Jocko Podcast 179 w/ Jason Gardner: The Long Game. Millennials, Mindset, & Mistakes from Battle

2019-05-31T07:53:12Z

Join the conversation on Twitter/Instagram: @jockowillink @jason.n.gardner @echocharles 0:00:00 – Opening. 0:02:53 - Jason Gardner: Playing The Long Game. Millennials, Mindset, and Leadership Mistakes from Battle. 2:17:39 - Final thoughts and take-aways. 2:22:17 - Support: How to stay on THE PATH.  2:49:48 - Closing Gratitude.

AI summary of episode

If they know that's what they're trying to do, then they make better decisions, because they don't, but they'll make better decisions, because they understand what that broad strategy is, and it's certainly the same thing in business, and with business it goes back and forth too, because business, sometimes in business, you're, you know, I run into it with businesses where they're, for instance, trying to go public, so they need to make money every quarter, they need to show that profitability increase, and so the biggest thing they got on their mind is trying to show a good quarter, and they'll sacrifice some strategic things like, the sacrifice a little bit of taking care of their customer, because they want to scrape a little money out of it out of the situation, that's a bad strategic play, but they do it short-term at the time, because they know they gotta make money the quarters, they can come back and read less more. And you know, those guys were whip out the freaking, the wheelbooks, you know, like after they realized what was going on, which was like three days into our, our task unit, maybe like hey. Now, another way, you know, we were telling me another one about getting extracted in like a, like a, like a Russian, like hip 17. He was trying to like tell me product names and he's like he's like brain someone peacles, you know, pizza like Mr. creative. So some guys that come through, like when you're coming through in like, Hey, bro, like, we, I could do this like, be pretty straight up with you. One of the last thing and we're getting kind of like getting pretty long here, but, you know, one of the things I wanted you to talk about, and I know this isn't really, well, I guess it is, because as a leader of your family, I know that we, we have to, we have to lead our family, right? You know, and a lot of ways, he's like, some of the stuff you see out of guys like, you know, Travis Mills, where it's just funny. yeah, you put the thing on, you know, put that like, like, you know, you just put the coldness on the head. You know, if you're going to be in charge, it went from like this attitude that I'm kind of portraying right now of like, oh, you suck. And we were just, you know, and all of a sudden, you know, there's like, he's like, hey, it's only another half an hour before you go on. How you say, like you get along, like even if you don't, if you really don't like someone they don't ever know. And then, before I start executing on moving toward that, that goal, going to find that OP, I need to take some time and study the terrain and see what my, you know, line of attack is going to be and how I'm going to move all the way up to where I'm going to go. Because like, hey, your stone or your, you know, you've got a bunch of combat experience, you've got a bunch of combat awards, your, your, this big strapping dude, and by the way, you're going to go to Princeton. And even if it was the situation where I was saying, like, I might go back and tell the guys, like, hey, guys, this is what's going on. So, you know, it's just my nature to want to be at that point of friction, but that also makes me just, you know, want to go stick my finger in people's eyes and offend them and stuff like that. Once I'm my personally chased down some dude over multiple rooftops as a, in Baghdad, you know, like just got in the one man pursuit, well, I had another guy like trailing me, but basically, we're hitting a target. You know, we had guys survive 25 millimeter chain gun from from Bradley's and still stumble out of, you know, not friendlies, right, not not for me, but we know there was an enemy that made it out of buildings that had whatever, however many rounds a bunch of 25 millimeter chain gun rounds coming out of the building or coming to your building And I'll, quite frankly, when I started putting in an officer package as a young and less like, I was like, wait a second, these guys, I want these guys to think that I actually should be in charge. And you know that like, I should be getting up off my ass and getting into Princeton myself, or going, you know, you can't control whether or not you're deployed to combat. That one to me always felt obvious when I when I discovered like anger, like when you're mad, that's like something up with you kind of thing. And we'd be like, yeah, but guys wouldn't want to tell the platoon be one of these small things where, and, and, and, and I failed in this and in, and leadership a lot of times where it just like, I'll just let that slide. But when I look at them or like the last time I tried to sip one, I was like, you know, Yeah. He's like a little bit smarter, it does better on the test in school, and he's a little bit faster, and he can do more pull ups, and then like to take the cake, because he's a new kid moves in, and Mark still thinks he's got the ultimate punk card to pull, which is I do due to get to, and I can choke you some of the other stuff matters. So it's kind of like glacier, you know, every time I've taken like a foot back, I then move forward. You know, because it, like, it helps the relationship, helps morale, like, helps all these things, right? If I would have been a little bit smarter and a little bit better, I could have taken 15 minutes to send out an email and say, hey, everyone, want to let you know what this up was really like, is there really the obsomes, right? You know you talk about that kind of dark sense of humor and I think this story which you like called me I don't know whatever it was six months ago or whatever you go. Like how you would expect, you'd think like, if you subscribe, their stuff is going to sort of show up on your way to call it the home. But then the next deployment, it was like when I was, you know, when I was working with LaF and Seth, you know, it was me saying, hey man, come here. If you're not humble and you think you know everything then why should I listen to anything that you say you know why should if I'm on the far left why should I listen to anything I know everything and everyone on the right is wrong. I still have the opportunity when I was, you know, some guys that I'll, I'll still explain this to some guy that I haven't seen because you know, as you run to have a few, you know, seen in 15 years. So, but everybody's gotta know that, because if everyone thinks, hey, hey, the number one thing is we never let our customers out, okay, guess what, we lost money this quarter, now we can't go public, because we, and again, this is a really kind of garden level examples, but that's the kind of thing where what you're talking about if people don't understand what that longer term goal is, then they can't really operate and function on their own, which is a problem. It didn't really like that you know it's just not I'm out there all the time you're out there all the time now you know you see it Yeah, and you know Ben was like and Ben's a real nice guy he's you know very nice to me and and all that Whenever I feel that tension of, when I feel that tension of jealousy, when I feel that tension of, when I feel like, when I feel like mad at someone, for doing something, I automatically know it's me. And even when those things change, because as you know, you get into a contact or you get into a situation where you change what you're doing, you have to let everyone know that, hey, we're breaking contact, we're getting out of here, hey, we're going to strongpoint this building or whatever. And, you like, it, you know, for whatever reason I was like the last guy to go. Like a two face or a, you know, like let's say, all these are two face person or whatever. And people that didn't know me at all, you know, would be thinking, you know, well, this guy's a hyper aggressive and they're just out there, taking too many risks. When I got home and one of our good friends said to me, and he was all fired up and he's like, we were reading your, he's like, we read your A, R's or quarters every day. If you're doing the right thing, so the right reasons people are like, hey, you know what? They, you like, if you didn't like someone, they probably wouldn't know. I get strategic, I get what it means, and I'm not talking about, you know, global warfare, but when you're in a town, and you have a mission objective that, okay, we're going to get to this building, or we're going to move to this area, we're going to take this piece of terrain, and everybody knows that. So that was a real precursor to me looking at myself from the outside saying, I mean, I know what it's like to be an E5 and a platoon looking at the officer going, oh, you forgot that piece of gear, did you? I was telling him this stuff, you know, I was like, hey man, here's what's going on. and you'll answer those people always is, if you're leading someone like that, okay, you know what you've got, get the most out of them, take good care of them, and they'll do their job well

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Episode transcript

[00:00:00] This is Jockel podcast number 179, with echo Charles and me, Jockel Willink.
[00:00:06] Good evening echo. Good evening.
[00:00:09] So, the spear dains and days gone by and the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness.
[00:00:20] We have heard of those princes, heroic campaigns.
[00:00:26] There was shield sheafs in, scourge of many tribes, a record of meat, benches, rampaging among foes.
[00:00:36] This terror of the hall troops had come far.
[00:00:41] A fowlling to start with, he would flourish later on, as his powers waxed and his worth was proved.
[00:00:51] In the end, each clan on outline coasts beyond the whale road had to yield to him and begin to pay tribute.
[00:01:03] That was one good king.
[00:01:09] Boom.
[00:01:11] Opening with a little bit of bear wolf and that is the opening of bear wolf, translated by Shemest Haney.
[00:01:20] What I notice is even back in the day in the opening of the original old English poem, the first one written.
[00:01:32] What are they talking about? They're talking about war and they're talking about leadership.
[00:01:39] And you can hear in the beginning he was a little bit of a weak leader. He was a foundling to start with.
[00:01:45] But he would flourish later on, became a good king.
[00:01:50] And that's what happens. You learn, you get better.
[00:01:53] And that is why we talk about war and leadership here and speaking of war and leadership back for a third time.
[00:02:01] My brother, Jason Gardner, retired, Master Chief, who I've known since I got into the teams in the early 90s.
[00:02:09] He's been on the podcast before.
[00:02:11] If you haven't listened to 167 and 168, go listen to those first.
[00:02:16] There's a lot of ground covered in those podcasts.
[00:02:19] And I told him to listen in and listen to him again and see which what we missed.
[00:02:24] So we can go back and that's what we're going to do now.
[00:02:27] Cover some more ground, hit some of that stuff that we missed.
[00:02:30] So welcome back, Jason.
[00:02:33] Thank you.
[00:02:34] Check.
[00:02:36] When I first got that translation, which was actually when I was in college, and it starts off with.
[00:02:44] So, by just saying, oh my god, this is literally legit.
[00:02:49] So I start things with so a lot now when I write, I do that.
[00:02:53] I do that.
[00:02:54] So yeah, welcome back.
[00:02:56] How's retirement treating you?
[00:02:59] Good to go.
[00:03:01] I was going to say awesome, but I'd be awesome, absolutely, two death in the last two podcasts.
[00:03:07] So I'm going to try and ban it.
[00:03:09] Did you have a cell phone, California, childhood, creep out with some awesome.
[00:03:13] Yes.
[00:03:14] Everything is awesome.
[00:03:15] Yep.
[00:03:16] So you're going to watch out for that.
[00:03:18] So what do we miss?
[00:03:19] I don't miss something from your youth.
[00:03:21] Where are you talking about the best show you ever saw?
[00:03:23] The best punk rock show you ever saw?
[00:03:25] Yeah.
[00:03:26] There was a one that, and this is before I could even drive,
[00:03:30] buddy, a mine just in Hawkins and Alicio went up to this, this gig at Cyprus College.
[00:03:35] And it was DI, plain rap, the Dickies, the Vandals, the Circle Jerks.
[00:03:44] There might have been one other band for seven dollars in pre-sale.
[00:03:49] Yeah.
[00:03:50] So we got pre-sale tickets.
[00:03:51] We went up there.
[00:03:52] God in, there was probably about 500 people outside who weren't able to get in,
[00:03:58] because it sold out.
[00:04:00] So they just went ahead and knocked the doors down and all flooded in.
[00:04:04] So what that meant was nobody got searched coming in for security.
[00:04:10] And people had crazy stuff like firecrackers.
[00:04:13] It was way overcrowded for, you know, what the safe, safe amount for the building was.
[00:04:19] So when you went up by where the doors were, the security guys had just put,
[00:04:24] pushed all these tables and chairs and we're sitting on them up against the doors to keep anybody else from coming in.
[00:04:31] And the, the show was just unreal.
[00:04:33] There were three mosh pits.
[00:04:35] And then when the Circle Jerks came out, they opened up with wild on the streets.
[00:04:40] The whole floor exploded.
[00:04:44] One of the pits started floating, crashed into another pit.
[00:04:47] People were throwing bricks of firecrackers around.
[00:04:50] It was mass band amounting with so much fun.
[00:04:52] And so you were like 14 or 15?
[00:04:54] 15 years old.
[00:04:55] Yeah.
[00:04:56] My mom had dropped me off.
[00:04:58] I dropped this off there.
[00:05:00] Oh, that's awesome.
[00:05:01] Yeah, she's got to go.
[00:05:03] That's great away.
[00:05:04] Yeah.
[00:05:05] Because a lot of times if your parents, if parents try to shield their kids from that,
[00:05:10] or they won't let them go, then you would have just snuck out.
[00:05:13] They would have never known where.
[00:05:14] Yep.
[00:05:15] And gotten in trouble when you rebelled against it.
[00:05:18] Right.
[00:05:19] Yeah.
[00:05:20] That happens if your parents try to control you too much.
[00:05:24] It's kind of like with any person, right?
[00:05:27] You try to control them too much.
[00:05:29] Then they get out of control.
[00:05:30] They rebelling against you.
[00:05:31] Right.
[00:05:32] Which is a discussion I think I was having the other day with your daughter about people just trying to box people in.
[00:05:38] And it's another example of over centralized command.
[00:05:41] Yes, it is.
[00:05:42] Too much.
[00:05:43] Too much stuff like that.
[00:05:44] They're just going to go the other way.
[00:05:45] I was actually talking about this with a leader in a company.
[00:05:49] I was just explaining because you like for sure money drives people compensation drives people.
[00:05:54] But ability to choose your fate or have some influence over your fate is it also very powerful,
[00:06:01] motivator and incentive for people to follow.
[00:06:04] So when you have a like if you have one job where you make more money,
[00:06:08] but you don't have any freedom, you don't have to control over your own fate.
[00:06:11] Versus a job where you get paid last money, but you have really a lot of autonomy.
[00:06:15] Most people will go with your autonomy.
[00:06:17] There are rare people that don't want any autonomy.
[00:06:20] They just pretty much want to get told, hey, give me my paycheck.
[00:06:22] I'll do whatever you tell me to do and that's fine.
[00:06:24] And they're not into their job, but a lot of people,
[00:06:28] the more autonomy you give them, the more into it they are, the more they enjoy what they're doing.
[00:06:33] Whereas if you're just micromanage them or centralized command scenario,
[00:06:36] they're not into it and that's a problem.
[00:06:38] And at the first person you gave the example of probably exercises know what initiative whatsoever.
[00:06:43] Exactly.
[00:06:44] But you have to address that. You have to address that when the work with companies
[00:06:48] that there are people that they just want to get their paycheck.
[00:06:51] They're going to punch the clock at 4.59 every day and that's the way it is.
[00:06:54] They don't want to get promoted. They're fine with that.
[00:06:57] And so you've got to know and you'll answer those people always is,
[00:07:00] if you're leading someone like that, okay, you know what you've got,
[00:07:03] get the most out of them, take good care of them,
[00:07:05] and they'll do their job well and you know you can count on them for that.
[00:07:08] So that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that.
[00:07:10] Just that somebody that does have higher goals or different goals,
[00:07:15] I guess where they want to break out of that,
[00:07:17] then you've got to give them the opportunity.
[00:07:18] And those people, if you box them in, they're going to rebel against you.
[00:07:21] You've got to look out. They'll be like Jason Gardner, age 15 with a mohawk.
[00:07:25] Check, check.
[00:07:29] So I don't want to the other things that you wanted to talk about a little bit
[00:07:34] was Scotty Words.
[00:07:36] That's right. You know, and just coming after right after Memorial Day,
[00:07:41] it's really fitting to discuss him.
[00:07:44] Scotty was a good friend of mine, just a fantastic team guy.
[00:07:49] He did six years in the teams and then separated 2005 and he did what a lot of guys did at the time.
[00:07:57] Was he started contracting overseas because he wanted to be at that point of friction.
[00:08:03] And for Scotty, I don't think he was ever ever happier than when he was at that point of friction.
[00:08:09] So he did a bunch of contracting.
[00:08:11] He wound up getting hired by the Defense Intelligence Agency as a, as a GES position,
[00:08:16] a full-time position.
[00:08:17] And then January, this last January, he was killed by a suicide bomber when he was out operating in Syria.
[00:08:27] And I remember when I got the text message, we were all in a group text that he passed.
[00:08:34] And I just, man, it kind of floored me for a second.
[00:08:38] But then, you know, it's like Scotty died doing what he loved.
[00:08:46] And he was just such, he was a maniac in the best sense of the word.
[00:08:52] Like the hardest I've ever laughed in my life is with him. And most people will tell you that any time they've had a good belly laugh or something,
[00:09:00] he was whisked Scotty.
[00:09:02] And he had that kind of contagious smile where you look at pictures and Seth is a lot like this one.
[00:09:07] I look at Seth's pictures.
[00:09:09] He's got that smile that just has that special thing about it that automatically makes you use smile.
[00:09:17] You know, you are not ever going to be the voice or reason and you are always going to be a good time and you're a good friend.
[00:09:25] And so, while there's, there's a remorse that he's not here anymore, I'm so fired up that I got to spend the time with him that I did.
[00:09:35] And so anyway, I mean, there you really have it. He passed. He's from St. Louis, so they had a big funeral form there.
[00:09:46] And it was at this Catholic cathedral. There had to be a thousand people inside that cathedral. And it was raining the day they had it.
[00:09:56] So the funeral possession from the cathedral to the military cemetery where they buried him had to be like at least 30 miles.
[00:10:07] Every single overpass on the freeway on the drive there had fire trucks and first responders out on it.
[00:10:17] The freeway, they shut the freeway down. Every exit was stopped by police officers, which is pretty pretty dang cool.
[00:10:26] So then when we got off the freeway and we were driving on the surface streets, people, the people as St. Louis just pulled their cars over and they were standing at attention out in the rain.
[00:10:41] And so it's moving when someone in uniform does that, but you almost kind of expect that out of them.
[00:10:48] But when you see like a 30 year old mother of two and or two like eight year old kid in seven year old kid.
[00:10:59] Standing at attention with their hands in the heart over their hearts in the rain and it was a cold rain.
[00:11:04] As he went by, it's just.
[00:11:08] It's an amazing and humbling experience to see that kind of love and respect by the people of this country and the people of St. Louis.
[00:11:20] Yeah, that's awesome.
[00:11:22] Well, I was with with Chris Kyle's procession going down to where he was buried and that was a long drive.
[00:11:29] I want to say it was a few hours.
[00:11:32] And the entire thing and again it was raining same thing, we're in Texas, but it's raining and sure enough.
[00:11:38] I mean there was people were lying the entire way and I was riding with one other guy and it was just and we were in this massive there was a massive procession of people.
[00:11:49] But it was just I remember sitting there for a long time and just the windshield wipers just going back and forth.
[00:11:55] We were not talking because there's nothing to say you can't you can't put words to that you know you can't put words to thousands of people standing out in the rain with their hands on their hearts just every bridge fire trucks flags hung up from the ladders extended.
[00:12:13] Yeah, this the same same type of feeling that that I had when I was doing that and it definitely makes you realize that regardless of all the.
[00:12:24] What do they say these days that America is division all this division that everyone talks about there's plenty of people that that understand what it when it takes to keep this country free for sure.
[00:12:38] Absolutely, I feel like it's such a small and maybe vocal minority.
[00:12:44] That's out there and I don't think it's on a whole I think we're we're on even though a lot of us have our differences and I think we're figuring out how to discuss politics just by looking at how people discuss stuff on social media and.
[00:13:02] People were dialing it in and they're they're able to have.
[00:13:06] Realistic discussions with each other without getting too hateful and there's some people that are still figure in that out.
[00:13:13] For sure, I'll say two things about that I was on I was on Ben Shapiro's podcast.
[00:13:19] Yeah, and you know Ben was like and Ben's a real nice guy he's you know very nice to me and and all that and he's you know he's.
[00:13:28] What's pretty cool about him is he's he's like got this running list of everything that he said that's stupid or wrong or whatever he's me a culpa list.
[00:13:36] But anyways, yes, we were having this conversation he was hinting at the fact of this massive division and you know these the massive right against the massive left and and you know I said listen man.
[00:13:48] I travel the our whole country all the time I work with construction companies with finance companies with now you do too insurance companies.
[00:13:58] And we meet people from every different industry. I said these people aren't on the extreme right they're not on the extreme left their common sense their Americans and I said you Ben you're.
[00:14:11] You're like here at at ground zero for political like mayhem and so what do you expect to see like you're you're the you're the lightning rod for a lot of this stuff and so that's what you hear.
[00:14:25] Normal America. It didn't really like that you know it's just not I'm out there all the time you're out there all the time now you know you see it no one's coming up to you saying.
[00:14:34] You know with some extreme views are there small number people share on both sides yes absolutely but in general people are realizing oh well that's not a bad point and then I was on.
[00:14:45] Brian Coppimon's podcast and we were talking about the same thing and what's interesting is you know Ben Shapiro's pretty pretty far on the right and and Brian Coppimon's pretty far on the left and me I think they're both really nice guys that are super cool and but what I said to him was.
[00:15:03] You know what what what you're saying what I believe is leading to the attitude kind of shifting is. Basically this. If you're not humble and you think you know everything then why should I listen to anything that you say you know why should if I'm on the far left why should I listen to anything I know everything and everyone on the right is wrong.
[00:15:23] If I'm on the far right why should I listen to anyone that anyone said anything that anyone saying on the other side I know everything. If you're humble and you say you know what I got some ideas but I'm probably not 100% right you know maybe I'm only 98% right no if you just look at other people and say oh you know what I probably don't have the full solution for this maybe I should listen to other people's opinions and try and try and come up with a.
[00:15:47] A more broad base idea than just what I think so I think people are starting to realize if you take one extreme view and you don't want anyone else than you're wrong.
[00:15:59] And so I think people are becoming a little bit more balanced I certainly hope I yeah and and I know that that I've got some really really close friends that are on both ends of the spectrum.
[00:16:13] I'm going to go down with them and have a logical conversation with them I find out that our values.
[00:16:21] Yeah are the they're the same yeah and really it's just a lot of misrepresentation and some unfortunate semantics sometimes that you know drawn us to different directions or put us on different sides.
[00:16:39] Speaking of the left hand and the right hand.
[00:16:43] Yeah.
[00:16:45] This is you gotta tell the story about and this is this is a good revealing story about.
[00:16:51] I've I I'll lead to oftentimes the dark sense of humor in the teams and there's a dark sense of humor in the military and you kind of have to have a dark sense of humor.
[00:17:01] And I think did you see the movie range 15? No. Oh okay it's it's about it's just a crazy movie that Tim Kennedy and and Matt best and the black rifle coffee company.
[00:17:16] Yeah, they all those guys.
[00:17:17] They throw the keys to the girl.
[00:17:18] Yeah, yeah, it's just it's just every horrible dark joke that you can make they make and I don't know how well it did or whatever it did good enough.
[00:17:29] I'm sure to fend a lot of people. I'm sure to fend it a lot of people but they they did it so good for good on him but.
[00:17:39] You know you talk about that kind of dark sense of humor and I think this story which you like called me I don't know whatever it was six months ago or whatever you go.
[00:17:48] I got to tell you a story which whenever you call me and tell me that I get super excited I tell my kids to leave the room and I put you on speaker phone and I put you on speaker phone and then I mute.
[00:17:58] So I don't but it's under interrupt you by laughing so hard because whenever you call me tell me got a good story I'm thinking here we go.
[00:18:05] So yeah tell us about the hand. So and and I talked to Aaron Kendall this morning to make sure I got the details correct.
[00:18:15] So Aaron Kendall's a seal that was working at the training detachment when I was the commander master chief there and he is on a hunting trip out in Texas like a foundation supported hunting trip.
[00:18:27] And he's driving one of those side by sides out to where he's going to hunt like side by side at TV.
[00:18:34] Yeah like an ATV try like one of those razors right and it rolls and it's smacked the roll bar smashes his left arm.
[00:18:43] So he makes a turnic it out of his belt and walks like a mile back to the rainhouse and then they call the.
[00:18:53] They try to call life light life light can't come out to foggy they get an ambulance comes and get some they start driving them up towards to a hospital at San Antonio.
[00:19:03] Now he's in the hospital they wind up having an apiotaid is left hand in the hospital.
[00:19:09] In this first hospital. Why is that?
[00:19:12] Because it was just completely. So smashed. Yeah, his arm was just smashed. It was done. He was losing so much blood through there and they they ended up like.
[00:19:23] They kind of had to fight to save the amputation below his elbow because they were worried that because later on in surgeries are taking more and more.
[00:19:31] So there were a couple other team guys that were there and other team guys flew in to help out and they're staying at this hotel right outside the hospital where he's at.
[00:19:41] So they take him from where he was they take him to this hospital. He's at this hospital and at that hospital they have to amputate his hand.
[00:19:47] So he's bedside talking with the other with some other seals and they're the surgeon who amputate his hand is in their checking on him and they asked the surgeon hey.
[00:19:57] Do you guys still have his hand.
[00:20:01] And the surgeon says yeah, I think so. I don't you know we haven't destroyed and they asked him what are you going to do with it and they goes well, you know, I guess they destroyed or whatever.
[00:20:12] And so Aaron asks, what can I have my hand.
[00:20:15] And the surgeon says.
[00:20:18] I'll go check. So he goes and checks with the administrators right and they they come back and they say yeah, you get to fill out these forms, but we'll give you the hand.
[00:20:27] So they fill out the forms. They give the hand to.
[00:20:32] One of the other seals actually receives a hand because Aaron now has has had to move to a different hospital. That's a little bit better to deal with the applications.
[00:20:41] And they've got his hand with the intent to take it to a taxidermist.
[00:20:46] So in the meantime, they're keeping it in the the freezer of the hotel.
[00:20:52] And they're taking turns spending time with Aaron. So guy will be there at the hospital with Aaron while he's in the other hospital and other guys at the hotel and they're flipping back and forth.
[00:21:05] Which is a little testament to like, well, the way it is for team guys are just looking out for him.
[00:21:09] So you get here in the hospital, what's something to stay with you 24 hours and it's awesome.
[00:21:14] Right. So one of the guys that's back at the hotel room.
[00:21:18] He's got to go somewhere and he wants to put the hand in the other guys freezer or he's going to play a joke on one of the other guys and put the hand in his bed.
[00:21:28] And so he comes up with these different rooms to try and get the hotel staff to let him into the room and they're not having any of it because he looks kind of shady.
[00:21:38] And he's a team guy.
[00:21:40] So he's telling him, okay, you know my friend left his phone in the room and I get in there and they're like, well, no, or hey, well, no, actually wasn't his phone. It was his ID.
[00:21:48] And I need to go like all that stuff.
[00:21:50] That kind of shot in the balcony.
[00:21:51] Let's check her criminal.
[00:21:52] Yes. So then he leaves to go to the hospital, I guess.
[00:21:56] But they're suspect.
[00:21:57] They're suspect.
[00:21:58] The poor maid goes in there and finds a hand in the freezer.
[00:22:03] He did, I have a picture of it. It's horrible.
[00:22:08] It's all gray and just like ripped off right there.
[00:22:12] So Adams family style.
[00:22:14] Yes.
[00:22:15] And so they, of course, call the police.
[00:22:18] The police show up and they just detain everybody.
[00:22:22] Of course.
[00:22:23] Of course.
[00:22:24] And then errands in the hospital and all the nurses come up.
[00:22:28] And they're like, hey, all these police are calling here. They need to talk to you something about your hand.
[00:22:33] So he's got to get on the phone and explain to the police why his hand is in the thing.
[00:22:39] I think they probably validated something with the doctor too.
[00:22:42] And you know, calm them down that this wasn't some kind of murder.
[00:22:45] Yeah.
[00:22:46] And then they kind of settled everything.
[00:22:50] They threw everybody out of the motel.
[00:22:52] Aaron gave his hand to the taxidermist.
[00:22:55] He had a nice, what they call European Mount were the taxidermist.
[00:22:58] And Texas is awesome.
[00:22:59] So they, they mounted like the skeleton hand is in this really cool,
[00:23:04] Mount inside glass all done up for him.
[00:23:08] And Aaron just had, he had the best sense of humor about the whole thing.
[00:23:16] You know, if you're going to get depressed, I mean,
[00:23:19] losing a limb is a pretty good way to do it.
[00:23:22] You know, and a lot of ways, he's like, some of the stuff you see out of guys like, you know,
[00:23:26] Travis Mills, where it's just funny.
[00:23:29] You're not guys like that.
[00:23:31] You're not going to bum him out.
[00:23:32] Just going to keep him going.
[00:23:33] But yeah.
[00:23:34] Yes, you're cool.
[00:23:35] So then that's obviously one of, is like one of many stories.
[00:23:40] How does that translate to like when you're dealing with your,
[00:23:45] with your family? Like so, for instance,
[00:23:48] my wife, when I went ahead to go to college, I had to go to the University of San Diego.
[00:23:53] And so it's my first time in my adult life that I wasn't like in a poll tune.
[00:23:57] And so I was, I, I didn't really think about it, but in all of a sudden,
[00:24:01] I didn't have anyone to like attack verbally all day.
[00:24:04] Because when you're a single-patoon, it's just constant, you know, attack and combat, verbal combat.
[00:24:08] Sometimes physical combat.
[00:24:10] And so when I would come home from school, of course, there's my wife.
[00:24:15] And I want to have some verbal sparring matches.
[00:24:18] So I start hacking away after, you know.
[00:24:21] And finally after three months, she goes, she goes, she goes, she goes, she's a,
[00:24:25] she says, hey, I'm not a teen guy, you know.
[00:24:30] And when she said that to me, it instantly, I instantly realized exactly what she was talking about.
[00:24:35] And I knew she was 100% right.
[00:24:37] I can't treat my wife as if she's a E5 and a sealant.
[00:24:42] And especially like the weapons cleaning table.
[00:24:46] When we're all stuck there cleaning weapons,
[00:24:48] when guys would just, that's when the youth look for weaknesses in any spot in any guy and just start pick, pick, pick, pick, and waitin' for the reaction.
[00:24:56] Yeah.
[00:24:57] He spends so much time with people.
[00:24:59] And so much time just waiting.
[00:25:01] You know, it's a hurry up and wait thing.
[00:25:02] So, oh, what are we going to do on a four-hour fan ride?
[00:25:05] No.
[00:25:06] We're going to destroy someone, get into a fight,
[00:25:09] spill Cheetos everywhere, you know, just like total chaos and mayhem.
[00:25:14] But yeah, it's all about that.
[00:25:15] But that, but I guess what I'm asking is, I know, you know, Iris obviously had to get what's the word indoctrinated into the life of beat.
[00:25:27] Because you know, I met my wife when I was pretty young.
[00:25:30] Yeah.
[00:25:31] And you were not that young.
[00:25:33] No.
[00:25:34] And so you, you know, you, how that work out?
[00:25:36] Well, the ideal wife, the, I don't say ideal, I don't know, I don't know, poor Iris listen to this, but the square to wait, let's say that, just square to wait, spouse.
[00:25:44] You know what I'm saying?
[00:25:45] Was that look like it?
[00:25:46] So I got to go back to, if you look at my career and you know this, because you said this to her one is you on the podcast, like, she's the best thing that ever happened to me.
[00:26:01] Oh, yeah.
[00:26:02] She's completely squared away. And it's because she's so solid and independent.
[00:26:10] And so there was never ever any aspect of me having to worry about the home front.
[00:26:17] And there's a constant, she's like very dialed in and challenges me.
[00:26:24] Like a lot of my, I had a lot of like pretty far right political views.
[00:26:30] And then when we sit down and have discussions and stuff, she's really open my aperture up on that, but you know, you look at her history where she, she worked on ranches where she was the only female Wrangler with a whole bunch of cowboys.
[00:26:47] So she, she got it. She had that aspect of what it's what it's like to be around and then a brown guy's and then when I'd be messing with her like that, you know, she just same deal is Helen.
[00:26:59] Let me know.
[00:27:00] Let's put you in check.
[00:27:01] Basically.
[00:27:03] Yeah. And the, you know, this, this job that we have where we're constantly going forward in harm's way.
[00:27:14] And there, I chose my words kind of partly on the last podcast when I was talking about her.
[00:27:20] I said that she put up with a lot of stuff that other women wouldn't.
[00:27:23] And that, that gives the indication that she tolerated a lot of shenanigans negative.
[00:27:29] She was the strength that she had to have to be home while I was on combat deployments and then deal with me when I came back.
[00:27:40] That strength.
[00:27:42] Most, most women just can't deal with that kind of lifestyle.
[00:27:48] And don't have that kind of, what were the words that you used on the last podcast?
[00:27:52] She put up with a lot of stuff.
[00:27:54] Yeah, I said, you know, yeah, yeah.
[00:27:55] And so that, that was a really poor choice of words because it indicates like she was just a pushover and she is an absolutely not a pushover.
[00:28:03] Yeah.
[00:28:04] It, it's more, yeah, it's more like she had the strength to contend with the, the, the hard life that it is.
[00:28:11] Exactly.
[00:28:12] Being married to some guy that's going on constant deployment and isn't around a lot.
[00:28:17] And then when they're gone, by the way, they might die.
[00:28:20] They might come back horribly wounded whatever and you sign up for that as well.
[00:28:24] And she's working long hours and raising two little kids while I'm going on six month deployments.
[00:28:32] Yeah.
[00:28:33] And then she's she also, like, and, and I pretty much, I stayed in contact with, with her pretty often.
[00:28:43] So we, we, we pretty much talked at least three times a week.
[00:28:47] Three times a week on deployment.
[00:28:49] And, um, and that's the model it worked for us.
[00:28:55] I've described it and I forget who I described it to is emotional independence.
[00:28:59] Like my wife had, has and had enough emotional independence that she was going to run the show.
[00:29:07] If I'm not there, it's not freaking out, you know, and I think that's, if you're going to look for a, a good spouse, they got to be,
[00:29:15] you can't be, they can't be codependent, right?
[00:29:18] Co-dependent is actually actually like a bad thing, right?
[00:29:21] I mean, that's an, an actual bad thing, right?
[00:29:23] Co-dependency.
[00:29:24] So yeah.
[00:29:25] So, but if you go to the other end of the spectrum or not, maybe, I don't know, maybe there's, I guess we go too far on that spectrum.
[00:29:31] Then you get to where, hey, I don't even, oh, you're gone.
[00:29:33] I didn't, I wasn't aware of that.
[00:29:34] Sorry, I'm over here doing my own thing.
[00:29:35] So you, but you got to find a good strong balance.
[00:29:38] Probably leaning towards independent in my opinion.
[00:29:40] You got to be leaning towards independent.
[00:29:42] Because if you're not leaning towards independent, I mean, when you don't get the, you know,
[00:29:47] it sucks being here by yourself for six months.
[00:29:50] It's not a true partnership.
[00:29:52] If, if, if they're not equal, right?
[00:29:55] If you're kind of not equal footing and one person really needs the other one,
[00:30:00] then then the partnership aspect of it is, it's not there.
[00:30:07] Yeah, that's a, that's something to pay attention to.
[00:30:12] Because the thing that's kind of weird is when your young guys get suckered into the being,
[00:30:20] it's, it feels all, empowering to have someone that's all dependent on you.
[00:30:25] You're saying, oh, yeah.
[00:30:26] When you're young and you got the girl and she's all dependent on you and the world revolves around you.
[00:30:32] And then when you're not there, she's falling apart and you feel, oh, yeah, I'm the man.
[00:30:36] And so it's easy, I think that I've seen that happen a lot where guys get suckered into those situations.
[00:30:42] And that's not a good situation to get.
[00:30:44] It never works out because they're like, who's, well, and then she's in a situation,
[00:30:49] if it's that kind of girl, she's going to find someone else to take care of her while you're not there to take care of her.
[00:30:55] And then the case with Iris is like, we're inside the same box as far as,
[00:31:02] just the things that we enjoy where we want to be in the outdoors.
[00:31:07] It's, it's all the same thing.
[00:31:09] So, you know, it's like I said in my retirement ceremony when I look, look, I look at the trajectory of my career.
[00:31:15] And then when Iris and I became together, I went from Platoon Chief to Master Chief first time up every time.
[00:31:22] And just hammered it because she was a good partner and she drove me to be better.
[00:31:30] And as always, drive me to be better.
[00:31:34] It helps to have somebody that's super square the way like that.
[00:31:37] You know what that does? It forces you like you're not there's doing it for yourself.
[00:31:41] Because it's easy, sometimes easier to let yourself down, right?
[00:31:44] Yeah, it's easier to let yourself down, the no let down, this person that's looking at you thinking,
[00:31:49] hey, you could do better than that. Come on.
[00:31:51] Are you serious right now?
[00:31:53] And that's the kind of stuff that you'll say to me.
[00:31:56] You know, she's very straightforward and I'll be going, I'll just say, check.
[00:31:59] Got it. And then we've gone to the point where we can give each other pretty honest feedback without
[00:32:08] there being any resentment involved.
[00:32:10] I've been pretty straightforward with Iris on some things.
[00:32:13] We're working on some projects together.
[00:32:15] Yep.
[00:32:16] And it's pretty cool for me to be able to just be real straightforward with her.
[00:32:20] Yeah.
[00:32:21] And she's like, no, tell me.
[00:32:22] Well, actually, no, how does she says it? She says, no go ahead and tell me.
[00:32:25] Yep.
[00:32:26] Sheh, sheh. So, you know, speaking of Afghanistan, you're, you did the last time you were on.
[00:32:39] You know, we, we breeze through Afghanistan pretty quick.
[00:32:42] But that was actually a, a really, pretty big deployment in terms of what you guys did there.
[00:32:50] Yep.
[00:32:51] And I know there were some details that you wanted to get into on some of those operations and some of the things that you brought home from those operations.
[00:33:01] Lessons learned, et cetera.
[00:33:03] I mean, you were talking about one earlier, talking about the modules and bringing them modules.
[00:33:09] That's it. That's a, that's a good piece of gear to bring out on an operation.
[00:33:14] Yeah.
[00:33:14] And usually you got a marked on mountain on top of a truck.
[00:33:18] But, um, when we did that, that operation as Frago 6 and C.
[00:33:24] Gengin, and we actually went into Marsha.
[00:33:27] And the element that I was with was in a blocking position that was looking down a road that ran east west.
[00:33:35] And we were the furthest east positions. So we're blocking position on, on that direction.
[00:33:40] And where we got dropped off was really close to where we were going to stay for four days.
[00:33:46] So we were, you know, we brought a mortar in.
[00:33:49] We brought the, the M2 HP, the heavy barrel 50 kelm machine gun with the big tripod for everything.
[00:33:57] How do you break that up? How many guys have carried out?
[00:34:00] That's a lot of weight to carry man.
[00:34:02] You touched about the M. UNISHING and the weapon and the tripod.
[00:34:07] Well, ammunition got paired dropped into us, but the initial, the initial insert.
[00:34:11] We had an ATV on the helicopter and a lot of that stuff was loaded on the ATV.
[00:34:18] Plus we were inserted maybe 200 yards from the position.
[00:34:23] Everything was kicked out of the hellow, staged.
[00:34:26] We went and cleared the building and then hauled everything over there and set it up.
[00:34:30] And we done all the, you know, the imagery set up for, okay, here's what we're going to be.
[00:34:34] Here's where our firing lanes, all that stuff was pretty much set up ahead of time.
[00:34:39] Once you guys were doing that, we started the guys and trade it.
[00:34:42] Well, that we were putting through training started doing it started, Karen, man.
[00:34:45] There was some big team guy.
[00:34:47] Oh, he just got back from deployment.
[00:34:50] He, I know exactly who he was talking to.
[00:34:52] He was talking to the 50 cow like he looked like he was carrying a 60.
[00:34:54] He did.
[00:34:55] And it was a legit, good to watch.
[00:34:58] His nickname was pigna.
[00:35:01] His nickname was pigna.
[00:35:02] And he's a beast.
[00:35:03] I know he's listening.
[00:35:05] Good on you.
[00:35:06] That's one of one of my favorite nicknames.
[00:35:08] You don't have some feature about you that gets noticed in the
[00:35:12] Dames, because everyone's going to call you by some weird name.
[00:35:15] And the funny thing about him is he is super, he's a big guy and he's super intelligent.
[00:35:21] Yeah, good.
[00:35:22] Good guy.
[00:35:23] Everywhere you measure it.
[00:35:24] So we set this thing up in a window.
[00:35:28] And, you know, inside, so just the barrel was sticking out and of, of the compound that we were holding.
[00:35:35] Aiming right down the east west road, because our biggest fear is a vehicle born ID coming down that road.
[00:35:43] And along across that road, there was this, there was like a headrow and there was a little irrigation ditch over there.
[00:35:52] And so the Taliban kept coming down that headrow and firing at us from the trees.
[00:36:00] And then just put that 50 on the tree line, stitch it like at shin level, because that would be
[00:36:08] Chester a little bit high level for somebody in the ditch and just send a belt all the way down and back.
[00:36:14] And then push them back further.
[00:36:16] Well, at one point, some guys had come up from a different direction and they were getting really, really close in the tree line.
[00:36:25] Bad guys.
[00:36:26] Bad guys.
[00:36:27] And we could not traverse the gun over far enough.
[00:36:31] So we tried to shove it out the window.
[00:36:34] It wouldn't go out the window.
[00:36:36] So me and that EOD warn officer who is with us.
[00:36:41] And then one of my E5s who right now he's a true BSEA over at one of the seal teams.
[00:36:48] Check.
[00:36:49] Drug lifting out and put it in the street.
[00:36:52] And just started laying it down. So we got the 50 cows set up in the street right out in front of our compound.
[00:36:59] And for a second there, we were taking heavy fire.
[00:37:04] Pretty heavy fire.
[00:37:05] P.K. Ampfire, but it was all going a little bit high and we just kept stitching, stitching, and then they were done.
[00:37:12] They broke contact.
[00:37:14] They did not like that big gun.
[00:37:16] In fact, the next day it kind of slowed down for us because they didn't want to come.
[00:37:22] They did. They're like, ah, we'll find a different direction because we were holding, you know, basically four square blocks.
[00:37:29] So they started penetrating in from different directions.
[00:37:33] The later on two days later, guys pushed out to another building.
[00:37:39] That was about a hundred yards in front of the position.
[00:37:42] And they got into a little tick up there. So we started lighting up the area that we thought they were taking fire from.
[00:37:49] And the 50 cow was so loud that they thought that they were taking direct fire from the 50 cow when we were shooting.
[00:37:57] So the rounds passing by that.
[00:37:59] On the rounds passing by them, we're so loud and knocking dust off the wall.
[00:38:03] That's how I was saying, I can't even imagine what it would be like to be in a building.
[00:38:08] And you know, that one situation that Tony was in where the someone's lighting your building up with several hundred rounds.
[00:38:13] Yeah, no, the blue on blue situation. Those guys put 150 rounds into 150 rounds of 50 cow from total.
[00:38:20] I don't know, 20 meters away.
[00:38:22] I mean, from the corner, it was a building on the corner and they stopped in the corner and just shot.
[00:38:26] And those guys coming out of that building after we got thing under control.
[00:38:31] I mean, I kicked up on the door. I saw Tony there.
[00:38:34] And then, but the and Tony looked pretty much just like normal Tony.
[00:38:39] Yeah, everyone else in that building looked like they just saw death.
[00:38:43] And they actually just did see death. I mean, they're in a building.
[00:38:46] They get 150 rounds of 50 cow.
[00:38:48] The guy that was on the roof, he was, he, he was telling me, he was telling me there's like a year ago.
[00:38:53] Like we were just talking about and he goes, he goes, yeah, I got out my pistol.
[00:38:56] I, a hundred percent thought that we were going to get overrun and I was going to die.
[00:38:59] If I didn't just take around through the concrete into my head.
[00:39:03] Right.
[00:39:04] Yeah.
[00:39:05] So did they know it was blue and blue?
[00:39:07] Or did they think that they were just getting hammered by the fire?
[00:39:09] No, it's just like, one of the, one of the, one of the many little, like, components of this.
[00:39:15] So that guy, the guy that was on the roof top that I was talking to, 12 hours before.
[00:39:20] He was in another position.
[00:39:23] And he got lit up with a disco, a 12.7 millimeter, you know, weapon, which is the,
[00:39:29] so we had a equivalent of the 50 cow for those of you who don't know.
[00:39:32] He got lit up with that and hit with RPGs.
[00:39:35] So he said, I remember it, as soon as you know, as soon as this was all over, we got back to base.
[00:39:40] That's another thing he told me, but he told me this way back then, he said, he said to himself,
[00:39:45] I can't believe the guy with the disco found me again.
[00:39:48] He was so, and we were only, you know, a couple days before.
[00:39:53] And that same guy, so when he got lit up here, he was in this, he was on camp
[00:39:59] and he was in an Overwatch position looking for ID in places.
[00:40:02] He's sitting there on his sniper rifle.
[00:40:04] And all of a sudden, he starts taking machine gunfire, and it's, it's a disco.
[00:40:10] And then he gets hit with a couple RPGs.
[00:40:13] Well, I'm inside with the company commander from, from one of the companies from the first to 506.
[00:40:20] And we were planning an operation that we're doing the next day.
[00:40:22] So we started hearing gunfire.
[00:40:24] And all of a sudden we hear RPGs boom, boom.
[00:40:27] And I said to, the machine gunfire starts,
[00:40:31] and he goes, oh, listen, I'm going to contact him.
[00:40:33] And I go, hey, my sniper is up there. Don't worry about it.
[00:40:35] Like just jacco the badass, right?
[00:40:38] Yes.
[00:40:39] And all of a sudden boom, boom.
[00:40:41] So we hear the RPGs say, so we go running outside.
[00:40:44] And I'm still just, I say, hey, don't worry.
[00:40:49] My guy's got this in, right as those words are coming out of my mouth.
[00:40:53] Out of the bottom of the sniper tower,
[00:40:55] because we, we were right next to it.
[00:40:57] Out of the bottom of the sniper tower, out pours that guy.
[00:41:00] I'm sure we'll be on the podcast one day.
[00:41:02] He comes pouring out of the tower.
[00:41:04] His weapon, his sniper gun had been blown like the stock up blown off, bro.
[00:41:08] I'd be RPG.
[00:41:09] And he just looks like, oh my god.
[00:41:12] You know what I said?
[00:41:13] Okay, well, maybe not.
[00:41:14] It was horrible.
[00:41:16] But so that's the guy when they're getting, when they're getting shot up with 50 cow.
[00:41:20] Yeah.
[00:41:21] He just thought, and the rest of the guys do,
[00:41:22] because everyone knew that this had happened, and we briefed it, hey,
[00:41:25] hey, just imagine the, the PLO going out to this,
[00:41:28] I'm saying, hey guys, these guys have
[00:41:30] Dishka 12.7 millimeter anti aircraft gun out there.
[00:41:35] So be ready for some significant heavy weapons.
[00:41:38] And sure enough, that's the guy on the rooftop thinking to himself,
[00:41:41] I can't believe this guy with a disco founding.
[00:41:43] Yeah.
[00:41:44] Man.
[00:41:46] And that was one of the big lessons learned
[00:41:49] when I got to trade at where guys would put 50 rounds of 50 cow
[00:41:54] into a building with planks, you know,
[00:41:56] simulating combat.
[00:41:58] And then we'd have a trade at guy in there that would get up and shoot someone.
[00:42:01] And they'd be like, that's bullshit.
[00:42:02] Yeah.
[00:42:03] You know what, guy, that would never happen.
[00:42:04] And I'm like, oh, yes, it would happen.
[00:42:06] You know, we had guys survive 25 millimeter chain gun
[00:42:10] from from Bradley's and still stumble out of,
[00:42:13] you know, not friendlies, right, not not for me,
[00:42:16] but we know there was an enemy that made it out of buildings
[00:42:20] that had whatever, however many rounds a bunch of 25 millimeter chain gun rounds
[00:42:25] coming out of the building or coming to your building and they'd still live.
[00:42:29] So you don't know what's going to happen with bullets, you know?
[00:42:32] You just don't.
[00:42:33] No.
[00:42:34] It's hard to tell.
[00:42:35] And that, yeah, the frustration and the blame casting that goes on
[00:42:40] some of that training will get into that.
[00:42:43] That way, but man, gosh, that 50 cow is such a bad ass weapon.
[00:42:51] Yeah.
[00:42:52] And then, you know, later on, we had those things mounted on our trucks
[00:42:56] and the clearance of Mosul guys were stopping V-bids that are completely armored
[00:43:03] with those things just hammered on them.
[00:43:05] But then it's on a crow's remote system.
[00:43:08] Mm-hmm.
[00:43:09] And that's a number.
[00:43:12] That's just a beautiful thing.
[00:43:13] It's incredible that that gun was made in the early 1900s.
[00:43:17] Yeah, yeah.
[00:43:18] For sure.
[00:43:19] Yeah, that's an incredible weapon.
[00:43:21] You can use the exact same weapon today.
[00:43:23] That's amazing.
[00:43:24] That's a feet of engineering.
[00:43:26] Someone was asking me when I posted pictures of all the brass all over the floor
[00:43:31] of that room on Instagram.
[00:43:33] They're like, oh, did you have any jams?
[00:43:34] Oh, we know how to set our head space in timing.
[00:43:37] Got the gauge right there on it.
[00:43:39] Boom.
[00:43:40] That's an awesome weapon.
[00:43:42] Now, another way, you know, we were telling me another one about getting
[00:43:47] extracted in like a, like a, like a Russian, like hip 17.
[00:43:53] So, we went into this operation in Zari Panjwe, which was a really, really hot area.
[00:44:01] And we didn't like to drive anywhere because Afghanis stands limited, you know,
[00:44:07] it's limited roads. And so their IED threat was huge plus the recovered
[00:44:12] everywhere. So they would just pack all the, a culvert full of explosives and
[00:44:18] get blow up like, you know, two, uh, M-Rapz.
[00:44:22] Okay, everybody.
[00:44:23] That. And so we didn't have helicopter support for this one operation, but we were
[00:44:30] working with the DEA fast teams and they had their own hellow support and they had these
[00:44:36] N-Y-7 teams, which are these, you know, Russian helicopters, which are super, durable helicopters.
[00:44:43] And, uh, contracted, you know, American pilots in them obviously.
[00:44:48] Okay, that's cool.
[00:44:49] And, uh, so they had this operation and they were like, hey, you guys want to go
[00:44:53] on with us. So we, you know, we're, you know, we're the main force on that.
[00:44:58] And it was during one of our turnover ops.
[00:45:00] It was actually the op after the, uh, when Dan lost his leg, so we
[00:45:04] as late so we did not do.
[00:45:06] And get dropped off first thing in the morning,
[00:45:10] go in clear to compounds,
[00:45:13] and we found a whole bunch of on that.
[00:45:16] There were fields and fields of marijuana around here,
[00:45:19] and then on that operation,
[00:45:21] one of the compounds just had a whole bunch of hash.
[00:45:25] It was like, huge burlap sacks of hash,
[00:45:31] and I think they said there was 200 pounds of it.
[00:45:34] That in the middle, they destroyed it.
[00:45:36] And so it was the typical thing that happened.
[00:45:39] Women and children left fighters came in,
[00:45:41] and then we were in, you know, a 360 firefight.
[00:45:45] And we're in the firefight,
[00:45:49] and over the radio we're hearing from our aircraft overhead,
[00:45:53] they're saying, hey, there's a white van,
[00:45:57] and it's dropping fighters off around you.
[00:46:01] So this white, this white minivan is driving off,
[00:46:05] picking up fighters, and then driving a big circle around us
[00:46:09] and dropping off fighters.
[00:46:11] So this is like an hour later, fireflies.
[00:46:15] That thing?
[00:46:16] I did.
[00:46:17] So just like a story.
[00:46:18] So about an hour later,
[00:46:20] there's, they're like, hey, the white coming over,
[00:46:23] because I'm on dual com.
[00:46:24] So I can hear it on the fires net,
[00:46:26] and that's like the other radio frequency outside of inner squad
[00:46:30] coms for those of you who understand that is,
[00:46:32] it's just one where the aircraft are talking,
[00:46:34] and one where we all talking, and I'm on both of them.
[00:46:36] And I can hear the aircraft saying,
[00:46:38] that white van is back.
[00:46:40] And so all of a sudden,
[00:46:43] I'm looking straight north at 200 yards,
[00:46:46] and I see a white van pulling to the open,
[00:46:49] and stop in, you know, in an alleyway.
[00:46:53] So, get on the radio.
[00:46:57] Where's that white van?
[00:46:58] And is it directly north of our position?
[00:47:00] And the aircraft comes back.
[00:47:02] Yeah, I just dropped off two guys,
[00:47:04] and they're stopped. They're looking at you right now.
[00:47:06] Crack, crack, crack.
[00:47:07] Two rounds, and then a 60 gunner just mows the thing down,
[00:47:10] and they're just done.
[00:47:11] Through.
[00:47:12] Well, firefight just kept going.
[00:47:16] Now, the MI-17s, they can't fly after dark.
[00:47:20] They didn't have some kind of certification.
[00:47:22] So, they had to come in there and do a hot extract
[00:47:26] on that LZ to get us off.
[00:47:29] So, there's bullets flying all over the place.
[00:47:32] We get stacked to set our breakout.
[00:47:35] So, everyone's kind of broken down from their position.
[00:47:37] We slubs the security.
[00:47:38] They're setting up the LZ.
[00:47:40] And then my job as the senior,
[00:47:43] what's the gun on my aircraft,
[00:47:45] was I run out, I'm the first guy to the aircraft,
[00:47:48] and I count guys getting on,
[00:47:50] and on the last guy on that aircraft.
[00:47:53] So, that aircraft isn't going until I have whatever number of people
[00:47:57] getting on it, getting on it.
[00:47:59] Everybody's piling on there.
[00:48:01] I got a flag on them.
[00:48:02] I got a flag count, and there's no seats for me.
[00:48:05] So, I got a hop on the ramp,
[00:48:07] and hook an arm through one of the guys' legs.
[00:48:10] My feet are dangling off the ramp as we take off.
[00:48:14] And then I'm shooting just half-ass from the hip
[00:48:17] because it's cool.
[00:48:18] Just for the call.
[00:48:21] Just for the call, the apocalypse and alcohol.
[00:48:24] At a place we were taking fire from as we took off.
[00:48:28] And then we got out of there.
[00:48:30] It was a lot fun.
[00:48:31] I'm going to stop sure to say,
[00:48:33] and it's awesome because I'm not going to use that word anymore.
[00:48:35] But it was pretty dang great.
[00:48:36] Great.
[00:48:36] That's what we're doing.
[00:48:37] That's what we're doing.
[00:48:39] It was.
[00:48:40] And no one got hurt, no one got wounded.
[00:48:42] No, in that one.
[00:48:43] No.
[00:48:44] Amazing.
[00:48:45] But you said, are these bullets or flying around?
[00:48:48] And it's just incredible because...
[00:48:51] Just the laws of chance.
[00:48:53] Yeah.
[00:48:54] Well, those aircraft too.
[00:48:55] You know, it's like...
[00:48:57] Those old school aircraft.
[00:48:59] Like when you read about the Vietnam guys,
[00:49:01] and I'm reading a book right now,
[00:49:02] those aircraft...
[00:49:04] They were flying these...
[00:49:05] They were...
[00:49:06] They had Vietnamese pilots in these king-be aircrafts.
[00:49:09] And those things...
[00:49:10] The guy came back from one of them.
[00:49:12] They had 48 holes in it.
[00:49:14] And shot 48 times.
[00:49:16] Yeah.
[00:49:17] And this American SF guys looking at the aircraft.
[00:49:21] And...
[00:49:22] He's looking at the pilot.
[00:49:23] He's getting in like you are.
[00:49:24] And he gets in.
[00:49:25] And he leaves looking at this Vietnamese pilot.
[00:49:28] And the Vietnamese pilot looks cool.
[00:49:30] He's just like Roger.
[00:49:32] And I got...
[00:49:32] It's a great quote.
[00:49:33] The guy says something along the lines of...
[00:49:34] When I'm flying, I'm just thinking about flying.
[00:49:36] I'm not thinking about bad guys.
[00:49:38] I'm not thinking about bullets.
[00:49:39] I'm just flying my aircraft.
[00:49:40] If it's my day, it's my day.
[00:49:42] Period in the story.
[00:49:43] But that...
[00:49:44] Coming in a hot-extra-clank like that, that's...
[00:49:46] Getsch.
[00:49:47] And those guys...
[00:49:48] They...
[00:49:49] They come in super fast and superless speeds...
[00:49:52] Speeds on their side.
[00:49:53] And it is sketchy.
[00:49:54] It's...
[00:49:55] I was in a random rush.
[00:49:57] And they are...
[00:49:58] I have a helicopter...
[00:49:59] A hip...
[00:50:00] Or what are you...
[00:50:01] Am I 17?
[00:50:02] Yeah.
[00:50:03] The...
[00:50:03] The NATO term is like a hip.
[00:50:05] But yeah, it was an Africa working.
[00:50:07] And...
[00:50:08] And that's like...
[00:50:09] We need to get somewhere.
[00:50:10] And the only thing they could get us was...
[00:50:11] We've contracted helicopters.
[00:50:13] But it was...
[00:50:14] But it was contracted pilots too.
[00:50:16] And I was happy to land on that one.
[00:50:20] Because...
[00:50:21] Those are pretty common side over there.
[00:50:23] And they've been a stand-a-stand a lot of the other...
[00:50:25] Other agencies were using those.
[00:50:28] And somebody had told me...
[00:50:29] And I don't know if this is true or not...
[00:50:31] That they were...
[00:50:32] They were so inexpensive.
[00:50:34] It wasn't worth doing the maintenance on them.
[00:50:36] So when they got to a maintenance schedule,
[00:50:38] they just destroyed it and buy another one.
[00:50:40] That's crazy.
[00:50:42] Yeah.
[00:50:43] And...
[00:50:44] And I don't know if that's true.
[00:50:46] You know, that's something I heard from some guy over at the Chow Hall...
[00:50:49] Yeah.
[00:50:50] Who was well informed apparently.
[00:50:52] But those pilots were so...
[00:50:55] So good.
[00:50:56] And they were all probably XTF-160 guys that were now hired on by...
[00:51:02] These other guys that do the job over there.
[00:51:05] I was incredible.
[00:51:06] So speaking of wounded...
[00:51:07] Or that kid's not wounded, but you were telling me a story about...
[00:51:11] And I cut you off so you didn't tell it to me.
[00:51:13] But you're telling me a story about a Taliban guy getting shot in the leg.
[00:51:18] Yeah.
[00:51:19] So last time I was telling you the story about...
[00:51:22] Last time I was telling you the story about the...
[00:51:26] The operation where we'd set pop flares out...
[00:51:30] Because guys were able to get so close to us.
[00:51:33] And during that firefight, one of our firing positions up on a roof...
[00:51:38] They're like, hey, there was...
[00:51:40] There was someone that had circled around kind of behind our position...
[00:51:42] And we weren't taking any fire for them.
[00:51:44] They were in... in the process of trying to flank us.
[00:51:46] They're like, hey, there's a guy back here and we just shot him.
[00:51:49] We killed him.
[00:51:51] So stuff calmed down.
[00:51:53] And I talked to the team commander.
[00:51:55] I'm like, hey, I'm gonna press out with these two guys...
[00:51:58] Because it appeared as if it was like right around the corner...
[00:52:01] Around this wall.
[00:52:03] And we're gonna go see if the guy's got a radio on him or anything like that.
[00:52:07] So we push out of the compound and we loop around a wall...
[00:52:11] But it's not just one wall at several walls and we get a little bit farther away.
[00:52:16] So we round the corner where the guy's supposed to be.
[00:52:18] And there's no dead guy at all.
[00:52:20] But there's a guy standing 30 yards away on a hill and he's shooting at me.
[00:52:26] So I have got... I'm patrolling my scar heavy, but I folded the buttstock like a dummy.
[00:52:35] And because I thought that was a cool way to patrol.
[00:52:39] And so now...
[00:52:41] I'm like, oh no, I can't shoulder my scar.
[00:52:44] So I just tried to lock it out on the ground.
[00:52:47] Like we do at the MB5Ks.
[00:52:49] Yes.
[00:52:50] I lost a punch it out.
[00:52:51] You just punched it out.
[00:52:52] Squeeze the atom.
[00:52:54] And then it had a stove pipe and a feed jam.
[00:52:58] So I just took a knee and started to reload and then cleared the jam real quick.
[00:53:03] Start shooting me again.
[00:53:04] But he was gone.
[00:53:05] And then he turned up again when we went to do our extract.
[00:53:12] The following day we had to clear a couple buildings near where the helos were going to land.
[00:53:19] And then we found that same guy with his leg all bandaged up.
[00:53:24] Because they didn't kill him.
[00:53:26] They just shot him in the way.
[00:53:28] And then we just wound up, you know, leaving him there.
[00:53:33] So was that the last time you patrol the New Scar heavy with the stockful?
[00:53:38] Yeah.
[00:53:39] And then, you know, on another op, I learned the lesson I've never taken off my body arm and helmet because it was hot.
[00:53:46] Yeah.
[00:53:47] Yeah.
[00:53:48] What happened on that one?
[00:53:49] Oh my goodness.
[00:53:51] So we were, um, it was an operation swally caught where we'd taken high ground above a couple of compounds that we'd cleared.
[00:54:02] And the next day, the talent, we'd gotten to the point right where we'd started to get a little bit complacent.
[00:54:13] And all our engagements with the Taliban, we'd always had the upper hand against them.
[00:54:18] We'd, uh, completely, we had air power.
[00:54:23] We had better weapons.
[00:54:24] We were trained better.
[00:54:26] Yeah.
[00:54:27] And on this operation, we had a piece of high ground right behind the compounds that we took.
[00:54:32] What was everyone wearing was everyone using the eight cogs on their, on their scarves generally or what were they using?
[00:54:37] Guys, variety of a cogs, the snipers actually took the scopes off their SR25s and put them on the, uh, the scopes.
[00:54:44] So everyone had basically everyone had scopes and so lots of them.
[00:54:48] And we had 300 windmacks and I brought it along on this.
[00:54:51] I'm just thinking mentally from the viewpoint of where the enemies at, like you're reaching out and touching them accurately way further than they can get you pretty much.
[00:54:59] Which, which again, leans towards you thinking to yourself, we're going to kick these guys ass every time.
[00:55:04] Yep.
[00:55:05] And then you did kick the ass a bunch of times.
[00:55:07] And, and so then these guys start to take a high ground all around our positions.
[00:55:12] And we can see a guy pushing out with a pkm onto this flat ledgerock.
[00:55:19] He's 1100 yards away.
[00:55:21] And we're shooting at him with a 300 windmack.
[00:55:24] What it's windy.
[00:55:26] And we're missing, we're missing close and he'd go back and then come back out, go back, come back out.
[00:55:32] And they were getting set up all around us and then they just brought it.
[00:55:36] They let us go with a salvo of rocket propelled grenade grenades and then just steady pkm fire.
[00:55:45] And we thought there are 1,000 yards out.
[00:55:48] They really can't do that much.
[00:55:50] Oh, it's, you know 105 degrees out.
[00:55:53] So we'll take our body armor and helmets off.
[00:55:56] And then that did just laid the hammer down.
[00:56:00] Luckily for me, I happened to be right on top of my body armor.
[00:56:04] And because I was in the, in the prone position.
[00:56:06] And then I just was able to snake into my body armor and get my helmet back on my head.
[00:56:11] And, you know, in this, this is a position where this is the first time we'd been somewhere.
[00:56:17] We couldn't fill sandbags.
[00:56:19] So we just stacked a bunch of rocks.
[00:56:21] It, as best we could to make a fighting position.
[00:56:24] And the bullets were just steadily hammering the rocks and hammering the rocks and hammering the rocks.
[00:56:28] And I was thinking, man alive.
[00:56:31] I'm, I'm going to get shot.
[00:56:33] And I'm, I wonder if it's going to hurt, but it's definitely going to happen.
[00:56:36] The odds are, odds are there.
[00:56:39] And somehow I didn't.
[00:56:41] And then then the B, up B1 bomber came on station and dropped a whole bunch of ordinance and laid the hammer down.
[00:56:47] But after that.
[00:56:49] And I ran out of water.
[00:56:51] We all ran out of water up in this underground position.
[00:56:54] It was like 112, 14 degrees at 2 in the afternoon.
[00:56:58] We ran underwater and there was no getting any water until that night when the sun went down.
[00:57:04] Did you listen to podcast with Ron Shuron?
[00:57:07] I'm sure I did it.
[00:57:08] Yeah, the SF guy, Medal of Honor recipient.
[00:57:11] But if you go watch the videos.
[00:57:14] Oh, that, yeah.
[00:57:15] Yeah, that, like, the castle that they're attacking.
[00:57:17] That's crazy.
[00:57:18] It's just straight uphill.
[00:57:20] I was just, I couldn't believe that.
[00:57:24] When I, as I was reading, like, I was reading a bunch of articles about the situation.
[00:57:28] Yeah.
[00:57:29] And then they kept talking about video and I said,
[00:57:30] I'll check out YouTube.
[00:57:31] And I saw it back.
[00:57:33] I couldn't believe it.
[00:57:34] I couldn't believe it.
[00:57:36] And the way he described it, it was just incredible.
[00:57:39] Yeah.
[00:57:40] He just laid it out there.
[00:57:41] He's like, oh, yeah.
[00:57:42] Yeah.
[00:57:43] He's so understated.
[00:57:45] He's like, well, you know, it was a little bit of a hill.
[00:57:47] Yeah.
[00:57:48] He's a pretty big building.
[00:57:50] I was like, oh, it was a cliff.
[00:57:51] And it was a castle of talking to the cliff.
[00:57:53] Oh, well, it was a pretty good awesome guy.
[00:57:56] You know, another thing that we were talking about.
[00:57:58] And you made, obviously, this is a good,
[00:58:01] leave an Afghanistan.
[00:58:02] But it's getting back early in your career when you were,
[00:58:05] when you failed the stalking section of Sniperschool.
[00:58:10] And then you went back and you, and you, you know,
[00:58:13] you obviously made it through you past the stalking section.
[00:58:17] And you kind of touched on it when you were on last night.
[00:58:19] But I was wondering, like, a little bit more granularity on what you changed
[00:58:25] that you went from failing the stalks to, all right,
[00:58:29] here's me knocking out whatever it is.
[00:58:31] Yeah.
[00:58:32] And it comes down to basically doing what I've been taught.
[00:58:37] And, and, and, and people were telling me is that
[00:58:41] you start the stalk.
[00:58:44] You're told to find the OP, which is, you know,
[00:58:47] 1200 yards away.
[00:58:49] And the first thing you've got to do is figure out where that OP,
[00:58:53] an OP is an observation point.
[00:58:55] And that's where the guys that are grading you on the stalk
[00:58:58] who are other Sniper instructors, that's where they're at.
[00:59:02] And you, you take that, this model.
[00:59:05] And I always just thinking how it applies to problem solving
[00:59:09] basically across the board, where,
[00:59:12] okay, I need to find a goal in my future here somewhere.
[00:59:17] In this case, it's the stalk.
[00:59:19] And then, before I start executing on moving toward that,
[00:59:25] that goal, going to find that OP,
[00:59:27] I need to take some time and study the terrain and see what my,
[00:59:32] you know, line of attack is going to be and how I'm going to move
[00:59:36] all the way up to where I'm going to go.
[00:59:39] And then I need to put it into action.
[00:59:41] And while I'm putting an action, I'm constantly reassessing that goal
[00:59:46] and adjusting my actions across the way.
[00:59:49] And that, when I went from that model,
[00:59:52] I went from, you know, failing stalks to being the first one done,
[00:59:57] hardly spending any time on my belly and doing that.
[01:00:00] So, then you take that and you apply it to life.
[01:00:06] And you think about just goal setting, where do I want to be in five,
[01:00:10] in five years?
[01:00:12] And identify it and then say, okay, do a little research.
[01:00:16] How do I get there?
[01:00:18] And then get on that damn path, stay disciplined,
[01:00:23] and then just keep the eye on the target and keep adjusting your aim as you go.
[01:00:28] And I can look back at times in my life where,
[01:00:31] really, I wasn't paying attention.
[01:00:33] I'm really just treading water, you know,
[01:00:35] living paycheck to paycheck, doing whatever.
[01:00:38] And now, you know, I take that model and I apply it to,
[01:00:43] where do I want to be in five years?
[01:00:45] Where do I want my kids to be?
[01:00:47] What kind of parent do I want to be?
[01:00:48] And how am I going to get there?
[01:00:50] And what's the path I'm going to lay out for it?
[01:00:53] Yeah, and it's from a leadership perspective, obviously, this applies.
[01:00:56] Because from a leadership perspective,
[01:00:58] if you, and I was just on Peter T as podcast,
[01:01:02] and we were talking about a little bit about that.
[01:01:04] Strategic framework tactical, right?
[01:01:06] Yeah, and you have to stand in it.
[01:01:08] And, you know, what I've said to him,
[01:01:11] where it first started to occur to me,
[01:01:13] that was, hey, if my guys don't know what it is that we're trying to accomplish,
[01:01:19] they can't make it.
[01:01:20] They can't, they can't move.
[01:01:21] Sure, I can tell move eight yards forward,
[01:01:24] and then they can't hear me anymore.
[01:01:25] Now, what they're going to wait for me to get whatever they are.
[01:01:27] I can say, go take that building right there.
[01:01:29] Well, now they can't hear me anymore.
[01:01:30] So now what they're going to do?
[01:01:31] They're going to sit there and wait for me to come up and tell them,
[01:01:32] do something else?
[01:01:33] No, they need to know what we're trying to get accomplished.
[01:01:35] And then they need to have this standard operating procedure
[01:01:38] down well enough so they can, and the parameters that they're allowed
[01:01:40] to maneuver within, and that allows us to actually accomplish the mission.
[01:01:43] And that's something, I think I, I mean, I don't even know
[01:01:46] when I learn that, but without that strategic objective,
[01:01:50] and that's a strong word, okay?
[01:01:52] I get strategic, I get what it means,
[01:01:54] and I'm not talking about, you know, global warfare,
[01:01:58] but when you're in a town,
[01:02:00] and you have a mission objective that, okay,
[01:02:04] we're going to get to this building, or we're going to move to this area,
[01:02:07] we're going to take this piece of terrain, and everybody knows that.
[01:02:10] And even when those things change, because as you know,
[01:02:13] you get into a contact or you get into a situation where you change
[01:02:17] what you're doing, you have to let everyone know that,
[01:02:20] hey, we're breaking contact, we're getting out of here,
[01:02:23] hey, we're going to strongpoint this building or whatever.
[01:02:25] Once everybody knows that, then they can act on it,
[01:02:29] then they can carry it out, same thing that,
[01:02:31] well, what you're talking about there, now I want a bigger picture,
[01:02:34] of course, until it applies on a bigger picture,
[01:02:36] if your troops in the field don't know what it is you're trying to achieve,
[01:02:39] then they make bad decisions.
[01:02:40] If they don't know that you're trying to protect the populace,
[01:02:43] if they don't know that that's the broad strategy,
[01:02:45] then they get out there and treat the populace, they lack like idiots.
[01:02:49] If they know that's what they're trying to do, then they make better decisions,
[01:02:52] because they don't, but they'll make better decisions,
[01:02:56] because they understand what that broad strategy is,
[01:02:58] and it's certainly the same thing in business,
[01:03:00] and with business it goes back and forth too,
[01:03:02] because business, sometimes in business,
[01:03:04] you're, you know, I run into it with businesses where they're,
[01:03:07] for instance, trying to go public,
[01:03:09] so they need to make money every quarter,
[01:03:11] they need to show that profitability increase,
[01:03:13] and so the biggest thing they got on their mind
[01:03:15] is trying to show a good quarter,
[01:03:18] and they'll sacrifice some strategic things like,
[01:03:21] the sacrifice a little bit of taking care of their customer,
[01:03:25] because they want to scrape a little money out of it out of the situation,
[01:03:29] that's a bad strategic play, but they do it short-term at the time,
[01:03:33] because they know they gotta make money the quarters,
[01:03:35] they can come back and read less more.
[01:03:36] So, but everybody's gotta know that,
[01:03:38] because if everyone thinks, hey,
[01:03:40] hey, the number one thing is we never let our customers out,
[01:03:43] okay, guess what, we lost money this quarter,
[01:03:45] now we can't go public, because we,
[01:03:48] and again, this is a really kind of garden level examples,
[01:03:51] but that's the kind of thing where what you're talking about
[01:03:54] if people don't understand what that longer term goal is,
[01:03:58] then they can't really operate and function on their own,
[01:04:01] which is a problem.
[01:04:02] No, and you're not thinking long-term,
[01:04:05] you're just thinking day to day, basically.
[01:04:09] Yeah, I kind of went off at the master on that one kid
[01:04:13] that asked me, how often are you thinking strategically
[01:04:18] and how often are you thinking tactically?
[01:04:21] And, you know, I just kind of was going off about,
[01:04:24] look man, every single thing I do is strategic.
[01:04:27] I'm making any tactical moves.
[01:04:29] I'm not worried about the tactical wins and losses.
[01:04:31] Now, there's a reason for that.
[01:04:32] I'm going to good spot right now where a little tactical loss
[01:04:34] doesn't mean that much to me right now,
[01:04:36] and it's really easy for me to just focus on the strategic stuff.
[01:04:39] You know, when I was younger, I had to focus more on some tactical things,
[01:04:42] you know, that's the way it is.
[01:04:44] But even as a young person, you gotta keep that strict.
[01:04:48] You know, you might have to take some tactical,
[01:04:50] you might have to make some adjustments and win some short-term battles,
[01:04:53] just because that's the way it is,
[01:04:55] you should be thinking tactics all the time.
[01:04:58] Or, start you should be thinking strategy all the time.
[01:05:00] You should be thinking long game all the time.
[01:05:02] All the time thinking about the long game.
[01:05:04] All the time thinking about how is this decision affect
[01:05:06] where I'm going to be in the long-term,
[01:05:09] because the short-term decisions,
[01:05:11] those are the ones that beat you down.
[01:05:14] Yeah, absolutely not.
[01:05:16] I'm not going to be that long-day.
[01:05:17] Nested inside that long-term strategy.
[01:05:20] Yeah.
[01:05:21] Yeah. I actually kind of appreciated that he brought that up.
[01:05:24] Yeah, he was a good question.
[01:05:25] He was a younger guy.
[01:05:27] And you could see he's thinking, you know,
[01:05:29] he probably thought to himself,
[01:05:30] hey, it seems like Jockel keeps talking about the long game.
[01:05:34] And he thought to himself how often is Jockel thinking about that?
[01:05:37] And so he asked the question, good on him.
[01:05:39] So I could explain, I'm thinking about it all the time.
[01:05:42] I'm thinking about all the time.
[01:05:44] That's the way you gotta do it.
[01:05:45] And Peter and Tia as well,
[01:05:47] for bringing that,
[01:05:49] the whole framework,
[01:05:50] the bring and the whole framework and everything up.
[01:05:52] Yeah, yeah, yeah, for that aspect of that.
[01:05:53] Yeah, because I was listening to that in this morning.
[01:05:55] I'm like, yeah, this lays.
[01:05:56] That's the same thing that makes you successful on a stock,
[01:06:00] choosing that goal and then working your way to it,
[01:06:02] doing your, you know,
[01:06:04] and you gotta watch out for the situation
[01:06:06] where you get paralysis by analysis or
[01:06:09] and that's caught up by that you got a time limit on a stock.
[01:06:14] Okay, you got three hours to get this done.
[01:06:17] So you gotta get it figured out and you gotta get moving.
[01:06:20] Or I think a lot of people will fall into that trap
[01:06:24] where the due to much study,
[01:06:27] too much study.
[01:06:28] Oh, yeah, yeah.
[01:06:29] And then there are no actual life in life in general.
[01:06:33] And in stocks, guys,
[01:06:34] will run out of time.
[01:06:35] I said something the other day.
[01:06:37] Most things don't get finished because most things don't get started.
[01:06:42] I think people even even start building,
[01:06:43] make that move.
[01:06:44] Right.
[01:06:45] Of course, hey, guess what,
[01:06:47] big chocolate is an dichotomy.
[01:06:48] And that's the bottom line.
[01:06:50] If you rush into it and you start moving without having
[01:06:53] a long-term plan, you're probably going to make it a bad move.
[01:06:55] If you take too long, you're going to wait too long
[01:06:57] and the whole room is going to pass you by.
[01:06:59] Yep.
[01:07:00] So you have to constantly modulate and figure out where you're at.
[01:07:02] And no one's going to be able to give you the answer.
[01:07:04] I can't sit here and be like,
[01:07:05] oh, you know what you're going to do right there?
[01:07:07] You want to make this, no.
[01:07:08] No one's going to be sitting there telling you that day by day.
[01:07:10] You've got to figure that out.
[01:07:11] And you've got to figure out if it's really,
[01:07:13] really moving you in the right direction.
[01:07:15] Yep.
[01:07:16] Wait, it's got to be.
[01:07:18] When you were talking about coming back to trade at,
[01:07:22] and you know, you and I both had the,
[01:07:25] the luck to be at trade at in the positions we were in.
[01:07:29] I was the, I was the trade at OIC.
[01:07:31] You were the trade at CMC.
[01:07:33] So basically we were the senior dudes.
[01:07:35] We weren't together unfortunately.
[01:07:36] But what a good job.
[01:07:39] And what a good opportunity to see how things unfold.
[01:07:43] And what a good opportunity to take these standard operating procedures
[01:07:48] and pressure test them.
[01:07:51] You exactly.
[01:07:53] So I was, I was hit up the other day in a brief where I was talking about,
[01:08:00] when I was there as a true PSEA,
[01:08:03] and we did our first FTX,
[01:08:05] and you had just trained, changed training to where we,
[01:08:09] but prior to that, and every time I'd been through Land Warfare,
[01:08:13] prior to coming through as, as the troops senior and listed advisor in 2008,
[01:08:18] our FTX is where all live fire.
[01:08:20] Great.
[01:08:22] Live fire school, but it's so canned.
[01:08:25] Yep.
[01:08:26] Because it has to be for safety,
[01:08:28] that it really doesn't put any pressure on the leadership,
[01:08:32] and there's not really any pressure,
[01:08:34] brought to bear on any of your SOPs.
[01:08:36] Yeah.
[01:08:37] Simply, everyone, when you're in a gunfight,
[01:08:40] there's two horrible things that the enemy will do.
[01:08:43] They will shoot at you, and they will maneuver.
[01:08:46] And when you're using live fire for training,
[01:08:49] your enemy is a bunch of paper targets.
[01:08:52] At best, they're mounted on those little cards that can move around,
[01:08:56] but they're very, very limited, not even remotely close to what a human being is going to do.
[01:09:00] So when you're going with live fire,
[01:09:02] your enemy neither shoots back at you,
[01:09:05] nor do they maneuver.
[01:09:06] So in the sealed teams, we would destroy our paper targets all the time.
[01:09:10] We would crush them all the time, relentlessly.
[01:09:12] We would outmaneuver them because they couldn't move.
[01:09:15] We would outshute them because they didn't shoot.
[01:09:17] So it was pretty easy to dominate.
[01:09:20] And sure, there was that level of stress of the fact that it is live fire.
[01:09:24] And when you're out like in the desert,
[01:09:27] you are, and you do do, and we still do this,
[01:09:30] where you have to shift fire, and you're walking,
[01:09:32] and you're making sure that you're safe,
[01:09:35] because you can't, you can you can shoot each other.
[01:09:38] But that type of stress compared to the stress of,
[01:09:40] okay, now the enemy, we're using laser tag guns or paintball,
[01:09:45] and the enemy isn't full on maneuvering.
[01:09:47] They're full on shooting back at us.
[01:09:49] That's a big step up.
[01:09:51] Yeah, and so we just completely,
[01:09:55] epically failed that first operation.
[01:09:58] And we took the hard look at the four biggest things we did wrong
[01:10:02] and identified where our standard operating procedures were flawed.
[01:10:07] And then we sat down with our leadership,
[01:10:11] and we got input and started to modify those SOPs.
[01:10:16] So we could build up standard operating procedures
[01:10:19] that were resilient enough to withstand all the pressure
[01:10:22] that you guys were putting on us in training.
[01:10:24] And someone asked me, at us,
[01:10:27] a keynote I was given the other day,
[01:10:32] like, well, didn't you guys have SOPs prior to that?
[01:10:35] And we absolutely did, but they weren't good enough
[01:10:39] because they couldn't withstand the pressure.
[01:10:41] So they had to be modified.
[01:10:42] We had to modify the way we were doing SOPs
[01:10:45] for getting ahead counts.
[01:10:47] We had to modify how we were dealing with our downmen.
[01:10:50] Like, honestly, we weren't carrying letters around.
[01:10:54] We weren't, but it's just an absolute abject disaster.
[01:10:58] If you get a wounded guy sure,
[01:11:00] I can drag him off the X.
[01:11:02] But now if I patch him up and I got to throw him over my shoulder again,
[01:11:07] I'm going to blow out every bandage I just put on him.
[01:11:10] That's stupid.
[01:11:11] You know, our radio comms going when everything is confusing.
[01:11:16] We had to fix that.
[01:11:17] So we had to dial those SOPs in.
[01:11:19] The standard operating procedures.
[01:11:22] And the beauty of trade-at is that as stuff is happening on the battlefield,
[01:11:30] we immediately modify that in the training.
[01:11:34] And we're putting that on top of the guys in training.
[01:11:36] So they can see if they're standard operating procedures are good to go
[01:11:41] or if they're flawed and they need to be modified.
[01:11:43] So we can constantly modify if people are honest about them.
[01:11:46] Yeah.
[01:11:47] And that's the beauty of the, the basically, the Petri dish or the lab that we had
[01:11:51] out there at trade-at because the other thing is we could see when when people were being honest
[01:11:57] about their mistakes or when guys were were blame-casting and not taking ownership of what was going on
[01:12:05] and not being honest with their SOPs.
[01:12:09] And then you just develop these SOPs.
[01:12:11] Like they don't just apply to the battlefield.
[01:12:17] We came up with standard operating procedures for, you know, how we did our admin stuff,
[01:12:23] how we dealt with with anything that you can think of.
[01:12:27] We would think of a good way to do it and then test it and then run through it.
[01:12:33] So, you know, you might not like this, this analogy, but I think that SOPs kind of are a life hack
[01:12:39] because is one of those things that you can lay there is no work.
[01:12:44] I know, except for the standard operating procedure is pretty dang close to one.
[01:12:49] Yeah, you know what's, as you were talking about that, one thing that I definitely noticed is
[01:12:55] the, you could have almost 90% of the time that you used the word modify our SOP.
[01:13:02] You could have used the word simplify because most of the time it was someone saying, hey, we got this crazy.
[01:13:11] This is what we're going to do. We're going to do this and you're going to do that and it is all these crazy things.
[01:13:14] And they realize that doesn't work. So you make it simpler and simpler.
[01:13:17] Now, where that's counterintuitive is like in extreme ownership where I talked about doing SSC.
[01:13:24] And when we first started doing SSC, the plan was real simple.
[01:13:27] Just smash everything and just take whatever you'd find, right?
[01:13:30] That was a horrible plan and it didn't work.
[01:13:32] So we had to, we had to put something that was a little bit more looked on the surface to be a little bit more complex.
[01:13:37] Even though when you broke down the individual human beings and what they were doing, it was a very straightforward and very simple.
[01:13:42] So, so yeah, yeah, I know there's no doubt that having that opportunity to watch SOPs get tested and either pass or fail.
[01:13:50] And it was still obvious either away because it was so cool when the platoon and the taskings would start to work together.
[01:13:58] And they'd start to cover move for each other and they'd start to use decentralized command.
[01:14:02] They would crush the trade act guys.
[01:14:04] Or they would at least get the best of them.
[01:14:08] They'd at least kill them all.
[01:14:09] Whereas when they're not doing it, it would be comical.
[01:14:13] Four trade act guys would kill 40 guys or whatever it was.
[01:14:17] Then you'd just be thinking, hmm.
[01:14:19] And you're right, this is where you'd have ego problems would show up.
[01:14:22] Because guys would think, and it was so hard from my perspective when you're like, listen.
[01:14:29] The trade act cadre is going to do the same thing to the last nine troops or the last five troops.
[01:14:37] They did this exact same scenario.
[01:14:39] And the other troops used simple standard operating procedures.
[01:14:43] They covered a move.
[01:14:44] They used decentralized command and they won.
[01:14:46] Here's what you're doing.
[01:14:48] This is from my perspective and I know it's hard.
[01:14:50] But what you're doing is you're trying to control everyone or what you're doing is you've got these standard operating procedures that are too complicated.
[01:14:56] You're not prioritizing an X-Cuner. You're just, you've got to follow these simple rules.
[01:15:01] And it would be hard to convey to some guys if the guys wanted to put up their ego barrier and let it offend them and think,
[01:15:08] No, never happen or no, that's just the trade act guys knew what we were going to do.
[01:15:12] Yeah, the trade act guys know what you're going to do.
[01:15:14] You know what? You're attacking a target area.
[01:15:17] Anyone any, any military mind in the world is going to get the high ground.
[01:15:22] And then they're going to sweep through if they can from high ground to low ground.
[01:15:26] That's what everyone's going to do.
[01:15:28] It's not like the trade act guys, the anybody could figure that out.
[01:15:31] Any, any military mind is going to look at a target and do it one of three ways or one of four ways.
[01:15:37] And 50% of those four ways actually is going to overlap.
[01:15:41] So you don't have to be a frequent rocket science or a scientist or or or or or Napoleon to be able to figure out,
[01:15:48] Okay, here's the target.
[01:15:49] Where do I think the seals are going to come in from?
[01:15:51] It's like, oh, okay, they're probably going to come in from here.
[01:15:53] I'll set up two guys there.
[01:15:54] There's also a chance they're going to come in from over here.
[01:15:56] Go, I'll put two guys over there.
[01:15:57] There you go.
[01:15:58] We knew you knew our plan.
[01:16:00] It's like, yeah, bro.
[01:16:02] The enemy is, it's like you talked about you had situations where you went in and you're like,
[01:16:08] Oh, we'll go get on the high ground.
[01:16:10] Oh, the, the enemy put IED's there.
[01:16:12] Yeah, guess what?
[01:16:13] It doesn't take a rocket science to figure out.
[01:16:15] Oh, if you're going to assault us here,
[01:16:16] you're probably going to want to get this piece of this piece of terrain over here.
[01:16:20] So that would offend guys and they'd get into the, hey, this is this is wrong.
[01:16:25] And instead of saying, okay, what did I do wrong?
[01:16:27] Can you just, can you just tell me what I did wrong again?
[01:16:29] Because I need, I'm not sure I understand it.
[01:16:31] Oh, well, what you did is this.
[01:16:32] You didn't prioritize next to you.
[01:16:33] You didn't use decentralized command.
[01:16:35] And they would just, if you're not going to listen to that,
[01:16:38] you know, it's a problem.
[01:16:40] I had a guy at the master just asking me about like,
[01:16:42] how do you handle it when someone really picks you apart
[01:16:47] on a debrief?
[01:16:49] And I flag, bro.
[01:16:51] And I, and that, I, what I do is I look them rightly,
[01:16:55] and I say, thank you.
[01:16:58] Thank you for telling me that, please, thank you.
[01:17:00] And, and I appreciate it.
[01:17:02] And I'm going to go look at what you just told me.
[01:17:04] And I'm going to try and figure out if I can fix it.
[01:17:06] Because otherwise, like you, you just, I could see in this guy's eyes.
[01:17:11] Like he's asking me that question because his ego is getting offended.
[01:17:15] I, and everyone's ego gets offended.
[01:17:17] Mine gets offended when somebody tells me that.
[01:17:19] When somebody gives me the nine big debrief points on what I did wrong,
[01:17:21] I'm freaking mad.
[01:17:22] I don't want to make mistakes.
[01:17:23] I even ego just like everyone else.
[01:17:25] If not a freaking larger ego than anyone else.
[01:17:27] And when somebody tells me I did nine things wrong,
[01:17:29] I'm pissed, I'm pissed at myself.
[01:17:31] And it's really easy for me to look at you and get pissed to you
[01:17:34] for telling me that I screwed this up.
[01:17:36] But instead, I've gotten old enough to realize,
[01:17:40] even if I don't like you, it's even harder if I don't like you.
[01:17:43] It's even harder.
[01:17:44] When I don't like you, it's even harder, right?
[01:17:45] That's what makes it super hard.
[01:17:47] But when you go, you know what?
[01:17:49] You bite down and you go, okay, thank you.
[01:17:52] Let me assess what you just told me.
[01:17:54] If you could make that little step up in your life,
[01:17:57] it's epic.
[01:17:58] And when guys want to your point,
[01:18:00] when guys wouldn't make that step in that step up
[01:18:03] in coming through the trade at training,
[01:18:06] it would be a nightmare.
[01:18:08] It was a nightmare.
[01:18:09] And the thing is man, like, I love all these team guys.
[01:18:13] I want them to go kick ass.
[01:18:15] That's all I wanted was to go do great things on the planet.
[01:18:19] And when you get that, the guy coming through
[01:18:21] that just would be offended by it.
[01:18:23] And I'd be so bummed out.
[01:18:25] I'd be so bummed out.
[01:18:28] I'd be like, bro, I'd just want you to do good.
[01:18:30] I'm just telling you, like, don't focus on a head count
[01:18:32] when you're in the firefight.
[01:18:33] That's what I'm saying.
[01:18:34] Yeah.
[01:18:36] And then you get to the point where
[01:18:39] you're just like, oh man, you're not going to get it.
[01:18:45] Now I'm just going to make you suffer.
[01:18:48] Yeah.
[01:18:49] But because you'll get critique points where guys will say,
[01:18:56] hey, we need to get an op so we can go start to finish
[01:19:00] where you let us win basically.
[01:19:03] And you know, if you're playing football
[01:19:06] and your college team goes against a high school team,
[01:19:08] that's not challenging for anybody,
[01:19:10] and you're not going to really learn anything out of it.
[01:19:12] And that's why I gave you a walk through.
[01:19:15] And so after seeing that so many times and running land
[01:19:19] warfare, I started going out at the front day one
[01:19:23] and saying, hey, guys, listen, you're going to get a walk through.
[01:19:27] That's your time to work through your whole script
[01:19:30] on how you're going to run a target assault.
[01:19:32] But I'm short-changing you if I'm not putting pressure on you
[01:19:36] when we have these FTX nights because we only have this place for a limit
[01:19:40] period of time and this is where you're going to find where your weak points are
[01:19:44] and get better.
[01:19:45] And then knowing about myself when I have those two voices,
[01:19:49] arguing in my head, the one that's my ego
[01:19:52] and it's making an excuse for everything that someone is who's debriefing me
[01:19:57] is picking apart and the other reasonable voice,
[01:20:00] which I'm trying to turn the volume up on,
[01:20:03] that's going, oh yeah, that's a fair critique.
[01:20:07] Yeah, well, I got a little lazy there, shouldn't have taken my body
[01:20:11] armor off of that kind of stuff or the worst was like the OIC
[01:20:18] that would come out after you were OIC.
[01:20:21] If he came out to training and he would find some stuff that was screwed up
[01:20:25] and he's like, why am I the one fixing it?
[01:20:28] And I'm like, you are exactly right.
[01:20:31] And guys are good angry, he's like, you come out here and you call this out.
[01:20:34] He goes, we deserve it.
[01:20:36] Let's not do this ever again.
[01:20:39] We cannot have our boss coming out here and looking at how we're running training
[01:20:44] and calling us out.
[01:20:46] And a lot of it was, for an, I'll give you an example.
[01:20:51] Go onto an IAD's range and a platoon is decided to have their 60 gunner
[01:20:55] walk point because that's going to work good for an immediate action drill.
[01:21:00] But that's not what you're really going to do.
[01:21:03] That's patrol to contact.
[01:21:04] That's not what we're training in an immediate action drill.
[01:21:06] We're training for a sucker punch.
[01:21:08] And he's like, what and the why we're the sports is going on here.
[01:21:12] And we'd be like, yeah, but guys wouldn't want to tell the platoon
[01:21:18] be one of these small things where, and, and, and, and I failed in this
[01:21:23] and in, and leadership a lot of times where it just like, I'll just let that slide.
[01:21:27] I'll just let that pretty soon everything sliding and you're not really given people any guidance.
[01:21:32] But, um, yeah, people come out.
[01:21:36] You got to be honest with the critique and look at it and then move forward.
[01:21:40] And at the end of the day, you always kind of know when you're wrong and it,
[01:21:44] to take ownership of it, you feel better about it because now you have power over it.
[01:21:50] Right?
[01:21:51] And then it's like, oh, if I think that the, the trade-out staff,
[01:21:56] is cheating, non-powerless against it and it's just kind of a stress that I'm going to deal.
[01:22:02] Exactly.
[01:22:03] They're just going to win.
[01:22:05] It doesn't matter blah blah.
[01:22:08] And then it's, it's also on on a trade-out.
[01:22:11] It's, and it's difficult to, to debrief people and not come off as condescending.
[01:22:16] That's a real skill.
[01:22:17] And that's the sum guys are really good at that.
[01:22:19] And that's something I try to work on.
[01:22:21] And I, I'm not perfect at it, but this is,
[01:22:24] it gives people constructive criticism in a manner that they're accepted to.
[01:22:28] Yeah, I wasn't.
[01:22:29] One of the things I'm talking about that, and trade-out is you don't really have a good relationship with 50% of the guys that come
[01:22:34] to come through.
[01:22:35] So some guys that come through, like when you're coming through in like,
[01:22:37] Hey, bro, like, we, I could do this like, be pretty straight up with you.
[01:22:40] Yeah.
[01:22:41] Some guys that don't really know you and you're from like a different team and I never worked with you before.
[01:22:44] So I have no sort of sort of relationship.
[01:22:47] And then it's a harder, you know, to say, hey man, that was a really bad job.
[01:22:51] You know, now I, I don't know.
[01:22:54] What I, what I ended up doing to trade-out was I would just be like, hey, this is what happened.
[01:22:58] You know, and by the way, I recorded you on my audio thing.
[01:23:01] Like I would carry a little voice recorder.
[01:23:03] And then when people would be panicking or freaking out, I would record them.
[01:23:07] And I'd say you were kind of freaking out out there.
[01:23:09] And they'd say, I was freaking out.
[01:23:10] Okay, listen to this.
[01:23:11] Everybody, everybody, they'd say,
[01:23:13] They're like, is that sound like freaking out to you?
[01:23:15] Is that your calm voice?
[01:23:16] So the, and the other fun thing about the Dits gear was,
[01:23:23] you could hit them with the near miss because if they got killed,
[01:23:28] they would get now drug through the desert by their ankle.
[01:23:32] Yeah.
[01:23:33] And guys didn't want to die.
[01:23:34] So they still weren't as honest about fires.
[01:23:37] They could be, but they would still like,
[01:23:39] my favorite thing to do would be put the God gun,
[01:23:43] which is just a regular thing I had as a lane grader on near miss.
[01:23:47] And if guys were screwing around,
[01:23:49] like they would not, you know, they'd all be standing up in a perimeter
[01:23:52] where they shouldn't be standing,
[01:23:54] and I would just near miss them all.
[01:23:56] Guys would just die.
[01:23:58] Yeah.
[01:23:59] They live in a real house.
[01:24:00] They was like legitimate real rounds are covered out of where they'd hear that near miss
[01:24:03] because they didn't want to get drug through the desert for freaking two
[01:24:07] kilometers to the extract point.
[01:24:09] Have all their gear beat up and bruised.
[01:24:12] Come on.
[01:24:13] Punished all their whoever has to carry use is getting completely punished.
[01:24:17] Okay, I feel my foesman.
[01:24:19] I feel my foes.
[01:24:21] Yeah.
[01:24:22] Well, I would then younger guys coming out.
[01:24:24] You know, everyone talks about the big,
[01:24:26] malignal rules.
[01:24:27] And I'm, I'm, I'm, from what I've seen when I, when I've talked to teams,
[01:24:32] and when I've gone out to some training sites, guys are awesome.
[01:24:35] I think across the board they are.
[01:24:37] Yeah.
[01:24:38] I mean, I've looked at all the new guys.
[01:24:41] And the quality of the new guys now compared to who I was.
[01:24:46] Yeah.
[01:24:47] I'm not sure I could have made it through Katrina.
[01:24:49] If I was compared against all the guys now, they're smart.
[01:24:53] They're motivated and they're hard.
[01:24:55] Yeah.
[01:24:56] And they're only coming in because they want to go to war.
[01:24:59] Yeah.
[01:25:00] Because that's a given.
[01:25:01] Yeah.
[01:25:02] Did I want to go to war?
[01:25:03] Absolutely.
[01:25:04] But it wasn't a known thing.
[01:25:05] I got to admit that I kind of thought it was.
[01:25:07] I thought like a, I'm going to nom.
[01:25:09] Yeah.
[01:25:10] I think I'm going to nom in 1991.
[01:25:13] Yeah.
[01:25:14] But yeah, these guys know for a fact.
[01:25:16] I mean, they, they, they see, they see, you know, memorial services on TV.
[01:25:21] They know what's what they're getting into for sure.
[01:25:24] And the complaints, the complaints about the Millennials that I hear are that,
[01:25:31] oh, they want to know why they're doing something.
[01:25:34] Well, duh.
[01:25:35] Yeah.
[01:25:36] You know, and you just covered that in that document that was written after
[01:25:39] a war two that says, hey, guess what?
[01:25:41] You need to tell guys why they're doing something or they're not going to be the most effective.
[01:25:47] And it's, it's generationally, generationally, it's just more blame casting
[01:25:52] or people are blinding about the next generation.
[01:25:54] Yeah.
[01:25:55] It goes back forever.
[01:25:56] That's just normal, right?
[01:25:58] I think it's one of those normal whiny things that you got to be.
[01:26:02] You know, the young guys suck.
[01:26:04] Uh-huh.
[01:26:05] Little, you suck.
[01:26:07] When I was at one of the, the leadership courses with some regular Navy leadership
[01:26:15] and one of the master chiefs was telling a story that she had an E5,
[01:26:21] that she worked in, in supply.
[01:26:24] And she's like, hey, I need you to go do the inventory today.
[01:26:27] And she's checks back, comes back like an hour and a half later.
[01:26:34] And uh, the guy had to go inventory this whole warehouse.
[01:26:38] And he's hanging out in the coffee lounge and I don't have later.
[01:26:41] And she's like, hey, what the heck is going on here?
[01:26:43] She's like, I did the inventory.
[01:26:45] And she's like, no way.
[01:26:47] That takes all day.
[01:26:48] Let's spot check it.
[01:26:49] Spotchit is randomly pulls up a couple items off that inventory list.
[01:26:53] Checks it.
[01:26:54] She's like, how did you do this?
[01:26:56] And he's like, well, you know, I got this app reader on my phone.
[01:27:02] And I just went and scanned all the bar codes used his phone and completed the inventory,
[01:27:08] like that with a little bit of ingenuity.
[01:27:11] And so basically she just told them the end state and got out of his way.
[01:27:15] It was by accident, but she got out of his way and let him figure out how something to do it.
[01:27:20] And then then went with it.
[01:27:24] Nothing wrong with that.
[01:27:26] No.
[01:27:27] What about you for you as you've gotten older?
[01:27:30] What kind of mindset changes have you gone through?
[01:27:35] Where?
[01:27:36] Like, I just kind of talked about one from my perspective as I got older.
[01:27:40] Let's see, see different things.
[01:27:42] And I always try and make that perfectly clear to everyone that you know, I kind of,
[01:27:47] you know, I learned.
[01:27:50] I learned and I'm still learning.
[01:27:53] And so, you know, would you, what, what, what, like, were some things that if you
[01:27:59] could have learned or changed your mentality on earlier?
[01:28:04] Like what?
[01:28:06] Yeah, I mean, shutting down the ego.
[01:28:09] You know, a lot of my growth honestly is being married to Iris and is a hundred percent responsible for her.
[01:28:17] And it just shuts down here ego.
[01:28:19] Shots my ego down, but then has honest conversations about, well, what are you really thinking here?
[01:28:25] And then, you know, actually listening to what someone saying because the, the trap I used to fall into was when someone was talking to me,
[01:28:35] I wasn't really listening to them.
[01:28:37] I was just formulating what I was going to say back to them.
[01:28:40] Formulating your counter punch.
[01:28:43] Exactly.
[01:28:44] And I probably score a high and trait disagreeableness.
[01:28:49] Yeah.
[01:28:50] So, you know, it's just my nature to want to be at that point of friction, but that also makes me just,
[01:28:57] you know, want to go stick my finger in people's eyes and offend them and stuff like that.
[01:29:02] And so, stepping back and opening my mind up to other points of view.
[01:29:10] And then being a little bit more cognizant of other people and how they're reacting to me.
[01:29:17] So, I kind of just Hawaiian or act with them relationship wise.
[01:29:21] I don't know if you remember this question at the Master Guide asked, hey, what, what do you do when you,
[01:29:26] how do you deal with someone who's super negative and about, you know, the, the, the team or whatever.
[01:29:34] And, you know, I said, here's a really good leadership technique that you can use.
[01:29:39] It's very complicated.
[01:29:40] It's called Listen.
[01:29:42] How much you listen to them?
[01:29:43] But you actually listen to what people are saying, somebody feels really negative about my team.
[01:29:47] Guess what?
[01:29:48] I want to know why.
[01:29:49] I want to actually hear their explanation as to why they're being super negative.
[01:29:52] And by the way, when you allow someone to voice their opinion and you listen to them,
[01:29:57] carefully instead of formulating a counter punch, which is what our instinct is to do.
[01:30:01] If instead of you, hmm, okay, what's wrong Jason, what's, what's the problem over here?
[01:30:05] I actually want to listen to you.
[01:30:06] I want to hear what you have to say.
[01:30:08] And that is such an advantage as a leader instead of always feeling like, hey, anybody that steps to me is getting crushed.
[01:30:17] Look, no, actually, anyway, it steps to me is going to teach me something.
[01:30:20] And I'm happy to hear it.
[01:30:22] Yeah, boom.
[01:30:24] And then just being aware of, you know, my biases.
[01:30:32] And then I find this a lot of times with the dang media presses the heck out of my buttons.
[01:30:39] And so I got to the point where I just, I don't want to news anymore because the news is hard.
[01:30:47] It's there to get you angry, so you'll pay attention to it and gets them better ratings.
[01:30:53] And a lot of times when I'll see some really extreme things that they're claiming people said,
[01:30:58] when I dig into it, when I actually take the time to dig into it, it's like not quite what it was.
[01:31:04] And now that I've become a lot more introspective.
[01:31:09] And so I'm paying attention to how things make me react.
[01:31:12] I'm paying attention to when my face flushes out or I grip and I'm like, okay, now it's time to detach and step back.
[01:31:18] I've noticed that it's just like, it's not a positive, positive, you know,
[01:31:24] thing in my life to have my blood pressure spiked again and again and again and again,
[01:31:29] because I've got a 24 hour news feed coming in.
[01:31:32] Yeah.
[01:31:33] And so another team that I pointed this out to me, he's like, hey, let's talk about the news.
[01:31:39] And I was all angry about something and he's like, you know what, I quit watching the news.
[01:31:44] And he goes, I'm a lot happier since I stopped watching the news.
[01:31:47] It doesn't matter.
[01:31:48] And I'm like, are you kidding me?
[01:31:49] Of course it matters.
[01:31:51] But he planted a little seed and watered it and then I'm like, okay, I'm going to quit watching the news.
[01:31:56] Yeah.
[01:31:57] And it doesn't matter.
[01:31:58] And I was to the point where I'll just check the news like first thing in the morning to make sure
[01:32:03] of volcano and stuff.
[01:32:04] Right.
[01:32:05] Now I don't even do that.
[01:32:06] If there's a volcano going off, I'll see the smoke or someone will tell you.
[01:32:08] Yeah, you're going to find out about it.
[01:32:10] The 24 hour news cycle is filled with a lot of things that you don't need to know.
[01:32:14] You don't need to know at all.
[01:32:15] And that's the kind of way I am.
[01:32:17] I mean, I still look at it, but it doesn't.
[01:32:19] I'm completely, I can look at, I can look at 19 headlines in a row.
[01:32:23] And none of them have any remote impact on my mentality at all until I see one that says,
[01:32:30] Oh, there was a terror bombing here.
[01:32:32] And I go, okay, let's see what's going on or.
[01:32:34] Hey, there was a US servicemen killed here and I'm like, okay.
[01:32:37] But every other of the 17 headlines that I read that were,
[01:32:43] I'm trying to think of a good one right now because they're just, you know,
[01:32:47] everything is going down.
[01:32:50] I don't even like, okay, fine, yeah, I admit, no, everything's not going down.
[01:32:53] The world isn't going to end.
[01:32:55] But it's clickbait isn't.
[01:32:56] Yeah, it is.
[01:32:57] And I, you guys are the first ones I heard used that word.
[01:33:00] I'm like, oh, that's what that is.
[01:33:02] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:33:03] Was exactly what it's going on, clickbait, but it's just clickbait on the TV to get you
[01:33:08] to dial in and get them higher.
[01:33:09] Oh, yeah.
[01:33:10] And then we got to listen that Sam Harris and I forget the females name that was on,
[01:33:14] but she did this whole research about it talking about how the Russian,
[01:33:18] the Russian bots and all that stuff.
[01:33:20] And yeah, you can create headlines that are going to make people click.
[01:33:24] And then you can make fictional random, you can just make up stories.
[01:33:28] I know.
[01:33:29] And people catch, you know, someone else will report that story as being true.
[01:33:34] It's a crazy world.
[01:33:35] The onion, is that joke and newspaper?
[01:33:38] Yeah, they've got their A.P. is picked.
[01:33:40] Their stuff up like two or three times before.
[01:33:42] Totally nuts.
[01:33:43] So you've got to learn, you should definitely add a middle mom learn to detach when you read the news.
[01:33:50] Yeah.
[01:33:51] And then something that I found real helpful is, is putting a filter on my thoughts.
[01:33:57] So the, and as is something that Iris is kind of talked about.
[01:34:02] She's like the first filter is am I whining?
[01:34:05] And then the second filter is am I resentful?
[01:34:10] And then the third filter is am I jealous?
[01:34:13] And if I can just catch that stuff, once I identify it, it doesn't bother me anymore.
[01:34:19] But prior to identifying it, if I'm just like, oh, someone told you,
[01:34:24] just got a promotion.
[01:34:25] That's bullshit.
[01:34:26] He, you know, and then I realized, wait a minute,
[01:34:29] I should be happy for him for getting that promotion.
[01:34:32] And Jordan Peterson says something about be careful
[01:34:37] who you share good news with.
[01:34:40] And, and, and I just don't, that's not, that's not something I, I,
[01:34:44] I'm proud of when I see it come up in myself and that's one of the things that,
[01:34:49] that as I age, I'm, I'm trying to fix the other thing that that as I've gotten older is I used to be very
[01:34:57] group identified with.
[01:34:59] And now I find myself becoming more of an individual.
[01:35:04] If that makes sense.
[01:35:05] And this, this is, that's where I'm trying to go.
[01:35:09] And this is, this is the path that, that I'm on.
[01:35:13] And it's, it's a struggle.
[01:35:15] And it all comes down.
[01:35:16] And I kind of wish there was two words for ego, right?
[01:35:19] Because the ego, if I didn't have an ego driving me to be better,
[01:35:24] yeah.
[01:35:25] I, I would just be sitting at home, meeting chocolate and cookies on the couch.
[01:35:29] Right.
[01:35:30] There's not two words to describe ego, but there is the dichotomy of it.
[01:35:32] And then you're good to go.
[01:35:35] Yeah.
[01:35:36] You know, one of my team guy buddies, a long time ago,
[01:35:41] we could use this phrase, which I, which I always remembered because I thought it was really good.
[01:35:46] Basically someone was whining about something.
[01:35:49] And you know, you know, raise their hand and say,
[01:35:51] well, you know why we're doing this.
[01:35:52] And then afterwards, my buddy goes, hey, that's cool.
[01:35:55] Put yourself on report for being a bitch.
[01:35:58] And so like, I've been hypersensitive to that for a long time.
[01:36:05] I do not ever, you know, I don't care what I'm going through.
[01:36:08] I will not complain about anything.
[01:36:10] Like I am hypersensitive about that.
[01:36:12] At least I try to be, I mean, you know, cold,
[01:36:15] and I'm not going to say anything.
[01:36:17] You know, hurt.
[01:36:19] I hurt my knee.
[01:36:20] And I, my knee was also one of all jacked up.
[01:36:24] And I didn't tell anyone.
[01:36:26] I was a little bit, hey, I injured my knee.
[01:36:28] No, no factor.
[01:36:29] And finally, life was like, hey, you know,
[01:36:31] what's up with your knee?
[01:36:32] I said to my picture.
[01:36:33] Like the knee is just twice as big as the other one.
[01:36:36] He's like, oh, my God.
[01:36:38] Are you going to need surgery?
[01:36:39] I'm like, no, no factor.
[01:36:40] But, and I only sent it to him like six or seven days.
[01:36:43] The swelling had gone down.
[01:36:45] But out of the gate, I wasn't going to say anything because I don't,
[01:36:47] I don't want to sit there and complain.
[01:36:48] Like, bro, I hurt my knee.
[01:36:50] Doing Gigiitsu.
[01:36:51] Oh, no.
[01:36:52] You know what I mean?
[01:36:53] Like, come on, bro.
[01:36:54] I'm not going to complain about that.
[01:36:55] But yeah, those are other things about being resentful and being jealous.
[01:36:59] Whenever I feel that tension of,
[01:37:03] when I feel that tension of jealousy,
[01:37:05] when I feel that tension of, when I feel like,
[01:37:08] when I feel like mad at someone,
[01:37:10] for doing something, I automatically know it's me.
[01:37:12] I automatically, and I've known that for years.
[01:37:14] There was a stone or as a matter of fact,
[01:37:16] was going to, he wanted to go to Princeton.
[01:37:19] And he, he said to me, he, and he,
[01:37:23] I wasn't, we weren't together at Team 3 anymore.
[01:37:26] And so he was talking to some people.
[01:37:28] And finally, he comes to me and he says,
[01:37:29] hey man, I want to go to Princeton.
[01:37:31] I want to put together this package and go to Princeton.
[01:37:33] He said, but some of the other people I'm talking to
[01:37:37] are telling me it'd be bad for my career.
[01:37:39] And I'm like, bro, those guys are just jealous.
[01:37:44] That's not happening.
[01:37:45] I go, you go and you get your freaking degree from Princeton.
[01:37:48] Are you kidding me?
[01:37:49] How is that going to be bad for any day,
[01:37:51] and he did, he ended up doing it. And he got, he got it,
[01:37:53] and he got accepted.
[01:37:54] And, but that was one of those things where it was so obvious to me.
[01:37:58] Like whoever told you that is just telling you that,
[01:38:01] because they don't want you to have another punk car to pull on you.
[01:38:04] Because like, hey, your stone or your, you know,
[01:38:07] you've got a bunch of combat experience,
[01:38:09] you've got a bunch of combat awards,
[01:38:11] your, your, this big strapping dude,
[01:38:13] and by the way, you're going to go to Princeton.
[01:38:15] Like no one wanted that final punk car to be issued this donor.
[01:38:19] It's hard when you see someone else that's successful.
[01:38:22] And you know that like,
[01:38:24] I should be getting up off my ass and getting into Princeton myself,
[01:38:28] or going, you know,
[01:38:30] you can't control whether or not you're deployed to combat.
[01:38:33] But a lot of other stuff is,
[01:38:34] and I think that's where it gets painful for guys.
[01:38:37] It's like, okay, well, I'm not going to make the effort.
[01:38:40] So I don't want anybody else to make the effort either.
[01:38:43] I'm a crab in this bucket, and I'm going to drag that crab
[01:38:46] that's trying to climb out back in the bucket.
[01:38:48] And this is actually in a way the warrior could three.
[01:38:51] This is why I had to address this,
[01:38:53] which in a way the warrior could three, you know, have you read it yet?
[01:38:56] Not yet.
[01:38:57] It's a way the warrior kid,
[01:38:58] there's a new character that comes as a name as Danny Ryan Hart.
[01:39:00] And he's like good at everything.
[01:39:01] He's better at Mark than everything.
[01:39:03] He's like a little bit smarter,
[01:39:04] it does better on the test in school,
[01:39:06] and he's a little bit faster,
[01:39:07] and he can do more pull ups,
[01:39:08] and then like to take the cake,
[01:39:10] because he's a new kid moves in,
[01:39:11] and Mark still thinks he's got the ultimate punk card to pull,
[01:39:16] which is I do due to get to,
[01:39:18] and I can choke you some of the other stuff matters.
[01:39:20] It turns out Danny Ryan Hart's been training for two more years.
[01:39:23] And that's exactly what happens.
[01:39:25] Mark, instead of saying,
[01:39:27] wow, I can learn from you, wow, you can help me, wow.
[01:39:30] That's awesome.
[01:39:31] I know you work hard for that,
[01:39:32] instead he just tries to undermine and he just is jealous.
[01:39:35] And so that's something that you deal with when you're starting to be,
[01:39:38] even as a little kid, you know?
[01:39:40] Yep, as you've got a little kid, you can be jealous.
[01:39:42] So checking to check yourself,
[01:39:45] if you're being resentful, if you're jealous of someone,
[01:39:48] those are like the first things I check when I start getting mad at someone,
[01:39:52] those are the first things I check when I start getting mad at someone I go,
[01:39:55] and I be in jealous right now, yes I am.
[01:39:58] Yes I am.
[01:39:59] Yes I am.
[01:40:00] Yeah, that is not good.
[01:40:02] And what's worked out really well for me,
[01:40:04] is when you identify these people that are good at everything,
[01:40:08] keep them around you.
[01:40:10] Oh, for sure.
[01:40:11] For sure.
[01:40:12] And that's the other the other clincher in the way the word you could
[01:40:16] three is Danny Reinhardt.
[01:40:17] He's not only like better, he's also like a really nice kid.
[01:40:20] Yeah.
[01:40:21] And so that makes Mark even madder.
[01:40:24] Because everyone wants to be friends with him.
[01:40:26] Yeah, because he's nice.
[01:40:27] So yeah, you got to watch out for that.
[01:40:29] Check yourself.
[01:40:30] Don't get that.
[01:40:31] I wanted to talk about some leadership mistakes that you've made.
[01:40:37] And I was thinking myself, well, I could call out Jason for leadership
[01:40:40] mistakes that he's made.
[01:40:42] That's kind of jacked up if I don't talk about it.
[01:40:44] I mean, leadership mistakes that I've made.
[01:40:45] Now, of course, I've listed a bunch of leadership
[01:40:47] mistakes that I've made in that kind of be of leadership
[01:40:50] and an extreme ownership.
[01:40:51] So there's that.
[01:40:52] But I got a couple that I thought of.
[01:40:55] And I'll try to think of some broad ones.
[01:40:57] One of them is when I was in Ramadi.
[01:41:02] I hate to start off like that.
[01:41:04] When I was in Ramadi, I did not do a,
[01:41:08] as good a job as I should have.
[01:41:11] And I'll go a little bit further.
[01:41:14] To keeping the rest of our community informed as to what was happening
[01:41:20] and why it was happening.
[01:41:21] And to be honest with you, the reason I say I'll go further
[01:41:24] than I just didn't keep them informed, I wasn't even thinking about it.
[01:41:27] I wasn't even thinking about it.
[01:41:28] When I got home and one of our good friends said to me,
[01:41:34] and he was all fired up and he's like, we were reading your,
[01:41:38] he's like, we read your A, R's or quarters every day.
[01:41:41] Like, so every day at trade at at the time while we were in Ramadi,
[01:41:45] they were reading the A, R's, the after action report for the A.
[01:41:49] They killed nine guys.
[01:41:50] They killed seven guys.
[01:41:51] And that's, you know, I was like, hey, that's awesome.
[01:41:54] That's cool.
[01:41:55] I didn't really even think of that.
[01:41:56] But what I also didn't think of was guys that were saying,
[01:41:59] hey, wait a second, what do these guys doing over there?
[01:42:01] Wait a second, wait, why are you conducting operations during the day time?
[01:42:05] Hey, wait a second, why are you staying out after you get contacted?
[01:42:10] Why are you staying in position?
[01:42:12] Hey, wait a second, why are you working alongside the conventional forces?
[01:42:17] Why aren't you doing stuff with just special operations?
[01:42:21] And I did a bad job of explaining these things to our community as a whole.
[01:42:27] And even when we got back, I had the opportunity to do it.
[01:42:30] And I spread the word to some people and was able to explain to them.
[01:42:33] But by then, some people had already thought, oh, well, these guys were just over there.
[01:42:36] Do doing these rogue operations by themselves and they shouldn't have been doing it.
[01:42:40] So that's, that's one, that's one big one that I wish it would have done a better job.
[01:42:46] And I just, I just wasn't even paying attention.
[01:42:48] And you know what it's like, man, I mean, this is my, this is my excuse is my, it's my fault.
[01:42:55] Because I was over there and I'm thinking like, hey, we got an opportunity.
[01:42:59] And like, hey, we got an operation tomorrow. I got two, I got two elements going out of the field.
[01:43:03] I'm not worried about what they're thinking.
[01:43:04] Like, I just didn't even think of it. And I should have.
[01:43:07] So I don't know if that's an excuse. It's the reason why I didn't think of it way.
[01:43:11] I should have. And I was wrong for not doing that.
[01:43:13] How much bandwidth could you have expanded on it though in the moment?
[01:43:16] You know what? If I would have been a little bit smarter and a little bit better,
[01:43:21] I could have taken 15 minutes to send out an email and say, hey, everyone,
[01:43:25] want to let you know what this up was really like, is there really the obsomes, right?
[01:43:29] The obsomes is an official document. If I could have supplemented that with hey guys,
[01:43:33] Joko here, I know this one sounds a little bit crazy. Here's what's going on.
[01:43:37] The Iraqi soldiers that we're working with, they don't have night vision.
[01:43:41] They have one flashlight, purifier team to go out at night with these guys is completely,
[01:43:47] it doesn't work. And so we got to go out in the daytime with them sometimes.
[01:43:52] And so that's what we're doing. Here's why we're doing it. You know,
[01:43:55] I could have done it. I could have expanded a little bit and I just didn't have the awareness that I should have had
[01:44:00] to explain these things. Also to explain them in plain English.
[01:44:03] Because it's one thing to read the obsome. That's an official document.
[01:44:07] That's written a certain way. It's another thing to say, hey guys,
[01:44:11] Joko here. Here's what's going on.
[01:44:13] Because I mean, let's face it at that time. I'd been in for a long time.
[01:44:18] And I had friends everywhere. I mean, and when my friends would reach out to me,
[01:44:22] this is probably should have been my best indicator.
[01:44:24] Some of my friends that reached out to me and said, hey dude, what's going on?
[01:44:28] Like, I heard you just got to go, I heard one of you guys got shot.
[01:44:31] What's going on? How's that happening? And I had one specific friend of mine who wrote me like a long email.
[01:44:37] And I wrote him back, right? And today, man, this is what's going on.
[01:44:42] But that should have been an indicator if one of my friends was reaching out to me and saying, hey,
[01:44:46] what's going on? I should have been more cognizant in the fact that people beyond.
[01:44:51] And people that didn't know me at all, you know, would be thinking, you know,
[01:44:55] well, this guy's a hyper aggressive and they're just out there,
[01:44:59] taking too many risks. It's like, no. And what was cool was there was some guys that were in
[01:45:05] Ramadi, other seals that were in Ramadi are working in and around Ramadi at the time,
[01:45:09] who I knew. And they were like, you guys are crushed. You guys are doing great.
[01:45:13] This is awesome. Yeah. But I didn't do a good job. So that's that's one thing.
[01:45:17] I don't know what it looked like for your perspective. Where were you when I was there?
[01:45:21] In Paycom, pull side at Thailand, explaining to my guys why we had to put the missions first.
[01:45:28] Yeah, check, check. Yeah.
[01:45:30] But at the time, I was excited for you guys because it was like the, that was like the first
[01:45:37] sustained heavy combat of that war. Yeah. Yeah. Everything had been.
[01:45:46] We were talking about the big news to stand around and talk about when you were at
[01:45:51] the bar was was maybe a tick or a firefight lasted five minutes.
[01:45:56] Yeah. And you guys were troops in contact a hundred percent of the time every time
[01:46:00] you walked outside the gate. Yeah. It wasn't quite that, but it was a lot. Yeah.
[01:46:03] And then that's for sure. And that's what that's what I think I think I should have explained that better
[01:46:09] than I did throughout the community. And you know, I still talk guys.
[01:46:13] I still have the opportunity when I was, you know, some guys that I'll, I'll still explain this to some guy
[01:46:17] that I haven't seen because you know, as you run to have a few, you know, seen in 15 years.
[01:46:20] Yeah. They'll be like, do what you do over there.
[01:46:22] Okay. Let me explain it to you. I've had people sit through kind of the, the Ramadi brief
[01:46:27] and be like, okay, I get it. I get, yeah, that makes sense. Roger.
[01:46:33] But yeah, should have done a better job of that from a leadership perspective.
[01:46:37] I was trying to think of a tactical example of, and this is really easy story.
[01:46:43] Once I'm my personally chased down some dude over multiple rooftops as a, in Baghdad, you know, like
[01:46:48] just got in the one man pursuit, well, I had another guy like trailing me, but
[01:46:52] basically, we're hitting a target. There's a squirger. I'm outside the building as it's
[01:46:59] happening and also, you know, the, the overhead asset reports that there's a squirger
[01:47:04] and he jumped to another rooftop. And I had a radio, the radioman was like near me.
[01:47:11] And we both know the radioman. And he's like, hey, he's like, you went to the next roof.
[01:47:16] And I was like, got him. And so I climb up a palm tree, a climb up a palm tree, like
[01:47:23] in between a palm tree and like the garage and I get to the roof and I get and
[01:47:26] he's like, he jumped to the next one and so the radio, the J attack is in the street
[01:47:30] with me following down and telling me what's going on. And basically, I left my, I
[01:47:35] shouldn't have done that. You know, I should have sent a couple guys and eventually
[01:47:38] I got with someone else with me and then we got the guy. But you know, I just was trying
[01:47:43] to have, hey, where did I make some mistakes? Where that were more on a tactical level.
[01:47:48] And that's one right there is, you know, I'm in charge of the assault. And if I'm out there
[01:47:55] chasing the guy from the rooftop, I'm not doing my job.
[01:47:59] But they did have it on video. And it was pretty awesome to watch.
[01:48:05] And I tried to get a hold of it. But of course, it's classified so I couldn't have it.
[01:48:10] It was pretty cool to watch, you know, you can like park or in the pit.
[01:48:15] Yeah, it's going to palm tree and then jump from rooftop roof and then eventually
[01:48:21] they're like, hey, so that one right there. And yeah, so that was one.
[01:48:26] And then the last thing again, I was trying to think of like a variety of different
[01:48:30] mistakes. And here's something from a leadership perspective that I really,
[01:48:34] when I look back, I wish I would have done a better job. And that's helping guys with
[01:48:38] their finances. Young guys. I mean, how many young guys
[01:48:43] reinlaced, they get $150,000 reinlustment bonus. And they show up at work two days later.
[01:48:49] They've got a new Ford F350 super duty, Harley Davidson version.
[01:48:55] And they have, you know, they have a $62,000 truck.
[01:49:00] That is now worth, they just had it for a day. And they've now worth 48,000.
[01:49:04] So they already lost money. And guys that would rent instead of bought, you know,
[01:49:08] just all those things where, and I wasn't like super at it.
[01:49:13] But I was ahead. And I should have been telling guys like, hey, man, let me talk to you.
[01:49:17] Hey, guys, let's do a little, let's do talk for a half an hour about where you're at.
[01:49:22] Right now, let's come up with a strategic objective of where you're going to be in five
[01:49:28] years. You know, T.E.S. don't want to be renting apartment in IB.
[01:49:31] Because that's probably not great. Or do you want to be buying a place, get with one of your buddies.
[01:49:36] So I never talked about that kind of stuff. And again, what it boils down to is my own,
[01:49:42] my own being obsessed. Like, I didn't care about that stuff. You know what I mean?
[01:49:47] I guess I cared about it enough to do it. And I got lucky. I had an officer one time.
[01:49:53] That said, I bought a house every three years and kept it. He just said that to me.
[01:49:58] And I was like, that seems like a really good idea. And that's what I tried to do.
[01:50:02] But I didn't pass that word on. And I could probably help out more guys.
[01:50:06] So kind of a bummer on that one.
[01:50:08] I, yeah, because that aspect, I completely dropped the ball on that early in my career as well.
[01:50:17] Later on, I got a little bit better at it. But, you know, because I didn't 30.
[01:50:23] But I could tell a guy how to be a good shooter.
[01:50:26] Yeah. But then I didn't look at the whole rest of the dang pie chart.
[01:50:31] And realize that if I fixed all that other stuff,
[01:50:35] they'd be any better shooter.
[01:50:36] Exponentially better. Right?
[01:50:39] And, yeah, that, that was something that, that actually helping guys.
[01:50:45] And then we're stuff that, this is, this is something I really failed at is like,
[01:50:50] I could see guys messing up.
[01:50:53] But I didn't want to have that uncomfortable conversation with them.
[01:50:58] So like, bro, you got to, you got to kind of fix this.
[01:51:01] Like, hey, you know, you've used the analogy before.
[01:51:04] I have a booker hanging out. I want somebody to tell me.
[01:51:07] And so I see, you get mad at them.
[01:51:10] Who's talking about, I wanted that booker there.
[01:51:13] No, I, I definitely wouldn't.
[01:51:16] I had some of those conversations for sure.
[01:51:19] And I'm sure you did, too. Like, hey, this girl.
[01:51:21] She's not the one. I'm going to tell you that right now.
[01:51:24] Uh, this isn't going to work out well for you.
[01:51:27] The problem is getting somebody to listen to that conversation is real hard when it comes to the ladies.
[01:51:32] Yeah, and that aspect of just, most times it blows up in your face.
[01:51:36] And then sometimes you're just like, hey, I realize that maybe I'm going to lose my friendship with you.
[01:51:41] True.
[01:51:42] But, uh, I got to tell you this.
[01:51:46] And later on in my career when I started to start like struggling with anger issues.
[01:51:55] And it were probably a result of my combat deployments.
[01:51:58] And started to go sit down with a psych.
[01:52:01] And I would see, you know, you were super angry even before.
[01:52:04] I was like, I was like probably pretty pretty predisposed to it all.
[01:52:09] And I just met, it just turned it up to 11, right?
[01:52:12] And, uh, and then I would see myself and other guys.
[01:52:16] And I would tell him, hey, man, here's the deal.
[01:52:20] Here's the psych's number.
[01:52:21] I want you just to give them a call.
[01:52:23] And you don't have to see him after that, but do me this favor.
[01:52:27] And some guys it would help and other guys, I made the effort.
[01:52:33] And they'll come to that conclusion at some point.
[01:52:36] But it's like, son, you know, we got to look out, look out for each other and do the best we can.
[01:52:41] And that was something that, you know, missed out on.
[01:52:44] Uh, I think I probably would have made an awesome platoon chief about the time I was an ops master chief.
[01:52:51] Two echelons above it and really realized what that job was because that as a platoon chief,
[01:52:58] one of the things that I missed out on was that the guys are always looking at me to set the example.
[01:53:06] And so it was one thing during working hours like it's set an example, but if I'm a buffoon out drinking too hard, they're like you're an idiot.
[01:53:15] Or they follow your example.
[01:53:17] And they they'll follow my example and think that this is acceptable behavior.
[01:53:22] Uh, if if I'm going to bad mouth my leadership, which is I'm embarrassed to say it, but it's just stuff that if I didn't.
[01:53:29] Didn't really have my aperture open on the big picture and would complain about the command and then I complain in front of the guys just screwing them over.
[01:53:38] And I did because they're like, well, he's whining.
[01:53:42] Yeah.
[01:53:43] Now I'm going to go ahead and whine.
[01:53:45] Uh, I had issues where like personally I didn't like the person that I was working directly for.
[01:53:55] And that that tainted my interaction with that person.
[01:54:01] I didn't have any relationship with them.
[01:54:04] And then my whole platoon would suffer because I had a bad relationship with the next guy up just because I didn't like them, which is complete weak sauce.
[01:54:15] Oh yeah, I was having a conversation with Dave Burke.
[01:54:18] Yeah.
[01:54:19] And it was we had that he just quoted me yesterday, I was hanging out with him and with the quote was like whatever six months ago, we're having a conversation.
[01:54:30] And I said something like, hey, Dave, whether I love you or hate you, you won't know either way.
[01:54:42] And he was like, he said, well, it kind of freaks me out because you're super nice to me and now I think you could just hate me and don't care.
[01:54:50] And you know, we laughed about it.
[01:54:51] But that's exactly right. And that is the truth.
[01:54:54] Like the guys that I hated never knew it.
[01:54:59] I mean, to this day, they don't know it.
[01:55:03] And so I mean, you and I were having a conversation about a couple of people that I obviously don't like at all.
[01:55:10] They don't know that.
[01:55:12] So you've got to be professional at all at all times.
[01:55:16] And it's a very small number of people.
[01:55:18] Most people are pretty cool to me, you know, and most people support what I'm trying to get done.
[01:55:23] So I'm pretty lucky in that way.
[01:55:25] But yeah, if you let that out, that's bad.
[01:55:29] Is there ever really a reason not to be polite?
[01:55:31] Yeah, very seldom.
[01:55:33] Yeah.
[01:55:34] You could politely punch someone in the face.
[01:55:37] And you could just punch him in the face.
[01:55:41] Here's what people can do.
[01:55:43] Here's what people can do.
[01:55:44] Here's what people can do.
[01:55:45] You know, that's what you're talking with, Joko.
[01:55:47] Your kiss ass.
[01:55:48] It's like, actually, let me tell you what I actually want to do.
[01:55:50] What I actually want to do is I want to sap my batoon, able to get the sport that they need.
[01:55:55] What I actually want to do is I want to be able to have my batoon get the sport that they need.
[01:55:58] So that we can actually do a better job doing our mission.
[01:56:01] That's what I'm doing.
[01:56:02] What I care about is my guys and my mission.
[01:56:03] That's what I actually care about.
[01:56:04] And if I've got to be polite to someone to make that happen, if I've got to overlook the fact that someone might not be the personality type that I particularly like,
[01:56:12] I don't care.
[01:56:13] I don't care.
[01:56:14] Guess what?
[01:56:15] I'm going to deal with it.
[01:56:16] I'm going to accept that I'm going to absorb whatever kind of crap that they want to throw.
[01:56:20] And I'm going to deal with it.
[01:56:22] It's fine.
[01:56:22] Now, do you get into situations where you actually have a bad boss that you have to show?
[01:56:29] Let's face it.
[01:56:30] If I'm treating you like a piece of shit or I'm making really bad decisions and all you do is support me and you're a yes man,
[01:56:38] well your guys are going to lose respect for you.
[01:56:40] So there's times where you have to say, hey, listen guys, the years what's going on.
[01:56:44] I don't agree with everything that the boss says, but you know what?
[01:56:47] He's the boss right now.
[01:56:49] And what we're going to do is try the easiest way the way for me to get him to make better decisions is if he trusts me.
[01:56:55] So right now what we're going to do is we're going to kick ass.
[01:56:57] And so suck it up, quit complaining.
[01:57:00] We're going to do a great job and I'm going to get a better relationship over him where he will start listening to me and we'll move forward.
[01:57:06] And by the way, unless we're going to have a mute me, which we're not going to have.
[01:57:11] This is the best option.
[01:57:13] The other option is me to have an antagonistic relationship with the boss in which case all he's going to do is screw us over.
[01:57:18] So how do you guys want to play this?
[01:57:20] You know what I mean?
[01:57:21] So sometimes you've got to be transparent about that stuff and that's fine too.
[01:57:24] I mean, I've been in situations where I've had to do that where it's like, okay, hey guys, here's what's going on.
[01:57:28] I know this seems a little bit crazy.
[01:57:30] I know that the boss may seem like he's making a rash decision on this.
[01:57:33] Here's what we're going to do.
[01:57:35] Let's explain his perspective.
[01:57:37] Here's what the boss is seeing.
[01:57:38] He doesn't want this to happen again.
[01:57:39] He's tightening the news.
[01:57:40] He's tightening the bleach way more than I want him to.
[01:57:43] But guess what?
[01:57:44] Let's show him that he can let loose on the leash again.
[01:57:47] Let's get in line.
[01:57:48] You'll see, you've got to have those conversations sometimes.
[01:57:50] But broadly, I'm going to get along with everybody.
[01:57:53] Why not?
[01:57:54] I want to do my mission.
[01:57:55] I want to take care of my guys the best way to do that is if I have good relationships up and down the chain of command.
[01:57:59] Boom.
[01:58:00] Oh, question.
[01:58:01] What?
[01:58:02] So, and you know I don't like you.
[01:58:03] In your even in secret.
[01:58:04] In your view.
[01:58:05] The secret is out.
[01:58:07] Yeah.
[01:58:08] That's kind of got that either way.
[01:58:11] In your view, what?
[01:58:13] What's the difference between that?
[01:58:15] How you say, like you get along, like even if you don't, if you really don't like someone they don't ever know.
[01:58:19] In your view, what's the difference between that and being like, oh, what do you go like?
[01:58:22] Like a two face or a, you know, like let's say, all these are two face person or whatever.
[01:58:27] Well, one big thing is I'm not, I'm not, I'm not getting along with some sort.
[01:58:31] I can, so that I can better my own life.
[01:58:34] I'm not doing it, so I can take care of me.
[01:58:36] Yeah.
[01:58:37] Because I don't really care about me.
[01:58:38] I'm doing it, so I can do my job well, so I can take care of my petun, so I can take care of my team, so I can accomplish my mission.
[01:58:42] That's number one.
[01:58:43] If I'm doing it, so I can get the promotion.
[01:58:45] I'm actually the guy that I don't like.
[01:58:48] The guy that's like, oh, I'm doing this, so I can get promoted, no, I'm not doing that.
[01:58:52] And that's another thing.
[01:58:54] The troops see through that every single time.
[01:58:56] Everybody knows.
[01:58:57] They have a name for it in the teams.
[01:58:58] That guy is a ticket puncher.
[01:59:00] They're trying to get their ticket puncher.
[01:59:01] Oh, he's just trying to get his ticket punch.
[01:59:02] He's trying to grab onto that guy's, grab a hold of that person's coat tails and ride him up.
[01:59:07] You know, ride him up to the neck rank.
[01:59:09] It's like, no, everyone sees through that.
[01:59:11] If you're doing the right thing, so the right reasons people are like, hey, you know what?
[01:59:14] Jocquille, you're, I mean, every time people look, do your patient guy.
[01:59:17] Leave Babin told me that.
[01:59:19] And he said, hey, you're so patient.
[01:59:20] I don't see how you do.
[01:59:21] I don't see how you do it.
[01:59:22] You know, this is when he was younger.
[01:59:23] Like, bro, how do you deal with that?
[01:59:25] I care about our task unit.
[01:59:28] I will make this happen.
[01:59:30] I can absorb some impacts.
[01:59:32] No factor.
[01:59:33] Bring it.
[01:59:34] I remember when I was working the club.
[01:59:36] And I was in guy.
[01:59:37] What?
[01:59:38] That was too face.
[01:59:39] And when I listened to you like, how you're like, oh, yeah, because he said that before.
[01:59:42] They, you like, if you didn't like someone, they probably wouldn't know.
[01:59:46] And I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, they make sense.
[01:59:49] You know, because it, like, it helps the relationship, helps morale, like, helps all these things, right?
[01:59:53] And then, so I think, oh, yeah, a two face guy, there was a distinct difference.
[01:59:57] And one of the main things on top of what you said, because what you said was like,
[02:00:01] I think a little bit more thorough, ultimately view,
[02:00:04] mine is a little bit more.
[02:00:06] I should, I say.
[02:00:07] Strap forward.
[02:00:08] Ground level.
[02:00:09] I guess.
[02:00:10] Can I guess what you're going to say?
[02:00:12] Sure.
[02:00:13] Because the other option, the other answer I was going to give is I'm not acting differently than one situation.
[02:00:19] I don't go.
[02:00:20] Hey boss.
[02:00:21] Yes.
[02:00:21] I got it.
[02:00:22] And then go back for a two-to-go.
[02:00:23] He's an idiot.
[02:00:24] No, no, no, no, no.
[02:00:25] I don't do that.
[02:00:26] I go.
[02:00:27] Hey boss.
[02:00:28] You know what?
[02:00:29] And even if it was the situation where I was saying, like, I might go back and tell the guys,
[02:00:31] like, hey, guys, this is what's going on.
[02:00:32] I would tell the boss.
[02:00:33] I wouldn't say boss.
[02:00:34] That sounds like a greatest plan ever.
[02:00:35] Yeah.
[02:00:36] No, I'd say, hey boss.
[02:00:36] I'm not, I don't think I'm 100% on board with this.
[02:00:38] I see some other ways we could give this done.
[02:00:40] That's what you're telling me you want me to do.
[02:00:43] I'm going to make it happen.
[02:00:44] But I think we could, you know, I'm going to, so I don't act differently.
[02:00:48] I'm not a different person in front of, you know, I was doing an event the other day.
[02:00:52] And I was like talking to a company.
[02:00:54] And I was backstage talking to CEO.
[02:00:57] And we were just, you know, and all of a sudden, you know, there's like, he's like,
[02:01:00] hey, it's only another half an hour before you go on.
[02:01:02] Do you need some time?
[02:01:04] And I was like, no, I don't need any time because the person that's going to walk out on that stage is me.
[02:01:09] And I'm not acting any different way.
[02:01:11] It's just me.
[02:01:12] I'm going to, you know, I don't need to get into character.
[02:01:14] I'm in character.
[02:01:15] I'm walking around on me.
[02:01:16] This is me.
[02:01:17] And he's like, oh, that's awesome.
[02:01:18] So same thing.
[02:01:19] I don't, when I'm dealing with the boss that I don't like or whatever,
[02:01:22] I don't show that to anybody.
[02:01:24] Yeah.
[02:01:25] Act differently.
[02:01:26] But you're, you're also, you're doing a good, you're doing a good,
[02:01:32] you're managing what hills are worth dying on.
[02:01:36] For sure. When you go to your boss so that you built up that equity with them.
[02:01:42] No doubt about that.
[02:01:43] When you need it, you can cash it in and that's why you have to establish those relationships with them.
[02:01:47] That's what I really failed as a young leader before my aperture started to get opened up.
[02:01:54] Before I got introspective and I started thinking about all this stuff from a big picture.
[02:02:00] And then my little ego was in the way.
[02:02:03] And, you know, if you're not, if you're not the guy that is bitching every time when you do bring something up in a respectful manner,
[02:02:12] then they're going to at least consider what you have to say.
[02:02:16] And nine times out of ten, they're actually going to go with it.
[02:02:19] Oh, they're going to go with it.
[02:02:20] Yeah.
[02:02:21] That's, that's the, that's the extreme ownership story.
[02:02:26] Yeah.
[02:02:26] That's the, and it was me sitting around with your task and to come into the other task and to finish from all the different teams.
[02:02:32] And everyone's, you know, say they got this problem, that problem, the other problem.
[02:02:35] You know, in the, the common or at the time, who was a friend of mine, says, hey, Jocca, what do you need?
[02:02:41] And I was like, they sure we don't need anything.
[02:02:43] We're good to go.
[02:02:44] And, you like, it, you know, for whatever reason I was like the last guy to go.
[02:02:49] So it had even more impact because everyone was complaining about this day and the other thing.
[02:02:53] Absolutely.
[02:02:53] And he goes, he goes, Jocca, which, they gave it even more impact because he's just like, you know, he knows me because Jocca, what do you need?
[02:02:59] I'm like, nothing sir, we're good to go. And you could say, you know, four months later when I go in there and I say, hey sir, we need X. He goes, cool.
[02:03:08] Go to supply. I'm calling him right now.
[02:03:10] Boom, taking care of.
[02:03:11] That's, that's how it should be.
[02:03:13] Another thing that I was thinking about when you were talking, somebody asked me at some point, you know, at which, what point did you start sort of like looking at yourself?
[02:03:26] Kind of what you're talking about. What point did I start to look at myself from an external position and say from a detached perspective and say, wait, are you being jealous? Are you being resentful? Are you complaining?
[02:03:39] I can tell you right now that when I stepped into a leadership position, what I knew was that as you said, every guy in my pool tune is looking at me.
[02:03:51] I looked at myself the same way as a young and less like, my first leadership inside of a tune was as an assistant to him commander.
[02:04:00] He was an instant.
[02:04:02] And so sure, I was a little bit, you know, when I was an E5, I was always a three-potune E5 and are you an alleaders position? You know, a little bit sure, but not really a little bit.
[02:04:15] When I was a platoon-encin, I was thinking the whole time these guys are looking at me just like I used to look at my officer.
[02:04:23] So if I complain that it's cold or I complain that it's because when my officers used to do that, do this sucks. Oh really?
[02:04:32] I'd be like, I would, I would just, I would, I would get furious.
[02:04:41] And that's why that's the, when I really started looking at myself.
[02:04:45] And I'll, quite frankly, when I started putting in an officer package as a young and less like, I was like, wait a second, these guys, I want these guys to think that I actually should be in charge.
[02:04:57] I need to tighten it up. They're looking at me right now thinking, why does Joko think he should be an officer? Here's why.
[02:05:03] Here's, I need to act like I actually deserve this.
[02:05:07] So that was a real precursor to me looking at myself from the outside saying, I mean, I know what it's like to be an E5 and a platoon looking at the officer going, oh, you forgot that piece of gear, did you?
[02:05:21] And you're in charge of me. You're making more money than me. You're making the decisions tonight on this operation. You didn't bring your hands set.
[02:05:30] Really? That's where we're at. I know what that felt like. And so I held myself to a high standard because I didn't, didn't want somebody to be looking at me thinking,
[02:05:41] Joko's complaining. He's weak. He's making up. He's, he forgot a piece of gear. He didn't show up on time.
[02:05:48] He didn't show up on time. You know how many times I was late when I was in the US Navy for 20 years?
[02:05:53] Zero. Zero times late. Zero. Never.
[02:05:59] Why paranoia? High level of paranoia? Don't want to have guys when my officers relate.
[02:06:06] I look at him and think, oh, you can't even show up on time. You're in charge of me.
[02:06:10] You know, that's a young arrogant kid for sure. Absolutely. That's me.
[02:06:14] But I, I, I ate that and I held onto it. And that's one of the first things that made me, and at some point it turned from this kind of hostility
[02:06:26] into like, you need to be a better person. You know, if you're going to be in charge, it went from like this attitude that I'm kind of portraying right now of like, oh, you suck.
[02:06:35] Into like, hey, you need to do a better job. You need to hold yourself to a high standard.
[02:06:42] You need to be a better person. If you're going to be in charge of these guys, you need to hold the line and you do elevate that line.
[02:06:49] So that had that definitely had a big impact on me. And bro, if anybody knows this, you do, you knew me when I was at E4 20 years old, maniac, right?
[02:06:59] Yeah. And then you, you know, you ran into me, what, how many years later? You know, it seems a little bit different, you know, not totally different.
[02:07:06] But because even when I was a young kid, I was fired up. Oh, yeah.
[02:07:10] But you know, I had to elevate, had to elevate some.
[02:07:16] Yeah, that introspection is something that that I didn't figure out till way later.
[02:07:21] But I'm sure glad I'm dead because I think it paid off.
[02:07:27] It's, that's one of the things and it's one of those things that, you know,
[02:07:35] Did your dad ever give you any advice?
[02:07:39] Yeah. So did mine.
[02:07:42] You know, much I listened to. This is about the same amount as I listened to my dad.
[02:07:46] It's one of those things where you, you just, there's some things that you have that, that you, it's like you can't be taught.
[02:07:55] Yeah, but you, you, you, you, like someone can't tell you this.
[02:07:58] For some reason, there's something that people can't tell you.
[02:08:00] Unless you can just completely open your mind and get humble and put your ego in check, which is really hard to do when you're 22, 23, 24.
[02:08:07] Like there's things that I look at and I go, oh, you know what I've heard that before.
[02:08:12] I learned that lesson. I got told that lesson, but I didn't learn it.
[02:08:15] But it's, you can pick it up pretty dang quick by, by example.
[02:08:19] And so, you know, how often do you get people asking you, well, how do I get that guy over there to take extreme ownership?
[02:08:26] Yeah.
[02:08:27] It's like you do it.
[02:08:28] Yeah.
[02:08:29] That's true.
[02:08:30] You take extreme ownership and it will be contagious.
[02:08:32] Yeah.
[02:08:33] Yeah.
[02:08:34] And in, in that manner, when people see those modeled behaviors, then it just goes out.
[02:08:42] And it goes back to that thing that,
[02:08:44] that, late talks about, there's no bad teams, there's bad leaders.
[02:08:47] And I've seen groups, seal platoons and seal troops that have broad talent in them.
[02:08:52] Oh, for sure.
[02:08:53] And then they'll have kind of a guy come in. That's a tyrant.
[02:08:57] And an ego maniac.
[02:08:59] And that will permeate into everybody.
[02:09:03] The same way as, you know, the one I see that you're talking about that I've worked around.
[02:09:09] Everywhere that guy goes, he lifts everybody else.
[02:09:14] Everyone that's around him becomes better by his example.
[02:09:18] Yeah.
[02:09:19] Yep.
[02:09:21] Any other mistakes?
[02:09:25] Or major mistakes?
[02:09:27] You know, it just back to being when I was a, the troops senior in the U.S.
[02:09:33] The divisor of NAFTA and we were doing the remain over day operations.
[02:09:37] And there were a lot of my younger guys that didn't understand why we weren't going.
[02:09:42] Why we weren't just going in, hitting a target and coming out during the same cycle of darkness.
[02:09:47] They felt like that would be more effective.
[02:09:49] And instead of sitting down with them and explaining to them why we were doing what we were doing.
[02:09:54] I would just tell them shut up and get out there.
[02:09:57] And, you know, hindsight, not the right thing to do because then they really don't know why they're doing.
[02:10:05] What they're doing and then there's resentment that's building and then they're just not going to be the most effective at what they've got going on.
[02:10:14] No, man. I wish we could do this whole job over again.
[02:10:19] We kind of can, though. I mean, it goes back to the resentment thing and another bad art word is that regret.
[02:10:27] Yeah.
[02:10:28] I've learned like all these dang mistakes I've made and every big setback that I've experienced in my life.
[02:10:35] I feel like it's kind of set me up for success through moving forward.
[02:10:40] So it's kind of like glacier, you know, every time I've taken like a foot back, I then move forward.
[02:10:46] Yeah.
[02:10:47] I learned from it and press on.
[02:10:50] What's interesting for me is as I look back at my career now and I was actually doing this when I was thinking about mistakes.
[02:10:57] Man, and I was actually talking to Dave Burke, the deal Dave.
[02:11:02] Yeah.
[02:11:03] And like the things that I talked about all the time now, I did those things like when I was a between the manner.
[02:11:12] I wasn't doing this stuff. I wasn't, I wasn't as crystallized, but like when I was a task commander, I was, this is what I was doing.
[02:11:19] This is what I was doing. It wasn't like I had it crystallized. It wasn't like I had this like, oh, this is what I had seen enough and most of it I'd seen as you just said through modeling from some good officers and from some bad officers and some good chiefs and some bad chiefs.
[02:11:34] Oh, that's all with that. I'm going to, hey, what does that guy do that? He always tells me what's going, okay, I'm going to always do that. You know, like that kind of thing.
[02:11:43] But like you said, would you get done with a job? You look at him. You're like, man, let me just do that one more time because I will knock this thing out of the park.
[02:11:50] So when is the moment do you think for you that you're the collective light bulb went off and you kind of put a lot of this together?
[02:11:59] The collective well, you know, the first FTX is a trade-out when you got there and that was part of it. Like I like my assistant platoon commander in my OIC.
[02:12:12] I was telling him this stuff, you know, I was like, hey man, here's what's going on. Like, hey, we need to do this. Hey, you, when you going and brief this guy, you need to be like this stuff. I was doing it.
[02:12:24] But then the next deployment, it was like when I was, you know, when I was working with LaF and Seth, you know, it was me saying, hey man, come here.
[02:12:33] And you know, those guys were whip out the freaking, the wheelbooks, you know, like after they realized what was going on, which was like three days into our, our task unit, maybe like hey.
[02:12:47] Check this out. It boom, they'd get out and they'd write down like, okay, this is what, okay, got it. Yes, that makes sense. And, but as far as actually taking it and crystallizing it, I was absolutely my first, the first FTX I went on with trade-out and watch the, watch the task unit out there, just fall apart.
[02:13:06] And, and all I was doing was sitting there thinking, if this was my task unit, number one, here's what I'd be doing. And number two, when I got back, I'd be telling the platoon commander this, this and this.
[02:13:17] I'd be telling those guys, hey, this is where you screwed up and I just was watching it and go, okay, here's, I basically condensed everything that I had told my guys and said, okay, here's what you guys need to do. And that was,
[02:13:29] cover move simple prioritizing, actually decentralized command, the answer is the soul, many, the answer is to all problems.
[02:13:36] Boy, I'll down to four things and they all kind of overlap. Yeah, they definitely are intertwined and they overlap and you do have to throw extreme ownership on their only because,
[02:13:45] if you don't take ownership of the problems, then they're not going to get solved and that is going to hurt you. So, yeah.
[02:13:54] At the, at the, at the, Mr. J. P. was saying some stuff that really stuck with me and he said it out at the, at the PT and he's like, hey, everybody, we get to be here.
[02:14:09] This is an opportunity that you have to be here.
[02:14:13] And he said that and I thought, man, that is just an awesome perspective to have. I called him up yesterday and like, hey, I want to talk about this and, you know, just fill me on and on what your mind said is,
[02:14:27] and he goes, yeah, he goes, you know, because when he was at buds, the way he looked at a four mile time run, which I hated four mile time runs.
[02:14:36] Just, I'm throw up every four mile time run. His, his attitude was, I get to do this four mile time run. So, if you take that and you start applying that to everything.
[02:14:49] Heck yeah, they just don't have, there's no room to bitch about a damn thing.
[02:14:55] You know, I moved through the airport today and I see a guy with no legs and I'm like, man, my life is so good, both my legs work.
[02:15:05] And I shouldn't, I shouldn't have a complaint in the world.
[02:15:09] Yeah. One of the last thing and we're getting kind of like getting pretty long here, but, you know, one of the things I wanted you to talk about, and I know this isn't really, well, I guess it is, because as a leader of your family,
[02:15:25] I know that we, we have to, we have to lead our family, right? And one of you, you posted something the other day that was for legit, I think it was called a promise to my daughter.
[02:15:39] And I was, I just asked if you could bring it in because I think if you, if you don't mind reading that, to everyone, I think it's a pretty cool set up of how to take ownership of your family and how to, how to, what you, what you, as a leader,
[02:15:54] and as a dad, and as a father, and as a husband, what you are putting forth as your goal, as your objective, as your strategy with your daughter. And I thought it was pretty awesome. So if you would mind reading that, that'd be cool.
[02:16:12] Absolutely. A promise to my daughter. I will love you always unconditionally, no matter what.
[02:16:23] I will not pamper you. This will forge a resilience that will help you conquer all of life's obstacles.
[02:16:32] I do not entail intent to raise a princess, but rather a warrior, with fire, inner heart, and ice and her veins.
[02:16:42] In my mind, there is nothing you can't do. No job or goal beyond your reach.
[02:16:49] I will challenge you so that you stand confidently on your own to feet.
[02:16:55] And I will set the example on how to treat those you love, so that when you choose a partner, it will be someone that lifts you up.
[02:17:03] I will invest my time and energy in you so that when I am gone, enough memories of me will be with you in your heart to keep forever.
[02:17:14] Stand tall with your shoulders back. This world is yours for the taking.
[02:17:21] Boom. Yeah, that's awesome, man.
[02:17:26] And obviously I would think the same stuff for my son. Yeah, yeah.
[02:17:32] But well, you'll have to write one a little bit specific to him. Very similar.
[02:17:38] Yeah, that's awesome. That's really going on. A, listen to it, and B, play, jirize it, and you know, absolutely.
[02:17:51] Yeah, for their own family.
[02:17:54] But no, that's awesome, man. And like I said, we're going pretty long right now.
[02:18:00] So I think that's a good place to wrap up this one. What is this now? We've done something like seven or eight hours, seven or eight hours. Awesome.
[02:18:11] So echo speaking of having a strategy to get to where we want to go to be a little bit better across the board in all aspects.
[02:18:26] What do you got for us? Got some tips. Oh, by the way, yeah, I read that on Instagram. If I'm not mistaken.
[02:18:32] And I considered plagiarizing it. Please do.
[02:18:35] My daughter. Now I got the confirmation or what do you guys call it? Clear. Clear hot.
[02:18:40] Yeah, clear hot.
[02:18:41] There you go. And you were right about the two face things when you said, let me guess what you're going to say.
[02:18:48] Oh, you're actually 100%. Cool. Yeah, like act one way.
[02:18:52] Hey, boss. Hey, you know, hate some. Hey, you're awesome. You're awesome. You're awesome. And then right when he leaves, then, you know, you see, that guy's actually.
[02:18:59] Yeah, yeah, so yeah, good.
[02:19:02] Yeah, good.
[02:19:04] Yes, we're on the path. Okay. Good.
[02:19:07] Strategic versus tactical. Long game short game. I know you've been in a long game.
[02:19:15] Pictures, small picture, all the same thing when people ask echo. What's like the big takeaway. I think that's it's primary takeaway is focusing on the long game, which he's a football. So, you know, he likes things the game thing or super Mario Brothers. Sure.
[02:19:35] Moreover, please. But you know, as opposed to thinking short game. Yeah.
[02:19:39] If you look at your life every day, in long game slash strategic instead of short game slash tactical, you're going to end up in a better spot. Yeah.
[02:19:47] And when I say the biggest, I mean, that's the one that applies to like the whole life.
[02:19:52] There's the other stuff. No complaining. That one was a big one. No complaining. No blaming, of course. And then, um, resent.
[02:20:01] And I never had the resent faint. The jealousy thing. That's something I've never really had to do. Yeah. That one to me always felt obvious when I when I discovered like anger, like when you're mad, that's like something up with you kind of thing.
[02:20:18] You know, it's natural. Whatever.
[02:20:20] That's one of the biggest, one of the biggest things I got from doing this podcast is Captain Plum saying when they were in the in the Hanoi Hill and him saying, if you were annoyed with your prison bunkmate, it was your fault.
[02:20:36] It was like hit me like a diamond bullet. Yeah.
[02:20:40] Between the eyes. That was extreme ownership. Next level. Yeah. Cause always annoyed with that other person. You know, actually, you know what? That's my fault. Yeah. Yeah. That was good. When I when I discovered it was a book, I was reading called mind games. I mentioned it before.
[02:20:55] And it said small little passage said basically, um, in a nutshell, like when you have anger issues, not to say when you get mad, but just as if you have anger issues, it has something to do with your self esteem.
[02:21:07] Like you have low self esteem. And that hit me really hard. Like, oh man, that hit me so hard that I was like, man, I can never get mad ever again. That's like a reverse psychology on your ego because in your ego is going on.
[02:21:19] I got to turn myself down because I got low self esteem here. Oh, yes, genius. Same thing with the drinking now you put it into words good where kids will drink in right.
[02:21:28] I ended up figuring out or it being revealed to me that, like when you drink when you have a drink, you want another one and you want another one and you're mind and the more you have the more you sort of want, you can't really stop or whatever you don't want to stop.
[02:21:38] It's just your brain tricking you. You know, it's your brain tricking like your brain is chemically saying, oh, we need this. Hey, we need this. You know, we need more or whatever.
[02:21:46] You're going to feel like you were getting manipulated. I felt like I was a sucker as you said and like he wasn't whoa whoa whoa whoa, I'm not a sucker. I don't care if it's my own brain. I'm not a sucker or whatever. And it was just that easy man. That is to control it. But yes, it is a reverse psychology on your ego.
[02:22:02] Good as opposed to regular psychology on your ego short term and long term. Do you get to right. Yeah, I think you're going to use to read the word reverse reversal.
[02:22:14] That's that's what you're going to handle the transition negative negative. I'm saying I'm on the first long game and short game. Do you choose one of those long game short game.
[02:22:23] The situations 100% part of the path part of the many activities that we're all doing on the path Jason Gardner got into good shape obviously.
[02:22:33] So we're exercising do you get to reading healthy we're not getting mad at people we're not showing resentment. We're not complaining.
[02:22:41] Very so things that will go over anyway, you just what you do just so you could need a key what get we get origin. You get it from origin main dot com this is where all their stuff, by the way, is made all in America from the cotton they grow from the ground all the way to the end.
[02:22:57] From the dirt to the shirt. Sure. Yeah, all that you know, origin main dot com.
[02:23:03] All so it's a American American. Yeah, yes, which we are producing right now. We are hiring more people to produce even more so my apologies on it.
[02:23:16] If you're ordering right now, maybe we don't have your size we're working it or working it hard we're growing.
[02:23:22] Yeah, that was good some people. I appreciate that they have the 28 inch in seam.
[02:23:27] Usually I can only get 30. There you go. Combinating everybody. There's a few guys at the master who had a month. I was like, I'll grab a pro.
[02:23:37] I don't have anybody that those are the breaks and that's just the life I live also.
[02:23:43] If sweatpants and shirts and whatnot, other stuff on there's also supplement supplements the best kind of supplements by the way.
[02:23:50] Yeah, there was some there was some people freaking out on the strawberry star if you tried strawberry star yet.
[02:23:58] Yeah, that's just not me. Oh, you don't. I'm not not that kind of strawberry guy. I definitely got some and tried it and work.
[02:24:06] I'm a hardcore men chocolate chip and then the vanilla for me. Yeah, you get that vanilla gorilla and throw it inside your coffee.
[02:24:13] Yeah, that's your sweetener kind of that's your eating sugar. Yeah, boom. Yeah, that's good method and then that's Iris is mixing that in everything.
[02:24:23] When you drink that in the morning. Oh, like what time.
[02:24:27] Like right after I pee tea and then how when you feel hungry for your next meal. Oh, I don't eat until like one 200 to a clock.
[02:24:37] So just that and I was just putting it in everything. She's making milk. Yeah, she's making milk.
[02:24:44] Can we can smooth these and all that stuff so we go through quite a bit of milk in our house. Yeah, and the kids love it.
[02:24:50] Yeah, that strawberry can make like it's like a milkshake smoothie hybrid.
[02:24:55] Here's what I said the other day.
[02:24:57] If you put in front of me.
[02:25:01] Hagen does strawberry milkshake, right? Yes, sure. Nestle's strawberry quick and strawberry slayer milk and I was going to die in 15 minutes.
[02:25:15] So we're just going pure satisfaction.
[02:25:18] Sure, sure, sure. Sure, sure.
[02:25:19] Sure, sure. Sure, sure.
[02:25:20] The long game is out of the picture. I'm going straight to the strawberries. They are milk because that's what tastes the best.
[02:25:26] That is the taste test. Right, no one does the taste test. Like that.
[02:25:29] I'm going to throw some coffee on there but the Hagen dance is going to be sugary or the nesties quick is going to give you a sugar. No.
[02:25:36] We're taking the long game totally out of the picture. We're going pure short term tactical taste where you at strawberry slayer break it.
[02:25:46] The name's awesome, too. Yeah, we're you know.
[02:25:50] I'll still join more for you.
[02:25:52] He was trying to like tell me product names and he's like he's like brain someone peacles, you know, pizza like Mr. creative.
[02:25:59] Yes, right. He's like in the creative. Yeah, he even told me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, he'll tell you.
[02:26:03] Like that's his creative stuff, right? So pizza get me up. He says, so he said, said to me all these all these things strawberry sniper.
[02:26:10] I have to pull out the list. It's so funny. Everything is random military terms.
[02:26:16] But yeah, don't catch Pete. He gets into these moods. Create. He has just coming out of his coming out of his brain and he'll start hitting me up with text about strawberry sniper.
[02:26:28] Yeah, I'm not that man. It's from the snap that man. He had some ones that are.
[02:26:32] But slayer is better. I'm used to slayer. So when he has snipe her, I'm like, oh, I see why that was like a distant second one.
[02:26:37] I try to think of some of the other whack ones. It's because it's already peered.
[02:26:41] Yeah, some of them were real funny. Actually, I texted him. He texted Brian in me. He texted us all these names. And I was like, okay, stop. No, for part.
[02:26:51] He just started laughing. Yeah, so check that. He probably had a, he had a, he had a, probably had a little too much discipline. Go. Yeah, potential. Yeah.
[02:27:00] Yeah. How many discipline go are you on right now? Four.
[02:27:03] Daily. No, per day. Yeah.
[02:27:06] It's just because I had to get up at three a.m. Oh, right. I wanted to be a person. What time did you go to bed at?
[02:27:11] What 10, 10 p.m. So you're on five hours as lead bread. Did you sleep on the plane? No. Can you sleep on planes? Yes. I can see sometimes I can't.
[02:27:19] But I was, I was just writing all these notes and you were ready for this. And sometimes I can just turn it off. But I wasn't able to sleep on the plane.
[02:27:27] I can sleep on planes not as well as echo though echo gets the world champion to belt.
[02:27:32] We're going to play. We're going to play with them within within 38 seconds. He's asleep. He looks he puts his sunglasses on. He looks like he's awake.
[02:27:42] But it's a lie.
[02:27:45] So yeah, so just to be a good situation. I take two every morning.
[02:27:49] Check. So get up in the morning to discipline go and then join warfare.
[02:27:55] Take a morning and night. Yeah. And I notice a do. How many do you take?
[02:28:00] Take a two in the morning and two at night and then. And what's your body weight right now?
[02:28:04] One, sixty something like that. I take three. I take three.
[02:28:09] Join warfare. Three curalloyal morning. Three.
[02:28:12] Three curalloyal night. If I got a little.
[02:28:16] A little situation going on tonight might if I'm around. I'll take three during the day for lunch time.
[02:28:21] Two.
[02:28:22] So you just got the infusion infusion.
[02:28:25] Infusion.
[02:28:26] So that's that. Yeah. Don't worry about the warrior kid moke to for the warrior kids.
[02:28:31] Yeah. Well, so all right. Well, let's let's talk about it.
[02:28:34] And what's what in your opinion, or he could moke strawberry or strawberry slayer?
[02:28:39] Strawberry slayer is thicker. It's like a shake.
[02:28:42] Yeah. I think actually I think the way that they are they are actually suitable for their audience.
[02:28:50] So that's the strawberry.
[02:28:52] The warrior kid strawberry moke is just a little bit a little bit lighter.
[02:28:56] We'll say because it does have less protein.
[02:28:59] And the one the adult one is a little bit heavier.
[02:29:02] Good. A little bit more like that hog and nose hitter.
[02:29:05] Yeah.
[02:29:06] Just like that.
[02:29:07] Where you at Theo Vaughn with that hitter.
[02:29:12] Oh, so also juggle white tea. Yes.
[02:29:17] Very, very fra... I'm going to say the light, the nice stuff about it.
[02:29:20] Very refreshing certified organic pomegranate white tea.
[02:29:24] Doesn't sound hardcore. But he can have to dead lifting 8,000 pounds.
[02:29:29] That is kind of hardcore. Yeah.
[02:29:30] Proving by the way, chasing burden. Signed, typically.
[02:29:32] Yeah. You know all about that.
[02:29:34] You know what I'm talking about.
[02:29:35] 100% guarantee.
[02:29:36] Can I get sued for that?
[02:29:38] You know?
[02:29:39] Maybe I guess if there was someone that couldn't hit it 8,000 pound deadlift, then they might come at me.
[02:29:44] Yeah.
[02:29:44] Come at me, bro.
[02:29:45] I'll change it.
[02:29:46] You know what I'll say, lift harder.
[02:29:47] Yeah, man.
[02:29:48] Drink more.
[02:29:49] I'll just change it.
[02:29:50] Because there's no way everyone else is deadlifting 8,000 pounds.
[02:29:52] What's wrong with you?
[02:29:53] Good guy, yep.
[02:29:54] Yeah.
[02:29:55] Yeah.
[02:29:55] Make sense.
[02:29:56] Also, we have a store called Jocco Store.
[02:29:58] I think we all know that.
[02:29:59] This is where you can get rash guards.
[02:30:02] Tea shirts.
[02:30:03] You're going to represent this Blin equals freedom.
[02:30:05] Oh, so I'm like, is the trucker's hats?
[02:30:08] Beenies.
[02:30:09] Some beenies there.
[02:30:10] Man, I got to refill the beenies.
[02:30:12] Oh, thanks.
[02:30:13] Maybe you don't have beenies there.
[02:30:14] It's good.
[02:30:15] Welcome, never wears hats.
[02:30:17] So these apparently are no on the pro.
[02:30:19] Have you even even had a cold head before?
[02:30:21] Yeah, I haven't had a cold head before.
[02:30:23] Sure.
[02:30:24] But I've been.
[02:30:25] Well, depends on what you mean by cold, but, you know, yeah, you put the
[02:30:28] thing on, you know, put that like, like, you know, you just put the coldness on the
[02:30:33] head.
[02:30:34] Yeah, man, right when you shave it like with the, what do you call the razor?
[02:30:36] No, no.
[02:30:37] They say when you big your head, that's what that's an expression.
[02:30:40] Oh, yeah, I can get a little lip.
[02:30:42] I guess, kind of cold.
[02:30:43] Well, anyways, the rest of us would like some more beenies online.
[02:30:46] Yes, sir.
[02:30:47] You got it.
[02:30:48] And for the summertime.
[02:30:49] Yes, sir.
[02:30:50] Because if you're up in Maine in the summertime, or you're up in Michigan in the summertime,
[02:30:54] or you're up in Washington in the summertime, once the sun goes down, you can get that little chilly.
[02:31:01] Yeah.
[02:31:02] Yeah.
[02:31:03] Yeah, I agree.
[02:31:04] And that's how it is here too, in my opinion.
[02:31:06] And you might as well have a beenie that says,
[02:31:08] discipline equals freedom.
[02:31:10] Yeah, man, represent with everything.
[02:31:12] Also, the hoodies, like I mentioned, lightweight hoodies.
[02:31:15] Jason, guys, you were done at the mustard.
[02:31:18] It looked good, right?
[02:31:19] Not bad.
[02:31:20] Well, thank you.
[02:31:21] Oh, now we're on the however one looks at it.
[02:31:23] Well, well, it's part of the game.
[02:31:24] It can be part of maybe not for you aesthetics.
[02:31:27] Why is right?
[02:31:28] We got functionality.
[02:31:29] We have aesthetics.
[02:31:30] They're not exclusive.
[02:31:31] Yeah, and you remember I was asking you about the heavy weights, because that's what I,
[02:31:34] but that's what I need up in Northeastern Washington, on Canadian border.
[02:31:38] We are working currently at this time, so that by the time fall walls, it rolls around.
[02:31:44] We offer the heaviest of heavy weight hoodies.
[02:31:48] Yeah, that's the plan.
[02:31:49] Yes.
[02:31:50] I'm talking big done.
[02:31:52] The real deal.
[02:31:53] Yeah.
[02:31:54] There'll be no doubt in your mind, but oh, yeah, this is the heaviest hoodie I've ever heard.
[02:31:57] We had put non-five pounds.
[02:31:59] Yeah, that's what we want.
[02:32:00] That's what we want.
[02:32:01] That's what we want.
[02:32:02] But aesthetics, how let's say a factor of 10 is function.
[02:32:06] I don't have to answer this question, Jason.
[02:32:08] You need level 10 functionality, obviously.
[02:32:11] Is that x, what are we, what are you at, what number?
[02:32:14] A 7.
[02:32:15] That's pretty significant.
[02:32:17] What are you at?
[02:32:18] Zero.
[02:32:19] Zero.
[02:32:19] Straight up zero.
[02:32:20] There's a light light.
[02:32:21] The light weight, anything having to do with fashion.
[02:32:25] I think you're at a 1.
[02:32:27] That's what I think.
[02:32:28] Yeah, no, if there are some things where I'd be like, this looks stupid.
[02:32:32] Therefore, I will not wear it.
[02:32:34] So we are correct.
[02:32:35] That puts me on a level 1.
[02:32:36] All right.
[02:32:37] Well, how about this?
[02:32:38] You got three, four t-shirts.
[02:32:40] One green, like green, not owed D green, green green, one red, one black,
[02:32:50] one purple, which one each using?
[02:32:52] Why?
[02:32:53] Looks better, right?
[02:32:55] Doesn't get dirty as easy.
[02:32:57] No, man.
[02:32:58] Oh, I'm just trying to...
[02:32:59] Anyway, that punk car.
[02:33:02] It was that pulled boy.
[02:33:04] Anyway, some women's stuff on there too,
[02:33:06] it is jocquistord.com. This is where you can get stuff to represent.
[02:33:10] Yeah, check it out.
[02:33:11] Like something, get something.
[02:33:13] Did you say originmain.com?
[02:33:15] Yes.
[02:33:16] That's for the words somebody does.
[02:33:17] I want something that strawberry...
[02:33:19] That's that ear.
[02:33:20] Of course, man.
[02:33:21] Of course.
[02:33:22] Yes.
[02:33:23] Also, strawberries.
[02:33:24] They are snapping like a theme.
[02:33:26] Like what you say, it should be like in the background.
[02:33:28] It should go strawberry.
[02:33:29] Snorke.
[02:33:30] Got a double-based, wrong hammer.
[02:33:33] Yeah, I'm learning.
[02:33:34] You can do, you can do, you can do, you can do.
[02:33:35] Yeah, I don't know if I agree with that.
[02:33:38] But, you know, it should be a good name for sure.
[02:33:41] 100% also subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already on iTunes,
[02:33:44] and wherever you get your podcasts.
[02:33:47] And don't forget about the Warrior Kid podcast,
[02:33:49] which comes out not as frequently as it should.
[02:33:53] It should step up this summer as time opens up
[02:33:58] to create and record that particular podcast.
[02:34:03] Yeah, and then you can get some of that Warrior Kid soap.
[02:34:06] Your friends with Matt, right?
[02:34:08] Mm-hmm.
[02:34:09] Yeah.
[02:34:09] Up there, Aiden, making it on his farm.
[02:34:12] Irish Oaks.
[02:34:13] Yeah, Irish Oaks, Rants.com.
[02:34:15] How do you know him?
[02:34:17] Through Irish?
[02:34:18] He come to your farm?
[02:34:19] Yeah, we were going to buy meat from him.
[02:34:21] And then when he came to deliver it to you,
[02:34:23] he swung by and visited us.
[02:34:24] I was going that day, so I didn't meet him.
[02:34:26] But him and I have chatted on the phone a whole bunch of times.
[02:34:29] Awesome.
[02:34:30] Yeah, he's a firefighter up enough at your county.
[02:34:32] And he's got a farm as well.
[02:34:35] And his son, Aiden, was a young Warrior Kid,
[02:34:38] makes soap so that everyone in the world can stay clean.
[02:34:43] Yep.
[02:34:44] Cool.
[02:34:45] That's good soap, too, by the way.
[02:34:47] Yeah.
[02:34:48] The functional soap.
[02:34:49] It's not the decorative.
[02:34:50] You know the one that you'll meet makes.
[02:34:52] And it's like here.
[02:34:53] It's not even supposed to really use it.
[02:34:55] Yeah, it's a decoration.
[02:34:56] Like if you will.
[02:34:58] Mm-hmm.
[02:34:59] Yes, also.
[02:35:00] We have a YouTube channel.
[02:35:01] The chocolate podcast YouTube channel is where you can get the video version.
[02:35:04] Of course.
[02:35:05] You want to see what Jason looks like.
[02:35:06] Right?
[02:35:07] Handsome.
[02:35:08] Look at you.
[02:35:09] That's it.
[02:35:10] But it'll jocco.
[02:35:11] What?
[02:35:12] Just take it easy.
[02:35:14] Amen.
[02:35:16] Either way, if you're interested in that,
[02:35:18] we have a YouTube channel.
[02:35:19] Also some excerpts on there.
[02:35:21] You know, we'll cut up little excerpts.
[02:35:24] And sometimes Echo puts shallow music behind him.
[02:35:28] And he puts explosions in him.
[02:35:30] Yeah, sometimes.
[02:35:31] When I want to enhance him, maybe like a certain message that you talk about hits me hard.
[02:35:35] I say, hey, let me express this, you know, put some stuff on there.
[02:35:39] Do you ever feel like maybe we should just get a couple of shallow players in here?
[02:35:43] No, I don't.
[02:35:44] I don't ever feel like that at all.
[02:35:46] And you know, I think we should stick with what we're doing.
[02:35:48] That's my opinion.
[02:35:49] Here's the thing about YouTube though.
[02:35:50] As far as uh, subscribing.
[02:35:52] Yeah.
[02:35:53] So it doesn't even matter.
[02:35:54] And you might notice, Jay, do you spend time on YouTube?
[02:35:56] Yes, like, okay.
[02:35:58] So here's what I learned and observed.
[02:36:01] If you subscribe to someone in YouTube, it doesn't matter that much.
[02:36:05] Like, their stuff won't show up all the time.
[02:36:07] Like how you would expect, you'd think like, if you subscribe,
[02:36:10] their stuff is going to sort of show up on your way to call it the home.
[02:36:13] Yeah, page or whatever.
[02:36:15] Doesn't so much do that in you.
[02:36:17] But I get an email every time you post something new.
[02:36:19] Okay.
[02:36:20] Now you're talking because when you subscribe to someone and you do that additional step,
[02:36:24] you click on the little bell.
[02:36:26] I think it's like right next to or on the subscribe button or wherever it is right there.
[02:36:29] If you do that, then you'll get the alert email.
[02:36:32] You know, my alerts actually come onto my phone.
[02:36:36] They like, spring up that from YouTube or for your job.
[02:36:40] You know, podcast just posted a new video.
[02:36:42] That's from my, from the app from the YouTube app from the YouTube app.
[02:36:46] Yes.
[02:36:47] Which is pretty cool.
[02:36:48] Yeah.
[02:36:49] Yeah.
[02:36:49] So if you want that, this is what I'm saying.
[02:36:51] So when you subscribe, it's almost like a half subscribed.
[02:36:53] Not even a half.
[02:36:54] It's like a quarter subscribed.
[02:36:56] That's what it is because you're kind of sort of like,
[02:36:58] Oh, yeah, I officially sort of subscribe, but YouTube, like cool.
[02:37:01] Okay.
[02:37:02] I think we're not going to let you know.
[02:37:03] We want to subscribe.
[02:37:04] This is way different.
[02:37:05] This is different.
[02:37:06] I'm saying if you want to subscribe and you want to get alerts and you want it to sort of be in your,
[02:37:11] what do you call it, the feed or whatever you got the little bell.
[02:37:14] This is what I'm worried about.
[02:37:15] I'm worried about since you're very decentralized, since there's a lot of decentralized command here.
[02:37:20] Yes.
[02:37:21] I'm worried that if people don't subscribe, all of a sudden you're just going to start putting the little thing at the end of your enhanced videos that says that says,
[02:37:30] like she likes.
[02:37:32] Like she likes.
[02:37:33] Like she shows the little finger click subscribe and if that happens,
[02:37:37] we're going to have a problem.
[02:37:38] Yes.
[02:37:39] The videos make it decentralized real quick.
[02:37:42] Real quick.
[02:37:43] Well, we're not going to worry about that because I agree with you.
[02:37:46] 100% like subscribe.
[02:37:49] Yeah.
[02:37:50] Maybe before you watch this video, go down to the bottom right click subscribe now.
[02:37:57] I'm sure this is not going to be annoying.
[02:37:59] I hate it when I see that.
[02:38:00] Yeah.
[02:38:00] But I'm sure there's some function.
[02:38:02] What's the equivalent of when you meet someone?
[02:38:05] Like what's the equivalent of a human interaction?
[02:38:07] Where you say that?
[02:38:08] We're going to be like somebody dropping the S bomb.
[02:38:11] Would it be like, yeah, that.
[02:38:12] But would you like, like, hey, good to meet you.
[02:38:14] Can I have a pat on the back please?
[02:38:15] Like isn't that basically what it is?
[02:38:17] That's the human interaction equivalent.
[02:38:18] Yeah.
[02:38:19] Like, okay, nice to meet you.
[02:38:21] Give me your phone and I'm going to index.
[02:38:23] I'm going to put my phone over and there.
[02:38:26] So I can text you what I'm doing all the time.
[02:38:30] Yeah.
[02:38:31] Give me a pat on the back.
[02:38:32] All right, sorry.
[02:38:33] No, I might think of that.
[02:38:34] That's actually a little an analogical analog analogy.
[02:38:38] Like comparison task.
[02:38:42] Think find the analogies.
[02:38:44] What I'm saying.
[02:38:45] Psychological warfare.
[02:38:46] iTunes Google Play and B3 platforms.
[02:38:48] If you want to, if you want to wake up call, which a lot of people say,
[02:38:52] Can't you make an alarm?
[02:38:53] Can't you make an alarm?
[02:38:54] Can't you make an alarm?
[02:38:55] Yes, you can use psychological warfare as an alarm.
[02:38:57] There's a bunch of alarm options there.
[02:38:59] There's also something on there.
[02:39:00] If you're feeling like you want to eat a donut or you want to eat a bag of cheetos,
[02:39:05] yeah, when it's lost to me, you ate a bag of cheetos.
[02:39:08] One time I ate a whole bag of Hershey's kisses.
[02:39:10] And this is when I was in the teams.
[02:39:12] I'm talking to a grown man.
[02:39:13] How big was it back?
[02:39:14] Like a good size.
[02:39:15] Like the size of a book.
[02:39:17] It was one of those.
[02:39:19] Yeah, it was like six years ago.
[02:39:21] My mom came over to my house and put a whole bag of candy corn.
[02:39:25] It was around Halloween.
[02:39:26] And every time I walked by it,
[02:39:28] I was stuffed with things in my mouth.
[02:39:29] And pretty soon they're all gone.
[02:39:31] You like candy corn?
[02:39:33] They're good.
[02:39:35] At the sense, I bet I couldn't eat one right now because I,
[02:39:38] You know, kind of cut sweet stuff out.
[02:39:40] And every time I slip, I taste something and like,
[02:39:43] Holy cow.
[02:39:44] The thing I noticed that is with Coca-Cola.
[02:39:46] Like I can't even,
[02:39:48] I can't even come close to drinking a Coca-Cola.
[02:39:50] I'm an admin at one legit like,
[02:39:52] I'm an avococcan probably 10 or 15 years or something.
[02:39:54] A long time.
[02:39:55] I don't even have a long time.
[02:39:56] Yeah.
[02:39:56] I don't even have a long time.
[02:39:57] But when I look at them or like the last time I tried to sip one,
[02:40:01] I was like, you know,
[02:40:03] Yeah.
[02:40:04] They're like syrup.
[02:40:05] Yeah.
[02:40:05] So anyways.
[02:40:06] Yeah.
[02:40:07] Makes sense.
[02:40:07] Like see that.
[02:40:08] Like you drink.
[02:40:09] Yeah.
[02:40:09] So that's like a lot of warfare.
[02:40:10] You can get that on any of those platforms.
[02:40:12] Also flip side canvass.com.
[02:40:14] If you want,
[02:40:15] if you want the visual.
[02:40:17] Remind or something.
[02:40:19] My brother Dakota Meyer has a company called FlipsideCampus.com.
[02:40:24] And he's making all kinds of cool stuff.
[02:40:26] He's about to run out some warrior kid stuff too.
[02:40:29] Some little warrior kid.
[02:40:30] I like his teddy rose of elves stuff.
[02:40:32] Yeah.
[02:40:32] He's all the after it.
[02:40:33] Yeah.
[02:40:34] So he's making some really cool stuff.
[02:40:36] Art.
[02:40:37] Art with layers.
[02:40:38] Art with layers.
[02:40:39] There you go.
[02:40:40] I like that.
[02:40:41] You know, also on it.
[02:40:43] You're expanding your home gym.
[02:40:45] You get a more kettlebells, which I did by the way.
[02:40:47] Darth Vader.
[02:40:48] How much is it?
[02:40:49] 70.
[02:40:50] Okay.
[02:40:51] He's the thing about the 70 pound.
[02:40:52] Like sure, I'm not, you know, I'm going to be more impressed with your
[02:40:55] 100 pound kettlebell that you were whatever.
[02:40:57] Bragging to me about 106.
[02:40:59] What a stay you go.
[02:41:00] There you go.
[02:41:01] 106.
[02:41:02] But the 70 and the 72, the gorilla,
[02:41:05] want to whatever those in my opinion have the most like play.
[02:41:08] Universal use.
[02:41:09] Yeah.
[02:41:09] Universal use.
[02:41:10] Yeah.
[02:41:10] Yeah.
[02:41:11] That's a great.
[02:41:12] Plus the Darth Vader.
[02:41:13] I mean, come on.
[02:41:14] That's the ultimate one.
[02:41:15] I think.
[02:41:16] But they should, they should have made the Darth Vader like a
[02:41:19] 100 at least over 100 pounds in my opinion.
[02:41:23] Jason, you're the Star Wars expert.
[02:41:25] Yeah.
[02:41:26] He should definitely be the heaviest.
[02:41:27] Who's the most powerful character in Star Wars?
[02:41:31] Darth Vader.
[02:41:32] This is, this is one.
[02:41:33] He's kind of a Trump some more.
[02:41:35] No, negative.
[02:41:36] No.
[02:41:37] You think the Emperor may be, but it's Darth Vader.
[02:41:39] Darth Vader.
[02:41:40] You're about to get out of the house.
[02:41:42] I mean, I don't know.
[02:41:45] You know, Darth Maul was pretty dang badass too.
[02:41:48] No, I mean, he's like the dead chopped up pretty quick.
[02:41:51] But I mean, Darth Vader lost.
[02:41:53] Darth Vader lost to Luke Skywalker.
[02:41:56] Who crumbled immediately by the way.
[02:41:59] Yeah.
[02:42:00] Later on.
[02:42:01] So it's Darth Vader, man.
[02:42:02] I think it's Darth Vader.
[02:42:03] Yeah.
[02:42:04] I like Vader.
[02:42:05] Mm.
[02:42:06] I'm the last.
[02:42:07] The real leader lifts people up. You ever see that meme and Darth Vader's holding.
[02:42:11] That rebel guy up like that.
[02:42:13] There you go.
[02:42:15] He really needs to lift me up.
[02:42:17] That is so funny.
[02:42:18] But Darth Vader went through the whole arc.
[02:42:20] He was good.
[02:42:21] Bad.
[02:42:22] Good.
[02:42:23] Boom.
[02:42:24] You know, I don't think he knew well.
[02:42:25] I'm sure he's the dog.
[02:42:26] Nonetheless, yes, I got that kettlebell.
[02:42:28] There's a lot of good stuff.
[02:42:29] There's these electrolyte minerals that are part of my daily daily
[02:42:33] main domains with the discipline.
[02:42:38] And the last going there on it.
[02:42:40] Com slash jacco and check out some stuff on there.
[02:42:43] Really good stuff on there.
[02:42:45] All right.
[02:42:46] Some books weigh the warrior kid free.
[02:42:48] The book is called Where There's a Will.
[02:42:50] There's a good message.
[02:42:51] Talk about it already.
[02:42:52] Check that one out.
[02:42:53] It is available now.
[02:42:55] Also weigh the warrior kid at one end to marks mission is two.
[02:42:59] Number one is weigh the warrior kid.
[02:43:01] Check those out for your kid to teach your kid these lessons.
[02:43:02] The jacan I just talked about for two plus hours are broken down, simplified and
[02:43:12] and sprinkled, sprinkled throughout these books.
[02:43:16] So that your kid is going to read on your kid is going to say things to you.
[02:43:20] Like dad.
[02:43:22] I think that might be your ego talk.
[02:43:26] That's the idea of ego gets introduced in way the warrior could free.
[02:43:31] That's where it gets introduced for the first time.
[02:43:34] So why?
[02:43:35] Because I wish somebody would have told me about my ego.
[02:43:38] I wish somebody would have explained to me that I was resentful.
[02:43:41] I was jealous.
[02:43:43] I was whining.
[02:43:47] No one did.
[02:43:50] Or if my dad did, I didn't listen because I was a young punk.
[02:43:54] So get those books.
[02:43:56] Also if you got a younger kid, you can get Mikey in the dragons as well.
[02:44:00] Which again, this is the thing where your kid gets taught a lesson.
[02:44:04] Hey, I didn't listen to my dad.
[02:44:08] I didn't listen to my mom.
[02:44:10] Jason didn't listen to his mom.
[02:44:12] Jason didn't listen to his dad.
[02:44:14] I've been sitting around with a bunch of real, really squared way people, business people.
[02:44:22] And we start talking about kids.
[02:44:24] And then I say, hey, wait a second.
[02:44:26] Who here listen to their parents?
[02:44:28] No one raises their hands.
[02:44:31] Very few.
[02:44:32] There's the one occasional two occasional eddie hascles.
[02:44:36] Whatever.
[02:44:37] Yeah.
[02:44:38] I always listen to my parents.
[02:44:39] No, you didn't.
[02:44:40] Most, most, but what happens is when they hear it from another angle, they listen to it and they go,
[02:44:46] oh, okay, I understand that.
[02:44:48] And they think it's cool.
[02:44:49] It's Uncle Jake say it.
[02:44:50] It's not my dad.
[02:44:51] Because your kids want to rebel against you because they know they have to leave the nest.
[02:44:55] So they got to set up some kind of a barrier.
[02:44:57] So they need someone to give them advice, but that's someone be Uncle Jake.
[02:45:01] Let that someone be the king in Mikey and the dragons.
[02:45:05] So there you go.
[02:45:06] That's that.
[02:45:07] Also, we got obviously discipline and concrete.
[02:45:10] Field manual.
[02:45:12] If you're an adult, you need to know how to get them a path and stay on the path.
[02:45:16] Get that book and put it by your bedside and read that.
[02:45:18] Read a page in the morning.
[02:45:20] Have you ever had a book that will get you out of bed?
[02:45:23] No.
[02:45:24] No. Okay, discipline. It was for your field manual. Put it next to your bed.
[02:45:27] Yeah.
[02:45:28] You'll be like, I'm getting out of bed.
[02:45:30] I'm going to go get some.
[02:45:32] So then there's extreme ownership in the economy.
[02:45:34] Leadership. He's there.
[02:45:35] Books about leadership.
[02:45:37] Written by me in my brother, Lave.
[02:45:38] Babin.
[02:45:39] About the lessons that we learned overseas.
[02:45:41] Now you can apply them in your team, in your business, in your life.
[02:45:45] Also, we got Ashlon front.
[02:45:47] Leadership consultancy.
[02:45:49] And we're very busy.
[02:45:52] We're very busy because no matter what problem you have in your team, in your business,
[02:45:59] the problem is a leadership problem.
[02:46:02] And if you want to get it solved, you got to solve the leadership, the leadership problems
[02:46:07] that you have.
[02:46:08] And if you can do that, then you're going to solve the problems in your company.
[02:46:12] So it's me.
[02:46:13] It's Lave Babin.
[02:46:15] J.P. D'Neill.
[02:46:16] Dave Burke.
[02:46:17] Flynn Cochran.
[02:46:18] Mike Surrely.
[02:46:19] Mike Bhima.
[02:46:20] Jason Gardner.
[02:46:22] If you want us to help you, go to shalomfront.com for details.
[02:46:28] We got the master.
[02:46:30] Chicago's done.
[02:46:31] Did it sell out?
[02:46:32] Yes, it did.
[02:46:34] How'd you like the master?
[02:46:35] As your first master, Jason, how'd you like it?
[02:46:37] Wow.
[02:46:38] That was amazing.
[02:46:39] Don't you wish you got to go to that when you were 25 years old?
[02:46:43] Yeah, it was a year old.
[02:46:45] I was super impressed by there were people that had their kids there.
[02:46:48] Yeah.
[02:46:49] Yeah.
[02:46:50] That's not normal, right?
[02:46:51] I mean, when you say there was people, there was probably.
[02:46:54] Okay.
[02:46:55] And by kids, I'm talking to them.
[02:46:58] There was one 13 year old there.
[02:46:59] Yeah.
[02:47:00] But there was quite a few teenagers and high school age.
[02:47:04] Yeah.
[02:47:05] Yeah.
[02:47:06] I would say 16 to 21.
[02:47:08] There would be a good amount.
[02:47:11] Maybe it doesn't.
[02:47:12] Yeah.
[02:47:13] And then, but there's the other was 113 year old.
[02:47:15] The warrior kid that was just straight getting after it.
[02:47:18] But that's not really the most important.
[02:47:19] Yeah.
[02:47:20] Yeah.
[02:47:21] Yeah.
[02:47:22] You can imagine that warrior kid, Rauchkar, if you want to get that.
[02:47:26] Yeah.
[02:47:27] That's the master.
[02:47:28] They always sell out the next one is in Denver.
[02:47:31] It's 19th and 20th of September.
[02:47:35] And it's going to sell out Sydney, Australia, December 4th and 5th.
[02:47:41] It's going to sell out.
[02:47:42] We got people in Australia.
[02:47:44] Yes, we do.
[02:47:45] When I went to Brizzy, there was people from all over Australia coming to hang out.
[02:47:49] Oh, yeah.
[02:47:50] Home of David Hacquire, Brisbane.
[02:47:54] That's very moved.
[02:47:55] Take it.
[02:47:56] Yeah.
[02:47:57] And if you want to come to that code, extremotorship.com.
[02:47:59] Get on it early.
[02:48:01] EF online.
[02:48:02] If you can't come to the master or you can't bring your entire company the
[02:48:06] master because the master is expensive.
[02:48:09] Then get go to EF online.com.
[02:48:12] And what that is, it's leadership training.
[02:48:14] But the thing is leadership training is not an inoculation.
[02:48:17] You can't just go to leadership training one time and then you're like, oh, cool.
[02:48:19] I got extreme ownership.
[02:48:20] Now I'm good to go.
[02:48:21] It doesn't work like that.
[02:48:22] Just like you can't go to one GJT class or even one week's worth of GJT class.
[02:48:26] You can't go to a two day GJT seminar.
[02:48:28] Now you're good to go.
[02:48:29] No.
[02:48:30] You need to keep training.
[02:48:31] And that's what happens here as well.
[02:48:33] So it's not an inoculation.
[02:48:36] You got to get it repeatedly.
[02:48:38] And that's what EF online does.
[02:48:40] Or if you can't make it to the master.
[02:48:43] Go to EF online.com and also EF Overwatch.
[02:48:48] Taking proven leaders from spec ops and combat aviation and putting them in companies in the civilian sector that need leaders.
[02:48:57] Now you might think, well, they don't have any experience in my industry.
[02:49:00] Cool.
[02:49:01] They'll learn it.
[02:49:02] That's what we do.
[02:49:03] Higher for their character, higher for their leadership capability and then teach them the industry specifics.
[02:49:08] They'll pick up and they will fill in the leadership holes that are causing you problems.
[02:49:12] And if you want to hear more about 90s TV shows or super Mario Brothers from Echo.
[02:49:22] No.
[02:49:23] Or you want to hear more about war or leadership from Jason or me than all of us are on the interwebs.
[02:49:30] Jason is on Instagram. Jason dot n dot gardener.
[02:49:35] He's on Twitter.
[02:49:37] Jason n Gardner.
[02:49:39] He's on Facebook as well. Jason Gardner.
[02:49:42] And obviously Echo and I are both on those platforms.
[02:49:49] Twitter, Instagram, and that.
[02:49:53] Echo's at Echo Charles and I am at Jocca Willink.
[02:49:58] And thanks to all the veterans out there like Jason.
[02:50:02] Who did their time on the line and thanks to everyone else out there right now in the fight.
[02:50:08] And for protecting our way of life.
[02:50:11] You got any other closing thoughts?
[02:50:15] Nothing for the group.
[02:50:17] Check.
[02:50:20] And also thanks to police and law enforcement firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers,
[02:50:27] correctional officers, border patrol, secret service and all the first responders.
[02:50:31] Thank you all for keeping us safe here at home.
[02:50:37] And remember that we all make mistakes.
[02:50:43] But the mistakes that you can't recover from are the ones that you don't own.
[02:50:47] The ones that you don't admit.
[02:50:51] So step up.
[02:50:53] Eggmit your mistakes and own your mistakes.
[02:50:56] And then no matter what.
[02:51:00] Keep getting after it.
[02:51:04] And until next time.
[02:51:06] This is Jason Gardner and Echo and Jocco.
[02:51:10] Ow.