You feel like your life is going to last a long time and if I was to talk
to my 26 year old self I would tell that kid that you don't have time and... and you really, you don't know
when it's going to end. And so get out there and do
the things you want to do, get out there and get after them now. Don't wait another second, take advantage of it. Get out there and live and strive to be better because the life you've got which I just said was a gift. It is a gift. So live it Yeah, I always wanted to be a commando ever since I was a little kid and... I... heard that the Seals were really tough and that the training was really tough and then you know, once you get in everyone makes a big deal
out of BUDS that's... but it's, it's... in the Seal Teams it's no big deal. Everyone goes through it you get cold, you get wet. Whatever You do a bunch of push-ups
and pull-ups and dips. Anyone that gets to the Seal Teams
and does deployments overseas and has a real career they're not talking about BUDS training, it just doesn't mean anything. I had a guy that was you know, NCAA water polo team captain champion he quit. And I had a guy that was
an Olympic ultimate gymnast and he quit. Just because someone's a good physical athlete it doesn't mean that they're a good Seal because being a good Seal is a lot more
than just being a good athlete. Being a good athlete is like the baseline and it's everything that
you've learned to do after that. A good leader, a guy that's tactically
sound, a guy that makes good decisions, a guy that's good under pressure,
a guy that doesn't... Ever give up on trying
to accomplish the mission Those are the things
that make a good Seal. See you're always learning and growing and I was always learning
until the day I retired. Because it's not a Boom
this happened and everything changes it's a constant addition of skill set and repetition of situations where you become competent at your job. The fear of getting shot or killed is not on your mind when you're in the moment. You know, it'll build up
when you're waiting to go out. You know, there's times when
you're waiting to go out and you're like thinking to yourself. Okay There's a lot of bad things
going on out there and some of them could happen to me. But I think at some point
you- you realize that there's nothing you can do about that I mean other than just quit and- and just resign yourself
to a life of cowardice. But if you opt to not do that and you step up and say,
"Okay, I'm ready and if I die, I die" and once you overcome that then... Nothing else to be afraid of. There's no one that wishes for peace more than people that have been to war. Because when the war drums sound it's my friends that are going to fight, that's- that's who's going to fight, it's my friends that are going
to- to put their lives on the line. So... When the, when the war drums sound the people that have been
to war are the ones that actually say, "Let's think about this first" Because... like I said before
and like everyone says all the time and they say it like,
it's no big deal but war is hell. And when you take an 18 year old kid and you're going to
go put him in a situation where he's going to have to kill people and possibly get wounded
or possibly get killed himself that's a traumatic experience. And so before you do that,
you should think about why you're doing it. And understand if, if... the people have the will to fight and the will to fight
as I've said many times before, the will to fight is the will to kill
and it's the will to die. And those are some pretty big
wills that you need to have. Almost immediately we're going to... memorial services for army guys Marines that are killed which... you know, was a rude awakening. So... that's- that's the welcome to Ramadi. The welcome to Ramadi is you know, you're going to go and pay your respects to
some guys that were just killed and- and there's firefights in the city. So we're- we're just
across the river from the city There's firefights in the city all day,
there's firefights in the city all night we're on the rooftop of our building, you sit there and watch
tracer fire go back and forth We're shot at from, you know,
across the river bank. There's... Yeah, it was it was legit. It was legit combat,
it was a legit... bad scenario with
all sustained combat operations. How do you lead your men through that when you know they're
dealing with not only the funerals which definitely take a psychological toll but then even that just
constant firefighting over there? I mean, do you have to switch up
your gear and think okay I got to lead stronger or maybe a little easier in certain
scenarios, are you changing? Yes, you do have to modulate your- your leadership
and you have to do that if you're in the business world, you have to do that
if you're leading any kind of team. You've got to modulate
and you got to recognize when your guys need
to be pushed and... when your guys need to be not pushed and given a rest. So you're constantly doing that. Regardless of what kind
of team you're leading and in combat like, you know,
I say all the time it's amplified because if you push
your guys too hard in combat, they're going to break. You know whereas in business,
oh maybe they make errors on something or maybe they do snap, I mean it does happen in
the business world where people like can't take it anymore. But... in combat, it'll happen very quickly. And- and so, you know, you do,
you're constantly modulating and... taking measure of
where your guys are at. And you know, sometimes
I didn't do a great job of that. Sometimes I went
a little far and said, "Oh, Wow, I just saw
the look on that guy's face He's, he needs a rest and I should have
recognized that earlier". And... You know, you make mistakes no doubt. What I had on my side was I had experience and I had paid attention
to my elders when I was a kid. And when I was getting trained and there was no war
going on and it was the 90s and I'd hear a guy you know, someone whose name
you'll never hear but a guy that if you're in the Seal Teams
you know who that person is because they were a legit
badass Vietnam War hero. You hear them say something,
I would hear them say something and I would collect that
and I would hang on to it. That's what prepared me
was that experience of growing up with listening to my elders. The Seal team Doctrine wasn't written down anywhere. It was all word of mouth and and passed down from
generation to generation that way. And... Making sure that you're not being cocky, making sure that
you don't have the attitude that you talked about earlier of you know, we're always
going to be better than the enemy, We're always going to win
because you're not always going to win and especially if you think
you're always going to win then you're not going to prepare the, the way you should. You're not going to
give everything you can to your training to making sure
that you are prepared for that moment when it comes. And it might come once on a deployment, it might not come on a deployment and it might come on a daily basis. The sentries that are trying to hold down the fort and protect
would take cover from all this, all this enemy fire
that was coming at them in would come a big
suicide vehicle-borne IED. truck, truck loaded bomb and they would just drive
right into the compound and detonate themselves
and kill dozens of people and they did that on multiple occasions They did it times where they did it
to multiple areas at the same time. So that's how coordinated the enemy was they were, they knew
what they were doing. Were you impressed by them?
Were you ever like... I didn't expect that to happen or did you ever have
a respect for their tactics? I absolutely always had respect. I respect the enemy absolutely and the minute you're
not showing respect to the enemy
and their capabilities is again that's a lack humility
and it's going to get you killed. You know, they, you- you have
to respect your enemy at all times. And whether your mission is
go out and capture kill bad guys or your mission is to produce something or sell something or manufacture something
or design something trying to get that team to be unified behind
the plan and execute it efficiently. It doesn't matter what the mission is you're still dealing with human beings, you're still dealing with people. Whether you're in the Seal Teams or whether you're in
the army or the Marine Corps the people that are working
for you are not robots they're people and you
cannot give them orders and expect them to just
execute like a robot would. If the military was like that then military leadership would
be the easiest thing in the world. You know, my guys wouldn't
just do what I told them because I outrank them and I kind of get that funny look,
I don't know. Let me ask you this. I'm here because your employees aren't
doing what you want them to do, right? Can you just fire them? Don't they work for you?
Aren't they supposed to follow you because you're in charge
and you write their paycheck But all of a sudden they're not doing
what you tell them to do. Why is that? It's the same exact reason,
because they're people and guess what?
People want to own their own destiny, they want to be in charge
of what's happening, they want to take ownership,
they want to create the plan. That's how they want to go through life. They don't want to go through
life being treated like a robot they want to be treated like a human. So... Don't talk to me about,
oh well it was easy for you because you had these
highly trained, highly disciplined, you know, terminator robots
that work for you, not true. In fact the opposite I had a bunch of hard-headed, you know, the guys that
you talked about earlier, I had a bunch of hard headed,
very determined, thick skulled guys that you know, I had to get them
to do what I wanted them to do. I had to get them to want to do what I wanted them to do. I had to make them think that
it was what they wanted to do. That's the goal, that's what leadership is. And the worse your plan is thought out the less response you're going to get. And just like in business world the less input I get from you
as we create this plan the less apt you are
to execute it correctly. So when, when it comes to, when you have to go execute something,
I want you to plan it I'm not going to plan it for you. I want you to plan it. Now I'm going to come
and check out your plan and we'll collaborate to
make sure it's the best plan because maybe I have
more experience than you or maybe I have some strategic
vision that you don't have. But I want you to plan it that way you own it. And if you own it,
when you go to execute it you're going to put that
much more effort into it. That- that's hard to
quantify but that's real. That is real if you come up with a plan, you're going to put more effort and more pride in executing that plan then if I come up with
a plan and I give it to you and tell you to execute it. That's just a reality. I don't, I don't,
I don't care who you are. That's a reality. Ordering people to do things does not work. You actually have to lead them and than another buzzword out there is this- is... accountability. You know, you gotta be accountable, you gotta be, you gotta
hold your people accountable and- and to me accountability is a tool, it's a, it's a, it's a tool of leadership, but it's not... The primary tool of leadership. It's actually a crutch, it's actually a tool to use when
you don't pull off leadership correctly. So what you want to do you know, I- I- I talk
about this all the time I didn't hold my guys accountable, I didn't... You know, walk down the line
and inspect what they were doing and... No, I didn't have to
hold them accountable. They wanted to do the right thing they wanted to do what
was aligned with the mission. I had to hold them back Never mind make them do it and that's what leadership is. it's not about accountability it's about leading and getting them to lead themselves and getting them
to take ownership of things That's what, that's that's when you know,
you've succeeded as a leader when you're just about out of a job, when you're sitting back
and you don't have to do anything because your front line troops
and your subordinate leadership is making things happen
with almost no effort from you. And the only time you have to step in
is when something is going sideways or you see something getting
off-track, you got to step back in there. But the ideal is that you can sit back, observe start looking at what the other
strategy is, what- what to do next, other problems in other parts of the world But you can just let your people
do what they want to do because they want to do it not because you have to breathe down
their shoulder and hold them accountable Not the way to lead. And to that same young man
that wants to be a Seal, you know the guys that
want to be like Jocko one day What do you tell that-
that 20 year old that sees this thing and says,
I want to go do that? Well, first of all,
don't try and be like me be better than me. Crush me, make me look like a baby. That's what, that's what you do and- and don't... Don't talk about it, don't mull it over, don't plan for it just get after it. You get after it. Make it happen. Use your force of will to make it happen. As a human being, the strongest thing
you've got is your force of will So take that force of will and make that happen.
