57: STRATEGIKON: How to Apply Timeless Combat Leadership Lessons to the Battlefield, Business and Life

This is Jocko podcast number 57 with Echo, Charles and me, Jocko Willink.

If the outcome of the battle is favorable, one should not be satisfied with merely driving the enemy back. This is a mistake made by inexperienced leaders who do not know how to take advantage of an opportunity and who like to hear the saying, be victorious, but do not press your victory too hard.

By not seizing the opportunity, these people only cause themselves more trouble and place the ultimate results in doubt.

There can be no rest until the enemy is completely destroyed.

If they seek refuge behind fortifications, apply pressure by direct force or by preventing them from getting more supplies for men and forces until they are annihilated, or else agree to a treaty to our advantage.

One should not slacken after driving them back just a short distance, nor after so much hard work and the dangers of war, should one jeopardize the success of the whole campaign.

Because of lack of persistence.

Good evening, Echo.

Good evening.

Now, that's some direction there on how to pursue your enemy until they are completely destroyed.

And that direction comes from a book called.

Strategic Con, a book that's normally accredited to a guy by the name of Flavius Mauricius, Tiberius Augustus.

Or as he is more commonly called, Maurice.

Emperor. And he was the emperor of Eastern Rome, which is what we now call the Byzantine, a term that wasn't even created until the 16th century. But Maurice was a Roman emperor who started his journey as a soldier, a general who campaigned successfully against the Persians, the Avars, the Lombards, all over Persia and the Balkans and basically around the Mediterranean Sea.

And his military experience served him well. And this is the book that he's credited with. And in it he details a variety of the mindset of the famous Roman legion and what it had evolved to, especially as they adopted the strengths of their enemies.

And transitioned to. To using horses along with the use of lances and spears and bow and arrow and swords. Again, all these things, be using them all together.

Much as we do today, what we call combined arms, which is when we attack from the sea and from the air, we land forces and we drop bombs and we use artillery. We use everything to lock people, get people in. The combined arms dilemma. My favorite ideas.

And something that's that combined arms dilemma, when you're getting attacked with all these. From all these different positions, it's very hard to contend with. And obviously they were able to do this as they adapted different their enemies. They adapted what they used, but then they used them together. And so this book, Maurice's book, Strategic Con, captures a lot of those ideas.

I know it's no surprise, but a lot of these ideas remain pertinent today, and I know it's no surprise, but not only on the battlefield, but also in business and in life.

And famous historian Charles Oman said about the Byzantine armies encourage they were equal to their enemies in discipline, organization, and armament. Far superior.

And we go into the introduction in this book a little bit here because there's some good information to know about.

And here we go from the. From the introduction to the book. They inherited the long tradition of Roman tactics and strategy, with its emphasis on constant adaptation to the changing of war.

It was largely this remarkable ability to adapt to new situations and new peoples which guaranteed the Byzantine military success. Gotta be adaptable. The Byzantines, moreover, like the Romans, took warfare very seriously. For the Byzantines, war was an art to be practiced by professionals. They possessed books on all aspects of warfare which were collected, copied over and over again, and read.

The fact that officers in the Byzantine army had to be able to read and write by itself sets it apart from other medieval armies. So obviously, we do a lot of reading over here in this tradition. Right. This is what set them apart. One of the things that set them apart was the fact that they read and they collected books on this subject.

Byzantine generals carefully studied the habits and tactics of their enemies, whereas Western knights found themselves at a loss when facing unknown foes. The Western European considered himself a good warrior if he could ride and wield his weapons well and if he showed no fear. Okay, so that's cool. You can ride and you can. You can wield your weapons well and you show no fear. For the Byzantine, it was not superior strength or courage which won battles, but after God's favor, thorough planning and intelligence.

Nothing could be left to chance. Maurice twice reminds his readers that the Byzantine general should never have to admit, I did not expect that.

Now let's get. So that's. That's just from the introduction kind of getting into the book. And now we'll go to the actual book, and I'm not gonna go into the whole thing of who actually put these words on the paper Again, it's credited to Maurice, but did someone else possibly write it and he blessed it? Did he tell someone to write it? Did he have a ghostwriter? I don't know, but he's the guy that's credited as having the brains behind it. Starting off here, the training and drilling of the individual soldier. He should be trained to shoot rapidly on foot, either in the Roman or the Persian manner. Speed is important in Shaking the arrow loose and discharging it with force. This is essential and should be practiced while mounted. In fact, even when the arrow is well aimed, firing slowly is useless. He should practice shooting rapidly on foot from a certain distance at a spear or some other target. Imagine that you're shooting at a spear with a bow and arrow.

He should shoot also rapidly, mounted on his horse at a run to the front, the rear, right and left. He should practice leaping onto the horse on horseback. At a run, he should fire one or two arrows rapidly and put the string, the strong bow in its case, if it is wide enough, or in the half case designed for this purpose. And then he should grab the spear which he has been carrying on his back with the strong bow in its case. He should hold the spear in his hand, then quickly replace it on his back and grab the bow. It is a good idea for soldiers to practice all this while mounted on the march in their own country for such exercises. Do not interfere with marching and do not wear out the horses. The reason I had to put this in here is because this is very much what we do in the SEAL teams. And you're shooting, you're shooting offhand, which means you're shooting with your weekend we reloading magazines with only one hand. So you got to put the, put the weapon between your legs and you got to pull the mags. You're doing all this stuff. You're shooting while you're running, you're shooting while you're laying down. You're shooting while you're behind a vehicle, you're shooting from inside a vehicle, you're shooting from outside a vehicle. You're. You're doing all these things, all these different ways all the time. Because the better you get in all these strange situations, the better you're going to perform in these strange situations. And you can apply this to any, you know, a business. I've talked about this before. When you're dealing with business, you want to train your people so they can handle these weird situations. You know, be a bad customer. You know, pretend to be the. Be a bad. If you've got leaders that you're training, be a horrible employee. Be that person. Put them to the test. How are they going to handle employee that flies off the handle? How are they going to handle employee that doesn't fly off the handle and get all verbal but just goes cold.

Yeah.

Oh, what are you going to do now? How are you going to handle this person?

Yeah. Remember you guys were doing at the muster? You guys were doing that. You did that role playing thing real quick. It was like, real quick, too.

And when I caught Leif off guard.

Yeah.

Oh, you're going to role play. All right, let's do this.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. When you presented the little. Yeah, but, man, that was such a good point, though, because you go through one situation, right. And the guy, like, is like, I don't got time for you, or whatever, however yours went. And then you're like, okay. And you get to. You get to put yourself through a potential situation. And then at the end of it, you said, okay, look, we just went through that and we did it. And, you know, maybe there was problems, maybe not. But now you're familiar with it. Kind of like the lights are on now. You're not going live into a dark room not knowing, you know, you're doing.

Exactly what Marie said to do here, which is the most important thing is intelligence.

Yeah.

So it's combining what he's saying. Right. The more you prepare for that and that particular situation that Leif and I did that little role play on.

Yeah.

He acted like he was a company commander that didn't have time for me.

Yeah, yeah.

And he took it to the next level and said, I don't have time for you because I got guys in combat. Right. I got troops in contact, which is, you know, when you got troops in contact, that's where everyone's going to focus on that. So I'm in there playing this young SEAL officer going, excuse me, Captain, Hey, I'd like to talk to you about an operation we're going to do in your area of operations tonight. Leif says, hey, I'm busy. I got troops in contact. Leave me alone.

Yeah.

And I was kind of taken aback, and I said, sir, you know what? Can you just tell me where your ops officer is and I'll go talk to him.

Yeah.

And that was it. I overcame it, because what else are you gonna do? But it took me a second. I had to think on my feet. If that ever happened again, I wouldn't have to think on my feet. I have the answer.

And you went through, like, if you were to do that in a real situation and you stumble, you don't know what to do. That's a web. Huge deal.

It's looking bad. You know, you're not giving any confidence. You're saying, hey, I want to come into your area of operations and execute a mission tonight, and I can't even put a sentence together. No, not good.

Yeah.

So that's why we rehearse. That's why rehearse worst case scenarios? That's why you practice shooting on the horse, off the horse, putting your bow away, pulling it back out, throwing your spear. Get. That's what you do.

Yeah. It's crazy how even going through it once, that much.

Well, when I work with companies, I'll do a role play and I'll tell them, watch what happens. In three times, three iterations, they get that much better. They'll go from totally stumbling and not being able to handle a bad employee to where the third time they got it. Yeah, that's all it takes.

Crazy.

Then it was the same thing we put guys through in the SEAL teams, we put guys through really hard training scenarios, and they would blow it and I'd kill all this training. I'd kill all the good guys. Right. They'd all be getting hit with paintball. You're dead. You're dead. Next time I'd say, okay, here's a mistake you made. Let's look at it. What would you do? Step back. What would you do different? Oh, man, I didn't see that. I got, you know, I got drawn to the situation. I should. Okay, so let's do it again. They're gonna be 50% better the next time. The neck. The time after that. We can't even catch them anymore because.

They got it, you know, it's crazy.

Preparation. All right, going back to the book, another thing that Marie says, in actual combat, nobody can properly supervise the entire battle since the line is spread out so far and some can desert from their bandens and bandons is. There's two meanings of the word bandons. One is a flag. Like, this is our flag. But then it's also a group of about 300 troops. So what he's saying is that people can. Can desert back to the book unnoticed and give all others an excuse to retreat. If they do retreat, there's no way of turning back or of checking the flight, for nobody is able to get them back since, as we said, the whole army is routed. So he said, this is. This is why we need a little bit of decentralized command, right? Because he's saying you're. No one can. No one's gonna know. You can't keep track of the whole battle. How many people can you keep track of during battle? Four, maybe five. These guys are going in a battle with thousands. You can't keep track of them all. So one of the things that they do, and this is sort of a. It's sort of a cover and move scenario. So the way they set up, they set up two lines instead of just one line. They set up two lines back to the book and there should be two lines, one of them a support. The troops in the front line will fight more eagerly knowing that their rear is protected by the second line and that their flanks by the flank guards. So even if you just know you're covered, man, you're gonna fight harder because you don't have to worry about what else is going on. That's why we do. Cover move. Second. A man in the first line is not as likely to run away when he knows there are many other soldiers are stationed to his rear that is in his second in the second line and will see anyone deserting his posts. See, there's a little psychological. Hey man, I'm not going to run because the guys are right behind me. They're going to know in combat this can be extremely important. Supposing that the first line retreats or is pushed back, then the second line is there as a support and as a place of refuge. So you gotta back each other up. Cover. Move.

Next one. A small army should not prepare to face an organized and more numerous foe in open battle, except in case of necessity.

Boom. Don't go. Don't go and fight against a bigger badder opponent with more people. Don't fight against them. Back to the book. If the necessity does arise, do not mass all your troops in front. And even if the enemy number is superior, direct your operations against his rear or his flank. For it is dangerous and uncertain in all conditions and against any people to engage purely frontal combat.

Even if the enemy stations is a smaller number of troops up front. So this is, we talk about this over and over again.

Don't attack the front, don't attack the, the hardened position.

Next squads should be made up of old and young men in proportion. Otherwise the older men, if formed by themselves, may be weak and the younger inexperienced men may turn out disorganized. So this is a, this is obviously important, but sometimes people have a tendency to want to build a super team, right? I'm going to take all these guys, all the best guys. You want to make your teams as even as possible. This is a classic example. Don't just take all the old senior guys who have all the experience, but they might not be in the best physical condition. I mean, you take a SEAL platoon, you know, you take a 43 year old seal, now there's some studs out there, don't get me wrong, but you compare them to a kid that's 24, that's on fire. That guy's gonna. You tell that kid to go climb a ladder, jump up a building, he's gonna do it. It's. They're. They're beasts. So you want to have both those elements in your team, and it's the same thing in a bigger organization or a business organization. Spread out the knowledge and spread out the enthusiasm.

Is that. Does that have to do with, like.

Are you saying, like, a senior guy, he might have a bunch of knowledge versus, you know, a younger guy, he'll have a lot of athleticism and physical capability.

Or in the business world, it could be enthusiasm, right?

Yeah.

It could be like, hey, I'm just gonna grind, right?

Hungry young guy.

I'm like, hey, Echo, I'm gonna head home. You take care of this. I got it, boss. Let's do this.

Is that also because, let's say a young guy who has enthusiasm, and if you. If you mix it up with. Instead of all enthusiastic people, you have older guys, they can teach the knowledge to the guy, and then, yes, we're.

Going to make our team stronger.

Okay. Yeah.

Next one. Various tactics and drills. Constant drill is of the greatest value to the soldier.

Each formation drill should be identified in a special way so that the soldiers who are trained in these maneuvers may recognize the differences and not be puzzled by them. I can't even tell you how much you do what we call in the SEAL teams that do in the Marine Corps, they do in the army immediate action drills. So it's contact drills when something goes wrong, how you're going to maneuver your troops on the battlefield. And the more you do that, the better you're going to get at it. And the better you get at it, the better you're going to perform in combat, period. In a story, is that like a.

Fire drill at home?

Yeah, it's like a fire drill at home. It's like a fire drill home. It's like when you drill jiu jitsu, when you say, hey, I'm going to practice this escape. You know, we do that a lot. Jeff Glover makes us do that all the time. Is, okay, let the guy basically put you in a triangle, or Dean will make you go in triangle danger, or arm lock, danger, whatever. So then you're going to drill how you can get out of that. And that way, when you're rolling live, it's an instinct. And it's the same thing with. With this situation with your military unit. As soon as you make that simple call, flank, you know, punch right, move left, Whatever the peel left, whatever that call that you're going to make, everybody knows what to do.

Yeah.

And it provides instant organization and focus and direction to everybody. Everybody. It's weird. You know, there's certain calls in the SEAL team, certain maneuvers that everybody knows. If you make one of those calls, like everyone knows it. Every single person in the entire SEAL community knows exactly what's the same thing. In the Marine Corps, the Army, there are certain standard operating procedures that you learn in Marine Corps boot camp. If you say it to, to 100 different Marines that have been assembled for the first time ever in their lives, you say one of these commands, they're all going to get on it and make it happen.

Yeah. That's good.

It's awesome.

Yeah.

All right. Going back to the book strategy, the points which the general must consider before the day of battle. A ship cannot cross the sea without a helmsman, nor can one defeat an enemy without strategy and tactics. With these and the aid of God, it is possible to overcome not only an enemy force of equal strength, but even one greatly superior in numbers. For it is not true, as some inexperienced people believe, that wars are decided by courage and number of troops, but along with God's favor, by tactics and generalship. And our concern should be with these. Rather than wasting our time mobilizing large numbers of men.

The leader must take advantage of favorable times and places in fighting against the enemy. First, he must guard against hostile attacks which can injure our men. And then he must attempt to launch the same against the enemy. Above all, he must look for enemy ambushes, sending out frequent and far ranging patrols in all directions in the area around the battlefield. He must avoid disordered and uncoordinated pursuits. Now this is. Think about what. We started this whole thing off. You get the advantage, you get the upper hand in battle. Go finish him.

Keep pursuing them until all the enemy is completely destroyed. But he's saying this right here. He must avoid disordered and uncoordinated pursuits.

Now, my first deployment to Iraq, there was a couple times we got ambushed. We're in our vehicles, got ambushed. And the urge is, stop the vehicles. Let's go get these guys. And we didn't do that on these particular missions. We were going. We had a pri. Some kind of priority target we were going after. So we're going after a bad guy somewhere. We make it through the ambush. If all of a sudden I said, okay, stop, we're gonna go get these guys. Like an ego thing. That would basically be an ego thing. Oh, stop, stop. The Vehicles. We go get these guys. Not a good call. We made it through the ambush. We were good. We have a mission to accomplish. Let's report this up the chain of command. Maybe they can get some aircraft overhead or something like that. But we're not gonna just go into this disorganized pursuit of an enemy that actually has the upper hand. Cause we made it through that fasting. What else do they have prepared for us? Because I can guarantee you, they want you to stop. So you need to think before you just get overly aggressive. Back to the book. We would not allow the general to take part personally in raids or other reckless attacks. These should be entrusted to other competent officers. For if one of the subordinate officers blunders or fails, the situation may be quickly straightened out. But if the leader of the whole army fails, this fall can open the way to complete disorder. The general is wise, who, before entering into war, carefully studies the enemy and can guard against his strong points and take advantage of his weaknesses.

Obvious stuff that we talk about every single day.

Back to the book. Warfare is like hunting.

Wild animals are taken by scouting, by nets, by lying in wait, by stalking, by circling around, and by other stratagems rather than by sheer force.

In waging war, we should proceed in the same way, whether the enemy be many or few. To try to simply overpower the enemy in the open, hand to hand and face to face, even though you might appear to win, is an enterprise which is very risky and can result in serious harm.

Apart from extreme emergency. It is ridiculous to try and gain a victory which is so costly and only brings empty glory.

We're talking about flanking. We're talking about taking. Always making sure that the cards are stacked in your favor. That's what we're talking about here.

And it's it again. It applies in life. It applies and applies in jiu jitsu. We had a little battle like that today. You were caught. I was. I was actually. Did you see me smiling? I was, like, kind of laughing because you were, boom, coming at me, coming at me. And I was. I was. I was kind of laughing because I was thinking about this podcast and I was thinking, hey, he's going head to head with me face to face.

Yep.

And I'm gonna.

But that's. That's the way it works, evidently. Yeah, apparently.

All right, back to the book. On the actual day of the battle, the general should not take on too many tasks. He might exert himself too much, become worn out, and overlook some really essential matters. Now, that, to me, is number one. You Gotta detach. And number two, you don't want to be in the weeds. If you're trying to get everything you're done yourself, you're going to overlook some really essential matters. He should not look downcast or worried, but should ride jauntily along the lines and encourage all troops. He should not himself join in the actual fighting. This is not the role of the general, but of the soldier. After making all the proper arrangements, he should station himself in a suitable spot from which he can observe which troops are exerting themselves and which might be slackening when needed. He should be ready to send assistance to a unit in trouble by making use of his reserves, that is the flank and rear guards.

So you got to stay detached. We're talking the general here. This is the general. This is the CEO, right? This is the president of a company. Not getting so far into the weeds that you just don't see what's happening. And you can't. If you're in the weeds fighting, who's going to be watching to see that that area is slackening? Who's going to be able to direct the rear guard to help out? Who's going to send the reinforcements? The answer is nobody. You're not doing your job.

Here's another one. Even though the general decides against a pitched battle.

He should still make preparations for one.

Gotta be ready. Somebody asked me actually on Twitter a couple days ago, are you worried about another 9, 11 in America? And I said.

I'm not worried. I'm prepared.

And that's what this is saying. Even you, even though you don't want to do a pitched battle, I'm not going to meet them. Hey, that's. That's too much of a frontal attack. I'm not going to do that. You better be ready for one. That might be the only choice. You might get attacked or you. You gotta always be ready. Back to the book. He should make it appear that he plans on one and convey the impression to all his troops that he will definitely attack the enemy. This will cause trouble for the enemy when it comes to their knowledge.

So you. You gotta prepare, be prepared. No slack.

Another one here.

This is about infantry drill movement. So we're going back to training here.

The Herald commands silence. Observe orders. Do not worry. Keep your position. Follow the standard. Do not leave the standard and pursue the enemy.

The troops then advance at a steady pace and in silence without anyone even whispering. They should become accustomed to these movements so that as a spoken command, a nod, or some other signal, they march or halt. Reduce or divide the depth of the files. March steadily in close order for a good distance over various kind of terrain. Close or tighten the ranks in depth and width. March, engage in mock battle, sometimes using staffs and sometimes naked swords. So this is, this is a really important one. This is, this is, reminds me very much of something that we used to do. So he's saying you're going to do a drill, right? And you're not allowed to talk. You have to be completely silent. And this is something we absolutely used to drill us in the SEAL teams, where you're not allowed to talk. And we would actually sometimes take radios away. So hey you, can we turn off? Hey everyone, turn off your radios. So you just have to figure this out. And if you run like that all the time, eventually everybody learns how to. It makes everyone more proactive because you know, you're not going to hear a command. You know, the boss isn't going to go to the radio and say, flank left. You, that's not coming. Because that's. So you have to learn to look around. You have to learn to sense what's gonna happen. And it makes everybody better at what they're doing. And I'll tell you, you know, I've talked about this before. We didn't, in my task unit, my platoon, we didn't talk on the radio. We didn't, we barely talked on the radio. If, if I came on the radio and said something, it was like everybody was, oh, Jocko just talked. Or, you know, Leif would say to me, jock, I'm moving to Building 48. I'd say, do it. They'd go, they wouldn't eat. He'd say, roger. And he'd go, they wouldn't say anything else. And that was because when we were in training, we would do these drills where we wouldn't talk. You're not allowed to talk. You're allowed to make a head nod. You're allowed to give somebody a visual signal, but you're not allowed to come on the radio and you're not allowed to talk. And that makes you so good. What it does is it makes your verbal, your non verbal communication skills on point. It was cool when I went to officer candidate school. So at Officer Candidate school, they got all these weird things that they do to you, and I'll give you a couple examples. One of them is you're not allowed to look at your food when you're eating.

Okay.

So you, you have to stare straight ahead. And this doesn't sound like a big deal because you think to yourself, well, I'll just look at my food, right? If you look at your food, everybody can see the drill instructors come over and start, what are you doing? Look at your food. You're not supposed to look at your food. So what you have to do is you have to just look straight ahead. You're looking straight ahead across the table, and you're just guessing where your food is. Pretty much stabbing your fork into the tray of food that you have in front of you, and it's, you know, it's a little hard to eat. And then over time, you start to be able to utilize your peripheral vision a little bit more so that you can see it without looking at it. That's one. The other one, I think I've talked about this. You have to scream everything that you say, right? There's. So there's all these little things that they make you do.

Go ballistic.

Go ballistic at all times. Right. I've told that story before, but when? It was pretty cool when, when my drill instructor, gunnery sergeant, Marine Corps, awesome guy, when, when we got done, you know, he was explaining why we did all this stuff. And the one about not looking at your food comes from. It does come from improving your peripheral vision. Because the way the officer candidate school was originally set up was for pilots, potential Navy pilots. So guess what? You got to be able to see your instruments down below you while you're looking around and scanning for enemy aircraft. And so this is what it does. It allows you to improve. Well, this is the same thing when, when you build that muscle memory of, hey, I'm not going to talk and I need to look around and I need to be mentally proactive and make sure that I'm not going to hear anything. So as a junior guy, I'm not going to hear anything. I have to look around. I have to make a decision. I have to absorb and figure out what's happening that is unbelievably good. So anybody that works in an environment, you know, police officers, obviously military, do these silent drills, do them. It'll make you that much better. It was funny. I was just relaying the mats at our gym the other day, and Andy was there. Big Andy, by the way, just got his black belt, by the way. Yeah. We were relaying the mats and, you know, he's just a. We're just working and we didn't say a word to each other for five hours. We're there. We're just picking up stuff and doing stuff. And, you know, he's. He's, you know, an iron worker by trade. And so he just. Guy that, you know, just. He sees me doing something, he's doing, I see him doing something. So it is non verbal communication. Just non verbal communication. Work on it. It's awesome.

All right, so this next section is. Is really kind of where I was heading with all this. This is the. These are maxims, right? General instructions and maxims. And when we do books that are maxims, it makes my job really easy because I'm not trying to pull stuff out. It's there. They already pulled it out for you. You know, we did Napoleon's maxims. There's nothing to pull out. Read the maxims. Boom. Sun Tzu, Art of War. There's nothing to pull out. Read the maxims. And that's what this rolls into right here. Different. And one of the things I talk about this in Jiu Jitsu, I talk about this in anything. So these maxims you're going to see, these are familiar. So why would we go through them again? Why do we need to hear them again? I'll tell you the reason why we need to hear them again. Because just like Jiu Jitsu, you are going to see these things from a slightly different angle every single time. Just like in combat, you're going to enter. You're going to enter a million rooms. As an assaulter on an assault team, you're going to enter a million different rooms. And there's a basic structure to all of them, but no two rooms are alike. No two rooms are exactly alike. And the more that you enter and the more different angles you see, the better you get at handling them. Just like in Jiu Jitsu, when you go against different body types, the better you get at your arm locks. When you do arm lock, from the bottom, from the top, from the side, you get better at those arm locks. In the business world, the more deals that you see and you understand how they unfold, the better you're gonna get. Construction industry. The more walls you build, they're all a little bit different. Little things come out a little bit different. So the more you see them, the more you hear them from slightly different angles, the more adept you are utilizing them. That's why I love when I see these maxims.

So.

Here we go. General instructions for the commander.

In carrying out very critical operations, the general ought not set himself apart as though such labor was beneath him, but he should begin the work and toil along with his troops as much as possible. Such behavior will lead the soldier to be more submissive to his officers. Even if only out of shame and he will accomplish more. So, so even though, you know, earlier saying, hey, General, don't, don't get in the weeds, but if there's work to do, do the work.

Yeah.

Show them you're doing the work.

Yeah.

Next. When certain offenses are common among the soldiers, moderation is called for. Do not judge and punish all indiscriminately. Widespread resentment might draw them all together and discipline would become easier. Even worse, it is wiser to punish just a few of the ring leaders.

So we, you know, you can talk about the harshness of the Roman legion, but here he's saying, look, dial that back a little bit. Dial that back a little bit. If the offenses are common among the soldiers. So when you, this is, you know, this is also a little bit of leif bab. And it's not what you preach, it's what you tolerate. If you're tolerating it, then you can't just all sudden drop the hammer.

Yeah, yeah.

Because you're going to look inconsistent. If you're not going to tolerate it, don't tolerate it. But if you do and it's a common offense, don't all of a sudden fly off the handle. Inconsistent.

Next.

The general's way of life should be plain and simple, like that of his soldiers. He should display a fatherly affection toward them. He should give orders in a mild manner, and he should always make sure to give advice and to discuss essential matters with them in person.

So this, we heard this from Pat. We hear this from everybody. But Patton said that exact same thing. Right? You need to do, you need to live like your soldiers. We hear that all the time. Dick Winterson, Everybody says this. Don't, don't go up in the, don't go up in the ivory tower.

Right?

Don't do it, boss man.

So, like the boss who gets the huge corner. Everyone has cubicles, but he has a huge.

Yeah.

Gold plated stuff.

Yeah. With a massage chair in the office.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Don't disturb me.

Yeah, yeah.

12 minutes. I'm running the 12 minute massage chair session.

His concerns ought to be with their safety, their food and their regular pay. Without these, it is impossible to maintain discipline in an army.

By being just in punishing offenders, he should instill fear. At the very first sign of a disciplinary problem, he should take action to end it and not delay dealing with it until it grows or becomes more serious. The general is successful when his men regard him as unshakable and just.

He should also see that civilians Are left unharmed. Boom. So when you got the problem, when you see the problem, get the problem solved. It's not going to go away. It's not going to get. Not going to get better on its own.

Next. He should be temperate in his way of life and vigilant.

Pretty straightforward. It's a maxim.

Next. It is essential to be cautious and take your time in making plans. And once you have come to a decision, to carry it out right away without any, any hesitation.

Timidity, after all, is not caution but the invention of wickedness. When you're going to go, go. Yeah, go. Once you make your decision, go.

That a default aggressive.

That is a default aggressive thing.

Yes.

A healthy mind is not unduly elated by success or overly depressed when things are not going well.

A lot of these speak for themselves. That's one of them.

Yeah, yeah.

You gotta be middle the road. Maintain. Don't get emotional. Not a lady till we won.

Yeah.

Not depressed who we lost. No, maintain.

Next. It is safer and more advantageous to overcome the enemy by planning in generalship than by sheer force. In the one case, results are achieved without loss to oneself, while in the other, some price has to be paid.

Next. It is very important to spread rumors among the enemy that you are planning to do one thing and then go do something else. Your plans about major operations should not be known to many, but just a few and those very close to you.

Next. Alarming rumors or traps of treachery, whether on the part of the enemy or on our own, ought not be neglected or action deferred. But steps should be taken to deal with them and put a stop to them before they become realities. You start hearing rumors, smash them.

That's one thing I see in companies. Companies. This is a problem that businesses have. I mean, it happens in the military, but businesses have this problem where they. They let rumors grow, they let messaging get formed by the uninformed. And that's not what you want to do. If you're in charge of a business and something bad is going to happen, explain it to everyone. Don't let the people explain it themselves because the idea that they're going to come up with is going to be the worst case scenario possible that they can imagine. So proactive communications so people know what is happening. Don't let them define their own messaging and their own rumors. Stop them by giving them the information.

Next. The enemy should be deceived by false reports of our plans brought to them by deserters from us.

So you got people that you think might Leave you cool. Give them some bad intel.

Courage should be roused in our troops by fabricating report of a victory over the enemy won by our men someplace else. Now, this is a controversial. In my mind. Right. So what they're saying is, hey, you should make up some stories about how well so and so is doing in another area.

You got to think about what you're doing there. And of course, this day and age, that's hard to do. We have just open communications, we have texting, we have phones, we have all this stuff. So it's. You'd be hard pressed to verify that. But one of the things that I thought about when I read that, where I disagree with this is in mixed martial arts, for instance, guy loses a round in, you know, round one, the guy goes out and doesn't do a good job.

Yeah.

Is losing the round, comes back to his corner. What does his corner tell him? You're doing great, Keep it going. That's the wrong. Worst thing you can do. Worst thing you can do is lie.

Why? Because he'll keep.

He'll keep it up doing that. You're going to keep it up. All right.

Yeah.

You need to say, look, you're losing in. Anytime it's close, you got to assume that the other guy won. Any round that's even remotely close, you got to assume the other guy got that round.

Yeah.

So don't do this. Don't say, great round. Keep it going. No, there's not a single MMF fighter that I've ever worked with that when you tell them, great round, you're winning, steps it up. I'd never. Never. I've never heard it, never seen it, never heard it. And if you watch the ufc because they got those corner cams now.

Oh, yeah.

And I have the Internet thing where I can pick who I'm going to listen to and I can re. Watch. And you can hear what the corners are saying to.

Oh, dang. Okay.

You check it out. Go and look at a fighter whose corner tells them they're doing a great job and tell me, find me an example of where a guy hears he's doing a great job and then he steps it up even harder. It doesn't happen. Everybody goes into cruise mode. Right?

Right. Yeah.

And if they're losing, guess what? That cruise mode, that gets them destroyed.

So be careful with that one, Maurice. Gotta disagree with you on that one.

Back to the book. News about reverses suffered by us should be kept secret, and reports stating just the opposite should be circulated about. Okay, so now we're talking about controlled, controlling the messaging, but we're talking about lying. And in this day and age, it doesn't work. It does not gonna work for you. You can't say, don't worry about. It was like, remember Baghdad, Bob, when we went into Baghdad, and he. There's American tanks, M1 Abrams rolling in, crushing. And he's there going, we've got the Americans on the run. Yeah, we're running down your front door. So this is not. This isn't going to work. Right. What you need to do is if reverses happen, you need to come out, you need to own them, you need to explain what happened, and you need to get ahead of them. And don't let the rumor mill turn into something worse than it is. You might be able to mitigate it. Don't lie about it. Not going to get you anywhere.

Next. Defeated troops should not be allowed to fall into despair, but they should be dealt with by stirring up hope by various other means. Common sense.

Next. During combat, one has to overlook offenses committed by the soldiers, but afterward, get rid of men guilty of sedition, which is like someone that's going to rebel against you again. This is very. This is a questionable right if you. During combat, if you start overlooking offenses, guess what you're gonna end up with? My Me Lai massacre. That's what you're gonna end up with. No. Stop them. Disagree, Maurice. Sorry. When you have a situation like that happening, you need to stop it. Need to put an end to it. Now.

That being said, are you gonna hound on every little thing that happens? No. Right. Maybe you're gonna give a little bit of slack with.

Something that's pretty meaningless, right? Maybe give a little bit of slack at the same time. You can't just. You got to give you guys some room. That's what I'm saying. You got to give you guys some room. You got to hold the line. Absolutely. You got to hold the line. But you can't freak out because you got bigger. You should definitely have bigger things to worry about than this little item. Right? Let's just. Hey, get that tightened up. Yeah, let's move on. Let's not focus on it. Not gonna fire you because you made a mistake.

Next. Our own dead should be buried secretly at night. But the enemies should be left out there as a means of making them lose courage. Good psychological warfare.

Next. When a delegation comes from the enemy, inquire about the leaders of the group, and on their arrival, treat them very friendly so their own people will come to suspect them.

There's A lot of. There's a lot of little crafty little psychological warfare that they do. That's one of them. Act like, you know this enemy. Make everyone make the enemy look at him. Like, how's this? Why is Jocko being so nice to Echo right here? They're acting like they're old friends. They're gonna get suspicious of you. Yeah, that's what I'm trying to do. Call some divide.

Plant the seed.

Yes.

Acts of cowardice on the part of our soldiers should be kept quiet and not publicly condemned, since this may make them even worse. Again, we're talking about a communication thing, and you're not gonna be able to. You're not gonna be able to keep that stuff under wraps. People are gonna know. Yeah. So get ahead of it.

Next. A way of arousing discord and suspicion among the enemy is to refrain from burning or plundering the estates of certain prominent men on their side and of them alone. So going, like I said, go into the village, burn everyone's house except Echoes. And you're like the prominent guy. And they go, echo, what's up? How come you didn't burn your house? No, no, I'm not friends with them. Oh, really?

Oh, dang. Yeah.

Yeah, really. We're going to come back and we're going to kill you.

Yeah, like at the. Like the cops, Right? They do that where.

They'Ll apprehend some guy in the cartel. I don't know, whatever, the drug gang. And then they'll be like, okay, bye.

Like, oh, they wait.

You got arrested. Nothing happened to you. They be like, oh, no, it's all good. They be like, okay, you know.

Exactly. That's exactly it.

Next. One way of getting a besieged city to submit is by sending letters tied to arrows promising freedom and immunity. This can also be done by releasing prisoners. Cool. Next. Great caution must be observed in pursuing the enemy over ground suited for ambushes. A good general will turn back at the right time so you can come back later to attack more effectively. That's why I'm not stopping my patrol to go back and attack an ambush that we just got through. It's their ground. They have it. They're waiting for us.

Impromptu.

Spontaneous. They have the advantage. They have it. They've been waiting there. Every art of war, every maximum war will tell you you want to have the upper hand. You want to pick the battlefield. They picked it.

Yeah.

Don't get into a scrap with them right there.

Next. Do not be deceived by humane acts of the enemy or by their pretending to retreat.

Next, cowardly officers are recognized by their hesitation and pallor during combat. They should be assigned to auxiliary forces.

Notice that he is using them. Right. Just because someone's a coward, he's still got work for him. You go and run the logistics. You know, that's okay, because I need bodies. I need people.

When a populous city is taken, it is important to leave the gates open.

So that the inhabitants may escape and not be driven to utter desperation. The same holds when an enemy's fortified camp is taken. So we want to give people an out so that they don't fight to the death. And this is very common with the ego. You don't. You don't. I don't trap you and prove you wrong in the room.

Right?

Right. I don't have a big meeting. I don't go. Echo, here's the four reasons why you're completely wrong and they're indisputable.

Yeah.

No, I give you a little out.

Yeah.

I say, echo, you know, I found these things, and I think this might be a better way to do it. And by the way, you know, this also happens and this other thing. So maybe we could adjust your plan a little bit and do it here. Now, if you have any sense whatsoever, you see all four of those reasons, you go, yeah, yeah, let's go ahead and do that, Jocko. Yeah, that's a good call. And I say, no problem, boss. And we're good. You know, but if I come in there and start making you look like a jackass. Yeah, you're totally wrong. Your system doesn't work, you're gonna dig in on that. Now we got issues. Now you're fighting to the death. Yeah, I'm going backwards.

Next. Even in friendly territory, a fortified camp should be set up. A general should never have to say, I did not expect it.

Even in friendly territory, be ready.

For a safe retreat. Build a fire in one place and go off quietly to another. The enemy will head to the fire. Deception. Next. Letters ought to be sent out to deserters from our side who have joined the enemy in such a way that the letters will fall into the enemy's hands. These letters should remind the deserters of the prearranged time for their treachery so that the enemy will become suspicious of them. They'll have to flee. That's a crafty little move. Crafty little move. Oh, Echo, you deserted us. And, hey, we'll meet you at this night so you can give us the information you told us you were going to give Us, they hang you, traitor.

Next. When it comes to dangerous or surprise operations, cowards could be weeded out. If all the men who are sick or whose horses are too weak are ordered to fall out.

The cowards will then claim to be six, and so they can be separated from the others, they can be assigned to guard fortresses or some other duty involving little danger. That's a good tactic. You think about that back in the day. Hey, guys, if anyone's not feeling good, fall out over here because we, you know, you're not 100%, so we don't want to bring you in this operation. The cowards go, hey, I'm a little bit sick. Feel a little under the weather. Okay, cool. You go guard the rear.

Is that because, like, in a way, they're not 100 either, right?

Yeah. They're cowardice. And you're giving them an out.

Yeah.

Because they're not. They might not say anything, but then at the moment of truth, they're not there to back you up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So you give them a little out. Hey, if you're not feeling good, go over here in this line.

Yeah.

Okay, cool. Yeah, you're over there, coward.

But I'm still going to utilize you.

Yeah.

Next. We should not furnish arms to those who promise to fight on our side because their real intentions are not clear. This is something America as a nation should get very familiar with. We should not furnish arms to those who promise to fight on our side because their real intentions are not clear. We give away arms in a ridiculous manner. Ridiculous manner. And we shouldn't, because the real intentions are not clear.

Next. After victory, we must not become careless, but be on our guard all the more against surprise attacks by the vanquished. Just because you won doesn't mean. And this is, you know Jeff Higgs, right?

Yes.

So this is something Higgs taught me, like, years ago. I'm talking blue belt in Jiu Jitsu. Higgs.

Jiu Jitsu. He's a seal. He. He got out of the SEAL teams. He got totally into Jiu Jitsu. And the. One of the original guys I trained with, with Master Chief Steve Bailey back in the day. So anyways, we were rolling one day and we were talking, and he said, if you tap somebody, you gotta go harder because they're gonna go hard.

Yeah.

So if you know. And I mean, someone that you battle with.

Right.

Someone that you battle with, and all of a sudden you get them, you better step up your game because they're going to go harder. Yeah, Same thing. Right here.

You got to show them.

Yeah. You got to watch yourself.

Yeah, it's like if you're running the. The mile, you know, like in track, you're running the mile, you pull way out ahead, right? And you're like, oh, I'm, you know, this last lap, whatever, you know, I'm just gonna kind of. Yeah, right. You got to step it up because that guy that you've been beating, what, vanquished, whatever.

Yeah.

You know, he's coming, he's coming.

Next. Envoys from the enemy must not be treated disrespectfully, even when our forces are much stronger.

Next. An army, no matter how strong besieging a city, must never leave its own camp unguarded, nor should it think that fortifications are sufficient to assure its safety, but should keep sending out patrols. Don't ever let your guard down saying this over and over again. Next. Suspected defectors should be told the opposite of what we intend to do so that we may use them to deceive the enemy. And treachery must be guarded against, even during periods of truce or temporary peace.

Next. By no means should we believe reports that come from deserters or defectors alone, but their reports should be chief checked against statements made by prisoners taken in raids. And in this way, the truth may be discerned. So you gotta check with all the different sources, and this is something that the intelligence community does extremely well, which is they take all these different little chunks of information and they assemble it together into a picture. You know, we've seen those pictures where it's just like a bunch of dots when you look at it up close, but then when you step back, it's something real. Yeah, that's why these intelligence. These intelligence communities do they take all those little dots. It seems like a meaningless dot, just a meaningless little dot, but they're going to put it on that broad picture and it's going to fill in one little piece of information that they need. You put all that stuff together, and all of a sudden they know who you are, they know where to attack.

Yeah, and that kind of makes sense there, where it's like some deserter or somebody who basically doesn't have credibility is what it is. So they'll be like, hey, he's not necessarily lying, but he could be. So he becomes real circumstantial, you know, and then like how you're saying you put all the dots together and for some reason this.it's not fitting, it's not painting the picture. But then, you know, okay, he's Wishy washy. Anyway, so. Oh, I, I see. He's lying right now. Yeah.

You know, I mean, lying about that piece, but maybe he didn't lie about another piece.

Yeah, you know what I mean?

That makes sense. Next. In no way should a sworn agreement made with the enemy be broken. So if you, you need to hold, hold, hold your word even with the enemy, hold your word.

Next, after God, we should place our hopes of safety in our weapons, not in our fortifications alone. Don't just count on the defense.

Next, orders should be given to the soldiers that they should be ready to march out on a holiday in the rain, day or night. For this reason, they should not be told the time or day beforehand, so they may always be prepared.

This is, this reminded me of when my last appointment to Iraq, and you're winding down. And I told my guys, I said, hey, I'm not going to tell you guys when we're going to stop operations. Like, we're just going to stop because I didn't want anybody going out thinking this is the last operation.

Right.

Play it safe.

Yeah.

Said, hey, guys, when we're done, you know, but just keep going.

Yeah.

Guys are like, roger that. We'll keep going. And then one day we got done.

Yeah. Otherwise.

But to keep the mentality of, you know, don't think about this is going to be the last operation.

You don't want them cruising through the finish line. And it's not the finish line.

Right.

Next. Risks should be taken without necessity or real hope of gain. Sorry. Real risks should not be taken without necessity or real hope of gain. To do so is the same as fishing with gold as bait.

Next. Inhabitants of the area who seek refuge should not be received indiscriminately. Often enough, they've been sent by the enemy deceitfully to plot against their hosts. This is something we ran into a lot in Ramadi, where people are acting normal and they knew our rules of engagement. And so they knew, like before, they didn't have a gun. They, we weren't going to shoot them.

Yeah.

And so they would do things, they'd probe and they'd see how close they could get and see where we were. So just because these people are coming with their hands up doesn't mean they're innocent. You know, they might not be guilty. They might not be innocent either.

Yeah.

Next, we should also be on our guard against deserters who approach a besieged city often enough. They are sent by the enemy to set fire so that while the defenders are busy putting them out, the Enemy may attack, so just be cautious.

Troops defeated an open battle should not be pampered, or even if it seems like a good idea, take refuge in a fortified camp or some other strong place. But while their fear is still fresh, they should attack again.

By not indulging them.

May. They may, with greater assurance, renew the fighting. So don't take care of them. You can't just say, oh, we beat you, so come on in the camp and relax. No, not happening. Next, if the general thinks he's ready to meet the enemy in battle, he should get set to carry on the fighting in the enemy's country instead of his own. Men waging war in a foreign land become more aggressive. They will also feel that the war in which they are engaged is not only being fought on behalf of their country, but also their own personal safety. This is not necessarily the case if the war is fought in their own land, in which the existence of fortresses eliminates the risks to men, since in case of flight, they may easily take refuge in them. This is a little bit different than what we might deal with today, because today we deploy to some country and fight. That's not your homeland.

Yeah.

So you're saying, ah, you know what this is, this, you know, I, I, I don't have to defend this. I, can you imagine if America got invaded, how hard the Americans would fight?

Yeah.

You, no one could ever pull it off. Yeah, it would be too hard.

Yeah.

Because once the Americans say, oh, you think you're going to take my country? Wouldn't happen.

Anything. Take my, Anything.

Not happening.

Yeah.

Not happening. Yeah, yeah, go try and take some, someone's parking space in America. Here, they're ready to kill you. So you think you're going to take land from us? Not happening. Not going to happen. So it's a little bit different, but the mentality of being aggressive in, in what, what? I think what the mentality is talking about is knowing that you can retreat, knowing that you can go back to your fortress. So that means, you know, in this day and age, or, sorry, in that era, they knew they couldn't, they didn't have any, all they could do was fight. They had to win.

Right.

You know what, this is a great comparison is in the, in the old school Navy, you had no choice. You have no choice. On a naval vessel, you have no choice but to fight. You have no choice because if your ship gets sunk, you're dead. In the, in the, on the ground, you can run away, you can hide, you can retreat, you can fall back where do you fall back to on a ship that's being attacked? You don't. You go in the ocean and you die. So that's one of the kind of core things that's old school Navy. You cannot retreat, you cannot give up. You can't. There's no word of surrender. You can't surrender. It's. If you surrender, you die. If you don't fight with everything you got, you die. So you have no choice but to fight until you're dead. That's kind of the, the mentality of the old school Navy. Nowhere to run to. You can't, can't retreat, can't fall back. You're there.

So that little section was called the. The general instructions for the commander. And now we get into the straight up Maxims.

First one. The man who spends more sleepless nights with his army and who works harder in drilling his troops, runs the fewest risks in fighting the foe.

Self evident.

Reminds me of Major Lee in Colder Than Hell. Who. Remember, they're, they're like patrolling to combat. And he's got the guys doing drills, getting after it.

Next. Never lead soldiers into combat before they. Before having made sufficient trial of their courage. So why we train hard.

Next. It is well to hurt the enemy by deceit, by raids or by hunger. And never be enticed into a pitch battle, which is demonstration more of luck than of bravery. So he's saying a pitched battle is like, there's luck. There's luck.

Yeah. What's a pitch pitch battle?

Face to face, straight up.

Yeah.

Next. Only those battle plans are successful which the enemy does not suspect before we put them into action.

Next. Deception is often helpful in warfare. An enemy soldier who deserts us apart from some plot is of the greatest advantage. For the enemy is hurt by deserters more than if the same man were killed in action.

Next. He who does not carefully compare his own forces with those of the enemy will come to a disastrous end.

Here's a good one for you. Courage and discipline are able to accomplish more than a large number of warriors.

Often enough, the lay of the land has been helpful in making the weaker force come out on top. Terrain. Those of you in the military. Terrain. Learn how to read. Terrain. Learn how to use terrain. Learn how to figure out the high ground. Learn out where the dead spaces are. Learn where the ravines are. That puts you in a better firing position.

Next. Nature produces but a few brave men, whereas care and training make efficient soldiers. Soldiers who are kept working improve in courage. I'm gonna say that again. Soldiers who are Kept working, improve in courage, while too much leisure makes them weak and lazy.

Next. Things which are unexpected or sudden frighten the enemy, but they pay little attention to things to which they are accustomed. You're used to that.

After gaining a victory, a general who pursues the enemy with a scattered and disorganized army gives away his victory to his foe.

And here's a simple one. The cause of war must be just.

Next. It does not help to assemble the whole army in council or to keep sending for men when they are off duty. These things only cause discord in the army. I. I put that one in there because this applies to business a lot, where all of a sudden you're calling that person all the weekend nights, staff meeting, another meeting. I need to talk to everyone. Okay.

On their off day, burn them out.

Be careful with that.

Next. The soldiers must always be doing something, even if no enemy is bothering us. Habitual idleness spells trouble for an army, so those two are kind of contradictory. Hey, don't be calling people all the time, but keep them busy. We got to figure out how we separate in the business world. How do you separate work from life?

Yeah.

And as the boss, you got to make that distinction.

Yeah. Yeah. It kind of seems like that makes sense. I mean, consider, like, exercise or something. Like you gotta have the recovery period.

Yes.

You know, but you can't be just cruising, skipping days all the time, you know, so it's like that. What do you. What do you call it in the. In the deal? Dichotomy.

There's a dichotomy?

Yeah.

Yes.

Nicely done. Thank you.

Next. For what should be done, seek the advice of many for what you will actually do. Take counsel with only a few trustworthy people. Then off by yourself alone, decide on the best and most helpful plan to follow and stick to it. Hey, everyone, tell me what's going on. Give me your ideas. Yeah. Okay, great. Little bit smaller group. Okay, guys, this is the input we got. What do you think? And then guess what? The commander's got to make a decision.

Yeah.

You can weigh all those different inputs, but the commander's got to make a decision.

Yeah. Yeah.

And when you make the decision, you got to own it.

Yeah.

Now, one thing that's interesting, and I don't mean to go on too much of a tangent here, but I'll make a decision.

And execute with aggression. But my mind is not closed. And if I go, say we're gonna do X and we start executing X and X is not looking good, I'll say, stop executing X. I was wrong. Here's what we're gonna do. So just because you're being decisive doesn't mean that you're being stupid. Just because you're being decisive doesn't mean you're not. You're. You're losing your plasticity.

Yeah, yeah.

We don't lose our plasticity. Even when we make a hard decision. Even when I say this is what we're gonna do, my mind is still open. And again, a lot of times I will try and break as a leader, I will try and break big decisions into smaller, incremental decisions that allow me to change course during the execution. And, you know, for, for. And I've told, I've said this, something like this before, but if we got a bad guy target and we think the bad guy's going to be there, the first thing I'm going to tell do, tell the guys to start planning. So they're going to start planning, then I might put them. Okay, guys, we're going to, we're going to go and put you guys in the staging area. Well, they execute, we're executing, but we are not executing. Right. All you're doing is going to a staging area.

Yeah.

Then I might even put a reconnaissance element out to watch the target. We're executing, but we're not executing. I could still say, okay, stop, everyone come back home. We don't think he's there. We don't think it's a good mission. We think it's a trap, whatever. So I gave, I committed, I made a decision. We're going to hit this target. But I made that decision incrementally. I didn't just say we're going to hit it. And now no matter what happens. So a lot of times as a leader, I look at the big decision. Okay, yeah, it's a big decision, and I'm going to be decisive on it, but I'm going to make incremental progress towards that decision. That way I can be adaptable as I move towards that execution. A very important lesson to learn. Very important lesson to learn.

Learn.

I never just jump off the cliff.

Right. It's like you're creating a point of no return, you know, unnecessary or something.

Yeah, there's a, there's a last point of COVID And concealment is an actual term that we use, last point of coverage. So that means there's a target. And once you cross this line, now you actually do have to go.

Yeah, yeah.

Now you, you're out in the open. They can see you.

Yeah, do or die.

So that's the point. But that point should come so far down the road that you can execute the target. You can execute the target, you can execute the target, but you still haven't actually executed until you've gone past that last point of COVID and concealment. Once you're there, once you go past the last point of COVID and concealment, you're done. You have to go. But that should be very late in the game. And it's the same thing in the business world. Oh, we want to, we want to open up into this new market. Okay, let's do a reconnaissance. That market you're executing. Yeah, yeah, but you might do a reconnaissance the market and say, you know what? It's not what we thought it was gonna be. Stop. Okay, let's get a building. So now you're gonna lease. We're not gonna buy. You go in there and buy a building because we don't want to own that thing yet. We don't know the terrain well enough. We're gonna lease a building. Guess what we're doing? We doing an eight year lease? No, no, no, we're doing a two year lease. We're just gonna slowly execute incrementally because we might get in there and say, that's not looking good. So think about how you can break these major decisions down into smaller incremental decisions that give you the adaptability.

Next, if an enemy spy is captured while observing our forces, then it may well, it may be well to release him unharmed. If all our forces are strong and in good shape, the enemy will absolutely be dismayed by such reports. On the other hand, if our forces are weak, the spies should be treated roughly, forced to divulge. Divulge enemy secrets and finally either be put to death or sent off elsewhere under guard. Obviously, we don't put our prisoners to death anymore. But you know what's interesting about this? In, in the business world, and I've worked with all kinds of different companies, and the reason I keep talking about this spy stuff and the captured and is because every industry, every industry out there, they are constantly competing for people.

Yeah.

And whether it's biz technology companies, whether it's financial companies, they're always trying to recruit each other and they're trying to get this guy to leave and they're trying to pull this person over every different. A lot of times I work with companies, they don't realize that all other companies are like this. There's only, you know, they say, well, you know, the thing is, we get, we, we. People are trying to recruit our people all the time. Yes. It happens in every industry. Every industry's got people trying to recruit their people. And that's why I'm talking about this stuff. Because if you think about it, if you know someone's going to go to another company, let's give them some bad intelligence before they leave. You know, let's say that we're thinking. We're, We're. We're not going to go into that market. Let them know that. Yeah, you are going into that market, by the way, we'll speak.

Yeah.

Full speed. Yeah. So that's why I'm saying this again. You know, you get to this point where, you know, as a. As a upstanding human being, let's be straight up with people. But I'm assuming now that someone has maybe done you wrong. You know, they're trying to take clients, they're trying to take business away from your business. So now we're getting into a little bit of a. We had a little. Some hostilities are brewing up.

Yeah.

So some psychological warfare.

The game within the game.

There's a game within the game.

Yeah. Yeah.

And there's a game within the game. And again, you have to maintain your integrity as a. As a human. And then that's. That is definitely, for me, the, the, the absolute primary thing. Right. Is to maintain your integrity. They're not maintaining your integrity with you. We. Maybe they're getting some misinformation on the way out the door. Sorry. That's the way it works.

Yeah. And like.

I'll kind of draw back on that a little bit and I'll tell you why.

One of the best things about when someone leaves a company, one of the best things you can do is treat them good as they leave.

Yeah.

Really? Because that. Because when they show up at that new company that made all these promises to him that are not true.

Yeah.

And. And they're looking back and going, man, you know, Jocko was just honest with me and he told me he wanted me to stay and he told me that, you know, we're going to grow. And he told me didn't have an opportunity right now, but he finally, in the future, he believes me.

Yeah.

So I'm going to actually retract my statement about using these kind of, you know, putting your integrity at risk. It's better to maintain your integrity. And it might not be better instantly, but in the long run, you're going.

To be better off even with, like a spy situation. So, I mean, kind of consider. I don't Know, if you were to draw the analogy of a spy, like, let's say a temp came in your company and he's really a spy because he's attempt somewhere else. I don't know, whatever. And you find out or you get, you know, like information, whatever that. That leads you to believe, oh, that guy's a spy. Right. And then you start essentially lying to him about projects or, I don't know, whatever. Goals.

Yeah. I'd probably just get rid of them.

Yeah. I probably still treat them nice, kind.

I'd be like, hey, listen, I don't think you're here for the best reasons.

Yeah.

And in fact, I think you came from this organization and I'm gonna let you go.

Yeah.

If you ever want to come back here in earnest.

Yeah.

You know what? I think you got a lot of potential. And I think. I think. Hold on. I think that the fact that they did this to you, it shows that they don't really respect you.

Yeah.

And. But if you want to come to a place where you will be respected and where we work with integrity, this is the place for you. Let me know if that ever happens. But for now, because the way this is shaken out, I can't. I can't have you here because you know what I'm trying to do? I'm trying to protect my team. I'm trying to protect what we're doing here. And you know what we're doing, we're doing something positive. And you're. What you're bringing right now, it shows you the weakness of the people that you've been working with on the other side. It shows you that they're weak. They're trying to do these things to us. It's not going to affect us. By the way, we are going to win. Why are we going to win? Because we are staying on the path.

See, now you approach it like that, you're going to win all day long. So let's just retract. You know, that's why people don't understand, man. Integrity is so important. And the minute you start giving up, even under these adverse conditions, when you give up your integrity in the long run, you're going to hurt yourself. And I kind of got drawn into it, right. Even myself. I'm like, oh, yeah, spies and all that.

Us. No.

Be straight up.

Yeah.

Don't.

To death. Don't. Don't put them to death.

No. You're not allowed to do that.

Yeah. Dang. That's actually. That's way more advanced than kind of what I Was going to ask you, so what if, like.

You expose them? You know, like you expose the company or the person? Like, oh, hey, everyone, I don't know. You know, now we have, you know.

Yeah, well, I think it'd be. I. I would do it in an appropriate way. Yeah. You know, I wouldn't be trying to set him up and make them look up and say, hey, listen, guys, we found out that Bill, he's actually. He's actually still getting paid by X company over there. Yeah. And, Bill, we. We're gonna have to let you go. Appreciate you coming over, but, you know, we here are a team. We stick together. You're not part of the team, obviously, so we can't have here. If you ever decide that the weak team you came from is not for you and you want to get on board with the winning team, let me know.

Yeah, that's advanced to kind of let them know that, like, hey, I still like you and everything kind of thing, you know, the opposite of burning a bridge.

Yeah. It's like you're building it and there is nothing better. A lot of times companies that we work with, somebody will leave and it'll be under those weird circumstances, Right. They'll get a good offer. You know, again, all companies do this. They say, I'll give you a signing bonus.

Right?

Give me a signing bonus to come over.

Okay.

And the signing bonus that looks. That's a way to get somebody over. And they say, don't worry, we'll give you this, and we'll give you a corner office and we'll give you this. We'll give you helpers. And you know that we'll give you this title. Right?

With all those things. But all those are recruiters. They're not telling the truth about stuff. Sometimes the worst. The best recruiters tell everything straight up. Right. The best recruiters are like, oh, you're doing this. Yeah. They're really good at that. Your company, you're at Echo. They're really good with that. You're right. Here's where their weaknesses are. Here's where we beat them. Your decision, it's. It's honest and it sets your expectations. Right. So when you show up, you're not thinking, well, jocko, you said that this was the best at X. Now I didn't say that. So we're the best at why X we're working on.

Yeah, right.

That's what you want to do. It's just. What I'm talking about is integrity. That's what I'm talking about. And you got to maintain it. Best thing to do.

Easy to win in those scenarios.

Is that one of those take the high road or the.

Take the high. Take the high ground or the. Or the high ground's gonna take you? Absolutely. All right.

Back to the book. If the soldiers show signs of cowardice, various skills should be used to restore their courage.

Next. Take your time and planning, but when you have made decision, be fast in putting it into action. In war, opportunity is fleeting and cannot be put off at all. Opportunity is fleeting. I was not just talking about war. That's talking about business. That's talking about life. Your opportunities in life are fleeting. What are you doing with them? What are you doing with the opportunities you have in front of you right now? Are you capitalizing on them? Are you going after them? Because they're fleeting. They're not going to be there. They might be there tomorrow. They might be in a week. Where are they in a month? Where? They're gone. The opportunities are fleeting, so get after them.

Next. Let the army see that you are not unduly elated over successes nor utterly cast down by failures. We already covered that. Next. It is not the general whose words are frightening, but the one who gets things done, who is feared by the enemy.

That's a big one right there.

Be the person that makes things happen. Yeah. Be the person that makes things happen. That's you. You know, in the military, my guys, I was in, you know, SEAL platoon or SEAL task unit or when I was running training, I had guys, my boys, my people, man, they made things happen. If I said something to him, it was gonna happen. It was gonna happen. There was no. I didn't barely. I didn't give it any direction. I'd say, hey, we need this. They take. Got it.

Done.

Done. That's the kind of person you want to be, not the person that comes back, you know, a week later. Said, well, you know, we tried to make some progress here, but I really ran into a brick wall with so and so. No. Yeah. My guys didn't hit brick walls. And if they hit him, they hit him with sledgehammers and busted through them.

Yeah.

So Jade Wood.

Jade Charles Echo. Charles's brother.

Yeah. So he'd be like this. This happened more than once is why I'm saying. Saying he would do this, but maybe twice. Anyway, he'd say, hey, I know you're going to the store. Go buy me some wine while you're there. And he's like, hey, it's this kind, whatever kind, wine. So I'm like, all right, I'll do that for you. You know, favor, kind, no problem. I go in the wine section aisle, whatever. And he's like, hey, it's this. And there's, you know, there's wine, there's white, Ryan, red, Rhyme, Bordeaux, Cabernet, all this.

Different wine. Yeah, yeah.

And then there's the brand. So basically, it's a wall. The whole thing is all wines. It's not the kind where there's sugar, oil. This all wine, different kind. And he's like, I want this kind. I'm looking at this thing, bruh. I was here for tomatoes. That's it. I don't spend one hour looking for wine. So you kind of come to like, this decision you gotta make. You know, I could easily just grab my tomatoes, go home, and be like, bruh, you know what? You sent. You sent me on a treasure hunt for your wine. I could say that. And it'd be justifiable, really, so that.

We have a bottle.

No. Yeah, no. As you'd say. Hold the line. He asked for wine. I said I would get wine. I'm gonna get wine, and I'm not gonna say anything about it. That's what I did. Found it, gave it to him. And I know where it is now. Legit, right? Cuz, justifiably, I could have said, bro, hey, I'll do it next time, or show me next time. We're there. Show me where it is. You know, but, bro, I didn't have that kind of time. Whatever, you know, you got the mission done. Yeah. Do.

What do the guys say? They say, don't talk about it. Be about it. Yeah, yeah. Don't talk about it. Be about it.

All right, next.

Plan what you have to do at night and carry out your decision during the day. One cannot plan and act at the same time. Before you go to bed at night, make your list of what got to get done.

Next. The general who is overly harsh with his subordinates and the one who is too indulgent are both unfit for command.

Fear leads to great hatred, and giving in too much results in being despised.

It is best to take the middle course.

Means balance. Got a balance. So this is the dichotomy of leadership. Don't be overly harsh. Don't want to be too indulgent. I like the fact that he says giving too much results in being despised.

Yeah.

And it's interesting. I've heard that, like in the SEAL teams, if you.

Wait, that expression.

No, I've seen that idea where you get a guy of Course, you get a guy. You get a platoon leader that's really over thebearing and. And no one likes him.

Yeah, right.

And it's not a good unit, but you get the guy that just gives everything. He's not liked either. He's not respected. Yeah, that's the problem. And he might be everyone's buddy.

Right?

Doesn't make anything happen.

Doesn't have an advantage of maybe. I don't know.

Yeah, no, for sure. Next. After agreeing upon a treaty or truce with the enemy, the commander should make sure that his camp is guarded more strongly and more closely. I bet you Maurice, the way he writes these things, they must have gotten re attacked on multiple occasions because he is paranoid. If the enemy chooses to break the agreement, they will only gain a reputation for faithlessness and disfavor of God.

While we shall remain in safety and be true to our word. A general should not have to say, I did not expect it. Next. For smaller forces, we should select a place with a narrow front whose width corresponds to the size of our army. The superior numbers of the enemy are useless in such a place since there is no room for them. This is classic battle Thermopylae. Pick a place that's really narrow so all those Persians can't attack you at the same time.

It is a good idea to maneuver so that the sun, wind and dust are behind our men and in the face of the enemy. By so obscuring his vision and making his breathing difficult, we should quickly be victorious.

Think about those environmentals.

Next, we should put. We should line up our troops for battle before the enemy gets ready. This puts us in a position to do what we wish and barely allows the enemy time to arm. So be ahead. Be early. Get up early.

Be first.

Be first.

If we are all set for the charge, then we can attack the enemy in safety with our men full of confidence and the enemy very worried.

Next. If the enemy is put to flight, our soldiers must be restrained from plundering. Otherwise they are scattered doing. While they are scattered doing this, the enemy might reform and attack them. Once again, I like Maurice's paranoia.

Next. The general is at fault if most of the army is destroyed in a single battle.

We wrote a book called Extreme Ownership. That's what it's about.

Dang.

Own it.

Next. An army which shouts out its war cries good and loud can strike terror into the enemy.

Is that like the rugby? The New Zealand, The All Blacks? You know, they're. Yeah, yeah, they're doing that. Yeah.

The hawk is awesome.

Have you ever Seen. There's a. There's a. They do the haka and, like, memorial services. Yeah, that is. That is very moving. Yeah, it doesn't get much more moving than that.

Yeah, they. Yeah, they get up. Even the football teams in Hawaii do that too. Some. Some of them, they'll do that before the game. It's kind of. I think in Hawaii, they're used. Kind of used to it. So it might not have the effect. But what if, like, you've never seen it before. You're not expecting. They do that. You're like, bro, these guys are kind of like, they're ready. They're not, you know. Yeah, it's cool.

Next, our commander ought to adapt his stratagems to the disposition of the enemy general. If the latter is inclined to rashness, he might be enticed to premature and reckless action.

If he is on the timid side, he may be struck down by continual surprise raid. So you're making adaptions like, oh, I know you got a bad temper. Oh, I'm gonna. I'm bring it out. Or you're. You're passive. Cool. I'm gonna get aggressive on you.

The general should be impartial in dealing with his own men with allied and with allied forces. He should be a just judge for both. When he gives presence to the allies, he should make a regular increase in the gratuities for his own soldiers. So he's talking about they would adopt these other armies. And he's seen. Treat them fairly, treat them justly. You know, where you see this a lot is when. When we get acquisitions in the business world. So one company takes over another company, and a good leader is going to treat people fairly. A bad leader is going to be taking care of the guys that he's.

Always been with his boys. Yeah.

So you got to be careful of that.

In wartime, the general should do more than his share of the work and take less than his share of the gain.

This will enhance his reputation and secure for him the goodwill of all. Do more than your share of work and take less of the share of the gain.

Aware of the uncertainties of war, the general ought to be ready even after victory, to listen to the proposals of the enemy for peace on advantageous terms. So got to keep an open mind.

The best general is not the man of noble family, but the man who can take pride in his own deeds.

Next, the general must correctly manage not only matters of immediate concern, but must also take thought for the future.

Common sense, but how often do we see people not doing that not thinking about the future, only being concerned with what's happening right now.

Next. The best leader is one who does not willingly engage in a hazardous and highly uncertain battle and refrains from emulating those who carry out operations recklessly and are admired for their brilliant success. But one who, while keeping the enemy on the move, remains secure and always in circumstances of his own choosing.

We dictate the situation. We dictate the situation.

A greedy general can be the ruin of his own people and an object of contempt to the enemy.

A general who loves luxury can destroy the whole army.

Next. The commander is the one who can instill courage at the right time and can hold back the headlong flight. Frightened soldiers.

Next. A general who desires peace must be prepared for war.

For the barbarians become very nervous when they face an adversary all set to fight.

That is why my foreign policy is one word strength. Because the barbarians get nervous.

When they know you're ready to fight.

Mistakes made in ordinary affairs can generally be remedied in a short while, but errors made in war cause lasting harm. This is why. This is why combat is like life, but amplified and intensified.

Next. Those whose performance is consistently poor should not be entrusted even with just ordinary responsibilities.

Next. The general, the sharp general takes into account not only probable dangers, but also those which may be totally unexpected.

Next. Make peace. A time of training for war and battle, an exhibition of bravery. So during peace. Prepare.

Next. The general should not go to sleep before reflecting on what he should have done that he might have neglected and on what he has to do the next day. Get ready for the next day, the night before, period. Can you do that? Yes, you can.

Think that's good to, to not go to bed without reflecting on it? I. I think I don't. But it seems like that's something that, that most people probably wouldn't do just in life, I mean, you know.

Yeah, no, absolutely. This is about life. You don't have to put that caveat on there. This is about life.

Life. Think that's a good idea? I mean, shoot, go to bed. It's time to go to bed.

Whatever. Yeah, I got work tomorrow. But, you know, you typically. You don't really.

It doesn't take long to say, you know what? This is what I got done today. Yeah, this is what I got done today. And you know what? This is something to think about when it's. When you're prepping to get stuff done, when you know you got a long day. Think about how good it feels when you accomplish a lot in one day. That's how you want to go to bed at night going, yeah, I nailed this, I nailed this, I nailed this. Oh, I messed up this. But I'm get on it tomorrow and fix it.

Yeah, that's the part right there. Mm.

Doesn't take long.

I'm gonna do that.

Echo's gonna do it. Why don't you do it while you're editing videos for this podcast?

I do.

I like it. I like it.

Next. It is well for the general to exercise self control at all times, but especially during war.

Next. The general should not be hasty in placing confidence in people who promise to do something. If he does, almost everyone will think he's light headed.

So you gotta. You can't just be a. Yeah, I know you're gonna take care of it. I trust you. Gotta, gotta put it in check a little bit.

Next.

Long and careful deliberation promises great safety in war, whereas hasty and impetuous generals usually commit serious blunders.

Next. The general should set an example of how things ought to be done for his subordinates. Training himself in the highest ideals, doing what is right and reflecting, refraining from those things his soldiers should refrain from. Set the example.

The general should make sure of the good disposition of his troops by an oath.

Next. If the general knows the inclinations and tendencies of each officer and soldier, he will know better what duties should be assigned to each one. No. Your people.

Next. The general who wants to keep his plans concealed from the enemy should never take the rank and file of his own troops into his confidence. So just be careful. Be careful who you're telling.

And does that, does that contradict, you know, having. What is that? Transparent transparency in your leadership? No, it does. Doesn't. You, you, you don't have to divulge every single idea that you have to your entire chain of command, especially because you're going to change those ideas. Things are going to adapt, things are going to get different. So this isn't contradictory to say, you know what? I'm not going to tell every single person. Especially if you got a security situation.

Yeah.

Right. I mean, we're talking about national security. Yeah. There's things that are need to know only. That's a legitimate thing.

Yeah.

If Echo doesn't need to know this. And that can happen in the business world too, because you do have people leaving, you do have spies, you do have all these people coming and going from businesses. So this is legit. This isn't. This isn't a lack of transparency. This is prudent.

Yeah.

Information control.

Yeah. I Go home, I tell my wife, and she's cruising with her neighbor, you know, and they're like, hey, that was interesting. So the wife goes home, tells the.

Husband, who's putting together together all those little dots, painting a picture.

Next, when both sides are equally well armed, the better tactician will win.

Next, the general, who possesses some skill in public speaking, is able, as in the past, to rouse the weak hearted to battle and restore courage to a defeated army. Work on those skills, just like we learned in the in The Guidebook, the 1950s 50 Guidebook for Military Officers. Work on your speaking skills. How do you do it? Practice.

It is good to occupy any hills in the area before the enemy has a chance to do so. Boom. Take the high ground.

This is awesome.

Reiterated again and again and again. Take the high ground.

Next. As in the past, misleading moves taken by the general can be very advantageous. For example, if he makes it look as though he's going to set up camp, the enemy might be lured into doing the same thing. Then, while they are scattered about getting things ready, he may secretly draw up his troops and attack. Or he may quietly withdraw his army if the terrain is unfavorable.

Simple. Next, in his movements, the general should act like a good wrestler.

He should faint in one direction to try and deceive his adversary, and then make good use of the opportunities he finds. And in this way, he will overpower the enemy.

Same thing with Jiu Jitsu, by the way.

Right? He could have swapped those out if you wanted to.

I guess he could have said pankration.

Sure.

Next, in battles and in every action against the enemy, the wise general, even the most courageous, will keep in mind the possibility of failure and defeat, and will plan for them as actually occurring.

Huh? You're confident? That's great. Plan for what's going to happen if it fails? What's the worst case scenario? What if things go wrong? What are you going to do?

The spirit of the commander is naturally communicated to the troops. And there's an ancient saying that is better to have an army of deer commanded by a lion than an army of lions commanded by a deer.

Yeah, that's a pretty common one.

Next.

If you imitate the enemy and do what he is doing for his own benefit, you only harm yourself. Conversely, if you do something which is to your advantage, in trying to imitate you, the enemy will injure himself. A lot of times you do see that in the business world, where the competitor is something. So like, oh, we'll do it too. Yeah, I'm not Saying that never good. But if you're doing that, it means you're behind.

So try and step up. Come with some original plans. Make something happen.

Next. A wise commander will not engage the enemy in a pitched battle unless truly exceptional opportunity or advantageous present advantage presents itself. We're hearing that over and over again.

Next. Whatever terrain the general chooses, he should make his troops familiar with it. They will then be able to avoid rough spots and because of their knowledge of the area, will fly. Fight the enemy with confidence. Know your terrain.

Next. When the general leads his men out to battle, he should present a cheerful appearance, avoiding any gloomy look. Soldiers usually estimate their prospects by the appearance of the general. So if you're in a leadership position, that's what they're saying. If you're in a leadership position, the people are watching you. And if you look like sullen and downtrodden, guess what? They're going to think we're about to get. Get whooped.

Next. After a victory, the general should not allow the men to break ranks right away. For has happened often enough that the enemy, on noticing that our men have led down their guard and rejoicing and have broken ranks, have regained their courage, come back to fight, and turned our victory into defeat. Don't let your guard down. Boom. I think we're hearing that loud and clear from Maurice.

Next. When the enemy is surrounded as well, to leave a gap in our lines to give them an opportunity to flee in case they judge that flight is better than remaining and taking their chances in battle.

Next. An army is judged by the spirit of its general.

Next. It is better to avoid a tricky opponent than one who never lets up. I'm gonna say that again. It's better to avoid a tricky opponent than one who never lets up. The latter makes no secret of what he's doing, whereas it is difficult to find what the other is up to. So, conversely, which one do you want to be? Of course, we want to have determination, and we never want to make sure they know that we're never going to let up. But you really want to be the one that keeps them guessing.

Yeah.

Harder to deal with.

Next. The commander should be severe and thorough in investigating charges against his men, but merciful in punishing them. This will gain him in their goodwill. In their goodwill. Next. The general should be calm in emergencies, prudent in council, courteous to his associates. He will be most successful in battle if he charges against the enemy, not like a wild beast, but in a calculated manner.

Next. The general should be ignorant of none of the situations likely to occur in war. Who can attempt to accomplish what he does not understand? And ask that again, who can attempt to accomplish what he does not not understand? Who is able to furnish assistance in situation whose dangers he does not understand?

So you got to get the knowledge.

Next, the general must make plans to defeat the enemy not only by arms, but also through their food and drink, making the water unfit to drink and, and poisoning the grain.

And that's again, we're not just attacking on one front.

We're attacking on all the fronts. We're not just attacking with swords and bows and arrows and lances. We're poisoning the water, we're poisoning the grain. We're attacking at every possible angle.

And that wraps it up. That's. That's Maurice's.

Strategic con. And by the way, I forgot to mention this. This is somebody, Somebody on Twitter said, hey, check out this book. I got it, opened it up and said, yes.

Ancient war. Bring it Maxims. Bring it. Awesome book. And, you know, I wanted to close this out kind of with something.

Roman related.

And of course, I thought about Julius. When you think of Rome, you think of Julius Caesar. When you think of Julius Caesar, you think about that guy named Shakespeare, sure. Who wrote a play called Julius Caesar. And obviously not going to do the whole thing right now, but there's a.

Part of it. And, and you know, we're talking about leadership, right? And really in, in talking about Maurice and Caesar, actual rulers of an empire. That's what they were. Rulers of an empire.

It. It's possible to think that maybe they were better than us, right? Like they were superior human beings.

And.

It'S also possible to think that they were better than us, not by what they did and how they led. It's possible to say, oh, you know, Maurice came up with this stuff. Ah, that's just, that's not why he was the ruler. This is luck. It's fate.

But in the play Julius Caesar by Shakespeare, Cassius reminds us as he speaks to Brutus that that isn't so. Not so. Not luck.

He explains to Caesar in these great lines. He explains to him that. That Caesar stands above the world like a giant.

So Caesar's a giant. Like a colossus is the word he uses. While we down here, we little men, we just wander about.

Wander about under his massive legs, under his giant presence. We're just. We're just moving aimlessly towards a.

Death, towards a dishonorable death.

But this is what I like about it is then Cassius explains that it isn't fate.

That has put Caesar into that powerful position.

But that men.

Men control their own destinies.

And that men are masters of their fate.

And that the fault in men, the thing that holds us back from greatness, it doesn't lie in chance. It doesn't lie in the way that the stars are aligned. No.

The fault lies within us.

Not in the stars. It is our fault.

That we become slaves instead of kings.

And this is. This is how Shakespeare put it.

Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world like a colossus.

And we petty men walk under his huge legs and peep about to find ourselves dishonorable graves.

Men at some time are masters of their fates.

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.

That we.

Are underlings.

So Cassius there is making an early case for ownership, for extreme ownership, which is obviously something that I believe in. Then that is that you can't blame fate. You can't blame the stars.

The fault lies within us, and you got to own it. You got to own that fault. You got to fix it.

You got to dictate your own future. Don't let fate dictate your future.

You got to make that decision to be better.

To. To be a king like Caesar, to be a general.

To be a leader. And most. Most important.

To be a free human being. That's what he's talking about. He's talking about underlings. They're slaves.

Don't be a slave. Be a slave to any other man. And don't be a slave to weakness. And don't be a slave to sloth.

And don't be a slave to your ego.

Don't be a slave. Be free. Free your mind.

And the thing is, you can't free your mind until you realize, like Cassius says, the fault is. Is in ourselves.

And the pathway to overcoming our faults is not complaining or blaming or making excuses.

Or attacking others. No.

The pathway to freedom actually comes from attacking ourselves. Attacking ourselves with discipline and with hard work and with physical training and mental training and reading and studying and learning.

And that. That is how.

We overcome those faults. That's how we leave behind the underlings, the slaves.

That's how we get away from the darkness of subjugation.

And that is how.

We become free.

And I think that's.

All I've got for tonight.

Looks like we're pretty long to slide into Q A right now.

Yep.

So.

Echo.

Yes, sir?

If we are not going to do Q and A.

I have a question.

Hit me.

If people wanted to Support this podcast?

Sure.

Do you know of any ways that they can do that?

I do, as a matter of fact. Let me go ahead and tell you about it.

So people have been asking me, and not the kind, you know how like some people, they'll, they'll say that. They'll be like, hey, people, a lot of people been asking me about this, but it's like two people, you know, and they say a lot of people. It's not that case. This is a lot of people, probably like 20 people, which is a lot of people asking the same question, by the way.

A lot of people asking the same question.

So anyway, they're like, hey, what, what supplements? Or are these on it? On it. I'm talking about on it. So the supplements and the krill oil, is that the good stuff? Is the stringtech, Is that the good stuff? I was like, cool, yeah, yeah, they're. They're the good stuff or whatever. But. So you kind of think. And I was thinking about this when I was actually working out and I was like, hey, to myself. It's not like the supplements you take aren't going to like get you in jocko shape, you know, it's going to be like all the other stuff.

Like, you mean hard work?

Yes, exactly. You know, workout, diet, rest, like all this stuff. And if you have like, you know, whatever goal.

The supplements are gonna, like, they're gonna help you get there faster, they're gonna create less roadblocks, you know, injuries, all this other stuff keep you, put you and, or keep you in better health. Like all this stuff. Right. But the way I kind. I don't know, I could have been taking it wrong though, that it sounded like they were like, oh, yeah, I'm looking for like the answer kind of thing. Not all of them, but that's kind of, I don't know, maybe it was just collectively. That's what it felt like.

Yeah.

So I think that's important to point out.

Supplements are not this. Supplements are not the answer.

Yeah.

Your squat rack is the answer.

Yeah.

Your pull up bar is the answer.

Yeah. And you got to do that stuff like over and over. Like, you know, how. Okay. I'm not going to mention his name, but one of my friends would be like, yeah, you're like, you're a genetic guy, whatever, you know, they'll be like, yeah, genetic. Your genetics are like, good. And I'm not saying my genetics are, are not good. I'm not gonna say they are or are not. I'm not saying that. But I got into like working out when I was 14 years old. Didn't stop, by the way. Knew about, like, diet and all this other stuff. So when you hit. Let's say. Let's say you had not started working out when you're 14. Let's say you were like, oh, you know, I know what a weight room is kind of thing. I'm out of shape. I'm 35 or whatever, however old. And you say, I want to get into good shape. It's like, that's a completely different situation, you know?

Yeah. And you could possibly try and blame the fault on your genetics, but it's not the fault of your genetics. Not the fault of the stars, baby. Nope. The fault is yours.

Yeah.

Because you didn't work out. Now you could say, hey, I didn't. Wasn't the environment. Okay, cool. That doesn't matter anymore.

Right.

What matters is how you're going to fix it.

Yeah. What are we going to do? Exactly. Right.

So.

So which brings us to the same kind of this profile, maybe fundamental concept of. It's not like. It's not these external things. You're not going to escape the fact that if you want to get in shape, you got to go get in shape. And that entails these fundamental things. It's not going to be the supplements. It's not going to be your genetics. The supplements, genetics, all this stuff. That's part of the game for sure. But that's not what's going to get you. So that being said, I'm gonna recommend some supplements. But in the hopes of.

Us everybody being on a good workout program, yes.

These will help you. If you are on a good workout program, by the way.

These will definitely help you.

Yeah. And a lot of people, speaking of, again, a lot of people. I don't mean to. I mean, more than.

Two.

Think about all the people on Twitter that have said, I. I've been taking krill oil. Yes, my knees feel better now. Oh, my shoulders feel better. That's. That's a fact. Krill oil works.

Yeah. And personally, however many people told me that it worked for them, that has no bearing on my understanding that it works because it works for me. And I don't take, like, protein, massive gainer to get big. I don't do that. You can, I guess, and that's cool. And I'm not going to recommend necessarily that. But like, krill oil, for example, like, that will keep you in the game way more, in my opinion, than like a creatine situation, I think.

And again, I agree with you this Is. And you're. And by the way, for those who don't know, Echo does have a doctorate in bro science.

Yes. Well, if you notice, I won't make any scientific claims. Yes. Or maybe I will. I don't know.

Well, the. The best claim you can make is that you use it and you feel it. That's.

Yeah.

You know, that is bro science, I guess.

Yes. Well, it's anecdotal.

Yeah, it's anecdotal. But what if it works for me, too?

Yeah, there you go. Then we're starting to paint that picture with the dots. Remember how you're talking about. Right.

Yes.

Yeah, same thing. And. And I do want to add that this. That does mean something when I say it works for me because I was for a long time. Time Anti supplements, where it's like. Yeah, you're just taking that to make yourself feel better about working out or whatever, and they're selling it to you because they're telling you the same thing for a long time and take any supplements and still had gains and all, you know, was doing fine. Gains, big time gains. So I was like, yeah, supplements. You know, when people talk about. About supplements, like, bro, you're totally wasting your time because you can just eat good and eat enough of the right thing and then do everything that your supplements.

That is true. You can do that.

Yeah. But here's the thing. I don't know if you can do that with krill oil unless you're eating a bunch of krill in a smoothie or so. Even that I don't know. You know, can you. Shroom Tech, how can you replace that with diet? I don't know if you can, man. So I'm slowly. And this is what it was. It was like the correct kinds of supplements.

Yeah.

That's what it is. So krill oil, take care of your joints. The other ones that you take. Strong bone.

Yeah. Dope.

Shroom Tech if. If you want a little boot. Efficient oxygen usage, you know, keep you in that. Those hard workouts longer, better, more comfortable, get you in the. Like in the car. The RPMs. You know, what goes. It's in the black and.

Yeah.

It goes into.

We know why. We know because I told you. Tell us.

Tell you the what? The slogan is you can't pull ahead if you're in the red. So the Shroom Tech keeps you in the, like, the yellow, maybe the orange.

Anyway, the other day, Shroom Tech I took. We. We showed up to train, and it was the kind of the. The pipe hitting training partners you know, the guys that.

The big dogs.

Yeah, the big dogs. And before I went, before I went, I'd work out as normal.

Yeah, yeah, sure.

But I took. Not only did I take shroom check sport, I also took the pre workout drink.

Yeah.

What is it called?

Earth Grown.

Yeah, yeah, it's Earth grown something. It's pre workout.

Yeah.

And I took both. And we did 10 rounds, you know, 10 rounds. That's a little 10, five minute. They were five minute rounds because I was training MMA fighters. But 10, one hour of training. A little over an hour of training. I was good. You showed.

Wait, no, I didn't go. Okay, for that one.

Yeah, but. But I walked out of there going shroom tech.

Shroom tech. Yes.

10 rounds is hardcore. Yeah. When you're going with. No, because. Because you can do a round with three hard guys and then you go against someone that's not that great and you can completely relax and recover.

Yeah. Some active recovery.

When you are going against every guy, guy is trying to rip your head off and have the capability of doing it. 10 rounds is a lot of rounds.

And the feeling there is because I've been in the same boat, I'm not gonna necessarily say 10 rounds, but in the same boat where there's a lot of rounds for Echo, actually I've done six tens. Six ten minute rounds.

It might even be harder.

Yeah.

Been some. Some might consider.

Yeah. With heavy hitters.

All of them. Yeah. Yeah. That's tiring.

Yes. So basically what the shroom tech will do is put in layman's terms, what it'll do is, you know the feeling. Let's say you go 6, 10.

Actually, can you do scientific terms for us here?

No, no, I'm going layman. Thank you. After the six tenths or the one hour of rolling, you're going to be like. Just physically, you know, like, dang, I'm done. That felt good, whatever. But we're done. I'm good. Going to go home on a rest, eat my stuff. I'm good.

Yeah. And even today when I showed up today to roll and we had some. We didn't do anything that extreme, but when I showed up, I already worked out hard strength and metcon. Then I went surfing, you know, getting after it.

Sure.

Shreddy didn't eat anything but just rolled in. No, I had some. I take that back. I had some bacon. Like three pieces of bacon in between working out and surfing. So I was like. Had some bacon then. Then I had some shroom tech. And then on the way to the gym. I drank the, the pre workout stuff.

Yeah.

And I felt ready to rock and roll.

Yeah.

Well, I don't actually. Instead of me saying I was ready to rock and roll, why don't you answer that question?

Jocko appeared and demonstrated that he was ready to rock and roll, as it were.

I actually wasn't ready. I actually did rock and roll.

Yes.

Which is, which is.

Yeah, you were. You. You didn't talk about it. You beat about it.

Yeah, I beat about it.

Afterwards, after the hard rolls with the Shroom Tech, you'll feel like, sure, yeah, that was good. That was hard. I could go another one. Like, I could keep going. That's how you feel. Not necessarily that you want to keep going, but you could, you feel like you could.

Yeah, I mean, I wanted to. The podcast.

Yeah. Yeah. So that's different. But you know, I get it anyway. Yeah. Stream tech. That's a good on stream tech sport. Still haven't done Shroom Tech immune. I think that's the next one.

Yeah.

Warrior Bars and. Okay, so we'll talk about that pre workout one. And I only. I took it one time for rolling and I was like, okay, cool. But I'd been taking it all week for lifting, working out metcons.

Very, very good. Very effective. Okay. And here's, here's the, the, the really. The results. The proof. Straight up proof.

So you know how like, okay, do you do, do you do any kind of like pressing or any kind of lifting? Even pull ups or something? You know how some days you're like, oh, I feel like flat. I can still do, but I feel flat. Then some days opposite where you're like, boom, I got a little pop in my thing. Not necessarily stronger or doing more. Maybe you are, but I just got a little pop in it in my, my movement or whatever. That's how you felt. And it was noticeable. And I was like, okay. And here's the thing with mine, I did do more, more, more weight than I normally do, more reps than I normally do. But I was like, okay. That was the first day. I was like, okay. You know, that easily could have been other circumstances. Totally could.

Yeah. Because sometimes you just feel the pop.

Feel the pot, you got more rest. You know, yesterday was, you know, easier. I don't know, whatever. All these other circumstances, you never know. So boom, Next time I lift, do it again. Same pop, same feeling. It's like, okay, and that's different. Typically you don't get two pops in it in a week. So anyway, next time I go in again I'm like, all right, we're gonna keep this going. This is the telltale. So here's what happens. So I warm up. My routine is I warm up my workout. That's it. I warm up, and I have my son, and he needs some. Something without going too far into it. I warm up, ready to go, ready to go. First set. He needs something for half an hour. Okay. You know, I go. So do I have to warm up again? Am I, you know, am I gonna.

Did you utilize the Pop to care for your son?

No. No. What I'm saying is kind of physiologically and mentally, I'm out of. I went out of the game for a little bit out of the workout. So I come back, I gotta reengage mentally, and I'm fit, to be honest, like, mental. Shoot. I'm kind of flat back in the day. That might have postponed the workout till tomorrow. Back in the day. Anyway, so I'm like, all right, I'm a little bit flat. Whatever. I should. I'm working out today. Today. That's it. You know, whatever. Maybe I gotta warm up again. I don't know.

Maybe you just gotta get mentally harder. For sure.

Yeah. There's no question about that. Everyone knows that. So whatever I get under there, I choose the weight that I had already chose, you know, chose before when I was like, I'm. I'm in it.

Yeah.

Boom, boom, boom, boom. More reps than I expected. It was a winning day.

That's good. Good.

Three in a row anyway, that was it. So.

Sounding like some strong.

Well, I'm in. It's. To me, that's pro. Like, okay. Even if you say scientific proof or not scientific. Of course it's not scientific proof. But that's like, to me, that says, okay, this is something you're going to be taking now. You know what I mean? It's not like I tried it. No difference. I'll try it again. Maybe a difference, sort of.

What, the 10 rounds? Yeah, to me.

Yeah, you're on. You're in it. Okay.

You know what I did to today? Took it again. Took it again.

There you go.

You know, and actually we had some no shows today at the gym.

Yeah, I don't know. I wasn't one of those, so.

Yeah, you were there. I was there, but. And we had some other heavy hitters there, but we didn't get the full spectrum. Spectrum of heavy hitters that were there to crush. So I didn't even need to take it.

Yeah. It didn't get put to the test. No.

So Now I'm kind of. In a way, I'm a supplement guy.

Okay. So if people wanted to get these supplements, how could they get them? All right.

Onit.com youm want 10% off, you go to on.com Jocko, you want the 10% off. Support yourself, support the podcast if you're in the mood to. And, you know, go handle your business. Another cool way. Amazon. Click through. So.

Sarah, thanks for the duct tape. I want to say that all the duck. I have, like a pile of duct tape tape, too, which is.

None of it's here, by the way. No reason. Because I needed it. She sent it microphones.

Yeah. Well, there's smiley faces on it.

Okay. It can't be on the podcast.

What? But this a smiley face. So you know how now the new iPhones, you type a word and it. It suggests an emoji.

Yeah.

So if you type in, good guess what's right there. Smiley face. It should be your face, but now it's a smiley face.

Currently Slack HQ Q has that for some reason. My face or someone, I don't really understand it fully, but somebody sent me a little picture of an emoji that said good. And it was my hair.

Yeah. So it's kind of the same concept, but generally speaking, it's a smiley face. Smiley face. Went on the duct tape layers. You see what I'm saying? And then another one.

It's good duct tape.

Good duct tape, but emoji style. You know, Sarah's. She's clever like that. Anyway, the point is, Amazon, if you're shopping for duct tape or anything else, not necessarily duct tape, but like books, you know, you want to get this one or whatever. And we list that on the website, too, by the way, if you didn't already know, click through. Go to the website. Jock podcast.com, click through the Amazon banner over there on the side, and then do your shopping. You can support podcasts that way. You said small click. Like it takes like two seconds, right? Click on it. Go do your shop in two seconds. Supports, you know, like a big amount.

Well, because there's a lot more than just you.

Yeah.

Clicking, like just. It's not just one person clicking.

Yeah.

Which would be helpful. But when a bunch of people click through, then it's very helpful.

Yeah.

Creates a bigger reaction.

Yeah. So small action, huge reaction. And I made the reference to when you throw a small piece of sodium metal in a. You know, in water and the big chemical reaction. So I'm like, wait, did I remember that correctly? I looked up on YouTube. Look up. So put sodium in water. Look that up. So you get. Guys, they'll. They'll have a big fish tank with water. They'll throw the sodium and the fish tank will blow up.

Well, people posted them on Twitter. Did you see the one where somebody had a. Somebody's holding a small brick of sodium through the lake. Did you see that?

No.

Yes. Exploding everywhere.

Yeah, yeah. Yes.

Where can I get that?

Exactly. Right. So when you. Next time you shop Amazon, you're thinking, hey, I'm shopping Amazon. I'm gonna buy some batteries. That little click through the Jocko podcast dot com.

Boom.

That's that sodium that we're looking at on those videos. It's crazy. Anyway, that's a good way to support in a big way. And then. Yes. YouTube. That's a good one. Right. Subscribe to the YouTube channel. Subscribe to the itunes one as well. But that one seems kind of obvious. Most people already subscribed, but if you haven't.

Well, we went over. We went over an entire book today of obviously things that people don't always know myself.

Yeah.

So we need to reiterate just so we all make sure we're on board.

Yeah.

Reinforce with our friends.

Yeah. Yes.

That you should always be prepared.

Yeah. Yeah.

Really?

That one was all about preparedness. Yeah. Subscribe itunes, subscribe. Be a subscriber to the podcast. And that's no commitment. You just unsubscribe. If you don't like what Jock was talking about, you just unsubscribe. But if you like and you do want to support.

What if they don't like what you're talking about?

That too. Know that, too.

It's a bummer.

That is a bummer. YouTube.

Luckily, you don't talk a lot.

Yeah, I try to keep.

Sometimes you can just suck it up. Fast forward his voice, the line.

Yeah. On most.

If you don't like me, you're pretty screwed.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You can have a long, long struggle.

Maybe there's people that are out there just listening to Echo. They're, like, fast forwarding through me.

Yeah. You press the skip.

Skip. Echo's about to say something super dope.

Yep. The one guy, my mom or something like this. Anyway.

YouTube, we do more videos now. We put out the little. The shareable.

Yeah.

McNuggets, bro. How's this? My brother the other day, he's like, hey, this. This new guy, you know, he listens to a lot of, like, talks and stuff. Like, this new guy's talking about this. I'm like, oh, that's good. He's like, yeah. He's talking about. He goes in. Into these little ideas that he's talking. I was like, oh. I was like, hey, send that to me. And I usually won't say, I'll be like, cool, maybe I'll look into it kind of thing. And I'm like, that this one sound good? I said, send it to me. Sends it to me. It's an hour, 37 minutes. I'm like, bro, I. Yeah, I. And I scolded him. I said, you can't do that to me. We got into, like, a little thing.

You're gonna have everyone that listens scolding you.

Yeah. But not anymore. You know why? Because we have Jocko McNuggets. Three minutes. You want to learn about how to. How to. Not learn, necessarily, but, yeah, learn. If you want advice, good advice, Jocko. Advice on what? How you should approach college. After the military, after high school, whatever, go ahead and listen to that. Three, four minutes, boom, you're good to go. You're ready to go to college, ready to function. If you say, hey, listen to this podcast. It's in there somewhere. Two hours long. No.

Anyway, a lot of people don't have the attention, spirit for that, and. But it's. But you do other ones besides just college.

Exactly. Right.

We do multiple. Multiple McNuggets.

And I do suggestions.

Like a 20 pack of McNuggets.

Sure, yeah. More than that even.

Really?

And, you know, you can share and consume. You know, boom, boom, boom. I do suggestions as well. Request, if you will. People on Twitter, they're like, hey, Jocko.

Podcast, what does it take to actually make that come true?

It's not a hundred percent turnover.

See, people don't like that.

I know.

Reliable.

It's.

You respond and say yes or no.

Kind of. Yeah. I don't say yes or no. Like, yes, I'm gonna do that one. I'm. I just noted, you know, so, yeah, I mean, they're all good. I know. But when they see them, boom, there it is.

Yeah. You should actually tell them, but I know it might be hard, maybe because you're gonna lose track of them all.

Yeah, maybe.

Or maybe you should just do them all.

Right. Oh, yeah, maybe. There it is. I think that's the answer. But yeah.

So you know there's no downside, right? There's no downside to doing them all. To do. No. To doing a. Is there a downside to saying, making a bunch of them? There's not. Unless you make ones that are lame.

Right.

Unless you pick out a lame one when I'm talking about something stupid or making mistakes.

Yeah.

Or giving bad advice to the world.

Yeah.

Don't do those.

Those are. That's the downside for sure.

The good ones. Yeah. No downside.

Okay, there you go. And when you subscribe, boom. You. You have like cuz it notified.

I subscribe.

Yeah.

And when you upload something, you don't tell me.

Right.

I just get a little email that says, jocko Podcast just uploaded a video and I was go, wow. Yes.

Yeah.

Echo has been hard at work for four minutes making a video.

Anyway, it's good to.

You're taking heavies today for me. I'm sorry.

All day bull. All good, though. I think Alpha Brain sounds solid. I think.

Yeah. So subscribe to. Subscribe if you're in the mood. Subscribe to YouTube if you like that stuff, which is cool. And then of course, Jocko has a store. It's called Jocko Store. URL. Is jocko store.com. anyway, shirts. You like these slogans. Is slogan. Is that a lame word for like, discipline equals freedom?

I don't know. I think it's. I think it factually.

Could be used, but I don't know that it necessarily. I'm not waving it around, jumping up and down.

Yeah.

Although if you ask me a question on Twitter, like Guy asked me the other day, how can I wake up early, how can I work out every day and how can I eat the right foods?

Yeah.

I'm just going to tell you. Discipline.

Right? Right. There you go.

That's so easy.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, the point there is that there's some shirts, they're cool. I think they're cool. But if you think they're cool, you want to support podcasts, you get a shirt, a hoodie, like some good stuff there, add even some more stuff and look at them. If you. If you like some stuff, get some of that. Support the podcast, support yourself to get a new shirt. It's kind of cool when you order something, you know, the day it comes in. You know, even just regular Amazon stuff about this little microphone adapter for my other stuff, it comes in.

What's your other stuff?

I do stuff.

This is kind of messed up.

Just doing this.

Anyway, so, yeah, when, you know, shirts come in, you can wear them. You got a new shirt. Discipline equals freedom. Jocko's head says good backwards. So when you look in the mirror, it's telling you good. Like, you know that whole thing.

Yeah, that's a good one.

Whatever else the coffee Mugs. Working with this guy Chris, he's really helping you narrow down a better travel.

Travel mug.

Yeah, the travel. It's going to be good. Real good.

That's good.

Anyway, other stuff on there, look at it. I'm not saying buy it, I'm saying go there. If you like something, get something.

And if you want to support the podcast, it's a good way to support the podcast. Yes. And actually some. Maybe someone will ask you about what that means and you say, oh, it's. I listen to a podcast.

Yep. Which happens a lot, according to my experience and the experience of others that email me.

They meet, they spread the word.

People will be like, what does that mean? Who's that guy on your shirt? If you're like. And here's this, here's a funny one that you wouldn't really think of. So let's say I'm wearing the jocko. Good. Shirt has your face on it. Right. I'm at my friend's house, barbecue, whatever. And we're like, hey, let's all take a picture. And you have the thing and it's, you know, the square that finds the faces. It's finding your face on my shirt. And they're like, oh, wait, they're like, haha. It's finding your. The face on your shirt. Echo. And then later on, they're like, who's that on your shirt? Boom. Spread the word. You know, it's like one of those kinds of things.

I like the idea of spreading the word because what's cool is, you know, we get. I get a lot of messages, people saying, hey, thanks. Yeah, I lost £40. Hey, thanks, I'm back in school. Hey, thanks, I got a promotion. I'm not doing any of that. You guys are doing it, but you're somehow influenced on the fact that you're getting your. You're getting your discipline together, you're working hard and you're getting. Your life is getting better. So when you spread the word, you're helping somebody else too, which is cool.

Yep.

100%. But yeah, those are the ways, you know, other ways. There's psychological warfare in here. This is an ambiguous one.

So no more. Oh, wait, no. Every day. Those are two different ones, right? No more in every day.

Yes, I believe so.

Okay. I listen to the everyday one because you know how like, when you're like, hey, I'm gonna, I'm gonna. I'm. I'm new, I turned over a new leaf, whatever the expression is, my New Year's resolution, and you go hard, typically Typically, you go hard, you're like, I'm. Carbs are gone. You know, you don't cut a little bit. You. They're gone, right?

Yeah.

After like a little while. Usually like four or five days, you're kind of like, ah, maybe not gone, you know, so you listen to every day, right? Every day. It really. It not only does it, like, make you, like, fired up to keep going, but it puts it in perspective, you know?

Yeah.

It's like you. I don't. This is a cliche, but Michael Jordan or something like this, someone who's doing. Someone who's successful, you know, he didn't go back to old him five days later, you know, and that sounds real obvious. And. Yeah, we heard that before, but that's what. Why that's effective.

So.

So Psychological Warfare, if you don't know it, is an album, spoken word album. It's available on itunes of, like, little. For lack of a better term.

Yeah. Like verbal.

You can listen to it. It tells you to get after it.

Yeah.

Under certain circumstances, actually.

Specifically made to deal with common, everyday weaknesses that we all. Yes. So when you face one of those weaknesses, you can just press play. Track seven, track four. Oh, everyone that's asked for an alarm clock to wake up, just get this album. Set it as your alarm tone. I'm waking you up in the morning.

Yep.

Tell your wife, tell your significant others. Otherwise they're gonna think there's a strange man in the room talking to them, and they're gonna freak out, pull out their firearm. Bad things could happen.

Psychological Warfare. It's on itunes.

Yeah. Psych.

I should think I should put on, like, Amazon Music, too. That's. Yeah. But yeah, currently itunes search.

Psychological Warfare, it's on Google Play, too.

Oh, I don't know. I don't know if Google. The podcast is.

No, I know the podcast is.

Yeah, the. The distribution channels. Yeah, I got to expand for sure.

Expand. Get in the game.

Yeah. But that's a good one. And incidentally, supports the podcast.

That's true. Very true. Which is appreciated. All right, so also, you can get Jaco White Tea that supports the podcast and it supports you and it's in stock. We got a bunch of it. And it will.

Do things to you.

If you want to crush the souls of your enemies, drink some Jacob White tea. It'll be a little bit easier to do that. You'll. It'll. It'll taste better. So that's that. We had get after it mugs. They're out of stock.

I sent one to Joe Rogan, he took a picture of it. They were gone. They're gone. So I got more being ordered. They're being made. Logistical nightmare, all that. That. Sorry, keep checking. They'll be back in stock. They say get after it.

While you're there on Amazon, you can also get a book called Extreme Ownership written by me and my brother Leif Babin. It's about leadership and it's about combat. So if you like the podcast, you dig that book. You know, I also have another book that's going to be coming out in May. It's not available for pre order yet, but it will be and I will announce it when it comes out. I think everyone's gonna be pretty psyched on it because I am.

And also.

The extreme ownership muster May 4th and 5th at the Marriott Marquee in New York City. This is it. This is the gathering.

Yep.

It's about leadership, it's about strategy, it's about tactics.

It'S about getting after it. Google it, you'll find it. We'll see you there. And.

Until we see you there, if you want to see us.

Well, we can actually be found.

All up in the interwebs.

We are on Twitter.

We are on Instagram and you gonna also could find us on Dash, Facebook. Iboha.

Cruising with you, my Frenchie. Echo is at Echo Charles. And I am at Jocko Willink. Thanks for the support. And you know, we talk a little bit about these Amazon clicks and the store purchases and the getting the tea and the mugs and the teachers and all that stuff. Just so you know, that support is actually literally what fuels the podcast. That's what the podcast runs off of. So thanks for all that, truly, we appreciate it. Thanks the military, the military personnel that are out there smashing our enemies.

And thanks to law enforcement and firefighters for protecting us here at home and the rest of you that are out there listening, that are working through your lives, that are building and creating and grinding and finding faults.

Finding faults not in others.

But in yourselves.

And thank you for crushing the those faults by getting out there with discipline.

And getting after it.

So until next time, this is Echo and Jocko out.