This is Joo podcast number 28 with Echo Charles and me Joo Willink He was a mate A real good mate He was a friendly sort of fella Liked a joke And if it had to happen it’s a shame it had to happen to such a decent bloke But ah fair dinkham Don’t it make you wonder what God in heaven’s thinking about up there? The way he chooses who to sacrifice To me it doesn’t quite seem fair You’d think he’d want a bloke to take a bloke like me who’d be no loss to no one here on earth But no he always seems to pick the best whose life amounts to 10 times what mine’s worth Now there’s a sort of aching here inside I can’t quite put my finger on what’s wrong but a soldier can’t afford to feel this way He’s got to grit his teeth and carry on So how’s a bloke supposed to deal with this? I know they train me well I can’t complain But this is something you don’t learn about when they teach you how to play the soldiers game They teach you how to shoot and how to kill You even learn which enemy to hate But nowhere in their training do you learn how to live with the loss of a real good mate Good evening Echo Good evening Good evening That is an excerpt from a poem called He Was a Mate by a man named Lacklin Irvine who’s an Australian guy served in Vietnam as part of the three RAR the third battalion Royal Australian Regiment And you know you look at the Vietnam War and there was definitely some major advances in terms of technology because they had now things like helicopters and better radios and they had the beginning of night vision and they had jets and better communication But even with all those technological changes the basic principles of combat remain the same They always do cover and move keep things simple prioritize and execute decentralize command But in addition to those technological changes there was differences now with the people Obviously in Vietnam there was a massive anti-war movement in America and around the world And in America a lot of the troops were drafties Now this is something I have to explain all the time and I’ve explained it on here before and that is that SEALs and soldiers and Marines are not robots They’re people And even though SEALs for instance have always been a volunteer force Today all the military in the US is all volunteers They’re still freethinking individuals They’re people They’re humans And you have to lead them But what’s interesting is when you look at the leadership principles used to effectively lead troops today it’s the same leadership principles to effectively lead the drafties in Vietnam drafties or volunteers conventional forces or special operators or civilian teams in companies and organization The fundamental leadership principles used to actually lead They do not change at their core And there’s a great example of this And again we’re going back to a guy by the name of Colonel David Hackworth who wrote about face We’ve talked about him before on this podcast That book is it’s actually my favorite book of any category but definitely within the realm of combat and combat leadership about Face by David Hackworth Colonel David Hackworth is at the top of my list But he actually went into even more detail about one particular episode of his career and that was when he took over a battalion in Vietnam that was in pretty rough shape And he wrote about that particular experience in more detail in a book called Steal My Soldiers Hearts And it is about the the subtitle is the hopeless to hardcore transformation of US Army fourth battalion 39th Infantry in Vietnam Then let’s go ahead and jump on in Three times before 1969 I’d made the same 18-hour trip across the Pacific to Southeast Asia Nothing had changed The plane was full of FNGs new guys 19 and 20 year olds pink chickd drymouthed wideeyed eager but scared One more load of fresh meat for the Vietnam grinder I couldn’t help wondering which one of them the KIA Travel Bureau would be bagging up for their return trip home Even the lucky ones the ones who made it out alive would never be the same And he talks about arriving So he gets to Vietnam and he talks about arriving in in in the headquarters guy named General Ule’s headquarters And you’ve heard me talk about this before about how some of the bases in Iraq they were really really nice all built up They had Starbucks on them They had swimming pools They had nice gyms They had movie theaters on bases in Iraq I know it it sounds crazy for people that didn’t go there but that’s what America does We have awesome logistics We have awesome support We have a really wellfunded And you know what? We’re gonna build a big base over there We’re gonna make it pretty nice And it’s the same thing here that Hackworth rolls into in in Vietnam And here we go back to the book I walked off the pad and jumped into a jeep with a kid behind its wheel waiting to run me over to General Ule’s headquarters The ride was an eye openener Nearly 10 000 rear echelon ramps to the grunts out on the line were stationed in Dong Tam surrounded by all the creature comforts I saw a miniature golf course and a swimming pool I caught a glimpse inside a barracks decked out with clean beds under mosquito nets These guys pulled down the same combat pay as the soldiers in the bush who lived in the mud watched their feet rot burning leeches out of their crotches and laying down their lives So that’s a common term is remp comes from Vietnam rear echelon Obviously Leif and I named our business Echelon Front cuz we wanted to be that we wanted to be perfectly clear to everybody that we were not talking about leadership from the rear We were talking about leadership from the front So Hackworth goes in he spends a half an hour with uh General Ule and he kind of gets told what’s what and then he he kind of gives his assessment of what he’s heard He says “Pragmatically I could do nothing about the chain of command and the tactical operational stupidity of Dong Tam I’d be out of Ulesules and Hunts eyesight soon enough and worrying about how to how combat operations were being handled from above was a waste of time at best and got men killed at worst There would be ways around that “ The reason I highlighted that paragraph is because a lot of times I get asked questions from from troopers out there that say “Hey you know I got this issue with my boss My boss is doing this My boss is doing that ” This is what I try and tell them Look it doesn’t really matter You know you got to get out there in the field and you make some space and then you execute how you execute You know I’m not saying you’re going to disobey but people can’t control you And as long as you’re accomplishing the miss and you’re finding the best way to do it you’re going to be fine So don’t get all caught up in exactly what the boss is saying Let’s figure out what the spirit of what the boss is saying Let’s see what they want to get accomplished and then you go out and make it happen Because no boss should be telling you something that’s completely out of sync with what your goals are I mean damn sure in the military you shouldn’t be getting told something like “Hey get your guys killed or give up sensitive information or lose the war ” No one’s going to tell you to do that They’re going to tell you to keep your guys alive They’re going to tell you to make progress on the battlefield So when you get that sort of when you when you pull that commander’s intent out of people and you know what it is that they want you to accomplish go forward and accomplish it Don’t get all caught up in the little details that you might not agree with They’re not going to make that big of a difference out there Now as I as I said this this book is actually about the transformation of the fourth battalion 39th Infantry So he he’s flying out and he talked about this about in about face and we actually cover it on the podcast This is a little bit more detail So it I find it I find it to be more uh cover some details that’s needed But he’s flying out to this battalion which really was having a hard time And the guy brought him in The general brought him in because they knew that that Hackworth was a hard ass and that he was a good performer that he if anyone could get this battalion turned around it would be him So they brought him out there So now he flies out and this is his his first impression of the base where he’s heading When I landed I couldn’t believe my eyes or nose The whole base smelled of raw and rotting morale Toilet paper blew across the chopper pad Machine gun ammo was buried in the mud And troops wandered around like zombies Their weapons gone red with rust These were the sloppiest American soldiers I’d ever seen Bar none Unckempt unwashed unshaven Their uniforms ragged and dirty Hippie beads dangling alongside their dog tags Their helmets covered with graffiti Not exactly what you’re looking for in a good squared away military organization Now one of the guys that he brings in he brings in one of his guys to be the senior enlisted there to be his his command sergeant major And it’s a guy named Robert Press And here’s what he says about about Robert Press We’d also served together in the States as well as in Vietnam Our partnership went all the way back to the same unit during Korea Lean and mean press would be my new battalion sergeant major the non-com’s chief ass kicker and new role model You get a you get a good impression of what that guy’s like This is a this is a gunny highway scenario And here’s what press had to say about the local about about the troops I this is this is from press I looked around and seen no one wearing helmets no one carrying their weapons Everybody in the CP that’s a command post group was sleeping above ground Sleeping above ground means if they get bombed they’re going to get killed I didn’t see a foxhole anywhere Sir this outfit stinks worse than we thought So that’s their first impression going into this obviously bad bad situation Again these are drafties and it’s even I got to keep reminding myself myself that too because the whole time I was in the military was all volunteer military and sure you get some slackers and some knuckleheads but at least people had volunteered at some point to be there These people are being pulled against their I mean I think you’re a better better example of this than me Ekko Ekko imagine when you were 18 years old I mean when I was 18 years old I was already signed up I was in Imagine when you were 18 years old and them coming to you Where were you when you were 18? In the University of Hawaii Yes Playing football Yes Now what if they came to you and said “Hey Ekko you got to go to You have to go in the military You’re going to Vietnam How would how would you feel about that?” Yeah No Yeah It’d be rough Yeah Yeah and and you as a disciplined football player that’s an athlete you’re going to be 10 steps above someone that’s you know out on the streets of you know hate Ashberry smoking dope Yeah But that’s who these people were It’s a cross-section of America Mhm So sure you would get some kids that were getting drafted from you know Iowa a farm kid that’s like “Hey it’s my turn to fight I’m going to go do it ” And then you’re going to get you know you’re going to get every cross-section Yeah that’s the worst when you just don’t want to be there Then every word out of like someone telling you what to do or something that you know that you got to go do man Everything every little thing Yes And you can’t have that attitude You you have to shift that Like when I went through officer candidate school officer candidate school is like boot camp but it’s a little longer And I had already been in the in the military for eight years when I went to officer candidate school You know they’re yelling at me about the way my underwear is folded and yelling at me about looking at my food when I’m eating and yelling at me about my about my socks not being rolled up right So I’m a grown man been in the Seal teams for like eight years at this point and this happening You know what I did? Loved it Said “Oh really? My underwear is not measured 4×4 in when it’s folded up I will correct that now and make it 4×4 in ” Yeah Yeah cuz deep down could you kind of recognize the value that this is this is somehow valuable in my goal But man if you’re there against your will and they’re like do this or whatever I don’t even want to be here You also like you like I made it into a game right? I made it into a game that I played with my full intention of winning right? You know for instance they make you yell everything at officer candidates school You have to yell every word that you say with the drill instructors or with your friends or whoever and it’s not your friends but with the other candidates you had to yell everything They call it a ballistic tone And so I made everyone yell one cuz I was the class president I made everybody yell 100% of the time So for instance the upper classman had a little closet that they would sell food out of you know candy bars and sodas right? And we had to line up if we wanted to buy something So I I told all my people you know you when you go in there you m you maintain your ballistic voice at all times So they’re so my whole class lines up and they’re going in and everyone is yelling at the top of their lungs like “I will take one Coca-Cola and one Snickers bar please sir ” And it it took about 10 people going through and finally the upper classmen came out and they said “Hey you guys when you come in here don’t be ballistic ” And of course I said “Request permission to speak You guys are not maintaining the standard of officer candidate school We are supposed to maintain ballistic tone at all times ” And they just were looking at me like they wanted to kill me but they couldn’t say anything because I was correct So that’s the kind of thing And and and that was a victory for my class you know cuz I was the upper classman That was like a cool victory for the class And everyone was all laughing and fired up you know like we’re going to be so perfect that people are going to get angry with us So that that’s what I did Uh now going back to the book here he kicks this one off This is directly out of about phase two there and it’s also well this one says there are no bad troops just bad officers in the in the book Extreme Ownership by Leif and I We have a little chapter in there called no bad teams only bad leaders So it’s the same thing and that axiom goes back to Napoleon who said you know no bad regiments only bad colonels or something along those lines So then he talks a little bit about the guy that was previously in command a guy by the name of Colonel Lark and that’s a pseudonym So but here we go After 6 months under Colonel Lark the 439th had suffered the equivalent of nearly 40% casualties without ever meeting a significant enemy force in open combat Rockets mortars booby traps and friendly fire had done most of the damage That’s same thing in Iraq That’s what most people were facing in Iraq rockers rockets mortars booby traps which is IEDs friendly fire That’s where you’re getting most of your casualties from Of course in Iraq it was mostly IEDs but then mortars rockets and then you get your gunfights You know blue on blue definitely makes up a section not a huge section And but of course obviously it’s something that that we experienced Back to the book here All armies prefer high ground to low and sunny places to dark Sun Soo wrote over 2500 years ago “Low ground is not only damp and unhealthy but also disadvantageous for fighting If you are careful of your men and camp on hard ground your army will be free from disease of every every kind and this will spell victory “ I don’t think General West Morland or the US commanders running the war in Vietnam knew Sun Sue from Sunny and Sher And here he talks about what the damaging effects were of being in the low ground In just 48 hours in soaking jungle boots foot rot set in Mosquitoes zapped them with malaria Leeches sucked onto their balls and even up dicks and morale vaporized before Charlie fired one shot Luckily we’ve covered Sun Su on here So no nobody that’s listening to the podcast is ever going to be out there thinking without thinking about the basic principles that Sun Soo taught Most of the 439th soldiers knew that each time they took a step they risked the ugliest of wounds A bullet makes a hole A chunk of shrapnel may take off an arm but a mine turns a soldier into a splattered shrapnel punctured basket case Many troopers in the battalion had concluded that waging war consisted of crossing a field hitting a mind calling for a medic patching up the wounded getting a medevac then moving out again and hitting another mine They also did the math and figured out that not many of them would be lucky enough to make it through 365 days it took to rotate home It’s a horrible view of war You know what we’re going to do? We’re going to walk around in the bush until we hit a mine Some of us are going to get blown up We’re going to call into medevac We’re going to get them out of there the best we can if they’re not dead And then we’re going to keep walking until it happens again Back to the book The wounds were vicious Young men blinded legs and arms and dicks and balls ripped off bodies punctured with dozens of bleeding holes For the VC mines and booby traps were economy of force weapons easy to deploy cheap to produce Besides causing heavy casualties they produ produced a lot of psychological stress Soldiers never knew when they would lose a foot a leg or a life And the frustrating part was there were few ways to fight back because who you gonna fight against? The bomb goes off There’s no one there It’s it’s it’s a victim activated IED which means you stepped on a pressure plate or you pulled a trip wire Something that you did made it blow up There’s no one to There’s no one to fight against no one to shoot back at Yeah The tally of back to the book the tally of needless death in the 439th was well established before Colonel Lark took command Lark’s immediate predecessor a gung-ho lieutenant colonel drove the troops like endured indentured servants One steamy day a company working its way across a rice patty was plotting through several feet of water and muck While overhead in the command and control chopper the colonel kept screaming “Faster go faster ” It was never going to happen The troops were already moving at max speed In a lather the colonel landed jumping out of his bird He sprinted to a patty dyke and then leapt on top of it to make his point A Supreme Meong Delta no And when the almost instantaneous explosion blew him 20 feet in the air and he died immediately and needlessly the ultimate ego trip I was told the grunts cheered So the reason I I highlighted that is because when we start talking about Hackworth and what he does you’re going to see that he’s going to like the terms he uses here is uh gung-ho lieutenant drove the troops right? You’re going to hear You’re going to hear Hackworth doing the same thing but there’s a difference in the way that he does it He understands what he’s doing He’s not just doing it out of ego and out of pressing the guys for no particular reason And then the other side of the spectrum you get this guy Lark When Lark took command he knew that he had to turn things around and he worked hard to do so But with zero combat experience and not enough time with the troops his good intentions meant less than nothing Even the basics were ignored He wore an army green baseball cap instead of a steel pot Really cool except that the troops who followed his model and neglected their helmets wound up in Doc Holly’s surgery with their brains running down their necks He was a he was into good guy fratonizing to build morale a well-intentioned notion but it made for bad news in the field So you see the two extremes You get the the super hardcore guy that’s just a maniac pushing everyone hard You must do what I say And then you then the next guy comes in He’s on the other end of the spectrum Hey I’m everybody’s buddy Let’s you know don’t worry about wearing a helmet Hey I know I know that thing’s uncomfortable Yeah Lark sent his a company on a three-day sweep of a woodline completely empty of VC But a Hochi men wet dream of booby traps and mines That was the day Sergeant Tom Aken lost 17 of the 29 in his platoon without hearing a single shot All we were doing was tripping booby traps he recalls his voice trembling slightly There wasn’t enemy any There wasn’t any enemy in there No gooks at all We knew it But Colonel Lark kept saying “Sweep the woodline Sweep the woodline ” More than 30 years later Akin made a list of the men in his platoon killed under Lark’s command When he finished writing it his wife asked him “How could you remember all those names after all these years?” His answer was simple “How could I forget them?” Now here’s another incident that takes place just before Hackworth arrives and takes over The VC had planted an Americanmade claymore mine alongside the road The world blew up suddenly in smoke and fire Evans recalls in Doc Platoon Medic that’s another book His blood and guts memoir of life with the 439th A wall of supersonic steel balls blasted the passengers shredding metal and flesh From the bush rockets swooshed down lifting the jeep and trailer up into an expanding fireball that tossed mangled soldiers all over the road Automatic gunfire stitched every square foot of the road as those few gis still able to ma made a run for an adjacent water-filled ditch Those left behind screamed and wailed and cried out They crawled and pulled themselves around in the middle of the road like crushed bugs with limbs and pieces of their bodies missing Teddy Creech used his elbows to claw his way across the road like a mangled worm His hands were mutilated beyond recognition His leg had been severed from the hip except for a tether of bloody skin and flesh The jagged end of the detached bone kept digging into the road and staking him in place He fumbled out his knife and in the way that a trapped animal will gnaw off his own foot in order to escape cut himself free of his own leg Richard Forte lay with a bullet hole in his belly His bloated gut signaled heavy internal bleeding His face was the color of old ivory That’s something I’ve seen before where someone’s gut shot There’s not a lot of blood coming out of them but you can see their their stomach starts to fill up because they’re internally bleeding and they turn super pale because it’s like they’re bleeding out but there’s bleeding inside of their own stomach and it’s really obvious what’s happening to them Back to the book It’s all right I’m okay Doc He groaned Doc the others they need you Go help my buddies Doc Where did the army get such men? Evans wondered thinking of other others when they themselves were dying And what did they get in return? The VC picked us off one by one he recalls One by one day after day The 439th was helpless and demoralized against a superior army of ghosts that could do to us what it wished So that’s the situation that the 439th was in Just an absolute disaster And can you imagine what the morale is like day after day? You’re going out as we just said going out walking through the bush just in order to get blown up So that is when Hackworth comes in to take over And here’s the here’s the situation when he comes to take command A scraggly bunch of battalion soldiers assembled for the change of command ceremony Undisiplined and dispirited wondering what was going to happen to them next They stood like characters in a police lineup where every participant was a perp with silver blades gleaming in the sun A flock of brightly simonized Hueies dropped from the skies over Dizzy Dizzy is the the area where they’re staying One by one starched army brass with an entourage of photographers strutdded across the LZ General Ule leading the way Their fatigues pressed their sleeves precisely rolled up above their elbows into 4-inch folds Their shoes polished to grade ground perfection To the grunts they must have looked like aliens from outer space I stood soldiers straight and watched those from on high pay absolutely no attention to the assembled troops The men from their battalion their division for them The boys on the line were beside the point More pawns to be ignored It disgusted me In the ninth division the gap between the brass and the grunts looked unbridgegable So if you remember Hackworth was a grunt He he came as an enlisted guy He was a junior army person and he came up through the ranks So when he sees this behavior of these senior leaders which he already knows that they’re back with miniature golf courses and pools and now he sees them show up They’re in their starched camies They’re looking all perfect and they don’t even pay attention to these troopers Even if they were to say “Look you guys look like crap What is wrong with you? Get it together ” Even if they were to say that at least it’d be it’d be recognition Yeah but to just ignore them So he takes over and he says “Time for shock therapy ” As I as planned I fired the incompetent S3 that’s the operations officer and the heavy drop battalion sergeant on the spot and replaced them with Bumstead and Press Those one of the guys I talked about earlier Press and bumps That’s one of uh Hackworth’s other kind of prodigies A thousand other changes needed to be made but I didn’t want to bury the company commanders or our staff on the first day together If I ordered all shortcomings squared away immediately I’d have sent these leaders into overload blown all their circuits No one would have gotten anything right So I approached this conversation from slackness to soldiering the same way I’d train a pup Just a few tricks at a time Starting now Starting now We’re going to follow the two rule plan I said I’ll tell you what the two new rules are and you make them happen Once your troops have mastered the first two rules we’ll add two more and we’ll keep doing that until we’re squared away First we’ll crawl then we’ll walk and then we’ll run Just stay with me because we’re going to run faster and faster every day They shot me a prove it look So you can see Hack is going into a little prioritize and execute right? He knows that people can’t he’s not going to change everything immediately He’s got to do it in some steps And that’s the same thing you do with any any situation that you face where you got multiple problems that are that you’re looking at You can’t you can’t change them all at once You can’t fix them all at once You pick the biggest problems You start with those And here he’s starting to establish himself and his men and his and his leadership team as to what their attitude was with the troops A few days later after finding a very small soldier who told me his feet were killing him because he couldn’t get any boots to fit him They were all too big I had a little conversation with the good S4 S4 is the supply elements uh in the military in the army Hack went ballistic Johnson recalls He chewed out his chain of command from his squad leader to his company commander and then he got a hold of me He made it very clear that I better get that man a pair of boots or all kinds of horrible things were going to happen to me The army did not make a men’s boot small enough to fit this little guy We scavenged the country and found a pair of women’s boots that fit the bill This taught us all an important lesson that Hack cared for the lowest of soldiers and he expected his commanders and staff to damn well look after them This is how hack goes on a campaign to change people The little things build up Now he’s continuing He’s starting to tighten things up more I finished my first session with a set of orders that stunned the commanders Here’s the drill I told him we’re shrinking the perimeter tonight I want you to recon your new positions When it gets dark each company will pull back You’ll maintain your old positions with half your force and by midnight I want those holes filled in I want nothing left that the enemy can use particularly holes that the VC can hop into if they attack All your people will be at 100% stand ready to fight in the new positions by midnight I expect total light and noise discipline Remember nothing happens other than reconing until after dark You’ve got to you’ve got to always remember that the enem is out there in the bush watching our every move And he’s always looking for a weak spot to knock your stiff and close down the show You call me at midnight from the new positions Midnight Understood The commanders went out to brief their troops My orders went down like an iron kite Preparing a fighting position is hard sweaty work Moving a fighting position is even more of a because you have to fill in the old hole before digging in again It sucks in any circumstances They hated my guts And now he does the same thing with his with the with the leadership element which works in the what’s called the talk the tactical operations center He says “And all the talk personnel regardless of rank were ordered to dig in individual foxholes around it They’d live there when not on duty My talk order had a two-fold purpose Having a bunkered command post made it much harder for Charlie to take out the battalion openter with a one well-directed round which remarkably he hadn’t already done And if Charlie hammered the battalion with incoming fire or penetrated our outer line we’d have an inner perimeter of staff weenies to hold off the enemy while we fought the good fight and calleding supporting fires Plus the staff would be setting a positive example for all the line soldiers We’d live exactly like the grunts We’d sleep on the ground like Stonewall Jackson did during the Civil War No one would have a plush deal anymore common theme We’ve heard that one before Then that night so after they pull their perimeter back and they’ve ch basically changed their positions to what the enemy saw during the day During the day the enemy saw where they were Once the once it got dark they moved to new positions They dug in They filled in their old holes Night comes and guess what? They get attacked Mortar rounds recoilless life rifle rifle fire machine gun fire and RPG rounds screamed in Chum Roberts recalls Then all hell broke loose Strobe lights they had just become an SOP at Hacks Commander meeting that afternoon flipped on around the perimeter The VC were hitting us hard but we were ready now Wow I thought stay close to this guy and you’ll be all right Then another guy that hack overheard as they’re getting this attack and they survive it and they do well No one gets injured he hears a guy say he’s a mean son of a but he knows what he’s doing Again this is part of the campaign Dawn back to the book Dawn was breaking and press walked the perimeter Sir some of the troops are saying that you have your together he reported They’re talking about how you pulled them back Maybe I’d made a few converts that night but I knew I was a long way from convincing the grunts that they could hit Charlie harder than he was hitting them Over the next four weeks I talked to every swinging dick in the battalion I told all the soldiers all the sergeants all the lieutenants and captains in each platoon and company what was expected of them and why we were going to be the best So so just to reiterate what he just did he’s going around and personally talking to all the leadership and all the soldiers everyone Personally talking to them all and telling them what was expected of them and why they were going to be the best This stuff just doesn’t happen You have to make it happen when you’re in a leadership position Back to the book When I spoke to the troops I promised I’d take care of their butts and be right out there with them when things got hot I wanted to get it into their heads that by stealing a page from the enemy’s book we could take the war to Charlie rather than waiting for him to strike Now he talks a little bit about the VC He says the VC were very detailed planners but strict adherence to their plan was also their Achilles heel they almost always stuck to the scenario even when things turned to So that’s great You’re a good planner That’s great You came up with a really solid plan But when things start going sideways and you maintain that plan you don’t make any adaptations you’re going to get crushed And that was he’s saying is the VC’s biggest weak weakness I also had our all our leaders read a pamphlet of combat rules and tips from articles I’d written that I put together as the battalion combat leaders guide I wanted them to get in their heads both how Charlie fought and and thought and how I fought and thought I wanted to build an offensive team to make Charlie react to us instead of calling the shots as he was doing all over Vietnam I stressed how we’d find him by being hardcore and agile using stealth and cunning and how we could turn his very own tactics against him And that’s I breezed over this but the other things that he had all his people read was Ma’s little red book which was the the communist you know sort of manifesto about fighting And then Vietnam Primer which is another book that Hackworth put together So he’d have everybody he was he was educating the troops He was educating the leadership not just on how he was going to do things but on how the enemy thought And this is a rehash from about face but let’s just go ahead and rehash it I brought back saluting a sign of military discipline that had been swallowed up by the rice patty mud Then I added a twist When a soldier saluted I required him to sound off with a loud “Hardcore ricondo sir ” To which the officer would reply “No slack “ The salute discipline aside also built unit pride The name Racondo a combination of reconnaissance and infantry doughboy came from the rugged hands-on training of the 101st Airborne Division practiced at Fort Campbell Training modeled after the British Commando and American Ranger courses Hank Emerson had named the first brigade the Racondo Brigade to make the unit feel elite like an airborne outfit Hitchhiking on this idea I named the 439th the hardcore Racondos Bob Press hired a machine shop in Saigon to make small black metal Racondo arrowhead pins which the men quickly began wearing We painted the Racondo insignia on the sides of our helmets and on all of our vehicles just below the windshield along with a large white hardcore We painted the same insignia on company and battalion signs at the fire bases and back at our rear area in Dong Tam We also had sharpl looking hardcore Racondo stationary printed up and gave it to the troops and all outgoing mail was stamped with the Raco logo All of this said we’re different We’re not just plain old infantry We’re the best hardcore ricondos We drove the point home that in infantry combat the team the squad platoon and company was the primary instrument and inspiration We stressed pride in itself pride in unit and never let a buddy down Rifle company designations were changed from the conventional alpha bravo charlie and delta to alert battle claymore and dagger which went down as Mickey Mouse until the troops got into it and began to think it was very cool Now that’s something that I completely ripped off emulated stole from Hackworth when when I was a task unit commander And the you know the the designations for the task units are Alpha Bravo Charlie Delta sometimes sometimes delta Usually when I was in it was Alpha Bravo Charlie And so obviously I said uh we’re not going to be Bravo We were assigned the name Bravo but we immediately changed that to Bruiser and then we lived that way Back to the book hardcore soldiers wouldn’t look like bums anymore either They’d shave everyday wear their gear properly and always being camouflaged when on ops And the leaders made it happen by setting the example and being hard but fair This was all viewed as chicken at first And I was considered to quote Doc Holly the original G I Joe lifer sent from hell to burn their hides with fire and brimstone So if you don’t know this lifer the term lifer in the military especially during Vietnam you know that’s the opposite of a draft you know a drafty that does just wants to do his time and get out The opposite of that is a lifer someone that’s totally into it someone that’s totally gung-ho and fired up and they call him the original G I Joe lifer As Claymore Company’s Jim Robertson put it in a February letter to his parents “Our new colonel is nuts It would take a week to tell you all the nutty things he’s done so I’ll make it short Line companies are offering $1 600 for his dead body He won’t last long He’ll get zapped He’s stark raving mad Nobody liked hack Alert companies Tom Aken recalls I remember the guys from B company talking about we’re going to kill the son of a and we’re going to put a bounty on him And I’m telling you the truth if I’ve ever told it in my life I turned around and glanced at one of them said at one of them and I said “I’ll throw in the first $20 ” But each time they saluted they gave themselves a little subconscious commercial of brainwashing that they were hardcore And after a while I knew they’d begin to believe they were the meanest mothers in Vietnam The men of soon to be Hardcore Battalion hadn’t seen anything yet threats or no threats I continued to issue them a daily basic brown shoe army ass kicking and tighten both the discipline and standards more and more Of all the many traits needed to survive and win on the battlefield discipline is number one Without absolute discipline you lose And these guys still had virtually none And again I got to point out that the original remember the original guy that was super hardcore and trying to impose this discipline It’s very similar to what Hack’s doing Very similar The difference being number one he cares about the guys And they just haven’t seen that yet They don’t understand that the discipline that he’s teaching them is going to keep them alive And when they recognize that mentally he knows he’s just got to push that through that point He’s not making them do things just to make him do not he’s not m he’s not using discipline just to be authoritarian and prove that he can make them do it That’s not his goal That’s not what he’s doing He truly is His the reason he’s trying to impose discipline on them is to keep them alive because he cares about those guys Mhm And it it’s going to take a little bit of time for them to recognize it but once they recognize it they’re going to be on board Here’s what he told his uh battalion leaders the the leadership inside the battalion If you take care of your soldiers they’ll take care of you According to Battle Company’s Lieutenant Carl Olsen an OCS drafty who is sharp as a Hinsson custom knife the rules were simple Check weapons check feet show that you care and let the troops know if we get into deep help will be on the way I used every second every day to train and instill discipline beginning with something as basic as making sure every man wore his steel pot and carried his weapons at all times We trained in the fire base We trained on the ambush patrol We trained sweeping a large patch of jungle We trained searching for Charlie I stressed to all the unit leaders that all of the drills must be executed over and over again until they become automatic I wanted these soldiers to roll into a firing position or take counter ambush action even in their sleep Close combat allows little time to think Do it right in training and you’ll do it right when the incoming slugs flash by Training and discipline discipline and training The men groaned and moaned but sacrificing and suffering together gave them pride in taking all that crazy bastard could throw at us as Lieutenant Tyler described it So now you’re starting to get them unified a little bit just in fighting against the man you know against Hackworth Well whether that’s very similar what happens in in boot camp or in officer candidate school the the drill instructor or the drill sergeant sort of becomes the enemy that you’re fighting against You know you want but you want to you want to beat him You don’t want them to find dirt You you want your room to be squared away You want the the platoon to be squared away And so you start to unify as a team But the only reason you’re unifying as a team is because there’s someone to unify against right? And then on purpose kind of Yeah Yeah And then eventually you realize that he’s doing it’s the same thing that that is being talked about here Eventually you realize that he’s doing this to make you a better person and make your unit stronger Yeah Hot chow routine under lark was now a blurred memory from softer days My idea of looking after the troops was not to spoon feed them but to make them as hard as forged steel deadly in their kill or be killed trade Eating sea rations everyone knew could easily everyone knew hot food could easily be flown in made the point better than 10 lectures The ways of the past were over That’s something I didn’t talk about Lark would fly would have hot food delivered on a daily basis and there’s risk and there’d be convoys that would get blown up and Hackworth no we’re going to eat field food The ways of the past were over Stay alert and stay alive You can’t make a unit proud by praising it And you can’t make a soldier proud by telling him how tough or good he is That’s superficial stuff No pain no gain They had to earn it The standard was perfection And not just for the grunts All the battalion support personnel cooks clerks supply drivers were to be soldiers first Important stuff Your unit doesn’t become good just by you telling them that they’re good Mhm In fact I always think that sets them back You’re good to go Oh you’re doing great But they get that little bit of satisfaction there They get the satisfaction and their ego starts to think I’m doing great right? I’m doing great Yeah I don’t need to train as hard Right Even just for one day you know take I’m doing great I’m ahead of the game A little day off over here Yeah Yeah Not good plan Regardless of my heavy schedule I made sure to talk to every replacement to welcome them to the hardcore before they went out to their units At night I’d come back from operations late and Sergeant Major Press would have the replacements assembled and waiting I stretched to each new man how important he was how important it was to follow the basic fundamentals of the infantrymen’s trade With the zeal of evangelist all hardcore leaders drilled into new guys that when they joined the hardcore they were joining a special brotherhood I made the code for the these leaders simple and clear Fight smart Never be in a hurry Lead from upfront Set the examples Take care of the truth before you take care of yourself Keep the good commo going Follow the Vietnam primer and the battalion combat leader guide That’s it Simple clear instructions for his leadership Many combat vets come to think they know it all and start taking shortcuts They blow off the basics and neglect the little things that keep them alive because they get cocky or think it’s better for their men’s morale They build a fire at dusk smoke at night walk on trails don’t carry their weapons goof off on security don’t safe their grenades or weapons wear mosquito repellent on ambush or patrol don’t send out flank security on operations Shortcuts get you killed The troops continued to but that changed when they saw the tough love was for real One day Mner one of his leadership One day Mner saw a soldier wearing jungle boots with the toes worn out and immediately gave him his own a pair of his own which happened to be the right size The story spread like wildfire Finally someone cared Not long afterward Mner went down in the CNC chopper to pick up a wounded soldier a soldier wounded by a mine As the medic slipped the wounded man on the chopper floor he looked up at Mner grinned saluted and said “Hardcore ricondo sir ” A new gung-ho attitude started to take hold And that’s the opening of the book And then you get into the combat that they went through which was just a great great stories and lessons you can learn from understanding the tactics that they use the leadership the pressure situations that they went through And it’s definitely a book that you should get and read so you can absorb all that information But I’m going to go to the end of the book to the afterward and it’s something that Hack wrote basically right right after he had got done right right after he got done being the battalion commander and he’d led him through a bunch of combat He changed them from the the hopeless to the hardcore It’s a fantra fantastic display of leadership and it’s you know it’s like the boat crew story in in our book you know when the when they change the boat crews from the boat crew 6 team is in the last place on all the races and and boat crew 2 is winning all the races and they just switch the leaders and all of a sudden boat crew 6 starts winning the races It’s the same thing here You have a battalion that’s horrible That’s the one of the worst It’s got the worst record in Vietnam And sure enough you put in a new leader and they become the best battalion in Vietnam Leadership is the most important thing on the battlefield So from those from that experience he goes into this I could never figure out army logic The command of an infantry or tank platoon is the most demanding and dangerous job in the armed forces Yet the army’s senior brass consistently fail to recognize this reality and provide lieutenants with practical hands-on training they need As a result platoon too frequently wind up under their command of under the command of the least qualified most inexperienced leaders in the military The average infantry lieutenant who joined hardcore in 1969 was simply not prepared to lead a rifle platoon Because the army’s approach to training had failed to ready him for the reality of combat in Vietnam he was extremely weak in troop leading practical knowledge and small unit combat operations and was almost without actual field experience The old saying good judgment comes from experience and experience is gained from bad judgment was certainly applicable in the hardcore And this is something that if you’re a leader in a leadership position you have to let your subordinates lead and you have to let them exercise their judgment and you’ve got to let them see the consequences of bad judgment If you don’t they’re never going to learn Back to the book Besides technical and tactical incompetence the next biggest shortcomings of new infantry leader replacements were a failure to be demanding and a reluctance to ensure that their men carried out the basics that would keep them alive on the battlefield Lack of discipline One of the reasons for these deficiencies was that many of the social values were diametrically opposed to what’s expected of a combat leader To take a single case in point I had to constantly deal with a civilian instilled value that drastically conflicts with the combat leadership principle popularity By the time these young men entered the army they’d been brainwashed for at least 20 years about the importance of being a nice guy After four years of college ROC or military academy training or about a year of basic infantry and OCS they were supposed to be well-prepared leaders who always placed the welfare of their troops just below the accomplishment of the mission Wrong The average new lieutenant who joined the hardcore had an almost Pavlovian instinct for being popular So the definition of welfare was up for grabs because he had to be a good guy He’d become a joiner instead of an enforcer instead of a leader Become part of the pack You need to step up and be a leader In Vietnam good guys let their people smoke at night and take portable radios to the field Good guys allowed night ambushes to be set up in abandoned hooches so they wouldn’t get wet and left only one guard by the door so everyone else could get a good night’s rest They let their men leaves their boots on for several days and didn’t inspect their feet resulting in immersion foot They didn’t make sure their men kept their weapons and magazines perfectly clean or protected themselves against mosquitoes or took the required material uh malaria pills good guy lieutenants ended up killing their men with kindness And you got to ask yourself even I mean this is you know we’re talking about combat here but if you’re in a leadership position in a business and you’re not helping your troops by enforcing by teaching by holding the line by disciplining them If you’re in charge of a group of people and you’re not doing that you’re they’re not going to perform the way they’re supposed to perform They’re not going to then that means your business isn’t going to perform the way your business is supposed to perform that means your business is going to go down So you’re actually going to take the job away from the person because you’re not going to be able to afford to pay them anymore So because you didn’t hold the line because you wanted to be nice because you wanted to be a good guy you’re you’re actually doing the worst thing for them you’re killing them with kindness Right Is that kind of like how how you said um something about your kids like if I’m helping them if I’m helping them I’m hurting them Right Right That’s very similar Yeah Cuz if you’re if you’re letting your let’s say you got sales people and you say “Oh you know what? Don’t worry about making some phone calls today “ You know what? I don’t want to push you too hard Would you rather just go for lunch with me? Would that be nice? Would that make me a good guy? What should they What should you be doing if you’re a good leader? You should be saying “Look get on the phone You got bills to pay You got a mortgage to pay? You got kids you want to send to college? Get on the phone and start dialing Make it happen Let’s go Let’s do this “ Mhm Are you are you a better leader if you do that or if you go let’s just go ahead and go to lunch Yeah Yeah I understand you’re not in the mood I know how that feels Yeah Let’s go eat lunch and have a Yeah that’s a great a great twist on that term of killing people with kindness Cuz I actually use that you know when someone’s being a jerk What should you do? I always say yeah you know kill them with kindness And I literally mean it But this is a different way of doing it Yeah Yeah Yeah It’s obviously a whole different thing It’s just the same phrase Yeah While the back to the book While the run-of-the-mill lieutenants had a vague idea of what was required he didn’t have the experience or good sense to enforce the rules When push came to shove he preferred to turn his head the other way rather than come down hard on slackers He overlooked deficiencies such as dirty weapons and ammunition improperly safe weapons and grenade incorrect camouflage technique and the improper use of terrain not using natural cover to provide protection from small arms fire And without an asskicking company skipper or demanding NCO the soldiers habits became sloppier and sloppier carelessness ruled And of course the result was casualties that could have been prevented had the lieutenant demanded the small things be done well My own experience has been that soldiers in combat will do only what’s required of them under weak nice guy leadership they’ll try to get away with everything they can violate every basic rule in the book At the same time because they know they’re wrong and that this behavior is placing their lives in jeopardy they’ll respond to the demands of a positive asskicking leader The result will be fewer casualties and developing respect for the leader who cares enough for his men to make them do it right So that’s important to think about This is not Some people hear this kind of talk that I’m saying and all of a sudden they want to turn into a super hyperaggressive person that’s going berserk on everybody and trying to enforce every little um every little order and every little discipline so hard that it it breaks the guys down And again that’s why that’s why I focused on that in the beginning That guy the first guy was super hardcore You could imagine that he probably had people saluting him in the field too He probably you know was hey you come to attention when I walk in the room He was probably super hardcore on stuff but it was stuff that didn’t matter Yeah It wasn’t the important stuff Mhm And so there’s a fine line and he makes a great a great point here of pointing out that your troops they know what’s right They know that you’re there to help them They’re going to take the easiest way possible But when you actually step up and lead and you explain to them why this is important and you explain to them why this is why this is going to keep them alive and why it’s going to make the company more successful then you will actually get traction and you will get loyalty Cuz when you keep these guys alive they become loyal to you When you get your salesperson to to sell more and do more they’re going to be loyal to you When you get your manufacturing team to produce more and do it faster they’re because you push them a little bit harder they’re going to respect you They’re going to thank you Y they’re going to follow you Yep Yeah It’s that that’s um that’s real clear there When when you show them some results they’ll you know they’ll back to that Remember that movie The Boiler Room I brought up before? Yeah So he said he mentioned something along those lines where he’s like show them a small return and they’ll I don’t know I forget what he said like they’ll give you their first born or something like that Same thing You show them just a little bit of results like um like Karate Kid Remember Karate Kid when he’s making them so Yeah Wax on wax off Yeah Yeah He’s making him do that He’s making him sand the floor paint the fence all this stuff He’s mad But he he starts off with a little bit of trust in him you know because he he saw him you know he’s a crowd guy And then when he saw the results he was like “Oh man Mr you know he Mr Miyagi Mr Miyagi was real he was real loyal to him you know ” Exactly Same thing Another back to the book Another serious shortcoming was the failure to teach leaders the importance of supervision and the techniques of supervising The average small unit leader in 1969 seemed to take for granted that his will would be done and that he didn’t have to follow up You got to follow up You got to inspect Especially in the beginning till you get the tone right till people understand what it’s about what you’re about as a leader M the nature of combat in the Meong Delta and how we operated in the hardcore greatly extended this problem because small units normally operate on a widely decentralized basis in bitching terrain This restricted regular visits from the company and battalion leaders prohibiting more experienced senior officers and NCOs from checking the platoon and passing along tips of the trade Without an experienced demanding leader these carelessly led platoon headed for a world of hurt The infrequency of heavy combat compared to World War II or Korea 1950 and 51 and the prevalent all is cool attitude had a tendency to lull soldiers and leaders into a false sense of safety The more alertness and security went slack the greater the danger of an enemy attack became We played right into the enemy’s hands as Sun Soo put it so well when the enemy is weak attack So in World War II in Korea and you know 50 and 51 in Korea they they were fighting so often that everyone knew they had to be squared away Mhm But here you might go sometime you know nothing happened yesterday nothing happened the day before nothing’s happened for the last week Maybe I don’t need to clean my weapon tonight Maybe I don’t need to dig into a new fighting position Maybe I don’t need to wear my body armor You do I had to inculcate the hardcore leaders with the burning need to keep their people alert and never let down their guard I had to instill in them the need to supervise the troops 24 hours a day to make sure that the fighting positions were adequate Soldiers knew the mission the situation and where the LPS were Proper field sanitation was being practiced All battlefield debris was destroyed to deny the enemy a source of supply The troops were all sleeping undercover and protected from first round hits and fire support bases or camps Subordinate leaders were heads up and demanding that their men were alert and tightly controlled and never ending list of the little things Rifle magazines cleaned weapons test fired grenades safed LPS and claymores out sectors of fire known salt tablets malaria pills jungle rot all monitored by the medics standos frequently conducted I had to get every leader to follow this adage The best fertilizer in the world is the boss’s footsteps they make things grow So just I mean that that was just a giant list of all the little things and you know we talked about this when we talked about Cheschna and some of the lessons learned there and how it all started to fall apart for the Russians when the when the guys stopped shaving And this is the same thing that Hackworth is saying You got to hold the line on the little things And I will tell you this you need to hold the line And you need to hold the line by explaining to the troops why it’s important You can’t expect just to say “Hey I told you to clean your weapon “ Because if I’m not coming back for another week you know that you’re going to clean it on the sixth day one time What happens if you get contacted on the fifth day and your weapon’s not working now? So I got to explain to you hey look this is what’s going on This is why it’s important You could get contacted at any time You need to have your weapon ready at all time Most important thing to me Ekko look I want to take you home I want you to get home to your family And the only thing that’s going to keep you alive in a firefight is this weapon you have right here And although we may go 2 days 3 days 5 days 5 weeks without getting in a firefight we don’t know if it’s going to happen in the next 30 seconds So you got to keep that weapon ready so you’re ready at the moment of truth Do you understand what I’m talking about? That’s when you explain people why they’re doing what they’re doing Because now you say that’s going to be back in in the back of your head Yeah You’re going to be thinking like you know what Jaco told me I better get this thing clean This is important right? If I want to stay alive I need to keep this weapon clean Boom Guess what you’re going to do? Break out your field cleaning kit and you’re going to get it done Clean your room Why? Cuz I said so Not going to work Okay Not gonna work Yeah not gonna work You know what? It’ll work for for two days you know Maybe maybe I can do the bare minimum Yeah you might do the bare minimum Slack Yeah just do a little bit But if you explain to people why I mean in your room why you got to clean your room right? You know what? I have guests coming over the our family It needs to be represented Well if you’re looking like a slob and I have one of my clients come by and they see that my own kids can’t be disciplined enough to clean their room and you think they’re going to hire me to come straighten out their company No wrong answer Brush your teeth That’s a big one Get out the rug Get get out the vacuum and get that thing cleaned You know you when you tell your kids go brush your teeth when they’re young you know go brush your teeth They don’t want to brush your teeth Like why? Cuz your teeth will fall out Yeah You got to show them the the nasty dental pictures people that don’t brush their teeth and see how that turns out for them And then you tell them you know that’s what you’re going to look like when they’re 5 years old Then they then they turn into like uh obsessive compulsive teeth brushes So use caution Use the medium level of uh of nasty looking teeth rotten Just the medium level Don’t find the crystal meth people that that have their teeth falling out Don’t show them that It’s a little too extreme They’ll they’ll brush their teeth too much Yeah Just find the cavity situations Or just tell them you know I don’t know Just tell them what that their teeth are going to rot out if they don’t brush The kids are visual most of the time Do you want your teeth to rot out? They’ll say no Yeah Boom Maybe that could work We’ll check out the dental hygienics here in a few years on the on the children’s We’ll make a decision Back to the book The principle was to learn so that we didn’t keep making the same mistakes again and again To do this we copied the VC technique of ruthlessly examining every operation An exercise that was a lot easier for the VC because they weren’t as rigid about rank as we were When rank rules people say yes sir when they should say no way I wanted to instill a particular sert of insubordination Don’t get me wrong when I told the men to do something I wanted it done But I also wanted an atmosphere where no one would be afraid to sound off and speak the truth This is the dichotomy This is the balance you don’t want And even Hackworth as strict as he was and he wanted everyone to do all these keep all these small things he wanted them to have a rebellionistness in them to say you know what Hack I don’t think we’re doing this wrong Or you know what Hack I think that’s the wrong way to do it Or you know what Hack I think you should have pushed us over there or left us back over here Or we’re not going to do this It’s stupid That’s what he wants Mhm And that’s something that a lot of military people have a hard time with because they get offended by someone of junior rank stepping up to them and saying “Hey boss this is wrong ” And you can’t have that attitude You’ve got to welcome and encourage people to check you and test you and question you That’s what you want Yeah Yes When they take it personal Oh yeah That’s pretty much it When they take it personal Yeah Like he stepped to me He didn’t step to like the order or the you know the little scenario that I painted He He stepped to me with it Unacceptable You know ego Check your ego Back to the book After every operation we’d sit down at the squad platoon and company level and work up a detailed critique that spared no harsh words It was “Tom you had your machine gun in the wrong firing position Bill you’re right You’re you triggered the ambush early Hank your go to hell plan sucked War is so simple yet the military school system tries to make it so damn complicated Probably they need to promulgate a mystique in order to protect their turf But the barebones bottom line to winning in battle is simply to sneak up on your opponent and belt the out of him from behind as hard and quickly as you can before he figures out you’re in the neighborhood and then beat it the hell out of there We should train our small units in not in the classroom but in the bush where warriors can be taught the gut fundamentals of infantry combat Raml said the best form of welfare for the troops is first class training for this saves unnecessary casualties First class training means hard work and sacrifice General Bruce Clark’s adage “The more we sweat on the training field the less we bleed on the battlefield ” is one I’ve followed ever since I was a teenager and I’m convinced it keeps the casualty list short Everybody knows those two Does everybody follow them? Not always Not always You see it with the military with police with fire with salespeople Are you putting your troops through realistic training? That’s hard And making them sweat and making them think are you doing that? You need to cadetses and new leaders who show ineptitude and little leadership ability such as that walking atrocity Lieutenant William Calli of the Milelay massacre infamy should be immediately eliminated And I left this in here because this is an important part If you uh William Callie he’s a guy that did horrible massacre at Malai in Vietnam murdered a bunch of civilians Cali was recycled three times at infantry OCS after being found wanting in leadership before finally being commissioned in order to show a low attrition rate to hire headquarters A bad mistake with big consequences So they had a guy they knew he was a weak leader He was showing weak leadership in his position going through officer candidate school And what do they do? They recycle him three times So he failed three times They keep pushing him through keep pushing him through keep pushing through They finally make it through He goes out and commits a horrible atrocity cuz he’s a weak leader You cannot lower the standards More than any major enemy victory the shame and horror of my lay caused the American people to withdraw their support from the war effort Once they saw what Cali had wrought they said “Enough is enough ” In small unit leaders confidence like fear is contagious Troopers can feel it see it and smell it And it will rub off on shoulders from a platoon to a division as quickly as a good rumor rumbles out of the latrine Confidence produces courage Most leaders or soldiers aren’t born with a double basic load of guts The average leaders are as scared as the next guy in their first or 100th firefight But if they are confident that they’re tactically proficient that their unit squared away team motivated by a strong sense of duty to accomplish the mission the courage that’s needed to do what many will view as impossible will be there Mouths may go dry Guts may churn and hands shake but when the slugs start snapping the prepared leader will be as cool on the outside as Clint Eastwood and no one will know he’s really scared out of his brain So if you’re going into combat and you’ve never been there you’re in a leadership position or not you’re nervous it’s okay No big deal Be nervous Do your job Besides being one hell of a job leading men into battle is the ultimate responsibility On the battlefield decisions such as go left or go right or go straight ahead or made in a split second And right or wrong good or bad people get killed Leaders carry the scars of those decisions for the rest of their lives Later battle scenes play back deep into the night like an old movie Why didn’t I wait? Why didn’t I bring in more fire? Why didn’t I go myself? Why didn’t I go to the left? Questions that will haunt the blooded combat leader until he’s 6 feet under Good preparation training knowing your job and attention to detail will keep the nightmares and any casualties to a minimum To be a combat leader in the profession of arms is one of the most noble most deadly jobs going It’s rough and tough and its rewards are few But if at the end of the day the troops say he’s a good man as opposed to he was a nice guy that’s pretty much as good as it gets And I know that’s something that something that I definitely felt through my whole career especially once the war started was I always felt like everything I I need to do everything I can to have these guys ready Everything I can to have these guys ready And when I was in charge of training and I was sending platoon overseas I felt the same way this training is what they’re relying on to keep them alive And do you sit there and look back and say “You know why didn’t I wait? Why didn’t I bring more fire? Why didn’t I go myself? Why didn’t I go to the left?” All those questions Yeah you’re going to have those questions but those questions are quieter if you know that you did everything you can to prepare the guys for the situations that they’re going into This book obviously like like most of the books we bring on here I mean there’s just so many lessons to learn There’s so much knowledge to gain And I mean I wish I wish I would have learned them And you know I think part of it and you you talked about this the other day you were talking about how when you know jiu-jitsu if you know jiu-jitsu then you can you have a certain context that you can learn jiu-jitsu So if you know jiu-jitsu already you can make sense out of things Like you can watch a YouTube video or you can read a book and you can look at it and you can say “Oh okay I I can do that You can you can apply it ” Yeah But if you have no experience with jiu-jitsu you it’s very difficult just to look at a YouTube You can do it but it’s going to take a lot longer because you don’t have the context of the moves And so you’re going to need somebody to show you you’re going to need to experience it yourself so that you can understand it And and that’s one of the things that I kind of think of why people like this podcast and that’s sort of like what I have to offer is I’ve seen a lot of these things from a leadership perspective from being in platoon myself from growing up in the teams and then going into combat and then training platoon and then going into the corporate world and seeing what leadership is like there in the context of that And I think I think one of the reasons that people like this is because I can just sort of help them put these things into context a little bit better and then they can take them and put them into context in their own lives But it’s nice to have that little bit of help but you can do it yourself Everybody has been led You’ve been led by people Most people are have been in some kind of a leadership position even if they’re in charge of one other person or five other people or hundred other people but you’ve either led or you’re being led And so you do have the context to put these things in But you just have to first of all do the work Get the books out open them and read them And then when you read them try and read them from a perspective of balancing or or not balancing but try and read them from the perspective of overlaying your own experiences on top of them And that will that’s what I do I’m trying to kind of explain my process and what my process has been over the past 20 years When I see something I see a leadership situation I overlay my own experiences on top of it and compare and contrast to it So that way I can learn something from it I just don’t sit there and blindly watch a YouTube video about jiu-jitsu without putting context over it Right? So that’s what you got to do with leadership in my opinion So great book Steal My Soldiers Hearts by Colonel David Hackworth And I think we can roll on to questions before we get it all into the interwebs and the questions therein Why don’t you talk about how the interwebs can actually support this podcast? Okay uh ways you can support this podcast and at the same time support yourself which is just uh just as important in my opinion Supplementation on it supplements are the are the best ones by far the only ones I take Yeah Only ones I take only ones you take I recommend Alpha Brain I’m taking some Alpha Brain right this second There you go Boom Proof is in the pudding Alphabrain the uh instant Instant instant All right Fast results are better than slow results No but sometimes you need delayed results for you know anyway Um warrior bars as well I would recommend Mhm Do yourself that favor Big favor Um you can get 10% off Just have a box of Warrior Bars in your house because when you’re hungry and you don’t want to eat something junk you just open up a Warrior Bar and you’re basically eating a a a Snickers bar It’s as good as a Snickers bar if not better And it’s got protein in it Yeah And it’s good for you It’s different though It’s different than a Snickers bar It’s not a dessert Oh that’s because it’s not It’s not disgustingly sweet Yes you’re right It is sweet though Yeah but it’s like a meal sweet You know how like you eat like a teriyak chicken How that’s sweet Yeah But it’s it’s good Bro I’ll tell you what you do You know they used to say just keep a box of worry bar on it has a thing called stay on it and it’s like a you know the recurring one with the Warrior Bars That’s a good call Echo That’s a good call Did you say onit com/joo? Yeah Yeah For the for the 10% off because why pay 0% off when you can pay or pay with 10% off the price Anyway finite com/joo Also another way you can support this podcast is by at times when you’re about to do amazon com shopping go to jockodcast com first click on the Amazon link then go to Amazon and then do some shopping Then Amazon will give us like a little percentage like a referral fee So you buy what you actually need and you support the podcast Yeah And also at jockostore com there’s an Amazon link So boom Yeah Buy what you’re going to buy anyway Just click through there first You can support that way And of course I would say arguably the best way no that’s not the best way but a really good way to support this podcast is go to jaco store com and get a shirt or two or a coffee mug or a bumper sticker if you like stuff Yep There you go Boom Support in one of those ways Appreciate the support Yes very much so Okay question number one How do you relate between SOP which is standard operating procedures and jiu-jitsu training? Could you say that the basics and fundamentals are the SOPs of grappling or something like drilling your specific game? Well so yeah this is this is a pretty actually an obvious question right? Standard operating procedures when you’re talking about those with me yes they exist in business Yes they exist in companies The way companies handle situations for me I’m just going to bring it back to my roots in the military You have standard operating procedures for things You have standard operating procedures for many of the things that you do as a unit or as a team You have the standard way of doing them And what’s good is you drill and just like Hackworth just talked about this you drill those standard operating procedures You train he’s talking about how you train You train this you train this you train that you train the other thing and you keep training it until he says they’re going to roll out of bed in a and be able to react to a combat uh to a to an ambush That’s you react with standard operating procedures So how do you get good at them? You train them and you drill them Now they’re same thing exists inside of grappling Someone starts to mount you you have a standard operating procedures to begin to escape the mount someone starts passing the guard you have or gets past the guard you have a standard operating procedure of the procedure that you’re going to take to get out of there You’re going to get the under hook you’re going to come up to a single You know if someone mounts you you’re going to you know immediately put your elbows in tight maybe try and shift your weight a little bit shift their weight a little bit get their knee light you’re going to try and put them into back in the half guard So these are all little ST If someone starts to arm lock you what are you going to do? You put your weight down on them If they’re trying to arm you lock you from the guard you’re going to have standard operating procedures Just like when you’re on the battlefield you want your team to have standard operating procedures Definitely in grappling you’re going to have standard operating procedures as well that you’re going to use Now the way you get there is by doing repetition That’s through drilling But in both situations you don’t want to have people so strict in drilling that they lose the ability to think you if you have a person that all they ever do is drill in jiu-jitsu they actually won’t be able to apply it re in real life when someone’s trying to resist or when the the technique isn’t exactly what they expected or it’s with a person that has a different body size than what you’re used to dealing with you have to encourage and you have to train for creativity and adaptation Yep Again something that the military can sometimes overlook jiu-jitsu people can sometimes overlook it You have to train for creativity and adaptation So if you’re going to drill don’t just drill the way you think it’s going to be Drill the strange variations that it could possibly be You know you know what else is a good way to do this? You fight using imposed restrictions on yourself So hey the only thing I’m going to submit you in is a um plat Mhm So even if the guillotine’s wide open I got to give that up and throw a pot on you It’s going to make me it’s going to force me to be creative to bring about the different position that’s not so obvious Rolling with different people Better than you worse than you the same as you bigger than you smaller than you taller than you shorter than you every different variation When you’re working standard operating procedures in the field guess what? You want to put yourselves in different positions Mix the squad up Mix the platoon up Put guys in different locations Then you want to get contacted You know what? Contact front contact left contact right contact rear Those are the basics Guess where you’re actually going to get contacted from? You’re going to get contacted from the right rear and at the same time another guy over on the left a little bit So that’s what you want to drill You want to get that creativity working because things are not going to go as you expect them to go So yes standard operating procedures are important in anything that you do in a business but in a business like you have a again we’ve been talking about sales today You have a you have a standard thing that customers are going to say when they call you and you can drill through all the standard responses that you’re going to give them but you also have to drill your people to against a customer that you have no idea that’s acting crazy or that has a point that you’ve never dealt with before You know any of those responses that’s what you want to deal with You’re you’re in any business things are not always going to go perfect the way you want them to go So you got to drill your leadership so they can handle the adaptation that they can be creative and still figure out solutions Yeah So it seems like get good at the SOP stuff Like I know in jiu-jitsu if you just get really good at it at the SOP stuff but instead of practicing SOP in jiu-jitsu just be mindful of SOP re a lot all the time Be mindful of it Yeah And I had a guy on Twitter ask the other day you know hey I’m I’m in the basic I can’t make it to the beginner’s classes so I’m only in the advanced classes and now we’re not drilling anything I’m not making progress Mhm And he’s saying should I keep training brother? Keep training Definitely keep training But I think more important is just you don’t have to you can you can find the time to drill on your own I mean it’s a mount escape Look it up on Google Look it up on YouTube see the mount escape if that’s a basic that you want to work on and then grab your girlfriend and say “Here sit on me like this I’m going to do some movements with my hips It might seem awkward at first but I’m going to do it anyways honey ” And then do it That’s drilling you know Or once you get to class show up to class or stay class a little bit later spend 10 minutes drilling the mount escape 10 Spend five minutes doing arm locks That’s how many arm locks can you do in five minutes? I mean you can do enough to drill Trust me you don’t need to drill for half an hour So just know the movements learn the movements and then just go and and do a little bit of drilling and you’ll get there But even if you didn’t do that and you just rolled and you took the advanced class and you learned the advanced moves eventually you’re going to figure out the other stuff too It’s it’s like being immersed in a language You know just because you went and got immersed in a kindergarten class doesn’t mean you would learn faster than if you got immersed in a in a real life college you know or or open just normal life situation Yeah Yeah It’s true So if you get good at these um standard operating procedures and you can mind them all the time and at the same time like how you’re saying you exercise your creativity then you can you can stick to them But at the same time you can know when to break the rules so to speak you know Well Dean Dean is really good with some of the basic movements Yeah Like he’s really really good in them and he can almost force them Whereas Jeffy Glover he’s really good at the basics too but he he’s more in my mind he’s more apt to do something creative Whereas Dean is like so good with the fundamentals that he doesn’t even have to be creative sometimes Of course he is also very creative That’s why he’s uh you know done so well in the world But both those guys have crazy I mean any not just Dean and Jeff but any really good jiu-jitsu player is going to be awesome at the basics and then they’re going to be creative That’s what makes a jiu-jitsu champion Yep Yep It’s like um actually Jeff has this this drill that he I think he’s got crazy drills I think he just thought it up on the spot too It seemed like he did but I don’t know But it’s it’s basically you he’ll be he’ll be like he’ll he’ll yell out a position then you got to get to that position kind of not the fastest like oh the quickest you can do it physically It’s more like the the with the least steps you know So if you’re like hey half guard now do a knee bar now do or he’ll say a submission he’ll say um a different position He’ll be like half guard now take his back now you know And you have to like how do I take the guys back from half guard and you have to kind of you know so it exercises not only your creativity but thinking fast with it you know so after a while you start to be like oh I didn’t know there was a knee bar from here with only like two steps you know that kind of thing I was like dang I really like that drill and he was like yeah you like yeah and Dean one of Dean’s drills Dean will have Dean does these same thing he’ll just call out but he’ll call out like a leg does it with me with leg positions Yeah He’ll be like you know 411 then outside then kakareo He’ll just go through and we’ll just sit there and do them right? And what’s cool about it too is you get to learn like little defenses Oh yeah Yeah Oh so you’re doing it and you’re defending Not not hardcore defense but you’re making that little adjusty being mindful Yes Yes So yes SOPs learn them drill but be creative Yeah Oh yeah Man it seems like that’s a 100% translation right there like you know that kind of like 100% go to the SOP when in doubt you know you’re in someone’s garden he’s all wild it’s like go to SOP mind your base mind your posture mind your your elbows or whatever is there’s like all these things that are when in doubt you do it it it is a 100% translation it’s 100% yeah that’s crazy next question Joo when does asking for input up and down the chain of command as discussed in episode 26 hinder the leader’s ability to make timely decisions especially when gaining the initiative is critical So yeah this is a question that I asked and I got a uh answer for you TJ who asked the question when you are okay So the situation is a little bit different If you’re in an administrative situation or you’re in a planning situation meaning neither one of those are restricted by time then of course get the input And by getting the input of course you’re first of all your plan becomes better because you’re getting input from people You have more brains working on it You also when you get input you’re building a little bit of a relationship You’re building a relationship the the relationship what are relationships are based on trust and so trust is a requirement inside of leadership So that’s what you want to do If you have the time and it’s an administrative scenario or you got the time to plan then just go ahead and take the time to plan Take the time to get the input Now there are situations where you don’t have time to discuss or debate a decision and there’s you know or times where maybe you have time but it’s going to affect or impact the ability to make an immediate execution which is what often times you’re looking for You want to gain the initiative and sometimes gaining the initiative takes precedence over gaining consensus from everybody and and it takes precedence over coming up with the best possible plan because we want to do the best possible plan But sometimes fast action is going to take precedence over that and Patton said uh something along the lines of a good plan executed now is better than a perfect plan executed sometime next week So what happens is in those situations yeah you’re going to have to make the call You’re going to have to be decisive You’re going to have to make the decision And because you’ve built trust with your team then when you do need to make that call it won’t be that big of a deal and people will execute it Now I’ve told this I’ve said this before You know Leif and I were having a conversation with some of our clients and and as they were kind of talking about the same thing about you know giving people orders and they’re not listening and what do you do? it And and I asked Leif in the middle of thing I said “Hey Leif how many times did I tell you “Hey Leif this is a command I’m telling you to do it I’m ordering you because you work for me Do it now ” And Leif was like “Zero times ” Now that being said that being said although I never in an administrative or in a planning situation ever said “Lif you will do this now I’m ordering you because I am the senior man in the situation In tactical situations where we were in the field and we had to do things we had to make things happen quickly I definitely said things to him and said “Hey go do this now ” Like I would have said you know take that building down over there or hey move the Humvees over here or whatever And he would do it because he knew we didn’t have time to discuss it Now what’s interesting about that is it didn’t just it wasn’t just me that was telling Leif Sometimes Leif was saying to me “Jo get the Humvees moved over here ” Or “Jo you need to get the element up on that high ground over there ” And you know what? We had trust We had a relationship And I did it even though I was senior to him We didn’t care who was senior to who That wasn’t the important thing He saw something He was making a tactical decision I knew he wouldn’t be telling me to do something unless he needed to have it happen right? So if he told me “Hey move the vehicles down the road ” I’d be like “Roger moving “ And and that doesn’t mean that we’re if you take us to a situation where we have the time to debate Like he would call me up and say “Hey Jo I think it might be a good idea to push the vehicles down the road ” Oh why? What’s going on? Well we’re starting to see some movement out in the hinterland over there Okay got it I’m going to track it I’m going to push two vehicles down there Cool Right That’s a normal conversation But if all a sudden there was gunfire and they was like “Push the vehicles down the road to the north ” I’d say “Doing it ” Yeah You know what I mean? So there are definitely times where you don’t want to sit there and sit around and debate and figure out what the best plan is There’s the time where the leader or the follower or the person that has the most vision of the situation needs to make a call and make it happen So again the more the better relationship you have the easier this is going to be because you’re going to have that little mental unification of the commander’s intent and of the task and purpose And you’re going to you’re going to be able to be thinking along the same path And when you’re doing that everything gets a lot a hell of a lot easier So when you got the time to take the input take the input have the debate have the discussion That builds the relationship so that when it comes time to be decisive and give a command you can give it and people react up and down the chain of command without a bunch of hesitation and you can go back later and say “Hey here’s what I was talking about Here’s why we needed to do this “ That’s it Yeah man That that trust is so critical Yeah Like so are you saying build that relationship or whatever? And even at the time where it seems valuable sure trust But it’s times like this where that trust is going to shine even more You know when you can just say to do it you don’t even have to say why to do it cuz you just know you know it’s a good reason Yeah And you know while we’re on this subject I will tell you this as well because the more time you spend if you if I was always giving orders to everyone and not actually discussing I was just ordering everyone to do everything all the time you’re you’re burning up your leadership capital Yeah Like when I you know when we’re out on the field and when I was out in the field with the platoon I seldom gave an order over the radio because I wanted my guys to lead When I did say something the guys would just do it because it was me and they knew that if I was saying it was something that had to be done right? So if I said “Hey everyone get in building 34 now ” Guys hey we’re going to everyone would get there right? Whereas if I was trying to give orders the whole time on every operation on every little thing and every little detail eventually you’re just the the what is it? The boy that cried wolf and you want to give every order and people stop listening to you Even though we’re in the military and even though there’s a chain of command and even though they’re supposed to listen to me you abuse that thing and people will stop listening to you The less you the the more you talk the less people listen And the less you talk the more people listen M so I reserved my actual directives in the field to be the most important things that I needed And if I didn’t have to say it I wouldn’t I would let my troopers lead Let my leaders let my subordinate leadership lead I wanted them to Yeah Quality not quantity Affirmative Next question Many vets are getting out of the military and going back to college myself included or to college for the first time What advice do you have? I like how you’re doing sort of like the newscaster thing when you get done with the question Keeping it together I like that I like that So you’re going to college for the either back to college or been in the military Okay Number one out of the gate crush it That’s what you should do in college You should crush it You should study hard and you should crush it Now uh in order to do that you got to get a mindset cuz guess what you’re going to be thinking when you get out of the military? You be like “Oh this is no big deal ” And “Oh this does this doesn’t matter ” You’re gonna be like “Hey I was in I was in Iraq eight months ago or I was in Afghanistan six months ago and now you’re sitting here telling me to read a book and write down words on a piece of paper This doesn’t matter ” Mhm That’s an easy That’s an easy path to go down It’s pretty easy to say You know why? Because it’s actually true Yeah and what you did in combat has more gravity and more consequence than anything you’re going to do in college And if you want to go down that path and be this stuff doesn’t matter this isn’t important compared to what I’ve done so I’m going to blow it off that’s a path you can go down if you want to I don’t recommend it What I recommend you doing is straight up crushing college That’s what I me recommend you doing How do you do that? Because everybody if you make that decision that you want to crush it if you want to make the decision that you’re going to prove to people that you know what? Yeah I was overseas I was in combat Now I’m coming back and your little games that you’re playing I’m going to beat you in your own games So how do you do that? Number one do the reading that you get assigned Do the assignments that you get tasked with Do everything Let that be your new job these silly little games that they’re play Let that be your job Just like I was talking about OCS When I went to OCS I made that like a game for me that I was gonna win So do that with college And then on top of that make it a game Yes But then on top of that as a deeper commander’s intent make it that you’re going to not just do well there as a game but you’re going to do well so you can get smarter So you can really actually learn information that’s going to make you a better person and give you better ability to dominate in the world That’s what you should be doing in college Now these kids that you’re going to be going to college with they’re not going to have this attitude They’re going to be you know hey what do I need to do to get by? What’s Sally doing tonight? And I’m more concerned about that than I am about going out dominating this course so that I can get an A so that I have knowledge so I can go and crush some some vocation later on in life So don’t just do it as a game You got to play the game a little bit I mean you got to for me I get the game mentality going but I the game mentality is rooted in something deeper And what it’s rooted in is gaining knowledge to be smarter and better as a human Now a couple things about college and the actual tactics techniques and procedures to dominate Cuz when I went to college I did dominate And when I went to high school I did not dominate When I went to high school I didn’t care about high school I was like whatever When can I go in the military? Like when can I go now? So but when I went to college I had a new attitude which was I’m going to dominate I’m in I’m in a battle against these people here I’m going to beat them So this is some of the things that are important Number one college is all about time management getting ahead of the curve because it’s so easy That’s what happens with kids in college That’s why they don’t do well because for the first time there’s no one tracking them No one’s imposing discipline on them You have to have in order to do well in college you have to have self discipline because no one’s going to tell you to start that paper that’s due in six weeks No one’s going to tell you to start it tomorrow Yeah Yep You can just blow it off You can blow it off for five and a half weeks and then you’ve got to write a 30-page paper in two days and it’s going to it’s not going to be quality Yep No one’s going to ask you “Have you done your homework before dinner?” That’s right Whatever So you need to get the time management going You need to get a disciplined time management schedule You need to get ahead of the curve as early as possible Write you know when you want to when a paper’s due a 30-page paper do you need to write it in chunks and it makes it so easy I mean it was a joke when I was going to college I would have my papers completely done like a week out like a week out I would be done with a 30-page paper and then I would just be reviewing it and getting it all completely dialed and I’d turn it in two days early and then move on to the next one Same thing with studying You don’t want to study You you do want to study hard right before the day of the test but you want to have knowledge already absorbed in there So you want to you want to study leading up to that When you do reading that I talked about highlight break out the highlighters That’s what I do in all these books that we’re hammering through right now You know I always I always send out pictures of them They’re all highlighted and marked up and that’s how I’m getting the good information out of them So highlight and then another little trick is to make the flash cards I used to highlight and then I would make flashcards about what I highlighted Yeah Turn everything into a question And then you go through the flash cards and you’re going to you’re going to memorize stuff Yeah Oh here’s a big one This is really obvious but guess what? People don’t know Ask questions Ask questions I used to raise my hand I would sit in the front row First of all in college I sat in the front row I was 20 What was I 20? I think I was 27 or 28 years old going to college I would sit in the front row in the little desk and I look like Arnold Schwarzenegger in like a little kid’s desk I’ then I’d raise my hand all the way up like all the way up over my head and they’d be looking at me you know cuz in college they kind of stop raising their hand but I did it anyways Yeah Just to be be you Just to be Yeah Just just to do it So I’d raise my And but you ask questions cuz guess what? The college kids they don’t ask questions And and guess what? Adults don’t ask questions Why don’t they ask questions? Because they got an ego They don’t want to look stupid right? I don’t care Nope I’m here Oh I’m here to win Exactly Oh I Oh you don’t think I’m smart? Let’s check out the GPA homeboy You know what I’m saying? So ask questions If I And ask questions as soon as that as soon as the knowledge as soon as the understanding train starts to get derailed a little bit ask the question right then Maybe give it maybe give it a minute to see if you can get it back on track by yourself But the minute you realize you’re not understanding raise your hand and say “Hey you know what teacher? I don’t understand that Can you reexlain that?” because I’m not understanding Yeah you don’t want to miss that train You don’t want to miss the train You don’t want it to go too far off course and then you’re just lost So when you feel it coming off try and catch up real quick you know take a look and then just raise your hand Put your hand all the way up in the air Sit in the front row Put your hand all the way up in the air and look at the teacher with with a dead serious face and they’re going to look at you all nervous and be like “Yes “ Yeah Yeah That’s the only when I went to college they called me John because because that’s what the attendance sheet said cuz my real name is John and that’s what the attendance sheet said And so they’d I’d be sitting there and they’d say yes John and I’d say yeah I don’t understand that Could you reexlain it please? Hey when they called you John did that fuel the fire? No not at all It’s it doesn’t matter to me But it’s the only time cuz like I didn’t know these people cuz normally if I’m going to work with someone when I introduce myself I’ll be like hey my name is Choco because that’s what everyone always calls me but these people would have called my name in the attendance and I didn’t want to have this you know adversarial relationship Yes Oh yes John that’s me The other thing is you know do some psychological warfare You know I would line up my pencils I do it on the podcast you boy right here I line up pencils It’s a It’s a It’s also getting into character right? You’re priming yourself I’m priming myself I’m looking at the teacher like I am so ready to take notes that if I have a downed pencil it will not cost me a single letter I’ll be back in the game Oh your contingency pencil Yeah contingency pencils are standing by And then so sit in the front row line up your pencils have your notebooks ready Personally challenge the teacher You wanted to you want your personal challenge to be to pull every piece of knowledge out of them and then go beyond what they know I was I was I was competing with the teachers I was trying to learn more than they actually knew and then they bring their little tests or little exams to you and you just crush them and smash them Now the the thing you got to be careful of here is this can get political M this can get political and if you start being offensive with the way you act if you start rubbing it in their face then guess what? That can affect your grade And part of the game here is to get a good grade So you actually it’s a time for you to start building your relationship building skills time to start building your leadership skills because you’re going to start manipulating the teacher right? You want to make them think that you’re actually super interested in the stupid crap class that they’re teaching I want them to think that Not now Now now some classes you’re going to love and they’re going to you’re going to learn a lot from Mhm Like if you’re into English and you get to take advanced grammar and syntax you’re going to be sitting in there like “Yes this is rocks ” But there’s going to be some classes you don’t want to take But you got to get in there and make your teacher think that you’re super interested and super fired up to learn that thing and that you’re not just interested in the grade but at the same time they got to know that grade’s important to you too So you want to get along with them And again going to college And if you’re a veteran you’re representing all of us out there So you should be going in there and just smashing college And that way we have a better reputation not just for being tough on the battlefield but for being smart and academically sound as well Yeah And in a way if you go to college later you kind of in in this weird way have an advantage because Oh not even a weird way You straight up have an advantage especially after you’ve been in the military Yeah So much man cuz you got the discipline Yeah But the only thing that’ll screw you is if you have the discipline but you don’t apply it because you think “Oh this doesn’t matter This is nothing compared to combat ” That’s what I started off by addressing This is important Yeah You just have to make it important Yeah And you it cuz Okay you pay for college And this is the part that I think Well I know I just couldn’t connect the dots on this No matter how many people said it I just couldn’t connect the dots that you’re going to college It’s worth you know this is it’s all up to you These people are here to give you an education and all this stuff You can do whatever you want to do You don’t even have to choose a major right away You can do whatever you want to do You can have the education to do it And then to me it just didn’t register It just seemed like the same thing as high school except no one was monitoring your grades and there was a way a lot more going on So really it was the same thing You play football you’re one of the cool kids there’s cool parties on the you know and you but the different thing which was better than high school is you had your own place to stay Other people were staying around you that were your peers that were hanging out and didn’t have to go to bed at a certain time So if you’re not that into grades and stuff in high school and you don’t see that clearly like how you would if you’re like 27 28 years old coming back and seeing like the real value of education and colleges and stuff bro all it’s going to look like is just one big party then maybe have some class or something going on during the day I don’t know And then they and you make your own schedule You’re like “Hey choose this class at this time and this ” And you’re like you almost it’s almost like one of the biggest tests in college is if you can pass everything that you just talked about Yeah If you can go and you can get the discipline you can get the time management you can go to the classes you can study the stuff that’s one of the tests in college and military personnel shouldn’t fail that test The only reason they I’m telling you not not I’m sure there’s other reasons but definitely the the fact that they’re not taking it seriously is is what’s going to cost them Oh like like what they’ve been through is like way more impactful than this stuff And you know what? That’s true But again we’re not trying to we we want to win Yeah You know I want you if you’re a veteran and you’re listening to this I want you to dominate And it shouldn’t even be fair I mean honestly when I was going to college it it wasn’t even fair I mean because I was just ahead I was just working I was concentrating I was focused And I was making myself focus Yeah And yeah so that’s what you got to do I remember I had this and you know why uh there’s like you know there’s there’s a smaller classes and there’s lecture classes So I remember in the lectured class it was like criminology or something I happen to be taking and there was this guy front he was basically you except a real like more nerdy type guy Um and he’d be right in the front not like just in the front row right here in front of the teacher And there was like a projector thing that he’d kind of he’s right next to that And man this guy if he had a question boom he was on it He would monopolize the whole class He didn’t care And I’m in there like man this guy is motivated I don’t know why This is his major but he is not ashamed or nothing And so one day we had these um like speeches like you have to like read up on something and then present Yeah I don’t I don’t remember I think I did it Maybe I did it I don’t know I forget But I remember when it was his turn It’s the auditorium so you have a little mic You know teacher had a mic He gives you the mic You say your speech So the this it’s this guy’s turn to go up And the teacher you know gives him the mic He’s like I don’t need that He goes can you guys hear me in the back? And I was like damn this guy knows you know he’s into this thing He gives his speech and he had he might as well have been the teacher this guy And he was an older guy He was maybe you know I’m like 18 years old This guy’s like probably 25 or so Maybe he was a veteran actually Maybe Man it wouldn’t surprise me cuz this guy was there and he was there to win And thinking back as an older guy man I wish I just had that attitude cuz I had the capability man The classes that I liked like I I took a muscularkeeletal anatomy class and I got an A in that one I think I got like 97% and I was pissed like that last 3% But so thinking like really my whole just outlook on that class like I was there but it was a little bit different than yours I was straight up interested in it Yeah No and there was classes that I was straight up interested in too you know and those classes are easier to get through because you like them you enjoy them Yeah But man that attitude of like I’m going to win like whatever Like the test was like this almost a way to just show off how powerful I am This little thing you know? That’s exactly what I That was that was my attitude man You know I I one one thing one more thing I want to add is when I talk about concentrating and focused I would set up the time management You don’t want to try and cuz I know everybody everybody that’s you know been overseas it’s like “Oh I got trouble I have trouble concentrating right?” So so so what you want to do is you want to chunk down your time so you’re not trying to force yourself to concentrate for six straight hours You know you want to hey I’m going to bang out an hour and a half right now and I’m going to get into this and then I’m going to go roll jiu-jitsu and when I come back I’m gonna do another hour and a half and then I’m going to do a workout and I’m going to come back I’m going to do another hour Then I’m going to hang out for a little bit eat some dinner and then I’m going to go and you know finish up and review stuff at the end of the night So that’s just one way to overcome the attention span disorder that we all have of hey I can’t concentrate on this right now One way to overcome that is to try and do stuff for short periods of time Even when I was writing the book I didn’t write for 10 hours at a time I wrote for an hour you know 50 minutes but I did it every day consistently And that’s how you So you want to chunk this stuff down So you don’t have to sit there and focus Sometimes you have to Yeah But you don’t want to have to sit there and and focus on something for six straight hours It’s difficult Yeah man Give yourself a rest how you’re saying like um and this comes from a lack of perspective I mean to not be able to do this or to choose not to do it or whatever It comes from again a lack of perspective that a 18-year-old would have but going back how you can get smarter and understand that you’re using that to be a like more educated better person So if you’re kind of call it gamification what you’re doing I’m going to make this into a game right So use that like okay let’s say I learn about whatever XYZ I’m going to use that what we learned today I’m going to use that like on a like back to a video game where um you know you choose your guy or your okay there’s this game called super you’re going to try and use it in a real scenario you’re going to apply it in real life yeah yeah fully but um like okay there’s a game called super off-road you get a truck and you race and if you win you get these points to add acceleration you get to add turbo boost you get whatever you got to add and you only have so basically you’re doing that so you learn XYZ and think of it Boom Now now I got XYZ in my in my little brain you know? Now I can take on the world with this XYZ I just learned And you just keep it like that That’s actually how I feel when I read now I just learned about that Like boom boom applying to and then now when I get up or whatever I’m like oh shoot I’m kind of like a upgraded person now Now that I know about this That’s what that’s what that’s great That’s a great way of thinking about it College should upgrade you mentally so you have more firepower to use against the world And whether that Yeah And the war of the next class or the next class or whatever Yeah man And that lack of perspective man When you’re 18 you got parties going on You’re the you know you can I think you could probably follow fall into that too But just less likely cuz after come from the military if you had It’s like when you’re 18 you’re pressured to go to college this way After high school everyone sucks You’re saying the military guys could fall into what? Like the trap of like okay but thinking about it not as likely just of like partying and course new environment is just like so seductive you know Yeah Oh absolutely Cuz these military guys they got the GI bill They’re like roll They got a nice car Everyone else is struggling students and they’re pretty much set right? And all of a sudden they’re like “Oh yeah Well you know they know about the world They’ve been around the world They know how to drink and they know how to party really well “ And so they can take a leadership role in partying with other people and they can have a great time And that’s cool But make sure you don’t make sure you upgrade your your truck Yeah While you’re there too Yeah So so you’re more likely when especially when you make the decision kind of on your own to go back Yeah Like like I said when you’re 18 coming out of high school everyone’s talking your parents are talking about it most likely Kids around you like “Hey I got into this college ” And if you’re the guy who’s not going to college unless you have some cool other cool plan or whatever unless unless you just joined the military right? But that’s like another thing you know like they went to the military but what are you doing? And you’re like I better go to college then you know unless you’re going to So you kind of go because you’re expected to go but you don’t have that clarity like if you go go back later Like some people nowadays it’s popular to Well I do think though a lot of military guys that once they’re getting out people say “What you going to do now?” And they go they go “Uh well I’m going to go to college I’m going to use my GI bill ” And they go “Okay “ Yes But they’re going to without a without a focus and without a plan military guys can fall into that trap as well And that’s why I’m hoping that they’re listening to this going “Hey you know what? Absolutely Take advantage of the fact that you’re with a bunch of people and you can hang out and you can party and have a good time but have the discipline that you win Yeah None of it matters That partying doesn’t mean anything if you don’t win every day and make yourself better and come out of there with the ability now to set yourself up for a good life “ Because that’s what college is supposed to do supposed to give you opportunity Yeah that’s what you want is opportunities so that you can take advantage of it Man it’s so true man It’s like I I’m thinking back to any party hangout situation is not serving me at all right now No at all Not one And I think that was like that’s what really got in the way I think and not partying like on this big party cuz it wasn’t the case It’s just the social scene just pulled had way more of a draw than making it to class Of course you know you’re a human being You like social activity Most human beings like that Yeah man Not all of us can sit around and be like “No I do not negative want to speak to other people “ If I went back to college for for you know if I found myself in that situation bro I would be just like how you said you bring your a game I bring my a every single day I wouldn’t literally be you know how like when you train for a tournament Yeah guys are going that’s the last thing I want to do I want to eat right now I want to rest and I can’t wait to get back to training so I can learn some new stuff get in better sh you know so it’s like laser focus you know? Yeah And even if it’s not like focusing on the goal the whole time you’re focusing on winning that day and winning the next day winning this week you know Man that that’s a valuable tool man Valuable advice as well Dig it Next question Can you discuss peer leadership a bit such as during the BOLC which is basic officer leader course in the army? Yeah in the army ranger school or other training environments without a command structure I know you’ve touched on it before and said that it’s pro probably the toughest form of leadership but if you could discuss things that have worked well for you and any tips in these environments So pure leadership and actually whether that’s harder than leading up the chain of command which takes the most amount of nuance and technique and savvy as opposed to peer leadership which definitely takes a lot as well And there’s nothing new here Yeah Nothing new when you’re trying to lead peers Just like when you’re trying to lead up the chain of command you’re trying to lead down the chain of command What are you going to do? Number one you’re going to be humble You’re going to listen You’re going to lead when it’s time to lead You’re going to follow when it’s time to follow Take the hard jobs Work hard Put the priority on the team instead of yourself Accept the blame when things go wrong Give credit away to the team when things go right Keep your ego in check And keeping your ego in check is very important because when it comes to peer leadership this turns into like there’s a little ego struggle going on There’s actually a big ego struggle coming on over the whole time because what peers are actually competing with each other in some form for promotion for authority for recognition So you’re going to want that credit You’re going to want to be recognized And those little things inside your brain if you really want to be a good peer leader you got to let them go You got to let them go You got to stay humble Now for instance when you come up with a plan you can’t get addicted to your plan You can’t think that your plan you can’t impose your plan on your peers You don’t want to do that You want to hear other people out And in fact one way to build leadership credibility is when you become champions of other people’s plans And you go “Man that’s awesome I’ll run with it ” And you take a leadership role with someone else’s plan How cool is that? They actually love you then They say “Man Jaco doesn’t have an ego He’s running with the plan I put out and he’s giving me credit for it ” Of course you’re building leadership leadership uh credit with that person Now so those are all those are challenges right? And you know a lot of that again boils back to ego But the other thing is you got to be mentally nimble when you’re doing peer leadership because you’re going to be constantly shifting back and forth and back and forth and back and forth between the dichotoies of leadership Mhm The things of being aggressive but not being overbearing being a leader and being a follower stepping up and yet not stepping on people’s toes So you got to you got to balance those and you got to be going back and forth between those all the time And that’s what makes that’s what makes peer leadership hard because if you and I are peers if I’m in charge of you then then we know that And so I can kind of I I can be a little bit more inactive in my balancing act because I’m in charge So hey this is what we’re going to do You know I I can be less active in balancing And if same thing if you work for me we know what the roles are You’re leader I’m following It’s that Mhm the other way around I’m I’m leading and you’re following We know what the roles are With a peer it’s just constantly balancing And if I go too strong in one direction I’m going to affect your I’m going to I’m going to offend your ego which is going to make you turn against me which is where all these problems come from Yep So the and the biggest thing about that about that balance is what makes you good at balancing it is knowing that it’s there That’s what gives you the ability to balance is that you know that you are balancing When people don’t know what that they’re balancing that’s when they’re just like “Hey I’m I’m leading I’m stepping up ” So they just lead and everyone goes “Man this guy’s a jerk He has a big ego ” That’s what you don’t want to do But when you know that hey if I’m stepping up to lead right now I need to pay attention to see how people are taking it and make sure that I’m getting the support of people And if I’m not then I’ll go hey Ekko you know you seem to have really good input on how this Why don’t you take this section and lead it? Mhm So people see oh Jaco is not trying to take control of everything He’s not a control freak That’s what you want to make happen Yeah So that is in a nutshell some advice on how to lead in the peer situations Yeah Fully And the you when you first meet someone’s a peer Mhm especially guys guys have this a lot where if they’re even close to being you identity wise like you know within a certain age of you within a certain build of you or whatever Your brain goes into this like real focus mode this small part of your brain and it it wants to make a decision Is this guy my my enemy or my friend? I want one of them I don’t care which one I but I just got to figure out what it is So automatically you feel sense of competition when you see a guy near you in your like environment you know like if you’re you got you go to the gym or you go to jiu-jitsu Like what happens if a new guy walks in and he’s about your size and he walks into the jiu-jitsu Yeah There’s there is an assessment competition Yeah Assessment Oh don’t let him be wearing a black belt Oh that’s even closer to you now Now it’s like okay who’s this guy? You know who’s this guy? And then we got something to settle Yeah But let’s say he rolls up to you and he’s just so nice to you Yeah of course And and then you guys roll He’s good He He gets you Whatever He disarmed me right? But he’s really nice He likes the same football team you like I’m saying he disarmed me right? By saying “Hey man What’s going on? Hey it’s really good to meet you I’ve heard of you Uh I know you train with Dean Listister Dean Listister is like one of the main guys I’ve always liked It’s great to meet you Joo I appreciate you guys letting me come to the gym man love to roll with you sometime you know if if you get the chance just you know I I I know really respect your all’s game right? Yes Exactly Right So boom Now that decision that you like on this primal level have to make You’re like “Okay I I got you You’re my friend You’re my ally ” But you get a guy who only mad dogs you but with other calculations he’s kind of the same as you more or less Yeah If he’s mad at So so now this is the thing to take what you’re saying which is 100% right And folks this isn’t just about jiu-jitsu obviously Right? This is about at life And when you meet a person that comes into your office and they’re a they have a role at their company or within your company or at another company and you’re meeting them for the first time and you know that they’re somewhere equivalent of what you’re they’re an EVP or they’re an SVP or they’re a VP and you know that you are too or they’re a regional manager or whatever the case may be You’re automatically doing an assessment So what do you want to do? Do you want to do you want to bring them to make the friend decision or foe decision? Right Let’s be leaders Yeah And that’s the key right there And create relationships not adversaries Yes Or not adversarial relationships Yes Um plant words obviously but Yeah And the key there how you’re saying is you want them to make the decision that you’re their friend It’s not you’re not saying you make this decision that that’s your friend And you know what else? The just going to ego and insecurities The more secure you are as a person the the easier it is to be nice to them right? Like when someone comes into the gym and they’re mad dogging me it’s not hard for me to be like “Hey man What’s going on? Hey where are you from?” Right Because I know I’ve been training for a long time I know that they’re not going to mop the mat up with me That’s not It’s not going to happen Oh right Right Yes Like cuz I’m I’m confident you know I’m secure I know I’ve been training for a long time If I’m in a business world and I meet someone and I know that they’re might be close to my equivalent Am I insecure where I got to bow up to them and act like a tough guy? No I’m actually confident that what I do is well what I do is good I know I lead a good team I know that I’m solid I know I know my information well I know I’m a hard worker So why am I going to blow up to them? I got I’m not threatened by them It’s no big deal to me Let’s do this Right And yeah and even if you feel those you’re compelled to to kind of have those feelings or to do something to bow up or whatever cuz maybe you are insecure Not everyone’s secure whatever Um just keep it on the inside you know? Don’t behave like that Yeah Exactly Just know that okay I’m feeling this but because when somebody bows up to you when somebody bows up to me I don’t get the feeling that they’re secure and confident and I don’t even get the feeling that they’re good I get the feeling like oh this guy’s protecting something This guy’s hiding something He must not be that good because he’s intimidated by me That’s why he’s bowing up to me If he wasn’t intimidated by me he’d be treating me cool But he is intimidated by me So the tougher you try and act that’s actually to a skilled kind of person that can read people the tougher you try and act the weaker you actually appear Yeah Now if you’re running around intimidating white belts either in the business world or on the jiu-jitsu mat that doesn’t matter because you can win anyways Yep Just don’t be intimidating the white belts Yeah bro All right But yeah make them want to be friends with you That’s a good one I remember that one Okay next question Joo how would you have handled the leadership role in the First World War trench? The trenches In other words seemingly helpless situation This is this is a question that I didn’t even want to answer because it’s just such a brutal question And that’s why I did answer it cuz I I I want to have some brutal questions And I would love to think that I would have stood up like a man and like a hero and done everything in my power to stop the madness and to come up with a new way and protest the futile tactics and raise my hand and say “We’re not doing this sir I will not send my men to their deaths ” I would love to think that that’s what I would have done And I can tell you when when when I was told to do things in Iraq that I thought we shouldn’t be doing I said “Hey you know what? That’s not a good idea Let’s find another way Let’s do something different ” So I know I’ve done that before We got we got we had operations that we looked at and said “You know what? This is not a smart operation there’s a really high risk and there’s very low reward Let’s let’s let’s not do that one Let’s find another way to do it So I know I’ve done that but you take me and you put me in a World War I trench Now we have a different mind I have a different brain And the thing that I’m scared of the thing that haunts me is what if my mind was trapped? What if I couldn’t see the futility of the situation? Because everyone’s saying “No you know what? When we do this attack we’ve done these things and we’ve prepared for it and we’ve got more bombs we’re going to drop We’ve got more artillery This is going to be the one You just need to go over the top one more time ” Or what if I believed that? What if I couldn’t see the solutions in front of me? And that’s what scares me is what if you become so brainwashed and close-minded that you cannot see anymore and you lose your ability to think And that’s why all the time you’re going to hear me say free your mind That’s what I’m talking about Free your mind That is the situation that I am talking about Question what is around you Question the status quo and question the authority and the leadership and your subordinates Question everything in order to make sure that you’re not following a a wellworn path a wellworn path that other people have gone by Maybe it’s a path that you’ve walked before but it’s a well-worn path and it’s a path that leads to suffering and pain and tragedy and you can’t get off the path because your mind is not free So how would I have handled the leadership situation in World War I? I cannot honestly answer that question But the way I try and live and the way I try and think is one with an open mind a free mind that can see that can see different perspectives that can detach from what’s being told to me and I can question it and I can come up with a different solution Free your mind Sound advice It’s a tough question Next question Joo Echo Tough versus smart So wait what is this? Do you think is this like is it better to be tough than smart or just in general? Like Well you just read the question as it was stated It just said topic for podcast tough versus smart And in my opinion I don’t think you need to be tough versus smart I don’t think it needs to be tough or smart I think you need to be tough and smart right? I don’t think those two traits are mutually exclusive at all Mhm And being tough and being smart is actually what we want we you know so when we think of tough I think we think of using for instance using blunt force to solve a problem Mhm Right And and you might think that using blunt force to solve a problem is stupid And at the same time you might think that stepping back from a problem and taking a look or stepping back away from it might be giving up So you’re weak or you’re not tough But there are times when those options are the best options There’s sometimes when blunt force is the best option and you just got to power through and you got to be tough and you got to get over the hurdle or over the obstacle or through the obstacle through blunt force trauma And there’s other times where the best possible thing you could do is step back and quit beating your head against the wall and trying to blunt force through something You want to step back and find another way You want to be smarter not harder And I think again this comes out to balance and people pushing when it’s a good time to push and a good time to be tough and at the same time knowing that you need to balance that with being smart And the only way you’re going to be able to do that the only way you’re going to be able to figure out if you’re just being too smart or not smart enough or too tough or not tough enough is to be able to detach and step back and look and see assess the situation If you get too in the weeds on it you won’t be able to see that hey you’ve beat your head against the wall 47 times That’s enough Stop Step back and find another way Mhm Just like if you’re so engrossed in solving the problem and finding the perfect solution and finding the least impact way through the smartest resolution you don’t if you don’t step back from that you might not see that if you wait any longer on your brilliant plan you’re going to be overrun by the problem itself So being smart and being tough are not mutually exclusive You need to be both And the way that you balance them is by stepping back detaching and doing always doing an assessment of what’s happening So what if you had to choose? And I’m going to make the question even harder No specific scenario What if you had to choose? You got to be either really smart but not tough or really smart or or really tough and not smart What What would you choose? Unfortunately you have to go with being smarter Yeah I mean that’s why unfortunate It’s not unfortunate but it’s just the the reality is being smarter is better Yeah Because being smarter means you can find another solution Yep You know the the wall that you might be banging your head against might literally be impassible through that through that section Yep And if all you’re going to do is beat your head against it eventually you’re going to you’re going to not make and you’re going to die Yeah So so being smart is always better Yeah And I guess I I should add it just in life Let’s say you know really the question I was wondering is like in life you know God was there and he said “Okay I’m going to bestow one of these on you in just in your life You can either have a knack for being really smart but but not tough at all or really tough and and not being smart because it’s it I’m I shouldn’t even be like making this like this is a hard decision Being smarter is better ” Yeah Being being smarter is better That’s there’s no doubt about it That’s being smarter is better By the way being smarter look look at the human race Why do we rule the world over the animals? I mean you tell me that you’re tougher than a than a chimpanzee Well me Yeah But I’m just saying right? The only reason the thing that wins is intellect and it’ll win every single time Well it’ll win a lot of the time A lot of the time And if you’re smart you can figure out a way to overcome the toughness to be tough Yeah And not even necessarily your body Yeah Exactly Right That’s exactly right Like when you say “Are you to am I tougher than a gorilla will say?” Well in a way yeah you know I mean if I have a shotgun Yeah Or if I have a Yeah Anything you know anything that I think up to build or buy you know because of other people like me thought it up and I use their knowledge you know cuz I was that smart to do it Which goes back to the original question or a question we answered a little while ago about college like go to college and improve your smartness Get smarter Yep Yeah The smart That’s why I always say that on the podcast I’m not I’m not always talking about being stronger and faster and bigger and tougher I’m always talking about you got to be smarter too No doubt about it The the success I’ve had from my life is zero of it just about zero of it has come from anything physical or being tough Now there is a mental toughness that does help you when you are doing intellectual things Yeah I mean I can force myself to do some intellectual uh goals or some intellectual challenges that if I wasn’t if I didn’t tough isn’t the best word but if I wasn’t mentally tough I wouldn’t be able to do it Right Yeah But if you’re smart enough to figure out ways to get mentally tough like if you’re like “Hey I’m I I know I’m not mentally tough I’m smart enough to know I’m not mentally tough or I’m not physically tough I mean figure out a way to get me I’ll figure out a good workout program Who would you rather be? the guy that is really tough and can stay in cold water for 45 minutes or the guy that invents a wet suit like Jack O’Neal and I can stay in the water for unlimited amount of time now There you go Case in point Jack O’Neal Keeping it real Boom Name dropper Next question I didn’t say I knew but you know you implied me and Jack we go way back Yep We got time for one more maybe Maybe Um okay Joo as far as self-improvement and getting after it goes whose standard should one measure themselves by? So who do I use as a standard to measure myself by? It’s it’s really everyone and no one Because look there’s people in the world that have skills and strength and talent that I will never have I won’t I mean some of these notions that you can be whatever you want to be as as long as you want it bad enough those are not true They’re fairy tales We all have limitations And I don’t have the right genes to be an Olympic weightlifting champion I don’t have the right genetics to be an Olympic champion sprinter or a gymnast or whatever sport you want to name Now sure if I trained my whole life perhaps I could have achieved some high level in those sports but I can tell you I do not have the DNA to be the best in the world in those categories So what does that mean? Does that mean that I give up? Does that mean that I quit? Of course not Not at all It means that I’m gonna try to be the best that I can be the strongest the fastest the the smartest the smartest human that I can become That’s what I’m going to go for And I will I will compare to others and and look at them and see what they’re doing and I’ll say that it is possible How close can I get to that greatness? How close can I get to that glory? But the reality is that my glory it doesn’t happen in front of a crowd It doesn’t happen in a stadium It doesn’t happen on a stage There’s no medals handed out My glory happens in the darkness of the early morning in solitude alone where I try and I try and I try again to be everything that I possibly can be the best that I possibly can be Better than I was yesterday and better than other people thought I could be Faster and stronger and smarter and with one victory that no one can ever take away from me A victory that is earned every single day A victory of determination and will and discipline And a victory that is achieved because I will not stop And I think that’s all I’ve got for tonight So once again thanks everyone for listening and downloading and supporting the podcast through the various options that we have to do So Ekko what are those options? Options If you care about supplementation the good kind that work um go to on it On it supplements Alpha Brain for your brain make you smarter make quicker decisions memory all that stuff Proven to work by the way I don’t know if you knew that You know some some supplements they don’t prove They just say “Hey this is what’s in it That’s it These ones are proven ” And you can even go on the website look at all their research It’s cool Anyway onit com/joo 10% off Boom Um or before you do your Amazon shopping just remember to go to jopodcast com or jore com Just click on the Amazon link and then we get a little a little cut to support the podcast It’s like passive supporting It’s like easy you know but it cost you nothing Cost you nothing You’re actually just getting after it Really? But you’re but you’re supporting the podcast for free Yep Legit That is legit Um or if if you like the shirts and mugs and stuff you know if you’re into that which I know I am Um they’re pretty cool We do I we I do add like layers to the shirts you know? They’re not just a cool saying or discipline equals freedom That’s it There’s like more to it you know? It’s like you’re saying that you I don’t know Anyway shirts are cool in my opinion If that’s your opinion as well look at it So you’re saying there’s a whole another level of cool to the shirts that you make I think they’re cool but I don’t want to make that pretend to agree with you actually There you go But I don’t want to be like “Hey they’re cool ” And then people go they be like you know they have a different opinion They’re not cool I don’t want to be the guy pushing not cool stuff I think they’re cool Go to jocklestore com If you think they’re cool go ahead get one or two And that’s also supporting the podcast And you’re getting a cool shirt So we That’s cool We dig that Yeah And I and I I use the actually people ask me this so it is relevant where what kind of shirts do I use? I use the blended one poly poly cotton blend softer There’s a bunch of different kinds There’s a really light one and then there’s like a medium but still soft and you know that’s the one I chose because the light one it’s good and I I like those a lot but um some people might not you know too light Too light maybe Yeah maybe I don’t know But um I I I figured that out and but it’s they’re dope anyway They’re the high quality ones They’re not the ballpark giveaway shirts you know quality Yeah they’re good Anyway there you go Jostore com Um check them out for yourself and then um yeah there you go Well also you can support the podcast by reviewing it on iTunes or Stitcher or Google Play or whatever you listen to it on and that helps promote the podcast and spread the word So take a couple minutes and write a review And I read them So say something cool in there Say something cool and then I’ll I’ll talk about it It’ll be in my brain So I like that they don’t let you respond to them on iTunes though Like I can’t say like “Hey man Thanks ” Yeah Cuz essentially it’s it’s a review It’s not like a a conversation I know but it should be it should be a conversation So I could be like “Hey man thanks ” Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah There is that That would be cool Well but then again if if people think that you’re going to like respond to it they might not even accurate Oh that’s true Well if you say something cool you know what some people have done? They’ve they’ve uh like taken a screenshot of it and then put it on Twitter and that way I can be like “Oh that’s cool man That’s awesome Appreciate it ” Or I can say “Hey good point Yep We’ll we’ll we’ll think about that ” Yeah We’ll make some adapt adaptations perhaps Perhaps not But getting a screenshot of their iTunes review that that’s a message in and of itself that’s saying hey I I put a review on iTunes It’s not necessarily hey you know you’re the audio is too quiet you know it’s not that if they wanted to tell you that they’d tell you that on Twitter Yeah Well then but they’re at least at least they’re showing Right Right that hey this is this is this is funny cuz I would like to see like some reviews Like there’s some people that write reviews Yeah that I I I laugh at because they’re funny They’re like I I am definitely getting after it tonight You know what I go? That’s awesome man Yeah Yeah This guy This guy I talk to all the time Brady he he he’ll like shop at Amazon and he’ll be like click screenshot you know? That’s awesome You’re the man So that’s cool Appreciate that And also of course if you want to continue this conversation like we just talked about or you want to ask questions or you want to give us feedback or you want to send us a screenshot of your Amazon purchase uh or you just want to kick it with us then you can find us on the interwebs on Twitter Echo Charles is echo Charles and I am Joo Willilink We are also there with Facebook and the Instagram and we do appreciate what you do for us The questions the support the comments the fact that all of you are out there getting better putting these principles to work on the battlefield in your business in your personal life I I’ve seen a bunch of SEAL buddies that I have and they’re they’re into it they’re listening and they’re giving me feedback and that that is worth everything to me to know and I get a bunch of emails from Marines from cops from firefighters that they tell me that they are putting this stuff to work I get emails from business people that they’re putting this stuff to work and that’s what we’re doing this for Yep And so that’s what inspires me to do this and keep doing this and for me to push myself because you are pushing yourself out there earning that victory every single day by going out there and getting after it And so until next time this is Echo and Jo out
My WordPress Blog