#86 - Jocko Willink and Mike Sarraille

Hey, how's it going? This is Craig Cannon, and you're listening to Y Combinator's podcast. Applications for the winter 2019 YC batch are now open. You can learn more at ycombinator.com slash apply.

Today's episode is with Jocko Willink and Mike Cirelli. Jocko and Mike served together as Navy SEALs and now work together at Echelon Front, a company Jocko co-founded. We met up to talk about a new initiative they've set up called Overwatch. Overwatch is a talent acquisition firm that matches employers with veterans from special operations forces and combat aviation.

You can learn more about Overwatch at efoverwatch.com. They're also hosting an event in San Francisco called The Muster on October 17th and 18th. You can sign up at extremeownership.com. All right, here we go.

All right, guys. Well, thanks for hosting me. I'm excited to see a podcast at the Jocko Podcast in the studio. For those of our listeners that don't know about you guys, I think we should start with some quick intros and then start talking about the new program you're working on.

So, Jocko, why don't you start off? Cool. I was in the military for 20 years, and then I retired, and when I retired, I started working with civilians primarily and teaching them about leadership that I learned while I was in the military. And that culminated in a book?

That ended up kind of morphing into a book called Extreme Ownership, and that book came out, and that book's done pretty well, and that kind of morphed into a podcast. So I have a podcast called Jocko Podcast where I talk about human nature through the lens of leadership and war and general atrocities and struggle with any beings go through. So it's a little bit of a rough podcast to listen to from time to time, but there's a lot of lessons in it. Yeah.

I mean, it really contrasts from the average podcast in the sense that it's sort of like you reading a book every single week or every other week and just going through it, giving notes, giving notes based on your experience. Yeah. It's interesting, too, because I get most of the books that I try and use are first-person accounts of these situations. So whether it's war or whether it's a kind of atrocity, it's a first-person account, it's something that was actually there.

It's not an interpretation. It's not what someone else thought. That person thought. It's what that person thought.

So I think that has the ability to take you into the minds and see some of that stuff through a better perspective. And the more different perspectives you can get other than your own, the better you're going to understand things. Yeah. Yeah.

I've been blown away by the likes the podcast has. When you started off, I was like, I don't know if he's going to be able to find 50 books. And now... Well, I thought that, too.

Because when I started, there was a few books about Face by Hackworth. There was three or four books that I knew I could cover that really had a big impact on me. And then I reached a little bit. I said, we know I can do this one, too.

And when I started reading with the thought that what can I learn from this, not just what do I understand about it, but what can I actually learn from this, then I started pulling out all these old books that I'd read with the old breed. Just books that are incredible books. And as I pulled those out, and now I realize the actual problem is that there aren't enough books. The actual problem is that there's no possible way I can cover all the books that exist that we can learn from and that I can learn from.

So the problem ended up not being the problem I thought initially was. There's a lot of incredible books out there. Yeah. Well, you're doing a great job.

Mike, what's your story? Hey, much along the same lines. First off, thanks for having me on White Combinator's Dear to my heart because I was born and raised in Silicon Valley. Much like Jocko, I did something uncharacteristic to a kid coming out of Atherton, California.

I enlisted in Marine Corps and eventually became a SEAL and finished up and retired after 20 years. I was one of Jocko's guys. In the book, Extreme Ownership, it's all about the Battle of Ramadi. I was one of those guys that worked for Jocko, and hence how we've known each other for so long.

I did not write a book because I believe in Extreme Ownership. We can't replicate what is already working. But really, I finished my MBA at the University of Texas right before I retired, and I just got into facilitating successful veteran transitions. And when I say successful, a lot of the time that is not setting an expectation on the corporate side.

That is actually setting the expectation on the veteran side and getting their heads right. It's not an easy thing to hear after 20 years in the military that you are a new guy again, but you are. You have some great leadership tenets and foundational aspects of leadership. But when you step into a different industry, you step into a different industry, and it takes time.

You've got to roll your sleeves up. You've got to get to work, and you've got to prove your worth. And so sometimes that's a lot tougher for veterans than the general public may know. And I mean, that's really at the core of what we're going to talk about today.

And so how did that process go for both of you? I mean, Mike, you got better going while you were still active, right? I did. I still don't know if that was the right decision.

You know, when you're not coming from a totally stable financial position, you're still active starting a company. Even though it was a social venture, the timing might not have been right. But in retrospect, it is an organization that's going to do a lot of yield for veterans. And so I focused my MBA.

And let me say this. When I stepped into the MBA program, I thought I was going to do investment banking. And I realized really quickly that that did not play my strengths, and that I like to create things in front of me, and I like to see the value proposition as I stand up. And quickly transitioned to focusing, because there were a lot of teammates calling me that were like, Mike, dude, we know you have connections in Silicon Valley.

Can you help me get a job? And I'm like, dude, what is going on here? I'm like, these are, and Jocky knows a lot of these guys are like amazing, amazing leaders. So what is the major disconnect?

And that's when I got Adam Graydon involved, and we discussed the systemic challenges facing veterans, and really started the foundation of what Vetted came from, which was a research project into those challenges facing veterans. And then, so what? How do we solve it? And that's when we got Wharton, UT Combs, and Texas A&M's just so involved.

And hence, we created what Outland Post is called the most comprehensive veteran transition program in the mission. And now you guys are starting it here, to some extent. So yes, we basically, we did the social side, and Jocky and Leith have been involved in Vetted. And now it's all those lessons learned from standing that up and capitalizing it.

And we live in a capitalistic society. We can do a lot more good on the for-profit side than we can on the non-profit side. Right. We didn't want to let those valuable lessons from standing this thing up just go to waste when we knew we could actually shake a lot more cages and rattle things loose in the for-profit realm.

Because your story, Jocko, when you transitioned out, is that when Echelon Front began, or did you think about finding a job somewhere? No. So about six months before I retired, my last job in the Navy was running the training for the West Coast SEAL teams. And really, what I was doing was simulating combat and then putting leaders through leadership training.

That's what it was. And so about six months prior to retiring, a guy that I knew asked me to come and talk to his executive team about combat leadership. And I thought, you know, okay, cool. I'll go do that.

And he said, I'll give you some money. And I said, well, that makes it even a little bit cooler. So I went up and I talked. And I don't know what he expected me to talk about, but whatever I, you know, I basically gave the same brief that I would give the young junior officers when they were entering the SEAL teams.

When they graduated the basic SEAL training, I would give them a brief. And I basically gave that same leadership brief to these executives. And when I got done, the CEO came up to me and said, hey, I want you to do this for you to do this for my company. And I said, well, you know, I'm retiring in six months and I'm not really looking to do anything like that.

And he said, I'll give you money. And I said, well, okay, let's talk about that then. And so then he ended up paying me. And at one of those divisional meetings, the CEO of the parent company was there.

And when I got done, the CEO of the parent company came up to me and he said, hey, I want you to do this for all my CEOs. I want you to come talk to all my CEOs. And they owned 45 or 50 companies at the time. So I did an event with 45 or 50 CEOs and got done with that.

And a bunch of those CEOs came up and said, hey, can you come and talk to my company? And that was where it started. It didn't take very long for me to be stuck up with work. And at the same time, Leif, who wrote the book with me and who was also in Madian, you know, my dear friend and brother, he had, he was still in the Navy.

He had met with a company that had come to do like a tour of the SEAL team. And they, they kind of were interested as well. And he kind of talked about leadership with them. And as soon as he was getting ready to get out, he got out in 13 years, I think.

I said, hey man, I need some fire support over here. And so that's, that's where, that's where it started. And then like you said, you know, as we would go out and work with these companies, they'd say, hey, do you guys have this stuff written down anywhere? Do you have a document you can give us or a manual you can give us?

Eventually we wrote, we wrote that stuff down more specifically. And that's what turned into the book. Okay. So I think we should explain like basically how the transition process works from, I mean, the CEOs of the Navy more broadly, because I didn't fully understand the amount of training or the lack of amount of training that you got.

So I think most of our listeners don't know either. So could you walk through what you, so, you know, you announced you're retiring. What happens? I don't think I'm a really great example.

I think Mike would be better because I, I told my chain of command that I was retiring and I had great relationships on my chain of command and it was a very hard decision to make, but I told him I was retiring and then I finished out my, my work and then I went to the, I didn't even go to the, there's a class called TAP, I didn't even go to that, I went to zero. So I didn't do anything and I wouldn't recommend that. There's a lot of good information. By the time I was retiring, I, well, I was pretty much just good to go and on another path moving down this road and didn't need to do anything else.

I need to, what I need to do is go forward and continue to work with sibling leaders and expand, work with more companies. So that's what I did. I'm not a great example of, of, of how to set yourself up for retirement or how the Navy transitions you for retirement. I can actually provide us some context for that.

So, you know, for your average, by what I mean average, it's not average in time, just your general, uh, soldier, airman, sailor, Marine. When you, uh, make the decision to get out, you know, the military start your own process. Unfortunately, uh, you're pretty much focused on your work almost up to the day you get out. That's just how the military is raised.

And because you want to do such a good job and you want to pass off a good product to whoever's coming behind you, uh, to ensure their success, that's, that's what that's doing. So you focus very little on your actual transition and then all of a sudden you get an exiting document from the, uh, the military and you're like, what do I do now? So the military does a really good job of training people on the front end. I mean, for the SEAL community, we'll use that as an example.

I mean, you go through basically two years of training before you even show up to a SEAL team. You know very specifically how to do your job. You know the science of it. And of course, over the course of your SEAL career, you hone the art.

The military doesn't do a great job transitioning people out and preparing them for success. What they did was outsource the process to the department of labor. Hence this transition assistance program called TAPS. It's a one week course.

And, uh, even though TAPS are run by awesome, awesome Americans, um, this is the way I put it. We have people in the department of labor running those programs that have very little private sector time themselves. They're federal government employees. So federal government employees should not be preparing veterans for jobs in the private sector.

And that's why we stood up, uh, vetted. Um, and, uh, TAPS is a basically a program that covers, you know, all your VA benefits. Here's some sources for how to do your resume. This is how you should interview, but it's, it's very quick.

And, um, the department of labor does very well with the problems that they were, uh, handed. It just, as a whole, we're, we're underserving our veterans and preparing for successful transitions. And that's why we need to rely more on the private sector to get involved and actually solve it for the government. At the end of the day, the military needs to focus on what's important, that is winning wars.

If we want the military to get good at transitioning veterans out, that draws resources from elsewhere, which means we're sending less prepared soldiers, airmen, Marines, and sailors, uh, overseas to face the threats that they have to face. So again, you know, people think, well, the military should do a better job of this. It's not all on the military. The military has their job, their real job, which is to defend this country and to take folks away from that.

Just, it's not the right thing to do. Right. So you're stepping in and trying to like solve this mismatch of education, right? Between the private market and military.

And so what, what does the current program look like for you guys? So we, you know, the name of the company that we unveil in July 4th is Echelon Front Overwatch. We call it Overwatch for, uh, for short is, uh, again, it's very niche. It's a white glove premium service.

We focus specifically on the special operations forces. That is your Green Berets, your Navy SEALs, your MARSOC Raiders, uh, Air Force PJs, pair rescue men, CCT, and then combat aviators. So we had to start with a small, uh, group, nail that market, and then maybe we can expand down the road to all veterans, uh, because we're not saying that soft and combat aviators are the only ones that are going to be successful in the private sector. And there's a lot of cases that, uh, actually fight that.

So we focus on those, uh, those groups. We do a lot of preparation on the front side, preparing our candidates, one, the vetting process. Jocko and I are going to tell you, like our industry in the military is much like any industry. You have high performers, those middle road performers, and then there's a substandard performers.

Echelon Front Overwatch will not place anyone that is substandard in any company, because we, at the end of the day, are concerned about our credibility in the private sector. So we put a lot of diligence in preparing and vetting the candidates that we present to our, uh, our clients. Now we are industry agnostic. It could be investment banking.

It could be tech. It could be healthcare. Uh, you know, ultimately vets know or think they know what they want to do when they get out. So that's why we'll place in, uh, in any industry.

But we do have a thorough process to vet them and prepare them. And we do put a lot of the work on veterans. You know, our golden rule on the website is no one will own your transition for you. Not even us.

We should. You have to own this. We are not going to, you know, completely do your resume for you. We'll revise it.

But if you're not willing to roll your sleeves up, and especially here's the key, not willing to be humble and not willing to work hard, then this is not for you. And so every candidate we produce is going to be a one established leader in the military, is humble, is ready to work. They're ready to listen to somebody in that industry and learn the tools of the trade and then apply the leadership and learn the military to succeed. And are you applying any particular, like, educational regimen for them?

We are. So, you know, actually, I'm pretty proud of the, uh, the career resources page on Echelon Front Overwatch. If you go to, uh, EFOverwatch.com, uh, under the career resources tab, we've laid out a six-step, uh, process, uh, for veterans to follow. It starts with know thyself, a lot of personal assessments.

You know, uh, you know, we will talk about Echelon Front, brutal self-assessments to know your strengths, know your weaknesses, specifically to plan your strengths and not augment your weaknesses. And then it goes from there of re-educating yourself. One, doing a lot of career in, uh, industry research to identify if a certain industry or company is the right fit. That's on them.

Uh, and then education and retraining. There's a lot of great programs out there. Vetted, the veteran accelerated program, Stanford Knight, right in your backyard, Dartmouth Next Step, uh, Bethany Coates with Breakline. I mean, there's a lot of great programs.

Go through one of them. Go through as many as you can. And the one thing, you know, about vets is, you know, we do lack a business act. We come from a different industry where we have completely set, uh, set of tools.

And for, you know, if I took a CEO from a tech company, they would be blown away watching us go through the military decision-making process and how diligent it is. Um, so for vets, they have to learn hard skills in the new industry that they're stepping into. And that's one of the things when working with clients and we place a candidate into that company is we lay out all the steps they need to, uh, sort of retrain themselves to learn those tools. So if they're stepping into digital marketing, uh, we're going to, you know, lay out a number of digital marketing courses that they can take when they step into the job.

So they're just on the job training. And again, that Overwatch phase of maintaining contact with the candidate and client. The one thing, Simply Learn, in your backyard, in August, we are unveiling the Corporate Skills Apprenticeship Program for Veterans. It's Simply Learn and Echelon for Overwatch are spearheading this.

It will include, uh, digital marketing, digital selling, uh, PMP, Lean Six Sigma, process improvement, um, agile, and then also business analyst certifications. It is tough. It is long, uh, but we got a great discount for veterans. And if someone goes through the other program, there is no doubt that they're, uh, you know, starting salary with all those certifications will go up.

It's just, hey, here's the thing. You have to be willing to sit down and do the work and get through that corporate skills apprenticeship program, but it's worthwhile. So we're happy about that. Yeah.

I mean, I can imagine this stuff. You guys are coming out at what? 40? When did you guys get out?

Yeah, I was 38. 38. You were 38? Yeah.

No kidding. I was, uh, well, I enlisted when I was 18. Yeah. I was 19 when I enlisted.

Actually, no, I was 39. I just turned 39 because I, I did a little bit over 20 years. Okay. Got it.

Yeah. So I, uh, I got out at, uh, 40, uh, when I was, uh, 19. Um, but not any, we have veterans getting out at all stages. Guys in their 20s that just do, you know, 46 years.

And then guys that do more than us getting out in their 50s. Right. And guess what? They want to get after it in the private sector.

Oh, yeah. I mean, they have a whole life. Yeah. And the thing is, as Mike was talking about, like, sure, there's, there's skills that you have to learn for these specific industries.

And quite honestly, that's the easy part. Like, if you blow it off, it'll, it'll crush you. But if you are attentive to it, you address it, you'll, you'll get those skills. But the hard part that people need and what makes this program great is that you've got people that have experience in leadership and experience leading other human beings to accomplish very challenging missions over a short period of time and over a long period of time.

And that is what is. challenging and it's much harder to train someone to be a leader than it is to train someone about some technical aspect of a job or even the background of a job. It takes much more time. It takes years.

It takes dozens of years and that's what we've got. In this situation, we've got people that have not only learned those leadership skills, they've applied those leadership skills over and over again in high stress environments. There's no better way we could prepare people for leadership in the civilian sector than have them serve in the military and be in leadership positions. And then you take them out and you polish them up with industry knowledge, which again, hey, I'm not taking anything away from the industry knowledge.

It's important and it's hard to learn, but the level that a leader needs to learn is the same level that the ground troop needs to know it. So they acquire the skill set and then they apply what they got from the military and what they got from their leadership experience and you've got a winner right there. Yeah. Well, as Mike said before, you know, it's a practiced experience as compared to an MBA, which is, I mean, like two months into your MBA, you're looking for your internship, which hopefully is your next job.

Yeah, I agree with you guys. The thing about leadership and, you know, the executive development industry is the hero of your growth is amazing because companies realize they have to train their internal talent. They have to build talent from within. Is that, you know, at the end of the day, the U.S.

military, and we talked about this before, is the preeminent leadership training platform in the world because we have the resources and time to do it. I mean, if you step into the military, whether you enlist or you're an officer, you're going in boot camps, I mean, there's a methodology to design and we talked about this yesterday. You know, the Marine Corps is probably the best at putting people through Marine boot camp and turning young girls and boys into men and women. And it's amazing.

That process is just not replicated by anyone. Yeah. The whole thing with leadership is that it takes time. It takes time to develop those skills.

And the other thing is, it's hard. It's hard to do. And you've got all these crazy people that work for you, regardless of what situation you're in. That's one thing that's one of the myths about the military.

They're like robots and they'll just listen to what everyone says. Well, the fact of the matter is, that's not true. And even inside the SEAL teams, they won't think, oh, these guys are just so motivated to do whatever you say. That's completely not true.

The guys in the SEAL teams, you've got all kinds of, just like any other group of people, you've got egos, you've got personalities, you've got different motivations that are driving people. You've got people that get wrapped around their own plan that they come up with and they don't want to listen to anyone else. You have to work through all those problems. So people have experience doing that over time.

You can't buy that experience. You can't go to school for that experience. And even the fact that the military takes people and puts you through leadership training, that right there alone isn't enough. What really makes the people in the military become good leaders is that they lead.

They lead. And they succeed sometimes and they fail sometimes. And if they go through their career, they learn from those failures and they become better and they don't make those mistakes again. And by the time they're getting ready to move on, they know what they're doing.

So I think many people, actually given the success of your podcast, think that when someone comes out of the SEAL, they're like, oh, it's a Jocko or it's Mike. Like, oh, we just got one of those guys. But that's not always the case. And I think because, so as a percentage of the population, so few people know any of these elite members of the service, there are these preconceptions that people get in their head.

And I think now's a good time to just like dispel those and honestly explain what people are expecting. So when you guys are talking to an employer, what are you coaching them with? How are you instructing them to like, this is what's reality and this is what you may think? What comes up?

Well, you've got individuals, first of all. And just like any group of people is a bell curve, right? And just like Mike just talked about, you've got people at the high end of the bell curve, you've got people at the low end of the bell curve, you've got a bunch of people in the middle of the bell curve. And our job, before we place someone, is to make sure that they're behind the bell curve.

Because you're 100% right. And we'll talk about SEALs, for example. As far as someone that's in the civilian sector, a SEAL is a SEAL is a SEAL is a SEAL. If you're in the SEAL teams, you're good to go.

You're just a perfect leader and you've got a great way to deal with stress and you can overcome all these problems. That's actually not true. There's a lot of great guys in the SEAL teams and there's some spectacular individuals in the SEAL teams. And there's also guys, there's a bunch of people in the middle that do their job and they do a great job.

And then there's people on the low end of the spectrum that they don't do a good job. And they've managed to stay in. And this is true with the Marine Corps, it's true with the Army, it's true with Special Forces, it's true with everyone. Every group has their bottom feeders in there.

And so what we do is make sure that none of those bottom feeders get placed by us. Because it's very hard for a civilian to tell the difference between, you know, I always ask employers this. Have you ever interviewed somebody and you thought, I'm about to hire the biggest stud who's going to crush this and I'm set for life because I've got this guy coming on my team and this girl coming on my team. And then how often does that person turn out to be horrible?

Okay, let's say you're pretty good. Even if you're pretty good at judging those situations, you're still probably only batting like 70 or 80%. At best, 20% of the time, you're hiring someone that is a disaster. People learn to interview well.

Some people can interview very well. Some people are great workers, but they interview horribly. And you can't tell from looking at the resume when you sit and talk to me, I don't see this guy working out. So it's the same thing with the SEAL teams.

It's the same thing with any group. Any group. It's not just the SEAL teams. Any group.

And so what we're doing is taking a look at these people. We're vetting them. We're making sure that we're screening them properly and no one understands their reputation through our connections. And then train them and test them and make sure that they are on board and think the way we think and are going to be a good fit for a workplace.

I think Jocko pretty much summarized that pretty well. We do get a lot of preconceived notions. Naturally, people's perceptions that they'll take come out of the books and the movies, primarily movies. And so a lot of people think we just run around the bases singing cadences 24 seconds.

Terry Logs all day? Yeah, not the case. And these guys are personally authentic. They're usually of high emotional intelligence.

They're highly capable. They have a character and aptitude. And if they don't, even within our respective communities, again, we're using the SEAL community, we tend to minimize those bottom feeders, as Jocko referred to them, if they are bipolar and just have low emotional intelligence. And so we're like, okay, yes, we're going to shift you over to this job here because, you know, you can do this job well and it's not on the front line and it won't have any major consequences.

I mean, that happens within our community as well. But we know, and here's the great thing about the SEAL operations community and the Convaganivators, is we can reach back to our respective colleagues that are still in the community and say, hey, John Doe, thumbs up, thumbs down. Oh, yeah, absolutely, thumbs up. Or, hey, here, thumbs down, here's why.

And we can validate that pretty quickly. So at the end of the day, you know, I tell a lot of employers, okay, we don't even charge a retainer like a lot of recruiting firms. We just want promised interviews. So if a company comes to us, we're going to charge it for a retainer fee.

Just give us three promised interviews and we want the dates and times. And we'll put our candidates in front of you and then they impress. Like, oh, wow, totally demisturized what I thought about veterans. Yeah, we know, we know.

And that changes a lot of perceptions. You just got to talk to them and you recognize how these are people too. So for those who aren't fortunate enough to work with you guys, do you have some advice for companies interviewing veterans or looking to interview veterans? This is a question that comes up all the time.

It comes up from every company I work with and it came up in the SEAL teams. And you've probably heard me talk about this. It's like, guess what? It's really hard to judge people.

It's really hard to judge people. And we, you know, I was in, you watch people going to the basic SEAL training course and you look at a group of 10 people and you're not going to know who's going to make it through and who's not going to make it through. That's the way it is. And the only way to figure out who's going to make it through is to put them through it.

That's the only way. Now, so why I recommend companies all the time is when you, you know, yes, you want to do a thorough interview. Yes, you want to give them scenarios. Yes, you want to put some pressure on them and figure out where they're coming from.

But what you really want to do is say, look, we're going to bring you on as a contractor for 90 days and see what you're like. See what you're like and see if you can really do what it is you say you can do and see if you're going to lose your temper and see if you're going to get crazy on some minute thing that doesn't really matter and see if you're going to work hard. Like all those things are things that you need to explore when you're dealing with a hiring situation. Yeah, so like standard best practices.

Yeah, so like standard best practices. Cool. I mean, the only thing I'd say is when you do have a veteran and or you're looking to hire a veteran, again, going back to the technical skills that they may or may not have, that's okay. Take a look at the technical skills and say, you know what?

Are they in the ballpark and can we give them a little bit of leniency because we know that they've got some experience and some leadership skills that we're going to bring down and they've got some discipline and they've got some people skills. So all those are good things. So one of the services is worth mentioning that basically this test drive before you make a final offer. We actually will work with companies to set up a veteran fellowship for recently separated veterans.

So they get this great veteran for anywhere from six months to 12 years at an industry standard salary as a fellowship, working in there, and then they get to make that final determination at the end of the six months or 12 months of, yes, this is a good candidate for this company. We want to make a final offer. And then what it allows veterans to do as well, sort of the altruism side of the company is you're giving them great industry experience where they can come back to us and we can find another company that is a right culture fit. So it really benefits both parties.

Great. Let's go a little bit broader. So Jocko, you've been on a warpath writing in the past couple of years. I'm curious about the next book.

So Dichotomy of Leadership. Dichotomy of Leadership. This is another one I'm writing with, we actually wrote it with Leif once again, and the title is Dichotomy of Leadership, which is actually chapter 12 in training ownership is called Dichotomy of Leadership. And the reason for that is, the reason that we ended up writing a whole book about it now is as we worked with companies over the past years and we'd look and see what problems were having, where were the issues they were having, and it was always trying to find this balance in the various dichotomies of leadership of which there is, I think, an infinite number.

So, for instance, as a leader, if you go too far in one direction, you become a micromanager, and now your people lose any initiative and they stop taking charge of things and they stop moving forward without your permission, so you're micromanaging too much, and that's bad. You go too far in the other direction, where now they don't even know what your strategy is, you don't communicate with them enough, they don't know which direction they're supposed to be heading, and they're all kind of wandering around, that's bad. So what you have to do is you have to balance those two. Is it possible for a leader to be too close to your people, where all of a sudden you develop these close relationships where they stop listening to you because now you become more of a friend than a leader?

Or is it possible that's bad? Or you go too far in the other direction, where you don't know who anyone is, and you don't know what's going on with their family life, and you can't relate to them at all, well then that's bad as well. So there's all these dichotomies that you as a leader have to balance, and it's the hardest thing to do as a leader, because the reason is because both answers are right. Is it right to be close to your people?

Yeah, absolutely. So you should be close to them. But is it right to have enough distance? Yes, that's right too.

So every direction is the right answer, but what you have to do is balance them. And so that's why we wrote this entire book about many of these dichotomies that exist. And then once you recognize that there are dichotomies, and then you can start seeing them in everything. There's ones that we did write in the book that we mentioned in the book, we didn't write whole chapters about them, but is it possible to be too direct and communicate with someone?

Well, yes it is, because you can be offensive to them. Is it possible to not be direct enough? Yes it is, because now they don't really understand what it is you want. So these dichotomies exist everywhere as a leader, and that's why we ended up, and as we dealt with companies, and we saw where their pushing points were, it was always because they were getting off, they were losing the balance in various categories of leadership, and that's why we wrote the whole book about it.

What are the dichotomies you guys deal with in managing each other, and working together? In all of us work? You do? Well, I would say that the biggest thing for me is I'm pretty hands-off, and I give intent on how things are supposed to go, and Mike is, so I lean towards being a little bit too hands-off, Mike leans towards being a little bit too aggressive, and so it's fine, but occasionally I look up, and I see where Mike is, and I'm like, hey Mike, come back, brother, come back, and that's the way it is, but we've been working together for a long time, and known each other for a long time, and that's the way our whole company, that's the way we operate, we know each other very well, it makes it a lot easier that we don't have to build relationships, the relationships are already there.

We already know each other's strengths and weaknesses, and whether it's strengths and weaknesses, or just I know Mike's going to be aggressive. I know if I put Mike in a room with a shovel and a match, I'm going to come back two weeks later, and he's going to have dug through the ground and built a fire, and we're creating some business around whatever, right, that's going to happen, and that's fine, so I just need to be aware of that, and if he knows me, he knows me, I'll be like, yeah, go get some, and then occasionally he goes, oh, you know what, I should probably tell you that I'm about to make this major move right now, and so it's the same thing throughout all the whole crew. So Mike, I'm curious about your answer, but I have another question for you because this is how it works with most startups. So, all right, you and Mike start Echelon Front, and then you hire one buddy, and then you hire two buddies, and before you know what, you're a 10, and you've maybe run out of buddies you want to hire.

What happens if Echelon Front goes to 100 people, or will you cap it before that happens? No, we won't cap it. We'll hire the right people. That's what we'll do.

We'll hire the right people, and most important, well, there's a bunch of things that are equally important. Number one, we'll hire the right people. Number two, when people come on board, before they come on board, we'll make sure that they understand where we're coming from. and this is actually what we do, and this is how we roll, then people will either get on board with the program, or they won't.

People that don't get on board with the program, that's okay, I don't dislike people that don't get on board with the program, but I'm not gonna work with them. I'm not gonna work with them. There's plenty of people out there that wanna work hard and wanna get after it. There's plenty of people out there.

There's also plenty of people that don't, and that's okay. We'll bring people on board that wanna get after it. Right, well, there's also different styles of getting after it. Okay, explain those to me.

Well, I mean, okay, so I often break it down into personality types, right? So I'm generally maybe skewing towards Mike's direction in terms of like really getting into something and then putting my head down and just doing it solo. And I generally don't require input from other people. Once I know, I'm like, all right, this is what's happening.

I'm doing it. I prefer to work alone on this project and I can get this shit done. Other people need to be affirmed the whole way. And those styles don't necessarily align perfectly if you build that whole team.

Yeah, you're going to end up with different types of people on every team, just like I said earlier. And you are right. I didn't really understand what you're saying, but yeah, there's people that move forward in different ways. And there's some people...

And that's one thing, like for instance, with span of control. Like, you know, there's a number for span of control in combat as four or five people in the business world, et cetera, eight people. Generally, those are the numbers that get thrown around. However, if you're in control, or if you're running a team and everyone on the team is eight players, guess what?

You control more of them because you don't have to give them as much direction. If you have a bunch of substandard players on your team and guess what? They're going to need more direction. Guess what?

In your average team, some of them are... It's a bell curve. And so there's some people you don't have to give much attention to. You're a guy that puts...

Craig, get this project down. You're going to get this project down. You put your head down. You're going to get after it and I know it's taken care of.

Bill over here. Oh, Bill, can you get this project down? Well, yeah, okay. And I know that Bill's going to need a little follow-up, nothing in nature, but I'm going to have to give him a little pat on the back, a little nudge to make sure he's getting his job done.

Yeah, absolutely. You have to modulate your leadership depending on the people you're dealing with. Now, this doesn't mean that you change your personality. This doesn't mean you're a different human being.

It doesn't mean you're two-faced in any sense, but you have to modulate your interaction with different people depending on the type of person that you're dealing with. I think that's... In my experience, Mike, what are the dichotomies that you think you deal with with Jocko? I'm going to go back to it.

You know, this is easy. And Jocko alluded to it. We've built... trust and credibility in jaco's eyes since 2006 so what i view echelon front as is basically task unit bruiser from the battle of ramadi rebranded so when you just talk about who we are and how we roll when jaco only came to me like come on board it's like okay i already know who we are and how we roll and um i mean they threw me into the mix pretty quick i did one event with uh with jaco one event with wave and they're like go forth now and perform and with jaco and you know jaco was again the task unit commander to us all um a member to us all it's easy and you know jaco is one thing perform do your job do well i know you have the capability to do it uh and utilize the principles of extreme ownership and the laws of combat and you will succeed it doesn't mean we will not i mean we will fail here and there but the great thing about like jaco and tasking bruiser is there was no zero defect mentality as i like to call it we are not perfect we are flawed like every other human we will fail and then we will sit down with one of them so that we never make that mistake again and um one of the best the best military unit i ever worked for bar none was tasking bruiser and i never saw uh a level of humility uh within the military by tasking bruiser ever again so and that was really my military career when i was eight years in the military at that point yeah and that's one thing i did want to bring up a little bit was when we were talking earlier about screening people right and basically i was saying like we're gonna screen people make sure that they're on board and it makes me sound like i'm sitting here saying we're the judge of everyone that's in the military that's absolutely not true and there's plenty there's there's so many people in the military that are far superior in every skill set that i have ever had even at my absolute prime we there's there's thousands and thousands and thousands of people that are far superior to me in every way and i'm stoked that i will have the opportunity to give those people out to companies where they will go and crush it because believe me i'm the same in the civilian sector i meet leaders all the time in the civilian sector that are unbelievably awesome leaders and guess what they want they want more good people they want more good people so for me to have this opportunity really not as a judge and i apologize for coming off like hey i'm judging or we're judging or we're screening and look no actually we're looking for people that are better than us and i know them i know them i know people that are better than all of us and those people we're going to bring in and turn them loose with these companies again with companies in the civilian sector that are incredible incredible companies with incredible leadership that want more good people and you know what there's companies in the civilian sector that maybe they have some leadership issues and this is something that i saw a lot when i was running training you got a SEAL platoon or you got a SEAL task unit when i first started running the training i wanted the platoon commander and the platoon chief to be the leaders i was like these guys and if they weren't the leaders i would i thought i was wrong it didn't take me long to be it didn't take me long to get to a point where it's hard to find good leaders to have two good leaders in a SEAL platoon and to have them actually be the platoon commander and the platoon chief was actually very very rare and i realized that it didn't matter that much it was optimal But what I really wanted Was a couple really solid leaders In the team I didn't care where they were In the team They could be the lowest ranking guy They could be in the middle somewhere They needed to be good solid leaders But if you had one or two If you had two really You need two good leaders If you had two good leaders In a sea platoon The sea platoon was going to do awesome And it didn't matter where they were If they happened to be the platoon commander Great If they happened to be the platoon chief Great If they happened to be the leading petty officer Great That was super If it happened to be an E5 That had done two deployments To Afghanistan or Iraq And had a lot of experience And had stepped up And got after it And was a good leader He would make things happen And he would do it in such a way Where he wasn't stepping on people's toes But he would still get the respect of the boys It was awesome to see And so when we go to companies now People always say The CEO is messed up Or my leader is messed up That's okay You're going to work for people That aren't necessarily the best leaders in the world That's fine People ask me Who are you doing with a weak leader I'm like I'm happy My leader is weak I'm stoked I'm going Hey boss I got this Hey thanks for your support We're going to keep over We're going to be over here Doing what we do I'll let you know if we need anything We really appreciate it Here's the credit On the last things we did Here you take it Go make yourself look great That's what I'm here for And you build that relationship And you go get the mission done That's what you do So again I just want to make sure That we're not sounding like Hey we're the supreme judges of the world Because we're absolutely not We do happen to be lucky enough To have contacts in the military community And now contacts in the civilian community And we just want to help those Two great groups of people get together And kick ass Man I think it's so great How do you recommend that companies Set up their structure Such that you know The intern that just started If they have a great idea Let's ship it It's happening Do you have advice on that?

It's called decentralized command It's called humility So decentralized command Extreme ownership The fundamental concept of Hey we're going to listen Up and down the chain of command We're going to let our frontline people Who knows better If Mike's in the field With his platoon And I'm back in the forward operating base somewhere And he needs to make a decision Who knows to make a better decision It's him 99.9% of the time There's that small percent of the time Where I happen to know Because I'm in a further away position That there's enemy moving in Or that there's a support element coming to him And I can say Mike don't go west Hold what you got There's a support element coming In your direction right now And he goes Oh okay Thank you And so But most of the time He's in the field And he says Hey this is what I see This is what I'm going to do And I say Awesome Do it Let me know how we can support you Or here's some elements I'm going to move to support you So that's decentralized command The biggest hindrance To decentralized command Is ego Is ego You shut up Like dude I tell you to do You don't know what you're doing You're junior to me You haven't been as long as me You haven't been as long as me You need to listen to me No Actually I'm stoked When one of my subordinate leaders Comes up with a great plan That makes me That makes me eminently happy Because now I can say Oh Mike That's a great plan You know what I could have come up with that plan You run and execute Now who has ownership of that plan It's all Mike And he's going to run with that plan He's going to make it work He's going to overcome any obstacles That's what's going to happen Why? Because he created the plan It's his plan As opposed to me dictating a plan to him And saying this is the way you will do it You won't deviate from what I've told you to do Well then what's he going to do When he gets out in the field And hits an obstacle He's going to go Oh you know what Doc's plan's talking We're not going to go that way You know you set up a culture like that Where even a new guy Yeah Where his or her opinion matters Then you set up a culture for success And I'll say why I'm going to refer back to the Tasking Bruiser They said up front That hey Even if you're a new guy You lead And if everyone's leading We win And then you fast forward With the one year of training That we had Leading up to the Battle of Ramadi The new guys On their first deployment Within Tasking Bruiser Were some of the high performing individuals Within that Tasking Bruiser I mean the accolades that came out of it You know Unfortunately we lost some new guys Michael Monsoor Who made the most selfless sacrifice By jumping on a grenade To save three other SEALs Brand new guy Ryan Jobe Laying down cover fire For his team to move Brand new guy Mark Lee You know Killed during a firefight Again covering his brothers And then I can say Johnny Kim Because he's Johnny Kim Now a NASA astronaut Was a brand new guy Who was awarded the Silver Star During that deployment Why Because they set the culture up front That lead Speak up and lead We're listening No doubt about it If you think that Me Because I was in charge of Tasking Bruiser If you think that I can sit there In any combat situation And control Like a puppet master The elements that are out on the battlefield It's literally impossible too I don't care who you are I don't care how good you are You don't have the cognitive capacity To do that And it happens in businesses And again We see this all the time in businesses As the businesses grow You talked about going from 10 people to 100 people Well if you've got a CEO That's a good solid leader And he likes to control things With 10 people he can pull it off For sure With 10 people he can pull it off He's a workaholic He's working 22 hours a day 20 hours a day 18 hours a day He's in every meeting He can pull that off When he gets 200 people You can't pull that off anymore It's physically Humanly Cognitively impossible to do that So if he hasn't Or she hasn't Set up the culture Strong enough That people understand How they're supposed to operate Then they're not going to operate properly So that's real commander's intent And it is It's culture Commander's intent is Or culture Is almost like a broad Commander's intent That overlays the entire The entire group of individuals That you work with Everybody knows Everybody knows This is what we're moving towards Right So with this new book Are you referencing stories From Echelon Front Because I've kind of been wondering If the podcast is now Going to create a feedback loop So you're Maybe not this book But maybe the next book Is actually not even your stories But it's stories from Vietnam World War II So I The next book Is still stories From our military career From our combat experiences And from the training That we went through And it also does still include Stories from Echelon Front From companies that we've worked with Down the line Yeah there will be other books That address other things Learned from the podcast So I've got that book Probably coming out About a year after this one So I've already done that deal Yeah Dude How many hours a day do you write? I write I write an hour a day When it's on So I write about a thousand words an hour And I sit down And write for an hour And I got a thousand words So you know For the kids book They're about 25 or 30 thousand words So that's 30 days 25 or 30 days worth of writing A thousand words that you keep every day? Yeah I do pretty decent out of the gate Nice I do pretty decent out of the gate As a matter of fact though The second warrior kid book I Right when I was about to finish it I probably had another 5,000 words to finish it It was just through the first draft And I had some stuff go on Where I just had to finish it And I submitted it And it was almost It was almost good to go As with very few edits On the first Literally Like normally I would have edited Edited it three or four times I did not edit it I edited it once it got back And they gave it back to me But yeah So I write hard Yeah Do I throw a thousand times?

Absolutely But even if you write a thousand words And you throw out 400 Guess what? You got 600 words And in two or three months You got 50 or 60 thousand words And you're done So it's a good little system The other thing about it For anyone that's interested in writing You probably aren't But if you write every day You don't have to go back And read what you wrote the previous day Because you still remember it For me if I take two days So if I write today And then I don't write tomorrow And then I go to writing again I gotta go back and read That one day is enough For me to forget really where I was at Whereas if I write today I write tomorrow I can literally just start typing again Because I know where I was at So if you're gonna do it That's the discipline of the manner To make it happen Yeah I mean that's like Maintaining some kind of flow state Has always been a challenge For creative projects I mean like I'm so impressed with you guys Writing the podcast Like constantly doing these muster events Like you just gotta stay on it You gotta keep the beat going Because it's so easy to let it slip What was that event in New York like? How'd that go? Yeah and I think the other thing is You have to force If you don't put If you don't force it out of yourself It's not gonna happen If you don't force it out of yourself It's not gonna happen The book or the project Or the thing that you wanna do The podcast that you're gonna do If you don't If you don't put discipline around it It's not gonna happen I mean I've been putting out The podcast for 133 weeks And I've missed one And you know It's like that's That's putting There's a lot of pressure There's a lot of pressure To read a book And write a book And go back There's a lot to do It's no joke But if I didn't have the timeline Then guess what It's really easy to say You know what I can push this off It's really easy to do that It's really easy to do that With everything in life Whether it's a workout Whether it's writing Whether it's a project You're supposed to be doing Whether it's sitting down At a computer screen To do and learn Some technical skills That you know is gonna make you A better candidate for jobs All those little things It's discipline equals freedom That's what it is Yeah 101 Yep discipline equals freedom 101 Are you guys working on something right now?

Like how are you improving yourself? I'm so curious I read discipline equals freedom On the flight over here I was like oh man this is awesome I read the book I listen to the podcast I think I get this But the book is great But it's this framework for life right So whatever it might be You just apply it Are there specific things? Because I think I'm curious about you guys Just as men Like things that you are Personally working on right now I'm working to become A better father People might think that sounds weird Well why aren't you Trying to push your business forward Oh no no that is a requirement We're working 90 hour To 100 hour weeks writing Learning more about You know talent acquisition How to solve the system of challenges That is gonna happen That's a requirement But it's how do I balance My time really well To give you know My kids more of my time Because and Jack and I Have talked about this a lot Is when you're in the military Your family comes second And that might sound harsh But when you have 40 SEALs under your command That are your responsibility To bring home You know they usually come first And I think the families Understand that It's just some of the Unsung heroes in the military Are absolutely the wives And the children And so now that I'm out I'm trying to you know Achieve that dichotomy Within my life To be a better father Do you have one? Do I have one?

No I've got an infinite list Of things that I'm trying To get better at all the time I'm not kidding An infinite list of things I'm trying to get better at All the time And that's just the way it is I hate sucking at stuff And I suck at all kinds of stuff I'm trying to get better Dude that's the podcast I keep meeting people Who are just like The top 1% in their field Science, business Whatever it is And you're like Alright That's a whole lifetime Spent learning physics And just to do the interview It takes a couple days You know it's a good thing For guys like Jocko and I And for anyone in any industry That wants to be the best It's more about the process It's not the end state Like I find And I'm sure you'll agree I find very little solace In achieving anything It's like okay I achieved it No celebrating What's next I just don't find any Ravocation But you know If I look back at the process I'm like okay That was pretty badass Let's move on to the next thing And I find that Amongst high reformers High achievers Is that they're just never Satisfied with the end state It's all about the process It's so important To get good at something too Because tying on to that Before I had gotten Really really good at something I didn't fully understand That process And what it feels like And I need to apply it To something else What are you really really good at? I have a cycling world record Some pretty good at riding bikes Yeah yeah It was two days Straight climbing up and down a hill So it's most elevation In two days So yeah But it was the same thing man It wrapped up I'm like alright dude It's amazing That's so cool You're in the Guinness book World Records That's awesome What can I do in three days? Exactly And like you know There's someone Jumping at your heels So yeah That's awesome I've got to say This is why you would love The guys we place in companies It's like The one thing about the teams That I love Is it was the competition Made the world go round And like if Jocko Could shoot a target Ten times Within ten seconds It was like I would be there all day Until I could get nine seconds And then he would hear That I got nine seconds And it creates this culture Of everyone gets along They realize the competition Makes everyone better That was the great thing About SEAL things Everything's a competition Yeah Well it's cool You're surrounded by them still Guys we got a bunch of questions Yeah I mean But right there It's a cover move Is the first thing I think about Because if we're not Supporting each other Then we're not going to be able To get things done That we need to get done So work Cover move means teamwork Work together as a team And I actually just had this With this discussion With a group A company And they had reordered And put simple As the first law of combat And I kind of joked around It was the president That had done this And I joked around And I said Hey He said It's cool I get it But the reality is They are in an order Of cover moves number one And the reason Cover moves number one Is because that's teamwork If we're not working together We're not moving forward We're not going to be effective We're not going to be efficient So when you look at what your mission is And you look at your submission That's nested inside the greater mission Don't just focus on that Make sure you look As a company Like how are we going to help the other elements that are inside of our team? How are we going to help them move forward?

Don't just worry about yourself. Worry about everyone. That's a move. I'll go one further.

Take the laws of combat. Covered move. Simple. It's the fire team.

You have limited resources. You have a small team. Everyone has multiple, multiple tasks to do. And you have a run rate that you have to manage.

And to increase the throughput and drive revenue as quickly as possible. I mean the laws of combat. If you reinforce this within your company, it will work. If you truly understand what they mean as a small team, you implement them.

You will succeed. Right on. Next question. All right.

Alan asks, hey Jocko, from your experience in SEAL and as a SEAL, in the business world, do two or more co-founders leaders have a higher success rate? What are your thoughts on a solo founder creating their own strong team? I think it's a little strange to think about someone doing something solo and achieving anything really incredible. You're going to need a team.

You're going to need people. And the more you trust your team and the better relationship you have with your team, then the better you're going to do. So I think if you're a good, I think the critical thing here is you have to think about what you're going to do. You have to think about what you're going to do and how you're going to get it done.

If you think you can accomplish things by yourself, you're probably a little bit mistaken. You might even be a lot mistaken. If you think you know everything better than everyone else and that's why you should control everything, it's probably going to end up problematic. To have somebody that's a good sounding board is important.

Now, the other thing I would say about this is it's also important to find people and work with people that complement who you are, that complement your strengths and your weaknesses. If you're a person that has great ideas but is not at execution, you need to find a partner that's really good at execution. If you go out and find a partner that also has incredible ideas and you two put this company together and it's filled with a bunch of ideas, guess what? No one's going to execute those ideas.

You're not going to go anywhere. If you're a person that can execute well but maybe you don't have some of those creative thought processes, you find someone that's got a good creative thought process. So you want to partner with people, absolutely, and you want to partner with people that make you better. And before that is kind of like seeing the world as it is.

That's a problem I see with a lot of solo founders. They're just like, I got this figured out. And they're a little bit delusional. We see that in the military all the time.

We call it emotional attachment. So, you know, I would sit and Jocko would pass, hey, we need to execute this mission, go ahead and plan it. And I plan it for three days. And during that process, because I think I'm coming up with this great plan that's going to allow him.

And then I present it. And I've been one inch from doing the plan for the last three days. And then he comes in from six foot view. And so the worst thing you can do is come so emotionally attached to your product that you stop listening to who?

Your customers. Because in the military we say the enemy has a boat in all plans. So does your customer. And so the second you've got everything figured out and you stop listening to your customer, you need to step back, detach emotionally, and reassess.

Do you guys do that by journaling? Just by through experience? Yeah, I can tell you. So people ask me about detachment a lot because I talk about detachment a lot.

Because detachment is definitely one of the key technical skills to have as a leader. And as a human being, by the way. And so there's all kinds of things. And I actually wrote about it in the kids book quite a bit.

I wrote about how you emotionally detach. Because the kid loses his temper and gets in trouble. And guess what? You've got to learn to detach.

Because human beings do that. Adults do that all the time. So this idea of detaching is something that you absolutely have to focus on. How do you do it?

Well, you have to learn to recognize when you are getting emotional. Because normally to detach from the chaotic situation. So there's a, if you're on a construction site and something's going wrong. And you step back so that you can fix it.

Or you're in a manufacturing plant and something's going wrong. And you're stepping away from it physically. That's good. There's also situations where you need to step away emotionally.

And that's a little bit harder. And, you know, the examples that I talk about. First of all, if you start getting like this. Well, that's what you need to put yourself in check.

You're obviously getting emotional. You also, if you're getting ready to send an email. And you're typing really hard on it. That's probably not a good email to send.

You should wait 24 hours before you send that email up the chain of command. And then there's this part. And this is probably, this is the one that is most valuable. When you're looking at a situation and you're feeling the anger, the frustration.

Things aren't going the way they're supposed to go. Much of the time, you need to step back and you need to look at yourself. And figure out why you were getting emotional. And most of the time, I would venture to guess the reason that you're getting emotional, the reason that you're getting mad is because of your own ego.

Someone has done something that's offended your ego. Someone's come up with a plan that's better than yours. Someone's come up with an idea that's better than yours. Someone has dared to confront something that you've said when you should not be questioned.

And those ego flare ups cause all kinds of emotions. And so if you don't learn to detach from those and do real assessments and figure out logically, not emotionally, what the problem is, then you will have some significant issues. So learn to detach. Yeah, I mean, oftentimes the people that, yeah, when I was growing up, the people that bugged me the most had a quality that I didn't have or wanted to have more of.

And then you're like, oh, that guy's more articulate or he's stronger or whatever it is. And that was it. Welcome to my life. All right.

Next question. Let's see. Armando Nevis asked to Jaco, I liked your episode strategy and the way of the samurai. I think that was Tim Ferriss, right?

So I did one with Tim Ferriss that was based on the novel Musashi, which is an incredible, incredible novel. It's a historical fiction based on the life of the great Japanese swordsman Musashi. And then Musashi is the guy that wrote The Book of Five Rings. And I covered The Book of Five Rings first before I did Musashi, just so people would have that background on it before we got into it.

But The Book of Five Rings is pretty famous. I think that was episode 80. And then the one with Tim was episode 100. Cool.

And that one is, I think that's one of the few that's over four hours long. Because when I got done, I was joking with Tim Ferriss. I was like, well, there's the four hour work. We get a four hour chef.

And I was like, well, there's the four hour podcast. Totally. And we did it right after he had gotten out of some really psychotic fasting and oath of silence deal. So he had been in silence for, I don't know, 10 or 15 days.

It's a long period of time. And it was awesome. It was awesome to cover that. But yeah, so that's that for Musashi.

Okay, great. And then his question is, how much does the daily warrior mindset, how much do you implement on a daily basis? I was thinking earlier when Mike was talking about the TAP program that gets you out of the military. And I was thinking to myself, so you take a guy like myself that's been indoctrinated and then lived and breathed and eaten and slept nothing but military for 20 years.

And then you go, okay, look, we're going to send you this program for a week and that will get you ready. It's kind of laughable, right? It's a little bit laughable at least. It's going to take some more transition.

So for me to think that, for me to think that I think about the warrior mindset, I don't. It's just part, it's just my day. It's just what I'm thinking. I don't even know other ways to think.

I don't actively engage. What's that? The statement about the fish in the water, right? Oh, the David Foster Wallace talk?

Yes, the David Foster Wallace. This is water. This is water. That's like me.

I don't even know that I'm in this. I'm just swimming in it and that's just how. As Echo Charles says, that's just how. That's just the way it is.

I don't actively think about it, but all I've been doing my whole adult life is this. That's all I read about. That's all I write about. That's all I think about.

That's all I do. Are you equally maniacal? I think so. You talk about the perception of that.

It is strange. There almost is like a negative connotation on being in the military these days. There is still. It was alive in the Vietnam War.

The military is evil. We love the military. You know, war is a tragic thing, but it also serves some great purposes. And, you know, we reference and we make every analogy a military analogy because we saw the good.

And actually, you know what? The one outcome from Echelon Front and Echelon Front Overwatch is I hope more kids sign up in the military. I honestly do. It is a great platform to take a young boy or a young girl and turn them into an outstanding leader.

But I'm maniacal about my service in the service of our brothers and sisters, man. It was awesome. And there's just so much good they can do outside the military after they're done whether it's six years, 20 years, or 35 years. Yeah.

Yeah, you're absolutely right. All right. We got a couple more. Just real quick.

All right. So, Ryan Calmer, Carl Mercer asks, hey, Leif isn't here, but I think this is relevant for Paul, yes. What's your favorite MRE? None.

I'll put it to you this way. MREs are designed to meet your caloric intake in the very Austrian environments. If I had my way, would I take a prime rib, bone in, prime rib, out to the field, cook it, and eat it? Yes, I would.

But, you know, Ryan, you don't see me coming home to my fiance, Jordan, saying, hey, why don't we cook up some of those MREs? That does not happen. They are awful. But they are a good tool when you're in an Austrian environment.

Yeah. When you get hungry enough, they're beautiful. They're unbelievably delicious when you haven't eaten for a while. And there's people that get really good at, they basically cook with them.

They basically don't not cook. They can chef. What is that called? They can create these little mixtures that make things even better.

Like they doctor them up a little bit? They mix them together in a certain way, and they put the certain spices with this or whatever. And so there's people that get good at that. When I was young, I was a regular, so I was carrying a lot of weight, and I didn't have room to carry much food.

And so the only thing I would carry from MREs was the main meal, which is one pouch. All the other stuff I didn't bring because it was just too much stuff. Yeah. And so I just carried the main meal.

And as Mike said, in a normal day-to-day life, I would not like one. My first appointment to our back, we ate way too many MREs, and I hated them. We only ate them for about a month, and then we started getting some better food. And so that month, I really didn't like them after that time period.

But if you're really hungry, man, they're a beautiful thing. Yeah. And to make a second bike reference, as I was just saying from Bike Touring, hunger is the best seasoning. That's great.

I always talk about water. If you've ever been thirsty before, then you remember how amazing water is. Water is beautiful. And the only thing that hurts worse than lack of water is lack of air.

And lack of air doesn't last very long, but that feeling is the worst, followed by water. And I've never gone hungry more than four or five days, so I'm pretty lucky in that regard. But reading about some of the people that suffer without food for extended periods of time, talking to some of the guys that were in the Hanoi Hilton, living on a ball of rice one in the morning, one in the afternoon, for six years, and losing 100 pounds per person, it is just unbelievable. And it's also unbelievable how those guys in that austere situation would sit there and talk about food for hours and hours and hours.

You know, Captain Charlie Plum was on the podcast, and just to hear him talk about it, you could still see the light in his eyes when he was talking about good food. And it's the same with Bill Leader, who was in a horrible situation as well, and ended up in the Hanoi Hilton. But to see those guys, you know, you go talk to those guys, and you really get to appreciate the incredible blessings that we have, and how freaking easy our life is. Yeah.

And you realize how much you can suffer through. Indeed. All right, next question. Spencer Clark asks, is culture more decided by micro or macro policies and interactions?

I don't think that's a question that, I don't think it's one or the other. I think if you're behaving on a macro level one way, and then in the micro level you're not reflecting that, that's not going to wash out correctly. And it's the opposite, it's true. So you have to husband both of those macro and micro cultures equally, and they're both equally important.

If you're a guy that treats everyone at a macro level one way, and then on the front lines you treat them a different way, guess what? Guess what your culture is? It's actually even worse. It'd be better just to have a hard attitude that everyone just knew where you came from, but to be two-faced is actually worse.

So you've got to treat them equally. Everything matters. If you're in a leadership position, everyone's watching you. Every little statement that you make, you know, you walk down and you look at someone playing, or you come down and you look at a new task that's come down and you go, oh, this is a bunch of crap.

That's what everyone now thinks. They 100% think it's a bunch of crap. If you come down and say, hey, look, this is going to be challenging, I think we can knock this out of the park. And then people go, oh, yeah, we're going to knock this out of the park.

So the way you act on a macro level, the way you act on a micro level as a leader is going to create the culture that you're going to live with. Mike approves. All right, let's wrap up. I want to hear about the muster in San Francisco.

We have a lot of Bay Area. Listeners, you guys are doing another event. What's the deal? Yeah, so we started doing the musters a few years ago, and basically what happened was as demand increased for echelon front services, the price point went up, and it continued to go up through the years until it got to a point where people that were in small to mid-sized businesses really couldn't afford to bring us in because it just cost too much money, and we couldn't afford to do it because we had too much stuff on our plate.