this is Joo podcast number 17 with Eko Charles and me Joo willink it’s been 10 years since April 2nd 2006 10 years since those of us in fourth platoon huddled around the radio outside of an Iraqi Army Post near Camp raditi trying to make sense of the confused and uncertain radio traffic of the exos calm and firm voice from the COC trying to determine what truck had been hit and who was missing 10 years since we drove the road back towards the gov center with fear in our minds and hate in our hearts knowing we had lost close friends but not yet sure of the names 10 years since I met my platoon commander on the darken steps of the gov Center as he came down from the COC and confirmed which truck it had been and when I pressed for who was gone he simply said all of them we hadn’t yet learned that one guy who was a [ __ ] hard ass who wasn’t going to let death take another Marine that day and whose recovery has been an inspiration to all those men who know him 10 years since I did my best to pass the word to my team with steadfastness but repeating all of them revealing me for the 20 year Oney old I was through the tears I was trying to hold back 10 years of trying to figure out what their sacrifice meant of Shifting views on what it was all for in the end that is something that is still a struggle but I’ve found soless and purpose in these facts staff sergeant Eric McIntosh Corporal Scott procopio Lance corporal Kun young Kim and Hospital men Giovani Padia were men who chose to be part of something bigger than themselves men who chose to enter a profession of crushingly hard work sacrifice and danger all for the simple purpose of protecting the men around them Staff Sergeant Mack was the epitome of a fighting Marine a stud who exuded proficiency and professionalism while also being humorous and approachable procopio is without a doubt one of the finest men I have ever had the fortune of meeting a beast of a marine who drove all around him with his enthusiasm and good nature while we were peers I looked up to him and his natural leadership I still do Kim had a quiet reliability about him unlike the usual loud gregariousness that people tend to associate with grunts he was low-key and dependable and for some reason I can still see the way a smile would creep over his face when stupid [ __ ] was going on and he’d laugh in a way that made it seem like he was seeing a deeper joke that you didn’t get yet doc Pia is new to the company and my memories of him are vague but the men who knew him better describe a young Corman who is enthusiastic about the his job the funny thing with Corman is that sometimes you don’t need to know much to judge their character besides the fact that these young men volunteered for one specific duty to save the Liv of their Marines in combat a more honorable calling is hard to find it’s easy for today to be dark to get sucked into the Trap of loss regret depression and anger it’s easy to drown it in liquor under the pretense of having one for the boys but this morning as we prepare ourselves to face the tenth of the these days we think of Scott and his booming laugh he wouldn’t want us sitting around mourning like saps wasting our precious days burdened with his death like tormented widows out of some 19th century romance fiction he’d remind us that we all joined up for the same reasons we are infantry Marines we wanted to fight to energetically meet the enemy in battle and crush him to serve be beside men with whom we would build a bond stronger than most will ever know while the politics are complicated and the outcomes unclear one thing is certain their sacrifice was not in vain as it was the sacrifice that Warriors make for each other April 2nd is a day that defines now brings us together as brothers it is a day of remembrance and reflection a day that gives us reason to look at our lives and say look you son of a [ __ ] this is why you have to live life to the fullest this is why you must fight every day to be a better man and then we must just remember that Scott procopio would call you a [ __ ] for doing the opposite SEI gents we will never forget you so that was a post that someone forwarded to me that was on Reddit and it was from an anonymous Marine obviously uh this Marine was from the 38 Marines who we served with in raditi who were just outstanding Warriors and I thought that that tribute not only to the Fallen but also a form of counsel to his fellow Marines I just thought that that was a amazing piece of writing and I wanted to share it with everyone April 2nd now speaking of raditi which you know just like this Marine it’s something that I think about all the time and something that I refer back to and a couple podcasts ago we talked about the Band of Brothers the first of the 506 who we also served with in ratti and it is a a truly hallowed unit and if you’ve seen the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers just a fantastic Memorial and representation of these American fighting men and the leader of that group or one of the one of the leaders of easy company and then of the Battalion was a guy by the name of major dick winners and he wrote after after his after he became famous really from the the first book by Steven Ambrose called Band of Brothers and then the miniseries came out called Band of Brothers he wrote a book which is called Beyond Band of Brothers the war Memoirs of major dick winners and I I got to this book basically because I was going to do Banda Brothers the Steven Ambrose but as everybody knows or if you don’t know I like to get get the source material from the people that were there Steven amoros is a historian and so I identified this book as I was researching more deeply into Banda Brothers I very quickly found this book ordered it and yeah there’s no doubt so let me to kick this off as battalion operations officer Hester pointed to where an enemy machine gun was located and approximately where a 4 gun battery of 105s was situated that was all he knew Captain Hester turned to me and said there’s fire along that hedge Road there take care of it that was the sum of my orders no detailed battle plan no intelligent summary nothing but a specific task to be accomplished without delay easy company’s mission was to silence the battery and we talk about the basic principles of combat one of them is simple clear concise there you go that’s your orders there’s fire along that hedge row take care of it and this is also obviously an unbelievable example of decentralized command you go solve this problem and his response is I got it back to the book conducting a mental estimate of the situation I viewed any infantry assault on the battery as a high-risk opportunity since our Air Forces had failed to destroy the artillery battery in the preliminary bombardment prior to the Seaborn Invasion our key would be initiative an immediate appraisal of the situation skillful use of the terrain and our ability to destroy one gun at a time so you’ll notice he’s going to he’s as soon as he knows that there’s multiple guns what does he decide to do one gun at a time solve one problem at a time a little something we like to call prioritize and execute the first thing I did was have everybody drop all equipment except ammunition and grenades for that was all we would need if things went from good to bad so get rid of the things you don’t need focus on this one task that we’ve got right now that’s another prioritize and Execute order right there while the non-commissioned officers prepared the men for the assault I conducted a Hy reconnaissance of the enemy position a leader gains an advantage in combat if he’s able to appra ra the terrain and the situation quickly and correctly crawling along the hedge row I moved to a position where I could get a better view of the enemy position the guns appeared to be set in the trench in the head R in the HED R covered by a machine gun fire from across an open pasture the battery was firing directly down Causeway number two in the direction of Utah Beach where the initial waves of the fourth in Infantry Division were already Landing so you’ve got these German guns in an elevated position hammering Utah Beach where the fourth infantry division is trying to land right now it’s a nightmare anticipating that it would be too costly to conduct a frontal attack across an open field I determined our chances of success would be greatly enhanced if we could hit the enemy on the flank and silence one gun at a time hit the enemy on the flank again these are basic principles and I I hate calling I hate using the word basic cuz it’s fundamentals it’s there’s nothing basic about it it’s basic but it’s it’s beautiful beautiful in its Simplicity returning to the company I assigned specific missions to each man so everybody knows what their task is going to be first I placed one of easy company’s two machine guns in a position where they could provide covering fire as we move carefully into position cover and move cover and move next I divided our Detachment into two units one led by Lieutenant Buck Compton and the other remaining with me Compton moved down one hedro with sergeant garer and Malarkey to get as close to the first gun in the battery as possible while I led my unit down a parallel hedro Compton also sent sergeants Lipton and Rainey to cons to a concealed position to put flanking fire on the enemy while my Detachment crawled ac across the open field to approach the gun first so you got multiple cover and move situations going on right now and again to the to the military folks that are listening to this you could Breeze through this description and and Miss how important that is how important and and what a great example of cover and move this is got to put down that cover fire you got to put down that cover fire and that’s why you got to bring them heavy weapons out there bring those AWS Out Boys lots of them when my group back to the book when my group consisting of Corporal Joe toy PFC Robert poey win and private Gerald the rain from regimental headquarters reached the Hedge that led to the enemy position we stopped here I placed a second machine gun to engage the first gun that was firing Point Blank at us I gave the Gunner instructions not to fire unless he saw a definite Target so he would not give away his position then we worked our way up to Compton’s hro here I spotted a German Helmet and squeezed off two rounds later I found a pool of blood at this position but no Jerry and Jerry is a term for German next I sent Compton with two men along the Hedge to throw a hand grenades at the enemy position while the rest of us supported him with covering fire these guys don’t do anything without covering fire I fired occasionally to fill spots when there was a lull in the covering fire due to putting in new clips Compton took two long getting his Detachment into position and we spent more ammunition than we should have but in return we received no enemy fire so that covering fire even though it took too long but they didn’t receive any enemy fire because they were laying down that fire they were laying down that Co covering fire just as Compton was ready to hurl his grenades I started across the field with the rest of the assault team so that what we jumped into the position together as the grenades exploded simultaneously we heard additional grenades at the next position in return we received substantial SM alarms fire and grenades from the enemy as we approached the first gun poey win was hit in the butt and fell down in the trench rather than complaining that he was hit he apologized I’m sorry Lieutenant I goofed I goofed I’m sorry my God it’s beautiful when you think of a guy who is so dedicated to his company that he apologizes for getting hit now here was a soldier hit by enemy fire in Normandy on D-Day behind German lines and he’s more upset that he let his buddies down than he was concerned with his own injury popey’s action popey’s actions spoke for all of us now I’m fast forwarding a little bit to they get these they get these guns taken down with the entire battery now destroyed we now withdrew because the machine gun fire that we were receiving from the manor house and other positions remained intense I pulled our own machine guns out first then The Riflemen I was last to leave and as I was leaving I took a final look down the trench and there was one wounded Jerry trying to put a machine gun onto into operation I drilled him through the head on our way back I came across waren officer JG Andrew Hill who had been killed working his way up to help us in all we had suffered four dead six wounded and we had inflicted 15 dead and 12 captured enemies German forces in the vicinity the battery had outn had numbered about 50 about 3 hours passed since I had received the order to dispose the battery and then so they they take care of that they conduct some other smaller operations and then it goes to the sort of the end of dday at long last dday was over our success had been to superb leadership at all levels and the training we had experienced prior to the invasion add luck to the equation and Easy Company comprised a formidable team on reflection we were highly charged we knew what to do and we conducted ourselves as part of a well-oiled machine because we were so intimate with each other I knew the strengths of each of my Troopers this something that he refers back to a lot was really understanding his men what they were like what drove them what their strength and weaknesses were so he could put them in the correct positions evening allowed us a few minutes of quiet reflection with our Outpost in place I stretched out to catch a few hours of sleep even though the rattle of German Small Arms fire continued throughout the night before I dozed off I did not forget to get on my knees and thank God for helping me live through this day and to ask his help on d+1 I would live this war one day at a time and I promised myself that if I survived I would find a small farm somewhere in Pennsylvania Countryside and spend the remainder of my life in quiet and peace now you’re gonna as you as you hear about Dick winers and that’s I I wanted to cover at least one engagement one actual engagement and that’s that’s one of them so you can kind of see the methodology the the principles that he’s putting into action but you know I want to concentrate not so much on the action now but more on the leadership the leadership pieces of it although there still be um I still do talk about some of the some of the combat situations that they get into because they were in a war but I want to check in going back a little bit from where he came from what his mindset what developed it and he he says this I had a wonderful mother very conservative she came from a menonite family but never converted to that Faith honesty and discipline were driven into my head from day one at some point am I just going to have to stop like even accent these things these common themes that are just run through these these leaders not surprisingly mother was undoubtedly one of the most influential people in my life a mother takes a child she nurtures him she instills discipline and she teaches respect my this is my mother was the first one up every morning she prepared breakfast for my sister an and me and she was the last one to bed every e evening in many respects she was the ideal company commander and subconsciously I’m sure I patterned my own leadership abilities on this remarkable woman so it’s interesting he all he talked about was that she was the first one to work and she was the last one to leave work meaning she was the first one up in the morning and she was the last one to leave and with that statement alone he said that she’s the ideal company Commander now for those of you that aren’t in the military a company Commander is is there’s several companies in a battalion there could be three maybe four maybe even five depending on the task organization but it’s it’s 100 maybe 150 guys generally in a in a company so he’s saying that this that his mom would be a Ideal Company Commander why because she wakes up early and has a lot of discipline news flash now speaking of yeah I won’t read any more actions here’s another action I positioned men on both sides of the road and prepared to move out in order to secure the intersection so here they are on a move they got to secure an intersection Lieutenant Welsh LED first platoon at the head of the company column precisely on schedule I hollered Welsh move out just as the attack started a German machine gun located in a building at the foot of the Hill started to fire up the road the German gun crew was in perfect position at the perfect time to wipe out our entire attack from the leftand side of the road Welsh pushed six men towards the intersection they went straight at that intersection and the enemy machine gun the enemy fire however was very effective our men on both sides of the road kept low profiles in the ditches head heads down and they froze in place leaving Welsh and his six men assaulting the intersection alone to my rear Colonel Strayer and his staff including Captain Hester and Nixon could see what was happening they in turn were hollering at me get them moving winners get them moving I struggled out of my harness to rid myself of excess equipment so that I could run since it was obvious what needed to be done so guess what people aren’t moving people aren’t taking action and it’s obvious to him what needs to be done standing in the middle of the column on the right hand side of the road I hollered move out move out this did no good everyone had his heads down this was the one and only time in the war that I really blew my top and physically kicked ass I came out of that ditch with only my M1 in hand and hollering I ran to the head of the column kicked ass on the left side of the road then ran to the right side the road back and forth screaming at my top of my voice get going I will never forget the surprise and fear on those faces looking up at me with me running around on the road like a wild man the machine gunner seemed to zero in on me I was a wide openen Target the bullet snapped by and glanced off the road all around me for a short short time I had the feeling of being blessed that feeling didn’t last too long for I was to find out in a few minutes that I wasn’t so blessed and the reason I highlighted that section right there because in the next literally the next page in the book you know you get this idea and again this is this is the idea that people have of military leaders is that they’re these hard ass guys and these Kick-Ass guys that are running around and yelling like what I just read MH and that I wanted to highlight that because now we fast forward one page in the book in taking the intersection Easy Company sustained 10 casualties among our wounded were Sergeant Lipton Ed Tipper and Burr Smith another casualty was Private Albert BL who was in the age station sitting with his back against the wall when I entered to have my wound cleaned Because by the way major winners got hit and so he’s in there getting his wound clean now he’s looking at private ble and he said and he says here I did not notice any wounds so I asked how you doing ble I can’t see I can’t see he replied I remember trying to comfort him by saying it’s okay ble relax they’ll have you out of here soon and they’ll send you back to England as I started to move away ble stood up Suddenly saying I’m okay I’m okay I can see now as soon as soon as ble regained his vision he immediately returned to duty if you think about that for a minute that boy had been Paralyzed by fear yet he had the guts and dedication to stick to his buddies and easy company as soon as he relaxed and pulled himself together he returned to the front rather than taking the easy way out with an evacuation sometimes all a soldier needed was a calm voice reassuring him that everything was fine in blight’s case he rejoined the company and was wounded in action during the upcoming fight after World War II he served in the 187th Airborne regiment in the Korean War where he was awarded a silver star and the Bronze Star by the time he retired from military service ble was a company first sergeant so the contrast there is that you know instead of pulling a General George Patton and slapping the around and saying you’re not wounded get he realized what he needed to do which was just Comfort the guy and say Hey listen everything’s going to be all right we’ll get you on a plane we’ll get you back to England just just take it easy here’s a a section that I’m just going to jump to quickly when he’s talking about the confusion getting in the confusion getting our men into position was as bad as we were to ever see one time I found Easy Company troops firing into troops of another Battalion later we had had some tanks show up for support and they began firing into our own line so that’s Blue on Blue it’s frater side and you know we talk about it in our book and it’s one of those things that they they usually don’t show it they usually don’t portray it because it’s hard to believe that things can get that confusing but they do and it’s goes all the way back back in clear example right there now we’re going back to ble and this is an interesting commentary on training on one of our daylight patrols led by Sergeant garer ble was pointman when he spotted a German sniper in a tree just as he did in training he automatically said bang bang instead of dropping to the side of the road and putting his rifle on the sniper so if you can imagine you’re back in America or when they were doing their pre pre- uh attack training in England and they weren’t using real bullets so they’re out on a patrol and if they saw something they go bang bang MH well that’s literally what the guy did the German reacted first and shot ble through the collar bone the rest of the patrol recovered ble and then withdrew to easy L Easy’s lines so so again military people that are listening law enforcement you train how you fight mhm and you fight how you train so you just got to keep that in mind all the time if you’re giving yourself some kind of a training scar by doing something like a lip gun we actually did this in Seal Team lip gun that’s what we called it it’s embarrassing you know in my early days that’s we have a choice like what you make sound sound with your mouth yeah dang M and you know thankfully now they have you know unbelievable good systems you know the paintball type systems that go in our real guns the laser tag type systems so we don’t have to use lip guns back to the book next sector success breeds confidence and Easy Company Success in Normandy instilled the confidence that they would need to succeed and live to fight another day at the same time I could not help but think that had I trained the men harder if I had done a better job maybe more of my men would have come home that’s something a leader is always going to be thinking always going to be thinking that what could we have done better what could I have done better now they they get back to England they’re taking a break they get pulled off the line and he’s back in Al in alborn and he’s just talking about he’s sort of reflecting back on his initial push into Europe and you know you got guys that’re out drinking and doing whatever they’re doing and he says as for myself I relaxed the best I could combat had made me tense particularly since my decisions now meant life or death to the members of my command commanding soldiers in combat requires a personal Detachment from the men themselves in a sense command is the Loneliest job in the world looking at myself in the mirror I could see how much I had changed I could sense it another thing that affected me was the importance of discipline the necessity of instilling discipline in my troops and getting the job done in combat in an attempt to escape the tension that combat had caused I developed a heavier than usual exercise regimen and I attended church on a regular basis there were only a few days that I didn’t run two to three miles do 80 push-ups 60 sit-ups on a Foot Locker and a couple of splits and some leg and trunk exercises after the day’s work was over as a result I kept in pretty good shape not what I’d call wrestling shape but good enough for Army work physical activity kept me mentally alert Built My endurance and kept me Supple you got to do it you got to have that discipline and you got to work out you got to do it every day it’s that important yeah see how he mentioned how it kept him mentally sharp it absolutely does so yeah I said that before where that’s that’s one of the few things that you can do that affects everything else everything in life yeah you you are correct I think people a lot of time in in regards to exercise people think well exercise that’s for a certain kind of person you know maybe a fitness person or something like that it’s for a dumb jock right I’m a smart person so I’m not going to exercise wrong answer yeah I think nowadays people are more hip to it for sure but um did you say hip hipman yeah down down with the c the new stuff you know yeah yeah but yeah it is um it’s interesting how these leaders back then they knew that yep even though there’s been no even though at that time there had been no scientific study there’s scientific studies now that prove it he didn’t know that he just knew it yeah he felt it he lived it he lived it yep now they’re in a uh position now again I’m just fast forward and and even though I said I wasn’t going to cover too much of the combat I’m covering the combat because the combat is what is what puts these people in these leadership positions lead combat is the ultimate teacher the harshest teacher and it teaches you lessons that you do not forget so they’re around this Village of Foy which is a village that was held by the Germans and they’d been waiting and it’d been it’d been a while and here’s winers talking about here’s winners talking about his troops they were now completely exhausted they had had no hot food little sleep no rest constant tension and the pressure of combat the worst time was night when temperatures plummeted and fog covered the battlefield until mid to late morning the uncertainty of what laay just yards ahead in the next Treeline was sufficient to break ordinary men not surprisingly the men became physically exhausted physical exhaustion leads to mental exhaustion which in turn causes men to lose discipline loss of self-discipline then produces combat fatigue self-discipline keeps a soldier doing his job without it he loses his pride and he Los loses the importance of self-respect in the eyes of his fellow soldiers it is pride that keeps a soldier going and keeps him in the fight this is what I feared I would lose the loss of will to measure up to my men after seeing others break down you wondered who is next and you started taking a hard look at yourself I often wondered why I didn’t break under the strain of combat one factor undoubtedly lay in the fact that my Battalion headquarters lay 75 yards behind the forward foxholes no longer was I under enemy observation consequently I was able to concentrate on my duties without fear of enemy Small Arms fire another Factor was undoubtedly my physical conditioning I don’t think there was a man in the Battalion who was in better physical shape than I was my responsibility to ensure the safety of the soldiers also hardened me to cope with the daily stress of combat one last observation on combat fatigue when you see a man break he usually slams his helmet down and messes up his hair I don’t know if it’s conscious or unconscious but a soldier goes to his head and massages his head shakes it and then he’s gone on you can talk to him all you want but he cannot hear you when he reaches that point the best thing for everybody is just to let him take a walk combat exhaustion occurs instantaneously you don’t plan to become a combat fatigue casualty how do you prevent combat fatigue you talk to your troops and make some excuse to pull a soldier off the front line of course pulling a soldier off the front line increases the stress of those who remain but is a necessary tradeoff I often asked a soldier whom I saw on the verge of a breakdown how about coming back with me to the CP to help out for a couple of days in this manner you invent a reason for pulling a guy from the line without damaging his psyche so a bunch of stuff there on combat fatigue and and I’m not saying that you’re going to see combat fatigue in in the civilian War world I mean but you do see people get stressed out in business and I thought that that comment about people messing up their hair and grabbing their head that’s a that’s a really good indicator of when people are are breaking and I’ll tell you one of the things this is something that we talk about in the book as well is for us the guys that had the most resistance to combat fatigue were the guys that were most ingly involved in the planning of the operations because they felt like they had some control and unfortunately for us we didn’t know this so we had guys that weren’t involved like you know maybe they were a new guy or maybe they just they just weren’t that involved in the planning or whatever so all they were getting told was like hey get your gear on you’re going out again right come back from that operation hey get your gear on going out again come back from that operation hey get your gear on you’re going out again those guys that didn’t really get involved in the planning was harder for them because they didn’t feel like they had any control and they didn’t see the risk mitigation that was happening and they didn’t understand the strategy well enough why because I didn’t tell them my fault you know I should have been more engaged with them I should have explained to him the impact that they were having I should have explained to him the overall strategic picture and I tried to do that and I thought I did it but I didn’t do it well enough MH and those were the guys that definitely were the most stressed out MH so leaders out there it’s just another reason it’s another reason to tell people why they’re doing what they’re doing and get them involved in the planning and get them ownership of the planning so that they feel like have some control over it mhm interesting how he how they mentioned how they dealt with that when they’d pull him off the line right but they wouldn’t just be like straight up straight dope hey you’re messing up get off the line it was like they put pulled them off the line in a way that wouldn’t wouldn’t mess them up you know hey we need you to take care of the supply issue can you go back there for me and get this figured out yeah okay I’ll do it give them a break give them a rest this is something hackworth talked about too I mean hackworth says um in about face you know he talks about he just says Hey everyone’s got a cup a certain size cup some people have a bigger cup than others but when the cup gets filled up that’s it they’re done and if you let the cup get filled up and overflow then they’re done forever but if you can catch it beforehand they can go back a little bit and drain their cup out but that’s exactly what you talk about when you say you say manipulation right like how you you tell them just in a kind of a kind of way you know to make him make him signed on to the whole situation yeah yeah no doubt about it this is going back to his discipline my routine was to shave every morning and then to inspect the line in rest in retrospect shaving in the bitter cold was pretty ridiculous but the practice had originated with one of my first meetings with Colonel sink at tcoa sink it required us to shave every morning he said you shave every morning for the men and if you want to shave every evening for the women but that’s up to you but I want you to set an example he was absolutely right I remember one morning when we prepared for our attack on Foy I got up in the middle of the night to shave before getting something to eat in the process I cut myself up pretty badly I must have looked like hell when Colonel sink arrived to check on us before the attack commenced he took one look at me and had a huge smile on his face I later I realized later that he was laughing at me for shaving on that bitterly cold morning but that was one of the things I did to set an example for the men shave in the morning and once in a while I would strip to the waist and give myself a French wash a routine that caught everyone’s attention I did this for one reason and one reason only to get the men’s attention and to let them know that I was going to be around for a while and this wasn’t as bad as they thought it was going to be make the best of it and what I like about that is his total awareness his total awareness of the impact that he’s having on his men he knows that they are watching them if you’re in a leadership position you’ve got to recognize that people are watching you parents yeah yeah if you’re a parent you got to realize that that person that you’re leading called your child they’re watching you yeah man it’s more critical than most of the time anyway than what you say so you know and people will make this excuse kind of this saying that they say hey do what I say not what I do meanwhile you’re doing all this stuff that’s not that’s not how they’re going to they’re going to be like oh that’s just something you say meanwhile this is how you do it apparently Mom and Dad are doing it this way that’s the way it’s done regardless of what they say yeah you got to do the right thing and people are watching you when you’re in a leadership position you are being watched you are being emulated mhm your emotions are being mimicked you don’t know that you might not sense that but your emotions are being mimicked you get into a panic mode you’re going to have a bunch of people panicking MH you stay calm your people are going to stay calm you get crazy your people are going to go crazy your people are watching you so set the good example and one of the Premier examples he’s setting is he’s maintaining the discipline now this actually section I don’t it’s it’s very interesting because we had I had made a comment on the podcast about hey what do you do someone asked what do you do if you get told to do something and you don’t believe in it right and you know I went through a big gray area and said look you know there’s there’s some gray area there yeah and if it’s just something small that you can ask to do and you just if you decide you’re going to lay down the law right now and bang your fist on the table and say I’m not going to do that well then you’re going to get fired right and now someone else is going to have to come in there and do that thing that you’ve been asked to do and I had one person on Twitter that kind of went back and forth with me and you know uh he said hey it does make an impact when you walk away and I agreed with him I said yes I no I’m not trying to say it doesn’t make an impact when you walk away cuz it certainly does but there’s cases where it has more of an impact if you stay and you stay in the game so this is an example right here a pretty shocking example because we have a guy that’s 100% on board and is you know a straight shooting guy that listens to his chain of command and here’s what happens colonel bobyn was a magnificent Commander but this time he had had a little too much to drink and his order to dispatch another Patrol to capture additional prisoners did not make sense we had already captured sufficient prisoners for interrogation a second patrol would only result in casualties for no apparent reason further exacerbating the situation was freshly fallen snow along the river that had quickly turned to ice during the day if I followed Colonel sink’s order the enemy would have heard us coming a long way off what to do I responded Yes sir and then promptly ignored the order so he’s doing what I was basically what I was saying like if he just just said no sir we’re not going to do that guess what he’s going to get fired mhm and now we’re going to get someone else put in charge and even if he doesn’t get fired he’s hurting his reputation so it’s a bad situation but what he decides to do is go got it sir we’ll take care of it and then he promptly ignores the order to now back to the book to give the impression of compliance however I assembled the men in a building and told them we are not going to send out this Patrol because I did not think it was feasible I also inform them that my neck was in a noose if anyone ever said anything about it with that the men laid down and caught some much needed sleep and I took the radio and adjusted mortar and artillery fire on my supposed objective and here’s his here’s his thoughts on it on reflection I did exactly the right thing and I have never had any regrets there was insufficient time for Preparation the field to our front was wide open and I would have lost too men for no purpose I wonder what I would have done had I been a career officer concerned about my own future would I have compromised my beliefs the deliberate Disobedience of a lawful order by my commanding officer presented an ethical dilemma of the first magnitude but you can see it’s a guy who’s staying on his principles M and his principles were to accomplish the mission take care of his men and he’s weighing those things those things aren’t black and white mm those things are not black and white because you look at all the times he did do operations and missions and taskings where his guys got wounded and killed but he saw what the purpose was and now he sees something where there’s no purpose and he says you know what not going to do it mhm but he doesn’t tell the boss he just doesn’t execute it so and you know there’s stories of in Vietnam doing that and I heard that from from the Vietnam seals would tell me hey if they got directed to do something that they didn’t think was a good Mission I’ve talked about this before oh we’re going to go you want us to go three kilometers away and set up an ambush on this River that’s in really tough enemy controlled areas and we don’t know what the intelligence is on who’s going to come down that River okay cool and they’d Patrol 200 meters out the gate set up a little perimeter right close to Camp where there’s no no problems smoke a couple cigarettes spend a few hours out there walk back yeah hey nothing happened no one came down the river I would think you’d have to be pretty responsible though if you’re going to kind of exercise that course of action otherwise you get someone who’s just like NOP NOP don’t feel like it don’t feel like it yeah no it’s it’s obviously something that a guy like dick wyers did very rarely and the seals in Vietnam it’s not like they were blowing missions off all the time right but they you know like I said if if something comes up where you completely disagree with it but you don’t disagree with it to the point where you want to you want to make a make a stand that’s going to make you get fired or now you’re not supporting your guys anymore yeah yeahuh you know okay cool you kept them alive that night well who’s coming in to take your place right that’s the question who’s coming in to take your place and you don’t know who that is MH and what’s their best interest going to be because whoever comes in to take your place is going to be a company guy that’s going to be you know he’s going to be a guy that’s going to obey every last direct order from the guy and this is you know it’s it’s strange too I mean here I am I’m a I mean I was uh uh as as motivated it to be in the military as I could possibly be you know so I’m not sitting here calling from Mutiny from guys right but I am telling you to use common sense and you got to put Common Sense on top of everything and sometimes Common Sense outweighs orders that’s just the way it is it’s rare and I said this last time as well it’s rare it’s not like you’re getting these crazy orders from up the chain of command people aren’t people aren’t advancing in the military because they’re cuz they’re idiots right yeah and it’s not like they’re not on your team and it’s not like they want you to get killed and and you know maybe you know in this case he could have got given some push back and said hey you know what boss here’s what’s going on there’s fresh snow it’s they’re going to hear us coming a mile away we don’t have good cover to the front this is not a good operation MH but maybe he heard the tone of the Colonel’s voice and just said hey this guy it’ be it’s if I say that and then I don’t do it or if I say that it’s going to make me suspicious so you know what I got it sir and then don’t do it just a judge a judge a judgment of character but that’s what you’ve got writing on you when you’re in a leadership position you know you got those guys lives and that should be more important to you than anything and it’s it’s a strange dichotomy of leadership because on the one hand you’re trained your whole military career that you got to take care of your men take care of your people that’s something you get trained on since day one take care of your team and the dichotomy of that is you’re going to do missions where you could very well be sending your men to their death so there’s a massive dichotomy there and how do you deal with the dichotomy you find the balance and the balance is not a cookie cutter response the balance is different for each scenario that you’re in and how well you can weigh the those opposing forces is a is a measure of what kind of leader you are that’s what makes leadership hard now we’re getting to they’ve they’ve moved through Europe and now we’re about to go from war to something even more evil which is the concentration camps the death camps so back to the book as they enter this is back to the book as they enter the their death camps for the first time the horror of what we observed remains with each paratrooper to this day you could not explain it you could not describe it and you could not exaggerate it it did not take long to realize that the Nazis were intent on eliminating all the Jews Gypsies and anyone who disagreed with Hitler’s regime the memory of starved dazed men who dropped their eyes and heads when we looked at them through the chain link fence in the same manner that a beaten mistreated dog would cringe left a mark on all of us forever nor could you underestimate the barbarity of the Nazi regime even during the latter stages of the war as I went through the war it was natural to ask myself why am I here why am I putting up with a freezing cold the constant rain and the loss of so many comrades does anybody care a soldier faces death on a daily basis and his life is one one of misery and deprivation he is cold he suffers from Hunger frequently bordering on starvation the impact of seeing those people behind that fence left me saying if only to myself now I know why I am here for the first time I understand what this war is all about and obviously seeing that evil firsthand and that’s one of the reasons why I think we explore the darkness and the evil on a fairly regular basis here and that’s why I explore it that’s why my mind is drawn to these things because you got to understand that Evil’s out there and it’s still here today and somebody has got to take the fight to the enemy now I’m jumping towards the end of the book and again it’s not really I’m not giving anything away I mean we know how World War II ended but this is how Colonel Winters or sorry major Winters kind of wraps up their combat back to the book and so many of the tcoa veterans returned home yet all would be forever connected by their shared experiences in combat over the course of the war Easy Company Alone lost 48 men killed and over 100 wounded incurring 150% casualties this percentage was not common among similar units who had fought in the campaign of Northwest Europe at the peak of its Effectiveness in Holland in October 1944 and in the ardens in January 1945 it was as good a rifle company as there was in the world according to Arthur Stephen e Ambrose how so many men survived the campaigns in Normandy Holland Bastone and Germany was a true test esate to their courage their training and their discipline Under Fire now I I want to fast forward a little bit more to he’s he’s done he’s now out of the military and I know we got a lot of people that listen to the show because a lot of you guys reach out to me and talk about that transition a lot of people ask me about that transition and here’s dick Winter’s transition while I was extremely happy to put the Army behind me I realized that I was a different man than I was when I joined the army over four years earlier the war had changed me in many ways as it does all who experience combat having witnessed so much mass suffering and the unparalleled barbery ISM that mankind is capable of inflicting upon itself I don’t see how any Survivor can be ever be cruel to anything again in addition I was a far better judge of character than I had been in 1941 that feeling remains with me today a full 60 years after the war when I meet people for the first time and get to know them I can’t help but judge them and size them up do they have leadership would they be good in combat do they pass the test I was also more disciplined than I remembered being before I deployed to Europe This discipline helped me adapt to civilian life once I returned to Pennsylvania like all veterans I had to adjust to society the life that you’re going to share with others in order to make a living I certainly never confuse the challenges in the workplace with what I experienced in combat there would be no life and death struggles in the corporate world business hardly equates to war such comparisons demean the word and when I read that I actually had to put myself into check because and I wanted to make sure that I I’m clear about something because something I obviously we wrote a book that’s about comparing business and warh but I want to make it clear that what we’re comparing and what we say is similar in fact they’re the same is the principles the principles of leadership are the same the struggles and the challenges and the consequences are not the same they are not so I want to make sure I make that clear now let’s get to some of his Reflections on leadership back to the book was I a successful leader they tell me I was and modesty prevents me from disagreeing with them I am not so naive that I don’t realize the wide appeal of Dick winners today is based on leadership and combat I may not have been the best commander but I always strove to be my men depended on me to carefully analyze every tactical situation to maximize the resources that I had at my disposal to think under pressure and to lead them by personal example I think it’s interesting even here you know he’s looking back and he’s a humble guy you know I may have not been the best Combat Commander but I always tried to be this is a humble man I am not sure there is such a thing as a natural born leader some leaders are born with special aptitudes or talents but any success I might have had was the product of good upbringing intense study and preparation and physical conditioning that set me apart from my peers here’s dick wyers I mean one of the best kind of uh combat leaders at the Tactical level in the modern era and he’s saying that it was preparation and physical conditioning setting him apart from his peers I was all back to the book I was also surrounded by a group of men who were disciplined and highly trained to accomplish any Mission add luck to the equation and you can understand that the secret to my success was that somehow I always managed to survive another day in recent years I’ve been asked to address an increasing number of Civic groups corporate sem seminars and governmental agencies on the subject of leadership most are looking for cookie cutter Solutions as to what constitutes a successful leader what is the recipe for success and this is this is classic and and actually when when the book when when Leif and I the book came out when our book came out we did a bunch of interviews that got turned into either short articles or video clips and and they would they they title these things you know like three things every leader must do and that’s what they always do everyone’s looking exactly for what he says most are looking for cookie cutter solutions to what constitutes a successful leader MH what is the recipe for success in truth there are no Simple Solutions just as there is no average day in combat each situation is different and each requires a leader to be flexible in adapting his or her particular leadership style to the specific circumstances required to accomplish any Mission it’s a matter of adjusting to the individual and you do this every day you don’t have just one way of treating people you adjust yourself to whom you are talking if I were to give advice to a young leader going to war based on my observation of what I had constituted the success of the outstanding leaders who comprise the am the American parachute infantry regim regimens of World War II I would offer a series of principles that I am certain would result in great success regardless of the field Endeavor field of endeavor in which the individual is participating so here he’s saying the same thing that I say which is leadership is the same whether it’s in the battlefield or whatever Endeavor you’re going into leadership principles stay the same first and foremost a leader should strive to be an individual of flawless character technical competence and moral courage if you have character that means you are the guy that means the guy you are dealing with can trust you the men trust you have faith in you and they obey you no questions asked that’s character in a nutshell character also allows you to make decisions quickly and correctly some may question my decision to disobey a direct order from my commanding officer this is the story we already uh talked about and to fake another Patrol as a violation of that very principle I’m advocating in my heart however I could not send my men to risk their lives for no apparent reason when clearly nothing would have been gained that we had not already achieved such a course takes a degree of moral C courage which I have found is far rarer than physical courage was I correct in my estimation I thought so and I have never regretted my decision the same holds true for developing leaders of Competency those entrusted to lead must study their profession to become totally proficient in tactics and Technology prior to the invasion I read every tactical manual I could lay my hands on to improve my tactical knowledge and professional competence While others soldiers were out carousing in the pubs while they were enjoying the social life of the neighboring towns I was reading and educating myself getting ready to lead men into combat getting smarter opening up the books that’s what he was doing and that’s part of leadership that’s part of his his characteristics of leadership is to become knowledgeable to read and study he goes on don’t waste time attempting to define leadership no need to go to a dictionary the Infantry school at Fort Benning Georg Georgia has defined leadership in Just Two Words via its motto follow me and he’s going to do it again right here physical fitness is another prerequisite for success I freely admit that I was blessed with a sound physical Constitution but whenever possible I took the opportunity to improve my physical stamina because I was in such good physical shape I easily survived tcoa that’s their their initial training that they went through for Airborne while men washed out on a daily basis the contingent from Easy company that completed the training and earned their wings at Fort Benning were tough as Nails because I was in such good shape my fatigue level never reached the point of physical exhaustion that contributes to mental exhaustion and ultimately to combat fatigue we all experience sleep de deprivation at times that is the nature of stress but a physically exhausted leader routinely makes poor decisions in times of Crisis and here he talks about another piece I have always felt that my principal contribution to the success of both easy company and second Battalion was based on my knowledge of what to expect from each man know your people having selected the right men for the right job I then delicated the authority to my subordinates and allowed them to use their initiative to execute the mission decentralized command decentralized command there is no need to tell someone how you how to do his job if you have properly trained your team good preparation is always vital to the success of any operation but leaders must remain flexible once the action commences Steve Ambrose likes to quote General Eisenhower who claimed before the battle is joined plans are everything once the battle is joined however plans go out the window next I would encourage leaders to take a moment of self-reflection before rushing into important decisions this is a little bit of Detachment many leaders don’t take the time to consider carefully their decisions or the implications of their actions in battle i period ically detached myself mentally from the noises and the chaos of battle I found it useful to separate myself momentarily and to carefully think through what actions I needed to take to accomplish the mission again I read this book for the first time last week he’s saying Detachment straight up he’s saying the exact same in battle I periodically detached myself mentally from the noises and Chaos of battle mhm hang tough never ever give up regardless of the adversity if you are a leader a fellow who other fellows look to you have got to keep going I would also urge leaders to remain humble if you don’t worry about who gets the credit you get a lot more done again this is when people ask me what’s the most important quality of a leader I tell them it’s humility leaders should assume the blame when the operation fails when it succeeds credit the men and women in your team they do the Lion Share of the work and now he’s going to talk about humility a little bit more since the release of the HBO miniseries many of us have been flooded with hundreds sometimes thousands of letters from adoring fans Across the Nation the attention is certainly flattering and greatly appreciated but it remains better to remember Eisenhower’s address at Guild Hall Hall on June 12th 1945 to an ecstatic British public which showered the Supreme Commander with a tumultuous parade through the Streets of London Ike reminded them humility must always be the portion of any man who receives a claim earned in the blood of his followers and the sacrifices of his friends I think anybody that’s ever been in a leadership position and has been called a some kind of hero we’ll think back to that statement humility must always be the portion of any man who receives a claim earned in the blood of his followers and the sacrifices of his friends and I think when you use that word hero it’s something that obviously gets thrown around a lot and here’s what major winners had to say about that perhaps the best characterization of what a true hero consists is found in a letter Sergeant Mike Rainey sent me in January 1982 shortly before he went back to the hospital for a series of tests historian Steven Ambrose used the passage to conclude band of brothers because Rainey encapsulated the cohesion that became the Hallmark of easy company in thinking back on the days of easy company I’m treasuring my remark to a grandson who asked Grandpa were you a hero in the war no I answered but I served in a Company of Heroes and I can tell you that I also served with many many Heroes the guys in in task unit Bruiser the guys from 228 infantry the guys from 11 ad and the ready first the soldiers and the Marines all those brave men and some Brave women as well and to those men and women those soldiers and marines that I was lucky enough to serve with I think that this statement right here from dick wyers is something that I think is very fitting as I look back on the men of easy company and the closeness we have enjoyed over the years I reminded of the dialogue attributed to a senior German officer bidding farewell to his men in the HBO Miner miniseries paraphrasing his words I would say to Easy Company and the officers and Men of the 506 parachute Infantry Regiment it has been a long War it’s been a hard War you have fought bravely proudly for your country you are a special group of men connected by a bond that only exists in combat you’ve shared the incommunicable experience of war and have been tested under extreme adversity you’ve shared foxholes and have held each other in dire moments you’ve seen death and have suffered together you’ve lived in an environment totally incomprehensible to those who do not know War I am proud and deeply honored to have served with every one of you you all deserve long and happy lives in peace I bid each of you godp speed and ask the almighty to shower His blessings on you and your families now and for generations to come and that wraps the book and you I was thinking after the last podcast that this was going to be a a lighter one and I picked this book specifically because I see major dick winners as as an incredible person incredible leader a role model for everyone but because we are talking about War there is still tragedy and loss and darkness there and that’s okay and do you vets out there like the anonymous Marine that wrote that tribute to his brothers from April 2nd and we know there’s hundreds of thousands of veterans that are feeling that every day and if you’re having one of those dark days it’s okay it’s it’s okay it’s okay to feel that Darkness and it’s okay to remember it and miss it and hate it and love it and it’s okay to wish it never happened and at the same time to wish it never stopped and it’s okay to want to take it all back and at the same time to want to do it all again and it and if you’ve got in your mind that that that you think that people don’t understand that’s okay they don’t but you do you know Darkness you know evil but more important than that you know good you know light and you know laughter and love better than anyone so Embrace Embrace that Darkness own it don’t look away from it don’t bury it in booze or in pills listen listen to what Corporal Scott procopio would have been saying to you live your life embrace your life with with physical activity and with nature and with jiujitsu and with sun and with laughter and guitar and good memories and creativity and discipline discipline yourself so you can free yourself and move forward into the future where there’s no more darkness and no more war but peace good evening Eko good evening little message to the to the to the vets out there I hear from a lot of veterans and I just want to know I just want to let the those guys know you know kind of where I’m coming from get a lot of real positive stuff from guys and some guys are going through hard times and and I Know It And you know I’m hoping to be able to uh kind of spread my thoughts where I’m at and how what I think of these things cuz you know if you get like major winners that you know did everything that he did and War and he came back and you know he was able to figure it out and and a lot of those veterans were and they you know he said it wasn’t an easy adaptation that they made but they made it they made it so I think you got to embrace those things and be stronger than them and I know and I say it all the time you gotta you got to know that Darkness if you really want to appreciate the light and I think the guys that have been to war they can do that and and life can seem so much better because you know how bad it can be mhm so speaking of feedback from people rough transition right now but that’s what we do here what rough trans transitions rough Transitions and you know what you know what’s interesting about the rough Transitions and any vet that’s out there that’s listening to me right now or anybody that’s not a vet anyone that’s been through hard times and loss it’s a big rough transition and you go in and out out emotionally and you know you’ll be feeling like crap one minute and then the next minute you’ll feel okay and you’ll be laughing and that’s that’s o like I said that’s okay mhm I think a lot of people are scared that they might be acting the wrong way but it’s all right yeah it’s okay yeah and just like how you were saying where it may seem like people don’t understand and that’s okay cuz they don’t that’s so true because can and this is the way I all think of it cuz my best friends are actually they’re still it Navy Seals um so these are guys that you grew up with grew up with and spent your my best friends in my wedding yeah um so I A lot of times you know when I talk to him and stuff I just in my own head I kind of imagine what it’s like coming back right so if you kind of consider kind of in a nutshell where you consider hey what’s your biggest problems when when you’re overseas when you’re in the war what are these big problems you got to worry about okay and then let’s factor that and okay then we come home and then okay let’s say in the word your biggest problem is getting shot and dying your men getting shot and dying right or you getting both your legs blown off or you know or whatever whatever the the your biggest problem is as far as wor worrying about okay and then you come home and I don’t know your girlfriend or your wife is like hey I thought I told you to do those dishes and she’s flipping out on you yeah and so in the back of your mind you’re kind of like okay wait the the comparison it was 2 days ago I was in the desert worried about my legs being blown off and now I’m here where apparently the biggest problem according to my girlfriend wife Earth the biggest problem on Earth apparently cuz she’s yelling at me she’s really she’s mad she won’t really talk to me and are the dishes yeah and it’s just not Computing you know and then you go next door and and their biggest problem is kind of on the same level so yeah they don’t understand and you in a way you’re living in this crazy world where I can see how that could kind of get to you and be like man Am I Wrong Am I you know yeah so one of the things that I and you hear me talk about this before is perspective yeah and and wanting to see I always talk about it from a leadership perspective like I want to think about what my Superior is thinking why is he telling me to do this let me get his perspective and then what am I what are my subordinates thinking what is their perspective and it’s a very useful tool to use in what you’re talking about right now and I remember I had a situation like that where I was at work and I forget what was going on but something was going on like I think we were we were preparing to deploy guys earlier there was something major was going on there was some major issues I I think it was Afghanistan and we were getting ready to deploy guys early it was a real big spin up and all this stuff and uh literally I come home and and I mean I’m I’m at work and we’re trying to figure out how we put this plan together guys are going to deoy and it’s you know horrible and you know whatever bunch of stress I come home and I [ __ ] hey babe you know how you doing I say to my wife and she’s sitting there and all of a sudden she like picks up the phone and someone calls her or she someone calls her she picks up the phone and she hangs up she’s like I can’t believe this and I was like I thought something you know I thought someone died or whatever and I said I said what’s wrong what’s wrong and she said um it was something along like The Wiggles is the same night as Barney and I booked both tickets so was some thing she was taking the kids to that like literally did not matter in any way shape or form to me at all but to her you know she had spent $22 on these tickets for three kids at the time that’s $66 and now she had booked double booked the children for multiple shows it was harsh it was dark but what I had to do is well I you know had to go in perspective in her world man that was 6 6 right yeah and it was the kids and it was they both wanted to see all the shows or whatever the thing was so in her perspective in her part of the world that’s a really big deal yeah and so that’s I think something you got to do as a as a as a human always look at what other people’s perspectives are and you know what if people are pissed off if your wife’s freaking out cuz you didn’t do the dishes I got some really easy solution to that do the dishes just do the dishes yeah could be wor put on some music and scrub some pots and pans let’s do this you know what I’ll scrub some pots and pans be happy to let’s make this happen yeah that’s good man and then you know that if you have the ability and kind of the wherewithal to do that to to really it’s detaching you’re detaching and looking at their situation not looking at it from your own personal situation um if you can manage to do that and I think it helps when someone reminds you like just like you how you say it right now and maybe someone will be like hey you know what let me let me go ahead and remember that next time you know all this stuff and I say this to leaders all the time when I go out and work with companies it it it’s so much of it is just about awareness when you become aware of the problem you become aware of the mistake or you become aware of the solution and it’s there in front of you then it becomes very easy the problem is you people aren’t aware of how easy it can be to solve some of these things if you just make this small adjustment to your mentality yeah all you’re aware of is the fact that you’re freaking steaming redlining because for the fifth time your wife told you to do something when like I said you’re worrying about your guys getting killed yesterday days ago yeah yeah as one of my buddies used to say when we were coming home from our first deployment he says can you believe this tomorrow we’re going to get on an aluminum tube and we’re going to wake up back in San Diego I was like okay man take it easy just take it easy brother uh all right anything else here yes we are in fact sponsored by on it com go to on it com joaco get some good stuff yeah get some very good stuff um I prefer alpab braon and shroom Tech what was that what was that that bar that oh yeah yeah yeah the uh the warrior bars check out the this is the anti- donut it’s what I like about it so the warrior bar it’s like a it’s like it’s like beef jerky with some [ __ ] in it and some cranberries and it’s tasty yeah it’s like the tender okay you know how beef jerky beef jerky but there’s that tender big one that you can buy it’s it’s it’s it tastes really good and like moist it’s good it’s not dried right so yeah get some of those don’t eat your Donuts get your Warrior bars and they’re they’re tasty yeah and they’re beneficial short and long-term benefits I like thinking yes dang Warrior bar yeah that it’s kind of a genius solution because you know how people be like hey I’ll take my protein shake a warrior bar is like made with actual like food it’s legit so yeah you’re going to get all that and you can just get after them all day long cuz cuz they’re you know when you just you’re hungry but you think okay what am I going to have right now mhm you know a donut is what you’re thinking sure potentially yeah on it com joaco get it 10 10% off boom and then of course if you you’re online if you want to check out the Joo store you can buy shirts if you like them and bumper stickers yeah I made some bumper stickers yeah did while Joo was uh not looking so get one of those put it on your desk or your bumper whatever um and if some people indicated that they wanted to donate you can donate on Joost store com as well the PayPal thing the PayPal thing or on Joop podcast com as well and click through Amazon we got some people post what they’re what they’re buying through Amazon which is awesome ah yes so yeah if you’re shopping on Amazon and you want to support the podcast um just click on our link on Amazon and then do your shopping like you normally would here’s the thing I don’t know if I told you this what I added cuz um my friends on Twitter the Troopers they um a lot of people were indicating that they like the books that you cover and they’re like hey let me you know get those books you know what you should do you should link you should have the list the library of books that you’ve covered and Link them so guess what I did echo’s got Echo makes things happen that’s what I like now that one’s on jaop podcast com on the top I added it on the menu where it says books it it just says books or I don’t know it says books okay and you click on there to have all the podcast episodes you know the book what podcast episode it was on you click on it boom you can get it that’s awesome yeah easy yeah all right let’s get to some questions okay question number one is taking extreme ownership the same as apologizing for failures or apologizing for others mistakes I’m having difficulty separating these two concepts when I try to take ownership over failures does taking ownership of failure generally include in I’m sorry X occurred etc etc well it isn’t just apologizing right it isn’t just saying oh I apologize this happened it’s part of it part of ownership is apologizing if you make a mistake you got to own it and generally you got to say hey look I’m sorry this happened you got to own that there’s been a problem or a mistake or an issue and that does include other people’s mistakes but you have to literally take ownership of them you can’t say hey I’m sorry these other people made mistakes that’s not what I’m talking about and it’s look the mistakes that were made were actually my fault and and another important thing here is you can’t just say hey guys it’s all my fault you actually need to mean it and you need to believe it yourself right you need to believe that you failed in the situation to do the right thing or make something happen or make the right decision or make the right call or do the right preparation or whatever it is that you were supposed to do you need to do that you need to believe that you can’t just say it and you say these mistakes were my fault here’s why it was my fault and yeah I’m sorry that these things happen I apologize for this happening and some people see sorry as a sign of weakness and and honestly there’s some you know some legal situations you might be in or some negotiations that you might be in where that might be true but most of the time especially in a working environment like inside of a team Sorry’s okay and and in fact an apology is often the first step in moving forward right and and it’s generally going to be a little bit of a blow to Your Ego now and that’s especially true because you’re Mr extreme ownership now or Mrs extreme ownership guess what that doesn’t mean everyone else is not yet they’ll get there but they’re not there yet so you apologize to someone it’s going to be a big blow to Your Ego especially when someone says you’re damn right that was your fault M that’s that’s going to hurt your ego you’re going to want to lash back out but you can’t got to put your ego in check and you got to go hey I understand that is my fault you know why I’m saying it’s my fault because I truly believe it was my fault because it is because it is your fault so you got to be careful when someone gloats don’t let that get to your head um but that’s what you have to do and it’s not just not just for you that you’re doing this it’s because the team because the team has to figure out what the problem is someone’s got to take ownership of the problem that’s you and then that’s how you get the problem solved and I and I’ll tell you something else and you might have predicted this but my sorry and my apology comes with something else 99% of the time what and that’s a good right so look hey I’m sorry that this happened this is my fault but I’m glad it happen now oh yeah huh hey you know what I’m glad we made this mistake we made this mistake right now it’s going to set us back a little bit good because now we’re not going to make it with a client oh this happened this part of the project fell apart good now we can fix it we know about it oh this went sideways I missed it good I won’t let it happen again right so throw yourself a little good on the end of your you’re sorry y all right yeah a lot of times those problems or or mistakes or whatever they add to that experience like the experience of being there you know where where let’s say you go through a path and you make a wrong turn now you have that experience that that’s a wrong turn that’s what that looks like that that’s what that feels like and guess what we’re going to avoid that in the future rather than a bunch of situations where where for example one in the future where it’s more detrimental now you don’t run into that yeah you learned you learned exactly I think I saw a video that said that good you learned all right next question is there a way to be a straight shooter oh sorry is there a way to be straight shooter Joo and not be a jerk or piss people off you know this is this is a a touchy one mhm because everybody wants everybody has so much respect for the straight shooter right hey that guy’s a straight shooter and you want to be a straight shooter you don’t want to be someone that you don’t want to be the opposite what’s the opposite of a straight shooter that’s like a liar right deceiver decep deceiver right so of course we want to be the straight shooter let me tell you it is very difficult to be a straight shooter with everybody mhm even when you have a tremendous relationship with somebody a tremendous relationship with somebody yeah can you really be a straight shooter with them a true straight shooter I’ve been a true straight shooter with probably three or four people in my life yeah in my life I’ve been a straight shooter with maybe three or four people that’s off the top of my head but I’m just saying it’s not a big number it’s got to be somebody that you are so in sync with man I’m thinking about that I don’t think that’s even possible for me in my situation even the cuz it’s hard be a straight shooter yeah how can you reconcile being a straight straight shooter now consider what that means but to be a straight shooter with somebody at all times yes you can’t really do that so so what do we do instead you got to use the indirect approach the indirect approach and I’m I’m talking about this all the time and this is a Nuance that people people people come out on podcast 12 and they say hey I heard you say this and I I’m going to go remember that question we got asked you know uh do you ever get told you’re too direct and too intense and it’s like no I don’t get told that right because I don’t believe in being trying to be a straight shooter with everybody what I believe in is trying to get my message across to people so that it gets absorbed by them yeah man and the minute you straight shoot somebody their defenses go up and it becomes problematic so some indirect approaches are when you have these discussions with people when you use conversation to get your point across you know hey I was looking at this and I was wondering what I could do better right can you can you help me or you know what can we do better you know you throwing the the we on it or you know then you say something like hey you know you got so much going on right now mhm do you want me to take anything off your plate you want me to take that thing off your plate that that’s kind of like a small little detail do you want me to handle that or you know hey seems like you’re having to micromanage this guy over here you want me to you want me to want me to go straighten that out and run that or it seems like this guy’s taking up too much of your time you want me to take that over or take that person over or you know what’s a good one is hey can you help me with my team members I just want to sit down with you and just like have you talk to me about what you see in my team members and then when you’re you’re you’re discussing your team members MH and other people even your peers and what they do good and bad but what you’re really doing is you’re just tossing some things their way some little things their way so that they understand and they and it’s kind of like teaching Jiu-Jitsu right when you teach when you teach a or teaching anything when you teach a move you learn it better right if you make somebody teach a move they’re going to learn it better so when you make someone sit down with you and go through the issues that people are having it actually makes them self-reflect but they don’t know it but they reap the results they reap the results of of it so that’s a that’s a crafty one that I’ve used a bunch um let’s see here’s a good one I think I’m letting you down I don’t think I’m doing a good enough job you know it’s like I think I’m just be careful though with that one seems like if you if you hit the wrong tone you be careful with all these you got to be careful with all these you got to be tactful yeah uh you can ask some more direct questions but when you ask the more direct questions you got to be sort of you got to be true you got to you got to come across as being very truthful in your in your Inquisition so for instance hey what was the strategy that you were thinking about over here yeah like before this whole thing fell apart you that part but you know hey what you what were you thinking or hey what was what were you thinking about when you put this together cuz I I don’t quite I don’t quite get it you got to be careful that’s another one you got to be sensitive you got to be careful tone can come off B the tone can come off bad what were you thinking right right hey hey what’s think you gotta you got to be soft with these so it’s much better to be indirect in most of these cases and hopefully you can build relationships with people where you can be more direct or you can get that conversation to be where it needs to be to where you can get the key critical information across but it’s very very challenging yeah and again it’s not that challenging it’s not impossible I did it with everybody all the time I always had got my point across to people always you know and I’ll tell you this is something when I would straight shoot somebody I would and this is if I really needed to straight shoot somebody I would write them a very lengthy email MH to say hey here’s what’s going on here’s what I’m saying and I would really craft it with a lot of patience and and then I would either do once I wrote the email I would either use that wouldn’t send it but I’d use it as a guide to myself like okay this is the conversation I’m going to have or I’d send it to him for real like a DL note yeah like a DL note you know I actually read one of those I read one of those on on on uh number two number five I think it was number five that is one of those things that I did I said okay you know what I got to help this guy out got to be direct with him he’s making some mistakes I want him to do better here’s a little DL note for you get you squired away the thing is uh these this is definitely hard but it’s not impossible you got to just have the open mind you got to use your tact you got to use your judgment and you got to build relationships and have conversations with people and and know what your intention is in the conversation and just keep slowly moving in that direction you know what I a tip and I’m I’m going to say this tip because I like when people do it to me when they’re like correcting me or or whatever is sprinkle in little comments about the stuff that that they did right yeah that’s that’s a common practice Yeah but when you do that though you add in this you add in and that’s what I like about you you do this you know so it’s you know so if you add in that’s what I like about you it kind of individualizes that person like I’m the guy who does that you know that good part so it gives them that confidence so it’s kind of like yeah tell me more kind of kind of attitude and then at the end throwing like something along the lines of like yeah good thanks you know thanks for the time or whatever and then be like I got your back yeah kind of leap them with yeah there’s all I mean we could go over techniques all all night long those are both good ones um you know another one is like Hey listen I think you can be a top performer here mhm I think you’re going to this is if you’re talking to someone that’s you know like a subordinate I think you could be a top performer here there’s here’s what you’re kicking ass at this this this and this here’s this these two things right here if we can get these fixed you’re going Platinum when we get these things fixed when we get these more positive look at you I’m yeah I’m imagining in the sense of you telling me this in like Jiu-Jitsu or something you know and yeah so like Dean used to say like um when I’d be like hey and I’d ask him to say I’m in this position and he’d be like be like yeah then later on you know I text him whatever be hey thanks for for going over this with me he’s like yeah bro you know keep it up and you can be like a world champion he’ just say that and I don’t know who else he he probably says that to everybody I don’t know he’s never said that to me that’s cuz we hate each other before for that moment I’m like hell yeah you know like I hope he corrects me more I hope he tells me how to to do this cuz he obviously just like how you’re saying you know you can be a top performer here be like yeah tell me what else what can I do what can I do and actually the point that you’re making is very good point which is um you know picture go to the perspective of the other person and what is it going to sound like to them and that’s that’s a smart thing to do so you’re you’re hearing what you would hear if you were them yeah yeah yeah indirect people be indirect it’s harder it’s challenging it takes more time it takes more patience and it is way more effective MH fact Y and we talked about how before like some people they’ll be like hey I’m just a I’m just I tell it how it is you know I tell it how it is and and if you don’t like it kind of thing and all right go ahead and do that but see how that works out for you you know see how many people follow you see how many people want to listen to you see how many people want to be around you even you know I like the indirect approach too next question Joo what is the number one philosophical lesson that you’ve learned from jiujitsu oh yeah so jiujitsu emphasizes so much of what I believe that it’s tough to narrow down but I will but I will throw some things out there that kind of are part of Jiu-Jitsu and are part of what I believe believe um first of all what we just talked about being indirect and indirect attacks flanking that’s what you have to do in ji-su you have to set things up you have to detach you have to detach from the chaos and from the emotional you cannot get emotional on the mat attack the flanks you got to hit people where they aren’t expecting it you got to have a plan but you got to be ready to adapt you got to constantly improve your position you got to have fun while you’re doing it you got to practice being in bad situations you got to make your training as realistic as possible Right these are all things I talk about these in all aspects of combat and in business and in life you got to be physically fit so your mind stays sharp that’s that’s true true in Jiu-Jitsu it’s true in combat it’s true in life you got to know when to tap right you got to know when to tap you got to know when to give up on a single battle M so that you don’t lose the whole War got to train for worst case scenarios you got to start with that person on your back got to start with a person with you in an arm lock and training for combat you got to train for those worst case scenarios where you’re outnumbered you got a bunkered position and they’re shooting paintball at you and you got down men that’s what you got to do you got to train for the worst case scenarios and same thing with business I work with like sales groups sometimes and they’ll do role playing and I’ll say you know be the worst customer you can possibly be so that way when this person meets a normal human right they they know how to knock it out of the park here’s another one from Jiu-Jitsu basically don’t judge a book by its cover right cuz you don’t know if the person that you’re about to slap is Jeff Glover y or is Dean lisst or Joel Tor or Joel tutor you don’t know what’s going to happen so don’t judge a book by its cover yeah I mean dean You’ be less apt to slap than you would Jeff Clover I guess that’s a good point yeah Dean you can kind of judge by the cover a little bit the cover is pretty evident but Jeffy or Joel yeah you know those guys weigh 150 PBS and you know a surfer guy and a and uh whatever Jeff is I don’t know what genre of human you put Jeff into but you wouldn’t think that he would throw a DARS choke on your face mhm uh so that’s that prioritize and execute in the jiujitsu I mean we just talked about it 14 times tonight for combat talk about it in business all the time you got to make sure that the initiatives that you’re running you don’t have 38 initiatives in Jiu-Jitsu guess what you hear this all the time you’re get you’re about to get choked you got to protect your neck M number one you got to protect your neck yeah then you can worry about your leg and then you can worry about your arm and the hooks and everything else but you got to protect the neck you got to PRI prioritize yeah you got to keep things simple you got to create you got to have an open mind you you got to be creative and look for different ways to win and different things to do you got to make sure you don’t get trapped in any erupts mentally trapped in rut this happens to me everybody I think yeah it happens to me but I only know what I can tell you about me and that is I get trapped in ruts with you Jitsu mhm where I get I get stuck in something and I’ll just go with one move move for a long period of time yeah got to be careful that I need to be better about that discipline equals Freedom so with jiu-jitsu the more disciplined you are in training the more freedom you have on the mat so the more you train the more you work the more you drill the more you can move the more you can escape the more you can create the more you can finish y and to mention the fear that it eliminates cuz like you know how like let’s say you’re not that disciplined you take two weeks off a lot of time when you come back from that two weeks like you have that added element of nervousness like dang am I going to gas or am I going to get you know tapped out in front of everybody when you know when you know maybe there was a higher expectation on me or something like that yeah no I don’t have that uh yeah it’s part of of it though for sure uh but I would say the number one philosophical lesson I guess this is a philosophical lesson is the same thing that I learned from combat and that’s humility and Jiu-Jitsu is absolutely one of the most humbling experiences in the world and we’ve actually I got people now that have started Jiu-Jitsu because of the podcast and they say oh I just did my first Jiu-Jitsu class damn that was humbling it is extremely humbling you’re going to get beat you’re never going to know everything you’re always going to be learning that there’s other ways to do things and somebody that just started can come up with amazing techniques and that’s humbling and there’s other martial arts that have better moves that you need to pay attention to like wrestling has better takedowns like sombo with the leg locks mhm and catch wrestling some of those things that are better moves and you need to apply those and guess what you still need to know how to strike because it can be hard to take people down so you know how to how to strike and you can’t be cocky and you can’t be overconfident because the bottom line is in jiujitsu you will get beat and you will get beat by smaller guys by weaker guys by older guys you’re going to get beat and there’s somebody that’s better than you and if you don’t like that or if you’re ego doesn’t like that then you got to find a new game to play yeah because you need to find a softer game or an easier game because jiujitsu is honest yeah and you cannot Escape that and that’s as it should be and it’s of course this philosophical this philosophy is something that I definitely carried over to combat and carry over to when I talk to businesses and carry over to life you can’t be overon you you can’t be overconfident you’re never going to think you know everything you have to respect the enemy that’s part of humility you got to respect your if you’re not humble you don’t respect your enemy you don’t respect your opponent you don’t respect your competitor and if you don’t that’s when you’re going to get caught so to me humility is the most important thing that Jiu-Jitsu teaches you yeah and you know it’s kind of a it can be kind of a not a trick yeah I’m going to call it a trick because okay you got to you got to maintain the humility right but that humility will be tested if you stick with it so and I’ll tell you a little quick story about that test being bestowed upon me it was like a little after I got my purple belt I was really like I really hit my stride I was competing a lot and winning and um and you were training with me a lot back then yes that was that was right at that time when I was training with you and you were you know when I you know if if there was there was a little bit of mentorship going on mentorship yeah that that was the exact time yeah and um and I was like yeah and I started to kind of you know give into my own hype you know oh I’m the man not outwardly but on the inside and um and Jitsu jiu-jitsu man gets cocky on the inside on the inside yeah exactly and here’s the thing a lot of people that’s how you know in fact a little bit of that is good cuz you get that confidence that hunger to even learn more and be better um so I had that and then Greg I hadn’t en rolled with Greg since I I didn’t know him as good but I knew him but not as good as I do now and last time I want to say the last time I rolled with him I was a white belt long time ago oh and he just would destroy me so I was like Greg’s like oh yeah hey you know congratulations you know you’ve been winning and stuff like that I was like oh yeah he’s like all right yeah yeah let’s let’s roll so I’m like all right let me show what he yeah I’m thinking in my mind yeah I’ve been winning here let me go ahead and show you my new stuff you know I was going to show Greg in my own mind yeah and bro Greg took me like I was a white belt again immediately the kind where literally nothing I did worked and everything he did work yeah it was like it’s like he did a step one step two step three tap tap me out step one step two step tap me out and that was the time where I got put from like the top of the mountain in my own head right to the bottom of the mountain literally to the bottom not to not almost at the bottom to the bottom of the mountain yeah that’s that’s it’s actually it’s actually so good when that happens and and actually it’s something I I occasionally Jiu-Jitsu super humbling occasionally you get someone that is really really good and they don’t recognize they don’t come up against people all the time that are they don’t come up against people very often that are better than them yeah most people in the beginning you have you have several years of of being beat down but occasionally you get somebody that’s a great wrestler or maybe they were a judo player or something so they come into the game or they’re just super strong or they’re just a freak athlete and so they very quickly you know in a matter of 6 months to a year all of a sudden they’re doing really well yeah sometimes those people sometimes those people mentally they might be good at Jiu-Jitsu but they they don’t they don’t mentally get it and they become really bullies and that’s uh that’s that’s one of the it doesn’t happen that often like I said but it does occasionally happen where you get somebody that just is a dominant Force they don’t get humbled enough and and they don’t because even if you don’t actually get humbled Jiu-Jitsu normally in the beginning you learn like oh because one of the things I say to people is I’m not you know because I can tap you it doesn’t mean that I’m a better human than you it just means I train more Jiu-Jitsu than you there you know what I mean that’s all it means and that means that someone else is training in jiujitsu more than me and they can beat me and that’s just what it is but sometimes people think that because they can tap somebody out that they’re better than them yeah as a human yeah there is a superior and that’s not a good attitude to have that’s not what Jiu-Jitsu should be about yeah and those guys a lot of times cuz they and this is just kind of a one way to put it they don’t pay their dues so to speak you know how like a normal person they don’t get the humility lesson over and over and over again they get it like a few times but then they overcome it quickly yeah and it outweighs that it outweighs yep so you got to be careful of that it’s uh just just be just be careful that if you’re if you’re a person that’s naturally really Adept at Jiu-Jitsu make sure you’re not getting uh turning into a bully yeah and a lot of times that can block you from learning oh it definitely blocks cuz it’s like why would I why would I start learning all this weirdo game like if you’re strong wrestler like why would I start learning bottom game yeah if when I’m killing with all this other stuff I’m going listen to that because there’s someone that’s a better wrestler than you yeah that’s why or just knows the combination cuz a lot of times certain guys they’ll they’ll know the combo to beat wrestling yeah without having to do wrestling like some guys they’re just like that you know so part of it jiujitsu okay next question have you ever been so dug in on a solution or an opinion that it felt impossible to admit that you were in fact wrong so I actually almost gave up on this question and and because it’s been a I learned this lesson a long time ago that again the the humility that you get from Jiu-Jitsu and from combat and from life is that I very seldom dig in on something that I’m not 100% sure of yeah and and which means I don’t dig in on a lot cuz I’m not 100% sure of much right who can be 100% sure of a lot of things and when I do do that it’s not that hard for me to realize that I’m wrong stifle my ego admit it and change course it’s not that big of a deal to me when I like I said when I do dig in on a subject or on a decision it’s because I know like almost to a 100% certainty that I’m right otherwise I’m going to leave myself a little bit of an out I’m not going to just dig in on things that I can’t be positive about cuz why would I why would I do that now when I end up being wrong if I do take a stance on something it’s no big deal I’m going to use that as an opportunity to show that I’m humble and show that I can admit when I’m wrong I’m going to take advantage of it good I’m wrong good and you know so I would say just keep your options open keep an open mind when you feel yourself or your ego is digging in just check yourself and admit that you’re wrong and move on and one thing I think that happens with people is people think that digging in and having a strong 100% opinion makes them appear stronger or it makes their idea appear stronger but I don’t think so I I I’m not saying to be wishy-washy on stuff I’m just saying to have an open mind because I think that’s the ultimate strength that’s kind of my opinion I mean the last time I came close to digging in I was advising a company and they were going through some rough a little bit of a rough patch and they started multiple initiatives to try and turn some some things around and one of the initiatives of all the initiatives there was a couple that the CEO want done immediately and two of those initiatives when I looked at them I thought I thought that they were redundant M and so I said look I wouldn’t waste I wouldn’t do both these initiatives just pick one I think this one’s the better one just do this one and I think it’ll cover the problem and I convinced him and it was pretty easy to convince him because they were had limited resources at the time and limited assets so it wasn’t like they had a bunch of stuff to spread around but he was pretty set on it but I convinced him otherwise and he agreed and within a matter of days it started to look like I was wrong and it started to look like both systems were going to be needed to solve that specific issue so I didn’t like wait I I didn’t say oh I hope that things go I said look hey I think I was wrong about this I think you were right uh let’s get the other initiative going and let’s get this problem covered and that’s it and I’m telling you he didn’t lose respect for me mhm because I said hey I’m wrong after a few days of watching what the results are and making an early decision he actually thought it was awesome and and you know he’s like hey I wish I wish everyone could admit when they were wrong like that it would make everything around here so much easier and I said well that’s why I’m here in the first place right is to help with that so just be cautious when you dig in you know because when you dig in you you’re actually when you dig in you’re taking away your ability to maneuver oh yeah and you don’t want to do that it’s good so so watch out now should I read this question because this is a question for Echo Charles so that that means I get well there part of it’s two questions actually but I put them together because they’re pretty close Okay Joo willink what brought you and Eko Charles together can we get the backstory there I like the chemistry Echo Charles question for you to answer on Joo podcast what what have you learned from Joo and how has your life changed since this is ekko’s first response to a question don’t screw it up here we go I Heckle you yeah yeah of course which is funny because that’s kind of how what brought us together or part of what brought us together and I think it’s good that I answer this part because you probably remember a lot less of it so I would say it was 06 I see I had seen you like the the first you know whatever within the first year of of joining with Dean in ‘ 05 but I didn’t know you I didn’t talk to you nothing like that I just had heard of you from Dean um and then in like ‘ 06 when we moved over to the boxing club I rolled with you one time I was still a white belt M and uh so that could have been still’ 05 I don’t know and then you know you beat me up and you you kind of you were just more like this stoic guy basically I would imagine the same guy that people interpret you to be from the outside you know kind of like not intense but just real like oh yeah just real matter of fact you know MH um so you beat me up or whatever and then I was so I since I had already heard of you you were Dean’s black belt and you know all this stuff that um I was like yeah that’s about right you know he’s you know good Jiu-Jitsu whatever beat me up but that wasn’t really saying much because everyone was beating me up and then um time went on I didn’t see you for a while and then um when I started to kind of get I I was training with Brent remember Brent yeah I was training with him and then with Alias a little bit and then uh you’d come back I was competing and then you were just around for whatever reason um and then yeah I just started training with you and I think that’s that’s when we open Victory right yes is around the same time yeah yeah exactly and then um yeah what was funny is that you never came off like once I like knew you like immediately you never came off as this super intense person like it was more like you were just sarcastic like you know like any other any other of my friends but you could still always tell that there was something behind the scenes you know you know how Jo ran said like he’s seen you and he was like there’s something up with this guy you know so I kind of got that same feeling but you were always just like oh yeah this real matter of fact but fun funny like kind of person or whatever like but when I say matter of fact I mean like um like that one this one tournament when uh it was kind of later where I lost to Shawn Roberts he got me with a gogo plat you know when you lose in a Jiu-Jitsu and and that was the first time I lost in since I went Advance you know because I was doing a lot of noi I had never lost and Sean Roberts gets me with a goo Plata so instead of you saying hey you know it’s okay or nothing like that you send me a text you’re sitting across the arena you’re right there you send me a text hey you got caught with a go go that’s got to sting this is a tournament it’s not practice you can’t say that kind of stuff I was like ah whatever but I think that um that you know training together and just kind of getting you know you you kind of had that thing that you could say that kind of stuff because really it’s not that serious you know yeah I don’t think I don’t there’s there’s not many people who could have conveyed that though you know it it came it it um I think it had to come from you anyway so yeah that’s kind of how we met I’d say and then um kind of after a while how did the idea of a podcast come up cuz we we kind of talked about that a little bit before I kind of forget the formation but it was in my mind when I went on Joe Rogan’s I think we had talked about hey you know we should do something I think you said to me like hey you should do it and so when I went on Joe Rogan’s and he said you should do a podcast I think Tim Ferris said hey you should do a podcast and then I kind of be you being a techie sound Guy video guy I just said hey do you know how to make a podcast that’s right I just said Hey how do you do you know how to make a podcast cuz I need to make one yeah yeah cuz everything to me is just a total caveman right how do you do I need a tape recorder what do I need you know that’s what my and so then you said yeah I know I know how to do that I could make that happen and then you said it’d be cool instead of just you sitting there talking if you had someone to talk to and I said yeah you’re right that would be cool and then you said it’d be cool if it was me yeah well my my selling point was that’s strange if it’s just you right just sitting there you know it’s it’s more strange and it’s better if you have someone to kind of Bounce things off of AG especially someone who can kind of be like Oh I’m just everyday guy like so I can like ask questions that kind of reiterate the point you to someone who might not get it um yeah I had it all thought out you know in my mind I did anyway um but yeah then yeah obviously Joe roken uh was kind of the tippy point when he suggested it yeah yeah I know that was a good great Insight from Joe Rogan and I’m glad he did and I’m glad you did and I’m glad we did make this podcast happen so to answer the question what have I learned um and this is interesting because I asked myself this exact same question like like a week ago CU I am literally a different person now in ways that kind of are kind of surprising in a way so I’d say the first thing that’s kind of kind of not that surprising but um it’s it’s very prevalent is when people blame when I see people blaming other people or blaming me or I feel the compulsion to blame someone else it stands out like a sore thumb almost like if if I’m feeling that and it like almost like if I want to say something to to indicate that I’m going to blame somebody or something it’s almost like a red flag like I’m not allowed to do that in my own mind it’s like it’s hard in fast Rule and like I said they just stand out like a sore thumb everywhere though on TV on you know the guy not even my conversation oh I see what you’re doing right there you know so it’s like it’s like your whole way of life in that regard is just shifted extreme ownership and the awareness of that and seeing it in other people or lack of it in other people definitely stands out like crazy once you start thinking about it yeah and I have the luxury of being around you talking about these things talking about examples of it every week right so throughout the week I’m like I can’t even help but notice it you know and spr it helps man because it applies to everyone and everything like most relationships are going to apply these principles you know if if you’re involved in them um so yeah it’s all automatic now so so when it comes to ownership and and really blaming myself if anyone and focusing on my responsibility in any scenario whatever it comes automatic now I would say that’s a huge step I mean whether I make the right choices that’s always going to be a work in Pro progress I think but as far as that attitude is it’s automatic now that’s awesome and then um in regards to okay so I’ve always been into working out and so me not feeling like working out is I’ve always felt like working out so as far as not feeling like it that wasn’t really a factor but in a bunch of other things in life it was a factor and so and that so so you’re saying we not feeling like doing X Y or Z yeah like oh I got to I got to go to the post office today and that’s on the low end and then or the other one is I don’t know I got to I don’t know something more important right but maybe I’ll wait I’ll wait till really the last minute or you know procrastination type stuff so you’re getting into the here and now yeah and not feeling like it that means absolutely absolutely nothing something needs to be done and I don’t feel like it and you know how like you have you have certain ideas already and then other ideas are introduced and then those ideas kind of mingle with your existing ideas and they formulate this whole new course of action right so the not feeling like it is no excuse that idea came in and so now I’m like it morphed into this thing like me not feeling like it w guess what I’m going to do I’m going to do it you know so it’s almost like this personal challenge now you know and man as far as results go man you get everything done I get so much stuff done and it’s not so probably compared to you it’s nothing but I get stuff done like so many things done during the day that I never thought that I could do that many things in a day that’s awesome I’m I was always looking for maybe a rest or a nap or something like that but now every once in a while I’ll I’ll be challenging myself to do as many things that as I can and be like solid and on top of that and you’re the one who said this was um one time one of the things you were kind of tired and you were like you know what but I like this I like just grinding and grinding and grinding and then at the end of the day when I go go to bed where my head just crashes into the pillow I like that I was like yeah that sounds nice you know so I want to approach things like that now and also I think of all the good things that have been done like great things and just good things or whatever if these people didn’t do it because they didn’t feel like it like these things wouldn’t have got done you know so if you got stuff to do you do it whether you feel like it or not that’s what I have for myself now um and last thing um is I kind of knew this but man it’s so clear now that you can get certain messages and information and tips and tactics and stuff from from people or the internet or books or whatever but if you’re not ready to accept them you just won’t accept them or they’ll just go in one ear and out the other and a lot of time that has to do with who’s saying it so if like I don’t know your neighbor some Goof Off he’s drinking a beer smoking a cigarette he’s like hey guess what you know you should do this and it’s it can be this great advice but you can be like I’m not going to listen to you I’m not even going to listen to you I’m not even to get past that part the fact that you’re the one that’s saying this already walled me off from what you have to say and that’s natural I think but a lot of these things like you’re reading these old books that have these messages that you’ve been saying so it’s not new stuff and a lot of stuff oh yeah I heard that take responsibility for for your actions how old is that yeah that’s not new you know if if I bust out hey hey you guy on the street take responsibility for reactions if something comes up I’m just saying he’d be like yeah that’s nothing new that wouldn’t stand out but for some reason when you’re saying it it gets you thinking yeah let me take responsib you know so that so yeah it’d say when it comes to listening to you this podcast all the you know the the answers you have for these questions and any questions I even have it seems like it it comes and I process it way more readily than you know memes on Facebook or wherever you know so yeah that’s awesome pretty transformative say that’s really cool that’s that’s great to hear and I’ve I mean I’ve definitely seen uh a transition in everything you’re doing I mean everything you’re doing is spoton yeah and that’s legit you know it’s it’s legit to see it’s legit to see someone moving towards their potential as a human yeah that’s awesome to see yeah I would and another thing that kind of I I came to as not a conclusion but it which is a result it’s not a direct like you didn’t tell me this but this is what all my existing thoughts mixed with all your input kind of arrived at one of the things is that it’s up to you it’s up to me what I spend my time doing it’s totally up to me and it’s up to me what I feel my fill my head with so you know like I used to have these shows that I love to I love to watch Hawaii 5 and Shark Tank and that’s kind of it I don’t really watch that much TV but those two that’s maybe you know two hours or so that I could be reading something that’s going to help me through the rest of my life or getting better at something that’s going to help my you know relationships or career something like that and I use that example because that seems pretty pretty like uh not inconsequential inconsequential because it’s only two shows it’s not like I spend 10 hours a day watching TV it’s just two shows who cares no harm in that right but it’s that’s up to me I’m not missing out by missing Hawaii 5 I’m not missing out that’s not going to affect my life in any negative way in the future at all and it won’t affect my life in any way actually but if I read something useful educate myself in you know whatever Arena that’s going to improve my interest or my or or my relationship or something like that that will that will help me yeah that’s one of the things I’ve noticed you know I show up show up at the studio and you’d say oh I was reading this book today about you know how we could get this to sound better and I I read this thing about you know you’re coming back to me with all this information and it was something that just transitioned in your brain where you said you know what I could be watching TV and wasting my mind or I could be applying myself and learning yeah and that’s that makes a huge difference yeah what one of the things I read actually um and I I read it on I want to say Wikipedia this specific thing but there’s this um this automatic way of thinking and uh it’s called hyperbolic discounting right and all that all that means is you choose immediate payoffs versus and I kind of mentioned this before you choose immediate payoffs versus long-term payoffs right and it’s there for a reason survival mechm and all these ways but it’s old it exists for you know an environment that’s not current so if you can basically a be aware of that and combat that where don’t do the immediate payoff things so just take take what you’re about to do evaluate it is this going to help me other than the pleasure that I think whe whether that in regards to food drinking TV shows like if you watch reality TV check yourself on that one and ask yourself is this going to help me in the future and typically that the the answer for those types of things is going to be no and then consider an alternative that you can do and a lot of the stuff can be pleasurable that will help you in the future and it’s totally up to you it’s totally up to you why not make the good choice yeah and the payoff not only is it bigger it lasts longer yeah and the immedia payoff is gone it’s just a memory awesome that’s awesome to hear and and actually we got that next comment here is sort of the same vein it’s coming from and we get a bunch of you know emails but I just thought this one was was interesting to hear someone kind of talking about their transition here she says I’m one of many many people who live their lives as they think they should and end up mid-40s lost chubby and depressed I definitely don’t hero worship you but I’m truly grateful for your online presence I now get up at 5:00 a m daily and I screen grab my phone every morning as the alarm goes off and post that shot with another shot from my walk a few minutes in I walk for an hour daily and it started stretching daily for an hour but this doesn’t stop there I now have a bunch of friends who are getting up early and going for a walk or going to the gym getting after it as you say we are all noticing an improvement in our lives so we might not be military or police we are not planning on becoming Jiu-Jitsu Champions at this stage we’re just people who lost themselves lost their way who are finding their way back in part thanks to you I credit you at least twice a week and tell people to find you on Twitter I had to write here because there’s no way I could fit this into 140 characters and thanks to Tim and Joe for having you on their shows that’s where I found you have a great day so it really cool you know really cool to hear that really great to get that feedback and you know this is what I like about it well first of all you know I thank people for spreading the words and and it’s really good to hear that feedback it fires me up to hear the feedback and when people say when people say I motivate them I’m always like you motivate me MH you know that it motivates me that you’re out there getting up at 5:00 a m and and turning your life around I think that’s awesome and ALS Al what I what I liked about this was they pointed out that this isn’t just military or police or Jiu-Jitsu players it’s for pretty much anybody MH in any station in life in any job any age man or woman any country and as a matter of fact I was an England and my wife’s from England and when I was in England I went and saw one of my wife’s friends who I’m friends with a husband and you know here’s this woman who’s I don’t know 40 something years old she’s lives in England she’s got three kids she’s like couldn’t be any further detached from me in my life mhm and when I was I was hanging out with her husband in London before we went to their house and he said when we got on the train to go to his house he said listen you got to be ready and I’m like for what and he says my wife loves your podcast and I said really and he said no no no no I’m serious she loves your podcast and when we have dinner night she’s going to ask you questions all night long she’s been asking me the questions that she was going to ask you and so I showed up and seriously um it was great she was asking me all these detailed questions about everything and it was really cool because I realized that this I mean this like I said this person doesn’t do Jiu-Jitsu doesn’t you know doesn’t do anything that I do nothing and yet she was had all these Lessons Learned and all these things she had taken away and it was awesome to see that and it was interesting too because as I was talking to her it was on a Friday or a Saturday and as I’m talking to her she had listened to the latest podcast on the day before and so she was saying to me you know well yesterday you said this and yesterday you said that and so in her mind I was talking to her yesterday right I was talking to her yesterday and that’s when I kind of realized that how how impactful that’s what we talked about with you know where the words the podcast words are going directly into your brain and I’ve had a bunch of people say you know oh when you’re talking oh you were telling this story I wanted you to talk about this story you know these are friends of mine mhm and so so I think that’s that’s really cool and um I think that’s why a lot of people are getting into the game and enjoying it because and you just said it and I I say it all the time there’s nothing new here and we’re not giving out any groundbreaking techniques and there’s no miracle drug and there’s no 3 minute exercise that’s going to change your life I’m not selling the self-help reach your potential through this Magical Mystery I’m telling people what they already know and we’re talking about things that people know to be right in their own heads like discipline and hard work and consistency those are the things and we all know those things but to everybody that’s that’s kind of known these things for a while but they’ve recently started to get after it good on you yeah and get on that path yeah I feel like and stay on that path that’s what I’m talking about very cool I feel like um like just like how you were saying like we we a lot of this we already knew we already know about St discipline we already know about all this stuff or whatever but coming from you it it helps and then on top of that an added element that I’m that I’m kind of really starting to really understand and feel is that you know how like you on Twitter like you engage you know you you like if someone asks you a questions it it seems like you’re engaging them a lot more so than if somebody ask me a question I’m going to answer their question I’m not rude which is good I I Tred to too for sure um I would imagine you’d be you know have way more than me but um kind of as a result of everything I feel like we’re all kind of doing this together you know you know how the guys down in Australia they’ll post all the you know a lot of people Everyone they’re posting their you know 4:30 a m wake up time to do this everyone cuz that’s what you did now guess what we’re all doing it yeah you know we’re all doing it you’re responding they’re responding to you you’re responding to them we’re reading questions from them yeah um is it kind of weird like these are other people yeah in through this weird interweb they’re actually asking questions from some unknown part of the world we’re having a conversation basically yeah yeah it’s kind of delayed but yeah that’s exactly what’s going on so example I should have just grabbed my phone and saw the I forget the guy’s name but he was like Hey Echo um Sunday workout Sunday this was like early this morning maybe late last night whatever Sunday workout give me one I need a Sunday workout so I was like oh okay so I gave him the workout it was basically um uh a two rounds five sets of um clean and clean and press five five reps clean and press five times and then five burpees that’s one set do five sets 45 seconds rest in between rest for two minutes and then do five more 45 seconds rest that’s it I said use 135 lbs I only said 135 lbs cuz that’s what that’s the exact thing I do after I lift and that’s like to me that’s the hard lifting is not that hard but that part’s kind of hard to me the metcon the metcon yeah so I’m like but I don’t know maybe I don’t know if I’m in good shape or not as far as that goes so I think I say you do it and use that weight but here’s the thing if he’s smaller I don’t know how big he is we’re just talking on Twitter you know so you know that the weight didn’t really matter hopefully he scaled it properly well he said later on he was like dang that that was pain but I feel great I was like solid he said hey but I adjusted the weight so I’m saying okay you know that makes sense but my my two reasons why I was I’m into that is because I wanted that interaction like hey do my workout you know and what I’m going to do and I thought of this earlier this morning where um or earlier today I’m going to send him back say you give me a workout oh nice and I’m going to do it and but make it something at least close to what you do or something you do and I’ll give you evaluation you know so hopefully I can get some variety and it’ll help that interaction I think that’s dope like how he actually went and did it I was like heck yeah that some Barn in Iowa or some yeah wherever he was that’s awesome good deal last question there must be some aspect of the tootsie situation that I don’t understand even even if I’m on the losing side of a fight I still want to go down swinging I could tell how much this affected Joo it would suck to be so close to such an unjust fight and not be able to do anything about it yes it it is hard to look at that situation and really understand it and it’s horrible to look back at it now and know that we didn’t do anything about it but but what can we do with it how can we apply this to everyday life because I agree with you you got to go down swinging and and I’ll tell you this if you if you fight with all you’ve got more often than not you won’t go down at all you win but you got to make that attitude part of your everyday life the extra rep the extra mile the extra round the right choices to make yourself stronger mentally and physically stand and fight fight against weakness and against fear and fight against time and Decay fight back go down swinging give every day everything you’ve got and when when You Face a challenge even something where you don’t believe you can win maybe it’s to a situation where you cannot win but if you can’t win remember this you have nothing to lose so stand up and go forward and go out in a blaze of glory fighting with everything you’ve got every ounce of energy every bead of sweat and every drop of blood till your last breath and then and only then you can stand down and you can put down your sword and you can put down your shield and rest in peace and I think that’s all I’ve got for tonight so thanks all you Troopers out there for tuning in and listening and thanks for remembering you know we started this off tonight with a statement of remembrance of some Fallen Warriors so thanks for remembering them remembering the past remembering War and the horror and the glory and the heroes thanks for remembering that and thanks for learning from them thanks for connecting with us through the interwebs you guys out there are opening my mind with the books that you’re sending me the articles that you’re sending me the videos you’re sending me the connections you’re making you’re making us smarter so thank you and of course thanks for supporting the podcast listening downloading subscribing reviewing write and reviews get on iTunes and write some reviews if you want if you feel like it yeah and then the other forms of support we got on it of course on it com joaco get 10% off boom get you some Warrior bars that’s right yeah yeah Warrior bars is for sure um and some Alpha Brain of course when you read yeah anyway yeah or yeah or click or go to Jaco podcast com and before you shop in Amazon click on the Amazon link then do your shopping that that’s cool um donate if you want we got that now and uh and yeah if you like the t-shirts and coffee mugs bumper stickers that uh we got on Joo store too yeah get some of those solid also if you want to add to the conversation when you’re not listening to the podcast Joo is at Joo willink on Twitter Twitter Joo willink Joo willink and I’m at Echo Charles and you made the the Facebook too which has not been utilized as much yet right and I’ve been slowly checking them um I checked them we pulled questions from them oh okay good good okay yeah so facebook com podcast and I think slowly we’re going to transition to getting the questions from there everywhere probably really a good question is a good question but long questions I mean yeah it’s hard spot don’t take pictures of long questions and post them cuz I copy and paste them into a document all right so yeah folks out there that took pictures of questions and I twittered you back and said hey write that yeah so yeah cool yeah there it is boom yeah and if you uh if you’re interested in the book Leif Babin and I wrote extreme ownership it’s all these basic principles we talk about all the time you can get it hard cover Kindle or you get an audio book which the Audi book is my and Le reading it so or any books that you’ve covered on any of these podcasts it’s on Joost store com by the way so on the top menu you click on that that books and it’ll show the description and what podcast it was on Etc and you can buy them from there awesome so finally and most importantly to everybody out there you sitting there with your headphones on listening thank you thanks for deciding that you are going to hold the line that you’re going to fight through the discomfort and the weakness and the pain and you’re going to get up and get after it so until next time this is Joo and Echo out
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