Jocko Podcast 302: Have a Plan, a Protocol, and a Code. Iron-Sharpened Leadership. Gen. John Gronski

2021-10-08T08:30:05Z

Underground Premium Content: https://www.jockounderground.com/subscribe Join the conversation on Twitter/Instagram: @jockowillink @echocharles @johngronskileads 0:00:00 - Opening 0:03:33 - General Gronski. "Iron Sharpened Leadership" 2:35:43 - How to stay on THE PATH. JOCKO UNDERGROUND Exclusive Episodes: https://www.jockounderground.com/subscribe Jocko Store Apparel: https://www.jockostore.com Jocko Fuel: https://jockofuel.com Origin Jeans and Clothes: https://originmaine.com/durable-goods/ Echelon Front: https://www.echelonfront.com 2:59:24 - Closing Gratitude.

AI summary of episode

i'm going i'm not going to say a damn word about how how you should maneuver this platoon because he was right i had i had a brigade lead and the other story is command sergeant major uh... crisp capillary was my command sergeant major when i commanded twenty-eighth infantry division uh he used to say uh as he would go out and talk to the leaders and coach and mentor leaders he would he would say leaders could stop things from getting screwed up just by the fact that they were there just by their mere presence uh so you know that's why it's so important again you know for for leaders to get out there because people are going to do the right thing and adhere to those standards when they know to leader is is there uh i was uh down in florida uh a while back doing some leadership training for a sheriff's department down there and one of the the deputy sheriff's was speaking to a group of corporals and he told the story how in the in the in the jail there uh how uh some deputies that should have been in the kitchen watching the prisoners do what they were doing uh you know cooking the meal uh just neglected to be there as they should and things really got out of hand and his point was just because the sergeant wasn't going down and checking to make sure those deputies were doing the right thing they you know the human beings are just decided hey you know this must be that important because nobody's checking on us so we're not going to be doing the right thing and so his point was again just by the mere fact of a leader being present they're going to fix things just by being there this is a reminds me of of another chapter in the book here chapter 11 an organization's personality say in 1985 i took command of an infantry company in the 28th infantry division Pennsylvania National Guard the infantry company i commanded was designated alpha company second battalion hundred and ninth infantry and the unit had an authorized strength of 144 soldiers i was honored to have an opportunity to lead the commission officers non-commission officers and soldiers assigned to the outfit i remembered reading an army leadership manual earlier in the in my career before taking this command in the manual there was a statement i will never forget it's at a military unit and any organization for that matter takes on the personality of its leader when reading that statement as a young inexperienced leader i doubted it and again you know all in line would hit the ground running you know a lot of people say don't volunteer for anything right you know I think that's a big mistake tell me you you you you got a volunteer to take on those tough things and and when you do that you know a couple of benefits first of all nobody's gonna expect you to succeed if you're just starting it you're you know out in your career you know you're not gonna have high expectations if you're just starting out and so by tackling those tough things gaining that experience you know it's just like you know in the military you know a second lieutenant army to lowest ranking commissioned officer you're expecting a second lieutenant to make a mistake you know I think it was like the second year lumbarty was the head coach he was just chewing Bart Star out relentlessly during this practice and you know talk about moral courage after practice Bart Star goes to Coach lumbarty's office and he goes hey coach can I talk to privately for a few minutes coach says yeah sure what's up and Star says to him he goes coach he goes I don't want you ever chewing me out in front of the team again said I'm the quarterback I'm leading this team he goes if they see you chewing me out the way you were chewing me out he goes I'm not going to be able to lead this team effectively in the lumbarty light bulb an often said any realized he could not treat everybody exactly the same way you know so he never chewed Bart Star out in front of the team again because he realized that what Star said was exactly correct you know he couldn't lead the team effectively if he was going to be treated like that and so again just just some great lessons we could learn from from from past leaders and you know I just tried I think we all tried to do our best when we hear these lessons to try to apply them if we could you know that's when you when you get a guy like Vincent Barty in the reputation that he has and he's humble enough to think oh if he if he can be humble in that situation and maybe less than one of his subordinates and say oh he's right oh he goes you know people are going to be watching to see are you react the first time somebody makes an honest mistake by demonstrating initiative and that was a little you know some good counsel from him so again leaders again to to develop and cultivate this trust and organization they put something out there now they really have to pay attention to make sure that they you know they they walk that the talk there and and and and do what they said they're going to do because people are going to be watching nobody's going to be leaving nobody's going to believe that written word until they actually see an action fast forward here you've talking about some of the internal attributes says if leaders cannot get in touch with their own feelings they will have difficulty understanding the feelings of others leaders must practice self awareness and mindfulness once one develops self-worth and you talk about I'm I'm fast forward a little bit you talk about journaling is a good technique like writing down what your thoughts what your feelings are so that you get some perspective on them I'm going to fast forward a little bit um once one develop self awareness one can then become better at controlling emotions followers look to leaders to be able to get things get stable when things get chaotic controlling ones emotions has many personal organizational and societal benefits I remember when I was young I was a young inexperienced leader I acted out in front of a group of my followers showing great displeasure not with them or maybe it was even some senior leader who was coaching me but said you know there's three things a commander could do to positively impact the battle once it begins he said the commanders use of fires you know close air support and direct fire the use of the reserves you know because usually the commander retains the authority of when to use his reserve and the third thing is personal presence on the battlefield and he said those are the three things a commander could do to influence the battle once it begins and and that always stuck to me stuck with me especially that notion of the personal presence on the battlefield and just having that personal presence there which help I think you know soldiers in battle or in a civilian sector you know employees in an organization realize that hey this leaders out with us sharing the load sharing the danger you know sharing what's coming our way and and you know they kind of get bolstered by that whole notion well I can attest to that I remember seeing you out on the battlefield the body looking over and say well there's the brigade commander I Roger that I guess he's I guess he's not sitting back in the talk all the time he's out here with the troops like you said seeing what's happening understanding what's happening and taking that risk I mean if you were in Ramadi and you were out in the city you were at risk and IEDs and and roadside bombs and RPGs and and machine guns don't they don't care what your name is they don't care what your rank is when I when I talk about vulnerability uh and we are to talk a little bit about the first part it's about uh having the courage to leave your comfort zone allowing yourself to be vulnerable to try something maybe you haven't tried before something that's a little bit hard but the other um aspects of vulnerability is putting yourself out there and exposing yourself to your followers and I'll tell you what I mean by that one way to expose yourself to your followers and I I think this is a helpful technique is sharing stories with your followers about times maybe when you tried something and you failed you know or or you made a mistake and uh the reason I think that's important is because you know followers look at at a leader the thing man they're in this position of leadership everything they touch in life must you know must have turned a goal they probably never made any mistakes so they want to be in this position of leadership and we know nothing could be farther from the truth so by by explaining to your followers how hey you know I've I've tried and I've failed sometimes and I've made mistakes and this is how is it able to overcome these mistakes that that inspires uh those followers and then the the other piece about vulnerability is having the humility to ask people on your team fast forward a little bit identify your core values to develop strong character you must take the time to figure out what you stand for and what your core values really are this came to light for me many years ago I attended a dinner at which the speaker gave an impassion talk about his own personal core values the next day as I was still thinking about what I heard I realized if someone asked me what my personal core values were I would not be able to give an answer sure I had values I tried to be an ethical person but to that point I never took the time to think long and hard about exactly what I stood for and my principles I never took the time to consider what values were most important to me important you know the other thing about values if if you don't understand what your own personal core values are when you make personal decisions or when it comes a time for you to make a personal decision about something I really believe you have to factor your your personal core values into decisions you make so if you don't have those core values articulated in your own mind how are you going to factor them in your decision and the same with organizations you know organizations many organizations have organizational values but when the leadership team gets together with the CEO and they're in the you know they're going through this decision making process how many of them actually factor the organizational values into the decision that they're making which I I would think I would just guess many don't even think about their values when they're making a business decision which is crazy to think about you know the the more you get down there you know I call it muddy muddy boots leadership they're more to get down there talk to the troops you know whether it be militarious civilian then you're able to develop that trust too because you're right the first time you go down and ask somebody hey how's it going they're not going to be totally honest with you if they don't know you but the more they get used to seeing you come around and and just having a rapport and see that you're hey normal guy and you really do want the best for the organization they're going to loosen up until later truth also don't burn your sources you know don't don't go back and say hey echo I need to talk to you John Gronsky said you were a tyrant and all that's not you're never going to get any information again and and then you know when you get it out there you know you've got to you've got to share it in a an multitude of ways you know when you're speaking to people one-on-one you've got a communicate that vision you're speaking to a group of 500 you've got to communicate the vision through email through your website through whatever you know social media means you might want to use but the vision then has to be consistent you know can't be a new flavor of the month or a new vision of the quarter you know like you said visions could change but but people have to know that you're expecting tomorrow to be a better day than today and who doesn't want to be around a leader who believes that tomorrow is going to be better than today you know because you know we want to move forward and and that that's what I mean by by positive energy and like we talked about earlier in the podcast here you have to have an action plan a believable action plan you know if you want to be known as as a as a positive leader because people aren't going to to follow you if they just think you're glad handing everything and you really don't have a plan to back it up that's important you know I did try to get out there a lot not because I had any type of you know courage to speak of but just because I felt it was necessary to do and the other thing for any military leader listening to this and and really it applies to business leaders too I would encourage my staff to get out there and and the reason I encourage my staff to get out there is because I felt it was important for my staff to also gain ground truth if if if the staff was gaining with they thought was to truth from reading reports they were missing about 80% of what was happening so although I know you know in the military a lot of times especially in operations like that the staff needs to be back doing staff work I always encourage them that hey they they did have to make time to actually get out there talk to troops see areas with their own eyes and again just a history from lesson hurt and force 28th infantry division fighting in the hurt and forest in in November 1944 the battle of Schmidt was a devastating time for the 28th infantry division in about four days over 6,000 casualties and one thing that was written about that period is it's said that general code to who is a division commander at the time most reports I read said he never even went as far forward as one of his regimental command posts and the staff did not go forward either not and we can make a decision so that's important stuff fast forward a little bit you know let's get a chapter in here called keeping your feet on the ground which is about humility you say I worked for an arrogant leader before it was not any fun all of us who work for this man felt our opinions were not valued he was the kind of guy who said things like when I want your opinion I'll tell you what it is stereotypical military but not actual military we believe we were not respected and we felt more like objects rather than we were part of the team the results are initiative imagination and creativity were stifled as you could imagine the leader failed again this is a this is one of those false images of military leadership does it happen yes it does happen and here's something else let's say about this you want to know what it does happen more often in the military and one of the reason it happens more often in the military is because in the military you're only in command for two years generally speaking so most of the enlisted guys you work in for a jerk or an arrogant person it takes them three months or three to six months ago hey this guy really is arrogant then at six months are like the path is kind of a routine it essentially is and this is important as with a routine where if you have a routine there's way way way less opportunity to make to have like oh like a decision making conundrum right because the routine the decision you have already made before part of the routine while you're not angry hang on through emotional departure exactly the question because you haven't had a freaking fish save a few hours either way if you're angry even you already know because dinner's soon or you know when the dinner is seem saying if you have a routine or lunch or but we'll back with whatever you're about to eat whatever you're almost almost all right take you off the path here's the here's what Ronald does he he just waits he waits for the people with no routine or an or he'll slide into your routine but a lot of times for people like me in this case where the little the little crack in the routine he's right there he's like no I realized how hard that that was for him and and again I think that the you know the lesson for anybody out here listening is hey you know you could be you know you could be a jackass you know if you want to be and not be approachable and you know my way or the highway I'm the boss you know who are you to tell me what to do we're giving me advice and it's you know like you said you don't have to worry about the buying if they came up with that I go into every meeting with my subordinates when I was in a pool tune when I was a task in a commander right now in the business world I walk into a meeting with my people my goals to use their plan that's my goal I don't want to use whatever I'm coming up with I want to use theirs and if you have that goal at the beginning that's going to lead you to the best possible place and look like you said if their plan is dumb which which you know you get to people come up with some dumb plans occasionally but occasionally some people come up with some dumb ideas that's okay ask them some earnest questions and they're going to see that their plan is the reality of their plan which is dumb but it has everything to do with winning a championship you know and exactly what you said you know you might have a win here there if you're not character based but if you want to be a champion if you want to have long term success you got to be a character based leader at least that's where I believe um another sub headline here is know your job and do your job and this I might might know that I took on this one it is there is such a thing as a stupid question and when we explain the you people always say oh there's no such thing as a stupid question if you show up to a job so they didn't realize that the call trail through the hurt and forest which they were sending Sherman tank down Sherman tank is eight and a half feet wide the call trail was nine feet wide I mean it was not a good you know means you know MSR means supply route or or good route of any sort for those tanks to be going along and so to lessen there is because the commander didn't get out on the battlefield because the staff didn't get out there they were relying on maps they didn't get the full understanding of what that hurt and forest area was was like so again for any civilian leader any military leader absolutely important not only to get out there yourself but to get your your staff the ones that you depend on to advise you to get out there as well you know there's another piece of this when when you are the leader and you what you're supposed to be doing is you're supposed to be detached you're not supposed to go out there and get in the firefighter not supposed to go out there and and run the marketing meeting or meet with the client necessarily or get and start manufacturing stuff on the line you're supposed to go out and look do you do you maybe do a couple moves on the manufacturing line to make sure you understand what's happening and so he introduces him he can see that the kid's kind of floating around not making the best decisions and so he says hey warriors live by a code and I point out you know the Marine Corps values the the the Ranger code the I just point out the you know the ancient you know the Samurai code the Viking gods I'm not putting them all in the book and say hey you need to make your own code and the kid ends up writing his own code and the uncle approves it this warrior kid code and then eventually I wrote another book called the code the evaluation of protocols which literally has like a code saying hey as an adult you still need a code you still need to figure out what it is you're trying to do what he trying to do with your life and if again if you have this code in place what I did is I went around to representative sampling of soldiers who were part of that brigade I would talk to a PFC that had like a year in Norm you know I would talk to a major who had may or may be 16-17 years in the army and every and a few folks in between there I mean 3000 soldiers can't talk to all of them and say hey where do you want to see this brigade go and the question I would ask them I would say hey you know if you fell asleep for five years and woke up five years from now what would you want to see this brigade look like then you know and the funny thing is whether it was a soldier low rank one year experience or higher ranking officer with 17 years experience

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Episode transcript

[00:00:00] This is Jockelpawncast number 302.
[00:00:04] With echo-trolls and me, Jockel-Willink.
[00:00:06] Good evening, echo-good evening.
[00:00:09] Sir, we have a tick.
[00:00:13] As I quickly walk across our tactical operation center to the radio operator, I'm sure my heart
[00:00:19] rate spiked.
[00:00:21] A tick pronounced tick stands for troops in contact.
[00:00:27] It is something arresting everyone's attention because it meant one of our patrols was
[00:00:32] taking enemy fire on the mean streets of Ramadi.
[00:00:36] As I press the handset of the radio to my ear, I could hear a sense of urgency in the voice
[00:00:42] the patrol leader on the ground.
[00:00:45] He was leading a group of soldiers on a dismounted patrol on Ramadi's southwestern
[00:00:50] side of town.
[00:00:52] Things could get kind of sporty there.
[00:00:55] The young sergeant leading the patrol was requesting I direct super-cober gunship helicopters
[00:01:00] to fire at insurgents on top of a building.
[00:01:05] They were engaged by insurgents with small arms from behind a building, but now he could
[00:01:10] see guns and other weapons on the roof.
[00:01:13] The insurgent had ceased for the moment, but the patrol leader was concerned about what
[00:01:18] might come next.
[00:01:22] Something did not feel right.
[00:01:24] It probably required a little more attention.
[00:01:27] I found the more experienced one gains, the more gut-feeling factors into decision-making.
[00:01:34] If something does not feel right, it probably requires a little more attention.
[00:01:41] I used a steady voice to calm the patrol leader down.
[00:01:45] I let him know I would call in the cobras, but first I needed him to provide positive
[00:01:50] identification of exactly who was on top of that building.
[00:01:56] My intuition was telling me to let the situation develop before calling in heavy fire
[00:02:01] power.
[00:02:03] After a few minutes, the patrol leader made a positive identification of the force on the
[00:02:08] rooftop.
[00:02:11] I was glad I did not pull the trigger on the cobras.
[00:02:15] A US Marine Corps civil affairs team were on the top of the building.
[00:02:22] A stressful situation was averted.
[00:02:24] Comeness and coolness prevailed.
[00:02:28] As it turned out, the small arms fire he received was some harassment fire and the insurgents
[00:02:33] who initiated the incident had quickly disappeared.
[00:02:41] So that right there is an excerpt from a book called Iron Sharpend Leadership, which was
[00:02:48] written by General John Gronsky who served in the US Army and the National Guard for over
[00:02:55] 40 years.
[00:02:57] I have the honor of serving with him during the Battle of Ramadi.
[00:03:00] We are deployments overlapped by about a month or so in the spring of 2006.
[00:03:08] He has been on the podcast before, episode 235.
[00:03:12] If you haven't listened to that podcast yet, stop and go and listen to that one to get
[00:03:17] some background on General Gronsky.
[00:03:20] We are honored to have General Gronsky back again tonight to discuss his new book, which
[00:03:27] as I said is called Iron Sharpend Leadership and the subtitle is transforming hard-fought
[00:03:33] lessons into action.
[00:03:36] General Gronsky.
[00:03:37] That's again.
[00:03:38] Thank you for coming by.
[00:03:39] Hey, Jako, it's great to be with you.
[00:03:41] Thanks for inviting me.
[00:03:42] Always good to be here in San Diego.
[00:03:44] San Diego is not a bad place to be.
[00:03:48] So your first book that we touched upon on the last podcast, it was called The Ride of Our
[00:03:53] Lives and it was about a bike ride that you made across America with your wife and your infant
[00:04:02] child and you talked about some of the lessons that you learned along that voyage and the
[00:04:09] experience you had, but that was very early in your Army career and this is reflective
[00:04:16] of your entire Army career.
[00:04:18] So what made you decide to write this book, Iron Sharpend Leadership?
[00:04:21] Yeah, you know, Jako and I wrote that book the Ride of Our Lives near the end of the
[00:04:27] book, I put some just leadership lessons that I gained on that ride as you mentioned.
[00:04:35] And I actually had people asking me to expand on those lessons and the book focused
[00:04:42] just on that very short period of time, three months in 1983.
[00:04:47] And I just gained so much more experience and learned so many more lessons over the
[00:04:54] next 30 plus years.
[00:04:57] And I just felt compelled to put those lessons down in the writing and hopefully would
[00:05:03] help other people gain from really most of the mistakes I made along the way.
[00:05:08] Had you written the Ride of Our Lives in close proximity when it actually took place or
[00:05:14] was that?
[00:05:15] Did you remember back 30 years or whatever it was?
[00:05:18] Yeah, you know, Jako and I took that bike ride with my wife and 15 month old son
[00:05:24] back in 1983.
[00:05:25] I kept the journal.
[00:05:26] Got it.
[00:05:27] That journals sat in a shoe box for over 35 years.
[00:05:32] And then when I retired from the army in 2019, had a little bit of time on my hand.
[00:05:37] So I decided to write the book the Ride of Our Lives.
[00:05:40] And it was really meant to be for myself to reflect back on and for my family to have.
[00:05:48] And then I decided to self-publish it as a book and it turned out to be quite popular.
[00:05:55] Awesome.
[00:05:56] So this book, like you said, this is going back on your whole career and the lessons
[00:06:00] that you've learned and you've been through the entire leadership spectrum in the army
[00:06:06] and spent a bunch of time in combat.
[00:06:09] And so this is a great book and let's jump into it.
[00:06:13] So and just so everybody knows, look, if I have to skip around I'm not going to read the
[00:06:18] whole book right now, there is an audio book version of this as well, but we're not going
[00:06:22] to read the whole thing.
[00:06:23] So I'm going to jump into some spots.
[00:06:25] It's obviously not going to be completely cohesive when we read it on the podcast.
[00:06:29] It's set up in a very cohesive manner in the way it's read.
[00:06:32] But I got to make that caveat before I start reading.
[00:06:36] But here's the one I want to start with.
[00:06:38] Going to the book.
[00:06:39] The last leadership advice was given to me by a crusty non-commissioned officer during my
[00:06:44] first experience in the army when I was training as an ROTC cadet at Fort Knox, Kentucky
[00:06:50] in 1976.
[00:06:52] I was a patrol leader during a training event.
[00:06:55] In the scenario, my patrol was passing through a cleared lane within a minefield.
[00:06:59] The lane was about 40 yards in length.
[00:07:02] As we began, as we were crossing the minefield on the cleared lane, we began to receive
[00:07:08] small arms fire from an enemy position about 200 yards away.
[00:07:13] I hesitated.
[00:07:15] The soldiers were waiting for a command I did not give.
[00:07:19] It took less than a minute for the enemy to destroy my entire patrol.
[00:07:23] The sergeant who was a seasoned Vietnam veteran pulled me aside and loudly advised
[00:07:30] when in charge, be in charge.
[00:07:34] The followers expect you to lead so you better damn well lead.
[00:07:41] Good lesson learned out of the gate.
[00:07:42] Yeah.
[00:07:43] Again, I could just say as I reflect back on my career, it was those non-commissioned officers,
[00:07:51] especially early on in my career, those Vietnam vets, who I was fortunate to be around and
[00:07:57] fortunate to get just some hard advice from.
[00:08:01] So punches pulled, this is the way it should be.
[00:08:05] So square yourself away and lead when you're in a leadership position.
[00:08:10] Yeah, you know what's thinking?
[00:08:11] In that particular case, and when I was running training, a lot of times the younger guys,
[00:08:17] the young seal officers, one thing that would happen to them would be, there would be
[00:08:23] a platoon chief for a leading petty officer that would get in the habit of making a lot
[00:08:28] of the calls.
[00:08:30] And so the officer would get in the habit of not making calls.
[00:08:35] And it was a, it wasn't even a fine line.
[00:08:38] What they had to realize was if one of the NCOs makes a call, awesome, you support their
[00:08:44] call, you're going to go, no factor, all good.
[00:08:48] It's in those moments, those rare moments where, you know, in this particular case, maybe
[00:08:52] the NCO got hit with the first volley of fire or the NCO wasn't a position on the mine
[00:08:57] field where he could see where the fire was coming from.
[00:08:59] So they can't make a call or they're panicked or whatever the case may be.
[00:09:04] So you get that leadership vacuum.
[00:09:07] And that's when that officer has to be detached enough has to be heads up enough to go
[00:09:12] away to second.
[00:09:13] My NCOs aren't making a call.
[00:09:15] I need to lead right now.
[00:09:17] So it's a little bit of a cautionary tale too.
[00:09:20] You know, if when you're in charge, it doesn't necessarily mean you need to make the call,
[00:09:26] but you better be prepared in case, you know, the people, the your support in leadership
[00:09:30] doesn't make something happen.
[00:09:31] And in an ideal world, support in leadership makes call, you don't have to do anything.
[00:09:35] I hate to say it, but in an ideal world when you're in charge, you don't have to do anything.
[00:09:40] Yeah, ideally.
[00:09:42] And you know, Jock, you speak to the fact that, you know, you have to put your followers
[00:09:49] into positions where they have that opportunity to make some of those tough calls.
[00:09:53] Now, I even think of this reflecting back, you know, my kids are both in their 30s now,
[00:09:58] but reflecting back when when my children were teenagers.
[00:10:04] And I really think it's important for parents to let young teenagers make decisions.
[00:10:09] Because if parents are making all the decisions for their kids, when are they going to
[00:10:13] learn how to make a decision?
[00:10:15] You know, they're going to learn how to make a decision when they become an adult.
[00:10:18] But that's kind of too late.
[00:10:20] So I do think you need to put your followers in positions where they gain that experience
[00:10:25] say.
[00:10:26] And if they make a mistake, you know, that's usually how we learn more is when we make
[00:10:30] a mistake when then when we do something right by accident.
[00:10:34] Yeah, that's, I was going to say when you were saying, let your kids make decisions, let
[00:10:39] your kids make mistakes too.
[00:10:41] And just like in the military, this doesn't mean you're going to send a young, you know,
[00:10:46] they're going to get the first lieutenant out on an operation that they're not capable of conducting
[00:10:50] because they don't have the experience yet.
[00:10:51] They don't have the knowledge.
[00:10:52] You're not going to say, oh, let's see how it goes.
[00:10:54] No, you're not going to do that.
[00:10:55] Just like you're not going to say, oh, my kid wants to go play in the street, which is not
[00:10:58] a good decision where they could get hit by a card.
[00:11:00] And that's not what we're talking about.
[00:11:02] But you can certainly let them make decisions and let them brush up against the guard rails
[00:11:07] of failure.
[00:11:08] Because that's where you learn through those little scratches that you get on the body.
[00:11:12] Exactly.
[00:11:13] I'm going to fast forward a little bit.
[00:11:17] Because this section kind of sets up the rest of the book.
[00:11:19] My personal leadership philosophy is based on three elements of character, competence,
[00:11:24] and resilience.
[00:11:26] There are sub-components to each element of my leadership philosophy.
[00:11:31] Character, competence, resilience, and their sub-components are skills.
[00:11:35] And like any other skill, they can be learned in strength and although some may be born
[00:11:40] with higher levels of any one of these elements, everyone can improve them through training
[00:11:46] and practice.
[00:11:49] And this is something that I think there's a lot of people in the world that think that
[00:11:56] leadership is something you're born with.
[00:11:59] Any of the you have it or you don't.
[00:12:00] And like you said, there are certainly, you might have some advantages in some areas.
[00:12:05] You might be pretty articulate.
[00:12:07] You might be pretty visionary.
[00:12:10] You might be have a good sense of other people's emotions.
[00:12:15] There's different levels that people have in all those categories.
[00:12:20] But no matter where you are in all these categories, you can improve upon them.
[00:12:25] Then you can get better.
[00:12:26] And I think a lot of people think, oh, leadership is just going to come through osmosis or
[00:12:32] something you're born with.
[00:12:33] And there's nothing you can do to actually train it.
[00:12:35] And the fact of the matter is there's 100% things that you can do to improve your leadership
[00:12:39] skills.
[00:12:40] Yeah.
[00:12:41] And I think it's like athleticism.
[00:12:44] Some people are born with better athletic skills than others.
[00:12:50] But everybody could improve in that athleticism.
[00:12:52] It doesn't mean everybody's going to be an NFL player or NBA player or whatever.
[00:12:58] But everybody could get better.
[00:12:59] And I feel the same way about leadership.
[00:13:02] And that's another reason why I wrote the book and just as you've written many leadership
[00:13:06] books to try to help people develop those skills that we know could be improved.
[00:13:12] Yeah.
[00:13:13] And that's the benefit of being in the military as you get to see over and over again,
[00:13:17] young leaders actually improve and get better and make better decisions and get more
[00:13:24] experience.
[00:13:25] So it's something that you and I through the blessing of being in the military got to see
[00:13:28] over and over again, it's fact, it's a fact that you know leaders can be improved.
[00:13:34] Let me get into these components here.
[00:13:37] The first one character, character is the root of leadership.
[00:13:40] A leader of character will be able to establish an environment of trust.
[00:13:44] A character based leader grows trust by trusting others first, providing a vision, displaying
[00:13:50] integrity, leading by example, and sincerely caring about others.
[00:13:55] The leader must have values and principles.
[00:13:58] Values are something a person believes in and will be guided by when times are good and
[00:14:03] when times are tough.
[00:14:05] A character based leader sincerely cares about those they lead and they place the interests
[00:14:10] of their followers above their own.
[00:14:16] The key component.
[00:14:18] I had a guy on this podcast by the name of General James Muka Yamma and he was, he served
[00:14:27] in Vietnam and he worked for Colonel David Hackworth when Hackworth was the Battalion Commander.
[00:14:35] Muka Yamma was one of his company commanders, but that was a point that he made so clear
[00:14:40] was that idea of you got to care about your people and that was a thing that Hackworth had.
[00:14:45] I don't know if it always comes across in his books and in writings, but Hackworth just
[00:14:52] cared about his soldiers and that elevated him so much and their eyes.
[00:14:56] That's exactly what you're talking about here.
[00:14:59] It's easy to say.
[00:15:03] Care about your people that you lead, but I think extremely hard to do.
[00:15:09] To put the interest of those you lead before your own interest.
[00:15:13] I think the only people who could naturally do that are parents.
[00:15:18] I think parents could naturally put the interest of their kids before their own.
[00:15:24] To do that to people that are blood relatives of yours.
[00:15:30] That's a hard thing to do and I've been fortunate enough to be around leaders in the
[00:15:37] military who had that ability to do that.
[00:15:40] There's almost an innate sense they had to put the welfare of those they lead first.
[00:15:47] We learn this in the army and the Marines and the Navy, Air Force that leaders eat
[00:15:54] last.
[00:15:55] The reason we do that, you're going to imagine, you're out there either in a training
[00:15:59] environment or on operation, you get this child mermaided out to you in the field.
[00:16:06] So a journey, it's cold and if that leader jumps into child line first, it's probably
[00:16:11] whoever's going to be the last guy into child line, probably isn't going to eat or at least
[00:16:15] get a full portion.
[00:16:16] That's why leaders eat last.
[00:16:18] You want your folks that you lead to have the benefit of that nutrition before you suck
[00:16:25] it down.
[00:16:27] We learn this in the military and I think folks in the civilian sector, some know that
[00:16:35] kind of innately and others maybe never experience that and that's why I think there's
[00:16:41] some organizations that cannot develop that trust that is so essential if you're going
[00:16:48] to have an organization effectively run.
[00:16:54] Another thing about this is I think there's people who think that they can fool their troops
[00:17:03] and their subordinate leadership into thinking that they care about them and I promise
[00:17:10] you having been a young and listed guy, having been the youngest and most junior guy in my
[00:17:16] first two silptuans, everybody can tell when you're looking out for yourself, everybody
[00:17:23] can tell, you're not fooling anyone and that's why the people that truly care about the
[00:17:28] team and put the team above themselves, that's why they wish I had.
[00:17:33] You think of examples that we've seen in the military, a leader who I remember when I was
[00:17:40] over in Ramadi, one of the platoon was getting some better version of an uparmer come
[00:17:46] V and the platoon leader refused to take that better version.
[00:17:50] He made sure this other soldiers in the platoon got that version before he would take it
[00:17:57] to write in himself and that's putting yourself more at risk for the benefit of those
[00:18:02] your leads.
[00:18:03] There's a perfect example of how one could do that, especially if it means putting your
[00:18:08] life at risk, this guy was a true leader.
[00:18:11] 100% no that's an outstanding example right there.
[00:18:17] Next thing, next character is to competence.
[00:18:20] When I talk about competence being an element of leadership, I am not referring to the
[00:18:23] tactical competence in a specific job, I am referring to the general competence of a person
[00:18:29] to lead others.
[00:18:30] Many elements make up competence, but the most imperative are providing a vision and purpose
[00:18:36] for the organization, decision making, developing others and communication.
[00:18:41] A leader must be able to articulate a vision which is simple, unique, ideal image of the future.
[00:18:48] Leaders must explain the why behind the vision and tell the followers what they believe
[00:18:52] in.
[00:18:54] When leaders provide vision and purpose, they instill confidence and provide inspiration
[00:18:58] that fuels an organization and powering it to success.
[00:19:02] A leader must learn and apply problem-solving skills and decision-making processes.
[00:19:07] A leader also must possess the courage to decide.
[00:19:11] One of the most important roles of a leader is to develop other leaders.
[00:19:15] A leader must mentor and coach must be a mentor and coach willing to take others assigned
[00:19:20] and provide insight into what it means to be a leader.
[00:19:23] A leader must communicate in clear, concise and respectful manner.
[00:19:27] Most leaders spend between 70 and 90% of their time communicating.
[00:19:31] It is important for a leader to develop listening skills and the ability to get a consistent
[00:19:36] message out to all stakeholders.
[00:19:40] So that's the competency of being a leader, all these skills that you list in here.
[00:19:45] But again, what's interesting about these skills is, if you scan through them, can you
[00:19:51] get better at explaining the vision?
[00:19:55] Yes, you can.
[00:19:56] Can you get better at decision-making?
[00:19:58] Yes, you can.
[00:19:59] Can you get better at problem-solving?
[00:20:00] Yes, you can.
[00:20:01] Can you get better at decision-making?
[00:20:02] Yes, you can.
[00:20:03] Can you get better at mentoring?
[00:20:04] Yes, you can.
[00:20:05] Every one of these can.
[00:20:06] You get better at communicating in simple, clear, concise language, respectful manner.
[00:20:11] Yes, you can.
[00:20:12] And you're talking about here with the competence of a leader is something that you can
[00:20:18] improve upon.
[00:20:19] Yeah.
[00:20:20] And the book is people go through it.
[00:20:23] They'll see there's stories associated with these lessons that I've learned.
[00:20:30] And then there's certain actions I've found through my experience over the last 40 years
[00:20:35] that help one get better and stronger at these particular skills that you mentioned.
[00:20:41] Yeah, so just to make that clear, because I don't know how much I did it my notes, but you
[00:20:45] broke the book down almost like a military learning manual where, hey, here's the actions
[00:20:50] that you need to take if you want to improve in these areas.
[00:20:52] And I know I don't hate them.
[00:20:53] I think I hate a couple of them, but that's what that's the way the book is broken down.
[00:20:59] The last thing is resilience.
[00:21:04] Anyone who has ever led anything will tell you that at some point in time the organization
[00:21:07] you lead will face adversity.
[00:21:09] So that may matter every living person faces adversity at some point in their lives.
[00:21:14] It all comes down to how prepared one is to face these challenges and how one responds.
[00:21:22] Leaders must prepare themselves and give their followers and their followers to overcome
[00:21:26] challenges.
[00:21:27] Positive energy is essential when leading a large organization or a small team.
[00:21:32] Optimism and enthusiasm are two key traits of a resilient person.
[00:21:36] Like any other trait, they must be exercised to become a strong part of one's makeup.
[00:21:42] A leader must be physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually fit.
[00:21:46] To strengthen resilience, leaders must follow themselves, must allow themselves to be vulnerable
[00:21:52] by moving out of their comfort zone, by taking risks and taking on tough challenges, scar tissue
[00:21:58] is developed and resilience is improved.
[00:22:02] So the person that's going to lead had better be able to get back up again if they get knocked
[00:22:08] out.
[00:22:09] And you know, Jaco, I think resilience is something that has been talked about a lot over
[00:22:14] the last few years.
[00:22:17] But resilience, I don't believe resilience actually just happens by itself.
[00:22:23] You've got to train to become a resilient person by doing certain things that you just
[00:22:29] mentioned, you know, moving out of your comfort zone.
[00:22:33] I mean, if you're a leader or a person who just wants to take the easy way of just staying
[00:22:41] in your comfort zone, doing things that you know how to do, never stretching yourself, never
[00:22:46] putting yourself in a position where you might make a mistake because you think you're
[00:22:50] going to look bad in front of your followers or your peers or whoever.
[00:22:54] You're not going to grow that way.
[00:22:56] And then when tough times do happen, you're going to be less likely to demonstrate the
[00:23:03] resiliency that's needed in order to help your organization get through those tough times.
[00:23:09] Reminds me talking to some of the tankers.
[00:23:13] Actually, this was the one, one AD that replaced you guys and Ramadi.
[00:23:17] But one thing that I found interesting was that they do, and it was actually a guy named
[00:23:22] Mike Bima who was the company commander, fantastic guy.
[00:23:26] But he was explaining to me what they do to prepare for deployment, what do they do things
[00:23:30] that they do to prepare for deployment is they bring their tank on this tank range, and
[00:23:34] they do gunnery where you're shooting and you're moving and maneuvering the tank and doing
[00:23:38] comms and reloading.
[00:23:40] And it's a challenge.
[00:23:42] It's like a, I guess for an infantry guy or for a seal, it's like doing a combat conditioning
[00:23:48] course where you run, you shoot, you got head plates, you got long distance shot to take,
[00:23:52] you got to do pull ups and rope climbs, you got to shoot more.
[00:23:55] It's like that, but it's an tank.
[00:23:57] And one thing that he said to me was when they go do gunnery, the first person that goes
[00:24:02] is the tying commander.
[00:24:03] Exactly.
[00:24:04] That's the example, hey, this, I'm going first.
[00:24:06] And so what you're talking about getting out of your comfort zone, I can't imagine
[00:24:09] a lot of those tanker, those tank battalion commanders, they probably been out of the tank
[00:24:13] for a while.
[00:24:14] And yet they're going to step up and they're going to show, okay, this is it.
[00:24:16] This is what we do.
[00:24:17] Yeah.
[00:24:18] And, you know, you kind of reminded me of something that I wouldn't mind sharing with you
[00:24:24] because I think it's kind of a great lesson in resiliency.
[00:24:30] And this goes back to Ramadi.
[00:24:32] I had a national, you know, one of our national guard tank companies when we're training
[00:24:38] at Camp Shell, it'll be before going over to Iraq.
[00:24:44] This company has three platoons and one of their platoons went through that tank
[00:24:48] undery that you just talked about, only one of their platoons dead.
[00:24:53] And when they got over to Ramadi, we actually task organized them to two, six, nine armor,
[00:24:59] which was an Easter mighty combat outpost-corrigator area.
[00:25:03] And since two, six, nine armor was an armor battalion, they didn't need this company to
[00:25:10] operate in tanks, so they made them motorized infantry.
[00:25:13] So they operated as motorized infantry for the first, the first, six months, they're over
[00:25:18] in Ramadi, and then two, six, nine armor leaves, and they get replaced by first, at a
[00:25:23] 506 infantry from the 101st Airborne, light infantry.
[00:25:28] But tanks were still needed in Easter mighty.
[00:25:31] So now these national guard soldiers who were tankers, operating as motorized infantry
[00:25:37] for the previous six months, are now in tanks.
[00:25:41] And they just did a remarkable job, they had several main gun engagements while they were
[00:25:48] over there, and it just goes to show you how by training to be resilient and training
[00:25:56] in those skills.
[00:25:58] Even when you're taken out of that particular job in a combat situation for six months,
[00:26:03] and then having to go back into those tanks again, and then just performing remarkably,
[00:26:08] I think is just a great story of not only resiliency, but adaptability.
[00:26:15] I think that's something that has made the seal team successful, and it starts in the basic
[00:26:20] seal training.
[00:26:22] And I always say that, hey, you know, the basic seal training, you don't really learn anything,
[00:26:25] because you're just doing push ups and being wet, cold and miserable.
[00:26:27] You learn how to suffer, and if you don't like to suffer, you're not going to be there.
[00:26:31] But one thing I will say is, you're going to totally chaos.
[00:26:34] Well, it's total chaos when you're there.
[00:26:38] Everything that happens, I mean, you go out, you go out, your boats in the ocean, and they're
[00:26:42] getting flipped over, and you're getting washed up on, and people are confused, lost, you've
[00:26:46] got cam lights, bouncing all over the place.
[00:26:48] When hell week kicks off, there's just total chaos, confusion, there's throwing smoke grenades,
[00:26:53] everywhere, you can't see anything, there's machine guns going off, you can't hear anything.
[00:26:57] And it's just like that all the time.
[00:26:58] So you get used to this environment where there's total chaos going on, and you have to figure
[00:27:02] out you have to adapt.
[00:27:03] And then when I got to the Syltimes, and it's not so much like this anymore, but it still
[00:27:08] does have this, still does have this, this DNA, which is, there was no doctrine when I got
[00:27:16] the Syltimes.
[00:27:17] If you want to do a raid, if someone didn't tell you if your platoon chief didn't know how
[00:27:22] to do a raid, you had to just figure it out.
[00:27:24] And there's good and bad to that.
[00:27:25] I mean, it's kind of good in the army.
[00:27:27] You want to do a raid, you can pick up the, what is it?
[00:27:29] Seven taxics and triple tune and squad you can figure out how to do a raid.
[00:27:32] It tells everybody what they need to do.
[00:27:34] Syltimes doesn't have that.
[00:27:35] And so you just go, okay, well, what makes sense?
[00:27:37] How can we do this?
[00:27:39] And like I said, there's some good to that.
[00:27:41] There's some bad to that because now you might not come up with a best plan, but there's also
[00:27:45] some good because you're constantly learning to adapt.
[00:27:47] And I think that's one of the things, and it's, look, the whole, I'm, I'm saying that
[00:27:50] about the Syltimes because that's my environment.
[00:27:52] But the military in general does that, and that's exactly what you're talking about.
[00:27:55] You take guys, you train them in one aspect of combat.
[00:28:00] You take them on deployment, you put them into a totally different aspect of combat.
[00:28:03] They perform.
[00:28:05] And then halfway through you switch them back to the original thing and they get back
[00:28:07] on that horse and do it again.
[00:28:09] Or in this case, get back on those tanks.
[00:28:10] Yeah, I do it again.
[00:28:11] Yeah.
[00:28:12] And you know, I remember when we got over the brigade, I was part of, got over to Ramadi in 2005,
[00:28:22] coin doctrine wasn't written yet.
[00:28:25] And coin doctrine wasn't written by General Patreus in General Madison, until early 2006, really.
[00:28:34] And so there was no coin academy that, you know, leader, that leader from I brigade went
[00:28:40] to when we got to Iraq, but I think 2006, 2007, and after that, any brigade that got deployed
[00:28:48] Iraq went through this thing called the coin academy, the counter insurgency academy.
[00:28:54] And so we kind of had to figure it out on her own.
[00:28:57] And when you figure it out, you know, you read history.
[00:29:00] You see how it was done in the past.
[00:29:03] You just use some common sense.
[00:29:05] You talk to leaders that you respect and that you count on and you kind of figured out.
[00:29:12] And that was the interesting thing that was done there, you know, brigade of 5,000 soldiers
[00:29:16] and Marines.
[00:29:17] But a lot of the operations were occurring at the platoon and company level.
[00:29:23] So it's not like, you know, because I was a brigade commander, I was directing some type
[00:29:27] of large brigade operation that didn't exist.
[00:29:31] They were all done at very small unit levels.
[00:29:34] And just an amazing thing about our American, you know, servicemen and women.
[00:29:42] They figured out.
[00:29:43] They have a way to figure it out.
[00:29:44] And I think if you read history of the military, which I know you do when you read
[00:29:50] on your podcast regularly, it's just amazing how we have, you know, her American military
[00:29:58] has just figured things out as we went.
[00:30:01] Yeah, I don't even remember because the first, I arrived in the normal in April of 2006.
[00:30:11] I visited one of my friends who was an Intel officer at one of the bases.
[00:30:19] And in Ramadi and she had the big targeting board.
[00:30:24] And I had worked with her before.
[00:30:26] She had that big targeting board board when I was in Iraq before, the same big targeting
[00:30:30] board.
[00:30:31] I was like, man, this is, this is not a good sign because if we're just going to be targeting
[00:30:34] these people and this is, this board is just as big as it was when I left.
[00:30:38] Yeah.
[00:30:39] And I went back to my talk, my tackle operations center and I googled, I think I must have
[00:30:44] heard something about this new counterinsertancy manual.
[00:30:48] And I googled it and it was on, it was a draft copy because it didn't even get released
[00:30:51] yet.
[00:30:52] It was a draft copy that I got and I was just like, okay, this is it.
[00:30:55] And I found it on, I forget those websites, those, uh, there's a couple websites.
[00:31:00] I want to say one of them was like global security dot org.
[00:31:03] Maybe I found out, but it was on one of those websites that I used to read about what was
[00:31:07] happening in the world, sort of from a, from a military geopolitical perspective.
[00:31:13] Also as a bunch of manuals.
[00:31:14] So we had the new FM3 tech 24 counterinsertancy and I, I literally read it that like that
[00:31:21] night day, it's pretty long.
[00:31:23] And I just pluck things from it.
[00:31:25] Yeah.
[00:31:26] And realized, okay, this is what we need to do.
[00:31:28] And I remember, I, I know I, I stole from it because I remember my boss saying, you know,
[00:31:34] what's your objective in these types of operations and I said, provide security for the
[00:31:37] populace, which I know I didn't make that up on my own.
[00:31:40] I didn't come up with that.
[00:31:45] That's 100% stolen from from the counterinsertancy manual.
[00:31:46] And that's what, that's what kind of drove me in that direction of like, hey, how can
[00:31:50] we really help the broader conventional forces that are here as, as they start to move in
[00:31:57] and try and stabilize what's happening?
[00:31:59] Yeah, you know, it's, it's, it's funny you mentioned that because we, we kind of evolved
[00:32:04] and, and I read somewhere or somebody told me, you know, you can't kill yourself out of
[00:32:08] an insurgency.
[00:32:10] And we, when we first got there, you know, our mission was to, you know, kill them
[00:32:16] surgeons.
[00:32:17] And we evolved into protecting the populace because we realized, you know, the main, the main
[00:32:24] goal here is to protect the populace in order to change chaos into something that was
[00:32:32] going to become or than chaos there.
[00:32:35] And so the same type of thinking you had about, you know, your mission of protecting the,
[00:32:42] the people of Ramadi, we, we kind of evolved into that too from, again, reading history,
[00:32:50] talking to some of the Iraqi leaders in Ramadi that we would be dealing with on a regular
[00:32:56] basis.
[00:32:57] And, and we came to the conclusion that, hey, if we're going to be successful here, it's
[00:33:02] about protecting the populace, not not not simply killing the bad guys.
[00:33:06] Now, sometimes you would have to kill bad guys in order to protect the populace.
[00:33:10] So I'm not saying, you know, that was totally off the table.
[00:33:13] But the mindset completely changed for us throughout that one year that we conducted operations
[00:33:18] there.
[00:33:19] Yeah.
[00:33:20] Awesome stuff.
[00:33:23] Getting back to the book here.
[00:33:28] You say discipline, respect, and selflessness are part of the United States Army's DNA
[00:33:33] forged over 200 years ago during the training of the continental army at Valley Forge,
[00:33:38] Pennsylvania.
[00:33:39] You throwing Pennsylvania any chance you get.
[00:33:41] Can't don't you.
[00:33:42] I got to.
[00:33:43] Yeah.
[00:33:44] These traits have served our military well and account, at least in part, for the reason
[00:33:48] the United States military always tops polls announcing the most trusted organizations in
[00:33:52] America.
[00:33:53] Any leader would do well to demonstrate the traits of self discipline, respect for others,
[00:33:59] and selflessness in order to lead effectively.
[00:34:05] Now you got a story in here about, was it Sergeant Mike Kacher, Mike Kacher, tell us that
[00:34:11] story.
[00:34:12] Yeah.
[00:34:13] Mike is an amazing person.
[00:34:18] Mike Kacher was a soldier in the Pennsylvania National Guard 28th Infantry Division who was
[00:34:27] deployed to Afghanistan.
[00:34:30] While he was in Afghanistan, a rocket came in, this rocket landed about 10 feet away from him.
[00:34:39] It just caused significant wounds to Mike Kacher.
[00:34:43] Mike is jaw, internal bleeding and damages, and then his left arm was wounded so significantly
[00:34:54] that it had to be amputated.
[00:34:57] And they were treating him.
[00:34:59] He was eventually putting in a coma, and then induced coma, and it took him two years
[00:35:05] to recover from these very, very significant wounds that he had.
[00:35:11] And he had a lot of deal with, obviously, recovering from these wounds, losing his arm,
[00:35:18] et cetera, et cetera.
[00:35:20] And he decided that the way he was going to overcome this adversity that he was facing
[00:35:28] was to just build himself up physically and compete in physical competition.
[00:35:33] And so he decided to enter the Invictus Games.
[00:35:38] And then Invictus Games were created, I think, by Prince Harry, if I'm not mistaken.
[00:35:46] And it was all about bringing wounded warriors together to compete in Olympic style competition.
[00:35:53] And so I believe it was in 2018, and Sidney Australia, when Mike was competing in his
[00:35:58] third Invictus game, as he was competing in some track and field of vans.
[00:36:03] He noticed the shun girl about eight years old in the stands.
[00:36:08] And she was kind of shadowing him.
[00:36:11] Whatever event he would go to compete in, she would kind of move or see him come over and
[00:36:15] watch him.
[00:36:16] And then he realized she had one arm.
[00:36:19] And when it came time for him to receive his silver medal that he earned, he asked
[00:36:27] Jim to come up on the podium with him.
[00:36:30] And when he was given the silver medal, he took it from around his neck and put it around
[00:36:34] Jim's neck and gifted the silver medal that he worked so hard for to the shung eight
[00:36:41] year old Australian girl.
[00:36:43] And I had the opportunity to email back and forth with Jim as father, who, again, is Australian.
[00:36:52] And he went on to tell me how that had just completely changed Jim's life.
[00:36:58] But other interesting thing he told me, he said, you know, Jim as arm was not amputated.
[00:37:03] She was born without that arm.
[00:37:04] And he said, and there's a psychological difference between having your arm amputated or
[00:37:09] being born without an arm.
[00:37:11] So he made that distinction clear to me.
[00:37:15] And he went on to say that, you know, from Mike doing that, what Mike probably thought was
[00:37:21] a very simple gesture.
[00:37:24] It just dramatically changed Jim as life.
[00:37:28] And now she's competing in sports as a matter of fact, I see pictures of her on Instagram,
[00:37:35] where she's winning swim meets.
[00:37:37] And she's just ready to tear it up because of this very simple leadership gesture that
[00:37:45] that Mike caught your demonstrated to her.
[00:37:48] And it just goes to show you that the simple things we do in life as leaders have a profound
[00:37:54] effect on those that we do those things for.
[00:37:59] And you know, it's similar to the butterfly effect.
[00:38:03] You know, this could have a generational impact.
[00:38:07] I don't want to sound too dramatic here, but it could have a generational impact on
[00:38:12] Gemma.
[00:38:13] And on Gemma's children, if she has children someday, et cetera, et cetera, just because
[00:38:17] of that very selfless act that Mike caught you in.
[00:38:21] And you got to realize, you know, you were a car to get the silver medal.
[00:38:25] You know, I mean, just to give it away like that, the somebody that you don't really know
[00:38:30] was quite a gesture.
[00:38:32] So that's that's the story about Mike.
[00:38:34] Yeah, I can only imagine a young girl like that and, you know, young girls and boys,
[00:38:40] but I would, I've got three daughters and one son and I would say that girls are really
[00:38:44] self-conscious about, you know, those kind of things, their body, their self-conscious
[00:38:49] about that and you could imagine someone like Gemma who's sort of avoiding any time where
[00:38:55] all of a sudden this becomes the focus is that what's different about her and him just
[00:39:01] coming along and saying, yeah, it's cool.
[00:39:02] Yeah.
[00:39:03] It's good.
[00:39:04] Don't worry about it.
[00:39:05] Go do your thing.
[00:39:06] That just changed your life.
[00:39:07] That's awesome to hear.
[00:39:08] Yeah.
[00:39:09] Yeah.
[00:39:10] You wrap up this idea here.
[00:39:13] You say self-discipline.
[00:39:14] Giving up could become a habit.
[00:39:16] Giving up to the same hard and striving continually to get better is also habit.
[00:39:20] Habits are developed through repetition and where self-discipline comes in.
[00:39:23] Leaders who are self-disciplined adhere to the same standards they have set for their followers.
[00:39:29] They lead by example and share hardships, struggles and tough jobs with their followers.
[00:39:34] By the way, adhering to the same standards you expect from others and sharing the load
[00:39:39] are two of several actions a leader must take to instill, trust throughout an organization.
[00:39:45] What this has been people have the motivation to do the hard work behind the scenes which
[00:39:49] makes them great at what they do.
[00:39:51] These people have the drive to act in order to make themselves better and to avoid anything
[00:39:55] detrimental to achieving their goals.
[00:39:57] This work ethic generally has a way of making everyone around them better too.
[00:40:02] Self-disciplined leaders have a bias for action and in uncertain times, leaders to spell
[00:40:08] uncertainty through competent and confident actions.
[00:40:11] Self-disciplined leaders have an offensive mindset and do not allow setbacks or obstacles
[00:40:16] to stop progress.
[00:40:17] Good leaders find a way to win and inspire faith and belief throughout an organization.
[00:40:23] Some people are born with a greater propensity to be self-disciplined than others.
[00:40:27] Like other traits, self-disciplined can be developed.
[00:40:30] For those who have poor self-discipline, I have found the best way to improve self-discipline
[00:40:35] is to do some small things and work yourself into a more difficult things.
[00:40:39] If you hit a bump and backslide a bit, do not beat yourself up, just get back with the
[00:40:44] program.
[00:40:45] Remember, good habits are developed through self-discipline of continuing to do those things.
[00:40:52] I can ask this question a decent amount.
[00:40:57] Am I disciplined because I was in the Navy or am I disciplined because I am disciplined?
[00:41:03] And I don't know, what do you think?
[00:41:06] I think the training that you receive the Navy certainly helped is my belief.
[00:41:13] I think goals are important.
[00:41:18] If you have no goals in your life, nothing that's meaningful and purposeful for you to
[00:41:25] work toward.
[00:41:27] But the hell are you going to be disciplined about?
[00:41:29] You're going to be kind of like just drifting one way or another.
[00:41:34] I think people that have specific goals, you're goal to be a seal, you're goal, venture
[00:41:41] where a seal to be a seal commander, etc., etc., kind of sets you up to be more disciplined
[00:41:51] about achieving those goals.
[00:41:55] I think it's probably a little bit of both.
[00:41:58] But I do think the path you chose and those goals you had probably did a lot to help
[00:42:05] you become a very self-discipline person.
[00:42:09] Then you think that's the same for you then.
[00:42:11] Well, I do.
[00:42:13] I think if I didn't take the path I did by getting into an army, I probably wouldn't
[00:42:21] have had the benefit of those NCOs and other role models who showed me that in order
[00:42:28] to achieve something you really got to work hard for.
[00:42:31] Now, when I was growing up as a kid, my dad, my family tried to show me those things.
[00:42:37] So I think it's kind of I think building blocks along to Wayne your life.
[00:42:47] You're going to learn some of that from your family.
[00:42:49] Then I'm a big believer in sports.
[00:42:51] You play sports.
[00:42:52] I play sports in high school.
[00:42:55] You have to be disciplined in order to get out there on a field and not get yourself
[00:42:59] beat up.
[00:43:01] And then you join the military and again, you've got to show some discipline in order
[00:43:06] to...
[00:43:07] Because you know, people are counting on you in order to achieve what you want to
[00:43:11] in that regard.
[00:43:12] So I think it's really like building blocks as you go through your life.
[00:43:18] Some people are fortunate to have role models and mentors in their life who are going
[00:43:25] to show them why discipline is important.
[00:43:28] And then you just continue with it.
[00:43:30] Yeah, I think I was...
[00:43:31] I don't know if this is luck, you're unlucky.
[00:43:33] I was lucky in the fact that I wasn't really great at anything.
[00:43:36] When I had the single teams, if I didn't work hard, I was going to look like an idiot.
[00:43:40] And I didn't want to look like an idiot.
[00:43:42] And I didn't want to let my teammates down.
[00:43:44] So I had to just work hard to be ready for stuff.
[00:43:48] That's definitely the...
[00:43:49] That definitely influenced my path quite a bit.
[00:43:52] I think if I would have been a natural, a naturally gifted athlete, I would have had
[00:44:00] less discipline.
[00:44:01] I wouldn't need it as much discipline.
[00:44:03] But the other thing you had to remember is people get out of the sealed teams.
[00:44:06] And sometimes they're even still in the sealed teams and they let themselves go.
[00:44:10] They don't practice, they don't train, they get out of shape.
[00:44:13] Yeah.
[00:44:14] So just because you were in the military, just because you were in the sealed teams or whatever
[00:44:21] you did, and you got to maintain that discipline.
[00:44:24] That discipline is not a chip that they put into your brain and now you've got it.
[00:44:29] You don't have to worry about anymore.
[00:44:31] No, you still got to go.
[00:44:33] Yeah, you know, Jack, I do think that's why purpose is so important.
[00:44:37] And those goals are so important because the same at Ranger School.
[00:44:40] You get that Ranger tab and that's when the hard work should start because now you've
[00:44:46] got to prove it every day that I deserve to have this Ranger tab on my shoulder.
[00:44:51] And I see it, you know, folks I know that went the Ranger School and out there out of the
[00:44:57] military and they'd just let themselves go.
[00:45:00] And it's probably because they don't have that purpose anymore or that goal anymore.
[00:45:06] And I think that's an unfortunate thing and that's why purpose is so important.
[00:45:11] That's why I think leaders have to be able to communicate purpose to their followers.
[00:45:17] So they're followers understand.
[00:45:19] And I know you talk about this in your, like, how do we have leadership book?
[00:45:22] You know, so people understand why am I doing this thing that the leader has told me to
[00:45:28] do?
[00:45:29] Well, if you don't explain the purpose, the leaders aren't, or the followers aren't going
[00:45:32] to get it.
[00:45:33] Yeah, 100%.
[00:45:34] Yeah.
[00:45:35] Um, fast forward a little bit, digging it in respect.
[00:45:38] Leaders demonstrate leaders demonstrate respect for others by the words they choose
[00:45:42] the tone of voice they use and by treating people with dignity.
[00:45:45] Demonstrating respect is also about being considered of a person's time and showing interest
[00:45:49] in what others think.
[00:45:51] Good leaders treat others respectfully regardless of position.
[00:45:54] Good leaders treat the maintenance person with the same amount of respect they treat the
[00:45:58] CEO.
[00:46:00] I believe it is impossible to be toxic leader to be autoxic leader if you treat those people
[00:46:05] you lead with dignity and respect.
[00:46:07] This does not mean you cannot hold people to the prescribed standard and counsel them.
[00:46:11] However, there is a dignified and respectful way to do those things.
[00:46:15] A leader could even fire someone in a dignified and respectful way.
[00:46:19] A rule to follow is praise and public, reprimand and private.
[00:46:23] Now, what's interesting about this paragraph is this is anybody that doesn't, that has
[00:46:28] sort of a surface view of the military.
[00:46:30] They don't think that this is applicable at all in the military.
[00:46:34] I guess it's just from boot camp movies, right?
[00:46:37] I guess it's just from full metal jacket.
[00:46:39] Full metal jacket has given and I love that movie.
[00:46:43] It's a great movie.
[00:46:44] It's incredible movie and it is accurate.
[00:46:47] You know, you talk to any marine look, they don't use the same language that they used
[00:46:51] back then.
[00:46:52] But man, boot camp is boot camp and it is yelling and screaming, making people uncomfortable
[00:46:57] and really not treating them with treating them with disrespect, especially in the beginning.
[00:47:03] So I think movies like that have given this false image of the military that that's
[00:47:09] how military leadership works and it is not true.
[00:47:14] Now are there leaders that act like that?
[00:47:16] Yeah, they're absolutely are in the military.
[00:47:17] And I guess what?
[00:47:18] There's leaders that act like that in the civilian sector too, that are disrespectful
[00:47:22] that treat people bad.
[00:47:23] And leadership positions and it's not good.
[00:47:27] And what's interesting about this is I can yell and scream.
[00:47:31] If I if I'm your boss, I can yell at screaming you and you're probably going to do what
[00:47:35] I tell you.
[00:47:36] You're intimidated.
[00:47:37] You don't want to get fired.
[00:47:39] You don't want to hear me yell and scream.
[00:47:42] So you go do what I tell you to do.
[00:47:44] And so I get some positive feedback on my yelling and screaming.
[00:47:48] However, as soon as you get home, you're on monster.com looking for a new job because
[00:47:51] you don't want to be working with me because I'm a jerk.
[00:47:54] And by the way, how much effort do you actually give?
[00:47:56] Do you give 110%?
[00:47:58] No, you probably give 72%, which is the bare minimum you needed to give to get the job done.
[00:48:04] So all my yelling and screaming got me the bare minimum that you are going to produce.
[00:48:08] Whereas if I treated you with respect, you're going to have 110%.
[00:48:11] You're going to do that job better than I could do it and better than you could do it with
[00:48:16] your minimum effort.
[00:48:17] So this idea, treating people with respect, I mean, this is just, it seems like common sense.
[00:48:24] And I think sometimes, I mean, I had this happen when I started working with companies.
[00:48:28] The very, actually it wasn't the very first.
[00:48:30] It was one of the first companies I started working with.
[00:48:32] And I'm on the phone with the CEO doing an introductory call.
[00:48:36] And he says, I can't wait to get out here and whip my people into shape.
[00:48:40] And I said, hey, you know, something, if you want something to whip your people into shape,
[00:48:43] you should get someone else.
[00:48:45] Because whipping people is what happened, that's what you do to slaves.
[00:48:48] And slaves is not a good environment.
[00:48:50] And no one wants to be a slave.
[00:48:52] And they don't do the job that they're supposed to do.
[00:48:54] They'll do the bare minimum so they don't get a punished for it.
[00:48:59] So I'm glad you got this section in here.
[00:49:01] Yeah, you know, Jack, I have, you know, business owners talking to me about that all the time.
[00:49:06] You know, like, why can't I be a toxic leader?
[00:49:08] You know, I get, get the job done, you know, get shit done, you know, that type of thing.
[00:49:14] And that's kind of like, you know what, you could be a toxic leader.
[00:49:17] And like you said, you could yell and scream and people are going to listen to you.
[00:49:20] And they're going to do it.
[00:49:22] But if you're looking for a sustained success over the long period of time, that's where,
[00:49:28] you know, toxic leadership does not work.
[00:49:31] Because toxic leadership could work for short-term gain.
[00:49:35] But if you want sustained success over time, that's not the way to do it.
[00:49:40] Certainly is not.
[00:49:42] Fast forward a little bit here.
[00:49:46] And again, if you're listening to me read this, I'm just jumping through various sections.
[00:49:51] It's not going to sound completely cohesive as I read it.
[00:49:53] But you get the book and it is completely cohesive.
[00:49:56] Next section I want to read here is to be successful in life, you must make yourself
[00:50:00] vulnerable.
[00:50:01] There's no risk without reward.
[00:50:02] With that said, the risk you take must be prudent and must include risk analysis and
[00:50:06] risk mitigation measures.
[00:50:08] Nothing is risk free and seldom can a person eliminate risk entirely.
[00:50:11] Although risk cannot be eliminated, leaders must identify ways to reduce the most probable
[00:50:18] and highest impact risks.
[00:50:22] I think this is funny because I say to leaders all the time, if there's no risk, it's
[00:50:26] not even a decision.
[00:50:27] What's the decision?
[00:50:28] If there's no risk and it's just a benefit, we're doing it.
[00:50:31] We're not even talking about that's not a decision.
[00:50:32] That's just what we're doing.
[00:50:34] Yeah, absolutely.
[00:50:38] And I think that's why some leaders fail to have the courage to make decisions because
[00:50:43] with almost any decision you're making, there's some sort of risk associated with that.
[00:50:50] And again, if you're going to look at gaining anything for your organization, we talked
[00:51:01] about moving yourself out of your comfort zone, you've got to move your organization
[00:51:05] out of its comfort zone too.
[00:51:08] And so it's about, okay, understanding what those risks are and then how am I going to
[00:51:14] reduce the probability of this happening and also reduce the impact of it happening.
[00:51:20] And those are certain steps you could take.
[00:51:24] I talked about optimism a lot and especially if you hit a really bad day, a really bad
[00:51:33] day.
[00:51:36] You have to be optimistic and then lead your organization through that.
[00:51:41] But it's not just because you're telling people, hey, things are going to get better.
[00:51:46] You've actually got to put a plan together that's believable to your followers.
[00:51:52] So it's just not about, you know, what you say, it's about, okay, what plan have we put
[00:51:58] together now that's going to show that we're going to be able to do things a little bit
[00:52:03] differently to overcome this adversity.
[00:52:05] So that's really, and it takes a lot of hard work and it doesn't come easy.
[00:52:12] Yeah, I was, when I talk about you got to believe in the mission, right?
[00:52:16] And I say, believe isn't doesn't mean the old say, if you can believe it, you can
[00:52:22] achieve it.
[00:52:23] Actually not true.
[00:52:24] Because I could say, I believe I can find it's not I'm not going to be able to fly to
[00:52:27] me believe belief in the mission means you see an actual pathway to achieve the mission.
[00:52:32] And I might be challenging and there's going to be bumps in hurdles and obstacles along the
[00:52:35] way, but we are going to be able to do it and hey, everyone, here's how we're going to get
[00:52:39] there.
[00:52:40] And as long as you can show people an actual pathway to get to this victory, then
[00:52:44] you can then people can believe in what you're doing for sure.
[00:52:47] Yeah.
[00:52:48] Yeah.
[00:52:49] And, you know, I'll just reflect back on a bad day.
[00:52:53] You know, I had January 5th, 2006, I think you're familiar with the glass factory bombing
[00:53:00] there and in Ramadi.
[00:53:02] And you know, you have a bad day like that and you just, you know, as a leader, you just can't
[00:53:13] cave in because it's so.
[00:53:14] So give everyone a little brief.
[00:53:16] I mean, obviously, I knew about it.
[00:53:18] I arrived there shortly thereafter and I tracked it as it happened.
[00:53:20] I mean, it was a horrific incident at a police recruiting event.
[00:53:25] So recruiting local police in the city of Ramadi to come and join the Iraqi police and
[00:53:32] become the defenders of the city and help the local populist.
[00:53:37] What we talked about earlier, defend the populist here.
[00:53:39] You go, come and sign up and it was actually going pretty well.
[00:53:44] And then this event happened.
[00:53:45] Yeah, it was going remarkably well.
[00:53:46] You know, when we first got there, I guess, was Jaloon or Jalai of 2005, mixed June and
[00:53:54] July, I'm there.
[00:53:55] Of course, but Jalai of 2005, you know, we started police recruiting events and we'd
[00:54:04] have like two or three people show up to join the police.
[00:54:09] I mean, it was pathetic.
[00:54:11] And you know, we started to talk to the shakes and actually through our talks with the
[00:54:17] shakes, they would tell us some things that our troops were doing that probably weren't
[00:54:24] that beneficial to the citizens of Ramadi.
[00:54:28] So we started to change up some of our tactics and procedures.
[00:54:32] That didn't affect our operation, but it helped the shakes understand that, hey, we were
[00:54:37] really here for your people, for your tribe.
[00:54:41] And this really demonstrated self in January of 2006.
[00:54:49] We held this recruiting event.
[00:54:56] And on January 3rd, we had 200 people show up at the glass factory in Ramadi where we're
[00:55:02] conducting this event.
[00:55:03] And the glass factory is an old factory, but it's a nice big building and it was right
[00:55:07] outside or very close to the main US camp of camp or Maddie.
[00:55:13] So it was a pretty good spot to do.
[00:55:14] Exactly.
[00:55:15] It was a good spot to do it.
[00:55:17] 200 people showed up the first day.
[00:55:19] It's like we can't believe this.
[00:55:20] Like before we were having two or three people show up.
[00:55:23] We got 200 people standing in line to join the police.
[00:55:26] So the shake, you know, that told us the shakes were getting the word out to other tribes,
[00:55:29] people to hate.
[00:55:30] Come in, we trust these Americans.
[00:55:33] Come in.
[00:55:34] And so the second day, we had around 450, 500 people standing in line to join the police.
[00:55:39] It's like this is incredible.
[00:55:42] The third day is I reflect back on it.
[00:55:47] Whenever you're operating in an uncertainty environment, you don't want to do things three
[00:55:51] days in a row.
[00:55:52] So it was a big mistake I made.
[00:55:55] Third day, we had about 800 people standing in line.
[00:55:58] I mean, we were ecstatic.
[00:56:00] We thought we really turned a corner here.
[00:56:03] And a suicide bomber because this was a third day in a row we were doing.
[00:56:07] A suicide bomber shows up and detonates their vest right in the middle of this large
[00:56:13] crowd, killing over 100 Iraqis and killed a Marine dog handler, a sergeant con and also
[00:56:22] a good friend of mine, Lieutenant Colonel Mike McLaughlin, and injured several other
[00:56:27] of our soldiers.
[00:56:28] Some severely but thank God no one else died.
[00:56:32] No other US military died from that attack.
[00:56:36] And so that was a really, really bad day.
[00:56:42] The way I handled it is I brought the leaders together the following day because two weeks
[00:56:50] from that particular day, we were going to have 200 Iraqis show up at the glass factory
[00:56:56] again so we could ship them the bag dead to attend police training.
[00:57:01] So we knew where we were going to have a similar situation.
[00:57:03] So got everybody together next day and the importance of leaders admitting when they do
[00:57:09] something wrong I think really comes out here because when I got everybody together I
[00:57:13] don't know what they were thinking.
[00:57:15] Maybe they were thinking I was going to try to blame somebody I don't know but the first
[00:57:18] thing I said was we're not going to waste time fixing blame on anybody because I'm the
[00:57:25] one responsible for this.
[00:57:27] So forget about fixing blame.
[00:57:29] But it's on me what we need to spend our time doing is talk about how are we going to change
[00:57:34] things so this doesn't happen two weeks from now when we do the same event again.
[00:57:40] Because we had to publicize this so people knew to show up so it's not like you're
[00:57:45] keeping it from the insurgents.
[00:57:47] And so I'm not going to get into the details of how we change things but we change things
[00:57:51] significantly in terms of the way the outside of that glass factory was set up.
[00:57:56] So if God forbid a suicide bomber was going to blow themselves up again the most they could
[00:58:01] take out would be about 10 people rather than 100 or more.
[00:58:06] And so the point is when leaders hit these bad days this adversity there's the organization
[00:58:18] is counting on you to find a way through it.
[00:58:22] And that was a lesson I learned. I mentioned this book is filled with mistakes.
[00:58:29] I made that I was able to learn from and by putting this book out hopefully others won't
[00:58:34] have to make similar mistakes.
[00:58:39] So the whole point of what I just said is when you hit adversity you've got to be able
[00:58:49] to be resilient enough to fight your way through that for the organization.
[00:58:53] And again that's not going to come by itself.
[00:58:57] You've got to prepare and develop your resiliency before these bad days happen because
[00:59:03] we all know they're going to happen.
[00:59:05] And then it's also the important part of a leader admitting they made a mistake.
[00:59:12] So the organization doesn't have to start pointing fingers at one another because if you
[00:59:17] don't do that and you can't develop that sense of trust because people know when you're
[00:59:23] screwed up.
[00:59:25] And if people are expecting more energy on watching their own back they're not going
[00:59:32] to be expanding energy on getting done with the organization needs to get done because
[00:59:39] watching your own back takes a hell of a lot of energy doesn't it?
[00:59:42] And so that's really the moral of the story.
[00:59:46] And you were there when we had a blue on blue that I wrote about an extreme ownership
[00:59:52] and it's the same exact approach I took which was hey there's a friendly Iraqi soldier
[00:59:59] dead there's several Iraqis wounded one of my guys is wounded who we're going to blame.
[01:00:04] Don't look any further than me because this is on me and it is on me.
[01:00:07] This is happening.
[01:00:08] I'm the senior guy on the battlefield.
[01:00:09] This is 100% my fault.
[01:00:11] And that way yeah we don't have to look at who are going to point fingers at no one has to
[01:00:15] worry about hey I'm going to leave you out the dry I'm not going to hang you out to dry.
[01:00:18] This is 100% on me and then we how do we prevent this from ever happening again.
[01:00:23] So the thing a leader has to do in those situations.
[01:00:25] Yeah absolutely.
[01:00:29] Fast forward a little bit here you talk about creating a vision you say the concept
[01:00:34] of a leader providing a vision to an organization they lead is at least 2000 years old
[01:00:39] in the king's James version of the Bible Proverbs 29 18 reads where there is no vision
[01:00:46] the people perish.
[01:00:49] And early point my experience leading people I became aware that providing a vision of
[01:00:52] the future was one of the most important things a leader can do.
[01:00:55] The whole concept of leadership is about taking people to a place where they could not reach
[01:00:59] on their own.
[01:01:00] I have found that when I provide a vision of the future to a group I lead it motivates
[01:01:04] and inspires them to work toward achieving a desired end state.
[01:01:08] And as well I believe creating a shared vision and communicating it consistently are important
[01:01:13] roles of a leader.
[01:01:15] Visualizing achievement is essential if you are to gain success.
[01:01:21] A vision must be a simple unique ideal image of the future.
[01:01:25] Ideally the vision a leader develop should be a shared vision.
[01:01:29] A shared vision not only does not only mean every in the organization believes in the vision
[01:01:35] but also that representative members of the organization have provided input to create the
[01:01:41] vision.
[01:01:41] Occasionally I will get I talk about decentralized command all the time with all the companies
[01:01:49] I work with and occasionally I will get someone saying hey you know I feel like the team
[01:01:56] doesn't really know where we are going and I am trying to lead them in the right direction
[01:01:58] but I don't want to impose it on them and I say listen it is okay for a leader
[01:02:04] sometimes say hey everyone this is where we are going because not everyone has the visibility
[01:02:09] that you have from your leadership perspective you know if you are in charge of a project
[01:02:14] not everyone can see all the moving pieces so they might not see hey this is where we
[01:02:18] need to go this is what we are doing.
[01:02:20] Is it good to get input for that collective vision absolutely but you may be in a situation
[01:02:26] where other members of the team don't have the vision that you have because just because
[01:02:30] of where you are sitting or where you are standing you can see a little bit more you have
[01:02:34] a little bit more visibility on things so sometimes you do have to make the vision and
[01:02:37] as soon as you make that vision your vision doesn't isn't written in stone or you shouldn't
[01:02:42] write your vision in stone if you write your vision in stone you are probably making a
[01:02:45] mistake and some people might think that that sounds weak well you are going to change
[01:02:49] your vision actually I may change the vision if we get to a point where we need something
[01:02:53] just like when you are in a body say hey wait a second we have been doing things like
[01:02:56] this we are not getting any progress with the shakes the shakes your tone is oh
[01:02:59] guess what we are going to do a just our vision so there is nothing wrong with a
[01:03:03] just new vision and there is nothing wrong with if you are not getting feedback it is
[01:03:06] okay cool watch this here is the vision here is what we are going to do start moving
[01:03:10] that direction adapt as needed yeah you know totally agree one one thing I learned when
[01:03:17] got this is back around late 90s around the year 2000 was before 9-11 when I took
[01:03:27] man to 55th brigade you know national guard brigade so you know about 3000
[01:03:32] soldiers distributed across northeastern Pennsylvania down toward the Philadelphia area and
[01:03:38] you know 85% of them had full times of laying jobs so like man I got a
[01:03:44] develop a vision for this organization in order for us to show some you know to move
[01:03:49] forward here and what I did is I went around to representative
[01:03:55] sampling of soldiers who were part of that brigade I would talk to a PFC
[01:04:01] that had like a year in Norm you know I would talk to a major who had may or may be
[01:04:05] 16-17 years in the army and every and a few folks in between there I mean
[01:04:11] 3000 soldiers can't talk to all of them and say hey where do you want to see
[01:04:14] this brigade go and the question I would ask them I would say hey you know if you
[01:04:19] fell asleep for five years and woke up five years from now what would you want to see
[01:04:23] this brigade look like then you know and the funny thing is whether it was a soldier
[01:04:29] low rank one year experience or higher ranking officer with 17 years experience
[01:04:34] everybody kind of wanted the same thing they wanted to be well trained so if we
[01:04:39] had a deploy we'd be able to do our jobs successfully and that ended up
[01:04:43] essentially what what what the vision was so what it taught me and this goes for any
[01:04:48] business leader out there trying to develop a vision for their organization and
[01:04:52] many organizations are working distributed now you know with the pandemic and
[01:04:56] everything else it's try to get you know when I say shared vision try to get a
[01:05:01] representative sample if you could of where people would like to see it go
[01:05:04] and ultimately use the leader like you said you you've got a broader view of
[01:05:08] everything so yeah it's you finally got to put a stake in the ground say yeah
[01:05:12] this is going to be our vision but I think it's good I need to get a representative
[01:05:16] samples sampling of those in your organization and and then you know when you
[01:05:23] get it out there you know you've got to you've got to share it in a an
[01:05:27] multitude of ways you know when you're speaking to people one-on-one you've got
[01:05:32] a communicate that vision you're speaking to a group of 500 you've got to
[01:05:36] communicate the vision through email through your website through whatever you
[01:05:41] know social media means you might want to use but the vision then has to be
[01:05:46] consistent you know can't be a new flavor of the month or a new vision of
[01:05:51] the quarter you know like you said visions could change but it shouldn't be
[01:05:55] changing on a very very frequent basis that's what I learned about developing a
[01:06:00] vision you know over 20 years ago yeah and it's it's always interesting like
[01:06:04] that's alignment right no matter who you talk to you talk to a frontline
[01:06:09] individual that's been in the army for six months you talk to someone that's
[01:06:12] been in the army for 20 years in listed officer on both ends of that
[01:06:16] spectrum and they all say oh well I'd like that if we get deployed we're ready to
[01:06:20] do our job that you can make so many decisions based on that just knowing
[01:06:25] that right there hey is it going to help us do our job if we spend time you know
[01:06:29] clowning around at work on our drill weekend is it going to help us be ready to
[01:06:33] do our job no it's not so let's do something else and that goes up and now
[01:06:36] the chain of command and now that we have that shared aligned vision now we can
[01:06:40] all make a bunch of decisions just based on the fact that we know that when
[01:06:44] we deploy we want to be ready to do our job we want to be effective okay does
[01:06:48] this help us be effective or not and we can make a decision so that's important
[01:06:52] stuff fast forward a little bit you know let's get a chapter in here called
[01:06:57] keeping your feet on the ground which is about humility you say I worked for an
[01:07:01] arrogant leader before it was not any fun all of us who work for this man felt
[01:07:06] our opinions were not valued he was the kind of guy who said things like when
[01:07:10] I want your opinion I'll tell you what it is stereotypical military but not
[01:07:16] actual military we believe we were not respected and we felt more like objects
[01:07:20] rather than we were part of the team the results are initiative imagination and
[01:07:25] creativity were stifled as you could imagine the leader failed again this is a
[01:07:30] this is one of those false images of military leadership does it happen yes it
[01:07:37] does happen and here's something else let's say about this you want to know
[01:07:41] what it does happen more often in the military and one of the reason it happens
[01:07:45] more often in the military is because in the military you're only in command
[01:07:49] for two years generally speaking so most of the enlisted guys you work in
[01:07:54] for a jerk or an arrogant person it takes them three months or three to six
[01:07:58] months ago hey this guy really is arrogant then at six months are like oh
[01:08:01] god what are we going to do about it this guy is horrible now to year now
[01:08:05] they start thinking hey we should really do something about this we should get
[01:08:07] rid of this guy we should run an opportunity command we should fill out our
[01:08:10] surveys our command climate surveys and report what a jerk this guy is and then
[01:08:14] it's eighteen months and then they go you know he's gonna be gone at six
[01:08:16] months let's just freaking deal with it and that guy never gets the feedback and
[01:08:20] so everything that he did worked and it's positive feedback and it's a positive
[01:08:25] feedback loop he thinks he did a good job because he yelled and screamed and didn't
[01:08:28] take anyone's opinion and now he gets promoted that's the unfortunate reality
[01:08:32] of the military yeah and the other interesting thing with that you know we could
[01:08:35] call that guy a toxic leader is I found that toxic leaders are very good at
[01:08:42] not letting their people they work for their superior officers but if you want to
[01:08:47] call it see their toxicity oh for sure they're able to hide it I've known a lot of
[01:08:52] military leaders that everyone above them in the chain of command loved them
[01:08:57] everybody below the chain of command hated them yeah because above the chain of
[01:09:01] command they see when someone does make-in stuff happen right below the chain of
[01:09:04] command they're getting they're the ones that are freaking being driven to you
[01:09:08] know bloody fingers as they try and get the job done and yeah that that
[01:09:12] happens often yeah it's amazing how good they are at hiding that toxicity when
[01:09:17] they're talking to somebody who who they work for yeah and you got to be
[01:09:20] careful as a leader to make sure that that's not happening that's why it's
[01:09:24] important like you said to go down and talk to the troops yeah and say hey
[01:09:29] what's that goes Charles like as a leader how's that going and you know what
[01:09:32] they're gonna say at first they say he's great but you got to ask them well
[01:09:35] how often does he talk to do you take your you got to dig it out of them
[01:09:38] because most of them they don't want to they don't want to make they don't want
[01:09:42] that beef as echo would say yeah you know the the more you get down there
[01:09:48] you know I call it muddy muddy boots leadership they're more to get down there
[01:09:51] talk to the troops you know whether it be militarious civilian then you're
[01:09:56] able to develop that trust too because you're right the first time you go
[01:09:59] down and ask somebody hey how's it going they're not going to be totally honest
[01:10:02] with you if they don't know you but the more they get used to seeing you come
[01:10:06] around and and just having a rapport and see that you're hey normal guy and you
[01:10:11] really do want the best for the organization they're going to loosen up until
[01:10:14] later truth also don't burn your sources you know don't don't go back and
[01:10:18] say hey echo I need to talk to you John Gronsky said you were a tyrant and
[01:10:24] all that's not you're never going to get any information again no so you have
[01:10:28] to be careful about that one fast forward a little bit one of the best ways
[01:10:32] a leader could show respect to others is by asking for their opinion and
[01:10:35] then seriously considering it leaders and powers others in an organization
[01:10:39] simply by listening to state level headed and keep ones feet placed firmly on
[01:10:43] the ground leaders must acknowledge others for their contributions to this
[01:10:46] teams success so this is something I I've written about talking about
[01:10:53] listening is I think is the most underrated possibly the most underrated
[01:10:58] aspect of leadership the only other one that's in a close second and it correlates
[01:11:03] very directly is asking earnest questions ask earnest questions and then
[01:11:07] listen to what people have to say and you know some leaders think
[01:11:13] they're listening but their actions don't show that they're listening you know like
[01:11:18] you're going to talk to somebody hey could I have a minute could I talk to you
[01:11:22] and you know leader is you know checking their phone while you're talking to them
[01:11:26] or they're you know tapping something on the keyboard or they're their computer while
[01:11:30] you're talking to them or you're talking to them they're looking off at somebody else you
[01:11:33] know it's kind of like wow is this guy really listening to me you know that
[01:11:37] leader might think they're listening but their actions are showing that they're not
[01:11:39] really listening so it's it's important that you you really do that act of listening
[01:11:44] actually listen yeah yeah fast forward a little bit identify your core values
[01:11:50] to develop strong character you must take the time to figure out what you stand for
[01:11:54] and what your core values really are this came to light for me many years ago
[01:11:58] I attended a dinner at which the speaker gave an impassion talk about his own personal
[01:12:02] core values the next day as I was still thinking about what I heard I realized if someone
[01:12:05] asked me what my personal core values were I would not be able to give an answer
[01:12:10] sure I had values I tried to be an ethical person but to that point I never took the time
[01:12:16] to think long and hard about exactly what I stood for and my principles I never took the
[01:12:21] time to consider what values were most important to me important you know
[01:12:28] the other thing about values if if you don't understand what your own personal core
[01:12:34] values are when you make personal decisions or when it comes a time for you to make a personal
[01:12:40] decision about something I really believe you have to factor your your personal core
[01:12:48] values into decisions you make so if you don't have those core values articulated in your
[01:12:54] own mind how are you going to factor them in your decision and the same with organizations
[01:12:59] you know organizations many organizations have organizational values but when the leadership team
[01:13:05] gets together with the CEO and they're in the you know they're going through this decision
[01:13:10] making process how many of them actually factor the organizational values into the decision that
[01:13:17] they're making which I I would think I would just guess many don't even think about their values
[01:13:25] when they're making a business decision which is crazy to think about yeah if you're making decisions
[01:13:30] that you might as well just be making decisions in the blind exactly and then and then you're
[01:13:35] not being true to your values and again that breaks trust with your customers or that breaks
[01:13:39] trust with your employees or whom ever that particular decision is going to affect so yeah really
[01:13:46] that's why values are so important I believe and then the other thing behaviors I think are
[01:13:52] important too you know I I know a lot of organizations are getting you know they do have
[01:13:57] organizational values but now they're also getting into organizational behaviors so they actually
[01:14:03] list out you know maybe between 10 to 20 behaviors that they expect from their employees which I think
[01:14:10] is is very important as a matter of fact a consulting firm I used to work for green castle consulting
[01:14:17] has expected behaviors that they want their consultants to demonstrate and I think that's a
[01:14:27] a very good way to look at things because you know values are kind of conceptual behaviors are
[01:14:33] more tangible and and I do think you know identifying expected behaviors is really helpful in
[01:14:43] getting your employees to treat customers or treat each other the way you want them to.
[01:14:48] Yeah this is something that I was acutely aware of especially with kids and when I wrote the first
[01:14:56] warrior kid book the whole actually the entire premise of the first book is the kid has to come up with
[01:15:03] a warrior kid code of what he's going to and and his uncle in this book it's a kids book but
[01:15:10] the kid's uncle is uh was it was in the seal teams and so he introduces him he can see that the
[01:15:15] kid's kind of floating around not making the best decisions and so he says hey warriors live by a
[01:15:20] code and I point out you know the Marine Corps values the the the Ranger code the I just point out
[01:15:27] the you know the ancient you know the Samurai code the Viking gods I'm not putting them all in the book
[01:15:33] and say hey you need to make your own code and the kid ends up writing his own code and the uncle
[01:15:38] approves it this warrior kid code and then eventually I wrote another book called the code the
[01:15:42] evaluation of protocols which literally has like a code saying hey as an adult you still need a code
[01:15:48] you still need to figure out what it is you're trying to do what he trying to do with your life and if again
[01:15:53] if you have this code in place hey I want to be healthy cool is that donut gonna help be
[01:15:57] be healthy no it's not don't eat it hey I want to be uh I want to spend quality time with my family
[01:16:04] okay why am I watching TV right now okay don't watch TV if you have something to live by then it's
[01:16:10] gonna make your life that much better and and that's why the the warrior kid code and the
[01:16:15] code evaluation protocol that's the purpose of those say hey listen and and in both those cases
[01:16:20] I say right your own code because you shouldn't follow my code but I can pretty much guarantee you
[01:16:26] most people would have an 80% overlap on what their code is gonna be I mean I might be more into
[01:16:31] you know martial arts than someone else might be more into fishing but if you're gonna focus on
[01:16:38] some part of your life it's gonna be an 80% who doesn't want to be healthy who doesn't want to have a
[01:16:42] good family who doesn't want to be financially successful who wants to save money like all these things
[01:16:46] it's a 90% solution and mate you can make some small adjustments to it but to wander through life without
[01:16:52] that stuff is exactly that it's wandering through life yeah you know jacco i think you putting that
[01:16:57] emphasis on code and in in that book is one of the best things you've ever done because if you
[01:17:04] want to keep people on an ethical path one of the guardrails to to stay on that ethical path is
[01:17:12] by actually writing down what your own personal code is and then that will help you stay grounded
[01:17:19] and help you stay on that path that that's just a great technique to use to keep somebody you know
[01:17:26] staying within those limits because how many times have we seen CEO CEOs governors you know
[01:17:33] stray ethically off the path president yeah president you know anyone in the chain of
[01:17:38] your band yeah bottom of the top yeah and and again it's because they either never took the time to
[01:17:44] write down their own personal code or if they've written a down now they're not paying attention to it
[01:17:49] so I think that's great advice you gave out there um this is one of the sections where I actually
[01:17:54] made a note of your action set section of the book so here here's the actions and you did this
[01:18:00] for every one of these sections you get you identify actions that actually take to move forward
[01:18:07] and improve this area of leadership so here the actions are identify your own personal core values
[01:18:13] ensure your personal personal core values and the values of the organization you work for our
[01:18:18] aligned when making a decision factor your personal values and your organizations values into your decision
[01:18:25] making process strive to place the welfare and interests of your followers ahead of your own
[01:18:31] and and those are some things and actions that you can take to make this a reality and hey
[01:18:39] identify your own personal core values and write them down it's if something everybody should do
[01:18:42] um section here called cultivating trust and you you get in this situation where it's 1999
[01:18:56] 1999 you're going to lift the waneia let me go to the book here the country had regained its
[01:19:02] independence only about six years earlier it was going to be my job to work with the lift
[01:19:07] waneian military to help them understand how the US military function and grow the relationship
[01:19:11] between the US and Lithuania I would have a team of three other US military personnel represented
[01:19:17] their Marines army and air force and the team would also include one Lithuania army officer
[01:19:22] and three Lithuania civilians and this is your coming off I think you're coming off of the
[01:19:25] Italian command at this point so you were just done leading 800 people and now you got a team of
[01:19:31] seven you arrive in Lithuania for this job and I got to read this part after I was on board for a
[01:19:38] couple of weeks I began to come up with what I thought were some excellent ideas instead of tackling
[01:19:43] the work myself I gave began to shoot off yellow sticky notes to everyone giving them tasks to do
[01:19:48] I had plenty of bright ideas and I shot off plenty of taskers to them I thought I was making a
[01:19:52] great impression on the team because of my exceptional ideas however I could not explain it but
[01:19:57] something seemed to be a miss somehow I did not feel the team was comfortable under my leadership
[01:20:01] I had an army reserve major working on my team as an operations officer he was a bright guy
[01:20:05] with an analytical mind and positive demeanor one morning when I was sitting in my office he knocked
[01:20:10] on my door and asked if he could speak to me privately I brightened up I was all about this I thought
[01:20:15] to myself there is a young officer who needs advice from a sage like me the major sat down
[01:20:22] and I asked him what was on his mind his answer floored me he said sir you are tearing this team apart
[01:20:29] he went on to say that since I arrived Morales at an all-time low the team's perception of
[01:20:34] my leadership performance was 180 degrees from what I was hoping for their perception was not the
[01:20:40] boss as a sharp guy he has great ideas rather their perception was negative including such
[01:20:44] thoughts as the new boss thinks things are all screwed up here the new boss thinks we are all screwed
[01:20:48] up the new boss thinks we have nothing to do the new boss is not trust us knows the us versus
[01:20:53] him attitude that developed here this is definitely a lesson learned for me thankfully I had someone
[01:20:58] on the team with enough guts to discuss the issue with me I thank the major for the personal
[01:21:03] and moral courage you displayed by discussing the issue with me I had no idea that through my behavior
[01:21:08] and tone I was giving everyone such a negative perception of how I thought they were performing
[01:21:13] you go on here look fast for a little bit what I did to repair trust I immediately met with
[01:21:17] the team members and apologized for the mistake I made I took full ownership of creating a
[01:21:21] perception that I did not trust them I told them I trusted them completely I explained to them
[01:21:26] that I now realized how my behavior was negatively affecting the team I promised them I would change
[01:21:31] my behavior that's a good story yeah and the freaking battalion commander post post battalion commander
[01:21:39] rolling in the good idea fairy yeah we call that you know and and that taught me that whether you
[01:21:45] lead an organization of eight hundred or you lead an organization of eight the leadership challenges are
[01:21:52] there you know it doesn't it doesn't get any easier or harder depending on the number of people you
[01:21:58] lead you know you still got those challenges the the folks on your team are still expecting you to be a
[01:22:04] good leader a positive influence on them and as I mentioned in the book I'm just glad this this
[01:22:11] guy had the the personal courage to come up and and tell me about it because it was really it was
[01:22:18] really life changing for me because that really got me on a journey to really study what trust is all
[01:22:27] about and not only how to cultivate trust but also how to repair trust if if you unfortunately break it
[01:22:33] you know and one thing that is nice is luckily you must have given him some kind of impression
[01:22:40] that you were somewhat approachable and I can guarantee you there's the the the fitness reports of the
[01:22:48] world and evaluations are littered with people that decided they were going to go tell their boss hey
[01:22:52] this is what it looks like and they get scorched for it because the person didn't have an open mind
[01:22:56] and didn't really want to hear them so luckily you had an open mind and were humble enough to say oh
[01:23:04] that's not good I I made a mistake unfortunately the bosses that often times need that sort of
[01:23:12] personal guidance are the types of bosses that aren't open in that type of personal guidance unfortunately yeah
[01:23:18] yeah scary and I'm glad you I'm glad you complimented his moral courage yeah no I realized
[01:23:25] how hard that that was for him and and again I think that the you know the lesson for anybody
[01:23:31] out here listening is hey you know you could be you know you could be a jackass you know if you
[01:23:37] want to be and not be approachable and you know my way or the highway I'm the boss you know
[01:23:42] who are you to tell me what to do we're giving me advice but you're probably only on go so far
[01:23:49] and you know your journey as a leader and if you really want to have long-term success you've
[01:23:56] you've got to follow some of these basic leadership tenants you know
[01:24:02] next chapter what leadership is all about and and and you have a great combat story about
[01:24:09] what is it gunnery sergeant yeah gunnery sergeant Berkhar or master sergeant my heart
[01:24:13] he retired as a master sergeant I'll outstanding just a real real show occurred you can
[01:24:19] told the story on the last podcast you've recited with some more detail in here on the book just
[01:24:24] of a guy that just is unstoppable so I won't cover that right now get the book to read that story
[01:24:33] but you do say this about leadership effective leadership is measured by the results and
[01:24:37] organization achieves after all organizations exist to achieve their purpose and attain results
[01:24:43] leaders cannot attain results on their own leaders must enlist the support of their followers
[01:24:48] to be successful when leaders demonstrate to followers they care by placing their followers well
[01:24:53] fair ahead of their own that is a great way for the leader to gain follower support
[01:24:58] former army chief of staff general Gordon Sullivan in his book hope is not a method
[01:25:02] says our effectiveness as leaders is not so much what we do is as in what influence as what we
[01:25:10] influence others to do a leader must inspire others to be their best and to work toward achieving
[01:25:16] organizational objectives a leaders nothing without support of those here she leads using the
[01:25:22] model of character competence direction and overcoming adversity is a framework for enlisting
[01:25:26] and retaining support which will lead organizational results and success if you're doing your
[01:25:33] jobs a leader the the team is going to be doing what they're supposed to be doing yeah don't forget that
[01:25:39] and you know it's it's all about you know being fortunate enough to have people around you
[01:25:48] like like a gunny Michael Burkhard and one another quick story I want to tell that's not in the
[01:25:54] book I didn't mention it last time but I think it's inspiring we had this one soldier from the
[01:25:59] 28th infantry division who came to remind you with this his name was Anthony Jorgensen and again
[01:26:06] we got there in July of 2005 it was in the fall of 2005 he was in an uparmer come via
[01:26:13] Billy was in in the gunners position ID that Nate's causes his uparmer come via a flip over on
[01:26:21] its side he ends up having a broken arm and I think a broken leg both and so get sent back home
[01:26:27] to the United States recovers from his wounds and with sometime in early 2006 he tells the
[01:26:35] leadership in the Pennsylvania Guard hey I want to go back over to her body you know it's like
[01:26:40] they can't be a leave it's kind of like no we are not sending you back so I did have a battalion
[01:26:47] from the Vermont National Guard there with me task organized to my brigade so so this guy
[01:26:54] leaves a Pennsylvania National Guard joins the Vermont National Guard just so he could
[01:27:02] give Vermont to send them back over Remoddy be part of that battalion so he gets back over there
[01:27:07] and then it's April 2006 he's out there on another patrol and he's in a support by fire position
[01:27:15] he's in the the gunners compartment of this uparmer Humvee there's some dismounts going into a building
[01:27:21] that is they believed in surgeons were in and an insurgent fires an RPG a rock
[01:27:28] repelligernade at at this uparmer Humvee that Georgian's in his end and and just like wings it you know
[01:27:35] the slight damage to the Humvee he gets knocked down out of the the gunners hatch gets back up there
[01:27:42] he sees that insurgents are pinning down these dismounts that are out there so he jumps down into
[01:27:49] the driver's compartment drives that uparmer Humvee between where the insurgents are firing and these
[01:27:57] dismounts that were pinned down gets back up into the gunners compartment and lays down
[01:28:02] suppress the fire on these insurgents allowing these dismounts to the disengage and then continue to
[01:28:08] mission all this after suffering these wounds in that attack back in the fall now how many you know
[01:28:18] how many people would you know leave Remoddy with with you know honorable wounds like he did
[01:28:24] and then fight to get back over there and then you know does this heroic action which I believe
[01:28:30] he got a bronze star with V4 for for doing what he did but just just again the reason I want to
[01:28:37] bring that story up is these soldiers are so inspiring and you know we think as leaders we should be
[01:28:45] inspiring our followers but our followers have a way especially in the military of inspiring us and
[01:28:51] some of these stories just have to be told and the knee Jordan said what's he doing now do you know
[01:28:56] yeah he lives up in the scranton area and uh get the after to the scranton area yeah he is so just
[01:29:03] very proud of you know he does for 11 offhand I don't know right on yeah but uh well he
[01:29:10] used to loot you Anthony Jordanson yeah he needs that shout out what a beast yeah yeah I mean you
[01:29:16] get blown up by an ID and thrown out of your vehicle like you say oh he had these wounds you
[01:29:20] he's lucky to be alive after that happens yeah and then you get hit with an RPG
[01:29:27] you're lucky to be alive in home v yeah and again I hope he's playing the lottery up there
[01:29:32] Anthony Jordanson and scrant PA he's got a little some luck he's a guy I'd want you know watch
[01:29:39] him my back any anytime awesome awesome stuff here's an interesting title do not for a chapter
[01:29:47] do not treat everyone equally talk to us about that yeah basically with with that's about is you know
[01:29:57] I don't think leaders should treat everybody on the on the team equally you got and when I say
[01:30:05] that this one I mean by it you got to get to know the the people on your team everybody's a
[01:30:10] little bit different so you got to really get to know what makes them tick and and what's going
[01:30:16] to motivate certain people as opposed to motivating others and so you know you can't treat
[01:30:23] the meek well I think there's a story in there I think about Jimmy Johnson when he coached
[01:30:27] Dallas Cowboys and he was asked by reporter hey you know if if you saw Troy eight men a
[01:30:34] sleep in one of your team meetings and a third string offensive guard a sleep in in your
[01:30:41] team meeting would you treat them the same way and and he answered absolutely not he goes and
[01:30:47] this is what I do he goes I would probably cut that third string offensive guard immediately
[01:30:52] and would Troy eight men I would go up to him and I would kind of nudge him gently awake and I would
[01:30:56] say hey kind of bring a cup of coffee you know so the the point is you know you've got to understand
[01:31:02] the talent to have on your team and and not everybody should be treated equally you know some some
[01:31:07] some people need a kick in the butt some people need a pat on the back another interesting story
[01:31:14] with us a football story you know I I grew up as a green bay packer fan so in 1966 10 years old
[01:31:21] lumbarty you know winning his first super ball I became packer fan so I started to read all kinds
[01:31:27] of books about the packers and there was this one story you know Bart Star who was the quarterback
[01:31:31] for for lumbarty I think it was like the second year lumbarty was the head coach he was just
[01:31:38] chewing Bart Star out relentlessly during this practice and you know talk about moral courage
[01:31:44] after practice Bart Star goes to Coach lumbarty's office and he goes hey coach can I talk to
[01:31:50] privately for a few minutes coach says yeah sure what's up and Star says to him he goes coach he goes
[01:31:57] I don't want you ever chewing me out in front of the team again said I'm the quarterback
[01:32:03] I'm leading this team he goes if they see you chewing me out the way you were chewing me out
[01:32:08] he goes I'm not going to be able to lead this team effectively in the lumbarty light bulb
[01:32:13] an often said any realized he could not treat everybody exactly the same way you know so he never
[01:32:21] chewed Bart Star out in front of the team again because he realized that what Star said was exactly
[01:32:26] correct you know he couldn't lead the team effectively if he was going to be treated like that
[01:32:31] and so again just just some great lessons we could learn from from from past leaders and you know
[01:32:39] I just tried I think we all tried to do our best when we hear these lessons to try to apply
[01:32:43] them if we could you know that's when you when you get a guy like Vincent Barty in the
[01:32:46] reputation that he has and he's humble enough to think oh if he if he can be humble in that situation
[01:32:52] and maybe less than one of his subordinates and say oh he's right I'm wrong that's another indicator
[01:32:57] that you might want to stay humble as a leader you get some stuff to learn no matter who you are
[01:33:01] yeah absolutely you talked earlier about muddy boots leadership and and you tell a story
[01:33:06] and here about you got complimented on the fact that you were in charge but you you were
[01:33:11] your boots were muddy because you've been out in the field going to see and what was happening
[01:33:15] and and and that's a whole concept of getting the field get out there talk to people find
[01:33:20] what's going on in the front lines you say this here a mentor in that same chapter you say a
[01:33:26] mentor of mine told me the personal presence of a leader is probably the greatest key to influencing
[01:33:31] the action once a plan has been put in a motion a leaders presence demonstrates to one's
[01:33:36] followers the importance of the work at hand when the leader is where the action is they are then
[01:33:42] position to motivate others and make timely adjustments when necessary leader sometimes has to go
[01:33:49] to make things happen yeah you know I remember as a young army officer reading and some manual
[01:33:57] somewhere or maybe it was even some senior leader who was coaching me but said you know there's
[01:34:05] three things a commander could do to positively impact the battle once it begins he said the
[01:34:13] commanders use of fires you know close air support and direct fire the use of the reserves
[01:34:22] you know because usually the commander retains the authority of when to use his reserve and the
[01:34:28] third thing is personal presence on the battlefield and he said those are the three things a commander
[01:34:36] could do to influence the battle once it begins and and that always stuck to me stuck with me especially
[01:34:43] that notion of the personal presence on the battlefield and just having that personal presence there
[01:34:48] which help I think you know soldiers in battle or in a civilian sector you know employees in
[01:34:57] an organization realize that hey this leaders out with us sharing the load sharing the danger
[01:35:04] you know sharing what's coming our way and and you know they kind of get bolstered by that whole notion
[01:35:12] well I can attest to that I remember seeing you out on the battlefield the
[01:35:15] body looking over and say well there's the brigade commander I Roger that I guess he's I guess he's
[01:35:20] not sitting back in the talk all the time he's out here with the troops like you said seeing what's
[01:35:26] happening understanding what's happening and taking that risk I mean if you were in Ramadi
[01:35:31] and you were out in the city you were at risk and IEDs and and roadside bombs and RPGs and
[01:35:38] and machine guns don't they don't care what your name is they don't care what your rank is
[01:35:42] they'll they'll kill you one way or the other if they want to yeah you know I did try to get out
[01:35:46] there a lot not because I had any type of you know courage to speak of but just because I felt
[01:35:52] it was necessary to do and the other thing for any military leader listening to this and
[01:35:59] and really it applies to business leaders too I would encourage my staff to get out there
[01:36:05] and and the reason I encourage my staff to get out there is because I felt it was important for my
[01:36:10] staff to also gain ground truth if if if the staff was gaining with they thought was to truth
[01:36:18] from reading reports they were missing about 80% of what was happening so although I know you know
[01:36:24] in the military a lot of times especially in operations like that the staff needs to be back
[01:36:29] doing staff work I always encourage them that hey they they did have to make time to actually get
[01:36:36] out there talk to troops see areas with their own eyes and again just a history from lesson
[01:36:43] hurt and force 28th infantry division fighting in the hurt and forest in in November 1944 the battle
[01:36:50] of Schmidt was a devastating time for the 28th infantry division in about four days over 6,000
[01:36:59] casualties and one thing that was written about that period is it's said that general code
[01:37:05] to who is a division commander at the time most reports I read said he never even went as far
[01:37:11] forward as one of his regimental command posts and the staff did not go forward either so
[01:37:18] they didn't realize that the call trail through the hurt and forest which they were sending
[01:37:23] Sherman tank down Sherman tank is eight and a half feet wide the call trail was nine feet wide
[01:37:29] I mean it was not a good you know means you know MSR means supply route or or good route of any
[01:37:37] sort for those tanks to be going along and so to lessen there is because the commander didn't get
[01:37:43] out on the battlefield because the staff didn't get out there they were relying on maps
[01:37:47] they didn't get the full understanding of what that hurt and forest area was was like so
[01:37:55] again for any civilian leader any military leader absolutely important not only to get out
[01:38:00] there yourself but to get your your staff the ones that you depend on to advise you to get out there
[01:38:05] as well you know there's another piece of this when when you are the leader and you what
[01:38:10] you're supposed to be doing is you're supposed to be detached you're not supposed to go out there
[01:38:13] and get in the firefighter not supposed to go out there and and run the marketing meeting or meet
[01:38:17] with the client necessarily or get and start manufacturing stuff on the line you're supposed to
[01:38:23] go out and look do you do you maybe do a couple moves on the manufacturing line to make sure you
[01:38:28] understand what's happening yes but you don't start manufacturing things you come in from a
[01:38:33] different perspective you come in with a different perspective and then what you have to look for
[01:38:38] as a leader is you have to make sure that things are going in the right direction and the
[01:38:44] test that you should put on yourself is like it the basically the momentum is the momentum that
[01:38:50] we're going in correct because the momentum could be wrong and the momentum could be right and
[01:38:56] if the momentum is right cool you can just get out of the way if the momentum is wrong that's
[01:39:01] we're going to have to step in and stop it and and one of the places where you see this is
[01:39:04] well in combat when things lag you know you get an element that's not moving as quickly as they're
[01:39:10] supposed to move they're lagging they're moving too slow and they don't even realize that they can't
[01:39:16] realize it because they're doing it you can come in and say hey we got to step it up hey we need to
[01:39:19] push that next building so when that when an element is lagging a leader can step in and move things
[01:39:25] quicker and they should because that's the the momentum is inertia the momentum is hey we're going
[01:39:31] slow we're being methodical but they need to move faster the leaders got to make that happen there's
[01:39:35] also times the leader steps in and says hey need to slow down guys are moving too quick you guys are
[01:39:40] taking you not not taking too many risks slow it down so there's all these situations where I think
[01:39:46] what the leader needs to be cognizant cognizant of in their mind when they step into these situations
[01:39:52] is the momentum we have is the crowd is the mob moving in the right direction if they are great
[01:39:58] get out of their way let them keep going but if they're not that's when your opportunity comes to
[01:40:02] a straighten it out and check it yeah it's not and it's not just about speed it's about tempo and
[01:40:09] a couple of things came to mind Jaco as you were talking one is my personal security detachment
[01:40:16] in Ramadi you know it was generally for a farmer at home v's I had a platoon the platoon leaders
[01:40:22] named Ajax myth just just an excellent leader and early on as we were out there with me
[01:40:31] being transported by this when we when we moved mounted by this for a farmer humv formation
[01:40:41] you know I was kind of on the radio directing the movement of these for a farmer humv and
[01:40:46] and uh... joc Smith you know to be telling you looks at me goes sir he goes you're you're leading
[01:40:52] the brigade because let me lead this platoon and i and i said you know why joc you're exactly
[01:40:57] right i'm gonna shut up you know we're out when i when we're out here this is your platoon you're
[01:41:02] going to lead it i'm going i'm not going to say a damn word about how how you should maneuver this
[01:41:08] platoon because he was right i had i had a brigade lead and the other story is command sergeant major
[01:41:14] uh... crisp capillary was my command sergeant major when i commanded twenty-eighth infantry
[01:41:19] division uh he used to say uh as he would go out and talk to the leaders and coach and mentor
[01:41:25] leaders he would he would say leaders could stop things from getting screwed up just by the fact
[01:41:32] that they were there just by their mere presence uh so you know that's why it's so important again
[01:41:38] you know for for leaders to get out there because people are going to do the right thing
[01:41:44] and adhere to those standards when they know to leader is is there uh i was uh down in florida
[01:41:53] uh a while back doing some leadership training for a sheriff's department down there and one of the
[01:41:58] the deputy sheriff's was speaking to a group of corporals and he told the story how in the in the
[01:42:04] in the jail there uh how uh some deputies that should have been in the kitchen watching the
[01:42:13] prisoners do what they were doing uh you know cooking the meal uh just neglected to be there as
[01:42:20] they should and things really got out of hand and his point was just because the sergeant
[01:42:28] wasn't going down and checking to make sure those deputies were doing the right thing they
[01:42:33] you know the human beings are just decided hey you know this must be that important because
[01:42:37] nobody's checking on us so we're not going to be doing the right thing and so his point was again
[01:42:42] just by the mere fact of a leader being present they're going to fix things just by being there
[01:42:48] this is a reminds me of of another chapter in the book here chapter 11 an organization's personality
[01:42:55] say in 1985 i took command of an infantry company in the 28th infantry division Pennsylvania National
[01:43:00] Guard the infantry company i commanded was designated alpha company second battalion hundred and
[01:43:04] ninth infantry and the unit had an authorized strength of 144 soldiers i was honored to have an
[01:43:09] opportunity to lead the commission officers non-commission officers and soldiers assigned to the
[01:43:13] outfit i remembered reading an army leadership manual earlier in the in my career before taking this
[01:43:18] command in the manual there was a statement i will never forget it's at a military unit
[01:43:23] and any organization for that matter takes on the personality of its leader when reading that
[01:43:29] statement as a young inexperienced leader i doubted it i could not believe a unit of almost 150 soldiers
[01:43:35] would take on my personality i did not believe someone like me could have that type of impact
[01:43:40] whereby over a hundred of the people assigned would take on my traits based on my experience
[01:43:46] commanding that company i learned i was wrong and the leadership manual is correct and organization
[01:43:51] will take on the personality of its leader in my case the commander i took over for was a good man
[01:43:56] however his focus seemed to be more on being a nice guy than on emphasizing physical fitness and
[01:44:01] tough training that was exactly what the person personality of the unit was when i took command everyone
[01:44:06] got along have no comfortable but many of the soldiers were laxed on their fitness levels and the
[01:44:10] unit did not go in the field much to conduct rigorous training i believe soldiers need to be
[01:44:14] an excellent physical condition and i also believed infantry soldiers needed to train rigorously
[01:44:18] in field conditions be experts with their weapons and take excellent care of their equipment
[01:44:22] over time the unit took on a tough persona this was ratified by our brigade commander when
[01:44:27] he selected our unit train at the national training center at fort or when california
[01:44:32] late nineteen eighty this is a big deal and an honor for national guard company to be selected
[01:44:36] for that training so there you go yeah the case in point yeah the the next section i wanted to just
[01:44:43] jump into and it's called decision making and there's some tap some topics in here and that
[01:44:47] you write about and i just want to kind of do a high level review of some of these some of these
[01:44:55] uh sections one of them's hit the ground running um which means when you show up get started
[01:45:04] get your butt in gear yeah yeah another one's character is foundational again this is what we're
[01:45:10] doing what we're doing this is who we are and if we don't have good character hey listen
[01:45:17] if you don't have good character you might be able to get away with it for a little while you might
[01:45:20] even be able to weasel out a promotion because you you maneuvered and you manipulated it and
[01:45:26] you took credit where you didn't and you didn't give credit to the team or you still you might
[01:45:30] you might even get a promotion you might even get two promotions they can happen but eventually
[01:45:35] it's not it's not gonna last no no you know uh a friend of mine lend me a rella
[01:45:41] he graduated from west point in like nineteen fifty eight or something uh retired as a colonel and
[01:45:47] the army he wrote this book uh about character and in the book he would go and interview different
[01:45:54] leaders who were known to be character based leaders and one of the people he interviewed was coach
[01:46:00] Krishewski coach K from Duke and uh in the in this interview he was doing with coach K you know
[01:46:08] lend lends to coach K like what this character have to do with winning a basketball game
[01:46:13] and coach K's answer was you know character has absolutely nothing at all to do with winning a
[01:46:22] basketball game but it has everything to do with winning a championship you know and exactly what
[01:46:31] you said you know you might have a win here there if you're not character based but if you want to
[01:46:35] be a champion if you want to have long term success you got to be a character based leader at least
[01:46:40] that's where I believe um another sub headline here is know your job and do your job and this
[01:46:47] I might might know that I took on this one it is there is such a thing as a stupid question
[01:46:53] and when we explain the you people always say oh there's no such thing as a stupid question
[01:46:56] if you show up to a job and you're gonna be in charge of a tank and you say hey what's the
[01:47:04] name of this vehicle how far can this gun shoot how many rounds can we get a if you're asking
[01:47:09] questions that you should have done some research and know when you showed up you're wrong if you
[01:47:13] show up to a manufacturer to run a manufacturing plant and you show up and say hey what is it
[01:47:18] we're making or how many employees do we have or who's in charge of the day shift if you're
[01:47:23] asking questions that a little bit of research could have answered that you didn't do a good job
[01:47:27] prepare you don't you so know your job that's my part of know your job there is stupid questions
[01:47:32] don't show up your first day and ask stupid questions that you should have known if you're
[01:47:36] taking an ounce of effort to to figure out what was happening you know you're exactly right I mean
[01:47:43] you got to put forth some of that effort now if it's some type of you know in a you know technical
[01:47:49] you know in a thing that maybe a guy with ten years experience would know and you wouldn't know
[01:47:53] hey that's that's fine and you can ask those questions all day long yeah yeah but it's just showing
[01:47:57] you really don't care if you didn't you know take the time to do that type of research before
[01:48:03] coming into job for sure you say take on tough assignments and this is there's a this is this is
[01:48:10] just a good thing across the board you're going to learn a lot you're going to show everyone that
[01:48:15] you don't you'll take the not just the tough ones but the crappy ones hey no one wants to work this
[01:48:20] weekend cool I got it hmm one of my buddies uh sestone who's in romadi with us he was he was on a
[01:48:28] ship he was a ship driver in the navy and they had his his department got assigned to do some cleaning
[01:48:35] like they hadn't been in port for a while and his department got assigned to clean whatever
[01:48:40] and uh I heard this after he died someone the story got passed to his brother was uh you know
[01:48:47] at as his department was leaving for liberty they looked up and they saw he was cleaning whatever
[01:48:54] it was they were assigned to clean and he had just said you know what I'm gonna let the guys go
[01:48:58] and go on liberty and I'm gonna do whatever meanial task we've been told to do and he was the
[01:49:02] guy in charge of the department so do the do the tough ones do the crappy ones too yeah yeah and again
[01:49:07] you know all in line would hit the ground running you know a lot of people say don't volunteer for
[01:49:11] anything right you know I think that's a big mistake tell me you you you you got a volunteer to take
[01:49:16] on those tough things and and when you do that you know a couple of benefits first of all nobody's
[01:49:22] gonna expect you to succeed if you're just starting it you're you know out in your career you know
[01:49:29] you're not gonna have high expectations if you're just starting out and so by tackling those
[01:49:34] tough things gaining that experience you know it's just like you know in the military you know a
[01:49:39] second lieutenant army to lowest ranking commissioned officer you're expecting a second lieutenant to
[01:49:44] make a mistake you know so that's the time to take on those tough assignments gain that experience
[01:49:51] make some of those mistakes learn from them and you know hopefully have the right leaders
[01:49:57] guiding you along the way and that that's how you're really gonna get off to a good start and be
[01:50:01] successful another one developed your leadership philosophy early but continue to refine
[01:50:08] and this is once again important even Vince Lombardi refined his philosophy
[01:50:12] that's what you need to do come up with a philosophy but then refine it make it better as time goes on
[01:50:21] next section here is his competence and I don't know if you did this on purpose but some of
[01:50:27] your chapter titles have a little bit of you know that you're gonna get some rise out of some
[01:50:32] people this one's not everyone deserves a mentor yeah kind of did that on purpose what do you
[01:50:37] be right that one you know and again this gets back to an infantry conference I was at
[01:50:45] in general cone you know he since passed away but he was I think the trade-ock commander at the time
[01:50:52] speaking to us there and he basically said that during his remarks and it's like wow you know that
[01:50:58] kind of hit me you know like like a brick hit in me in the face it's like well what's he talking about
[01:51:02] but but what he went on to say and which what I have you know come to to see as true is
[01:51:12] you know not everybody deserves a mentor because if you're not out there actively looking for a
[01:51:17] mentor for somebody to you know somebody's example to follow you probably don't deserve a mentor and I
[01:51:23] remember even as a as a young officer thinking you know hey nobody's mentoring me you know what
[01:51:29] what's up with this you know and I was expecting some you know gray beard you know to sit me down
[01:51:35] at their side and tell me all the facts of how to lead but hey that that doesn't happen
[01:51:41] and then I realized mentorship is happening all around us all we got to do is look for it for it so
[01:51:47] again if you're a young executive in a company you know and you're observing how
[01:51:56] one of the senior leaders in that company is acting how they're talking to people how they're
[01:52:04] relating to people and you're learning the good and the bad from that that's actually mentorship
[01:52:10] and you know mentorship is all around us if we just look just look for it but nobody should expect
[01:52:16] somebody to kind of sit us down and tell us about hey these these are the things you really
[01:52:21] got to look out for that that's that realistic that's just just not going to happen
[01:52:29] know it is not uh chapter 18 this one's always a big topic getting buy in
[01:52:37] Napoleon used a technique to obtain buy in it was the same technique used by the union general
[01:52:44] who commanded the army of the platomic at Gettysburg general meat meat was a disciple of Napoleon
[01:52:50] the technique was called a war council on July 2nd 1863 mead brought his lieutenant into his
[01:52:57] makeshift headquarters at the lifester house he had in a agenda that evening the council had
[01:53:03] to provide their recommendations on one of three courses of action mead would have to decide one
[01:53:11] the union army should leave the battlefield to the union army should stay in fight and offensive
[01:53:16] battle three the union army should stay and fight a defensive battle mead began by asking his
[01:53:23] lower ranking and least experienced lieutenant to voice their opinions first he used this method
[01:53:28] because he knew if the more senior officer spoke first more junior officers in terms of rank
[01:53:33] reputation or experience might feel too intimidated to disagree after all this was by design a
[01:53:40] hierarchical organization mead knew he had to get the lower ranking leaders to speak first in order
[01:53:46] to get their unvarnished thoughts after everyone spoke mead decided the union would stay in fight
[01:53:52] a defensive battle the rest as they say is history the union army was victorious and won the
[01:53:57] battle and would go on to win the war although would take another bloody two years before the
[01:54:01] Confederate army laid down their arms I when when people asked me this question how do you get
[01:54:11] people to buy into the plan I say let them come up with a plan you don't have to worry about
[01:54:16] buying anymore you don't have to worry about you came up with it I'm buying into your plan
[01:54:21] and I can do that easily I can control my own thoughts and if you come if John comes up with a
[01:54:26] plan that's pretty decent I'm cool with it and and we'll go with it yeah yeah you know as a leader
[01:54:34] I found you know give the task give the purpose but don't give the how you know give the what
[01:54:39] and the why but not the how and usually you know those people who work for us are going to figure
[01:54:46] out a better way to do with them we would have figured out so yeah you know let them run with it
[01:54:52] in any organization usually those people with a grassroots level have they're they're closer to the
[01:55:00] problem set so turn it over to them now yeah you might have to provide a little bit of guidance
[01:55:05] you might have to you know kind of you know just just adjust one way or other but essentially
[01:55:14] you know give me them the what and why and let them figure out the how is generally the best
[01:55:18] way to handle it and I'll get leaders say well what if my what if my support has come up with a
[01:55:22] stupid plan I'm gonna say well it's wrong with you if you've got support instead of coming up with a
[01:55:25] stupid plan yeah I'll tell you what's wrong you haven't trained them properly you haven't given the
[01:55:29] the right mentorship and guidance you haven't let them come up with plans before so they could learn
[01:55:33] how to plan better so if they come up with a stupid plan what do you do you start asking them some
[01:55:38] earnest questions about their plan and kind of it reveals to them what some of the holes in their
[01:55:42] plan are and then they can make adjustments and while they're making adjustments they're also learning
[01:55:47] so the next time you ask them asking them to come up with a plan it's may not be a brilliant plan
[01:55:52] but at least it's less stupid than the first plan and you look up in three months or six months
[01:55:56] all of a sudden their planning is outstanding you look up an ear and they're probably planning
[01:56:00] better than you are because like you said they're the ones that are closest to the problem yeah
[01:56:03] and you know what you said a little bit earlier I think is exactly true you know sometimes
[01:56:08] you know our followers will come up with a plan that isn't exactly the way we would do it
[01:56:13] but you know I let them run with it anyway you know as long as you know it's not flawed in any
[01:56:18] way it's just a different way than I would have thought of doing it and and I think that's really where
[01:56:23] leaders have to leave their ego at the door you know to say you know hey this isn't the way I do it
[01:56:29] but it's going to get the job done it's still going to be cost effective or you know whatever
[01:56:32] the case might be so so let them go forward with it and it's you know like you said you don't have
[01:56:38] to worry about the buying if they came up with that I go into every meeting with my subordinates
[01:56:42] when I was in a pool tune when I was a task in a commander right now in the business world I walk
[01:56:47] into a meeting with my people my goals to use their plan that's my goal I don't want to use
[01:56:52] whatever I'm coming up with I want to use theirs and if you have that goal at the beginning
[01:56:56] that's going to lead you to the best possible place and look like you said if their plan is
[01:57:00] dumb which which you know you get to people come up with some dumb plans occasionally
[01:57:05] but occasionally some people come up with some dumb ideas that's okay ask them some earnest questions
[01:57:09] and they're going to see that their plan is the reality of their plan which is dumb yeah yeah
[01:57:14] and and you know this kind of leads into the whole you know asking your followers with their
[01:57:20] recommendation is and you know some some followers are going to come up with some type of crazy
[01:57:25] recommendation that you're just no longer your experience it ain't going to work but I think
[01:57:31] what leaders need to do is then get back with those followers and explain to the follower hey
[01:57:37] this is why I didn't use your recommendation now again I'm you know talking about situations where
[01:57:43] there's time to have those conversations you know if you're in the middle of the firefight
[01:57:47] you know you got to sometimes a you know go left not right whatever but I'm just saying you know
[01:57:52] and and most situations where you're asking for recommendations on some type of long-term plan
[01:57:58] you're putting together somebody comes up with something wet you know that's really wacko
[01:58:03] and you're not going to use it I do think you show people the respect by at least getting back
[01:58:08] with them and explaining to them why I'm not going to use your plan yeah because that's it
[01:58:12] you're it's also your opportunity to teach them why that plan wasn't good and again I'll do it
[01:58:16] by just by saying hey John I want to ask you about you know this this channelized area that you
[01:58:21] want to take your patrol through do you think that's the best approach to the target going through
[01:58:25] this valley where there's elevated positions on both sides that could be occupied by the enemy
[01:58:30] and you'll look at me and say you know I'm possibly get back to you and you'll come up with a different
[01:58:35] plan exactly um fast forward a little bit you got a section in here talking about tactical patience
[01:58:43] which is a concept everybody needs and I think it's the younger you are the morning you need to
[01:58:48] understand tactical patience because the younger you are the less tactical patience you generally
[01:58:53] have and that goes all the way to like little children that are four years old they have the least
[01:58:58] amount of tactical patience so you talk about that but what I like here is you also throw in a
[01:59:02] section that is is called what tactical patience is not demonstrating tactical patience is not about
[01:59:09] putting off a decision it is about taking the time when you have the luxury of having time
[01:59:14] to think through the information available and the recommendations before deciding just as nothing
[01:59:19] happened in business before somebody sells something nothing happens in business until the leader decides
[01:59:25] good leaders have to have the courage to make a decision with less than perfect information
[01:59:32] so it's good to be tactical repation but also there comes a time where you got to make a call
[01:59:38] yeah absolutely and you know jack well you know the CEO at general electric for for 20 years
[01:59:46] I think from like 81 until 2001 you know he he wrote in one of his books that the problem he saw
[01:59:54] with middle-level managers throughout general electric is the the unsuccessful ones were the ones
[02:00:00] who did not have the courage to make a decision and again when you make a decision you're putting
[02:00:05] yourself out there and and some leaders just don't want to take that you know that risk to put
[02:00:12] themselves out there and and potentially make the wrong decision but it's so important because again
[02:00:20] once you make a decision that doesn't mean that you have to stick by that decision no matter what you know
[02:00:26] you've got to assess what's going on you know get some feedback about what's actually happening
[02:00:32] out there you know the real deal and then you know make those adjustments as you go but anybody
[02:00:37] who thinks that hey once I made this decision I can't I can't deviate from it I don't think that's a
[02:00:42] good technique yeah that's a technique that I talk about in leadership strategy tactics
[02:00:47] book is I call it a derivative decision making I'm going to make the smallest decisions I can
[02:00:52] you know you want me to go a salt to part of the city of Ramadi I say hey got it boss
[02:00:57] we're going to take one building we're going to start with this one little building over here and see how
[02:01:01] that goes and if like we get a good foothold and now we can put some troops in a good spot now I
[02:01:05] can go to the next building I don't send you know all my troops and a bunch of different buildings
[02:01:10] at the same time no I'm going to make small steps in that direction and and then it's very easy
[02:01:15] for me to make adjustments it's a very easy for me to say oh you know what hey boss I'm going to need
[02:01:18] more troops or hey boss this doesn't make sense right now there's his way more fortified than we
[02:01:23] thought it was going to be whatever the case maybe I can make adjustments but I start off by making
[02:01:27] very small decisions and then adjusting and the other thing that that I was thinking about what you
[02:01:31] were saying that is when you were talking about Jack Welch and the middle-level managers failing
[02:01:38] to make decisions because they don't want to put themselves out there and this reminds me of what
[02:01:42] you were talking about earlier and what's in the book the idea of forming like scar tissue and
[02:01:47] and the habit if you get in the habit of saying hey look I made a decision wasn't the best call
[02:01:53] my it's on me here's the adjustment we're going to make once you realize that that doesn't
[02:01:58] it's not the end of the world to do that now I can tell you can you can you do that to an extent
[02:02:03] where people go they they jocquoise just nothing but bad decisions and every decision he makes
[02:02:07] because hey my mistake hey this one is my mistake hey sorry guys this was my mistake eventually
[02:02:11] you're going to lose some credibility you can't just make bad decisions all the time but if you
[02:02:16] make decisions hey even what is it a a broken clock is right twice a day you're going to be right
[02:02:22] some of the times you know if you're doing a good assessment you make a decision and it turns out to be wrong
[02:02:27] hey guys sorry my fault that we should have gone in different directions here's the adjustment we're
[02:02:31] making people don't lose respect for you they gain respect for you but if you don't experience that
[02:02:36] and you don't build up the muscle of making a decision owning the outcome whether it's good or bad
[02:02:42] only outcome you can build up a muscle memory for doing that where it becomes habitual and it's okay
[02:02:49] and I think if you never if you never step into that arena you're you're just scared of it you know
[02:02:56] it's like Mikey in the dragons all the kids book I wrote the the the the the kids scared of the
[02:03:00] dragons you didn't realize the dragons are small and that's true with most things we fear so if you
[02:03:05] don't open that door going that cave and make a decision occasionally you're never going to understand
[02:03:11] that there's a once you do that if it was a bad decision just own it make adjustments and move forward
[02:03:17] you need to learn that you need to feel that and you can get used to it yeah and you know
[02:03:22] jocca I was listening to an interview you were participating in once and I think you said something to
[02:03:27] affect that every every problem is a leadership problem and and you know with that gets to is
[02:03:34] you know leaders have to create an environment where subordinates feel comfortable taking the risk to
[02:03:40] make a decision and no hey if it doesn't turn out exactly right at least you know I'm not going to
[02:03:44] get my legs chopped out from underneath me so you know it's really important that you know if you
[02:03:50] if you're a leader and and you see that you've got subordinates who are hesitant to make a decision
[02:03:57] maybe you should look in the mirror and think to yourself hey what am I doing to create an
[02:04:01] environment where these these people are afraid to even even decide or make a mistake that that's
[02:04:06] not a good environment a horrible environment and you're going to end up uh your team is going to fail
[02:04:10] eventually yeah um fast forward a little bit chapter 25 iron sharpens iron as iron sharpens iron so
[02:04:19] one person sharpens another proverbs 27 17 and this is right in line with what you were just talking
[02:04:28] about demonstrate initiative and attribute I felt strongly about was initiative at every level of
[02:04:34] leadership throughout the division and this is again this is when you were in a you know leadership
[02:04:39] position this was a result of my combat experience in Romadi Iraq I saw during my time in
[02:04:44] Romadi how it was essential that junior leaders demonstrated initiative in order to get ahead
[02:04:50] of the decision making loop of our enemies I believed if we did not encourage initiative in steady
[02:04:56] state operations at training exercise subordinate leaders would not display the necessary level
[02:05:01] of initiative when in combat I put out written guidance and I continually reinforced stating I believe
[02:05:06] demonstrating high levels of initiative was worth the risk of making honest mistakes so this is
[02:05:13] exactly what you were just talking about if you've got a team that's not making decisions you're you're
[02:05:19] you're the problem and the way you the way you instilled that culture inside your division when you
[02:05:26] were division commander was by talking about it by putting out written guidance by demonstrating it
[02:05:31] and I like this this point of the fact that initiative is worth the risk of making honest
[02:05:39] mistakes that's a huge deal if you're a subordinate leader and you know that the boss wants you
[02:05:44] to take initiative and that it is worth the risk of making honest mistakes that's that could be a
[02:05:50] game changer for a young leader yeah you know I think that's an important statement uh there
[02:05:56] about you know demonstrating initiative is worth the risk of making honest mistakes but
[02:06:01] the caveat to that is if you're a leader and you put that statement out there guess what your
[02:06:06] subordinates are going to be looking for they're going to be looking for the first time
[02:06:11] somebody demonstrates initiative and makes it honest mistake and they're going to they're going to
[02:06:14] they're going to be a martiala yeah they're going to be a watch it see how how do you react to this thing
[02:06:19] and actually I think it was my sergeant major you know Chris Kepner who mentioned that to me
[02:06:25] after I put that statement he oh he goes you know people are going to be watching to see
[02:06:29] are you react the first time somebody makes an honest mistake by demonstrating initiative
[02:06:33] and that was a little you know some good counsel from him so again leaders again to
[02:06:40] to develop and cultivate this trust and organization they put something out there
[02:06:44] now they really have to pay attention to make sure that they you know they they walk that the
[02:06:51] talk there and and and and do what they said they're going to do because people are going to be
[02:06:55] watching nobody's going to be leaving nobody's going to believe that written word until they
[02:07:00] actually see an action fast forward here you've talking about some of the internal attributes
[02:07:10] says if leaders cannot get in touch with their own feelings they will have difficulty
[02:07:14] understanding the feelings of others leaders must practice self awareness and mindfulness
[02:07:19] once one develops self-worth and you talk about I'm I'm fast forward a little bit you talk about
[02:07:25] journaling is a good technique like writing down what your thoughts what your feelings are
[02:07:29] so that you get some perspective on them I'm going to fast forward a little bit um once one
[02:07:34] develop self awareness one can then become better at controlling emotions followers look to
[02:07:40] leaders to be able to get things get stable when things get chaotic controlling ones emotions
[02:07:46] has many personal organizational and societal benefits I remember when I was young I was a young
[02:07:52] inexperienced leader I acted out in front of a group of my followers showing great displeasure
[02:07:58] not with them but with a situation we were dealing with I ran to didn't rave and threw my
[02:08:02] notebook across the room as an inexperienced leader I thought this would demonstrate to my followers
[02:08:07] followers I was all in instead when I saw the negative reaction of my followers I realized this was
[02:08:13] a poor technique you remember what happened what made you so mad yeah it was actually I was
[02:08:19] a lieutenant on active duty commanding a platoon and I can't remember the actual incident that made
[02:08:27] me upset but it was something that was upsetting to our to our unit don't put you in god
[02:08:34] weekend duty or something like that something you know and I thought okay I'm going to show
[02:08:38] my I really you know care care about this and acted out and I realized that they were they were
[02:08:45] not looking for a leader to act like that they were looking for a leader to act professional more
[02:08:51] stable and and I think I might either wrote in that book or somewhere else that they were looking
[02:08:58] for a rock instead of what they got was a pile of sand you know and you know that that really taught
[02:09:05] me that you know it's it's kind of like being a parent you know kids aren't looking for friends
[02:09:11] they're looking for parents you know and and supportants aren't looking for for buddies they're
[02:09:16] looking for followers that think of count on and it'd be be a father and the other thing is I
[02:09:22] like to say is that leaders don't need to be great all the time but they need to be great
[02:09:28] when it makes a difference they need to be great when it matters you know because you know let's
[02:09:32] face it you know steady state operations 80% of the time think 90% of the time things are kind
[02:09:38] of moving along right you know but then you hit this bump into road and that's where you really
[02:09:43] got to stand up and you got to be a leader and you've got to show that that ability to control
[02:09:49] your emotions and to be stable because that that that is something that creates confidence and
[02:09:56] organization a full leader falls apart like that then then heck this ordinance don't have anybody
[02:10:04] to count on because even the leaders start to crumble that that's not a good thing so that happened
[02:10:08] on early on that happened early on in my career and I realized what a mistake that was so I was always
[02:10:13] very very cognizant of the fact that hey yeah yeah you had a you had a show strength when things were
[02:10:21] kind of caving in all around you that's that's what that's where your sports are expecting
[02:10:25] I always looked at it if my leader couldn't control his emotions how the heck is it going to be
[02:10:30] able to make good decisions and I was remembered I saw when I was younger some of the leaders I had
[02:10:35] would fly off the handle and I just think well I was just gonna make good decisions no one makes a
[02:10:40] good decision when they're emotional no displaying empathy empathy is an essential element of being a
[02:10:47] servant leader empathetic leaders can sense what their followers are feeling this eliminates tone
[02:10:52] deafness and the perception leaders do not understand or worse yet the perception the leader does not
[02:10:58] care when followers think a leader does not care they will stop bringing forth their problems and
[02:11:03] issues empathy is the capacity to show followers you care about them a leader must understand how
[02:11:09] followers feel and what their issues are in order to provide their resources allowing followers to
[02:11:14] do their job more effectively and increase the probability of mission accomplishment you want to see
[02:11:21] the perspective of the people on your team and you know I think it was Colin Powell who said
[02:11:26] something to the effect that when when a soldier's stop bringing you their problems you've effectively
[02:11:33] stopped being a leader and you know you could apply that to you know civilian sectors well
[02:11:38] when you're the people who worked for you stop bringing you problems you you've really effectively
[02:11:44] lost your ability to to lead them because you know folks are gonna stop bringing us their
[02:11:51] problems when they figure either you can't do anything about it or you just don't care enough
[02:11:59] to do anything about it and and and and that's just a terrible position for for a leader to be in
[02:12:08] yeah you gotta you gotta maintain that connection as always a running joke whenever I'm in a
[02:12:12] leadership position that no one ever tells me that they're tired that they don't want to work
[02:12:17] more it just never happens right so I always have to make sure that I'm pulling that string a
[02:12:22] little bit more than normal because no one wants to come and say hey jocke we've had enough we want
[02:12:28] to do and don't want to do another operation we don't want to go we've been on the road to no
[02:12:32] one ever wants to tell me that so I always have to make sure I'm digging a little bit deeper otherwise
[02:12:37] they won't say a damn thing uh section three is resilience and I'm gonna read a little section here
[02:12:46] our four up on our upper humvies launched themselves out of the gate of four operating base
[02:12:51] Ramadi on a sun drenched Sunday morning in September 2005 the heat was stifling the
[02:12:55] afraid is river running through our area added a high degree of humidity causing my eye protection
[02:13:00] and messed up with sweat we were traveling around around along route Michigan toward observation post
[02:13:06] hotel overlooking east Ramadi, O.P. hotel a suicide bomber attacked the observation post a few weeks
[02:13:13] earlier but failed to dislodge the tenacious soldiers who operated out of there I wanted to check
[02:13:18] on the soldiers and gauge their morale our vehicles made their way through the city through a
[02:13:24] city struggling due to the violent insurgency there still as we made our way east toward east Ramadi
[02:13:30] the streets were busy with vehicle and pedestrian traffic I was happy to have my brigade
[02:13:34] chaplain riding along with me in the backseat of our vehicle and the army I've always been a big fan
[02:13:39] of our chaplains these warriors of a higher power could bolster the spirit of soldiers anytime they
[02:13:44] visited a unit the chaplain was also part of my personal staff and I valued their insight prior
[02:13:50] to making the decision affecting the well well fair of soldiers after our visit to O.P. hotel we made
[02:13:56] our back our way back through the center of the city the chaplain noticed the same thing eye
[02:14:01] into every soldier and our mounted patrol noticed the vehicles and pedestrians covering the streets
[02:14:08] about two hours earlier had disappeared there was a strange quietness clothing the neighborhood
[02:14:15] we were passing through we had seen this before we embraced ourselves for an insurgent attack
[02:14:22] we all became a bit tense as our senses were alerted the banter we usually engaged in as we moved
[02:14:28] about the city was quieted as we gave the alleys and buildings around us our full attention
[02:14:36] in order to calm down our crew the chaplain announced an allowed voice fair not boys God is with us
[02:14:45] the young specialist operating out of the gunners compartment of our vehicle heard the chaplains
[02:14:50] announcement and from his more exposed position atop the vehicle he playfully called down to the
[02:14:55] chaplain God maybe with you all down there but he certainly is not up here with me
[02:15:02] about 20 seconds later we heard the boom of a rocket propelled grenade the grenade squarely hit the
[02:15:08] armor shield surrounding our young gunner and harmlessly ricocheted into the air before
[02:15:14] exploding and causing no harm to personnel and no damage to equipment our stunned gunner did not
[02:15:21] miss a beat he quickly and loudly proclaimed I stand corrected chaplain God just arrived
[02:15:29] of course we all broke up with laughter it was good having the chaplain with us that day
[02:15:34] and this is a section that you've got called spiritual fitness talkers about spiritual fitness
[02:15:41] yeah you know you know when we talk about fitness of course you know we think of physical fitness
[02:15:47] and you know mental fitness emotional fitness but I think spiritual fitness is a big part of helping
[02:15:53] us develop our leadership strength and that's whether we are part of some type of formal
[02:16:02] you know religion or whether we just are connected to our spirituality in another way you know
[02:16:10] through nature through meditation whatever the case it's it's important that we understand
[02:16:16] that there's something I this my own person I believe there's something large we're going on
[02:16:22] and universal round this it's not all about us you know we're just just just just a speck
[02:16:27] of everything that's going on and I think that helps us keep grounded I think it keeps it helps us
[02:16:32] keep humble and and I think it again kind of aligns with whatever values we say or a personal
[02:16:39] values where it will help us stay on the right track as as we're making these these decisions so
[02:16:48] I think if if leaders don't take the time to reflect on the the notion that there's a higher
[02:16:56] power out there that there's something going on that's really much bigger than ourselves
[02:17:02] that they may be missing something and this that that's one part of this whole section of the book
[02:17:08] which is called Brazilians and this is one of your three overall themes and you got some other
[02:17:13] facets of resilience in here positive energy and that's an overused statement right and
[02:17:21] what I was thinking about when I was reading this is you can think of the positive energy as someone
[02:17:26] that's sort of like it's it's hard to understand or it can be hard to understand but if you think
[02:17:31] of people that have negative energy it's really easy to understand those people right it's really
[02:17:35] easy to understand those all this is never going to work all we're screwed all this is horrible
[02:17:39] you we all know people like that and it seems easier to identify maybe I shouldn't use the
[02:17:44] word hard to understand it can be hard to understand hard to identify someone that has positive energy
[02:17:49] it's really easy to there's more people it seems that have negative energy and occasionally
[02:17:55] it gets someone that's just got super positive and and then you'll remember that and you'll remember
[02:18:00] how they're you know what their response was when something was going wrong and how they
[02:18:04] took it and they look around back oh good we get another chance to go at this or whatever the
[02:18:08] case maybe so I think that's that's a good one you got fitness physical fitness in here
[02:18:13] which is again something that I get off and asked does that come from the military or is that just
[02:18:20] part of you and the answer is look there's plenty of people in the military that get out of the
[02:18:24] military and physical fitness their physical fitness fails yeah they get out of shape so it's not
[02:18:29] something that you get it's not a chip you get programmed you need to work at yeah and just
[02:18:35] going back to your your piece they're about the positive energy you know you mentioned those
[02:18:41] negative people I like to call them energy sponges because they just kind of sap the energy from
[02:18:46] everyone around them it's kind of like why do I want to be around this person man you know and
[02:18:51] it's just not good for a leader to be that way I like to say a leader should brighten up the
[02:19:00] room when they enter it not when they leave it you know if you're to type a leader the bright
[02:19:04] and zipper room when you leave it's kind of like man you're doing you're doing something wrong
[02:19:09] there so again it's not like you got to be you know all smiling and slapping people on the back
[02:19:15] and glad hand and people all the time but but people have to know that you're expecting tomorrow
[02:19:22] to be a better day than today and who doesn't want to be around a leader who believes that tomorrow
[02:19:27] is going to be better than today you know because you know we want to move forward and and that
[02:19:32] that's what I mean by by positive energy and like we talked about earlier in the podcast here
[02:19:39] you have to have an action plan a believable action plan you know if you want to be known as
[02:19:45] as a as a positive leader because people aren't going to to follow you if they just think you're
[02:19:50] glad handing everything and you really don't have a plan to back it up that's important yeah you
[02:19:54] got to you got to see a pathway to get this mission done yeah and see a way to get out of this
[02:20:00] miserable situation with that we're in and see a way to have some fun with it yeah yeah I mean
[02:20:05] hey you know the two men nature people want to be able to you know have people want to be
[02:20:10] able to enjoy their work you know and you know the old saying you know if you enjoy your work
[02:20:16] you're not going to work a day in your life and I truly believe that and and again you just
[02:20:21] got to find those things that really you know keep you motivated keep you excited about life
[02:20:26] what about vulnerability this is another thing that you clue into here um well well well
[02:20:32] talk to us about vulnerability from a leadership perspective yeah when I when I talk about vulnerability
[02:20:37] uh and we are to talk a little bit about the first part it's about uh having the courage to
[02:20:42] leave your comfort zone allowing yourself to be vulnerable to try something maybe you haven't
[02:20:47] tried before something that's a little bit hard but the other um aspects of vulnerability is
[02:20:56] putting yourself out there and exposing yourself to your followers and I'll tell you what I mean
[02:21:02] by that one way to expose yourself to your followers and I I think this is a helpful technique is
[02:21:08] sharing stories with your followers about times maybe when you tried something and you failed you
[02:21:15] know or or you made a mistake and uh the reason I think that's important is because you know
[02:21:22] followers look at at a leader the thing man they're in this position of leadership everything they
[02:21:27] touch in life must you know must have turned a goal they probably never made any mistakes so they
[02:21:31] want to be in this position of leadership and we know nothing could be farther from the truth so by
[02:21:37] by explaining to your followers how hey you know I've I've tried and I've failed sometimes and
[02:21:42] I've made mistakes and this is how is it able to overcome these mistakes that that inspires
[02:21:47] uh those followers and then the the other piece about vulnerability is having the humility
[02:21:54] to ask people on your team and I know you've written about this because I've read it but having
[02:21:59] the humility to ask people on your team what they think and how they would do something and then
[02:22:07] having the humility to follow through with their recommendation when you see it's a good
[02:22:11] recommendation that should be followed and and again not just having that attitude that
[02:22:16] hey I'm the leader you've only got two years on the job what could you possibly know you know
[02:22:21] more than I I know but again you don't know what a life experience that person had so
[02:22:26] asking people their opinion we talk about respect I think one of the best ways you could show
[02:22:31] somebody on your team that you respect them is by asking their opinion could you imagine working
[02:22:37] for somebody for ten years and you've never had that person you worked for ever ask you for your
[02:22:44] opinion I mean you know how how could that make you feel good and and how could that make you
[02:22:51] feel that that leader of yours respect you man you never even asked me what I thought you know
[02:22:56] so I think one of the best ways to show people your respect them is a asset opinion doesn't mean
[02:23:01] you have to follow the recommendation like we mentioned earlier and if you don't follow their
[02:23:05] recommendation a good technique is getting back with them and explaining to them why but I think
[02:23:10] to me that's what vulnerability is is all about those those couple of things there
[02:23:14] yeah this is another negative example that I think is easier to see is if you're talking if you
[02:23:21] work for me and you're talking and I cut you off right that's everyone knows that's disrespectful
[02:23:26] well it's that also means that if I actually listen what you have to say that I'm being
[02:23:31] respectful I'm giving you respect so that's it if you can't remember to listen to people
[02:23:35] remember how rude it is when someone cuts you off and the opposite of that is to actually listen
[02:23:40] to people here's another I think this is a a vulnerability that is so uncomfortable for leaders
[02:23:47] and people and subordinates up and down the chain of command it's a vulnerability that is that is
[02:23:54] people avoid almost at all costs and that is the ability to say I don't know yeah I don't
[02:24:03] I don't know what do you think we should do is I don't know up and down the chain of command
[02:24:07] I think the first place I learned this when when I got to the seal teams you didn't get your
[02:24:14] you weren't a seal when you got to the seal teams you were a new guy an FNG as a matter of fact
[02:24:20] so you get there your FNG you don't have your Trident which is the insignia that means you're a seal
[02:24:25] and so you have to study for six months you're on a probationary board you have to
[02:24:30] your own probation I should say and then you have to eventually go in front of a verbal board
[02:24:34] and you go to the diving you go to the weapon you go to parachute you go to tactics you go to the
[02:24:38] radius you and all these chiefs and master chiefs and senior chiefs and they're asking you questions
[02:24:44] and what they tell you is and this is probably the first place I realized okay that's the
[02:24:48] right thing to do if they ask you question and you don't know what you say is I don't know let me
[02:24:54] do some research and I'll get back to you and that's the right answer and they're going to ask
[02:24:59] you some quite they're going to dig so deep into those manuals they're going to get that answer
[02:25:01] or you can sit there and say you can try and make up an answer you can try and pretend like you
[02:25:05] know it and then you're going to get crushed because you lack the humility and you're not
[02:25:09] being vulnerable enough to say hey I actually don't know so up and down the chain command just
[02:25:14] like you said no one expects the leader to know everything as a leader we think everyone
[02:25:19] expresses know everything and when we try and act like that we look like idiots yeah you don't
[02:25:24] know everything just say hey I don't know what do you think it's perfectly fine three powerful
[02:25:30] words that that leader should live by when when they don't know say it's skipping for it a
[02:25:38] little bit remaining calm during the storm you you you talk about some ways to do this and you
[02:25:45] got a couple points in here take control of the things you can I think this is something that
[02:25:49] even though it's so obvious we still failed to do this people we worry about things we have no control
[02:25:55] over so don't do that but you got another another section here do not catastrophize now did you
[02:26:04] make up that word no that's actually a word I heard when I went through resiliency training okay
[02:26:09] they they talked about the concept of catastrophize so here's the section on catastrophizing
[02:26:16] the United States Army train soldiers on techniques that will help them display resiliency
[02:26:21] one of those techniques which I think is particularly relevant during these uncertain times is
[02:26:26] how to not catastrophize when you catastrophize you focus only on the worst case scenario you believe
[02:26:33] the worst will happen and of course this produces a great deal of anxiety this can also so the
[02:26:37] seeds of self-fulfilling prophecy it a method to place things in perspective and avoid catastrophizing
[02:26:46] is by going through a practical thought process promoting resiliency and reducing anxiety first
[02:26:53] look at what the worst case scenario would possibly look like second identify what the best case
[02:26:57] scenario might be third consider the most likely or probable outcome then focus your attention on the
[02:27:03] plan on the most probable case and develop your primary plan of action around that scenario so this is
[02:27:10] something I think the reason I got a little bit focused on this is because this is what our news
[02:27:16] media gets paid to do catastrophize everything everything is catastrophize everything is a
[02:27:21] worst case scenario the world's gonna end if you follow the headlines the world ends every single day
[02:27:26] it gets killed by COVID by war by this politician by that politician every single day there's a
[02:27:32] catastrophe that happens and and if you do that as a leader you need your you're making a mistake
[02:27:39] but but what's also important is you can't react to these things and someone runs into the
[02:27:44] office with some massive problems like okay let's think through it okay I see you're excited awesome
[02:27:49] let's think through it's astrophysing you know I'm surprised I woke up this morning you know
[02:27:56] watching a news I thought the world ended yesterday but but yeah you're you're exactly
[02:28:01] right and and I do try to use this technique because usually the very worst case doesn't
[02:28:09] doesn't happen and and you get yourself all spun up about it all friggin tense and and stressed out
[02:28:15] about and it's not going to do you any good anyway this is one of one of the most beautiful
[02:28:22] things I learned in the military is the is the counter to the catastrophizing individual above
[02:28:29] you and the chain of command below you and the chain of command appear whatever they're panicking
[02:28:33] they're freaking out and what you learn in the military you learn this powerful word which is
[02:28:38] Roger that or rather Roger that someone comes in they're going crazy oh you can't believe this
[02:28:43] happened I've got Roger meaning okay understand let's let's think about it so anytime be very careful
[02:28:51] as a leader be very careful with the words you choose to explain what's happening and and sometimes
[02:28:57] as a leader we want to get a reaction out of people where we've got this situation happening and we
[02:29:03] know it's critical and we need to make some adjustments and so in order to get people moving instead
[02:29:07] of explaining to them what's happening and why we need to make a move we just go straight to level
[02:29:12] 12 catastrophize in order to get in order to get people to move we catastrophize and the problem
[02:29:20] with that is it ends up being the little boy that cried wolf where you catastrophize everything
[02:29:24] is a catastrophe everything is going to end the world everything is a strategic failure for the team
[02:29:29] everything is a catastrophic event and it's like no in fact there are so few catastrophic events that
[02:29:36] can actually happen that there's almost nothing that you can catastrophize with me you're going
[02:29:42] to get through just about everything that's kind of like the whole thing if everything is a priority
[02:29:46] nothing is a priority exactly you know you you really got to be clear about what the priorities are
[02:29:51] and then get everybody working toward achieving those you know probably maybe two or three
[02:29:57] priorities so things that are really important prioritize an execute I believe I believe that's the
[02:30:03] word um I want to close out with one last section here um and it's it's how you close out the book but it's
[02:30:12] it's a good indicator of everything else that's in the book so it says this I was raised by my
[02:30:18] father that faith in God though we though my father faced setbacks such as losing his wife at an early age
[02:30:24] and raising seven children after her death he never lost faith my father made it a point to
[02:30:30] march us march all seven of his children into church every Sunday morning this made a lifelong
[02:30:38] impression not only on me and my siblings but many others who resided in our community there are
[02:30:44] certain things I learned about good leadership as a young boy from my father and others
[02:30:49] that have been reinforced throughout my life the things I learned were the importance of having
[02:30:54] strong character and staying true to your values even when things got tough being service oriented
[02:31:00] and helping other people whenever you could regardless of their race religion and setting an
[02:31:06] example by doing the right thing even when no one was watching I know I am not a perfect leader
[02:31:12] but I continue to do my best to learn how I can become a better person and a better leader and I
[02:31:17] encourage all who read this book to do the same seek to place the organization you lead in good hands
[02:31:29] well I think that's what we're all trying to do we're all trying to do the same thing
[02:31:34] continue to learn continue trying become better people and better leaders and definitely
[02:31:40] appreciate you for writing this book and and given some of these lessons learned
[02:31:45] no jacco I appreciate the the time to talk about it I appreciate the time to talk about the
[02:31:54] book with you and just really grateful that we could spend a little bit of time you and I just
[02:32:00] just talking about our own leadership philosophies and and what it means to continue to
[02:32:06] learn and continue to grow to be a better leader so thank you for the opportunity yeah there's
[02:32:11] I mean obviously we use some different verbages and some focus here and there might be a little
[02:32:15] bit different but the underlying themes I mean these are these are what leadership these are
[02:32:20] these are the underlying themes that exist in leadership anywhere you look anybody that understands it
[02:32:26] is going to you're going to see these common themes so right now you've got a consulting company
[02:32:33] called leader grovers at leaders grove leader grove leader grove and it's leader grove dot com
[02:32:40] yes um you got john gronsky dot com people can find you there you're on Twitter at jl gronsky
[02:32:50] you're on youtube youtube channel that's john gronsky yeah linked in john gronsky is a good
[02:32:57] thing about having the last name gronsky it's not a real common last name it's like mine the last
[02:33:01] name not not not real common yeah so you can get away with it and and you can just call everything
[02:33:07] gronsky um linked in john gronsky and then you got facebook which is john gronsky leads
[02:33:13] and what else well the ground oh you're on a ground yeah i see that goes Charles you know what's
[02:33:20] up and that and that's that john gronsky leads on the ground so any any other echo you got anything
[02:33:28] no sir i think we covered it that's it huh nothing from echo jl gronsky you're interesting to
[02:33:33] see that that no i mean not necessarily the contrast but the overlap so much overlap you know different
[02:33:38] terminology how you said but very interesting yeah yeah it's um good leadership good leadership across
[02:33:44] the board any closing comments no link closings in common i have is that i've got a
[02:33:51] i've got a good time drinking your jaco go uh energy drinks so i love that may go yeah that
[02:33:59] that's echo's favorite this flavor as well but i just want to thank you again for the message you put
[02:34:05] out i mean you put out a message that so many uh people could follow whether they're in a leadership
[02:34:11] position or not and by the way i think everybody is in some position of leadership um and and i
[02:34:17] thank you agree with me when i say you don't have to be in a formal position of leadership in order
[02:34:21] to lead but anyway thank you for putting the message out you do and and to the kids too you know
[02:34:26] what your your your kids uh you know the books you put out for for children to help them get on the
[02:34:31] right path uh is very important so appreciate that the other thing i wanted to thank you for is uh
[02:34:39] you know getting a picture myself you echoed together so when people look at the picture they could
[02:34:45] see what a small unmusking the man i really am compared to you too so i appreciate that but
[02:34:52] not really jaco uh thanks for having me back again and and again thanks for the leadership message
[02:34:58] that you continue to get out there so i appreciate that i always say um if you interact with other
[02:35:03] human beings you're in a leadership position so if you if you're listening to this right now you're
[02:35:09] in a leadership position they thanks thanks for writing the book that's going to help people
[02:35:12] lead and more important once again thanks for your service thanks for your service and the army national
[02:35:17] guard the army and the national guard and thanks once again to you and to your soldiers and the
[02:35:25] service and sacrifice and the battle for money um the efforts that your guys put forth they they literally
[02:35:32] saved my guys lives we learned lessons from you when we got on the ground we listened to what
[02:35:37] you had to say you told us to do operations you told us not to do other operations you told us to
[02:35:42] stay off this street you told us how to better do our tactics so your guys from the 2 to 8
[02:35:49] literally saved the lives of my guys i know it and uh we will never forget what you and your man
[02:35:54] did for us and and did for America thanks jaco thanks for coming on and with that general john granski
[02:36:03] has left the building so echo yes kind of close that out talking about how people we all want to be better
[02:36:12] need to be better can be better let's see what do we start well we start with our health
[02:36:18] without health we have nothing um straight up from what i understand you add a little disregard of your
[02:36:24] health the other day and went to a McDonald's restaurant it was a eight food there was a momentary lapse of
[02:36:31] judgment uh and discipline for sure but it's the it was what are you to break um opportunistic and this
[02:36:41] is the kind of stuff we got to be careful for or about or whatever you know how you have a routine
[02:36:48] and everyone's all get reminded of the importance of a routine okay i'm not a I don't 100% sign
[02:36:53] on to the whole routine is McDonald's party
[02:36:57] make no well it's an example if you don't have a routine what it does is
[02:37:01] really a lot of your tools and you know what it's like okay you don't you don't have a
[02:37:12] opportunity to do that doesn't matter okay i bought i got the the item that is a soft soft
[02:37:19] bun and inside that bun is a fish flavored concoction you got the fish fillet yeah yeah i don't think
[02:37:28] that's there's real fish in there at all but either way you think there's like a crayfish or something
[02:37:34] there's something in there no you know what it is it's like one of those you just pierce sugar
[02:37:38] yeah it's like a synthetic they they do a sit there i don't know but this is what it feels like
[02:37:42] maybe like a synthetic um material that's made maybe you know like a 3D printer or something
[02:37:47] like this with like some some stuff and then they put like some fish like extract flavor in it
[02:37:54] and then fry it okay was that the path that the path it's making you better okay if you're on
[02:37:59] it okay okay the path is kind of a routine it essentially is and this is important as
[02:38:04] with a routine where if you have a routine there's way way way less opportunity to make to have like
[02:38:09] oh like a decision making conundrum right because the routine the decision you have already made before
[02:38:15] part of the routine while you're not angry hang on through emotional departure
[02:38:20] exactly the question because you haven't had a freaking fish save a few hours
[02:38:24] either way if you're angry even you already know because dinner's soon or you know when
[02:38:29] the dinner is seem saying if you have a routine or lunch or but we'll back with whatever you're
[02:38:33] about to eat whatever you're almost almost all right take you off the path here's
[02:38:38] the here's what Ronald does he he just waits he waits for the people with no routine
[02:38:43] or an or he'll slide into your routine but a lot of times for people like me in this case where
[02:38:50] the little the little crack in the routine he's right there he's like hey you need a decision to
[02:38:55] make I'll make it easy for you what's the one that's gonna give you the pal the quickest
[02:38:59] he seems saying to us what it was instead of going home to dinner my wife was somewhere else
[02:39:04] and she was like hey you know like you know I don't know how much food there's gonna be here or
[02:39:09] whatever so you know grab something this was like cool I made the turn in like literally on my way home
[02:39:14] change trajectory looking to the exit and boom McDonald's is right there made it happen
[02:39:23] in a bad way all right so we don't want to consume things that are our home no what do we want
[02:39:28] to go to the point is health health is a thing with with no health look if I'm gonna make
[02:39:32] Donald every single day my health goes downtown and then eventually I become incapable
[02:39:37] of pretty much anything so if you're unhealthy or your health is in decline or whatever by your
[02:39:43] own meanwhile you have if you have control over it and you choose to not be healthy you can have
[02:39:49] some problems okay so let's choose to be healthy that's what I think like it so on this path
[02:39:54] starts with health fitness capability mental and physical now with that we can have a little
[02:40:01] helper some away that helper is jockel fuel so I'm actually working on a video
[02:40:10] jockel fuel video cool just a small one about why you jockel started jockel fuel interesting
[02:40:18] it actually doesn't go very deep when you think about it's like just stuff that you're using anyway
[02:40:22] that's one of the worst hype you know things I've ever heard like I'm so not hype for this video right
[02:40:27] now yeah but here's the only reason I'm a little bit hyped is I know you wouldn't bring it up
[02:40:31] unless you're hyped so you must have some vision about some explosions that are gonna happen
[02:40:37] uh yeah you know potentially I mean maybe I have explosions either where the point is though the
[02:40:42] point is the reason jockel started jockel fuel is stuff that you use anyway so you figure okay
[02:40:50] let me just refine and maximize the quality on these things that I use anyway produce some
[02:40:56] boom and then we'll have that product there you go one of the many little helpers in life
[02:41:01] helpers on the path because let's face it you're it's late you dinner chains dinner plans change
[02:41:07] your hungry you could you could easily go to McDonald's like echo Charles did which is
[02:41:13] taking him in the wrong direction off the path unhealthy feeling sick later
[02:41:18] not doing a good work out the next day just everything is turning bad or you could power and
[02:41:23] be like oh go I got mock at home you know I got mock at home very high to save your yeah it is
[02:41:30] true and and all you've been explained it's to say how much of a savior it is so look okay so
[02:41:35] energy drinks right you don't know that we're satan to get there in a sleep or dang I have a huge
[02:41:40] workload today and tomorrow maybe I'm need a little booster maybe I'm just used to a little
[02:41:45] boost at some point in the day right but usually we've got a pair of price either we crash or
[02:41:49] either we're drinking something that's unhealthy boom these energy drinks go jocco discipline go
[02:41:55] may or may not be called discipline anymore let's call this one go all right there you go boom jocco
[02:41:59] discipline go is an energy drink with front side and back side benefits and no downside no downside
[02:42:08] kind of went off on that recently we're talking just the just the no downside piece yeah most things
[02:42:14] that are as gratifying and have so much upside usually I was always a little downside right no downside
[02:42:20] not this time boom little helper on that path I mean you're on the path you're still on the path
[02:42:24] little in fact you're even more down the path yeah you're going to good with told me positive
[02:42:30] cross the board so boom or you get home let's face it everyone's in a while you need dinner you
[02:42:34] had a good day you had a good week great week spent time with the family got your work done you know
[02:42:40] you're you're you moved ahead you just want a little celebratory dessert I don't think like this even
[02:42:46] there weird thing is even after you have a 26 ounce rib eye steak yeah that's a and it's maybe
[02:42:55] and it's perfectly cooked even after you get done with that you're you're totally good to go
[02:43:02] but there's another little part of your brain that wants something called dessert oh yeah and you could
[02:43:09] just be like oh well there's the cheese cake or whatever oh yeah kind of negate a lot of the
[02:43:13] stuff that you've been doing all week working hard with we made you dessert yeah the god mook so we
[02:43:19] got some mook boom and here look you want to mook is good let's say your tired is hard week just
[02:43:25] add the mook to the milk or whatever your your preferred mixture this is not a challenging recipe
[02:43:32] exact directive yeah but not limited to that simplicity add some stuff in there at half a banana that's mean it's my
[02:43:39] jam hmm but either way did right there do what you will it's the same deal this will not have
[02:43:45] you slip off the path you're still in the path and all of this isn't really long way of saying go to
[02:43:49] dockoffeele.com get yourself some stuff get yourself some drawing warfare you know acrylic oil super
[02:43:54] krill um vitamin D3 cold cold war yeah these are all helpers with all of the organic
[02:44:03] McDonald's no doubt yes people that are just ab testing things to make it taste good they don't care
[02:44:09] they don't care what you feel like and they don't care about your health yeah don't care there's not
[02:44:13] one single person advocating for your health no they're advocating for you wallet don't do it
[02:44:19] isn't that because you know how you just said that like almost with like a like a like a joking tone
[02:44:26] right yeah but but it's not a joke part is that is 100% true where it's there is not one single
[02:44:31] person no one single person interested in the success of that business which is not necessarily a
[02:44:35] wrong thing to be interested in success is your business well it's wrong if you're going to sacrifice
[02:44:39] people's health not one person carries about your health in fact your health is kind of like a
[02:44:46] pawn you know they're big game at jocco fuel your health is paramount does the only otherwise
[02:44:54] we wouldn't do it we we we waited like an extra six month and built out the line to paste your
[02:44:59] eyes the the the jocco go so we didn't have to put chemicals in it to keep it preserved yeah
[02:45:06] that's that's that shows you your health is paramount oh yeah otherwise we hey you know it's not
[02:45:12] that big of everybody else uses these chemicals no no don't matter yeah isn't that kind of scary
[02:45:19] when you put it into perspective no one it's like you know what the most important thing about you
[02:45:24] is your wife you know what I'm gonna use that as a pawn in my business savages seems saying oh that's
[02:45:31] scary now the last duckfield dot com boom energy drink you know while you can go at while you
[02:45:37] get everything at vitamin shop too going hook that up also origin USA american made stuff who's good
[02:45:44] stuff by the way so you get your american made denim some leather on there jiu jitsu stuff geese
[02:45:50] rash guards some fitness up a tire there there hoodies so I got a new one and I had the old ones
[02:45:58] from before just find bone you wear them every other day they kind of you know they get worn on
[02:46:04] e-use to me you're like cool right I went to the camp I got a new one I was like whew whew that's
[02:46:09] that nice one oh I'm never knew a heavy hoodie too good it's legit yeah called the heavy yeah
[02:46:17] you all know what that's wrong the last all the materials that are that make it is the heavy
[02:46:24] what a freaking epic epic freaking moment in life yeah he doesn't good job with those names
[02:46:30] creative names and stuff that heavy but yeah so even the materials that they make these things with
[02:46:37] our mage pack and grown in america so keep that in mind or jiu jitsu dot com also
[02:46:43] jocco as a store it's called jocco store is where you can get your just wrinkles freedom
[02:46:48] t-shirts hoodies hats whichever way you want to represent on this path it's not an easy path but
[02:46:54] it's worth it as a wise man once said if you want to represent boom jocco store dot com also
[02:46:59] we have a thing called the short locker this week can get a new shirt with cool design is that
[02:47:04] sure you're wearing a short locker shirt yes sure okay now someone have to say it's cool right
[02:47:09] not even got jocco signed on to hell but yeah there's some cool all I would say it's a pretty
[02:47:13] much of a pretty much successful as far as accepted designs people like them I'm gonna agree
[02:47:19] yeah yeah so yeah I got to again jocco store dot com that's where you can get all stuff you
[02:47:23] like if you like something like that's the cool shirt yes sure lock shirt I think so these are
[02:47:28] approved like highly approved highly approved desired even desired yeah for sure we uh we are
[02:47:36] opening a thing for a member like some of the members are like hey what about that one I signed up
[02:47:41] two months ago but I kind of want that shirt from six months ago or four months ago whatever
[02:47:45] so we're opening up the the store for the members as well so they can add a faster path shirt if
[02:47:52] they want yeah so be on the lookout for that one dang that's awful nice of you yeah man I'm trying
[02:47:57] to be accommodating to the people uh subscribe to this podcast wherever you subscribe to podcast
[02:48:03] we also have jocco unraveling with Darrell Cooper and Darrell Cooper's been on a mission lately
[02:48:07] so we haven't released one in a bit but we got a ton of topics to talk about so check out jocco unraveling
[02:48:13] with myself and Darrell Cooper we got the ground in podcast we got the warrior kid podcast
[02:48:19] we also have the jocco underground podcast and that's um well it's sort of a little
[02:48:27] bastion of freedom that we have that we're kind of setting aside it's our it's our contingency
[02:48:33] AO area of operations look if people get crazy with this whole platform the platforms and
[02:48:38] there's a bunch of them you figure hey well you know you got this platform in that platform one of the
[02:48:42] chances that they all decide to either start inserting ads or start making people pay or whatever
[02:48:49] they're gonna do I don't know but if it happens we have our own little I don't know the world carved out
[02:48:55] we appreciate you coming into our world it's called jocco underground go to jocco underground.com if you
[02:49:02] want to join if you want to support it cost eight dollars and eighteen cents a month and that's how
[02:49:06] we're paying to build this alternative platform and that way we don't have to read ads
[02:49:15] from some freaking whatever apple company or banana outfit I don't know
[02:49:24] I'm gonna finish it but this is whatever we don't want to do it we don't want to talk but I
[02:49:28] end that stuff if you can't afford it that's cool we still want you in the game email assistance
[02:49:33] at jocco underground.com we appreciate the sport and we also have a YouTube channel
[02:49:38] it speaking of platforms true where we put up videos so far you do flip pretty straightforward
[02:49:45] for the platform you know video we've got demonetized a couple times yeah we've had
[02:49:49] warnings only a couple times like what is the the warning of info yeah and keep it
[02:49:56] when you see demonetized because this is different there's different levels of demonetization
[02:49:59] you can get a video demonetized you can get the or the whole channel straight up demonetized
[02:50:06] or this somewhere in between where it's like okay you can proclaim that hey this video contains
[02:50:10] some heavy stuff bro I had one Halloween I did like a quick video of working out or whatever
[02:50:17] something and I put in the background Halloween the song by the miss fits oh yeah and
[02:50:25] we almost instantly it was whatever blocked band and whatever else because it was copyright material
[02:50:32] I was like you know spreading the word on the miss fits like you know what I mean yeah
[02:50:35] it's true but they were on that yeah and you know they did they they kind of consider both sides
[02:50:40] I think anyway because it's like hey what if um they assume that you're making money off of your
[02:50:46] your your probably is a post you're video there's a post oh not on YouTube it was on something else
[02:50:51] it was on the gram oh yeah yeah that's different sweared they came at me well you know what
[02:50:57] what it is it's my hypothesis I think Danzig and the miss fits highly protected there
[02:51:05] I put it IP yeah because you're essentially acting as a distributor
[02:51:10] essentially I mean all I meant to do is actually spread the word hey man this is a great band
[02:51:14] the miss fits bro this is iconic band yes iconic it's true but the rules got to kind of
[02:51:20] apply to everybody you know so without some kind of approval a distributor process I saw the
[02:51:26] miss fits recently with the crowman like before covid in LA in a big giant stadium and you know
[02:51:33] what it was freaking outstanding I mean the crowman was awesome yes absolutely hardly was rocking
[02:51:39] and then the miss fits came out and I was like this is I salute these guys they were honest
[02:51:45] swayers playing the word and yeah I was trying to spread the word a little bit and like they thought
[02:51:49] it was trying to jack their stuff well in their defense they didn't see your posts and and was like
[02:51:54] hey jockel take that down I don't want you you know just dreaming myself it's not how it went down
[02:51:59] but when some people be like hey can you put a clip out of our music so more people buy our music right
[02:52:05] yeah that could happen right what wouldn't they think of it that way instead of the other way technically
[02:52:09] the miss fits didn't do it directly technically instagram did it miss fits probably signed up
[02:52:14] signed that song up to be monitored or whatever automatically so without them checking back with
[02:52:20] you specifically or over to Glenn Danzig and the miss fits I was not doing it nefariously I was
[02:52:29] actually doing a promotional way if you're going to license your songs to me yeah I'll throw them
[02:52:33] out there into the world you can you probably never even heard a miss fits song which is kind of
[02:52:39] sad no I've never I don't think I've heard a miss fits song but I heard you talk about the
[02:52:44] miss you right so kind of the same but that if you heard a miss fits song you'd probably
[02:52:48] like pretty good yeah oh yeah it's it's iconic music to be honest with you it's iconic music
[02:52:56] is iconic an opinion or a factual standard factual so you can have the miss fits what's
[02:53:04] called the white list they can white list your channel actually this is on youtube I know you
[02:53:09] can do this on youtube because this is a nice day it's called jocals jocals down they can whatever
[02:53:14] the he posts all good as far as our account goes if they do that with us I won't abuse it I'm not going
[02:53:20] to make like the you know what I mean this is only on youtube right on youtube but maybe we'll do it on
[02:53:25] instagram yeah just apply the youtube rule fits again I should tell it next time especially
[02:53:31] how long it takes him to shut me down I did some other older hardcore bands and that
[02:53:37] that just wore around for a short period of time no one ever said anything so I think it depends
[02:53:42] on the band yeah they have there you have to register your your songs and stuff like even on
[02:53:47] youtube like if if I use a I don't know your other favorite band like if I use like Taylor Swift or something
[02:53:55] like this right you know that all Taylor Swift songs have been registered with youtube
[02:54:01] through some process that's like hey this little thing this little print imprint or whatever the
[02:54:07] how are they monitor it turns up automatic either and they choose whether it shut down
[02:54:12] um blocked or um just silent something some videos would just be silent because like hey that
[02:54:19] audio is not not cool or they'll just take the monetization did they demonetize my guitar playing
[02:54:27] when I play that song by the way Buffalo no interesting not yours but when he was on
[02:54:32] they got right off oh yeah interesting so you know make sense it's a process I got a new jam
[02:54:38] coming got a new song I'm prepping cool very good to hear right on also subscribe to that
[02:54:47] youtube channel jockel bond cans also we got origin USA if you want to find out what's going on
[02:54:51] in America oh there youtube channel yes yeah there's origin USA it's cool the track what's going on
[02:54:58] up there see see it feel it be a part of it yeah let's check also what do we got um also psychological
[02:55:07] warfare that's an album with tracks that we have not put whatever thing to restrict it because
[02:55:16] people have jacked it using all kinds of things so but if you want to like uh be a good human
[02:55:23] and you want to listen to the psychological warfare album that has tracks of me telling you not to
[02:55:29] freaking go to McDonald's not to order fish fulla make sandwich then you could do that go to go to
[02:55:37] whatever MP3 thing and you can you can buy psychological warfare and I'll be on your phone
[02:55:43] waiting to tell you stop also flip side canvas flip side canvas dot com to go to myer he's got a
[02:55:52] company here in America American made making cool stuff to hang on your wall and of course it's
[02:55:57] a code of myer even you just had something decoder to go to myer could take a white piece of paper
[02:56:03] and be like hey I made this I'd be like oh what's hanging on my wall because that's a code of
[02:56:08] myer like a little hang man game yeah that would be cool let's put it on the wall yeah on down
[02:56:13] agree um got some books the book that I covered today was iron sharpened leadership by John
[02:56:20] Gronsky it will be on our website you can click through there yes and then you then you then you
[02:56:26] will be supporting the podcast while you buy a book you buy whatever you want once you click through
[02:56:30] there through Amazon or whatever it's true uh final spin book coming out i wrote this book not it's
[02:56:38] not a book about leadership it's a book about brotherhood it's a book about sacrifice and it's a book
[02:56:43] about corn dogs galan jugs of mayonnaise salmon pie and buxentry wagons that's what the books about
[02:57:02] no one can explain this book no one i can't even explain it as you can see i just tried hey if you
[02:57:07] want to check out this new book i got it's called final spin it's a book it's a poem it's a transcript
[02:57:14] we don't even know what it is but so far we have an audience of one deb the audio engineer
[02:57:21] who listened to me read the audio book and she quote loved it she laughed she cheered she cried
[02:57:30] that's what we're talking about uh also leadership strategy intact it's field manual the code the
[02:57:34] evaluation protocol discipline it goes freedom field manual way the warrior kid one two three and for
[02:57:41] mic in the dragons about face and extreme ownership and the dichotomy of leadership bunch of books
[02:57:46] have written or co-written we have a company called echelon front where we solve problems through
[02:57:53] leadership go to echelon front dot com if you want help inside your organization is also where you can
[02:57:58] find details for our live events including the master including field training exercises and
[02:58:03] eF battlefield talk a little bit about getty's burg today the battle getty's burg you can come to getty's
[02:58:08] burg with us and we will talk through the leadership challenges that they faced in decisions that
[02:58:13] they got made good and bad next monster is in Las Vegas october 28th and 29th next ftx is September
[02:58:22] 20th and 21st i think we're already past that so sorry keep your eyes open we also have an online
[02:58:29] training program extreme ownership academy it is online leadership training that you can go to
[02:58:37] you don't get good at leadership by listening to one podcast or by reading one book you got to work
[02:58:42] out in the leadership gym the leadership gym is extreme ownership dot com go check it out and if you
[02:58:48] want to help service members active and retired their families gold star families check out mark
[02:58:53] leaves mom mom a lea she's got a charity organization if you want to donate or you want to get involved in that go to
[02:58:58] america's mighty warriors dot org and if you want more of me regurgitating reading
[02:59:08] or you need more of echelon canny quips you can find us on the in-waves on twitter on the
[02:59:15] gronym and on facebook echelon john gronski john gronski dot com leaders leader grove dot com twitter
[02:59:27] jl gronski youtube john gronski linked in john gronski facebook and the gram
[02:59:36] at john gronski leads and thanks again to general gronski for joining us special thanks to all the
[02:59:42] men and women from the two to eight that served in ramaad yi rack in 2005 2000 six we only overlap
[02:59:49] with y'all for about a month but we appreciate that what you did there and the turnover that you got
[02:59:55] that you gave to us as i mentioned to general gronski you all 100% kept my guys alive from the lessons
[03:00:03] that you passed on to us and we appreciate it in the time we were working after you left with the
[03:00:08] one one a d so thanks to all of you and the rest of the military out there serving right now
[03:00:14] thank you for taking the watch now that we are done and the police law enforcement firefighters
[03:00:20] paramedics emt's dispatchers correction officers board of patrol secret service and all first responders
[03:00:26] thanks all of you for standing the watch here at home and everyone else out there
[03:00:31] here's a little there's a little action you can take you need a plan a plan to live by a code
[03:00:40] as sent a principles values a protocol for behavior if you don't have that if you're just
[03:00:46] don't have that you're just wandering around i wrote about it with Dave Burke and Sarah Armstrong
[03:00:53] in the book the code the protocol the evaluation i wrote about it first in the warrior kid books
[03:00:58] come up with a code the Marine Corps falls a code the Rangers follow code the seals and the army
[03:01:06] and the samurai and the knights and the Vikings all followed a code don't wander around get on the path
[03:01:14] follow the code and keep getting after it and until next time the zeco and jockel out