Jocko Willink’s Tactical Playbook

[00:00:07] What's it like to tell the MMA mixed martial arts champion of the world that Basically you want to fight him and destroy him well I'm about to find out in this episode, but even more importantly

[00:00:22] One of the most important concepts I wrote about in my book skip the line was this concept I always use this technique. I always use when I want to learn something very fast It's a great technique it works phenomenally well, and it's I call it plus minus equals

[00:00:38] The idea is if you want to learn something Let's say you want to get better at tennis or you want to get better at physics You find a plus someone who could teach you or coach you or whatever someone who's vastly superior knowledge and ability

[00:00:53] You find a minus someone and this is not a negative thing But you find someone you could teach because as Albert Einstein said you don't truly understand something

[00:01:04] Unless you can explain it simply to another person and then you find equals and that's people who are on the same path and journey of improvement as you and we're roughly around the same level and you kind of learn with each other or

[00:01:17] Compete with each other or exchange notes with each other And I find this a useful tool not only of course in sports or educational learning But in business like when I the very first time it became an entrepreneur

[00:01:28] I had a company that made websites for other companies and very quickly I got to know the CEOs and founders of the other companies Particularly in New York City that were doing the same thing and we would run into each other all the time

[00:01:42] We would run into each other going in and out of clients offices while we were competing for business We would run into each other parties who would call each other up and have lunch or dinner sometimes just to compare notes

[00:01:52] And even though we were enemies in some sense we were competing against each other We were all growing together and to this day more than 25 years later I still keep in touch with these people and it's my network that has helped me considerably over the years

[00:02:07] And so in any case These were my equals I I wish in business that I initially had more of a plus I didn't know this concept then and I think I made a lot of mistakes

[00:02:19] That cost me a lot of money because I didn't have a plus in business at first But I did have equals and I did have a minus I definitely always made it a point to work with my

[00:02:29] Employees and other people and kind of give back where I could and help people where I could but again It took me a long time to realize how important the plus was as well

[00:02:39] And now whenever I start learning something boom the first thing I do is look for plus minus equal now Why did I start this idea? Well, I didn't I take complete credit for it though

[00:02:52] But the actual guy who told me about this idea was the former mixed martial arts champion of the world Frank Shermrock and today We're speaking to the man who threatened to destroy him Jocko will ink Jocko has been on the podcast six times in the past

[00:03:10] He's back today discussing his new expanded edition of his best-selling Leadership strategy and tactics field manual which contains a new protocol to develop and hone critical decision-making instincts and make them habitual

[00:03:25] I can't wait for you to hear this conversation. We start talking about robbing people of their food in the 1400s pretty quickly there Anyway, here's Jocko. He's a great guy. Here he is

[00:03:35] This isn't your average business podcast and he's not your average host. This is the James Altiger show. I Don't know if you heard about this my wife was just telling me this apparently a bunch of like Billionaires are buying land in Nevada around some Air Force base

[00:04:06] I don't know why an Air Force base specifically because they basically want to have a community Where they can take extreme ownership in their lives and the politics and the governing and so on and I wonder if like this

[00:04:18] Anne Rand sort of philosophy which forget about conservative versus liberal. It's just sort of confidence versus incompetence. I wonder if that's What she wrote 50 60 70 years ago is what's happening right now where the competent people are kind of separating for from the incompetence

[00:04:35] you know, I guess the the quote competent people could do that but The competent people again quote competent people. There's a lot of things that they need quote incompetent people to do for them So I don't know how long they'd be able to exist

[00:04:50] You know who's gonna build their houses? They can't build their own houses, right? Component people still any competent people to build houses though. You don't want incompetent people doing it, right? Right, but I guess you said billionaires, you know, so what I'm saying is billionaires

[00:05:03] There's a lot of things that billionaires can't do, you know, whether it's know how to farm correctly You know, but where they gonna get food from do the billionaires know how to seed fields and go out there

[00:05:15] They don't know how to do any of that do they know how to hunt they don't know how to hunt They don't know how to butcher animals

[00:05:19] They don't know how to do any of that at least a lot of them don't some of them do but a lot of them don't

[00:05:24] Do they know how to build houses? No, do they know how to install plumbing? No, they don't do they know how to wire a house? No, they don't know how to do that So there's a lot of stuff that they don't know how to do not to mention

[00:05:34] They don't know how to make a pair of jeans, right? They don't know how to make a pair of boots so sure they can go live in a little enclave somewhere but

[00:05:41] They're gonna need a lot of help and support inside that enclave which they paid for I always wonder about this like if you were transported back in time to like the 1400s or that's or the year a thousand How would you?

[00:05:55] Distinguish yourself so that they wouldn't immediately kill you like I don't think I would be able to do that I don't know how like anything you just write I don't know how to do anything like I could turn on a computer and now I'm now I'm in business

[00:06:06] But like you could do things like you you know how to do things like what would you do to convince them to not kill you Well, I would kill them That's what I would do is I would kill them and

[00:06:18] Yeah, you know, I think I have pretty good a pretty good fighter And I think that's what I do is fight people and kill them and then rule Like do you think fighting techniques back then were

[00:06:29] Inferior to what you've you know, you've obviously learned hand-to-hand combat as well I was of course fighting with weapons that didn't exist back then but do you think the the science of and the education of

[00:06:41] Hand-to-hand combat whether it's a martial art or the ways you've learned or whatever do you think that's advanced significantly from what people do People in the thousands. That's all they did was train themselves on hand-to-hand combat unarmed combat. Yes I think we're superior now so

[00:06:55] You know if it was me against another man in The year 1000 and it was no weapons involved I would probably destroy them just because I know how to fight really well unarmed combat

[00:07:07] And obviously I'd beat them with any kind of firearm, but you know, it's them. They have a sword I have a sword. I've never really fought with a sword before That could be a little bit problematic now

[00:07:19] I would understand some things like distance and I'd do distance management and I'd probably be be pretty decent at it But it might take me a few a couple months To get up to speed before I start challenging people how to

[00:07:33] But that's interesting though like what let's say though you're just you just land there and There's a guy with the sword And you know, you have to fight up. What would your instincts like?

[00:07:43] How would you basically minimize the effect of him having a sword and maximize your advantages? Like what would your instincts be? Yeah So what I would do is I would stay outside the range of the sword

[00:07:54] Until he took a swing with a sword and then I would close the distance meaning I would get close to him where that sword is rendered ineffective And this is something that I am good at, you know from years of boxing Muay Thai wrestling

[00:08:05] Jiu-Jitsu so that I would be able to stay out of the range of his sword and then once he swung the sword at me I would then close the distance

[00:08:13] Which means I would get close to him tie up the sword get a handle on the sword get a hand on the sword Get control of him and then I'd probably be able in fact

[00:08:21] I would be able to outmaneuver him once we were just in a grappling competition I would be able to defeat him, you know I've fought people that have had implements before like baseball bats knives and axes and so

[00:08:36] Closing that distance and some of these situations are you're doing like sparring or we have knives that are fake knives But they shock you and things like that. So I have experience closing that distance And so I think I do pretty good

[00:08:50] You know if I was unarmed and they were armed Then I might even take that approach if I was armed I might like throw my sword at them and then close the distance close to him just because I know that I have superior skills

[00:09:04] They're you know, I've been training for a very long time to out grapple people. So yeah, that's probably what I would do And then you know you but sword against sword they're gonna have superior skills

[00:09:16] They've been training with it for a long I haven't trained any sword fighting or very limited sword fighting So, you know knife fighting I would do okay, but knife fighting is very you know knife fighting scary because

[00:09:30] Even when you're in close the blade is still a usable weapon because it's a short You know it's a shorter blade whereas a big sword is harder to manage in a closed range So I'd rather I'd actually rather fight somebody that had a sword than a knife

[00:09:44] Yeah, it's so interesting. So so basically I mean you wouldn't be required to fight with the sword You can do whatever you want your goal is to survive and convince them to not kill you and and maybe make you or have you train

[00:09:57] Their people how you fight so that'll be the goal like ever you ever see this book There's a book by Mark Twain a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Yeah goes back into King Arthur's Court

[00:10:06] And next thing you know he's building phone networks and and guns. I would never be able to do any of that stuff But fighting is key Yeah, I think fighting on the hierarchy of you know the the capabilities for a person to have fighting is way up there

[00:10:26] Man, I don't know how to do any of that because hey look at if you're good at hunting I'll just beat you up and take your food if you're good at growing plant planting and farming I'll beat you up and take your food if you're good at

[00:10:37] It doesn't really matter what you're good at because I'll beat you up and take your food unless you're good at fighting as well And then I've got an issue now the only way that you can Outmaneuver me as you forget at leadership, right?

[00:10:48] So if you can band together with three or four of your friends and you can lead them to attack me And now you three or four you and three or four of your friends can now defeat me and through leadership You're able to achieve victory

[00:11:01] Over the bully Jocko that's running around beating everyone up Let's talk about this is this will segue into your most recent book Which is an unbelievable book by the way, but let's say three you and three of your friends

[00:11:13] All that you've worked with for decades in the Navy SEALs Let's say three of your friends and you are transported back and you're up against 20 guys on horses

[00:11:24] Who suddenly encounter you or they're trying to they don't know who you're they're trying to decide whether to make you live Or die how would you use leadership like do you think again leadership has advanced in such a way?

[00:11:35] You know in a superior way to how they had leadership back then that you would be able to maneuver your way to winning such a fight

[00:11:41] Yeah, I think I do pretty good. And you know, I would say out of the gate like this situation that you said 20 guys on horses Three or four of my friends are transported back in time

[00:11:52] You know, what am I gonna do? Well first thing we do is I'm gonna listen to these people and I guess we have to make an Assumption that we're able to communicate with them. Maybe they're speaking

[00:12:00] Old English and I can sort of hear them or actually it has to be a little bit a little bit better than old English I wouldn't really be able to understand old English, but let's say I can understand what they're saying

[00:12:10] I think by listening to what they have to say finding out what they're trying to accomplish Being able to offer what services we have being able to provide them with something and Something of mutual value where where they actually see value in what we have and our capabilities

[00:12:24] Then they realize that they might be stronger if they work alongside us and we can build a relationship and then we can move forward So so let's say you had 15 minutes to plan. Okay before they arrive and would you

[00:12:37] Would you have all three of your friends there with you trying to listen and convince them? Or would you have people spread out and maybe one or two of your friends hidden? I mean depending on the hostilities of the place that we're going into but if it's 20 against

[00:12:52] Three that's not a huge advantage. I might try and disarm them a little bit by Putting my some of my friends kind of in an overwatch position to stand back and and just watch and because I think people feel a

[00:13:05] Lot less threatened by one person three or four people now There are some no what is this a gang of some kind but one person they're a little bit more apt to say Oh, who are you? What are you doing here? And I'm I would tell the truth

[00:13:16] You know say I've got some friends where we just arrived here We're from a different dimension of time and we want to make our way and provide help to people

[00:13:23] We have a lot of knowledge that we think we could share and and we would like to move forward And and talk to you about what you're doing and what your goals are and see if we can help you achieve those goals

[00:13:32] Yeah, thanks for thanks for those answers. I asked that question a lot of people That was people just normally just don't have any answer because there's very few answers that work but that but you're right fighting is a core a core skill and leadership allows you to

[00:13:45] effectively listen and communicate and and You know I just to describe I'll describe this in the interest of people have already heard it But I really enjoyed this leadership strategy and tactics field manual

[00:13:59] expanded edition that you just put out it's like everything you wrote in the the economy of leadership and I always forget the names of books. We're going to ship extreme ownership extreme ownership That's like a very special book for me because just the concept of that

[00:14:13] That's one of those books where it's a great book to read But if I just tell people the title they're gonna get it right away I mean they should still read the book, of course but like I love the concept of extreme ownership which is that

[00:14:25] Don't blame anyone else for anything figure out what your role was in the good situations the bad Situations and and so on and this is like the start of leadership. This is the start of being an effective leader

[00:14:36] I don't know if you want to add to that that definition of extreme ownership No, you know what's interesting is I had somebody asked me the other day speaking of fighting and speaking of leadership I had somebody asked me the other day in terms of jujitsu

[00:14:49] What is like the first advancement that you could make in? Leadership like what's the first step so in in jujitsu you get like your white belt and

[00:15:01] That's the first thing you do is you get a white belt and he said, you know, what's the what's the most fundamental basic thing? That's gonna help you in leadership

[00:15:10] and I said the first thing is and this is very similar to jujitsu because in jujitsu people might say Hey, what's the hardest belt to get in jujitsu and

[00:15:18] The hardest belt to get jujitsu people think oh, it's the black belt because you have to train for ten years But actually the hardest belt to get in jujitsu is the white belt. It's actually starting to do jujitsu

[00:15:28] That's the hardest one. You've got to put your ego aside You've got to have discipline You've got to be able to step onto that map for the first time and be vulnerable and know that you're gonna get choked out

[00:15:36] That takes a lot of courage and it takes a lot of humility to do that with leadership Similar to what you're saying right now the first step and the most powerful step is when you look around and

[00:15:49] All the problems that you have in your business all the problems that you have with your team all the problems that you have In your life with your family and you say to yourself all these problems are because of me

[00:16:01] And that's the hardest step to take but it's as you pointed out the most powerful The most powerful attitude that you can have is this is my fault I'm gonna take extreme ownership and I'm gonna get things fixed

[00:16:15] It's so true like I remember telling you this story then when we very first discussed extreme ownership. This is back in 2001 Someone was really encouraging me to sue my stockbroker

[00:16:28] And my friend was saying look everyone's suing their stockbroker and they're getting settlements and you lost all this money You should sue your stockbroker and I remember thinking there is no way

[00:16:39] I'm gonna do that because even though at that moment. I was like dead broke and suffering and depressed I Was not gonna move past this moment if I just depended on a lawsuit Against my friend, you know who's my who was my broker? You know

[00:16:57] If I was depending on that to save me rather than really learning and understanding that I made serious mistakes and Learning from them and moving past that I would never get past that. I just had this

[00:17:07] Instinct about but I didn't have words to describe what I was feeling until your book extreme ownership came out Which was again such a great book one of my one of my core books that I recommend people How could people sue their stockbrokers? What were they claiming?

[00:17:20] They're claiming the stockbroker said it was okay or not giving them the guidance to help them manage risk properly which Who knows right? Until 2001 you never I never knew you could sue your stockbroker

[00:17:32] It just became like a thing that happened after the internet bust, but there was no way I was Going to do that like I couldn't I couldn't do it And you know I find I mean you obviously when you think of leadership

[00:17:43] You think in terms of teams and groups but as an individual let's say you're a jujitsu fighter and You know it's you versus one other person in the ring and I don't know you slipped and fell

[00:17:55] You can either blame bad luck while you lost or you could take ownership And I find a lot of people in competitive situations even on an individual level blame bad luck rather than ownership Yeah, there's no doubt about it

[00:18:07] And then you're left with no recourse because if I am in a fight and I slip and fall And I say well I just slipped I don't change anything

[00:18:14] But if I say you know what I slipped and fell what kind of strategy that I have why didn't I take into account? My balance I need to work do some more drills on my balance. I need to practice when I am off balance

[00:18:25] I need to change what kind of footwear I'm wearing to make sure I don't slip like there's actually things that I can do If I take ownership if I don't take ownership I just shrugged my shoulders and keep going and nothing changes

[00:18:36] What do you struggle with taking ownership with now like given that you've written these books given that you have a Company echelon front that advises leaders and companies and so on where do you still struggle? Taking extreme ownership, you know one of the questions that I got asked

[00:19:07] I was actually at a live event in New York City, and I was doing I was recording a podcast live and Someone in the crowd a woman got up and said you know my I think it was her daughter had

[00:19:23] Some kind of horrible cancer some kind of horrible disease And the question was you know, how do I take ownership of that? and What what I answered was and this is What I believe You know clearly there are things in life that you

[00:19:40] That happen to you that you that you literally can't take ownership of I mean your child gets cancer That's you that is not on you that your child gets cancer And what I said was you can't take ownership of what happened in that situation

[00:19:53] But what you can take ownership of is how you're gonna respond to it So what are you gonna do? Are you gonna break down? Are you gonna be? You know a total disaster an emotional disaster or you're gonna be strong. Are you gonna be provide good?

[00:20:07] Role model for your daughter. Are you going to do your best to find the best doctors? You know what what can you do? How can you take ownership of your response? And that's really the best thing that you can do and when you have that attitude

[00:20:20] Then it's not that hard to take ownership of everything That's going on in your world, and I'll give you another example This is one that again catches people off-guard Conducting an operation I was conducting an operation in Iraq and

[00:20:37] We were supposed to take helicopters on this operation. It was a probably about a 250 mile drive or distance so we decided we're gonna take helicopters well As we were you know getting close to the execution timeline

[00:20:53] We there was a massive sandstorm and I don't know if you've ever been to the Middle East, but in Iraq they have legitimate biblical Sandstorms where it is like You are watching a wave of sand hit and when that wave of sand hits you can't see

[00:21:12] Probably 10 feet all satellite communications are down. It's just totally it's it's crazy to watch and And it gets dark it's wild and you watch it come so there was one of those stands sandstorms was predicted and

[00:21:26] So the helicopters were like hey, we're not gonna fly because this sandstorm and For me it was like okay, Roger that We're gonna take our vehicles. We already had a backup plan to use our humvees and drive down there

[00:21:40] We had to leave a little bit earlier, but we were still gonna get the job done and for many years You know guys would say oh well we couldn't do this mission because the weather wasn't good and for me

[00:21:49] It was like take ownership of that if you take ownership of the fact that you can't control the weather Well, what you can do is come up with a good backup plan, right?

[00:21:55] You should have contingency plans and everything that you do so that way you are taking ownership So once you have that attitude that you're gonna take ownership of everything that's going on it

[00:22:06] It actually over time becomes a habit and it's a it's a pretty solid habit to have it's a lot less excuses That's really interesting like the power of a backup plan because Yes, I agree with that

[00:22:18] But also it takes a lot of experience to know what sort of situations could come up that you need a backup plan for Yeah, and in that case, you know when I rack 99 percent of the time, you know, it doesn't rain over there

[00:22:28] There's no that well very seldom does it rain So you very seldom do you need a backup plan for the weather when it comes to helicopters except for the fact that helicopters break down Aircrew can't make it, you know things happen

[00:22:40] So we always had a backup plan, but that's just one example, you know, there's there's so many things when you're in a leadership position You know, you're in a leadership position and you've got a team of

[00:22:51] You've got let's say a hundred people at your organization and you own some stores, right? You own some stores and One at one of your stores one of your cashiers is Rude to a customer and the customer writes a bad Yelp review

[00:23:06] And you could say well, you know, it's just one of my cashiers is an idiot You know, that's it. That's not my fault and it's pretty easy to understand that right? It's pretty easy to say well, you know, it's not my fault

[00:23:16] I'm not even I don't even in the store all day and one of the cashiers was rude to a customer will fire him and move on That's not taking ownership at all, right and so therefore you don't change anything and guess what happens in a week later

[00:23:29] Someone else is another cashiers rude to a customer and you have the same problem But if you say oh one of my cashiers was rude to a customer. That's my fault

[00:23:39] As the CEO of this company with a hundred employees. That's my fault from now on I need to make sure I Properly train all my cashiers. I need to make sure that the cashiers understand why it's important

[00:23:50] I need to screen my cashiers a little bit stronger to make sure that they have the right attitude going in there And I need to do some kind of spot checks so that they see that I'm there

[00:23:57] So that they know that they need to treat our customers with respect There's changes that I just made Based on the fact that we had this problem and I took ownership of it now Does this guarantee that I'm never gonna have a rude cashier?

[00:24:09] No, it doesn't but it's definitely gonna improve the situation so again taking ownership is infinitely superior to Shrugging your shoulders or placing blame and saying oh that cashier is just a bad person. Okay. What did you do about it? Is the question right and it's interesting

[00:24:24] And it's actually related to the woman who asked you about how her child had a disease and how can she take extreme ownership of that? Sometimes a cashier might really be a bad cashier and you just simply have to fire them

[00:24:36] But does that mean you throw ownership on them? No, you still have to figure out where the ownership is in yourself Like how do you react to this situation? Do you fire the cashier? Do you train future cashiers better?

[00:24:46] Do you improve the manual and on and on and of course firing might be a solution but but you're still taking ownership of What happens going forward? Yeah, and that's a pretty common question will get as well

[00:24:59] You know if you're working for me James and you're not meeting the standard And I said well, it's my fault. I need to take ownership. So it's my fault I got a train James better so I invest more training in you

[00:25:10] I sit down with you you still can't do the job And so I said what's my fault? I need to take ownership So I get you somebody to mentor you and now you got a mentor that's helping you still can't do the job

[00:25:21] Eventually I have to take ownership of the fact that you are hurting the team and I need to get rid of you Now most of the time we can train people up But there's some people that aren't capable of doing certain jobs. So

[00:25:33] Yes, you're right when you take ownership sometimes taking ownership means you have to get somebody out of a position That could mean demoting them it could be laterally transferring them to a different department or yes, it could mean firing people

[00:25:46] You know, have you been in situations where you fired clients? We have we have fired a couple clients not that many But but a couple times we've fired clients or we've just you know, we usually we just are

[00:26:02] Able to maneuver the situation so that we're not working with them anymore But a couple a couple people along the way, you know, they they're demanding things that don't make sense They lack the humility to make a change. We go through of course when someone doesn't

[00:26:16] Doesn't listen to what we're saying. That's our fault, right? So if I if James if you hire me and you're like well, I don't get it Jockel I say okay, let me think of another way to explain this and you say well, it doesn't make sense to me

[00:26:25] That's my fault. I got to figure out a better way to explain it to you Eventually, I might realize that you are not going to change and I am wasting my time Usually James just FYI

[00:26:38] If you're in that bad of a situation, I'm gonna write you a letter. I'm gonna write you I'm gonna put it in writing what's going on I'm gonna explain it to you and if I ever write you a letter James

[00:26:45] You should listen to what I say because what I'm saying in the letter is correct and whatever Consequences I state in the letter are probably going to happen. So I had a CEO that I was working with

[00:26:55] Who I was trying to help the board brought me in to help I was trying to help this guy and He liked me. We were getting along great But he wasn't listening to what I was saying and I kept

[00:27:09] Asking that he make these changes, you know, he was showing up late to his own meeting showing up showing up late The board meetings he was you know not coming him prepared. He had a flippin attitude And I was telling him listen you you've got to change this

[00:27:24] And you know, he said I really appreciate the feedback but this is not the way it works And so I wrote him a letter and just went line by line. This is what you need to change

[00:27:31] And I said or you're gonna get fired. He said they can't fire me and I said I'm telling you they're gonna fire you and sure enough he got fired So if I write you a letter James, please listen to what I say

[00:27:42] I know now I'm scared like I don't want to open up the mail But you know, I find though, you know, I've dealt with hundreds of companies either as an entrepreneur or as an investor or an advisor and

[00:27:53] I find that bad habits are really hard to get rid of particularly among leaders like they just It's really hard for people to change. Yep. There's for me. There's there's just two things that can happen

[00:28:08] Number one a person can recognize and you this is what you hope for a person Recognizes that they have shortfalls a person has an awakening of some kind And they say, oh, yeah, you know what I get it

[00:28:19] I can see it and that's always my goal when I'm working with a company Or when I'm working with the leadership team is to let them see let them let the truth be revealed to them So I don't have to throw it in their face

[00:28:31] So that's one thing people decide. Oh, yeah, I get it. This was my fault and the other thing You know, unfortunately is like some kind of traumatic incident whether they get fired whether they lose a bunch of money

[00:28:42] And those aren't guarantees either because there's been people that have been fired Like you know or when you lost a lot of money in the stock market, you said to yourself

[00:28:50] It would have been easier for you to say well, you know, I had this bad stock broker and said you said You know what? I made some dumb decisions and I'm not gonna make those decisions again

[00:28:56] So you grew a lot of people they just threw their stock broker and say this wasn't my fault They don't grow at all so usually from my perspective people either have some kind of a traumatic event that that

[00:29:09] Elicits change in them or they have an awakening where they become self-aware of the mistakes that they're making and they start to change But yes barring those two events It is definitely difficult to change people's nature

[00:29:22] And as you know, I got a section in the book leadership strategy and tactics where I talk about utilizing people's nature People have a certain nature to them. Don't don't fight it, you know

[00:29:31] I'm not gonna take you James who's a cerebral guy and put you as my frontline You know prisoner handling combat crew. That's not what I'm doing with you

[00:29:41] No, I'm gonna have you in the back gathering intelligence and assessing things and giving your opinion about what you think the enemy is gonna do I'm not gonna have you out there on the front lines, you know in hand-to-hand combat with a with a sword in your hand

[00:29:53] Doesn't make sense. Yeah, you're just you're telling me. I'm just gonna die if I get transported back in time But that's okay. I think that's what will happen But you know, I like how I mean first off

[00:30:04] Again about your book like what I love the most in this book is the table of contents because I got so excited Reading the table of contents, you know, you talk about the foundations of leadership the core tenants

[00:30:15] I'm just going it down it now the principles, you know, what to do about yes men What to do about when you have imposter syndrome what to do about, you know, you talk more about extreme ownership You know

[00:30:29] The imposter syndrome one is great because that's something I feel all the time You go into the details of maneuvers communication. I mean, this is like a real manual about leadership But there's so many like boring books about leadership

[00:30:42] This is like a real got encyclopedic guide filled with stories and techniques and and tactics it's it's Really this how long did it take you to do this? This is a real big project

[00:30:55] You know, I write about a thousand words an hour and so this book is I don't know 80,000 words so it took me 80 hours to write and you're right It is a feel of so a military field manual is when you need to

[00:31:11] When you need to figure out how to do an assault on a target You can pull out the field manual and it says target assault you follow the instructions and and that's what this book is

[00:31:20] That's what it was meant for that's why the table of contents is very detailed because I wanted people to say Oh, here's a problem. I have right now my boss is weak. What should I do?

[00:31:27] Boom open up the book look up the check the section on weak boss and you can figure out how to maneuver through that and And where a lot of it came from was as I after I wrote extreme ownership and dichotomy leadership and

[00:31:41] Discipline equals freedom field manual after I got done writing those books I'm out working with people and I get asked the same questions right I get asked this question over and over again Hey, my boss is it my boss is indecisive. What should I do?

[00:31:52] Hey, you know next client hey my boss is indecisive. What should I do? Finally? Okay? Here's what I need or my boss a micromanager How should I handle that like get the same questions over and over again and

[00:32:03] What you end up with is a book where I'm actually giving some pretty pragmatic advice on how to on how to lead Yeah, like if I could read some some chapters here You know when to yell at subordinates

[00:32:17] Making an ultimatum as a subordinate dealing with it when an ultimatum is placed on you Taxively delivering the truth balancing praise like there's a lot of like very specific kind of situations

[00:32:29] You know like and and actually was interesting the section on insubordination particularly with your background coming from the Navy SEALs and and military and combat situations and

[00:32:40] There's sort of the obvious which is don't just follow orders because that's how many that's how millions of people have gotten in trouble in the past But how do you in a military situation where you could be kind of executed for treason? Let's say in some situations

[00:32:54] How do you what does it mean to be insubordinate? Listen if you're getting asked to do something that's immoral illegal or unethical You can't do it. You're culpable Just because somebody orders you to do something that's a more immoral illegal or unethical

[00:33:12] You're culpable if you execute on those orders. So That's just a non-starter what what the more common case is is Getting told to do something that doesn't make as much sense or getting told us do something that you think there's a better way

[00:33:25] Or getting told to do something that you think is excessively risky so those are the times where You know, we end up in a situation where we need to raise those questions up the chain of command and

[00:33:37] That's exactly what I did throughout my career was raise earnest questions use Questions to talk to my boss and say hey boss What is the exact outcome you're looking for because I don't think I I don't think I understand it

[00:33:51] And I want to make sure I'm able to execute what it is you want Because when we ask questions of people again instead of us telling them Hey, hey James, you know if you're my boss. Hey James your plan doesn't doesn't make sense

[00:34:03] You're gonna get defensive immediately. I think what do you mean? It doesn't make sense But if I say hey James, I want to make sure I understand your plan fully

[00:34:09] Can you explain to me the end state you're looking for just so I can make sure I can execute it the way you want? Well now you start to explain it with more detail and now if there is something wrong with the plan

[00:34:20] The truth is going to be revealed to you not from me But by you and that makes it much more palatable Now there's also a chance that James you say oh well here's the deal jockel

[00:34:29] Here's why we're doing it this way and here's what's gonna happen and here's the other support We have and I go oh, thank you for explaining it to me And by the way my wall relationship is still strong because I didn't you know throw some

[00:34:39] Some accusatory question that you James your plan doesn't make sense right? I don't want to do that So by asking earnest questions and making sure we understand why we're doing what we're doing you're gonna get either on an understanding or an explanation of okay, I get it or

[00:34:58] Perhaps your boss will say oh, I didn't know that you were gonna be impact I didn't know that your team was gonna have to work You know 60 hours of overtime in order to achieve this goal and that would cost us a lot of money

[00:35:11] It would burn out the team what alternatives do you have and I say well here's a couple things that we thought of so Having a good relationship with your boss being able to have good conversations where you're asking earnest questions where you figure out the why Those are

[00:35:25] Critical to leading up the chain of command. I think I think one way Which in terms of managing upwards like in that situation or even managing downwards with support It's and and one theme that kind of there's a several things that kind of go through this this leadership

[00:35:42] Manual which is that make try to make everyone look good like make the boss the boss has to know you're gonna make Him look good to his boss or her boss or your supporters are gonna know they have a career with you not just being not just

[00:35:57] Robots being given orders. Oh, yeah, take you know, I talk about this in the book as well Take there's a saying in the SEAL teams of of take care of your gear and your gear will take care of you

[00:36:06] And what they mean by that is you take care of your parachute, right? You do the proper maintenance on your parachute and you pack your parachute correctly You take care of your parachute when you pull the ripcord the parachute will open

[00:36:16] You take care of your dive rig so you do the proper maintenance and you set up your dive rig correctly So when you're underwater, you can breathe and it works So you take care of your gear in your gear will take care of you

[00:36:27] Well, it's the same with taking care of your people And you're right that goes up and down the chain of command take care of your people and your people will Take care of you if you take care of your boss

[00:36:36] Your boss will take care of you if you take care of your team your team will take care of you If you take care of your peers your peers will take care of you It's a mutually supporting scenario that you set up and it ends up good

[00:36:46] What if you're in a situation like your boss says hey look I'm just following the orders of my boss and he said ride these helicopters through the sandstorm So we can get to the other side and meet everyone and so we have to do it

[00:37:15] Mm-hmm. What do you do when you're up against like an immovable wall? So this is one of those situations where and we I talk about a little bit in the form of an ultimatum And there's a great example of this. Did you ever see that the TV series?

[00:37:29] Banda Brothers No, I didn't see it so in Banda Brothers. It's a phenomenal mini series It's on HBO and it's about dick winners who is a heretic guy from the 101st Airborne and

[00:37:42] It's like the war they're waiting for the peace treaty like the war is all but over He's got his his battalion and He gets ordered like what you just what you're talking about

[00:37:55] There's a river that they're kind of set up on this river and they get ordered to Cross the river and do reconnaissance and you know, he says to his boss. Hey boss

[00:38:04] I'm not sure if this is good idea. The war is almost over. The boss says nope. You're gonna do it Says okay They go into reconnaissance that night and they get into a gunfight and a guy gets wounded

[00:38:16] Maybe a guy gets killed. I forget the exact scenario, but they come back across the river you know, this is a total waste and Pass the report up the chain of command and the next night the Colonel says the same thing

[00:38:30] Hey, you're gonna do another reconnaissance across the river again Major Winters says hey, this doesn't make any sense. The war is almost over. He says nope You shut up and do what I told you do He says okay, Roger that

[00:38:41] And he goes and he gets with his men and they go into one of the buildings on their side of the river And they just sit down and they drink wine all night

[00:38:50] And the next day they sends up the report. Yep, we did the reconnaissance. We didn't see anything so He disobeys the order Now this is what and again I talk about this in the book if I

[00:39:03] If if Dick Winters would have said no, I refuse to do it. What would the Colonel have done? The Colonel would have fired him And the Colonel would have put someone else in charge that was gonna obey his order and do what he told him to do

[00:39:16] There would be no risk mitigation whatsoever So then they would have gone across the river made maybe lose two or three more guys So what Dick Winters did was tactfully disobey this order now

[00:39:28] You see a lot of cases like this in the military the the book about face Which is a book that I wrote the forward to when this book got re-released But it's it's about a guy named Colonel David Hackworth who fought in the Korean War fought in

[00:39:41] Vietnam War he was a battalion commander he spent like four straight years in Vietnam one of the most decorated soldiers at the time and He got so fed up with the way the war was being fought That he ended up doing an interview

[00:39:56] that he basically said hey, we're gonna lose this war and it was one of the first senior ranking people that Said that from the army. He immediately got fired drummed out of the army and And

[00:40:09] You question whether that was the right move because once he was drummed out of the army He had no more influence and he couldn't mitigate the risk anymore for his troops. He lost all of his influence

[00:40:21] So it is something that you have to carefully weigh. I mean the same thing happened with Mattis, right? You remember General Mattis. He was working for Trump He at a certain point just said I'm not you know, he quit he resigned and

[00:40:33] He was trying to make a statement but You know 24 hours later the news cycle had run its cycle and he was out of the news and now He what didn't have any more influence and so you've got to really think about what you're doing and and think about

[00:40:51] How you're handling this situation? So James if you tell me To take my squad and charge up a hill with a machine gun Nest at the top of the hill and I know if I charge up that hill all my people are gonna die

[00:41:03] And I say I refuse to do it and you just fire me and send someone else up the hill They're all gonna die, but if I say okay James I got it

[00:41:10] I'll take care of it and I go and start going up the hill and we start taking heavy fire And I say you know what we're gonna do a different maneuver. We're gonna call for fire We're gonna get aircraft in here. I can handle it at my level

[00:41:21] Without losing all my influence because I decide that I'm gonna make a stand and and fall on my sword to To protect my ego And also in a way, you know, I think I'm doing my best to protect my troops

[00:41:34] But really in the end how much do I protect him if I just get fired and now I've lost all control and I can't Medigate the situation so this is one of those things that makes leadership so hard is knowing that sometimes

[00:41:46] You've got to do your best to support Are there times where you've got to say hey, I absolutely refuse to do this sure There are times where where you where I would do that if I was getting to do told to do something

[00:41:58] That was immoral illegal unethical or that was just gonna get a bunch of people killed and there was no way to mitigate it Yeah, I'm gonna say look. I'm not doing this

[00:42:07] But in most cases you're getting told to do something. It's not immoral. It's not illegal. It just doesn't make sense so are am I better to stay in my leadership position and Mitigate the risk as much as possible Satisfy what it is the boss wants

[00:42:23] But also mitigate the impact the negative impact to the team. That's probably what I am going to do You know, this is related to your fourth law of combat leadership, which is

[00:42:34] Decentralized command so in an organization where you're given an order and then you have it's up to you to figure out how to fulfill it So that's the decentralized aspect and then you it's easier for you to mitigate risk sometimes though I imagine

[00:42:48] It's not easy to mitigate risk because they kind of have an eye on you They're seeing everything you're doing and whether you're following orders or not and It's a possible to be insubordinate tactfully insubordinate in those situations. I mean, I'm making impossible situations really

[00:43:04] So I you know some point it's gonna be impossible. They're not impossible situations But what kind of relationship do you have with your boss? Right? I've got to have a great relationship with my boss

[00:43:13] How do I do that? I build that relationship over time and I talk about this in the expanded edition, right? I've got a I've got to build trust. I've got to listen to what they say and if I if I give them trust

[00:43:24] They're gonna give me trust if I listen to them They're listening to me if I treat them with respect They're gonna respect me if I allow them to influence me. I'm gonna get influenced over them Right, and if I care about them, they're gonna care about me

[00:43:37] So if I build that relationship those five components of a relationship All of a sudden, you know, my boss is listening to me So if I put myself into a situation James where you're telling me you're my boss and you're telling me to do something

[00:43:50] Let's say we're not not a war situation But you're telling me to do something in a in a company that's gonna lose a bunch of money or a bunch of my people are gonna quit and I can't go back to you and say hey James

[00:44:00] Can I can I just ask you some question about this the expenditure that we're about to make and what it's gonna cost us and what Kind of profitability we're gonna lose because I'm not sure I understand this and you don't say wait a second

[00:44:11] We're gonna lose money or wait a second We're gonna have people quit hold on jocles sit down tell me what's going on. I want to fix it, right? You and I would have to not be aligned and

[00:44:21] In most cases we are aligned because James if you and I have a business and you're my boss What I guarantee we're aligned on a couple topics I guarantee we both want to make money. We want to be profitable

[00:44:32] We want to take care of our customer because that allows us to make money And we want to take care of our team because our team also allows us to make money So if I'm gonna do something that's gonna hurt the team hurt the client and lose money

[00:44:43] Why on earth would you not listen to what I was saying? So let's make sure that we build a relationship up the chain of command and I did have this happen You know, we were ordered to use Iraqi soldiers and conduct operations with Iraqi soldiers and I

[00:45:01] Understood why we were doing that but they actually told us we had to take what was it seven Iraqi soldiers? for every one American and That didn't make sense where we were and I pushed back up the chain of command I explained the situation on the ground

[00:45:15] I explained what the alternatives were and when I did that with my boss my boss said yep No problem. You do what you got to do so it's important that we build a good relationship It's important that we can have good conversations

[00:45:25] It's important that we can ask earnest questions up the chain of command and it is important that we are Aligned because if we're not aligned That's the one time where world will probably have some kind of a failure if you say to me

[00:45:38] You know, Jocko here's what I want you to do and I say hey James That's gonna get a bunch of people killed and you say I don't care about that We have a problem or if I say hey James if you do this to my team

[00:45:49] They're gonna get burned out and they're all gonna quit and you say I don't care if your people quit We're not aligned or if I say hey, we're not gonna make any money on this deal

[00:45:56] If we execute the way you want and you say I don't care about making money Now we're not aligned because I know we can't have a business if we don't make money

[00:46:03] So as long as we're aligned and we can have good conversations and we can put our egos in check Because that's the other thing that kills us right your idea versus my idea and you're the boss and I don't like your idea

[00:46:16] I think my idea is better and I I put a stake in the ground over the fact that I like my idea better than your idea That's something. That's stupid. It's just dumb, right? We don't know what the future is

[00:46:26] We don't know what the market's gonna do. We don't want the enemy is gonna do and yet I'm saying no, this is the way we should do it James. You're out your plan is bad And I can't even articulate why my plan is better than yours

[00:46:38] And then I draw a line in the sand and say I'll never do what you're telling me to do. That's stupid That's stupid and I wonder though like when you know, sometimes there's big egos involved I take a silk on Valley Company where the top of the organization

[00:46:52] they're not only let's say the founder and the boss but there are multi billionaires and the employees Want to please their superiors? And so they might not agree with everything

[00:47:01] But they're kind of afraid for a lot of reasons to complain like maybe they want to it's like your chapter on yesterday Like they want to look eager and ready for the boss so they get promoted and they too can become

[00:47:13] Wealthy like their bosses, you know, how does the leader sort of figure out what's really going on and in the same token How do they avoid the ego of you know, let's say they were a success at the age of 24 and and it kept going

[00:47:26] Yeah, that's something that They're usually Unfortunately going to learn the hard way right when they realized that they didn't listen You know think of how successful you were at certain points, right? And you were thinking hey I can do everything I do everything I touch turns to gold

[00:47:42] Right. Yeah, that's the word. Yeah, and then all of a sudden it's like oh wait a second Maybe I need to put my ego in check a little bit. Maybe I need to listen a little bit more

[00:47:50] That's one thing about combat one of the best things about combats combats very humbling, right? It's very humbling and same thing with the Silicon Valley CEOs like sure You've seen some of them that have done really well But there's some of them that have done really well

[00:48:05] And then they fall apart and they make bad investments or they make bad decisions You know, there's a bunch of series on TV about some of these individuals that have done great But at a certain point their ego takes over and they're not making the best decisions

[00:48:19] They're not listening to anybody else and they make decisions that are bad And they end up destroying their company or destroying their lives and being removed from these companies. So At some point yes humility you have to look in the mirror and say, you know what?

[00:48:35] I'm glad I was able to get the company to this point But we're in uncharted waters. I need to listen to what other people say I mean, these are there's examples of people. They don't listen to their employees never mind their employees

[00:48:46] They don't even listen to their board right their board is asking them to do things and they say oh, we're not gonna do it that way and Again, what do you think that the board wants you to lose money?

[00:48:55] Do you think that the board wants the company to fail? No, the board wants the company to succeed That's why they're giving you this advice So we have to be humble enough to listen and again this this goes back to building relationships

[00:49:06] because one of the best ways to Breakdown the ego is by just having good relationships with people where you go. You know what James James smart guy He's been he's got some lessons learned We're good friends

[00:49:18] I listen to what he says and he listens to what I say and we can come to a good conclusion together But if you and I don't know each other or wear at odds with each other all of a sudden it's your ego against my ego

[00:49:27] I'm not listening to a damn thing that you say James and now I get myself into trouble Yeah, it's interesting about not listening to the board because this gets back to you know CEOs You know because they're they're put in charge or they're the founder of a company

[00:49:42] There's a certain ego that almost has or a certain confidence. Let's say that has to go with that And so they are gonna in general trust their opinion probably more than others

[00:49:52] Particularly if there's not that relationship in place, but I almost choose not to go on boards anymore because so many times I've had to kind of take control of a situation where CEO is I think doing the wrong thing but

[00:50:05] It's my fault. I'm saying that I didn't build the relationship enough so that we would have an open dialogue when things went bad Things were always great There was a great open dialogue when things were going good But like let's say the CEO didn't realize his burn rate

[00:50:18] He was gonna put him out of business and I did realize this from my own experience that there was no way he was gonna Raise money in time

[00:50:24] There sometimes would be painful situations and it's scary you have to take extreme ownership, but also a lot of it is Maybe I didn't build the relationship enough or maybe I had to be harsh at the end Because it was an emergency situation. I don't know

[00:50:38] I would often get into situations where I found out it was hard to really communicate when times were bad because we didn't have enough practice at that and It just became too painful for me to be on boards in many cases

[00:50:50] Yeah, the reason we talk about well the reason we talk about everything everything that I talk about there's a reason I talk about it's beats because human beings have these natural tendencies so one of them is ego and

[00:51:04] especially when it comes to people that are in positions that took a lot of Success to get there so for instance guys in the SEAL teams guys in the SEAL teams the officers in the SEAL teams the leaders in the SEAL teams

[00:51:17] They've been selected. They've gone through this hard training. They've made it through the training they so they've been put in this position and of course that builds their ego up right and they have to have some

[00:51:29] Ego otherwise they wouldn't have even tried same thing with a CEO of a company a startup Who thinks oh I can pull this idea together and I can build this company and then they succeed at it

[00:51:37] And their ego grows even more the reason we talk about ego so much is because we as human beings Especially in leadership positions tend to believe we tend to start to believe That we're great

[00:51:48] We tend to start to believe that that we are unstoppable and that every decision we make is great So that's why we talk about it so much because like you I've seen it bite

[00:51:58] So many people both on the battlefield in business and in life. It's so interesting, you know People well, you know, I'm not gonna let my ego drive that and then you realize there's military history chock full of Decisions that were ego based decisions that ended up getting

[00:52:18] Thousands of people killed sometimes the individual that was making the decision himself got killed because they didn't want to admit That they were wrong so if that can happen if people can literally ride their ego to their death

[00:52:31] It certainly influences the way people think on in as the CEO of a company That's making decisions that thinks you know what I've been right this whole time

[00:52:40] I don't need to listen to anybody else. They just need to believe they need to get on board and it turns out bad And it gets ugly quick

[00:52:47] Yeah, particularly like and you have a chapter on this don't take things personally like if if up and down that the Hierarchy of an organization somebody is taking things personally. It could be very painful Just sort of like a

[00:53:02] Radiation that spreads out like if you know one time on us I was in a situation where an employee was very upset at me I had sold the company and the new ownership You know was was firing people and this person was extremely

[00:53:17] Upset at me and it's very important in those situations and you talk about this in the book It's very important to detach and to really understand what this person is really saying even if they're throwing every insult in the world at you

[00:53:28] And really hitting buttons to try to hurt you you still have to be detached because they're having their human experience in your organization. Yeah, and They're probably right That's why it hurts right that's yeah these things hurt and and I've found so often

[00:53:46] Number one when someone's angry when someone else is emotional what you have to do is listen to them And you got to be careful actually James You can't detach too much where you come into my office and you say

[00:53:57] Choco, I can't believe you did this you sold this company now they're firing everybody and I say, you know, hey James That's business and you need to calm down That is not gonna help our situation again. This is another part of the book reflect and diminish I

[00:54:10] Need to reflect some of your frustration right? I need to show you that yes I understand that you're mad and listen to what you have to say You know when people are mad I listen to them when people are complaining

[00:54:21] I listen to them when people are frustrated. I listen to people say, what do I do when someone's mad? What should I say to him? Don't say anything listen to what they have to say and actually try and find where you agree with them

[00:54:30] Yeah, someone says I can't believe you sold this company now They're firing everybody and you say well, how was I supposed to know? Say you know what you're right. I did not assess that properly

[00:54:40] I didn't think they were gonna cut cost this drastically and now we got to figure out where we're gonna go from here This is on me and it's like hey, I actually listen to what people have to say. That's why I think I'm relatively hard to insult Because

[00:54:55] pretty much when you know you James say to me, you know, you're you're I think you could have done a better job on this book Choco I'm gonna say well, yeah, I actually agree with you. Yeah, I know I think it could have been a little bit longer

[00:55:08] I think there's some areas that could have gone into more detail or you say, you know Hey, Jocko your podcast is too focused on war and I say well, yeah, you know, you're probably right

[00:55:18] I can only relate to so many people so when people want to bring something to my attention or try and insult me I usually they're they're probably right and the more it stings me

[00:55:30] That means the probably more right that they are and it's just a good way to de-escalate things to say to yourself All right. Well James is saying that you know, I was too short. I was too uh, I was too

[00:55:41] Quick in making this decision to sell the company And you know what he's probably right and the more that bothers me the more you're probably right And I probably made too quickly a decision I'm gonna I'm gonna have to frame that and hang it up

[00:55:57] Behind my desk, you're probably right because I probably that is there was the correct response in almost every one of these situations Yeah, so, you know the government is a weird type of organization because unlike a very

[00:56:11] Let's say a company where the founder and CEO brought in the people who brought in the people who brought in the people so it's a very kind of linear

[00:56:20] Type of you know a natural evolution of how of the leadership levels in a company and everybody's kind of supposedly on the same page At least ideally the government is interesting because at the very top level

[00:56:32] You have elected officials who change all the time then at the next level whether it's you know State department officials working in embassies or officers and military They're lifers in many cases. So they go through Democrat republican democrat administrations that are always changing

[00:56:52] And then even lower let's say the difference between An enlisted person and an officer the officer might have just had an education and rotc And then suddenly there are lieutenants somewhere but meanwhile all these people they command have been there forever so

[00:57:08] It seems like a government in particular is like a screwed up type of leadership situation And you see that maybe and how policy is enacted around the world Yeah For sure the way the government has run is is definitely challenging and I and I think

[00:57:25] The longer we kind of continue in this direction The more difficult it's going to become because the more dug in People get around the world that they've created for themselves So, you know, like you mentioned the people that have been in government for 20 30 years 40 years

[00:57:44] They don't they they've got they're gonna keep their little world As pristine and as protected as they can and regardless of who gets elected They have a lot of power to protect their world And I think we're seeing a lot of that

[00:57:59] In a in a bunch of different areas of the government Whether it's the bureaucratic system that runs Healthcare or the bureaucratic system that runs education or the bureaucratic system that runs energy or the bureaucratic

[00:58:11] System that runs defense like all these are big giant bureaucratic systems that are very very difficult to change there's just nepotism there and People are protecting their part of the government. They're protecting their little existence

[00:58:30] And some of this tension is normal, right? Some up tension is good, right? It's The let's say the military People should be saying we need more money and there's a natural tendency a natural tension between

[00:58:44] The energy sector that's saying oh well, we need money too and the environmental sector that's so there's a good natural tension But where the problem comes in Is where is when we lose alignment with the overall mission? and when my little part of the government becomes

[00:59:02] More important and i'm willing to undermine your part of the government to take from you Even though I know it might not be the best for the overall Country and that's where we weren't run into a problem where people aren't willing to say you know what?

[00:59:15] We've spent enough money on this department and we don't need to grow this department any bigger right now Instead there's no one in the government No one in the government ever says you know what my department is big enough and I can actually give up

[00:59:30] No one ever says that in the government all they say is I need more people. I need more money That's what they all say all the time No one ever says hey, we're big enough. I don't need any more people and we can we can lower our budget

[00:59:42] These are words that are not spoken right and that's where you run into a problem They're not doing the best for the overall country They're only trying to look out for their small sector of the government and that that's uh disaster

[00:59:55] Yeah, and and like you said it doesn't really reverse so like ultimately it could take hundreds of years but You know, that's why people are worried about the future of america in some cases because

[01:00:06] You we can't get out of this power power spiral that you know different leaderships take at different times And i'm not even talking about anyone. I mean this has been happening in every single president since john adam so It's

[01:00:21] You know and again, it's it's it's dangerous to predict the end of america a lot of people have lost huge bets doing that And I would never do that but it does seem like it's hard to To

[01:00:34] Reverse process when when the actual mechanics are broken on the inside Yeah, that being said You know just like what we talked earlier about people changing when traumatic events happen

[01:00:45] And I think that's one thing that that america is able to do is when when things get bad enough We make changes and and so look Even though, you know the country is very divided right now

[01:01:00] Even though there's some economic turmoil, you know, we still have basically everyone has an iphone everyone has wi-fi Everyone has food like there's You can't say that things are that bad, right? In fact, they're not, you know a lot of people talk about the divisiveness now

[01:01:16] And first of all we've had an actual freaking civil war where hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people were killed But even in the late 60s early 70s, you know, there was massive divisiveness in the country. There was people there was police officers getting murdered

[01:01:30] There was like 35 or 40 police officers that were executed in that time frame and So it it's yeah, sure It's rough right now But it's not as bad as we often think it is and it's definitely not as bad as the media

[01:01:46] Wants it to be right the media every story you click on from the media is is Catastrophic the sky is falling. That's what happens every day the sky falls if you fall the media, right?

[01:01:56] Every storm is the worst storm ever, you know, we just had this hurricane out in california barely even rained james I was there actually so uh, right i'm like

[01:02:07] I remember thinking oh, I guess if someone just spits on the ground the media calls this a hurricane in california Yeah, I mean there were some play parts that were that were definitely impacted in a big way But overall compared to you know

[01:02:21] A big hurricane that hits the east coast and and causes billions of dollars worth of damage It wasn't even in the ballpark, but that's the way the media reports thing, you know Every everything that happens is catastrophic world-ending because they want you to click on that

[01:02:34] They want to make their money and all it does is exacerbate the emotions of of our fellow countrymen And it's uh, it's a negative thing So I think there'll be a little bit of burnout on that

[01:02:47] I think even right now, I think people are tuning less and less into The mainstream media to find out what's going on because they know that it's just a big hype train of emotions And we're not buying into you know, it's not healthy

[01:03:01] It's not healthy to think that every every day that the world is going to fall apart when the reality is the world's going to be okay Yeah, I think it's I think it's always helpful to hold on to that that we have seen

[01:03:11] extreme conflict like you said in the 1960s and the 1860s was certainly worse than what we're Experiencing right now in terms of national divisiveness And I'm sure there's plenty other times that were were just as divisive and we survived it

[01:03:27] Uh, you know, there's other issues with you know economics and so on but like take take the ukraine situation How and without necessarily revealing or talking about the politics of it. How would you? Again, there's like 20 layers of leadership until you get to

[01:03:44] Weapons being sent to people on the ground like how how do you think you would deal with what's happening in ukraine? Again to me this boils down to relationships, right? What kind of relationships?

[01:03:55] How well do you know the people on the ground that are that are making decisions? and listen if you give weapons And technology To a country they're gonna keep fighting forever, right? Especially when it's their homeland

[01:04:12] So the ukranians, you know, this is their home. They can't they can't give up their home There's this is just not an option for them So they're gonna keep fighting and as long as we keep sending weapons and they think they can

[01:04:23] They can maintain what they've got there's not going to be any compromise They don't have any reason to compromise when they've got an unlimited supply of weapons Now at some point they're going to run out of people too

[01:04:33] And then maybe they'll compromise but what have we what have they been through then a generation of men? Killed is that what it's going to take before they come to the table? So right now, you know, I think

[01:04:45] No one seems to be focused on finding a diplomatic solution And anyone that says to look for a diplomatic solution are often saying well, oh But but russia invaded. Yeah russia invaded that was wrong

[01:04:59] You know, they're gonna get they're gonna get they're gonna get punished for that and they are getting punished for that They're losing a lot of people But we can sit here on the sidelines and keep you know throwing weapons into the into the fight

[01:05:13] So I think we need to use our I think we need to use the leverage behind what we're giving to Get people to start having some serious talks around how to get this thing solved. It's a freaking blood bath over there It's a nightmare

[01:05:28] I know and like it's so cavalier the way people make decisions Where thousands or even tens of thousands of 18 year olds might get killed. It's like a horrible thing Yeah, never mind might get killed. I mean they're getting butchered on both sides right now

[01:05:43] And I mean it's it's it's also very difficult to tell what's really going on over there Because no one can give an accurate report of how many russians can no one can give an app

[01:05:55] Accurate report of how many ukrainians have died. We don't know, you know, some people say it's been over a hundred thousand Several hundred thousand like no one knows they can't even give an accurate number So you're right. This is what I do know An 18 year old kid

[01:06:12] That's a russian kid that's been sent there as a you know as a conscript to go and fight. He doesn't care he doesn't care And a 18 year old ukrainian kid. Yeah, he wants to protect his home, but he doesn't want to die

[01:06:25] And what this is the thing with war War is a test of wills That's what it is. It's a test of wills and It's a test of wills that we didn't know the outcome and that's why we're fighting

[01:06:40] So right now who has the stronger will who is willing to sacrifice more of their blood and money Who's willing to sacrifice more that that's what this boils down to and there's only one way to know and that's when one side gives up

[01:06:55] You know, we made this tragic mistake in vietnam We thought that if we can kill 100 vietnamese soldiers for every one of our soldiers that dies will win But we but and we did that was what the kill ratio was like that was like a hundred to one sometimes

[01:07:14] 150 to one when you look at the overall casualties in the war We killed hundreds of them for every one american that they killed But guess what? They didn't care They had the will it was their country They had the will to sacrifice And we didn't

[01:07:32] But but you know, you're right though likely you look at the republican debate one side says um, you know, you can't let a murderer Invade a sovereign country and the other side says People are dying so we got to stop this

[01:07:45] But both sides are making sense right they both are You know have their have their huge groups that agree with either side and And it makes it complicated because on the one hand it seems sort of naive to say well, I'm not going to support any war because

[01:08:02] Death and on the other side is look you can't let dictators have their way or else You know all your allies will will get destroyed And so it's really like this gray area where it's hard to know what to do

[01:08:16] Yeah, but what you do need to do is you need to talk and you need to figure out what the compromise is going to be You you have to figure out some kind of a compromise And until you figure out some kind of a compromise

[01:08:26] There's going to continue to be a bloodbath and just like anything you have to put the egos aside And and that's what makes this really difficult. You know you look at the donbas region Stolen bass region is like 95 russian speaking people ethnic russians and

[01:08:43] That was sort of the You know the the kremia like there's a bunch of things that weigh in here But what is where are we willing to compromise and at what point, you know at what point have you taken enough damage? You know when I say hey james

[01:08:58] You have to do what I tell you to do. I'm going to cut off one of your fingers And you say no i'm not going to do it so I cut off one of your fingers

[01:09:04] And then I say no you have to do what I tell you to do or else i'm going to cut off another one of your fingers Eventually you say okay I'll come to here

[01:09:11] Don't cut off any more of my fingers. We make a deal right? That's what we have to do By the way, I want something from you james right? That's why i'm threatening you

[01:09:19] I'm going to cut off your finger unless you give me this amount of money and at a certain point You know what you say, you know what jockel find here's the money you can have I couldn't give you you know five million

[01:09:28] But I can give you two million and this leaves me with you know Seven fingers left and that's that's where i'm good. I don't want to give up any more fingers. We make a deal

[01:09:39] And listen, I wanted five million. I don't get it. You wanted all your fingers. You don't get it You don't get all your fingers. I don't get all the money I want we have to make a compromise Otherwise guess what happens? I cut off all your fingers

[01:09:52] You can't even pay me anymore because you can't make that money because you have no ability to and now we all lose So you got to come up with a compromise in these situations and And the idea of no compromise

[01:10:07] It only works if we are going to do total war Which means we have to fight everybody Which doesn't make any sense because who's well you have to keep feeding in the weapons and keep spending the money

[01:10:18] Because like you say it's not going to end as long as everybody keeps feeding weapons into it Yep I mean we could I mean they could literally kill all the ukrainian men. I mean There's less humans. There's less military age males in ukraine

[01:10:31] And right we could keep giving them weapons until they're all dead So let me ask you this like here now you've written all of these excellent books on leadership like hopefully these are books are taught in In the leadership class for generations to come

[01:10:46] and you but you do an excellent podcast about war and you know enormous amount about and you're constantly learning about The history of war current wars war strategies, you know Fighting strategies and so on

[01:11:00] Why don't you do your next book on the topic of war and and get a voice in this arena? Well, I'm actually already very close to done with the draft of my next book So it's it and you look all my books are somewhat about war

[01:11:17] But well they use war as examples and and use those to see those examples to teach about leadership But you don't really kind of go in there wait in and say, okay This is what we're doing

[01:11:28] This is different from how we did it in vietnam or world war two or these other situations around the world So here's how maybe we should consider things like you don't really dive into uh the the

[01:11:39] The current situation. Yeah, so one thing that I've been slow rolling on and Is a series of podcasts of why we lost these wars Hmm why'd we lose in korea? Why do we lose in vietnam

[01:11:56] Why'd we lose in iraq? Why did we lose in afghanistan? Why are we losing these wars and there's a bunch of reasons? And you know I'm gonna talk about them. Um But one of the one of the key components

[01:12:12] Is that we have not ever lost a war that we needed to win We we only lose wars that we don't need to win And so that would tell you very quickly don't get into wars that you don't need to win

[01:12:29] Don't get into wars that you don't need to win If you don't need to be in the war if you don't need to win the war don't be in the war because you're not willing to make the sacrifice

[01:12:37] You're not willing to make the sacrifice. So why do it? And we go into wars that we don't need to win all the time Yeah, that's interesting. I never thought about that way. Are there any wars we didn't need to win that we won?

[01:12:50] Oh, sure. If you end up, you know, we went into granada. We we you know, we're in and out there pretty quick The first iraq war we didn't need to win it, but we went with overwhelming power

[01:12:59] We you can win just like you can win fights that you don't need to win Right because you're just stronger and you can overpower your opponent But if it turns into a brawl and you don't really need to win it

[01:13:12] And you look the bell rings in the 12th round and it's and it's gonna go on for unlimited rounds Around the 12th round, you say, you know what? I'm not doing this anymore and you don't come out. You don't answer the bell

[01:13:24] You have made enough sacrifice and you don't you don't need to win it. So you walk away And that's what we've done. We don't need to win these wars. So we walk away It's it's a terrible situation to get yourself into

[01:13:37] Yeah, and even even this ukraine thing. It's really unclear What our involvement is what we're trying to win on either side russia or ukraine and You know, it's just a confusing thing Yeah, and I mean russia is not the soviet union

[01:13:56] Russia is not communist look prudent might not be the nicest guy in the world, but That's that that's not the government that we fought the cold war against it's a different group of people

[01:14:09] It's it's many of them from the same thread, but they're not running communism. That's not what they're doing So it's a it's it's definitely a tough situation and certainly that's a war that ukraine needs to win

[01:14:22] And you could also say it's a war that russia needs to win probably not as bad as ukraine So when it comes to a test of wills, it's most likely the ukranians that will prevail

[01:14:32] from a test of wills except for the fact that this is a war of attrition And this the russians have more people And you know if you and I had two companies

[01:14:45] And we were your company you you were a well capitalized company and I didn't have as much money as you did Even though I really wanted to beat you And it all came down to advertising you could outspend me on advertising and you're gonna win

[01:15:00] Great and the good the good thing about companies is that there it's not like you're protecting specific land and real estate like you could Outmaneuver In your own way so when you're smaller that gives you some advantages over the entities that are bigger

[01:15:14] And you could play on you could sort of define the playing ground when you're in a company in a commercial situation Yeah, you can say okay. I'm not going to sell all the books in the world

[01:15:22] But I'm gonna be a content media company about military history and sell books podcasts whatever and that's what you do Yep, and and that's how you fight amazon. Yeah, and it's interesting because the ukranians are doing a lot of

[01:15:36] And we've kind of suckered them into this the ukranians are doing a lot of conventional warfare You know you see them running around in trenches Um instead of doing unconventional warfare And it's going to be tough to beat this so beat the russians in conventional warfare

[01:15:51] But that's we'll be an example of unconventional warfare here unconventional warfare is guerrilla warfare unconventional warfare is you know snipers sneak attacks Uh ied like it's what we fought against in vietnam. It's what we fought against in iraq. It's what we fought against in afghanistan

[01:16:07] We're fighting against unconventional warfare And it makes it very difficult for a large conventional force to achieve victory And yet somehow the ukranians have gotten suckered into going toe-to-toe Attrition warfare in many cases against the russians, which is not a good move

[01:16:28] So what why aren't they doing at least a little bit of both like why aren't they doing the ied's and sniper and so on they're definitely doing some but I just i'm not sure why they haven't done that yet. It also it's because it requires It requires humility

[01:16:48] Because what you have to do is you have to give some land up what you have to do is you have to run away What you have to do is you have to sucker punch people It's It's very counter ego

[01:17:01] It's interesting like like think of a gulf war two iraq when we it was very confusing when we actually got into iraq in whatever it was 2002 because no one was there or 2003 I forget what year now, but

[01:17:15] Yeah, so but no one was there. We got into bagged that and like everybody had left And so That's something that a country has to be willing to do now at the time

[01:17:23] We thought we didn't know if this was a good strategy or bad strategy for them. It turned out to be Actually, I don't even know what the final outcome of that strategy was given what happened. Yeah, well what happened there was

[01:17:34] We disbanded the entire iraqi military instead of saying all right you guys lost now We're gonna put you to work Instead we disbanded them all we put them all out of jobs It was just we made a bunch of really bad decisions

[01:17:46] And it's because we hadn't thought through things the way we should have Yeah, and so that's so this is what makes me worried about The state of things in the long run is that it seems like we keep

[01:17:57] Varying towards worse and worse decisions both on a military level and economic level You know Dealing with this pandemic and and so on like the major decisions that affect the lives of everyone It seems like we're just trending towards bad decision making

[01:18:12] Yes, we are doing a lot of dumb things globally and nationally in america at this time. You are correct So so so given that I a I hope people read your book and I'm gonna I'm gonna Say the title again. I'm always

[01:18:30] This happens to me every single podcast. I can never I'm always afraid. I'm going to say the title wrong leadership strategy intact because field manual expanded edition There you go And second final thing is I want to ask you if I were to just drink jaco creatine

[01:18:44] You know, you have all these supplements out there I saw an ad for jaco creatine the other day if I was just to just drink it or use it Without doing a workout. What happens? What does creatine do if you don't like burn it off in a workout?

[01:18:55] Well, one thing that's good is they found recently that Creatine is not only good for being stronger. It also helps your mental acuity helps your cognitive growth So it's a good supplement to take all around not just for the physical effects

[01:19:10] Okay, I didn't know that it won't have a bad effect if you're not like burning it off through working out Oh, no, not at all. No, it's definitely it's definitely good for you on on multiple levels

[01:19:19] I'm gonna have to try some some jaco creatine. I'm gonna order today order it up. You could use it. I'm telling you All right, well, thanks so much jaco Thanks once again, and I look forward to the next time you come on the podcast

[01:19:31] Hopefully hopefully we'll do it in person again right on man. Looking forward to a good scene you as well