has a cost.

01:27:23.840 Just being right sometimes has a cost.

01:27:26.240 Yeah.

01:27:26.480 You know how many times you, you get in an argument or a discussion with your wife and

01:27:30.580 you get to prove that you're right.

01:27:32.720 Good job.

01:27:33.780 Yeah.

01:27:34.400 Well, I know there are higher, there are higher levels of right.

01:27:39.040 Yeah.

01:27:39.260 Right.

01:27:39.680 You can be right locally and pretty wrong contextually.

01:27:44.220 Yeah.

01:27:44.560 Right.

01:27:44.900 And, and so that questioning approach seems to be much better in taking the fact of that

01:27:49.620 multi-level embeddedness into account.

01:27:52.340 Yeah.

01:27:52.860 Right.

01:27:53.360 Yeah.

01:27:53.580 So, okay.

01:27:54.940 So back to the leadership training per se.

01:27:57.200 So what size are the groups that you, like, what's the process that you use when you're,

01:28:02.900 when you're invited in by a corporation, for example?

01:28:05.260 Well, so what, what we'll start off with is an assessment.

01:28:08.920 We'll go in there, we'll sit down with people, we'll interview people throughout the chain

01:28:13.620 of command from junior people to the senior people, and we'll figure out what's happening.

01:28:19.240 Right.

01:28:19.680 Right.

01:28:19.920 So when I ask, you know, the senior person, Hey, what's the mission of the company?

01:28:23.480 And they rattle off an answer.

01:28:24.480 And I ask a junior person, what's the mission of the company?

01:28:26.160 And they go, I don't know.

01:28:27.680 Right.

01:28:28.000 You know, or you say, Hey, how's your interaction with your boss?

01:28:32.500 Right.

01:28:32.740 And the guy goes, I don't even know who my boss is.

01:28:34.820 Yeah.

01:28:35.000 But you ask the boss and he says, Oh, I've got a great relationship with all my people.

01:28:37.680 So we start to figure out what's going on.

01:28:39.260 That's just exploration.

01:28:40.320 Right.

01:28:40.480 Right.

01:28:40.700 So what does this thing do?

01:28:42.400 Exactly.

01:28:43.000 And then once we've assessed it, we figure out what, where, what areas they need improvement

01:28:48.480 on.

01:28:48.720 Once we figured out what areas they need improvement on, we go in and we start to formulate plans

01:28:55.360 and we give them instruction on how to cover these problems and how to, how to, how to overcome

01:29:01.180 these, these issues that they're facing.

01:29:02.560 And who's we, what, who's your team?

01:29:05.260 So we've got about 15 people that are our actual consultants, our, our leadership instructors

01:29:12.600 that go in and work with the companies.

01:29:13.680 And we've got a bunch of people on the backend that set everything up.

01:29:16.420 But yeah, there's about 15 of us, uh, some are former military, some are not, some are

01:29:22.660 just people that were, were civilians and worked in civilian companies and they were good leaders

01:29:27.700 and they really liked what we do and they understood the way we teach things and came

01:29:32.560 on board the company.

01:29:33.320 And so that's about 15.

01:29:35.000 And how many, how many companies have you worked with approximately?

01:29:39.440 A lot.

01:29:39.860 I mean, you know, on, on varying scales, hundreds of companies.

01:29:45.200 Okay.

01:29:45.300 And, you know, the, from the, from the actual biggest companies in the world, uh, all the

01:29:51.320 way down to, you know, small startups and little construction companies and energy company,

01:29:57.400 just, just really everyone because.

01:30:00.240 All right.

01:30:00.500 So you're learning a tremendous amount doing that too, eh?

01:30:02.840 Because you get to do an exhaustive audit of all sorts of different complex machines,

01:30:08.500 essentially.

01:30:09.300 Yes.

01:30:10.040 Right.

01:30:10.680 Right.

01:30:11.040 And you should get a little bit better at all of them each time you do a new one.

01:30:14.200 Yeah.

01:30:15.000 And leadership is leadership.

01:30:18.520 It really is.

01:30:19.760 And so it doesn't matter if you're working with a, with an oil company, you're out in

01:30:23.460 the field or construction company in the field.

01:30:26.380 These are, you know, hardworking people or a finance company or a tech company, the leadership

01:30:31.760 issues that they have.

01:30:33.620 And not only the, the, the, the, the problems that they have in those companies are leadership

01:30:38.180 problems.

01:30:39.100 They're not a process problem.

01:30:41.260 It's not, it's not that the people aren't wearing the safety gear.

01:30:43.980 It's that the leadership isn't doing a good job of explaining why that, that gear is important

01:30:48.120 and how it's going to help them.

01:30:49.180 And it's not that people are pushing up against the regulations in the financial company.

01:30:53.260 It's that the, the team doesn't understand why those are important and how it impacts

01:30:57.580 them.

01:30:57.960 And the leader's not, the leadership is not leading.

01:31:01.300 And so we look at every problem inside of an organization as a leadership problem.

01:31:06.440 Right.

01:31:07.120 Right.

01:31:07.560 Right.

01:31:08.500 Right.

01:31:08.840 That's, that's the same basic attitude that behavioral psychologists bring to bear in the

01:31:14.140 clinical world is that if, if you have a client, for example, who isn't progressing, then that's

01:31:22.560 a psych, it's not like the client has no responsibility, but that's also a failure of leadership.

01:31:28.140 You haven't specified the goal with sufficient clarity.

01:31:32.660 The person isn't properly motivated or you haven't broken the task down enough so that the steps

01:31:38.080 forward are implementable.

01:31:39.800 Now there's some people perhaps, perhaps who are aiming down pretty hard and it's hard

01:31:46.160 to find the part of them that would move forward in good faith.

01:31:51.160 Like I had very few clients that were court mandated.

01:31:55.980 That's just a non-starter, right?

01:31:57.940 Cause they're not interested in, they're not playing the game.

01:32:01.280 Their game is the court told me, forced me to do this.

01:32:04.480 Right.

01:32:05.040 You can't, there's nothing, there's no leading.

01:32:08.080 In that situation or it's very, very difficult.

01:32:10.160 Yeah.

01:32:10.300 We'll have most of the companies that we work with are companies that have reached out to us.

01:32:16.080 They want to, they want us to come out.

01:32:17.700 Right.

01:32:18.020 And they're usually doing pretty well.

01:32:20.340 Like they're doing pretty well.

01:32:21.500 They want to do better.

01:32:22.420 Right.

01:32:22.680 It's great.

01:32:23.300 Right.

01:32:23.640 Right.

01:32:23.860 And so when we roll into those companies, their attitude is like, oh, you're here to help

01:32:27.100 us.

01:32:27.360 We have open minds.

01:32:28.280 We're ready to listen.

01:32:29.060 Right.

01:32:29.360 Right.

01:32:29.480 They've had to put their ego in check to reach out to us just for a leader, a CEO of

01:32:34.920 a big company and say, you know what?

01:32:36.440 We need help with leadership.

01:32:37.900 That's a humble move in its own right.

01:32:39.640 Right.

01:32:40.200 Which by the way, is why that company is doing well.

01:32:43.940 Yeah.

01:32:44.200 Yeah.

01:32:44.360 They're doing well because the CEO of the company or the COO of the company says, hey,

01:32:48.660 you know what?

01:32:49.080 The market's shifting.

01:32:50.240 We need to make a move as opposed to the market's shifting, but we'll keep doing what we've

01:32:54.720 been doing.

01:32:55.600 Why do you think, why do you think given that, and I'm certain that that's correct.

01:33:00.120 Like I've watched really good managers.

01:33:01.580 I worked with a guy who ran a big law firm and a couple of people who are very good at

01:33:06.660 this, run big law firms in Toronto, managing partners.

01:33:10.660 And basically what they did was wander around their office and ask people how things were

01:33:15.140 going, like continually.

01:33:17.100 And they'd see a problem and they just tap something, you know, a tiny bit and fix it.

01:33:22.640 And so everything just went smoothly.

01:33:24.140 But the reason I'm asking this is because the vision of a leader is more drill sergeant,

01:33:34.400 quasi-psychopath who orders people around.

01:33:37.620 But the reality is that in successful companies, the leaders are people on a quest who are looking

01:33:45.280 to make something good better.

01:33:47.680 And I guess I don't understand why there's such a huge divorce between the stereotypical

01:33:56.200 portrayal of a leader and the reality.

01:33:59.100 I mean, you see movies about great coaches and so forth, or Ted Lasso was a good example

01:34:03.660 of genuine leadership.

01:34:05.520 But that stereotype is still pretty powerful, that parody.

01:34:11.540 And it's just not true.

01:34:13.160 It's not true in the fact that it doesn't make for great leaders.

01:34:18.740 But there are, without question, tyrannical leaders out there.

01:34:22.960 And look, we saw this in the military, I see it in the civilian sector as well.

01:34:26.700 You can, you can.

01:34:29.600 Crack the whip.

01:34:30.500 You can crack the whip, and you can get promoted, and you can make things happen.

01:34:35.060 You know, you can be a leader that is just a complete slave driver, abusive to your people.

01:34:41.180 The higher-ups, what do they see?

01:34:42.840 They see the numbers.

01:34:44.360 They see the metrics being met.

01:34:45.960 Hey, good job, Jordan.

01:34:47.160 You're doing a great job.

01:34:47.960 Meanwhile, your whole team is going to quit, may quit, whatever.

01:34:51.160 They're miserable.

01:34:52.180 You don't care.

01:34:53.380 You just want to get promoted.

01:34:55.160 And one of the things that happens in the military is...

01:34:57.460 So that power drive orientation can work, and it can work for some period of time.

01:35:03.520 But I think that's right.

01:35:05.040 That's partly why it's also attractive.

01:35:06.860 It's like, if you're a real failure, and ineffectual in all regards, the tyrant looks pretty attractive.

01:35:13.740 And partly because, maybe it's also partly because if you're that kind of ineffectual failure, that capacity you have for aggression and force is pathetically underdeveloped.

01:35:27.000 And so that makes the tyrant even more attractive, because they have that willingness to grab people by the corner and shake them, that it's not like you forego that because you're moral.

01:35:39.340 You've never been able to develop the skill.

01:35:42.680 But that doesn't mean that that's the highest level of leadership or the optimal level of leadership.

01:35:47.340 That's absolutely not.

01:35:48.740 And eventually, like you said, it's short-term.

01:35:50.680 Now, listen, that short-term, in the military, generally speaking, you're in charge of a... you're in command of a unit for like two years.

01:36:00.280 So what happens?

01:36:01.380 You show up at the unit, you know, everyone's... the new boss is around, everyone's a little bit, you know, okay, let's see what this guy's like.

01:36:07.580 It takes them six months before they realize, like, oh, this guy seems like he's a bit of a tyrant.

01:36:11.740 Right, right.

01:36:12.320 And then six months later, well, you know, you start... you know, we're confirming this guy's a tyrant.

01:36:18.120 Now, six months later, you're getting ready to go... you're on deployment.

01:36:21.220 Yeah.

01:36:21.680 You hate the guy.

01:36:22.540 Yeah.

01:36:22.760 He hates you.

01:36:23.800 You're totally dysfunctional.

01:36:25.240 You still do your job, and you do it to the best of your ability, despite working for this tyrannical leader.

01:36:30.440 So you work so hard, and the troops work so hard, they still make this tyrant look good.

01:36:35.700 But they're finally ready to have a mutiny, and the deployment's over, and the guy's getting promoted because the team did such a great job.

01:36:43.300 Right, right, right.

01:36:43.780 So they can find... the power mongers can find these short-term niches.

01:36:47.900 Yeah, yeah, that seems exactly right.

01:36:49.920 Which is just sad.

01:36:51.980 It's too bad.

01:36:53.040 So let's close this.

01:36:54.820 We'll move over to the Daily Wire side.

01:36:56.940 We've got another half an hour there, and I think we'll talk about your...

01:37:00.420 I think we'll talk about your other ventures there, and continue speaking about the foundations of entrepreneurial ability.

01:37:10.260 But I'm curious, obviously, you're well into the making of this movie.

01:37:15.400 What's in your vision for the future, for the next three or four years?

01:37:21.700 Like, you continue to expand outward.

01:37:24.700 Where are you headed, and why?

01:37:27.200 Well, obviously, we have these little sparks in our brain that come to us that have to be resolved.

01:37:33.760 And so, you know, writing more books, it'll be interesting.

01:37:36.760 You got another idea for a book?

01:37:38.580 Oh, yeah.

01:37:39.160 I mean, kids' books, obviously.

01:37:40.960 I wrote another...

01:37:42.040 I wrote a novel called Final Spin, which now has been an option to a movie.

01:37:47.020 I did write the screenplay for that one.

01:37:48.560 Oh, yeah.

01:37:49.020 So we've got the director for...

01:37:50.460 Has Final Spin been published?

01:37:52.380 Yes, it's been published, yeah.

01:37:53.380 I see.

01:37:53.880 Okay, and you wrote the screenplay for that?

01:37:55.600 I did write the screenplay for that one.

01:37:55.980 Oh, that's exciting.

01:37:56.800 So that's another movie project in development.

01:37:59.020 Okay, well, that'll keep you busy.

01:38:00.480 Oddly enough, yeah.

01:38:01.460 Yeah?

01:38:02.060 I don't know how I get myself into all this stuff.

01:38:04.640 And...

01:38:04.920 That is the question, and that's what you're trying to teach people, too, how to get yourself

01:38:08.920 into all that stuff.

01:38:10.600 Yeah, and you mentioned it earlier.

01:38:12.220 What's awesome about today is, like, if you have a phone, you can make movies.

01:38:18.740 Right.

01:38:18.980 You can make podcasts.

01:38:20.080 Right, right.

01:38:20.640 You can write books.

01:38:22.000 Right, you can just do this.

01:38:23.220 You can do it all.

01:38:24.420 Yeah, right.

01:38:24.920 And there's just no barrier for entry anymore.

01:38:27.520 Right, right.

01:38:28.320 And then when it comes up, I guess there's a lot of stuff out there, right?

01:38:32.640 There's so much content being produced that how are you going to stand out in it?

01:38:40.560 And I would say, don't worry about standing out in it.

01:38:43.480 I would say, make stuff because you want to make it.

01:38:47.000 Right, and make it better and better.

01:38:48.360 And make it hurt a little bit.

01:38:52.120 Like, it's got to have, it's got to, when you put it out there, it's got to be something

01:38:58.280 that...

01:39:00.020 It's got to be a sacrifice with blood.

01:39:01.360 It's like a part of it.

01:39:02.080 You know, yeah, you got to sacrifice a little bit.

01:39:04.640 You know, if you're hiding behind something, no one wants to see what you're hiding behind.

01:39:08.880 Yeah.

01:39:09.360 They want to see what's there.

01:39:12.160 Yeah.

01:39:12.380 And so when you put yourself out there, put yourself out there, you know, really be honest

01:39:17.520 and tell the truth.

01:39:19.240 And I think that's a good thing to do.

01:39:22.020 And that's, you know, it's worked for me.

01:39:24.360 You know, the first book I wrote called Extreme Ownership.

01:39:26.980 Right.

01:39:27.480 The opening chapter is about this terrible situation that took place, a fratricide,

01:39:34.380 a friendly fire incident that I was in charge of.

01:39:38.140 Right.

01:39:38.400 And I think that if I would have hidden that or shied away from that, I don't think the

01:39:47.680 book would have landed the same way.

01:39:49.500 So tell the truth, take responsibility, and make things.

01:39:55.020 Yes.

01:39:55.460 Right.

01:39:55.860 Yes.

01:39:56.360 Yeah.

01:39:56.580 Well, that'll work.

01:39:58.080 Let's see.

01:39:58.620 That'll work.

01:39:59.240 Like, it'll be a slow start because zero to one is really hard.

01:40:05.240 But truth, responsible truth and effort, that if you're diligent and persistent, you'll get

01:40:15.240 to one.

01:40:16.040 And once you get to one, things get easier.

01:40:18.360 Right.

01:40:18.520 Zero to one's hard.

01:40:19.580 Your first paying customer.

01:40:21.080 Right.

01:40:22.320 Your first hundred people on YouTube.

01:40:24.620 But like you said, there's, if you want to write, you can.

01:40:28.880 If you want to podcast, you can.

01:40:31.340 If you want to edit, you can.

01:40:32.560 All of this is just laying there in front of you.

01:40:34.840 And your point about your goal can't be self-aggrandizement.

01:40:42.980 It'll just make you self-conscious and miserable anyways.

01:40:45.600 Your goal should be to do the best possible job you can doing that and to be pulled along

01:40:49.960 by your interest and to do it truthfully and responsibly.

01:40:53.100 And that'll work.

01:40:54.540 Yeah.

01:40:54.940 Yeah.

01:40:55.260 That'll work.

01:40:56.400 So that's worthwhile knowing.

01:40:57.740 And I know that too, you know, and I'm sure this has happened to you because thousands

01:41:01.160 of people have told me that that's worked for them.

01:41:04.180 Right.

01:41:04.820 So.

01:41:06.780 All right, sir.

01:41:07.600 So what are we going to do on the Daily Wire side?

01:41:09.300 Well, I think we're going to continue this conversation.

01:41:12.000 We haven't got to your clothing outfit.

01:41:15.500 I want to hear how that's going and the revitalization of these factories and how you

01:41:19.560 managed to pull that off.

01:41:20.700 So there was the leadership, there was the clothing, and then we talked about the books.

01:41:24.460 There was one other.

01:41:25.600 What was the other?

01:41:26.780 We got food supplements.

01:41:28.100 Yes, right.

01:41:28.760 Exactly.

01:41:29.300 Okay.

01:41:29.540 So we'll continue our discussion on the business side.

01:41:31.720 And I think we'll turn to those endeavors.

01:41:33.820 And I want to hear to, we'll do a reprise of how you set that up to begin with.

01:41:38.820 But I also want to know how it's going.

01:41:40.240 And especially the revitalization of the manufacturing factories, for example, in the United States.

01:41:45.440 Because the last time we talked, that was a number of years ago.

01:41:47.880 You're just starting that.

01:41:49.300 Like it was, it had some success, but okay.

01:41:51.580 So everybody on the Daily Wire side, that's what we're going to do.

01:41:54.600 So join us there for another half an hour.

01:41:56.600 And thanks very much.

01:41:57.980 It's real good to see you again, Jocko.

01:41:59.300 It's always good to talk to you, man.

01:42:00.980 Yeah.

01:42:01.120 And congratulations on the movie.

01:42:02.500 That's so cool.

01:42:03.280 And on the next screenplay.

01:42:05.260 Those are major league accomplishments and very, very unlikely on top of everything else you're doing.

01:42:11.100 Especially for me.

01:42:12.400 Yeah.

01:42:12.740 Well, we can also talk about how you manage so that you can engage in all those projects simultaneously.

01:42:22.000 That's a very, I think we'll zero in on that.

01:42:24.240 Because that's so cool that as you distribute responsibility, the opportunity space grows rather than shrinking.

01:42:31.820 It's a good reason to give up that prideful control.

01:42:34.940 So join us on the Daily Wire for that.

01:42:36.940 And thank you to the film crew here today in Paradise Valley.

01:42:39.760 And thanks again, Jocko.

01:42:41.060 It's always a pleasure talking to you.

01:42:43.100 Absolutely.

01:42:43.480 Absolutely.

01:42:43.640 A cool crossover.

01:42:51.600 A cool crossover.

01:42:52.420 A cool crossover.

01:42:52.980 A cool crossover.

01:42:54.020 A cool crossover.

01:42:54.900 A cool crossover.

01:42:55.840 A cool crossover.

01:42:56.980 A cool crossover.

01:42:57.400 A cool crossover.

01:42:57.700 A cool crossover.

01:42:58.180 A cool crossover.

01:42:58.500 A cool crossover.

01:42:59.100 A cool crossover.

01:42:59.860 A cool crossover.

01:43:00.120 A cool crossover.

01:43:01.500 A cool crossover.

01:43:01.740 A cool crossover.

01:43:02.300 A cool crossover.

01:43:02.400 A cool crossover.

01:43:02.600 A cool crossover.

01:43:03.160 A cool crossover.

01:43:03.540 A cool crossover.

01:43:04.520 A cool crossover.

01:43:05.940 A cool crossover.

01:43:06.460 A cool crossover.

01:43:06.580 A cool crossover.

01:43:07.440 A cool crossover.

01:43:08.460 A cool crossover.

01:43:08.640 A cool crossover.

01:43:09.260 A Star parece.

01:43:10.500 A cool the chose.

01:43:10.740 A cool crossover.

01:43:11.220 A cool城.

The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - May 15, 2025

547. The Movie Hollywood Didn’t See Coming... ｜ Jocko Willink

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